Easter Resources 2021

Last year, I wrote a short post about which evidence for Jesus' resurrection we should be most focused on. A few years ago, Steve Hays wrote a lengthier article about how to make a case for the resurrection. Those are a couple of places you could go to start the process of studying Easter issues.

And here are some examples of other relevant issues we've addressed over the years:

Modern Evidence For A Traditional View Of Easter
Miracles On Video
The Fifth Gospel
Evidence For The Shroud Of Turin
How do we know Jesus' resurrection wasn't a demonic miracle?
How much can we trust ancient Christian sources in light of their biases?
Early Non-Extant Documents On The Resurrection
The Context In Which The Gospels Were Composed
How Early The Synoptics And Acts Were Written
The Authorship Of Matthew
The Authorship Of Mark
The Authorship Of Luke And Acts
The Authorship Of John
The Authorship Of The Pauline Letters (see the comments section)
The Historicity Of Acts
Easter Material Corroborated In The Letters Of Peter
Resurrection Evidence Outside The New Testament
Were the resurrection appearances grief hallucinations?
Evidence For The Empty Tomb
Early Affirmation Of The Empty Tomb From Gentile Non-Christians
Jesus' Burial And Empty Tomb Outside The Gospels And Acts
Fifty Agreements Among The Resurrection Accounts
The Consistencies Among The Resurrection Accounts In 1 Corinthians 15, The Gospels, And Acts
The Restrained Nature Of The Resurrection Accounts
The Contrast Between The Prominence Of Female Witnesses In Luke And Their Lack Of Prominence In Acts
Alleged Errors And Contradictions In The Resurrection Accounts
Harmonizing The Resurrection Accounts
Why It's Significant That The Earliest Sources Don't Narrate The Resurrection Appearance To James
Evidence That Saul Of Tarsus Saw Jesus Risen From The Dead
The Spiritual Body Of 1 Corinthians 15
Why didn't the risen Jesus appear to more and different people?
Why doesn't Jesus appear to everybody?
Matthew 27:52-53
Independent, Converging Lines Of Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection
How The Apostles Died
What if alleged miracles, like Jesus' resurrection, were caused by a currently unknown natural process?
Reviews Of Debates On Jesus' Resurrection
Easter Prophecy Fulfillment

You can go to an archive of our posts with the Easter label here. You can search for posts with other labels by replacing the word Easter in the URL with another phrase (Cross, Atonement, Empty Tomb, etc.). Click on Older Posts at the bottom of the screen to see more posts.

And we've written some e-books that address Easter issues. See the e-books section of the sidebar to the right.

I've put together a collection of articles on skeptical myths about the church fathers. Many of those articles address topics closely related to Easter.

And here are the Easter Resources posts of previous years:

2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020

After the 2020 post, Steve Hays linked an article by Paul Helm on prayer as an Easter gift, given to us by the work of Christ. I wrote about which resurrection evidence we should focus on. Steve wrote a response to an article by Greg Cavin and Carlos Colombetti against the resurrection. I discussed the issue of bias, in response to the common objection that the ancient Christians' biases require that Christian sources be supplemented by non-Christian ones. I also responded to the objection that we don't find the sort of detailed resurrection accounts in earlier sources, like Paul and Mark, that we find in later ones. In another post, I addressed the unity of the early Christians on Easter issues, how difficult it is to set Paul against the gospels, one gospel against another, etc. Steve responded to Greg Bahnsen on the subject of arguing evidentially for Jesus' resurrection here and here. Hawk linked a video series on the last week leading up to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. I wrote about modern evidence for Christianity, including on issues closely related to Easter. Steve linked a video in which Jonathan McLatchie discusses 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. He also linked an article by William Lane Craig responding to the hypothesis that the disciples of Jesus lied about Jesus' resurrection. And he linked a post about the coronavirus and Lent, after which he commented on some related issues. He also posted a link to a video of a question and answer session about the resurrection, involving Tom Gilson, Tim and Lydia McGrew, and Jonathan McLatchie. He then linked some Easter music: O Sacred Head Sore Wounded, When I Survey The Wonderous Cross, Surely, He Hath Borne Our Griefs, Bach's Easter Oratorio, Handel's Messiah. I wrote about how Easter reflects Jesus' influence over the Gentile world and the significance of that influence. Steve addressed the notion that the resurrection appearances can be explained as grief hallucinations. He also discussed the nature of Jesus' resurrection appearance to Paul and some related issues, like similarities with the ascension and Mount of Transfiguration. In a later post, he addressed the evidential significance of the appearance to Paul as compared to the evidential significance of the appearances in the gospels. Then he linked a video in which Gary Habermas responds to objections to Jesus' resurrection. He discussed a new book on the resurrection by Andrew Loke. And he responded to the objection that Paul doesn't name the more than five hundred resurrection witnesses mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6. Afterward, he posted an interaction he'd had with a skeptic of Jesus' resurrection on Facebook. In another post, he discussed the doubt among the resurrection witnesses mentioned in Matthew 28:17. He then linked a video by Wesley Huff on why Mark and John appear to differ on the timing of the crucifixion. And he wrote about the significance of the fact that the resurrection is a presupposition of New Testament Christianity. In another post, he discussed the fragility of the atheist's position, in that it only takes one miracle to significantly change an atheist's plausibility structure related to the resurrection. He also discussed the intertwining of Jesus' two natures in the context of his sufferings related to the cross. I wrote about Jesus' fulfillment of Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy and how even a fulfillment of a secondary or typological nature would be evidentially significant in support of Christianity. Steve linked a discussion of the evidence for the phrase "he will see light" in Isaiah 53:11. I posted a collection of links to comments from Christians over the centuries about various aspects of the gospel, including Easter issues. I also discussed how to argue for prophecy fulfillment, including some fulfillments closely related to Easter. I then discussed the relationship between Isaiah 9 and how Jesus framed his resurrection appearances. In another post, I wrote about the evidence for Jesus' Galilean background and why it's important. I also discussed how the book of Isaiah is a sort of fifth gospel, how it provides so much evidence for Christianity even if we grant much of what skeptics claim about Isaiah and sources like the gospels. I linked a video of David Wood and Michael Jones discussing the alleged pagan roots of Christmas and other holidays. Though the video is focused on Christmas, Easter is mentioned in the process, and much of what's said has a broad application to holidays in general. In a couple of later threads, here and here, we discussed the idea that Jesus' resurrection is a demonic rather than Divine miracle. Hawk quoted some comments from James Bejon on the implications our activities in this life have for the afterlife, with some discussion of issues related to the resurrection.