Do Some People Really Believe that a Dead Man Came Back to Life?

In 1996 the rock band U2 released a song that seemed to ask some tough questions about the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. It was called “Wake Up Dead Man.” For some long-time U2 fans, this came as a bit of a shock. They’d come to know of U2’s song writers, Bono and the Edge, as conscious Christians. What was this, a challenge to the very cornerstone of the Christian faith? Other U2 fans were not so surprised. While they knew these lyricists to be self-avowed and vocal Christians, they also knew that U2 was never the sort of artists who accepted religious dogma without thoughtful reflection. They’d always been the sort of artists who investigated and probed deeply into the mysteries of the faith. Simple answers never satisfied them.

In this way they fall right into a long-standing tradition of people inquiring into what the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth means. And to get to that meaning, historians, philosophers, poets, artists, theologians, writers, singers, and even politicians have wondered what really happened on that first Easter Sunday. The story itself is simple: Jesus of Nazareth was executed by crucifixion and then came back to life three days later; his followers saw him, proclaimed he was alive wherever they went, and a new religion was founded. But was Jesus really resurrected? If so, how? If not, what then did happen? And what does it all mean?

My goal here is to lay out some of the competing theories and discuss them.

Facts on the Ground

Before theologians or philosophers can weigh in on the meaning of the resurrection, it is important that historians get the story right. What happened on that Sunday morning? Where did this story about Jesus of Nazareth’s resurrection come from? Christians claim that he died a death that paid for their sins, and that because God raised him back to life three days later, he continues to live and has the power to give them eternal life also.

Well, did Jesus come back to life? Christians claim that this happened in history. Therefore, it is open to historical investigation. “Every conviction has the right to try to prove itself from history and to overcome its opponents on this basis.”^[1] And to that we now turn.

The methods employed by historians are simple (even if carrying out the methods to satisfactory ends isn’t). Historiography begins by getting the known, unassailable facts on the table. What do we absolutely know, that no one disagrees with? Then, the facts have to be interpreted. The theory able to make the most logical and consistent sense of those facts, without ignoring any nor exaggerating any, is the theory that wins the day. That will be the theory accepted by historians as the most plausible account of the historical events in question. But all theories are open to testing. And insofar that a theory neglects any piece of evidence, a new theory is liable to push it over. Then that theory is open to testing. Such is the way of historiography. Facts are known, theories are made, and conclusions are tested. That’s what we’ll do today.

We’ll begin with the pieces of evidence that are attested (not only in Christian texts, but in non-Christian sources as well) and are accepted as established verifiable facts by Christians, skeptics, and other religion bodies alike. These are the bare bones skeleton of the first century events concerning Jesus, his life and death, and his followers. These are the pieces everyone has to play with.

A. Facts about Jesus of Nazareth and His Disciples

There are twelve facts I want to lay on the table; I’ve tried to organize them under three headings for the sake of memory. They are

(1) Facts about Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples (which were his closest followers during his life);

(2) Facts about the origins of the resurrection story (that is, what we know about where the story first came from and how it developed and spread); and

(3) Facts about early Christian beliefs (the teachings of the first generation of Christians).

So, to begin, some facts about Jesus and his disciples.

1. Jesus lived in first-century Palestine.

Jesus lived in first-century Palestine. There was a brief time in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when it was argued that the historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, was entirely fictional. His life and times were completely made up. That theory has run its course. It’s had its 15 minutes of fame. There is simply too much evidence (not only from Christian sources, but from Greco-Roman and Jewish sources alike)^[2] that there was a Jesus of Nazareth, that he traveled and preached, and that he accrued a following.^[3]

2. Jesus and his followers were Jewish.

Jesus and his followers were Jewish.^[4] This may go without saying, but again this the essential framework; no element can be overlooked.^[5]

3. Jesus was tried and killed by crucifixion.

Jesus was tried and killed by Roman crucifixion.^[6] Again, not only the Christian sources, but early Greco-Roman and Jewish sources attest to this fact.^[7] It is important for context. Crucifixion carried with it major negative social stigmas^[8] No one wanted to be associated with a crucified man. Jews specifically knew that “a crucified messiah was a failed messiah.”^[9]

4. Jesus’s followers did not die.

Jesus died alone. The significance of this is often overlooked. There were many Jewish messianic movements in first-century Palestine where Jesus lived.^[10] And as in the case of Jesus, they were all suppressed by Roman violence.^[11] The alleged messiahs were all killed. Their followers then had three options: die with the “messiah” (as many did whether they chose to or not), or disband and give up the dream, or anoint a new “messiah” to take the previous one’s place. Jesus’s followers did not die with him. And this brings me to the next fact.

5. Jesus’s followers carried on without a replacement messiah

Jesus’s followers didn’t die, nor did they disband. But they carried on without replacing Jesus with another “messiah.” Even the most famous early Christian leaders, Peter, Paul, John, and James were never hailed as the new “messiahs.”

B. Facts About the Origins of the Resurrection Story

Moving on, how did the story itself come about and what were its effects? Here are the facts about the origins of the resurrection story.

6. The story of Jesus’s resurrection began immediately in Jerusalem by those who claimed to have seen him alive after his resurrection.

