The Question posed at another discussion site was,

Do you believe in the literal Resurrection?

To which i dashed off this answer:

Good Question. I just finished reading this book by Marcus Borg, called The Last Week. It's all about the week before Easter from the bible. It's a very interesting read and he talks a little about literal vs. symbolic. He defiantly leans towards symbolic, but says that whether it literally happened, or 'symbolically' happened it’s the point. The point is 'What does it mean?' which I think is also the point.

I admit I'm still working out how I feel about this part of it all.

What really struck me and is sticking in my brain from that book is the word used to describe what the disciples 'saw' when they 'saw' Jesus before them. The word in Greek, which I can't find in the book, can mean either actually 'saw' or 'had a vision'. Could it be perhaps that in their grief the disciples had comforting visions of Jesus after his death? I do believe in visions as ways the divine can communicate with humans. So if they had a vision, I can buy that.

Another theory that I find myself thinking about is a theory that Jesus didn't actually die. There are claims that the Essenes had rituals that centred on symbolically dying and then being reborn after three days. Lazarus may have also been a symbolic death within that community and Jesus broke protocol by 'bring him back to life' with out having the authority to do so at the time. So some claim that Jesus' death might have been ritual based, much like the pagan rituals of the Sun God being reborn at Yule/ Ostara.

Of course, both of those theories are based on believing that Jesus lived AT ALL. Which on occasion I have my doubts about.

Most of the time I believe that Jesus was a man mythified. I don't believe he had a 'divine birth', but I believe that he embodied certain qualities that made him seem 'more than human' which after his death got, for lack of a better term, blown out of proportion. It's taken me 30 years to get that far, I’m still working on the Resurrection part. But I do know that I don't believe it literally happened like it's been described in the bible, because I don't believe anything in the bible as literal.

I believe in Parable and that the stories in the bible contain a higher truth if you will, beyond the "this literally happened". The Stories show a truth that exists in the word and these same stories appear in other religions and cultures as well. Western culture is so caught up in factually truth, or factually evidence, that we miss the 'truth' that is staring us straight in the face. We all read aesops fables as children, are the morals taught in those stories any less true because they probably didn't actually happen to a turtle, hare, fox or raven? No, we continue to teach our kids these stories because of the meaning behind the stories, the means held within them. I believe that's the point of the Jesus stories.

So, no I don't believe in the literal resurrection, as the Dogma would suggest. But I believe SOMETHING had to have happened that made this one particular guy stand out above all the rest. Make him different from even John the Baptiser who was also saying essentially the same thing, but he was never made in to a Demi-God.

I'm leaning towards visions of the Resurrection. For me Visions aren't 'less' real than reality. Shamans in South America, North America, Africa, North Europe, all over, have used visions as their primary tool and way of communicating with the Divine. It is only in Western Culture, and really only after the 'Enlightment' that 'visions' were brushed off as hallucinations or mental disturbance. Which is also the time period where Truth, fiction and parable when their separate ways.

Confusing, yes? But that’s how is seems to be in my world. What about yourself?

I'm interested in others thoughts, reasons you believe what you believe, not bashing, and I'm not going to get in to a big theological debate other this. And if one person says "the bible tells me so" i'm disabling the comments.

FM