Are the gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection reliable? Or did the Apostles make the whole thing up? Karlo Broussard discusses why we can believe the gospels when it comes to their account of the resurrection narrative.
Transcript:
Often when confronted with the apostles’ claim that Jesus rose from the dead people ask if they made this stuff up. And I don’t fault them because ‘a man rising from the dead’ is an extraordinary claim. A healthy skepticism is in order when it comes to such things.
So, did they make it up? I don’t think so, and here are a few reasons why.
First, the early Christians had nothing to gain and everything to lose in lying about Jesus’ Resurrection. As Paul argues in 1Corinthians 15, if they still believed in God, then they would be bearing false witness, in which case they would merit damnation. Not much to gain there! Paul then considers what they might gain from the lie if they were unbelievers and didn’t believe in God or the Resurrection. His conclusion? Persecution and death! Having nothing to gain from the lie makes the early Christian testimony very credible.
The second reason I don’t think the early Christians were making this stuff up is they include women as the first witnesses. This detail wouldn’t have served the apostles story well since, according to first-century Jewish historian, Josephus, the testimony of women in first-century Judaism wasn’t considered reliable. If the Gospel writers were fabricating this story, you would think they would have chosen men—not women—to be the first witnesses.
So, while it’s natural to have a healthy form of skepticism when faced with the early Christian claims about Jesus’ resurrection, we can be sure they were sincere and weren’t making it up.
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For Catholic Answers, I’m Karlo Broussard. Thanks for watching.