Abstract

I limit myself principally to a discussion of Dale Allison’s treatment of what I take to be the three central facts undergirding a historical inference to Jesus’s resurrection, namely, the discovery of his empty tomb, his postmortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief that God had raised Jesus from the dead. I am not here concerned with the question of which hypothesis best explains these three facts but rather with the historicity of the events themselves. I argue that Allison’s handling of the evidence, particularly for the empty tomb, is uneven and overly sceptical, while his case against the empty tomb is surprisingly weak. I close with some reflections on why worldview considerations need not lead to a suspension of judgment on the best explanation of these facts.