Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
I went to Sunday school from about the age of four to eight. There was just great teachings of Jesus. I loved Jesus. He was my superhero. He really was. God was magic, right? But Jesus was just a man. And what I loved about Jesus was he was kind and he was brave and I thought he was amazing.
You're listening to comedian and atheist Ricky Gervais on the Actors Studio. And he's expressing something of the two minds many people find themselves in at this time of year. So I was about eight and my brother must have been 19. He came in once and I was doing something from the Bible. And I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, drawing Jesus. And he went...
who was jesus i said well he was he was a son of god he went why do you believe in god right and my mum went bob shut up and i knew she had something to hide and he was telling the truth and i knew i knew from body language and then i worked out when i was an atheist in an hour
It's Easter, and around this time a couple of billion people pause, in some way, to contemplate the death and resurrection of Jesus. Alongside them are plenty of folks who look at Christ quite differently. Studies continue to show that most people, like Ricky Gervais, have a fairly positive view of the founder of Christianity. But that's a long way from accepting that there's any history, let alone relevance, in the alleged events of Easter.
Was the story of Jesus' final days a fiction, cobbled together from a range of earlier myths? Did Jesus actually die on a cross? And if so, was it part of his own plan or just a tragic failure? And of course, what on earth can be said about him rising from the dead? We had a lot of fun looking into the Christmas story through the lens of history, so we thought it'd be good to do the same for Easter. It's no small question.
I agree with the statement of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. If the Easter events aren't real, Christian faith is useless, he says, and Christians are of all people most to be pitied. They deserve every bit of mockery dreamt up by comedians like Ricky Gervais. I'm John Dixon, and this is Undeceptions. Undeceptions
Undeceptions is brought to you by Zondervan Academics' new video streaming service, Master Lectures, featuring some of the world's leading Christian scholars.
Every week here at Undeceptions we explore some aspect of life, faith, history, culture or ethics that's either much misunderstood or mostly forgotten. With the help of people who know what they're talking about we try to undeceive ourselves and let the truth out. And with half the world in lockdown this Easter, for the first time in history frankly, it feels especially important to let the realities of Easter out.
So where do we start with our Easter myth-busting? What about the name itself? It's a festival stolen from a more ancient pagan world, right? That's what the US TV series American Gods suggests. Until the day that Jesus Christ crawled out of his stinky old grave, folks would paint eggs with dandelions and paprika for her to exchange as gifts at the first sign of spring in her name, Astaroth.
They still do. They still do. On my festival days, they still feast on eggs and rabbit and candy. So the early church just appropriated a pagan festival? Not so much. The original name of Easter is pretty interesting. Some say it goes back to the pagan god Ishtar. Easter, Ishtar, sounds similar, right? Maybe that's the origin.
No. The fact is, only English and German, both latecomers to the Christian party, have words that sound like Easter. Have a listen to how most of the world calls what we call Easter. Paska.
Greek, French, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Danish, Javanese, Sudanese and many, many more. They sound so similar because in most languages, sadly not English or Deutsche Sprache, the thing we call Easter is actually derived from the Hebrew word Tesach, which means Passover.
Passover is the central Jewish festival that celebrated Israel's deliverance from Egypt millennia ago. God's judgment fell on the oppressors and passed over the Israelites. That's what Pesach or Passover is all about. Now, according to all four Gospels, Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem by the Romans during the Jewish Passover festival in the early 30s AD.
Christians immediately saw the connections, just as a lamb was always sacrificed during the Passover, so Jesus gave his life so that through him God's judgment would pass over all who trust in Christ.
Ever since then, most Christians called their annual celebration of Jesus' death and resurrection Pesach, or a word related to that, until, of course, Christianity made its way into German and English lands centuries later, and those people gave it the more pedestrian name Easter, relating to the word spring, simply because the festival falls in a northern spring. Boo. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Some have claimed that the story of Jesus' death and resurrection itself isn't history, but a concoction of bits and pieces of much older myths. This is Horus. He is the sun god of Egypt of around 3000 BC. He is the sun anthropomorphized... The internet film Zeitgeist managed to turn this idea of a patchwork Jesus into a movie with millions of views.
