Evidence of the Resurrection

Written by Dr. Neil Chadwick

The story of the resurrection is reliable history. Even people who don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead do believe that He was a good man and a prophet sent from God. If this is valid, then He must be considered a truthful man even when He spoke about his own resurrection. Therefore, we have to either believe He was a liar and a fraud, or believe that He did rise from the dead. The grave was found to be empty, the body that was missing has never been recovered. The only explanation provided by the enemies, that his disciples stole the body, is not credible. The Roman guards posted in front of Jesus’ tomb were well trained soldiers who faced the death sentence if they failed to do their job. Also, can you imagine the timid, scared disciples concocting such a plot, risking their lives to steal Jesus’ body, hide it, and then proclaim a lie to the world? Some argue that Jesus’ disciples were hallucinating when they “saw” Jesus, risen from the dead. Think about it. One, even two people can hallucinate together, but how can more than five hundred people hallucinate about the same thing? The apostles' faith came in direct opposition to their previous beliefs and worldly interests. They had no expectation and no hope of such resurrection, and yet after it occurred, they induced thousands of the enemies of Christ to believe in it, and that close to the time and near the spot on which it occurred so that skeptics would have had ample opportunity to prove the claims false. In the middle of the 19th century, Simon Greenleaf, professor of law at Harvard University, was considered to be one of the greatest legal minds in America, and highly esteemed in Europe as well. In 1842 he wrote what has become a classic three-volume text, "A Treatise on the Law of Evidence." Originally, Greenleaf set out to disprove the Biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ, certain that a careful examination of the internal witness of the Gospels would dispel what he considered to be the myths of Christianity. However, he came to the opposite conclusion, and declared that the witnesses were indeed reliable. Specifically, Greenleaf carefully examined the testimony of the Four Evangelists, putting them to the same tests to which other evidence is subjected in human tribunals. First, the legal scholar laid out a convincing case for the reliability of the written documents. In part, he built this on the legal premise that "Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise." In other words, the same rule of law applies to documents as applies to men, they are presumed innocent until proven guilty, or presumed truthful unless proven to be false - the burden of proof lies with the critics. Then Greenleaf went on to discuss each of the Four Evangelists, convincingly arguing for their credibility as witnesses. For example, Matthew, being a tax collector under the employ of the Roman government, would have been "familiar with a great variety of forms of fraud, imposture, cunning, and deception, and must have become habitually distrustful, scrutinizing, and cautious; and, of course, much less likely to have been deceived. . . ." What gives Mark credibility is that in spite of having Peter as his main source, Mark is not hesitant to point out Peter's "weaknesses and fall . . . while things which might redound to his honor, are either omitted or but slightly mentioned." Although Luke was probably the best educated of the Four Evangelists, he does not claim to have been an eye-witness. However, his testimony is "admissible in evidence, in a court of justice" because, as Greenleaf writes, "the inquiry is gravely undertaken and pursued, by a person of competent intelligence, sagacity and integrity." Furthermore, Luke's account was written "probably at the request of a man of distinction, whom it would not be for the interest nor safety of the writer to deceive or mislead." John, the last of the Evangelists to write, demonstrates credibility by the fact that he omits material already covered by the others who had written before him, his care of adding several incidents which were known to him, and where he does mention the same things, he does so "in a brief and cursory manner, [and so] affords incidental but strong testimony that he regarded their accounts as faithful and true." Greenleaf then demonstrated that "the facts related by the Four Evangelists are proved by competent and satisfactory evidence" which "in the affairs of human life, satisfy the mind and conscience of a common man." He does this by applying five tests to the Evangelists: First, are the witnesses honest? Given the tremendous persecution they endured, they "had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted." According to tradition, all of them, except the apostle John, died horrible deaths. Simon Peter was crucified upside down. Andrew, James and the other Simon were crucified. James was beheaded by Herod (Act 12:1,2). Bartholomew was flayed to death, and Philip, Thomas, Matthew and Jude all died in martyrdom. Would they all have been willing to face persecution, hardship, alienation, even death, for a concocted lie? Furthermore, if the Evangelists were promoting a falsehood, they would be doing so not only at the risk of their very lives, but also of inner guilt with "no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come." Furthermore, it is obvious in their writings that these were