Reply #8: No, I think it's a myth.

[John Gauger]

It's fabricated, just like every other myth throughout human history. I know it never happened (though for the sake of discussion I am willing to play devil's advocate.) But in the bible there are a lot of stories. Some are obviously false, but were meant to be taken literally, such as Jesus standing on a mountain top and looking at the whole earth. That couldn't have been a metaphor, because the Hebrews, never having read Aritosthenes, thought the earth was flat. Not much to speak of there, it was a simple mistake. Then we have the parables. Take the story of the prodigal son - it's never presented as having a positive truth value. It's pretty indisputably metaphorical. There's not much to argue over there (except for the questionable morality of the tale, but that's another issue entirely.) But not everything falls into one of those two categories. The majority of these bible stories are not obviously one or the other. So we are left guessing whether or not they were actually supposed to be believed as fact. And the Resurrection, the most important event in all the bible, falls into this murky middle ground. What I want to know is whether or not the story was ever intended to be believed as true.

And I have to object to your assertion that Jesus did not know he would be resurrected. He said that he would spend three days in the fish's belly, just like Jonah. What is this referring to if not Jesus's time in hell? (Yes, I know he was only dead for forty-six hours, but everybody else seems to gloss over that, so why don't we?)