The Case For Christ

Reasonable Faith. Westchester, Ill.: Crossway, 1994.
Craig, William Lane, and Frank Zindler. Atheism vs. Christianity:
Where Does the Evidence Point? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993.
Videocassette.
Harris, Murray J. Three Crucial Questions about Jesus. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1994.
13: THE EVIDENCE OF APPEARANCES
Was jesus Seen Alive After His Death on the Cross
In 1963 the body of fourteen-year-old Addie Mae Collins, one of
four African-American girls tragically murdered in an infamous
church bombing by white racists, was buried in Birmingham,
Alabama. For years family members kept returning to the grave to
pray and leave flowers. In 1998 they made the decision to
disinter the deceased for reburial at another cemetery.
When workers were sent to dig up the body, however, they
returned with a shocking discovery: The grave was empty.
Understandably, family members were terribly distraught. Hampered
by poorly kept records, cemetery officials scrambled to figure
out what had happened. Several possibilities were raised, the
primary one being that her tombstone had been erected in the
wrong place.' Yet in the midst of determining what happened, one
explanation was never proposed: Nobody suggested that young Addie
Mae had been resurrected to walk the earth again. Why? Because by
itself an empty grave does not a resurrection make.
My conversation with Dr. William Lane Craig has already elicited
powerful evidence that the tomb of Jesus was empty the Sunday
after his crucifixion. While I knew that this was important and
necessary evidence for his resurrection, I was also aware that a
missing body is not conclusive proof by itself. More facts would
be needed to establish that Jesus really did return from the
dead.
That's what prompted my plane trip to Virginia. As my flight
gently banked over the wooded hills below, I was doing some
last-minute reading of a book by Michael Martin, the Boston
University professor who has sought to discredit Christianity. I
smiled at his words:
"Perhaps the most sophisticated defense of the resurrection to
date has been produced by Gary Habermas."
I glanced at my watch. I would land with just enough time to rent