The Resurrection Debate Between Alex O'Connor And Trent Horn

You can watch it here. Trent made some good points against Alex's position during the debate, but I want to supplement what he said with some of my own responses to Alex. And I want to respond to Trent to some extent. I've responded to Alex on resurrection issues in the past, and some of what he said in his discussion with Trent covers the same ground. I'll link to some of my previous responses to Alex, since what he said in this recent discussion doesn't advance his side of the argument in any significant way. I also want to add some further comments to what I said in response to him in the past.

How Bart Ehrman Misframes Discussions Of Jesus' Resurrection

He was recently on Ross Douthat's Interesting Times podcast, and there was some discussion of the historicity of the gospels, the resurrection, and other issues related to Easter. There are too many problems with Ehrman's claims for me to address all of them here, but I want to talk about some of them.

The Benefits Of Studying The Resurrection

"For he who has learnt to study innumerable [truths] concerning the resurrection, how should he fear death? How should he shudder any more?" (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Hebrews 4:6)

It's often suggested that religion doesn't have much practical value. It doesn't come in contact with everyday life enough, it's too abstract, what it addresses has too little significance, concerns like food and money are more interesting, etc. The degree to which people hold such views varies, but even many professing Christians believe such things to some extent. You can see it in their time management, for example, in that they spend an inordinately large amount of their time on secular and trivial activities, just like the surrounding culture.

But Easter provides some examples, among many others, of how wrong that sort of mindset is. Nothing is as pragmatic as God, and the issues most closely associated with him, often referred to as "religion", are important accordingly. Death is a major illustration of that fact. If you can't find practicality in overcoming death, something's wrong with you. If you care about yourself, you should care about your death. If you care about your family, you should care about their death. And so on. We can go on to think of other subjects along the same lines. Just as we want to plan for a business trip we're making or an upcoming vacation, how much more should we want to learn about the afterlife and plan for it? We should keep such issues in mind as we think about the Easter season and religious topics more broadly.

Including The Resurrection Claim In A Prophecy Argument With Hostile Corroboration

We've argued that Isaiah 53:10-11 likely refers to the resurrection of the Servant of the Lord figure in Isaiah's Servant Songs. Though there's good evidence for Jesus' resurrection from Christian sources, there's some evidence from non-Christian sources as well. So, the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:10-11 is another example of a prophecy whose fulfillment is evidenced by hostile corroboration. There was early non-Christian corroboration of the empty tomb, and some of the people who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead were non-Christians who apparently converted to Christianity as a result of an experience they thought was an encounter with the risen Jesus. See here on James, here on Paul, and here on the likelihood that other non-Christians had such experiences. It's not an adequate response to object that people like James and Paul were Christians. The point is that they were hostile to Christianity originally and converted under circumstances relevant to what I'm arguing for in this post.

Another way of putting it is that the plausibility of the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:10-11 is significantly increased when multiple non-Christian sources support the resurrection of Jesus in multiple ways (corroborating the empty tomb, corroborating Jesus' appearing to people alive after his death). One way to appreciate the significance of this kind of evidence is to think of the alternatives. Think of how easily the situation could have been otherwise and how the case for Jesus' resurrection would be weakened if there hadn't been such hostile corroboration.

These things have a cumulative effect. Is it all just happenstance that Jesus' life lined up so well with the chronology of Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, the Romans chose penal practices that align so well with relevant Old Testament passages, the figure whose life just happened to line up so well in these contexts had so many hostile sources corroborating his resurrection in various ways, etc.?

The Argument From Prophecy Should Be Brought Up In The Easter Context

I've discussed the neglect of the argument from prophecy. That's especially relevant to the Easter season, since so many of the best arguments from prophecy are closely associated with Easter. Go here for a collection of some of our posts on Messianic prophecy. See here for a collection of resources on prophecy more broadly.

One way to summarize some of the issues involved is to mention that the penal practices of the Roman empire, which were chosen by non-Christians rather than Christians, line up well with what's anticipated in passages like Psalm 22 and the third Servant Song in Isaiah 50.