The existence of a story about Jesus’s resurrection is an historical fact. The story was told. And it began immediately after Jesus’s death—within two months—by people who claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. While some would argue that the fully developed story was still years off, the beginning of the story was immediate. Had Jesus’s followers waited too long to tell their story, the charismatic, yet tragically crucified, Galilean preacher would have been forgotten, and any claims to their eyewitness testimony seriously called into doubt.^[12] Even the most critical scholars agree that the first Christian history to be written, called The Acts of the Apostles, is accurate in its basic account of the events in Jerusalem 40 days after Jesus’s death.^[13]

7. The story of Jesus’s resurrection is allegedly begun by women.

The story is said, according to the Christians themselves, to have been started by women. This may seem irrelevant, but sadly in first-century Palestinian culture women were less trusted than men. They could testify in court, but only as a last resort. They were thought to be easily swayed, too emotional, irrational, and less intelligent than men. We know today that this is entirely foolish, but that was the view of women at that time.

8. The story was then proclaimed by those who followed him during his life.

After the women gave their report, the very men who were with Jesus during his life carried the story further in Jerusalem and abroad. These men were called his “disciples.” Again, even the most skeptical scholars recognize the reliability of the early Christian history book, the Acts of the Apostles, on this point: Jesus’s disciples were the proponents of the resurrection story.^[14]

9. The story became popular and the church grew.

The story of Jesus’s resurrection became popular, and a new religious movement was off. Again, another obvious point, but one that should not be overlooked. Jesus looked defeated. As wrote earlier, no one in the ancient world wanted to follow a crucified man. But, people came to believe the story of Jesus’s resurrection, and it became the primary Christian doctrine on which the Church grew in any given area. Wherever Christians went, when they told the story of Jesus of Nazareth, his resurrection was central and primary to their message.

10. Christianity overtook the Roman Empire and outlasted it.

Christianity overtook and outlasted the very Roman Empire that first tried to stamp out the new religion. During the early years of the movement, and throughout the next 250 years, Christians faced persecution in the form of social marginalization, severe torture, and often execution.^[15] Nonetheless, it grew and grew. Eventually it took over and outlived the very empire that tried to destroy it. And note this: Constantine did not make Christianity popular. It already was popular by the fourth century; he just got in on the action for political expediency.^[16]

C. Facts About Early Christian Beliefs

Finally, the beliefs and teachings of the first generation of Christians will be helpful here.

11. Jesus’s resurrection was important to early church.

It is worth mentioning why this story was so important to the Christians. They told it everywhere they went and weren’t willing to acquiesce in the face of persecution.^[17] It’s easy to imagine that it might have been simpler for Christians to spread Jesus’s teachings on ethics and love without such a difficult and incredible story attached to it.^[18] First-century people were not stupid: they knew dead people stayed dead. Therefore, the “cause of Jesus” may not have been laughed at^[19] if it didn’t have this strange resurrection story attached to it. But it was important enough for Christians to not only mention, but to emphasize. Why?

One of the earliest Christian writings we have, called Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, tells us. Paul was one of the first Christian missionaries; he too claimed to have seen the risen Jesus. In the fifteenth chapter of that letter, Paul tells us “If Christ is not risen, [then] your faith is futile, [and] you are still in your sins” (I Cor 15:17–20)! Jesus’s resurrection is only the second part of the story. Jesus’s death came first. And the Christians believed that that death was the means by which they were forgiven of all their misdeeds before God. Jesus’s died to take the penalty for their wrongs. And the resurrection was proof of this. So if Jesus wasn’t raised, then there was no validation for his death. It was just a normal death like anyone else’s. It had no saving or forgiving power; no cosmic consequence.

Paul goes on to say “Then also those who have [died believing in Christ] have perished [for good]” (1 Cor. 15:18). That is, if Jesus wasn’t raised to eternal life, neither will anyone else. When someone dies, that’s it—no eternal life. This led Paul to conclude that “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men [to be] most piti[ed]” (1 Cor. 15:19). That is, if Jesus makes promises to give eternal life, and he can’t deliver on these promises, then Christians are all fools, giving up things in this world for nothing.

So we see that Jesus’s resurrection was the linchpin for early Christians in the way they thought about sin, forgiveness, eternal life, and why it’s worth following Jesus. These things were precious to them and, in their minds, established by Jesus’s resurrection—the loadstar of all Christian doctrine. The entire Christian religion stands or falls on Jesus’s resurrection. Without it they knew their entire religion and all they hoped for was for naught.

12. Christians came to worship Jesus.

Lastly in the new movement, Jesus’s followers worshiped him. This is quite amazing because the first Christians were Jews who heard early and often throughout their lives that there is one God and one God only, and that no part of creation (like a man) should ever be worshipped.^[20] It is the greatest of sins deserving of nothing less than eternal condemnation. Yet, there they were: a group of predominantly Jewish men and women worshipping Jesus after his death.^[21]

13. The Day of Worship was Moved from Saturday to Sunday.

Religious traditions are the hardest to change. So something massive must have happened to convince the first Christians, many (most?) of whom were Jewish, to move the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. In the early church, Sunday became the day that Christians would gather together for worship (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10), a practice that continues today. What’s the best explanation that fits this massive religious change? The disciples believed that Jesus rose from the dead on the morning of that First Easter Sunday.

What Did the Disciples Think They Were Proclaiming?

