THE HISTORICITY OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST



The Historicity Of The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ

DR. GARY R. GROMACKI

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BIBLE AND HOMILETICS

BAPTIST BIBLE SEMINARY, CLARKS SUMMIT, PENNSYLVANIA

Introduction

On March 4, 2007, Discovery Channel had a program entitled The Lost Tomb of Jesus. The producer of this documentary examined the Talpiot tomb in Jerusalem and the ossuaries (or bone boxes) that were discovered there. He claimed that the ossuary with the inscription, Jesus, son of Joseph was the bone box of Jesus of Nazareth. He also claimed that that the other ossuaries contained the members of Jesus immediate family including his son. Nothing was said in the program about how their program contradicted the four gospels.

We believe that Jesus’ bones are not located in an ossuary in Jerusalem. We believed in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This historical event turned men of fear into men of faith. This event explains the existence of the Church and changes in the lives of millions of believers. It is an event that Christians remember each Sunday as they gather together for worship.

Josh McDowell was a skeptic before he examined the gospels for himself. A student asked Josh, “Professor McDowell, why can’t you intellectually refute Christianity?” Josh McDowell responded, “For a very simple reason. I am not able to explain away an event in history—the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” After studying the subject for a long time, Josh McDowell was forced to the conclusion that either the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest hoax ever given to man or it is the most fantastic fact of history.[1]

What historical evidence do the gospels present for the resurrection of Jesus? This morning I want you to be the jury as we examine the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Four Gospels: Primary Sources for the Resurrection

It is my conviction that the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus can be found in the four canonical gospels. Two of the gospels (Matthew and John) were written by eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus. These two apostles did not see Jesus literally rise from the dead on that Resurrection Sunday, but they did see Jesus with their own eyes after his resurrection. Matthew and John were selected by Jesus to be his apostles. They were eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus on more than one occasion. Matthew and John saw the risen Jesus on Resurrection Sunday night (Luke 24:33-43; John 20:19-25), eight days later along with Thomas (John 20:26-29), in Galilee when Jesus gave the Great Commission (Matt 28:16-20), and at his ascension (Luke 24:49-53; Acts 1:4-11). John actually saw the empty tomb of Jesus “and believed” (John 20:3-10). John also had the opportunity to see the risen Jesus by the Sea of Galilee when Jesus provided a miraculous catch of fish for seven of his disciples (John 21:1-14).[2]

Luke did some research on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus before writing his gospel. In his prologue (Luke 1:1-4), Luke writes:

Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.

In writing his gospel Luke used sources that were written by eyewitnesses of Jesus. His purpose in writing was to write down a narrative of the things that had been fulfilled among them. He wrote an orderly account (not necessarily chronologically arranged) in order that Theophilus would be certain of the things he was taught.

Though Mark was not an apostle and did not personally see the risen Jesus, he was associated with the apostle Peter who did see the risen Jesus. Mark lived in Jerusalem and possibly heard Jesus preach. The church fathers believed that Mark got his information for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus from Peter. Papias writes:

Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. … Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements.[3]

Clement of Alexandria agrees with Papias as he writes,

Mark , the follower of Peter, while Peter publicly preached the Gospel at Rome before some of Caesar’s knights, and adduced many testimonies to Christ, in order that thereby they might be able to commit to memory what was spoken, of what was spoken by Peter wrote entirely what is called the Gospel according to Mark .[4]

As we compare the four gospel accounts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, various pieces of evidence surface that can be used to substantiate the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

The Moved Stone

One fact we know is that on the Sunday after Jesus was crucified, the huge stone which was rolled in front of the entrance to the tomb of Jesus had been moved. All four gospels mention that the stone had been moved away from the tomb entrance (Matt 28:2; Mark 16:4; Luke 24:2; John 20:1). This large stone had been rolled in front of the entrance of the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea after he had wrapped and placed the body of Jesus into it (Matt 27:60; Mark 15:46).

Large stones were placed in front of the entrance of tombs in first-century Israel.[5] Josh McDowell writes in The Resurrection Factor, “In the Mark 16:4 portion of the Bezae manuscripts in the Cambridge Library in England, a parenthetical statement was found that adds, ‘And when He was laid there, he (Joseph) put against the tomb a stone which 20 men could not roll away.’”[6]

If the stone weighed that much, how then could Joseph of Arimathea roll the stone into place by himself? Probably the stone was on an incline and wedged maybe with another stone. After finishing the burial of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea would have removed the wedged stone, pushed the large stone down the incline, and let it roll into place in front of the entrance to the tomb.

When the women came to the tomb they discovered that the stone had been rolled away (Mark 16:4). The Greek word for “rolled away” (αϕποκεκυϖλισται) indicates that the stone had been moved away from the entrance to the tomb altogether.[7] The stone had not been pushed open a crack. There was some distance between the huge rock and the tomb entrance. It is interesting that John uses a different Greek word (ηϕρμεϖνον) in John 20:1. This word means “to pick something up and carry it away.”[8]

Who then moved the stone? First, the Roman guards did not move the stone. They were on duty to make sure that no one broke into the tomb of Jesus and stole his body. They had also placed the seal of the Roman emperor on the stone (Matt 27:66). This was to indicate that the contents of the tomb were not to be tampered with since they belonged to Caesar. The Roman guards knew that if they moved the stone, they would have been executed. Second, the women who came to the tomb didn’t move the stone. They were asking themselves as they went to the tomb about who would move the stone for them (Mark 16:3). They realized that they were not physically strong enough to move the stone. Third, the disciples did not move the stone. They did not learn that the tomb of Jesus was empty until the women came and told them (Luke 24:9).

Matthew records what happened early in the morning on Resurrection Sunday. A great earthquake occurred, and an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled back the stone from the entrance to the tomb and sat on it (Matt 28:2). The Roman guards were afraid of this angel whose appearance was like lightning and whose clothes were white as snow. Matthew writes that the guards “became like dead men” (Matt 28:4). The guards did not literally die. They probably fainted at the sight of this angel and his fantastic feat of moving the huge stone from the entrance to the tomb of Jesus.[9] This event occurred before the women came to visit the tomb. Since the text does not say that the women met the Roman guards, we must assume that the Roman guards left the tomb after this event and went back to the city to report to the Jewish authorities.

The AWOL Roman Guard

The Roman soldiers were assigned to Pilate to guard the tomb (Mt. 27:62-66). The chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, “After three days I will arise.” Therefore, command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.” So the last deception will be worst than the first.” Pilate gave them a guard to secure the tomb. There are some differences as to whether this was a Roman guard or the Jewish Temple Police. A. T. Robertson, a noted Greek scholar, says that this phrase is in the imperative and can refer only to a Roman guard and not the temple police.

The Roman guard was a 4 to 16 man security force. Each soldier was trained to protect six feet of ground. Four soldiers would be placed in front of what they were to protect while the other 12 could sleep in a semi-circle in front of them with their heads pointing in.

The Roman soldiers experienced “shock and awe” when the angel came and rolled back the stone (Mt.28:1-4). Some of the Roman soldiers told the Jewish leaders about the empty tomb. The Roman soldiers accepted a bribe to tell the people that the disciples came and stole the body of Jesus (Mt.28:11-15).

