"Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?  That He came to earth, lived a sinless life, was crucified for your sins and rose from the dead three days later?"

This is a question that most of us have heard before.  Its the question that is asked to new Disciples just before they are baptized.  While the wording may change from time to time (as there is no script instructing anyone on how to say it) one there is one thing that is never left out.  Every time someone is baptized, the participant is always asked if they believe that Jesus rose again on the third day.  This is the central belief of Christianity.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14 "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."

Wow!  What a bold statement to make!  What was Paul thinking?  So much for just BELIEVING its true.  Paul said, regardless of whether you believe it or not, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then your faith is USELESS!!  Believing in something just because you believe it isn't enough.  It has to be objectively true.

Well I'm a pretty big fan of proving Christianity true, so it wouldn't surprise most of my readers to hear that I think that Paul's statement is an excellent example of "putting your money where your mouth is."  Just like a poker player with a Royal Flush, Paul shoved all his chips in the center of the table and confidently exclaimed "All in!!"  

So what makes us so confident that the resurrection of Jesus is something that can be objectively proven?  Isn't it just something we're supposed to just accept by faith?  Well personally, I don't have a problem with someone knowing that Christianity is true based on the evidence of the Holy Spirit speaking to their heart, and inferring from that that the scriptures are accurate in reporting that Jesus rose from the dead.  However, for those interested, an excellent case can be made for the Resurrection of Jesus historically.

Forget the "New Testament"

The title of this section might surprise or offend some people, but allow me to explain.  It wasn't until the late fourth century that there even was such a thing as the "New Testament"  The early church simply had the documents that were written by the apostles which they considered to be scripture.  It wasn't until a few hundred years later that the church collected all these documents together under one cover and called it the "New Testament."

My point is that the New Testament is NOT a single book.  It is a collection of ancient historical documents that one could use to investigate and determine what happened in history.

Real historians realize this and therefore have establish a list of historical facts about Jesus.  These facts are agreed upon almost unanimously.  To illustrate this point, I'll list them here and provide some quotations from Atheist and Theist scholars.

The Evidence:

Miracles...
“Most of the miracle stories contained in the gospels are legendary or at least are dressed up with legends. But there can be no doubt that Jesus did such deeds, which were, in his and his contemporaries’ understanding, miracles, that is, deeds that were the result of supernatural, divine causality. Doubtless he healed the sick and cast out demons.”
-Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus (Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek, 1926), p. 159.

Craig Evans, a well-known Jesus scholar, says that “the older notion” that the miracle stories were the product of mythological divine man ideas “has been largely abandoned.” ... “It is no longer seriously contested” “that miracles played a role in Jesus’s ministry.”
-Craig Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology,” Theological Studies 54 (1993): 18, 34

Death by crucifixion...
“The support for the mode of his death, its agents, and perhaps its coagents, is overwhelming: Jesus faced a trial before his death, was condemned and executed by crucifixion.”
-Johnson, Real Jesus, p. 125.

The crucifixion of Jesus is recognized even by the Jesus Seminar as “one indisputable fact.”
-Robert Funk, Jesus Seminar videotape.

Burial (known grave location)...
According to the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University, the honorable burial of Jesus is one of “the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus.”
-John A. T. Robinson, The Human Face of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), p. 131

Jesus' burial by Joseph is "very probable," since it is "almost inexplicable" why Christians would make up a story about a Jewish Sanhedrist who does what is right by Jesus.
-Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 2 vols. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1994), 2: 1240-1.

Empty Tomb...
“By far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb.”
-Jakob Kremer, Die Osterevangelien–Geschichten um Geschichte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1977), pp. 49-50.

“It is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions.”
-D. H. Van Daalen, The Real Resurrection (London: Collins, 1972), p. 41

Postmortem Appearances...
“It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’s death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”
-Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus?, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 80.

The overnight beginning of the Christian Faith...
"We have here a belief which nothing in terms of prior historical influences can account for—apart from the resurrection itself."
-C. F. D. Moule and Don Cupitt, “The Resurrection: a Disagreement,” Theology 75 (1972): 507-19.

"That is why, as an historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him."
-N. T. Wright, "The New Unimproved Jesus," Christianity Today (September 13, 1993), page 26.

"Some sort of powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest Christianity was."
-Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996), page 136.

The Best Explanation of the Evidence
We've seen that historians have agreed on a few interesting facts concerning Jesus' life and death:  (1) Jesus performed a ministry of miracle working, (2) He died by crucifixion, (3) He was buried in a tomb, the location of which was known by everyone, (4) three days later the tomb was found empty, (5) believers, non-believers, skeptics, and even enemies saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death, (6) the Christian faith grew overnight, despite their opposition. 

Thats the evidence.  The only question that remains is, how do you explain the evidence?  Here are the most popular alternative theories concerning Jesus' life and death.  Examine these for yourself and determine how well they explain those historical facts about Jesus.

Unknown Tomb Theory:  The body of Jesus was buried in a common grave, no one knew where it was.
Wrong Tomb Theory:  The women came to the wrong tomb.
Legend Theory:  The entire story was a myth.  Click here to listen to a debate where this view is defended.
Twin Theory:  The resurrected Jesus was Jesus' twin brother.  Click here to listen to a debate where this view is defended.
Hallucination Theory:  Several hundred people experienced identical hallucinations.
Stolen Body Theory:  The Disciples stole the body in order to validate their movement.
Swoon Theory:  Jesus didn't die, he fainted and awoke in the tomb.
Alien Theory:  Jesus was an alien with the ability to die and resurrect.

Personally I am not convinced by any of these theories.  I believe that it is plausible to conclude that Jesus was exactly who he claimed to be, and his resurrection confirms it.