If I had faked the Resurrection by Josh McDowell

If Josh McDowell Had Faked the Resurrection  Josh McDowell, author of the highly popular Evidence That Demands a Verdict, says as a young man he set out to debunk Christianity. "I met a young Christian woman who challenged me to intellectually examine the evidence for Christianity, and I accepted her challenge," he recalls. "I aimed to show her—and everyone—that Christianity was nonsense. I thought it would be easy. I thought a careful investigation of the facts would expose Christianity as a lie and its followers as dupes."  Yet as he began to examine the claims of Christianity, he kept running into the evidence. "And one of the most convincing categories of evidence I confronted was this: The resurrection accounts found in the Gospels are not the stuff of fable, forgery or fabrication."  As he examined the accounts of Jesus' resurrection, McDowell says, "I had to admit that if I had been some first-century propagandist trying to fake the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I would have done a number of things differently." In light of this, he listed the following conclusions that helped lead him all the more to belief:  I would wait a prudent period after the events before "publishing" my account. I would publish my account far from the venue where it supposedly happened. I would select my "witnesses" very carefully. I would surround the event with impressive supernatural displays and omens. I would painstakingly correlate my account with others I knew, embellishing the legend only where I could be confident of not being contradicted. I would portray myself and any co-conspirators sympathetically, even heroically. I would disguise the location of the tomb or spectacularly destroy it in my account. I would try to squelch inquiry or investigation. I would not preach a message of repentance in light of the resurrection. I would stop short of dying for my lie. SOURCE: For the full story, see "If I Had Faked the Resurrection" by Josh McDowell (and Bob Hostetler).