It is a fundamental part of Christianity to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Therefore, Christians should always be prepared to explain the resurrection.

The Apostle Paul even stressed the importance of this question when he said that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then our faith is useless, and we are utterly deceived.

1 Corinthians 15:14-19 (NKJV)

And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

To tackle this question, we will look at five specific areas: Crucifixion, Disciples, Paul's conversion, James's conversion, and the Empty tomb — what we'll call the CDPJE evidences.

The Crucifixion

Jesus died at the crucifixion. To prove that Jesus had resurrected, we first need to determine that He actually died (as people still claim He did not). Let's look at some facts about the crucifixion event.

• All four gospel accounts (Matthew / Mark / Luke / John) record this historical crucifixion event.
• No reputable scholar would dispute that Jesus was crucified. Even among skeptics who deny the deity of Christ, most of them would agree historically that a Man named Jesus was on the earth and that He died by crucifixion.
• The guards who crucified Jesus were professional executioners. Roman soldiers faced severe penalties for failure of duty; the guards had every motive to certify death. That is why the Roman soldiers pierced Jesus on His side to see if the water and blood were separated, as is consistent with physical death.

Disciples and Paul's Conversion: 

As soon as the disciples had seen Jesus risen, they came out of hiding and continued to preach the gospel. They could have remained in hiding, but they chose to follow Him, preaching the gospel and even dying terrible deaths for it.

Additionally, while the disciples, who had been part of Jesus' three-year ministry, would have had a good reason to follow Him, the Apostle Paul did not have the same motivation.

Paul did not know Jesus personally during His 3-year ministry. In fact, Paul was converted while on a mission of persecuting Christians (refer to Acts chapter 9). Paul's drastic change can only be explained by him supernaturally witnessing the resurrected Christ.

The Conversion of James:  

James, like all of Jesus' brothers, did not believe in Him during His earthly ministry (John 7:5). But after the resurrection, the risen Christ appeared to him (1 Corinthians 15:7), and James was radically transformed. He went on to lead the church in Jerusalem, where tradition gave him the name ‘Camel Knees’ — his knees grown hard from kneeling in prayer for the people.

His conversion made him a target. Eventually an angry mob seized him, threw him from the pinnacle of the temple where he so often prayed, and began to stone him. Early traditions record that as the stones fell, James knelt and prayed: “Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

The same words his brother had prayed from the cross.

The Tomb was Empty:  

There are three key facts about the empty tomb of Jesus:

1. Jesus’ enemies admitted the body was missing.

When a friend confirms your story, people can dismiss it as bias. When an enemy confirms it, that's harder to wave away — they have nothing to gain by helping your case.

This is what happened with the empty tomb. The chief priests, the very men who had Jesus killed, paid the soldiers guarding the tomb to spread a different story: that the disciples came at night and stole the body while they slept (Matthew 28:11–15).

Notice what that admits. They never claimed the tomb still had a body in it — they couldn't. So instead they invented a cover story for the absence. Even Jesus' enemies didn't dispute that the tomb was empty. They only disputed why.

2. Testimony of women on seeing the resurrected Christ.

In ancient times, women were often marginalized in society — their testimonies were even considered less valid than those of men. Interestingly, all four gospels independently report women as the first witnesses to find the tomb empty.

If the Gospel writers were fabricating the story about the resurrection, relying on women as primary witnesses would have seemed counterproductive in convincing their audience. However, the writers' choice to use this fact even suggests that they committed to report events as they occurred rather than constructing a more culturally palatable narrative.

3. The resurrection was preached in Jerusalem first — not somewhere far away.

If you wanted to start a religion based on a lie, the last place you would start is the city where your story can be checked. Yet Peter stood up in Jerusalem fifty days after the crucifixion and preached the risen Christ to a crowd of thousands (Acts 2:14–36). The chief priests, the Roman authorities, and the tomb itself were all within walking distance.

If the body had still been in the tomb, ending the movement would have taken an afternoon. Just produce the body. Christianity couldn't have survived a week. Instead, it spread fastest in the very place where it was easiest to disprove.

Conclusion  

Taking all these facts into account, we can conclude that Jesus did exist, was crucified, and people around Him, including those who did not personally know Him, witnessed Him resurrected.

In addition to proving every claim about Christ made by the prophets and apostles, the resurrection of Jesus also erased doubts about His divinity.

The resurrection proved that Jesus truly spoke of things that the Father taught Him, that the Father was one with Him, and that He always did things that pleased the Father, for He could do nothing else in His divine perfection (Heb. 7:26). The resurrection is not just history. It is the reason the rest of the New Testament exists.