Clearing up Easter

I’m not celebrating Easter because it’s in the Bible.

If you have thought about why Easter is on the calendar, you probably assume something like this:

1. Christians go to church
2. They use a Bible at church
3. The Bible tells a story about easter
4. So Christian’s celebrate easter
5. Since there’s a bunch of Christians around, we put Easter on the calendar.

Here’s why I am celebrating Easter:

1. Once, there were no Christian’s.
2. Then there was an unmemorable event: a peasant rebel claimed to be God and the Romans killed him. Ho hum.
3. Still, there were no Christians. None of his followers believed him after he died. Obviously.
4. But, inexplicably, he didn’t stay dead. More than 500 people saw him alive after a very public execution. If I saw someone die, and then hung out with them the next week, that would be memorable.
5. Then, people began being interested in him. Really interested. Wouldn’t you be?
6. Naturally, his contemporaries documented his life (including non-Christian historians like Thallus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Seutonius, Flavius Josephus). 
7. The crowds of people who had been around during his life read these accounts and agreed: yup, that’s what happened. The valid documents were collected and put into a book.
8. People became interested in the documents (what we call The Bible) because of a the event. The event we call: Easter.