…the birth and rapid rise of the Christian Church remain an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the Church itself.” (That is, that Jesus actually did rise from the dead.)
-C.F.D. Moule
This weekend (it was Easter weekend), Terry Gross on NPR interviewed a Jesus scholar. Of course he went on an on about how the resurrection didn’t actually happen, but was the hope of the early apostles “projected” on reality. Kind of a modified gnostic view. He emphasized how he didn’t like non-Christians making the question of the resurrection a dichotomy of actual vs. metaphorical. He preferred literal vs. metaphorical. See, it really did actually happen (metaphorically).
Geesh. Were do they dig these people up? There is a significant list of brilliant Christian historians and scholars who actually have an orthodox view of the resurrection, and with many good reasons behind it. But no, we can’t possibly give them air time. Only whack-jobs allowed.
I was griping about this out-loud on my way to the grocery store and my daughter pipes up in the back:
“Daddy, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, I don’t like the guy on the radio.”
“Oh. OK. Daddy, can we get a cookie?”