There are a huge number of resurrections mentioned in the New Testament: just in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, there's the raising of Lazarus, and of the daughter of Jairus, neither of whom ever say a word. Nothing is ever said about, "What was it like?", "What did they say?"
"How was it to be dead?" Questions that you would think even the most incurious villager would want to ask them. They're just raised from the dead and we move on. There's nothing said . . . rather astonishing! But making it seem as if resurrection is a relative commonplace.
Then in the Gospel of Matthew, at the time of the crucifixion, the graves of Jerusalem opened as the heavens darkened & as the veil was torn, & those who were lying in those graves left them & walked around the markets & streets of Jerusalem, & were greeted by many who they knew.
What's wrong with this story? It means resurrection is a relative commonplace. There isn't anything specifically wonderful about it. It's the sort of thing you might expect at any time: to meet a dead friend or relative walking the streets in their cerements and grave clothes.
Most astonishingly, the scribes cannot converge on a common account of the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. Thus, the one interpretation that we simply have to discard is the one that claims divine warrant for all four of them.
The book on which all four may possibly have been based, known speculatively to scholars as "Q," has been lost forever, which seems distinctly careless on the part of the god who is claimed to have "inspired" it.
If you only hear a report of the miracle from a second or third party, the odds must be adjusted accordingly before you can decide to credit a witness who claims to have seen something that you did not see. And if you are separated from the "sighting" by many generations...
Again we might call upon the trusty Ockham, who warned us not to multiply unnecessary contingencies.
The New Testament is itself a highly dubious source. (One of Professor Barton Ehrman's more astonishing findings is that the account of Jesus's resurrection in the Gospel of Mark was only added many years later.)
If Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus stayed immortal, then they joined the ancient company of the "Wandering Jew," who was condemned by early Christianity to keep walking forever after he met Jesus on the Via Dolorosa.
...This misery being inflicted upon a mere bystander in order to fulfill the otherwise unfulfilled prophesy that Jesus would come again in the lifetime of at least one person who had seen him the first time around.
Matthew 27:52-53 seems incoherent, since the corpses apparently rose both at the time of the death on the cross and of the Resurrection, but it is narrated in the same matter-of-fact way as the earthquake, the rending of the veil of the temple...
(two other events that did not attract the attention of any historian), and the reverent comments of the Roman centurion.
This supposed frequency of resurrection can only undermine the uniqueness of the one by which mankind purchased forgiveness of sins. And there is no cult or religion before or since, from Osiris to vampirism to voodoo, that does not rely on some innate belief in the "undead."
To this day, Christians disagree as to whether the day of judgment will give you back the old wreck of a body that has already died on you, or will reequip you in some other form.
For now, and on a review even of the claims made by the faithful, one can say that resurrection would not prove the truth of the dead man's doctrine, nor his paternity, nor the probability of still another return in fleshly or recognizable form.
Yet again, also, too much is being "proved." The action of a man who volunteers to die for his fellow creatures is universally regarded as noble. The extra claim not to have "really" died makes the whole sacrifice tricky and meretricious.
Thus, those who say "Christ died for my sins," when he did not really "die" at all, are making a statement that is false in its own terms.
Having no reliable or consistent witnesses, in anything like the time period needed to certify such an extraordinary claim, we are finally entitled to say that we have a right, if not an obligation, to respect ourselves enough to disbelieve the whole thing.
That is, unless or until superior evidence is presented, which it has not been. And exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
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