Part 3: the Data of the Resurrection

There has been a whole lot of ink spilt over the resurrection of Jesus. Here is just a brief summary of the debate.

When we evaluate the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, it is good to distinguish between two difference kinds of data, (1) the historical data, and (2) the non-historical data. By (1) I mean things like ancient historical documents, archeological findings, historical geography, etc. The second category is broader. It includes our personal experience and beliefs about whether resurrections happen at all, the existence of God, moral framework, beliefs about revelation, etc. While these certainly play a role in our evaluation, they are not based in the historical data itself.

This distinction is exists not just for evaluating the resurrection of Jesus, but for all our evaluations. When we analyze, say, what happened at a car wreck there is going to be (1a) the physical evidence and testimonies of people there, and (2a) the evaluation of the reliability of the testimonies based on the people’s past histories, an analysis of the movement of cars based on other accidents and physics, etc. This distinction in the debate over the resurrection of Jesus is not special pleading, but merely the application of our normal (and perhaps necessary) evaluation process.

The data

Here we will look at the historical data, the historical facts. What are these facts? Well, they include at least the following:

1. Jesus was a real historical Jewish man, reported to be a prophet and miracle worker.
2. He died by crucifixion and was buried.
3. His disciples had experiences they interpreted as appearances of the resurrected Jesus.
4. The Tomb was empty.

The first 2 do not deal with the resurrection per-se, but with the background condition necessary for its happening – namely Jesus was a real living historical person who died. For the sake of time we’ll take 1 & 2 for granted going forward here.[1] The list of 3 and 4 can, of course be expanded (e.g. the fact that skeptics were converted, looking at where even the idea of a resurrected Messiah originated, etc.), but it is the main starting point.

Indeed, all the points, all 1-4, are widely accepted, even among skeptical scholars (By this I simply mean scholars that don’t accept that Jesus rose from the dead bodily—it is not to import any broader philosophical notion of skepticism). And this is for good reason.

Consider 3), we have multiple independent early accounts all testifying to this. The old formula in 1 Cor 15:5-8 is a very early letter (mid 50s) and the formula is widely acknowledged to predate the letter and hence must be well less than 20 years from the actual events. The Gospel narratives provide more independent attestations of multiple visitations, including appearances to the Mary Magadalence, multiple other women, Peter, and multiple occasions of groups of people seeing Jesus together.

Added to this is the fact that no eyewitness recanted despite threat of death and martyrdom. This shows that they were, in all likelihood, sincere. Now, while it is true that we do not have reliable information about all the eyewitnesses, we have strong evidence that Peter, James the son of Zebedee, Paul, and James the brother of Jesus died as martyrs, as well as probably Thomas and Andrew.[2] Further, we have no evidence that any disciples recanted. All of this leads even the skeptical scholar Gerd Lüdemann to say, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”[3]

Next is 4), the tomb was empty. Here again we have multiple gospel sources attesting to an empty. Very importantly, women were attested as the first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection—a very unlikely fact to fabricate as women were considered unreliable witnesses and were unable to testify in Jewish courts. Further, there are no ancient sources that claim otherwise. The Jewish authorities claimed that the tomb was empty because the disciples stole the body. Similarly, the ancient Christian critic Celsus thought the resurrection was absurd and a hoax, but there is no mention of the tomb not being empty.[4]

This all makes very good sense when we consider the historical context. Jesus’ death and burial took place just outside of Jerusalem, the capital of Judea. Any fledgling new religion (or new form of Judaism) whose central identity was the resurrection of its leader could be immediately investigated. If the tomb held Jesus’ body it would prove an instant defeater to Christianity, and many wanted to defeat it. If there was a body in the tomb, Christianity would never have gotten off the ground.

The analysis

The question then becomes, how best to account for these two datums? On the one hand, the resurrection of Jesus accounts for them very nicely. It explains why there was no body in the tomb, and why the disciples believed they saw him—they did. So what about alternative explanations?

Hallucinations

Gerd Lüdemann argues that the disciples hallucinated Jesus.[5] This would explain why they sincerely believed Jesus rose from the dead, they genuinely thought they had seen him. The (first) problem with hallucinations is that they can’t explain the empty tomb—if the disciples hallucinated but the body was in the tomb there’d be no Christianity. Then there is the extreme unlikeliness of multisensory hallucinations and group hallucinations (more on probability later).

Stolen body

This theory posits that the body was stolen (e.g. the Jewish authorities in the gospels and Richard Carrier).[6] This theory could explain why the tomb was empty but not the disciple’s experiences. One has to simply deny that the disciples had those experiences (which goes against the texts that we actually have) and can’t explain why the disciples held to their story even in the face of loss, torture, and death. It also struggles with the details of the burial accounts, namely that Jesus was sealed in a tomb behind armed guards.

