The Resurrection:
God's Supreme Act of Love
“When our last hour comes, we will have the great and ineffable joy of seeing the One whom we could only glimpse in all our work.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855)
By the Editorial Staff
Updated 7/28/2023
What Do Christians Believe About Jesus?
The basic tenets and storylines held within Christianity are described in the Bible. Christianity adheres to the belief that Jesus was born in Bethlehem from the Virgin Mary in the days of King Herod, circa 6-4 BC. In biblical texts, little is told about his first 30 years of life, apart from a story of young Jesus teaching at a local temple. It’s believed he lived in obscurity as a carpenter, following his father Joseph’s trade. He was baptized by John the Baptist. Jesus’ public ministry lasted around three years (while he was 30-33 years old), during which he served as a preacher, teacher, and healer. He performed many miracles and attracted many followers. Near the end of his life, Jesus shared the Last Supper with his 12 apostles. Judas Iscariot, one of the apostles, betrayed Jesus by handing him over to the Roman authorities in exchange for 30 pieces of silver, leading to Jesus’ arrest. Jesus was put on trial for blasphemy, condemned by Pontius Pilate, tortured, and crucified alongside two robbers. Jesus died and was buried in a tomb belonging to a man named Joseph of Arimathea. After Jesus’ death, the central element that defines what it means to be a Christian occurred: the resurrection of Jesus.
Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead after being crucified. On the third day following Jesus’ death, female followers, including Mary Magdalene, visited the tomb to find his body missing. Mary saw Jesus after his resurrection and returned to the apostles to announce Jesus’ resurrection. In the following days, Jesus also appeared to many other witnesses. The biblical narrative describes him ascending to Heaven 40 days after the resurrection, where he now sits at God’s right hand.
To correctly assess the resurrection narratives found in the Bible and to assess the Christian beliefs on the resurrection, we must ask, is there any evidence of Jesus’ resurrection besides the Bible? Are there arguments outside the Bible that might lead someone toward or away from the Christian belief in the resurrection? Let’s begin by establishing whether a man named Jesus existed in the first place.
Historical Evidence of Jesus
The Bible is not the only historical evidence of Jesus. Non-Christian sources have attested to the existence of a person named Jesus who was thought by his followers to be Christ, someone anointed by God. Below is a sample of such references that demonstrate the existence and death of Jesus and his subsequent following.
Jesus’ existence was acknowledged by a noted historian of the day. Flavius Josephus, a Roman-Jewish historian (Antiquities of the Jews, AD 93-94) refers to “Jesus, who was called Christ.”
Jesus’ crucifixion has been confirmed. Tacitus, a non-Christian Roman historian and senator (Annals, AD 116), wrote, “Christus . . . suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus . . .”
Interestingly, Tacitus accepts the common reference to Jesus as “Christus,” the Latin equivalent of the Greek word “Christos” or Christ. This reference is commonly used throughout the New Testament. Next, Jesus is recalled as a man who suffered “the extreme penalty”—something so awful that no one liked to name it, and certainly a crucifixion would qualify. Last, this penalty happened during the reign of Tiberius “at the hands” of Pontius Pilate. After much review of the evidence, atheist historian Gerd Lüdemann concluded, “Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.”Jesus had a sizable group of followers long after his death. Another verification of Jesus is from Pliny the Younger, a Roman governor of Bithynia and Pontus. In a report to Emperor Trajan regarding citizens he interrogated because they were accused of being Christian, Pliny wrote (Epistulae, AD 112), “They all worshiped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.” Here, Pliny speaks of those who recanted their Christian beliefs, as evidenced not only by verbally denying Christ but also actively worshiping the Roman gods and the Roman emperor. Again, this quote demonstrates that there was a person called Christ who had a sizable following even 80 years after his death, since the number of followers must have been large enough to be considered a threat to the Roman pantheon of gods.
A second substantiation of Jesus and his followers is from a man named Lucian. Lucian of Samosata, an anti-Christian Greek satirist, (The Passing of Peregrinus, AD 170) stated, “The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.”
Lucian, some 140 years after Jesus lived, describes a group of people known as Christians, who were so named after the one they followed: Christ. Thus, the quote validates a person named Christ who introduced new religious practices, died by crucifixion because of it, and had a following long after his death.
