The resurrection part 2

Is The Resurrection of Jesus Truth or Hoax?

In my previous article, I laid out the first four of eight pieces of evidence that I would like for you to consider concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Either the resurrection is true and grounded in historical evidence, or it's the greatest hoax ever pulled off in human history.

For the sake of time and space, I will not cover the first four historical pieces of evidence that I already introduced, but encourage you to go back and read part one of this article.

5. The Testimony of the Apostle Paul.

Before becoming an Apostle and writing the majority of the New Testament, Paul was named Saul and was an enemy of the Church. The first record we have of Saul is in the book of Acts. When we bring the Bible into the discussion of the resurrection we do so based on its historical accuracy. The Bible is a collection of independent eyewitness accounts written by different individuals and collected in what we call the canon of Scripture. In the book of Acts, we have the account of Stephen being stoned to death after preaching the Gospel and they laid Stephen's garments at the feet of a young man who was named Saul (Acts 7:58).

Saul approved of Stephen's execution, and because of fear the believers in Christ began to scatter from Jerusalem. Saul continued to become a major player in the persecution of the Church after the stoning of Stephen. Luke records, "But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison" (Acts 8:3).

When Saul was on the road to Damascus something happened that transformed his life forever. Saul was on his way to get permission from the high priest to bring [arrest] any men or women who were believers bound to Jerusalem. While on the road he had an encounter with the Lord (Acts 9). The Scripture records that "immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God." But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ" (Acts 9:20, 22 ESV). After this transformation Saul's named was changed to Paul and he wrote the majority of the New Testament

Saul's encounter with the risen Lord was not an inner mystical experience or an hallucination.

Luke records that Saul had a conversation with the risen Lord. "And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?' And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you" (Acts 26:15-16). There are a couple of things to note from this Damascus experience. First, history of this event is recorded as a post resurrection appearance of Christ through the words of Jesus himself "I have appeared to you" (Acts 26:16). Second, according to the historical account we have of this event, Paul was not alone when the risen Christ appeared to him. It is recorded that the men that were traveling with him "stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one" (Acts 9:7). This is an important piece of evidence because had Luke been making this up and trying to convince us that Paul had seen the risen Christ he would have had the witnesses seeing Christ and hearing the voice. The reason he wrote it the way he did was simply because this is the way it actually happened. The fact that the witnesses saw the glory of Christ "The light shining" and heard the voice rules out the possibility that Saul was having an inner experience or hallucinating.

One of the qualifying factors to be an Apostle in the early church was that a person had to have seen the risen Christ. in defense of his Apostleship Paul writes, "Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord" (1 Cor 9:1 ESV)? Paul was convinced that He had seen the risen Lord and because of that made a radical change in his life. A change that brought him no material gain. A change that caused him to refute his upbringing and education under the law.

He gave up his prestige, position and power among leaders in exchange for persecution, prison and death at the hands of those he once was admired by.

6. Multiple Eyewitnesses

This sixth piece of evidence I would like for you to consider concerning the historicity of the resurrection is the multiple eyewitnesses. In the court of law the more eyewitnesses you have to an event the more solid the case can be proven. Historians today value personal eyewitness testimony higher than other sources when establishing the probability of whether or not an event happened as recorded. Whenever I see something posted on social media today before I repeat it out loud or share the post I do a google search and verify the information. If I find a couple of other websites that have the same event with the same information it brings more validity to the information. The same method works when verifying historic events whether it happened a few years ago or a few thousand years in the past.

For the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have very early recorded eyewitness testimony!

In his letter to the church at Corinth the Apostle Paul writes, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep" (1 Cor 15:3-6). This passage of Scripture is accepted by most New Testament scholars as being a very early creed of the church that Paul is quoting. Doctrine in the early church was first taught through oral tradition and put into creeds. Oral tradition was very accurate because when it was being recited there were people there in the same room that were personal eyewitnesses to the events being talked about, making it verifiable.

There were over 500 eyewitnesses to the risen Lord who all saw Him at the same time.

There are some important facts to consider about these eyewitnesses. First, it is possible for someone in a moment of fatigue and grief to hallucinate and be convinced that they see a deceased loved one in the room with them. It is scientifically impossible for 500 people to hallucinate the exact same thing at the exact same time. Jesus appeared to over 500 people at the same time removing the possibility of hallucinations or mistaken identification. Second, when Paul was recording the eyewitness testimony he writes, "Most of whom are still alive." Had the eyewitnesses already been dead when Paul wrote this then their testimony would not have carried the same amount of weight that it does when they are still alive. By writing this Paul is actually encouraging the skeptics to seek out the eyewitnesses and hear their testimony.

7 . Scattering of the church

The early persecution of the church and the scattering of believers is another important piece of evidence to examine when considering the historicity of the resurrection. Some skeptics of the resurrection claim that over time the story was developed and embellished before it was ever written down in the Gospels.

The church was persecuted immediately after the day of Pentecost, when the disciples began proclaiming the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It is recorded in the book of Acts that after Stephen was stoned to death that "there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles" (Acts 8:1 ESV).

The believers in Christ left Jerusalem in the early days of Christianity, yet the story of the resurrection remained consistent with what was later recorded in the Gospels. If the story was an embellishment that happened over years the task of getting the "new" information to others would have been impossible during that time period in history. There is historical evidence from the Roman historian Tacitus that the story of the resurrection had reached Rome before the Gospels were written. The distance between Rome and Jerusalem is over 1000 miles! Nero blamed the fire of 64AD on the Christians and used the fire as an excuse to put them to death. This means that not only had the story of the resurrection traveled to Rome, but the Church had time to be established and spread throughout Rome.

The only reasonable explanation as to how the story of the resurrection spread throughout the world and remained consistent is that it was spread by eyewitness accounts.

8. The commitment of the Disciples

Although there are many more pieces of evidence that could be brought into this discussion, I will close my case with this eighth piece of evidence to consider. The disciples were committed to their testimony to death. We don't have to look too hard in history to find men and women that are willing to die for a lie. Many of us remember the terrorist attacks of 9/11 when Islamic extremists died in the planes they used as missiles for their religious beliefs. The difference in the Apostles dying for their testimony of the resurrection is that they died because of their own eyewitness testimony to the resurrection. This is different than someone dying for religious belief that they believe is true. The point is that had the disciples stole the body of Christ and made up the story they would have all been dying for something they knew was a lie.

Yet, history tells that all the disciples were put to death including the Apostle Paul. The only exception is John who was exiled to the island of Patmos until his death. Consider the persecution of the disciples:

• Arrested "they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison" (Acts 5:18 ESV).

• Beaten "and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go." (Acts 5:40 ESV).

• Stoned to death "Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And when he had said this, he fell asleep" (Acts 7:58-60 ESV).

• Killed by Sword "About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword" (Acts 12:1-2 ESV).

• Cut in Half "They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated" (Heb 11:37 ESV).

What makes this piece of evidence even more convincing is that the disciples didn't even believe in the resurrection at the beginning. They were not convinced until the risen Christ appeared to them in the upper room. Thomas said he would not believe until he touched the body of Jesus for proof. Jesus gave him the opportunity to touch his hands and his side and at that moment it all became clear as Thomas fell down in front of Jesus and said, "My Lord and my God" (Jhn 20:28 KJV).

With these eight pieces of evidence presented here and in my first article on this topic I close my case for the historical evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The question now comes back to you the reader. What do you do with this evidence? Do you believe a miracle took place at the tomb, a miracle that points to the reality that Jesus really was the creator God who walked among us, or did the women and disciples pull off the greatest hoax ever?