Christ Has Indeed Been Raised From The Dead

Other Historical Writings

In I Cor 15:3-4 Paul lays out the gospel to his listeners in a very concise manner: "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures..."

And it is by this gospel that each of us are saved. What are the important elements of this gospel?
             1.Christ died for our sins just as the scriptures prophesied.
             2.He died and was buried.
             3.Then on the third day He was raised from the dead to new life...just as prophesied hundreds of years earlier.

Paul was reminding fellow Christians that they must not stray from the truth of the gospel.
Many of his audience were listening to others who were preaching that Jesus was not raised from the dead...no resurrection. 

How does Paul back up his argument that Jesus was raised from the dead???  He gives his own personal testimony of seeing the resurrected Jesus.  Then he lists over 500 others that physically saw Jesus after He was raised from the dead.  And during a time of "oral" history keeping....this was extremely strong evidence of the truth of Jesus resurrection. Through similar testimonies in other literature of the time like the writings of Flavius Josephus, famed first century Jewish  historian wrote in his Antiquities of the Jews, “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was 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.”

Wow....worldly,scientific, historical backup to our precious scripture.  Additional historical evidence of what we know through faith from our scriptures as being "true"....Jesus was raised from the dead.  Hallelujah!!!