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There are four major rules for proving the credibility of documents.
1. The writer of the document was either an eyewitness or he was contemporaneous to the same area.
2. Other independent witnesses.
3. Did those witnesses continue to maintain their testimonies until death—even to the jeopardy of their lives?
4, Were there also hostile witnesses who would have reason not to believe the evidence but still say the events occurred?
The New Testament fulfils all of these criteria. Firstly let us look at an eyewitness account.
The Gospel of Matthew, for example, was composed not much longer than a generation (a generation is 20 years) after the death of Christ, at a time when hundreds, if not thousands, of witnesses to the crucifixion and resurrection were still alive. Matthew himself had lived through the events he describes.
After he completed his account Matthew then sent it to the very same people who had killed Jesus. They of all people were the ones who knew what actually happened. If Matthew's account was wrong there would have been trouble but they knew it to be true and many of the Jews especially those in Jerusalem came to believe the Christian message and were even willing to give their lives for it.
The second rule involves having independent witnesses to corroborate the evidence of an author.
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was not done in secret without witnesses. Josephus tells us that at least two million people used to gather every year around Jerusalem at the Passover season (the time when Christ’s crucifixion took place) (Wars, 6. 9. 3). For people living two thousand years after events to ridicule what people knew fist hand is not the most intelligent thing to do and yet in their ignorance they mock Christianity choosing to ignore written evidence with some accounts even appearing in the history of other nations. The flood is an example.
Not only was Matthew’s Gospel written when many thousands who could witness to its truth were still alive but nearly twenty one other New Testament books were composed before 68 C.E.—within thirty-seven years of Christ’s death. The time difference is comparable to the ending of World War II yet there are thousands upon thousands of witnesses who are still alive to testify to the holocaust and it is just the same for Christianity with thousands of living witnesses who can testify the the events that took place in the life of Christ.
The Witness of the Apostles
The third rule concerns continued belief—even until death. Who would die for a lie? No-one would. There have always been death-bed confessions when people have admitted the truth. Christians went to their death proclaiming the truth of what they knew. Human nature being what it is they would have recanted if they had they been telling lies. The charge that Christians were prepared to die for a lie is untenable.
The Law commanded the whole Jewish nation to celebrate three seasons with great solemnity: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The same people who had seen Jesus crucified at the Passover would be back for the next festival. Therefore Christ before his death had directed his apostles to wait in Jerusalem knowing the same people who saw him die would be back in Jerusalem fifty days later. This time those same people, thousands of them, were to witness something different and that was the Lord Jesus Christ resurrected and walking about the streets. It is incredible for us I know, but not for God.
Historians agree that the Christian church began on that Pentecost Day in the First Century (c. AD33). It is also well known that the Christian message began to be preached not long afterwards around the world. The growth of the Christian church gained rapid momentum by the end of the First Century. Thousands upon thousands from all nationalities were beginning to accept the central truth of Christianity—the fact of the resurrection of Christ. Just think all this within a hundred years with children hearing it from their parents. If their parents had told them it was a load of rubbish there would never have been Christianity and Jesus would have been just another statistic but they told the truth which resulted in the rapid spread of belief in Christ’s resurrection which can only be accounted for by peoples astounding enthusiasm resulting from what they had seen and heard for themselves.
The Apostle Paul put out the challenge to people in 55 C.E. to go to Jerusalem themselves and look up those who were at the cross and saw events with their own eyes. Even after a period for reflection of twenty-four years (in 55 C.E.) there were many in Jerusalem who witnessed that Christ rose from the dead. If what Paul wrote was a lie, then he was leaving himself wide open to censure.
The Apostle Paul
The fourth rule for reliability concerns hostile witnesses. Did those who wished not to believe the evidence—even though they were there when it happened—still admit that it was a fact? Paul, among others, was one of those hostile witnesses.
Paul was the chief antagonist of the Church in its very beginnings. The High Priest (the top ecclesiastical man in the Judaic nation) had personally given Paul the responsibility for exterminating the Christian church. And Paul went about his task, according to his own words, with fanatic zeal. He could appropriately be called the Adolf Eichmann of his day in his effort to overthrow the Church.
In that first period, before Paul’s conversion, there was no one more convinced of the non-resurrection of Christ than he. No one was more determined to disprove it. Paul also had many of the elders in the Jewish nation behind him. All of them had "theological" (not actual) arguments against Christ’s resurrection. The practical and logical evidences did not shake their "theological" minds.
At first, Paul was vehemently against the practical evidence. His mind was closed to any acceptance of it. He must have used every intellectual argument to dispute the possibility of the resurrection which thousands of humble, practical-minded Christians were accepting.
Yet, what was the final belief of Paul? This is where he becomes a vital witness to the truth of the resurrection miracle and the divinity of Christ.
Paul, according to his own later testimony, while on the road to Damascus with authority from the High Priest to apprehend Christians, had his mind changed. From that day forward, Paul never turned back. Until the day he was executed for his beliefs, he steadfastly maintained his faith in Christ and the reality of Christ’s resurrection and from being Christianities chief oppressor he became its chief exponent and propagator.
With Paul’s uncompromising acceptance, the proof of the resurrection becomes overwhelming. Here was a man who understood Judaic theology thoroughly. And not only was he trained in Judaism, but being born and reared in Tarsus of Asia Minor, the centre of Stoic philosophy, he was well acquainted with the classical works of Gentiles. With the world’s knowledge in his mind—and most of it would have been very critical knowledge—he would have been one of the most unlikely persons to accept the resurrection of Christ. Yet he did accept the practical and intellectual proofs of this greatest of miracles.
He became so fervent in this belief that it was said he "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). Everyone who came in contact with Paul was certainly assured that he was convinced of this major proof of Christianity. Because of Paul’s firm conviction and that of the other apostles, the Roman world became convinced of the legitimacy of Christ’s resurrection in a short three hundred years.
Surely, all this provable history demonstrates that the evidence unanimously supports the fact of Christ’s resurrection. No wonder Christ gave the resurrection sign (The Cross) as a major sign to the world that He was the Messiah. This is the one event that is so provable, by all human standards, that it takes little faith to believe it.
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