The Resurrection of Jesus

What you'll learn

List and support the minimal facts about Jesus' death and resurrection appearances.
Explain the significance and early date of the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8.
Evaluate the swoon, hallucination, stolen body and legend theories and respond to each.

Everything hangs on it

Paul wrote, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). Christianity is uniquely vulnerable to history: if Jesus' body rotted in a Jerusalem tomb, the faith is false. That is not a weakness but a strength. The resurrection is a public, historical claim, and the apostles preached it as such (Acts 2:32; 26:26).

For a Reformed apologist, the resurrection is not merely a probability puzzle; it is God's public vindication of his Son (Rom 1:4) and his assurance of coming judgment (Acts 17:31). But because it happened in history, we can examine the evidence, and in doing so we often find sceptics more open than with abstract arguments.

Why does Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 15:17 make Christianity "vulnerable to history", and why is that actually a strength?Show answer

Paul says that if Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile and we are still in our sins, so if Jesus' body rotted in a tomb, Christianity is false. That is a strength because the resurrection is a public, historical claim that the apostles preached openly (Acts 2:32; 26:26). Because it happened in history, we can examine the evidence, and sceptics are often more open to this than to abstract arguments.

if not raised, faith is futile
public, historical claim
evidence can be examined
sceptics often more open

The minimal facts approach

Gary Habermas developed the minimal facts approach, and he and Michael Licona presented it for a popular audience in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (2004). Instead of assuming the Bible is inspired, they use only facts that are (1) well supported by historical evidence and (2) accepted by the vast majority of scholars who study the subject, including sceptical ones. Habermas surveyed a very large body of scholarly literature to establish this consensus. The core facts are:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion. Attested by all four Gospels and non-Christian sources such as Tacitus (Annals 15.44) and Josephus.
2. His disciples sincerely believed that he rose and appeared to them. They were transformed and willing to suffer and die for this claim.
3. Paul, a persecutor of the church, was suddenly converted after what he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus (1 Cor 15:8-9; Gal 1:13-16).
4. James, Jesus' sceptical brother, was converted (John 7:5; 1 Cor 15:7) and became a leader of the Jerusalem church.
5. The tomb was empty. This is widely, though not universally, accepted; Habermas often lists it as a strong additional fact rather than a strict minimal fact.

Explain in your own words what makes a fact a "minimal fact", and list the core facts.Show answer

Habermas and Licona use only facts that are well supported by historical evidence and accepted by the vast majority of scholars who study the subject, including sceptics, without assuming the Bible is inspired. The core facts are that Jesus died by crucifixion, his disciples sincerely believed he rose and appeared to them, Paul the persecutor was converted, and James the sceptical brother was converted. The empty tomb is widely though not universally accepted, so Habermas often treats it as a strong additional fact.

well evidenced
accepted by most scholars incl. sceptics
no assumption of inspiration
death, appearances, Paul, James (+ tomb)

The creed of 1 Corinthians 15

In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul writes, “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received”: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, was raised on the third day, and appeared to Cephas, then the Twelve, then more than five hundred at once, then James, then all the apostles, and last to Paul.

“Delivered” and “received” are technical terms for passing on formal tradition. The passage has a structured, memorable form, uses Semitic names like Cephas, and is generally recognised as an early creed that Paul inherited. Many scholars, including sceptics, date Paul's reception of it to within a few years of the crucifixion, possibly when he visited Peter and James in Jerusalem (Gal 1:18-19). That puts belief in the bodily resurrection and appearances at the very beginning of the church, far too early for legend to develop. Paul even notes that most of the five hundred were still alive: in effect, “go and ask them.”

Why does the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 matter so much for the legend objection?Show answer

Paul uses the technical terms "delivered" and "received" for formal tradition, and the passage's structured form and Semitic names like Cephas mark it as an early creed he inherited. Many scholars, including sceptics, date his receiving it to within a few years of the crucifixion, possibly during his visit to Peter and James in Jerusalem. That puts belief in the bodily resurrection and appearances at the very start of the church, far too early for legend to develop, and Paul even invites people to ask the living witnesses.

delivered/received = formal tradition
early creed
within a few years of the cross
too early for legend

The empty tomb and the appearances

Several lines support the empty tomb. The resurrection was preached in Jerusalem, where a corpse could have ended it quickly. The earliest Jewish response was not “the body is still there” but “the disciples stole it” (Matt 28:11-15; still repeated in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho in the second century), which assumes the tomb was empty. And the Gospels name women as the first witnesses, which would be an embarrassing choice to invent, since in that culture women's testimony was often given less weight.

The appearances were to individuals and groups, to friends and enemies, indoors and outdoors, over a period of weeks. Jesus was touched, ate food and conversed (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:24-29; 21:9-14). N. T. Wright has argued that nothing in Second Temple Judaism would have led the disciples to invent a lone Messiah rising bodily in the middle of history; the belief needs a cause, and the best cause is the event.

