This point is quite simple: there has never been any evidence that Jesus did not rise from
the dead.
One could argue the onus is on Christians to provide evidence that He did, but we have done so by
pointing out that
the apostles were willing to die for their belief that Jesus rose from the dead, they would be in
the perfect position
to know if that was true or not, and people are not willing to die for what they know to be false.
However, it is also worth
mentioning that it would have been extremely easy to disprove the claim and put an end to the
entirety of Christianity right at
the very beginning. All they needed to do was show the body of Jesus, yet they were never able to.
Because they were not able to
demonstrate that Jesus was still dead they were unable to put a stop to Christianity. Some have
argued that they could not produce
the body because the apostles stole it. A few points here: Firstly, what motivation did the
disciples have? They were scared and in
hiding and all they got in return was pain, suffering, and death. Secondly, the disciples would
likely not have been able to roll away
the stone in front of the tomb, especially not with guards on duty. Thirdly, Roman guards were on
duty. If they were actually asleep,
they would have been punished severly and even if they had been, they would not have been able to
stay asleep if people were moving a
massive stone. Either way, they would have stopped anyone on the outside from removing Jesus's body
from the tomb.
There are numerous reports of people seeing Jesus after he died. Many of these accounts happen in group settings where multiple people are experiencing the same thing. In addition, in many of these encounters people touched Jesus and Jesus ate with His disciples. These are important to point out because it rules out the hallucination theory, which posits the idea that the disciples were just hallucinating His return. Another mark against the hallucination theory is that the idea of Jesus rising from the dead would never have entered the disciples minds, as we see when Jesus tells them directly that He will die and rise again but they do not understand what He is telling them.
Another reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, is that key people who were hostile to Christianity such as the Apostle Paul and James, the brother of Jesus, converted to Christianity. The fact that their were contemporary people who were hostile to Christianity and converted after having a post resurrection appearance of Jesus, strengthens the idea that Jesus actually rose again.
There are some who argue that Jesus did not really die on the cross. One claim is that it was
someone
who just looked liked Jesus. The issue with this theory is that the Romans knew what they
were doing and would not have
messed that up. Additionally, Jesus was in Roman custody so there was no time to switch Him with
someone else.
Another idea is referred to as the "swoon theory," the theory states that Jesus simply fainted and
appeared dead. However, there are
three primary issues with this.
1. Roman centurions who were assigned to crucify people knew what they were doing and were
threatened with death themselves if they failed to ensure the death of the criminal on the
cross.
2. Jesus was stabbed with a spear and water came out, modern anatomy teaches us that means part
of His vital organs were severed and he was already dead.
3. Even before the crucifixion He was flogged and beaten into a bloody mess. Even if He had somehow
survived that
and the crucifixion, He was then put into a tomb for three days without food or water. That
would have most certainly
killed Him in the condition He was in. Since all of these things are also recorded in secular
historical records, we can safely
say that Jesus did die on the cross.
