Eyewitnesses and Empty Tomb

To claim that the resurrection narratives in the gospels were developed long after the events, and that  the empty tomb and the eyewitnesses were fabrications, are simply not reasonable assumptions given all the historical facts. 

The first accounts of the empty tomb and the eyewitnesses are found in the letters of Paul, which every historian agrees were written just fifteen to twenty years after the death of Jesus. Paul speaks of the empty tomb and resurrection on the “third day” - making it clear that he is talking of an actual occurrence, not a symbol or metaphor. More significantly he lists the eyewitnesses.

Paul states that the risen Jesus not only appeared to individuals and small groups, but also appeared to five hundred people at once, most were still alive at the time of his writing and could be consulted to verify Paul’s statements.  Paul’s letter was to a community, intended to be read aloud and was, therefore, a public document. Paul invites anyone with doubts to go and talk to these eyewitnesses.

Furthermore, no one in Jerusalem would have heeded the preaching if they could not verify tomb was empty.  Skeptics could have easily produced the rotting corpse if these were false claims. 

The Jewish leadership and the governing Romans had considerable interest in contesting such claims and they could be counted on to aggressively expose any falsehoods with evidence to the contrary.  Furthermore, the Jewish leadership was far more likely than the disciples to fabricate evidence as demonstrated at their trial of Jesus.

Answer me this...

It’s not enough for sceptics to merely assert that it’s impossible for anyone, let alone Jesus, to have risen from the dead.  For someone to assert that he did not rise from the dead, in fairness, they should also provide a feasible alternate explanation for the historical record regarding the rise of Christianity.  Just as it is inadequate to merely claim the Holocaust did not happen. A Holocaust denier is obligated by objectivity to provide substantive reasons explaining the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

Here are some of the historical facts regarding Christianity that require explanation:

• Why did Christianity emerge so rapidly, with such power?
• What changed the worldview of so many thousands of individuals virtually overnight?
• No other band of messianic followers in that era concluded their leader was raised from the dead — why did this group do so?
• No group of Jews ever worshipped a human being as God. What led this group to do so?
• And how to account for the hundreds of eyewitnesses to the resurrection who lived on for decades and publicly maintained their testimony, eventually giving their lives for their belief?

There are at least three substantial categories of evidence supporting the reasonableness of Jesus’ Resurrection as the only credible answer to these questions:

1. The fact that his tomb was empty
2. The abundance of witnesses to his Resurrection
3. And the substantial confirmation provided by the cultural context.

The Case for the Resurrection

Faith in Jesus consists of a deeply intimate relationship, a personal friendship, with him and thus with the Father.  And for this relationship to blossom in those who don’t know him, I am convinced that getting to know God is facilitated by recognizing that it is reasonable to conclude he exists and has communicated a desire for a relationship with each of us.

In the last series, we tackled the question of why Christ had to die.  Now we will consider the case for his subsequent Resurrection. And once again we rely on the scientific approach of Critical Rationality. Belief in the Resurrection of Jesus, given the historical record, is the most reasonable of all conclusions one can come to. This does not mean, however, that those-who-don’t-know-God will be reasonable. Yet upholding reasonableness -coupled with prayer - is the best strategy for reaching them.

The primary resources for the content of this series are: The Reason For God, by Timothy Keller and an essay, Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins by N. T. Wright.

The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is central to Christianity.  If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, well then, we are free to ignore anything and everything that he said. However, if Jesus did rise from the dead, then we are compelled by that fact to accept all that he said.  Christianity challenges us less by Christ’s radical teachings than by the question of whether or not he rose from the dead.