Evidence for Easter, Reasons to Rejoice!

At Easter Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Good Friday remembers the day when Jesus died at the hands of the Roman authorities outside the city of Jerusalem in First Century Israel. Easter Sunday celebrates the day when Jesus was resurrected from death and abandoned the tomb. The first part to Easter is far more palatable to non-Christians as it can be interpreted in a number of ways – a good, moral teacher who was martyred in the name of love and non-resistance to violence; an example of other-centred, sacrificial love to his followers; or the tragic death of a spiritual leader who was misunderstood and resented by bigoted religious leaders. Jesus death needn’t even be a historical event. It could be a mere fable or legend that contains moral and spiritual truth, a kind of allegory for people to appropriate and apply to their lives personally. 

But the second part of the Easter story – the resurrection of Jesus from the grave is far more offensive and problematic to non-Christians and opponents of Christianity. For the resurrection (should it be true) means not only that Jesus’ death was an historical event, but that the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth is also the Messiah, God’s anointed one and the incarnate Son of God. Christianity then is unique amongst the world’s major religions in that its central figure is intricately connected to the events of human history. God is not just a transcendent, immaterial or pantheistic entity. God is not just the pot of gold found at the end of the gnostic rainbow of enlightenment. God is a personal, conscious, relational Being. One that reveals Himself to humanity not only through His creation (universe) but also through the second person of the Trinity: Jesus Christ. 

However, what if the resurrection could be proven false? What if the original disciples in their grief were merely hallucinating? What happens if the resurrection was a later fabrication and a mythologizing of Jesus, in order to win over converts in a Greco-Roman world steeped in the pagan beliefs of dying and rising gods – the so called mystery religions? Then Christianity just becomes wish fulfilment, it becomes a story that tries to ground hope in something substantial and not just abstract, but not a true reflection of reality. In other words it is a lie. 

So, because the resurrection is of such fundamental importance to the teachings and claims of the Christian faith what is the evidence? And what are the strengths of the arguments of Christianity’s sceptics? 

The evidence for the resurrection:

Scholars generally agree in the dating of the Gospels and writings of Paul in the New Testament. Mark’s Gospel was the first Gospel to be written either early-to-mid 50s AD. Because Matthew and Luke both use Mark as a source for their own Gospels, an extant source known as ‘Q’, as well as internal and external data (such as the lack of mention of the Fall of Jerusalem in AD 70) they’re dated between the mid-50s- mid 60s AD. John’s Gospel was the last to be written sometime between 70 and 100 AD. In terms of ancient texts the canonical Gospels of the New Testament were written relatively close to the events they describe, when compared to other ancient writings. This coupled with the fact that the ancient Near East had a strong tradition and culture of oral communication as a way of disseminating information, means that the theories of mythologizing the Gospels are very weak. Luke begins his gospel by identifying the purpose, intention and audience of his gospel:

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” Luke 1:1-4

Here Luke explains the source of the evidence for his gospel:

1.    “Who from the beginning were eyewitnesses…have delivered them to us”, the information in his gospel did not just come from oral tradition that has been passed down in a clumsy “Chinese Whispers” fashion, but eyewitness testimony.

2.    “Some time past” Luke has followed closely the expansion and events of the early church for many years, meaning the information has not been mythologized and remains rooted in the eye witness accounts.

3.    “Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” Luke’s patron is identified in name. Theophilus is a gentile believer who wants certainty about this new faith he has learnt about, to see if it has any credibility and truth to it. This is evidence of a kind of empiricism. Theophilus does not blindly accept the resurrection story, such as ancients are caricatured to gullibly or superstitiously be, but seeks empirical, observational evidence of the empty tomb. 

Then there is the criterion of embarrassment. Several facts are mentioned within the Gospels that would have been embarrassing for the early disciples and thus would have been prime candidates for omission or editing if the Gospels were not historical reliability. One such fact relates directly to the resurrection of Jesus – Jesus’ empty tomb was first reported by Jesus’ female followers. This causes an embarrassment for the early church’s testimony because the testimony and witness of women was not given credence in the ancient world, especially in a court of Law. 

