On Mercury

Scientists have confirmed that Mercury is home to gobs and gobs of water ice.  I found this interesting in the linked article:

The surprise that we received on making the first chemical measurements of Mercury was that none of the theories for how Mercury was assembled are correct.

Again and again we need to be reminded that science begins with observation, and it's refined by improving our observations.

The Historical Undergirding of Christianity

I suppose in some respects this is just a follow up on the preceding post.  Having a conversation at work this morning regarding different religions, though, reminded me of how important history is to Christianity.  While it's true that both traditional Judaism and Islam are Abrahamic religions and therefore rely to a degree on the historical underpinnings of the Old Testament, Christianity stakes its entire validity on the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

This is not the sort of thing that went over well in my conversation, but I think it bears repeating and understanding.  Christianity has nothing to offer without the resurrection of Jesus.  Certainly there are similar moral principles in other religions, at least of a sort (although I think Jesus was the first person to tell us to love our enemies).  For the kind of person who wants to lead a moral life, Christianity really doesn't seem to do much more than does Judaism or Buddhism.

We can actually make the case a bit stronger.  If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then Christianity is a horrible, horrible hoax, perpetrated by people who were deceived (at best) by someone who appears to be a raving lunatic.  (Try telling your friends, "I saw Satan fall from heaven," and see how they react; cf Lu 10.18.)  While the liar, lord, lunatic trilemma is a bit trite and overused, there's a reason for it.  If he's a liar or a lunatic, you're certainly better off with a different religion.

The Resurrection of the Son of God

It took months, but I finally finished reading through N. T. Wright's seminal The Resurrection of the Son of God, in which he defends the historical interrogation of the events of Easter Morning and surveys the pagan, Jewish, and Christian understandings of resurrection and the afterlife.

It's well-written, although it assumes a fair amount from the reader:  it is a more academic work than popular.  Wright interacts with a number of resurrection skeptics and supporters.  While my own convictions in the matter are firmly settled (Jesus really did rise physically from the dead; there is no other suitable explanation for Christianity), Wright addresses the literature in pretty convincing fashion.

He advances his case in the following fashion:

1. Arguing that the resurrection may be interrogated by historians (i.e., that metaphysical naturalism isn't a precondition to studying historical events).
2. Examining the notion of death and resurrection in the pagan context (he concludes that the word used for resurrection always implies bodily resurrection—a physical resurrection).
3. Examining various Jewish notions of death and resurrection (outlining the differences between the Pharisees and Saducees).
4. Looking at the concept of resurrection in Paul, whose work is agreed to be the earliest in the NT.
5. Looking at the concept of resurrection in the rest of the NT (the other letters first, then the gospels individually).
6. Briefly considering various other explanations of the growth of Christianity.
7. Finally, concluding that the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead is the best historical explanation of the Christian church.

It's a lengthy book—738 pages of heavily footnoted text, not including the bibliography and index.  It's a worthwhile read if you have the time, and I honestly think it completely devastates the alternative positions.

There is a gripping corporeality to Christianity that's so compelling.  It begins with the physicality of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and concludes with an eternity in a physical (Wright would say transphysical) heaven, not a gnostic fantasy of spirituality.  It's so good to be a Christian.