An icon of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Wikimedia Commons public domain)
In this image, Christ is pulling Adam (on the left) and Eve (on the right) from their tombs. Beneath his feet, Satan lies bound and you can see the broken doors of the gates of Hell (and parts of the shattered lock mechanism of those gates).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I published this column in the Deseret News<\/em> at Easter season in 2013. \u00a0And, yes, the book to which the column refers remains still unfinished:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Modern people commonly assume that pre-modern people were stupid, inhabiting a primitive fantasy world detached from reality, unenlightened by science, and awash in superstition.\u00a0 Such gullible minds, some modern \u201crealists\u201d claim, merely imagined the resurrection of Christ.<\/span><\/p>\nThis is a largely baseless prejudice. Pre-modern people knew death intimately, in a way that most of us today don\u2019t.\u00a0 For them, death occurred at home, in battle, through accidents, or as a result of plague, not in a sterile hospital staffed by cool, efficient professionals.\u00a0\u00a0 It was up close, personal, and very visible.\u00a0 Family or friends typically disposed of the bodies of their dead.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t delegate that final service to others.<\/span><\/p>\nThus, to suggest that the first Christians believed that Jesus rose from the tomb because they didn\u2019t grasp the nature of death is to speak flat nonsense.\u00a0 Nobody knew better than they did that dead bodies don\u2019t return to life.<\/span><\/p>\nWhen, on Easter morning, Mary Magdalene and the other women reported their encounter with the angels at the empty tomb to the apostles, \u201ctheir words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not\u201d (Luke 24:11).\u00a0 Even after Peter himself had gone to the sepulcher, seeing it vacant and Jesus\u2019 burial shroud neatly folded within, he \u201cdeparted, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass\u201d (Luke 24:12; John 20:7).\u00a0 He didn\u2019t naively rush to believe.<\/span><\/p>\nJesus appeared to ten of the remaining eleven apostles that evening, but Thomas wasn\u2019t there with them.\u00a0 And then, despite their collective testimony that \u201cWe have seen the Lord,\u201d he insisted \u201cExcept I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hands into his side, I will not believe\u201d (John 20:25).<\/span><\/p>\nThe New Testament accounts suggest not gullibility on the part of the first Christian disciples, but skepticism.\u00a0 The skepticism that some imagine is reserved for enlightened moderns.\u00a0 In the ancient world, as in ours, the dead don\u2019t commonly return.<\/span><\/p>\nBut skepticism maintained too long is foolishness, and the disciples\u2019 incredulity was shattered by their experience with the risen Lord.\u00a0 The seeming defeat of the cross was swallowed up in the fact of the resurrection.\u00a0 The disciples were transformed.\u00a0 On the Saturday of Passover weekend, while the Lord\u2019s body lay in his tomb\u2014though, unannounced to mortals, he was at work organizing the proclamation of the Gospel among the spirits of the dead (1 Peter 3:18-20; 4:6; Doctrine and Covenants 138) \u2014the disciples, fearing further arrests and executions, literally discouraged at the apparent failure of their leader, were in hiding.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd yet, the four gospels testify that, with the exception of Thomas, they saw Jesus alive again the next day.\u00a0 \u201cMy Lord and my God,\u201d said Thomas to Jesus when he too had actually seen the risen Savior (John 20:28).<\/span><\/p>\nJesus trained them for forty subsequent days and then commanded that they await the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them before acting further (Acts 1:3-4).\u00a0 That descent occurred at Pentecost, fifty days after the crucifixion.\u00a0 Instantly, the remaining apostles were out on the streets of Jerusalem, boldly testifying, at great personal risk, of Christ\u2019s resurrection (see Acts 2-4).\u00a0 Soon thereafter, this small band of Galilean peasants were carrying that revolutionary message across the Mediterranean, witnessing of \u201cthat which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life\u201d (1 John 1:1).\u00a0 And this seemingly failed little Jewish messianic movement proceeded to change world history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBut what of those who haven\u2019t directly met the resurrected Jesus?\u00a0 \u201cThomas,\u201d said the Savior, \u201cbecause thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed\u201d (John 20:29).<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cDid not our heart burn within us,\u201d reflected Cleopas and his companion along the road to Emmaus after they realized the identity of the third man who had walked with them \u201cwhile he talked with us by the way?\u201d (Luke 24:32).<\/span><\/p>\nEven today, many can bear similar testimony.\u00a0 Someday I hope to demonstrate at book length that Christians have sound historical reason to do so.\u00a0 \u201cWe have not followed cunningly devised fables,\u201d insisted Peter, \u201cwhen we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty\u201d (2 Peter 1:16).<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I published this column in the Deseret News at Easter season in 2013. \u00a0And, yes, the book to which the column refers remains still unfinished: \u00a0 Modern people commonly assume that pre-modern people were stupid, inhabiting a primitive fantasy world detached from reality, unenlightened by science, and awash in superstition.\u00a0 Such gullible minds, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1356,9761,9773,9770,1363,9758,9764,9767,1369,2625,1366,9755,921],"class_list":["post-84248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christ","tag-cleopas","tag-credulity","tag-credulous","tag-easter","tag-emmaus","tag-gullibility","tag-gullible","tag-jesus","tag-new-testament","tag-resurrection","tag-thomas","tag-witnesses"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Anastasis\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/Resurrection_24.jpg\")
<\/a>