How do you explain the fact that the Roman soldiers left their posts, their places of responsibility? The military discipline of the Roman soldiers was exceptional. Justin in his Digest lists some of the offenses which would lead to the execution of a soldier: desertion, losing or disposing one’s arms, disobedience in war time, starting a mutiny, refusing to protect an officer, deserting one’s post, murder, laying hands on a superior, or even insulting an officer. Dr. George Currie who studied the military discipline of the Romans wrote that fear of punishment produced flawless attention to duty, especially in the night watches.

Dr. Bill White for a number of years was in charge of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. He wrote, “If the stone was simply rolled to one side of the tomb as would be necessary to enter it, then they might be justified in accusing the men of sleeping at their posts, and in punishing them severely. If the men protested that the earthquake broke the seal and that the stone rolled back under the vibration, they would still be liable to punishment for behavior which might be labeled cowardice. But these possibilities do not meet the case. There was some undeniable evidence which made it impossible for the chief priests to bring any charge against the guard. The Jewish authorities must have visited the scene, examined the stone, and recognized its position as making it humanly impossible for their men to have permitted its removal. No twist of human ingenuity could provide an adequate answer or a scapegoat and so they were forced to bribe the guard to seek to hush things up.”

The Empty Tomb of Jesus

The Eyewitness of the Women

Mark identifies for us three women who went early Sunday morning to the tomb of Jesus: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (Mark 16:1). Mary Magdalene became a disciple of Jesus after she was delivered from seven demons (Luke 8:2). The other Mary was the mother of the apostle James the Less and Joses (Matt 27:56; Mark 15:47). Salome was the mother of Zebedee’s sons, James and John (Matt 27:56; Mark 15:40)

Matthew identifies the time of their visit as Sunday, the day after the Sabbath: “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week” (Matt 28:1). Mark writes that they came “when the Sabbath was past” (Mark 16:1). Mark also writes, “And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen” (Mark 16:2). Luke says that it was “on the first day of the week, at early dawn” (Luke 24:1). John agrees that it was “on the first day of the week” (John 20:1), which would have been Sunday. Since the Sabbath was officially from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, the dawning of the first day of the week would point to early Sunday morning as the time when the women went to the tomb of Jesus.

Mark identifies the purpose for their trip to the tomb. The women brought spices “to anoint him” (Mark 16:1). Matthew says that they went to “see the sepulcher” (Matt 28:1). Luke also mentions that the women took spices that they had prepared (Luke 24:1).

Mark is the only gospel writer to record what the women were discussing as they walked to the tomb: “They were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?’” (Mark 16:3). The women apparently realized that they were not strong enough to roll the huge stone that was placed in front of the entrance to the tomb of Jesus. When they came to the tomb, they discovered that the stone was rolled away from the tomb. Mark writes that the women entered the tomb and were amazed when they saw a young man sitting on the right side who was dressed in a white robe (Mark 16:5). Luke writes in his gospel that the women went in and did not find the body of Jesus (Luke 24:3).

The Testimony of the Angels

While the women were perplexed about not finding the body of Jesus in the tomb, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. The women were frightened by them and bowed their faces to the ground (Luke 24:4-5). Luke’s mention of two men does not contradict Mark ’s mention of one. If there were two, then there must have been one. Mark emphasizes the one that was sitting on the right side (probably at the place where the body of Jesus had been laid). Matthew identifies the “men,” writing that “the angel said to the women” (Matt 28:5). Whenever angels appear on earth they appear as men and not women (cf. Gen 19:1-5).

The gospel of Mark records several statements by the angel. First, the angel told the women to not be amazed (Mark 16:6). Second, the angel announced that the one they were seeking, Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified, had risen from the dead and was not there (Mark 16:6). Third, the angel told them to see the place where they had laid him (Mark 16:6). Fourth, he told them to go and tell his disciples and Peter that the risen Jesus was going before them to Galilee and that they would see him as he had told them (Mark 16:7).

Matthew confirms Mark ’s account of the angel about the empty tomb of Jesus. The angel said, “He is not here, for he has risen. Come see the place where he lay” (Matt 28:6). Matthew also includes the command given by the angel to the women to go and tell the disciples (Matt 28:7) and the announcement that the risen Jesus would go before them to Galilee (Matt  28:7).

Matthew gives us some added details regarding the angel’s words to the women. First, the angel told the women to not be afraid (Matt 28:5). Second, the angel told the women to tell the disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead (Matt  28:7).

Luke also supports the tradition that the angel told the women, “He is not here, but has risen” (Luke 24:6). Luke adds some details to the announcement of the angels to the women. First, the angels (referred to as “men” in Luke 24:5) asked the women, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Second, Luke records that the angels told the women to remember the crucifixion and resurrection predictions made by Jesus while he was in Galilee (Luke 24:6).

The Women’s Report to the Disciples

Mark does not indicate that the women obeyed the angel’s command. He writes, “So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were terrified” (Mark 16:8). Many scholars believe that this is the end of the gospel of Mark.

Matthew writes, “So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word” (Matt 28:8). Matthew’s account of the women’s reporting to the disciples seems to give a contradiction to Mark ’s account which says that the women “said nothing to anyone.” A possible solution to this apparent contradiction is that the women initially said nothing because they were terrified at seeing the angel. Then later they ran to bring the disciples word. Luke writes, “Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest” (Luke 24:9).

John focuses attention on one of the women: Mary Magdalene and her report to Peter and John. He writes, “Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciples, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him’” (John 20:1-2). Mary’s statement reveals that the body of Jesus was not in the tomb. Though Mary was mistaken in her view that some men had taken the body of Jesus (notice she said “they” but did not give specific names), she was correct that the body of Jesus was not in the place where it had been laid when he was buried by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Possibly, Mary thought that the men (who were in reality angels) had taken the body of Jesus somewhere. Her statement using “we” indicates that she along with the other women who came to the tomb (Mary, the mother of James the Less and Joses along with Salome) were unsure of the location of Jesus’ body.

The Nazareth Decree

In 1878 a marble slab was discovered in Nazareth which contained an “ordinance of Caesar.” Scholars generally agree that it was issued by Roman emperor Claudius between A.D. 41-54. The inscription was written in Greek. Here is the translation:

Ordinance of Caesar: It is my pleasure that graves and tombs remain perpetually undisturbed for those who have made them for the cult of their ancestors or children or members of their house. If, however, anyone charges that another has either demolished them, or has in any other way extracted the buried, or has maliciously transferred the sealing on other stones, against such a one I order that a trial be instituted, as in respect of the gods, so in regard to the cult of mortals. For it shall be much more obligatory to honor the buried. Let it be absolutely forbidden for anyone to disturb them. In case of violation I desire that the offender be sentenced to capital punishment on charge of violation of sepulcher.[10]

It is possible that Claudius investigated some of the beliefs of Christians as a result of some riots in Rome. The riot in Rome in A.D. 49 led the emperor to expel the Jews, including Aquila and Priscilla (cf. Acts 18:2). Possibly Claudius discovered that the Christians were teaching that Jesus arose from the dead, and he possibly heard the Jewish report that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus from a tomb guarded by Roman soldiers (cf. Matt 28:11-15). Hearing that a certain Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead, Claudius made the decree for the town in which Jesus grew up. The punishment for the crime of grave robbing was made a capital offense and punishable by death.[11]

The Undisturbed Graveclothes of Jesus

The Witness of Peter and John

Peter and John ran to the tomb of Jesus when they heard from Mary Magdalene that the body of Jesus was gone. John outran Peter and came to the tomb first (John 20:4). John stooped down and peered into the tomb and saw the linen cloths, but he didn’t go in (John 20:5). Then Peter came and went into the tomb and saw the linen cloths and the handkerchief that had been around the head of Jesus, not lying with the linens but folded together in a place by itself (John 20:6-7). John then went in and he believed (John 20:8). John was the first apostle to believe in the resurrection. John makes note that they (the other apostles) did not know the Scripture that He must rise from the dead (John 20:9; cf. Ps 16:10).