Jesus’ followers were strong in their beliefs. Not only did Jesus have a robust following a century and a half after his death, but those followers were also zealous in their beliefs. Suetonius, a Roman historian, (Lives of the Twelve Caesars, AD 121) says, “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.”
In other words, the Jews were so zealous about Chrestus that they became a disturbance in Rome. As a result, Claudius expelled them from Rome. This event is mentioned in the Bible as well. In Acts 18:2, the Apostle Paul meets Aquilla, a Jew who had recently arrived in Corinth “because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome.”
Christian tradition holds the belief that the name “Chrestus” refers to Jesus, arguing that the issue is either a simple misspelling or an unintentional reference to a spelling used in the Codex Sinaiticus. While some believe that “Chrestus” might be referring to a local instigator instead, the Jewish historian Menahem Stern argues that he would have been described using different terminology in that case.
The quotes above have provided at least four pieces of non-Christian evidence affirming that: 1) Jesus existed. 2) He suffered death by crucifixion for his novel ideas. 3) He is the one referred to as Christ, Christus, and probably Chrestus. 4) Jesus Christ had a rather large group of followers who, after a century and a half, were considered a threat to the Roman pantheon and government. Thus, with this evidence providing a solid foundation, let’s consider Jesus’ death and the claims of his resurrection
Examining the Crucifixion
If we accept that Jesus existed and was crucified, is there any possibility that Jesus wasn’t completely dead when the Roman guards removed him from the cross? Modern medical descriptions of crucifixion describe a horrendous process that left no doubt that the victims died an excruciating death.
In the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Edwards, et al. detailed Jesus’ crucifixion:
Jesus of Nazareth underwent Jewish and Roman trials, was flogged, and was sentenced to death by crucifixion. The scourging produced deep stripe-like lacerations and appreciable blood loss, and it probably set the stage for hypovolemic shock, as evidenced by the fact that Jesus was too weakened to carry the crossbar (patibulum) to Golgotha. At the site of crucifixion, his wrists were nailed to the patibulum and, after the patibulum was lifted onto the upright post (stipes), his feet were nailed to the stipes. The major pathophysiologic effect of crucifixion was an interference with normal respirations. Accordingly, death resulted primarily from hypovolemic shock and exhaustion asphyxia. Jesus’ death was ensured by the thrust of a soldier’s spear into his side. Modern medical interpretation of the historical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead when taken down from the cross.
In basic terms, the torture and crucifixion caused so much blood loss that the heart couldn’t deliver enough blood to vital organs. Poor blood flow and not enough oxygen created a critical and deadly situation.
Another detail of the crucifixion of Jesus has caught the attention of medical professionals. The Apostle John states that “one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out” (John 19:34). Cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Antony de Bono explains the phenomenon:
Jesus had a hemothorax, which in the stillness of the dead body, had separated out as they do into two layers: the heavier red cells below and the light watery plasma above. The hemothorax was the result of the savage flagellation.
The withdrawal of the spear would have been followed first by the red cells (blood), then by the lighter plasma (water).
The body of Jesus had been hanging on the cross, dead, for some time. Obviously, the fluid must have accumulated during life by a bleeding into the chest cavity, almost certainly due to the savage flagellation.
It is well known that blood in these circumstances in a still dead body starts to separate out, to sediment, the heavier red cells sinking to the bottom leaving a much lighter, straw-colored fluid, the plasma above.
When a hole is made by the spear, the red cells, which John describes as blood, gushes out first, followed by the plasma, which John saw as water.
While some critics have offered what is now called the “swoon hypothesis,” which argues that Jesus did not actually die but merely fell unconscious and later revived, these medical evaluations support that Jesus died during crucifixion.
In an indirect line of reasoning, Retief and Cilliers (2003) suggest that military protocol at the time would have ensured Jesus’ death on the cross: “The attending Roman guards could only leave the site after the victim had died and were known to precipitate death by means of deliberate fracturing of the tibia and/or fibula, spear stab wounds into the heart, sharp blows to the front of the chest, or a smoking fire built at the foot of the cross to asphyxiate the victim.”
The comments from Retief and Cilliers corroborate John’s account of the crucifixion. In his Gospel (19:32-35), John tells us what he witnessed. He wrote,
32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. 35 And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true.
