We believe Christ’s resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history. To prove this, we do not need to presuppose anything controversial (e.g. that miracles happen). But the skeptic must also not presuppose anything (e.g. that they do not). We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true. We do not need to presuppose that there really was an empty tomb or post-resurrection appearances, as recorded. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard data, empirical data, which no one denies: The existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today.

The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?

There are five possible theories: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.

1. Jesus died. Jesus rose. [ Christianity ]

2. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceived. [Hallucination]

3. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles myth-makers [ Myth ]

4. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceivers [ Conspiracy ]

5. Jesus didn’t die. [ Swoon ]

Read it all.

A joyous #Easter! He is risen. “Resurrection of Christ” by Caravaggio, 1620 pic.twitter.com/BuFU53pOcX

— Justine Brown's Bookshelf (@brown_bookshelf) March 31, 2024

Take the time to watch and listen to it all.

Lyrics:

There ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
There ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
When I hear that trumpet sound
I’m gonna rise right out of the ground
Ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
Well, I look way down the river
What do you think I see?
I see a band of angels
And they’re coming after me
Ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
There ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
Well, look down yonder, Gabriel
Put your feet on the land and sea
But Gabriel, don’t you blow your trumpet
Till you hear from me
There ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
Ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
Well, meet me, Jesus, meet me
Meet me in the middle of the air
And if these wings don’t fail me
I will meet you anywhere
Ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
There ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
Well, meet me, mother and father
Meet me down the river road
And mama, you know that I’ll be there
When I check in my load
There ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down
There ain’t no grave
Can hold my body down

From there:

It is not a major production at all, and the minor attractions we have created around it—the bunnies and baskets and bonnets, the dyed eggs—have so little to do with what it’s all about that they neither add much nor subtract much. It’s not really even much of a story when you come right down to it, and that is of course the power of it. It doesn’t have the ring of great drama. It has the ring of truth. If the Gospel writers had wanted to tell it in a way to convince the world that Jesus indeed rose from the dead, they would presumably have done it with all the skill and fanfare they could muster. Here there is no skill, no fanfare. They seem to be telling it simply the way it was. The narrative is as fragmented, shadowy, incomplete as life itself. When it comes to just what happened, there can be no certainty. That something unimaginable happened, there can be no doubt.

The symbol of Easter is the empty tomb. You can’t depict or domesticate emptiness. You can’t make it into pageants and string it with lights. It doesn’t move people to give presents to each other or sing old songs. It ebbs and flows all around us, the Eastertide. Even the great choruses of Handel’s Messiah sound a little like a handful of crickets chirping under the moon.

He rose. A few saw him briefly and talked to him. If it is true, there is nothing left to say. If it is not true, there is nothing left to say. For believers and unbelievers both, life has never been the same again. For some, neither has death. What is left now is the emptiness. There are those who, like Magdalen, will never stop searching it till they find his face.

Happy #Easter! One of the most important Christian holidays, Easter commemorates the Resurrection of Christ – shown in this Rubens drawing pic.twitter.com/fTtmhTl0yv

— British Museum (@britishmuseum) April 16, 2017

From there:

Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to re-form
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us.

Is there no way
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.

Christ is risen! Easter blessings to all 🖼 Resurrection, Luca Giordano, 1665 #HappyEaster #Alleluia #AMDG pic.twitter.com/8sU4wqpY2m

— Joe Petriello (@joepetriello) April 12, 2020

O Lord God Almighty, whose blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ did on the third day rise triumphant over death: Raise us, we beseech thee, from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness, that we may seek those things which are above, where he sitteth on thy right hand in glory; and this we beg for the sake of the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Quite a stormy feel to today's sunrise picture. Taken on Glastonbury Tor this morning. pic.twitter.com/bewE0CWfUH

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) April 4, 2024