The undisturbed graveclothes give evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. If the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus, they would have taken the body of Jesus with the graveclothes in their haste to exit the tomb. They would not have taken the time to carefully remove the graveclothes. If someone else stole the body of Jesus, they probably would have strewn the graveclothes all over the tomb in their haste to get the body of Jesus. The graveclothes of Jesus appeared like an empty chrysalis of a butterfly. Jesus’ resurrection body passed through the graveclothes and then he removed his headcloth and placed it in a separate place as another evidence that he was alive.

The Shroud Of Turin?

The shroud of Turin is a linen cloth measuring fourteen feet, three inches long by three feet, seven inches wide. It has been proclaimed to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus.[12] The linen contains a double exposure, an image of a crucified man reposed in death, that reveals both the obverse and reverse of the body. Ian Wilson postulates that the cloth left Israel around A.D. 30 and went to the kingdom of Edessa, to Constantinople, to France, to Switzerland, and finally to Italy.[13] Samples of pollen discovered on the cloth point to an origin in Israel possibly as far back as the first century.

Gary Habermas writes:

Biblical questions concerning the type of burial depicted on the shroud have failed to discover any discrepancies with the New Testament texts. Wrapping a body lengthwise and positioning it as shown on the shroud is corroborated by both recently discovered Qumran burial practices and by the Code of Jewish Law (“Laws of Mourning”). Further studies have revealed that the head napkin was first rolled up and then wrapped around the head, as reported by the Gospel of John (11:44; 20:5-7), the Jewish Mishnah (Shabbath 23:5) and the “Laws of Mourning.” While some believe that the body of the man wrapped in the shroud was not washed, the “Laws of Mourning” point out that there are conditions when washing is not appropriate, such as when a person suffered capital punishment or a violent death. The use of sev several strips of linen in John is also confirmed on the shroud, since pieces of linen were apparently used there, as well. One additional point concerns Jesus’ burial, as it is recorded in the Gospels. Since it is related that Jesus underwent a hasty burial with the women planning to return later to finish the process (Luke 23:54-24:4; Mark 15:42; 16:1-3), we have another explanation of possible oddities in his burial procedure.[14]

Habermas indicates that scientists are puzzled by a number of interesting correlations between the image on the shroud and the facts surrounding Jesus and his crucifixion and burial. Both the image on the shroud and Jesus suffered many punctures, a bruised face, a horrible whipping (over one hundred wounds from this beating have been counted), abrasions on the shoulders from a rough, heavy object, and contusions on the knees. Both had punctured feet and wrists, and strangely both escaped without having ankles or knees broken. Both had postmortem chest wounds. Both were buried quickly in fine linen and were buried individually. The shroud contains no evidence of bodily decomposition, indicating that the body exited the cloth after a short internment. Even more interesting is the possibility that the image was caused by some light or heat source that emanated from the dead body onto the shroud. The converging scientific facts show that the body left the cloth by some yet unknown means. Some scholars believe that the shroud is a forgery from the Middle Ages because of some carbon-14 dating done to the shroud.[15] But there are others who object to this dating and believe that the shroud is authentic.[16]

EXPLANATIONS FOR THE EMPTY TOMB

INTRODUCTION

“And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, and your faith is also empty” (1 Cor 15:14). For Christians the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the foundation of our faith. Josh McDowell in his book The Resurrection Factor writes, “Many theories have been advanced attempting to show that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a fraud. … Historians have to become anti-historical in order to invent some of their ideas.”[17]

After looking at these explanations for the empty tomb, we want to examine one of the strongest arguments for the resurrection: the resurrection appearances of Jesus. One of the strongest arguments for the historicity of the resurrection is the resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples and to unbelievers who then became believers.[18] The empty tomb by itself did not lead to faith in the resurrection of Jesus (cf. Luke 24:21-24; John 20:13).[19] It was primarily the witness of the risen Jesus that led to the first disciples’ faith in their risen Lord. Acts 1:3 says that Jesus “presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” The Greek word for “infallible proofs” (tekmhrioi~) occurs only here in the New Testament and looks at demonstrable evidence. The risen Jesus not only allowed his disciples to see him but he also gave them opportunities to touch him and to interact with him.

A Critique Of Explanations For The Empty Tomb Of Jesus

Unknown Grave

Charles Guignebert in his book Jesus writes, “The truth is that we do not know, and in all probability the disciples knew no better, where the body of Jesus had been thrown after it had been removed from the cross, probably by the executioners. It is more likely to have been cast into the pit for the executed than laid in a new tomb.”[20]

John Dominic Crossan believes that the body of Jesus was never placed in a tomb. He thinks that the body of Jesus was taken down from the cross and thrown into a pit for common criminals and that the disciples didn’t know where he was buried. He asserts:

If, as I maintain, Jesus’ followers had fled upon his arrest and knew nothing whatsoever about his fate beyond the fact of crucifixion itself, the horror was not only that he had been executed but that he might not even have been decently buried. … With regard to the body of Jesus, by Easter Sunday morning, those who cared did not know where it was, and those who knew did not care. Why should even the soldiers themselves remember the death and disposal of a nobody? [21]

There are several arguments against the unknown grave view. First, Pilate gave permission to Joseph of Arimathea to take the body of Jesus and bury it (Mt.27:57-58; Mt.15:44-45; Lk.23:52; Jn.19:38). Second, there is multiple attestation for the burial of Jesus in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb.(Matt 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42). Joseph of Arimathea did not bury Jesus by himself. The gospel of John tells us that Nicodemus helped Joseph take the body, bind it with linen cloths and spices, and lay it in the tomb (John 19:39-42).Third, some women observed where Jesus was buried. The eyewitnesses of the burial of Jesus were women who sat opposite of the tomb. Mark writes, “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid” (Mark 15:47). Matthew writes, “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulcher” (Matt 27:61). Luke writes, “The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and saw the tomb, and how his body was laid” (Luke 23:55). The triple tradition of Matthew, Mark, and Luke supports the view that the body of Jesus was placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea after it was taken down from the cross. Fourth, some Roman soldiers knew where the tomb was located as well, as they were sent by Pilate to guard the tomb of Jesus to prevent the disciples from stealing his body (Matt 27:62-66).

In June of 1968 an ossuary was discovered in a buried cave at Vi’at ha-Mivtar in northern Jerusalem. It contained the bones of an adult male who had died by crucifixion sometime during the first half of the first century. Initial study of the skeletal remains indicated that the nail was driven through each of his forearms at the hand and a single iron nail had been driven through his heel bones. The latter nail was found still embedded in his heel bones.[22] This archaeological discovery is an argument against Crossan’s view that crucified criminals were thrown into a common pit after they died on crosses. The fact that the man was crucified did not prevent those who cared for him from burying him in an ossuary box.