Another good way of summarizing some of the issues is to mention how well the chronological factors in passages like Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy align with Jesus' life, in ways that the early Christians didn't control (Jesus' execution within the relevant timeframe, the destruction of both Jerusalem and the temple afterward, etc.).

I'm just providing some examples. Whether you use these or others, it's important to make use of the argument from prophecy, since it's so valuable and has been so neglected.

Some Resurrection Arguments To Use

There are many that are good, but I'll highlight a few that get less attention than they should. Each one will include a link to a post that discusses the argument further:

- The acknowledgement of the empty tomb by both early Jewish and early pagan sources.

- Internal and external evidence for the resurrection appearance to Paul in Acts.

- The cumulative case for the appearance to the women in Matthew 28:9-10.

- The number and variety of Peter's resurrection experiences.

How much resurrection evidence should we expect to be mentioned?

When critics of Jesus' resurrection object to something like the lack of mention of the appearance to more than five hundred (1 Corinthians 15:6) in sources other than Paul or the lack of mention of the guards at the tomb in sources other than Matthew, we should ask what we ought to be expecting from these sources. The critics' assumptions about what we should expect may be wrong, and we ought to be careful to not accept false assumptions.

Josephus' Report About How First-Century Christians Defined Jesus' Resurrection

I've said a lot about Tom Schmidt's book on Josephus and Jesus that came out last year. You can read it for free by accessing it at the page just linked.

See the range of possible translations of Josephus' passage about Jesus on pages 138 and 204, for example. In all of the translations, Jesus is referred to as being thought to be "alive again" just after his crucifixion is referred to. The crucifixion context suggests a physical resurrection of the same body that died, and the term "again" does as well.

Similarly, see the apparently first-century Jewish material Justin Martyr cites in section 108 of his Dialogue With Trypho. I discussed it in a post several years ago. That first-century Jewish material likewise assumes a Christian view of the resurrection that involves the return to life of the body that died.

So, we have multiple first-century Jewish sources telling us how the early Christians viewed the resurrection. They didn't think it was spiritual rather than physical. They didn't think it involved a new body instead of the one that died. Rather, they thought it was a resurrection of the dead body.

These Jewish sources were in a good position to know what the earliest Christians said about the subject, and it was in their interest to notice and make an issue of a change in the Christian view over time, if there was a change. Read Schmidt's material on Josephus' sources, for example.

Easter Resources 2026

Here's an overview of which evidence for Jesus' resurrection to focus on most. Steve Hays wrote a lengthier post on how to make a case for the resurrection.

Here are some of our posts on Easter topics, with many more available in our archives:

The Recent Resurrection Discussion Between Mike Licona And Dale Allison

Mike posted it on his YouTube channel here. The recording is incomplete. It stops partway through the question-and-answer segment. I don't know if there's a longer recording available anywhere. For now, I'll respond to the incomplete one linked above.

A New Book On 1 Corinthians 15

Sean Luke of Anglican Aesthetics interviewed James Ware about a book Ware recently published on 1 Corinthians 15, The Final Triumph Of God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2025). I've bought it, but haven't read it yet. The interview is worth listening to, since it makes a lot of good points about a lot of significant topics (the physical nature of Paul's view of the resurrection, the unity of the apostles, etc.).

They Kept Hearing

The early impact of Jesus' resurrection is sometimes divided up between two phases, the initial witnesses and the much later appearance to Paul. Not only are the two separated by a significant amount of time, but Paul is arguably the foremost apostle, at least in some contexts and probably overall.

Put yourself in the place of a Christian who was alive at the time of the appearance to Paul. The last resurrection appearance was years earlier. You weren't expecting any further appearances. You wouldn't have expected Saul of Tarsus to become a Christian, much less by means of a resurrection appearance. But "they kept hearing, 'He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.'" (Galatians 1:23) Ananias "heard from many about this man" (Acts 9:13) and was hesitant about the report of his conversion, like the Christians in Jerusalem who "were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple" (9:26).

