WHY I BELIEVE: Jesus’ Resurrection Was Proclaimed as Fact Within Weeks, Not Decades Later as Legend
Among the most common arguments from skeptics is that the claim Jesus was resurrected on the third day after the crucifixion and burial was a “later invention,” or a legend that grew over the decades following His death.
If you ever played “Telephone” as a kid, you can easily understand how such assertions can sound imminently reasonable. You line up a dozen people, give the first one a message — “All cats are self-centered and arrogant” — for that person and each successive person to whisper to the next person.
By the time the message reaches the end of the line, it has become something like “Most cats are selfless and humble,” or some similar variation of the opposite of the original information.
So it was with the resurrection, the skeptics claim. Jesus was much beloved by His disciples, but nobody among them claimed He had been resurrected in the days immediately following burial.
Author Casey Luskin.
No, according to the skeptics, that claim didn’t come about until years, even decades, later after the message had been passed along countless times, undergoing a little exaggeration and fabrication with each exchange. The doctrine of the Resurrection was only officially proclaimed in 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea.
But is that a reasonable conclusion, given the available evidence, including especially what the New Testament tells us? In fact, there is abundant evidence in Scripture to conclude that the disciples were publicly and loudly proclaiming that Jesus had been resurrected on the third day, literally within a few weeks of the event.
I offer here two exhibits:
Exhibit A – Peter’s Sermon at Pentecost
A mere 50 days, or seven weeks, after the Resurrection (what we now call Easter Sunday), Peter delivered the first public sermon on the Day of Pentecost, as Luke describes it in the second chapter of Acts:
Peter preaching at Pentecost by Benjamin West (Wikimedia Commons)
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it … This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.“
Peter is about as blunt and to the point as he can be in claiming that God raised Jesus from the dead and that he and the other disciples all saw and talked with the resurrected Jesus.
And those in the crowd, who came to Jerusalem from throughout the Roman world, didn’t scoff or challenge Peter. Instead, Luke tells us, the crowd cried out:
“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit … there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
This scene can be viewed as something like the formal founding of the Christian church, it happens within weeks after Jesus’ death and burial, and based squarely on the fact of His resurrection.
Exhibit B – Paul’s Conversion:
Saul, the zealous young Pharisee who had held the garments of those stoning Stephen, the first Christian martyr, to death, was known to the early Christians as a deadly enemy, a man who was determined to stamp out their movement by any means necessary, including throwing adherents in jail and even seeking their deaths.
Paul the Apostle, by Rembrandt (Wikimedia Commons)
Three years after Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, Saul heads to Damascus to continue his persecution of Christians. But he is delayed in one of history’s most significant encounters, as Luke explains in Acts:
“But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
“Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.
“Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”
This encounter with the resurrected Jesus completely changed Saul, even to his name, which, of course, became Paul. It also changed history because Paul became the greatest missionary the church has ever seen.
He literally preached the Gospel around the Mediterranean Sea, established dozens of churches and in the process wrote letters to them that we know today as the Epistles of the New Testament.
How important did Paul view the resurrection? In the 15th chapter of I Corinthians, Paul tells us:
Ruins of ancient Corinth (Wikimedia Commons).
“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 Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas/Peter, then to the 12.
“Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers 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.”
And Paul emphasized the central importance of the resurrection, telling the Corinthians that “if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
Paul wrote I Corinthians in 54 A.D., while he was in Ephesus building the church he had founded there. He had started the Corinthian church four years earlier. So only about 14 years had passed when Paul arrived in Corinth and 18 years when he wrote his first recorded letter to them.
Given these facts, it seems to me eminently reasonable to conclude that the Resurrection was being proclaimed by the disciples shortly after the event and that it was the core claim of the most important missionary in the early church.
No room left then for the Fable/Legend alternative explanation.
The reason that scripture is not like “Telephone” is that God lives in us, and we live in God. Most are subject to two voices in their our inner dialogue. One is our personal voice, and the other is the voice of God. The voice of God, sometimes referred to as our “conscience” is indeed the opposite of “science”. Science relies upon our observations, aggregated into data. Conscience is the absolute Truth, no data needed.
When we play Telephone, we are observing and listening to many voices, indeed many spirits, so the message is unreliable. When we pray, and truly listen to our conscience, it is the voice of God. Coming to trust that voice is the Way of faith. We are the handmaidens of God, each of us, and are called to give birth to Truth, even as did Jesus Christ.
