Sir, - Barry McHugh (April 19th) asks if I have any "factual" evidence of the Resurrection. He also claims the Gospels "differ with each other" and that the Dominican Order of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem did its best to suppress for "nearly 35 years" the Dead Sea Scrolls. A graduate of the Ecole has told me that this theory flowered in the 1950s, and it was found to be false, as it is today.
Factual evidence: (A) The witnesses: St Paul preached in Corinth in 51 AD about the Resurrection, and wrote back to them in 57 AD cf. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 3-8: "I taught you what I had been taught myself. . . that He was raised to life on the third day. . . He appeared to more than 500
Twenty one years after the passion, witness to the Resurrection was already a solidly established part of the Christian tradition. (C) The four Gospels' accounts follow Paul's and were variously composed in the last 40 years of the first century. The discrepancies and differences are not serious and they do not suggest that the Resurrection stories were invented.
(D) In this century, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was seen by thousands, yet the details and sequence of events are disputed. One thing remains certain that President Kennedy was assassinated. That Jesus died and was raised again is beyond doubt. (E) Ignatius of Antioch who was martyred in 107 AD wrote: "For my own part, I know and believe that He was in actual human flesh, even after His Resurrection. When He appeared to Peter and his companions
Yours, etc.,
Glenstal Abbey,
Murroe,
Co Limerick.