Posted on 04/08/2007 11:39:14 PM PDT by freedomdefender
Today is Easter Sunday; the day we Christians celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. But did he really rise again? If he didn't, then he was a liar — or a madman. If he didn't rise again, then our faith is useless and there is no life after death. The whole Bible is a lie, in fact, if Jesus didn't rise again.
So, is there any real evidence that the resurrection of Jesus actually happened — or is it just a myth? I want to share some of the solid evidence that Jesus’ resurrection really did happen:
• First, the reliability of the Scriptures. Did you know that we have more than 5,000 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament? That is a huge amount. Some manuscripts date to within 100 years of the autographs (the original writings) and all agree with each other. (Yes, there are minor differences, but there are so many copies available we can look at them and get a very accurate picture of what the New Testament writers said.) What this means is that the Bible is extremely reliable as an historical document.
• Second, we have writings of historians outside the Bible that corroborate the stories within it. These historians, like Pliny the Younger, Ptolemy, Tacitus and Josephus, not only mention kings, governors, dates and places found in the Bible, they also mention the disciples and Jesus himself.
• Third, the empty tomb. The Gospel writers all mention that the tomb was empty Easter Sunday morning. If there had been a body there, the Romans or Jewish leaders could have shown it and that would have ended Christianity right then and there. Remember, the tomb was well guarded. Also, in the Bible, women saw the empty tomb first — that would never happen in Jewish fiction of that day, so it must have been true!
• Fourth, Paul wrote in First Corinthians that 500 different people saw Jesus after his resurrection. Paul wrote this about 20 years after the resurrection and points out that most of them were still alive and could verify what they saw. No one disputes the validity and historicity of Paul or First Corinthians, and 500 people do not have the same hallucination.
• Fifth, why would the early Christians have celebrated Communion and Baptism if Jesus had remained dead? History teaches that the Christians began celebrating The Lord’s Supper within 20 years of Jesus’ resurrection. Communion commemorates the sacrificial death of Jesus by celebrating the blood he shed and how his body was broken. Why would they do this if Jesus’ death had been meaningless? This would be like a John F. Kennedy fan club celebrating his death instead of his life and legacy. Further, the early Christians changed the meaning of baptism from a Jewish cleansing ritual to mean "buried with Christ and raised to life with him." (Romans 6:4).
• Sixth, why would the disciples die for a lie? We see in the Gospels that they were basically cowards. Why did these timid lambs suddenly change into the lions of the faith? Yes, people die for what they believe is true, but people do not die for what they know is NOT true. History says all of the disciples died for their faith except John.
• Seventh, the emergence and growth of the church. The church started with a small rag tag group of mostly poor people who were murdered and persecuted for their belief. Within 200 years, it conquered Rome. We name our dogs Nero and Caesar and our children John and Paul. Thousands of churches and changed lives stand as a testament to the resurrection.
• Eighth, the conversion of skeptics. Scores of non-believers, including Jesus’ own brothers, Paul and atheists, have put their faith in Christ after seeing him alive or examining the evidence.
• Finally, the ongoing encounters with Jesus today. Millions of us throughout history have had a conversion experience. We know Jesus is alive because we have felt, known and experienced him.
This is the good news: that God came to earth, redeemed us and can be experienced by us. This Sunday morning, remember, we don’t celebrate the good life of a dead man, we celebrate the resurrection of a living Savior who made us, loves us, and wants to know us. Happy Easter from my family to yours.
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The Rev. Craig Harris is pastor at Montalba Christian Church and is employed as the Parent Involvement Coordinator for Palestine Independent School District. Contact Harris at www.apparentlyso.net .
If you hold out for a physical resurrection instead of a spiritual one, you inevitably have some questions from skeptics:
I wrote some questions down and some rebuttals to the proofs that were offere, but after reflection I thought the addition was unkind and unnecessary.
Physical Resurrection is a matter of faith, but IMHO shouldn’t be dispositive of the value of Jesus and his message of hope and redemption and the relationship of each of us to his/her belief in a higher power.
So I hope every Christian, fundamentalist or not, has renewed his faith in the Jesus message of redemption by celebrating Easter.
From my reading of Scripture, it was PHYSICAL RESURRECTION that the apostles were talking about. Otherwise, they wouldn't have faced such aggressive disbelief - and hostility. Saying, "he's still with us in spirit," is very uncontroversial. But they said something that caused controversy - and anger. If you read the Book of Acts, it sure sounds as if they're saying they SAW a RESURRECTED Jesus. Most people scoffed, and that's natural since people don't rise from the dead. But that's what they say they saw. You can say they were wrong, but trying to water their message down into a "spiritual" resurrection isn't true to what they were saying.
The guy is a genius. He just exudes logic. He is also very practical and serious. His stories about being a college professor are very interesting.
I'm borrowing the tapes from my church library...
..there are 3 sessions on each tape...I think 27 tapes total
..I listen over and over as there are such wonderful nuggets of truth that I don't want to miss the first and second time...
