My responses are in underlined italics, like this

 

The Scriptures

There are three primary pieces of evidence I would like to present. The first of these are the scriptural accounts.  I understand that the Bible is a biased account but I believe that there is something to be gained by looking at it.  These gospel accounts are told from differing perspectives and with different goals.  And yet each one of them invests an inordinate amount of time in the last week of Jesus life, especially concerning Jesus trials, death and resurrection.  For the gospel writers, the death and resurrection of Jesus was the most important event that they were attempting to get across.  In addition there are passages outside of the gospels that affirm the belief of the early church in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  This was a key point in Paul's teaching that is illustrated in the passage quoted above as well as in numerous other places.  While the scriptural references may not convince you of Jesus resurrection, it should be clear that this was the explicit belief of the early church from a fairly early period of time.  The 1 Corinthians passage quoted above was written about 60 A.D. But is appears to date back to a much earlier time.  Paul had likely received it as a relatively young Christian, which would date it to within 10 years of the event.  Jesus' resurrection was not a later invention of the church, but seems to have been there from the beginning.

 

The above evidence is simply a record of assertions made regarding the resurrection.  At best, it is evidence that the account was created not by the church, but by someone earlier.  Paul had never met Jesus while he was alive, accepting that he saw Jesus post death requires a bigger leap of faith.

 

The Empty Tomb

The second thing I would like to look at is the tomb itself.  There seems to be little question that the tomb Jesus was placed in was discovered empty just a few days later.  Many explanations for the empty tomb have been given over the years.  Included in this list is that someone had moved the body, that the empty tomb was incorrectly identified or that he had not died but only swooned.  Much as been written about these theories but I would like to briefly recap them here.

 

Two simple explanations for an empty tomb are:

 

a.  The body was never placed there.

b.  The body was removed secretly.

 

Given that even the location of the tomb is unknown even today, it is a tall order to accept anything regarding the empty tomb.

 

There are two possibilities for Jesus body having been moved.  Either his disciples moved the body so that they could claim that he had indeed been resurrected or the religious leaders and/or Roman authorities had moved it to provide better security.  

 

Actually, there are a few more, at least, but let's go on.  I have listed two of the simpler ones above.

 

Neither of these seems too likely.  If Jesus enemies had moved the body it would have been pretty easy for them to produce it and prove that the resurrection had not occurred.  If that had happened, Christianity would have died there.  But it did not.  

 

I agree that it is unlikely that Jesus's enemies moved the body. It is logical to assume that those who were his enemies, did not believe he was divine, so as soon as he was dead, their purpose was served.  Had they even thought that he might be divine, they would likely not tried to kill him in the first place.

 

Even with Jesus followers proclaiming his resurrection in the streets of Jerusalem, where he had been killed and buried, there was no body produced by those who could have most profited by doing so.  

 

Well, that makes an assumption that his enemies cared what happened to an executed body.  It is only logical that they would not bother with it.

 

What if Jesus disciples had stolen the body in order to make it appear like his prophecy had been fulfilled?  That certainly appears to be possible.  The problem with this is twofold.  The picture painted of Jesus disciples before Jesus death was of a group that did not expect that Jesus would be resurrected.  

 

Er, elsewhere you mentioned that the early church expected Jesus to come back real soon, and was cited as a possible reason for the gospels not getting written immediately.  The above seems to contradict that. 

 

Also, right above you mention that Jesus's enemies would have tried to show the body to disprove resurrection.  Well OldMan, if it is your contention that his homies did not expect Jesus to be resurrected, why would his enemies have any reason to try to disprove something that was not expected?

 

That is like saying that opponents of global warming could easily disprove global cooling.

 

They had expected him to become the king of Israel with them as his primary advisors.  Jesus death, in spite of the number of times he had foretold it, seems never to have sunk in.  The other, and bigger, issue is the fact that none of them seemed to have ever slipped up and admitted to their deception, even as they faced death.  If they had stolen the body, they died for no reason and with no apparent gain for themselves except for the suffering that came as a result of their claim.

