Evidence for the Resurrection

The Resurrection of Christ is the jugular of Christianity. Everything we believe in as Christians stand on this one truth. It's all well and good for us to prove that the New Testament is reliable or that the Old Testament is historically accurate, but if there's anything that needs to be provided, it's evidence for the resurrection.

Principle of Embarrassment
The New Testament authors have filled the gospels with embarrassing details. If they were making things up, they would have tried to make themselves look good. However, the gospels makes the apostles look like utter dimwits. Here are just a few examples: There's even potentially embarrassing details about Jesus too.
 * Peter literally gets called Satan by Jesus (Mark 8:33).
 * When Jesus is crucified, all the apostles (with the exception of the 'disciple whom Jesus loved') run away and hide.
 * When Jesus gives the Great Commission in Matthew 28:17, it says that some of his own disciples doubted. He's literally standing in front of them, resurrected from the dead, speaking to them and ascending into the sky! And they're doubting? I can only imagine how the apostles reacted when they saw what Matthew and Mark wrote about them.
 * In Mark 3, Jesus' family come to summon him away from his preaching. They didn't even believe in him!
 * Jesus is called, amongst others, a drunkard, a blasphemer, and demon-possessed. Does this embellish Jesus to be God?
 * The genealogy in Matthew refuses to mention Bathsheba in the bloodline, but instead calls her "Wife of Uriah" in Matthew 1:6. That's pretty embarrassing to be reminded that one of your most well known ancestors was an adulteress and the man who your House is named after was a lying murderer. You think they invented this stuff?

Forensic Credibility
J. Warner Wallace, a cold case homicide detective, states that there are only one of three broad motives that lie at the heart of any crime: either a sex issue, a money issue, or a power issue; or a combination of those three.

Understanding this, it is now important to note that:
 * The gospel authors did not get sex for writing the gospels - the persecution of the apostles wouldn't exactly have made them chick-magnets. They were despised and rejected of men, just as Jesus said they would be. They would not have been popular with the ladies and, if anything, may have lost lovers who would have subsequently called them crazy.
 * The gospel authors did not get money for writing the gospels - if anything they lost money. They abandoned their livelihoods to follow Jesus and often sold all their belongings for the purpose of helping the congregation. It was also very expensive to buy papyrus in those days, so in order for them to write the gospels they would have pretty much emptied their pockets. Why go through all that trouble if their claims are untrue?
 * The gospel authors did not get power for writing the gospels - Paul had power as a Pharisee, yet upon his conversion, he became the persecuted one when he claimed to have seen the risen Christ. He could have easily saved himself the trouble and said, "OK guys, it didn't happen, stop persecuting me." But he didn't.

Minimal Facts Argument
This argument was coined by Dr Gary Habermas, the world's leading scholar on the resurrection. His idea states that the basic facts about the life of Jesus that virtually all scholars agree on - his life, ministry, death and subsequent actions of his followers - suggests that Jesus really did rise from the dead.

Based only on the extrabiblical evidence for Jesus, which the majority of scholars agree to be authentic we can deduce that there was: Keep in mind that no Christian source tells us this information, only Pagans, Jews and secular sources. These are the bare minimum facts on the life of Jesus that even atheist scholars agree on. This sounds a lot like the narrative of the New Testament.
 * A man by the name of Jesus/Yeshu (Josephus, Talmud)
 * Said to have been born of a virgin (Celsus)
 * Father was a carpenter (Celsus)
 * Spent time in Egypt before returning to Judea (Celsus, Talmud)
 * Performed amazing deeds during the time of Tiberius (Josephus, Talmud)
 * Spoke to both Jews and Gentiles (Josephus)
 * Gathered disciples (Josephus, Talmud)
 * Crucified on the eve of Passover in 33 AD by Pontius Pilate at the behest of the Jewish authorities because of his new teachings and laws (Josephus, Tacitus, Talmud, Lucian)
 * Crucifixion saw a period of darkness and an earthquake (Thallus, Celsus, Phlegon)
 * Said to have been seen risen by his disciples (Josephus)
 * Worshipped as God soon after (Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Lucian)

