No there\u2019s only one reason why first appearing to a woman would make any sense and that is if it were true and it is I can assure you there is no pretence.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nLast week I asked that if \u00a0all the disciples bar John were martyred for their faith \u00a0why would they endure brutal deaths for a lie? \u00a0I have heard one argument compare their martyrdom with those that caused 9\/11; they also being prepared to die for a cause they believed in. However those involved in 9\/11 committed suicide with the intention of killing others as part of a strategy for furthering their cause. The disciples did not commit suicide but chose to be murdered by others rather than deny Christ -also their deaths did not knowingly lead to the deaths of others, so I think comparisons between the two cannot be justified.<\/p>\n
So what are the arguments for not believing that which Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul wrote?\u00a0 One argument is that there is little evidence for the Resurrection outside the Bible, another queries the authenticity of Gospel authorship whilst another that the Gospel accounts themselves are unreliable and contradictory.<\/p>\n
For those that argue that there is little evidence of the Resurrection outside the Bible I would say that in those days only learned scribes could write and as that in itself was a slow process people transferred information by word of mouth (known as the oral tradition). I can hear the sceptics now talk about \u201cChinese whispers\u201d -how something said can have its meaning \u00a0dramatically changed as it is handed down from one person to another. That, however is not the case if is the information is considered \u201cprecious\u201d for then people ensure that it is remembered correctly. Take, for example the words of Shakespeare or of Wordsworth- someone would soon shout out \u201cWrong- it\u2019s suffer not inflict\u201d if they heard \u201cTo be, or not to be, that is the question: whether ’tis nobler in the mind to inflict <\/strong>the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.\u201d Or \u201cI wander lonely as the moon.\u201d – \u201cNo, no it\u2019s a cloud not the moon!\u201d<\/p>\nTo\u00a0 \u00a0those who contend \u00a0that there are no contemporary books outside the Bible claiming \u00a0Jesus was raised from the dead\u00a0 I would ask \u201cWhy are there no contemporary\u00a0 books written claiming\u00a0 that Jesus was not<\/strong> raised from the dead? \u201c Obviously Both the Romans and Jews had people who could write so that\u2019s not the issue. The \u00a0Romans would surely have \u00a0wanted\u00a0 to disprove Jesus\u2019 Resurrection because it interfered with their worship of the Emperor (the reason why so many Christians were martyred; thrown to lions etc)\u00a0 The Jews, especially the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, had been heavily criticised\u00a0 by Jesus and it was they who initiated His crucifixion so it was in their best interest to disprove the Resurrection. An example is Saul, a zealous Pharisee who, before his conversion and change of name to Paul, was throwing Christians into prison.\u00a0 So I would say that there were many who would have benefited from proving Jesus was not raised – so why didn\u2019t they write down their proof? Surely that\u2019s obvious – they had no proof – they had no corpse to produce – they could not persuade Jesus \u2018 followers\u00a0 to deny Him no matter how badly they were \u00a0treated. \u00a0Writing a book on the non -Resurrection of Jesus was not worth their time or their ink!<\/p>\nBut what if the Gospels themselves are unreliable- what if they were not really written by eye- witnesses – let\u2019s look at that next week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“You are the Maker” from album “Love is the Way” featuring Lucy Stimpson-Maynard – recorded and produced by Bob Ross. As St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:14 \u201cAnd if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is futile and so is your faith.\u201d I could also add and Risen!- The Musical would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":688,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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