In my last post I talked about how important the resurrection of Christ Jesus is to whether or not Jesus truly is God. Now I will go into why the resurrection is true. If we were in an American courtroom and there were 500 hundred people who witnessed the defendant in the case commit a crime then the case would be closed. It is just the same with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have documentation that at one time 500 people saw him alive after he had died. See what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth in the year 56 AD, just 23 years after Jesus was crucified. 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. I want to direct your attention to verse 6 where Paul makes the claim that Jesus appeared to over 500 people. Most of who were alive when he wrote this. Let's remember the time period in which this is written. The Jews and Romans were persecuting Christians, even murdering them. If Paul makes the assertion that 500 people saw Jesus after he was dead and it was not true, then Christianity would not exist today. All of those Jews and Romans that opposed Jesus' resurrection could have done many things to show that Paul was not telling the truth. First they could have easily opened the tomb and shown everyone Jesus' body and Christianity would have died. The Jews and Romans also could have called out Christians on their assertion of 500 witnesses. If the Christians couldn't produce these witnesses then Christianity would have died. They can't all be lying, nor can Paul, if they were lying, many out of those 500 would give up the lie and everyone would realize the Resurrection was false. Christianity did not die because none of these things happened. Christian in that day had irrefutable evidence that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. 500 witnesses close the case. Jesus was seen after he died by many people. In my next post I will cover the conspiracy theories that try to explain how Jesus was seen after he had died, and show how they are not true.

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