Wrong Tomb

Professor Kirsopp Lake advocates the wrong tomb theory. He writes in his book The Historical Evidence For The Resurrection of Jesus:

It is seriously a matter for doubt whether the women were really in a position to be quite certain that the tomb which they visited was that in which they had seen Joseph of Arimathea bury the Lord’s body. The neighborhood of Jerusalem is full of rock tombs, and it would not be easy to distinguish one from another without careful note. … It is very doubtful if they were close to the tomb at the moment of burial. … It is likely that they were watching from a distance, and that Joseph of Arimathea was a representative of the Jews rather than of the disciples. If so, they would have had but a limited power to distinguish between one rock tomb and another close to it. The possibility, therefore, that they came to the wrong tomb is to be reckoned with and it is important because it supplies the natural explanation of the fact that whereas they had seen the tomb closed, they found it open. … If it were not the same, the circumstances all seem to fall into line. The women came in the early morning to a tomb which they thought was the one in which they had seen the Lord buried. They expected to find a closed tomb, but they found an open one; and a young man … who guesses their errand, tried to tell them that they had made a mistake in the place. ‘He is not here,’ said he, ‘See the place where they laid him,’ and probably pointed to the next tomb. But the women were frightened at the detection of their errand, and fled.[23]

There are several problems with the wrong tomb theory: (1) Some women did see where Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus buried the body of Jesus (Matt 27:61; Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55). (2) When the women were coming to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, they were discussing the problem of the huge stone that was rolled in front of the entrance to the tomb (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:1-4; Luke 24:1-2; John 20:1). The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John specifically mention that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Jesus early in the morning and she was present when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus buried the body of Jesus. (3) If the women went to the wrong tomb, then the Jews or Romans could have gone to the right tomb and produced the body of Jesus and that would have stopped the story that Jesus had risen from the dead. The fact that the Jews bribed the Roman guards to say that the disciples of Jesus stole his body while they slept at night is evidence of the fact that they could not produce the body of Jesus because it was gone.

Legend

Some argue that the resurrection accounts in the gospels are just legends that were invented by the church a few decades after Jesus’ death. Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar identifies the resurrection accounts in the gospels as legends. He writes:

Legends may be subdivided into two sub-types: biographical legends and cult legends. A biographical legend is a story that casts a supernatural aura around the hero. The temptation story is a biographical legend. A cult legend accounts in story form for the establishment of some ritual practice in the Jesus movement. The depiction of the last supper is also just such a cult legend.[24]

Funk lists the following resurrection accounts as legends in table 7 in the book The Acts of Jesus: empty tomb, bribing of the guards, appearance to Mary of Magdala, appearance to two in the country, appearance to the eleven, doubting Thomas, appearance to seven, appearance to James, ascension.[25]

The resurrection accounts in the gospels are not legends. Two of the four gospels were written down by eyewitnesses (Matthew and John) and the other two gospels (Mark and Luke) were associated with two apostles who lived during the time of Jesus (Peter and Paul). Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15:6 that there were 500 eyewitnesses of the risen Christ and that some were still alive at the time of his writing of the book of 1 Corinthians, which most scholars date around A.D. 55. Funk and the Jesus Seminar have labeled the resurrection accounts as “legends” because they look at the gospels from a naturalistic perspective that rejects any possibility of supernatural miracles. Their liberal bias prevents them from seeing the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Resurrection

The spiritual resurrection view is that Christ’s resurrection was not a real physical, bodily resurrection. Proponents of this theory assert that Christ’s body remained in the grave and that his resurrection was spiritual in nature.

This view can be refuted by looking at what the risen Jesus did after his resurrection. The risen Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene. When she recognized Jesus by his voice, she apparently began to cling to Jesus. She could not have clung to a ghost. Jesus told her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to My God and your God’” (John 20:17).

The risen Jesus startled his disciples when he appeared before them on Resurrection Sunday night. The disciples were terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Jesus said to them, “‘Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet” (Luke 24:38-40). Jesus himself told his disciples that he was not just a spirit. He told them that his resurrection body has “flesh and bones.” He also showed his disciples his hands and feet. Why would he do that? To prove to them that he was the same Jesus whose hands and feet were nailed to the cross. The resurrected body of Jesus has the scars or marks of the crucifixion in it. Jesus even ate a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb before the disciples so they would understand that he was not a ghost, but that he was a resurrected person with a resurrected, glorified body (Luke 24:41-43).

Jesus proved to his disciples that he had risen from the dead on more than one occasion. When the apostles told Thomas that they had seen the Lord, Thomas said, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). Thomas was a skeptic who refused to believe unless he could see with his own two eyes the resurrected Jesus. Eight days after Resurrection Sunday, the disciples were gathered together behind shut doors when Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst. Jesus said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at my hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing” (John 20:27). The text does not say if Thomas did what Jesus told him to do, so we don’t know from John’s gospel if Thomas touched Jesus at the place of his crucified marks. Thomas did acknowledge who was standing before him. He spoke to Jesus and said, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

Theft by Disciples

Probably the earliest fabrication explaining the empty tomb of Jesus was the lie that the disciples stole the body of Jesus from the tomb. Matthew 28:11-15 says:

Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him while we slept.’ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.” So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

Could the disciples have stolen the body of Jesus? Is this explanation valid? There are several problems with this view. First, the tomb of Jesus was well guarded. There were possibly four to sixteen Roman soldiers protecting the tomb of Jesus. Each Roman soldier was trained to protect six feet of ground. Four men would be placed in front of what they were to protect, while the other twelve would sleep in a semi-circle in front of them with their heads pointed in towards the other guards. To steal the body of Jesus, the disciples would have had to walk pass the sleeping Roman soldiers without waking them, and then fight off the other four experienced soldiers, move the huge stone, steal the body of Jesus, and leave the graveclothes, and then somehow slip past the guards with the body of Jesus.

Second, the Roman soldiers were bribed to tell the story that the disciples came and stole the body. Why would the chief priests pay this bribe to the Roman soldiers? They had to be bribed because by telling a lie they would be putting their lives on the line. The Roman soldiers knew that to say that they were asleep when they should have been awake doing their duty would be to incriminate themselves. The penalty for a Roman soldier who slept while on guard was death. That is why the chief priests say that if the news reached the governor’s ears, they would appease him and make the soldiers secure. The fact that the soldiers were accountable ultimately to Governor Pilate shows that these were Roman soldiers and not just some Jewish temple police who were guarding the tomb of Jesus.

Third, the Roman soldiers could not have known that the disciples stole the body of Jesus if they were sleeping. How could sleeping soldiers know what happened? Also, would it be likely that all of the Roman soldiers would sleep at the same time? Probably not. How could they not have heard the disciples move the huge stone that was placed in front of the entrance to the tomb of Jesus? Their story was contradictory.

Finally, the disciples were not in a psychological state to try to steal the body of Jesus from the tomb. The disciples fled from Jesus when he was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane. Peter denied that he knew Jesus. On the Sunday night after Jesus was crucified, the disciples were behind locked doors and not out in the open. Why? They were afraid of the Jews (John 20:19).

Theft by the Authorities

This theory doesn’t make sense. If the Jewish or Roman authorities had the body of Jesus, why did they bribe the guards to accuse the disciples of stealing it (Matt 28:11-15)? They could have stopped the resurrection story cold by simply producing the body of Jesus and showing it around Jerusalem. Instead, the Jewish authorities scolded the apostles for filling Jerusalem with their teaching, arrested them, and beat them (cf. Acts 3-5). They became so upset with Stephen that they stoned him to death (Acts 7).

