Aaron Brake, “…although the resurrection may be classified as a ‘miraculous event,’ it is a historical event nonetheless and should be investigated as such…” 1THE MINIMAL FACTS OF THE RESURRECTION. https://crossexamined.org/the-minimal-facts-of-the-resurrection/
Theist Antony Flew, “The evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It’s outstandingly different in quality and quantity.”
NT scholar, John Dominic Crossan: “That He was crucified is as sure as anything historical ever can be.” (Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, 2007; 113)
“Both Gerd Ludemann, an atheistic NT critic, and Bart Ehrman, who is an agnostic, call the crucifixion an indisputable fact.” (113)
Tacitus, Roman historian, 110 AD: “Jesus suffered the extreme penalty under the reign of Tiberius.” (113)
“Josephus [the Jewish historian, 90 AD] reports that Pilate ‘condemned him to be crucified’…Even the Jewish Talmud reports that ‘Yeshu was hanged.’” (113) 2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_the_Talmud#:~:text=The%20complete%20passage%20is%3A%20%22On,and%20seduced%20Israel%20to%20idolatry.
Apologist Michael Licona claims that “Lucian of Samosata, who was a Greek satirist, mentions the crucifixion, and Mara Bar-Serapion, who was a pagan, confirms Jesus was executed.” (113)
“the meaning of the resurrection is a theological matter, but the fact of the resurrection is a historical matter.” 3Wilbur Smith, Therefore Stand (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1945), 386, as quoted in Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 211.
Even the skeptics endorse the fact that Jesus died on the cross:
Atheist Jeffery Lowder says that “the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea has a high final probability.”4https://crossexamined.org/the-minimal-facts-of-the-resurrection/#_ftn30
The crucifixion of Jesus is recognized even by the Jesus Seminar as “one indisputable fact.” http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/rediscover2.html#text17
Non-believer Professor Bart Ehrman says, “One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate.”
Richard Swinburne, a professor of philosophy at Oxford University. ”For someone dead for 36 hours to come to life again is, according to the laws of nature, extremely improbable, But if there is a God of the traditional kind, natural laws only operate because he makes them operate.” Professor Swinburne proceeded to weigh evidence for and against the Resurrection, using the same probability theory economists use to make forecasts about consumer spending. He assigned values to factors like the probability that there is a God, the nature of Jesus’ behavior during his lifetime and the quality of witness testimony after his death. Then, while his audience followed along on printed lecture notes, he plugged his numbers into a dense thicket of letters and symbols — using a probability formula known as Bayes’s theorem — and did the math. ”Given e and k, h is true if and only if c is true,” he said. ”The probability of h given e and k is .97” In plain English, this means that, by Mr. Swinburne’s calculations, the probability of the Resurrection comes out to be a whopping 97 percent. 5https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/11/arts/so-god-s-really-in-the-details.html
Not all scholars agree in the historicity of the resurrection:
“An historical fact which involves a resurrection from the dead is utterly inconceivable,” Rudolf Bultmann 6https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Rudolf_Bultmann
Here are more quotes Jesus Really did Appear to the Disciples and Skeptics After His Death 40 Quotes by Scholars
References