- Christianity's powerall hinges on the fact

of the Resurrection, butdetractors for centuries

have come up with scenarios

to explain away the realityof the Resurrection.

One is the wrong tomb theory.

Everyone just went to thewrong tomb, an empty one,

and assumed Christ had resurrected.

Indiana doctor, Joseph Bergeron,

studied the crucifixion ofChrist and its aftermath

for 10 years.- Going to a wrong tomb

and finding it empty

doesn't present to anybody's mind

that the person resurrected from the dead.

- [Paul] Alex McFarlandis another top defender

of the faith at events like Bible camps

and apologetics conferences.

He points out another well known fact.

- Pilate had dispatcheda cadre of Roman soldiers

to guard the tomb.

- So everybody knew where it was.

- [Paul] There's also the swoon theory.

They want you to believeinstead of dying on the cross,

Jesus only passed out,

woke up in the tomb acouple of days later,

rolled away the huge stone, and escaped.

McFarland says impossible.

- Christ has been atleast two to three days

without food or water, dehydrated,

he was beaten severely,huge loss of blood,

nailed to the cross.

- [Paul] And if the alwaysfatal crucifixion process

hadn't already killed him,

Roman soldiers made sure.

- They plunged a spear into his chest

because to allow any possibility

that he would survive the crucifixion,

would mean that they would die themselves.

- [Paul] McFarland explainsthe swoon theorists

then present this unlikely scenario.

- He revived himself, he moves a 2 1/2

to three-ton stone,

he overcomes a dozen Roman soldiers

in peak physical condition.

- [Paul] McFarland alsosees a moral problem

with what the swoon theoristswant you to believe.

- He told his disciples he had risen

and he allowed them to go forth

and preach what was false,

and die for what really wasn't true.

This compromises the moral

righteous nature of the person Jesus.

- [Paul] The stolen body theory proposes

that the very disciples who fled in terror

after the crucifixion then risked death

to steal Christ's body from the tomb,

and then made up thewhole resurrection story.

- They sufficiently regatherand summon up enough bravery

to overcome Roman soldiers.

I mean, this could havebeen at best arrest,

if not execution and death.

They move the stone, theytake away the body of Jesus,

they say he's risen.

- [Paul] But that wouldhave been the opposite

of Jesus' life and teaching.

- Everything he's all about ispredicated on righteousness,

virtue, truth, holiness.

Here is truth personified,and they build a gospel

on a lie?

It just doesn't make sense.

- [Paul] And all butone of those disciples

was put to death for this gospel.

- People sometimes will diefor some misguided belief

that they have.

Nobody dies for a hoax.

- One popular idea is thateveryone who saw Jesus alive

after his death was just hallucinating.

Bergeron points out, though,

in the rare documented casesof group hallucinations,

they all see different things.

- None of them experiencethe same exact thing.

- [Paul] Because it's all in their mind.

McFarland points out the risen Christ

appeared several times and interacted

with hundreds of people,

as recorded in 1st Corinthians 15.

- Paul says he was seen byup to 500 brethren at once.

- Hallucination hypothesescan never explain

the group appearances,the group experiences

the disciples had with Jesus.

- Hallucinations are not contagious.

Hallucinations generally don'tappear in different places

to different groups of people.

You generally can't talk and converse

with an hallucination.

And you certainly can'teat with an hallucination.

- [Paul] So why not just believe

in what the son of God promised he'd do?

Resurrection.- His identity, message,

credentials were validatedby the fact that he did

what none of us coulddo under our own power.

He rose from the dead.

- I'm more convinced thatwhat we believe as Christians

is true and accuratethan I ever have been.

- Like so many othersacross the millennia,

Bergeron contends the best explanation

for why Jesus wasn't inthat tomb Easter morning,

is what Christ's discipleshave always said.

He came alive and rose from it.

Paul Strand, CBN News,reporting from Indiana.