PROOFS OF THE RESURRECTION

 

PROOFS OF THE RESURRECTION

I believe that there is solid evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  First, there were many witnesses.  St. Paul writes to the Corinthians that after his appearance to Cephas (Peter) and the apostles “he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:6).  We know that Paul wrote his letter sometime between AD 55 and 57, only twenty years after the death of Christ.  His letter was quickly copied and passed around to Christians in Greece, Asia Minor (Turkey), and Palestine.  If what he wrote was false, it would have easily been discovered and condemned.

Many Jews in Jerusalem came to believe in Christ on and after Pentecost, after hearing the preaching of Peter, the apostles, and others who had seen him alive after his death.  The same men who had run away when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane were now boldly proclaiming that he had risen from the dead!  Some were beaten and imprisoned by the authorities. The first martyr of the Church was one of the first deacons, St. Stephen, who was stoned to death by Jewish religious leaders for his testimony about the Resurrection of the Lord.  A great persecution then broke out and Christians fled the city, bringing with them the message of Christ to the surrounding regions. 

Who would die for something they made up?  Who would be willing to lose their home and be exiled for a lie?  What advantage would it have been to the apostles to preach that Jesus rose from the dead if it were not true?  Some claim that it was a massive hallucination, but hallucinations do not last long, and they do not affect many people over extended areas.  Moreover, the writings of the apostles, the evangelists and others clearly evidence their intelligence and clear-headedness.  They do not come across in their writings as people who are easily deluded, or as those who seek to deceive. 

St. Paul was the last apostle to see Christ.  He met him on the road to Damascus a year or two after Christ had ascended to the Father.  He was on his way to arrest the Christians in Damascus when Christ appeared to him in a blazing light and knocked him on the ground.  This experience convinced Paul that the Christians spoke the truth, and he was baptized by a Christian in Damascus.  The radicalness of his conversion is strong testimony to the truth of his account of meeting the risen Lord, which is given three times in the Book of Acts.  Scholars and historians recognize Paul as one of the leading minds of his day.  There is no evidence to indicate any weakness of mind or susceptibility to hallucination.    

The rapid spread of Christianity in the ancient world is well testified in archaeology and literature, including by non-Christian authors.  One of them was the famous Jewish general named Josephus, who fought in the war against Rome which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70.  He wrote in “The Antiquities of the Jews” about Jesus’ wonder-making and his death and Resurrection: “He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”

Christianity rises or falls on the truth of Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead.  The apostles recognized this fact, as reflected by St. Paul in this passage: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty, too, your faith…If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.  But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:13-14, 19-20).  Our faith in Christ, which is a gift of God, has firm historical foundations.