Horus was born on December 25th of the Virgin Isis, Mary. His birth was accompanied by a star in the east, and upon his birth he was adored by three kings. At the age of 12 he was a prodigal child teacher, and at the age of 30 he was baptized by a figure known as Anup, and thus began his ministry. Horus had 12 disciples he traveled about with, performing miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water.
And the list goes on of alleged connections between Jesus and Horus and other gods and goddesses like Attis of Phrygia, Krishna of India and Dionysius of Greece. It all sounds plausible, sort of, and the Zeitgeist movie certainly was an online hit. But basically...
It's nuts. That's a technical term in this case. And you don't have to take my word for it. I did an interview for the Center for Public Christianity with Dr. Chris Forbes, who specializes in these ancient religions and myths at Macquarie University's Ancient History Department.
I ended up almost laughing because the claims it makes are mostly wildly wrong and in some cases simply silly. Can we focus in on what is really the heart of the claim of the movie as it connects with Jesus? And that is that the whole Jesus story of him being born right through to his crucifixion and resurrection
is a mishmash of ancient mythologies, in particular the mythology of the sun god of Egypt, Horus, we're told. John, can I stop you there? Horus isn't a sun god. Okay, but the movie says that he is. Yes, it does, but he's not. What sort of god was he? He's the god of the sky. Ra is the sun god. Okay. That makes the connection between him being a sun god and Jesus being the son of God more difficult, doesn't it? I thought it was only a pun to start with.
I mean, the Son of God, S-U-N-S-O-N,
It's a perfectly good pun in English. Well, it's a fairly bad pun in English. But it doesn't work in Egyptian and it doesn't work in Greek and it doesn't work in Latin. It's just a pun. So leaving all that aside. Yeah. The claims about this particular sky god then, Horus, are that he was born on December 25th. He was adored by three kings. He grew up. He had 12 disciples. He was crucified and then he was resurrected. Well, that sounds like the Jesus story.
It does because that's what it is. But it's not the Horus story. Oh, by the way, you left out born of a virgin. Born of a virgin indeed. Yes, except that his mother Isis wasn't a virgin. And there's no suggestion in the Egyptian sources that she was. This whole list of parallels are true of Jesus, aren't actually true of Horus at all.
The ancient sources don't mention these details. It's pretty unlikely that the ancient Egyptians would say that Horus was born on December the 25th because December is a Latin month and their calendar is completely different. Was Horus crucified and raised from the dead? No, Horus wasn't crucified. Horus wasn't killed at all.
Osiris was killed, betrayed and killed by his brother Seth, who then cut up his body into very small pieces and had them scattered all over Egypt so they couldn't be patched back together and resuscitated. And the rest of the myth of Osiris is about Isis gathering the pieces of his body, binding them up with bandages so that he can become the first mummy and therefore be resuscitated.
But all of that happens not in historical time, that all happens in the Egyptian equivalent of the dream time, in mythological time. I guess the punchline of the Zeitgeist movie as it connects with Jesus is that because the Jesus story is just a mythical construct, which you're saying it isn't,
The movie is saying he didn't exist. He's not a historical figure. Does that have currency in serious historical research today? No, there's no serious question for historians that Jesus actually lived. There's real issues about whether he is really the way the Bible described him. There's real issues about particular incidents in his life. But no serious ancient historian doubts that Jesus was a real person, really living in Galilee in the first century.
Hey, we'll put a link in the show notes to the full interview with Dr. Forbes. It's well worth watching. But let's dig into some of those real issues about incidents in Jesus' life that Chris mentions. The most obvious is the crucifixion itself.
The popular French philosopher Michel Onfray has argued that Jesus was more myth than history. And among his reasons for saying this is the fact, well, he says it's a fact, that someone like Jesus would not have been crucified. History again bears witness, Onfray writes in his Atheist Manifesto. At that time, Jews were not crucified, but stoned to death.
