Historical Evidence of Jesus' Resurrection: The Sources

Greetings, and welcome to the Faith Chapel Podcast. My name is Jason,

and I am the pastor of Faith Chapel.

This is the fifth episode in the series where we are exploring the historical

evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

Today's evidence will show a number of sources who testify that the apostles

claimed Jesus rose from the dead.

This is important because, historically speaking, we generally have very few

copies of historical documents surviving from antiquity.

But the large quantity of sources that state the apostles' claim of Jesus' resurrection

is significant evidence.

We will look at the eyewitness accounts themselves and then explore extra-biblical

sources to see what they testify about what the apostles said they saw.

Thanks for joining us today.

To begin with today, I want to recap where we ended last week,

and that was with the women as the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection.

And the historical evidence that that provides is that you're not going to testify,

you're not going to share something that's going to be embarrassing to you in

your culture or in your context.

And we call this the criterion of embarrassment.

And this would have met that criteria for them in that particular culture in

that particular time period.

And so from those eyewitnesses and that criterion of embarrassment,

we are moving into the other eyewitnesses that we have.

I found a quote from Lee Strobel. He was being interviewed on a YouTube video.

He is the author of The Case for Christ.

And in this video, he said this, when you study ancient history,

and you're looking at some fact about the life of Alexander the Great, for instance,

and you dig down, how do I know this fact is true?

Most of the time, it is based on one source, maybe two sources of information.

But for the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus,

we have no fewer than nine ancient sources inside and outside of the New Testament

confirming and corroborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the risen Jesus.

So what Lee is saying here is that historically speaking, when we look upon

Julius Caesar, when we look upon Alexander the Great, when we look upon people

of history, we're basing what we know on one or two,

maybe three sources at the most.

But when we look at the resurrection of Jesus in particular,

we are looking at no less than nine sources, which he calls in this video an

avalanche of historical evidence.

It truly is remarkable how many pieces of information tell us about the resurrection

of Jesus and what the disciples did with this belief.

Four of them we know right off the top of our heads.

They are the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

We are also going to look at the second generation tonight of followers of Jesus

and see how they took what the disciples told them and put it into practice in their own minds.

And then we're also going to look at two outside of Christianity sources that

do testify about this is the belief that is going around the world right now

that Jesus rose from the dead.

So these are going to include six of the nine that Lee mentions here.

I've included the other two because I think they're historically valid and important.

And then we're going to save the last three for three more that we're going

to do in October, three more in this series that we're going to do in October.

And they need more explanation than the ones that we have today.

And so this is how we're going to carry on with this series.

So the resurrection of Jesus, again, as we said last week, there is no eyewitness

testimony of the breath coming back into Jesus.

There is no eyewitness testimony that we have of the stone being taken back

and Jesus taking off his grave clothes.

There's no eyewitness testimony of that. But what we do find is the eyewitness

testimony of the empty tomb.

And after we get past that empty tomb,

we have resurrection appearances of Jesus to multiple people at multiple stages

in that 40-day period after his resurrection.

And so we're going to take a look at the four gospels and what they testify about the risen Jesus.

Last week, again, we mentioned all of the resurrection stories of the women

at the tomb and Jesus encountering Mary and that interaction.

These are the ones that are after.

So, in Luke 24 is where we're going to start.

Verses 28 through 35 is the end of the story of the disciples on the road to

Emmaus, where we have two disciples,

and they're walking with someone that, we're told by Luke, is Jesus,

but is hidden from those two who are walking toward Emmaus, and what comes after

their interaction on the road.

And so, starting in verse 28 of Luke 24, we read, So they drew near to the village

to which they were going.

He, this is Jesus, who is still blinded, or these other two are blinded, that it is Jesus.

But Jesus acted as if he were going further, but they urged him strongly,

saying, Stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent.

So he went in to stay within.

When he was at the table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke

it and gave it to them, and their eyes were opened, and they recognized him,

and he vanished from their sight.

They said to each other, Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to

us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?

And they rose at that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the

eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying,

The Lord has indeed risen and has appeared to Simon.

Then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in

the breaking of the bread.

So in this resurrection appearance, we have two disciples who were seemingly

walking with Jesus on the road. They were blinded to it, but they could see him.

They saw his footsteps and they saw him take bread and break it.

And so this is evidence that one of the early.

Heresies of the church was that Jesus was only a spiritual being and that he

didn't really die on the cross,

but that his life that was with the disciples afterwards was a spirit.

