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10 Reasons the Resurrection Really Happened
Christianity hinges on whether Jesus rose from the grave on the third day. Jeffrey Hart goes back to re-examine evidence—from the Shroud of Turin to the location of the nails at the Crucifixion.
Did the resurrection really happen? The empirical evidence is better than you may think.
This is important because Christianity requires much more in the way of belief than Islam or Judaism does.
Judaism requires belief in one God, honoring the history of the people as established in scripture (with considerable support from archaeology), and the law, beginning with the Ten Commandments set forth by Moses. Leviticus elaborates on the law at great length, and forms of Judaism differ on how much of the law elaborated there is to be observed.
Christianity asks much more. It requires belief that Jesus was crucified, died, was entombed, and rose from the dead on the third day. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me...
And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith... Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than are all men.
That lays it on the line. “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”
A number of things can be said about this passage. Since Paul was executed in Rome about 65 A.D., this is the earliest testimony we have regarding the alleged resurrection. The four Gospels provide much more, notably Luke 24:32. Second, Paul seems to know that the claims about the resurrection are difficult to believe. He cites 500 witnesses, “most of whom are still living.” That is, empirical evidence exists about what Paul says, and if Paul is lying, this can be established. Incidentally, Arthur Darby Nock, our foremost Paul scholar, thinks Paul (then Saul) very likely heard Jesus speak at the synagogue in Tarsus long before Saul’s famous conversion on the road to Damascus (in today’s Syria).
That Jesus rose on the third day remains very hard to believe. Not least is the fact that a body dead for that length of time would decay considerably and would have to be fully reconstituted in order to appear alive. So let us follow the scholar Ian Wilson to Turin and there walk to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and there to the circular, black Royal Chapel designed by Guarino Guarini. There behind iron grills in a locked chamber is a linen cloth known as the Shroud of Turin.
Ian Wilson is a well-informed scholar on regarding the facts regarding the Shroud of Turin, and in his 1979 book, The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ (Doubleday), he brought together the evidence and the conclusions reached by many other experts in this field (“Sindonologists”). It seems to me, difficult to believe though it may be, that this ancient linen cloth is in fact the shroud Jesus was wrapped in before he was placed in the tomb. Here I will summarize the argument of Mr. Wilson’s book:
1. Pollen does not decay. And ancient pollen in the linen cloth indicates the origin of this linen cloth in Jerusalem and also traces its journey from Jerusalem from the Middle East through Europe. It is almost impossible that forgery could accomplish this. (David Hume: Call your office.)
2. The body was laid on the cloth and the remainder of the cloth folded over the body to produce front and back images of the man.
3. A startling fact: The image of the man on the Shroud turns out to be a photographic negative. When photographed it became a positive. Again, this seems to rule out an ancient forgery, that is, long before the invention of photography.
4. In most modern representations of the Crucifixion, the nails are shown as going through the palms. But as this image shows, the nails actually went through an aperture in the wrists. Had the nails gone through the palms, they would not have sustained body weight and would have torn through the flesh, the body falling from the cross. Execution required that the man die on the cross from lack of oxygen as he repeatedly tried to raise his body on the nails in order to breathe. Execution was slow.
5. Wounds on the back of the body indicate flogging by the Roman flagrum—metal weights attached to leather cords wielded by a wooden handle.
6. Had the image been painted on the cloth by a forger, the paint traces of the pigment would have remained on the surface. The color here penetrates the cloth evenly from one side to another. Note: In this, it is more like a scorch.
7. An objection: The Romans executed many men this way. Indeed, two criminals were executed that day along with Jesus. Could this shroud be that of another similarly executed man? It’s very unlikely. Crucifixion was disgraceful and an expression of contempt for the criminal. It is unlikely that the family or friends of a man of that sort would have wrapped his body in an expensive linen cloth—or that such a cloth would have been saved later on and made its way from the Middle East across Europe. Representations of Jesus in art reflect a knowledge of the Shroud by European artists.
