| This article was first published in the Spring 2020 issue of Bible and Spade. |  |
For Christians, Easter represents the most climactic event in all of human history—the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Critics contend that it is a mythical story, based more on fiction than fact. Some even go so far as to accuse Christianity of stealing the “death-and-resurrection-of-a-god” motif from other religions. However, scholars have rightly pointed out that stories of the death and resurrection of other gods, such as Dionysus and Adonis, post-date Christianity, so if anyone did the stealing, it was the pagan religions who “borrowed” the motif from Christianity.1 Historic Christianity has always maintained that what transpired that first Easter were actual historical events: a literal crucifixion during a specific period in time and a physical resurrection leaving a real empty tomb, which forever altered the course of human history. Is there evidence for this claim?...
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