The Empty Tomb
There are several points to be made about the empty tomb:
 * Joseph of Arimathea, the man who opted for his own tomb to be used as Jesus' tomb, was a member of the Jewish authorities. Given the hostility of the early Christians against the Sanhedrin, whom they felt were largely responsible for Jesus' death, it is unlikely that Jesus’ followers would have invented a tradition about a member of the Sanhedrin using his own tomb to provide Jesus with a respectable burial. Dale Allison describes the historicity of the empty tomb "historically likely."
 * The Garden Tomb just outside of the walls of Jerusalem would have certainly be visited by the Jewish authorities to personally verify the dead body of Christ and ensure that he was securely buried. This then raises the question of how Christianity grew explosively from Jerusalem when the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin could have easily produced the body of Jesus and crushed Christianity before it even took off. The fact that no such body could be produced suggests that the tomb really was empty. The Pharisees even admit that the tomb was empty in Matthew 28:13.

Testimony of the Women
Expanding on the ideas of the empty tomb: it is acknowledged by sceptics and believers alike that the empty tomb was discovered by women, whose testimony was worth less that of a man in first century Palestine. Here are just a few sources from around that time that affirmed this idea: If you were making up the story in an attempt to persuade others that Jesus had been resurrected, you would never have used women as your primary witnesses in that early culture. Any made-up story would have featured the male disciples to strengthen the credibility of the testimony. But where were the male disciples? Running away and hiding in shame and disillusionment.
 * "But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex..."
 * "Any evidence which a woman [gives] is not valid (to offer)..."
 * "...who, having gathered together from the lowest dregs the more unskilled, and women, credulous and, by the facility of their sex, yielding, establish a herd of a profane conspiracy..."

By the way, has anyone noticed how one of the women to discover the empty tomb was Mary Magdalene? A woman who, no more than a few years prior, was demon possessed? No one would have trusted her testimony. This brings us back to the principle of embarrassment. There is no way that the New Testament authors would have included such a detail in the story of Magdalene if they were trying to make the story sound legitimate and trustworthy. The best way to explain these things is if the resurrection really did happen, Mary was in fact the first witness, and that the Gospel authors had no choice but to write down the embarrassing truth.

The Eyewitnesses of 1 Corinthians
Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, that Jesus appeared to many people. These include: In total this counts up to 514 eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus recorded in 1 Corinthians, most of whom Paul reports, were alive by the time we wrote 1 Corinthians, which was around 55 AD. Pretty good number of eyewitnesses for a criminal case if you ask any judge.
 * The apostles (they are named "the twelve" in the passage so it is likely that Matthias was already chosen to replace Judas).
 * The 500 witnesses
 * James, the Brother of Jesus
 * And Paul himself

It is important to note 2 things: 1 Corinthians is unanimously seen by scholars as authentically from Paul and this creed found in the beginning of the chapter dates back to within a year of so of the crucifixion. So we have an extra early source that is agreed upon by secular scholars to be authentically from a man who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus informing us that he, the apostles and 500 others have seen Jesus alive after his burial.

And as we will see down below, it is more likely than not that Paul died for his testimony.

Martyrdom of the Apostles
Tradition from the Early Church tells us that the apostles were martyred for their faith. If this turns out to be the case, the resurrection of Christ seems a lot more viable as these men would have died for something that they saw, or at least claimed to have seen. They would not have died for something they knew was a lie.

It should be noted that there is no historical evidence that any of the apostles ever recanted their belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. This sets a firm foundation that these men lived the rest of their lives firmly believing in what they claimed to see whilst being persecuted by the Romans and the Jewish authorities - a fact that no one disputes.

It should also be noted that martyrdom on its own does not validate a belief system. The Jihadist "martyrs" we see today are not eyewitnesses of anything. They do not know Muhammad, nor have seen anything that can validate their religion beyond a shred of doubt. They merely have faith in their belief system. The apostles, however, claimed to be eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus. This means that if they really did die for their beliefs, what they claimed is more likely than not to be true.

James, Brother of Jesus
Josephus tell us that James was stoned by the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem 30 years after the crucifixion for being a Christian:


 * "Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned."

So James goes from a disbeliever in 30 AD (Mark 3:31) to a believer and martyr in the 60's? What happened to James between then? Once again, Paul tells us that James was visited by the risen Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:7. If the historical evidence is to be believed, the resurrected Jesus really did appear to James.

