Part of the importance of history is that the future is determined by things that have happened. Based on what took place in the past, it’s possible to know something about the future state of the world and of human life.

According to Scripture, there are things God has done in history — in time and space — that secure the eventual outcome of our lives and destinies. Which is what makes the historical reality of Christ’s resurrection a matter of the first order.

The resurrection is only significant if it really occurred, and only real if it actually happened.

Detachable From History? No

To detach the resurrection from historical fact would be ‘to dismiss Christianity out of the realm of fact. … These historical facts constitute its substance.’¹Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ, 541-42.

That said, this was an historical event that surpassed ordinary history and nature. In it, Almighty God acted from above and outside in ways breaking with the regular patterns of both. So Christ’s resurrection transcends our usual understanding of the created world through rationality and science. It was a literal historical happening, yet one that makes full sense only on its own ground in God’s saving interaction with his creation.²See Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Clarendon, 2003), parts 1 and 2.

‘“Christianity” is not a mere synonym of “religion,” but is a specific form of religion determined in its peculiarity by the great series of historical occurrences which constitute the redemptive work of God in this sinful world, among which occurrences the resurrection of Christ holds a substantial and in some respects the key position.’³Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ, 541-42.

So there’s an unprecedented blending of theological and historical components here. A great deal of empirical evidence exists for the concrete reality of an event that cannot be explained empirically and naturally, but only theologically and supernaturally.

And yet — this matters — it wasn’t an isolated event. Christ’s resurrection was an act of God within history that was directly and obviously coordinated with the flow of surrounding events. It engaged with and synchronised with the wider sequence of history. Which is precisely why its reality can be rationally and scientifically investigated. The resurrection left a pattern of detailed evidence within history, and the elements of that evidence can be objectively verified as matters of historical fact, in the same fashion as any other real happening for which significant detailed evidence survives.

Even on Strictly Historical Grounds

The resurrection is a colossal claim. But even from a strictly historical point of view there are very good reasons for believing it happened as the New Testament records claim.

In fact the historical case for its credibility is strong enough to represent the majority opinion of current mainstream New Testament scholarship.

‘No aspect of Jesus’ ministry was more minutely recorded than his resurrection. Due to the pivotal importance of his resurrection, the evidence for it appears to have been assiduously collected, transmitted, and embedded in the essential proclamation of salvation attested by the earliest Christian communities. The Gospel narratives seem to be saying to us that if we cannot credit the last validating episode of his life, we are not likely to grasp anything else about him.’⁴Oden, Systematic Theology, 2:495.

Can it be proven? That depends on your definition of proof. In one sense it’s unprovable, since ‘it is without analogy to any event since or before; it is utterly unique in that it is entirely a work of God and not a work of man.’⁵Robert C. Doyle, Eschatology and the Shape of Christian Belief (2008 edition [Orig. Paternoster, 1999]), 47; following Barth and Pannenberg.

But as a happening in history it may be convincingly argued for, recollected, proclaimed and received. Strong, precise, detailed, direct eyewitness testimony was widely available at the time. The cumulative weight of documents, eyewitnesses and corroborative evidence places it beyond reasonable doubt — adequate historical evidence to make it probable, and actually most probable.⁶Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 126.

The resurrection’s concrete historicity is simply the best explanation of the known facts.⁷Matthew Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (IVP Academic, 2010), 618-619, summarising chapter 5. The evidence is substantial enough that it carries the highest possible historical probability and is ‘nearly historically certain.’⁸McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles, 4-5. That is, the apostles’ sincerity and willingness to suffer or die for their claims removes the possibility of a fraud.

‘[I]f there is a modest prior probability that there is a God … we don’t need too much witness testimony to make it probable that Jesus rose from the dead. There are a lot of witnesses of the empty tomb and of conversations between Jesus and several other people of some length, whom … there is good reason to regard as trustworthy witnesses. I conclude that there is significant historical evidence of a kind which it is quite probable we would have if Jesus rose from the dead (and very improbable we would have if he did not rise from the dead), and so significant evidence of the occurrence of an event which would constitute God’s signature on the work of Jesus.’⁹Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 127.

