{"id":120191,"date":"2023-04-11T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=120191"},"modified":"2023-04-11T05:48:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T09:48:18","slug":"tish-warren-nyt-newsletter-tom-wright-on-why-we-can-have-confidence-in-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=120191","title":{"rendered":"(Tish Warren NYT newsletter) Tom Wright on why we can have confidence in Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"

You spend time in the book looking at Jesus\u2019 post-resurrection appearances in the Gospels. It seems that the disciples\u2019 testimony about seeing Jesus matters to you. Why do you trust their testimony?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you understand how people thought about death and life after death in the ancient world, you will need two strands of converging evidence.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, there are extraordinary reports about people going to the tomb of Jesus and finding that there was no body in it. In that world, grave robbery was a common occurrence, so an empty tomb by itself says, \u201cThis is odd,\u201d but we can tell some stories about this that are much more credible than the idea that he\u2019s alive again.<\/p>\n

However, if at the same time this person turns up and is seen and felt to be bodily alive and speaks to people and cooks breakfast by the shore, then that is totally unexpected as well. Those two things kind of interpret one another. We know many experiences that people have \u2014 and I\u2019ve known of experiences like this in our own family \u2014 that somebody who recently died will suddenly show up in a room or somewhere, for a moment or two, to people that they have known, then disappear again. They knew about that kind of thing in the first century as well. They had language for that. It was like an angel visiting. There\u2019s a place in the New Testament where the disciples think that Peter has been killed in prison in Acts Chapter 12, and he\u2019s knocking on the door and they say, \u201cIt can\u2019t be Peter. It must be his angel.\u201d They think this is a kind of angelic visitation before he goes off to wherever he will go.<\/p>\n

You need those two bits of evidence put together and then the testimony makes sense. Otherwise, empty tomb? Somebody has taken the body. That\u2019s what Mary Magdalene thought. Appearances? \u201cOh, yeah, we know about those. Just go and check in the tomb. You will find there\u2019s still a body there.\u201d But if there isn\u2019t, then we are into something different. So that\u2019s why that evidence is so important.<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a> (subscription).<\/p>\n

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Today is Easter Sunday, when we celebrate the Resurrection, and here is the Resurrection panel from the east window in the chapel at @wadhamoxford<\/a>. Christ is risen. pic.twitter.com\/0qsOwqsPRO<\/a><\/p>\n

— Dr Mark Kirby (@Kirby5Mark) April 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n