Topic
The Cross and the Resurrection
Christianity stands or falls on a public claim: that Jesus was crucified and rose again. These pages look at what history can say about it, and what it cannot.
Claims
- “Islam gives assurance through deeds and mercy”Islam grounds hope in mercy, but for ordinary believers it stops short of certainty. Christians ground assurance in what they believe God has already done in Jesus' death.Read the answer
- “Jesus died on a stake, not a cross”The New Testament never settles the shape of the stauros, hints at a crossbeam, and puts all its weight on Jesus' death rather than on the wood.Read the answer
- “Jesus never existed”Historians across belief, including the agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman, agree that Jesus lived and was crucified under Pilate. The open question is who he was.Read the answer
- “Jesus rose as a spirit creature”Jesus showed his crucifixion wounds, ate, and said a spirit has no flesh and bones; Scripture describes his risen body as changed, not as left behind.Read the answer
- “Jesus was not crucified”Jesus' crucifixion is recorded within years by his followers and later by hostile Roman and Jewish writers; no historical record before the Qur'an says otherwise.Read the answer
- “The Messiah cannot die before reigning”The Tanakh and the rabbis both speak of an anointed one who suffers or is killed. The Christian claim joins suffering and reign in one person, and rests on the resurrection.Read the answer
Reasons
- The bodily resurrection of JesusLuke, John, Paul, and Acts all tie the risen Jesus to the body that died. Paul's "spiritual body" describes a body made new, not a body left behind.
- The crucifixion of JesusPaul's early sources, the movement's beginnings in Jerusalem, hostile Roman and Jewish writers, and the embarrassment of a crucified Messiah all point to a real execution under Pilate.
- The resurrection as messianic vindicationA crucified Messiah looked like a contradiction to Jesus' own followers. They read his resurrection as God overturning that verdict, and argued it from the Psalms and Isaiah.
- The resurrection witnessesThe earliest Christian claim was public testimony from named witnesses, and any explanation of it has to cover the whole set of facts historians accept.