Three is a myth-encrusted number, and not only in New Testament Christianity. (Quick: How long did Jonah hang out in the whale before it barfed him out again?) The idea of the Resurrection of the Body is not peculiarly Christian, nor even the Resurrection of a Jewish Messiah. The NYC Lubavitchers who followed Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson up to his death in 1994 expected him to rise again after three days in the grave. (There is a rumor not in mainstream accounts that they buried him with a working cell phone, in case he needed help getting out of his granite tomb.)

The very fact that the secular press got all worked up over this indicates that they no longer have any idea whatsoever how the Judeo-Christian tradition evolved, nor what it includes. The whole affair says a lot more about the cultural gaps that divide us than it does about the roots of Christianity.