Jesus was born into our human lineage through Mary to be our close relative redeemer, He died on the cross for our sins, and rose again the third day. There is a verse in the Bible that says, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17) Our faith hinges on the resurrection.

   In chapter two we looked at how the ancient Bible manuscripts are just as credible as any other work of ancient writing. In the New Testament, all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John say that Jesus was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul also confirmed that Jesus rose from the dead in his letters to the new churches of that day.

   Before we dig into the resurrection we need to answer one question first. Was Jesus a real person? I’ve heard some people say that Jesus was not real stating that the Bible is just a collection of stories. Actually we don’t need the Bible to believe that Jesus was real because we know that several extra-Biblical authors who lived in the same century wrote about Him.

   Tacitus, (56-120 AD), wrote about the Christians who got their name from “Christus” who suffered the extreme punishment during the reign of Tiberius, at the hands of Pontius Pilatus.

   Josephus, (37-101 AD), was a Jewish historian who wrote that Jesus was a wise man who was a teacher and did amazing deeds and won over both Jews and Greeks. He was sentenced to the cross by Pilate and His followers were called Christians.

   Phlegon, (80-140 AD), as quoted in the writings of Origen, mentioned that Jesus could foretell the future and that His predictions came true. He was also quoted as saying that Jesus rose from the dead and could show the marks of His punishment and that His hands had been pierced by nails.

   Even modern day skeptics of the Bible agree on several key points: 1. Jesus was a real person. 2. Jesus died by crucifixion. 3. Jesus was buried in a tomb. 4. Three days later the tomb was empty.

   The fact that Jesus died by crucifixion has raised a theory that He never died at all called The Swoon Theory. There are people who say that Jesus merely passed out and was actually not dead when He was taken off the cross. Roman soldiers would crucify prisoners and guard them while they were suffering on the cross. It was their job to make sure they were dead because that was the punishment, death, and they knew when a prisoner had expired.

   If you’ve never googled crucifixion I would encourage you to do so because it will give you an idea of what Jesus endured for you and me. Prisoners were whipped across their back and then nailed to the cross with their knees bent. In that position it was hard for them to take a breath so they would have to push up on the foot nails and pull up on the hand nails in order to breathe. Then they were successively plagued by a host of other medical issues including fluid around the heart and lungs until they died.

   The next day was a holy day so Jesus and the two thieves needed to be taken down from their crosses so the Roman soldiers were commanded to kill them by breaking their legs causing asphyxiation within a few minutes. When the soldier came to Jesus he saw that He was already dead so he took a spear and ran it into His side piercing His lung and heart releasing the fluid which had collected there. Any doctor would confirm, from those details, that Jesus had died.

   Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus in his own tomb and because of the high profile of Jesus the Jewish leaders sealed the tomb which consisted of rolling a stone weighing several thousand pounds in front of the opening, securing that stone with ropes and a seal, and placing a Roman guard of up to several dozen soldiers in front of the entrance. If the tomb was found to be tampered with, the guards would be killed.

   It remained in that state for three days and nights and that is when we read one of the more surprising admissions of the gospel authors: the women found the empty tomb. At that time in history a woman’s level in society was low and men would not give credence to her testimony and yet the authors tell us that it was the women who found the empty tomb. It would be more plausible that the male authors would paint themselves as the heroes unless they were only interested in conveying the truth which lends a great deal of credibility to those ancient manuscripts.

   The theory at this stage is called The Conspiracy Theory and consists of His disciples stealing the body. There were eleven of them, some regular citizens, a few fishermen, and their secret weapon who they called the tax collector. I’d surely run from that guy. They all went up against a fully armed, highly combat trained and most probably ill-tempered group of soldiers to take a famous dead man into an area already buzzing from the trial and execution. Does that sound plausible to you? Incidentally, John 20:7 tells us that the cloth that was around the head of Jesus was folded neatly and placed away from the other linen cloths. It seems unlikely that grave robbers would take the time to fold anything.

   All of the Apostles went into hiding after the death of Jesus because they were afraid of the backlash from the government but He appeared to them all, in bodily form. He told Thomas to examine the nail holes in His hands and the place of impalement in His side and He even ate food with them. All of these sightings prompted The Hallucination Theory but at the end of the 40 days of His appearances He spoke to a crowd of 500 people negating this theory because psychology tells us that hallucinations are internal phenomena and unique to each individual.

   There was a man at that time by the name of Saul who was a zealous Pharisee meaning he was a driven religious leader. Saul was merciless in persecuting the people, known as Christians, who proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah.

   We are more familiar with Saul as Paul the Apostle which was his Greek name that he used while traveling in that region. Paul had a 180 degree change of faith and went from killing Christians to preaching that Jesus was the Son of God because of his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-22).

   Nearly all of the Apostles died a horrific martyr’s death for declaring Jesus the Son of God. Half were crucified, one was beheaded, one stoned to death. Would you willingly die for something you knew was not true? They were all changed from scared sheep to bold lions because of what they saw with their own eyes. They saw the risen Jesus who took our place on the cross to cover our sin. 1 John 2:2 says, “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”

   In the first century the risen Jesus changed people like Paul and the infamous doubting Thomas and James the brother of Jesus who knew Him as a child. For the last 2000 years the risen Jesus has been changing people to this very day including notable authors who wrote about pursuing the facts regarding the resurrection and how it changed their minds away from atheism, for example, J. Warner Wallace, Josh McDowell, and Lee Strobel author of “The Case for Christ.” The risen Jesus also pursues the most ordinary of people in this world, much the same as me.