TRUE FAITH AND THE RELEVANCE OF THE RESURRECTION
by Adam Watson

    It can be said without much fear of contradiction that Jesus of Nazareth was one of the most influential people to ever live in our short history of humanity. What becomes the dividing point is the difference between the "historical" Jesus that can be authenticated and/or scientifically documented, and the Jesus Christ of faith and scripture. The nexus of the argument involves the Resurrection. Two thousand years after Jesus was crucified and died on the cross, even some members of the Catholic clergy doubt that he physically rose from the dead. As we will soon see, it seems currently fashionable to scoff at a belief that at first glance seems to be the centerpiece of Christian tradition. However, by realizing the difference between Faith and Fact, true Christianity--in the sense of the real message behind Jesus and what he stood for, not Catholicism as we know it today--can be shown, saved, and cherished. I will show that the glory of the Resurrection is not in the descriptive details, but in its underlying meaning.

    First, it would be helpful to retell a short biography of Jesus of Nazareth that most historians and scripture scholars can agree on. He was born as a Jew in Bethlehem between 8 and 4 B.C. At around 30 years old, Jesus began publically preaching about the coming--and simultaneously present--Kingdom of God, and asked his followers to rejoice in the Good News that in the end, God and goodness will triumph. He became known as a teacher and healer, and his uncompromising sympathy for outcasts and the oppressed, as well as his criticism of contemporary religious tenets and rituals (especially Jewish), earned him followers and enemies. At 33, he was arrested in Jerusalem. After being interrogated by Jewish authorities, Jesus was handed over to the Romans, who punished him as a political enemy and crucified him. His tomb was supposedly found empty three days later. According to the Gospels (four separate books that were traditional tales of important Christian events, written after Jesus's death) he had risen from the dead, and after appearing to various apostles and followers, ascended to Heaven (Corel A to Z).

    Whether Jesus really rose from the dead was a point of disagreement even back when the Resurrection supposedly happened. The ancient Jews, for one, considered it blasphemous for Christians to believe that a crucified criminal was their Messiah; Greeks found the idea of a resurrected body to be repugnant (Woodward 61). The apostles themselves did not expect to see Jesus again, and were, with obvious understatement, surprised. However, the Risen Christ only appeared to certain followers of Jesus, so no unbiased witness is known to exist. In lack of provable evidence, many modern scholars and historians believe that the Resurrection is just a story, albeit powerful enough to stir an almost-laughingly small band of renegade believers into the most powerful religious organization the world has ever seen, achieved in a span of 300 years.

    If Jesus did not rise, what really happened? Recently, attempts have been made to answer that question, based on what little facts we can prove, comparisons of the different versions of events in the Four Gospels, and in the light of new documents discovered. Gerd Ludemann, a New Testament scholar, believes the Resurrection is "'an empty formula' that must be rejected by anyone holding a 'scientific world view'" (qtd. in Woodward 62). According to Ludemann, Jesus's body "rotted away" in the tomb, and alleged witnesses to a Risen Christ were victims of "mass ecstasy" and a "Christ complex"--a psychological mixture of guilt and religious fervor (qtd. in Woodward 62-63). John Dominic Crossan, a DePaul University biblical scholar and former Roman Catholic priest, believes Jesus's body was devoured by wild dogs, a typical fate of Roman crucified criminals (Woodward 63). To Crossan, there were no postmortem experiences or visions. The different versions of events in the Gospels further weakens their validity, and since none of these stories corresponds with historical fact, he believes the New Testament and the Gospels simply made it up for religious propaganda. In his book, The Historical Jesus, Crossan describes the "true" Jesus:

Jesus was less concerned with his Father's kingdom, as traditionally understood, than with bucking what [Crossan] has called "the standard political normalcies of power and privilege, hierarchy and oppression, debt foreclosure and land appropriation, imperial exploitation and colonial collaboration." This Tom Joad-ish Christ did not so much heal illnesses as cure false consciousness . . . Crossan has summarized his message as "God says, 'Caesar sucks.'" (qtd. in Van Biema 55.)

Jesus, therefore, was made into a Messiah and given miraculous powers by the Church de facto. To Crosson, the Church created the Resurrection as a necessary story to reaffirm that Jesus was a divine Son of God.

    Barbara Thiering, an Australian author, seem to suggest the Church created the Resurrection tale as an Oliver Stone-style coverup. Her version of events is perhaps the most scandalous and bizarre story of what really happened. Thiering uses ancient scrolls found in Qumran, a site near Jerusalem, as her sources of information. Qumran was home to a Jewish sect called the Essenes. According to Thiering, Jesus was crucified at Qumran and buried in a cave near the Dead Sea. However, because of a slow-acting poison given to him on the cross, he only appeared to be dead. Simon Magus, a New Testament magician, revived Jesus. Jesusmarried Mary Magdalene and fathered three children, and after a divorce, married Lydia. Years later he died in Rome--of natural causes (Woodward 65).

