Apostles in Jerusalem Dead Rise Again Second Coming

Christianity's cadre belief is that the Son of God took on human form, died for our sins, and then rose from the dead to requite us eternal life. Simply if Jesus Christ didn't come back to life, it undoes His merits to be the all-powerful, eternal Son of God, Savior, and Messiah.  So, Christianity hangs on the Resurrection.

To believe the events around that first Easter, you pretty much have to believe that Jesus did indeed exist and that the New Attestation tin be trusted.

At the Affect 360 school in Pine Mountain, Georgia, Prof. Jonathan Morrow preps higher-leap Christians in how to fight with the facts of their religion.

Jesus Isn't Just in the Bible

He told CBN News, "Investigating the Resurrection is a historical question that you can practice with eyes wide open up; it'due south not a bullheaded religion kind of matter, like assertive in the Easter Bunny or a lucky rabbit's foot.  This is real-world kind of stuff.  And you can investigate the information for it."

Morrow added, "So when it comes to the Resurrection, we say 'Well, how practise nosotros know Jesus existed?' Some people even doubt that.  The fact is, we have far more sources for Jesus of Nazareth than we do for many historical figures in the first century.  We have at least 18. Twelve of those are non-Christian sources."

At that place'due south more evidence Jesus existed than Julius Caesar. Anyone doubt Caesar existed?

As for the Scriptures, Prof. Darrell Bock of the Dallas Theological Seminary explained that whatever piece of a surviving ancient work is called a manuscript. And more ancient pages or fragments of the Bible take survived by far than any other volume from artifact.

"It's exceptional," Bock said. "Yous're talking about over v,800 Greek manuscripts, over viii,000 Latin manuscripts. Nigh books that we work with in the aboriginal earth take maybe at best a dozen manuscripts."

Jonathan Morrow is a defender of the faith, the literal meaning of "apologist."  Only he says Christians shouldn't but defend the faith and the Resurrection. They should embrace information technology and let it alter their lives just similar it changed the ancient world. Watch below:

Christians: If Jesus Is Dead, So Is Your Religion

For some people, they might be ready to believe the Bible is legitimate, but they have a difficult fourth dimension believing Jesus Christ could have actually risen from the dead.

The problem with that, as far every bit Morrow is concerned, is that everything hangs on that fact.

This author of Questioning the Bible explained, "Paul made the argument in I Corinthians 15, maxim 'Look, you lot can test this: if the Resurrection didn't happen, Christianity is faux. Whether you lot believe it or not, whether you're sincere about it, if the Resurrection didn't happen, Christianity's false - go to the next religion."

If He'due south Dead, So They Lied

Some propose that the apostles all lied in a vast conspiracy to plow the deficit of Jesus' death into the positive of a risen Lord. Just biblical apologists insist when you examine it all the way through, information technology's actually easier to believe in the Resurrection than its alternatives.

Such Bible experts say that to dismiss the Resurrection, any theory yous come upwards with to explicate the historical happenings has to explain away three historical facts:

1. That at that place was an empty tomb three days after Jesus'due south body had been placed in it, though information technology had been constantly guarded by Roman soldiers;
2. Jesus appeared to hundreds of people in numerous places for almost seven weeks after His crucifixion;
3. And something huge did happen to all of a sudden and forever turn all the cowering, cowardly disciples into bold believers, proclaiming a risen Messiah they were willing to be tortured and die for.

Top biblical experts point out all the holes in these and other anti-Resurrection theories. Watch beneath.

Did Jesus Die, or Just Almost Die?

Still, alternative theories live on.

Some theorize that Jesus didn't die on the cantankerous but simply went into a death-like state that fooled everyone who checked His trunk. And so nether this theory, He awoke in the tomb, got up and walked out.  Proponents say that explains His many appearances afterward His supposed death.

What this doesn't explicate is how in a near-death state and with exceedingly crippling wounds, He could work His way out of tightly-wrapped, glued-on burying garments and and so gyre away the massively heavy stone sealed onto the tomb by the Romans.  And it doesn't explain why He'd suddenly disappear after several weeks among His disciples, never to be seen over again.  Nor does it explicate how then many people saw Him ascending up into the heavens.

Oops, Wrong Tomb

Some propose the female disciples who outset constitute the empty tomb might accept but had the wrong one, and the other disciples took reward of that, concocting a Resurrection myth to explain the empty tomb. But surely the Jewish leaders who'd had Roman guards placed by Jesus' burial place, and Joseph of Arimathea who endemic the tomb where Jesus' body had been laid, would accept speedily displayed the body and corrected the mistake if indeed the women had gone to the wrong tomb.