...He's witty, passionate and true to the Gospel...a wonderfully intelligent man.
How do you know this except by your interpretation of the New Testament writings? In any case, you are treating that story cavalierly. Christian preachers clashed with the LEADERSHIP of the Jews, just as Jesus had. Among the people, some rejected Christ, some accepted him.
They then began preaching to the people in the streets walking by the Synagogue. But even then Christianity didn’t rise. A lot of the Gentiles didn’t want to follow the Jewish law (which was obeyed by the early Christians.) Remember Jesus was a Jew and followed the laws of the Hebrews. It was only after the Council of Jerusalem when Paul argued that Jesus had heralded a “New covenent” with God (meaning that Jewish law no longer had to be followed especially circumcision) that the Church really exploded.
Here you are totally befuddled. And as in the case of Paul proclaiming anything at the "Council of Jerusalem," he did no such thing.
It was then bolstered by city dwellers who considered the new religion fashionable. Early Christians also tended to blend their religion with older pagan beliefs - pagan temples were converted to Christian Churches, many pagan dieties became “Saints” and pagan practices like the Easter Bunny and Christmas trees were adopted. After the Emperor Constantine was baptised on his death bed (after saying prayers to ALL gods, lest he go to hell) that Church leaders took over declaring that Christianity was the official religion of the Empire. Thus getting rid of pagans became the order of the day. Many peasants suddenly found themselves forcefully converted by their governors and aristocratic overlords.
You have managed to telescope the experience of centuries into a few sentance and to mix fact and fancy promiscuously. Yes. by making Christianity the public religion of the empire, Constantine and other princes opened the Church to all sorts of trimmers and opportunists, for people do tend to bow to the dictates of power. But the fact is that by Constantine's time Christianity, despite a savage persecution lasting for more than 50 years was propabaly the most powerful private institution in the Roman Empire, which is why Constantine if only on purely natural grounds alone, became the champion of the Christians.
I really don’t want to get into this with anyone since it is a matter of faith, both in the general sense of today’s Christianity and also faith in the later writings about the beliefs and related stories of long dead Apostles.
We know He is alive for we have met Him and trust the Word He has written to us.
John 10:29 "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
John 17:24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
1Cor 1:18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
“proof”? I’m a believer myself, but that’s a bit strong. Interesting, serious positive evidence, provocative perhaps, but “proof” is a very strong term meaning to eliminate by reason all other possibilities. If this was provable there woud be absolutely no need for faith. Reason is helpful, but is not sufficient.
Luke 16:31 “But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Acts 6:7 The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.
I don’t think I have ever read Sproul but I Have “Following Christ” by R. C. Sproul in my bible software. Have you read this? Do you recommendit?
Ironic though that some of the most obsessessed with evidence are people of faith.
He knows his stuff & most of all, conveys the Word and his love for the Lord in a profound way!
He's a teacher's teacher....He makes the Bible come alive because he loves it and is passionate to explain & present it to others.
You mean like St. Paul, who made a point of offering as "evidence," the fact that Jesus had been seen, resurrected, by 500 people together at one time? Offering evidence to buttress faith has a long pedigree among Christian apostles and evangelists.
We're called to reflect Christ in our lives. But the example of St. Paul and the apostles shows that it's quite legitimate to offer evidence to support our claim that Christ rose from the dead. St. Paul offered evidence when he preached. Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-8
Did you read my whole post?
I’m certainly not against preaching evidences. I just think that personally, the priority is living and loving as Christ would in your own world...or the people that you come into contact with.
You can “beat” someone in a debate about evidences and still have them reject you and Jesus. However, give a hungry person a meal and you’ll see doors open to embracing Jesus.
I definately loving studying and talking about evidences to any and all people, but that is secondary. What makes a bigger impact in peoples lives is being there when they need a shoulder to cry on, or a ride to work, or a good winter coat, etc.
Sincerely
According to them, they *are* dying for a text - namely, the Quran. There are others who have sacrifced themselves in the name of religion: Kamikazis are one. Furthermore there are people who have sacrificed themselves for ideals: Patriots from every nation. There are tons of other examples.
>While what you say is true, there are well over 5,000 copies of the New Testament in the original Greek. Of the Illiad you mention, we have approximately 600 copies still intact. The fact that of these 600+ copies, there is around a 5% variation (or error rate), leads one to believe they are correct copies. The error rate for New Testament transcripts is closer to 99%. What does that tell you about it’s authenticity? If you take the numbers and add in the translations to other languages, there are over 20,000 copies of the New Testament. Frankly, dismissing it because it is hard to believe is foolish at best, and fearsome in the extreme, at worst.<
Wow so with millions of copies of “The Davinci Code” in print and all happening to have the exact same text, it must be true right?
Popularity of an idea doesn’t make it true either.
You can’t prove Christ rose from the grave. You can’t do it. That was my main point - and using the Bible to prove itself is pathetic...
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