Proof of the Resurrection rests on the cumulative effect of several lines of evidence:

(a) The number and variety of those who saw the risen Christ – Mary of Magdala and her companions,^[1] Simon Peter,^[2] Cleopas and his companion,^[3] the Ten and others,^[4] Thomas and the other Disciples,^[5] the Seven by the Sea of  Galilee,^[6] the Eleven on the Mountain,^[7] ‘above five hundred brethren’,^[8] James,^[9] the Eleven before the Ascension.^[10]  After the Ascension Jesus was also seen to be alive by Stephen,^[11] Saul of Tarsus,^[12] and the Apostle John.^[13]  Perhaps the most important of all these witnesses is Saul of Tarsus, for no evidence is more convincing than that of a zealous Jew who was determined to stamp out Christianity, yet the evidence of his own senses compelled him to realize that Jesus was alive – which could only mean that what the Christians said about the Resurrection must be true.^[14]

(b) All the Evangelists record that the tomb was empty^[15] on the morning after the Jewish Sabbath.^[16]  There are differences of detail in the accounts of what took place on the first Easter morning.  But that is to be expected in the testimony of independent witnesses; if the accounts were identically the same we would suspect that they derived from a single source, or were even the result of deliberate collusion.  The differences between the four accounts are no greater than we find between Press reports of a particular current event – different witnesses record their own impressions, and some give details omitted by others, but the main facts are the same.

The fact that the tomb was empty on Easter morning must be explained.

Either Jesus rose from the dead or someone rolled away the huge stone of the tomb that was sealed and guarded,^[17] and took His dead body from the tomb.  If the Jews did so, they had only to produce the dead body to refute the preaching of the Apostles, but no body was ever produced.