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I am curious as to why Christians think that the resurrection hypothesis is more plausible and probable than any of the many alternative explanations like the body being stolen.

I look forward to your responses.

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    Welcome to Christianity.SE. For a quick overview of what this site is about, please take the Site Tour. It really sounds like you're more interested in making a statement than asking a question. Beyond that, there are as many different answers to this question as there are Christians, and this is not a discussion site. See: How we are different than other sites and: How do I ask a good question? Jan 31, 2016 at 20:31
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    StackExchange sites have a guideline about intentionally being offensive. Your entire post was phrased in such a way that it's clearly disdainful. Per the help, belittling is not OK. I removed the irrelevant content and left you with the core question. Note that I didn't add or alter anything, I simply removed content, to try to ensure that your actual question remained. Feb 1, 2016 at 0:22
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    Well, now I've edited the title in an attempt to make it clearly on topic to help prevent it from being closed. Feb 1, 2016 at 2:16
  • Sorry - was honestly not meaning to be offensive! Was just expressing things how I saw them.
    – user85798
    Feb 1, 2016 at 16:35

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I'm going to preface this by reminding the community that whether or not a theory is true is off-topic. What is taught is what's at hand, and also what's asked. The following is only addressing what is asked: "What reasons are given". Refrain from debates over what is more "plausible", please.


Unlike skeptics, Christians are willing to believe in the miraculous, so the idea that an idea sounds "miraculous" or "supernatural" does not automatically, in our minds, disqualify it from being reasonable. Therefore, we accept the possibility of a single supernatural event as possible, and turn to the remaining evidence.

With that out of the way, the standard Apologetic answer is that the stolen body hypothesis does not make sense in light of the evidence.

Excerpts from ChristianAnsers.net:

Neither the Jewish nor the Roman leaders, who guarded the tomb (Matthew 27:62f) would have taken the body. Rather, both had every motive to produce the body publicly in order to humiliate the disciples and nip their movement in the bud.


Likewise, is highly unlikely that Jesus' followers could have removed the body with a Roman guard protecting the tomb, plus a large stone door. And it won't work to charge them with inventing the account of the sleeping guards in Matthew. 28:11f. That story would only have served as apologetic propaganda had the guards stayed awake.

Why would the disciples (or anyone else) want to risk their lives to steal Christ's body? The biblical record shows the disciples were scared, discouraged and disheartened. Their only motive could have been to deceive. But everything we read about these men indicates they were good and honest. How could they have gone out the rest of their lives and daily preached that Christ had risen from the dead when they knew all along it was a lie? Would they have sacrificed and suffered so greatly for something that they know was an outright deception?

It would have been foolish to hide the corpse and fake a resurrection. The consequences of their loyalty to Jesus included beatings, imprisonments, and even death. No sane person chooses these for what they know is false. Under such pressures, liars confess their deceptions and betray their cohorts.

Beyond that, Jesus appeared to large groups of people after his death. From about.com:

A large crowd of more than 500 eyewitnesses saw the risen Jesus Christ at the same time. The Apostle Paul records this event in 1 Corinthians 15:6. He states that most of these men and women were still alive when he wrote this letter, about 55 A.D. Undoubtedly they told others about this miracle. Today, psychologists say it would be impossible for a large crowd of people to have had the same hallucination at once. Smaller groups also saw the risen Christ, such as the apostles, and Cleopas and his companion. They all saw the same thing, and in the case of the apostles, they touched Jesus and watched him eat food. The hallucination theory is further debunked because after the ascension of Jesus into heaven, sightings of him stopped.

We can also point to the sudden emergence of courage of the Apostles. After being a bunch of cowards that scattered to the wind at the crucifixion, they suddenly became brave, and willing to die as martyrs after seeing the resurrected Christ.

Also noted is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who went from persecuting Christians to being one of the most prolific authors of the new Testament, and who went through all sorts of hardships in the name of Christ after his encounter with the resurrected Christ.

(These are also documented in the links I gave.)

Note that searching for "Stolen body hypothesis" will give the same basic answer over and over. Even Wikipedia covers it.

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