Viewing Single Post From: Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Viewing Single Post From: Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
DrMcK	Mar 2 2009, 04:36 PM
Newbie Posts: 4 Group: Members Member #174 Joined: March 2, 2009	Is Easter fact or fiction - did Jesus Christ Rise From Death In A Literal Bodily Resurrection? On Good Friday every year we are reminded that Jesus Christ died on a cross to give His life to save us. On Easter Sunday we are confronted with the claim that this self-sacrifice is unique because Jesus was not just any man, but the Son of God. This claim is based on His literal bodily resurrection – the evidence that, being God, Jesus could not be killed. If the resurrection of Jesus did not occur, then He is not God, not even the Son of God. Indeed He cannot even be a prophet, because He has to be a liar making false claims about himself. Christianity collapses. This is a fact. The logic is this: (i) The New Testament is based on translations of manuscripts which can be seen in museums today. Some of these manuscripts date back nearly to the writings of the original authors – the disciples of Jesus Christ. These disciples wrote their accounts well within living memory of the events being described. Of course, these manuscripts are hand-written copies, but although none of the original manuscripts survives, careful comparisons of the 5000 or so early manuscripts have eliminated most of the copyist errors. The minor doubtful texts can be easily found, e.g. by looking at the footnotes of the NIV Study Bible. There is no cover-up of errors – they are plain for all to see. Therefore, the text of the New Testament books is reliable and remarkably accurate. We have in modern Bibles an historical record of what was actually written within a few decades of the events. This is a fact. Therefore, so you can see the evidence for yourself, Bible references are given for you to check. (ii) Continuing along our logical path, since the New Testament record is highly accurate, either the writers of the New Testament were deceivers and wrote fiction, or they were honest and recorded fact. (iii) If they were deceivers, Jesus must have been a very poor judge of character, and His teachings and example a waste of time, for these men were called and trained by Him personally. So He was hardly God as He claimed He was! (iv) If then they were honest and wrote only what they had seen and heard, it follows that: 1. Jesus did in fact claim to be the Son of God [e.g. John :3:18; John 17:1] and eternal [John 8:58] and essentially God [John10:30]. 2. This was equivalent in the language of His time to claiming equality with God [John 5:18]. 3. Consequently the Jewish religious authorities opposed Him and eventually conspired with the Romans to have Him killed [John 8:59; John 10:31, 39]. 4. Jesus also claimed to be the only way to God [John 3:36; John 14:6]. 5. He stated that He would prove these claims by conquering death [Matthew 17:23; Matthew 27:63; Mark 8:31; John 2:19]. 6. Consequently if He had no literal resurrection, He was neither God nor the only way to God, but just yet another religious teacher. 7. So all the writers of the New Testament who also claim that Jesus was divine are wrong [e.g. John1:34, Romans 1:3,4], the passages where they report hearing God calling Jesus His Son are lies [e.g. Matthew3:17, John 3:16], the statements made by his disciples that they had witnessed His resurrection are lies [Acts 1:22; 1Corinthians 15:1-14] and Christianity collapses [1Corinthians 15:17]. So, what is the evidence for the resurrection? · Jesus was definitely killed. It was recorded at the time of the events by official Roman and Jewish historians. He had no identical twin or look-a-like who died in His place, because the whole purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to live a perfect life so He Himself could pay the price and be the sacrifice in our place for the sin of the whole of humanity [see John ch.3]. · He hanged from a wooden cross and bled to death, before soldiers checked up by pushing a spear into His side [John19:34,35]. He was buried in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb [John 19:38-42]. · So what happened next? We have the following options: (i) His followers secretly stole the corpse and then went about deceiving. (ii) the Jews stole the body and hid it. (iii) the Romans stole the body and hid it. (iv) some grave robbers took it. (v) Joseph of Arimathea moved it to a more suitable place. (vi) that Jesus had fainted on the cross and recovered in the cool grave. (vii) that the women made a mistook the tomb. (viii) He rose from death as promised and appeared to His followers. Let's look at each of these alternatives (i) to (viii) in turn: (i) After Jesus' death, His followers hid behind locked doors [John 20:26] their leader dead, their