Last Sunday I spoke about the "Five Confounding Facts About Jesus' Resurrection." These are facts that must be
explained and accounted for either to affirm or deny that Jesus rose from the
dead. These facts do not rely on supernatural authority or a claim that they
must be believed because the Bible is inspired Scripture.
On April 21 I will speak about the main various explanations that have been offered to explain the facts of Easter morning without concluding that Jesus rose from the dead. In brief, these alternate explanations are:
- Science proves Jesus’s resurrection is impossible.
- The accounts of Jesus’s resurrection are mythical of a kind common in the ancient world.
- The apostles were either deluded or they mounted a deliberate conspiracy of falsehoods.
- The key actors on Good Friday and Sunday morning botched what they were doing (the "Swoon" theory and the "wrong tomb" theory).
(The "swoon" theory: Jesus did not actually die on the cross (that is, the Romans botched the crucifixion) and was entombed alive. Awaking Sunday morning, he rolled away the stone, found some clothes and then spoke with the women who came to the tomb to finish preparing his body for burial.
The "wrong-tomb" theory: Jesus did die on the cross, was entombed on Friday but on Sunday the women mistakenly went to an unused, open tomb, talked with a gardener whom they mistook for Jesus, then excitedly told the disciples that Jesus’s tomb was empty and that Jesus was risen.)
I hope to cover these topics adequately in a reasonable time! Sunday afternoon I'll post the finished text here. If you are around our area, I hope to see you this Sunday!
