If I might butt in here…

Was Jesus in the tomb for day-night-day or was it day-night-day-night-day-night? Where was the tomb? Where was the place of crucifixion? There are a lot of possibilities concerning many aspects of the events in Jerusalem that year. When exactly was the year even? There happen to be four Gospels, each with a different perspective on events and there are many more perspectives from people who experienced them. Some contradictory I am sure.

Some people today attach considerable importance to the issue of how long Jesus was in the tomb, some to where the tomb was located. I guess you are not interested in these issues yourself, Bobby. Like many, I guess you have extrapolated all the myriad facets of this particular history into just the one. It is often a matter of pure convenience and I have no criticism of it in that sense. The actual history (to use your phrase) is not however limited to this one statement. I would like you at least to understand that this or any other particular statement about some past event is not the event itself. It is just that - an extrapolation. And it is your choice to make that extrapolation rather than any other extrapolation.

But the only thing that can be verified is your extrapolation. There is no actual event “Jesus rose from the dead”. (Or “John Kennedy was assassinated” - to show that this is not fundamentally a religious matter) There is only a string of bits moving in a continuous stream and your interpretation of them. I don’t mean your subjective interpretation, I mean your choice to subdivide and classify that stream into manageable, comprehensible, communicable bits. Your statement, once made, can then be tested as to whether it is true or not but you must understand that it is an extrapolation from the events themselves and the evidence available to you and not the “actual history”.

What Jacob possibly fears and I definitely do is that you have reduced the “actual history” to a dogmatic statement and we feel that the “actual history” deserves a lot more than that from us. And God also deserves a lot more from us, which is possibly why Jacob focussed on our responses rather than the mere statement. I feel that the statement “Jesus rose from the dead” lets us off the hook. How for example can we share in the sufferings of our neighbours and witness to them if they are, deep down in our sub-conscious, little more than a doctrine of suffering, an expression of Satan’s activity, perhaps a scalp to win or, less crassly but still lacking, an opportunity to show that you are a Christian? Your suffering neighbour won’t be too interested in you if you want to make a statement about her. And when you do become properly involved and experience the moment, share the suffering, it is then that you realise that you are alive and alive in God. If you later relate the incident, it is very possible to destroy the experience the moment you open your mouth: you extrapolated from it and hence killed the reality. All that is left of it is your statement. It is quite a lot like the fundamental quantum paradox.