"The resurrection of Jesus is a major historical problem, no matter how you look at it. Most modern historians make the philosophical assumption that miracles simply cannot happen, and that makes the claim of the resurrection highly problematic. However, if you disbelieve the resurrection you now have the difficulty of explaining how the Christian church got started at all. "If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead." That is how the first hearers felt who heard reports of the resurrection. They knew that, if it was true, it meant that we can't live our lives anyway we want. It also meant we don't have to be afraid of anything, not Roman swords, not cancer, nothing. If Jesus rose from the dead, it changes everything. Most people think that, when it comes to Jesus's resurrection, the burden of proof is on believers to give evidence that it happened. That is not completely the case. The resurrection also puts a burden of proof on those who don't believe. It is not enough to simply believe Jesus did not rise from the dead. You must then come up with a historically feasible alternate explanation for the birth of the church. You have to provide some other plausible account for how things began*. -Tim Keller"

Think of the old hymn, He Lives – "You ask me how I know He lives…He lives within my heart." This is NOT the good news – that Jesus merely lives within my heart. There are reasons to believe, beyond mere subjective feelings, that Jesus actually was resurrected on the first Easter morning. I contend, and the Word of God contends, that Jesus bodily and historically rose from the dead and ascended to the Father – it is not a merely a personal religious thing to experience, but a factual happening in history to believe in.

Today's Question: What is the single, most persuasive reason to believe Jesus rose from the dead?

Here are some candidates:

#1 WOMEN AS THE FIRST WITNESSES IN ALL FOUR GOSPELS. While it is not exactly true that women couldn't testify in court in the Ancient Roman world, but it was rare, only under certain circumstances, and considered lesser quality testimony than the testimony of men – often it would take the testimony of two women to override the testimony of one man. In fact, some Pharisees would begin their prayers by thanking God that they weren't gentile pagans or women. The only possible reason to have women as the first witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus (and prominent witnesses at His crucifixion) is that it factually happened. This stands strongly against the Resurrection as myth or exaggeration theory. Women discover the tomb, and are listed in all four Gospels as the first witnesses of the risen Jesus, despite the fact that women's testimony was considered inferior in the first century. Why manufacture women as the first witnesses if the resurrection was a myth or intentional deception? Note: Josephus, a non-Christian Jewish man writing in the first century, wrote: "Let not the testimony of women be admitted because of the levity and boldness of their sex," Similarly, the non-Biblical Jewish Mishnah (from the first centuries) did not admit the testimony of women in most cases, claiming that their menstrual cycles made them unreliable. Witness this excerpt from the Jewish Encyclopedia,"A particularly painful issue of difference between males and females (in the first century) is that of reliability in testimony. Women are not considered reliable witnesses when two kosher witnesses are needed, for example on monetary issues, capital crimes and sexual crimes;

#2 THE LITHUANIAN ARGUMENT: Can anybody name (without Googling) which countries border Lithuania? What about the Capital of Lithuania? Most Americans know very, very little about Lithuania, even though it is approximately 3 times larger than the country of Israel. Consider this: The Roman Empire during the time of Jesus was approximately 60 percent the size of America. Therefore, Lithuania to America in 2016 very roughly corresponds to the size and influence of Israel to the Roman Empire in the first century. Therefore to get a vague understanding of how Romans in the the Roman Empire viewed Israel – we can consider how Americans in the U.S. view the country of Lithuania. Imagine then that a teacher of a new and radically different religion rose up in Lithuania from 1910-1915 – about 100 years ago. Imagine that this particular teacher had no television shows, no books, nothing, but within 100 years of his ignominious death, his followers would be well on their way to dominating the religious landscape of America. This is what Jesus and His followers did. Historically and factually – a teacher and His followers from a largely unknown, small country came to dominate an entire empire within a short time after the death of that teacher. People MUST have a rational theory to explain how Christianity spread so far and wide in such a short amount of time without military power or economic riches! Such a thing has never happened before ( Remember that there were many, many messiah claimants before Jesus and after) I propose that a public, bodily resurrection of Jesus is a plausible answer to how Christianity came to dominate the greatest civilization in world history. Skeptical theories (i.e. that Jesus never existed – which no almost no peer reviewed scholar, atheist or otherwise, believes…or that an impostor took His place, or that the resurrection was invented by His followers, or that they hallucinated Him) don't account very well for the explosion of Jesus' followers all across the world – permeating multiple cultures and languages. FYI, the countries that border Lithuania are: Latvia, Poland, and Belarus. The capital city of Lithuania is Vilnius.

