(part 2)

Historical facts surrounding the Resurrection

Fact 1: Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin.

• ⁠Jesus’ burial was an old tradition: In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, we find Paul quoting a short and stylized teaching using rabbinical terms such as “receive” and “deliver” that indicate he was given this teaching from prior. This tradition probably goes back at least to Paul’s fact-finding visit to Jerusalem around AD 36, when he spent two weeks with Cephas and James (Gal. 1.18). It thus dates to within five years after Jesus’ death. So short a time span and such personal contact make it idle to talk of legend in this case. • ⁠All four gospels (including the oldest, Mark) are united on the burial story, which indicates it was not around long enough to be influenced by legend. • ⁠Given that the Sanhedrin were enemies to the Christian followers (since they handed Jesus over to the Romans), it is unlikely that this detail is fabricated. • ⁠No competing stories of Jesus’ burial exist.

Fact 2: Jesus’ tomb was found empty by some of his female followers.

• ⁠Like the burial tradition, the empty tomb tradition was also part of the early Gospel summary told in Mark. The story is simple and lacks embellishment of other comparable legends during that time (see the apocryphal Gospel of Peter for an example of comparative legend). • ⁠If the tomb were not empty, it would have been well-known and easily discoverable by anyone living in the nearby area. • ⁠The Jews accused Christ’s followers of hiding/stealing his body. As a point of embarrassment for the Jews, this would have been unfavorable to admit and would have likely been told a different way if the empty tomb was less certain. For instance, they could have just laughed it off and ridiculed them if the tomb wasn’t really empty. • ⁠It is unlikely this detail would have been fabricated, because the testimony of women was seen as unreliable and lesser in value during that day. If it were fabricated, then we should expect to see male followers finding the empty tomb instead of his female followers.

Fact 3: There exists early independent attestations of Jesus’ post-mortem appearances between the four gospels: to the crowd of 500, to Peter, to his 12 disciples, to his brother James, and to Saul of Tarsus.

• ⁠The list of witnesses of the appearances of Jesus are given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5-7, meaning the appearances are early and well attested in the pre-Markan tradition. • ⁠We have biblical data that neither James nor the rest of Jesus’ brothers believed in his divinity during his lifetime. There’s no reason to think the early Church would have generated fictitious stories about his brothers’ unbelief had they been genuine followers all along. • ⁠In addition, the 1st century historian Josephus records and confirms that James went on to be a leader in the early Church, eventually being martyred for his beliefs a few decades later.

Fact 4: The original disciples came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, despite every predisposition not to.

• ⁠The Jews had no cultural predisposition to believe in or understand a dying and rising Messiah. They largely believed that the Messiah would overthrow Rome and re-establish the new Jerusalem, as other fake messiahs of Jesus’ time tried to do. • ⁠Jesus was condemned as a heretic by the Jewish Sanhedrin, which is the exact opposite of what was expected of the Messiah. • ⁠The Jews did not believe that there would be any sort of resurrection prior to THE resurrection of all the dead at Judgment Day. Jesus’ resurrection to a glorified body was totally unheard of.