Previous article:Pictures of the Resurrection

Posted on Nov 03, 2025 by Mike LeDuke

Over and over throughout the Old Testament, one can see pictures of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Scripture proves that Jesus rose from the dead, simply because it repeatedly, through symbology, predicted it. Many unconnected authors, over centuries, painted pictures of Christ’s death and resurrection that only now come to light in hindsight. They were not a furtive attempt to predict a miracle, but rather many disparate events that, in light of a miracle, come together to create a beautiful tapestry. Scripture proves the resurrection.

Yet we can go further. Though Scripture alone is convincing, we can also see that history affirms the event. Certainly, historically, Jesus existed. Almost all historians agree that the proof is overwhelming. Josephus, a Jewish historian, mentioned him twice (even though the first instance appears to have been corrupted).^[1] The Talmud, a sacred Jewish text compiled around 500 CE, works off of the assumption that Jesus existed, even though it would have been more convenient for him to have been left out.^[2] Not only so, but these Talmudic entries refer to him as “Jesus the Nazarene” and discuss his teachings as though he were a rabbi — just as the biblical record says. In secular sources, Tacitus, a second-century Roman historian, mentions “Christ,” who was executed under Pontius Pilate.^[3] Suetonius, another Roman historian, describes Christ as a Jewish instigator.^[4] The historical record not only proves that Jesus existed, but that he taught as a Jewish rabbi and was crucified by the Romans.

But what about the resurrection?

Surely if historical documents discussed the resurrection, they would be well-known. Indeed, there are no historical documents, outside of the biblical texts themselves, that argue for Jesus’ resurrection (because, circularly, those who came to believe in the resurrection would have thus become Christians and thereby disqualified themselves as being treated as “unbiased” historical sources). Nevertheless, the historical documents we’ve already considered do enough. Because think about this: historically, we know that Jesus existed; historically, we know that Jesus was crucified.

Then what happened? A group of people began to claim that he was alive. There’s a simple and dramatic way to prove that the resurrection never happened. All that a doubter from that time had to do was produce the body or take people to the tomb, which should have still had a stone in front of it.

But no one could. No one could show the body and no one could argue that the tomb wasn’t empty. They couldn’t logically put a stop to Christianity.

How do we know?

Because if they had, everything about Christianity would have fallen apart immediately. A belief in Christ found its entire basis on the doctrine that Christ was raised. Thus, the existence of Christianity itself testifies not only to Jesus’ existence, but to the empty tomb.

— Dr. Jason Hensley, PhD.

^[1] Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, trans. William Whiston (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004), 18.3.3.; 20.9.1.

^[2] Avodah Zarah 17a:1; Sanhedrin 103a:14; Berakhot 17b:1.

^[3] Tacitus, quoted in The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus, edited by Craig Evans (New York: Routlede, 2014).

^[4] Suetonius, quoted in Robert Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), 30.