Prominent New Testament scholars have accepted historical evidence that Jesus Christ lived on this Earth. What is not entirely accepted is that He was resurrected from death. If Jesus did conquer death, He opened the door to eternal life for all who will come to believe in Him. This paper aims to build a compelling case for Jesus’ resurrection based on relevant historical evidence, events, and facts. This presentation will require specific proof that Jesus died by crucifixion, was buried in a tomb, and rose from His earthly grave in a new spiritual, glorified body.
The most logical starting point for our research is to establish the authenticity of the Bible. We begin with the Bible, particularly the earliest New Testament manuscripts based on the original Greek writings. The sheer volume of early manuscript evidence for the New Testament is staggering when compared to other respected writings of the same era. These manuscripts can be dated with remarkable proximity to the original Greek writings. Importantly, none of the textual variances, which are minor spelling and grammatical differences, cast any doubt on the major concepts of the Christian doctrines. It is crucial to ascertain whether the biographies of Jesus as recorded in the four gospels are reliably preserved or if the early church and their writings may have suppressed them.
Bruce M. Metsker, PhD is a Professor Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary.
He stated to Lee Strobel, an investigative journalist wanting to prove the Bible was accurate and reliable, especially the earliest Christian Greek manuscripts, “More than 5000 have been cataloged” (qtd. in Strobel 64). Dr. Metsker also mentioned that variations can occur in the early manuscripts, such as those found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, these variations are typically minor, such as spelling errors, and do not alter the core message. Strobel then focused on one of the most critical issues regarding the authenticity of the ancient Greek manuscripts. He asked Metzger, “How many church doctrines are in jeopardy because of variants?” Metzger confidently responded, “I don’t know of any doctrine that is in jeopardy” (qtd. in Strobel 68).
Eyewitnesses are powerful, compelling, and vital when determining the accuracy of an event that occurred in a previous time. Acceptance of an eyewitness as solid evidence assumes the human mind is a precise recorder and stores details of past events. Human beings would like that to be so, but human memory is imperfect, and the facts must be cautiously accepted. The events the disciples saw and experienced were theatrical, and they only had to be remembered for an abbreviated period. Those events caused a complete change in each of their lives. When Jesus’ crucifixion occurred, they all retreated into hiding. After a brief time, when Jesus reappeared to them in His resurrected body, they were willing to serve Him even to the point of dying for Him. Undoubtedly, they remembered exactly what they had seen as eyewitnesses of Jesus as the risen Lord after His resurrection.
Dr. Craig Bloomberg is one of this country’s foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus in the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He received his doctorate in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland. When Lee Strobel asked Dr. Bloomberg if he felt the disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were direct or indirect eyewitnesses in their testimonies, which would include the resurrection of Christ, he answered crisply, “Exactly” (qtd. In Strobel 25). He said all four men were reliable eyewitnesses to Christ’s life and post-resurrection appearances.
Next, consider the way Christ is depicted in the four New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John by scholars. He is described as someone who lived only a few decades earlier. A few decades are barely an entire lifetime in the early gospel because Christ’s life was cut short by His sacrifice of death on the cross, taking on all of humanity’s sins. His life was too short of a recorded history period to become a myth. He was crucified in the first century at about 33 years of age, between AD 30 and AD 33, under Pontius Pilate, the fifth prefect of the Roman province of Judaea from AD 26 to 36. Caiaphas was the high priest. Simon of Cyrene was the man compelled by the Romans to carry the cross of Jesus as He struggled to reach the site of the crucifixion. Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus. Paul speaks of Rufus as a chosen man of the Lord. As you can see, the varied and detailed descriptions are presented in the most straightforward and factually possible way. Reading each of the four gospels is unlike reading a novel or a fiction story because they present reliable historical evidence as their central purpose.
Most scholars believe the Gospel of Mark was the first to be written. It was written around the year AD 70. The term gospel means “good message” or “good news. It is the news of the coming of the Kingdom of God and the resurrection of Jesus. (Mark 1:1) The book of Mark was written too early for the testimony of the empty tomb in which Jesus was first laid to be legendary. Mark describes the events of the open tomb, such as how Jesus was buried and how His tomb was sealed and guarded by a watch of Roman soldiers. On the first day of the week, His body was no longer there. The Roman guards were facing death because of the empty tomb. If his tomb had not been empty, it would have been evident to everyone living in Jerusalem, and the disciples would have been exposed for their false preaching in that city when they claimed He had risen from the dead.