Onfray goes on to say that even if Jesus was crucified, which he wasn't, there's no way he would have been properly buried in a tomb like the Gospels say he was. Onfray is quite adamant about all this. There was no question, he writes, of bodies being laid to rest in tombs. Fabrications. I'm sure it sounds even better in French. It's strong stuff.
But it's pretty wide of the mark. Every ancient historian knows that Jews were among the most crucified people in antiquity.
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Josephus both report one incident where 800 Pharisees were crucified on one day while their wives and children were forced to look on. The first century writer Josephus also tells us that during the siege of Jerusalem in the year 70, the Romans crucified hundreds of Jews every day while taking the city.
And actually, our only solid archaeological remains of a crucifixion victim, a male heel bone with a huge nail still in place, were discovered in a first century Jewish tomb. This Jew, his name was Jehoanan by the way, because it was written on his burial box, was crucified and properly buried, just like the Gospels say Jesus was.
Can we put a photo of this heel bone and nail in the show notes, Mark? I'll dig it out. I'll dig it out. So we know Jewish crucifixions did take place and that crucifixion victims were sometimes, not always, but sometimes buried in tombs. On the face of it, the early Christian accounts about Jesus are plausible as history. But what if Jesus' crucifixion didn't quite work? What if he didn't actually die?
Here's another Easter myth, and it comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Jesus didn't die on the cross, but was rescued by his followers. Jesus' followers bribed Pontius Pilate to let them take Jesus down from the cross before he died. Jesus just lost consciousness due to his injuries and then, in the coolness of the tomb, got better.
Finally, Jesus swapped places with John, who was wearing exactly the same loincloth in the Leonardo da Vinci painting, and slipped into the crowd dressed as a Jewish woman. Okay, I made that one up. But these sorts of ideas are all collectively known as the swoon theory. Their basic idea is Jesus didn't really die. So let's review what our early accounts record.
Jesus was imprisoned and probably sleepless as he underwent a midnight trial. He was then beaten at various points by Roman guards. He was scourged, basically whipped with pieces of bone, glass and metal built into the leather. He was forced to carry his cross for quite a distance.
And then he was crucified. More about that later. Oh, and one of the Gospels says he was stabbed in the torso with a Roman spear. It all sounds pretty brutal. How effective was crucifixion as a death penalty? I'm no doctor of the relevant kind, so let me phone a friend. Hello, Melanie speaking.
Dr Melanie Lovell is an associate professor at the University of Sydney and an expert in palliative care. She specialises in pain assessment and management, especially among the dying. She has in her hand a report published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. It's titled On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ and she's going to make sense of it for us. So the simple thing we want to know is what's the effect of
of crucifixion on the human body? It's thought that there's a number of effects of crucifixion and that different people who were crucified might have died from different elements. So people in the process had nails placed throughout their wrists
and into the feet and were effectively hung by their hands and feet on the cross. It was customary prior to crucifixion for priests
people to be flogged and that was done with a I think it was called a flagrant you'll know better than me John about that but it was a leather tool that had embedded in it pieces of metal and bone and people were stripped naked and actually whipped on both sides of the body down the back and
the buttocks and into the legs and would have lost a really considerable amount of blood during that time so that by the time they then carried their cross for a period of time and then were hung on the cross were already suffering the effects of a significant amount of blood loss and exhaustion. So
Hanging on the cross then had a number of effects. People were there for a very long amount of time before they died, as far as we understand, hours to days. Over time, people would become increasingly dehydrated.
There's some discussion about the effects on respiration and Edwards wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1986 about the effect, particularly on exhalation, that because people were hung from the cross, they were no longer able to passively exhale, but in fact needed to push up through the feet,
that the nail was through in order to get enough purchase to exhale. And so that the volume of respiration would become increasingly small as people become more and more exhausted and the levels of carbon dioxide would rise. And eventually people may become asphyxiated. So there's two things that would happen that people would have a, the,
dehydration and blood loss they would have difficulty with respiration
There are a number of other postulated thoughts, including, you know, unfortunately people would be at the mercy of animals and birds as they were unable to defend themselves. And the wounds that they had would be at risk of becoming infected. A really gruesome, it's overall a really gruesome, horrible, horrible way to die.
