B8. JESUS’ DEATH AND RESURRECTION

The central tenet of Christianity is the death and resurrection of Jesus. This seems impossible, and in fact is humanly impossible.

I would encourage you to read Josh & Sean McDowell’s book: “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”, which describes in detail how the historical evidence confirms the historic reality of this event. Some thoughts are outlined below:

Did Jesus live? There is enough literary evidence even outside the Bible to remove doubt of this.

Did He actually die on the cross? Some have said that he may have fallen asleep or appeared dead, but apart from the fact that the Romans were master executioners, his side was pierced with a spear to confirm it.

Was He put in the tomb & then gone? Considering the Romans and the Jewish Pharisees at the time guarded the tomb, it is safe to say that his body was put in there. Considering that the Jewish people made up the story that his body was stolen from the tomb after the guards fell asleep, it is safe to say that His body did not remain in the tomb. If they wanted to make up the story, they would not have said that women found the empty tomb as the culture of that day would give less credibility to women than men, so if it was a fabricated story, it would not make sense to say that women discovered it. Except if that is what actually happened.

Was He seen after He rose again? The Bible says that He was seen by over 500 people after he rose again and this was written in the lifetime of those people. If this wasn’t true, surely it would have been easy to stop Christianity right there but lack of evidence of any of these people.

And if this was all a hoax ... how is it possible that everyone of the disciples would continue in the lie for years afterwards and die for that lie. Surely one of them would have said: “OK ... stop, don’t kill me, we made it all up!” But not one of them did that.

ARE YOU SURE ... You don’t believe this? Have you investigated the evidence? The consequences of your faith regarding this is incredibly significant for you!