Just because the disciples claimed they saw Jesus after His death on the cross and placed in the tomb does not mean they did see Him as the risen Lord. Consider if they were lying, if they hallucinated, or if they did see Christ in His Resurrected body. Suppose they were lying about seeing Him after His resurrection. After such a fleeting period, why would all the disciples begin to spread the message that Jesus Christ was the Messiah who died on the cross, returned to life, and was seen alive by all of them? Why were they now willing to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming this testimony without pay? The Scriptures teach they often went without food, slept exposed to the elements, were ridiculed, beaten, imprisoned, and finally, most of them were tortured and executed. These facts are validated from early sources in the New Testament and outside of it. Scholars today accept these facts.
Another possibility is that the disciples were hallucinating. Hallucinating does not explain the physical nature of Jesus appearing to them. In the New Testament, the disciples recorded him eating and drinking with them as well as them touching Him. If the disciples were not lying or hallucinating, they must have believed they had seen the risen Jesus. Even though believing something does not necessarily make it accurate, observe what happens next. In this case, the disciples knew without a doubt that Jesus was their physically resurrected Savior. They saw Him, talked with him, and ate with him.”(“Easter: There were 500 eyewitnesses of the risen Christ – Bergen Record”) (“Easter: There were 500 eyewitnesses of the risen Christ – Bergen Record”) The Disciple Thomas put his hand into the side of Jesus that the Romans sword had pierced. If they wanted absolute certainty, they had it. There is no doubt their relationship with Jesus as the risen Lord was the start of the worldwide Christian church based on their proclaiming Jesus was the risen Lord as He had commanded them to do. Jesus gave them the power to heal the sick, work miracles, and cast evil spirits out of people by their commands. It requires faith, prayer, insight, and understanding even to accept this statement today. The early church, however, would not have grown in those days by words alone.
The church spread rapidly over 20 years. It spread so fast that it overtook many competing ideologies and eventually overwhelmed the entire Romain empire. The worldwide Christian movement founded in Jerusalem was based on the belief that the resurrection had come into existence in the same city where the one man, Jesus Christ, had been publicly executed and buried. It is important to note that the existence of the worldwide Christian church is the most decisive proof of His resurrection. The belief in the resurrection by the original disciples is the foundation of all Christianity. If the resurrection did not happen, there would be no conceivable way to account for the origin of the worldwide Christian faith.
There are still those today who do not accept that Christ did die on the cross. New Age religions are one example. Marxists believe that Jesus is false and oppress or destroy those who believe in Him. Hinduism and Buddhism believe that Jesus Himself is an illusion and of no lasting or permanent value. In the Muslim faith or Islam, Jesus is merely one of the many prophets of Allah. Despite these objections to authenticating Jesus, abundant historical references leave little doubt that Jesus lived and died. The endless provocative question for all who do not fully believe is whether Jesus died and lived. Remember the three facts upon which the resurrection depends: the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the quickly expanding Christian faith. Before Jesus could release His Holy Spirit from His earthly body, He was required to suffer as was foretold in the Holy Scriptures from generations past. He was flogged and crucified. Two of the worst human punishments ever devised by man.
