The problem of miracles and the resurrection of Jesus

Most people who deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ do not actually discuss the evidence for the resurrection. Instead, their objection goes like this: the resurrection is a miracle; science shows that miracles don’t happen, so Jesus could not have risen from the dead. So instead of dealing with the evidence, they simply deny that it is possible, and anybody who believes such things is ignorant or stupid.
The contemporary atheist author, Richard Dawkins, put it this way: “The virgin birth, the Resurrection, the raising of Lazarus, even the Old Testament miracles, all are freely used for religious propaganda, and they are very effective with an audience of unsophisticates and children.” (Richard Dawkins, “Snake Oil and HolyWater.” Available November 19, 1999 on the Internet at www.forbes.com/asap/99/1004/235.htm cited in Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, p. 57)
How do Christians reply to this claim that miracles contradict science?

1. A person who denies the possibility of miracles is closed-minded, unwilling to consider all possibilities.

2. If an all-powerful Creator God exists, miracles are possible.

3. Miracles do not violate any "laws of nature," they merely interrupt them.

4. Miracles do not contradict science; they are merely outside the field of science.

Read all four explanations in detail by clicking on the first comment below:

"March Madness" in church

It's "March Madness," the time when basketball fans get excited about the college playoffs.
We have "March Madness" in church, too. Matt Tullos has noticed lots of sports terms that fit in church. Basketball has an "alley-oop." In church, an "alley-oop" would be when the singer sings an incredible song that relates to the sermon and the preacher slams it home. But be careful, as church can also have an "alley-oops," as when the pastor preaches a sermon on adultery and then the soloist sings, "Why Not Tonight?"
Basketball also has a "slam-dunk." In church, a "slam-dunk" happens when the pastor loses his grip in the baptistry. There is also a foul called a "double-dribble." In church, this is when the Lord's Supper juice glasses are cracked.
Football has a "blitz." In church, a "blitz" is when a 20 people rush the associate pastor five minutes before the service, each with an announcement that must be made. Football also has a "screen pass." In church, a "screen pass" is when the pastor plans to use a clip from a Disney movie and then chickens out. Then there is the "illegal use of the hands" foul. This happens in more formal churches when charismatic worship is practiced. Then there is the "two-minute warning." In church, this is when the pastor slows down his sermon with the words, "Finally, church..."
Baseball has the term "stealing home." In church this is when a member slips out the back door during the invitation. Another baseball term is a "pinch hitter." In church, this is when a visiting preacher steps up to the pulpit.
My favorite sports term is a "sacrifice." This is done by a baseball player who allows himself to get out in order to advance a runner or even bring a runner home. And this is what Jesus did for us on the cross, getting "out" in order to advance us to our eternal "home" in Heaven. He had to do this because all of us have a "batting average" that is below .500 (we are sinners who often strike out) and we aren't good enough to get to Heaven on our own good deeds. Thank God, that even in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, we can make a comeback and win the victory through faith in Jesus Christ!
That's the message of the Easter season, when "March Madness" turns into "April Gladness."

Lost Tomb of Jesus?

The Discovery Channel plans to air a TV special claiming to have found ossuaries (burial boxes) that contained the bones of Jesus and his family. In other words, they claim to have evidence that Jesus never rose from the dead.

To bolster this claim, they point out that one of the ossuaries is engraved with "Jesus son of Joseph," and the other family names were Mary, Mariamne (which they claim is Mary Magdalene), Judah son of Jesus, and Matthew (which they claim is the apostle Matthew, although there is no explanation of how the apostle got into the family). They then claim that statistically this is highly unlikely that these same family names are all together.

One would think that such sensational claims would only be made with careful documentation, yet according to The Jerusalem Post, the archaeologist who first did the excavation of these ossuaries in 1980 says that the current claims of the TV show are "impossible" and "nonsense." He points out that the family names found are very common, noting that there have been three or four other ossuaries found that are inscribed "Jesus son of Joseph."

In an article in Baptist Press, professor Darrel Black of Dallas Theological Seminary points out how common the names are on the ossuary. Joseph was the 2nd most common name, Jesus was sixth, and Matthew was ninth. Mary was the most common female name, given to 21% of all females at the time!

Just think about the implications of what The Discovery Channel's show is claiming. They claim that Jesus' body lay decaying in a tomb in Jerusalem while the disciples were boldly telling everybody in Jerusalem that he was alive. The Christians publicly charged the religious authorities with murder, saying "This Jesus whom you crucified is alive" (Acts 2:36). The religious authorities had the apostles jailed several times, and ordered them not to preach about Jesus. So why didn't they search for his decaying body and put an end to Christianity? Yet none of the early opponents of Christianity denied that the tomb was empty. They argued that the disciples stole the body or that Jesus swooned on the cross and woke up in the tomb, but nobody denied the tomb was empty. Isn't it interesting that The Discovery Channel can make a claim that the earliest opponents of Christianity never thought to claim?

UPDATE ON MARCH 3: Scientific American published an interesting article on their website in which they interviewed the same scholars used by The Discovery Channel. When he began asking them questions, he said, "I encountered more than a few angry scholars and archaeologists." He talked to Tal Ilan, the statistical scholar whom The Discovery Channel quoted to claim that the names on the ossuaries must be the family of Jesus. She expressed outrage at how the TV show twisted her words. Carney Matheson, the scholar whose DNA studies of the particles scraped from two of the ossuaries, said that the DNA results mean "absolutely nothing."