Perhaps the most
important question of the entire Bible is the question of Jesus’ death, burial,
and resurrection. To put it plainly: Did Jesus rise from the dead? If Jesus was crucified, in reference of
history, and he died, and was placed in a tomb, and he simply stayed dead, then
Christianity is nothing. But if Jesus
was crucified, buried, but after three days he physically resurrected from the
dead, then Jesus was really God on Earth.
And everything he said and did matters infinitely.
Verified historical sources tell us that
Jesus was a real person who was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Galilee.
Historians also tell us that Jesus spoke, and lived, and was crucified under
the Romans, probably around the age of 30-33. History also records that Jesus died,
and was placed in a particular tomb, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. History
also tells us that the tomb was found to be empty. We will examine, briefly, several prominent
views of the historical fact of the empty tomb, and how to explain it
historically. We will then examine which
view is most accurate given history. Then we’ll consider the positive evidence.
Jesus is mentioned as a historical person in
multiple sources, such as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, the Babylonian
Talmud, and Lucian among others (Gleghorn, 2001).
But the New Testament
scriptures are themselves more historically attested to than any of these
sources, with 5,868 ancient Greek manuscript copies (Slick, 2008). The accuracy
of these manuscripts when compared to one another are 99.5% accurate (Slick,
2008). The only differences between these manuscripts are minor spelling and
grammar errors that don’t impact the meaning substantially (Slick, 2008). Therefore,
I would make the contention, as is the general consensus in history, that the
New Testament documents are historically reliable and outside historical
sources prove beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth did exist, was
crucified, and his tomb was found to be empty.
Now the real
question is, did Jesus rise from the dead? The tomb was empty, that much is
historically known. So how do historians
explain the empty tomb? The most direct
explanation would be that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead. Christianity
spread quickly after the crucifixion. In
fact, each of Jesus’ disciples aside from John were martyred for their faith
(Gertz, 2008). History records that each
of them died proclaiming that Jesus had risen from the dead (Gertz, 2008). Why would they die for something that wasn’t
true? In fact, there are historically recorded events in which Jesus appears to
people after his death, including at one point when he appeared to over 500
people (1 Corinthians 15:6). The best answer is that Jesus really did rise from
the dead.
But there are other
arguments that are put forward as possible alternatives to this
hypothesis. Some would contend that the
disciples of Jesus went to the tomb and stole the body, and then proclaimed
that Jesus had resurrected. That’s one
theory. Another theory is that Jesus’
disciples were so devoted to him and wished so greatly for their master to
still be alive that they hallucinated seeing Jesus. Still another theory is that Jesus didn’t
really die on the cross. He was only injured, or drugged, and later he
recovered from his injuries and appeared as if he had resurrected. They call this the “Swoon theory.” Additionally, there are several other less
prominent theories, such as the women went to the wrong tomb or the Roman
authorities themselves removed the body of Jesus, but these theories are quite
unlikely, so we will not explore them further here. Instead we will look at the three main
counter theories, the stolen body theory, the mass hallucination theory, and
the swoon theory.
The first theory is
that the disciples stole the body (Storms, 2017). The stolen body theory is not
likely because it is recorded that the disciples were so terrified that they
fled when Jesus was arrested and brought before Pontius Pilate (John 20:19). In addition, Roman guards were present during
the crucifixion monitoring the situation.
And it’s recorded in the scriptures that guards were placed outside the
tomb of Jesus to guard against any possible tampering (Matthew 27:62-28:15). Roman guards would face execution for failing
to fulfill their orders, especially in a situation like this, where stakes were
high. When combining the reality that
the disciples were fearful and in hiding, and the tomb was guarded by Roman
soldiers, it is highly unlikely that the disciples stole the body. Additionally, how does one championing this
theory explain the post-crucifixion appearances of Jesus?
The mass
hallucination theory indicates that the disciples were hallucinating when they
thought they saw Jesus (Storms, 2017).
They wanted Jesus to be alive so badly that they hallucinated. However, there are several problems with this
theory. First of all, how does one
explain that all the disciples saw Jesus, together? How do they explain that a crowd of over five
hundred people all saw Jesus at the same time?
Were all of them hallucinating?
And how could all the same people have the same hallucination? None of this makes any sense. Hallucinations are not shared among the same
people. Therefore, the mass
hallucination theory fails on these grounds.
The “swoon theory”
is that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross (Storms, 2017). First of all, Jesus was scourged by the
Romans, and forced to carry his own cross (Matthew 27:26, John 19:17). He had a crown of thorns forced around his
head. He would’ve been bleeding
profusely. He was then nailed to the
cross, on the wrists and through the feet, areas that would cause high amounts
of bleeding. Jesus was hoisted upon the
cross for at least three hours, probably much longer (Matthew 27:46). He would’ve struggled with massive loss of
blood, difficulty breathing, exhaustion, and dehydration.
And we read in the gospels that Jesus was
pierced with a Roman spear to make sure he was dead (John 19:34). It was
recorded that blood and water flowed from the location where he was
pierced. The water and the blood
would’ve been clear evidence that Jesus was dead. According to J. Warner Wallace (2014) “Anyone
beaten as badly as Jesus in the hours prior to his crucifixion would surely
have suffered circulatory shock and heart failure. When this happens,
pericardial or pleural effusion typically results. Water begins to form around
the heart or in the lungs. If this happened to Jesus, water would pour from his
body if the soldier’s spear entered into either of these two regions.” Medical science tells us that the water and
the blood shows that Jesus was in fact quite dead. For this reason, the swoon theory is certainly
false.
So why should we
believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Well there are several good reasons to
believe this. Once again we can mention
how Christianity rapidly spread from Jerusalem and into the ancient Roman
empire, being preached by the same disciples who fled into hiding after Jesus
was crucified. These same terrified
disciples became as bold as lions to travel as missionaries across the ancient
world when they encountered the resurrected Jesus. The example of the Apostle Paul is also
telling. He encountered the resurrected
Jesus on the Damascus road and he went from being a persecutor of the early
church to one of its most ardent heroes (Galatians 1:23). Jesus appeared to over five hundred witnesses,
and it was recorded by the apostle Paul that while he was writing his letter
many of these people were still alive (1 Corinthians 15:6). He in effect invited readers to go and ask
these eyewitnesses about when they saw Jesus. Jesus of course also showed
himself to his disciples on the Emmaus road, along the sea of Galilee, and to
James, after his crucifixion. Given the
spread of Christianity from a few thousand persecuted Jewish Christians to
being the most prominent religion in the world today, the empirical and
historical evidence is strong that Jesus did in fact resurrect from the dead
(Hackett & McClendon, 2017).
Additionally, even today millions of people testify to the fact that
Jesus has changed their lives. This all
forms a cumulative case that we can indeed believe that Jesus Christ rose from
the dead.
In conclusion there
is much evidence to believe historically that the tomb was empty, and that
Jesus did rise from the dead. Though
non-believers put forward several alternative theories to the resurrection,
those arguments do not hold water when compared with recorded history and the
facts involved in the situation. Given the cumulative evidence for Jesus’
resurrection, we can believe that Jesus is bodily resurrected, and is our true
Lord, King, and Savior.
References
Geisler,
N. L. (2012). The big book of Christian apologetics: An A to Z guide.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
Slick,
M. (2017, June 09). Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry. Retrieved
October 31, 2018, from
https://carm.org/disciples-stole-jesus-body-and-faked-his-resurrection
