 | Key Text
"After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight."
Hosea 6:2
Fulfillment
"How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly;"
Acts 10:38-40 | |
A student at the University of Uruguay said to me, "Professor McDowell, why can't you refute Christianity?" I answered, "For a very simple reason. I'm unable to explain away an event in history -- the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
After more than 700 hours of studying this subject and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I came to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon people, or it is the most important fact of history.
The resurrection issue takes the question "Is Christianity valid?" out of the realm of philosophy and makes it a question of history. Does Christianity have a historically acceptable basis? Is sufficient evidence available to warrant belief in the resurrection?
Some facts relevant to the resurrection are these: Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet who claimed to be the Christ prophesied in the Jewish Scriptures, was arrested, judged a political criminal, and crucified. Three days after his death and burial, some women who went to his tomb found the body gone. His disciples claimed that God had raised him from the dead and that he had appeared to them various times before ascending into heaven. From this foundation, Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and has continued to exert great influence down through the centuries.
Did the resurrection actually happen?
THE EMPTY TOMB
The followers of Jesus said he had risen from the dead. They reported that he appeared to them during a period of forty days, showing himself to them by many "convincing proofs" (some versions say "infallible proofs"). Paul the apostle said that Jesus appeared to more than 500 of his followers at one time, the majority of whome were still alive and could confirm what Paul wrote.
A.M. Ramsey writes: "I believe in the resurrection, partly because a series of facts are unaccountable without it." The empty tomb was "too notorious to be denied." Paul Althaus states that the resurrection "could not have been maintained in Jerusalme for a single day, for a single hour, if the emptiness of the tomb had not been established as a fact for all concerned."
Paul L. Maier concludes: "If all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered in literaray sources, epigraphy, or archaeology that would disprove this statement."
- More than a Carpenter, Josh McDowell, pp. 89-93
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