Which lines of evidence support the empty tomb, and how do they work?Show answer

The resurrection was preached in Jerusalem, where producing a body would have ended it quickly. The earliest Jewish response was that the disciples stole the body (Matt 28:11-15), which assumes the tomb was empty. And the Gospels name women as the first witnesses, an embarrassing detail to invent in a culture that often gave women's testimony less weight.

preached in Jerusalem
'stole the body' assumes empty tomb
women witnesses embarrassing

What do the appearance accounts and N. T. Wright's argument add to the case?Show answer

The appearances were to individuals and groups, friends and enemies, indoors and outdoors, over weeks, and Jesus was touched, ate food and conversed (Luke 24:36-43; John 20; 21). Wright argues that nothing in Second Temple Judaism would have led the disciples to invent a lone Messiah rising bodily in the middle of history. The belief needs a cause, and the best cause is the event itself.

varied appearances
physical: touched, ate
Judaism didn't expect this
belief needs a cause

Rival theories

Sceptics have proposed natural explanations. A good test is whether a theory explains all the facts, not just one.

Swoon theory: Jesus did not die but revived in the tomb. Roman executioners were expert killers; John 19:34 records the spear wound. Even the sceptical scholar David Friedrich Strauss argued in the nineteenth century that a half-dead, wounded Jesus could never have convinced the disciples he was the conqueror of death. It also fails to explain Paul.
Hallucination theory: the disciples saw visions. Hallucinations are private experiences of individual minds; they do not explain group appearances, such as to the five hundred. They do not explain the empty tomb, nor why enemies like Paul and doubters like James saw him.
Stolen body: the disciples took the body. Then they died for what they knew was a lie; people die for lies they believe, not lies they invented. It also does not explain Paul or James. If others stole it, the disciples would still have no reason to believe in resurrection rather than theft.
Legend theory: stories grew over time. The 1 Corinthians 15 creed dates to the earliest years, and Paul's own letters, written about twenty years after the events, already assume the resurrection as foundational. Legend does not explain the conversions of Paul and James, which are documented by Paul himself.

What is the key test for any rival theory of the resurrection, and how does the hallucination theory fare under it?Show answer

A good theory must explain all the facts, not just one. Hallucinations are private experiences in individual minds, so they do not explain group appearances like the one to the five hundred. They also do not explain the empty tomb, or why an enemy like Paul and a doubter like James saw Jesus.

explain all the facts
hallucinations are private
can't explain groups or empty tomb
can't explain Paul and James

Choose either the swoon theory or the stolen body theory and explain why it fails.Show answer

The swoon theory says Jesus did not die, but Roman executioners were expert killers and John records the spear wound; even the sceptic Strauss argued a half-dead, wounded Jesus could never have convinced the disciples he had conquered death, and it does not explain Paul. The stolen body theory means the disciples died for what they knew was a lie, yet people die for lies they believe, not lies they invented, and it still does not explain Paul or James. If someone else stole the body, the disciples would have had no reason to believe in resurrection rather than theft.

swoon: Romans expert killers; Strauss
stolen: no one dies for own invented lie
neither explains Paul/James

Using the evidence as a Reformed believer

Presuppositionalists and evidentialists both love the resurrection; they differ on how to frame it. A presuppositionalist will point out that a sceptic who rules out miracles in advance (often following Hume) is not following the evidence but his presuppositions. A Reformed approach therefore presents the evidence as God's testimony, while exposing the anti-supernatural assumption that blocks it. As Paul did in Athens, we present the risen Christ not as a curious anomaly but as the Lord who calls all people to repent.

In conversation, keep it simple: list the facts, ask the person to suggest the best explanation, and test each theory together. Then make it personal: if Jesus rose, he is who he claimed to be, and his death was what he said it was, giving "his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). On the cross he bore the judgement our sins deserve, and he was "raised for our justification" (Rom 4:25). So the resurrection is not only evidence; it is a summons. God "commands all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30), and everyone who turns from sin and trusts Christ is forgiven and declared righteous as a free gift, not because of anything he has done. (You studied penal substitution in Know Your Faith, Lesson 6.)

How does a Reformed approach present the resurrection evidence differently from simply listing facts, and how would you make it personal in conversation?Show answer

A presuppositionalist points out that a sceptic who rules out miracles in advance, often following Hume, is following his presuppositions rather than the evidence. So the Reformed apologist presents the evidence as God's testimony while exposing the anti-supernatural assumption that blocks it, and presents the risen Christ as the Lord who calls all to repent, as Paul did in Athens. In conversation, list the facts, ask for the best explanation, test each theory together, and then show that if Jesus rose, he is who he claimed, his death bore the judgement our sins deserve, and he was raised for our justification (Rom 4:25). God commands all people to repent (Acts 17:30), and all who turn from sin and trust Christ are forgiven and declared righteous as a free gift.

expose anti-supernatural presupposition
evidence as God's testimony
risen Lord calls to repent
facts, best explanation, make it personal
gospel call: repent and trust Christ

Key texts

1 Corinthians 15:3-8: An early creed listing death, burial, resurrection and named appearances; central to the historical case.
1 Corinthians 15:14-17: Paul makes the resurrection the make-or-break issue of the faith.
Matthew 28:11-15: The stolen-body story shows that opponents conceded the tomb was empty.
Luke 24:36-43: The risen Jesus is touched and eats; the appearances were physical, not visions.
Galatians 1:13-19: Paul's own testimony to his conversion from persecutor and his early meeting with Peter and James.
Acts 1:3: Jesus presented himself alive “by many proofs” over forty days.
Romans 1:4: The resurrection declared Jesus to be the Son of God in power, the theological meaning of the event.