Now, how do we make sense of these things? Many Christians will tell you that it’s all true, and the thing to do is believe it. But it’s not that simple. To believe that one man’s death had such cosmic consequence and that he later came back to life is a lot to swallow, to say the least. Different theories, aside from a literal bodily resurrection, have been proposed. I think the best way to navigate through them is to consider first “What did the disciples think they were proclaiming?” and then to ask “How did they come to think that?” Lets walk through possible some options.

A. The Disciples Knew They Were Lying and Stole the Body

First, what did the disciples think they were saying? It has been suggested that the disciples were making the whole thing up. It was a lie, a hoax. They stole the body from the tomb were Jesus was laid, buried him somewhere else where no one could find him, and said “Look! His tomb is empty. We have seen him. He is alive.”

Why would they do this? Well, it certainly wasn’t for power. They saw what happened to their leader, and they knew they would be next should the Romans not like the fact that the doctrines of the man they just executed are continuing in his followers. In other words, to identify with Jesus in those days was very dangerous indeed! And most of them were later killed for just that.

It wasn’t for money. They lived very poor lives, and we have no accounts of any of them throwing in the towel at any time because the dividends were not coming in.

Maybe they had idealistic political goals. We know that many people willingly accept poverty and repudiation, and risk their necks for their political ideals.^[22] We know Jesus criticized the Jerusalem leadership. Maybe Jesus’s followers were zealously encouraged by such.

This theory is not nearly as popular as it once was. While it makes some sense of some of the facts, it is very shaky upon further consideration. For example, note the fact I mentioned above about Jesus’s disciples not dying with him. Why did Jesus die alone? His disciples all abandoned him when he was arrested! We know this from their own writings—not the sort of embarrassing thing you’d say about yourself if you’re trying to persuade others that you are the spokesperson of the new political movement. Combine that with the fact above that Jesus’s story was proclaimed by those who followed him . This theory doesn’t explain how the disciples could have become so bold whereas weeks earlier, when they had their chance to fight, they fled. You’d think they’d be less courageous without their leader (crucified at that). Consider also the fact that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection. If the entire story was fabricated, why did the disciples place women at the tomb to first discover Jesus was raised? Remember, women were generally considered unreliable witnesses. That would be like betting all your chips with a bluff and only a pair of twos in your hand.

Furthermore, it is hard to believe that the authors of the books (or at least the tradition behind the books) that have given shape to the entire western ethical system were really liars and thieves themselves. Liars and thieves usually don’t write things like “Bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2) or “Look out for the needs of others, and consider others more important than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3) or “Love one another fervently with a pure heart” (1 Pet. 1:22) or “Love your enemies and pray for those who do you harm” (Luke 6:27–36) and “Do not seek revenge” (Rom. 12:19). The list goes on.

B. The Disciples Thought they Were Telling a Myth, and Jesus Rose Spiritually/ Common Story

The theory that is probably the most popular is as follows: The disciples never meant that Jesus literally rose bodily from the dead. Instead, they meant only that he had risen spiritually. That is to say, their language about Jesus’s resurrection was a metaphor for great theological and existential truths.^[23] They were speaking about their own experience, if even a psychological experience of Jesus himself after his death. He rose in their hearts. And they had a new self-awareness.^[24] Then he continued to live in the disciples’ mission as they spread his teachings. In some early Christian texts it might appear this way. Paul spoke of Christians receiving a type of resurrection life when they put their faith and trust in Jesus (Romans 6).

It is clear, though, that Jesus’s biographies speak of a bodily resurrection. Therefore, this theory argues that these biographies were written anywhere from thirty to forty (or more) years after Jesus’s life. This is enough time for a myth to develop. Therefore, what began as a metaphor, in say Paul’s writings, had morphed into a myth and a legend that may or may not have intended to teach of a literal bodily resurrection. At any rate, the readers of these biographies would have known that they were myths, not an attempt at writing true history.

So the theory goes like this: Paul and other Christians at first spoke only of a spiritual or metaphorical resurrection but knew full well that Jesus’s body was still quite dead. Later Christians developed that theme into a metaphor and spoke of a “bodily” resurrection, but only in a mythical manner. After all, there are numerous stories from the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian classics (Oedipus, Hercules, Romulus, Osiris, etc.) of divine figures dying and rising and receiving worship thereafter. The Christians, it appears, have taken a page out of the pagans’ religious traditions.

This one surely is attractive. It makes a lot of sense of the data, and doesn’t require us to believe a dead man came back to life. However, there are problems with it, and I’ll point out just a few.

First, what experience did the disciples supposedly have that caused them to speak of a spiritual resurrection and existential change in their own lives? You see, this theory fails on the same legs that the previous one failed on (that his disciples did not die with him and that his message was proclaimed after his death): How did the cowards who abandoned Jesus then come to preach him openly and boldly? To speak of an experience they had is great, but the theory doesn’t tell us what that experience was. Until proponents of this theory can account for that, it remains a major hole in the theory. What changed them? Also, this only speaks (though incompletely) about what happened to the disciples, not what happened to Jesus.