They didn't uncritically accept Paul's conversion. But Ananias was given some evidence in the form of a vision followed by the healing of Paul. And Paul would later perform "the signs of a true apostle" (2 Corinthians 12:12).

It's significant that the Christians in those earliest years were so well informed that Ananias had "heard from many" (Acts 9:13) about Paul and others "kept hearing" (Galatians 1:23) about his conversion and subsequent activities. That's not an atmosphere in which somebody like the author of Acts or his sources could make up an account of Paul's conversion that differed substantially from what the Christians at the time of the conversion heard so often and from so many sources. (It's also not the sort of atmosphere in which nobody would have gone to Jesus' tomb, nobody would have verified reports that it was empty, etc.) There was a large network of communication, and word often spread fast, as Paul's letters and other lines of evidence illustrate.

I want to return to something I said near the beginning of this post, to make another point. Most likely, none of the Christians at the time were expecting anything like a resurrection appearance to Saul of Tarsus. We're so accustomed to it now, after having two thousand years to get accustomed to it. We should keep in mind God's wisdom and generosity in doing it.

Jesus' Use Of Mountains In The Easter Context

I've written before about agreements among the gospels concerning some language Jesus used in the Easter context. In a post last year, I wrote about agreement among the gospels and Acts regarding Jesus' use of mountains. Something I didn't note in that post is that a couple of those passages are in the context of resurrection appearances. And they're in different documents written by different authors (Matthew 28:16, Acts 1:12). Something else they have in common is that both mountain settings seem to be ones Jesus chose ahead of time for some highly significant purpose (the Great Commission, the ascension) rather than just being a setting he chose for some lesser purpose (e.g., as a place to rest). So, these two resurrection accounts agree about that sort of behavior by Jesus, and similar behavior is seen in many non-resurrection contexts in all four of the gospels. Those characteristics add credibility to the accounts.

The Diversity Of The Empty Tomb Sources

I've argued elsewhere that the empty tomb was affirmed not just by the early Christians, but also by both their early Jewish opponents and their early Gentile opponents. In the post just linked, I argue for Justin Martyr's citation of a first-century Jewish source corroborating the empty tomb, and I discuss some other significant material in Justin. I've also written, here, about the tenacity of the Jewish corroboration, so that it persisted well beyond the time of the apostles and adapted to ongoing circumstances. The original Jewish explanation of the empty tomb, that Jesus' disciples stole the body, made far more sense early on than it did later. So, though some Jews continued to use the explanation that the disciples stole the body, others developed another argument, that a gardener took the body.

Not only are these large groups affirming the empty tomb diverse (Christians, non-Christian Jews, pagans), but there had to be a diversity of individuals within each of these groups. Paul was a former Pharisee and persecutor of Christians, and he would have had a substantial amount of knowledge of what non-Christian Jews knew about and were saying about the empty tomb. James would have had the knowledge of a family member who had close connections to other relatives of Jesus. If Jesus had received some other sort of burial than what the early Christians reported, such as being placed in some kind of family tomb, James would have been in a good position to know it. The Jewish leaders who had spent years working against Jesus and had arranged to have him crucified surely would have monitored what was going on and would have formulated a response to ongoing circumstances. Or think of Pilate's involvement in the events surrounding Jesus' death, including the entombing of the body and what happened immediately thereafter. Pilate not only had an opportunity to shape both Jewish and Gentile non-Christian views on these subjects, but also may have kept a relevant written record of some kind.

Even if one or more sources like the ones just mentioned were apathetic, careless, or some such thing, it's unlikely that all of them were and that they all erred in the same direction. The best explanation for such widespread affirmation of the empty tomb is that the tomb was empty.

Why only one appearance to Paul?