“When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb…and looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back – it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here.” Mark 16:1-6

This account would have potentially damaged the early church’s credibility; especially over the most important event in Jesus’ life and the proof of Jesus’ divinity. The Church stands or falls on the resurrection. In a patriarchal world where women were subordinate to men, and in a country whose national religion was strictly monotheistic, in whose belief system the Resurrection was a universal event on the Judgement Day of God and who had no concept of individual resurrection; in order for the resurrection to be taken seriously it had to be a real historical event. The empty tomb must have been a physical reality otherwise the early church would never have existed. In light of the fact that this message is so important to the Christian faith, the only reason to account for the women finding the empty tomb (as it had the potential to be so damaging to the acceptance of the resurrection) is because it is true. The women really were the first to find the empty tomb and their eye witness report was trustworthy and later verified by the other disciples. 

These are just two proofs from the Gospels themselves. However, there is also evidence and internal proofs of the resurrection in the letters of Paul.  The letter of 1 Corinthians is approximately dated to AD 54-55 only 24-25 years after the death of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 Paul reminds the Corinthian church of the Gospel he preached to them:

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you… For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve.” 

1.    “Remind you…I preached to you” Biblical scholars believe that Paul’s original preaching of the Gospel to the Corinthians could be dated as early as AD 50. That is only 20 years after Jesus’ death.

2.    “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received” Paul here is referring to his meeting with Peter and James in Jerusalem found in Galatians 1:18-19, three years after his conversion to Christ. Paul’s conversion is dated to between one and three years after Jesus’ death, as he was riding to Damascus to persecute the early church community there after the martyrdom of Stephen. So Paul’s meeting with the leaders of the Jerusalem church took place approximately six years after Jesus’ death.

3.    “He was buried, that he was raised on the third day” As Peter was an eyewitness to Jesus’ resurrection this means we have internal evidence within the New Testament that the historical resurrection of Jesus was at the heart of the Christian Gospel from its very inception. Paul is writing 25 years after the death of Jesus about a visit to the Corinthian church about 20-22 years after the death of Jesus, in which he preached to them the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection that had been conveyed to him six years after Jesus’ death by Peter who was an eyewitness to Jesus’ resurrection. Thus we have a direct link back to the resurrection of Jesus outside of the Gospels inside the New Testament.

The arguments against the resurrection:

Sceptics have explicated many theories that argue against the historicity of the resurrection. Here are some of them:

1.    Hallucination Theory

2.    Swooning on the Cross Theory

3.    Wrong Tomb Theory

4.    The mythologizing of the resurrection based on ancient pagan mystery religions

The Hallucination Theory claims the disciples in their grief experienced an encounter with Jesus that appeared real to them but in fact was not. These resurrection “appearances” were nothing more than hallucinations. The problem with this theory is that there are many separate reports in the Gospels of Jesus appearing to over 500 people, some individually, others collectively. Jesus spoke to, ate with and touched these people in many different locations. Psychologists on the other hand, explain that group hallucinations of this kind are not possible. The accounts of the risen Jesus vary too widely to conform to typical hallucination experiences. They are not ghostly or outer-body entities as is common to hallucinations.

The Swooning on the Cross Theory is also incredibly weak. This theory argues Jesus did not really die on the cross but rather fainted and was buried in a kind of comatose state. This theory struggles to give a realistic account of the Easter events for several reasons. Jesus was subject to flogging before crucifixion. Roman flogging was so severe that it occasionally caused death in itself. Jesus was so weak after his flogging that he could not even carry his own cross beam, and a man named Simon of Cyrene had to carry it for him. The act of crucifixion itself left no possibility for survival. Victims were nailed to the cross through their wrists and feet/ankles. The weight of the body would pull the victim down and because of the extension of the arms would cause suffocation as the diaphragm is not able to work properly. Victims would be left on the cross for days until death. Crucifixion was so tortuous and such a painful and slow death that it was illegal for any Roman citizen who had been given the death penalty to die via crucifixion. 

