Skeptical Now, Skeptical Then.

The theory that the disciples stole the body and claimed Jesus had risen assumes that the disciples expected their fellow Jews to be open to the belief that an individual could be raised from the dead. Yet the people of that time considered a bodily resurrection to be impossible just as the people of our own time.  It is hard to imagine, without fully grasping the cultural environment of the time, just how bizarre and unbelievable the Resurrection would have seemed to the people of the time.  To us it is an almost too familiar story.  To them it was unheard of and far more unimaginable. Jesus’ miracles of bringing people back to life were attention raising events. Events that others could conceivably explain away. However, Christ’s death on the cross was unassailable evidence of his being categorically dead.

It is absurd to think that only relatively recently did people discover - through the benefit of science - that dead people don’t rise.  And that people “back then” were unenlightened and gullible; that they were naturally inclined to believe in all sorts of absurd miracles. That is simply false.

A charming quote by C. S. Lewis relates to this.  In discussing the virginal conception of Jesus Lewis states that the reason Joseph was worried about Mary’s pregnancy was not because he was ignorant and didn’t know where babies come from, but because he did.

It’s the same with the resurrection of Jesus. People in the ancient world were incredulous when faced with the Christian claim, because they knew empirically that when people die they stay dead.