#3 Chapter 18: A Sabbath Switcheroo "If you keep from desecrating the Sabbath, from doing whatever you want on My holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight,and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, seeking your own pleasure, or talking too much; 14 then you will delight yourself in the Lord, and I will make you ride over the heights of the land, and let you enjoy the heritage of your father Jacob. "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." – Isaiah 5:12-14

"On the first day of the week, we assembled to break bread. Paul spoke to them, and since he was about to depart the next day, he extended his message until midnight." – Acts 20:7

"On the first day of the week, each of you is to set something aside and save in keeping with how he prospers, so that no collections will need to be made when I come." – 1 Corinthians 16:2

The Sabbath day is a critically important Bible topic, especially in the Old Testament. The word itself is used approximately 150 times in the Bible, with several long and detailed discussions in the Old Testament that outlined how the Jewish people were to deal with the Sabbath day. Strangely enough, something radical changed after the resurrection of Jesus, because the Sabbath is only mentioned 11 times, including such verses as Colossians 2 above, which seems to imply quite strongly that individual Christians had liberty as to how they observed the Sabbath. Not only that, but it is quite clear from the Acts passage and the Corinthians passage that Christians, unlike Jews, met together for corporate worship on a Sunday, and not a Sabbath day (sundown Friday until sundown Saturday.) This might not seem like a huge shift for some, but keep in mind that this represented the changing of thousands of years of Jewish history, and the change happened remarkably fast – in a few years or less. What was the catalyst for this massive calendar change? The resurrection, of course. All the church – even Jewish believers who had been worshipping on Sabbath/Saturday their entire lives, were worshipping on Sunday, post-resurrection. A major shift had happened, and happened quickly. The resurrection is a very plausible explanation for such a shift. As further evidence of this major shift, and the reasons behind it, here is one of the earliest descriptions of the gathering of the early church, written by Justin Martyr in the 150s A.D. On the day which is called Sunday we have a common assembly of all who live in the cities or in the outlying districts, and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the Prophets are read, as long as there is time. Then, when the reader has finished, the president of the assembly verbally admonishes and invites all to imitate such examples of virtue. Then we all stand up together and offer up our prayers, and, as we said before, after we finish our prayers, bread and wine and water are presented. He who presides likewise offers up prayers and thanksgivings, to the best of his ability, and the people express their approval by saying 'Amen.' The Eucharistic elements are distributed and consumed by those present, and to those who are absent they are sent through the deacons. The wealthy, if they wish, contribute whatever they desire, and the collection is placed in the custody of the president. [With it] he helps the orphans and widows, those who are needy because of sickness or any other reason, and the captives and strangers in our midst; in short, he takes care of all those in need. Sunday, indeed, is the day on which we all hold our common assembly because it is the first day on which God, transforming the darkness and [prime] matter, created the world; and our Savior Jesus Christ arose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified Him on the day before that of Saturn, and on the day after, which is Sunday, He appeared to His Apostles and disciples, and taught them the things which we have passed on to you also for consideration.

#4 The uncracked conspiracy "This…is that carpenter's son, the son of prostitution, that Sabbath-breaker, that Samaritan and devil-possessed! This is he whom you purchased from Judas! …This is he whom the disciples secretly stole away, that it might be said he had risen again, or the gardener abstracted that his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitors."

– Tertullian, quoting a Jewish conspiracy theory of the second century, which identified the gardener, or disciples of Jesus as those who stole His body from the tomb. Do you believe that the government is suppressing evidence of alien interaction with humanity? Do you believe that John F. Kennedy was shot by more than one person, or that government agents somehow had a hand in the death of Martin Luther King Junior?

