The resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of the Christian faith. In fact, 1 Corinthians 15:17 tells us, "and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins." However, if Christ was raised, this proves who He was, and thus proves Christianity to be true.

We can prove the resurrection through the process of elimination. (Obviously something happened! If nothing happened back then, the Christian church wouldn't have existed and there wouldn't be manuscripts of the Scriptures dating from way back then.) If we can eliminate all of the options but one, that option is obviously what happened. To do this however, you must be open-minded! If you say that the resurrection is impossible right off the bat, you are being unfair. That is also called circular reasoning. Unfortunately, that is the way many people disprove the resurrection. For example: "The resurrection didn't happen." "Why?" "Because miracles are impossible." "Why are they impossible?" "Because they don't happen." "Why don't they happen?" "Because they are impossible." You get the picture.

Here are the only five things that could have happened:
1. Jesus Died: The resurrection actually did happen. (Christianity)
2. Jesus Died: The resurrection didn't happen- the disciples were deceived. (Hallucination)
3. Jesus Died: The resurrection didn't happen- the disciples were mythmakers. (Myth)
4. Jesus Died: The resurrection didn't happen- the disciples were deceivers. (Conspiracy)
5. Jesus Didn't Really Die: (Swoon theory)

Let's test each of these theories logically and see which is the most probable.   Obviously, this web page is a very condensed version of these arguments.  To investigate this more in depth, I would recommend that you use the resources listed at the bottom of the page.

The Myth Theory:

Jesus died and stayed dead.  No one knows what happened to the body.  One of three things must have happened.  Maybe, over a long time myths grew about Jesus and people believed them because they didn't know any better.  Maybe, the people who wrote the Bible intentionally lied and made up the whole thing.  Maybe, the people who wrote the Bible never intended the stories to be taken literally as history.   They meant for it to be taken as fiction.

Problems with the myth theory:

• Written records show that the first Christians were worshiping Christ as God within a few years after his resurrection.  In the ancient world it took much longer than this for myths to develop.  That is why skeptics used to argue that the much of the Bible was not written until 200 years after Christ lived.
• If the gospels were fiction, they wouldn't have included many of the things they did include.  For example, they would not have said that Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Aramathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.  He was too high-profile of a person and that fact would have been too easy to check.  If the apostles intentionally lied when they wrote the Bible, they probably would not have included the accounts of the apostles failures and shortcomings like they did.  If the gospels were fiction, they would not have said that the first people to discover the empty tomb were women.  In that culture, the testimony of women was considered worthless. 
• As far as the idea that the gospels were not intended to be taken as literal history, read the first four verses of the gospel of Luke, "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eye witnesses and servants of the word.   Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seems good also to me to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."

The swoon theory says that Jesus didn't really die on the cross.  He was very near to death and everyone thought he was dead but in fact he was barely alive.  He was buried but eventually came to and woke up.  On the third day, he appeared to everyone and they thought he had risen from the dead.

Problems with the swoon theory:

• Roman soldiers didn't both crucifixions.  They would have received the death penalty if they did.
• If Jesus was beaten nearly to the point of death, how would he have been able (in less than three days) to role away the huge stone and fight off the Roman guards who guarded His tomb?

Jesus died and was buried.  The disciples lied saying that Jesus had risen from the dead when they knew full well that he actually had not.  Maybe the disciples stole the body from the tomb in order to

Problems with the conspiracy theory:

• If the body of Jesus had not been stolen, all the authorities would have had to do to stop the spread of Christianity would have been to go into the tomb, get the body, and parade it around the city.  This would have shown everyone that Jesus was still dead and it would have been the end of Christianity.
• If the disciple did steel the body, they would have had to fight off the Roman soldiers who were guarding the tomb.  This doesn't seem likely.  The disciples fled like cowards when Jesus was being crucified.
• If the disciples stole the body, they would have known for sure that Christianity was based on a lie.  However, church history shows that almost all of the apostles were killed because they would not deny Christ.  People do not let themselves be killed for something they know for certain is a lie.

The disciples were mistaken.  They hallucinated and thought they saw Jesus rise from the dead.

Problems with the hallucination theory:

• Many people do not all have the same hallucination.
• Hallucinations can't explain an empty tomb.  If the disciples merely hallucinated that they saw Jesus, all the authorities would have had to do to stop Christianity would have been to get the body from the tomb and parade it around the city.

None of the stand up other than the theory that Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead.  The fact that Jesus rose from the dead validates his claim that he is God!