Why We Believe

Appearances after death

Paul lists eyewitnesses of Jesus after the resurrection (1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:3-6) and Paul implies that the appearances were physical (1 Corinthians 15:3-6). The Gospel accounts show that the appearances were physical and bodily (Luke 24:37-43; John 20:17-20)

The Attitude of the Disciples

What caused the Christian movement to begin? How does one explain the origin of the church without a real resurrection? Even skeptics know that the early church sincerely believed in Jesus’ resurrection because it reversed the catastrophe of the crucifixion. These are conclusions of mainstream new testament scholarship!

Alternative Theories to the Resurrection

The best explanation will have explanatory scope and explanatory power better than other explanations, be less contrived and will be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs.

1. Conspiracy Theory: disciples stole the body and lied about his resurrection. It is anachronistic to suppose Jews intended to hoax Jesus’ resurrection.

2. Apparent Death Theory: It is implausible due to incredible complexity of the theory. This theory views the disciples through the eyes of Church History, not in terms of 1st Century Jewish behavior.⁵

3. Hallucination Theory (hard to accept mass hallucination, no other confirmation of examples of this phenomena)

Are there parallels to the resurrection with pagan mythology?

This theory was popularized by the so-called “History of Religions” school around the turn of the twentieth century. Today it is a theory held by a handful of scholars such as Robert Miller from the Jesus Seminar.⁶

We know that the prophets by the time of the exile were disgusted with the cults of seasonal deities dying and rising again (Ezekiel 36:22-32). Gerhard Kittel, after an extensive study, could find no evidence of cults of dying and rising gods among first century Palestinian Jews.⁷

Why would Jews in Palestine use pagan stories to promote a false resurrection? The parallels are contrived and similarities between pagan myths and the resurrection are exaggerated. For example, Miller lays out an extensive attempt to show a parallel between the Romulus myth (founder of Rome) and particular elements in the life of Jesus such as mountain top speech and a missing body! Of course, all the differences between the accounts are ignored or glossed over. Miller says that Jesus was deified by his followers just like Romulus, but that is not what the gospels say.

William Lane Craig points out these are “apotheosis stories [stories about the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god], the divinization and assumption of the hero into heaven.” ⁸

As to finding Jewish parallels—1st Century Jews were expecting a resurrection at the end of the age only. The best explanation is the bodily resurrection of Jesus!

The resurrection, THE pivotal event upon which Christianity stands or falls (1 Corinthians 15:13-19), meets and exceeds as the BEST explanation for the events surrounding the disappearance of Jesus’ body.