Evidence of the resurrection

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Struggling1

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So as part of my horrid questions series I want to delve into my biggest fear. How do we prove the resurrection happened? We have evidence of a man named Jesus existing by the accounts of Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny the younger, etc… by the biblical account he definitely died as evidenced by the water and blood flowing from his side when pierced with the centurions lance. He clearly had pericardial effusion. Now that I think is mostly agreed on by even most modern historians and scientists. What evidence is there of the resurrection? I think the apostles testimony is a possibility but people die for believing in the wrong things all the time as evidenced by cult members like the Jim jones or various other I am God returned to man cults? Why is our story different? What evidence is there of the resurrection?
 
People will die for what they believe, but the Romans/Jews would have easily proven the Resurrection did not happen by producing the body of Jesus, assuming the apostles did not move it themselves, in which case they knew it was false and would have recanted under torture.
 
Could their want of having Jesus be God and beat death be perpetuated by how long they retold the story so they convinced themselves and or the event was horrid enough that their minds made it so?
 
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Take a look at how these men died (with the exception of John). Jim Jones and his cult committed mass suicide with cyanide-laced grape flavor-aid because they believed the end was nigh and that this death was merciful to what was about to happen. They didn’t die for their beliefs as martyrs, but to escape. The Twelve died far more painful deaths after being subjected to great persecution and never recanted, even while being stoned or crucified. How hard do you think it would be to uphold that lie while under the conditions the Apostles went though as opposed to the quick death of Jim Jones and his cultists? And if they did refute under torture, why wasn’t it massively published? Wouldn’t it be a huge weapon to be used against the early Christians if one of their own leaders said it was a lie?
 
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I dont have specific scripture at the moment, but there were gaurds around the tomb so that if they did try to steal the body, they would be proven false wise about the ressurection. There would have been no way the body could’ve gotten out, seals were around the entrance rock. No body was found in the tomb when it was first opened after.

They didn’t want to believe Jesus was God, they believed it already. They witnessed it according to scripture, so did Saint Paul who seen the ressurected Jesus also which started his conversion.
 
Not definite but if they had then I’d assume it would have been made public and that any Christians would have converted away.

Also if they had stolen the body and recanted they could have been forced to reveal where the body of Jesus was and it would have been shown.
 
Could another group of Christians have stolen the body in support of the apostles? Or like the high priest who jesus knew?
 
The Roman officials did the best they could to have the tomb guarded because they were afraid of that very situation, that Jesus’ followers would remove the body and claim resurrection.

For 40 days after the resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples, and to others who subsequently became disciples. These first witnesses kept telling others what they had seen. The authorities responded with both silence (on the subject of resurrection) and persecution of the followers of “the way.”
 
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Remember there were guards present, they would have condemned anyone if they tried to take the body.

In Matthew 28, The guards were shaken with fear when they witnessed what the angel did. The guards themeselves went to the chief priests and said what they had seen, the counsel then gave the guards a large sum of money to say that the disciples came at night and stole the body.

The body was risen, that is what happened, that is what Christ did, and that is what we believe. Jesus appeared multiple times after the ressurection.
 
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Struggling1 said:
I think the apostles testimony is a possibility but people die for believing in the wrong things
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Lets think about this. The Apostles knew Jesus, they saw who he was and they were with him during his ministry. They saw his miracles and wrote them in the Gospels. Now the Apostles suffered persecution. This persecution was because they believed in Jesus Christ. This persecution would get way worse, if they preached about his resurrection. So the question is this, would they abandon the truth in favour for a quiet and almost peaceful life? Or would they proclaim the truth of the one who died for humanity, knowing full well that they could die horrible deaths? If these people were preaching a lie, they would have gave in at the sight of the deaths that were mentioned by @Fauken , and say that it wasn’t true.

The Apostles weren’t following a leader who could talk the talk but couldnt walk the walk, they were following the one who could do both. They saw it all, and did not deny who Jesus was and what he did at the hour of death. They were the first witnesses, not secondary witnesses, which is very important because the first witnesses had to make the big choice, which was proclaim this ideology, knowing others would die for it, or drop it and live peacefully lives.
 
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Is it odd that the soldiers accepted money if they saw the body rise why did they not convert? How would anyone have denied someone coming back from the dead?
 
Struggling1 said:
Is it odd that the soldiers accepted money if they saw the body rise why did they not convert? How would anyone have denied someone coming back from the dead?
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We have the benefit of looking back with 2000 years of history behind us. We know what happened next, as it were. Back then, if you believed that you’d witnessed a supernatural event out of the blue, you’d probably have been terrified. It’s not surprising that the guards did what they were told to do.
 
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Many people seen the miracles Jesus had done, did they all come to believe? Some did and some were questioning.

When Jesus talked about the consumption of his flesh and blood, the majority of followers didn’t know what he was talking about. Confused as they were, they started to leave him. Im sure many of those followers seen the various miracles he had done, but just because we see doesn’t mean we will always come to believe what is said in all fulfillment.
 
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Oh I have a nice proof for you. Proving the Ressurection (without wanting to) is actually what got me and 100% convinced me that Catholicism is right.

Yey, me spamming this document has gotten you to start a thread on it! 🙂
Please read this document. It should help a lot. If you want to play the probability game I’d say the odds are at least 95% for the Ressurection.
http://www.annunciation-ottawa.org/...n to Believe 20/The Resurrection of Jesus.pdf
 
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I mean sure… but why would they do that? Like really… why? What did they gain? Why risk it? And why have so many early Christians die for it? Oh and nobody thought to reveal the plot? And somehow the Apostoles were still convinced they had seen more than an empty tomb, but also Jesus himself.
 
They probably didn’t understand what actually happened, not fully at least. We imagine the Ressurection as this big shiny light coming out of the tomb and angel choirs singing as Jesus exits or something which is how Matthew describes it but to the guards their afterthoughts were probably more something like “I was standing by this tomb and then realized that there’s nothing I’m guarding but honestly don’t know how all that + the stone rolling away happened but I really am not sure how.” Who would’ve made sense of the events? People easily convince themselves of false things even when the truth is quite obvious. Also, who is to say that they didn’t convert at some point after they made sense of what had happened? They were probably just massively confused and scared of the Jewish authorities. In fact they might’ve not known much about Jesus and it might’ve not meant much to them to see that, they probably realized something divine was up but had no specifics. And who know what they believed in their hearts? It could have been different from what they said out of fear. Furthermore, even if the soldiers are a bit of a mystery how do you account for the other facts without a Ressurection?

I mean there’s two things the soldiers could’ve done:

“Screw you temple authorities I’ll go proclaim that Jesus is Lord to the whole world”

or…

“But… but what I’ve seen… ok don’t kill me I’ll take the money fine.” *secretly wonders about what they’ve seen.

Matthew could know this:
-from the guards themselves
-solely from being told by the Holy Spirit
  • he made it up (which seems reasonable if you take this piece of data as an isolated thing but totally unreasonable when you put it in context)
So what’s more likely: some confused “stupid” soldiers or… well the whole mess we have to make of Early Christianity without a Resurrection?
 
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I mean yes but how likely is that? Also that would make them a bit mad, made up stories only go as far as when you start getting tortued. Had they not believed what they did about Jesus they would’ve likely been able to save themselves from torture and death.
 
Driving and in a doctors appointment but I am reading this thank you a million!
 
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