Easter is important to
Christians. The resurrection of Christ, as a real historical event,
underpins our faith. I'd like to underline how reliable that history is.
The multiple accounts of
Jesus' resurrection are written for us in the four gospels from
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and some letters by Paul and Peter. All
of these sources were written very near in time, historically speaking,
to the events. We have manuscript copies as old as the third century.
Sometimes people object that these writers had "an axe to grind"; but this doesn't mean that what they wrote was false.
To see how impressive this is, compare it with the first date we learn in history: Julius Caesar invading Britain in 55BC.
We only have one account of this... by Julius himself! It was to impress his opponents in the Senate: he had an axe to grind!
The earliest manuscript copy
we have of his writing is from about 900 years after the events! And
archaeological evidence of the actual invasion was only found in 2019.
In spite of having only a
single axe-grinding account, a gap of 900 years before the first
manuscript and no archaeological evidence, historians have put Julius
Caesar's invasion of Britain in 55BC in our school history books.
The resurrection of Christ
would be in the history books too, if only it wasn't a miracle
(implying that God is real) and personally challenging.
You can read one eyewitness account here:-