Acts 2:29-32

The context

Acts 2 records the Pentecost sermon. Peter has cited Joel, then turned to David, arguing that the psalm's language about not being abandoned to the grave cannot refer to David, whose tomb was still there. Verses 29–32 make that argument explicitly and end by calling the apostles witnesses of the resurrection.

What it establishes

The reasoning is public and checkable: a known tomb on one side, living witnesses on the other. The claim is that the psalm pointed past David to someone whose body did not stay in the ground. Resurrection is the content of apostolic testimony, not an inference from Scripture alone.

What it does not establish

It does not prove the tomb's location or the exegesis. The psalm's application to Christ is the apostolic reading, and other readings of it exist. The verse also does not describe the resurrection appearances. It records what Peter argued in Jerusalem, which is a historical claim about the sermon.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• Reasons why I don’t believe? Well, to start with, the Jesus Resurrection accounts in the Bible contradict one another. Need I go on?
• Did Jesus really rise from the dead — and what is the actual historical evidence?

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.