“The Son of Man
is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him.
And when he is killed, after three days
he will rise” (Mark 9:31,
ESV).
The main written record of
the Resurrection is contained in the four Gospels of the New Testament
(Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). Most accounts are found in Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20-21. In Acts 2,
the apostle Peter preaches a sermon to gathered crowd of thousands in which he
attests to the Resurrection of Jesus.
Later, the apostle Paul,
who began as one of the religious leaders (ex-Pharisees) who persecuted
Christians before his conversion (became an apostle), gave his testimony to the
truth of the Resurrection. He writes: “For what I
received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that,
he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of
whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to
James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to
one abnormally born” (1
Corinthians 15:3-8, NIV).
But what about secular
sources? Can we find any proof of the Resurrection of Jesus in sources other
than the Bible? Beyond the Bible, there are more than 20 non-Christian sources written between 30 and 130 AD
that refer to Jesus of Nazareth as a historical figure. Twelve mention his
death and provide details on how he died. Ten of these refer to his
Resurrection.
Thallus, a Samaritan
historian, who wrote around 25 AD, explained the darkness that occurred during
the Cruxification as a solar eclipse. According to modern astronomy, there was
no eclipse at that time, but Scripture tells us “from
the sixth hour until the ninth hour, darkness came over all the land”
(Matthew 27:45). Thallus’s account was referenced by Julius Africanus.
The Jewish historian
Josephus, who lived in the second half of the first century, wrote that the
disciples believed that Jesus had risen from the dead: “And there was about this time Jesus a wise man if indeed one ought to
call him a man. For he was the achiever of extraordinary deeds and was a
teacher of those who accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of
the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When he was indicted by the principal men among
us and Pilate condemned him to be Crucified, those who had come to love him
originally did not cease to do so; for he appeared to them on the third day restored to life, as the
prophets of the Deity had foretold these and countless other marvellous things
about him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, has not disappeared
to this day” (Antiquities 18:63-64).
Another historian during
that time period was Cornelius Tacitus, (55 AD – 117 AD), a Roman historian. He
writes, “Christus, from whom the name
[Christians] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of
Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most
mischievous superstition… broke out not only in Judea, the first source of
evil, but even in Rome…” The “mischievous
superstition” most likely referred to the spread of the news of the
Resurrection. The spread of the Resurrection account throughout the known world
spawned the growing movement of the new sect: “Christians.” Their willingness to risk persecution and
join the unpopular movement of Believers demonstrated that the Early Christians
believed the first-hand reports of eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus still
living at that time.
To consider the skeptics
that say the Resurrection was a legend, Dr. William Lane Craig, Christian
philosopher and theologian, says “the
short time span between Christ’s Crucifixion and the composition of this early
Christian creed [of the death and Resurrection of Christ] precludes the
possibility of legendary corruption.” Taken together, the historical
sources (such as from Samaritan historian, Jewish historian and Roman historian
above) that mention Jesus and the Resurrection provide substantive evidence
that the event was real. This amount of
written testimony for any event in history in those early days is almost
impossible to find. Yet, the Resurrection of Jesus has multiple sources of
documentation. Cumulatively, these accounts add authenticity that the
Resurrection is a factual historical event rather than a legend fabricated and
passed down over time.
THINK BIG.
START SMALL. GO DEEP.
References:
1) Ralph O. Muncaster, What Is the Proof for the Resurrection?
(Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2000), p.16.
2) Gary R. Habermas and
Michael R. Licona, The Case of the
Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004),
p.44-45.
3) Dr. William Lane Craig,
Reasonable Faith, 285, as cited by
Hank Hanegraff, Resurrection (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing, 2000), p.39.
