Section I   1   The Significance of the Earliest Evidence   The Protestant theologian Bernhard W. Anderson1 writes:   "The earliest literary witness of the Resurrection is given to us by Paul, especially in 1 Corinthians 15. The historical value of this chapter is great, for though 1 Corinthians was written around A.D. 56-57, Paul claims to hark back to the time of his conversion, perhaps within ten years after the Crucifixion. Moreover, Paul insists that he passed on to the Corinthians the gospel he had received from early preachers and witnesses:    ..... that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was

Part One    EARLY CHRISTIANITY   Augustus Caesar and the Birth of Christ    Some Reflections on their Contemporaneity   December 25, year 0 or else 1 (authorities differ on the point): this has been observed for centuries as the date of the birth of Jesus. The historical situation of it has been highlighted from two statements in the New Testament. The Gospel of Matthew (2:1) tells us that "Jesus was born in Judaea, in the days of Herod the king..." The Gospel of Luke (2:1-5) has the information that Jesus' mother Mary, when she was "great with child" (believed to be by the Holy Ghost's "overshadowing") was taken by her husba

The Shroud of Turin and the  Biblical Evidence   As the result of several years of strict scientific examination of the famous Shroud which is now kept at Turin (Italy) by the Roman Catholic Church and which shows the figure, front and back, of a crucified man as if on a photographic negative, we are at last certain that the Shroud was not worked upon by any painter. It carries a genuine image produced by means unknown to science today: some sort of radiation effect beyond our current technology may be presumed.   The crucified man, about five feet ten inches tall, with a beard and long hair is of the Caucasic type - more precisely, li

St. Thomas and India   A Letter to the Madras Daily, The Hindu   I have been following the lively debate over St. Thomas and his visit to India. Mr. T. R. Vedanthan strikes me as the most knowledgeable among the various controversialists. But even he has slipped up over the words "all the world" in Mark 16:15.   He feels that they go against his contention that Jesus wanted his mission to be very restricted - indeed to the Jews alone, as Vedanthan concludes from Matthew 10:5-7. Hence he thinks it important to note that the verse in Mark is considered by Biblical scholars to be an interpolation. But he forgets that Matthew himself has the verse: "And the go

-009_Part one The Time of Christ's Second coming in the New Testament The Time of Christ's Second Coming  in the New Testament   I   Biblical scholars have been at variance as to the time which the New Testament visualises for the return of Jesus Christ from heaven in glory to mark the end of the earth and establish the Kingdom of God. Among the representatives of one view the most prominent figure is Albert Schweitzer, author of the famous book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. In general terms Schweitzer's position is that Jesus pinned everything on the miraculous Kingdom of God coming or being made to come in the very near future. Another opinion, apparently favoured by the majority of com