Swoon theory

The swoon theory says that Jesus didn’t really die but fainted and was revived in the tomb. This theory just denies historical bedrock 2) that Jesus died (a lot more could be said about this). However, at first glance this could explain the empty tomb and the disciples’ belief in the appearances. The problem is that it is inconsistent with the details of the account. First, Jesus was buried in a tomb which was then sealed behind a boulder (and guards according to Matthew)—Jesus couldn’t have gotten out of the tomb if he wanted. Second, the resurrection appearances were not that of a mostly dead human, barely hanging on to life—but of a strong and healthy man.

Initial conclusion

The conclusion here is that an actual physical resurrection provides the best explanation—it is simple, elegant, and explains all the data. Other theories either don’t explain all the data or are less simple. So, for instance, one could combine a theory of some random party stealing Jesus’ body to explain the empty tomb, with a hallucination theory to explain the disciple’s experiences. However, this is more complicated and, according to Ockham’s razor, we should not multiply explanations beyond need. If we can explain everything with just one thing—the risen body of Jesus, why opt for a theory that requires two things—hallucinations and body snatching.

When we add in more data points, the issues do not get better for the non-resurrection theories. The resurrection nicely accounts for skeptics like James and Saul being converted [7] and provides a great explanation for the origin of the idea of resurrecting Messiah.[8] On the other hand, it’s hard to see why a Christian persecutor like Saul would hallucinate Jesus and reverse his life and almost impossible to imagine him, or any skeptic, converting if there was a body in the tomb. The swoon theory doesn’t really explain why skeptical Jews would start to follow a barely alive Messiah claimant.

Now we could go on digging deeper and deeper into the historical data. We could ask what we would we’d expect if the resurrection actually happened. It seems like such a thing would change the world (it did). It seems like people would write about (we have more early texts about Jesus than the Roman emperor at the time). We’d expect those writings to be revered and copied (they were, there are far more copies and manuscripts of the NT than anything else in the ancient world.

However, the truth is that it’s not really needed. The reason why skeptical scholars deny the resurrection isn’t because their theories are simpler or can explain more of the data (have good explanator power and scope). The truth is the resurrection nicely explains the historical data. The reason why Jesus’ resurrection is rejected is because skeptics don’t accept that resurrections happen at all. As skeptical scholar Bart Ehrman said in a debate about the resurrection, “This does have explanatory scope and explanatory power. Does it have plausibility? Plausibility is the big issue because unless you posit the existence of God, you cannot claim that it is plausible that Jesus was raised from the dead if he were truly dead.”[9] He concludes, “The historian cannot appeal to God and without God you cannot have a resurrection.”[10]

At the beginning of this article, we made a distinction between (1) the historical data and (2) the other data. Ehrman’s problem isn’t with the resurrection’s account of the historical data, but rather with the non-historical data. The problem is with the existence of God and the consequent implausibility of the resurrection.

It’s not the strength of a skeptical theory’s account of the historical that makes it popular—this can be seen in the disagreements about skeptical theories. Ludemann argues for hallucinations [11], Richard Carrier argues for body snatching,[12] Geza Vermes doesn’t directly endorse a historical theory, but denies the resurrection.[13] It is not that there is a single alternative to resurrection that is better at explaining the historical data. Rather, it’s that the resurrection is viewed as implausible / improbable and so some other theory must be true, whatever its explanatory defects.

Next Steps

So where do we go from here? Are we just stuck, each side encamped in its own presuppositions, determined by their broader beliefs to conclusions about the resurrection? Is there no way to evaluate plausibilities? I think there are. And the fact that people change their minds despite their presuppositions shows that our prior beliefs are overcome at times (J. Warner Wallace is a good example of this, an atheist cold-case detective that became a Christian by looking at the historical evidence). But this requires delving into the issues of plausibility and prior probability. That’s where we are headed next.

[1] Here we take Professor Bart Ehrman’s position (who does not believe that Jesus rose from the dead) that the evidence for Jesus’ existence is unassailable, historically speaking.

[2] Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2025).

[3] Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus?, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 80.

[4] Origen, Contra Celsum.

[5] Gert Ludemann, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2004).

[6] Richard Carrier, “The Plausibility of Theft” in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave. Ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2005).

[7] Michael Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010), 373-464.

[8] N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003).

[9] Bart Ehrman, “Can Historians Prove Jesus Rose From The Dead?” (debate with Michael Licona, Southern Evangelical Seminary, Matthews, NC, April 2, 2009), 1:03:18.

[10] Ibid, 1:29:54.

[11] Gert Ludemann, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2004).

[12] Richard Carrier, “The Plausibility of Theft” in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave. Ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2005.

[13] Geza Vermes, The Resurrection: History and Myth (New York: Doubleday, 2008).