11 Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

If Jesus really did rise from the dead that first Easter Sunday, then people everywhere must take his claims to be God very seriously.

The following four facts of history are accepted by the majority of scholars, both religious and secular.

First, Jesus died on a Roman cross on Friday and was buried in a tomb. There can be no doubt, the Roman soldiers were good at their job and they had to confirm Jesus was dead before their boss would release the body. His enemies, the Jewish leaders confirmed he was buried in the tomb of a wealthy man named Joseph.

Second, that tomb was empty on Sunday morning. When Jesus’ enemies wanted to stop people believing he was alive, all they had to do was produce his dead body. They couldn’t. Some argued his followers had stolen his body, but that required getting past the Roman guards, a virtually impossible task. Other ideas have been proposed, but they really don’t stand up to the evidence.

Third, numerous witnesses testified—at great peril to themselves—that they saw Jesus alive multiple times after he had died, that they met with him and even ate with him. Even the most sceptical scholar today accepts that Jesus’ followers really did believe he was alive. One theory said they were having hallucinations, but that doesn’t hold true, because it is hard to believe that over 500 different people, over more than a month, could have had the same hallucination about the same person who they all were quite certain (for good reason) had been killed and buried just days or weeks before.

Fourth, the group of timid followers changed into fearless advocates. One of these, Thomas, was a sceptic, yet he is recorded as travelling to India to tell people about Jesus. Another man, the mortal enemy of Christians, Saul of Tarsus, was convinced he had seen Jesus risen from the dead, and spent the rest of his life travelling through Asia, Greece and Rome, arguing the case for Jesus. Both these men, and many others, were killed because they refused to stop talking about Jesus.

But this leaves open the question, “Why did Jesus have to die and rise again from the dead?” That is the big question we will look at next.

I have relied heavily for the comments above on a book written earlier this year, called “The Story of Reality” by Gregory Koukl. It is available from Amazon in a print or digital edition. There are many similar books but this one is very logical and very easy to read.