Another, perhaps bigger, problem with this theory is that Paul did not speak of a spiritual resurrection nor of some metaphorical event. In that letter I wrote about earlier, the one to the people in Corinth, Paul speaks of our current bodies with a soul inside, and the future resurrection body as having the Spirit inside (I Cor 15:44). The point is not that the resurrection is only spiritual, but that it’s a different kind of life animating the body. But it is still a body. Further, one scholar recently did a study of the words Paul and the other early Christians used for the resurrection (anastasis and egeiro) and found that in Roman, Greek, Jewish, and Christian literature alike, the words always means a dead body coming back to life.^[25]

Consider also the fact that Jesus’s disciples were Jewish. Why does this matter? Well, the idea of a spiritual resurrection was entirely Greek. The Greeks believed that the physical world was bad, so death was actually a release from the prison of the body where their spirit could rise and live back in a celestial non-physical place of beauty and joy and peace. (This is why Paul was laughed at in Athens.)^[26] Jews, however, believe that all of creation, including the body, is good because it was made by a good God. Therefore, they had a hope that every saint to have ever died will someday live again in their bodies.^[27] Therefore, to claim the disciples only meant a spiritual resurrection is to misunderstand the thought-world they came from. They were Jews.

The Christians, however successful, were at least attempting to write history.^[28] One of the writers, Luke, begins his biography of Jesus’s life like this: “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.”^[29] Whether one believes Luke’s historical account or not, you have to at least agree that Luke thought he was writing an historical account.

One Oxford scholar and literary critic even commented that these stories don’t read like classic myths and legends.^[30] On one hand, they aren’t good enough to be considered such! They are missing the essential mythical elements (fantastic creatures, characters speaking in verse, otherworldly scenes, allegory, etc.), and they include too much superfluous material (the sort of historical details that would “clog up” a myth).^[31] We do have Christian myths with all the necessary mythical elements (Gospel of Peter for example), but the Christian texts in question just don’t fit the bill. Instead these stories read like straightforward historical narrative. They are simply unadorned and plain.

And if one were to argue that they wrapped their myth up in historicized prose fiction, you’d be saying that they are more like the western novel than any other known genre. The problem with that is, what we know as the novel is a literary genre that wasn’t invented until the eighteenth century! So unless we want to say the disciples were 1,700 years ahead of their time, we’d better admit they intended to tell of literal historical events.

Finally—and this may be the most damaging consideration for this theory—this theory has no way of explaining how Jesus came to be worshiped. The Greco-Roman and Egyptian myths told of dying and rising ahistorical gods. However this Christian story is one of a man in history come back to life. Take the facts that Jesus and his followers were Jewish and that they came to worship Jesus together at this point. The Jews believed that creation was good, but no part of it was ever to be worshipped. Yet, there you had a growing community of Jews worshipping the man Jesus. This was highly controversial! Had the myth developed over time, you’d expect to see a lot of arguing among the Christians as to how to understand the resurrection and whether or not Jesus should be worshiped. You see, controversial ideas take time to develop and always with arguing and compromise by those involved. Not so here. The stories of Jesus’s resurrection consistently reinforce one another, and the worship of Jesus was never questioned. A slow developing myth, especially one as controversial as this with a worshiped man and an unprecedented spiritual resurrection, could never result in such a homogenous community of Christians.^[32]

C. The Disciples Really Thought He Had Come Back to Life

That leaves us with the conclusion that the disciples at least thought they were telling the truth and speaking of a literal bodily resurrection. It makes sense of what we know about the Jewish culture at the time (the fact that Jesus and his followers were Jewish). It explains why their demeanor changed from deserters to preachers (the fact that Jesus’s followers did not die and that they proclaimed his message after his death). They thought Jesus was alive. And it explains why they came to worship Jesus—only God has the power over life and death. Whether it happened or not, we are not there yet. We are only as far as affirming that Jesus’s first followers thought it happened.

What Caused Them to Think Jesus Was Risen from the Dead?

But what could have led these men and women to believe such an outrageous thing? Remember, the Jews believed there would be a bodily resurrection of all the saints. And they believed it would happen at the end of history to everyone. This was a resurrection of one man in the middle of history. What made them believe this new idea? Again, let’s review the possible options.

A. They Had an Unscientific View of the World That Saw Resurrections as Common

It is sometimes argued that the disciples, like everyone else at that time, had an unscientific worldview, and thought resurrections (and all miracles for that matter) were not only possible but commonplace. That is to say, resurrections were happening all the time. And so what we have here is a rumor started in some corner somewhere, and everyone just believed it because they didn’t really know what we now know about biology and the end of life.

This one doesn’t deserve much attention to be honest. Again, the Greco-Roman and Egyptian myths involved dying and rising gods, not men. Read Homer instead, and you’ll see that the Greeks knew very well that death was the end, and no one comes back from it. Plato as well. They believed in ghosts, but not resurrected bodies.^[33] More closely to the disciples’ thought-world though, read the Jewish poetry, and you’ll see that the Jews knew those in their graves stay there.^[34] Only divine intervention could ever bring the dead back, and that was only expected when God would wrap up history and bring the world to an end.

But also, consider the previous facts that Christianity became popular and grew, that Christianity overtook and outlasted the Roman Empire, and that Jesus’s resurrection was important to early church. Consider also the belief by some that resurrections were commonplace. If resurrections were so common, why would the disciples think this one was such a big deal? Consider also the earlier facts regarding Jesus was killed by crucifixion and yet the story became popular and the church grew. Why did anyone join the movement with a crucified leader if the resurrection was nothing special? And Christians worshipped him! Why worship this Jesus fellow?

