Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Christ, part 36.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

Last time we saw that an assessment of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus,

we'll proceed in two steps.

The first step will be establishing the facts which will serve as the evidence that any adequate

historical hypothesis must explain. The second step, is to assess the competing hypotheses to see which one does provide

the best explanation of the facts. So this morning, let's begin with stage one, an examination of those

facts which must be explained by any adequate historical account of the fate of Jesus of Nazareth.

And it seems to me that these facts can all be summed up under three broad headings.

The empty tomb of Jesus, his post-mortem appearances, and finally the very

origin of the Christian faith itself. So let's look first at the historicity of the empty tomb.

And here I want to summarize briefly six lines of evidence

supporting the fact that the tomb of Jesus was found empty

by a group of his women followers on the first day of the week after his crucifixion.

Now notice the modesty of that statement.

Let me repeat it.

The tomb of Jesus was found empty by a group of his women followers on the first day of the week

after his crucifixion.

We're not going to try to establish the facticity of the

number of women at the tomb, whether they left before the sun had risen or after the son

had risen, whether there was a guard at the tomb, or whether it was unguarded, whether there

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