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Review Summary: Analysis of the Resurrection of Christ |
Date: 2008-12-20 |
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Details: This is an intelligent objective presentation of the events and details of the resurrection of Christ. The reader is not expected to accept the resurrection by faith, but to simply weigh the historical, and often overlooked, evidence. A must read for anyone questioning the reality of the Ressurection of Christ. |
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Review Summary: Wonderful book Great service |
Date: 2008-08-15 |
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Details: Wonderful book to read. Good truths in a honely fun presentation. Excellent service from seller.
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Review Summary: Yes, the Guards Moved the Stone. But Why? |
Date: 2007-12-13 |
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Details: As an agnostic (formerly a Christian), I must say that Frank Morison deserves great praise for his book Who Moved the Stone? He is cautious and polite, and he relies, for the most part, on natural reasoning as opposed to supernatural suppositions. For all these reasons his book is more accessible to us non-Christians than the works of many strident Christian resurrection apologists.
The first half of the book focuses on the arrest, trial, execution, and burial of Jesus. Morison's detailed, minute-by-minute reconstruction is very impressive, though necessarily somewhat speculative. (He seems to accept almost every odd bit of the gospel accounts as significant and tries to knit them all tightly together.)
Eventually Morison arrives at the resurrection question. His suggested answer to his own title question, Who Moved the Stone?, is that the tomb guards moved the boulder away from the entrance to the tomb of Jesus out of curiosity after they heard the sounds of a resurrection. As he writes in Chapter 13: "... some unusual circumstance caused them to look inside the tomb." This motivation that Morison ascribes to the guards does not seem very plausible to me, but at least he suggests natural, human agents at work on the stone, not supernatural ones (angel, miraculous earthquake, as in Matthew 28).
In the process, Morison comes very close to another and, I truly believe, much more probable answer as to why the tomb guards would have moved the stone: In order to remove the body of Jesus. Why do that? It makes perfect sense if the guards were working on the orders of the Jerusalem authorities, who were understandably (from their viewpoint) outraged by the offensively honorable burial of the corpse of Jesus, and wished to eliminate any potential worship of his tomb, including any violent rally that might soon occur there. That motivation would also explain the request of the Jewish authorities to Pilate in Matthew 27 much better than a resurrection prediction they had never heard. Morison shies away from the body theft conclusion, but it lies very, very near to his reasoning. No other Christian writer I know of comes as close to this scenario. Please read Matthew chapter 28, deleting its supernatural passages, and see what it reveals: A body theft involving the tomb guards in collusion with the religious authorities. Then reflect on Morison's own words: "Think of the highly placed Sadducees who were prepared to go to almost any length to discredit and overthrow the [Jesus] cause" (Chap. 14).
Another question deserving of a book title is this one: Why Did the Resurrection Happen at Night, and Without Any Witnesses? Again, the probable answer: Because there was no resurrection, only a body theft. Once removed by night, as the situation required, the body would then have been burned, destroyed with lime, fed to animals, or reburied secretly some place where it would have decayed beyond recognition within a couple of months. Corpses normally decompose completely, down to the bones, within less than a year. And the new Christian sect was tiny and trivial for the first years of its existence (unless one believes in the fantastical "three thousand" converts of Pentecost, and the "flying flaming tongues" of that same day). The Jerusalem authorities must have largely ignored the Christian sect at first. Nor would those authorities have needed to produce the body to contradict the resurrection claims of the Christians. They already had a pat allegation in place that the disciples themselves had stolen the body. That was persuasive enough for the Jerusalem masses. There was no need to say or do anything more. The Christians remained a tiny sect in Jerusalem and Judaea for years, largely unsuccessful in their proselytizing efforts. And of course those few people who did convert must have been mainly attracted / intimidated by the Christian claims that the "End Time" was near (which it was not).
But back to Morison. He wisely avoids discussing in detail the reputed resurrection appearances of Jesus as related in the gospels. He recognizes that the earliest, pre-gospel reports were actually very vague ones (Jesus "was seen," that's all), easily due to visions or vivid dreams or cases of mistaken identity or the like. (Morison, Chap. 14: "Granted that a vision came to one of them and perhaps to all.") Years or decades later those first bare reports were embellished in the gospel scenes of a risen Jesus walking, talking, and eating with his followers.
All in all, Frank Morison deserves great respect as an "honorary agnostic" for his cautious and largely naturalistic attempt to explain the ancient mystery of the empty tomb.
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Review Summary: who moved the stone |
Date: 2007-01-04 |
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Details: Book was easy to read and understand. Found it interesting and informative. |
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Review Summary: Debunks the common claims against Christ |
Date: 2006-10-09 |
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Details: Every Christian has their own story about how they came to know
Jesus Christ as their personal savior. This is known as their testimony. Frank Morrison's testimony can be found in Who Moved the Stone? What makes this story compelling on many levels is that Morrison, an English journalist and one-time skeptic of Christianity, actually began this book as a means to disprove the very foundation of the Christian religion: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He researched numerous historical documents including the four gospels found in the Bible and it became apparent that over the course of his research one question continued to plague him, thus the title of his book. What began as a narrative aimed at refuting the resurrection soon became a testimonial of how one man transformed from skeptic to follower. Rather than argue the case for the resurrection with faith alone, Morrison uses logic and reason to discount the counter-theories that he
once believed to hold the truth. For example, why would the Jewish high
priests hide Christ's body when the resurrection itself poses such a
substantial threat to their power? Why would the disciples do the same
and not immediately proclaim that Christ had risen, knowing that not
doing so would risk the movement running out of steam as had been the
case with other philosophic and religious leaders at the time? Instead,
they waited months before doing so, perhaps because they were asking
the same question that Morrison was asking. And if the resurrection
were false, how could such a large following have developed on its
heels? If you're a Christian, you will enjoy the pure and simple reason that Morrison applies to the trial, conviction, execution and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you're searching for spiritual answers, Morrison may very well have provided them.
Reviewed on behalf of [...] |
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out of 25 Reviews