I think we’d be guilty of historical snobbery to think the ancients were so gullible and stupid to believe that death was so easily and commonly reversed.^[35]

B. Hallucination Theory

Moving on then, I mentioned earlier that there were stories of sightings. The disciples claimed to have seen Jesus alive after his death, as did over 500 other people.^[36] If they did see him, or at least thought they saw him, it sure would explain a lot. But what is it they claimed to have seen? It is argued that these sightings were, in reality, hallucinations. Psychologists often speak of “wish-projection.” When someone wants something bad enough, or lies to themselves enough, they can actually genuinely believe that what they wish for is true, or they begin to believe their own lies. This must have been the case with the disciples. They wanted Jesus to be the savior of the world so badly, that they tricked themselves into “seeing” Jesus after his death.

The problem with this theory is that hallucinations are entirely private events. No two people ever have the same hallucination. Yet, the disciples claimed to have been together when they saw him, and they all claim to have seen the same thing—not to mention on multiple occasions in multiple places.^[37]

Even more damaging, though, is the fact that James and Paul, two people who claimed to have seen Jesus, did not believe he was the savior, or the messiah, or God’s son, etc. James did not believe until after he saw Jesus alive. So he wasn’t projecting any wish. He had no wish. And Paul, by his own confession, hated Christians, tried to get them thrown in jail, and assisted in the execution of at least one of them!^[38] The way he tells the story, he was terrified when he was contacted by the risen Jesus.^[39] It was not something he expected nor wanted.^[40]

C. Swoon Theory

This brings us to our next theory. Maybe they did see him, but maybe he never really died. Maybe he wasn’t dead when he came down from the cross. Maybe he just swooned, and in the tomb over the next couple of days, he was revived. Then when he came out, his disciples, who thought for sure he was dead, concluded that God miraculously raised him back to life! There are, after all, accounts of people surviving crucifixion.^[41]

The problem with this theory is that it doesn’t take the fact that Christianity outlasted the Roman Empire seriously. Those who have survived crucifixion in the ancient world did so because the Roman army crucified them after a battle and moved on. Then the victim’s family came and took them down. Jesus’s situation was entirely different. He was tried and crucified as an insurrectionist, and Roman guards watched over him until he died. Now the Romans were not slack at carrying out their duties in this area. They were trained and very good at killing. It’s what they knew. It’s what they did. And if any Roman ever let a prisoner go, his life was forfeit.^[42] Life was cheap back then. If your crucified criminal, who you were in charge of, didn’t die, then you died.

Furthermore, consider again the facts that Jesus’s resurrection was important to the early church, and Christians came to worship Jesus. If Jesus merely healed himself in the tomb over the weekend, I doubt he would have come out looking so good and so alive that anyone would have mistaken his condition as a resurrection and that now he has the power to give all his followers a similar resurrection and eternal life. Crucified victims don’t look venerable. And those who barely survive are never mistaken as the triumphant prince of life. Instead, they are rushed to the emergency room, as it were.

Finally, doesn’t this theory raise more questions than it answers? Where did Jesus go after he swooned and revived? We don’t read anything else about him. Did he just retire while others went around talking about him? And why didn’t he tell his followers the truth: that he never really died and he can’t promise anyone a resurrection of their own nor eternal life?^[43] This theory makes Jesus look more like the TV series hero MacGyver or Jack Bauer than a first-century itinerant preacher.^[44]

D. Physical Resurrection and Sightings

We come now to our final option: Jesus was truly resurrected to life. It is the only theory that, as mentioned when I began, accounts for all the evidence, without ignoring any piece nor overemphasizing any piece. It fits with what we are told of Jesus’s life as a miracle worker. It fits well into the Jewish milieu in which he and his disciples lived. It explains how a crucified man would still have followers who even worshiped him. (Did you know that Jesus is the only man in history, unaffiliated with an imperial cult, who claimed to be God and still had a following after his death?) It accounts for the sighting stories. It accounts for why women are listed as the first to have seen him: that’s just what happened. It explains how his followers could ever spread such a story in the very city where he died. It explains the change in the disciples’ behavior. It explains why so many people came to believe in him in the face of awful persecution. It is the only thing big enough to infuse the early Christian movement with enough energy to spread its message abroad and convert and outlive the very empire that killed its leader and tried to kill them.

A Priori Assumptions About God and The World Govern the Way Evidence is Read

So how can we sort through this? When historians set their hands to the task, their investigation and interpretation of the “facts” is never unbiased nor neutral. Everyone lives, moves, thinks, and works within a framework for understanding the world. It’s called a worldview. Everyone has one. It’s a system of beliefs and commitments that greatly influence, even determine, how we look at the world, ourselves, others, God, history, ethics, etc.

Therefore, whatever presuppositions and worldview we bring to the question of Jesus’s resurrection will put all of us into one of three camps immediately from the outset.

