The First Easter Dawn

Excerpt from The First Easter Dawn: An Inquiry Into the Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus The prominence which the subject of this work has assumed in recent years may be held to excuse the publication of a further attempt to bring it into clearer light. So far as I am aware, no tolerably complete examination of the evidence from the standpoint of modern Rationalism exists in this country. It is hoped that the present volume may supply a need which is felt by many inquirers. The extensive sale of a certain work of fiction, the strange crudities of which might have been a source of innocent amusement had they not been gravely endorsed by some dignitaries of the Church, has stimulated my resolve to supply, to the best of my power, a counteracting influence on behalf of sobriety and common sense. It is not to be expected that a work on the unpopular side will meet with equal assent or appreciation; but if it should enable even a few seekers after truth to obtain a firmer grasp of a great historical problem, my labour will not have been wasted. Many will think this book too long. It is in reality too short. Some branches of the subject have had to be treated either very lightly or not at all. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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More than one hundred fifty years ago, Moravian missionaries first landed along a so-called isolated stretch of Honduras’s Mosquito Coast bordering the western Caribbean Sea. The missionaries were sent, with the strong encouragement of German political leaders and in the context of German attempts at colonization, to “spread the word” of Protestantism in Central America. Upon their arrival, the missionaries employed a three-pronged approach consisting of proselytizing, medical treatment, and education to convert the majority of the indigenous population. Much like the Spanish and English attempts before them, German colonizing efforts in the region never completely took hold. Still, as Benjamin Tillman shows, for the region’s indigenous inhabitants, the Miskito people, the arrival of the Moravian missionaries marked the beginning of an important cultural interface. Imprints on Native Lands documents Moravian contributions to the Miskito settlement landscape in sixty four villages of eastern Honduras through field observations of material culture, interviews with village residents, and research in primary sources in the Moravian Church archives. Tillman employs the resulting data to map a hierarchy of Moravian centers, illustrating spatially varying degrees of Moravian influence on the Miskito settlement landscape. Tillman reinforces Miskito claims to ancestral lands by identifying and mapping their created ethnic landscape, as well as supporting earlier efforts at land-use mapping in the region. This book has broad implications, providing a methodology that will be of help to those with an interest in geography, anthropology, or Latin American studies, and to anyone interested in documenting and strengthening indigenous land claims.

Combining historical and archaeological evidence, the author reconstructs the events surrounding Jesus' final week on earth.