Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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The really unnerving feature is that time after time they ac c ept ed suc h t errors wit h
an astonishing c heerfulness, totally c onfident that what they professed was truth,
that death had been c onquered, and that their eventual reward far outweighed
whatever tortures ordinary mortals might try to inflic t upon them in the meantime.
And few of the men and women who took up this c hallenge would have c ounted
themselves natural martyrs, or anything out of the ordinary. Although some were
high-born, most were from every stratum of society, whether Jewish or Graeco-
Ro ma n.
We can only conclude, therefore, that whether these were among the first five
hundred-plus direct witnesses, or whether they had merely come to know one or
more of those witnesses at first or sec ond hand, something very powerful had fired
into them suc h resoluteness of belief. So, given suc h attestation, c an the
resurrection of Jesus be accepted as a real historical event? And was the one-t ime
flesh-and-blood Jesus genuinely rather more than just an ordinary man? Whatever
the answer, already born was a faith in suc h matters powerful enough to survive
not only the early years of persec ution, but even through to our own time.