If you are committed to the view that this world is all there is, and that there is no transcendent realm, and that miracles do not and cannot happen, then you will look at the facts and say there must be another explanation. Even if there isn’t an explanation that can make sense of all the evidence, you’ll still opt for a theory in which Jesus did not rise again to life. You’re perfectly entitled to that presupposition and to come to that conclusion. Only know that it is a metaphysical assumption that cannot be proven. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that “the historians evaluation of this matter, which from a scientific perspective remains such a riddle, will be cheated by presuppositions contained in their worldview. But this robs their conclusions of any interest or import for faith, which is grounded in God’s acts in history.”^[45]

Secondly, another option is to believe that the universe is not a closed system, but that God can, has, and still does intervene in the world for his good purposes. If you think that, believing in Jesus’s resurrection is not incredible at all. The facts stack up very well, and after reading Jesus’s biographies you may well think that if anyone is going to be resurrected and has the power to give others his resurrection life for all eternity, it must be Jesus! You’re free to think that too! Wolfhart Pannenberg often contended that, far from limiting one’s critical rationality, such faith increases it.^[46]

Or thirdly, you can be agnostic about the nature of the universe. You can look and say, “I don’t know. Maybe there is a God who does things like raise Jesus back to life. Maybe there isn’t. I’ll let the evidence, not only about the resurrection but about all matters of life, lead me.” That too is a perfectly acceptable stance to take. Anthony Flew is an interesting case of such an approach; he commonly says that he always goes “where the evidence leads.” Interestingly enough, after donning the mantle of “the world’s most notorious atheist” for over forty years,^[47] he converted to deism.^[48] We should all be willing to reflect so honestly upon even our most time-honored positions.

The point is, there is no purely objective and neutral examination of the facts that we can make. Whatever starting point you begin with will inevitably send you on a certain trajectory for dealing with the facts.^[49] Therefore, the claims about Jesus’s resurrection cannot be treated alone. They have to be examined inside a matrix of many other beliefs, commitments, and more facts. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, however it is understood, must be understood as a part of a larger whole.

Challenge and Call to Repentance

Why Resurrection Is Important to Early Church Revisited

And to that end, I’d like to revisit why the resurrection was important to the early church. In other words, where does it fit into a larger worldview? In a very early work, called the Letter to the Romans, we are told that sin is the reason for why death is in the world (Rom. 5:12). Sin is, simply put, rebellion against God. And because we all live lives of sin, we all die (Rom. 6:23). However, death is not a natural part of God’s universe. We were created to live righteously forever. But because of our own actions, death is in the world, and it comes to us all. So we have two problems: sin and death. And so do you see why the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so important? In Jesus’s own death he bore the wrath of God, not for his own sins, but on behalf of his people. He thereby addressed the cause of death (sin), then in the resurrection he conquered death itself! Therefore the world’s greatest problems are solved: sins are forgiven and death is conquered. However, without Jesus’s resurrection, Christianity has a problem (sin and death) without a solution. But with Jesus’s resurrection in the middle of history, a whole new world has begun! People can be reconciled to God, and not just be forgiven but given new life and new power to live lives of grace, love, joy, beauty, and goodness through Jesus Christ. This is what Peter, in the first Christian sermon ever preached, meant when he said “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. [And he has been] exalted [to] the right hand of God, and [has] received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit . . . Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:32–33, 38)

Why Resurrection Is Important Today

And this message is still proclaimed today. Those old words Paul spoke to the Corinthians long ago still meet us where we are today. For we all know that we are not perfect people. And we all know we are going to die (these being the two easiest Christian doctrines to convince anyone of). But if you turn in faith to the risen Lord Jesus Christ you can say with Paul “”O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Cor 15:55-57; see also Rom. 8:34–39).

I mentioned earlier that the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the loadstar of all Christian doctrine. Christianity stands or falls on Jesus’s resurrection. So does every other worldview or religion for that matter. For if Jesus is resurrected you have got to take an account of what that means. His resurrection changes everything we think about ourselves, God, ethics, life, etc., and confronts every system of thought that doesn’t reckon with it.

Earlier I mentioned Anthony Flew. I said that he has become a deist, which is not a Christian. But nonetheless he did write that “the [Christian] claim concerning the resurrection is more impressive than any by the religious competition.”^[50] He then surrendered the last chapter of his book to a Christian theologian to write on the resurrection. I suspect that he too, even as a deistic unbeliever, sensed the weight of how the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth confronts us all no matter where we are on the philosophical spectrum.

Conclusion

The question I began with was this: “Do some people really believe that a dead man came back to life?”

The answer is yes. And such a conviction fits consistently inside a plausible philosophical structure that realistically corresponds to our experience of the world and addresses the most important questions of our lives. Indeed, more than fitting into that philosophical structure, the resurrection of Jesus the Christ is the cornerstone, the linchpin, the loadstar in that philosophical structure. And it gives the Christian today the confidence that the first Christians had, who saw the risen Lord with their own eyes, and said “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?…Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. [What] shall separate us from the love of Christ? . . . [W]e are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:31f, 34f, 39–39). Amen.

1. Adolf Schlatter, “The Theology of the New Testament and Dogmatics,” in The Nature of New Testament Theology: The Contribution of William Wrede and Adolf Schlatter, ed. and trans. Robert Morgan (London: SCM Limited Press, 1973), 117–165, 153. ↑

2. GRECO-ROMAN: Josephus, Ant. 18.3.3. While the authenticity of some/many details of this paragraph are disputed, it is generally agreed that Josephus wrote something about Jesus here (Géza Vermìs, “The Jesus Notice of Josephus Re-Examined,” Journal of Jewish Studies, 38 [1987]: 1–10) even if later interpolation cannot be ciphered out. More certain is Ant. 20; Tacitus, Annals 15.44. While it may very well be possible that Tacitus is just passing on what he heard from Pliny or even Christians, the point remains that he affirms and never doubts Jesus’s existence; Celsus, The True Word (in Origen, Contra Celsus). In Celsus’s polemic there is no claim that Jesus never lived; that would have been a good one for him to use if he thought so. Lucian, The Death of Peregrine 11–13.JEWISH: Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a. ↑

