As an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I took Dr. Bart Ehrman’s New Testament class. The course was famous for destroying the faith of unsuspecting students, but I was going in eyes wide open, interested in strengthening my faith by grappling with challenges to it.

Decades later, I don’t remember many specifics from his lectures. But I remember exactly what I did most days after class. I walked out to the quad, pulled out my bulky dumb phone, and called my dad, a pastor. I’d recount some argument Ehrman made that seemed pretty compelling, and then my dad would say something like, “Well what he didn’t tell you is that many other scholars argue. . .” or “that Greek word can also be translated as. . .” No matter what I brought to my dad, he had a well-founded explanation for how Scripture holds up to Ehrman’s critiques.

I’ve always felt sorry for students who go through Ehrman’s course without a pastor-dad to call. One of the things I love most about working at TGC is that we help produce resources that answer hard questions about our faith. I like to think current students might find help from our articles, like Steve Bateman’s recent piece examining historical evidence for the resurrection. He carefully compares evidence for the death of Julius Caesar and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, showing how “we can have justified belief in both events by following four practices historians use to discover the truth about the past.”

Whether you’re trying to answer a skeptic’s objections to the resurrection or looking for an encouraging read to prepare your heart for Easter, Bateman’s article is a good reminder that we don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus despite the evidence. We believe because of it.