Historical Evidence of Jesus’ Resurrection

I want to spend the next week or two talking about Jesus and His resurrection. But I don’t want to talk about it from the bible, but from history and what history says about Jesus and about what took place after his crucifixion. Can I simply state a couple of points this morning about Jesus? Jesus was known as wise and virtuous. This fact was reported by Jewish Historian Josephus, who was born around AD 37. In his Antiquities of the Jews, he reports: At this time there was a wise man named Jesus. His conduct was good, and [he] was known to be virtuous. What a testimony from someone who didn’t necessarily accept that you were the Messiah sent from God, but he couldn’t find anything wrong about you to write about. But instead, he wrote that you were a wise teacher and a very virtuous man. Also, it is quoted by Josephus that Jesus had a brother named James. Concerning the stoning of James, Josephus writes this: So he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned. Although they may not jump off the page to you today to cause you excitement and a reason to rejoice. It does give us assurance today that Jesus was a real historic man. Back in the day, when I was a child and a young pastor, people would tell me that Jesus was just a fantasy made up to make people feel better about themselves and live. But now I know that Jesus of Nazareth was a real man. A real man that did something that no other man would be willing to do – to die for my sins. Not just to save me life here, but to take upon himself my sins so that I could take on his righteousness. I promise we’ll get to the resurrection. But today we can rejoice that there was a man named Jesus and he stated that his purpose was to come and be the savior of the world. Saving me and you from our sins. REJOICE CHRISTIAN, REJOICE!