Continuing with my analysis of Bart Ehrman’s basic arguments against the reliability of the gospels, I wish to comment on a few more points he made in his debate with Craig Evans.
No Preservatives…
In response to the question, “Do the gospels accurately preserve the activities of Jesus Christ?” Dr. Ehrman’s basic answer was, “No.” He claimed that if Jesus’ followers changed his words even a little, then we can’t be certain of anything he said; if the author changes the story a little, then the story was changed a lot. Therefore, for Ehrman, if the gospels are not 100% accurate, then they’re not accurate at all. Therefore, given that mindset, Ehrman points to the various differences between the gospels, claims they are factual contradictions, and thus concludes none of it can be considered historically reliable: (a) of the ordering of Jesus’ temptations are different, (b) of the number of animals Jesus rode into Jerusalem is different, (c) what Jesus spoke or didn’t speak in some instances is different, (d) what Jesus said on the cross is different, and (e) the number of robbers who speak to Jesus is different.
I have to ask, though, are these really contradictions that affect the historical reliability of the gospels? Can Jesus only say one thing on the cross that the gospel writers had to be in complete agreement if we are to conclude that they have accurately preserved the activities of Jesus? Do the gospel writers not have the freedom to rearrange the order of the temptations? Of course not. And this strikes at the heart of Ehrman’s flawed reasoning. As I said in my previous post, Ehrman comes to the Bible with the exact same over-simplistic assumptions that someone like Ken Ham does—and this is a problem, indeed.
Can I Get an (Eye) Witness?
In response to the question, “Do the gospels contain eyewitness tradition?” Ehrman clearly doesn’t think so. He (correctly) points out that the gospels themselves don’t claim to be written by eyewitnesses and that the titles for the gospels were added later (not all that much later, though…around 120-140 AD). Early Church Fathers like Papias, Clement, Tertullian claimed the authorship of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all around 120-140 AD. For Ehrman, though, this fact is yet another thing that causes him to doubt the reliability of the gospels. The fact is, though, he makes much too big a deal of this.
Let’s look at the facts. The basic historical events surrounding Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, death, and resurrection are all attested to by Paul, and his letters date from 48-64 AD. Therefore, even if one chooses to reject the claims of authorship made by Christians within the first 100 years after the fact, what is presented in the gospels still corresponds quite convincingly with what is generally accepted as the actual historical events surrounding the life of Jesus. In addition, it is generally agreed that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were all written around 70 AD, and that John was written around 90 AD. That is still within a generation of the actual events. When it comes to ancient history, to have an account written that close to the events is a veritable video of the actual events.
Having said that, given the fact that the historical record of the early Church tells us that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote their respective gospels, and that they are generally historically reliable in their telling of the history of the early Church up to their own day, one should have a rational and intelligent reason to reject what they say about the authorship of the gospels—it can’t be just an argument the equivalent of, “Oh, what do they know? They weren’t there!”
As far as I’m concerned, the fact that the gospels were written so close to the events themselves is more convincing than whether or not the actual Matthew or Mark wrote them. Still, if they were identified in this way within 100 years of the events, if they were written within a generation of the events, and if they are considered to generally historically reliable (despite what Ehrman says), then I don’t see why we should doubt that the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t, in fact, go back in some fashion to Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
More Preservatives?
In response to the question, “Have the gospels been accurately preserved done through the centuries?” Ehrman once again displayed his fundamentalist background when he argued that if God inspired the Bible “without error,” then he should have preserved it “without error.” So even though he correctly points out that the originals were not preserved without error, the fact is no biblical scholar would deny this—there are clearly textual variants.
Ehrman actually repeated this argument when he was on the Colbert Report: we don’t have the originals or the earliest manuscript copies; we have copies of copies of copies; all the copies made “mistakes”; the first manuscripts were written decades later; all the manuscripts are different from one another. Therefore, we can no longer accept the inerrancy of the originals.
Even though Ehrman is correct in pointing out the variants, I am shocked that he was so shocked that there were variants. This has been known for almost 2,000 years by Christians, and this was never a stumbling block to the faith. Furthermore, I’m shocked that Ehrman apparently doesn’t know the difference between “inspiration” and the relatively new concept of “inerrancy.”
