The Tomb of Jesus — Page 29
29. Movement, apparently, is that body of material represented in the common non-Markan sources of Matthew and Luke, which we have learned to call Logia or Q. . . . . . . . It is a very surprising fact that there is not a single reference to the resurrection of Jesus in all that material. " ,,6. In short, there were no eyewitnesses of the alleged resurrection of Jesus. Nobody saw him to be actually dead and coming back to life. The mere fact that the tomb was empty was capable of other explanations. It does not follow therefrom that he was really dead and came back to life. . Likewise, the fact that nobody knew where Jesus went after his post-resurrection appearances, does not lead to the conclusion that he ascended to heaven. . It is noteworthy that faith in the physical. Resurrection of Jesus and in his ascension to the sky in the sense in which the Christians would have us believe involve three things: First, the actually dead person came back to life. Second, the physical body was lifted up to the sky. And the third, the assumption that the sky is a physical locality like this earth where the inhabitants of this planet can live as they do here in this world. . It is obvious that all these are physical absurdities. 6 S. V. McCasland, The Resurrection of Jesus, 1932, p. 131.