We saw in yesterday’s blog that the New Testament contains letters which were written to explain important things about what Christians believe. We start in the same part of the Bible today:
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. (1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 3)
Paul, who wrote the letter, claims that Christ not only died and was buried but also rose again. As evidence of this he says that He was seen by Cephas (that is Peter), by ‘the twelve’ (in other words the disciples) by over 500 believers, most of whom were still alive when Paul wrote, by James by all the apostles and finally by Paul himself. By any standards that is pretty convincing: three named individuals, one of whom was the writer of the letter himself, by 500 believers, most of whom were still alive able to contradict Paul if they so wished and by two groups (disciples and apostles.)
So what about the contemporary eye-witness accounts? Are they equally convincing? For these we draw on Matthew chapter 28, Mark chapter 16, Luke chapter 24 and John chapters 20 and 21.

• Two women, both called Mary and a woman called Salome, went to the tomb where the body of Jesus had been laid and were told ‘He is not here; for He is risen’ and were invited to see the empty tomb
• As they went to pass on the good news they met and spoke with Jesus. He was clearly alive.
• His disciples then met Him and He spoke with them
• Peter saw the empty tomb and later saw and have a conversation with the risen Jesus
• Two people travelling saw and conversed with Jesus, again clearly alive
• A man called Thomas, who had refused to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead, met Him and saw for Himself

By any standards of evidence and corroboration the claim that Jesus rose from the dead is irrefutable. We’ll see tomorrow in our final blog of the week the import this has on our lives today.