Walsh is reported as saying the purpose of the museum is to challenge people and subvert religions like Christianity. While Walsh is a wealthy stirrer, his target is accurate – Christianity rises or falls on an empty tomb.

While the moral heart of the Christianity is Jesus’ crucifixion, his death instead of ours, the philosophical and historical heart of Christianity is the resurrection. 

The sadness and horror of death is for the survivors, we mourn people snatched before their time and grieve even the passing of people who die with a degree of dignity, old and full of years. But that’s not really about death itself, it’s about the end of our relationship with that person. But when it comes to the afterlife and our own mortality, we’re in the dark.

About 30 years after Jesus, a former pharisee named Paul wrote to a pious but dysfunctional church in Corinth about sex and death. At the end of his letter, Paul addresses the final two Corinthian problems: what if there’s no resurrection and is this all there is? And secondly, if there is an afterlife how would it work anyway?

Paul starts his response by gathering up various witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. Then he challenges them about being religious, being good people but not bothering to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. “If the tomb isn’t empty,” Paul says, “then we are to be pitied more than everyone.” 

Then Paul deals with the second Corinthian problem with the afterlife. If it’s true, what will it look like? The resurrection of Jesus is a preview of our own resurrection. Paul says we die as human beings, and we’ll be resurrected as human beings. But we’ll also be transformed, able to walk and talk with God face to face without being burnt to a cinder.

‘Clothed with immortality’ is how Paul describes our resurrected bodies. Lastly and wonderfully, at the resurrection, the presence of evil is removed forever. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” rejoices Paul.