The Resurrection and the first Christians

First and foremost I have to clarify that my beliefs and convictions of the resurrection of Christ aren't based on historical facts of secular studies. My conviction comes from the Holy Scriptures, which of course is the Holy Bible, and from the Church teachings.

And if you are a Christian who is reading this, I hope that your conviction also isn't based on seculier studies of historical facts for the resurrection of Christ considering seculier history is from this world and we are not of this world. Because Jesus Christ Himself is not of this world (John 15:19 & John 17:14).

Although most historians will agree on the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ did actually exist as a historical figure and also confirm that He was crucified, almost every document that we have on Him speaks of His crucifixion and confirm this happening as a factual happening. But because non-Christians aren't willing to accept the Bible as a trusted document and same so with the Church teachings, I do want to point out some historical facts from non-Christian point of view about the resurrection of our Lord.

Let us therefore go back to the Early Church and the first Christians. We know that after the Disciples of Christ gathered and started the first Christian community, they went out and preached the Resurrected Lord to the four corners of the world. They preached the Good News, which is the Gospel of Christ and that is, that He died for our sins and was brought back to life and lived among them for forty days before He ascended to heaven. This is the Christian faith, this the pillar of our faith, without the resurrection of Christ, our faith is a death faith (1 Corinthians 15:17). The reason we know that the early Christians believed that Jesus was resurrected from dead, is because we have the testimony of many eyewitnesses. In this case we could go to the Bible, but considering that isn't "authorative" enough to convince the non-Christian, we are not going there, but we will try to proof the resurrection on a other ways. If we just look how fast Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, it is truly fascinating. Because we have to realize that people in those days, like the Romans who were in charge, the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and all those lands who converted to the Christian faith, were people who lived in societies who believed in pagan gods. And those pagan gods and the rulers of these lands who promoted and practiced those pagan rituals etc. These were people of power and their idols, were all  known as mighty warrior gods and they had certain status of power. Think of Zeus and Hercules, or the Roman equivalent of  Zeus, Jupiter. Apollo and Aphrodite, the Egyptian gods Ra, Osiris and Anubis, just to mention a few. There were all known for their might and their warrior like view people had of them. These pagans, or gentiles, gave up all of these 'mighty gods' to replace them with a crucified Jewish Man that they never met, one who wasn't their own or of their culture. One who was killed by mere humans, these converts, threw their old gods away to follow what seems like a weak God from a foreign land. Why would they do that? It isn't so that the early Christians were powerful, that they had riches or armies to force people to believe in this Jesus of Nazareth. What was so convincive of this new religion that started in the first century Palestine in Jerusalem and spread throughout the whole Roman Empire and beyond? Why would the people leave their old gods beyond and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Was this a sign that the Holy Spirit was working through these people? I personally are convinced of this as being a fact. But let us dig deeper, we also know that the first Christians were persecuted for their beliefs, that the Church of Christ was built on Christian Martyrs, all of the original Apostles were martyred, with exception of John the Theologian who was exiled to the island of Patmos, but every other Apostle died a terrible death by the hands of their persecutors for believing and preaching the resurrected Lord. And those Christians who came after the Apostles, many of them also were martyred for their beliefs. So why would they give up their lives for a lie if Christ truly didn't resurrect like some claim? Like the Jewish leaders of that time falsely claimed about the Christians, that our faith is based on a lie, invented by the Apostles who stole the body of Christ from the tomb and hid it to convince people that Jesus Christ resurrected. Why would His Apostles do such a thing, considering that they themselves were from the tribes of Isräel and held the to Jewish scriptures and laws? And not only that, but the fact that they also knew that if they would do such a thing that they would be considered outcasts and a sect, and that the Jewish leaders would persecute them for such a statement. But not only the Apostles gave up their lives in the Name of Christ, but many of the early Christians. So again, why would people die for a lie? Unless it isn't a lie and they would be glad to give up their lives for the sake and glory of the truth, which is in Christ and His Church. Like I said earlier, even the Jewish leaders of that time, although they believe it to be a lie, confirm that the early Christians, believed in the crucifiction and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that this was also preached by the Apostles. But not only do we have Jewish sources who confirm the belief in a resurrected Christ, but also outside Judaism there are tons of documents we can get our hands on, who confirm that the first Christians believed in the resurrection of Christ. Friends and foes of Christianity, who all speak and confirm that we Christians always believed that our Lord was crucified and rose from the dead. There is even evidence that this believe in Christ as the resurrected Lord already reached Rome in AD 10, this was even before the conversion of Saint Paul and his mission to preach the Gospel of Christ to the gentiles. So the Gospel spread throughout the world like a flame of fire and reached the ears and the hearts of thousands, if not millions of people in Palestine and outside of it. So from a non-Biblical and external (secular) sources we can conclude that the Church always believed and preached the dead and resurrection of Christ and that this was the center point of our religious belief since the beginning of Christianity, and that it didn't evolve centuries after the first Christians, nor that it was a innovation by the Church, as some like to claim. 

With kind regards in Christ.