Elucidations

  There is no proof of Christ’s resurrection, only strong evidence. That is the case for any past event. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus stems from the faith of the church and an accumulation of evidence. In past ages its significance was limited to proving the divinity of Christ so that his birth was the incarnation of God and his suffering the overcoming of sin and death. Nowadays Christ’s resurrection is seen as more central than confirmatory both to the church’s transformational dynamic and to apologetics, the reasoned defence or ‘apologia’ of Christian faith. Christianity stands or falls on the event which has a documented history whilst being a metaphysical (‘beyond the natural’) event with significance beyond history.  Defending the resurrection we sail ‘between the Scylla of critical pedantry and the Charybdis of vaguely religious psychology’ (Rowan Williams). If we make the establishing of the empty tomb narratives our goal that can reduce to pedantry because it is not the