Contrary to Popular Belief - (Resurrection Series Part 3)
Jesus of Nazareth Rose from The Dead & Four Reasons Why You Should Believe It
By Jeremiah Taylor
Reason #1: The idea of the death and resurrection of a Jewish Messiah was absurd
I recently read a book by an eminent scholar of the New Testament, N. T. Wright. And when I say book, I mean BOOK. This work was a massive 700+ page book that focused on just one topic… care to venture a guess on what that topic was? You guessed it… the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
In this meticulously researched book, Wright argues that in all of the Greek and Roman literature we have—which is the milieu that Jesus was born into—none of these works ever mention bodily resurrection as a thing that could or would ever happen. There are, of course, instances of people encountering spirits, like when Odysseus traveled to the underworld to speak with the dead prophet Tiresias; but there are no examples of bodily resurrection except to emphasize that it could or would never happen.
Here’s Wright on this point: “Resurrection in the flesh appeared a startling, distasteful idea, at odds with everything that passed for wisdom among the educated… The immediate conclusion is clear. Christianity was born into a world where its central claim [the resurrection] was known to be false. Many believed that the dead were non-existent; outside Judaism, nobody believed in the resurrection. [N. T. Wright, “The Resurrection of the Son of God,” 34-35]
To summarize: The Greeks and Romans thought that the very idea of bodily resurrection was stupid. Now, what did the Jewish people believe about bodily resurrection before and during the time that Jesus of Nazareth walked the dusty roads of Palestine?
Wright shows that the Jews at this time believed that bodily resurrection would happen one day. But they believed that when it did happen, all of God’s people—every faithful Israelite—would be raised. They emphatically did not believe that just one man would be raised from the dead, while every other faithful Jew remained in the ground. Additionally, the Jews believed that when the resurrection of the dead happened, it meant that this age of the earth as we know it, was over; and that eternal life had begun.
Furthermore, Wright argues that: “There are no traditions about a Messiah being raised to life: most Jews of this period hoped for resurrection, many Jews of this period hoped for a Messiah, but nobody put those two hopes together until the early Christians did so… [N. T. Wright, “The Resurrection of the Son of God,” 206]
In other words, the Jews believed the messiah would come and make Israel great again. They also believed the resurrection would happen at the end of the age. But none of the Jews connected these two ideas. They were always separate.
Finally, and probably most significantly, none of the Jews expected the Jewish messiah to undergo a violent death at the hands of Israel’s enemies. This was the exact opposite event that Jews expected would happen to their Messiah. Here’s Wright, one final time.
The violent execution of a prophet, still more of a would-be-Messiah, did not say to any Jewish onlooker that he really was the Messiah after all, or that YHWH’s kingdom had come through his work. It said, powerfully and irresistibly, that he wasn’t and that it hadn’t. [N. T. Wright, “The Resurrection of the Son of God,” 558]
I could belabor this more—but what is so important about all these details regarding what the Roman, Greeks, and Jews believed about the resurrection preceding and during the 1st century?
Well, the very fact that no Greek or Roman believed that bodily resurrection could or would ever happen; the very fact that no Jew believed that their Messiah—whoever he was—would rise from the dead all by himself; the very fact that no Jew could have come anywhere close to formulating the idea that their Jewish Messiah would be murdered as a sign of God’s will and plan; these facts speaks very strongly AGAINST any argument that would suggest that twelve fisherman got together and hatched a conspiracy that Jesus was raised from the dead.
Why? I’ll give you two reasons.
First, these fishermen would not have had the wherewithal to make this story up because it was not in the realm of possibility for a Jew. They didn’t have the categories to fuse all of these ideas together. Secondly, even if the disciples did have the wherewithal to make this story up, they would have known, that before they ever told the story, that nobody would have believed them. They would have known that everyone who heard this story, would have laughed in their face. They would have been considered the biggest idiots and losers of the town. To me, this evidence is highly suggestive that the most logical explanation as to why the disciples of Jesus would insist upon the resurrection of Jesus as a true event is because it actually happened.
Stay tuned… Next week I’ll share more reasons for why you should believe Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.