confidence gone. Not many weeks later, these same followers were standing in the city centre preaching the resurrection [Acts 3:15] so that they were summoned before the religious court [Acts 4:7], commanded to stop preaching [Acts 4:18] which they refused to do, despite the power of this court; threatened with death and even killed for spreading this resurrection news [Acts 6:8-15], imprisoned [Acts5:17,18] and publicly whipped and stoned [2Corinthians 11:23-27]. Later the early Christians were torn apart by lions in the Roman ‘circus’, or covered in tar and set alight as lamps by the emperor Nero, and suffered many other horrible persecutions. And the long list of Christian martyrs continued right up to today. Does this sound like the courage possessed by deceivers? They endured because they believed. (ii) The Jews had good reason to steal the body so that the grave would lose its importance and not become a shrine. However, when the resurrection story started to gain strength because the body had gone, what better way to destroy the disciples' hopes than by producing the body again? So why didn't they? It would have been difficult to steal it in the first place with Temple guards standing watch over it, probably 'on pain of death'! (iii) The Romans had allowed the body to be put in a tomb and had authorised a guard to be placed there to ensure that the whole situation died down. Why should they steal the body of a Jew? Even if they did, they would have even better reason to return it when the resurrection preaching started up and caused uproar. (iv) This seems most unlikely with Temple guards standing there watching a heavy rock which covered the tomb entrance. There would have had to have been a fairly large group, so it would have been a planned well-organised operation. Why? For profit? To sell the body? But to whom? Not to the poor disciples who went about later claiming resurrection; not to the Romans who wanted him dead and buried; not to the Priests who also wanted Jesus out of the way (and who would then have produced the body to quash the resurrection rumour, if they had had it). (v) Joseph was either a secret follower of Jesus who wanted him to have a decent burial, and/or a pious Jew who was anxious to honour the law requiring burial before sunset on Friday when the Sabbath began. If the latter, why not all three crucified corpses? It is more likely that he took the opportunity to nail his colours to the mast, and in fact there are some later documents indicating that the Priests were displeased with Joseph who was summoned before the Council. So why remove the body and keep this action a secret from the other disciples, especially when they started running around preaching his resurrection? (vi) This view is still held by Islam despite having been dismissed long ago by critical thinkers: seriously wounded, weakened by at least 36 hours' bleeding and hanging, bound by the tightly-drawn bandages, lying on a stone slab all night in April, somehow finding strength to push aside a massive stone, sneak away and hide somewhere unknown to his friends for nearly 7 weeks. Then deceive those same friends and pretend he had risen from death. This is the behaviour of a very sick liar, and is inconsistent with Jesus the healer, the prophet and preacher who claimed, “I am the truth” [John14:6]. (vii) It is possible to mistake the grave in the dark, but what about the gardener? In John 20:15 Mary assumed that the man she saw was the gardener at work. He would have known where the real tomb was, so if the resurrection story was based on a wrong identification of the tomb, all the Priests had to do was produce the gardener and then point to the body in the proper tomb. (viii) The physical resurrection and appearance to His disciples would account for their transformation from a defeated little group into a force which 'turned the world upside down'. On one day alone 3000 were converted [Acts 2:41] and the message was preached with such conviction and enthusiasm that it spread quickly throughout the known world. Many Christians down through the centuries have chosen to be tortured , imprisoned and killed, including recently in Islamic and communist states, rather than disown Jesus. Even now, 2000 years later, millions of Christians who have a living evangelistic faith claim to have a personal relationship with the risen living Lord Jesus Christ. A miracle yes, and hard to understand, but is there a better explanation? If not, then Jesus, the Son of God, still challenges you to admit you are a sinner, repent of your sins, acknowledge He is the unique Lord and Saviour of the world, ask Him to forgive your sins and become your personal Saviour, commit your life to Him, and follow His teaching in fellowship with other Christians. His the challenge; yours the choice.


Did Jesus really rise from the dead? · Bible