Is the Resurrection of Jesus Authentic?

Many critics claim that the Bible is unreliable, but the evidence of textual criticism reveals the opposite: the authors and manuscripts have been proven to be reliable and accurate, and so we can believe with certainty that Jesus died as historically documented. Christ Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. That’s a historical fact. However, the resurrection of Christ in flesh is of such importance to the Christian faith that the New Testament insists that no one can be saved without it (Romans 10:9; 1Corinthians 15:1-7). But is there any evidence that would suggest that the resurrection of Christ Jesus truly happened?

Before we investigate the resurrection itself, I believe it’s important that we first address the concern of Jesus’s burial. It is written that Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus so he could give Jesus a proper burial. Pilate wanted to make sure that Jesus was in fact dead and so he asked the Roman officer, who confirmed that Jesus was dead (Mark 15:44-45). Both Joseph and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus’s body in the burial cloth and laid it in a new tomb carved out of rock (Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53; John 19:38-40). Mary Magdalene and the other Mary saw where Jesus was laid (Mark 15:47). Not only was the body of Jesus seen, but Jesus’s body had also been physically examined while being wrapped according to Jewish custom (John 19:40). Further, Pilate sent Roman guards to the tomb to ensure that Jesus’s body was in the tomb and would remain in the tomb by ‘sealing’ the tomb (Matthew 27:65-66). This ‘seal’ would have been a rope or cord stretched across the stone that had been rolled over the entrance. The cord would then have been sealed at each end with clay and stamped with the official signet of the Roman government. However, the Pharisees added to the security by requesting that Roman soldiers guard the tomb for a few days in order to prevent the possibility of anyone stealing Jesus’s body and claiming that He had risen (Matthew 27:63-64). The stone that had been used to block the entrance would have been extremely large and heavy, with the minimum weight being around 440 pounds (200 kg) and the maximum weight being over a ton (2,000 lbs; 907 kg).

If Jesus came out of the tomb a few days later (and He did), it would not have been due to a lack of precaution. It is written that the heavy stone was moved from the entrance by two angels (Matthew 28:2-3; Luke 24:4). The guards’ reaction of fear is what motivated the guards to leave the tomb and go to the chief priests (Matthew 28:4, 11-15). It is written that a meeting with the elders was called and the religious leaders and the soldiers came to an agreement that they must tell everyone that Jesus’s disciples stole Jesus’s body while the guards had been sleeping (Matthew 28:12-15). But did the disciples steal Jesus’s body? I will actually address that objection later in this article.

Now, a powerful and unmistakable sign of the authenticity of Jesus’s resurrection can actually be found in the moment of first discovery. Jesus first appeared to a woman — Mary Magdalene (Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-11; Luke 24:1-10; John 20:11-18). Ponder on the implications of this! Why is that significant? It is safe to say that in the first century Jewish culture, a writer attempting to invent a resurrection account would never have taken this approach. In a male-dominated culture, a woman’s testimony was not even accepted in court. In contrast, a conjured story attempting to gain credibility would most likely choose a major disciple as the first witness, not a woman — especially not Mary Magdalene. Not only was Mary a woman, but she had once been demon-possessed. In fact, it is written that Jesus had cast out seven demons from her (Luke 8:2)! So, if a writer had been trying to conjure up a story with credibility, Mary would have been the last person someone would have chosen to use as the first witness of the resurrection.

In Acts 1:3, it is written that Jesus appeared to His disciples over a period of 40 days. It would have been quite easy to debunk the resurrection of Jesus within a 40-day span of time. Instead, the 40 days only solidified the faith of many.

The one everyone calls “doubting Thomas” refused to believe that Jesus came back from the dead unless he could see and touch Jesus for himself. And a week later, Thomas’s needs were met. In John 20:27-28, Jesus showed Himself to Thomas and said, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” To this unquestionably convincing display of physical evidence, Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!” So, in reality, no one should call this disciple “doubting Thomas” because he was most certainly a believer.

In Luke 24:39, Jesus said, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

The fact that Jesus still had physical wounds from His crucifixion is an unmistakable proof that He was resurrected in the material body in which He had been crucified. Yet the wounds were completely healed except for the holes. Again, a Bible critic such as Bart Ehrman would immediately reject this testimony, but GOD is the GOD of miracles and He is able to do what He pleases.

If Jesus had appeared only to those who were believers or had a propensity to believe, there might be legitimacy to the charge that the witnesses were prejudiced. But the opposite is true. In 1Corinthians 15:6, Paul wrote that Jesus appeared to more than 500 men at one time; moreover, Paul wrote that most of those witnesses were still alive at the time. Paul wrote in around 54 AD — only about 20 years after the resurrection! Paul challenged his readers to investigate what he was saying with this multitude of witnesses who saw and most likely heard Christ after His resurrection.

John 7:5 tells us that even Jesus’s own brothers didn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah prior to His crucifixion; Jesus’s brothers were unbelievers before the resurrection. After the resurrection, however, at least James and Jude became believers. James eventually wrote one of the books in the New Testament. So, whatever James saw or heard during this resurrection appearance of Christ not only converted him but also made him into a prominent figure in the apostolic church. In fact, the resurrection changed all the disciples. After Jesus’s death, His disciples became scared, skeptical, and then scattered. Yet only a few weeks later, the very same people who ran and hid in fear (John 20:19) became fearless and openly proclaimed the resurrection of Christ — even before the Sanhedrin, who were responsible for Christ’s death (Acts 4-5). The fact that a small band of once-fearful disciples became the world’s greatest fearless and faithful missionary society is ample testimony of their experience with the risen Lord. Witnesses to the resurrection had nothing to gain personally by their witness to the resurrection. They were persecuted and threatened. Most of the apostles were martyred. Yet they proclaimed the Truth of Christ and defended their claims in the face of death.

