Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus
The First Two Facts
In the first installment of this series, we covered preliminary ground in this investigation. The next two articles will cover two each of the four historical facts presented by William Lane Craig.
Fact 1: “After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.”{1}
Because of the historical proof for the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the items that need to be explored here are the burial and the person of Joseph of Arimathea. The tomb of Jesus can be seen in Jerusalem to this day, inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 2016, during a renovation of the chapel surrounding the tomb, archaeologists dated the mortar in the shrine to the time of Constantine. {2} Other samples showed that various parts of the tomb could be dated to documented restorations and similar activities, and that the tomb itself dated to the time of Jesus. In the words of one archaeologist:
We may not be absolutely certain that the site of the Holy Sepulchre Church is the site of Jesus’ burial, but we certainly have no other site that can lay a claim nearly as weighty, and we really have no reason to reject the authenticity of the site. {3}
The evidence is strong enough to say that Jesus was certainly buried in a tomb, without further exploring whether the one in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the exact burial spot. For example, all the eyewitness accounts say that he was buried, and for there to be an empty tomb, there first had to be a full one.
The other item to investigate is whether Joseph of Arimathea was an actual historical figure. Some have argued that he is a literary invention of the Gospel writers, but that seems to be a stretch. Early Christians knew that the Jews were immediately responsible for the death of Jesus, so writing one into the narrative as one who did right was quite implausible. {4} This is recognized by even Rudolf Bultmann and Joseph Fitzmeyer and others, “who acknowledge an historically reliable core in the story of Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus’ body after the crucifixion.” {5} Opposition to the Gospel burial narratives comes from fringe academics like John Dominic Crossan, who argues that just as the Biblical writers had sources of information (Q), the apocryphal Gospel of Peter had as its source a “Cross Gospel”, which placed Jesus’ enemies in control of the burial. {6} Scholar Raymond Brown shows, however, that the Biblical Gospels did not really rely on the apocryphal ones for their source of information, thus discrediting Crossan’s claims. {7} Despite the lack of crystal-clear evidence in this area, William Lane Craig argues:
No other competing burial story exists. If the burial by Joseph were fictitious, then we would expect to find either some historical trace of what actually happened to Jesus’ corpse or at least some competing legends. But all our sources are unanimous on Jesus’ honorable interment by Joseph. {8}
Fact 2: “On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.” {9}
The most startling piece of evidence here is the discovery of the empty tomb by women. During this time, the testimony of women was not generally accepted in a court of law, and even Celsus, a hostile Roman, spoke of Mary Magadalene’s experience as one of a “hysterical female…deluded by…sorcery.” {10} Why then would the Gospel writers put women as the first discoverers of such an important event as the resurrection? If the Gospel narratives were fiction, women would not have had this role. The apocryphal myths about the resurrection do not have women as the discoverers of the empty tomb, and are more in line with what might be expected from a myth: having the resurrection witnessed by both the Jewish elders and the tomb guards, a loud voice from heaven, two men whose heads reach the clouds supporting a third (supposedly Jesus), a talking and walking cross, and other fantastic aspects. {11}
All of the non-apocryphal accounts of the resurrection have a common thread: the tomb is empty upon discovery. Even the Jewish priests found themselves having to explain away an empty tomb, as evidenced by their behavior in Matthew 28:13. After all, the only reason why they had to invent the theft of the body is if it was gone!
Turning to the witness of Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 “is considered by many scholars to be an extremely early creed of the Christian church” {12}, as it has “non-Pauline and Semitic characteristics.” {13} The entire account goes as follows:
For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ dies for our sins, according to the scripture: And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures: And that he was seen by Cephas; and after that by the eleven. Then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present, and some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. And last of, he was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time (1 Corinthians 15: 3-8, DRB).
