“Resurrections, they just don’t happen!” is the phrase that echoes throughout culture. Given our naturalistic bend to our thinking because of the post-modern and post-Christian culture we live in, we tend to not bat an eye at that statement. What happens then when we read the Bible and see that the disciples of Jesus were eating with him and were able to touch him after seeing him suffocate on the cross only three days later? Do we automatically assume that because resurrections don’t naturally occur, Jesus didn’t rise from the grave or do we assess what they already believed and weigh it against what they experienced? Any person that has an interest in truth would choose the latter simply because the former has already made up their mind on the topic. Yes, that seems like a harsh statement. It is intended to be so. In a culture that is basing what they believe on personal emotional feeling, it is worth throwing their feelings compass off so they can re-center themselves to be both rational and emotional beings. Join me in the next posts in dealing with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the man that both men and women claimed to have seen die and then alive again three days later. But… before we get into the topic, we should take a quick excursus into the methodology and get a bird’s-eye-view of our topic.
We all have an inherent bias towards one side or another. Bias is something we should be open about and in doing so it allows us to be honest with ourselves and each other. This honesty is crucial when an analysis attempt is made because it opens us up for self-criticism and criticism from others. It is also noteworthy comment that no one is able to 100% distance themselves from their bias. Any attempt to make this impossibility a possibility, could result in a sort of break with reality rendering any conclusions questionable in reliability due to mental instability.[1] This is why identifying your bias is extremely important.
Identifying our bias then allows us to ride the methodological middle line of our research or line of query. Riding down this line or to a slight bias of one side or the other then allows us to take the data that we gather and properly assess it considering our bias and test it also against our bias. For instance, our topic in question is the resurrection of Jesus and as a Christian I am going to be more biased towards accepting the claims of the Bible and its followers than I am any other proposed theory. Knowing this gives me the freedom of allowing myself to ride the double yellow lines of our road towards the truth surrounding the resurrection.
A Bird’s-Eye View
Now that we have at least made aware our biases to ourselves and possibly to others, let’s look at what the Christians are claiming. We can set this out in 4 points: 1) Jesus was crucified; 2) Jesus died on the cross; 3) Jesus rose again on the 3rd day; 4) Jesus appeared to his followers. These claims come from the gospel accounts and the Pauline epistles found in the Bible. For the Christian faith, this event is the most defining even in the entirety of history. Jesus’ resurrection was the ultimate sign of his divinity and a fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies that pointed to the Messiah. To make things even more urgent in the minds and hearts of the believers, Jesus and later his disciples and apostles taught that mankind would resurrect bodily as well. Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15 that if the event of the resurrection really did not happen, then what they believe is in vain and the Christian message is futile. It is quite clear that from the beginning of the Bible to the end, a theme of resurrection is taught and that because humanity is in the image of God, we shall resurrect just as Jesus did. This is the heart of the Christian faith. Without it, there would be no Christianity, no Roman Catholic Church, no protestant reformation, and certainly no such thing as the combination of Jesus and politics like what we saw in the first few weeks of 2021.
[1] As of right now, this is mere conjecture and based upon a basic knowledge of psychopathy and mental health after working with children with mental health issues. My conclusion is drawn from the fact that usually DID (Disassociative Identity Disorder) occurs after physical or emotional abuse/trauma and how that can correlate into self-inflicted mental stress in the attempt to remove oneself from bias.
Brewed Up Apologetics 
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