I mentioned the resurrection appearance to Paul in my last post, citing 1 Corinthians 15:8. It's noteworthy that Paul only refers to one appearance and calls it "last of all". That's harmonious with what Luke reports in Acts. The appearance to Paul is narrated three times in Acts, but it's limited to one appearance. By contrast, there were a few appearances to Peter mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15, and some of the other apostles also saw the risen Jesus more than once. We're often told that the apostles were highly disunified, that their followers competed with one another, etc. So, why did neither Paul nor Luke claim more than one appearance to Paul? As N.T. Wright commented in another context, concerning James:

"In particular, if it is true that stories of people meeting Jesus were invented in order to legitimate leaders in the early church, it is remarkable that we hear nothing, throughout the gospel stories, of James the brother of Jesus….Why does he, too, not run a race against Peter [as in John 20:3-8]? Would that not have been a convenient fiction to clothe early ecclesial power struggles?" (The Resurrection Of The Son Of God [Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003], 610)

The fact that Paul only claimed one appearance also goes against the notion that he was prone to hallucinations, delusional, overly imaginative, etc.

The Timespan Of The Resurrection Appearances

Much is made of alleged inconsistencies among the New Testament resurrection accounts. Their common ground is often underestimated. One thing they have in common that doesn't get discussed much is the shortness of the period when the large majority of the appearances occurred. I'm allowing an exception for the later appearance to Paul, but he acknowledges that his experience was unusual (1 Corinthians 15:8). Paul has the other appearances occurring before the one to him. And the gospels and Acts align well with what Paul reports. Luke puts the pre-Pauline appearances within a forty-day timeframe (Acts 1:3). John refers to multiple weeks of appearances (John 20:26), but doesn't exceed the forty days referred to by Luke. They're consistent. Matthew and Mark don't set down a timeframe, but the modest amount of appearance material in both gospels (Mark does anticipate the appearance in Galilee, though he doesn't narrate it) lines up well with the sort of shorter timespan found in the other sources.

A good way to appreciate this agreement among the sources is to think of how easily they could have disagreed and what motives they could have had for doing so. Reports of later resurrection appearances could have been used by later church leaders to get more authority or attention. Even among the original apostles, if there wasn't much concern about accuracy, carefulness, and such, then why think all of the sources would end up with the same timespan? Why wouldn't one or more of them extend the pre-Pauline appearances out to several months, a few years, or whatever other length of time?

There isn't maximal evidence of agreement among the sources on these issues. There is some ambiguity. But there is substantial agreement in a context in which they could easily have disagreed a lot instead.

Arguing For Resurrection Accounts

We should argue for Jesus' resurrection by appealing to multiple lines of evidence, including the general credibility of the sources. One of the approaches we can take, among others, is to argue for individual accounts. Argue for Matthew's credibility in general, as I've done here, for example, but also argue for the resurrection account in Matthew 28:9-10. Argue for Luke's credibility in general, as I've done here, for instance, but also argue more narrowly for the material on the appearance to Paul in Acts. Argue for the general credibility of Paul, such as his willingness to suffer and die as a Christian, which gives us reason to trust what he reported about the resurrection appearance to James in 1 Corinthians 15:7. But we should also argue more narrowly for the appearance to James.

Using Other Miracle Claims To Argue Against Jesus' Resurrection

It's common for critics of the resurrection to argue against it by means of other alleged miracles, such as Marian apparitions. The argument will take on a variety of forms. For example, it will be assumed that such-and-such a miracle didn't happen, yet it has comparable evidence or better evidence than we have for Jesus' resurrection, so we should conclude that both the other miracle and the resurrection didn't happen. Or it will be suggested that since a Christian wants to attribute the other miracle to demonic activity, the resurrection could be considered demonic as well, and Christians have no way to justify viewing the resurrection as Divine while viewing the other miracle as demonic. And so on.

