Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead? Reconstructing the Christian Faith [Part 3 of 3]

Hey everyone, welcome back to part 3 of the Reconstruction Series. I have been trying to get this video out forever, and finally I am here. A little bit later than I wanted to, but I wanted to close out the Reconstruction Series that I started where we're looking at some of the foundations of how I came back to my faith after being really gone from it for 12 years. Today is part 3, and I want to focus on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you want to see part 2 and part 1, you can look on my channel or you can listen to my podcast. You can also see in the show notes below. The resurrection. There are 3 things that we need to look at if we're going to establish the foundation that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead like he said. So here are the 3 facts I want to cover. First, that Jesus actually died on a cross. Number 2, he was laid in a tomb. That's where he was put after he died. And then number 3, he rose from the dead 3 days later and appeared to people. Okay, in part 1 of the Reconstruction series, we talk about whether or not the gospels are true and whether or not they are trustworthy as, like, ancient documents. And if you're not sure about that, because Part of this does rely and depend on whether or not you believe that the eyewitness accounts are historically trustworthy. The second thing is that in part 2, we talked about are miracles possible, right? In a worldview with a creative, intelligent designer, is it possible that miracles can happen in the natural world? And obviously, a resurrection is a miracle. And if you can get behind those two foundational truths or principles, then really all we have left is, did Jesus actually rise from the dead? The first part, which is Jesus died on a cross, we definitely know historically that Romans crucified criminals in the way that Jesus died. That's verified and All historians agree with that fact. It's interesting, a lot of even non-Christian historians will absolutely treat the crucifixion as historical fact. The other thing is something called the criterion of embarrassment. And in retelling of, like, figures that are heralded as authorities or kings or messiahs, you're not going to put embarrassing facts and features if you're trying to promote propaganda. You'll put embarrassing features if they actually happened. And so that's what we call a criterion of embarrassment. And why would they want to make up his death on a cross? That's super humiliating. If they wanted to prove that he, like, rose from the dead, they could have made a story of him, you know, dying in a battle and then rising from the dead. But instead, they They chose a very, very humiliating way to die, and they chose it with the enemy, their enemy, which is Roman occupation, in cahoots with some of the religious leaders. Like, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're trying to, like, create a myth. Okay. This first fact, Jesus died on a cross, is basically not really even negotiable. Everybody pretty much takes this as fact. But I just wanted to kind of point it out. And there are a couple theories out there about like, oh, maybe he didn't actually die, or someone else was on the cross. But none of them are actually taken seriously by scholars, even non-Christian scholars. Okay, second one is Jesus was laid in a tomb. That's the second step in the resurrection story, right? Now the tomb, the burial tomb, is actually described in all four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And they all have overlapping details. Again, if you believe that the gospels are historically trustworthy— I know the issue of miracles is the hardest part about the gospels, but if you think about this for a second, Jesus being laid in a tomb after he's dying is not a miracle. So most scholars will say, like, yeah, the gospels are historically accurate, they have problems with the miracles, this isn't a miracle. So we know. That Jesus was laid in a tomb. The other thing is, if we go back to that criterion of embarrassment again, which is important here, the tomb was owned by Joseph of Arimathea, I think is how you say his name. And he was a member of the Sanhedrin, right? So that's the council that Jesus actually condemned. So the fact that Jesus was put in that tomb, that would have been super awkward for early Christians to say unless it was in fact true. Again, if you're trying to spread a myth or you're trying to spread propaganda, that's not the way to go about it. And then lastly, archaeologists have found tombs very much like the one described in the gospels. Okay, so we know Jesus died on a cross, we know he was laid in a tomb. This is the third piece, right? Jesus rose from the dead through 3 days later. This is one of those parts of the story where there's no way that you will ever get certainty at 100%. We've talked about this already because we do things all the time in life that don't have 100% certainty, right? You go on an airplane, you're reasonably sure it's not going to crash, but you're not 100% certain. And that's what we have to do here with this next piece about Jesus rising from the dead 3 days later. Now let's talk about all the cases, all the evidence that we do have. Number 1, and really important, we have a lot of early