Christianity is true or not true based on whether Jesus rose from the dead. (see here). Even the apostle Paul admits this when he says, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins ... If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." (1 Cor. 15: 17, 19) Since Jesus was a real person who lived in first century Israel, we can study the historical facts of his life and death. Since the New Testament we have today is reliable, as well as the most comprehensive volume about the life of Jesus, we will use the New Testament as our primary source (see here). Since the authors were biased towards Christianity, we will put aside the miraculous claims made without making judgment on their truth or falsity (see here). Again, this is not an exhaustive review of apologetics, and there are multiple extraBiblical sources, the review of which is beyond the scope of this website. See the Resources section. In the next few sections we'll look at some of the events of the last week of Jesus' life before crucifixion, and then a few circumstances about his burial. The facts that we establish here will be important when we start to develop alternative naturalistic explanations for what may have happened. |
