The Biblical Critics are wrong – He arose!

    At Easter our hearts and minds are drawn to the death and resurrection of Jesus. With respect to the resurrection, the Bible is full of trustworthy eyewitness evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. One only has to read John’s gospel chapters 20 and 21 to discover that. And apart from the numerous eyewitnesses mentioned there the Apostle Paul names himself and another 500 (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

      In my book Leading Lawyers’ Case for the Resurrection I also write about the amazing circumstantial evidence the Holy Spirit has left for us. Circumstantial is not eyewitness testimony (direct evidence), but say in a murder case would include that the accused had purchased the rifle found at the scene, his fingerprints were on it and the deadly bullet matched other bullets fired from the rifle.  The role of the lawyer is to build a strong chain of circumstantial evidence from which the court can deduce what took place.

      Here is some of the circumstantial evidence that supports Jesus being alive. This is evidence a court of law today would be called to consider.
(a)        History indicates the tomb of Christ was not subject to early pilgrimages.  This implies that his first fol­lowers did not believe he was still dead.  One can compare this to the pilgrimages to the tombs of other religious leaders.
(b)        There is the existence of the church itself.  It can be traced back to about AD 33 and its origins are based on the resurrection of its founder.  If Christ had not risen, the New Testament indicates that there would have been no reason for the church existing.  Paul and the others were not interested in just another guru and religion.
(c)        Christians worship on Sunday and not the day of the Jewish sabbath.  The Jews were bound to their tradi­tions and laws and, since the early Christians were Jewish, it must have taken an event of deep sig­nificance to cause them to change their day of wor­ship.  The resurrection happened on a Sunday.  The Christians see each succeeding Sunday as a com­memoration of this event.
(d)        There is the change that the living Christ produced in people's lives.  Transformed and strength­ened lives are circumstantial evidence that the Christian faith is strong.  Examples can be produced from the time of the disciples to the present.  An unbroken chain of testimony of changed lives leads to Jesus as the source.  We can find the stories of en­riched lives in autobiographies, the New Testament, in history and within our churches.
(e)        The tomb was empty.  The only likely explanation is that Jesus arose.  Here are some alternative hypotheses to explain the empty tomb:

• Jesus swooned but did not die. This imaginative hypothesis is as old as Venturini and as new as the claims of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln in their book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (this book influenced Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code).  This theory is at the heart of an Australian television documentary, 'The Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls', that focuses on the so-called 'poison theory' of Australian and International scholar, Dr Barbara Thiering.

The assertion is that whilst Jesus was crucified, he did not die on the cross.  He was placed in the tomb and the cool restfulness of this environ­ment or other factors revived him.  Despite the massive injuries he suffered - hit about the face with a staff, cruelly flogged, crucified with nails and a spear to the side - he boldly appeared in a few days pretending that he was resurrected.  Even David Strauss, one of the great sceptics of yesteryear, has admitted that this theory is fanciful:

It is impossible that a being who had stolen half dead out of the sepulchre, 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 the disciples the impression that he was a conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of life: an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry.

• The disciples stole the body.  Such fraudulent behaviour cannot be reconciled with the disciples' good character.  Further, it is unreasonable to suggest that they would suffer persecution, mar­tyrdom, ridicule and hardship for such a callous deception.  Peter would hardly allow himself to be crucified upside down and John accept exile in Patmos for what they both knew was a lie.
• Jewish or Roman authorities took the body.  It was not in the interest of either group to help inflame a legend about Jesus.  They were about destroying Christianity, not enhancing its mystique.
• The women went to the wrong tomb.  This could not be so.  The women actually saw where Jesus was buried.  There is not a whisper in antiquity of another tomb and, if Jesus was laid elsewhere, the authorities would have gleefully said so.

      Sir Norman Anderson (one of the world’s great legal authorities) states: ‘The empty tomb, then, forms a veritable rock on which all rationalistic theories of the resurrection dash themselves in vain’.
      This Easter we can all say with God given certainty – Christ Arose! He is Risen indeed.

Principal, Morling College