Background: Why blame poor Thomas? He knew what nerds his colleagues was? He thought of himself as a steady and reliable man and others as a bit flakey. Everyone knew that the dead would not rise again until the arrival of the world to come. Obviously it hadn’t come or the Master would not have died. Moreover, any of the others who were not present in the room at the time of the first appearance of Jesus would not have believed it either. Thomas might in later life say that he was set up for the purpose of the story, which was to assure those that had not been alive at the time of the resurrection that doubt and suspicion existed in Apostolic times. Would Thomas have said later that he never doubted again? Probably not. Doubt is part of the human condition. Rather he would have more likely said, doubt or no doubt, I never stopped believing.
Story: Once there was a brilliant university professor who, after he received tenure, turned his attention to miracles, contacts with the dead, and near death experiences. Such events, he argued, were delusional wish fulfillment, ignorant superstitions. As a scientists and a scholar it was his job to denounce them and expose them. He wrote many articles and books about the NDE. It was the result, he contended, of alterations of brain chemistry at the time of death. Once you were really dead, he insisted, you were really dead and that was that. Most of those who had been through such experiences never heard of him. Those that did just shrugged their shoulders and said he’s never been there and we have. One day the professor was stricken with a massive heart attack. His family rushed him to the hospital. He died in the emergency room. But just as the nurse was zipping him up in the plastic body bag, he eyes flickered open and he began to breathe again. The doctors rushed back into the room and this time managed to keep him alive. Later, after surgery and complete recover, he returned home and back to his university. One day at lunch his colleagues asked him about whether he had encountered any of the NDE phenomena ? the long tunnel, the figure of light, the review of his life. Not all he said, nothing like that nonsense ever happened to me. After lunch when he was walking back to the faculty building, his closest friend asked him whether that was the whole truth. Not exactly he admitted. I experienced the whole thing. It was just my brain chemistry, nothing more. Why did the figure of light send you back? But the doubting professor refused to answer that question.