It is an historical fact that the Lord Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. The evidence is so overwhelming that it would be absurd to reject it (a thread):
Almost all scholars agree, regardless of their beliefs, that the tomb Christ was buried in after His crucifixion was discovered empty, His disciples experienced visions of Him alive after His death, and they truly believed that He had been resurrected, for the following reasons:
1. The empty tomb: (1) The fact that Christ’s tomb was later found empty is confirmed in at least six different, independent sources all dating from the first century. (2) It is recorded that women were the first witnesses to the empty tomb;
if the Gospel writers wanted to create a convincing lie they would not have used the testimony of women, considering that their word was taken with a grain of salt in that place and era of time — but it was recorded as such simply because that’s how it happened.
(3) The first Christians began to proclaim Christ is Risen in Jerusalem: the one place it should not have began if the tomb had Christ within it — for it would have been easily disproven, and very quickly.
This is why the Jewish leaders’ response to “Christ is Risen” was not to show His body, but that it was stolen — acknowledging the tomb empty.
2. Christ’s appearances: It is recorded in several independent sources that Christ appeared to people alive after His death. He had appeared to the women, e.g.
St. Paul lists in his letter to the Corinthians that the risen Christ had appeared to St. Peter, and then to the Twelve, then to 500 men and women at one time, then to St. James, then to all the apostles, and then to St. Paul himself.
3. The disciples’ belief in Christ’s resurrection: (1) The Jews never believed that God would raise any single man up from the dead in history; and yet, something convinced the disciples to believe otherwise.
(2) All of Christ’s disciples, save St. John, died a martyr’s death defending that they had seen the risen Christ; they had nothing to gain from this belief. (3) Even early skeptics and anti-Christian Pharisees converted - St. James and St. Paul respectively -
after claiming to have seen Christ risen from the dead. The only way to reasonably explain these facts is to accept that God resurrected Jesus Christ. Many naturalistic theories have been offered to explain these facts, but they all fail miserably.
Several major objections could be given to these naturalistic theories that render them easily dismissible: e.g., that the disciples would not die for what they knew to be false in response to the Stolen Body Theory,
and hallucination is a subjective and individual experience in response to the Hallucination Theory, it would be impossible to survive in a tomb days after crucifixion and much less convince others you had risen from the dead after escaping the tomb, etc.
In short, Christ is most certainly risen. Anyone who rejects the Resurrection of Our Lord has probably either not examined the historical facts and/or is coping.