Inspiration does not mean that God somehow dictated historical facts to human authors, and then magically made sure that the “original copies” were “perfectly preserved.” Only a fool would believe this. This type of thinking is nothing less than making the Bible into in idol. It’s not a “perfect” book, in some abstract Platonic sense. The gospel writers were inspired to prophetically reveal the truth and meaning about the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus; Paul was inspired to prophetically reveal how this new life in Christ related to specific issues within the early Church as it brought the Gospel to the Gentiles.
By contrast, “inerrancy” carries with it a very Enlightenment concept of “scientific perfection.” It was basically a concept that fundamentalist believers came up with in their attempt to fight against the growing modern-scientific challenges to the Bible. Again, this is the concept that drives Ken Ham in his attempt to “prove” that there was a literal-scientific 7 day creation period. When you wed together an Enlightenment worldview with the Bible, you get some very weird claims: some people claim Adam and Eve had a pet dinosaur, and other people reject the gospels can say anything historically reliable because some medieval monks left out a few words and misspelled others when they were making copies.
That’s just silly.
Let’s do one final experiment to make my point. Let’s pretend to be complete atheist-humanists and look at the reliability of the New Testament. What will our conclusion be the question, “Are the gospels accurately preserved?” Well, like Ehrman readily acknowledges, although there are many textual variants, 99% are insignificant and can easily be figured out precisely because we have so many copies. That means only 1% of the variants have even the most remote of problems. Furthermore, the two most famous “problems” (the story of the woman caught in adultery and Mark’s longer ending) do not in any way contradict any historical or theological claim in the New Testament. One might not believe what the New Testament claims, but one has to be honest and say that by all accounts, what it claims accurately and reliably reflects what has been claimed by Christians ever since the beginning of Christianity.
Ehrman’s Conclusions
Finally, in response to the question, “Do scribal errors and textual variants significantly impact any teaching of Jesus or any important Christian teaching?” Ehrman points to the story of the woman caught in adultery and the longer ending to the gospel of Mark. He also makes mention of the verses regarding handling snakes, and Jesus sweating blood—these, he claims significantly impact the teachings of Jesus. He then concludes with a very simplistic claim: some manuscripts have errors, but that shouldn’t be allowed by God; some scribes were careless, but that shouldn’t be allowed by God. But since there are errors, and since there was carelessness, that proves that these documents really were not written by God.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. For being such an intelligent scholar that he is, I am shocked to find that Ehrman continues to work from the very fundamentalist assumptions about the Bible that he has long since rejected. He disproportionately exaggerates the significance of the variants in the NT. He displays an unliterary and uncritical understanding of the literary artistry of the gospels. And he bases his rejection of the reliability of the New Testament on a flawed and fundamentalist doctrine concerning Scripture.
How does this happen? I think I know. It goes back to what happens far too often in ultra-fundamentalist settings. So let me end with an analogy: a kid grows up in a fundamentalist Christian household and is told, along with the basic Bible stories about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, that not only is drinking alcohol sinful, but so is smoking, drinking Coke, and listening to any kind of secular music. “Anyone who drinks alcohol or Coke, smokes, or even listens to Barry Manilow is a degenerate sinner who is going to hell!” is what he is told all his life. That boy goes off to college and meets nice and decent people who drink Coke! People at his new church listen even have Michael Jackson CD’S! He finds out that C.S. Lewis both smoked and drank!
That boy has three choices:
- He can think through his faith and what he was taught as a child, and (hopefully) come to learn to make distinctions between the true things he was taught and the false things he was taught.
- He can conclude that everything he was ever taught is complete crap, and then end up not just drinking Coke, listening to pop music, and maybe even having beer and the occasional cigarette, but ultimately throwing away everything about the Christian faith, because he wants to be the exact opposite of everything he experienced growing up.
- Or he can shut his eyes to reality and retreat back into his flawed fundamentalist bubble.
Unfortunately, there are some who choose #3. Equally unfortunately, there are those, like Bart Ehrman, who have chosen #2. He’s probably a normal and nice guy—but what he has done is thrown the baby out with the bathwater. He has rejected all the major tenets of the Christian faith—even those that are historically reliable, accurate, and reasonable (not just the more speculative ones)—simply because he came to realize that the claims of his fundamentalist upbringing was shown to be not 100% perfect.
