Central to Biblical Christian is the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  The Gospels proclaim the physical resurrection of Jesus, with Acts and the epistles affirming that Jesus resurrection was a key component of the faith of Jesus early disciples.  Apart from the redeeming death and resurrection of Jesus, Christianity is only a system of morality, a philosophy of life.  The resurrection of Jesus declares that Christianities founder has conquered death and has the ability to free his followers from the finality of death.  Without the resurrection of Jesus, our faith in a God who has a purpose for us is in vain; we are wasting our time as Christians.  But is there any reason, other than faith, for believing that Jesus really did rise from the dead?  The intent of this essay is to examine this question.  Let me start off by admitting that there is no way to prove that the resurrection occurred, any more than we can prove that George Washington crossed the Delaware or that Hannibal led an army against Rome.  History is not open to proof.  We have to examine the things that are left behind by the event, whether written or in some other form, and evaluate this 'evidence' to determine the probability of the event actually happening.  That is what I will be trying to do here.  I will present the evidence for the resurrection and will leave it up to you to evaluate its probability.

Before looking at the evidence lets examine the resurrection event itself.  Just what is it that is supposed to have occurred?  According to the Gospel accounts Jesus was crucified by the Romans and, and after his death, placed into a tomb.  On Sunday morning the tomb is discovered to be empty.  Shortly thereafter, and for the next 40 days, Jesus appears to many of his disciples before ultimately being taken up into heaven.  In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul quotes what appears to be a creed of the early church that describes their belief.  "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born."  The later part of this ‘creed’ appears to be an update to the eye witness list of the resurrection.

The claim made that Jesus had risen from the dead is not unique to him.  It is made for others as well.  What sets Jesus resurrection apart is that it was permanent.  Lazarus died again.  Jesus did not.  He is claimed to be still alive and at work on our behalf in heaven.  What makes the resurrection of Jesus even more challenging for us than other historical events is its supernatural nature.  This is not something that is possible in the world we live in without supernatural intervention.  The miraculous nature of the resurrection further complicates our ability to rationally explain what happened.  It seems we are called upon to suspend rational thought to be able to accept this miraculous event as being true.

The Scriptures

There are three primary pieces of evidence I would like to present. The first of these are the scriptural accounts.  I understand that the Bible is a biased account but I believe that there is something to be gained by looking at it.  These gospel accounts are told from differing perspectives and with different goals.  And yet each one of them invests an inordinate amount of time in the last week of Jesus life, especially concerning Jesus trials, death and resurrection.  For the gospel writers, the death and resurrection of Jesus was the most important event that they were attempting to get across.  In addition there are passages outside of the gospels that affirm the belief of the early church in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  This was a key point in Paul's teaching that is illustrated in the passage quoted above as well as in numerous other places.  While the scriptural references may not convince you of Jesus resurrection, it should be clear that this was the explicit belief of the early church from a fairly early period of time.  The 1 Corinthians passage quoted above was written about 60 A.D. But is appears to date back to a much earlier time.  Paul had likely received it as a relatively young Christian, which would date it to within 10 years of the event.  Jesus' resurrection was not a later invention of the church, but seems to have been there from the beginning.

The Empty Tomb

The second thing I would like to look at is the tomb itself.  There seems to be little question that the tomb Jesus was placed in was discovered empty just a few days later.  Many explanations for the empty tomb have been given over the years.  Included in this list is that someone had moved the body, that the empty tomb was incorrectly identified or that he had not died but only swooned.  Much as been written about these theories but I would like to briefly recap them here.

There are two possibilities for Jesus body having been moved.  Either his disciples moved the body so that they could claim that he had indeed been resurrected or the religious leaders and/or Roman authorities had moved it to provide better security.  Neither of these seems too likely.  If Jesus enemies had moved the body it would have been pretty easy for them to produce it and prove that the resurrection had not occurred.  If that had happened, Christianity would have died there.  But it did not.  Even with Jesus followers proclaiming his resurrection in the streets of Jerusalem, where he had been killed and buried, there was no body produced by those who could have most profited by doing so.  What if Jesus disciples had stolen the body in order to make it appear like his prophecy had been fulfilled?  That certainly appears to be possible.  The problem with this is twofold.  The picture painted of Jesus disciples before Jesus death was of a group that did not expect that Jesus would be resurrected.  They had expected him to become the king of Israel with them as his primary advisors.  Jesus death, in spite of the number of times he had foretold it, seems never to have sunk in.  The other, and bigger, issue is the fact that none of them seemed to have ever slipped up and admitted to their deception, even as they faced death.  If they had stolen the body, they died for no reason and with no apparent gain for themselves except for the suffering that came as a result of their claim.

The idea of an incorrectly identified tomb may have a little appeal but it has the same problem as the body being moved by Jesus enemies.  It would have been a pretty simple task on the part of the Jewish religious leaders to have found and produced the body if it was still in a tomb.  But they never did.

Finally, picture someone who had been crucified by Roman soldiers. These guys knew what they were doing and they were very diligent about it.  It is highly unlikely that they would have allowed Jesus to be removed from the cross unless they were convinced of his death.  But suppose they had.  Now Jesus is in a cave, severely wounded and suffering from extreme blood loss.  With no attention from anyone, he revived, single handedly moved the stone at the entrance to the tomb,
traveled into town and found his disciples, convinced them that his bloody and beaten body had been resurrected and then disappeared to die in a hole somewhere.  The supernatural resurrection of Jesus seems more plausible than that.

So how else do you explain the empty tomb?  There just does not seem to be any natural explanation that can adequately answer that question. Few will deny the empty tomb.  But apart from the resurrection there seems to be no other way to explain it.

Transformed Lives

The final piece if evidence I want to bring up are the disciples themselves.  The gospel accounts present them in a pretty unfavorable light.  They never seem to grasp what Jesus is trying to tell them, especially when he talked about his upcoming death and resurrection. And after his death they are found hiding out of fear of the religious authorities.  What could be gained from painting them in this light if it was not true?  And yet within a couple of months of Jesus death they are boldly proclaiming Jesus resurrection in the streets of Jerusalem.  Acts 4:13 most clearly describes this transformation as they stand before the Jewish religious leaders, themselves on trial: "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus."  While we do not know with much certainty all that these men did through the remainder of their lives it does appear they gave themselves over to proclaiming Jesus and his resurrection.  And ultimately most of them died for that same cause. What would cause them to do this?  A conspiracy on their part to carry on the memory of a beloved teacher?  Maybe, but it is not likely that they would willingly die for their deception.  Yet is appears that is exactly what happened.  Maybe it was a mass hallucination?  But that doesn't happen.  Hallucinations are a very personal individual.  And it is especially not likely when they are not expecting it to be true. So what is it that transformed these men 'who had been with Jesus', turning them from cowards into fearless men, proclaiming that a dead guy had risen to die no more?  Maybe they had really seen him alive after his resurrection and that experience had changed their lives.

Conclusion

None of these evidences are enough, either singly or collectively, to conclusively prove that Jesus was resurrected from the grave.  That is an admittedly impossible task.  Ultimately the choice to accept that Jesus rose from the dead is one of faith.  But it need not be blind faith.  There is sufficient reason to believe if one is willing to. But if many of those who were historically and geographically close to the event refused to believe that it had occurred, it is to be expected that many today would also choose not to accept that Jesus has risen.  After all, it is not just a matter of accepting that this miracle had occurred.  The bigger issue is what to do about it.  If, as the gospels and the Christian church affirm, Jesus rose from the dead, it lends credence to the claims he made about himself.  And it calls on us to respond appropriately to his claim to be the savior of the world.