For Easter morning I'm reading some of the Bible verses about the Resurrection, and they're really fascinating from a narrative standpoint. The descriptions are downright modern in that nearly everyone requires a lot of convincing that something supernatural has happened.

Jesus' followers and mother see an empty tomb & their first reaction isn't-"clearly he rose from the dead," it's "Oh no, someone stole his body!" In the different accounts it requires the appearance of angels or Jesus himself to convince them otherwise.

The account in John plays almost as sly comedy, with Mary Magdalene mistaking a resurrected Christ for the gardener and asking him for help in finding Jesus' body before he calls her by her name and she shouts "Teacher!" in Aramaic.

Thomas has gotten stuck with the "doubting Thomas" nickname for 2,000 years, but skepticism and disbelief is nearly the universal reaction to the news until people see the evidence with their own eyes.

Whatever you think of the historicity of the New Testament, it's clearly written from the perspective of people who didn't take a supernatural explanation for strange events as a given. And that's fascinating to me from a historical and narrative standpoint.

I'd note that despite Christianity's emphasis on faith, Jesus himself is remarkably understanding of all of his followers being skeptical. Even Thomas isn't cast out for demanding to see evidence...

Instead, Jesus makes his famous (and in context, kind of passive-aggressive) statement about those being blessed who can believe without seeing (subtext: "It would have been nice if you hadn't demanded to stick your finger in my wounds, Thomas") but Thomas remains an apostle.