Posted on 04/19/2019 7:04:47 AM PDT by Heartlander
Tom Hoopes | Apr 18, 2019
This Sunday is Easter Sunday, the day we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord.
It’s important to understand what the Church claims. The Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, famous on YouTube, speaks of psychological and symbolic ways he appreciates the resurrection as a great freeing principle, but he says the question of the actual rising of Jesus from the dead is “murky and complicated.”
He’s wrong. The question is simple: Was there a point in history in which Jesus Christ was dead and then a point at which he was alive again?
On that question, the evidence is very strong: Yes. Jesus literally rose from the dead.
1: The argument from Christ’s weakness.
It is important to look at the way the New Testament story is told. In several ways, this does not look like a “resurrection myth,” like the story of the Phoenix, which skeptics like Peterson point to.
Jesus is not presented as an all-powerful mythic figure who triumphs over foes. He looks rather weak, in fact. “Father if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” he says. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he cries out.
After the crucifixion, the heroic figure of Jesus isn’t what loomed in his followers’ mind: His weakness did. The Apostles came back because something extraordinary happened: Their defeated leader rose from the dead.
2: The argument from the Apostles’ weakness.
If the apostles were making up a religion, they didn’t do it the way most founders of new religions have. They didn’t make themselves look great and worthy of respect. They made themselves look like a train-wreck.
“Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized (‘looking sad’) and frightened,” says the Catechism. “For they had not believed the holy women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an ‘idle tale.’ When Jesus reveals himself to the Eleven on Easter evening, he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.”
If they were making up a religion, they were doing it wrong, giving people reasons not to put faith in them.
3: The transformation of Saul.
Apart from the Twelve, we have the case of St. Paul. He went from zealous persecutor to zealous preacher after seeing Christ alive. This extraordinary transformation — from someone scandalized by the Christian message to its chief proponent — makes sense if Christ rose. But it makes no sense if he didn’t.
Paul returns to his personal resurrection story again and again, even when he is on trial. It fuels his faith; it makes all the difference to him. He even says “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14).
He bet everything on the actual Resurrection, and invited us to do the same.
4: No early Church debate.
The early Church debated many fundamentals, even the nature of the Resurrection, but not the fact of the Resurrection. That was a given.
In John’s account, when Peter and he enter the empty tomb they “saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.” For John, the sight shows that Jesus wasn’t taken away, and that he didn’t rise like Lazaraus did. Something new had happened. Says the Gospel: “he saw and believed.”
5: The faith of the martyrs.
Christians, from the Church’s first days to our own day, have been willing to die for their conviction that Christ rose from the dead. For them, the Resurrection isn’t a sweet dream that they indulge in, but a hard reality they suffer and die for.
“He was also truly raised from the dead, his Father quickening him, even as after the same manner his Father will so raise up us who believe in him by Christ Jesus,” said the martyr Ignatius. He was torn apart by lions in the year 108 for believing that.
“He who raised him up from the dead will raise up us also, if we do his will, and walk in his commandments, and love what he loved,” wrote the martyr Polycarp. He was burned at the stake in 155 for his beliefs.
6: The “inconsistent” accounts.
Gospel writers included different details and material from different sources — all of which mention the fact of the Resurrection. We have the story of Emmaus, the story of the breakfast by the sea, Thomas helpfully establishing that Jesus still had wounds, the story of Mary Magdalene, and more. These many stories all attest to the same fact of the Resurrection.
Bible skeptics point out the discrepancies between the various accounts, while Bible defenders show how they can coexist.
The larger point is often lost: They read like different peoples’ experience of the same event, not like a conscious effort by a group to make something up.
7: The eyewitnesses.
In his letter to the Corinthians, which many scholars date at around A.D. 53, St. Paul spoke of how Christ appeared, alive, to 500 at once. If it weren’t true, it would be impossible to make that claim so soon after the event occurred.
When Paul talks about the Resurrection again and again, there are two facts that are important to him: That the tomb is empty, and Jesus has appeared to many. They are both compelling pieces of evidence because they would be relatively easy for his audiences to disprove.
8: Non-Christian historical accounts.