    When views as varied as these about the Resurrection (visions explained away as hallucinations; doubt that there were any visions at all; or simply, Jesus never died on the cross in the first place) are purported as the "truth," some Christians of faith are angered and offended. "People have no idea how fraudulent people who claim to be scholars can be," grumbles Luke Timothy Johnson, an ex-priest who teaches the New Testament at Atlanta's Emory College (Van Biema 57). He wrote The Real Jesus, an outraged response to the recent findings of the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar, a group of 75 self-appointed panelists that meet semiannually, released a position that only 18% of Jesus's alleged quotes in the Gospels may have been actually spoken by him (Van Biema 56). Moreover, virtually all of the "miraculous" events--including the Resurrection--were deemed as historically unproven and therefore did not occur. In The Real Jesus, Johnson writes that the group is "self-selected" not on the basis of scholarship but for a "prior agreement on a goal." It also should be noted that its members not only include Crossan as a co-chair, but Paul Verhoeven, whose Ph.D. is not as well known as his job as a movie director--most recently, Showgirls (Van Biema 57). In other words, there seems to have been an anti- "Jesus as Divine" bias at work. More importantly, Johnson believes that a search for a historical Jesus should be given up all together. The Jesus of faith, by its own nature, is impossible to document. Johnson also feels that the Resurrection was a literal and important event, not just a story, and cannot be dismissed.

    So what is the truth? The historian does not want to hear of miracles and resurrections; without some type of evidence, the Resurrection and the Jesus of Gospels is a moot point. What relevance does the Resurrection have? The man of faith argues that without the Resurrection, there is no Christianity. Due to this debate, Jesus of Nazareth has been split into two beings. There is the Jewish peasant who never wrote his own radically new ideas down, created a movement unparalleled in history, and died for what he believed was right. There is also a Son of God, sent by his Father to show us the way, who proved his divinity by his Resurrection and his Ascension. The Man of Faith versus the Man of Fact differs on what they consider important details--but what they do not realize is that their opinions and their "split" of Jesus are wrong. What we argue about are the Trees. Mr. Faith sees the Tree of Resurrection, and tells his friend Mr. Fact, "Look at that beautiful oak!" To which Mr. Fact drily asserts, "Beautiful is not a scientific term and therefore unacceptable. Besides, I see a maple." While they stand there and quibble, the Forest of Jesus sighs. The true meaning of Jesus is not being seen, and that is what we must realize. But this, like the argument over the Resurrection, is nothing new. Andrew M. Greeley, author of the book The Jesus Myth, states that Jesus's message was misunderstood even in his own lifetime, as it is still.

    Allow me to indulge in a digression to discuss the Forest first. Greeley simplifies Jesus's message to a central theme: that we must rejoice, because the Kingdom of God is at hand (40). We must rejoice because God, according to Jesus, loves us so much that if He were human, He would be considered insane (46). There is no special "rite" one must initiate to join in this Kingdom. All one had to do was accept it fully and completely. The Kingdom of God, asserts Jesus, will eventually triumph, despite whatever happens to or whoever opposes it--in other words, in the end, everything will be all right (40). The immediate problem with this Good News was it was viewed as simple to the point of naivety and foolishness by many, then and today. What frustrated contemporaries of Jesus were his lack of particulars. Despite the misconception that the later Church created, Jesus himself never decreed specific ethics on how to live. It was the Catholic Church that decided the rites of christenings and baptisms, of how many Hail Mary's to say in proportion to the severity of a sin, the place of men over women in society, how much tithe to pay, etc. He took no titles, nor did he recognize any. The scandalous Jesus held the whore and the king as the same in the eyes of God. The Jews were waiting for a Son of David to come and lead them to conquer their enemies; Jesus angered them by telling them to love their enemies as much as friends. He did not have any political position (although some scholars still persist in calling him a political revolutionary, he cannot be limited to such a definition; although ironically, it was probably on the charge of being a political agitator that the Romans killed him.) To these and all of the "current" questions of the day, he answered the same: My Father loves you, and you should rejoice. As Greeley points out, this was (and still is) unacceptable:

Jesus confidently announced that in the end all would be well, that a new age has dawned . . . the only appropriate response [was] for us to be delirious with joy . . . instead [they asked] "What about the cotton-pickin' Romans?" or "When are you going to produce the apocalyptic sign?" or "Why aren't you and your disciples within the Jewish law?" . . . Jesus replied by saying that the Romans [and] the law [and] cosmic miracles were not the issue. God's insanely generous love for us was the issue, and, in the face of that fact, the Roman and the Torah became peripheral (49).

