![\"Chora](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/05\/Anastasis_fresco_Chora_Church_Istanbul.jpg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Just in from a bit of shoveling snow at my father-in-law\u2019s place across the street from the parking lot of the Bountiful Utah Temple.\u00a0 It is a beautiful, clean, clear, sunny day.\u00a0 Spring may actually, finally, be on its way.<\/p>\n
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A lecture went up fairly late yesterday on the website of the Interpreter Foundation website that I think some of you will find of interest:\u00a0 Conference Talks: \u201c\u2018I Have Done According to My Will\u2019: Reading Jacob 5 as a Temple Text.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 It was delivered by Professor Matthew L. Bowen<\/a> on Saturday, 25 October 2014, as part of the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s 2014 Temple on Mount Zion Conference.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n With Easter on its way, I think it might be appropriate to share something from my ongoing slow-motion reading of Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach<\/em> (Routledge, 2020).\u00a0 It\u2019s perhaps, quite unintentionally, one of the funniest counter-explanations of what happened at Easter that I\u2019ve ever come across:<\/span><\/p>\n Eisenberg (2016) has combined a variation of the swoon hypothesis and the remain buried hypothesis together with the intramental hypothesis and the mistaken identity hypothesis.\u00a0 The key question asked by Eisenberg is this: What would have happened if those who retrieved Jesus\u2019 body found that he was still alive?\u00a0 Eisenberg suggests the following scenario:\u00a0 Jesus survived the crucifixion and was discovered to be barely alive by the few followers (e.g. Joseph [of Arimathea -dcp]) who retrieved him.\u00a0 Hoping that Jesus would survive, and fearful that the Romans would discover he had illegally rescued a condemned man, Joseph faked the burial of Jesus (by having his slaves go to an available tomb, carrying a corpse-shaped bundle of burial cloth, placed it inside, and then sealed the tomb) while trying to revive Jesus.\u00a0 However, Jesus expired soon after, and was buried quietly in an anonymous grave.\u00a0 Nevertheless, rumour of his survival reached his followers and the Romans, who opened the tomb and discovered the body missing.\u00a0 To sooth their grief the disciples seized on the rumour of Jesus\u2019s survival and encouraged each other to hear the voice and see the image of Jesus in other people, which later become interpreted as a physical resurrection.<\/p>\n Eisenberg thinks . . . that reports of feeling the presence of a post-crucifixion Jesus in another person would have been readily accepted by disciples given the fact that people of the first century commonly believed in possession by demons or spirits, visitations by gods, and the transmigration of souls, and given that Jesus predicted his own resurrection.\u00a0 (144-145)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you\u2019re determined not to believe that Christ actually rose from the dead and you don\u2019t care about evidence, the sky\u2019s the limit.\u00a0 You can simply make up whatever you like, as Eisenberg apparently did in 2016.\u00a0 Of course, once you feel free to toss the documentary evidence out, I\u2019m not sure why you shouldn\u2019t simply go ahead and dismiss all of it.\u00a0 You can simply say that Jesus is a fictional character and that, accordingly, since neither has any actual basis in reality, the account of his resurrection no more needs to be explained than does Icarus\u2019s ability to fly up close to the Sun.\u00a0 (And that, of course, is exactly what some of the more extreme critics of Christianity do, since they\u2019re quite completely untethered to historical analysis or evidence.)<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you eliminate the impossible,\u201d said Sherlock Holmes, explaining his investigative technique to Dr. Watson, \u201cwhatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.\u201d\u00a0 For some critics, resurrection is flatly impossible.\u00a0 And thus, for them, even Eisenberg\u2019s elaborate and imaginative tale is much more likely to be true than what Christians claim.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Several years ago, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em> began commissioning a special article for publication every year at Christmas time and at Easter \u2014 or, more accurately in the latter case, to appear annually on Good Friday.\u00a0 Here are links to the Easter articles that we\u2019ve already published in this series.\u00a0 I hope that you will take time during this current Holy Week to read one or more of them:<\/p>\n \u201cResurrection Month\u201d<\/a> (Claudia Bushman)<\/p>\n \u201cChrist and the Work of Suffering\u201d<\/a> (Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye)<\/p>\n \u201cThe Crucifixion as a Mockery, Witness, and Warning of the Judgment\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(George L. Mitton)<\/p>\n \u201cThe First Easter\u201d<\/a> (S. Kent Brown)<\/p>\n \u201cEasters: The Eternal Atoning Sacrifice Testifies of the Everlasting Redeeming Savior\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(Alan C. Ashton)<\/p>\n \u201cThe Healing and Exalting Powers of Christ Weave Together at Easter\u201d<\/a> (Ann Madsen)<\/p>\n \u201cWhy Did You Choose Me?\u201d<\/a> \u00a0(Joseph Grenny)<\/p>\n \u201cThree Streams of Gratitude for Jesus\u201d<\/a> \u00a0(Mitt Romney)<\/p>\n A new Easter-related article is slated to appear in Interpreter<\/em> tomorrow, on Friday, 7 April 2023.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In a striking illustration of the concept of entropy, the snowman in our backyard is showing unmistakable signs of decay and decrepitude.\u00a0 Sadly, his life has been a short one.\u00a0 But it was filled with magical moments, and he will live on in the heart of our granddaughter.\u00a0 Incidentally, too, we again spent part of yesterday out at Thanksgiving Point<\/a> \u2014 this time, in particular, at the Museum of Natural Curiosity<\/a>.\u00a0 (Many thanks to Alan and Karen Ashton for the gift that they have given to Utah Valley!)\u00a0 Since it was during spring break, on a day when the snow is still several feet high outside, I have to admit that the place was something of a madhouse.\u00a0 Contrary to expectations, we were not the only people there, and our granddaughter was not the only child.<\/p>\n