The evidence above supports that Jesus did not simply swoon and revive but died after crucifixion.
The Empty Tomb
Perhaps Jesus did exist and die by crucifixion, but was the tomb that had contained Jesus’ body actually empty? Have other theories been considered?
The burial of Jesus is mentioned in all four Gospels: Matt. 27:57–61, Mark 15:42-47, Luke 23:50–56, and John 19:38–42. The Bible records that the tomb was owned by a wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea, who was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a group of Jewish men dedicated to preserving Judaism and, therefore, opposed to Jesus and his followers. Joseph, however, had secretly become a follower of Jesus. Thus, he took Jesus’ body and laid it in the tomb he had carved for himself and his family.
All four Gospels tell that a group of women who were followers of Jesus went to his tomb on the first day of the week to anoint his body with spices. When they arrived, they found the tomb empty and the body of Jesus gone. The women went back and told the disciples about the empty tomb, and the disciples came to see and also found the tomb empty. The disciples were perplexed and in disbelief until Jesus himself appeared to them, alive and resurrected from the dead. In the following days, Jesus appeared in his post-resurrection form approximately a dozen times.
Many have attempted to debunk the testimony of Jesus’ followers. One such group was the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day. Matthew tells us about their attempt in Matthew 28:11-15:
11 While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. 12 And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers 13 and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.
However, Jesus’ body was never produced to discredit the Christian account of the empty tomb. If the Gospel writers had lied about the tomb being empty, the Sanhedrin could have easily debunked these claims, especially considering the tomb belonged to their own group member.
Furthermore, consider the followers of John the Baptist and how they treated the body of their leader. After John’s head was removed and gifted to Herodias upon her request, the Bible says that John’s “disciples came and took the body and buried it” (Matthew 14:12). The Baptist’s remains were treated reverently by those who honored him.
The body of Jesus would have been venerated even more than John the Baptist’s. Any such bodily remains of Jesus would have been devotedly preserved and entrusted to his followers. Yet, there is nothing of that sort recorded in any biblical or non-biblical text concerning Jesus’ body.
William Lane Craig, an American analytic philosopher and Christian apologist, helps clarify some possibilities about the remains of Jesus’ body. He writes,
Even if the disciples had preached Jesus’ resurrection despite his occupied tomb, scarcely anybody else would have believed them. One of the most remarkable facts about the early Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection was that it flourished in the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified. So long as the people of Jerusalem thought that Jesus’ body was in the tomb, few would have been prepared to believe such nonsense as that Jesus had been raised from the dead […]. If even no longer identifiable remains lay in the tomb where Jesus had been buried, the burden of proof would have lain upon the shoulders of those who said that these were not Jesus’ remains. But no such dispute over the identification of Jesus’ corpse ever seems to have taken place.
Another looming question about the empty tomb is the lack of eyewitnesses to the resurrection. No human being witnessed the actual resurrection. So, isn’t that harmful to the testimony?
According to apologist Gary Habermas, the lack of eyewitness accounts is not harmful to the resurrection argument. Habermas developed an argument for the resurrection using twelve facts about the resurrection that even skeptics agree upon. He called these the “minimal facts.” In his minimal facts argument, Habermas explains why the lack of eyewitnesses to the actual event of the resurrection isn’t crucial. He states:
[T]his doesn’t hurt our case one iota, because science is all about causes and effects. We don’t see dinosaurs; we study the fossils. We may not know how a disease originates, but we study its symptoms. Maybe nobody witnesses a crime, but police piece together the evidence after the fact. So, here’s how I look at the evidence for the resurrection: First, did Jesus die on the cross? And second, did he appear later to people? If you can establish those two things, you’ve made your case, because dead people don’t normally do that.
Jesus’ appearances to other people are documented throughout the New Testament. The most agreed-upon biblical texts claiming personal interaction with the resurrected Jesus are the Apostle Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 9:1 and 15:8. Skeptics and critical historians agree that Paul wrote this letter. His eyewitness testimony in those texts claims that he saw the resurrected Jesus.
The biblical evidence does not begin and end with Paul, however. Paul’s testimony is the most widely accepted, but the Bible contains more than a dozen eyewitness testimony accounts. As Lee Strobel describes it, “this was not merely a fleeting observance of a shadowy figure by one or two people. There were multiple appearances to numerous people.”
