The resurrection was as inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different from ours. The Greeks did not believe in resurrection; in the Greek worldview, the afterlife was liberation of the soul from the body. For them, resurrection would never be part of life after death. As for the Jews, some of them believed in a future general resurrection when the entire world would be renewed, but they had no concept of an individual rising from the dead. The people of Jesus\u2019 day were not predisposed to believe in resurrection any more than we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Celsus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the second century A.D., was highly antagonistic to Christianity and wrote a number of works listing arguments against it. One of the arguments he believed most telling went like this: Christianity can\u2019t be true, because the written accounts of the resurrection are based on the testimony of women\u201d\u201dand we all know women are hysterical. And many of Celsus\u2019 readers agreed: For them, that was a major problem. In ancient societies, as you know, women were marginalized, and the testimony of women was never given much credence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you see what that means? If Mark and the Christians were making up these stories to get their movement off the ground, they would never have written women into the story as the first eyewitnesses to Jesus\u2019 empty tomb. The only possible reason for the presence of women in these accounts is that they really were present and reported what they saw. The stone has been rolled away, the tomb is empty and an angel declares that Jesus is risen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> Happy Easter!
Peter Paul Rubens: 'The Resurrection of Christ', 1611-12.
O.-L. Vrouwekathedraal, Antwerp. 17th century. pic.twitter.com\/0uNXGXnjAV<\/a><\/p>— Andrea Zuvich (@17thCenturyLady) April 5, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>