Contrary to sceptical views, Jesus was mentioned by several historians of the time - most noteably Josephus the jewish historian (who mentioned his miracles as 'wondrous works') and Tacitus the Roman. Pliny also mentioned a new 'sect' called the 'Christians' that had formed. Roman catacombs, tunnels used to bury the dead, are full of Christian symbols, pictures and depictions of the resurrection engraved on the walls by the earliest Christians hiding there for safety in around 80AD. Another source is Polycarp, who, himself was a disciple of John, the disciple closest to Jesus himself, who has left a great deal of writing about Christ - none of which contradicts the Gospel stories. And let's not forget, with the exception of the Gospel of Mark being used by Luke and Matthew, the gospels were all written independently (including a fifth Gospel, now lost, called 'Q' which can be seen in fragments in Matthew and Luke) and yet they all agree with each other very well. The Gospel of John was written totally independently, and yet the details of the Life, death and resurrection all agree with remarkable accuracy. This cannot be said for the histories of several accepted historical characters such as Cleopatra, Julius Caesar or Shakespeare for that matter. Sadly, just as there are those whose crackpot theories say that the Apollo missions never went to the moon (despite the plethora of evidence to the contrary) there are other sceptics who shun the challenges made by Christ. No matter what evidence there is, they will still refuse to believe. As Jesus himself put it: 'There are none so blind as those that will not see'.
As for the resurrection one has to say - what if the resurrection never happened and the whole thing was a lie? A superb book is atheist Frank Morrison's 'Who moved the Stone?' - a book that was intended to disprove the resurrection on 'hard' evidence. The result was that Morrison was converted, became a Christian and had to rewrite the book. It is still in print and available from Amazon.
Let's look at the evidence:
1. The body wasn't there. Why? was it removed by the diciples including Joseph of Arimathea No. If they removed the body, many of them went on to be executed for their beliefs, especially in the resurrection. Hardly credible if they knew they were dying for something they knew to be a lie. Did the Roman or Jewish authorities take it? Hardly. Peter almost caused a riot in Jerusalem when he proclaimed the resurrection to a large crowd. All the authorities had to do would be to produce the body and his cover would be blown. But they didn't. AND they knew about the resurrection - firstly by the guards posted at the tomb who may well have signed their own death warrants by admitting that they allowed it to happen, and secondly by the disciples who preached it. What about grave robbers? Hardly. Jesus had few possessions, a fact known my all who saw him, therefore nothing to take.
2. They went to the wrong grave. How silly. They knew exactly where the grave was - after all, large tombs of this importance (Joseph of Arimathea, a rich merchant, owned it) were not that common.
3. Jesus didn't die on the cross - merely fainted and the cold tomb 'brought him round'. Unbelieveable. have a look at Mel Gibson's 'The passion of the Christ', and, for all its 'antisemitism' and other criticisms, it was an historically accurate portrayal of Crucifixion. The Romans knew what they were doing - they didnt make mistakes here. Even so, the eye witness John records a spear thrust in his side. Similarly it is inconcievable that someone died in his place - they wouldn't have made this simple error.
4. Jesus appeared to many, many people. not as a resuscitated corpse, but as a shining radiant human. He appeared to the disciples, to the women (Mary Magdalene was the first to see him) to Cleopas (a follower) and his friend on the road to a village called Emmaus, to the other 72 'hangers on', and, at one time to over 500 Christians gathered together. So it is hardly possible that they could have made it up. Lastly he appeared to Paul, a persecutor of the Christians, who was converted as a result and helped to plant Christian churches all over Europe. He appeared as a body - not as a ghost. A body that could eat a meal with the disciples and yet could appear and disappear at will.
5. The disciples, from being a scared group, meeting in locked rooms for fear of the jewish authorities and Romans, were transformed into a vibrant energetic band of evangelists who spread all over the world (from India - Thomas, to Africa - Philip, to Rome - Peter and to Spain - James) . Most died for their beliefs.Would they have done this knowing that everything was a put-up job?