Scholars have determined that this information may have come directly from Peter during the time Paul spent in Jerusalem, as recounted in Galatians 1. After all, “it is doubtful that he received it later than his Jerusalem visit, for it is improbable that he should have replaced with a formula personal information from the lips of Peter and James themselves.” {14}
The more important question, though, is why Paul included this information in the way that he did. According to Ronald J. Sider, “his whole argument in verses 12-19 would seem to presuppose the resurrection of Christ as common ground both for himself and his antagonists.” {15} Paul seems to be using the resurrection of Jesus as a tool to explain and defend the resurrection of every Christian. For the Corinthians, trying to understand salvation from a “background of the conventions of Greco-Roman rhetoric” was proving an almost insurmountable obstacle. {16} Grindheim argues that Paul is using this early resurrection narrative as a kind of litmus test to show the difference between those Corinthians who wanted to be among “the wise of this world” and those who would “show themselves as being among the…Christians, who have rejected the standards of this world”. {17}
As pertains the empty tomb itself, Craig argues that the “story of the discovery of the empty tomb was in all likelihood the conclusion or at least part of the pre-Markan passion story”. {18} This early source, which obviously must have been written pre-Gospel, “is valuable for our reconstruction of the fate of Jesus of Nazareth, including his burial and empty tomb”. {19} Mark, being the first Gospel written, served as a pattern and source for Matthew and Luke (termed the synoptic Gospels due to their similarities). Matthew adds the detail of the tomb guards, which must have been from a different independent source “because it is suffused with non-Matthean vocabulary”. {20} Something similar can be said about details in Luke’s narrative.
As Craig concludes:
Historians think they’ve hit historical paydirt when they have two independent sources for some event. If all we had for the empty tomb were just the pre-Markan Passion story and the pre-Pauline formula, that would be enough to convince most scholars of the historicity of Jesus’ burial and empty tomb. But, in fact, we have at least six sources, some of which are among the earliest material in the New Testament. No wonder most scholars are convinced! {21}
To be continued. For the first part of the series, click here
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William Lane Craig, “The Resurrection of Jesus”, at Reasonable Faith, at reasonablefaith.org.
Kristin Romey, “Exclusive: Age of Jesus Christ’s Purported Tomb Revealed”, at National Geographic (28 November 2017), at nationalgeographic.com.
Dan Bahat, “Does the Holy Sepulchre Church Mark the Burial of Jesus?”, Biblical Archaeology Review 12, no. 3 (1986), at baslibrary.org.
Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 2 vols., (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1994), 2: 1240-1.
Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall, “Did Joseph of Arimathea Exist?”, Biblica 75, no. 2 (1994), 236.
O’Collins and Kendall, “Did Joseph of Arimathea Exist?”, 237.
See Raymond Brown, “The Gospel of Peter and Canonical Gospel Priority,” NTS 33 (1987), 321-343.
Craig, “The Resurrection of Jesus”, at reasonablefaith.org.
Craig, “The Resurrection of Jesus”, at reasonablefaith.org.
As quoted in Justin Taylor, “Why It Matters Theologically and Historically that Women Were the First to Discover the Empty Tomb”, at The Gospel Coalition (15 April 2014), at thegospelcoalition.org.
See the apocryphal Gospel of Peter 8:32-10:42.
Matt Slick, “1 Cor. 15:3-4 Demonstrates a Creed too Early for Legend to Corrupt”, at CARM (8 December 2008), at carm.org.
William Lane Craig, “The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus”, at Reasonable Faith, at reasonablefaith.org.
Craig, “The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus”, at reasonablefaith.org.
Ronald J. Sider, “St. Paul’s Understanding of the Nature and Significance of the Resurrection in I Corinthians XV 1-19”, Novum Testamentum 19, no. 2 (1977), 126.
Sigurd Grindheim, “Wisdom for the Perfect: Paul’s Challenge to the Corinthian Church (1 Corinthians 2:6-16)”, Journal of Biblical Literature 121, no. 4 (2002), 689.
Grindheim, “Wisdom for the Perfect”, 690.
Grindheim, “Wisdom for the Perfect”, 690.
William Lane Craig, “Independent Sources of the Empty Tomb”, at The Good Book Blog (19 April 2019), at biola.edu.
Craig, “Independent Sources”, at biola.edu.
Craig, “Independent Sources”, at biola.edu.