Resuscitation

The resuscitation view (sometimes called the swoon theory) teaches that Jesus never really died on the cross. He only swooned or fainted. Later, he revived in the cool air of the tomb and left. The disciples supposedly saw then a resuscitated or revived Jesus.[26]

This theory completely ignores the evidence for the death of Jesus on the cross. There is no evidence that Jesus was drugged. When the Roman soldier offered Jesus wine mixed with myrrh, Jesus turned down the common painkiller that was usually given to crucifixion victims (Mark 15:23). Just before his death he was given a sip of sour wine to relieve his parched throat, but that was not enough to drug him. Jesus experienced a heavy loss of blood as a result of his flogging before crucifixion and on the cross as a result of his hands and feet being nailed to the cross. John observed that when the Roman soldier thrust his spear into his side that water and blood immediately flowed out (John 19:34). Usually the Roman soldiers would break the legs of the crucified to hasten death. The legs of Jesus were not broken by the soldiers because the soldiers recognized that Jesus was already dead (John 19:33). Pilate asked for assurance that Jesus was really dead before releasing the body for burial (Mark 15:43-45). The fact that Pilate permitted Joseph of Arimathea to take the body of Jesus after obtaining confirmation of Jesus’ death from the Roman centurion is another proof of the death of Jesus. Jesus was embalmed in about 75-100 pounds of spices and bandages and laid in a sealed and guarded tomb (Matt 27:60-66; John 19:39-40). Even if he did wake up in the tomb, he could not have unwrapped himself, rolled the huge stone back up the side of the carved out track, overcome the guards, and escaped unnoticed.

Medical doctor William Edwards writes:

Clearly the weight of historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound to His side was inflicted and supports the traditional view that the spear, thrust between his right ribs, probably perforated not only the right lung but also the pericardium and heart and thereby insured his death. Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.[27]

A second major problem for the resuscitation view is the undisturbed linen wrappings of Jesus in the tomb. Jesus would have had to pull off a magic trick like Houdini to get out of the wrappings and then leave them undisturbed in the place where he was laid by Joseph of Arimathea. This would have been an impossible task for the person who was wrapped, let alone for two or more people who would try to pull this trick off. Peter noticed that the face cloth which had been on his head was not with the linen wrappings but was rolled up and in a place by itself. When John saw this, he believed that Jesus was raised from the dead (cf. John 20:5-8).

An Early Tradition: 1 Corinthians 15:3-8

The apostle Paul emphasized the resurrection of Christ in his letter to the Corinthians. He defined the gospel of Jesus Christ that he preached and by which the Corinthians were saved. The gospel concerns the death, burial, resurrection and appearances of Jesus. Paul wrote:

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. (1 Cor 15:3-8)

Paul did not invent the gospel. Paul told the Corinthians that he delivered to them first of all what he himself had also received.[28] Paul indicated that he received this gospel from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Elsewhere he wrote, “But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught I, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:11-12).

The Resurrection Appearances Of Jesus

The first resurrection appearances of Jesus were made to women.[29] The risen Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene (Mark16:9). Mary Magdalene came with the other women to the tomb on that first Resurrection Sunday (Matt 28:1-8). An angel told her and the other women not to be afraid because Jesus was risen from the dead. An angel also told them to go quickly and tell the disciples of Jesus that he had risen from the dead. When the women saw that the stone had been rolled away and heard the announcement of the angel that Jesus was not there, Mary Magdalene ran ahead to tell the apostles while the other women returned slowly (Matt 28:8; Mark 16:8; Luke 24:8-10; John 20:2). Peter and John then ran to see the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene then apparently came back to the empty tomb after Peter and John had visited the tomb and had left. Here she saw the risen Christ and mistook him for the gardener, but she immediately recognized him when he spoke to her (John 20:11-17; cf. Mark 16:9-11). After she had seen the risen Jesus, Mary Magdalene returned to the disciples and told them that she had seen the Lord (John 20:18; Mark 16:10-11).

The second resurrection appearance of Jesus was probably to the other women who had come with Mary Magdalene to the tomb (Matt 28:9-10). The women listed in the gospels were Joanna, Salome, and Mary the mother of James (Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10). They met the risen Jesus after they told the disciples about the empty tomb.[30]

The third resurrection appearance of Jesus was to Peter in the afternoon of the resurrection day. There are no specific details given for this encounter. Luke reports that after the two disciples on the road to Emmaus had seen the risen Jesus, they went back to Jerusalem Jerusalem and told the disciples that the Lord had appeared to Simon (Luke 24:34). This means that either the Lord had told them that he had appeared to Simon (highly unlikely since they did not recognize Jesus until he broke the bread), or that they had seen Peter on their way back to Jerusalem or in Jerusalem. Paul confirms this resurrection appearance of Jesus to Peter in 1 Corinthians 15:5.

The fourth resurrection appearance of Jesus was to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They did not initially recognize him. This has led some to believe that the appearance of the resurrected body of Jesus is distinctive from the earthly body that he had prior to his resurrection. These two disciples heard the risen Jesus expound the Old Testament and explain to them that the Messiah had to suffer before he could reign. They recognized him when he broke bread with them (Luke 24:13-35; cf. Mark 16:12-13).

The fifth resurrection appearance of Jesus was to the ten disciples in the upper room on Resurrection Sunday night (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-23; Mark 16:14). The ten disciples were minus Judas Iscariot, who had committed suicide, and Thomas. The risen Jesus showed his disciples the marks of crucifixion on his resurrected, glorified body and ate some fish and honeycomb to prove that he was not a ghost. The disciples were amazed when they saw him.

The sixth resurrection appearance of Jesus was to the eleven disciples more than eight days after his resurrection. This time Thomas was present (John 20:26-29). The Lord told doubting Thomas to touch his resurrected body at the place where he had been wounded, but the text does not say that Thomas did. The text does say that Thomas recognized the deity of Jesus by saying, “My Lord and my God.”

Michael Card has written a song called Known by the Scars. One line goes, “And after they had slain him and laid him in a grave, the ones he loved had fled into the dark. Then his love and power raised him, God won the victory, but they only recognized him by the scars. The marks of death that God chose never to erase, the wounds of love’s eternal mark. When the kingdom comes with its perfected sons, He will be known by the scars.”

The seventh resurrection appearance of Jesus was to seven disciples by the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1-23). On this occasion Jesus provided a miraculous catch of fish for the disciples, prepared breakfast for them, and had a private conversation with Peter.

The eighth resurrection appearance of Jesus was probably to five hundred disciples. Paul cited this as proof of the resurrection of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:6. Paul said that some of those disciples were still alive at the time of his writing 1 Corinthians (A.D. 56). These disciples could have given legal eyewitness testimony of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.

The ninth resurrection appearance of Jesus was to James, the Lord’s brother (1 Cor 15:7). There is some evidence that James was not a believer prior to the resurrection of Jesus (cf. John 7:3-5), but after his conversion experience James became a “pillar” in the early church (Acts 1:14; 15:13-21; Gal 1:19; 2:9).

The tenth resurrection appearance of Jesus was to the eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee. On this occasion Jesus gave his disciples the Great Commission to make disciples of all different ethnic groups around the world (Matt 28:16-20). The means of carrying out the Great Commission was through evangelism, baptism, and teaching. The risen Jesus promised his presence with his disciples as they carried out this great task.