The Second Apocalypse of James, a Gnostic text dated from 120-180 AD echoes what Josephus states concerning the death of James:


 * "I was with the priests and revealed nothing of the relationship, since all of them were saying with one voice, 'Come, let us stone the Just One.' And they arose, saying, 'Yes, let us kill this man, that he may be taken from our midst. For he will be of no use to us.'
 * And they were there and found him standing beside the columns of the temple beside the mighty corner stone. And they decided to throw him down from the height, and they cast him down. And they [...] they [...]. They seized him and struck him as they dragged him upon the ground. They stretched him out and placed a stone on his abdomen. They all placed their feet on him, saying 'You have erred!'
 * Again they raised him up, since he was alive, and made him dig a hole. They made him stand in it. After having covered him up to his abdomen, they stoned him in this manner."

Heggesipus gives us a similar account in 170 AD. stating:


 * "So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to one another: "Let us stone James the Just." And they began to stone him: for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and knelt down, and said: "I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
 * And, while they were thus stoning him to death, one of the priests, the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom testimony is borne by Jeremiah the prophet, began to cry aloud, saying: "Cease, what do ye? The just man is praying for us." But one among them, one of the fullers, took the staff with which he was accustomed to wring out the garments he dyed, and hurled it at the head of the just man.
 * And so he suffered martyrdom; and they buried him on the spot, and the pillar erected to his memory still remains, close by the temple. This man was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ."

Pseudo-Clement mimics the words of Hegessipus around 300 AD.

Sean McDowell states:
 * "Given the reference to the death of James in Josephus, as well as later Christian and Gnostic sources, there is little doubt James was executed in 62 AD... The accounts of James in Hegesippus, the Second Apocalypse of James and the Pseudo-Clementines, indicate that James died as a result of his proclamation of his Christian faith, even though they differ on the particularities. Most scholars have embraced this traditional view."

James, son of Zebedee
James, brother of John, is recorded as being martyred by King Herod in Acts 12:2. There is no reason to doubt the account given by Luke in Acts.

Peter
When it comes to determining if Peter really was martyred, it is important to point out that Jesus predicted Peters' death in John 21:18: "Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.”

Clement of Rome writes in 95 AD:


 * "Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him."

Concerning the Acts of Peter, a second century apocryphal writing that details Peter's death, Christine Thomas says:


 * “The mere fact that externally attested first-century individuals appear as protagonists in the pages of the Acts of Peter is sufficient to show that these narratives were not fictions completely divorced from historical memory.”

Paul
Tradition tells us that Paul was beheaded in Rome on the orders of Nero sometime after the Great Fire of Rome. Scholars disagree exactly when, but the two most popular dates for Paul's death are 64 or 67 AD.

Clement of Rome affirms that Paul was “set free from this world and transported up to the holy place, having become the greatest example of endurance.” in 1 Clement in 95 AD.

Ignatius also affirms Paul's martyrdom in 115 AD, calling Paul "the holy, the martyred, the deservedly most happy" in his Letter to the Ephesians.

Polycarp also claims that Paul suffered some form of persecution in his Letter to the Philippians, written around 120 AD.

The apocryphal Acts of Paul from about 175 AD contains a legendary embellishment of Paul's death, but still retains a historical value to it. It states:


 * "[Paul] stretched forth his neck without speaking. And when the executioner struck off his head, milk spurted upon the cloak of the soldier. And the soldier and all that were there present when they saw it marvelled and glorified God which had given such glory unto Paul: and they went and told Caesar what was done."

Given that: ... it is more probable than not that Paul was beheaded for his faith. We have no good reason to doubt that this was how Paul's life and ministry ended.
 * 1) There is no alternative claim of how Paul met his fate...
 * 2) Beheading was a common form of execution ...
 * 3) All three of the Apostolic Fathers affirm his persecution and martyrdom...
 * 4) And it fits with what else is known about Paul (e.g. his Roman citizenship, his presence in Rome after Acts, etc)...

Thomas
The apocryphal Acts of Thomas (written around 210 AD), details how Thomas went to India to do his ministry and was martyred by King Mizdai, who ordered his guards to throw spears into the apostle. Obviously there is a lot of legendary embellishment in this Acts, however, due to the lack of any competing stories from any other historical source, this martyrdom story is the best we have to work with.