Thus, there is solid evidence that Jesus lived, died on the cross, and was buried in Joseph’s tomb, which was found empty on the third day. There are also multiple testimonies that Jesus appeared alive after resurrection. Still, there is another piece of circumstantial evidence to explore: did any apostles deviate from their stories about Jesus’ resurrection?
The Apostles Stuck to Their Story
Suppose the resurrection story is merely mythical. What did the apostles have to gain by proclaiming it as truth? Were they simply seeking status?
All twelve of the apostles, including Matthias who took Judas’ place after his suicide, faced condemnation, persecution, banishment, exile, torture, and execution at the hands of various groups. If their story had been a lie, they would have had strong incentives to recant. Nevertheless, no matter the threat, the apostles proclaimed that Jesus died and rose from the dead.
The Jewish theologian Pinchas Lapide has admitted the difficulty of believing that the disciples’ reports were fraudulent:
If the defeated and depressed group of disciples overnight could change into a victorious movement of faith, based only on auto-suggestion or self-deception—without a fundamental faith experience—then this would be a much greater miracle than the resurrection itself.
No one who witnessed the disciples scatter at Jesus’ arrest would have guessed that this band of followers would begin one of the most far-reaching faith movements in history. Sometimes, it takes a real-life incident to uncover the amazing nature of this phenomenon.
Chuck Colson, who served as White House special counsel during the Watergate scandal, spoke to a large crowd at the Columbia Baptist Church in Falls Church, Virginia. During his talk, given in September 1983, Colson admitted the difficulty of keeping secrets:
Here were the 10 most powerful men in the United States. With all that power, and we couldn’t contain a lie for two weeks…. Take it from one who was involved in conspiracy, who saw the frailty of man firsthand. There is no way the 11 apostles, who were with Jesus at the time of the resurrection, could ever have gone around for 40 years proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection unless it were true.
Colson and his fellow conspirators caved within a couple of weeks. The apostles maintained their story even until their persecuted dying breaths. They firmly believed what they preached. And they were willing to die for the truth they believed. None of them abandoned their testimony.
Alternative Hypotheses
There have been several alternative hypotheses proposed to explain the stories of Jesus’ resurrection. Let’s consider some of those alternative hypotheses.
Were the Apostles Hallucinating?
The “vision hypothesis” suggests that perhaps Jesus’ resurrection was a group hallucination. However, upon critical examination this hypothesis doesn’t stand up. Let’s begin with a solid definition of hallucination. The American Psychological Association describes a hallucination as a “false sensory perception that has a compelling sense of reality despite the absence of an external stimulus. It may affect any of the senses, but auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations are most common.”
If only one person had witnessed Jesus’ resurrection, it might be dismissed as a hallucination. Multiple people on multiple occasions saw, heard, observed, and touched Jesus after his resurrection, however. This would point toward a group hallucination and not a single one. Clinical psychologist Gary A. Sibcy comments on the unlikelihood of group visions:
I have surveyed the professional literature (peer-reviewed journal articles and books) written by psychologists, psychiatrists, and other relevant healthcare professionals during the past two decades and have yet to find a single documented case of a group hallucination, that is, an event for which more than one person purportedly shared in a visual or other sensory perception where there was clearly no external referent.
Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature, only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t something which can be seen by a group of people. Neither is it possible that one person could somehow induce a hallucination in somebody else. Since a hallucination exists only in this subjective, personal sense, it is obvious that others cannot witness it.
The idea of mass hallucinations is a possibility, but that likelihood lies well outside the normal scope of the definition of hallucination. There is no evidence to support that Jesus’ resurrection was a mass hallucination, and the vision hypothesis is not widely accepted.
Did Jesus Have a Doppelganger?
The “substitution hypothesis” asserts that perhaps the witnesses did see someone they thought was Jesus at the tomb, but it was someone other than Jesus. After all, scripture does mention that the apostles had trouble recognizing Jesus at the grave (Luke 24:16). However, it seems unlikely that Thomas, who saw a post-resurrection Jesus and even touched the wounds in his side and hands (John 20:24-27), would have mistaken him.
