If you had to summarize what Christians believe in as few words as possible, you could do worse than "He is risen."

In fact, the resurrection is so central to the faith that believers and nonbelievers alike often lose sight of it. In arguing over what Jesus said and what he meant by it and whether or not his moral prescriptions make sense in our "enlightened" 21st century, it's easy to skip over the one simple, historical question at the heart of it all.

Even ex-evangelists like Ehrman accept that Paul genuinely believed he had an encounter with the risen Jesus.

Did the first-century Jewish leader known as Jesus of Nazareth, executed by Roman authorities in Judea circa A.D. 33, come back from the dead?

If he didn't, Christianity is nothing more than a nice set of lessons and aphorisms. If he did, well, even the staunchest anti-Christian has some explaining to do.

He is risen. It's such an embarrassingly outlandish claim, and so obscured by the mists of time, that it is easy to see why even some Christians are tempted to hedge and say it's a metaphor.

But when you look at the evidence, the “it’s just a story” line gets harder to maintain.

Here are eight reasons why. Have a blessed Easter.

1. The tomb really was empty

If Jesus’ body were still in the grave, Christianity ends before it begins. The movement started in Jerusalem, within weeks of the crucifixion, under hostile scrutiny. Had the authorities been able to produce a body, they certainly would have.

Even the non-Christian historian Michael Grant acknowledged that historians, applying normal standards, cannot simply dismiss the empty tomb. The earliest counterclaim (first reported in the Gospel of Matthew) — that the disciples stole the body — concedes the point: The tomb was empty.

2. The first witnesses were the least credible

All four Gospels agree on an awkward detail: Women discovered the empty tomb first.

As even skeptical scholar Bart D. Ehrman has pointed out, this is not the kind of detail early Christians would be likely to invent in a culture where female testimony carried less weight. If you’re crafting a persuasive story, you don’t start here.

3. The disciples' behavior doesn’t make sense otherwise

Before the Resurrection, Jesus’ followers were scattered, afraid, and in hiding. Afterward, they were publicly proclaiming that he had risen — at real personal cost, knowing it could mean persecution or even martyrdom.

New Testament scholar E.P. Sanders — hardly anyone's idea of a biblical fundamentalist — wrote: “That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know.”

4. The earliest testimony is too early to be legend

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul presents a creedal formula about Jesus’ death and Resurrection that predates the Gospels:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve (1 Corinthians 15:3-5, NIV).

New Testament scholar James D.G. Dunn dates this material to within just a few years of the crucifixion. That’s far too early for legend to develop, with no time for stories to evolve, circulate, and displace living eyewitnesses who could correct them.

5. There are multiple, overlapping eyewitness claims

We don’t just have one Resurrection story. We have multiple early accounts and traditions, including the four detailed narratives presented by the Gospels.

According to Richard Bauckham, the Gospels are best understood as closely tied to eyewitness testimony. Why? Because they read like accounts anchored to real people — named witnesses, stable core details, and traditions formed while eyewitnesses were still alive to check them.

6. Skeptics and enemies didn't stay that way

Two of the most important early Christians weren’t early believers at all: James and Paul the apostle.

Even ex-evangelists like Ehrman accept that Paul genuinely believed he had an encounter with the risen Jesus. You can argue about what it was, but not that it didn't happen.

7. It spread fast, in the place where it could most easily be disproved

Christianity didn’t grow slowly as a tale imported from some distant region. It took off in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus had been publicly executed and buried — and the place where its radical claims could most readily be checked, challenged, and shut down.

New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado has shown how rapidly early devotion to the risen, divine Jesus emerged — far earlier than standard models of religious evolution would predict.

8. The “pagan copycat” theory falls apart under scrutiny

It’s common to argue that Christianity borrowed the resurrection from pagan myths — usually that of Mithras, deity of a Greco-Roman mystery cult.

But the parallels don’t hold. The confusion comes from the fact that Mithraic imagery includes themes of cosmic renewal and salvation tied to the famous bull-slaying scene — language that can sound, at a distance, like death and rebirth. In the actual myth, however, Mithras does not die and return to life; rather, killing the sacred bull creates new life and order. He is a conquering figure, not a dying and rising savior.

Scholar of religion Tryggve N.D. Mettinger — himself no Christian apologist — concluded that while some ancient myths involve dying and rising figures, none match the Jewish, historical, bodily resurrection claim of Christianity.