6. The church spread like wildfire throughout the then known world in a very short time. Let's not forget that the Gospels record that Jesus, after the resurrection, returned to Galillee in the north - and therefore the jewish authorities in Jerusalem would not have recored any resurrection. But the disciples knew. After Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, they were fired up so much that the Christian church spread across Europe from this tiny backwater of a desert country, where communications were poor, and travelling dangerous, and any deviation from the religion of Rome (e.g. worship of the Emperor) was a sure death sentence, to such an extent that Chrisan churches were present over most of the Mediterranean area, Africa, India, the Middle east, Spain, Italy and other places by the end of the 1st century, and in many cases just 10-20 years after the events. All this hardly possible if everything was based on a lie.
A Skeptical View
There is no historical evidence for the resurrection nor that any such Jesus as described in the New Testament gospels ever existed.
Then again, there is no evidence for Moses, Abraham, or Mohammad having existed, either. Nor Zeus, Odin, Jupiter, Kukulkan, or Marduk for that matter. Seems to be a common thread among so-called "holy" types.
A Christian View
The utter silence by those opposed to Jesus is a strong argument in favor of the literal historical resurrection.
Normally an argument from silence is invalid for a variety of reasons, since it makes false assumptions based on no evidence whatsoever. In the case of the resurrection of Jesus however, we can argue positively from the silence of His non-believing opponents for a number of reasons:
1. They had just crucified Jesus and had power and authority on their side (in human political terms).
2. Their antagonism to Jesus who they regarded as an 'impostor', led them to set a guard over His tomb to prevent any lies being told that He was risen from the dead.
3. They felt the necessity to concoct a story to 'cover' the soldiers, in case Pilate the Governor heard heard they had neglected their duty - except if he had heard of it they would normally have been executed for such neglect.
4. No body was ever produced, even though the opponents of Jesus undoubtedly knew where the tomb was.
5. No torture or interrogation or even executions were ever undertaken to force divulgence of the 'plot' to steal away Jesus' body and its new location.
6. No counter-claim by eyewitnesses was ever recorded even though they had both the motivation and the ability (as mentioned above) as well as the opportunity to do so.
7. The authorities were certainly made aware of the claims of Jesus' followers that He had risen from the dead, at an early time, both from the testimony first of the guards and then from the preaching of the believers.
The inescapable conclusion from all of this is that they knew what really happenned. Acts records that on a number of occasions how the authorities expressly forbade the teaching or preaching 'in this name' but they never denied its historical reality.
A Non-believer's view
The utter silence by those supposed to be opposed to Jesus is also a strong argument against the literal historical resurrection. They made no counter-claim because they knew nothing about claims that Jesus had been resurrected.
Some scholars say that the original version of Mark was the earliest gospel (written around 70 CE). The earliest versions of the gospel that we have, did not claim that the resurrected Jesus appeared to anyone after his crucifixion - simply ending with a young man saying that he was risen. In support of this:
The United Bible Societies' 'The Greek New Testament' (4th Edition, 1993), regarded as the consensus of Bible Scholars, omits the verses 16:9-20 (known as the "longer ending" to distinguish it from another "shorter ending" that has also been used), commenting that they had been assimilated from sources in Matthew, Luke, John and Acts. The Roman Catholic New American Bible includes the "longer ending" verses, but with a footnote that says that this ending has traditionally been accepted as a canonical part of the Gospel since the Council of Trent, although vocabulary and style indicate that it was not written by Mark.
Mark's Gospel is said to be the major source used by the authors of Matthew's and Luke's Gospels, for the life of Jesus. If the author of Mark's Gospel knew nothing of the resurrection appearances, then it is reasonable to say that they did not occur.
Counter argument on the above....
What about John's gospel? You did not mention this. And yet, in this Gospel, the resurrection is clearly mentioned and described in detail. let's not forget that John as the disciple closest to Jesus, was an eye witness at the crucifixion, was one of the first disciples at the empty tomb, and who wrote his gospel in isolation probably on the Isle of Patmos - and yet it agrees remarkably with the others. Polycarp, one of John's disciples, left us with a wealth of information and writing on Jesus. Polycarp himself was executed for his belief - is this something he would do if he knew John's teachings were lies?