The eleventh resurrection appearance of Jesus was to the disciples at the time of his ascension from the Mount of Olives (Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:3-9). This is the last recorded appearance of Jesus to his disciples on earth.

The remaining resurrection appearances of Jesus were from his present location in heaven. The twelfth resurrection appearance of Jesus was to Stephen just prior to his martyrdom (Acts 7:55-56). The thirteenth resurrection appearance of Jesus was to Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-6; cf. Acts 22:6-11; 26:13-18). The fourteenth resurrection appearance of Jesus was also to Paul in Arabia (Acts 20:24; 26:17; Gal 1:12, 17). There is no record of the precise revelation given to Paul in Acts 9 or 22. In Acts 22:10 he was promised a later revelation which would give him necessary instruction. The fifteenth resurrection appearance was to Paul in the temple when Paul was warned concerning the persecution which was to come (Acts 22:17-21). The sixteenth resurrection appearance of Jesus was again to Paul while he was in prison in Caesarea. It is recorded that “the Lord stood by him” and told him that he would bear witness in Rome (Acts 23:11). The final resurrection appearance was to the apostle John when he was on the island of Patmos. John describes the resurrected, glorified Jesus in all of his glory in Revelation 1:12-20.

A Critique Of Explanations For The

Appearances Of Jesus

The Hallucination View

The hallucination view says that the disciples thought they saw the risen Jesus, but they really did not. According to this view, the disciples had hallucinations or visions of Jesus after his death. The disciples imagined that they saw Jesus and that was enough for them to declare that Jesus was alive.

Bultmann writes, “The historian can perhaps to some extent account for that faith [in the resurrection] from the personal intimacy which the disciples had enjoyed with Jesus during his earthly life and so reduce the resurrection appearances to a series of subjective visions.”[31]

Johannes Weiss writes that “the appearances were not external phenomenon but were merely the goals of an inner struggle in which faith won the victory over doubt. … The appearances were not the basis of their faith, though so it seemed to them, so much as its product and result.”[32]

Marcus Borg, a leader in the Jesus Seminar, thinks that while “the story of the historical Jesus ends with his death on a Friday in A.D. 30, the story of Jesus does not end there. According to Jesus’ followers, he appeared to them in a new way beginning on Easter Sunday.”[33] Borg rejects the bodily resurrection of Jesus and claims that we cannot know what form the appearances of Jesus took since Borg says they are described as visionary and other times as corporeal.

There are several ways of refuting the hallucination view. First, the hallucination view fails to account for the appearances of Jesus to various individuals and groups of people at different times and places. By definition, a hallucination is a private event, a purely subjective experience void of any external reference or object. Psychologist Gary Collins says, “Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t something which can be seen by a group of people. Neither is it possible that one person could somehow induce an hallucination in somebody else. Since an hallucination exists only in this subjective, personal sense, it is obvious that others cannot witness it.”[34]

The gospels tell us that the risen Jesus appeared to many different people at different times and places. The risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to the apostles, to the apostles as a group with a skeptic named Thomas who wouldn’t believe unless he physically saw the risen Jesus, and to a persecutor of the church who afterwards would become the great apostle Paul. The risen Jesus appeared to five hundred people at one time. How does one explain five hundred people having the same hallucination at the same time?

Second, the hallucination view fails to account for the initial unbelief of the disciples. It is interesting that the disciples did not initially believe the reports of the empty tomb and that later they were amazed when they saw the risen Jesus (Mark 16:11, 13,14; Luke 24:41). Jesus himself rebuked the disciples for their unbelief (Mark 16:14).

Third, the hallucination view fails to account for the surprise of the disciples at the appearances of the risen Jesus. People who have hallucinations often are expectant and are looking for something. The gospels tell us that on that first Easter Sunday the disciples were fearful and were in hiding for their lives. They did not expect the risen Jesus to suddenly appear. Luke tells us in his gospel that the disciples were “terrified and frightened” when the risen Jesus appeared to them. They thought that when they saw the risen Jesus they were seeing a spirit (or ghost), but Jesus proved that he was not a hallucination or spirit by showing them his hands and feet with the crucifixion marks and then by eating some broiled fish and some honeycomb in their presence (Luke 24:36-43). Jesus proved to them over the forty days between his resurrection and ascension that he was risen from the dead.[35]

The Impersonation View

In The Passover Plot, Hugh Schonfield proposes that Jesus tried to deceive his disciples into thinking that he was the Messiah.[36] To fulfill Old Testament prophecy, he plotted with Joseph of Arimathea to receive a drug while he was on the cross. The scheme supposedly backfired when the Roman soldier thrust a spear into Jesus so that he died. Before dawn, the body of Jesus was then supposedly taken down quickly from the cross and disposed of in an unknown grave. An unknown young man was then supposedly mistaken as Jesus by an emotionally distraught Mary and the confused disciples. Neither Joseph of Arimathea nor the mysterious young man ever corrected the confused disciples. The disciples then supposedly spread the story that Jesus had risen from the dead.

There are many problems with Schonfield’s view. First, the arguments presented against the unknown grave view can be used here as well.[37] Several women along with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus saw where Jesus was buried. He was not thrown into an unmarked grave. Second, several disciples saw and recognized Jesus. They were not confused about the identity of the risen Jesus. Mary Magdalene did recognize the man in the garden as Jesus. She recognized him by the sound of his voice and the way he said her name (cf. John 20:11-18). The two disciples on the road to Emmaus would not have turned around and come back if they did not believe that they had seen the risen Lord (Luke 24:13-32). Thomas recognized Jesus when he saw him hold out his hands which bore the mark of crucifixion (John 20:26-29).

the courageous witness of the apostles

Before the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples were men of fear. They hid in the upper room and locked the doors for fear of the Jews. Then the risen Jesus appeared to them and their fear was turned to faith. The cowards became courageous witnesses of the risen Jesus. They went around the Roman world telling lost people that the Messiah had come- was crucified but was raised to life.

The Witness Of The Apostle Peter

Before the resurrection of Jesus, Peter denied that he knew the Lord three times. When Jesus looked at him, Peter went out and wept bitterly. The risen Jesus made a special resurrection appearance just to Peter. Later he restored Peter by the Sea of Galilee and Peter reaffirmed his love for Jesus three times. Peter became a leader in the early church. He boldly preached the death and resurrection of Jesus to the Jews on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:23-35). Acknowledging God’s sovereign plan, Peter accused the Jews of crucifying Jesus (2:23). Jesus was delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, yet sinful men were responsible for crucifying Jesus on the cross. Peter stated that Jesus was one “whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it” (2:24, NKJV). In Acts 2:25-35 Peter quoted two Old Testament scriptures to prove the resurrection of Jesus. First, he quoted Psalm 16:8-11. Peter emphasized that David could not be referring to himself in these verses as he pointed out that “of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:29-32).[38]

Peter and John raised a lame man in the temple. When the people ran up to them at Solomon’s Porch, Peter told them that it was not their power that had raised the man, but that the power had come from the risen Christ. Peter accused the Jews of killing “the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses” (Acts 3:15). He also told them, “To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities” (Acts 3:26).

