So far we have assessed the historical evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus and have seen that the most logical conclusion from this evidence is that Jesus was raised from the dead. There is one more convincing piece of evidence. To get to it we need to look at what the Jewish view of resurrection was at the time of Jesus. There were plenty of other figures claiming to be the Messiah at a similar time to Jesus. Two such figures were Simon bar Giora and Simeon bar Kockbah. Both of these men were defeated by enemies after claiming to be the Messiah and no one suggested they were the Messiah after their death, their followers would have been considered mad for claiming such a thing. In fact, these men's followers disappeared quickly after their death. What was it about Jesus that meant his amount of followers grew after his death? His disciples must have really believed he had been raised from the dead. Resurrection was a commonly held Jewish belief around the time of Jesus. There are resurrections from the dead in the Old Testament (1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 4, 2 Kings 13). However the resurrection of Jesus is very different to any of these examples of resurrection in the Old Testament. These resurrections are only temporary as the people who were raised died again. There are prophecies of resurrection in the Old Testament: -In Daniel 12 it says that 'the multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake'. Those who do awake will 'shine like stars forever' -In Ezekiel 37 it is stated that 'the whole house of Israel' will awake. -Isaiah 26 also points to a resurrection that will happen to a multitude of people. All these examples of resurrection in the Old Testament have similar features. 1) They all talk of a multitude of people being raised and 2) they all speak of a future, apocalyptic (end of the world) event. In the Jewish view of resurrection here, resurrection always happened to lots of people at the end of the world. Not within history itself. This is clearly not the same as the resurrection of Jesus which happened to an individual within history. If the authors of the Gospels had wanted to convince their early, and mainly Jewish, readers that Jesus had been bodily raised from the dead then surely they would have made it look like Jewish portrayals of resurrection in the Old Testament. There would have been multitudes of people rising from the dead and Jesus would have been shining like a star etc. The fact that the gospel writers wrote the story the way they did (when it was so strange and foreign to the Jewish mind) means they reported that Jesus was raised from the dead in the way they did because it actually happened that way. The New Testament itself supports this theory. Lazarus was raised from the dead by Jesus in John 11. When Jesus tells Lazarus' sister Martha that her brother will rise again she responds by saying 'I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day'. (John 11:24). In Mark 9 when Jesus tells his disciples that he will rise again from the dead they also think that he means at the end of the world. All of this suggests that the disciples could not have come up with the idea of Jesus' resurrection. It was so foreign to their thought and would have been laughed at. If they had made this story up then it would have looked very, very different. They must have reported it the way they did because it actually happened that way! In our final post on the resurrection we shall look at one final piece of evidence for the resurrection... that Jesus Christ, 2000 years after his death, is still changing and transforming many lives today! Share this post on facebook and twitter! |