Resurrection Evidence: Eye Witness Accounts Part 1

There is little evidence more compelling and convincing in a court of law than that of an eye witness. In the case of the Resurrection of Jesus, we fortunately have available to us the testimony of several witnesses to His ministry, death, burial, resurrection and post resurrection appearances. It is not within the scope of this paper to debate the authorship and authenticity of the New Testament Scriptures. For our purposes, we will work under the belief that the books of the Bible were written by those men traditionally associated with them.

Two of the first four books in the New Testament, called “The Gospels”, are written by men who lived and worked with Jesus every day over the last 3 ½ years of His life. Matthew and John were not only disciples of Jesus, but were of the inner group known as apostles and were first hand observers of the events. John was on hand at Calvary when Jesus died. The Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark, a disciple of the apostle Peter, and was traditionally believed to have been based on the sermons that Peter preached on the subject of Christ. The Gospel of Luke was written by a disciple and traveling companion of Paul. It is traditionally believed that he got most of his information from Paul and by interviewing many other eye witnesses of the events during Paul’s imprisonment in Palestine prior to his 1^st Roman imprisonment. We will discuss Paul’s testimony shortly.

Outside of the Synoptic Gospels, John confirms a similar prediction by Jesus when speaking to the Scribes and Pharisees: "Jesus answered and said to them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews therefore said, 'It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and will You raise it up in three days?' But He was speaking of the temple of His body" Therefore, the consistent testimony of the eye witnesses is that Jesus predicted that He would rise from the dead three days after His crucifixion.

The Death of Jesus

In the very beginning of his classic novel, “A Christmas Carol”, Charles Dickens wrote, “There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.” It is nonsensical to talk about a resurrection unless we have first established that a death actually occurred. Thus, it is important to examine what the witnesses say concerning the manner and certainty of the death of Jesus. The importance of establishing that fact will also be apparent when we examine the “Swoon Theory” in the final section of this work.

Each of the Gospels record the death of Jesus by crucifixion by Roman soldiers as sentenced by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. It should be noted that few people in the world of Jesus’ day were better versed in death than the soldiers of the Roman Empire. They performed hundreds of crucifixion every year and were not in the habit of taking anyone down from a cross who they were not 100% sure was 100% dead. Normally they left the corpses on the cross until they rotted or were eaten by carrion. In the case of the crucifixion of Jesus we are told that, in respect o the approaching Jewish holy days, they chose accelerate the process by breaking the legs of the victims. This would prevent them from being able to raise themselves up to exhale and draw yet another breathe. Death by suffocation followed quickly. But the testimony we read in John’s Gospel tells us of two witnesses to the certainty of the death of Jesus from the Roman soldiers. In John 19:32-33 we read:

So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him;but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.

The first testimony is seen in the actions of the Romans. They were under orders to break the legs of the prisoners to speed death. But when they came to Jesus what they saw told them that He was already dead. Again, these are men with a more than passing knowledge of the face of death. They knew all too well the physical look of death and the involuntary processes that the body undergoes at the moment of death. Their experience told them that Jesus was dead, but they didn’t take any chances. They knew what could happen to them if they let someone down from a cross who wasn’t really dead… they themselves would end up on one. So they tested the body to ensure their opinion was accurate. In verse 34 of that same chapter we are told, “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” This is the second testimony that John, the only disciple actually at the cross, witnessed from the actions of the soldiers. The breakdown of the blood told them that Jesus was truly dead. Finally, we have the personal testimony of the Centurion who led the execution party given to Pilate himself. In Mark’s Gospel we read:

Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the Council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God; and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate wondered if He was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether He was already dead. And ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

The Centurion bore personal witness to the governor of Judea himself that the prisoner known as Jesus of Nazareth was truly and legally dead. We now have the eye witness testimony of John and of the Roman soldiers who carried out the execution that the body brought down from that cross and laid in the tomb was indeed lifeless.

In the next part we’ll look at more evidences.