Of all the doctrines of Christianity, none is more central than the bodily resurrection of the dead of Jesus Christ. Obviously, if Jesus claimed to be a savior, but remained dead in a grave after a brutal crucifixion, his statements were, and are, however, whether Jesus rose from the dead, then his statements about divinity, the punishment for our sins he took in our place on the cross, and his statements about eternity are tested.
Without the resurrection, Christians have no savior and are left without hope of a future resurrection, for Christ Himself was not resurrected. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:14, 17: “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in Is it vain, and also your faith is in vain?And if Christ is not risen, is your faith in vain, and are you still in your sins?It is only on this basis that it is right to say that Paul saw the Resurrection as the central axis of the Christian faith.
- Throughout the history of the Church.
- The truth of the Resurrection has been attacked from every angle.
- New books and television shows seem to challenge the truth of the resurrection by recycling old theories about what happened to the body of Jesus.
- Since the resurrection is crucial for Christianity.
- Christians must worry about giving an apologetic defense.
The first step in defending the resurrection of detractors is to establish the fact that historical events occurred as they were transmitted through the Gospels. As William Lane Craig noted in his book Reasonable Faith, “the question is whether evangelical narratives are historically reliable narratives or legends. “
The resurrection can be defended by demonstrating that gospel accounts are:
1. Authentic? They were written by authors who claim to have written
2. Pure? They haven’t changed their original way
3) Right? The apostles were not deceived or deceived
Even Bart Ehrman, the notorious critic of the New Testament, says that “we can say with some confidence that some of the disciples claimed to have seen Jesus alive. “
In his impressive book The Resurrection of the Son of God, NT Wright establishes the fact that historical events occurred as disseminated in the Gospels and maps ancient beliefs about life after death in both the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds. He then points out that primitive Christian beliefs about life after death were firmly part of the Jewish context, although they introduced new mutations and more defined definitions, which, along with other characteristics of early Christianity, forces the historian to read Easter stories in the Gospels not only as late rationalizations of early Christian spirituality, but as accounts of two real events : the empty tomb of Jesus and his apparitions.
The stories of the Gospels are historically reliable, not mere mythological legends embellished by time.
A defense of the resurrection must provide evidence of the historical validity of the events described in the New Testament and must show how the Resurrection of Jesus provides the best explanation of this historical data. In this text, we will focus on the empty tomb of Jesus. Christ.
One of the simplest parts of the resurrection data is to establish that the tomb is empty. Because those living in Jerusalem knew the location of Jesus’ tomb, it would have been difficult for people to believe in the apostolic preaching of Christ’s Resurrection. had it not been for an empty grave. Jesus’ burial is widely attested in primitive and independent testimonies, both biblical and extrabite.
Furthermore, as is often pointed out, women were not seen as reliable witnesses to Jewish culture in the first century, so it would be foolish for the authors to have fictitiously constructed a narrative involving women to gain credibility.
Matthew 28. 11-15 speaks of a myth that has spread among the Jews about the body of Christ. The Jews reportedly said that the disciples had stolen the body of Christ. This is significant because the Jews did not deny that the tomb was empty, but instead sought an alternative explanation for the resurrection. The empty tomb is a well-proven historical fact.
Only the empty tomb of Christ does not necessarily mean that the resurrection took place. In fact, there are four alternative hypotheses for the resurrection that have developed over the years.
First, some propose the conspiracy hypothesis, which says that the disciples stole Christ’s body and continued to lie about his appearance before them. In this account, the resurrection was a sham.
This hypothesis is usually not supported by modern academics for many reasons:
The hypothesis ignores the fact that the disciples believed in the resurrection; it is highly unlikely that many disciples will be willing to give their lives to defend an invention.
2. Es unlikely that the idea of the resurrection has passed into the minds of the disciples. The scholar William Lane Craig writes: “If your favorite Messiah had been crucified, then you would go home or get another Messiah. But the idea of stealing Jesus’ body and saying that God resurrected him from the dead is not something that would have passed through the minds of the disciples.
3. This hypothesis does not explain Christ’s apparitions after the Resurrection.
The second hypothesis that attempts to explain the resurrection is the hypothesis of apparent death, this view says that Jesus was not completely dead when he was removed from the cross, in the tomb Jesus was resurrected and escaped, thus convincing the disciples of his resurrection. .
This view is difficult to support for several reasons
1. Es unlikely that a half-dead man had risen to walk, let alone moved the stone that sealed the tomb, defeated the Roman guards, and fled.
2. This theory fails to explain the disciples’ claim about Christ’s resurrection, because if they had seen him after his resurrection, they would simply have thought that he was never dead.
3. Es foolish to think that the Romans, who perfected the art of killing, would have let someone escape without making sure he was dead.
Finally, given the physical torture described in the accounts of the Gospels, it is highly unlikely that Jesus would have survived.
Third, the erroneous assumption of the tomb suggests that the women were lost in their path and accidentally fell on the protector of an empty tomb. When he said, “Jesus is not here,” the women were so disoriented that they ran, and then their Narrative became a resurrection myth.
Like other theories, virtually no one maintains this position, there are at least three reasons:
First, this theory does not explain the apparitions after the resurrection and it is illegitimate to think that a simple mistake would have led a Jew of the first century to think that a resurrection took place.
2. In light of the primitive evidence available on the location of Jesus’ tomb, it is almost impossible for women to have confused its location.
3. This hypothesis emphasizes that the keeper of the tomb said that Christ was not there, but ignores the following phrase: “He is risen!?
Fourth, some propose the hypothesis of the kidnapped body to explain the resurrection of Jesus. This theory says that Joseph of Arimate put Jesus in his own grave, but then moved him to the criminal cemetery. The disciples did not know that Jesus’ body was moved and therefore wrongly deduced that he had risen from the dead.
Because of the deceptive nature of this theory, virtually no modern scholar supports it:
1. This theory cannot explain the apparitions of Christ after the resurrection or the origin of the Christian faith.
2. Es doubtful that Joseph would not correct the mistake of the disciples simply by showing where he put the body of Jesus.
The criminal cemetery was probably very close to the crucifixion site, so it wouldn’t make much sense for Joseph not to have simply buried Jesus there in the first place. In fact, it was contrary to Jewish law to allow a body to be moved after being buried.
In light of these erroneous assumptions that attempt to challenge the resurrection, anyone who wishes to deny Christ’s resurrection encounters the unexplained mystery of the empty tomb three days after Christ’s death.