Objections and answers

Try answering each one yourself before you open the response.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A resurrection is too unlikely to believe.”Show a response

The slogan sounds wise, but notice what it assumes. A resurrection is extremely unlikely if no God exists; it is not unlikely if God exists and has purposes for raising his Son. So the real question is whether you have ruled out God in advance. If you have, no evidence could ever convince you, which is not open-mindedness but a closed starting point. Hume's argument against miracles has been widely criticised by philosophers, including the agnostic philosopher of science John Earman, who titled his critique Hume's Abject Failure. Meanwhile the evidence here is strong: an early creed, multiple independent appearances including to enemies, an empty tomb conceded by opponents, and a movement that began in the very city where Jesus was buried.

“People die for false beliefs all the time. Look at suicide bombers.”Show a response

True, people die for beliefs that are false, but they believe them sincerely, having received them from others. The apostles were in a different position. They did not merely believe a teaching; they claimed to have personally seen, touched and eaten with the risen Jesus. They were in a position to know whether it was true. If they invented it, they suffered and died for what they knew was a lie, which is psychologically implausible. So their willingness to suffer shows at least their sincerity. Sincerity does not prove truth, but it rules out deliberate fraud, leaving us asking what caused their sincere belief. The best explanation of the facts is that they really saw him.

“The Gospels were written decades later by people who weren't there. It's all legend.”Show a response

Even if we set the Gospels aside for a moment, Paul's undisputed letters were written roughly twenty to twenty-five years after the crucifixion, and 1 Corinthians 15 preserves a creed he received far earlier, probably within a few years. Legend usually takes generations to grow and to replace a historical core; here the central claim is present at the start. Paul knew Peter and James personally (Gal 1:18-19), and he names living witnesses. Compare Alexander the Great, whose earliest surviving biographies were written centuries after his death, yet historians reconstruct his life confidently. The Gospels, written within living memory and likely drawing on eyewitnesses, are excellent sources by ancient standards.

“Maybe the disciples went to the wrong tomb.”Show a response

The wrong-tomb theory faces several problems. The burial was by Joseph of Arimathea, a named and known member of the council (Mark 15:43), so the location would have been known to friend and enemy alike. If the disciples went to the wrong tomb, the authorities could simply have gone to the right one and produced the body, ending Christianity in Jerusalem. Instead, they claimed the body was stolen. The theory also does not explain the appearances, which were the main reason the disciples believed; an empty tomb alone produced confusion, not faith (Luke 24:11-12; John 20:2). Nor does it explain the conversions of Paul and James.

“All your sources for the resurrection were written by Christians. Of course they say he rose. That's hopelessly biased.”Show a response

Every ancient source has a point of view, so the question is whether the bias explains the evidence. Notice that the minimal facts are accepted by most scholars who study the subject, including sceptical ones, and Jesus' death by crucifixion is reported by non-Christian sources like Tacitus and Josephus. More importantly, some of the key witnesses were not Christians when they saw Jesus. Paul was persecuting the church, and James, Jesus' own brother, did not believe in him (John 7:5; 1 Cor 15:7-9). They became believers because of what they experienced; their "bias" came after the evidence, not before. The accounts also include details a biased inventor would avoid, such as women as the first witnesses. And the earliest opponents in Jerusalem did not say the body was still there; they said it had been stolen.

“Grieving people often feel they've seen a loved one who has died. The disciples were devastated, so they probably had grief visions.”Show a response

Grief experiences are real, and I don't want to dismiss them, but they don't fit the facts here. Visions happen in individual minds, so they can't explain Jesus appearing to the Twelve together, or to more than five hundred at once (1 Cor 15:5-6). They don't explain an empty tomb in Jerusalem, where the body could have been produced. And they don't explain Paul, who was not grieving Jesus but hunting his followers, or James, who was a sceptic. There's another problem: grieving Jews who had a vision of a loved one would naturally conclude they had seen his spirit, not that he had been bodily raised in the middle of history, which nothing in their expectations prepared them for. Yet the disciples said they touched him and watched him eat (Luke 24:36-43). The belief needs a cause, and visions are not enough.

Written task

A friend says, “The resurrection is a nice story but there's no real evidence.” Write a 300-400 word response that presents at least four minimal facts with their evidence, refutes two natural theories, and closes by explaining what the resurrection means for your friend personally.

Hand this in to Mr Scott. He will look for:

Accurately states at least four minimal facts with supporting evidence.
Explains the significance of the 1 Corinthians 15 creed.
Refutes two rival theories by showing which facts they fail to explain.
Identifies and addresses any anti-supernatural presupposition.
Ends with the gospel meaning of the resurrection, warmly and clearly.