 * “If the story did not have a historical background and if the readers of the book knew Thomas had gone to some places other than those mentioned in the Ath [Acts of Thomas], how could the author of the Ath believe that any credibility would be given to his story?”

- James Kurikilamkatt

There are also archaeological discoveries that prove the martyrdom of Thomas found in his Acts has at least some historical value. These include a discovery in 1834 of a collection of ancient coins in the Kabul Valley of Afghanistan. These coins are inscribed with the name "Gundaphar," a character who is featured in the Acts of Thomas. On top of this, the coins are dated to the first century:


 * “Deciphered, the inscription not only named King Gundaphar, it dated him squarely in the early first century A.D., making him a contemporary of the apostle Thomas just as the maligned Acts of Thomas had described him.”

- Samuel Hugh Moffett

Indian Biblical scholar Benedict Vadakkekara provides five reasons why the tradition surrounding the martyrdom of Thomas is credible: Although this does not prove that Thomas died in the exact way his Acts described, it proves that is at least some historical aspect to the story. And with no conflicting narratives to contradict the story, we can conclude that Thomas most likely died for his faith in Christ.
 * First, the mere existence of a community claiming apostolic roots speaks to the genuineness of the tradition. There must have been some significant reason for why the Indian Christians chose Thomas.
 * Second, the St. Thomas Christians are unique in claiming Thomas as their founding apostle. The lack of competing traditions is a sign of the reliability of the St. Thomas tradition.
 * Third, the community has passed down the tradition with consistency. Marco Polo in the 13th century noted the pilgrimages that Christians were making to the tomb of the apostle Thomas at Mylapore.
 * Fourth, the tradition has been unanimous amongst both Christians and non-Christians sources. There have been some denominational splits among the St. Thomas Christians, but they unanimously share the conviction that their community has apostolic roots.
 * Fifth, while there are undeniable embellishments, the tradition has retained its pristine simplicity.

Andrew
The earliest written record of Andrew's martyrdom comes from the  Acts of Andrew, written around the mid-late second century, which states:


 * "[Andrew] looked earnestly upon the cross, and bade the brethren that the executioners should come and do that which was commanded them; for they stood afar off.
 * And they came and bound his hands and his feet and nailed them not; for such a charge had they from Aegeates; for he wished to afflict him by hanging him up, and that in the night he might be devoured alive by dogs. And they left him hanging and departed from him."

Hippolytus writes in the late second century that Andrew:


 * "... preached to the Scythians and Thracians, and was crucified, suspended on an olive tree, at Patrae, a town of Achaia; and there too he was buried."

But we cannot be certain about this later account. The  Acts of Andrew  certainly contains legendary embellishment, but it seems slightly more plausible than not that it was connected to a reliable tradition about the fate of Andrew, however altered it may have been.

Other Apostles
A lot of the other apostles are detailed in tradition as having been martyred. It is difficult to prove the martyrdom of the rest of the apostles as a lot of the martyrdom accounts other than those listed above are late and uncertain concerning their reliability. However, I submit that we only really need to prove that at least 1 of the apostles were martyred for their faith to provide solid evidence for the resurrection. Do that, and we can see that someone died for something they claimed to have seen. They gained nothing from their persecution and were willing to go to the grave for their testimony. This lends credibility to the resurrection in an unprecedented way.

The evidence I have provided above is only a taste of the evidence for the martyrdom of the apostles. Click here to see me video series covering all the apostles.

Naturalistic Theory
Many claim that a naturalistic answer to these evidences are more logical than supernatural. They claim that dogs may have eaten the body or it was decomposed or it was stolen by thieves etc...

It's irrelevant whether Jesus' body was in the tomb, or in a house, or in a bin, or in a dog's belly, if Jesus appeared to the disciples after his death, resurrected and with the wounds of his death, Christianity it still true.

Now, based on our individual presuppositions, we will either cling to a natural or supernatural explanation. However, if we come to the conclusion that there is more to reality than matter and energy (check the arguments listed under Evidence for God on the Home Page), then a supernatural resurrection is, at the very least, possible.

