"Dead men stay dead. The Resurrection is a legend that grew over time." That is a reasonable starting point. So let's look at the evidence.
Short answer: Yes. The Resurrection is the best explanation of facts that are hard to explain any other way: a very early list of eyewitnesses, an empty tomb, appearances to individuals and groups, and the sudden transformation of frightened disciples and two skeptics, St. Paul and St. James. No rival theory accounts for all of these facts together.
Key verses on the Resurrection
- "That he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:4)
- "He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living" (1 Corinthians 15:6)
- "He has been raised; he is not here. Behold, the place where they laid him" (Mark 16:6)
- "Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have" (Luke 24:39)
- "The one who once was persecuting us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy" (Galatians 1:23)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What Catholics Actually Teach
"The mystery of Christ's resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness" (CCC 639). Given the testimony, "it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact" (CCC 643). Yet it also "transcends and surpasses history" (CCC 647).
What Catholics do not teach:
- That the Resurrection is a symbol. Jesus showed He "is not a ghost" by touch and by eating (CCC 645).
- That Jesus was revived like Lazarus. Lazarus would die again. "Christ's Resurrection is essentially different" (CCC 646).
- That anyone saw Him rise. "No one was an eyewitness to Christ's Resurrection and no evangelist describes it" (CCC 647). The witnesses saw the empty tomb and the risen Jesus.
The Case: The Historical Evidence
Treat the New Testament simply as a set of ancient documents for now, and weigh them as a historian weighs any ancient source. Here is what they show.
1. A very early list of witnesses
"For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day... that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve" (1 Corinthians 15:3–5). St. Paul wrote this "in about A.D. 56" (CCC 639). "Handed on" and "received" is the language of passing on a fixed tradition, and St. Paul had met Cephas (St. Peter) and St. James in Jerusalem a few years after his conversion (Galatians 1:18–19). Scholars across the spectrum date this formula to within a few years of the crucifixion; even Gerd Lüdemann, who denies a bodily resurrection, placed it within the first two years. The claim goes back to the first years, not to legends decades later. St. Paul even adds that most of the five hundred "are still living" (1 Corinthians 15:6). Go and ask them.
2. The empty tomb
Jesus was buried by a named public figure, "Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council," in "a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock" (Mark 15:43–46). Women found it empty (Mark 16:4–6). Their report "seemed like nonsense" even to the apostles (Luke 24:11). An invented story would hardly rest on witnesses its own heroes dismissed. Even the opposing story, "His disciples came by night and stole him" (Matthew 28:13), admits the tomb was empty.
The Church is honest: the empty tomb "is not a direct proof," since "the absence of Christ's body from the tomb could be explained otherwise" (CCC 640). It matters because of what came next.
3. Appearances, to individuals and groups
He appeared to St. Peter, to the Twelve, to "more than five hundred brothers at once," and to St. James (1 Corinthians 15:5–7). He "presented himself alive to them by many proofs... during forty days" (Acts 1:3). He invited touch, "Touch me and see," and "took it and ate it in front of them" (Luke 24:39–43).
4. Frightened men became fearless
On Easter evening the disciples hid behind locked doors "for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19). Weeks later they told the authorities, "It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20). Flogged, they left "rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name" (Acts 5:40–41). People may die for a lie they believe. It is much harder to suffer for a claim you know you invented, and the apostles were in a position to know.
5. St. Paul, the persecutor
St. Paul "persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it" (Galatians 1:13). He was a Pharisee, "in zeal I persecuted the church" (Philippians 3:5–6). Then: "Last of all... he appeared to me" (1 Corinthians 15:8). An enemy became the movement's greatest missionary.
6. St. James, the skeptic
During Jesus' ministry, "his brothers did not believe in him" (John 7:5). Yet "he appeared to James" (1 Corinthians 15:7), and St. James became a leader of the Jerusalem Church (Galatians 1:19; Acts 15:13). The Jewish historian Josephus records his execution by stoning (see below). (Catholics understand "brothers" here as "close relations of Jesus"; CCC 500.)
Objections Answered
(a) "They had hallucinations."
At its strongest: Grieving people sometimes see or hear a loved one who has died. The disciples were grieving. St. Paul's experience involved "a light from the sky" (Acts 9:3).
Answer: A hallucination is an experience inside one mind. It does not explain repeated appearances, over "forty days," to individuals and to groups, including "more than five hundred brothers at once." The disciples did not expect a resurrection; they thought the women's report was "nonsense" and the risen Jesus a ghost (Luke 24:11; CCC 643–644). Hallucinations do not empty a tomb or eat fish. And St. Paul and St. James were not grieving followers: one was an enemy, the other a skeptic. As the Catechism says, the theory that the Resurrection "was produced by the apostles' faith (or credulity) will not hold up" (CCC 644).
(b) "Someone stole the body."
At its strongest: This is the oldest alternative explanation (Matthew 28:13), and a missing body has many possible causes (CCC 640).
Answer: First, notice what the theft story concedes. St. Matthew says it "has circulated among the Jews to the present [day]" (Matthew 28:15), and around AD 155–160 (date approximate) St. Justin Martyr reports the same charge: "his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross" (Dialogue with Trypho 108). Both sides agreed the tomb was empty. The only dispute was why.
So, stolen by whom? If the disciples took it, they suffered for what they knew was a lie. If the authorities took it, they had every reason to produce it and end the preaching. And a theft explains none of the appearances, least of all to St. Paul and St. James.
(c) "It's a legend that grew over time."
At its strongest: The Gospels were written decades later by believers, and they differ in details.