So the modern searchers-after-relevance say to Jesus of Nazareth, "But what do you have to say about peace?" And Jesus replies to them, "My Father loves you." They say to him, "What is your position on the race question?" And he responds, "You ought to rejoice over my Father's love." . . . Clearly this strange Jewish preacher is completely out of it. He doesn't understand the issues at all. What in the world does God's generous love have to do with peace or . . . race? (53)

    Here was a man so full of optimism, hope, and love, and the meaning of his message so childishly simple, and yet that was still too difficult to understand. It is not easy to let yourself be overwhelmed by the glory of God, which is the only thing Jesus asked of us. We need checklists instead, a way of living so we can say, "I should be allowed into Heaven because I followed the rules." As Greeley himself would say, following the rules is much easier than loving, or hoping. But very early on, the Church realized this "deficiency" of Jesus, and thus gave us a guidebook. There was still, however, the problem of convincing others that this nutty individual was indeed the Messiah, and this leads us to our problem with the Resurrection.

    Our society loves hard evidence and proof, and inevitably the problem with the Resurrection is that we have none. Give me a video tape, or a doctor on the scene, Mr. Fact pleads; why, a snapshot of the Risen Christ will do. Mr. Faith, believing the Resurrection as central to Christianity, needs no proof. The Church, again knowing that most people could not accept Jesus's message as enough, tried to give us a reason to be convinced with the Resurrection, since certainly only a Son of God could cheat Death. But here is the crucial point: a true Christian must realize that the story of Resurrection, or any of the miracles attested to Jesus, is only secondary to Jesus's real message. The Church has given them magic tricks, a sugar coating to accept Jesus. Yet, if you only believe that Christ came back to life and is therefore, someone to believe in, you are not a Christian; you are deluding yourself. At least the historian nonbeliever is honest to him or her self, although the historian, of course, has it wrong as well.

    The historian skillfully avoids--like many supposed Christians--answering the real question: Will you come and rejoice in the glory of God? Instead, we argue about the Trees. The request for hard proof, in this case, is unfair and beside the point. What if we did have a picture of the Risen Christ, or a videotape of Jesus leaving the tomb? No piece of evidence would ever be enough. Mr. Fact would still claim the picture was faked, or Jesus was never really dead. The Resurrection should be given at least the benefit of the doubt. After all, if we have a videotape of a black man getting brutally assaulted by police officers, and at least one jury felt "hard proof" was still not enough to convict the police officers, how much proof is enough? In the end, what actually happened to Jesus after he died comes down to faith. Even a scientist has to have faith in a Big Bang for his laws of physics to work, or that gravity will not stop tomorrow. Let me make myself clear: faith is not the enemy. Neither is an honest historian who wants to authenticate the past. But we still are left with the challenge that Jesus gives us, and unfortunately, both sides of the Resurrection issue do not address it. We do not need proof to choose to rejoice in the glory of God. Whether, or how Jesus rose from the dead, is beside the point.

. . . the important point is that Jesus lives; that the way the heavenly Father vindicated him in the face of his enemies was considerably less important then the fact that the vindication did occur.

I would be quite content to leave the methods by which the Father accomplished the vindication to His own choosing. Incidentally, one must say from purely objective grounds that the vindication has been successful. Those who accused and then executed Jesus thought they would get rid of him . . . The historical record shows how wrong they were, and even if one rejects completely any new life for Jesus after his death, he still must admit that he won and his enemies lost. They are forgotten, but Jesus and trouble making go merrily on (Greeley 177).

    It is a shame that in two thousand years, we cannot accept Jesus for whom he is. His belief that love and hope can conquer all is proven true, every time we think about and remember him. Every time he is discussed, or prayed to, or argued about, he is resurrected, in our hearts and minds. The fact that Jesus has not been forgotten is testimony to his life overcoming the silence of Death--and that is the real miracle. Until we are ready to take up his challenge and rejoice, that may be the best we can realize, although we will still not see the beauty of his Forest.

Works Cited

Corel A to Z. Vers. 1. Computer software. Corel, 1995. CD-ROM.

Greeley, Andrew M. The Jesus Myth. New York: Doubleday. 1971.

Van Biema, David. "The Gospel Truth?" Time 147.15 (1996): 52-59.

Woodward, Kenneth L. "Rethinking the Resurrection." Newsweek 127.15 (1996): 60+.

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