The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ Historically Occurred

IntroductionWhen trying to argue for the proposition that Jesus was resurrected by God, a necessary condition would be to first prove the existence of God. By looking through my opponent's profile, I can see that they at least agree that some kind of God exists, so I will not burden the length of this debate by adding in unnecessary arguments. The second necessary condition for Jesus' resurrection is that there is a God who does intervene in human affairs and performs miracles.Argument 1: God Intervenes with MiraclesDr. Craig Keener received a Ph. D in New Testament Studies and Christian Origins from Duke University. He has written a book, entitled “Miracles” (1). Short dialogues with him addressing the issues of modern day miracles can be found on youtube (2).A summary of Keener's arguments goes like this:Throughout history and throughout the world, there have been thousands of miracle claims. While it is obviously likely that many of the claims can be false or have psychosomatic explanations, it is important to investigate this issue to see if any of these claims do lead to good evidence of divine intervention. In the book, a variety of miraculous claims are explored, from healing of illnesses, resurrections, and even power over nature. In eastern societies, Christianity is spreading at a rapid rate merely because of the instances of miracles. Given the numerous accounts of these instances, and the direct correlations to people praying in the name of the Christian God immediately before the event of sudden healing or resurrection, it seems there are two options for explanation: coincidence or divine intervention. I grant that my opponent may readily defend the position that mere coincidence can explain all these miracles. To counter this, I propose that this position is the less likely explanation by way of principle. For an analogy, imagine you are the owner of a poker house. You see that a certain player continually wins great money by having statistically unlikely hands. Now, it is possible that this player may be very lucky, but you, as the owner, are justified in acting out on the assumption that the player is intentionally cheating. You investigate this player to find if he uses any cheating methods, and if you find any, you ban him from your building.If God exists, and it is more likely to assume that God does intervene in human affairs, and multiple resurrections have been recorded in human history, then it leaves open the possibility that Jesus was also resurrected.Having fulfilled the two necessary conditions for the main proposition, I move on to:Argument 2: The Empty TombThe Nazareth Inscription (3) is an edict from Caesar criminalizing by death the act of removing a body from a tomb, describing that someone had done so for religious purposes. This edict fits the historical event of the empty tomb of Jesus. Jesus' tomb was empty, and this caused many people to formulate a religion, namely Christianity.Argument 3: The Eyewitness Testimony of the GospelsJames Warner Wallace is a homicide detective, and has been featured on Fox, truTv, and NBC. He decided to apply his investigative skills on the four gospel accounts to see if the claims of Jesus' resurrection was reliable. After investigating these claims, he switched from atheism to Christianity, and wrote a book entitled, “Cold-Case Christianity” (4).Given that Wallace was a master at being a detective, and that he regularly had to piece together different testimonies to come to understand the actual event, it shows that the four gospel accounts are also likely to have testimonies reliable enough to warrant the conclusion of Jesus' resurrection. Wallace argues that, when investigating a crime, it's important to immediately separate the different witnesses so that they don't share their story. Having slightly alternate accounts is part of human nature, and those different accounts allow him to find the truth easier, rather than having one combined account from all the witnesses. Argument 4: Jesus was ResurrectedIn my second argument, I have shown that there was indeed a Jesus whose body disappeared, and a religion formed around him. What is now important is to figure out how and why the religion formed.The first possibility is that Jesus was truly resurrected, he appeared to his followers, and this inspired them to spread the good news to as much of the world as possible.The second possibility is that his disciples stole his body. This is unlikely, because this would require the early followers of Jesus to have spent their whole lives in persecution and were ultimately killed because of something they knew to be a lie. Because it his highly unlikely for people to die for something they know to be a lie, this scenario is a bad explanation.The third possibility is that Jesus' disciples all hallucinated his appearances. While this scenario does explain most things, it relies on a proposition that has never been demonstrated- mass hallucination. Because this type of thing has never been recorded, this scenario remains highly unlikely/There are other numerous possibilities, each requiring some proposition that is highly unlikely or improbable. In order for my opponent to disprove the claim that Jesus was resurrected, they must adequately defend some other possibility. ConclusionThe best historical explanation of the evidence leads to Jesus being resurrected, and this miracle, along with numerous others, caused Christianity to spread throughout the world and become the biggest religion the world has ever seen.References:1 (2011). Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2 3 http://www.biblearchaeology.org...4 J. Warner Wallace. Cold-Case Christianity, January 1, 2013, David C. Cook, ISBN 1-434-70469-6