I'd have defined myself as a liberal Christian until quite recently. Now I'm basically rather confused; while I don't reject Christianity as a path to Truth, and I think there is a transcendental Truth out there, I do reject Christianity's claims to exclusivity, which also means I have become more sceptical of the Resurrection (which is one of the key elements for that exclusivity).
Back when I was a Cambridge undergraduate, and more devout than I am now, I did read one of those evangelical books called "Who Moved the Stone". My knowledge of the New Testament was sufficient then to wish that the "historical proof" brigade would just shut up and stop embarrassing the rest of us. The Gospels were never intended to be read as historically accurate witness statements to matters of fact; they are didactic accounts of faith, pictures to be given to the next generation. The details of what happened after the Resurrection in Matthew, Luke and John are, if we are honest about it, completely inconsistent (and Mark, suspiciously, has nothing at all to say), and while it's fun to try and make the stories tie up, it has about the same intellectual validity as establishing the accurate history of the Daleks.
Obviously something happened, something which the disciples understood as Jesus being physically present with them again, for a short while. The proof of that is the existence of Christianity. But their belief that it happened doesn't, as you rightly say, constitute much proof in and of itself. What exactly what did happen, we cannot possibly know, and it is foolish to assert that we can find out at this distance.
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Date: 2012-01-15 03:42 pm (UTC)From:Back when I was a Cambridge undergraduate, and more devout than I am now, I did read one of those evangelical books called "Who Moved the Stone". My knowledge of the New Testament was sufficient then to wish that the "historical proof" brigade would just shut up and stop embarrassing the rest of us. The Gospels were never intended to be read as historically accurate witness statements to matters of fact; they are didactic accounts of faith, pictures to be given to the next generation. The details of what happened after the Resurrection in Matthew, Luke and John are, if we are honest about it, completely inconsistent (and Mark, suspiciously, has nothing at all to say), and while it's fun to try and make the stories tie up, it has about the same intellectual validity as establishing the accurate history of the Daleks.
Obviously something happened, something which the disciples understood as Jesus being physically present with them again, for a short while. The proof of that is the existence of Christianity. But their belief that it happened doesn't, as you rightly say, constitute much proof in and of itself. What exactly what did happen, we cannot possibly know, and it is foolish to assert that we can find out at this distance.