Hey all, hope you’re having a great day. I have a question that I have been wondering for awhile and I thought maybe this place would point me in the best direction. I apologize in advance if this question has been asked before.
I was curious if there is any proof (outside of the Bible or christian perspective) of Jesus resurrection. I haven’t seen clear evidence supporting the fact, so I wanted to see if there was research done to prove or disprove this.
I know there are many theories that try to disprove the resurrection. However, I was wondering if there is credible evidence that shows that he may or may not have came back from the dead.
I by no means want to disprove the faith. Again, just curious. Thank you!
The resurrection, by definition, would be considered a miracle. Miracles generally can't be confirmed by history because they are the least likely thing to occur.
Our earliest account of Jesus outside of the Bible is in Josephus. But he doesn't give us anything of historical proof that Jesus really was resurrected. Josephus really doesn't mention it (there is an interpolation in Josephus, the passage is the Testimonium Flavium, that mentions the resurrection, but that part is largely rejected by scholars).
So then we are left with Paul and the Gospels. We do get an interesting glimpse from Paul. When Paul talks of the resurrection, he speaks of Jesus being the first fruit, as in the first person to be resurrected, and will soon be followed by the rest. This is based on the then Jewish idea of a general resurrection. We see this being spoken of in some of the Old Testament books, such as Jeremiah, as well as in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The general resurrection was part of a teaching regarding justification and a just God. The idea was that at the end, God would resurrect all those who were just in their lives. It was a form of cosmic justification. This is what Paul is speaking of, and has in mind.
Based on that, that there was no other resurrections said to happen besides Jesus, one can argue that at least when it comes to the Jewish view of resurrection, the view that Paul had in mind, that there is no overall evidence for the resurrection of Jesus as it didn't lead to what it was meant to.
We can also look at the Gospels, specifically, Matthew. The author of Matthew also had the idea of the general resurrection in mind, as can be seen by his claim that after the crucifixion, the saints were resurrected and began moving about. That all plays into the general resurrection idea.
More importantly though, we see in Matthew that very early on, there were those who argued that the resurrection was a farce. Matthew mentions that Jews were saying that the body of Jesus was simply stolen, and that's why there was an empty tomb. This view would also be taken up by later Jewish writers, such in the Toledot Yeshu (but to be clear, this was never part of the Rabbinic literature canon).
There are some modern works on the subject though. A great one is a debate between Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona. Ehrman argues that basically, it probably didn't happen and we have better explanations, but we can't be 100% sure. Licona argues that it is historical, and that the Bible gives evidence for it. A better debate, also with Ehrman, is against William Lane Craig. Craig's argument rests on four things. First, he believes there was a burial of Jesus in a tomb, and that that tomb was later found empty (an empty tomb isn't something even the Jewish opponents denied, they just said the body was stolen), that we have records of his post-mortem appearances, and because of that, we must explain how such a resurrection story originated. So again, his evidence is largely the Bible, as well as what he believes is the simplest explanation as to why the view ever began, which is that Jesus actually was resurrected.
So, when it comes to "proof," those who argue it being historical rely on really the Bible. Some will throw in that Jewish people from that time believed the tomb was empty, and some will cite the fact that the view ever existed, but it all really comes back to the Bible. There is no outside evidence for the resurrection, and we shouldn't expect anything like that. The best we could find is an empty tomb, but that really doesn't equate to a resurrection.