Chapter 7: WHAT CAME OF HIM?
THE RESURRECTION
The evidence falls into three classes.
1. There is first, in order of what was seen, the evidence of the tomb found empty. This looks like the most solid piece of evidence of all. Here is something the historian can really get his hands on: either it was empty or it was not. And, indeed, despite all its offense to our historical and scientific presuppositions, this is something that it is very hard to dismiss―so much so that for most people, as I discover from virtually every question I am asked on the subject, 'Do you believe in the resurrection?' means 'Do you believe in the empty tomb?'. Yet it comes as a surprise to most to be told that though the resurrection was the lynch-pin of Paul's whole gospel, never once does he mention the empty tomb nor does he appear to attach any significance to it. This is not to say that he knew nothing of it. Let alone that he denied it. It is a false conclusion to draw from his silence that it was a story that was only invented later. On the contrary, his statement in 1 Cor. 15.3f of the gospel as he himself first received it, that 'Christ died ...; that he was buried; that he was raised to life on the third day'., clearly presupposes some connection of the resurrection with the tomb and not simply with the visions of the living Christ, which alone he goes on to narrate and which on his account might, like hos own, have taken place anywhere. Yet the fact that he does not take up this connection or stress its evidential value suggests that it did not in itself have the significance that has been attached to it. In the Gospels too it is notable that the empty tomb as such convinces no one, except one man, who looking back in faith, 'saw and believed' (John 20.8). Everyone else saw and was dismayed: by itself it persuaded no one.
1. There is first, in order of what was seen, the evidence of the tomb found empty. This looks like the most solid piece of evidence of all. Here is something the historian can really get his hands on: either it was empty or it was not. And, indeed, despite all its offense to our historical and scientific presuppositions, this is something that it is very hard to dismiss―so much so that for most people, as I discover from virtually every question I am asked on the subject, 'Do you believe in the resurrection?' means 'Do you believe in the empty tomb?'. Yet it comes as a surprise to most to be told that though the resurrection was the lynch-pin of Paul's whole gospel, never once does he mention the empty tomb nor does he appear to attach any significance to it. This is not to say that he knew nothing of it. Let alone that he denied it. It is a false conclusion to draw from his silence that it was a story that was only invented later. On the contrary, his statement in 1 Cor. 15.3f of the gospel as he himself first received it, that 'Christ died ...; that he was buried; that he was raised to life on the third day'., clearly presupposes some connection of the resurrection with the tomb and not simply with the visions of the living Christ, which alone he goes on to narrate and which on his account might, like hos own, have taken place anywhere. Yet the fact that he does not take up this connection or stress its evidential value suggests that it did not in itself have the significance that has been attached to it. In the Gospels too it is notable that the empty tomb as such convinces no one, except one man, who looking back in faith, 'saw and believed' (John 20.8). Everyone else saw and was dismayed: by itself it persuaded no one.
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