8. Ian Wilson concludes that the image on the cloth is a “paranormal” phenomenon. That is, not made by hands. But how?
9. Speculation: The scorch might have been made by radioactivity attendant upon the resurrection. Whether or not it is pertinent, the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe produced measurable radiation that determines that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. If the scorch on the Shroud is the result of radiation, it could have been radiation that reconstituted the dead body. But that is merely speculation.
10. Ian Wilson’s book appeared in 1978. In 1988, carbon 14 tests were conducted indicating a medieval date for the Shroud. But that result is controversial and almost certainly wrong, for reasons cited above. In fact, along its journey to Turin, the Shroud was in a church that was the scene of a fire, and that could have corrupted the carbon dating.
Jeffrey Hart is professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College. He wrote for the National Review for more than three decades, where he was senior editor. He wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan while he was governor of California, and for Richard Nixon.
Barack Obama's gift for the Queen: an iPod, your Majesty
Barack Obama met the Queen at Buckingham Palace today and gave her a gift of an iPod loaded with video footage and photographs of her 2007 United States visit to Richmond, Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia. In return, the Queen gave the President a silver framed signed photograph of herself and the Duke of Edinburgh - apparently a standard present for visiting dignitaries.
It is believed the Queen already has an iPod, a 6GB silver Mini version she is said to have bought in 2005 at the suggestion of Prince Andrew.
UPDATE: Pool reporter Richard Wolf of USA Today says that an Obama aide told him the President also gave the Queen a "rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers". END UPDATE
Earlier, Mr Obama had spoken of his admiration for Her Majesty but indicated that his wife was handling the details of their royal meeting. "There's one last thing that I should mention that I love about Great Britain, and that is the Queen," he said at the end of his joint press conference with Gordon Brown.
"And so I'm very much looking forward to meeting her for the first time later this evening. And as you might imagine, Michelle has been really thinking that through -- because I think in the imagination of people throughout America, I think what the Queen stands for and her decency and her civility, what she represents, that's very important."
Mr Brown added: "Well, I know the Queen is looking forward to welcoming you and she's very much looking forward to her discussion with you."
There was widespread criticism in Britain and from Anglophiles in the US of Mr Obama's recent present to Mr Brown of a box set of classic American movies on DVDs that were not compatible with British DVD players.
The movie was actually pretty good, and Cruise even looks like Claus von Stauffeneberg.Col. Claus von Stauffeneberg, the hero of Valkyrie, though you would never know it from the movie, was a devout Catholic.
Valkyrie is an important movie which is being trashed by reviewers who don't care for Tom Cruise.
YOU should see it anyway.
Background:
Interview with Giovanni Sala, a historian of Civiltà Cattolica
Those “criminals” who wished to put an end to the war
The failed attempt on Hitler in 1944 was described by US newspapers as a criminal act carried out by traitors. Churchill also dismissed it as a power struggle between rival generals. Giovanni Sala, a historian of Civiltà Cattolica, explains how this was possible. Interview
by David Malacaria
The inspection by Hitler and Mussolini at the headquarters of the Fuhrer after the attempt of 20 July 1944
A gang of criminals makes an attempt on the life of the Führer. Fortunately uninjured, the German chief of State succeeds in thwarting the criminal coup d’état organized by the miserable gang of criminals who had attempted to assassinate him. The traitors to the country, promptly arrested, will be executed. Thus the news stories of the period recounted yet another attempt to eliminate Adolf Hitler, on the 20 July 1944. An attempt which was indeed intended to be a prelude to a coup d’état which would probably have ended the Second World War a year ahead of time. Up to here the story of one of the many tragic events that center on the ruthless Nazi leader. Which perhaps would not merit more attention than other tragic events which happened in those years. Were it not that it was not Nazi propaganda that dismissed the attempted coup d’état of 20 July in this manner, but authoritative American newspapers. This is one of the revelations contained in two articles, which appeared recently in Civiltà Cattolica, under the signature of Father Giovanni Sale, the authoritative Jesuit historian who has written for the review for years.
