01
Read the sources
Biblical and extra-biblical accounts of the resurrection — concise summaries with citations.
CASE FILE · 30–33 A.D.
Six hypotheses. One verdict.
HistoreoLab makes historical hypotheses comparable. Read the sources, rate the assumptions, compare explanatory power — and see which explanation holds up.
Start the analysis Free · ~35 min
How it works
02
Meet the hypotheses
Six competing explanations — from a bodily resurrection to a late legend.
03
Evaluate
Rate the ad-hocness of each hypothesis’s assumptions and its explanatory power per fact.
04
Compare
See your evaluations as a live ranking — which hypothesis explains the facts best, with the fewest extra assumptions?
Six hypotheses, side by side
What happened between Good Friday and the disciples’ first reports? Six mutually exclusive historical explanations you can examine, point by point.
Resurrection
Jesus rose bodily from the dead.
Hallucination
The appearances were subjective perceptions, triggered by grief and expectation.
Conspiracy
The disciples invented the resurrection and disposed of the body.
Swoon
Jesus survived the crucifixion and was later mistaken for risen.
Legend
The resurrection accounts grew over time as later theological embellishment.
Objective Visions
The disciples experienced real, externally caused visions — without a physical resurrection.
Ready to run your own analysis?
No sign-up required to try it. You can save evaluations and sync across devices once you create an account.
Open the app