Can we say anything about what medical indications there are that Jesus really died? We can. I mean, there were many eyewitnesses. So we do know that he was whipped out.
prior to going on the cross. We know that he was so weak when he was walking the four kilometres or so from where he was whipped to the cross that he was so weak he could not carry his own cross.
We know that he was offered a drink which he declined and I think that was a requirement of the Lord that he'd be offered this drink with gall and myrrh which he declined. We know that he made a number of utterances from the cross. At
At the end, when it was thought that he had died, he was pierced with a spear through the best we can understand was through the right side of the chest up and into the heart. And it was seen that blood and water flowed.
flowed now that may have been fluid from around the lungs, around the heart and blood from the heart itself as this pierced the right side of the chambers of the heart. And it is, that's a fatal wound. And particularly in his circumstances, that was good evidence that in fact he had died.
You see death every day in your work, sadly. How confident are you that Jesus' crucifixion worked, that he really died?
I'm confident. What happened was that the centurions saw that he had died. And what often happened if people hadn't died yet, they had their legs broken below the knee and that didn't happen to Jesus, but instead he had the spear. What he went through was not survivable.
Interestingly, he cried out at the moment of his death. And so there's some discussion in the literature about what would have triggered that, whether he had a sudden abnormal rhythm of the heart that caused his death, whether he had some clotting coming from his heart because of his overall very deteriorated health.
and we'll never know the answer to that. But I think what we can know is that this was a common method of killing people in those days and that what happened to him was not survivable and that his body wouldn't have been released to the family unless there was confidence that he was dead and had died probably sometime prior to his body being released to the family.
So, yeah, I have no doubt that he died. Thanks so much, Mel. God bless. My pleasure. All the best. Bye. Jesus was real. He was crucified and buried, and he really did die. I think we can tick all of that off the list. But that's not the end of the controversy, of course. Why did Jesus die?
Was he really trying to atone, make up for our sins? Or is that just made up by later Christians? And of course, the big question is, what can historians say about the resurrection of Jesus? All of that fun after the break.
This episode of Undeceptions is brought to you by Zondervan Academics' new book, ready for it? Mere Christian Hermeneutics, Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically, by the brilliant Kevin Van Hooser. I'll admit that's a really deep-sounding title, but don't let that put you off. Kevin is one of the most respected theological thinkers in the world today.
And he explores why we consider the Bible the word of God, but also how you make sense of it from start to finish. Hermeneutics is just the fancy word for how you interpret something. So if you want to dip your toe into the world of theology, how we know God, what we can know about God, then this book is a great starting point. Looking at how the church has made sense of the Bible through history, but also how you today can make sense of it.
Mere Christian Hermeneutics also offers insights that are valuable to anyone who's interested in literature, philosophy, or history. Kevin doesn't just write about faith, he's also there to hone your interpretative skills. And if you're eager to engage with the Bible, whether as a believer or as a doubter, this might be essential reading.
You can pre-order your copy of Mere Christian Hermeneutics now at Amazon, or you can head to zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions to find out more. Don't forget, zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions.
68-year-old Tirat was working as a farmer near his small village on the Punjab-Sindh border in Pakistan when his vision began to fail. Cataracts were causing debilitating pain and his vision impairment meant he couldn't sow crops.
It pushed his family into a financial crisis. But thanks to support from Anglican Aid, Tirat was seen by an eye care team sent to his village by the Victoria Memorial Medical Centre. He was referred for crucial surgery. With his vision successfully restored, Tirat is able to work again and provide for his family.
There are dozens of success stories like Tarat's emerging from the outskirts of Pakistan, but Anglican Aid needs your help for this work to continue. Please head to anglicanaid.org.au forward slash AnglicanAid.