The Jewish priests, captain of the temple, and the Sadducees arrested Peter and John because “they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (Acts 4:2). Peter gave this defense before these Jewish leaders: “Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole” (Acts 4:10).

On another occasion, the apostles were arrested and put on trial. The Sanhedrin reprimanded them for filling Jerusalem with their teaching. Peter and the other apostles answered, “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree” (Acts 5:30).

Peter went to the home of the Roman centurion Cornelius and preached the gospel to him and his family. Peter said:

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree. Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. (Acts 10:38-41)

The Witness Of The Apostle Paul

Saul of Tarsus was a devout Pharisee and a persecutor of the early church. He held the coats of the men who stoned Stephen to death. He led the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem. He had Christians arrested and thrown into prison. He obtained permission to go to Damascus in Syria to arrest Christians and to bring them back to Jerusalem in chains. But on the road to Damascus the risen Jesus appeared to him and his life was changed. Immediately Paul went into the synagogue and began to preach about the risen Lord..The apostle Paul gave witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ in his missionary sermons and in his legal defenses when he was on trial. Paul told the Jews in the synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia:

Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the tree, and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead. He was seen for many days by those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses to the people. … God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. … And that He raised Him from the dead, no more to return to corruption. … For David after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers and saw corruption; but He whom God raised up saw no corruption. (Acts 13:30-31, 33, 34, 37)

Paul preached the gospel to the Greek philosophers in the marketplace in Athens and at the Areopagus in Athens, Greece. Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered Paul saying, “What does this babbler want to say?”[39] Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection (Acts 17:18). The Greek philosophers rejected the concept of a bodily resurrection from the dead. They viewed the material body as being evil and of no eternal value. Paul preached the gospel to these Greek philosophers at the Areopagus.[40] After showing that idolatry is illogical and expounding on the immaterial nature of God, Paul warned the Greek philosophers that they would be judged by God if they did not repent of their idolatry. The assurance that God will judge all men is that he has raised Jesus from the dead (Acts 17:29-31).

CONCLUSION

Paul Maier made this observation about the evidence for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus:

Accordingly, if all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the sepulcher of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried, was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no thread of evidence has yet been discovered in literary sources, epigraphy, or archaeology that would disprove this statement.[41]

The biblical account of the resurrection of Jesus Christ found in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John meets the criteria of authenticity used by skeptics in historiography. The resurrection of Jesus meets the criteria of multiple attestation as the multiple sources (the four gospels) each contain multiple witnesses of the empty tomb of Jesus. The story of the resurrection of Jesus was not invented by just one person. The resurrection of Jesus also meets the criteria of dissimilarity. The Jews and the early Christians were surprised by the empty tomb of Jesus. No one anticipated it, even though Jesus predicted that he would rise from the dead. Finally, the biblical account of the resurrection of Jesus meets the criteria of coherence as there are no facts given in the gospels’ narratives of the resurrection of Jesus which contradict one another. The resurrection narratives found in the biblical gospels do not contradict each other, but complement one another. The Jesus Seminar’s rejection of the historicity of the resurrection reveals a naturalistic bias against the historical foundation for Christianity. The empty tomb of Jesus is best explained by the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Without the historical bodily resurrection of Jesus, there would be no Christianity.

What are we to make of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ? The Jesus Seminar led by Crossan and Funk has looked at the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus and has come up with the following conclusions:

On the basis of the aggregate evidence of these stories and reports, the Jesus Seminar agreed that: The resurrection of Jesus did not involve the resuscitation of a corpse. If the resurrection of Jesus did not involve the resuscitation of a corpse and if a Christophany had developed out of an angelophany, it follows that: Belief in Jesus’ resurrection did not depend on what happened to his body. Since the empty tomb was a late development, probably created by Mark, the report that Jesus had been buried in a tomb known to the women has come under scholarly suspicion. The tendency to elaborate and enhance the burial stories heightened that suspicion. In view of the nature of the appearances and the late emergence of stories representing the resurrection as physical and palpable, the Seminar concluded: The body of Jesus decayed as do other corpses. All the evidence, when taken together, seemed to suggest that: The resurrection was not an event that happened on the first Easter Sunday; it was not an event that could have been recorded by a video camera. The Seminar followed this trail of evidence to its conclusion, which they formulated as follows: Since the earlier strata of the New Testament contain no appearance stories, it does not seem necessary for Christian faith to believe the literal veracity of any of the later narratives. This conclusion, of course, assumes that there were Christians and hence Christian faith prior to the rise of specific appearance stories. The Fellows were unanimous in this judgment; there were no dissenting votes. At the same time, many Fellows hold the view that narratives of the appearances of the risen Jesus are affirmations that Jesus was a living lord. They are confessions of the conviction held by the earliest Christian communities. They are properly understood only when it is recognized that they are not historical reports.[42]

In contrast to the Jesus Seminar, I believe that the evidence for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot be refuted. The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ meets the criteria of authenticity used by the Jesus Seminar:

(1) Multiple attestation: the resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples come from the four gospels and the tradition given byPaul in 1 Corinthians 15. These accounts are inspired, inerrant scripture.

(2) Dissimilarity: the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection is a clear example of the application of this criteria, for their belief is not the result of antecedent Jewish influences. The women were the first ones to visit the empty tomb and see the risen Christ. Their testimony to the male disciples of Jesus was initially rejected. The witness of women was rejected in the first-century Jewish court of law. This would normally be a source of embarrassment for Christianity. But their witness is an argument for the authenticity of the resurrection. The disciples’ faith in a risen Messiah cannot be explained as an expectation within Judaism, for there was no such belief. The Jews were expecting a political messiah who would overthrow the Romans and establish a Jewish kingdom. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus revealed their disappointment concerning that unfulfilled expectation. The dramatic conversions of the unbelievers James and Paul cannot be explained apart from the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus, who subsequently appeared to each of them with the result that their lives were dramatically changed. James, who refused to believe in Jesus during his lifetime, became a “pillar” in the early church. Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted the church, became Paul the apostle who preached the gospel throughout the Roman empire. The account of the empty tomb in Mark should not be considered as legend. When one compares Mark’s account with the embellished account in the Gospel of Peter the authenticity of Mark’s account stands out as distinctive.

(3) Coherence: the three independently established facts pointing to the resurrection of Jesus—namely, the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in the risen Jesus—cohere together and form a powerful argument for the historicity of the resurrection.[43]

Is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead the best historical explanation of the facts? The Jesus Seminar would say “no” because of their naturalistic presuppositions that reject the possibility of miracles. When the existence of an all-powerful God is recognized, then the possibility of miracles and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is more plausible than any of the other rival hypotheses.

William Lane Craig writes, “The stupefaction of contemporary scholarship when confronted with the facts of the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection suggests that no better rival is anywhere on the horizon. It is hard to deny that the resurrection is the best explanation of the facts.”[44]

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[1] Josh McDowell, The Resurrection Factor (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life, 1981), 6-7.

[2] John 21 does not say if Matthew was present on that occasion. John 21:2 identifies the seven disciples as Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee (a reference to James and John), and two other unnamed disciples.

[3] Papias, Fragments of Papias 6 (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1:154-55).

[4] Clement Alexandrinus, Fragments 1, quoted by Cassiodorus (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 2:573).

[5] In 1978 I had the privilege of going to Israel and while in Jerusalem I saw several rock-hewn tombs with large round stones that were placed over the entrances to these tombs.

