Scientists prove Jesus rose from the dead!

Jerusalem, April 1, 2019. After two years of intensive study, a conference consisting of nearly one thousand leading historians, archaeologists, and bio-chemists have concluded that a recent cache of documents and artifacts found buried near the Dome of the Rock prove conclusively that a Jewish prophet named Jesus was crucified by the Romans and rose from the dead.

“The DNA samples simply cannot be refuted,” said Nobel laureate Ronald Q. Symonson. “The evidence is overwhelming. Somehow this first-century Jew who was crucified by the Romans died and came back to life after several days.”

Even Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and confirmed atheist, had to admit the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection was as convincing as the evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar.

“There is no reasonable doubt,” said Dawkins, “This resurrection of a first-century Jewish sage or prophet or what have you named Jesus is an historical fact.”

Asked whether this meant he was revising his views about God, Dawkins replied:

“Why should I? Just because a man rose from the dead doesn’t mean there is some supernatural being that caused it. We just have to revise our scientific thinking to conclude that somehow it is possible for the cellular structure of apparently dead people to be altered in some way so they can rise from the dead. Look, that’s what happened to that neurologist Eben Alexander who wrote a best-selling book "Proof of Heaven." He was brain-dead for a week, and he revived. That’s a fact. All that nonsense he spouted about having gone to heaven is another matter. That’s just delusional, just like those early Christians who imagined that Jesus flew up to heaven.”

I think you see where I am going with my hypothetical news story.  Resurrection from the dead is not in and of itself good news. If you lack faith in God, if you have never experienced the wonder and mystery of the Divine, then even a seeming miracle like resurrection becomes just another fact.

It’s like the unusual ability of the "resurrection plant' (Selaginella lepidophylla), which my wife Kathleen of blessed memory shared with kids at Sunday school to illustrate how Jesus rose from the dead. This desert plant is able to transform itself from a dry and seemingly dead state to vibrant life in a few minutes when dipped into water. To most people, this seems miraculous. To a biologist, it’s an interesting example of adaptive behavior on the part of a desert plant.

The same would be true if it could be shown that a man called Jesus rose from the dead. To a scientist, this would be simply another interesting scientific fact.

Yet for some, there is still the desire to know "beyond a reasonable doubt" if the Gospel story is true. How can one prove the resurrection “beyond a reasonable doubt” to someone who has not experienced the risen Christ?

One of the most powerful proofs for the resurrection I know is that those who witnessed this event were willing to stake their lives on the reality of their experience.
This is "judicial proof." For example, when a jury of nine men and women hear evidence accusing a man of murder, they must affirm that they are convinced “beyond a shadow of doubt” that the defendant committed the crime and therefore deserves to die. The law, and most people, believe that such a process proves guilt.
If such proof is strong enough to justify the taking of a human life, how much more convincing it would be if nine witnesses said: “I saw what happened and I am convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this man did not commit a crime. He actually did his best to save the life of the murdered man.” If the witnesses were so sure of what they saw that they were willing to die rather than repudiate their testimony, this would certainly constitute "proof beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Suppose that not nine but hundreds, thousands of witnesses, claim that they experienced something they called “the risen Christ.” This of course is not hypothetical. This is what happened in the early days of Christianity, and continues to happen to this day.  Ordinary men and women became willing to sacrifice their lives in the belief that they had this transforming and empowering experience.

Does this prove conclusively that Christ rose from the dead?

I would say yes, but you must decide for yourself, based on your own experience and epistemology.* I ask only that you be willing to suspend your disbelief and be open to the possibility that there is more to life than our finite minds can grasp. If you are open to this possibility, you may experience something life-transforming. I can testify from my own experience that the presence of the risen Christ has changed my life beyond what I could possibly have imagined!

*Since writing this essay, I have run across a little book called The Case for Easter, by a hard-headed journalist named Lee Strobel. Stobel interviews some of the top Biblical scholars in the world, who make the case that what is described in the Gospels is not myth, but a plausible historical reality. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to explore the possibility that Jesus was in fact crucified and rose from the dead.