There’s also this theory: https://youtu.be/5p9CY976_kw
“the eleven disciples went to Galilee… when they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”
Remember, even the ten apostles in the Upper Room were not present at the Resurrection, they didn’t actually see the physical event. The only people who were even close to being actual “eyewitnesses” were the soldiers guarding the tomb. Oddly enough, their testimony is not directly recorded anywhere. We have hearsay testimony of what they told the elders and their own superiors, but we don’t have any Scriptural letter or other direct account from any of those soldiers. Six hundred years after the event, historical accounts begin to tell us Longinus, the soldier with the spear, converted, but none of the soldiers guarding the tomb, that is, none of the men who were most likely to have actually seen some aspect of the Resurrection, none of them are said to have converted.
The testimony of the ten “eyewitnesses” who “saw” the Resurrection, that is, the apostles, actually relies on what Jesus told them before and after His death. Yes, the ten see the empty tomb and logically conclude something happened, but exactly what happened is left to the prophetic testimony of Christ before He died, and the self-revelatory testimony of the risen Christ. The ten who saw the risen Christ believe the testimony of the only actual eyewitness whose testimony we actually have, Christ Himself. Thomas refuses to believe the ten, and so must be shown physical evidence, self-revelation, by the risen Christ as well.
But, ultimately, the entire chain of evidence for the resurrection relies on Christ’s self-revelation. The apostolic eyewitness testimony consists of the eleven being eyewitnesses to Christ’s self-revelation, His spoken words, before and after the event, it is not eyewitness testimony of the actual Resurrection, the physical event.
Steve, you are correct, none of the disciples were physically present when Jesus was resurrected, but all 11 of them subsequently saw Jesus, talked to Him and heard Him speak. So they were eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus.
Well, the Eleven were eyewitnesses to Jesus saying that He had resurrected, yes. They were eyewitnesses to what Jesus said about Himself after the empty tomb was discovered.
As far as we know, the soldiers at the tomb didn’t convert, and they were the closest to being ACTUAL eyewitnesses to the Resurrection.
Whether you are, or are not, a believer, the lack of recorded conversion among the cohort of soldiers guarding the tomb is a bit of a speedbump. Similarly, while Paul is a bit of a counter to that, he wasn’t an eyewitness to anything but a bright light and a loud voice. So, his story works really well for believing Christians, but atheists don’t give it much weight.
No matter how you cut it, the entire Resurrection event depends on what Jesus said.
1) He tells the disciples it will happen.
2) The disciples see an empty tomb.
3) An angel and Jesus both appear and tell them how to interpret the data their eyes, ears (and fingers) perceive.
I’m not saying I have a better explanation than what the apostles received, I’m just pointing out that the entire interpretation depends on Jesus telling us how to interpret secondary evidence, since no one saw the primary event.
Christians accept Jesus’ explanation over the silence of the people who most likely DID see some part of the primary event but didn’t convert.
I know you’ve done a lot of Intelligent Design argumentation, but here’s a conundrum for you. Are plagues evidence of God imposing judgement on us? The Bible and all the early Christians were convinced that plague and famine were judgements from God. I just haven’t seen anyone make that argument recently. We are happy to say that good things are the result of Intelligent Design (rainbows and healings and happy biology), but Christians don’t appear to like insisting that vibrio cholera, dysentery and Covid are judgements from God, a result of Intelligent Design.
Muslims still occasionally make this argument, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Christians make this argument. If you want to make an ID argument, you have to find a way to fold in the ugly things as well. That’s hard.
Thanks for a genuinely thoughtful response, Steve, it is much appreciated. On your question about plagues, would you say plagues can never be evidence of divine judgement?
I suppose it depends on how you define “judgements from God.” Judgement can be specifically targeted to an individual, a group, or an event in history. Judgement can also be seen as generally applied to a fallen world.
I think most Christians believe that God created an orderly and balanced world. When sin entered the world through Man’s disobedience, that order became corrupted. Plague and famine are consequences of that disrupted balance, part of the separation created between God and Man.
So plagues and famine can occur as part of God’s general judgement on the world in that He chooses not to fix the corrupted order. He also has the power direct specific events at times and places of His choosing.
Indeed. Jesus was a merciful healer who sacrificed himself for the sake of forgiveness and reconciliation. Hard to square with a vindictive Old Testament character who invents plagues.
The world’s population in 1900 was 1 billion. Today, it’s over 7 billion.
We have less famine, war, plague and pestilence than we have ever had in the history of the world.
No one suffers today as much as everyone did just two centuries ago. Even the per capita percentage of martyrs is dropping.
Are we sinning less?