3. The only two scholars I can think of who still hold this belief are G. A. Wells, Emeritus professor of German at Birkbeck University in London, and Robert Price at Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary in Florida. The overwhelming tide of scholarship, however, is sweeping ideas like theirs away—though admittedly might does not make right (being popular does not mean it is so). Nonetheless early and late Christian texts, both orthodox and heterodox alike, all point back to one progenitive founder of the religion, and across the board affirm that that person was Jesus of Nazareth. If Christianity were grass roots in its origin, we would no doubt see competing claims to who its founder was. But this is not so. Diverse communities separated by distance, culture, race, and language all point back to this one founder and leader. See also C. H. Dodd,  According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (London: Fontana Books, 1952) and R. T. France, Jesus and the Old Testament: His Application of Old Testament Passages to Himself and His Mission (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1971) for hermeneutical evidence pointing back to one original mind. ↑

4. Only nineteenth and twentieth century Arian supremacists have tried to contradict this point. ↑

5. This will become important as we think about the kind of resurrected they expected. ↑

6. If Muslims want to contradict this point, then the conversation as an historical conversation is simply over. It has to move immediately to a theological conversation, and the question becomes why God’s prophet can’t suffer nor die. ↑

7. GRECO-ROMAN: Josephus, Ant. 18.3.3 (perhaps); Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Lucian, The Death of Peregrine 11–13; Mara, Letter of Mara bar Sarapion; the “Alexamenos graffito”; JEWISH: Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a ↑

8. The Christians didn’t seem to shy away from this point (cf. Gal. 3:13 ref. to Deut. 21:22–23). ↑

9. N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense 1st ed. (San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 2006), 96. ↑

10. Acts 21:38. ↑

11. Theudas in Josephus, Antiquities 20.97–98. See Craig A. Evans, “Jesus and the Continuing Exile of Israel,” in Jesus & the Restoration of Israel: A Critical Assessment of N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, ed. Carey C. Newman (Downers Grove, IL.: InterVarsity Press, 1999). ↑

12. I leave out of the “facts on the ground” the sightings because, strictly speaking, the sightings themselves cannot be called “facts” as I here define the word. Rather the only “fact” about it is that the disciples claimed to have seen him (though that in itself is worthy of consideration). ↑

13. See for example C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994 and 1998) and J. D. G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and their Significance for the Character of Christianity 2nd ed. (London: SCM Press, 2006). ↑

14. Tim Keller makes an interesting point that those closest to political, social, religious, etc. leaders are often the first to air the foibles of said leaders after they are dead. Those closest know the full truth and the dirty little secrets. Not so with Jesus’s disciples. ↑

15. This is commonly recognized, but to round out our citations of non-Christian primary sources the following are worth mentioning: Josephus, Ant. 20.9.1; Lucian, The Death of Peregrine 11–13; Pliny the Younger’s letter to Emperor Hadrian, Letters 10.96–97; Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Book Six: XVI. 4. Historians have noted severe persecutions—though not all empire wide—under Nero, Domitian, Septimius Severus, Maximinus I (Thrax), Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian. See also Matt 14:1–12; Mark 6:14–29; Acts 12:2; 1 Clement 5:5:1–6:2; Tertullian, Apologeticus; The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity; Eusebius, Church History 5.1.7; idem, Martyrs of Palestine. ↑

16. Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 139. ↑

17. Aside from the obvious New Testament texts, scholars like Gordon D. Fee (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, revised ed., The New International Commentary on The New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014]) and J. R. Daniel Kirk (Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008]) have demonstrated how determinative the resurrection was for the theology of entire books. See Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016) on the unwillingness of Gnostic Christians to suffer and greater willingness to acquiesce. ↑

18. N. T. Wright (The Resurrection of the Son of God [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003] 55, 122) has written at great length how unique and unprecedented the Christian resurrection story was in both Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts. ↑

19. See Acts 17. ↑

20. Even the non-Jewish Lucian (Syrian) criticizes the Christians for this (see The Death of Peregrine 11–13), as does the “Alexamenos graffito.” ↑

21. I’ve left the empty tomb out as an unassailable “fact” to give due deference to the scholars who contributed to the collection of articles published in The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave, eds. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005). Some (not all) believe that Jesus was never buried in the first place, making an empty tomb a moot point. For the same reason I’ve left the guards at the tomb out of this argumentation. Here I am stripping the evidence all the way down to the barest minimum. ↑

22. This point is often overlooked by Christian apologists who insist that the disciples wouldn’t have died for a known lie. The argument bears some weight, for sure, but not as much as some put on it because people historically have been willing to die for a known lie when they thought the larger political investment was worth it. Granted though, all disciples consistently held their testimony. There is something to that. ↑

23. Even if Rudolf Bultmann doesn’t teach that this is what the New Testament authors were saying, it is at least the sense of what he promotes with the famous “raised into the kerygma” idea of his demythologization program (which is really a form of Docetism because it ignores both historical events and what historical authors intended with their writings). So the problem with Bultmann’s program is on the interpretation end. He himself affirmed that the disciples at least believed in a “three tiered universe” and in Jesus’s resurrection. Thus my problem with Bultmann is the illegitimate hermeneutical/homiletical approach. It is docetic in the way it sweeps aside the New Testament authors’ intent, and in essence puts forward a different message. In that regard it can only be classified as “unbelief.” See J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923). ↑