Did Jesus rise again?
Nah, we should probably give this a whole episode. Someone should maybe write a book on it one day. The question takes us, of course, to the pointy end of Christianity. And the first thing to say is something that I've said before about miracles generally.
The rationality or otherwise of believing in a miracle like a resurrection or healing or whatever is shaped by the background beliefs we hold about the universe. I mean, if I reckon the laws of nature define the limits of what's possible in the universe, that there's no lawgiver, there's no God behind the laws, then in principle, miracles like the resurrection just can't be rational. It doesn't matter how much evidence there is, it can't be evidence of a resurrection.
But on the other hand, if I reckon the laws of nature don't define the limits of what's possible, that perhaps the laws themselves point to a lawgiver, then given that such a lawgiver could act through and beyond these natural laws, it's entirely rational to believe, at least in the possibility of miracles, where the evidence in their favor is pretty good. So what evidence is there for the resurrection?
The evidence boils down to good testimony. That is, testimony that is early, widespread, and credible. It's not the sort of testimony we'd expect if the resurrection were a developing legend. It's not the sort of testimony we'd expect if the resurrection were a complete fraud.
It is the kind of testimony we'd expect if the first Christians really did find Jesus' tomb empty and really did experience what they thought were appearances of Jesus risen from the dead.
And it's not just Christians who say this kind of stuff. It's an observation made by the likes of great scholars, such as Geza Vamesh, the great professor of Jewish studies at Oxford University, who writes, "...from these various records, two reasonably convincing points merge. The women belonging to the entourage of Jesus discovered an empty tomb and were definite that it was the tomb."
The rumor that the apostles stole the body is most improbable. One of the things that convinced Vimesh that there probably was an empty tomb is that all the Gospels agree it was women who found the empty tomb.
And that's not the sort of thing that would be invented because, frankly, women were not regarded as credible witnesses in the period. If you were making up a story about the discovery of an empty tomb and you wanted first century folks to believe you, it's pretty unlikely you would write women into the narrative.
But of course, an empty tomb can be interpreted in a variety of ways. That alone isn't what makes the resurrection an enduring historical puzzle. It's the empty tomb combined with the fact that we have very strong evidence that people testified they saw Jesus alive from the dead. And again, this is not something just Christians who are trying to sort of defend the faith say.
Even someone like Ed Sanders of Duke University, who is not known for his defending the Christian faith, writes these words. That Jesus' followers and later Paul had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences, I do not know.
This is typical of the secular approach to this topic. Something strange happened. We're just not sure what it was. And I'd say the best historical analysis makes plain that Jesus' tomb really was empty and that plenty of people really did think they saw him alive.
We have the kind of historical evidence a resurrection would leave behind, and much more evidence pointing in that direction than we could expect if the whole thing were a legend or a fraud.
But of course, how we interpret the empty tomb and the sightings of Jesus is going to depend not on historical evidence, but on our background beliefs, whether we reckon there's a God in the universe in the first place who could raise the dead. Most people are surprised to know that in the first gospel, Mark, written in the early 70s, that nowhere does the risen Christ ever appear in Mark to anybody. It's only in the late gospels.
That he not only appears but offers his flesh to be inspected and eats and walks and talks and interprets scripture? It's a very late development in the tradition. That's John Shelby Spong speaking for the Living Questions website.
He's an Anglican theologian, a bishop actually, who's become famous over the years for suggesting, among other things, that the resurrection wasn't part of the original form of Christianity. His assertions have led many people to label the resurrection a huge myth. But again, we've got to ask, what does a historian have to say about all this, as opposed to a liberal theologian?
Let's begin with the claim that the resurrection isn't mentioned in the earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark. I hate to say this sort of thing, but frankly, that's a bit slippery.
It's one of those things that is highly misleading, but it grants the speaker some plausible deniability. Now, it's true that the end of Mark's gospel has no narrated appearance of the risen Jesus. Mark, as we have it today, ends with the women running away from the empty tomb, frightened, saying nothing to anyone.
