Why Do You Seek the Living among the Dead?

Let us begin our search for the Real Jesus with the question: Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why indeed? It is the question the angel in Luke's Gospel put to those coming to the tomb looking for Jesus after his Crucifixion. The angel in effect said, "Well, you won't find him here." Neither will we in our search for the Real Jesus. He is not in a tomb. Something happened!

King Frederick the Great once asked his physician, "Sir, can you give me a single proof for the existence of God?" The physician replied, "Your Majesty, the Jews!" If King Frederick had asked "Sir, can you give me a single proof of the Resurrection of Jesus?" the reply would have to be "Your Majesty, the New Testament."

Historians agree that the New Testament itself is evidence that obviously something happened after Jesus' death. Its historical existence is the proof of that "something." But what? Whatever it was, it was the "big bang" of the Christian religion. While the Christian faith asserts that Jesus was raised from the dead, most skeptics are likely to dismiss such a claim along with the virgin birth as simply "impossible" and their search for the Real Jesus ends before it begins; at the tomb.

But then, what do you make of the New Testament? The New Testament derives from two historical realities. One was the reality of the historical person Jesus. The second was the historical reality of his Resurrection. Something happened at some point in history that demands an answer. It may be unexplainable, but it is, clearly, undeniable. While I am not willing to defend the historical reality of the virgin birth, I do want to defend the historical reality of Jesus' Resurrection. Though only two of the Gospels even carry the birth story of Jesus, all the four Gospels record the Resurrection and the rest of the New Testament assumes it. To dismiss the Resurrection of Jesus out of hand as impossible is not only too simple but, it seems to me, is intellectually dishonest. Why is the resuscitation of a dead person any more difficult to wrap one's mind around than postulating the fact that all the matter that exists in the universe—all the hundreds of thousands of galaxies, including the stardust from which we have evolved—was once upon a time condensed into a mass no bigger than a marble and exploded with a big bang into the universe as we know it? If it is possible for skeptics to contemplate the one, why is it any more difficult or impossible—in principle—to hold the possibility that the same "something" could regather the dust and scattered molecules of a dead person and explode them back into life? If the "singularity," of which physicists speak, can do the one, why could it not do the other?

It is just a thought. But it is a question as honestly put to the scientifically minded skeptics of today as is theirs about our claim of Resurrection.

So I invite all honest skeptics to journey back with me to the first century and gather again at the tomb of Jesus. The one thing the early skeptics could have done to discredit the entire New Testament claim of Resurrection would have been to open the tomb and display the corpse of Jesus. That apparently is the one thing they did not or could not do. But why! Such a disclosure would have been devastating to the early Christian movement. It would still be devastating to Christian faith today! The professor of ancient Judaism and early Christianity at Hebrew University in Jerusalem acknowledged this when asked by a reporter from the BBC,

if the Dead Sea Scrolls will harm Christianity. I said to him that nothing can harm Christianity. The only thing which could be dangerous to Christianity would be to find a tomb with the sarcophagus or ossuary of Jesus—still containing his bones. And then I said I surely hope that it will not be found in the territory of the State of Israel.

The empty tomb is the centerpiece of the New Testament's Resurrection faith. All four Gospels mention it. So the question "Why didn't Jesus' enemies open the tomb?" is not only legitimate but crucial.

The answer is, apparently, "Because the tomb was empty." And why was the tomb empty? "Because somebody took the body out of it and hid it." And who would have done that? "The disciples of Jesus, of course, because they were trying to save face and then made up the story of Resurrection to hide the theft."

It is here that the historians must intervene because the earliest written eyewitness account of the Resurrection does not come from any of the disciples who, it might reasonably be argued, made up the story to save face. It comes—not from any follower of Jesus at all—but from one of his enemies! The apostle Paul, to be specific, who in any evidentiary hearing would have to be considered a hostile witness. His opposition to the Christian movement and determination to stamp it out is given full coverage in Acts (8:1–9:31).

After agreeing with Jewish leaders that the followers of Jesus should be stoned to death—the Jewish punishment for blasphemy—the book of Acts recounts that Paul's plan was to drag back to Jerusalem any of these dangerous blasphemers who could be located in Damascus and have them imprisoned. On his way, the account continues, the resurrected Jesus intercepted Paul, knocked him down, blinded him, and converted him. Moral to that story: don't mess with Jesus!

The account continues. Paul had to be led to Damascus in his blinded condition where he was sheltered and cared for by Ananias, a follower of Jesus. Paul's reputation had preceded him. Ananias was well aware of Paul's murderous intent. We can well imagine that Ananias would have slept with one eye open while Paul was under his roof. Nevertheless, Paul proved to the growing Jesus community that he was truly a converted believer, and as a result, Paul's own words provide us with the first historical eyewitness account of Jesus' Resurrection.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15:3–10)

Paul makes this statement at least twenty years before any of the Gospel writers set down their accounts of the Resurrection. But Paul goes further. He responds to the skeptics in the Corinthian congregation by staking the credibility of his message and the integrity of his reputation on the validity of...