The Case for Christ

It's nice to have some mnemonics to keep in mind to be able to give a reason for the hope we have (1 Peter 3:15).

You might remember the 5 Cs.

Here are the four (or five) Es, care of Lee Strobel, the author of The Case for Christ:

E - execution: Yeshua was dead as a result of the execution: there's virtually no dispute that he was dead after the crucifixion. For this, we have a large number of early contemporary accounts of this. Josephus, Tacitus, Serapian, Lucian, the Talmud

E - early: the earliest report we have access to is dated from probably 3 months after the resurrection in an early creed

E - empty: we have an empty tomb, recognized by Yeshua's enemies as resulting from grave robbery (the modern trope that crucifixion victims were not buried is false).

E - eyewitnesses: in more than a dozen instances to over 515 people in total recorded in over 9 ancient sources within and external to the New Testament*. Unlike mass hysteria events, the events were all different, and mostly in prosaic everyday circumstances.

(E) - experience: of the apostles post-resurrection: changed from a band of frightened demoralized failures to determined risk-takers who led difficult lives of deprivation and suffering to proclaim Yeshua's resurrection from the dead to their own deaths. They had encountered the resurrected Yeshua and were confident to put their lives on the line for their experience.

*Many non-scholars reject the NT as an ancient source. But remember, the NT is a collection of ancient texts. It was not composed as a propaganda piece, but represents a compilation of individual texts separately composed within about 60 years of the crucifixion for various readerships across the ancient world. Don't confuse a method of binding for an intentional composition.