Now, if you know Mark's gospel, you'll know that there are these extra verses, verses 9 to 20, at the very end that were added sometime later. A scribe copying out the gospel of Mark decided to add a kind of appendix of what happened after Mark's weird finish.
And this scribe pulls the information from the other Gospels and puts it in sort of brief summary form. He isn't trying to deceive, by the way. He doesn't even hide the fact that he writes in a very, very different style from that of Mark. It's clearly an addition, an appendix. So is Spong right? There's no resurrection in Mark's Gospel. Not a chance.
Earlier in Mark, we have had several references to Jesus being raised. One has Jesus saying, we are going up to Jerusalem. The son of man will be betrayed, handed over, killed, etc. They will mock him, scourge him, spit on him, kill him. And on the third day, he will rise again. I mean, that's pretty clear. It is frankly impossible, historically speaking, that Mark's gospel doesn't assume the resurrection. It mentions it.
But we can do better than that. There are two earlier references in Mark to Jesus appearing to his disciples later in Galilee after the resurrection. So in Mark 14, 27, a roundabout where he's saying Peter and the other disciples will betray him. Jesus says, after I have risen, this is Mark 14, 27. After I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.
Well, that's pretty clear. And then in Mark 16, verse 7, a strange messenger at the empty tomb tells the women, go tell his disciples and Peter he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you.
I mean, come on. This puts beyond doubt that Mark knew not only of a resurrection, but of stories of the risen Jesus appearing to the disciples in Galilee. By the way, we have just such stories in Matthew and John. Luke only records appearances in Jerusalem.
So where is the missing narrative of Jesus appearing in Galilee? Well, I'm persuaded by those scholars who argue that the final page of Mark is missing.
It's broken off at some early period in the copying process, which is why a scribe later added the appendix we have there now. But what can't be doubted is that Mark knew and wanted his readers to know that Jesus was raised and that he appeared to his disciples in Galilee. And we can go one step further.
we've got evidence that's way earlier than Mark. So it is just impossible to think Mark didn't know of the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul quotes a creed, a pithy formal summary of beliefs, that most experts, even the atheist ones, date to within about five years of Jesus, mid-30s AD.
And it goes like this, for I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received. And here comes the quote, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Kephas or Peter and then to the 12th.
This puts it beyond doubt that the death, burial, resurrection, and appearances of Jesus were all known, known so widely they're put into an early creed, very, very soon after the events.
Whatever else you're going to make of the resurrection, there's no way it can be a late accumulating legend. And there's no way Mark didn't know about it. Now, all of that may sound a bit nerdy, but sometimes nerdy is needed to expose the slippery. Far from being something made up much later, the resurrection is part of the church's earliest statements of belief.
But there's another, more moral problem some people have with Easter. What's with all that creepy stuff about Jesus dying for our sins? Here's well-known atheist Richard Dawkins.
Here we have a God who wanted to forgive mankind its sins, including, by the way, the sin of Adam, who he presumably knew perfectly well never existed, nevertheless. He wanted to forgive mankind's sins. Why didn't he just forgive them? Why was it necessary to have a human sacrifice, to have his son tortured and executed in order that the sins of mankind should be absolved? Is that not the most disgusting idea you've ever heard?
Let's press pause. I've got a five-minute Jesus for you. At the Passover festival of Jesus Day, the male representative of a household brought a lamb to the Jerusalem temple on the afternoon of the 14th of the month of Nisan.
After presenting it to one of the thousands of priests on duty that day, the worshipper killed the animal while the priest caught the blood in a sacred bowl, which he passed back along the priestly line to be tossed against the base of the temple altar.
The Passover lamb was far more than a simple memorial. It had a clear sacrificial dimension. Its blood was literally poured out before the Lord and its fatty portions were offered in sacrifice. This sacrificial dimension becomes really important as we try to understand Jesus' striking words spoken during his farewell meal later that Passover evening.