[6] Josh McDowell, Resurrection Factor, 53.

[7] The Greek word aðjðnðkðeðkðuðvðlðiðsðtðaðið is a perfect passive indicative of aðjðnðaðkðuðlðiðvðwð and indicates that the stone was in thαϕνκεκυϖλισται is a perfect passive indicative of αϕνακυλιϖω and indicates that the stone was in this position as a result of a completed action by the angel.

[8] The Greek word ηϕρμεϖνον is a perfect passive participle and indicates that the stone was taken away from the entrance to the tomb and that was its position when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb of Jesus. The Greek prepositional phrase εκϕ του∍ μνημειϖου shows that it was not in front of the entrance to the tomb of Jesus.

[9] The Gospel of Peter gives a fanciful story of the resurrection which defies the law of cause-effect. The Gospel of Peter 9:4 says “The stone that had been pushed against the entrance began to roll by itself and moved away to one side; then the tomb opened up and both young men went inside” (quoted in The Acts of Jesus, p. 462).

[10] Quoted from Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 176.

[11] Maier observes, “All previous Roman edicts concerning grave violation set only a large fine, and one wonders what presumed serious infraction could have led the Roman government to stiffen the penalty precisely in Palestine and to erect a notice regarding it specifically in Nazareth or vicinity” (Paul Maier, First Easter [New York: Harper, 1973], 122).

[12] All three Synoptic Gospels record that when Jesus was taken down from the cross, he was wrapped in a “linen shroud” (σινδωϖν; Matt 27:59; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53).

[13] Ian Wilson, The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ? (New York: Doubleday, 1978).

[14] Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 178-79.

[15] Carbon-14 testing was done on a 4 inch by 2.8 inch cut from the shroud on April 21, 1987. Each of three laboratories (Oxford, England; Zurich, Switzerland; and the University of Arizona, USA) received one third of the piece of the shroud. The official results were submitted to the British Museum. The shroud was dated to the fourteenth century. Even if the shroud had been dated to the first century, it would not have proven, nor could it, that the shroud belonged to Jesus Christ (John McRay, Archaeology and the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991], 219-20).

[16] Kenneth Stevenson and Gary Habermas, The Shroud and the Controversy (Nashville: Nelson, 1990).

[17] Josh McDowell, Resurrection Factor, 76.

[18] The unbeliever Saul of Tarsus was converted on the road to Damascus when the risen Jesus appeared to him (Acts 9; Acts 22:1-21; 1 Cor 9:1; 1 Cor 15:8).

[19] The first article in this two-part series examined the possible explanations for the empty tomb of Jesus and demonstrated that the best explanation for the facts recorded in the gospels is the historical resurrection of Jesus from the dead. See the previous article: Gary R. Gromacki, “The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” JMAT 6, no. 1 (2002): 63-87.

[20] Charles Alford Guignebert, Jesus (New York: University Book, 1956), 500.

[21] John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 392-94.

[22] J. B. Green, “The Death of Jesus,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), 147.

[23] Kirsopp Lake, The Historical Evidence For The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (New York: Putnam’s, 1907), 250-253.

[24] Robert Funk, The Acts of Jesus, 15-16.

[25] Ibid., 17.

[26] Barbara Thiering, in her book Jesus the Man: A New Interpretation from the Dead Sea Scrolls, argues that Jesus was crucified in Qumran rather than Jerusalem, was drugged while on the cross, was revived in the tomb with an antitdote of aloes supplied by Simon Magus, and then later revealed himself to his disciples as alive.

[27] William D. Edwards, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” The Journal of the American Medical Society 255 (21 March 1986): 1463.

[28] For a detailed analysis of this first-century creed that was delivered to Paul, see William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence For The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1989), 1-50.

[29] The risen Jesus honored women by first appearing to them. These female disciples testified to the male disciples that Jesus was alive, but the male disciples refused to believe them (Matt 28:8; Mark 16:9-11, 14; Luke 24:10-11; John 20:2, 18). Interestingly, the testimony of women was not accepted in a Jewish court of law. The Mishnah says “The law about an oath of evidence applies to men but not to women …” (Shevuoth 4:1). Josephus wrote, “Let not the testimony of women be admitted because of the levity and boldness of their sex” (Antiquities 4:219). Jesus rebuked the two men on the road to Emmaus for their refusal to believe the women’s report of his resurrection (Luke 24:22-26) and also the eleven when they sat at table (Mark 16:14).

[30] The New King James Version reads “And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them saying, ‘Rejoice!’ So they came and held Him by the feet and worshipped Him” (Matt 28:9). The clause “And as they went to tell His disciples” has been added by scribes and probably is not a part of the original text according to UBS III Greek text. Bruce Metzger writes, “Although it is possible that the words ωϑ∀ δε; εϕπορευϖοντο αϕπαγγει∍λαι τοι∍∀ μαθηται∍∀ αυϕτου∍ και; ιϕδουϖ fell out of the text due to homoeoteleuton, their absence from the earliest and best representatives of all three early types of text (the Alexandrian, the Western, and the Caesarean) led the Committee to regard them as a natural expansion derived from the sense of the preceding verse” (Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [London: United Bible Societies, 1971], 72).

[31] Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1951), 1:45.

[32] Johannes Weiss, Earliest Christianity (New York: Harper, 1959), 1:30.

[33] Marcus Borg, Jesus: A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (San Francisco: Harper, 1987), 184.

[34] Quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 238-39.

[35] Acts 1:3 says that Jesus “presented himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” The Greek word for “infallible proofs” (τεκμηριϖοι∀) is defined as “that which causes something to be known in a convincing and decisive manner, proof” (Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, rev. and ed. Frederick W. Danker, 3d ed. [Chciago: U of Chicago P, 2000], 994; hereafter abbreviated BDAG).

[36] Hugh Schonfield, The Passover Plot (New York: Bantam, 1967).

[37] Gromacki, “The Historicity of the Resurrection,” Part I, 79-80.

[38] Psalm 16:10 is a direct Messianic prophecy and is one of two such prophecies in the Psalms (the other being Psalm 110:1 which Peter also quotes in this message; cf. Acts 2:34-35). David’s body did see corruption, but the body of Jesus did not see corruption as it was raised on the third day. Paul made this point as well when he quoted Psalm 16:10, “For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers, and saw corruption; but He whom God raised up saw no corruption” (Acts 13:36-37).

[39] The Greek word for “babbler” is σπερμολοϖγο" which means “seed picker.” The word was used of a kind of bird, “the ‘rook’ and in pejorative imagery of persons whose communication lacks sophistication and seems to pick up scraps of information here and there; scrapmonger, scavenger” (BDAG, 937). Apparently these Greek philosophers viewed Paul as an amateur philosopher, someone who had no new ideas of his own, but only picked among prevailing philosophies and constructed one with little depth of insight.

[40] The Areopagus was a court named for the hill on which it once met. Paul was not being formally tried for some crime. He was just asked to defend his teaching there. Acts 17:19 shows us this as it says, “And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.’” Luke then makes the observation, “For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:19-21).

[41] Paul Maier, “The Empty Tomb as History,” Christian

ity Today (28 March 1975), 6.

[42] The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus, ed. Robert Funk (San Francisco: Harper, 1998), 461-62.

[43] William Lane Craig, “Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?” in Jesus Under Fire, 162-63.

[44]Ibid., 165.

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