Sunday, April 12, 2009

The Last Week - EIGHT: Easter Sunday

Key ideas from the Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.

The concluding chapter of the book looks at the meaning of Easter Sunday. The authors begin with a significant question: What kind of stories are the Easter stories? In response, they suggest two basic answers. The first, and the most widespread in Christian circles, sees the stories as factual history. They report what a modern news team would have captured had they been there with their video cams.

The second answer, favored by Borg and Crossan, is that the stories are parabolic narratives, which is to say their importance lie in their meaning, not in their being historically factual. In this approach, the stories, like the parables of Jesus, are profoundly true independent of their historicity.

Mark as parable evokes the following powerful concepts:
  • The tomb could not hold Jesus
  • Jesus is not to be found in the land of the dead
  • Jesus has been raised and vindicated; God has said "yes" to him and "no" to the powers who killed him
  • His followers are promised that they will see him

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