Answer: The creed in 1 Corinthians 15 is older than the Gospels, reaches back to the first few years, and names living witnesses, among them St. Peter and St. James, whom St. Paul knew personally (Galatians 1:18–19). Legends need time to grow; here there was almost none. Differences in secondary details, such as how many women went to the tomb, are typical of independent accounts. All agree on the core: Jesus died, was buried, the tomb was found empty, and He appeared alive.
(d) "Miracles don't happen, so any natural explanation wins."
At its strongest: David Hume argued that "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature," that "A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence," and that uniform experience stands against any miracle. So "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish" (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 10.4, 10.12, 10.13).
Answer: We accept Hume's rule: proportion belief to the evidence. But the Christian claim is not that dead men rise by the laws of nature. It is that God raised Jesus. The laws of nature describe what happens when nothing beyond nature acts; they cannot tell us that nothing beyond nature exists. That is a separate question, and reason has strong answers to it (see Does God Exist? Five Arguments from Reason). If God exists, a resurrection is not impossible, only rare, and the evidence must decide. Ruling it out before looking assumes the conclusion. Now apply Hume's own test. Which is more incredible: that God raised Jesus, or that private hallucinations, a conceded empty tomb, the conversion of an enemy, the conversion of a skeptic, and the courage of frightened men all happened to line up by chance?
(e) "Jesus didn't really die."
At its strongest: Crucifixion could take days, yet Jesus died within hours. Even Pilate "was amazed that he was already dead" (Mark 15:44). Perhaps He was taken down unconscious and revived in the cool tomb.
Answer: Pilate's surprise is why he checked. "He summoned the centurion and asked him if Jesus had already died," and only "when he learned of it from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph" (Mark 15:44–45). A soldier "thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out" (John 19:34). The hostile Tacitus says plainly that Christus "suffered the extreme penalty." Skeptical historians today generally accept that Jesus died on the cross. And a scourged, pierced, half-dead man limping out of a tomb would have inspired pity, not the conviction that He had conquered death.
Ancient Witnesses, Christian and Non-Christian
- Tacitus, Roman historian (Annals 15.44, early second century): "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus," after which "a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out" (Wikisource). A hostile witness to the execution and to the movement's surprising revival.
- Josephus, Jewish historian (Antiquities 20.200, c. AD 93): "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" was delivered "to be stoned" (Whiston translation). Nearly all scholars accept this passage as authentic. Josephus also mentions Jesus in Antiquities 18.63–64, but that passage is debated: as it survives, it says "He was [the] Christ" and that "he appeared to them alive again the third day." Most scholars today hold that it is partly authentic: Josephus wrote a shorter original about Jesus, and Christian copyists added lines like these. We place no weight on the disputed words (Whiston translation).
- Pope St. Clement I (St. Clement of Rome) (1 Clement, c. AD 96): the apostles went out preaching, "being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ" (ch. 42). He calls the risen Christ the pledge of our own resurrection, "of which He has rendered the Lord Jesus Christ the first-fruits by raising Him from the dead" (ch. 24).
- St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 107–110, date approximate): "after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh," and the apostles, convinced, "despised death" (Smyrnaeans 3). A bodily Resurrection, not a vision.
- St. Polycarp of Smyrna (Letter to the Philippians, early second century, date approximate): Christians "believed in Him who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead" (ch. 2); Christ "for our sakes was raised again by God from the dead" (ch. 9).
Conclusion
St. Paul staked everything on this: "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17). Christianity invites investigation because it makes a historical claim that can be tested.
If you are a skeptic, we respect that you want evidence. Weigh the early creed, the empty tomb, the appearances, and the changed lives of St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James. Then ask which explanation fits all the facts. St. Thomas doubted too, until he could only say, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).
Come and see. The risen Jesus whom St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James saw is proclaimed today by the Church those same apostles led, the Catholic Church. If God exists and Jesus rose from the dead, the next question is where He can be found today. He founded one Church on His apostles (Matthew 16:18) and sent her to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). That Church is the Catholic Church. We invite you to come and see.
Your next step: Come to Mass this Sunday at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. Everyone is welcome; if you're not yet Catholic, pray with us but don't receive Communion yet. When you're ready to become Catholic, call the parish office and ask about OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They will walk you through every step. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Do non-Christian sources mention Jesus? Yes. Tacitus records His execution under Pontius Pilate, and Josephus names "Jesus, who was called Christ" when reporting the death of St. James.
Was the Resurrection like the raising of Lazarus? No. Lazarus returned to ordinary life and died again. Christ's risen body passed "to another life beyond time and space" (CCC 646).
Why didn't the risen Jesus appear to everyone? "The risen Christ does not reveal himself to the world, but to his disciples," who became "his witnesses to the people" (CCC 647).
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Matthew 16:18; Matthew 28:11–15; Matthew 28:19; Mark 15:43–46; Mark 16:4–8; Luke 24:11; Luke 24:39–43; John 7:5; John 19:33–35; John 20:19, 27–28; Acts 1:3; Acts 4:20; Acts 5:40–41; Acts 9:3–5; Acts 15:13; 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, 17; Galatians 1:13–23; Philippians 3:5–6.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 500; 639, 640, 643, 644, 645, 646, 647.
Early Christian writers (newadvent.org): St. Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians 24, 42; St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 3; St. Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians 2, 9; St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 108 (ANF vol. 1).
Non-Christian historians: Tacitus, Annals 15.44 (trans. A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb); Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.63–64 and 20.200 (trans. William Whiston, via Lexundria).
Philosophy: David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 10, "Of Miracles" (davidhume.org).