As I write this, we will celebrate tomorrow the 1,979th
anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his
crucifixion. For atheists, agnostics, and skeptics, the
resurrection account cannot possibly be true. They hold this
opinion for varied reasons, but probably the two most common
are: For Muslims, the rejection of the resurrection originates
in the Qur'an, which denies that Jesus was crucified (Sura
4:157-158). If there was no crucifixion, if Jesus never died as
the Qur'an asserts, then there is no need for a resurrection. if
however there was a resurrection of Jesus from the dead, then
the Qur'an is in error. Did Jesus really die, and if so did he
rise from the dead? How strong is the evidence for the
resurrection of Jesus? To answer this question, I will use the
minimal facts approach of Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. The
minimal facts approach considers only those data that are so
strongly attested historically that they are granted by nearly
every scholar who studies the subject, even skeptical