Without Easter, we wouldn’t know about Jesus. If his story had ended with his crucifixion, he most likely would have been forgotten—another Jew crucified by the Roman Empire in a bloody century that witnessed thousands of such executions. Perhaps a trace or two about him would have shown up in Josephus or in Jewish rabbinic sources, but that would have been all. Indeed, without Easter, we wouldn’t even have “Good Friday,” for there would have been no abiding community to remember and give meaning to his death. So Easter is utterly central. But what was it? What are the Easter stories about? On
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