You explain that the attempt of 1944 was perhaps one of the most serious efforts to put an end to the Nazi dictatorship.
GIOVANNI SALE: Effectively that’s how it was. Not that there weren’t other attempts to eliminate the Führer who, indeed, survived about sixty attempts, among them the one, almost successful, of 1938, in a beer house in Munich. Attempts that were all nullified, not only by the precautions taken by the Führer (who changed appointments and schedules at the last minute), but also by a series of truly incredible fortuitous circumstances .... as if an evil spirit watched over him .... But, that apart, it is beyond doubt that the attempt made in 1944 had the marks of a real and proper coup d’état, planned with care and with the participation of a large number of people.
So this attempt reveals the existence of a resistance to the Nazi regime inside Germany?
SALE: To speak of resistance is perhaps excessive. In Germany single opponents of the regime certainly weren’t lacking, there were also some organized groups, one thinks of the young Catholics of the “White Rose” who paid dearly for their heroic leafleting at the university .... But these were phenomena of little importance for the regime. In the case at issue I believe that one can speak more of a true and real resistance, of a clear refusal of the ideas and doings of the regime. A refusal which was amalgamating essentially in two spheres, civil and military.
In your articles you allude on several occasions to attempts by exponents of this resistance to contact the allies ....
SALE: A sort of clandestine diplomacy was organized. One of the heads of the civil resistance, Karl Friedrich Goerdeler, established contact with the allies in March 1938. But he was received with coldness. In London, the first adviser to the Foreign Minister, Robert Vansittart, actually accused him of treason .... The same holds true for Lieutenant Colonel Ulrich von Schwerin, sent to London before the invasion of Poland to try to convince the English that the invasion would be thwarted if the English gave Hitler to understand that they were ready to defend the Slavic nation. “Only the danger of a war on two fronts can restrain Hitler”, was the message brought by the colonel. But his message, also on this occasion, was not taken into consideration. Years later, from 1942 on, it was emissaries of the cultural circle of Kreisau, also through men of the church, who tried to explain to the allies that there was an opposition that hated the Nazis and that the allies should immediately reject any too hasty identification between Nazism and the German people. But this distinction was not accepted by the allies. Then, when in January of 1943, the inter-allied Conference of Casablanca demanded the total and unconditional surrender not only of the dictator but also of the German nation, the distinction was not even in discussion anymore. This stance left the pockets of resistance without any recourse.
Was Pius XII aware of these attempts to contact the allies?
SALE: He was personally involved in at least one when, between 1939 and 1940, the lawyer Josif Muller, sent by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of counter espionage and the soul of the military resistance, requested him to intercede with the English ambassador accredited to the Vatican to have a message sent to London asking that peace terms be negotiated with a new German government after the overthrow of Hitler. The Pope consented to put the German opposition and the English government in contact. But this attempt also failed. The allies feared that there were traps involved, but they were also blinded by the imperial nationalism of the time which viewed these figures as traitors to their own country. And certainly that identification between Nazis and the German people, which was indeed disastrous, weighed on these events.
You were saying before about the civil opposition ....
SALE: This formed around the Kreisau circle, which one could also describe as a cultural circle to which leading figures from various backgrounds in German civil society belonged. The main core was formed of aristocrats, of Catholic trade unionists and exponents of the dissolved Zentrum, a party of Christian inspiration, by representatives of the Lutheran church and by intellectuals and trade unionists of the left. Priests and religious also belonged to it. But, apart from the effective members, different personalities, among them the Bishop of Berlin, Konrad von Preysing, as well as other prominent German Catholics, had contacts the circle.
What did they do?