eyewitness testimony. In fact, in the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul records a creed that predated even his own writing. So this creed was made, like, within 3 to 5 years of Jesus rising from the dead. We also have appearances to Peter, to the 12, to the 500, to James, to Paul. And these are a lot of eyewitnesses. And as the gospels, as the apostles were spreading the gospel, there were so many people that were alive during that time. If they were saying something that wasn't true, it would have been very easy for someone to say, "No, that's not actually what happened." But we don't have that. The second thing that makes the resurrection likely is the transformation of the disciples. They were kind of a motley crew. They didn't really understand what Jesus was doing. They misunderstood his mission here on earth, and they all scattered, and many of them denied even knowing Jesus. And yet, after the resurrection, after seeing him rise from the dead, seeing the holes in his hands and his feet, and seeing him ascend on the Mount of Olives, they became very bold, proclaimed the gospel, and almost all of them faced persecution, torture, and death, and died a martyr's death. And that's a very hard thing to go through if you are promoting some sort of lie. The kind of alongside that, we have a lot of hostile witnesses that were against Jesus radically turning, right? Paul, one of the greatest writers of the New Testament, you know, he was an enemy of early Christians. He was Jewish, he was a a Pharisee and completely changed course after he met Jesus in that vision. Next, we have the problem of the empty tomb. Jesus's body has never been found. All four gospels agree that the tomb was empty, and the people that didn't want this to be true could have just had a body. Said, "Here's the proof. Here's the body." And did the disciples steal the body? There's that whole theory. If they did steal the body, can you imagine them then going and preaching and then dying a martyr's death for a lie? And I know people will often say to me, "Well, but people, you know, die martyr's deaths all the time for things like the suicide bombers or whatever." Yeah, but they believe it's actually true. They don't think they're— they're not propagating a lie. They believe what they believe because they believe it's true. If the disciples stole a body, they would know it was a lie. So that doesn't really make sense unless you're claiming that somebody else stole the body and tricked the disciples. But that wouldn't account for all the eyewitness testimony of Jesus appearing to all of those people. There was a very, very small amount of land that Jesus covered in his life, and the rapid rise of resurrection faith, like within a decade, it was like Jerusalem and then it spread very quickly. There was no like gradual myth, legend development. The resurrection was always the point from the start. And people who say, "Oh, that was just developed later," it's not true, and we have writings to show as much. All the alternate theories don't make any sense, right? The disciples stealing the body, they went to the wrong tomb, it was a hallucination, which I'm really perplexed as to how, you know, all these people across all these different places. It's not like— I know we've seen, like, in cults, people can have, like, mass hallucinations, but Jesus appeared to many different people over 40 days that were not necessarily all in the same spot, okay? This was not a myth that developed later. It was within a couple years they had a creed already about the resurrection. And the gospel and the Christian message spread rapidly with disciples dying martyr's death in order to preserve the message. Again, if you don't believe that miracles are possible, then you're gonna struggle here. I really recommend you go watch part 2. But with these 3 steps, number 1, understanding that the gospels are historically trustworthy documents. Number 2, looking at the fact that a worldview in which miracles are possible when there is an intelligent designer became central. And then number 3, as you look at one of the most, like, documented, if not the most documented miracle in existence happening, you can only conclude, not with 100% certainty, but there is faith, right? It's a faith-based conclusion that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead. And if that is true, then the claims that he made about himself are also true. And all you have to do is look at this one event, and if it did happen, it really provokes you to go look at everything he said. And once you do that, that's when your journey with Jesus begins, whether you are gonna be a true disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, because if he can rise from the dead, then everything else he said is accurate as well. And that is the case that I am making, and that is what happened to me personally. I went through these three things, and once I believed and really understood the, not just the faith-based belief about the resurrection, but also like the historical evidence. It became clear that I needed to listen and read everything that he has ever said. And I went through the gospels and that radically changed my worldview, my faith. And so I invite you to try the same. Go explore the Gospels, and thanks for hanging out, and I finally got this one out. Talk to you soon. Bye, everyone.