It wasn't the physical body.

But this shows and declares that he broke bread. He had physical elements to

himself and that he was able to walk.

He did have some supernatural qualities because he could disappear without them seeing where he went.

So he did have a more of a divine presence on earth in this resurrected body,

but it was clearly a body that they could see,

that they could hear words coming out of his mouth and that they could see breaking bread.

So we get that as evidence of Jesus's resurrection, but we also have a secondary

story here where Simon Peter has been,

declared that Jesus appeared to him as a risen being.

That's this phrase here, the Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to son.

This is the only place that we find this story in the scriptures,

but it is a testimony that Jesus was appearing to multiple people on this day of what we call Easter.

His resurrection day.

So this is the first evidence, historically speaking, of Jesus being resurrected.

Right after this story, Jesus appears as they're talking amongst themselves in Luke.

So starting in Luke 24, verse 36, we read, as they were talking about these

Luke 24:36

things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace to you.

But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.

And he said to them, Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts?

See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.

Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet,

and while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling,

he said to them, have you anything here to eat?

They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it before them.

So again, to combat the idea that it's just his spirit, Jesus takes this fish

and consumes it, only something a physical body can do.

And so this is the second.

Piece or the second time that Jesus has appeared in the gospel according to Luke.

There is one more time, and it's found a few verses later, where it says,

starting in verse 50, and he led them out as far as Bethany,

and lifting up his hands, he blessed them.

While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up to heaven.

And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually

in the temple blessing God.

So here is Jesus's ascension, a third resurrection appearance for the disciples,

according to Luke, multiple times, multiple witnesses.

Historically speaking, this

is one piece of evidence to support that Jesus did rise from the grave.

And as a reminder just to ourselves that when we look at the Gospels or when

we look at the Bible as one source,

that is not an accurate way of doing it because each source that we have in

Scripture leads us into another understanding of some other perspective of Jesus.

So each one of these perspectives that we're going is the own disciples who

God gave the ability to read, to write, to listen, to observe in a special and unique way.

And so each of them bring something nuanced to this story of who Jesus is.

So that is one historical evidence. In the gospel, according to John,

we have three more of the resurrection appearances of Jesus.

So John chapter 20 and 21 are where these are found.

John 20 · chapter mention

And in John 20, 19 through 22, we read, On the evening of that day,

the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews,

Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you.

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,

Receive the Holy Spirit.

So this story is quite similar to one that Luke shares after the two people

from Emmaus come back, after Peter declares that the Lord has appeared to him.

This is what is very similar reported in Luke.

On the first day of that week, when they were gathering together,

Jesus came in amongst them and startled them, surprised them in this way.

So this could be that same event or it could be a different event.

We're not told that these are overlapping events, but they do have similar feels

to them, and so they might be that same event.

One thing that is unique in John,

and more than likely it's because he knew that his writing of the gospel was

over, is this last line here, when Jesus breathes on them and said to them,

receive the Holy Spirit.

Luke tells this story in a completely different way in Acts chapter 2, and so we have the kind of.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Differing stories that are coming upon them here.

This is going to play a role later on in the series.

The last time we get together, we're going to talk about the nuances of each

of these stories in the Gospels and how that points to historical evidence to

believe in these stories.

So they are different. They are nuanced in their own way, and we'll get to that at a later time.

So the next evidence, historically speaking, that we have of Jesus's resurrection

comes in John chapter 20, verses 26 to 29.

John 20:26–29

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.

John does note that in the first evidence that Thomas was not there and Thomas

has said, unless I see Jesus, the scars in Jesus's hand and the wound in his

side, I will not believe.

So eight days later, Thomas is there with them.

Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.

Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your

hand and place it in my side.

Do not disbelieve, but believe.

Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed

because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

And so we have here, again, another event happening eight days after Resurrection

Sunday, where the disciples are together. They're still trying to figure out

what in the world is going on and how can someone rise from the dead?

And so they're just trying to really wrestle with what's going on.

And all of them are together now. And Jesus comes.

And although the doors were locked, he came in, he entered, and he said, peace be with you.

And this is another testimony that Jesus appeared to them in a different time and in a different way.

So again, this is the second one in John, and he has one more.

This one's the breakfast on the beach where the disciples go and they want to go fishing.

And so Peter leads them out. They haven't caught anything all night.

Someone from shore calls out to them and says, throw your nets on the other side. They do.

