Jesus Christ

The purpose of this research is to examine and develop the argument that the body of Jesus Christ the founder of the Christian faith and Son of God did rise from the dead. It will be the position of this research that the fact, not the fantasy, of the Resurrection was the basis for that fundamental doctrine of Christianity and indeed is the credible explanation for why that doctrine is an appropriate one. The plan of the research will be to set forth the background and context for the Resurrection, by reference to the events leading up to what is now commonly referred to as Easter, the reasons and methods used to crucify Jesus, and evidence of what the Jews and Romans felt about the whole matter, and then to discuss why the fact that the body of Jesus did rise positions Jesus as divine rather than just a prophet. In this regard, reference will be made to proofs that the body did rise, contrary to some beliefs, as well as to the reasons that the fact of the Resurrection is so important.

In order to understand the importance of the fact that Jesus did rise from the dead, it is essential to understand the importance of the circumstances surrounding the death of Jesus. The gospel accounts of the Crucifixion vary somewhat in the details, but the basic information surrounding the death of Jesus is very much the same, that Jesus was identified as a Jewish heretic and, at the encouragement or complicity of the Sanhedrin, or highest legal authority of the Jews during the early Roman i

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is spoken against" (Acts 28:22), not least because Paul appears to have upset Jewish and pagan communities all over Asia Minor: "And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed . . . and had great reasoning among themselves" (Acts 28:24-5; 29). Paul "stripped the Gospel of much of its Jewish character and adapted it to appeal to all [i.e., Jewish and Gentile] humanity" (Bokenkotter, 1990, p. 18). The eventual result was the "monolithic consensus" (Campbell, 1978, p. 379), built around the doctrine of the Resurrection. That consensus, as Pagels explains, could not allow for diverse theological interpretation. The "orthodox account" of the Resurrection leads to the conclusion that all authority derives from certain apostles' experience of the resurrected Christ . . . [that] restricts the circle of leadership to a small band of persons whose members sand in a position if incontestable authority [and] . . . suggests that only the apostles had the right to ordain future leaders as their successors (Pagels, 1981, pp. 11-12). The Gnostics, who interpreted the Resurrection, "not . . . as a unique event in the past; instead it symbolized how Christ's presence c

Category: Philosophy - J