Is it possible that militant atheists are actually using chemtrails (left behind by passing jets) in an attempt to poison heavenly angels? Some conspiracy theories are bizarre and strain credibility to the extreme (like the angel one…) other conspiracy theories are quite plausible, if unproven, such as the Martin Luther King Junior possibility. If you are a skeptic, you might be surprised to know that some of the most outlandish conspiracy theories are verifiably and historically true. We know this because almost always, co-conspirators break down, given a long enough time. There are death-bed confessions, and documents left behind. Big conspiracies usually leave some findable evidence. For instance, did you know that the U.S. Government intentionally withheld life-saving anti-syphilis medicine from a group of Alabama citizens for decades in order to test how syphilis impacts the human body? In this experiment, approximately 400 men with syphilis were separated into two groups. One group was given real medicine, and one group was given a placebo. This 'test' was designed to last for 6 months, but it ended up going for over 40 years. Yes, the government told hundreds of men that they were being treated for their disease, while giving them a placebo medication that did absolutely nothing. How did they get away with it for so long? These men were African-American, from my own home state of Alabama. The United States government simply thought they could get away with it but ultimately they were caught by some intrepid reporters and forced to settle in a class-action suit. We learn several things from the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: Racism is not limited to a few states in the south, people can be incredibly calculating and cruel, governments aren't always to be trusted, and conspiracies are difficult to suppress! Speaking of the government, did you know that the government added deadly chemicals to alcohol during prohibition, so that anybody who tried to drink alcohol not meant for human consumption would die? During 1926-27 in only one city, New York, over 1100 people died from this government poisoning! Whatever your feelings on alcohol, I suspect that you might find that fact disturbing. In a somewhat similar, but less intentional situation, were you aware that government-made polio vaccines that were distributed from 1954-1963 were tainted with a possibly cancer-causing virus called Simian virus 40? I'm no anti-vaxxer, but the fact that this news has been somewhat suppressed is a bit concerning.

One more conspiracy theory, that is absolutely factual, and very timely, considering the current (as of 2017) allegations being put forward about possible Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Were you aware that Congress once had a Russian spy counted amongst its members? Yes, well before Joseph McCarthy began seeing communists behind every shrubbery, there was a member of the House of Representatives, Samuel Dickstein (D. – New York) who was on the payroll of the KGB, and did the bidding of the Russians.

All that, and NO evidence of a crack.

#5 The Stigma of the Crucifixion "The shameful embarrassment of Jesus' crucifixion and the horror of his death are now surmounted as light banishes darkness at the dawn of this new day, the first day of the new era of salvation " – Augustine

Can you name ONE person, other than Jesus, that was crucified? I suppose some might think of Peter, the apostle and disciple of Jesus. Per numerous early historical reports, including the apocryphal Acts of Peter (180 A.D.?), Peter was indeed crucified. He was possibly crucified upside down, but likely NOT because he didn't consider himself worthy of being crucified like Jesus. According to church history, Other than him, I suspect that the vast majority of people don't know anybody that was crucified other than Jesus. Because of that, many readers might be quite surprised to find out that Jesus was not the only person crucified in antiquity; the practice was surprisingly common. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus records multiple incidences in which hundreds, even thousands of people were crucified on the same day, and not just by the Romans! At least six civilizations in antiquity were known to execute criminals by crucifixion, including the Jewish people themselves. In fact, Hasmonean Jewish king and high priest Alexander Jannaeus, the son of high priest/king John Hyrcanus, had hundreds of his own people butchered for opposing him during the Judean Civil War of the 90s B.C. Josephus describes the aftermath of that war here "The Jews fought against Alexander, and being beaten were slain in great numbers in the several battles which they had, (380) and when he had shut up the most powerful of them in the city Bethome, he besieged them therein; and when he had taken the city, and gotten the men into his power, he brought them to Jerusalem, and did one of the most barbarous actions in the world to them; for as he was feasting with his concubines, in the sight of all the city, he ordered about eight hundred of them to be crucified; and while they were living, he ordered the throats of their children and wives to be cut before their eyes" Years later, almost 40 years after the death of Jesus, The Roman general Titus launched a severe siege against Jerusalem. During that campaign, all who attempted to leave Jerusalem were caught and crucified by the Roman army – sometimes as many as 500 PER DAY, according to Josephus, who was present at the destruction of Jerusalem. Crucifixion was common during ancient times, it was dreaded, and it was anything but a glorious way to do. The worst criminals and the most hated enemies were crucified