The flogging that Jesus received from the Roman soldier would have been brutal. It would consist of 39 lashes. The soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them. The whip would also contain pieces of small sharp bones, which would severely cut His flesh. When the whip would strike Him, the balls would cause deep black and blue bruises that would begin bleeding underneath His skin. Those painful bruises would break open with further blows, and blood would gush out. His back would be so shredded from the small pieces of bones that the deep cuts would expose parts of His spine. The flogging would go all the way from His shoulders and down His back to His Buttocks. It could also continue downward to the back of His legs. It was a terrible punishment. The Romans were masters at torture. Many people would die from the flogging they received just before being crucified. At the site of His crucifixion, He would be laid down on the wooden cross, and His hands would be nailed in the outstretched position to the horizontal beam with sharpened spikes from 5 to 7 inches long. As people often believe, the spikes would be driven through Jesus’ wrist, not His hands. If the two spikes were driven through His hands, they would tear loose. The same type of nails was also driven through His feet, crushing His nerves. Hanging on the cross was excruciating for Jesus. Excruciating means ‘out of the cross’ (qtd. In Strobel 197-198). It became an innovative word because there were no other words in the language at that time that could describe the intense anguish caused during a crucifixion. While Jesus was hanging on the cross, his shoulders would become dislocated. Modern-day simple mathematical equations have determined that fact. He would be in a partially standing position on the vertical part of the cross, experiencing excruciating pain in both of His feet from the spike piercing through His critical foot nerves. His crucifixion was an agonizing slow death by asphyxiation, leading to cardiac arrest. He would have to push Himself up on the rugged bloody cross by His legs until He would no longer be able to take in a fresh breath of air. To exhale, He would have to relax as His bloodied back lowered, scraping against the coarse wood of the cross. His cycle repeatedly would result in complete physical exhaustion until finally, He could not push himself up. This would eventually lead Him into having an irregular heartbeat, which is most likely when He called out with a loud voice saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Then He would die.
Consider the logic of this situation. If Jesus were in that kind of pathetic physical condition, He could never inspire his disciples to go out and proclaim He was the Lord of their lives. He would have looked so pitiful the disciples could never have hailed Him as their victorious conqueror of death. NO! He was not in that kind of pitiful physical condition. When He appeared to the Disciples, He had conquered death. He was in his new
resurrected body. How vital was the resurrection of Jesus? The resurrection proves that the claims Jesus made about Himself were valid. It proves that He was entirely God and fully man. If Jesus rose from the dead, it validated His claim to be God, and if He is God, He speaks with absolute certainty and final authority. Would you rather accept the testimony of someone who rose from the dead or someone who has died or is sure to die in a few years?
The resurrection of Christ provides genuine hope of eternal life for all who will believe in Him. Jesus states that by believing in him, humanity will be forgiven of their sins and escape from being condemned to the final judgment of all who have denied Him. God, out of His love for humanity, became man in the form of Jesus Christ. On the cross, He took upon Himself the death that all humanity deserves through their sins. In other words, God will one day resurrect those who believe in Christ just as he resurrected Christ.
Paul the Apostle wrote in First Corinthians 9:1, “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? In First Corinthians 15:8, Paul states about himself regarding the resurrection of Jesus: “…and last of all he appeared to me also…” This was after he wrote that Christ had appeared to Cephas and the 12 apostles and to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters of the Christian faith simultaneously and then to James and all the apostles. As you can read, Paul presents solid eyewitness evidence of hundreds of people seeing the risen Christ.
Many people all over the world feel a god-shaped vacuum inside. They hear Christ’s sacrifice makes a relationship with God possible because He paid the price on the cross for all our sins or wrongdoings. You have based your spiritual outlook on the evidence you have read or observed around you or what you learned long ago from books, college professors, family members, or friends. Did Jesus believe He was the son of God, the anointed one of God? The answer is yes. Did he see Himself as the Son of Man? The answer is yes, meaning he saw Himself as both the Son of Man and God. It is worth noting that the “Son of Man” has a double meaning. The meaning to be expected is that He was an earthly man, but at the same time, according to the book of Daniel chapter 7, the “Son of Man” recognized Him as an exhalation, a Spiritual being at the same time. Jesus, the historical Jesus, is the living Lord. He is still here, and He is waiting for you. In the end, the final decision will be yours alone. Choose carefully. Your eternity depends on your choice.
Jack Bell
Works Cited
Davis, Truman. “A Physician’s View of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.”
CBN Radio, www1cbn.com. Article.
Habermas, Gary. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Kregel Publications. 2004.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ. Zondervan 2016.
(No Author) “The Agony of the Cross.” Suffering.net – A website offering hope to those who suffer.
Weldon, John. “The New Religions and the Deity of Jesus Christ.” John Ackerman, jashow.org Article, 2013