Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna
Friday, May 13, 2016
Topic: The empty tomb 40
Reading: Matthew 27:57-66, 28:1-15
Scripture: He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee. (Luke 24:6)
Note: A third rationalist theologian, Heinrich Paulus, a believer in the infamous swoon hypothesis, who seemed to express some level of doubt in his own proposition regarding how Jesus revived without help in the tomb, wrote in works from 1802 onwards that he believed that Jesus had fallen into a temporary coma and somehow revived without help in the tomb.
He was critical of the vision hypothesis and argued that the disciples must have believed that God had resurrected Jesus. Friedrich Schleiermacher endorsed a form of Paulus theory in the early 1830s. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Movement, proposed a theory in his 1899 book, _Jesus in India_ that Jesus travelled to India after surviving the crucifixion.
The resurrection story in the four Gospel narratives has been criticised by opponents of the cross as not exhaustive historically, but it’s sufficient enough to lead one to faith in the Christology of Jesus. The four Gospel narratives were consistent in the historicity of Christ, his crucifixion, death and resurrection. There was no single contradiction in their delivery. Though written at different times, they were synoptic facts with consistent historicity.
On the other hand, the swoon hypothesis proponents seemed to be inconsistent with their belief. Some of these proponents claimed that Jesus was resuscitated with the help of external assistance while others claimed he somehow managed to revive on his own. None of them provided any historical, evidential proof of their claims except the usual wild conjectures. No one answered the critical question of how Christ resuscitated from swooning after his torture, the bleeding from the flogging and the loss of blood and water from the piercing spear wound, which was a trade mark certified form of sure killing from the Roman soldiers.
Food for thought: I will rather believe in the simplicity of the synoptic gospels and their consistency, than put my faith in uncertain, contradicting and unverified philosophies of men.
Declaration: Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)
© Author: Rev Fred Aboe
