Christianity can be disproven if you locate Jesus’ body. That’s all it takes to disprove Christianity. For if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then He didn’t conquer death nor sin nor any other force, power, or agency. You cannot label Him “God” or “Ruler” or “King of kings.” If death defeated Him, then you cannot count on Him to save you, to provide a new creation, nor to change the world. All the teaching of Christianity—from its morality to its hope, from its claim about people to its claim about the rest of creation— depend on Jesus being the One True God Who has the authority and power to proclaim how He made the world and to continue to maintain it according to His Will.
That is all anyone ever had to do but no one has, not even His most ardent enemies. In fact, the only thing that people opposing Jesus have produced is lots of “What ifs”, none of which have any solid evidence.
Instead, all the evidence points to the truth recorded in the Gospel accounts according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Jesus’ teaching remains today, firmly established by those eyewitnesses and those who heard the eyewitnesses. For the claim of those Christians is not only scrutinized in our day but was scrutinized in their day, too.
After all, becoming a Christian meant a rejection of either the prevailing Jewish ideas or the secular and Greek ideas that were common place in that day. Becoming a Christian was dangerous. Yet, those who saw Jesus risen from the dead remained steadfast in their eyewitness account.
Such accounts, of course, need to be tested and verified. Just as we test such accounts today so, too, did people investigate such accounts in the past. Often times, this is done in courts or through public forums. Consider how often you hear about he said/she said cases, where the trouble and problem is that the two eyewitnesses disagree. It is very hard to determine the truth in such cases.
But when it comes to Jesus, did you know that there were over 500 eyewitnesses to His resurrection? This is why His resurrection was so strongly established. This is why the foundation of the church was so large and why the message spread so quickly. This is why the writings about Christ were preserved so well and why their authority was so strongly established. Alternate theories or ideas about Jesus had no basis in fact. The real evidence including the eyewitnesses, who were willing to die testifying to Jesus’ resurrection, overwhelmed any alternative ideas.
His enemies knew He existed. They knew they killed Him, but they could not combat the truth. In fact, some of those who opposed Jesus and His Church eventually became believers. They recognized the truth about Jesus and began to proclaim Him to others, even though it resulted in their deaths.
Thus, Jesus’ resurrection and teaching were firmly established and recorded in historical accounts and in letters written to those first churches. These were gathered together with older writings that foretold of Jesus’ coming and they have all been bound together into the Bible, having been translated from their original languages into people’s own tongues.
This evidence and testimony is available for you to read and explore so that you can also know the truth about Jesus, His plans, and His promises to save.
Come explore His teaching and words together with those He has called and gathered at Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church, Richfield, MN; Or, contact us about finding a similar congregation nearer to you.
You can also explore the evidence of Jesus and His resurrection through books like:
More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell
Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels by J. Warner Wallace
Religion on Trial: Cross-Examining Religious Truth Claims by Craig Parton
Yes, but is the Bible text today reliable?
The best way to determine this is to apply the methods of investigation used to determine whether or not any ancient piece of literature has been passed down in a reliable form. When such standards are used it is clear that the New Testament texts are very reliable compared to other documents.
- There are very early copies available which comes from eyewitnesses while hostile contemporaries aren’t able to refute the evidence;
- there are over 15,000 copies and there is substantial agreement between them;
- almost all the differences between copies do not effect the meaning while undisputed passages show how to read the remaining differences;
- specific factual details can be verified and have been through comparing to other sources including archeology.
- Add to this that the more recent copies of Old Testament texts match well with the Dead Sea scrolls which date to Jesus’ time.
These evidences show that the Biblical texts have been passed down with great care, being faithfully copied. Explore the Reliability of the Bible in these Bible Study videos.