Before starting to talk about how it can be proven that Jesus Christ truly rose from the dead, I believe it is necessary to make some preliminary remarks so that the non-acquainted reader will subsequently fully appreciate the power and the importance of showing how Jesus, from a historical point of view, truly rose from the dead.

As St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14: “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is worthless, and so is your faith”. This Pauline passage is fundamental because it underlines the objective nature of the Christian faith.

Christianity claims to be true just as it is true that you are reading this article. The “presumption” of Christianity is that it is completely true in every thing it describes and claims to be. Given the nature of objectivity which Christianity claims to have, such faith can be tested and falsified. If Christianity claims that Christ rose and He didn’t, Christianity fails and falls into the category of the countless delusional religions and philosophies.

But precisely because Christianity claims to be true, if such claims are put to test and at the end they result to be really true, the implications are enormous. In fact, Christianity claims to be the only truth (that is to say, its claims are exclusive in nature), claims to say how and where you will spend your eternity, claims to tell you what pleases or displease God, clams to have the only correct view of what the true meaning, value and purpose of life is.
As C.S. Lewis says: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

To be short, from what I just wrote, we can say that the study on the Resurrection of Jesus proves at least three things:

1) Christianity claims to be true, its nature is objective and not subjective. Hence your belief is not a matter of preference but of intellectual honesty.

2) Given the nature of the Christian claims, this faith can be put to test. Hence it can be shown to be either true or false.

3) If Christianity were shown to be true, such truth would not be negligible but rather the most existentially important truth ever.

Given these three premises we can now add a fourth one:

4) Christianity would be shown to be true if the Resurrection of Jesus were to be shown to have happened.

To conclude, the Resurrection of Jesus is an objective claim (either the resurrection happened or it didn’t happen) that can be put to test, to be precise to the test of historical inquiry. If the Resurrection of Jesus really happened, Christianity would be validated as a whole given the fact that this miraculous event would put Jesus on a supernatural status which would confer Him the authority to reveal Truth.  

Buckle your seat belts because the journey into showing how the greatest story ever told is true has just begun!

Amedeo Da Pra