They catch a hull of 153 fish.

When this happens, John whispers in Peter's ear, it is the Lord.

Peter just jumps into the lake and starts swimming for shore.

The disciples pull in the rest of the fish and then they head for.

And that's where we pick it up in John 21, verse 9. When they got out on land,

John 21:9

they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread.

Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you have just caught.

So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore full of large fish, 153 of them.

And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them,

come and have breakfast.

Now none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? They knew it was the Lord.

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.

This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he

was raised from the dead.

So here we have, again, another story of Jesus appearing after his resurrection.

Right now, we have five probable or maybe six different events of Jesus appearing

based upon whether or not the two in the one in John and the one in Luke are the same event.

It's either five or six of these appearances that Jesus has.

And again, these are two different sources that are testifying to these things.

We have one more from the Gospels, and it is in Matthew 28, verses 16 to 20,

Matthew 28:16–20

we call this the Great Commission.

And this kind of corresponds to what Luke reports in his gospel about Jesus's ascension into heaven.

So in Matthew 28, verses 16 to 20, we read, Now the eleven disciples went to

Matthew 28:16–20

Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

And when he saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name

of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe

all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age.

So here we have number five or number six of these different manifestations

or these different appearances of Jesus in the Gospels.

Three different accounts. We have three storylines that are all saying the same

thing, that Jesus did rise from the dead.

Now, I didn't use any from Mark because when you look at Mark,

there's a very difficult passage at the very end of Mark that when scholarship

looks at the oldest existing manuscripts does not exist in it.

The oldest existing manuscripts of Mark end with the women leaving the tomb

being afraid to share this news with anyone.

That's where the oldest manuscripts end.

And so historians are thinking, all right, that's probably then where Mark actually ended it.

Mark ends it with the angel declaring and saying to the women that Jesus has

risen, but there's no resurrection appearances in Mark.

Mark does claim Jesus rose from the dead, But it just doesn't have any stories

of any resurrection appearances for him.

And so we covered all of the end of Mark last week when we looked at the first eyewitnesses.

And so I didn't include any of them here.

But that's all four of them agree. Jesus rose from the dead.

Three of them have resurrection appearance stories.

And if you look at these resurrection stories, there are going to be some elements

in here that I would say fall under the criterion of embarrassment as well.

Like, I'm pretty sure Thomas doesn't want all of history to know that he doubted

Jesus's existence. That would be something very embarrassing for him.

And here, Matthew is not shy to say they saw him and worshiped him, but some doubted.

Like, that's a very normal human thing, but if they were making up these stories,

that phrase would not be in there because they would want the assurance,

they would want to portray that they were assured that Jesus was alive.

And so a couple of these do also fall into that criterion of embarrassment,

and it brings these stories even more clout in my mind,

even more weight behind what they are testifying and what they are saying.

So to wrap up this area, Josh McDowell, who wrote Evidence That Demands a Verdict,

says this, the story is told by them with reticence and awe.

The disciples themselves had to be convinced of this awesome and stupendous fact.

Their unbelief is itself evidence of the fact of the resurrection,

for it deletes the idea that they had hallucinations or created a fiction of

their own to perpetuate the cause of their slain leader.

And so to Josh McDowell, and he wrote this book in the 70s, but as he explored the evidence of Jesus,

the stories and how they were presented by Matthew, Luke, and John in this way,

give him further evidence that it is true, it is valid, it is correct.

But moving on from there, historically speaking, we do have evidences from the

disciples' disciples who also testified to what they believed.

So if you are really tight with someone, if you share everything with someone,

that person is going to know the innermost part of who you are,

and especially if you're with them for an elongated period of time.

And as these second generation disciples were being discipled by Peter and John

and Andrew and all of the followers of Jesus,

they were spending considerable time with them and they were listening to them speech.

They were soaking it all in. And this is what two of them had to say.

Both of these people are in the nine historical stories of Jesus,

giving us more and more evidence of the validity of the resurrection.

So these both that I'm going to talk about now are in Lee Strobel's list of nine.

So the first one is Clement of Rome. He is said to be a disciple of the Apostle

Peter, and he wrote in AD 96 a letter to the church in Corinth.

This isn't Paul's letter to the church in Corinth. This is Clement's letter.

If you go through the succession of the popes in the Catholic church,

Clement is going to be one in that succession.

So he is thought to be a disciple of Peter. He is thought to be not just high-ranking

official, but the bishop of.

