11 Reasons Why It's Logical to Believe the Real Jesus Rose from the Dead.
1) It is well-documented that Jesus was crucified, even in non-biblical sources. Most skeptics believe it.
2) The death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah was a fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies (cf. Isaiah 53:9-10, Ps. 22, Ps. 110 and many others).
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
3) The 4 gospels are highly credible sources of ‘historical revelation’ in the form of documentary biography and eyewitness narrative. They all say that Jesus foretold his death and resurrection, and the disciples disbelieved it. (e.g. Mark 9:15 and 10:33-34)
4) The gospels give us explicit details: of his crucifixion and death, that he was taken off the cross and was placed in a specific tomb, and that Roman guards were placed there to prevent anyone from stealing his body (under pain of death if they failed). There are no sensible reasons to doubt the accounts up to that point (i.e. many of the details of the four gospels have been historically verified regarding other facts.)
5) We have to make sense of the solid facts: a) Jesus's body disappeared and has never been recovered; b) the Roman guards would not have allowed his body to be stolen, and all the authorities wanted him dead and gone for good. c) The disciples had no faith that he would rise from the dead, and d) they had no reason even to try to steal a dead man's body in light of who they had expected him to be—an invincible Messianic deliverer. The body of a dead Messiah was no good to them at all.
6) The disciples believed that Jesus rose from the dead; the book of Acts tells us that having first been in shock over the event, they later began to proclaim his resurrection to the masses at the risk of their own lives and well-being, under constant threat from the same authorities. This would be very hard to do if they knew it was a hoax.
7) They proclaimed it in public. Had anyone been able to produce the body (other than the disciples) they would have, in order to expose the folly of the disciples' preaching, as they were gaining a sizable following that greatly disconcerted the authorities.
8) Their belief in Jesus's resurrection was the focus of their preaching, teaching and writing, which they continued to do until they were all martyred for it one-by-one (except John the Apostle who was exiled). They believed the resurrection so strongly that they all gave up their livelihoods and their very lives to proclaim it to the world. Point: People don't give up everything with no hope of gain for what they know is a lie. The disciples of Christ gave up everything and gained nothing by it on this earth.
9) A conspiracy of that magnitude is almost impossible to hold together, with that many 'conspirators' involved. In the end, somebody eventually cracks to save their own skin. None of them did. Either it was true or someone deceived them completely, and even pretended (convincingly) to be the risen Jesus. But who could have? Who would have?
10) In the 1st through 3rd centuries AD the Christian faith mushroomed throughout the Roman Empire despite waves of persecution against Christians. Unlike Islam, it spread without military force or any sort of violence perpetrated by Christians for three whole centuries. It was literally unstoppable, but why?! Because it was credible, and thousands of average people believed it even though they had nothing to gain and everything to lose during those three centuries. There is no other logical way to explain the growth of Christianity but that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples and "more than 500 brethren at one time". (1 Cor. 15)
11) As Paul the Apostle expressed (1 Cor. 15:14) if Jesus did not rise from the dead, there is no coherent meaning to the Christian faith. The entire belief system crumbles. Paul and most of the other apostles were executed, and men simply do not go to such lengths for what they know is false. So there is no more reasonable explanation than the resurrection.