But what about…
Four easy answers that don't work.
When people try to explain away the resurrection, these four answers come up most. Here's why none of them fits the evidence.
Roman soldiers executed people for a living. Jesus was flogged, then hung on a cross from about nine in the morning until three in the afternoon (Mark 15:15, 25, 34). A soldier made sure with a spear. Even Tacitus, who despised Christians, records that Christus was executed by Pontius Pilate. And a half-dead man limping out of a tomb wouldn't convince anyone he'd beaten death.
Mark 15:15–37 · John 19:33–34Hallucinations are private, like dreams. Paul lists appearances to groups: the Twelve together, and 500 people at once. Even Gerd Lüdemann, an atheist scholar who argues they were visions, grants that it is “historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.” The question isn't whether they saw something. It's what they saw.
Gary Habermas, “The Minimal Facts Approach to the Resurrection of Jesus”Who? The Romans and the temple leaders wanted that body right where it was. If the disciples took it, they knew the story was fake, and they suffered for it anyway. People will die for a lie they think is true, but not for one they made up themselves. Notice too that the earliest counter-story, “his disciples came during the night and stole him away,” admits the tomb was empty (Matthew 28:11–15).
Matthew 28:11–15 · Acts 12:2Legends take generations. Paul's report goes back to the first few years after the cross, while eyewitnesses were still around to check it.
Gary Habermas, “The Minimal Facts Approach to the Resurrection of Jesus”