And what he wrote in his letter to the Corinthians said this,

Consider, beloved, how the Lord keeps reminding us of the resurrection that

is to come, of which he has made the Lord Jesus Christ the firstfruits by raising him from the dead.

So Clement of Rome is passing on what he learned from Peter.

He wasn't a first eyewitness of this, but he learned this from Peter,

that Jesus did rise from the dead.

As he's writing this letter in the mid-90s, Peter was executed roughly 30 years prior to this.

And so he had taken on that mantle of telling other people about Jesus.

And from Peter, he got the.

He believed, he trusted, and he had the evidence from Peter to say that,

yes, Jesus was raised from the dead.

And when we look at the people who come after the disciples,

this is what we should expect.

This is a big deal. They should have been teaching about the resurrection of Jesus.

And that's exactly what we find in the first century in a non-biblical text.

The followers of Jesus were proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead.

Then we go to a guy by the name of Polycarp. He is said to be a disciple of

the apostle John. He was the bishop of Smyrna, which is one of the churches

that Jesus tells John to write to in the book of Revelation.

So one of the seven churches that is in the book of Revelation.

So the bishop of Smyrna, And he's writing this, don't have a very precise date,

but between 110 and 140 AD.

And in this letter, he says on five occasions that Jesus rose from the grave.

I have two of those in front of you to share.

So the first one comes from chapter 12, where Polycarp writes,

Who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ and in his Father who raised him from the dead?

Again, this is testimony that the second generation of followers of Jesus believed

and trusted in the resurrection of Jesus.

Then we have in the chapter one, this proclamation.

Because the strong root of your faith, spoken in days long gone by,

endures even until now, and brings forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ,

who for our sins suffered even unto death.

But whom God raised from the dead, having loosed the bands of the grave.

Again, it's testifying to Jesus rising from the dead.

Polycarp is not an eyewitness of a resurrection appearance of Jesus that we

know of, but he was taught this from John, who then took it on to bring it to other generations,

to bring it to other people, to spread the news that Jesus is alive.

He is not still in the grave.

And so the progression here is just simply, if this was really true, it was a big deal.

And the disciples would have shared that with their followers, with their disciples.

And that is exactly what we see. This is the story that the disciples handed

down to their disciples over and over and over again.

It is, again, historical evidence. These writings exist still to this day.

These are outside the Bible sources.

They're still Christians. They're still following after Jesus,

but they are outside the Bible and they are in the second generation,

what we would expect to find if this really happened.

So that ends the six evidences, historical evidences, that Lee Strobel brings up out of the nine.

Again, we're going to place three of them each in their own setting when we meet again.

But I did want to bring up two others because I think they're important to really wrestle with.

And these are not Christians who who are not following after.

This is what they say about what Christians are saying in the first and second centuries.

So one we went over a little bit earlier when we were talking about where Jesus rose from the grave.

So the Roman historian Tacitus claims in this quote that Jesus,

this began spreading, the story of Jesus's resurrection began spreading in Judea.

And we use this to say that was the hardest place for this to begin,

because that's where the grave of Jesus would have been.

And the religious leaders and anyone who was trying to refute them could take

anyone who claimed this right to the tomb and says, he's right here.

He did not rise from the dead.

And so, but this also, again, not a follower of Jesus who is testifying that

people who follow Jesus are saying he rose from the dead.

Tacitus did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but he's going to say

in here that the followers of Jesus, they're saying he rose from the dead.

So in this, in his, I forget what it's called, Annals, that's what this work

of his is called, he writes, therefore, to squelch the rumor,

Nero created scapegoats and subjected to the most refined tortures,

those whom the common people called Christians, a group hated for their abominable crimes.

Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius,

had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate,

suppressed for the moment, the deadly superstition, and the deadly superstition

is Jesus rose from the grave.

He calls it here a deadly superstition.

Anyway, suppressed for the moment, the deadly superstition broke out again,

not only in Judea, the land which originated this year.

But also in the city of Rome, where all sorts of horrendous and shameful practices

of every part of the world converge and are fervently cultivated.

And so he's saying here, the pronouncement of the resurrection of Jesus is an

evil. It's a shameful practice.

It's getting people away from worshiping the emperor. It's getting people away

from worshiping the Roman deities.

This is a shameful practice for them. And he says, this is what they're believing.

This is what they're teaching.

Now, Tacitus was writing this in the second century.

So again, around that 110 to 140 AD timeframe, and he's recounting what was

going on in the Roman Empire at that time.