men who were of tender conscience and feared God, by their own teachings they would be dooming themselves to eternal judgment if they were propagating a lie, and if they were bad men, why would they invent something "which was to destroy all their prospects of worldly honor and happiness, and to insure their misery in this life?" Second, are the witnesses considered to be capable? This has to do with their opportunities for observing what it is they report, and the accuracy of their powers of discerning and remembering. Two of the Evangelists were well educated with occupations which required a high level of exactness; the other two were not schooled and unlikely to be able to concoct such an elaborate story as given to us of the life of Jesus. Third, were there an ample number of witnesses and consistency among them? What discrepancies there are support the idea that it would be unlikely that the Evangelists would have collaborated in the making up of the stories. At the same time, there's enough agreement to support the presumption that they were indeed reporting the same events. At this point it is also important to note the very large number of people who were eye-witnesses of the resurrection of Christ. In fact, by some counts, there were between 518 and 641 people who saw Him! In addition to the large group who met with Jesus on a Galilean mountain (I Corinthians 15:6), and the Eleven Apostles, there were: the women returning from the tomb (Matthew 28:9-10), Mary Magdalene (John 20:14; Mark 16:9), two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-33), Stephen (Acts 7:55), and Paul (Acts 9:3-6, I Corinthians 15:8). Fourth, was their testimony in conformity with experience? In this regard, Greenleaf pointed out that if a person approaches the story with a clear bias against the possibility of miracles, then it could be argued that many of the accounts were fabricated. To judge all proposed truth on the basis of our own experience alone, is extremely limiting - "If I have not experienced a miracle then any other person's claim is certainly false." However, Greenleaf responds by saying that to argue that miracles are impossible "supposes that the creator of all things first made a code of laws, and then put it out of his own power to change them." Fifth, does their testimony coincide with collateral circumstances? Of course in the case of the Evangelists, they are long dead and gone. However, their collective testimony is credible because of the great "variety and minuteness of detail [which] are usually regarded as certain tests of sincerity." While there is no abundance of literature from the time of the Evangelists, nothing of what there has been discovered in any way calls into question their credibility. To the contrary, the more that is discovered, the more certain we are of their credibility. Whenever the Evangelists made references to historically known persons and events, we know them to be true. For example, we know from two secular historians, Tacitus and Josephus, that at the time of Jesus' crucifixion, Pilate was governor of Judea, and that it was normal for the governor alone to have the power to pass the death sentence. The derision, the scourging, the stripping, the beating, the written charges over His head - these are all known to be part of the process of crucifixion by the Romans. Although there are some who dispute the authenticity, Josephus, a devoted Jew and a Roman military commander, but not a Christian, wrote a famous history called the Antiquities of the Jews. This is what he wrote: "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." (Jewish Antiquities 18,3,3) It is also fairly well known that archeologists have excavated a Christian tomb in the clay limestone hills around Jerusalem which housed ossuaries (stone boxes containing the bones of dead people.) On all four sides of these ossuaries, were found charcoal-drawn crosses, and pottery was found of a type known as Herodia, as well as a coin minted by Agrippa I in the year 41 A.D. Consequently, we know that this was a Christian tomb, dating 41 A.D., less than 10 years after Jesus’ crucifixion. Two of the ossuaries had the name Jesus inscribed on them. On one ossuary the name Jesus was followed by "iou," which is the Greek version of Yahweh, the name of God. In other words, the inscription read: "Jesus is God”. The other ossuary that bore the name "Jesus" had the Greek letters "aloth" following it. This is a Hebrew word written in Greek letters, meaning "ascended one." This then, is collateral evidence that ten years after Jesus’ crucifixion, Christians were buried with the belief that Jesus was God, and that Jesus was resurrected! Having passed all these tests, Greenleaf concluded that it was very reasonable to believe the accounts of these writers. One might go so far as to say that it would take a higher level of faith to pronounce their accounts false than if they are simply accepted at face value. The entire book by Greenleaf can be downloaded in eBook form by Clicking Here. - - Return to Top of this Page - Email a Link to this Page - Go To Next Article - Back To Articles Page - Listing of All Articles - - Download This Article This Page's Title Is: Your Name Is: Your Email Address Is: Your State and Country: Please identify your vocation: Senior Pastor. Associate Pastor. Youth Pastor. Lay Minister. Church Member. Which section of this site would you most likely return to? 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