"If you lot're going around preaching Jesus was physically raised from the dead and people knew where He was buried and knew where they could find His basic, that message wouldn't even get off the ground," insisted Bock, author of Truth Matters.

Not Smart to Lie Where Everyone Knows You lot're Lying

Josh McDowell, author of New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, said the disciples knew this well.

"In the Resurrection, where was the hardest place in the world to convince anyone information technology was true if it was false?  Jerusalem, where a xv-minute walk past anyone could confirm the emptiness of the tomb," McDowell said."

Matthew 28 points out the Jewish leaders bribed the tomb's guards to say they'd fallen asleep and the disciples and then stole Jesus' trunk. Only if these guards were asleep, how would they know information technology was the disciples?  And how could they have slept through the disciples rolling abroad the huge stone that covered the entrance to the tomb, a stone some have suggested was then heavy, it may have taken more than a dozen men to push it away?

Debunking this conspiracy idea, Morrow said, "Conspiracy theories unravel very quickly considering people volition eventually tell what they know. And the more people who are involved, and the more than people who saw the upshot, yous multiply your chances of the story getting out. So that's the first thing. The 2d thing is the Gospels, the earliest historical record we have, don't prove the tales of being doctored to say the same thing, like they got their stories straight. They had the ring of truth to them."

Would Y'all Die for a Lie Yous Made Up?

And if the disciples were making upwards Jesus' Resurrection, would they have lived and died for Him and a fiction they themselves made up?

McDowell explained, "They said later on He was crucified and cached, He was raised from the dead and for 40 days — not forty hours, not four days — for 40 days, they lived with Him and walked with Him, with overwhelming proof that He'd been raised from the dead."

McDowell ended, "If the Resurrection was a prevarication, they had to know it. And if they knew information technology, and then you'd have to say hither were these men who not only died for a lie, but they knew it was a lie. I challenge you lot to find others in history who that'southward true of. It's non."

Morrow added, "The earliest disciples would have known - not just believed, but would have known - that either Jesus was who He claimed to be and was really raised from the dead or they were making this thing upwardly. And withal history tells us that we have skilful reason to call back they all went to their death with the exception of one for that core conventionalities: that Jesus was raised from the dead. They didn't recant that. Conspiracies break down under force per unit area.  And this conspiracy would take cost them their lives."

What Would Cause Such Radical Transformations?

These and other experts say that in truth, it would have something as radical as Jesus' Resurrection to completely transform the disciples like cowardly Peter, who was so scared just earlier the crucifixion, he swore he didn't even know Jesus. Scout below.

Simply just a few weeks after Morrow pointed out Peter went from hiding away, fearful the Jewish leaders might accept him killed too, to boldly preaching salvation through Christ earlier a crowd of thousands, including some who sought Jesus' death.

Morrow explained, "You run across Peter with this radical transformation, going from coward to this courageous champion who's saying 'Look, here I stand up, this is what I'thou maxim, this is what'south true. You crucified this guy, but this is what He offered.' You've got that radical transformation right at the eye of what's going on around that earliest Christian movement."

From Christ-Hater to Christian Martyr

Morrow pointed out Jesus' doubting brother James was besides instantly changed.

He said, "James – the blood brother of Jesus —didn't follow Jesus during His earthly ministry; thought He was crazy."

McDowell agreed, proverb, "James despised his brother. Idea He was embarrassing the family. So Jesus appeared to him in James' ain word, and he became the leader of the church of Jerusalem."

Morrow added, "And after the fact, James becomes an early leader in the Church building, and was persecuted and eventually killed for that belief."

And biblical apologists say it could but be a resurrected Jesus showing upwardly forcefully and vividly two to three years later on that could transform the church building's worst persecutor into its main missionary.

Greatest Murderer Turned to Greatest Missionary

"Saul of Tarsus was anything but a follower who believed in Jesus," McDowell said. "He went from city to city casting his vote to have them imprisoned and executed. But in his own words, Christ appeared to him. Whether y'all believe that or not, something took.  One of the greatest murderers into 1 of the greatest missionaries.  A Christian-hater to a Christian-lover."

