At this time of Easter Christians celebrate the foundation of their faith, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without the resurrection, the rest of the Christian faith is in vain, with it, the whole plan of God is fulfilled and validated. In other words, if the resurrection occurred it proves the existence of God and his plan for salvation.
With that in mind, I offer the proof that the Resurrection is a historical fact that be relied upon:
1. Although we debate it here, there is no real debate among historians that Jesus was a real life person.
2. There is no real debate among historians that Jesus died on the cross and was buried in a tomb.
3. The Bible tells us that the tomb was empty in such a manner that , particularly for ancient texts, is historically reliable. For this I quote Michael Grant, a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge and professor at Edinburgh University in his book Jesus an Historian's Review of the Gospels, "True, the discovery of the empty tomb is differently described by the various Gospels, but if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply toany other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conlusion that the tomb was indeed found empty."
4. Paul writes in 1Corinthians 15, which is one of the earlist, if not the earlist writings about Jesus ( between A.D. 55-57), that the tomb was empty and that Jesus appeared to himself and to five hundred people some of which are still living at the time he wrote it. If this were not true, these folks could have clearly refuted it.
5. Even before Paul, there is some evidence that the Aspostles were preaching the resurrection immediately after it occurred as recorded in Acts.
6. The Gospels record a wealth of sightings of Jesus and physical interaction with him by multiple people, some individually and some in groups.
7. The circumstanital evidence in that the disciples, as eyewitnesses to the resurrection died for what they knew to be true, what they knew they saw and heard when they had interaction with the risen Lord. Far different then being willing to die for what they thought to be true, they were willing to die for something they had seen with their own eyes and touched with their own hands. There were elevan people, with no ulterior motives with nothing to gain and alot to lose who all agree that they observed something with their own eyes.
8. The skeptics of the day were converted upon experiencing the resurrected Christ. These include Paul who was Saul beforehand and James, who some claim is Jesus' brother.
9. Immediately after Jesus rose, within five weeks, over ten thousand Jews are following him and overthrowing century old social structures that they believe had been given to them by God. Those numbers continued to grow.
With all of this evidence, there is ample reason to believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a true historical event which validates the Christian religion and for that matter, the Bible as a whole.
God Bless
