As a child, I accepted the truth of Bible stories in the same way I believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  Adam and Eve, Noah and the great flood, Moses and the Ten Commandments, David and Goliath, and the resurrection of Jesus were all familiar stories I learned in Sunday school.  With respect to Jesus, Christmas and Easter helped to substantiate the various stories I heard about Him.

Even at the age of 12, when I had my “I don’t want to go to hell” experience in a little country church, I had no doubt that Jesus had been crucified and was subsequently raised from the dead.  Somehow his death and resurrection could “save” me, but I did not really understand how it worked.

As the years passed and I began to drift into atheism and agnosticism, I developed the opinion that the Jesus story was merely an ancient myth.  This opinion was strengthened over the years because I associated with people like me, who were running away from God rather than to Him.  Since my friends and I shared the same opinions about Jesus, that was good enough to verify we had established the real truth about Him.  The concept of transcendent truth had not yet dawned on me and I still believed I could decide what was true.

I had three doubts that made it difficult for me to accept the resurrection story as truth.  My first doubt was couched in a general distrust in the accuracy of the Bible.  My friends, and a few “experts” I met, assured me they had looked into the Bible and determined that it had been changed quite a bit from the time it was originally written; there was no way to tell what had been added or removed over the centuries.  The second presupposition was based on a generally negative opinion of the human beings who lived in ancient times.  I believed them to be much less sophisticated than people of our day and gullible enough to believe anything.  The third bias I nurtured was a general denial  of the existence of supernatural influence in human affairs.  Howevcr, the more I studied, the more difficult it became to sustain my doubt.

With respect to the first issue about the accuracy of the Bible, I did not have to read many books before I was overwhelmed with evidence that the Bible is probably the most reliable written document we have from ancient times.  By reliable I mean that the words we read today are, without question, the same words that were originally written.  I could find no credible scholars or critics who challenged that fact.  What I discovered did not necessarily mean that what was written was true, but it did mean that the words I was reading were the same as when they were written.  I spent about six months investigating this one issue and when the investigation was concluded, my first presupposition about inaccurate text was totally demolished.  Now I was forced to deal with the truth or error of the words themselves.

Our “Gullible” Ancestors

I began this phase of my search by deciding to take a look at the “ignorant” people who lived in Biblical times.  I soon found that I had given myself too much credit by assuming I was more intelligent than people of antiquity.  About all I could determine in that regard was that modern society has better technology.  Raw intelligence has nothing to do with technology.

Modern society has a larger information base from which to function.  But does it require more intelligence to invent a wheel or merely find additional uses for it?  Does it require more intelligence to invent bronze and iron, or to find new ways to use it once it exists?  Does it require more intelligence to create principles of law and society, or to change and modify that which already exists?

The conclusion I reached on this subject is verified by the record of humanity.  There have been great thinkers and achievers in all the ages and many from antiquity still challenge and inspire us today.  Homer, Plato, Confucius, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Jefferson, and Lincoln mark a progression of incredible intelligence and cognitive ability that has been a part of the human record since the invention of writing.  And there is no reason not to assume that equally intelligent people lived before writing was invented.  After all, they had to invent writing.

Death Has Always Been Terminal

When it came to the issue of the supernatural resurrection of Jesus, I truly wanted to believe that modern people are more astute and intelligent, but history did not support that idea.  I then had to ask myself how much more modern science knows about death itself, and how likely it was that a person of antiquity would believe in a resurrection without compelling evidence.

Today, more is known about mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, but how much more is known about death?  The truth is:  Nothing!  From a physical perspective, death is death and it has always been final.  More is known about the medical causes of death, but nothing more is known about the pure condition.  First century humans were aware of the finality of death, and were no more likely to believe in the resurrection of a dead man than people of today.

Convincing evidence would be required for any person, in any age, to believe in the truth of such an event.  And for it to be believed it would actually have had to have been witnessed by real people who were credible and trusted to speak and record the truth.

Is Resurrection Possible?

Putting the history issue aside for a moment, one might first ask if resurrection from the dead is possible?  But a better question might be: Is resurrection impossible?  There is certainly no factual evidence to indicate resurrection is impossible.  As a matter of fact there are cryogenic facilities in existence today that freeze bodies in the belief that technology will someday learn how to restore them to life.

If the supernatural is allowed to be included as part of the thought process and an omnipotent God is a part of the equation, resurrection from the dead might not be considered that big of a deal.  If God created life, it might be a fair assumption that He has the ability to restore life, if and when He wants to. But from a purely natural perspective, resurrection appears to be impossible because it is not what normally happens to dead people.

In other words it is not the kind of thing we naturally expect.   Just because I do not expect a thing to happen does not mean it is impossible.  When confronted with what is reported to be an instance of resurrection, my personal opinions about possibility are not relevant.  The truth of the event will rise above any personal opinion I have  based on preconceived notions about the supernatural.

The real issue involves evidence.  By definition, evidence consists of anything that makes something clear, whether taken singly or collectively.  When a thing becomes clear, it can be believed.  In the case of a resurrection many things have to be considered and it is the combined weight of these things that lead to the truth.  The presupposition of impossibility is not one of those things, because impossibility is an opinion that cannot be validated.

Even if there had never been a reported instance of resurrection, the most that could be said is that a resurrection had never happened.  It could not be said to be impossible.  The impossibility of resurrection would be more plausible if there were not reports that such a thing had actually happened.  As a matter of fact, the claim that such an event did happen is about the only reason we have for discussing its possibility.  Without such a claim the question would be a matter of non-interest.