John Dominic Crossan, a Roman Catholic and a former professor at DePaul University, said the Resurrection is best understood as a metaphor, a belief that puts him at odds with his own church.
Saying the Resurrection "is a metaphor doesn't dismiss it," Crossan said. "I get the message, I get the challenge from the metaphor."
I must disagree with the good professor here. Saying the Resurrection is a metaphor does dismiss it. For if it is just a metaphor—if Jesus never arose from the dead—then He is dead and we are all as good as dead ourselves. Hence, Crossan's "message" is that the Gospels lie and that nothing is real but the reality of the grave.
Fortunately for all of us, the Resurrection is not merely a metaphor, but an event that truly happened.
Also, putting guards in front of a tomb was highly unusual, as this was a highly unusual circumstance. The guards were guarding the tomb and the body with their very lives. If they were attacked, they would have been expected to fight to the death. Because if they didn't, if someone stole the body, or got into the tomb, the guards would have been killed anyway.
Next, the tomb was sealed. Meaning there was a seal of Caesar administered by Pilate put upon the stone. Anyone violating that seal would have been put to death. Its highly unlikely that the distraught Apostles would have dared to face that for something they believed in, was to them, over. The Apostles were not looking for Jesus after the crucifixion, until the women told them Jesus had risen, and then they thought the women were delusional.
Next, the stone itself was a massive boulder, rolled down an embankment, into position. The only way to roll the stone away was uphill. Imagine how much a boulder 4'-6' round must weigh. A couple thousand pounds?
For the professor to postulate that the resurrection is a metaphor, proves he has an ulterior motive, as he blatantly disregards facts from his theory.
Next, he disregards every piece of eye witness accounting reported from the time. How do you disregard hundreds of eyewitness accounting? Were there any official documentations to refute the eye witness accounts? And if so, what were they based upon.
Lastly the Apostles, almost all, were martyred for not just their beliefs, but what they were teaching. Peter himself did not feel worthy of dieing the same way as Christ. So they crucified him upside down. Pretty extreme death for a metaphor.
For what the Gospel teaches, for someone to call the resurrection a metaphor, is someone who doesn't have the chutzpah to come right out and say the Bible is an outright lie. Or else the person doesn't have the mental intellect to understand what they are actually saying.
Either the Bible is absolute truth, or it is a complete lie. There is no middle ground.