Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?

(notes and thoughts from "More than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell)
Matt: 22:37,38

"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.'" -Josh McDowell in his book "More than a Carpenter"

If Christ didn't raise from the dead than all of Christianity falls on its face, because then He isn't the son God, but merely a dead man.

Jesus Burial
- He was wrapped in linen cloth

- 100 pounds of aromatic spices, mixed together to form a gummy substance to the wrappings

- The Body was placed in a solid rock tomb

- An extremely large stone that weighed appx. Two Tons was rolled by levers against the entrance

- A roman guard of strictly disciplined men were stationed to guard the tomb
Fear of Punishment "produced flawless attention to duty, especially in the night watches."

- The guard affixed on the tomb the Roman seal, a stamp of Roman power and authority.
Anyone trying to move the stone from the tomb's entrance would have broken the seal and thus incurred the wrath of the Roman law.


The Empty Tomb

- He appeared to the disciples with a period of 40 days after, while showing himself to them by many "convincing proofs."
- Paul wrote that Jesus appeared to more than 500 of his followers at one time, the majority of whom were still alive and could confirm what Paul wrote.

"I believe in the Resurrection, partly because a series of facts are unaccountable without it. The empty tomb was too notorious to be denied." - A.M. Ramsey

"...the resurrection could not have been maintained in Jerusalem 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 Althaus

"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 is buried was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of historical evidence has been discovered in in literary sources, epigraphy, or archeology that would disprove this statement."
- Paul L. Maier

The Theories
1. The Wrong Tomb
If a wrong tomb had been involved, the Jewish authorities would have lost no time in producing the body from the proper tomb, thus effectively quenching for all time any rumor of a resurrection.

2. The Swoon Theory
"It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the tomb, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror over death and the grace, the Prince of Life, an impression which is the foundation of their ministry in both their lives and deaths, at the most could only have a sad or weak voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, and then turned into their reverence into worship."- David Friedrich Strauss

In other words
"You don't call a half dead guy, the God and King and conqueror over death. You call him defeated, lucky, and most of all, human." -Tombo

3. The Body Was Stolen
If the Disciples did it...
"This goes completely against who they were before and after the crucifixion. their ethical teaching, the quality of their lives, their steadfastness in suffering and persecution. Nor would it begin to explain their huge transformation from defeated and dispirited escapists into witnesses whom no opposition could muzzle." -Anderson

If the Romans or Jewish Leaders did it..
"...If they had, why didn't they explain exactly where the body lay? Why didn't they recover the corpse, put it on a cart, and wheel it through the center of Jerusalem? Such an action would certainly have destroyed Christianity..."

Evidence for the Resurrection
"There exists such an overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true." -Lord Darling former Chief Justice of England