There is actually quite a bit of evidence about the existence of Jesus in such ancient sources as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, the Babylonian Talmud, and the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata. They all mention various aspects of Jesus’ life.
Josephus, the Jewish historian, wrote a history in the year 93 that mentions that Jesus was crucified and appeared alive afterwards to his followers. Though the text is questioned by some scholars, there are multiple versions that retain the essential fact of Jesus dying and then somehow resurfacing, alive.
Read more: Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian who wrote about Jesus
Tacitus mentions Jesus also, citing his crucifixion as having proved unable to stop the “superstition” of Christianity.
However the debate about the various texts turns out, Tacitus’ point is a good one. Why wouldn’t Jesus’ crucifixion end his religious movement? Because he rose from the dead.
9: Jesus didn’t die again.
Not only does the evidence support Jesus’ Resurrection — it supports his ultimate claim, that he is divine.
Others have returned from brief death in our own time, and from longer death in New Testament stories. “Christ’s Resurrection is essentially different,” says the Catechism. “In his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. At Jesus’ Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is “the man of heaven.”
Jesus rose never to die again. Because of that, we see …
10: The rise of a historical religion.
Christianity spread and grew despite persecution not because of the power of the Apostles’ personalities or the perks of the faith — the Apostles were weak and there were penalties, not perks — but because of the Resurrection experience of the early Christians.
The historical fact of the Resurrection of Christ, in his glorified body, is the building block for every dimension of the Catholic faith.
At Easter we don’t celebrate a myth or a great psychological symbol. We celebrate the historical event that is the foundation of all of our hope and joy and happiness.
He is truly risen. Our faith is not in vain.
FAITH !
He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia
The Internal Kingdom of God where Jesus Sits.
1 Cor 3:16 - Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that God’s spirit dwells in you?
Matthew 28:20 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Something to read at dinner Sunday.
Whether one be Protestant or Catholic... it is clear we agree on at least one aspect of our faith... As Paul stated... if there is no resurrection...our faith is in vain... and worthless.
It is beyond obvious... something happened between the crucifixion and that Sunday... where it turned cowards into warriors... and turned the world upside down...
All praise, honor and glory be given to our risen Christ!!!
Happy Easter All!
The Holy Spirit told me in no uncertain terms.
Amen, and Happy Easter to you too!
Amen! He is Risen, Indeed!
Most of the early counter-arguments were that Jesus had “merely swooned” and “wasn’t truly dead”, that the cool air in the tomb helped to revive Him and He regained consciousness.
The tomb, however, was protected by Roman guards and the rock placed at the entrance was too heavy for one man to push aside making it impossible for Jesus to escape even if He was revived.
John 19:34 gives us proof that Jesus was truly, physically dead. Jesus’ death on the Cross was considered a quick one compared to other crucifixions so one of the Roman soldiers guarding the body pierced his side with a spear and what spewed out was “blood and water”.
In his book “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”, Josh McDowell explains how today’s forensic science answers why that happened. After death, an upright body separates blood (red cells) from plasma. The “water” noted in John’s gospel turns out to be the plasma which only separates after the body is dead, not while the person is still alive.
The guard was only performing a crude test to see if the body responded like a corpse or if it would respond to pain but, in so doing, produced a scientific result that proved Jesus was truly dead and not just “swooned”.
Further, the preparing of the body in Jewish tradition wrapped the head so tightly in cloth that it would be impossible to breathe. If He wasn’t dead from everything else that happened to Him, this alone would have killed Him.
The other running rumor of the time is that the disciples kidnapped the dead body but, if that were true, they’d have to produce an imposter to be the living Jesus seen by hundreds and (thank you, Thomas) had the same wounds inflicted on Jesus. An imposter that could transport Himself through the clouds when He was finished with final instructions.
The disciples were planning how to hide so as not to be executed themselves. It was to fulfill prophecy that none of the disciples stood with Jesus but feared being put to death with Him.
Roman guards were stationed outside the tomb. The guards fled after the earthquake despite being aware that the punishment if found guilty of abandoning their post is - death!
If anyone doubts, read McDowell’s excellent book which began as McDowell hoped to prove once and for all that Christianity was a hoax yet came to believe it was not only true but inescapably so.
Happy Easter to All!
Bingo! The winning post!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.