We've written a lot about that kind of objection over the years. See this recent thread (including the comments section) on the Zeitoun Marian apparitions, for example, for brief overviews of many of the issues involved (the explanatory options for miracles, whether the resurrection needs to have better evidence than other miracles, how to evaluate how the evidence for one miracle compares to the evidence for another, why we shouldn't think the resurrection and Christianity as a whole are demonic, why we shouldn't think the resurrection and Christianity as a whole are the result of human psi, etc.). I also wrote a couple of other posts on Zeitoun recently, here and here. Steve Hays wrote some posts about the Fatima Marian apparitions, such as here and here. He and I wrote about the miracles affiliated with the Salem Witch Trials in chapter 8 of the e-book here (pages 102-24). I wrote a post a decade ago that responded to a book that discusses religious miracles, and that post addresses many of the issues involved in comparing Christianity's miracles to the miracles of other religions. That post briefly discusses Sai Baba's miracles, a subject sometimes brought up by critics of Christianity. See here for some brief comments from Steve about Sai Baba. On UFOs, see here for an overview and our archive of posts on the subject here. These are just several examples of what we've written about miracles skeptics often bring up when discussing Jesus' resurrection. You can find a lot of other relevant material in our archives.

These skeptics often don't have sufficient reason to reject any of the miracles they're discussing. Frequently, when they suggest that we know that such-and-such a miracle didn't happen, they're bluffing. Their assumption shouldn't be granted. And they're typically substantially ignorant of the breadth and depth of explanatory options Christianity has for miracles. (Many Christians are highly ignorant as well.) These skeptics also don't know much or act as if they don't know much about the justification Christians (and others) have for placing different miracles in different categories and ranking them in a hierarchy. Sometimes the best response to a skeptical appeal to another miracle is that their miracle doesn't seem to be historical, whereas the resurrection is. But it's often the case that the Christian shouldn't deny that the other miracle occurred, and there isn't much difficulty in reconciling it with the historicity of the resurrection and the truthfulness of Christianity.

Go On To Chapter 16

Don't stop at 1 Corinthians 15 when you're reading that chapter or discussing it in the context of the Easter season or whatever other context. Go on to chapter 16. Notice all of the references to greetings, showing love, rejoicing, etc. Those things are often accompanied by physical interaction: "Greet one another with a holy kiss." (verse 20) The resurrection appearances were, by their nature, meetings among individuals, and meetings, by their nature, frequently involve things like greetings and embracing. The idea that none of the resurrection appearances involved anything more than sight is extremely unlikely, especially given how many resurrection appearances were reported.

For a lengthier discussion of these issues, including more argumentation and documentation, see here.

The Empty Tomb And Affirmation Of It Didn't Occur In An Apathetic Context

I've sometimes come across people who argue that the early corroboration of the empty tomb by non-Christian sources doesn't have much significance, since they may have corroborated it out of apathy. They uncritically accepted what Christians told them.

One of the problems with that sort of explanation is that the context surrounding Jesus' placement in the tomb isn't one of apathetic opposition to Christianity. How did Jesus' body get in the tomb to begin with? You don't arrange to get somebody crucified, then carry out the crucifixion, then proceed with the sort of persecution of Christians that we see reflected in Paul's life (his initial life as a persecutor and the persecution he experienced later as a Christian) if you're apathetic about that crucified individual and his followers. Apathy doesn't sit well with the crucifixion or other aspects of early Christian history. One way to summarize this point in your thinking is to consider the empty tomb as in the middle of a chronological spectrum. Just before it, you have the crucifixion. Just after it, you have the early persecution of Christians, as illustrated in the life of Saul of Tarsus. It doesn't make much sense to think there was apathy in the middle of the spectrum, surrounded by so much non-apathy on both sides.

Furthermore, it's not as though affirmation of the empty tomb would be the only option for people who were apathetic, lazy, or some such thing. You could just be agnostic (e.g., Matthew 21:27, John 9:29).

The best explanation for why the empty tomb was affirmed by both the early Christians and their early opponents (both Jewish and Gentile opponents, as my article linked above argues) is that the tomb was empty.