12 Historical Facts About Jesus, 13 Theories to Explain

My wife recently shared this resource with me that was posted by the 1 Peter 4:12-16 Christian Worldview Blog back in November.  The chart was created by Craig Hazen of Biola University.  

The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus includes 12 facts agreed upon by scholars, both liberal and conservative. A reasonable approach is to evaluate those 12 known facts against 13 theories about what happened to determine each theory’s explanatory power (which of the 12 facts it doesn’t account for). The only 2 theories that account for all 12 known facts are:

1. Jesus was an alien
2. Jesus was bodily resurrected

Here are the 12 facts (gotten from a presentation by Dr. Craig Hazen):

1.    Jesus died by crucifixion [*** core fact #2]

2.    He was buried

3.    Jesus’ death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope, believing that his life was ended

4.    The tomb was discovered to be empty just a few days later

5.    The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus [*** core fact #3]

6.    The disciples were transformed from doubters who were afraid to identify themselves with Jesus to bold proclaimers of his death and resurrection [*** core fact #1]

7.    This message was the center of preaching in the early church

8.    This message was especially proclaimed in Jerusalem, where Jesus died and was buried shortly before

9.    As a result of this preaching the church was born and grew

10. Sunday became the primary day of worship

11. James, who had been a skeptic, was converted to the faith when he also believed he saw the resurrected Jesus

12. A few years later, Paul was also converted by an experience which he, likewise, believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus [***core fact #4]

Here is a chart of 13 theories that attempt to explain the facts (again, credit is given here to Craig Hazen for this excellent chart):