The main problem with the naturalistic explanation is that a naturalist/materialist has to convince me that every single spiritual event/experience in the history of humanity has to be mistaken. That no one has ever had their prayers answered, that every radical transformation in someone's life (e.g. Neo-Nazis and drug addicts becoming Christians and being changed) must by a lie or mistaken, and that everything that we as humans do are simply us reacting to physics and chemicals. If even latter is the case, whenever we have a discussion on anything, we're not actually reasoning; we're just reacting. Therefore, we cannot possibly understand if any worldview is true, theistic or atheistic, because our minds are simply doing what they are programmed to do. Which means we don't actually have free will to discuss what worldview may be the truth, totally eradicating our ability to decipher any truth. Check the Epistemological Argument for more.

Hallucination Theory
The Hallucination Theory is pretty easy to debunk: the claim is that the apostles were envisioning Jesus returned to them. Maybe they were high or something.

Now, I tend to think that this argument is useful against ideologies like Seventh Day Adventism, Mormonism and Islam. The founders of these belief systems claimed to have received visions from God, however, there are no eyewitnesses to verify the accounts of these people and what they claimed to have seen, particularly in the case of Joseph Smith and Muhammad. Joseph Smith was alone in the woods when he claimed to have seen a vision of God the Father and Jesus. No one else can verify his story. In the case of Muhammad, he claimed to receive his vision from the angel Jibreel (Gabriel). No one else can confirm this was the case, and stands on the testimony of one man.

In the case of the apostles, however, there are 11 of them. 11 people cannot hallucinate the same thing. Dr Gary Sibcy, in Michael R. Licona's The Resurrection of Jesus, states:


 * "I have surveyed the professional literature (peer-reviewed journal articles and books) written by psychologists, psychiatrists, and other relevant healthcare professionals during the last two decades and have yet to find a single documented case of group hallucination."

As I said earlier, 11 people cannot hallucinate the same thing, unless you concede that something supernatural happened to them, which would then demolish the naturalist argument as previously mentioned.

Now, some may use this against the Old Testament prophets. How can we possibly know what they saw. Simple: the fulfilment of their prophecies. Jesus fulfils 351 prophecies of the Old Testament written centuries prior to his birth. If the New Testament is true, you get the Old Testament thrown in as well, particularly when Jesus affirms Moses writing about him (John 5:46).

Stolen Body Theory
In Matthew 28:13-15, the Jewish authorities accuse the disciples of stealing the body. Why would they accuse the disciples of stealing the body if the tomb still contained the dead Jesus? The accusation of theft by the Jews presupposes that the tomb is in fact empty - this is an admittance from the enemies of Christianity that the tomb of Jesus was empty on the third day.

The disciples of Christ would have had no motivation to steal the body. The New Testament tells us they dispersed in disillusionment. They, in that time between the crucifixion and the resurrection, believed that Jesus was gone and that he was not coming back. As stated earlier, they would not gain anything by stealing the body and proclaiming that Jesus was dead. The only logical motivation concerning their preaching of the gospel was that they genuinely believed Jesus had risen from the dead, and had no ulterior motive.

The disciples were not warriors. Neither were they aligned with the Zealots who were the only ones at the time with the strength to challenge Roman authority (just see Great Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD). They would not have been able to fight off the Roman guard outside the tomb. Neither would they have wanted to, especially considering that Jesus told them "whomever lives by the sword dies by the sword."

