Please allow for several areas of study in which we can discern the historical account of what happened just a few years shy of Two-Thousand years ago.

Martyrdom: Christian Persecution

Eleven of the 12 apostles, and many of the other early disciples, died for their adherence to the Gospel accounts of Christ. This is so spectacular, since they all witnessed the alleged events surrounding Jesus, his ministry, his crucifixion and his resurrection, and still went to their deaths defending them.

Why is this spectacular, when many throughout history have died martyred deaths for a religious belief?

Because people don’t die for a lie.

Look at human nature throughout history. No conspiracy can be maintained when life or liberty is at stake. Dying for a belief is one thing, but numerous eyewitnesses dying for a known lie is quite another.

Christian persecution didn’t slow the growth of the Christian faith during the first few centuries after Jesus. Even as its early leaders died horrible deaths, Christianity flourished throughout the Roman Empire. How can this historical record of martyrdom be viewed as anything but powerful evidence for the truth of the Christian faith – a faith grounded in historical events and eyewitness testimonies?

Now there are the skeptics that say that this is not a valid argument because the Muslims prove all of the time that they are willing to commit suicide for their beliefs, which according to Christians, is a lie. But wait! Do the modern suicide bombers know that they are dying for a lie, or are they basing their decision off the traditional history of their religion? I would submit to you that they are merely exhibiting behavior of repeated oral or written history, for they themselves did not “know” Mohammed directly in order to “know” his teaching or his fate. In other words, modern Muslims are merely “guessing” that they are dying for the right reason, by faith.

On the other hand, the disciples had “direct” contact with Jesus. When He was crucified, many of them were there to witness his beating personally. Anyone who understands Roman flagellation (whipping), as the original disciples did, knew that Jesus barely lived through that process alone, not to mention that the Cross of Calvary was still coming. The disciples had direct knowledge that Jesus died. They also had direct knowledge that His body was no longer in the tomb. Believe me; the Christian movement would have stopped in its tracks before it even got started if any of the Roman government or the Pharisees could have produced a body to shut the mouths of the disciples. And if a body of the dead Christ was produced, proving the resurrection didn’t happen, the disciples would have been absolutely crazy to die for what they “knew” was a lie.

This brings up the next topic to examine:

The Empty Tomb

There is much time that has been spent by Christian and secular historians about this topic, thus leaving little doubt at all as to the following context. Let’s look at some of the academic scholarship regarding the empty tomb of Jesus.  Consider…

1) The Jerusalem Factor:

 Since Jesus was publicly executed and buried in Jerusalem, it would have been impossible for Christianity to begin in Jerusalem while the body was still in the tomb. Christ’s enemies in the Jewish leadership and Roman government would only have to exhume the corpse and publicly display it for the hoax of the empty tomb to be shattered.

2) The Jewish Response:

Rather than point to an occupied tomb, the Jewish leadership accused Christ’s disciples of stealing his body. Wouldn’t this strategy seem to establish that there was, in fact, an empty tomb and a missing body?

3) The Women’s Testimony:

In all four Gospel accounts of the empty tomb, women are listed as the primary witnesses. This would be an odd invention, since in both Jewish and Roman cultures women were not esteemed and their testimony was not admissible.

When you understand the role of women in first-century Jewish society, what’s really extraordinary is that this empty tomb story should feature women as the discoverers of the empty tomb in the first place. Women were on a very low rung of the social ladder in first-century Palestine.

There are old rabbinical sayings that said, ‘Let the words of Law be burned rather than delivered to women’ and ‘blessed is he whose children are male, but woe to him whose children are female.’ Women’s testimony was regarded as so worthless that they weren’t even allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of Law. In light of this, it’s absolutely remarkable that the chief witnesses to the empty tomb are these women…

Any later legendary account would have certainly portrayed male disciples as discovering the tomb — Peter or John, for example. The fact that women are the first witnesses to the empty tomb is most plausibly explained by the reality that — like it or not — they were the discoverers of the empty tomb! This shows that the Gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened, even if it was embarrassing.

Crucifixion

Ancient Hebrew texts reveal that both Jews and Romans hated the practice of crucifixion because of its extreme cruelty. It is well known among historians and 1st Century scholars that crucifixion was a form of capital punishment reserved for slaves and those who were perceived as a direct threat to Rome. This explains why Pontius Pilate chose crucifixion as the penalty for Jesus Christ, since Jesus claimed a form of “Kingship” that threatened those in religious and political power.

In 1878, a stone inscription was found in Nazareth containing a decree from Emperor Claudius of Rome. The official decree announced that graves must not be disturbed, nor bodies removed. The punishment for violators was death. Interestingly, this stone slab is dated to about 50 AD, and prior to this time, grave-robbing was not considered a capital offense.

It is widely believed by scholars that Claudius probably issued this decree as a result of the turmoil caused by the early preaching of the resurrection of Jesus, which actually caused major riots in 49 AD, when non-believing Jews declared that the body of Jesus had been stolen by his followers.

Myth, Folklore and Legend

Experts who have studied the birth of myth, folklore, and legend have concluded that for a revised version of fact to take the place of objective truth within a relatively small and specific geographical region a total of three generations must pass. The reason for this is really quite simple – until such time passes, there are still surviving people within this geographical range who have first-hand knowledge of the correct order of events.

Thus, enough time must pass to ensure that no one is still around who is capable of refuting an inflated or mythical reinterpretation of any given publicly well known event. Based on this it is highly unlikely that the apostles could have successfully created a version of the accounts of miracles and post-crucifixion resurrection that differed from the known truth in the immediate geographical location.

So, those are some of the evidences that played a part in my reaching the point where it required more faith for me to not believe than to believe. This topic is much deeper than what is even discussed here. If you would like more information about this topic, please feel free to send an email to us at Truth Ministries.

Written by: Steve Carroll
Edited by: Dave Glander