Morrow stated,  "What in the globe would flip Paul - or actually, Saul of Tarsus - to Paul, the main proclaimer in the early Church?  He was a smart guy. He was holding the coats when people were killing the first Christians.  He was doggedly opposed to this movement. And then he became a Christian. What accounts for that?"

Curt of the risen Jesus appearing to Paul, Bock believes it'south an unfathomable transformation.

Every bit he put it, "So the master thing is just explaining how someone like a Saul who becomes Paul fifty-fifty exists."

McDowell concluded, "Something happened in Paul'southward life that I've never found any other caption that even comes close to satisfying me intellectually except: 'And Jesus appeared to Paul after the Resurrection.'"

Liars Wouldn't Have Testified About the Female Disciples' Function

Another crucial factor that debunks the thought all these disciples were trying to sell a false Resurrection to the world: the fact that they proclaimed it was females who found the empty tomb and let the male disciples know Jesus was missing.

The first century Jews believed women were 2d-class citizens.  So if the disciples were lying nearly the resurrection, they fabricated their story all the harder to take by putting women at the forefront.

"Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - they all recount Jesus' earliest women followers finding the empty tomb," Morrow said. "In the first century, where a woman'due south testimony would have been about the level just in a higher place a slave, that would non be your best pes forward."

Bock imagined beingness with the disciples plotting how they'll button a false Resurrection.

The Criterion of Embarrassment

"'We're going to sell this difficult thought, and the people we're going to get to sell it are people that the civilisation doesn't believe take the right to exist witnesses,'" Bock imagined them saying.

Simply he insisted, "You lot'd never make up a story that way.  This is what's called the Criterion of Embarrassment in historical Jesus studies: that you'd never make up the story this manner.  So the reason the story is this way is because it must exist grounded in what happened."

Morrow completely agreed, stating the Gospel writers testifying virtually the women'south role has "the ring of truth."

Morrow said, "That would have been an embarrassing detail you would have never led with UNLESS information technology actually happened. And the fact that all four (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) say it happened just gives information technology that much stronger evidence that it actually did happen."

Hard to Simply Dismiss 500 Eyewitnesses

Saying the disciples lied most Jesus' resurrection doesn't explicate His post-Resurrection appearance before 500 people. The Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 15 suggested doubters go talk to them.

Morrow said of that, "You've got living history. You've got the people who were there to cross-check whatever bulletin is being put out there. So, it'south not as though these things could accept been invented and no i would accept challenged it. You've got this thought that 'there are witnesses; go investigate them.'"

He added about this phone call in I Corinthians to talk to witnesses, "Aboriginal historians loved eyewitness testimony. That's what they all wanted. Livy, Herodotus, Tacitus, Thucydides - they all wanted eyewitness testimony to become back to the original.  And that's what y'all have."

McDowell said of such eyewitness testimony, "I put a lot of weight on this.  Yous see, people today say, 'How do yous know Jesus said that? How do you know He did that?' Well, they had the aforementioned question in the New Testament times. Even more then than today considering they were dying for it. And they wanted to know: 'Is this truthful? Did Jesus really do this? Did He really say this?' "

'Can't Go Much Ameliorate Show'

McDowell pointed out, "In I John 1, how did John answer that? They said 'How practice we know this is true?' John said, 'What our optics accept seen, what our ears have heard, what our hands have handled is what we're declaring unto you.' In other words, 'We were eyewitnesses. We were there.'  And and so with their opponents, they would say, 'You were there, also. You saw Jesus do this; you heard Him exercise this.'  And y'all can't get much better evidence historically than that.  And we have that in the Scriptures."

Morrow returned to how Paul pushed his readers in I Corinthians xv to gather proof that Jesus rose from the dead: "He says, 'It'south non a matter of wishful thinking.  Investigate this.' That's why he mentions the eyewitnesses. He mentioned that Jesus appeared to more than 500, and too as His disciples, and to Paul himself and to others. Because eyewitnesses authenticated that event. And it was central to Christianity."

Morrow ended, "It has all the ring of truth and non the ring of that conspiracy theory where they but made this thing up to invent their own faith."

Jonathan Morrow and Josh McDowell share more than of their insights regarding bystander testimony beneath:

Could 500 People Have the Same Hallucination?

Some doubters try to do away with all the post-Resurrection appearances by maxim those who thought they were seeing, talking to and touching Jesus were all hallucinating, even the 500 Paul discussed in I Corinthians.

McDowell told CBN News believing that takes more than faith than merely accepting that Jesus really did ascension from the dead.

