Are you someone who thinks that folk who lived around 2000 years ago were less intelligent than ourselves? Do you think they were easily duped, could not reason as well or as effectively, and that their minds had less processing power than do ours today? For one thing, I doubt that most of us could remember details anywhere near as well with our easy reliance on writing it down and storing it in various forms for quick and accurate retrieval. Without the need to memorize as folk did back then, our minds could be said to have become somewhat lazy, relatively speaking. And while memorizing doesn’t necessarily mean comprehension, there is still nothing to indicate that intelligence is greater today than in any other age of homosapien existence. Critics were just as astute and cynical, their reasoning just as precise, and their observations requiring particular attention to detail for reports and later accurate recall. Only the arrogant can waive aside the evidence that convinced so many back then and since that the man who died so hideously had truly come alive and walked free from his embalment and burial.

For the Resurrection to have any significance, Jesus had to be well and truly dead first. It must not be forgotten that He was scourged beforehand - repeatedly beaten and whipped with a 3-lash scourge that had pieces of bone or metal attached to the ends which would tear into the skeletal muscles setting the stage for circulatory shock. A crown of thorns was pushed on to his head. Nails that were between 5 and 7 inches long and almost half an inch square were hammered through his wrists and feet. He was speared through the ribcage, his right lung and pericardal sac and heart pierced releasing both blood and pleural fluids. Just that wound in itself would have been fatal. Most unusually, his legs were not broken - but there was no need to do so as he was already undeniably dead. Later his body was embalmed in up to 100 pounds of spices and bound in bandages, these hardening as the spices and pastes dried. Even had he only swooned and then woken up in the tomb, he was firmly encased. The tomb had a huge stone weighing up to 2 tons rolled across its entrance on a carved downward track, a seal fixed across it, and a Roman guard set in place. Pilate required, and was given, official assurance that Jesus was dead. Any assumptions that Jesus had only just swooned fly right in the face of modern medical knowledge.

Not only did He die, but Jesus also rose in the same physical body in which He died. There are many alternate explanations for the disappearance of Christ’s dead body, but none of them satisfy the facts of the case. Many sceptics have become Christians while attempting to refute the Resurrection. To present all the evidences here would take too many words, but a summary list of salient points to address include:

~ this event occurred as predicted
~ the Roman seal was broken and the Guard gone missing
~ the huge heavy stone was moved away
~ Jesus was not in the tomb, but his burial bandages were left behind
~ over 500 eyewitnesses saw him alive, including disbelieving and hostile witnesses who were subsequently convinced it was He
~ the lives of His followers changed dramatically and despite torture and death they did not recant

The significance and explanations surrounding each of these points have been debated strenuously, and the proof evidence presented continues to point to the only reasonable conclusion, namely, that Christ rose bodily from death. To follow these evidences and the arguments every way concerning them, click on the following links. Go on, I dare you! Sceptics and scoffers beware. If you are prepared to give honest consideration to what you read here, prepare for (at very least) a seed of doubt to enter your disbelief.

The content of Judah’s Journal is copyright. If you are NOT reading this on Judah’s Journal, then it has been copied from there and is re-published illegally - in other words, stolen. Those who would do that are common thieves and lack moral integrity. Judah’s Journal

Evidence for the Resurrection by Josh McDowell
Evidence for the resurrection of Christ by Peter Kreeft
Evidences for the Resurrection by J. Hampton Keathley III, M.Th.
Evidence for the Resurrection from “Contend for the Faith“, an Apologetics and Theology Resource.

A comment from Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Boston College:

The historical evidence is massive enough to convince the open-minded inquirer. By analogy with any other historical event, the resurrection has eminently credible evidence behind it. To disbelieve it, you must deliberately make an exception to the rules you use everywhere else in history. Now why would someone want to do that?

Ask yourself that question if you dare, and take an honest look into your heart before you answer.