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The fact that the disciples believed that they had experienced the risen Christ is one of the surest facts of history:

• The claims that Jesus appeared to them are documented by nine separate sources including:
  • The testimony of former church persecutor Paul.  Paul’s testimony was a first-hand experience, not something someone told him about.,
  •  Oral traditions which scholars identify from their incorporation into the book of Acts and Paul’s letters, including creeds and sermon summaries.  A very important example of a creed in this regard is found in 1Corinthians 15:3-8, regarded by scholars as very early and historically sound.   Many abbreviated sermons are found in the book of Acts, such as Acts 13: 28-31. They can tell by the structure of these creeds and summaries that they were repeated often as oral tradition and then incorporated into the New Testament documents, so they pre-date the New Testament itself.
  • Written sources including the four Gospels (treating them solely as additional historical documents without regard to divine inspiration), as well as the testimony of church fathers Polycarp and Clement, who personally knew some of the original twelve apostles. As the authors point out: “The nine sources in the three categories above point to multiple, very early, and eyewitness testimonies to the disciples’ claims of witnessing the risen Jesus.”[1]

• Their belief that these were the actual appearances of Christ was evidenced by their suffering and martyrdom, as testified in at least seven written sources, namely Luke, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Tertullian and Origen. Resurrection evidence experts Drs. Gary Habermas and Michael Licona comment on the value of these sources: “In all, at least seven early sources testify that the original disciples willingly suffered in defense of their beliefs. If we include the sufferings and martyrdoms of Paul and James the brother of Jesus, we have eleven sources. Even the highly critical New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann agreed that historical criticism can establish ‘the fact that the first disciples came to believe in the resurrection’ and that they thought they had seen the risen Jesus. Atheistic New Testament scholar Gerd Ludemann concludes, ‘It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.’”[2]  Even though Ludemann thought they had seen visions (I will deal with the idea of visions or hallucinations in my next blog),most skeptics agree that they were not inventing these experiences.  They were not dying for some rumor they had heard, but facts that they were sure enough about to give their lives that we might know them also.

See Chapter Eight of The Bible Can Be Proven  for full elaboration of these and other resurrection evidences.