The writer explained, "Here's the central: what is a hallucination? A hallucination is an internal experience, non triggered by annihilation externally.  This is why no 2 people always have the same hallucination. Considering it's all internal; subjective. Well, to accept 500 people have the same hallucination would be 500 miracles equal to the Resurrection."

Speaking of miracles, Morrow called on people to not dismiss them every bit casually as well-nigh folks practice these days.

If God Exists, so Tin Miracles

"When historians investigate this, in our modernistic mindset, at that place's this idea that 'Look, miracles are out of premises.' Well, why? Because if information technology's at to the lowest degree possible that God exists, so miracles become possible," he insisted.

But Morrow added, "We shouldn't believe only any and every phenomenon. We then investigate them on a case-past-example basis. And when yous look at the Resurrection evidence, it's pretty remarkable how potent information technology is, and that'due south why it's at the core of Christianity. So, I don't think information technology'south intellectually apparent to dominion out miracles before you investigate the effect, out of hand."

Bock insisted, "The faith is very, very defendable. That'south why it'due south lasted for two,000 years.  And not only that. There's a rationale that shows the uniqueness of what Jesus is that'southward important to appreciate as well. And so all the time that's oft spent on the Resurrection makes sense because that really is the hub of the word."

Morrow added, "Christians don't believe that Jesus rose from the dead considering the Bible says and then. They believe He rose from the dead because that's what the earliest and best historical documents bear witness, and that'due south what's the best caption of the data."

Early on Is Important

Just like historians put great weight on eyewitness testimony, they also requite more respect to early historical writings washed close to the events they talk over.

With Peter, John, and James, you have both: They're eyewitnesses who wrote early on.

"You lot can push the earliest core teaching of Jesus - His expiry, deity, and Resurrection - inside months of the Resurrection. Because and so information technology goes dorsum to Peter, James, and John," Morrow said. "These people were eyewitnesses, they were there, and it was early on."

Paul's encounter with Jesus came just two or three years subsequently Christ's death and Resurrection, and not long after that, he interviewed Peter, James, and John.

"And then 18 years after he cross-checked himself again," Morrow said of Paul. "In I Corinthians fifteen, he goes 'Look, I met with them over again and they added nothing to my gospel. We're preaching the same exact thing.' This is the cadre bulletin. And y'all can trace it dorsum to the beginning, that there was never a Christianity without that at the centre of it."

Bock said that's crucial cognition for those who might instead have believed these key Christian doctrines were dreamed up much afterwards.

He explained, "The issue that's sometimes raised up: 'well, these books were written many decades later on. And and so they reverberate a theological evolution coming downwardly the road.'  All that shrinks back when yous look at the person of Paul."

"He was writing within a few years of the fourth dimension of Christ," McDowell added. "And this is why for many of the scholars will give I Corinthians incredible credence: because of its closeness."

The Resurrection Proves Jesus Was Who He Said He Was

Morrow said of Paul, "He understood why Jesus of Nazareth was different in the unique claims that He made, only that then those claims were authenticated through His Resurrection that said 'What I said is what is real. This is who I am.'"

Morrow summed upwardly, "These claims to forgive sins audio crazy unless you're the Son of God, yous're the Son of Homo, you're the Messiah. And that'southward who He showed Himself to exist. And Paul is probably our earliest and best witness to that. And our critical scholars will grant united states Paul beingness that bystander."

McDowell spoke of evidence that can help readers believe the words of Paul and other New Testament writers, like archaeological findings.

He explained, "Right now y'all can most say every single reference in the Book of Acts has already been verified through archaeology: 600 some references to kings, people, places, everything. In Luke 3, in the outset three verses, there are 17 historical references. Every unmarried one now has been confirmed by archaeology."

'The Show Is Only Getting Improve'

Biblical expert Bock flat-out stated, "These books are the best-attested pieces of ancient literature we possess."

Morrow added, "One of the fascinating things about New Attestation manuscripts: Nosotros take over five,700 Greek manuscripts alone. And more manuscripts are existence discovered all the time."

He summed upward, "I think what Christians need to know is that there's actually good reason why we believe what nosotros believe, and the evidence is only getting better. The more we discover and the more we observe, the more confidence yous can accept that this is really true."

CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW You lot CAN Find PEACE WITH GOD

This story was originally published on April 1, 2018.

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Source: https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2017/april/why-you-can-believe-in-the-resurrection

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