Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy: A Journey into a New Christianity Through the Doorway of Matthew's Gospel

by John Shelby Spong

First, before we look at the divergences and outright contradictions in the various accounts of the resurrection in the gospels, I think it would be helpful to list the significant areas where there is agreement. The writers of these accounts all, for example, set the event on the first day of the week. They all assert that the Easter experience forced them to see Jesus in a new way with a radically new understanding. They all assert their conviction that something happened following the crucifixion of Jesus that forced them to entertain the possibility that the ultimate barrier that faces human life, our finitude and mortality, had somehow been breached. It is also evident that whatever Easter was, or is, and whether or not it was an objective event that interrupted time and space, its effects on lives that live in time and space were not only real, but measurable. The category of objectivity may not be applicable to the Easter event itself, but it can be applied to the effects of whatever the Easter moment was. Let me amplify that statement.