Articles on the Historicity of Jesus' Resurrection

The most fundamental Christian belief is the belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. This belief implies that Jesus physically died. Otherwise, it would make no sense of any talk about Jesus' bodily resurrection from the death. The fundamentality of the Christian belief in Christ's bodily resurrection can be seen in Paul's words: "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins (1 Cor. 15:17)." In other words, the Christian faith would be a worthless one. Therefore, we have focused all our attention to this fundamental historical question on Jesus Resurrection. We have provided a series of articles trying to show that the Christian fundamental faith is plausible on the basis of many historical evidences. It is strongly recommended that you read articles in the order outlined below. Each article points to further articles.

1. Why am I a Christian?
   The first article is an introductionary article to the subject. It is concerned about general apologetic questions on the notion of knowledge, evidence and proof. It also gives an account on the relation between general arguments for the existence of God and historic justification of Christ's resurrection. It points further to two brief articles that provides two main reasons for the historical authenticity of Christ's resurrection. The articles in question are (2) and (3) below.
   
   

2. The Testimony of Biblical Prophecies
   The article deals briefly about the supernatural character of Messianic prophecies, which have foretold about Jesus Christ's birth, life, death and His resurrection.
   
   

3. The Testimony of the Early Christian Martyrs
   The article provides important evidence of the resurrection based on two considerations: (a) historical quality on Luke's report on Paul's defense for Christ's resurrection, and (b) the historical fact about apostles' wilingness to give their testimony for witnessing that they met resurrected Jesus, in spite of persecutions and their brutal death. The articles gives first arguments for the validity of (a) and (b). It also discusses the significance of (b). These first arguments are short but very clear. However, it points further to five articles, that deals more in detail with both Gospel's historical reliability and the testimony of early Christian martyrs. Of these five articles, the articles (4) and (5) are inspired by the works of Josh McDowell. They have been also a result of many discussions in various Newsgroups. Articles (6) and (7), and (8) are articles written by William Craig .
   
   

4. The External Evidences and Other Considerations Supporting the Historicity of Resurrection of Christ
   The article deals with many possible objections towards the article (3). The article is long because it deals with following topics: Luke as a reliable historian, the Jewish historical testimony, replies to the objections against the testimony of early Church Fathers, the significance that the NT is the 1st century documents, the relation between Christianity and Greco-Roman cults, the Jewish nature of the Christianity and its origins, about hallucination theories, no window dressing in the reports of Resurrection.
   
   

5. The Alleged Discrepancies in Gospel Accounts
   As the name suggests, the article deals with the alleged discrepancies in Gospel accounts. The objection based on certain alleged discrepancies is a typical objection caused by a superficial reading of Gospels.
   
   

6. Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
   The article discusses following evidences: the historical reliability of the burial story supports the empty tomb, Paul's testimony supports the fact of the empty tomb, the empty tomb story is part of the pre-Markan passion story and is therefore very old, the empty tomb story was probably the end of Mark's passion source, the story is simple and lacks legendary development, the tomb was probably discovered empty by women, the earliest Jewish polemic presupposes the empty tomb.
   
   

7. The Historicity Of The Empty Tomb Of Jesus
   More about evidences on the historicity of the empty tomb of Jesus.
   
   

8. The Guard at the Tomb
   Discussion about the significance of the Gospels' accounts on the guard at the tomb.
   

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