Jesus lived and died. That is certain and no serious historian doubts it. That he died is equally certain from reliable historical texts and records. That he rose again is harder to prove, but the following facts convince me:
1. Once they were convinced, his followers were turned into a group of fearless and passionate believers. They willingly faced cruel deaths in Roman coliseums and theatres, at the jaws of beasts, on crosses, and thousands faced torture and imprisonment. They were certainly convinced about something important! It is inconceivable that so many thousands of people would be prepared to die, under torture, in flames, as human torches for Nero, or in the jaws of wild beasts, for a story they had just invented, and which was not yet shrouded in history. It was still very much open to eyewitness disproof. This sets these deaths apart from, say, modern day Muslims who willingly die for a faith that is ancient and untestable.
2. His best friends and supporters did not expect him to rise again. When he appeared to them, many found it hard and even refused to accept the evidence of their eyes until they saw him again and again. Even the Gospels do not hide the fact that this doubt was real and frequent.
3. Perhaps one of the strongest proofs is that the Gospel writers chose to record for their first witnesses to the resurrection, not respected Jewish leaders or Roman officials, but common women. In ancient times, and especially in Jewish law, a woman’s testimony was regarded as worthless, without significant corroboration from men. Yet, each of the gospels show ordinary women as the first witnesses. If you wanted to start a new religion or set off a false trail, this would have been an unthinkable starting point.
4. Within 25 years of his death, his followers wrote detailed histories of his life, eye-witness accounts that it would have been easy for the authorities to prove wrong if it were possible to do so. There is no evidence that they seriously tried.
5. None of these followers ever made a “death-bed confession” that all this was a hoax. Indeed, if it was a hoax, it was not a very smart one. Police always look for the motive in a crime. The motive was not money – they lost all of that or willingly gave it away, and many had their property confiscated by the state. It was not power – it was not till centuries later that the church gained any political power. It was not sex – this new religion denounced the popular religions which involved lots of sex with both male and female temple prostitutes to the practice of one husband-one wife, faithful for life.
6. The body was not stolen away by his disciples and concealed. How easy is it to roll away a heavy stone in front of a cave, remove imperial seals and carry off a body without waking two soldiers, who have so luckily fallen asleep? Roman soldiers were renowned for their professionalism. This was not Dad’s Army guarding the tomb.
7. In all of recorded history, there is simply no record of any of the authorities (or a disgruntled disciple) attempting to ‘discover’ a body to disprove this persistent and damaging story. You would have thought that at least they would have tried to dummy up a body – it wouldn't have been that hard in an era before dental records and DNA to test it! This is one of the strongest arguments for its truth, in a negative sort of way.
His greatest enemies made up stories about disciples stealing his body, about him recovering in a dark tomb and so on.
It would have been far easier for the Jewish or Roman authorities, who held all the civil power, simply to produce the dead body of Jesus. That would have settled the argument for ever. They apparently never even tried to, and not even the most atheistic historian has ever suggested they did.
No-one has ever produced the body of Jesus, and there were plenty of parties who would have given anything to be able to do so, e.g. the Jewish authorities, Pontius Pilate, later Caesars who were trying to put down this new religion. All of these, as well as the Judean King’s palace would have loved to have produced the body.
All of this leaves me with just one conclusion, as I calmly and objectively consider the facts, as evidence. He lives! He is risen! This is the triumphant cry of Easter. Can you ignore him?
In other words, Biblical faith in the core question of the resurrection is not a matter of believing when there is nothing to base a belief upon, but rather a rational, evidence-based assessment of facts and circumstances that cause a person to believe, to have faith.
Christianity is most assuredly not a leap in the dark – a faith that depends on wishful thinking and folk-legends.
It is, in fact, a well-grounded leap into the light! The dark is reserved for all those who ignore the evidence, and choose not to believe. I can imagine no more depressing leap into blackness.
