Indeed. Many Christians already see the resurrection in these terms, of course - that the resurrected Jesus was a form of spiritual phenomenon in the hearts & minds of those who believe. Some, including Catholics, have put forward the notion that, if a video camera had been present at Jesus’ meeting with the disciples, following the ‘resurrection’, he would not have shown up in the image!

The fact remains that a literal resurrection is profoundly important to many Christian sects. And it’s interesting to note how, each time new discoveries are made (in physical sciences, archeology, textual analysis) that are pertinent to religious beliefs, the only way of accommodating these discoveries is through a watering down of the belief. That’s why I feel that religious belief contains within it a process of entropy in which everything is tending towards a form of deism.

Except, that is, for the extremists, who can maintain their untenable and artificial worldview only by becoming more extreme.

Well, that’s nicely vague, isn’t it? Of course, we have to treat everything in the gospels with circumspection. They were written as propaganda materials and there’s no compelling reason to take anything in them as historically accurate.

Second, 16:12 is among the last 12 verses of Mark which all respectable biblical scholars agree are, at least, problematic. Textual analysis shows that they were clearly added later, possibly much later (like a couple of centuries or more). One has to ask why. But at the very least, it makes them even more suspect that the rest of Mark. It seems obvious that they were inserted for doctrinal reasons.

Finally, A N Wilson had made a very interesting case for sightings of Jesus following his execution having been, in fact, sightings of James. It’s interesting how many of the people who encountered him didn’t recognise him at first.

Whatever fantasies have been concocted, the fact remains that the existence of actual, mortal remains of Jesus here on Earth causes the main churches severe problems. After all, it would open up the possibility of scientists extracting DNA from a ‘god’.