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- The case for the resurrection is surprisingly compelling, despite its apparently wild improbability under normal circumstances.
- Historical attestation: we have better textual support for the resurrection than almost any other ancient event in history. The Gospels, representing multiple independent accounts of the resurrection events, offer startlingly similar stories of the same event, bearing the hallmarks of eyewitness testimony. These written accounts occur very early after the events they describe (relative to other ancient sources) and bear the authority of Jesus's own inner circle. That is, they represent the eyewitness reports of those who were most likely to know what really happened.
- Explanatory power: The resurrection alone explains the dramatic changes in the Jesus movement attested in the book of Acts, including radical changes like the shift in weekly worship from the biblically-mandated Sabbath (on Saturday) to worship on Sundays (the day of the resurrection). Whether or not Jesus actually rose, even skeptics allow that the disciples clearly thought they were having experiences of Jesus after his death, and were preaching his resurrection in Jerusalem (the very city he had been executed in) shortly after his crucifixion. The leaders of this movement went to their deaths (often gruesome, violent deaths) proclaiming the truth of the resurrection, which one would not expect to be the case had they known it to be a lie.
- Could any other possible theory explain what happened in the early Christian movement?
- The wrong tomb theory--could the women gone to the wrong tomb on the Sunday after the crucifixion, and on finding an empty tomb, have believed Jesus rose? No, the tomb is identified with great specificity in the gospel accounts, and multiple different characters check the site of the tomb. Further, if it was the wrong tomb, the Jewish authorities could have easily proven the disciples' preaching false.
- The legend theory - a mythical story that developed over the course of many years in the community of Jesus-followers? No, the earliness and consistency of the historical sources clearly rule this out; it is by far the least likely of any alternative theory.
- Jesus had a secret identical twin? - perhaps one got crucified, and then the other showed up. It's a wild reach of the imagination (but ironically, actually explains more of the evidence than the other theories)--nevertheless, it can't be true because it would have been easily falsifiable by many of the early community of Jesus-followers, some of whom were from Jesus's own family.
- Mass hallucination? - No, the experiences of the risen Christ happen in many times and different places, with a widely varied group of people. There's no record in scientific or medical history of any hallucinatory effect that works like that.
- The disciples stole the body? - No, the historical accounts offer no evidence for this (Matthew mentions an attempt by the chief priests to spread this as a rumor, but it clearly died out unsuccessfully, as no other source, Christian or non-Christian records it). Further, this does not explain the disciples' later martyrdoms--people die for delusions they sincerely believe, but they do not unanimously submit to great personal cost and suffering for something that they know to be a lie.
- The Jewish priests moved the body? - No, because then they could have easily declared the truth and falsified the disciples' claims.
- Jesus rose spiritually, but not physically? No, the historical attestations of the empty tomb stand against this, as also do the consistent accounts of the physicality of his resurrection appearances.
- The swoon theory - perhaps Jesus merely swooned on the cross, but did not die? No, the textual accounts clearly indicate a complete physical death due to Jesus's earlier torture and his being stabbed with a spear during his crucifixion. Burial practices of the time, as well as the nature of the tomb he was placed in, render it impossible for Jesus to have recovered and left the tomb on his own power.
Bottom line: the weight of the actual historical evidence falls clearly on the side of Jesus actually rising from the dead. No alternative theory actually fits the provable historical data of the events around that time.