Did the Women Find the Wrong Tomb?
The “wrong tomb hypothesis” proposes that the witnesses of the empty tomb mistakenly found the wrong tomb empty. As indicated above, the Jewish authorities could have easily disproved the resurrection by going to the correct tomb and producing Jesus’ body. In addition, the wrong tomb hypothesis does nothing to dispel the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
Did the Disciples Steal Jesus’ Body?
The “stolen body hypothesis” is the earliest alternative hypothesis, dating back to the Jewish religious leaders’ response to the resurrection on Easter (see Matthew 28:13 above). According to this view, the tomb was empty because Jesus’ disciples stole his body, in order to make it appear that he had been resurrected. As stated above, no body was ever produced by the Sanhedrin to support this claim. Additionally, contemporary Jewish beliefs about resurrection in general and the sanctity of the human body make such a position utterly scandalous. The disciples would have been considered ceremonially and publicly unclean for seven days if they touched Jesus’ corpse (Num 31:19). Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that they would have risked such uncleanness.
Another important element to consider is Jewish burial practices during the Second Temple Period. The Pharisees, in particular, believed in the resurrection of the body when the Messiah-King came to rescue Israel. Because of this, corpses were not simply discarded. Instead, they were laid in a tomb, in order to decay. After a year, the bones were then gathered into boxes called ossuaries and kept in smaller family tombs to await the coming of the Messiah-King (Rahmani 1981). Early Jewish sources, such as the Mishnah and the Talmud discuss this practice.
When the flesh was completely decomposed, the bones were gathered and buried in their proper place (Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:6)
R. Eliezer b. Ẓadoḳ said: “My father said to me, ‘when I die bury me first in a valley, and later gather my bones and place them in an ossuary.’” (Talmud Semahot 12.9 [49b])
Such a practice explains why the women came to the tomb on Sunday. They were coming to prepare the body, which had otherwise been set in the tomb before sundown on the eve of the Sabbath. The women intended to prepare Jesus’ corpse for the decomposition process. However, there was no corpse to prepare. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5).
The Case for the Resurrection
We have examined most of the pertinent issues necessary for one to reach a decision concerning Jesus’ resurrection. The non-Christian, extra-biblical evidence fully supports that a man named Jesus lived, died from crucifixion, and had a zealous following of believers who stood on that testimony even through persecution.
We next presented medical testimony that a person could not have simply fainted and then recovered from the experience of crucifixion. That fact is even more obvious in light of the approaching Sabbath day and the extra command for the soldiers to be certain that the victims were dead.
The empty tomb was also considered. Jesus’ resurrection was found to be more viable than other explanations for why the tomb was empty. As Gary Habermas explained, the case for the resurrection is supported by the knowledge that Jesus died during his crucifixion and multiple witnesses saw him alive afterward.
We also discussed the apostles’ refusal to renounce their testimony of Jesus’ resurrection. Despite being persecuted, tortured, and killed, none of the apostles recanted. They remained steadfast in their belief that Jesus was resurrected.
Last, we looked at several popular alternative theories. All of them were shown to be unconvincing. Few people accept them, and no serious academics consider them a worthy explanation.
Jesus’ Resurrection and the Eucharistic Phenomena
After Jesus’ resurrection, the scientists who studied the Eucharistic phenomena could still hear echoes of that miracle two millennia later, even if they had to use their microscopes to do so. The repeated appearances of identifiable human blood and heart tissue in Eucharistic elements—along with other mysteries, such as the intact tissue in Buenos Aires despite years of immersion in water—are already extraordinary on their own, but they become even more fascinating in light of Jesus’ resurrection after death. Could these tissues actually be manifestations of Jesus’ flesh and blood? While a definitive answer is unlikely, the Eucharistic events we have discussed at least invite the question when they are examined together and show the same rare blood type in two unrelated events.
Many modern believers were awed as soon as they saw red tissue forming on consecrated hosts, but the natural impulse of scientists to inspect and analyze may not be so different from the one Thomas the Apostle felt to touch the body of Jesus. “Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:27-28).
Recalling Dr. Engel’s “injection of faith” after inspecting the slides of inflamed heart tissue in Legnica, Poland, let’s take a closer look at how faith and science can support each other to deepen our understanding of the world.