In my view Prof. Bart Ehrman very satisfactorily establishes in this debate that historically we cannot prove Jesus’ resurrection. Here is a 1.5 – 2 hours debate from 2008:

There are many such debates available online from leading apologists.

Christian apologists offer similar arguments for resurrection and call them ‘facts,’ but, if we precisely analyze the arguments facts of one apologist slightly differ from the other and in that give us an even stronger case against them.

They are mainly banking on the naivity of the audience and the fact that the dogma of resurrection has been indoctrinated in the Christian mind for centuries. Otherwise, extra-ordinary claims like resurrection require extra-ordinary proofs and the Christian apologists offer very little!

As Michael Licona was trying to prove the historic validity of resurrection, he had the first opening statement. He suggested three (so called) facts to make the sum total of his thesis:

1. Jesus’ death by crucifixion.
2. Sighting of Jesus by the Apostles after Crucifixion.
3. Sighting by Paul.

The one and a half hour debate is alive and entertaining and worth watching. In a couple of sentences Ehrman reduces the three supposed fact to one. He suggests that crucifixion is not fundamental to resurrection as Jesus (may peace be on him) could have been stoned to death or drowned and yet resurrected, so his crucifixion is not directly related to any proof of resurrection. Ehrman then lumped the sightings into one group and one fact only.

Michael Licona may be a good debater but he had very flimsy evidence to make his case on. The whole case of resurrection and indirectly the whole of Christianity is hanging by a very thin thread. The testimony of the apostles, transmitted through oral tradition and written at least 40 years after the occurrence, in a politically and religiously charged environment is all that Licona had available to him. Realizing the vulnerability of his case he banked on the religiosity and naivety of his audience and tried to make his case from theology rather than history. His main claim to fame in the debate seemed to be that God can do anything!

Ehrman gives a certain line of reasoning against the validity of the sightings of Jesus after crucifixion, he claims that these were based on visions what Licona prefers to call hallucinations. Ehrman’s explanation is far more satisfying than that of Licona. But, a better explanation could be that they were meeting the resuscitated Jesus as Judge Ernest Brougham Docker explains in a booklet.

In my opinion the swoon hypothesis is a more satisfying explanation of the sighting. The only limitation of the theory is that it is not popular in the Western world yet. Judge Ernest Brougham Docker has very lucidly explained the swoon hypothesis that and the inference that the apostles were seeing the resuscitated body of Jesus and not resurrected body.

This is why Jesus had all the scars of crucifixion that a resuscitated body should have, whereas a resurrected or a supernatural body that can walk through the walls, could have been without blemish.

Suggested Reading

65 Reasons to Believe Jesus Did Not Die on the Cross

If Jesus did not die upon the cross: A study in evidence