So we have that it is a non-Christian is also saying this at the same time of

Polycarp. This is what's going on.

They are claiming that Jesus rose from the grave.

And then we get to a one that's disputed, and it's probably why it's not one

of the nine that Lee Strobel listed.

But I found a document of a dissertation, a doctoral dissertation by T.C.

Schmidt, who presents very favorable information and very favorable facts about

why this is probably a real writing of Josephus.

So Flavius Josephus is a Jewish historian. He was living in the first century.

And so this was written right around the time of Clement of Rome,

when he was writing his letter to the church in Corinth.

And what he writes in Greek, the oldest existing Greek copies,

seems to be a pro-Christian stance.

But when Schmidt here takes the other existing copies in other languages and

compares them to the Greek, he sees some validation, and this is more than likely in his opinion,

an authentic writing of Josephus.

Because when they saw the writings of Josephus and they compared that to the

Christians of that time who said that Josephus was not very favorable to Christians.

They thought, well, I'm going to read to you now was twisted by Christians who later down the line.

But the evidence that Schmidt has found has helped him to create this document.

You'll see some brackets on the screen here.

These are the words that he has added from those different translations,

those other languages that it's in,

so that we can get a clearer picture of why he thinks this is an authentic writing.

And it again testifies to the resurrection of Jesus.

So Flavius Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews writes this, and in this time

there was a certain Jesus,

a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man, for he was a doer of incredible

deeds, a teacher of men who received truisms with pleasure.

And he brought over many from among the.

The Greeks. He was thought to be the Christ,

and when Pilate had condemned him to the cross at the accusation of the first men among us,

those who at first were devoted to him did not cease to be so,

for on the third day it seemed to them that he was alive again.

Given that the divine prophets had spoken such things and thousands of other

wonderful things about him.

And up till now, the tribe of the Christians who were named from him has not disappeared.

This document was known to people like Clement, to Polycarp,

and to other of the second generation of Christians.

And they were quoting this that he was having a negative opinion of Christians.

And so the phrases that are here in different languages, but not in the oldest

Greek versions that we have,

point to phrases that Josephus uses in his other readings that really authenticate

this as a true statement of Josephus.

The one I'm going to point out is the first men among us.

This is something that Josephus uses, I think I saw 51 times in his writings.

It's a very common phrase from him.

And Schmidt explains what that is here.

So he writes later on after he translates this,

Taken as a whole, then, the evidence indicates that the Testimonium Flavium,

which is what I just read to you,

was indeed composed by Josephus, a man who actually knew those who put Jesus

and the apostles on trial.

It hence offers remarkable insight into both the Jesus of history and the early

Christian movement. We would do well to consider carefully what it says.

So the first men among us were those that Josephus knew.

And the author here kind of breaks it down to being the Caiaphas's grandson

as one of the people that would have been in the trial of convicting Jesus and

also one that Josephus would have known later on down the line.

And so that's the phrase that he uses. And when he uses it, he means that I know personally.

And so what he is saying here is, I know those who were in the trial of Jesus.

I know those who were surrounding him and said, he needs to be executed. He needs to go to Pilate.

Rome needs to put him to death. And so this is evidence then that the statement

from Josephus is actually what he wrote down,

not a Christian interpolation of what that is.

And so I offer that up to you.

I do realize that it is debated. It is not,

everyone does not come to this conclusion about whether the statement is authentic

to Josephus or not, but it is something that I find compelling and one that makes sense to me.

And so that's why I brought it to your attention.

So the evidence here is that not only the first eyewitnesses,

the women, and the criterion of embarrassment that follows with that,

but also the first followers of Jesus,

the second eyewitnesses, you could say, were ones that saw the resurrected Jesus.

They didn't have to take the women's word for it. They saw it themselves.

They knew it to be true. And so they were just relaying what they saw and what they knew.

And so these are six of the historical written accounts of the resurrection

of Jesus and how they point to giving us a wider breadth of trusting and believing

in the resurrection of Jesus.

Thank you again for joining us in our discussion on the sources that state the

first apostles claim they saw the resurrected Jesus.

This is just one more layer of discovery to find out if, historically speaking,

we can say the evidence leads us to conclude that Jesus rose from the grave.

In the next episode, we will look at the historical evidence of a creed found

in 1 Corinthians 15 that takes the story of Jesus rising from the dead back

to within years or maybe even months of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Have a great day.