Easter is upon us again!

By Stephen Mitchell

Christians hold holy a Book different from all other ‘religious holy’ books. It is a Book about God and His workings in, on, and through history. As such, it is a ‘boots-on-the-ground’ type of book. We Christians call this Book, the Bible. In this Book the people, places, and events are presented as historical and should be open to verification archeologically and textually through other ancient records. As archeologist Stephen Collins stated, “If the history isn’t true, if the realities of the events and the world presented to us on the pages of the Bible didn’t actually occur, then where in the world do we get off trying to believe and place our lives on the invisible stuff?”

The greatest ‘invisible’ event presented in those pages is the resurrection of Jesus. On this event, presented as a historical reality, hinges all of the Christian Faith and the veracity of the Bible. As the Apostle Paul wrote:

“Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised;  and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.  Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.  For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised;  and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” 1Corinthians 15:12-17

So, can the resurrection of Jesus be shown to be an actual historical event? We think so. In their book, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Dr’s Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona list for us four evidences for the resurrection that virtually all reputable scholars, Christian and non-Christian, accept as true and one additional evidence that most, but not all, accept. These are:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.

2. Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them.

3. The church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed.

4. The skeptic James, the brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed.

and the fifth:

5. The tomb was empty.

With these five facts, every reasoned objection to the historical resurrection can be answered.

For example, some have objected that Jesus never actually died on the cross, either because He never existed, or He simply passed out and was taken down by those who thought He was dead. As to Jesus’ existence, since one must exist before one can die, there were 9 ancient non-Christians authors who wrote about Jesus within 150 years of His death. There were only 5 ancient authors, including Julius Caesar himself, who wrote about Julius Caesar within 150 years of his death. No reasonable person should deny that Julius Caesar existed and no reasonable person should deny that Jesus existed. Of those ancient authors, Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, and Josephus each state that Jesus was crucified. Mara Bar-Serapion wrote that he was executed.

Now, the Romans were experts in crucifixion and the nature of death by crucifixion is such that whether or not a person is dead is visibly obvious. A crucified person must shove up on their nailed feet / ankles in order to breathe. If they are not shoving up on the nail through their feet / ankles then they die very quickly through asphyxiation. Thus there can be no question of mistaking passing out for death. Jesus could not have ‘passed out’ and lived. He was either obviously alive or obviously dead. Since the ancient testimony is that he died by crucifixion, the first fact is confirmed, Jesus did exist and did die by crucifixion.

We will look at the second fact in the next post.

Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2004)