Many people find Easter a particularly difficult holiday during which to integrate faith and reason. Christmas doesn’t pose the same challenge – one may doubt or even deny the historicity of the infancy narratives, appreciating them as the sorts of stories ancient people were prone to tell to highlight an individual’s significance. Jesus’ birth itself is not seriously doubted, and so a historical core can still be posited. But when it comes to Easter, the question of whether the tomb was empty, if so why, and what if anything that has to do with Christian faith in the resurrection proves much less straightforward to address. The irony is that this weekend involves the most certain bedrock of our historical information about Jesus – the crucifixion – and an event that some would say cannot even be appropriately studied using the tools of historical inquiry at all.
I hope to gather here some historical and theological blog entries that are relevant to the subject. But let me begin by sharing my class notes on the death, burial and resurrection from my course on the historical Jesus. I’d love to know if anyone finds them useful – or has constructive criticism to offer. Also worth checking out is the Biblical Archaeological Review’s offerings for this occasion: 24 Hours That Changed The World Forever.
Around the blogosphere, I’ve found the following to be interesting, useful, helpful, etc.:
Merkavah Vision has a three-part Easter sermon for this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Nouslife shares statistics about what the British public believes about the resurrection as well as the state of scholarly play.
There have been discussions of Geza Vermes’ recent book by Euangelion, Targuman (twice), Maggi Dawn, Merkavah Vision, Jim West, Earliest Christian History, Paleojudaica (twice) and Deinde.
Jim West recommends an article entitled “Facts and friction of Easter”.
The Lead wishes you a Happy Crossmas.
Jason Clark quotes Hippolytus.
Connexions has an Easter message from the Methodist president.
A post about the stations of the cross.
Theo Geek discusses Jesus’ Death in Luke-Acts.
Sean the Baptist has a series of holy week reflections and a recommendation for Easter reading.
C.Orthodoxy has a collection of posts, including a discussion of whether the Good Friday-Easter story is appropriate for small children, and a follow-up on Easter Sunday.
Kim Fabricius offered a Palm Sunday sermon that looked ahead to Easter weekend.
Maggi Dawn offers an artistic depiction of the tortured Christ.
And finally, an Easter cartoon that I first shared on my old blog last year:
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