He is Risen: Evidence beyond Reasonable Doubt...Continued from page 2

Applying "Deliberative Reason”Earlier this year, the Discovery Channel aired The Lost Tomb of Jesus — a James Cameron production documenting the “discovery” of a cave containing the remains of Jesus and his family. The filmmakers reached their conclusion based on “close work with world-famous scientists” involving paleography and DNA analysis.
Nevertheless, Amos Kloner, the Jewish archaeologist who wrote the official report on the cave ten years ago, concluded that the "possibility of it being Jesus' family [is] very close to zero.” Among the scholarly critiques was that of Dr. Ben Witherington, who compared the documentary to Cameron’s Oscar-winning film, Titanic — a boat “full of holes.”

But just think — if this cave did contain the remains of Jesus, it would be nigh impossible to verify 2000 years later. Although DNA might be able to establish the relationships between those buried in the cave, it couldn’t establish a positive ID on any one of them. And who’s to say that the inscriptions on the ossuaries haven’t been tampered with, or that the names — which were all quite common in that period — weren’t those of another family? That said, in the days, weeks and months after Jesus’s death, the discovery of his corpse would have been certain.
Both the Jewish leadership and the Roman authorities were not only highly motivated to quash any resurrection ruse, but had the political muscle and wherewithal to extract confessions and find the body, if indeed it existed. That no such evidence came forth is reflected in the late first century account by the Jewish historian, Josephus:
Now there was about this time Jesus [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (Antiquities 18.3.3)
There are several remarkable things about this passage. First, Josephus was a member of the community most offended by the Christian message. Second, there is no hint of criticism about the reports of Christ’s post-resurrection appearances; to the contrary, Josephus seems to give credence to the apostolic account. Third, Josephus’ indictment of his countrymen and his Roman rulers was sure to rile both groups, and stands as a testimony to his objectivity. And lastly, this first-century account runs counter to the historical revisionists who propose that Christ’s divinity was a concoction of a fourth-century theocracy.
The disciples’ case is so strong that Irwin H. Linton, a lawyer who has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, writes that the resurrection "is not only so established that the greatest lawyers have declared it to be the best proved fact of all history, but it is so supported that it is difficult to conceive of any method or line of proof that it lacks which would make [it] more certain." Even for lawyers not inclined to accept the Christian message, Linton goes on to say that they have been “unable to refute the irresistible force of the cumulative evidence upon which such faith rests."