The following is a brief excerpt from a larger book.
For a fuller treatment of this subject as well as a better context, see:
I’d Like To Believe In Jesus But..(The harder, less frequently discussed questions) By Bob Siegel
Published by CSN Books Copyright © 2007 by Bob Siegel All Rights Reserved
Published by Campus Ambassador Press Copyright © 1999 by Bob Siegel All Rights Reserved
This article is not to be reproduced without written permission from the author.
If the same number of eyewitnesses and historians who recorded the resurrection merely reported that a man named Jesus had started a revolution in 33AD, no one would doubt it. The incredible miracles associated with the resurrection understandably create tougher standards and greater skepticism. But are such special criteria fair, or do they instead close our minds to the witness of history? Think about it. If you are going to start by assuming that miracles are impossible, it will never matter to you how much evidence can be brought forth because all data will be immediately dismissed.
An open mind ought not to assume that miracles are impossible. After all, when the Bible talks of miracles, it is not assuming that God waved his hands like a magician and threw natural law out the window. God, as the author of life, is also the author of all scientific law. If science has taught us one lesson over the ages, it is that humankind frequently learns to do things previous generations would have thought impossible. Imagine somebody in 70 AD looking at a television set or a telephone or a computer. Imagine their expressions if they could watch a rocket blast off and land on the moon or if they could see a jet touch down on a runway. To them, such technology would appear very miraculous indeed. Obviously to us, these are not miracles but rather a harnessing of scientific knowledge previous generations had not yet discovered. Likewise, it is easy to assume that human beings, one thousand years in the future (or even one hundred years in the future when we see how fast recent technology has developed), will be able to do things which would absolutely baffle our minds. If it is so easy to believe that people will be able to do that someday, why is it so hard to imagine that God (if He exists) can do those things now? A true open mind will not assume that miracles are impossible because the testimony of science has actually provided evidence to the contrary. Miracle is just a descriptive word for something science currently cannot explain. Therefore, the resurrection or any other event in the Bible should be examined with the same test we would use for any other historical event.
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