In the United States, we have a constitutional provision that bars utilizing "cruel and unusual" punishment on people. Being crucified on a cross is without question a form of cruel and unusual punishment. It is not the nails that kill, but ultimately, a form of suffocation. Crucifixion is designed to last a very long time – sometimes days – and involves the one being crucified slowly losing his ability to breathe as his arms and legs become too exhausted to push up and draw in air. You and I don't think about breathing very much – it is a function of our autonomic nervous system, and thus happens without conscious thought. On the cross, however, one is aware of every breath, and each one is agony filled. One must push up on both arms and legs, extending out just enough to get in a breath, and then relax. It is agonizing to do so when tied to a cross; it is painful beyond enduring to do so when nailed to a cross.

The horrors of the cross have been largely sanitized in the church today. Even though most have seen a dozen or more dramatizations of Jesus dying, most have been toned down, and don't really show all that Jesus likely suffered. Seneca the younger, a Roman statesman who lived during the time of Jesus, described crucifixion this way in his work Of Consolation: To Marcia. "I see before me crosses not all alike, but differently made by different peoples: some hang a man head downwards, some force a stick upwards through his groin, some stretch out his arms on a forked gibbet. I see cords, scourges, and instruments of torture for each limb and each joint: but I see Death also." There would likely be a large and very upsetting amount of blood spilling from Jesus. The crown of thorns, with one inch or more protrusions, would make deep holes in an area that is absolutely filled with blood vessels. His back would be bleeding profusely from the lashing with the cat of nine tails. The nail wounds on Jesus' wrists and feet would also be bleeding, as first century nails would not be quite as sharp and clean-edged as the nails we have now. And, as noted by Seneca above, it is conceivable that Jesus was stuck through with sticks. All of this blood would be highly upsetting to behold and also incredibly obvious and visible, because the majority of the time the Romans crucified their victims without any clothing whatsoever. Think of the embarrassment and agony of that situation: bleeding profusely, wracked with muscle cramps and pain beyond the ability of the toughest person to endure, having to push up on strained and shredded muscles to just simply get a single breath…and doing it all NAKED. How utterly astounding that the king of the universe would stoop so low.

And now consider, given the gut-shredding horrors of the crucifixion, how it came about that followers of Jesus glorified and worshipped Him as the son of God afterwards. If you deny the resurrection, what could you possibly propose in its place that would be strong enough to erase the memory of the crucifixion to the point that the early church worshipped Jesus? Consider also Willie Francis. Whom, you might ask? One of the first things you will note about Willie Francis is that millions of people don't worship him, and yet he shares a few things in common with Jesus. Willie was convicted of murder in Louisiana in 1945 for an act that he allegedly committed when he was 15. Despite the fact that he was underage; despite the fact that he was not tried by a jury of his peers (his jury was all white); despite the fact that most of the physical evidence against Willie disappeared; and despite the fact that the gun used to kill the victim actually belonged to a deputy sheriff that had threatened to kill the victim in the past – despite all of those things, Willie Francis was convicted and electrocuted in May of 1946. Only, he didn't die. Francis was one of the few people that have ever survived a round with the electric chair, and he did so due to a drunk guard setting things up improperly. Sadly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it wasn't cruel and unusual to re-execute a teenager, and Francis was re-executed in May of 1947.

Aside from the multiple and disgusting racial injustices of that situation, I need to point out to you that nobody worshipped Francis during that year after his first execution attempt failed. Nobody tried to start a religion around him, or anything like that. Similarly, no religion has started around John 'Babbacombe' Lee, nor Joseph Samuel, despite the fact that both men survived multiple hanging attempts. Why not? Why not venerate, honor and worship people like Lee, Francis and Samuel? Because…that would be incredibly odd to worship a convicted criminal who somehow managed to escape death. Take away the resurrection, and it is unexplainably strange, to worship Jesus of Nazareth. Sure – he was a great teacher. Socrates was a great teach also, and he was also unjustly killed, but nobody is going to roll up to First Socrates Baptist church this Sunday and celebrate Easter, are they? I submit that it is very difficult to explain why so many Christians followed Jesus after His terribly bloody, painful, and embarrassing crucifixion if there was not a literal and actual resurrection that took place three days later. If you'd like a demonstration of how odd it is that somebody would worship a man crucified on a cross, then try wearing a flashy gold electric chair necklace sometime, and when people ask you about it, tell them that you worship an executed criminal. The look on their face will tell you all you need to know about how first century Jews would have responded to claims about Jesus if He didn't literally and truly rise from the dead.

