The Resurrection

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The Resurrection CHARLES E. RICE

That Christ rose from the dead is an article of our faith. But we tend to overlook the fact that the resurrection was an historical event, just as much as the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Through our faith we know with absolute certainty that Christ rose from the dead. But we can give support to that faith by analyzing the resurrection as history. If you were to try to convinc e a jury that Christ really rose, you would have to answer several questions: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Did Christ die? Was he buried? Was the tomb empty on Easter? Where did the body go? There are only two alternatives: Somebody took it. Or Christ rose from the dead. If we exclude all the possibilities of the body having been taken we have to conclude that he rose. 5. Who could have taken the body? The realistic possibilities are: A. The Jews B. The Romans C. The Disc iples of Christ When we exclude these three possibilities and realize that there are no other realistically possible explanations, we have to conclude that Christ rose from the dead. 6. But was not the Resurrec tion a figment of the disc iples' imagination and were not the appearances of Christ after his Resurrection mere hallucinations? The answers to the above questions can be summarized as follows: 1. Did Christ die? There is no doubt that Jesus Christ was crucified. This is c onfirmed by non-Christian sources suc h as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Josephus. If Christ had not been crucified, the referenc es in the Gospels and Epistles to his c ruc ifixion would have been contradicted by his enemies. The crucifixion of Christ, in light of his miracles and his claim to be God, was a major public event of the time. Proof that Christ died from his crucifixion is found in the nature of crucifixion itself. This was a common mode of Roman execution and the procedures governing it were well settled in Roman law and military practice. Dr. Pierre Barbet, in his book, A Doctor at Calvary examines the medical aspec ts of the agony in the garden, the scourging, the crowning of Christ with thorns, his c arrying of his c ross, the method of c ruc ifixion and the methods used by the Roman soldiers to verify the deaths of those crucified. catholiceducation.org/…/printarticle.ht…

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1/3/2009and the methods used by the Print an Article: ThetoResurrection Roman soldiers verify the deaths of those crucified.

[Barbet, A Doc tor at Calvary (Doubleday, Image Books Edition, 1963)] The soldiers were duty bound, under penalty of their own deaths, to make absolutely c ertain that each crucified person died. In light of Dr. Barbet's analysis and in light of everything we know about the ritual of crucifixion, it is utterly unreasonable to believe that a crucified person c ould survive. This c ertainty is confirmed in Christ's case by the fac t that his was a most noteworthy execution and large crowds were watc hing to see if he would perform a miracle at the last moment to escape. And he was placed in the arms of his mother and buried by his mother and his friends in a cold, airless tomb. Would his mother and those others who loved him have entombed him if there had been the slightest sign that he was still alive? Finally, there were no claims made at the time by Christ's enemies that he did not die. It contradicts all the evidence to believe that Christ did not die. 2. Was he buried? This question can be answered briefly. The tomb was a very short distance from the place of execution. Joseph of Arimathea rec eived permission to take the body after Christ's death had been verified, the body was entombed and the Romans set a guard over the tomb. Nobody at the time or since has seriously questioned the fact that Christ was buried in that tomb. 3. Was the tomb empty on Easter? Of c ourse it was. If the body was still there, the Jewish leaders would have produc ed the body to refute the preaching and claims of the Christians. 4. Where did the body go? If Christ did not rise from the dead, somebody must have taken his lifeless body from the tomb. If we exclude all realistic possibilities of someone having taken the body, we must conclude that Christ rose under his own power. 5A. Did the Jews take the body? Certainly not. It was c ompletely against their interest to do so. 5B. Did the Romans take the body? They had no more reason than the Jews to take the body. The c laims of Christ were not only c ontrary to the beliefs and material interests of the Jews, they were regarded by the Romans as a threat to the Empire. Neither the Jews nor the Romans would have done anything that would support the claim that Christ had risen. 5C. Did the Apostles or other disciples of Christ take the body? To answer this we have to answer two further questions: How could they have taken it? And if they took the body, how c an we explain the transformation of the Apostles and their willingness to die for their belief in the Resurrec tion? How could the Apostles have taken the body? The tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers who could pay with their own lives for dereliction of duty. The only ways the Apostles could have got ten the body were by bribery or by force. With respec t to bribery, where would these poor men get the money? And how muc h money c ould induce a Roman soldier to hand over the body and thereby subjec t himself to the risk of capital punishment? We are not c ertain how many there were, but all of the guards would have had to have been bribed. Nor is it possible that the Apostles c ould have catholiceducation.org/…/printarticle.ht…