The Alternatives Are Worse

The case can also be made from the implausibility of the alternatives and their failure to do justice to established facts.

Run through them. That we don’t and can’t know whether Jesus rose. That his resurrection was merely a religious experience, an invention, a lie, a legend. That the appearances were projections, ‘hallucination, delusions, wishful thinking.’¹⁰Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 619. That Jesus didn’t really die on the cross — the swoon theory, promoted by the Koran. That his body was stolen.

Each has been firmly and repeatedly debunked.¹¹In the modern period, various theories including fabrication, delusion, deception, and myth-making were proposed by figures such as Herman Samuel Reimarus, H. E. G. Paulus, David Friedrich Strauss, Albert Schweitzer, Rudolph Bultmann, Kirsopp Lake, and Hugh Schonfeld. A contemporary counterpart to these sceptics is Bart Ehrman. Notable orthodox responses to historical scepticism regards the resurrection of Christ include Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/2, §47, 437-454; William L. Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Edwin Mellen Press, 1989); Gary R. Habermas, The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic (Baker Book House, 1980); idem, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); idem, Evidence for the Historical Jesus: Is the Jesus of History the Christ of Faith? (Christian Publishing House, 2020); Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel, 2004), 81-152; Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 133-198; Oden, Systematic Theology, 2:484-89; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe (SCM Press, 1968), chapter 3; Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 685-718. The most recently published major scholarly work on the issue of historical inquiry into Christ’s resurrection is Dale C. Allison, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (T&T Clark, 2021). They stretch credulity to breaking point.

Rather, the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the necessary condition for the known facts. ‘In other words … no other explanation could or would do. All the efforts to find alternative explanations fail, and they were bound to do so.’¹²Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 717.

Four Accounts, Not One

The New Testament contains four accounts of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, and the authors made no attempt to conform to some official party line.

Their reporting of events around the resurrection is distinct, though not logically contradictory. As you’d expect from reliable independent testimony, the accounts are complementary. No single Gospel provides a total summary, and there’s no common pattern in the precise order of detailed circumstances.

Critics who dismiss the resurrection’s material reality usually overstate the discrepancies and underplay the similarities.¹³Doyle, Eschatology, 47. The variations are ‘due to the fact that each Evangelist was selecting from numerous testimonies, traditions, and recollections available to him that would correspond to his purpose with his own audience.’¹⁴Oden, Systematic Theology, 492.

But note what all four do. All present the resurrection as an objective historical event. All understand it as a real, literal, factual, physical occurrence at a particular point in time and space. And all agree on three things: the tomb was empty, the resurrection was first announced to women, and there were various meetings between the risen Christ and his disciples.

Four Facts Almost Nobody Disputes

Much of the evidence is virtually undisputed. Several minimal facts are ‘strongly supported by the historical data’ and accepted by almost unanimous consensus of ‘scholars who have studied the subject.’¹⁵Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 617, summarising chapter 4. ‘These facts form the historical bedrock, facts past doubting, on which all hypotheses should be built.’¹⁶Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 617, summarising chapter 4.

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus was buried, and the tomb was very soon discovered to be empty.
3. Very soon after his death Jesus was seen by many of his disciples, who ‘had experiences that led them to believe and proclaim that Jesus had been resurrected and had appeared to them.’¹⁷Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 617, summarising chapter 4; see also Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Crossway, 2018), 133.
4. Several years later, Saul of Tarsus ‘converted after experiencing what he interpreted as a post resurrection appearance of Jesus to him.’¹⁸Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 617, summarising chapter 4.

The first two ‘are recognized as historical by far the majority of critical scholars’¹⁹Habermas, The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ, 44. — and they don’t even depend on the New Testament being a historically reliable document.

So Jesus’ death and burial, the disciples’ despair, the empty tomb, the disciples’ surprising sea change, and Paul’s conversion from violent unbelief to convinced personal certainty, are considered firm historical facts by most historians. Including scholars who remain sceptical about the resurrection itself.