From the Acts of Peter, Chapter 38, it is apparent that Peter asked to be crucified upside down because He wanted to demonstrate that fallen humanity had been restored to order by Jesus' death on the cross. Here is Peter's speech from that book (which is not Scripture): "And when they had hanged him up after the manner he desired, he began again to say: Ye men unto whom it belongeth to hear, hearken to that which I shall declare unto you at this especial time as I hang here. Learn ye the mystery of all nature, and the beginning of all things, what it was. For the first man, whose race I bear in mine appearance (or, of the race of whom I bear the likeness), fell (was borne) head downwards, and showed forth a manner of birth such as was not heretofore: for it was dead, having no motion. He, then, being pulled down -who also cast his first state down upon the earth- established this whole disposition of all things, being hanged up an image of the creation (Gk. vocation) wherein he made the things of the right hand into left hand and the left hand into right hand, and changed about all the marks of their nature, so that he thought those things that were not fair to be fair, and those that were in truth evil, to be good. Concerning which the Lord saith in a mystery: Unless ye make the things of the right hand as those of the left, and those of the left as those of the right, and those that are above as those below, and those that are behind as those that are before, ye shall not have knowledge of t

THE APPEARANCE OF JESUS ARGUMENT. The 2nd century anti-Christian philosopher Celsus wrote that Jesus was "ugly and small" Tertullian states that Jesus's outward form was despised, that he had an ignoble appearance and the slander he suffered proved the 'abject condition' of his body. According to Irenaeus he was a weak and inglorious man and in The Acts of Peter he is described as small and ugly to the ignorant. Andrew of Crete relates that Christ was bent or even crooked and in The Acts of John he is described as bald-headed and small with no good looks In a letter of certain bishops to the Emperor Theophilus, Jesus's height is described as three cubits (four feet six), which was also the opinion of Ephrem Syrus (320–379 AD), "God took human form and appeared in the form of three human ells (cubits); he came down to us small of stature." Theodore of Mopsuhestia likewise claimed that the appearance of Christ was smaller than that of the children of Jacob (Israel) Josephus apparently notes that Jesus was 3 cubits tall, had connate eyebrows, a long nose, and a possibly hunched appearance. 3 cubits - between 4'6 and 5'1

There are NO physical descriptions of the human Jesus in the NT. At least one in the OT. Isaiah 53:2 He didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at Him, no appearance that we should desire Him.

Almost unarguably, Jesus is the most famous person in all of history. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I would propose that the inarguable fact that Jesus is the most famous person in world history proves that He was an incredibly extraordinary person, yet His appearance was less than average. I believe the resurrection is the ONLY plausible explanation for the fame of Jesus and the spread of the church. The only alternative argument to that is that Jesus was a good teacher. DOES THAT EXPLAIN THE SPREAD OF THE CHURCH?

Matthew - 18300 words Mark - 11,300 Luke - 19,482 John - 15,600 Total: LESS THAN 65000 WORDS of the teachings of Jesus.

My book - The Bible and Racism, one of 6 I've written, has 66000 words in it. We have less of the teachings of Jesus than we have in just one book I've written, and a skeptical person would argue that Jesus - though merely human, small and unattractive, became and remains the most famous person in world history based on teachings which amount to less than one book by the least famous author in Salinas? HOGWASH!

ONLY the Resurrection Plausibly explains the fame of Jesus.

WHAT DO YOU THINK is the SINGLE MOST COnvincing Reason to Believe Jesus Rose from the Dead?? Hit us up at Speakpipe.com/BQP or www.BibleQuestionsPodcast.com

Resurrection Essential to the Gospel 15 Now brothers, I want to clarify for you the gospel I proclaimed to you; you received it and have taken your stand on it. 2 You are also saved by it, if you hold to the message I proclaimed to you—unless you believed for no purpose. 3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received:

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 Then He appeared to over 500 brothers at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one abnormally born, He also appeared to me.