N. T. Wright, Bible scholar and communicator of the Gospel, presented a lecture on May 15, 2007, entitled "Can a Scientist Believe the Resurrection?" I recommend it.
The lecture has several important features.
First, Wright points out that he is by no means a scientist.
Second, Wright sets forth the beliefs common to Jews, in the time of Christ, about death and resurrection.
Then, he points out several important features of early Christian belief that are radically different from current Jewish belief.
He examines the resurrection stories from the Gospels, and indicates why there are differences between them. He also says, correctly, that there is not very much about Jesus' birth in the New Testament, but that the New Testament is full of the Resurrection. (See here.)
He points out that the only sensible explanation for the behavior of the early Christians was that they believed that Christ had been raised from the dead, and was the first example of a resurrection which is to come, in the future, for believers.
Finally, Wright says that what happened to Thomas was a Gospel of Faith, to Paul a Gospel of Hope, and to Peter, a Gospel of love. It takes agape love to believe and act on the Resurrection.
Thanks for reading. Read Wright!
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
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The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
8 comments:
Thanks Martin. Good word.
You are welcome, Kerry i am.
Why did early Christian converts in Corinth simply scoff at the idea of their god choosing to raise corpses, leading Paul to write to them to remind them that Jesus 'became a life-giving spirit'?
I don't know. Basic problems with unbelief, I guess.
Thanks for your comment, Steven Carr.
I see.
So the problem with early Christian converts was that they had unbelief.
That explains everything.
Only God explains everything, or can explain everything.
Actually, if I try really, really hard , I can explain why Christian converts were scoffing at the idea of their god choosing to raise corpses, and why Paul insisted that Jesus 'became a life-giving spirit'.
OK. I'm not sure where you are going with this.
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