The Growth Of The Evidence For Christianity

It's sometimes suggested that the arguments for Christianity haven't developed much. There's not a lot being offered beyond the repetition of certain philosophical arguments for God's existence, historical arguments for prophecy fulfillment, historical arguments for Jesus' resurrection, and so forth.

Even if that were the case, that sort of evidence would be sufficient. And much of that older evidence often gets overlooked or underestimated (e.g., the evidence for certain Old Testament miracles, the evidence for apostolic miracles).

There's been more of an increase in the evidence for Christianity than is typically suggested. We've addressed a lot of examples in other posts: apparitions of Jesus, name statistics in the Biblical documents, the evidence for the Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus, modern healings, etc. Think of all of the developments in archeology over the years, for example. Old lines of argument often have new applications. I've written about modern examples of prophecy fulfillment, for instance. The work done in contexts like intelligent design and the paranormal isn't applicable only to Christianity, but it furthers the case for Christianity as far as it goes. And there are frequent advances in those fields.

Since our culture is so secular and trivial, issues like the ones I'm citing in this post don't get discussed much. And even among Christians, few people (as a percentage) bring these things up or attempt to persuade others about them. Those aren't problems with the state of the evidence, though. They're problems with how the state of the evidence is being handled.

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:

How Lovable God Is

"For anyone who does not love [God] shows clearly that he does not know how lovable he is, that he has not learned to taste and see how gentle and sweet the Lord is, when he does not strive to be pleasing in his sight by continual exertion." (Bede, David Hurst, trans., Bede The Venerable: Commentary On The Seven Catholic Epistles [Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1985], 168-69; comments on 1 John 2:5-6)

Evidence Against Alternatives To Sola Scriptura

A neglected line of evidence in controversies over sola scriptura is the absence of alternatives in contexts in which we'd expect them to be discussed if the sources involved believed in those alternatives. The New Testament says nothing of the bishop of Rome, much less does it tell Christians to look to him as the infallible standard of orthodoxy in the future. When Paul, Peter, and John are approaching death or are operating in some other relevant context, they turn their audience's attention to remembering what Jesus taught in the past, remembering what the apostles taught in the past, and scripture, but say nothing of anything like an infallible Pope, magisterium, or ecumenical councils. The earliest opponents of Christianity say a lot about things like Jesus' teachings and scripture, but show no knowledge of a papacy, an allegedly infallible church, etc. I've discussed issues like these many times in the past. See here and here, for example.

There's also the fact that Papias, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and other early sources defined the church and tradition much differently than modern opponents of sola scriptura do. So, citing them against sola scriptura doesn't lead us to the alternatives most modern critics of sola scriptura are advocating. In fact, the beliefs of the early extrabiblical sources are largely inconsistent with the beliefs of groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. See the many examples discussed here. Or see here regarding Irenaeus and here regarding Tertullian, for instance.

You can click on the sola scriptura label at the bottom of this post for an archive of many of our posts on the subject. For example, shortly before his death, Steve Hays wrote a post on sola scriptura that makes some good points that are often neglected.

Evidence For The Jesus Of The Book Of Revelation

I could easily be ignorant of some work that's been done on this subject, but, at least in my experience, the evidence for the Jesus of Revelation has been neglected. We hear a lot about the Jesus of the Synoptics, the Jesus of the fourth gospel, or the Jesus of Paul's letters, for example, but seemingly far less about the Jesus of Revelation. Given how much Revelation has been criticized over the years, even by professing Christians at times, and given the importance of what Jesus says and does in other contexts in the book, the evidence for the Jesus of Revelation ought to get more attention.

Love Has Its Wounds

"Perhaps my preaching last Sunday was somewhat unpleasant because I visited many of you harshly with the severity of the teaching authority and took up not what would flatter a number of you but what would make you sad. Truly, this is of no concern to me, for I rejoice in the knowledge that the disciple's sadness is the master's joy. For the hearer profits when the preacher proclaims what is harsh, and salvation is begotten for a person when the sadness of correction is pressed upon him. As the blessed Apostle says: 'What is sadness according to God brings about a lasting salvation.' [2 Corinthians 7:10] Justifiably, therefore, do I rejoice, since I bring about salvation when I reprove. Although my son is grieved on account of the roughness of my speech, nonetheless I am made happy because I know that he profits by the grief. The holy Apostle says: 'But who is the son whom his father does not beat?' [Hebrews 12:7] For a father does not always kiss his son but also sometimes chastises him. When one who is loved is chastised, therefore, a pious act is exercised in his regard, for love has its wounds as well, which are all the sweeter for the harshness of their infliction. For a religious chastisement is sweeter than easy forgiveness, which is why the prophet says: 'Sweeter are the wounds of a friend than the freely offered kisses of an enemy.' [Proverbs 27:6]" (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 80:1, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 192)

Problems With Attributing Too Much To Demons

Since Christians so often suggest that something or other is demonic, and much of the time they seem to do it with a lot of carelessness, it's worth considering the problems with falsely attributing things to demons. My focus here will be on attributing paranormal activity to demons, but the principles I'll be discussing also have a broader application. I'm not trying to be exhaustive. I'm just providing some examples:

Is baptismal regeneration a significant problem only if baptism is a work?

Baptism is a work, for reasons I've discussed elsewhere, like here. But even if it weren't a work, there would still be many reasons to consider baptismal regeneration problematic and in more than a minor way. See here for an overview of a double-digit number of problems with viewing baptism as a means of justification. Here and here are a couple of posts in which I discuss some of the bad fruit of baptismal regeneration, bad fruit that I think is significant and doesn't require viewing baptism as a work.

People often frame things in terms of whether including baptism with faith as a means of justification constitutes a false gospel. (It does, but that's not what I'm addressing here.) They'll often cite Galatians 1:8-9 in particular. But this isn't an all-or-nothing situation. Baptismal regeneration wouldn't have to be maximally bad in order to be bad or to be bad to more than a small extent. We recognize that in other contexts. If a church leader has some moral problems in his life, we don't dismiss those problems as insignificant just because they aren't maximally bad. It's remarkable how many people will acknowledge that baptismal regeneration is false, yet will act as though it should be of little concern if it doesn't rise to the level of Galatians 1. There's a large gray area between something being of little concern and something rising to the level of the anathema of Galatians.

How unusual is Galatians' approach toward the gospel?

Critics of how Evangelicals use Galatians could raise objections to the effect that Galatians is just one document, it's such a short letter, the approach Paul takes there isn't found much or at all elsewhere, etc. On the more liberal side, Galatians could be dismissed as an occasion when Paul lost his temper, a reflection of a bad aspect of Paul's character that we shouldn't emulate, or whatever. From a more conservative or traditional Christian perspective, it could be argued that we should be agnostic about or not base much on certain aspects of Galatians, since it's such a short letter, we don't know much about the context, the themes in question there aren't found much or at all elsewhere, etc.

But even if something Paul said in Galatians were only found there, it ought to be accepted as part of apostolic teaching, what's taught by scripture, and so on. That point could be conceded, yet the alleged rarity of what Galatians says could be appealed to in order to argue that the themes shouldn't be as prominent in our thinking as they are among many Evangelicals. Though I think Galatians expresses views like the foundational nature of sola fide more forcefully than any other source, that sort of material in Galatians is corroborated elsewhere more than people typically suggest.