As Jesus was crucified the day before the Sabbath (Friday) and the Jews believed it was a curse to leave people on the cross over the Sabbath, the Chief Priests ordered the Roman centurions to break the legs of the victims, in order for them to die more quickly and thus be taken off the cross before the Sabbath. When the Roman centurions came to Jesus they found he was already dead and so to make sure they pierced his ribs with one of their spears. The Gospel accounts record blood and water pouring out of the wound, which modern medical science has since identified and explained as pericardial fluid that amasses in the pericardial cavity of the heart. So Jesus was pierced directly in the heart.

Lastly, even if Jesus had survived flogging, crucifixion and being pierced through the heart, how could he have recovered in three days and been strong enough to remove the stone that was rolled in place of the entrance of the tomb, to stop the disciples from stealing Jesus’ body? It would have been impossible. 

The Wrong Tomb Theory is very simple. Jesus’ female followers went to the wrong tomb the morning after the Sabbath. If this theory were true then the Jewish and Roman authorities only needed to point to the correct tomb, with stone and body still in place to have discredited the disciples claim to the resurrection. The fact that they could not and that no body was produced to counter the claims of the resurrection prove this theory is false. It cannot explain the phenomenon of the rise of the early church.

Finally the theory of the mythologizing of the resurrection based on ancient pagan mystery religions. This theory claims that the early church mythologized Jesus’ life, death and resurrection by appropriating ancient pagan mystery religions to appeal to the Greco-Roman world. The ancient pagan mystery religions and cult of Isis and Osiris are claimed to involve dying and rising gods, and thus Jesus’ resurrection is just a retelling of this ancient story. This theory has come under heavy criticism by critical scholarship. 

The ancient pagan myths of dying and rising gods are based on the vegetation cycle of the seasons and are allegories of fertility and the cycle of nature. Jesus’ resurrection carries with it a dramatically different spiritual teaching in that Jesus’ sacrifice is seen as an atoning, substitutionary death for human sin, based on a Judeo world view of sin and the origin of Man. This Christian teaching departs strikingly from the stories of the pagan religions. 

The “resurrection” accounts of the pagan myths bear no resemblance at all to the resurrection of Jesus. Osiris’ body was dismembered and his wife Isis pieced his body back together, after which Osiris became Lord of the Underworld. His “resurrection” is hardly bodily in an earthly sense. In none of the pagan myths do the gods die voluntarily or for the intention of helping humanity. Their deaths are results of accidents, murder and self-emasculation.

The pagan mystery religion theory also suffers from anachronisms. Pagan mystery religions were very confined to specific locations until around AD 100. Thus as the resurrection was of central importance to the Gospel from the beginning of the Christian movement it did not have exposure to these pagan mystery religions at the time the Gospels were written. Moreover, the manuscript evidence and source material for the pagan mystery religions come from the Third Century AD. Proponents of this theory uncritically reconstruct and reason back these beliefs retrospectively into their ancient forms prior to Christianity. This is poor scholarship. The mystery religions were nonexclusive, they borrowed ideas from one another and adherents could be members of several cults, so the opposite is more likely to be true. The fact that the source material used by proponents comes hundreds of years after the New Testament means it is chronologically incorrect.

Furthermore, the theory commits the logical fallacy of false cause. This fallacy is committed by reasoning, falsely, that just because two things exist beside one another that one must have caused the other. The writers of the New Testament would never have borrowed and appropriated the beliefs of paganism because the historical resurrection is based in First Century, monotheistic Israel. For Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah any association with paganism would have discredited that claim. These reasons, combined with the historical evidence and reliability of the eye witness testimony of Jesus’ resurrection prove that the mystery religions theory is anachronistic and logically false. 

 

The claims and implications of the resurrection are far too important to be indifferent to or reject arbitrarily due to a naturalistic view on miracles. The arguments and evidence for the resurrection of Jesus (only touched upon in this essay) is far more compelling and convincing than the arguments against. These sceptical arguments are very weak, whereas the evidence for the resurrection are both individually strong as well as sequentially strong, each corroborating the next. The resurrection is a life changing event. Jesus’ resurrection means that Jesus was indeed the incarnate Son of God. His death paid the price for our sin and through his resurrection there can be forgiveness, new spiritual life and one day eternal life in a renewed resurrected body. Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of God’s revelation to humanity and brings us into a relationship with God.