"About this time, there lived Jesus,a wise man,if indeed one was to call him a man. For he was one to perform surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many of the Jews and Greeks and when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us,Pilate had condemned him to a cross and those that came to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life for the prophets of God had foretold...."these things and a thousand other marvels about him, and the tribe of the Christians,so-called after him has still to this day not disappeared." ~Flavius Josephus~

" it was impossible that the apostles could have persisted in affirming the truths they narrated, had not Jesus Christ actually risen from the dead..."
~Simon Greenleaf, An Examination of the Testimony of the 4 Evangelists by the rules Administered in the Courts of Justice pg 29~