This is my blood of the covenant, he said, which is poured out for many. There can be no doubt that he was speaking of his impending death in language designed to recall the lamb sacrificed for the deliverance of God's people. The blood of the original Passover lamb ensured that while judgment fell on the oppressors in Egypt, it passed over the Jewish households.
But the idea of blood sacrifice for atonement is often criticized today as barbaric and bloodthirsty. Professor Dawkins, with typical zest, says it's vicious, sadomasochistic, and repellent. He calls it barking mad and asks, if God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them? The answer of the ancient Jew and Christians
is that God must be and appear to be just in the performance of his mercy. As a judge won't freely release a convicted criminal simply because he's positively inclined toward him, so God doesn't forgive the guilty without exacting payment at the same time. That is the ancient logic of atonement, whether or not we actually like it.
When Jesus at his last supper spoke of his blood as the blood of the covenant poured out for many, he was recalling a centuries-old tradition. Mercy and judgment lay side by side in Jewish thought because both were intrinsic to the character of Israel's God. God was always willing to forgive, but never at the expense of justice. He would always deal justly with evil,
but never without the offer of mercy. Atonement is the resolution of this tension that's in the heart of God. It's how he shows himself to be just towards sin and yet forgiving toward the sinner. Coincidentally, as I was preparing this material, I read a story in the local newspaper that deserves retelling.
Melbourne woman Kimberley Deer was set to fulfil a life ambition when she enrolled for skydiving lessons recently on holidays in Missouri in the US. Her hopes were dashed when the plane she was flying in lost power and started careering toward the ground. Her instructor, his name was Robert Cook, responded instantly. He apparently took hold of her and calmly talked her through what would happen next.
As the plane is about to hit the ground, make sure you're on top of me so I take the force of the impact. They crashed. Several died, including Robert Cook. Kimberley survived and from hospital reported that in the seconds just before the crash, she felt Mr Cook swivel his body into position as he pushed her head against his shoulder to cushion the blow.
Now, I've never been a big fan of attempts, even my own attempts, to illustrate the meaning of Jesus' death by modern stories. There's a danger of trivialising one or the other. But when I read of the actions of Robert Cook, I couldn't help but think again of the words of Jesus at the Last Supper. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. You can press play now. MUSIC
Leaving Jesus with the last word on his own death and resurrection seems to be the best place to end this time around. But if you've got questions about this or any other episode, I'd love to hear them. And we'll try and answer them in our upcoming Q&A episode. You can tweet us at Undeceptions. Send us a regular old email at questions at undeceptions.com. Or if you're brave, and I really love this, try record your question. All you've got to do is go to undeceptions.com.
to undeceptions.com and there's a little button thing that you click and it'll actually record you talking and we love to hear what people have to say. While you're there, check out everything related to this episode and sign up for the Undeceptions newsletter to get access to bonus content and plenty more from each episode.
And if you like my show, let me give a little shout out to my buddies, Megan Paldevoir and Michael Jensen and their show with all due respect. It's another member of this eternity podcast network and they show how it's possible to talk about the really contentious issues of the day without clobbering each other. Go to eternitypodcasts.com and give them a listen. Next episode, I've got a story you're going to be telling everyone you know about.
A leading Hindu activist and preacher, trained for seven years in the Indian desert, admired across Europe, then found himself developing, in his own words, an unhealthy fascination with Jesus Christ. Don't miss it. We're breaking the Undeceptions format just to bring you the whole thing. See ya.
Undeceptions is hosted by me, John Dixon, directed and produced by Mark Hadley, who is the best guy ever I have worked with. Hmm. Did you write that? Read it again. Together with the precious maternity leave insights from Kaylee Payne. God bless you, company.
Our theme song is by Bach, arranged by me and played by the fabulous Undeceptions band. Editing by Bryce McClellan. Head to Undeceptions.com. You'll find show notes and other stuff related to our episodes. Over the coming weeks, we're transforming Undeceptions.com into a whole library of audio, video and printable stuff from lots of communicators designed to undeceive and let the truth out.