 

Hey, how about the thought that instead of stealing the body, they simply paid/bribed the Romans to get hold of it so that they can give him a proper burial? 

 

The idea of an incorrectly identified tomb may have a little appeal but it has the same problem as the body being moved by Jesus enemies.  It would have been a pretty simple task on the part of the Jewish religious leaders to have found and produced the body if it was still in a tomb.  But they never did.

 

There is hardly any mention of Junior by any third party historian or author.  To me it sounds as if he was inconsequential.  It is easy to imagine that Jewish religious leaders, once Junior was executed, figured it was the end of the matter.

 

 

Finally, picture someone who had been crucified by Roman soldiers. These guys knew what they were doing and they were very diligent about it.  

 

Diligent enough to not leave any record of the crucifixion?

 

It is highly unlikely that they would have allowed Jesus to be removed from the cross unless they were convinced of his death.  But suppose they had.  Now Jesus is in a cave, severely wounded and suffering from extreme blood loss.  With no attention from anyone, he revived, single handedly moved the stone at the entrance to the tomb,
traveled into town and found his disciples, convinced them that his bloody and beaten body had been resurrected and then disappeared to die in a hole somewhere.  The supernatural resurrection of Jesus seems more plausible than that.

 

This is laughable.  I'd give more odds on a severely wounded man doing something like that, than ascending into the sky.  Maybe there was a back entrance or a tunnel his followers dug up, maybe the Roman guards sold the body....

 

So how else do you explain the empty tomb?  

 

That the body was never placed there in the first place.  That the body was taken out without anyone knowing.

 

There just does not seem to be any natural explanation that can adequately answer that question. Few will deny the empty tomb.  But apart from the resurrection there seems to be no other way to explain it.

 

Well, I just provided two natural explanations.  I understand that those wanting to believe something supernatural will deny this. 

 

When I look at an empty bank vault, I imagine that the money was stolen from there rather than it disappearing into thin air.

 

But, that's just me.

 

 

Transformed Lives

The final piece if evidence I want to bring up are the disciples themselves.  The gospel accounts present them in a pretty unfavorable light.  They never seem to grasp what Jesus is trying to tell them, especially when he talked about his upcoming death and resurrection. And after his death they are found hiding out of fear of the religious authorities.  What could be gained from painting them in this light if it was not true?  And yet within a couple of months of Jesus death they are boldly proclaiming Jesus resurrection in the streets of Jerusalem.  Acts 4:13 most clearly describes this transformation as they stand before the Jewish religious leaders, themselves on trial: "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus."  While we do not know with much certainty all that these men did through the remainder of their lives it does appear they gave themselves over to proclaiming Jesus and his resurrection.  And ultimately most of them died for that same cause. What would cause them to do this?  A conspiracy on their part to carry on the memory of a beloved teacher?  Maybe, but it is not likely that they would willingly die for their deception.  Yet is appears that is exactly what happened.  Maybe it was a mass hallucination?  But that doesn't happen.  Hallucinations are a very personal individual.  And it is especially not likely when they are not expecting it to be true. So what is it that transformed these men 'who had been with Jesus', turning them from cowards into fearless men, proclaiming that a dead guy had risen to die no more? 

 

Same thing that makes young kids pick up arms against the US or Israel in Iraq and Hamas-land today.  If you are facing a hopeless situation, you make the most of it, in the way you are led by a few others.

 

 Maybe they had really seen him alive after his resurrection and that experience had changed their lives.

 

This is no different than young Muslims in Briton who go to the middle east and are willing to blow themselves up for Islam because of the experience changing their lives.

 

Conclusion

None of these evidences are enough, either singly or collectively, to conclusively prove that Jesus was resurrected from the grave.  

 

or even remotely.

 

That is an admittedly impossible task.  

 

I agree.

 

Ultimately the choice to accept that Jesus rose from the dead is one of faith.  

 

Yes, basically that is commonplace in theism - accepting things on faith with no evidence that confirms it.

 

Any idea of the location of the tomb, or why it cannot be located?