Eleven Strands, Each Independent

The fuller body of evidence comprises a larger number of independently demonstrable facts:

1. Jesus’ death
2. Jesus’ burial
3. the empty tomb
4. the post-death appearances
5. convinced eyewitness testimony to all four of the above
6. the transformation of Jesus’ disciples
7. the conversion of decided unbelievers, especially Paul
8. the universal Christian custom of Sunday observance
9. the rapid rise and spread of Christian faith
10. the failure of ancient and contemporary sceptics to prove the resurrection false
11. the unlikelihood of alternative theories.

Since each can be established independently of the others, the cumulative case for the high historical likelihood of Christ’s resurrection is real, strong, and — to the open-minded investigator — probable, plausible and persuasive.²⁰Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 710-718. Dale Allison Jr exposes various weaknesses and problems in both apologetic and sceptical arguments (see The Resurrection of Jesus, 304-335).

The combined weight is considerable enough that alternative reconstructions appear more incredible than the biblical accounts. The alternatives are so complicated and improbable as to be arguably much less credible and far more implausible than the resurrection claims themselves.²¹Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 122-23. See Allison’s examination of some tenuous sceptical arguments (The Resurrection of Jesus, 323-335).

‘Finally, historical judgment must fall on one side or the other: either the remembering community brought to life the deceptive story of a risen Christ or a living Christ brought to life the remembering community. There is no middle way.’²²Oden, Systematic Theology, 485.

—

• 1
  Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ, 541-42. ↩︎
• 2
  See Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Clarendon, 2003), parts 1 and 2. ↩︎
• 3
  Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ, 541-42. ↩︎
• 4
  Oden, Systematic Theology, 2:495. ↩︎
• 5
  Robert C. Doyle, Eschatology and the Shape of Christian Belief (2008 edition [Orig. Paternoster, 1999]), 47; following Barth and Pannenberg. ↩︎
• 6
  Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 126. ↩︎
• 7
  Matthew Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (IVP Academic, 2010), 618-619, summarising chapter 5. ↩︎
• 8
  McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles, 4-5. ↩︎
• 9
  Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 127. ↩︎
• 10
  Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 619. ↩︎
• 11
  In the modern period, various theories including fabrication, delusion, deception, and myth-making were proposed by figures such as Herman Samuel Reimarus, H. E. G. Paulus, David Friedrich Strauss, Albert Schweitzer, Rudolph Bultmann, Kirsopp Lake, and Hugh Schonfeld. A contemporary counterpart to these sceptics is Bart Ehrman. Notable orthodox responses to historical scepticism regards the resurrection of Christ include Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/2, §47, 437-454; William L. Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Edwin Mellen Press, 1989); Gary R. Habermas, The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic (Baker Book House, 1980); idem, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); idem, Evidence for the Historical Jesus: Is the Jesus of History the Christ of Faith? (Christian Publishing House, 2020); Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel, 2004), 81-152; Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 133-198; Oden, Systematic Theology, 2:484-89; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe (SCM Press, 1968), chapter 3; Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 685-718. The most recently published major scholarly work on the issue of historical inquiry into Christ’s resurrection is Dale C. Allison, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (T&T Clark, 2021). ↩︎
• 12
  Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 717. ↩︎
• 13
  Doyle, Eschatology, 47. ↩︎
• 14
  Oden, Systematic Theology, 492. ↩︎
• 15
  Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 617, summarising chapter 4. ↩︎
• 16
  Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 617, summarising chapter 4. ↩︎
• 17
  Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 617, summarising chapter 4; see also Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Crossway, 2018), 133. ↩︎
• 18
  Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 617, summarising chapter 4. ↩︎
• 19
  Habermas, The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ, 44. ↩︎
• 20
  Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 710-718. Dale Allison Jr exposes various weaknesses and problems in both apologetic and sceptical arguments (see The Resurrection of Jesus, 304-335). ↩︎
• 21
  Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 122-23. See Allison’s examination of some tenuous sceptical arguments (The Resurrection of Jesus, 323-335). ↩︎
• 22
  Oden, Systematic Theology, 485. ↩︎