Did Jesus rise from the Dead?

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a unique feature of Christianity. Other major founders of religions died and remain dead. Jesus died and was raised from the dead. If Jesus did not rise from that dead, then his predictions are false and he is a liar. If Jesus rose from the dead as he himself predicted, then he has demonstrated that he has power over even death and therefore validated his claims to be the Son of God. We therefore see that the issue of whether Jesus did rise from the dead is of paramount importance.

Arguments against the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

This theory suggests that Jesus was not crucified but somehow, someone else was crucified and killed on the cross, which everyone has mistaken to be Jesus.

Refutation

How could so many people be mistaken about Christ's death?

A centurion was there to check that Jesus was really dead. Joseph of Arimathea prepared the body of Jesus for burial and must have realised if it wasn't Jesus. When he laid Jesus in the tomb, Mary Magdalene and the mother of Jesus were there to witness. Could all these people including Jesus' mother have made a mistake thinking it was Jesus when it was someone else?

SWOON THEORY

This theory states that Jesus did not die on the cross but merely swooned (i.e. fainted). He later recovered and appeared to his disciples who thought he had resurrected.

Refutation

How could Jesus have survived the ordeal of the crucifixion?

Jesus was severely whipped with a Roman whip that had pieces of metal or bone attached to its cords. The metal or bone attached to the cords cut right into the flesh. He was then nailed to the cross. Hanging by the arms after some time, the pectoral muscles become paralysed and the intercostal muscles unable to act. Air can be drawn into the lungs but cannot be exhaled thus causing suffocation. The Romans further pierced his side with a spear. Now, having gone through whipping, where Jesus' back is almost laid open, having his arms and feet pierced, having a spear thrust in his side, being taken down and washed, then plastered with 75 pounds of spices, would Jesus still be alive?

But suppose for argument's sake that he was alive, do you really believe that lying for 3 days in the tomb with no medical attention would have revived him, instead of killing him? A healthy person could not survive 3 days in a tomb without food and water, not to mention a person who has gone through the sufferings that Jesus had.

Even if Jesus was revived in the tomb, Christ, in a weakened condition, would have to roll back the stone at the entrance of the tomb; a feat historians say would take about 20 men step out of the tomb without waking any one of the soldiers (if we assume for argument's sake that they were asleep and we know they were not), step over the soldiers and escape.

OTHER ARGUMENTS

Others have suggested that the disciples stole the body.

We wonder how they could have rolled away the large stone and take the body away without alerting the Roman guards who were outside guarding the tomb. Still others say that maybe the women, overcome by grief, went to the wrong tomb in the dimness of the morning. But if this is true, why didn't the Pharisees go to the right tomb and produce the body? Surely this would kill Christianity in the cradle like they wanted. We see that the arguments against Jesus being resurrected take more faith to believe than the fact that Jesus did rise from the dead.

(Why we believe that Jesus rose from the dead?)

IT IS A HISTORICAL FACT

How do we get history?

A lot of what we know as history are from manuscripts which have survived till today. These manuscripts are written by people in the past to tell us what has happened. Generally, the more manuscripts there are, the more confident we can be that the event really happened. For example, we may doubt when we read of one account of a UFO sighting but we start to take it seriously if we read of hundreds of such accounts. Our history books tell us that Julius Caesar fought the Gallic War. We accept it without question even though there are only ten surviving manuscripts that record this event. How about the resurrection accounts? Many people reject it even though the chief source of information on the resurrection, the New Testament, is the number 1 manuscript authority in the world with more than 24,000 manuscripts! If a person still discards the New Testament accounts of resurrection as unreliable, then he must discard all other historical literature.

THE ACCOUNTS WERE WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE DEATH OF JESUS

Another principle historians use is to determine how long after the fact has occurred before the event was recorded. Generally, the shorter the interval between the event and the time of writing, the more likely an account is true.

For example, an account's accuracy is doubtful if it was written 1,000 years after the event. How can we be sure that the writer has written accurately since he may not even be at the incident. Furthermore, what he wrote cannot be refuted by people who read it because the readers were also not at the scene of the incident. In this regard, we can trust in the reliability of New Testament accounts of the resurrection because they were circulated only shortly after the death of Jesus. There is strong evidence that the gospels were written within only 30 years after His death. Therefore the writers cannot afford to fabricate their reports since the readers can easily refute them if they were inaccurate. For instance, if we all witness a murder and a week later the police report turns out to be full of lies, we as witnesses can refute it.

WE HAVE EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

Furthermore, the New Testament accounts of the resurrection were written by eyewitnesses and not based on hearsay. The writers of the New Testament recorded that Jesus "presented Himself (to them) alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days."(Acts 1:1-3) Eyewitness testimony is highly regarded in any court of law.

THE DISCIPLES DIED FOR THEIR BELIEF

We can believe in the resurrection as a fact because eleven out of the twelve disciples died as martyrs testifying to the resurrection and deity of Christ. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: "Who is willing to die for a lie?" It is true many people died for something which is not true, but they died thinking it was true. It would be hard to find eleven people in history who died for a lie, knowing it was a lie.

WE HAVE NON-BIBLICAL TESTIMONY

Apart from the New Testament, there are other sources that can substantiate the accuracy and reliability of the New Testament records concerning the resurrection of Jesus.

In the British Museum, there is an interesting manuscript preserving the text of a letter written some time later than AD 73.

This letter was sent by a Syrian named Mara Serapion to his son pointing out the fact that those who persecuted wise men were overtaken by misfortune. "What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished."

Tacitus, the Roman historian, who was born between AD 52;54 wrote about the reign of Nero. "Nero.....punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christos, from whom they got their name, had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate...."

Lucian, of the 2nd Century, spoke scornfully of Christ and the Christians. He described Christ as "the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world."

About A.D.52, a writer named Thallus wrote a history of Eastern Mediterranean world. The work has been lost but excepts from it have been used by another historian, Julius Africanus, who lived in the early part of the third century. Julius Africanus describes the earthquake and the darkness that appeared suddenly during the death of Christ as an eclipse of the sun.

We also have a testimony from the rabbinical tradition from the time of Christ. The Tannaitic period of the rabbinical traditions contains one or two references to Jesus Christ. The most important is a "barathia' preserved in the Talmudic tracate Sanhedrin (43a): Jesus was hanged on Passover eve....because he has practised sorcery and led Israel astray and enticed them into apostasy.

Bible Study Resource Centre