Further counter arguments on the above...
RE: "The earliest versions of the gospel that we have, did not claim that the resurrected Jesus appeared to anyone after his crucifixion - simply ending with a young man saying that he was risen."
and
The United Bible Societies' 'The Greek New Testament' (4th Edition, 1993), regarded as the consensus of Bible Scholars, omits the verses 16:9-20
Firstly, it must be stated unequivocally that the above is most certainly not the consensus of Bible scholars. Although many, and perhaps even the majority may support this it is by no means the consensus and the information below gives good reason.
The two manuscripts discussed below form the basis for omitting the Markan ending. Yet, to summarize the argument they are both unreliable, they both contain the correct space for the ending (thus the copyist knew of the ending but chose to omit it) and thirdly two early church writers quote from the ending of Mark well before the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus manuscripts were copied - the implication is obvious.
The Original Ending of Mark: More Information
Unfortunately some of the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament are not the most reliable. Vaticanus in particular was not copied carefully as it omits words and clauses numerous times, with most of these omissions being in the Gospel of Mark. Codex Sinaiticus also has many errors, which makes it stand out as unreliable, unlike many other New Testament manuscripts. In fact, the space for the ending of Mark is there in both Sinaiticus and Vaticanus indicating that it was meant to be in there but for some reason was omitted. An incomplete manuscript such as 'Papyrus -45' cannot be used to prove anything either way.
Dean Burgon says of Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus: ' The impurity of the text exhibited by these codices is not a question of opinion but of fact. In the Gospels alone Codex Vaticanus leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 1491 times. It bears traces of careless transciption on every page. Codex Sinaiticus abounds with errors of the eye and pen to an extent not indeed unparalelled, but happily rather unusual in documents of first-rate importance. On many occasions 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through very carelessness. Letters and words, even whole sentences are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately canceled; while that gross blunder, whereby a clause is omitted because it happens to end in the same words as the clause preceding, occurs 115 times in the New Testament.' *(Dean Burgon reference from 'The Revision Revised' )
The ending of Mark 16 was in fact accepted as genuine very early in church history as it is present in the majority of manuscripts containing Mark. It would also appear that Mark is quite incomplete without it and would then end abruptly and without the resurrection.
The overall manuscript evidence for the ending of Mark being genuine is quite strong. The vast majority of manuscripts of Mark contain the passage. It is thought likely that some copyist from 200-300 AD left a copy of Marks Gospel unfinished and this became the source for the very small number of defective copies that exist today. The total manuscript evidence is this - it is in 18 out of 20 Uncials and 600 Cursive manuscripts making a total of 618.
Another compelling argument is that 18 early church writers quote from the ending of Mark. Well over half of these (including Irenaeus in 180 AD who commented on v19 and Hippolytus 190-227 AD who quotes v17-18) quoted from it well before either Sinaiticus or Vaticanus were copied. This indicates that it existed from an early stage and is genuine, definitely not the work of 'Christian forgers.' These early church writers were also from every area of the ancient church, indicating that the ending was widely known.
RE:"Mark's Gospel is said to be the major source used by the authors of Matthew's and Luke's Gospels, for the life of Jesus. If the author of Mark's Gospel knew nothing of the resurrection appearances, then it is reasonable to say that they did not occur."
The concensus of New Testament scholars today is moving away from the Markan priority theory. In any case this is only a literary theory and one of its major planks, the 'Q' document has no textual evidence whatsoever.
There has always been a number of different views about the 'synoptic problem.'
No scholar of even the most liberal kind proposes Mark as the one single source of the resurrection account. This would make him by far and away the most successful hoaxer of all time.
There is plenty of evidence for multiple sources for resurrection witness, not just Mark.
Thus it is not at all reasonable to say that they did not occur. Even if we had no Gospel of Mark at all there is plenty of evidence for the resurrection.
wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_historical_evidence_for_the_resurrection_of_Jesus
