The resurrection.

The historical evidence behind the claim that Jesus rose from the dead, item by item: what is known, how firmly, and how the explanations compare. Each item is graded on the same scale as the rest of the site.

The resurrection What outsiders said Archaeology Dating the crucifixion

Established 2Highly probable 2Probable 4Thinly attested 1Not supported 1Turns on background 1

Mark 15; Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Josephus

Jesus died by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate

Jesus was executed by crucifixion on the authority of Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea.

Established

1 Cor 15:4; Mark 15:42-47

Burial in a known tomb by Joseph of Arimathea

Jesus' body was placed in a known rock-cut tomb by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jerusalem council.

Probable

Mark 16:1-8; Matt 28; Luke 24; John 20

The tomb found empty by women

Within days of the crucifixion, women followers of Jesus found the tomb where he had been laid empty.

Probable

1 Cor 15:3-8

The early creed: "he was raised … and he appeared"

Paul hands on a formula he had received: Christ died, was buried, was raised, and appeared to Cephas and the Twelve.

Highly probable

1 Cor 15; Gal 1-2

His followers proclaimed him raised, within a few years

Within a few years of Jesus' death, some of his followers proclaimed that God had raised him and that he had appeared to them.

Highly probable

1 Cor 15:5-7

Appearances to groups

The early list includes the Twelve, "above five hundred brethren at once" and "all the apostles", but gives no details.

Thinly attested

1 Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19; Josephus, Antiquities 20.200

James, the brother of Jesus

James, apparently not a follower during the ministry, is listed among those who saw the risen Jesus and became the leader of the Jerusalem church.

Probable

Gal 1:13-17; 1 Cor 15:8-9

Paul, from persecutor to apostle

Paul, who persecuted the movement, attributed his turn to a revelation of the risen Jesus.

Established

Josephus; 1 Clement 5; Acts 12:2

Leaders who suffered and died for it

Several first-generation leaders, including James, Peter and Paul, were killed in connection with their faith.

Probable

1 Cor 15; Gal 1; Mark 15-16

Explanations the evidence counts against

Deliberate fabrication, survival of the crucifixion, pure legend, and visions alone do not fit the evidence.

Not supported

Allison 2021

The resurrection and the best natural account compared

Against the best natural account, the evidence alone comes out about even; the verdict depends on one's view of God and of Jesus.

Turns on background

← All items

The resurrection and the best natural account compared

Research gradeTurns on background

Sources: Allison 2021

The Christian case

The bodily resurrection explains the empty tomb and the appearances with a single cause. The best natural account needs a theft of the body within about a day and a half that, as Allison puts it, "must forever remain, in the nature of the case, hypothetical", followed by a series of experiences with "no close phenomenological parallel". Allison grants Christians, "with justice", that the natural account requires "an extraordinary confluence of remarkable circumstances". If God exists, and Jesus' life gave God reason to vindicate him (he claimed a messianic role, did deeds his contemporaries took as miracles, and was worshipped alongside God within about two decades of his death), the bodily resurrection is the better explanation. And if any supernatural element is accepted, the bodily form is the more economical one, because it also explains the tomb.

What the research found

Turns on background. On the historical evidence alone the two explanations come out about even. For someone who rules out God, the natural account is best; on bare theism the comparison is even; on theism with a reason to expect God to vindicate Jesus, the bodily resurrection is the better explanation, modestly. In Allison's words, "The data constrain us by limiting possibilities, not by excluding all possibilities save one." The arguments for and against God, examined elsewhere in this research, leave theism a live, contested position, so the resurrection is a reasonable conclusion, though not a compelled one.

Explore the counterarguments

Every part of the natural account is an ordinary, documented kind of event: the theft of bodies, experiences of the dead after bereavement, visions spreading through a group, and the reinterpretation of a leader's death. Paul's own experience was visionary in form. Real but non-bodily appearances would fit the appearance evidence just as well. Even a background favourable to theism, Allison concludes, "does not demand the orthodox Christian verdict".