We are going alphabetically through difficult Bible stories, characters, and themes. Right now we are exploring the life of Jesus.

Of course, the most crucial question has to do with the resurrection story about Jesus. Did it happen? Let’s start with the minimal facts approach, which focuses only on those data that are so strongly attested historically that they are granted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones.

So here are six of these minimal facts – Jesus died by crucifixion, Jesus’s disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them, the church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed, the skeptic James (brother of Jesus) was suddenly changed, the church started in Jerusalem, and the tomb was empty. Any theory about what happened to Jesus has to account for these six facts.

There have been plenty of alternate theories, but each seems to have problems. For example, some suggest the disciples had hallucinations, which accounted for their idea that Jesus appeared to them. But hallucinations cannot account for the empty tomb or the conversion of Paul.

Maybe the story was a legend that developed over time? But it can be established that those original disciples sincerely believed that the risen Jesus had appeared to them and taught it within a very short period of time after his crucifixion. And they started the church in Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified, so people in that city would not join a new organization based on a lie or deception.

Then there’s the swoon theory – Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. Instead, he was taken down alive and recovered in the tomb, later appearing to the disciples. Can you see problems with that theory?

Some time in your life you probably need to reach a conclusion about this claim because it was the focal point of writers of the New Testament. There is no room for ambiguity here. Either Jesus rose from the dead confirming his claims to divinity or he was a fraud.