Christ did suffer the Roman execution and was crucified. The death of Christ had been confirmed. Further, Christ’s dead body was in the sealed tomb. However, the empty tomb was seen three days later, Christ’s body was not seen in the tomb, yet grave clothes were seen in the tomb. Jesus’s physical body was seen by witnesses, His voice and teachings were heard, and those who doubted even got to touch his physical body. If that’s not enough, Jesus also ate with them (John 21:13-15). Further, the reaction of the Jewish authorities is also testimony to the fact of Christ’s resurrection. They did not produce the body nor even organize a search to find the body. Instead of refuting the claims of the resurrection, they decided to retaliate with revenge and fought the disciples who testified they had seen the resurrected Christ.

Objections and Responses:

Throughout the centuries since Christ’s death and resurrection, skeptics have proposed explanations as to why the tomb was empty, yet in all their efforts, they only affirmed that the tomb was in fact empty. But the skeptics have never been able to provide good reason for the empty tomb. Some skeptics have said that Jesus was only unconscious and then later revived; however, this theory quickly falls apart — Jesus would not have survived after three days without food and water and loss of blood from all His injuries sustained from being scourged and then crucified. All the documentation proves that Jesus had died a physical death on a cross.

Some skeptics say that unknown thieves stole Jesus’s body from the tomb; however, the tomb was sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:65-66). In addition, the stone that had been placed in front of the tomb entrance was large and extremely heavy — even if the Roman soldiers had been asleep, they would have been awakened by the noise of the stone being moved.

Some skeptics have even gone so far to claim that Jesus’s disciples stole the body of Jesus and hid it; however, the disciples were ready to die for the Gospel (Acts 12:2). So for what ultimate end goal would they have stolen the body? Stealing Jesus’s body would have been admitting that their faith was meaningless. If they were willing to die for a meaningless faith, then they only would have done so to receive something out of it. But they did not receive power, money, or sex; instead, they got martyred. Moreover, if anyone had stolen the body of Jesus due to the guards being asleep, those guards would have been put to death. And this is the reason the religious leaders and guards made a deal for the guards to be protected (Matthew 28:14).

Some skeptics have discounted the guard story because it only appears in one of the four Gospels (Matthew). While it is true that Mark, Luke, and John do not mention the story, the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, probably written around 150 A.D., does mention it. It is likely that the Gospel of Peter records a tradition of the guard story that is independent of Matthew, since there are virtually no word similarities between the two accounts. Because the guard story has been transmitted through at least two different traditions, it is highly unlikely that it was a legend. In addition, Matthew was very meticulous in the telling of the Gospel; therefore, Matthew providing details others didn’t wouldn’t negate his testimony, it only reveals his attention to detail.

Some skeptics have said that the religious leaders stole Jesus’s body to produce it later; however, if the religious leaders had taken Jesus’s body, they would have produced it to stop the rumors of His resurrection.

Some skeptics have posed the theory that the disciples only hallucinated. Not only does group hallucinations lack scientific support, but the sightings of Jesus’s resurrected body was both individual and within a group. There were too many witnesses for all of them to have hallucinated the same thing yet in different places at different times. In addition, hallucinations typically last seconds or minutes, not hours, let alone the 40 days in which Jesus made appearances (Acts 1:3). Moreover, a few of them touched Jesus’s physical body and hallucinations don’t have physical bodies that can be touched. It also would have been impossible for Jesus’s disciples to have believed in their master’s resurrection if His corpse still lay in the tomb.

The lack of historical Jewish response to the empty tomb is strong evidence that the tomb was in fact empty. The Gospel of Matthew would not have been written if, at the time of writing, there was not a Jewish counterargument to the Christian understanding of the empty tomb. The disciples would not have continued to claim that the tomb was empty if it had not been empty. The tradition of the empty tomb was documented early in history and it is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions or presuppositions.

And finally, some skeptics pose the theory that the disciples went to the wrong tomb and that is why they saw it empty. But even if they did go to the wrong tomb, everyone knew it was the tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-60; Mark 15:43-46; John 19:38-42). Eventually, everyone would have figured out which tomb was the right one. Also, Mary Magdalene and Mary (mother of Joseph) saw Jesus placed in the tomb (Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55). So even if the disciples went to the wrong one, the women would have pointed them to the right one — you know, the one with Romans guarding it! However, it is written that Peter and John also went to the same tomb on that Sunday morning (John 20:3-9). But even if they did go to the wrong tomb, this would not account for all the people who witnessed Jesus’s resurrected body over a 40-day span of time in multiple places. Also, Paul, who had been a persecutor of the Christians, became a follower of Christ because of the risen Jesus. Further, James had been a skeptic, but became a believer because of the risen Jesus.

Conclusion:

All of the accumulated evidence leads us to an important question: If the New Testament writers were so careful to be exceedingly accurate in even the most minor and incidental details, wouldn’t they have been equally or even more careful in reporting on truly significant events, such as the miracles, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Unbelievers have had over 2,000 years to disprove the Bible and discount Christianity; however, in the thousands of years, Christianity still remains the most reasonable of all beliefs. The bodily resurrection of Christ is the crowning proof that Jesus was and is and will be who He claimed/claims to be (Hebrews 13:8): GOD incarnate; GOD manifested in human flesh; GOD with us; the great I AM. Why else would so many devout Jews have become Christians, changing from Saturday Sabbath to Sunday Worship, accepted the change in the meaning of baptism, accepted the change from Passover to commemoration to communion, accept that we are saved by grace and not by works, and stop their sacrificial system? Because Jesus proved that He was/is who He says He is and the resurrection of Jesus was authentic.

In 1Corinthians 15:12-22, Paul said, “Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

Next Investigation: Did Jesus ever claim to be GOD?