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had to have been bribed. Nor is it possible that the Apostles c ould have overpowered the guards and taken the body by forc e. The tomb was less than a quarter of a mile from Herod's palace. Any attempt to overpower the guards would have been heard. And would you really believe that the untrained Apostles would have been able to overc ome the heavily armed and trained soldiers on guard? If the Apostles stole the body and therefore knew that the claimed Resurrec tion was a fraud, would they have given up their lives for that claim? We know that most of the Apostles died as martyrs and all of them were willing to suffer martyrs' deaths. We can be sure that they must have been offered large bribes to renounc e and "expose" Christianity and they must have known that they faced virtually certain death if they refused to recant and if they continued to preac h. Yet none of them rec anted and all of them continued to preac h the risen Christ even at the pric e of their lives. It is a psyc hological impossibility that they would have so ac ted if they had known the Resurrection was a fraud. The transformation of the Apostles into heroic champions and martyrs for the faith makes it wholly unreasonable to believe that they had taken the body of Christ. The later conduc t of the Apostles and other Disc iples of Christ is explainable only on the grounds that they believed that they had seen the risen Christ; that belief could not have existed if they had taken the body. They were convinc ed that they had seen the risen Christ. It remains to be asked whether they actually did see what they thought they saw. 6. Did the Apostles and Disciples merely imagine that they had seen Christ? Were the appearances of Christ mere hallucinations? The fact that a witness dies for his professed belief makes it entirely credible tht he believes what he says. So we are certain that the Apostles believed that they had seen the risen Christ. Next we should ask whether the experiences they believed they had were the sort on which they could have been mistaken. The answer is no. It is inc redible that they could have been mistaken in thinking that Christ walked and talked with them, took food from them, ate part of it and gave the rest back to them, c ooked fish for breakfast on the shore, a breakfast which the Apostles themselves consumed. And so on. It is wholly unreasonable to think that the Apostles were deceived as to what they were certain they saw. Could Christ's appearanc es have been halluc inations? There are certain charac teristics of hallucinatory experiences whic h are not found in this case. Hallucinations c ommonly oc cur to high-strung people; but there is no reason to believe that all the people who saw Christ were of this type. Hallucinations are individualistic phenomena and it is highly unlikely that two people will have identic al halluc inations. But Christ is recorded as appearing to 500 people on one occ asion and on other occ asions to smaller groups of various sizes. Normally, hallucinations concern some expected event, but the evidence is convinc ing that the disciples were not expecting Christ to rise from the dead. Another factor is that the alleged hallucinations of Christ occurred at widely different times and circ umstances. And Christ's conduct at the time of his appearances was tangible. For example, he asked for food, ate some and gave the rest bac k to the Apostles; you c annot halluc inate a bite out of a hamburger. And if catholiceducation.org/…/printarticle.ht…

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the appearances were hallucinations, why did they suddenly stop after 40 days, at the time of the Ascension? And finally, if the appearanc es of Christ were hallucinations, how do you explain the empty tomb? If the appearanc es of Christ were not real, where was his body? If Christ did not really rise from the dead, the transformation of the Apostles and the spread and endurance of the Church in spite of persecution would be a greater mirac le than the Resurrec tion itself. A fair-minded jury examining the facts c ould only c onc lude that the Resurrection of Christ is as muc h a fact of history as is George Washington's c rossing of the Delaware. This is confirmed, incidentally, by the evidence of the Shroud of Turin. Scientists have demonstrated, as c onc lusively as science can, that the Shroud can be nothing other than the burial sheet in which. the body of Christ was wrapped in the tomb. [See, for example, Humber; The Sacred Shroud (1977); Barbet, A Doc tor at Calvary (Doubleday, Image Edition, 1963.)] If we were discussing any other historical event there would be no serious challenge to the reality of its occurrence. But because it concerns religion, the c lear historical proof of the Resurrec tion is rejected by some in favor of an absolute refusal to believe that such a miracle could occur. The evidence, how ever, demonstrates that not only is suc h a miracle possible, it actually happened. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Charles E. Rice. "The Resurrec tion" Chapter 12 in Truth in Christ: Notes on Teaching Some Elements of the Catholic Faith (Notre Dame, Indiana: Cashel Institute, 1983), 55-61. This artic le reprinted with permission from the author Charles E. Rice. THE AUTHOR Charles E. Rice is Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law Sc hool and Visiting Professor of Law at Ave Maria School of Law, Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has served as a consultant to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and to various Congressional c ommittees on c onstitutional issues and is an editor of the American Journal of Jurisprudence. Professor Rice is also c hairman of the Center for Law and Justic e International in New Hope, Kentuc ky, and a direc tor of the Thomas More Center for Law and Justic e in Ann Arbor. He is fac ulty advisor and an assistant c oac h of the Notre Dame Boxing Club. He and his wife, Mary, have ten c hildren and they reside in Mishawaka, Indiana. Professor Ric e is the author of many books, inc luding 50 Questions on the Natural Law: What It Is and Why We Need It and most recently The Winning Side: Questions on Living the Culture of Life. Copyright © 1983 Cashel Institute

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