1 Corinthians 15:1-11
15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: 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,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
This week I watched a fascinating debate between Wes Huff, a Christian historian, and Billy Carson, who is a spiritual influencer. If you happen to have two hours spare, it is a good watch:
However, the central theme of the debate was that Billy argued that Jesus was a good man and a great teacher but that he did not die, in fact he got married and the stories around him were made up. Wes challenged him to reveal his sources for such claims and then systematically and graciously explained why each one was a forgery or fake. His counter argument was that whatever we believe about Jesus needs to be backed up by history and data. He showed how early we had the gospel accounts and how trustworthy they are. His point was essentially the same as Paul’s: we know that Jesus rose from the dead because we have eye-witness accounts. There were hundreds of men and women who say him die and also who saw him after he had come back to life.
Now, just because the historical records are true does nto mean it happened. The men could have been lying or they could have been deceived. The idea that the disciples were lying seems unlikely as they were killed brutally for their beliefs and if it was a lie, it brought them nothing but death and pain. If they were deceived, then it would have been quite some trick over time to have convinced them to die and also to have persuaded the hundreds of other eye witnesses who saw Jesus after his death and resurrection.
The simplest answer is that is it true. Jesus did die and was raised from the dead and we know this because we have so many people who saw him.