Resuscitation Theory
Some sceptics have claimed that Jesus never actually died on the cross; that, by sheer dumb luck, he merely fainted on the cross, appeared dead, and later woke up in his tomb, having barely survived his wounds. Some sceptics will go to Mark 15:44 where Pilate notes how quickly Jesus died on the cross, when it usually takes much longer than a few hours to die during crucifixion. Here's just a few rebuttals of this theory. There is absolutely no doubt that Jesus was dead on the cross. There's no coming back from such significant wounds and trauma... unless you're God, of course.
 * Jesus sweating blood mentioned in Luke 22:44 is a real medical condition called hematidrosis. According to Dr Alexander Metherall, "[Hematidrosis] is not very common, but is associated with a high degree of pyschoogical stress. What happens is that severe anxiety causes the release of chemicals that break down the capillaries in the sweat glands. As a result, there's a small amount of bleeding into these glands... we're not talking about a lot of blood; it's just very, very small amounts of blood." Metherall also notes that, "What this did was set up the skin to be extremely fragile so that when Jesus was flogged by the Roman soldier the next day, his skin would be very, very sensitive."
 * Jesus' first punishment was the flogging. Flogging was known to have been a brutal punishment: a leather whip fitted with metal fragments and sharp bits of bone would cause, at the very least, severe bruising when struck against someone. If struck in the same place twice, the flesh would break open, revealing bone, muscle, and even internal organs.
 * The blood-loss caused by this flogging, expedited by the fragility of Jesus' skin after sweating his own blood, would have caused hypovolemic shock - which would have caused Jesus to thirst for liquids in order to replenish his blood supplies. In John 19:28, Jesus states "I thirst!" whilst on the cross.
 * Jesus was forced to carry his cross to Calvary. This journey, however long it took, would have caused Jesus to bleed more due to an accelerated heartbeat.
 * The nails of the cross would have been hammered into his wrists, through the nerves in that part of his body. The pain caused by this would have been so horrific. The word excruciating means 'out of the cross.' This word was invented in the years that followed the crucifixion because human languages did not have a word to describe the amount of pain that this process would have caused. This is how bad just the nailing process would have been. Keep in mind that this was just for the wrists. The ankles were also nailed through into the cross. Archaeologists have actually found a bone of a crucifixion victim with the nail going through his ankle, not into his feet as tradition teaches. The end of the nail was also contorted, showing that once someone was on the cross, they were not getting down.
 * Upon being hung on the cross, Jesus' arms would have been stretched and his shoulders dislocated.
 * The Jesus would then have to alternate between holding himself up using his arms and pushing himself up using his legs. During this time, Jesus' flogged back would be rubbing against the wood of the cross, likely causing many deep cuts and splinters in the exposed flesh.
 * Jesus either died due to cardiac arrest caused by his blood-loss or asphyxiation due to the position of his arms causing his lungs to be repressing inside his own chest. Although Jesus died relatively quickly for a crucifixion victim, a few hours is all that it would take to lose his breath.
 * John 19:34 details how one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, and blood and water came flowing out. This is a condition called pericardial effusion, where water enters to heart. The soldier's actions caused blood and water to flow out of his pierced heart and lungs.

Development Theory
The Development Theory states that the gospels evolved over time and that, from Mark to John, there was an embellishment of the story of Jesus, with more things being added on as time passed. The first claim is that in early accounts such as 1 Corinthians 15, Jesus is not stated as having resurrected bodily. But later accounts build upon this, and by the time of John, it was a full-blown bodily resurrection. This seems like an odd argument and is reasonably easy to debunk.

First, the word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 15 for "resurrection" is the word anastasis, which always means a physical or bodily resurrection. The word for "appearance" in the text is the word ophthe which can be used interchangeably with visions or physical appearances of material objects.

Next, if we were to see an evolution in the gospels with the resurrection, we would see an evolution in their accounts of everything else. But this we simply don't see. If the resurrection account evolved, we would expect the amount of miracles increase too. But this we simply don't see. Matthew includes 4 (the darkness, the temple veil ripping, the earthquake and the raising of the dead saints), Mark and Luke both record 2 miracles at the crucifixion (just the darkness and the temple veil ripping), and John records no miracles. This does not seem like a developing narrative.

Another place we do not see a development narrative is the amount of miracles Jesus performs. John, the last gospel, records only 7 miracles, whilst Mark records 20, Matthew records 22 and Luke records 21.

Another place we see no development is the amount of women at the tomb. Mark records 3 women (both Mary's and Salome), Matthew records 2 (both Mary's), Luke records 3 named women (both Mary's and Joanna), as well as several other unnamed women, and John records only Mary Magdalene (although he implies there were others).

It is clear that no development is taking place in these narratives, only being told from different perspectives due to the different purpose of the gospel being written, the different personalities of the authors, their different writing styles, and audience for whom the gospel was being written to.

Christ Myth Theory
I won't waste time addressing the ridiculous Christ Myth Theory on this page. I debunk it here.

Academic Sources


Ancient Sources
