A view of the great Hindu temple complex of Angkor Wat
(Photo by Francisco Anzola, Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think that I\u2019ll return for the rest of this blog entry to James D. G. Dunn, Why believe in Jesus\u2019 Resurrection?<\/em> (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2016).<\/p>\nSpeaking of the claim that Jesus rose from the dead, Professor Dunn remarks that<\/p>\n
the extraordinariness and lack of parallel should not count against the claim itself.\u00a0 We cannot deny a claim simply because it is extraordinary, otherwise we could hardly make sense, for example, of the beginning of the cosmos, or even of Alexander the Great\u2019s invasion of India.\u00a0 (2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And then he makes what I regard as a very sage observation, even it it be a simple one:<\/p>\n
To start with, we should not fail to note that there are no<\/em> accounts of Jesus\u2019 resurrection itself!\u00a0 Or, at least, there are no accounts of Jesus\u2019 resurrection worth considering as first-hand accounts of his first followers.\u00a0 The only account as such from the early centuries of Christianity is in the Gospel of Peter, which is so far removed from the Gospel accounts as to appear fanciful, and if anything highlights the soberness of the Gospel accounts.\u00a0 (2-3, italics in the original)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nHere\u2019s an important point:<\/p>\n
When did the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead first emerge?\u00a0 The answer to this question is surprising.\u00a0 Surprising, because extraordinary claims about people regarded as famous usually take some time, even generations, to arise.\u00a0 But in the case of Jesus the belief that he had been raised from the dead emerged very soon after his death \u2014 indeed, as we shall see, within days of that death, according to the earliest testimonies.\u00a0 (4)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What about the transforming experience of Saul the persecutor on the road to Damascus, which transformed him into the great apostle Paul:<\/p>\n
Was Paul mistaken?\u00a0 That is certainly possible.\u00a0 But Paul was probably the sharpest mind among the earliest believers \u2014 a well-trained Pharisee for a start. . . .\u00a0 And suggestions that he had had a fit, or something similar, on the Damascus road make little sense when we recall how effectively he responded thereafter to the many complex challenges which he encountered in the churches he established.\u00a0 (8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Here are three of the challenges that Professor Dunn identifies in connection with the claim of Jesus\u2019 resurrection from the dead:<\/p>\n
\n- \n
An event which turned an arch-persecutor of the first Christians into the most effective Christian and missionary.\u00a0 And yet he writes so persuasively about it, and attributes his great success to the risen Jesus, who he believed had encountered and commissioned him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Disciples who seemed to have lost all hope yet were transformed and became effective emissaries of one decisively rejected by the leaders of his\/their own people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
A grave found empty, with no other undisturbed grave suggested as Jesus\u2019 true end, despite the hostility to the early Christian proclamation, or anything forming a decisive riposte for those unconvinced by the resurrection claims.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
A belief in resurrection \u2014 that is, not simply restoration to a life which would end in death [e.g., as in the case of Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain], but resurrection to life beyond death.\u00a0 Why so in the case of one man when it soon became clear that it was not really the beginning of the (general) resurrection of the dead [which Jews expected at the end of the world, not<\/em> at the beginning of the first century of the common era]?\u00a0 (39)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Victoria, British Columbia<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Conference Talks: \u201cAll Abraham\u2019s Children: A Genetic Perspective\u201d\u00a0is the name of a presentation that was given by Dr. Ugo A. Perego on Saturday, 12 March 2016, as part of 2016\u2019s Second Interpreter Science & Mormonism Symposium: \u201cBody, Brain, Mind, and Spirit.\u201d Dr. Perego\u2019s presentation is now available for your listening and viewing pleasure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":68546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36413,6798,1369,36416,1366,641],"class_list":["post-100970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-angkor","tag-cambodia","tag-jesus","tag-khmer","tag-resurrection","tag-temple"],"yoast_head":"\n
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