24. Such anachronistic Marxist and New Age language itself should give us pause before concluding that the New Testament authors thought in such terms. ↑

25. N. T. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, passim. ↑

26. Acts 17. ↑

27. Daniel 12:2. ↑

28. There are no chimerical tales in Jesus’s biographies, which were all penned within a generation of Jesus’s life. They read as straightforward historical narratives, penned very recently after the events they describe. ↑

29. Luke 1:1–4 (emphasis added). ↑

30. C. S. Lewis, “What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970), 169. ↑

31. A current example of such a myth is the movie “The Clash of the Titans” (directed by Louis Leterrier [Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Pictures, 2010], film). It is based on the myth of Perseus, complete with Pegasus the winged horse, Medusa the gorgon with snakes for hair, and of course the Kraken. But the gospels are (can I say this?) boring by comparison. Jesus goes to common places that we can locate on a map, and talks with regular people about expected things. ↑

32. Of course, I recognize that there was diversity among the first Christians. However, on the issues of worshipping Jesus and his bodily resurrection there is no diversity early on. ↑

33. N. T. Wright (Resurrection of the Son of God, 32–84) thoroughly covers this ground. ↑

34. Again, see Wright (Resurrection of the Son of God, 85–206) for a thorough review. ↑

35. It is sometimes contended also that the women simply went to the wrong tomb or someone other than the disciples stole the body and that an alleged empty tomb was enough to get the story going. On the first one, are we to really think the disciples were so stupid as to loose track of a dead body, or that someone couldn’t have corrected their error? Besides, as I explained earlier, Jews took burial very seriously; they would have remembered where Jesus’s tomb was. On the second contention, there is no evidence whatsoever for such a notion, nor would there be any motive for someone to do such a thing. ↑

36. I don’t think as much weight should be put on these 500 people (1 Cor. 15:6) as is sometimes done. Could they all really be rounded up and interviewed? It’s an interesting claim Paul makes, but I don’t think the Corinthians had any mind to potentially travel to Palestine and find them. ↑

37. See John 20:1, 19, 26, 21:1. ↑

38. See Acts 7:57–8:1. ↑

39. See Acts 9:3–4. ↑

40. I only mention Paul’s conversion in the context of the so-called hallucination theory to make the point that he had no wish to project. I don’t make more of Paul’s conversion (like some do) because conversions happen all the time to people who themselves did not see the resurrected Jesus. ↑

41. Josephus, The Life of Flavius Josephus, 420–421. ↑

42. Cf. Acts 16:27 for example. ↑

43. These are the same problems with theory that says Jesus was just resuscitated—actually clinically dead but revived much like what defibrillators do. ↑

44. We could also mention the theory that Jesus was an alien. Intelligent and otherwise quite sane people like this option. The theory of evolution as it currently stands makes it possible to believe that some race, on a far off distant planet, has been evolving for millions (or maybe billions) of years longer than we have. They have mastered the skills of space travel, found a way to take on the form of humans (or at least the appearance of humans) visit our world, survive crucifixion, or even raise themselves back to life, and disappear back to their home planet again, leaving us with wonderful moral teachings and a new world religion. Honestly, none of the “facts” can be used to gainsay this theory. It can actually account for all the facts. But we’re trying to get to a point where we can understand an incredible story It does us no good to replace it with a more incredible story. So I’m just going to leave this one alone, and simply say that the failure of all the previous theories leaves us grasping for the most outrageous things. It seems we have come all the way to the end of investigation and speculation, and having found ourselves in a galaxy far far away. Maybe it’s time to come back to earth. ↑

45. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Theological Letter on ‘Easter’ commissioned by the Pomeranian Council of Brethren” in Meditations on the Cross, ed. Manfred Weber, trans. Douglas W. Scott, 64–67 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 67. ↑
    

46. E.g. “God’s Presence in History: How My Mind has Changed,” Christian Century 98 (1981): 260–63. Here Pannenberg follows in the steps of thinkers like Augustine, Calvin, and Edwards. ↑

47. Flew wrote God and Philosophy (London: Hutchinson) in 1966. ↑

48. Anthony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, 1st ed. (New York: HarperOne, 2007). Though some have charged his coauthor, Roy Abraham Varghese, of taking advantage of Flew in his old age and hijacking his prominent name to attribute to him views he did not hold, Flew has himself issued coherent statements and further writings to disabuse us of such conspiracy theories. ↑

49. Thinkers like David Hume (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding), Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason; Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone; Lectures on Philosophical Theology), Gotthold Lessing (see Henry Chadwick, Lessing’s Theological Writings), and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (On Christianity: Early Theological Writings) agree that historical evidence is secondary to philosophical, epistemological, and metaphysical commitments. To these thinkers the problem of Jesus’s resurrection was not an issue of lack of historical evidence but an incongruence with a priori assumptions about the universe. This seems to be behind Rudolf Bultmann’s docetic enterprise as well. See also Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A Theological Conversation with Wolfhart Pannenberg,” Dialog 11 (1972): 286–95. ↑

50. Flew and Varghese, There is A God, 187. ↑