SALE: Obviously they didn’t have much freedom of movement ....they met for private conferences, where the future of Germany was debated and planned, a future without Hitler, obviously .... The founder of this circle was Count Helmuth James von Moltke, a figure of high moral and spiritual standing. As other aristocratic adherents of the circle, he saw in the overthrow of the regime not only the sole possibility of salvation for Germany, the redemption of the nation from Nazi degradation, but also, at a personal level, a way of saving his soul. A possibility of seriously striking a blow at the heart of the regime was given by the converging of the Kreisau circle and the military opposition. The conspirators were joined by Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, who belonged to the select group of collaborators of the Führer. It was the first time that a plot had the advantage of such a close contact. The planning, done within the circle, speeded up when von Stauffenberg, for reasons connected with his work, learnedof an order which decreed “the ‘special treatment’ of Auschwitz for 40 or 42 thousand Hungarian Jews”.
Were the ecclesiastical hierarchies aware of this attempt at a coup d’état ?
SALE: From Moltke’s diaries we know that “authoritative bishops were close to the resistance”. We know that in January 1943 von Moltke, in Munich to meet Fathers Augustinus Rosch, Lothar Konig and Alfred Delp (Jesuits belonging to the Kreisau circle, the last of whom was killed after the failed attempt) and the lawyer Muller, the man who was the contact with the Vatican, spoke of the plan with Cardinal Michael Faulhaber who tacitly agreed. We don’t know whether von Preysing also knew about it, but it is very probable, given that they frequented each other a great deal.
How was the plan carried out?
SALE: On 20 July of 1944 von Stauffenberg succeeded in bringing a case containing two explosive charges into “the wolf’s den” in Rastenburg, where Hitler was to meet with his officers. But, once inside, perhaps because of a hitch, Stauffenberg only succeeded in priming one of the two charges. The case was then placed near Hitler, but next to a column which deadened the explosive force. In short, yet again, a series of fortunate circumstances preserved the life of Hitler who escaped unscathed from the attempt. At the same time operations to implement the coup d’état were set in motion. But Hitler’s orders preceded those of the conspirators, and his loyal followers soon succeeded in foiling it. The same night, the leaders of the conspiracy, meeting in the Oberkommando of the Wehrmacht in Berlin, were arrested. In the speech which Hitler made to the nation on the evening of the failed attempt, he explained that a small group of ambitious officers had tried to eliminate him, but that “providence” had prevented it.
Father Alfred Delp, one of the Jesuit fathers belonging to the Kreisau cultural circle and killed after the failed attempt on the Führer
Were they killed?
SALE: All the stages of the trial and of the sentencing to death were filmed, by the express will of Hitler who, among other things, wanted them killed “like pigs”. They were executed, suspended from butcher’s hooks, and the films were sent to the dictator who watched and re-watched them with his officials.
What was the international reaction?
SALE: In the outside world the interpretation which Hitler himself gave of the conspiracy was widely accepted. Recounting the events, the New York Times said that the attempt “made one think more of the atmosphere of a miserable criminal world” than what one would expect from “a normal body of officers of a civilized state”, and they were scandalized by the fact that for a year these officers had plotted “against the commander in chief of the armed forces”, resorting, among other things, to “a bomb, a weapon typical of the underworld”. Another important US newspaper, the Herald Tribune, commented: “In general it will not displease Americans that the bomb spared Hitler and that now he is personally freed of his generals. On the other hand Americans have nothing in common with aristocrats, and especially not with those who resort to stabbing”. Winston Churchill, in a message sent to the House of Commons on 2 August 1944, commented on the episode as “a struggle for power between the generals of the Third Reich”.
Did the allies at the time already know of the final solution against the Jews ....
SALE: Yes, for more than a year .... But here I think we are faced with another blunder dictated by exasperated nationalism and by miscalculation of the event ....
What was the extent of the repression following the attempt of 20 July?
SALE: The Gestapo soon discovered that it was not just a handful of conspirators. Thousands of people were arrested, many of whom were killed. Among these there were many Catholics. The Archbishop of Freiburg, Monsignor Konrad Grober, in a note sent in those days to the apostolic nuncio in Berlin, writes about fifty arrests in his city alone, specifying that there were “personalities known both to the Holy Father and to you” ....
Read the rest here.