Ironically they still have a claim on his thinking. It shows up on every page. In any case, here’s yet another video clip from Ehrman on the Colbert Report. Just great stuff:
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/lywaay/the-colbert-report-bart-ehrman
Just how historically reliable are the Gospels and Acts if even prominent conservative Protestant and evangelical Bible scholars believe that fictional accounts may exist in these books? I have put together a list of statements from such scholars and historians as Richard Bauckham, William Lane Craig, Michael Licona, Craig Blomberg, and NT Wright on this issue here:
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2019/05/23/bombshell-how-historically-reliable-are-the-gospels-if-even-conservative-bible-scholars-believe-they-may-contain-fictional-stories/
Gary,
My basic response is this: The gospels are understood to be ancient historical biographies. Most scholars acknowledge them to be, at the very least, generally reliable when it comes to basic historical information: there was Jesus, he did have a messianic movement, he had 12 disciples, he was a teacher, believed to be a healer, was crucified in Jerusalem by Pilate in either 30 or 33 AD at Passover, etc.
At the same time, they’re not written as we would write histories today. They’re not “just the facts, ma’am” type of writing. They are also written as stories–and so, they are history AND literature. Thus there are some sections and elements (i.e. like the dead people coming out of their tombs) that scholars sometimes scratch their heads and say, “Is this meant to be a literal, historical claim, or is it something else?” Okay…we won’t know FOR SURE–but those few examples of ambiguity don’t undermine the historical reliability of the gospels as a whole.
This goes for other things: was there one man at the tomb, or two, or two angels? You have to look at how each gospel writer is shaping the story within the larger context of their gospel. I’m convinced the reason why Mark has a “young man dressed in white” is because it should be seen as a contrast to the young man who fled naked in Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested. It’s just a literary brushstroke that ties the gospel together, and that’s totally fine in my book.
I completely agree with you, Joel.
The authors of the Gospels were not writing modern history textbooks or even modern biographies. They were writing in the genre of Greco-Roman biographies. This type of ancient literature allowed for “flexibility” of the facts. For instance, the variation in the number of angels or young men at the tomb of Jesus does not necessarily reflect discrepancies, rather, the style of writing which allowed the authors to embellish the core facts with fictional/allegorical details. These embellishments made for much better reading and helped to augment the author’s theological perspective.
So the important question is: What were the core facts?
Evangelical scholar Gary Habermas has come up with a list of ten “Minimal Facts” about the death of Jesus and the resurrection story. He states that the overwhelming majority of scholars agree on nine of these “facts” and approximately 75% believe in one of these “facts”, the historicity of the Empty Tomb. I accept as historical fact all ten of Habermas’ minimal facts because I trust majority expert opinion.
However, the story of Jesus walking on water is not among these ten “facts”. So did this event really happen or is it another invented literary construction (fiction)? What about the story of Jesus turning water into wine? Feeding the five thousand? Healing lepers?
But much more important: What about the stories in Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts (absent in the original Mark) of people interacting with a walking, talking, broiled fishing eating resurrected corpse? History…or fiction?
Gary, any honest conservative scholar will tell you there’s material in all four gospels that is hard for modern scholars to explain or reconcile 2,000 years later. So this isn’t news, its certainly not a “bombshell” to anyone who’s read their works, as I have, nor does it call into question the overall historical reliability of the gospels.
Because the gospels stand or fall upon whether Jesus of Nazareth was literally raised from the dead or not, and last time I checked, all four agree that he was. Thus, whether dead saints were resurrected at Jesus’ passion or whether Jesus’ disciples completely understood Jesus’ brief, cryptic references to his own resurrection (a careful reading shows they they didn’t) is irrelevant.
I’m not sure any of the scholars you cited make the claims you seem to think they’re making. For example, for Licona to argue that the resurrection of the saints in Matthew’s passion narrative might be a case of Matthew employing figurative apocalyptic imagery is not the same thing as saying that Matthew was simply making stuff up out of thin air. Apocalyptic imagery was designed to imbue current historical events with cosmic religious significance. So maybe nobody reading Matthew for the first time thought the dead coming to life at Jesus’ passion was a literal event because they understood it to be figurative? But we don’t really know, and as I said it doesn’t really matter. Yet for scholars to admit that we aren’t sure exactly what to make of this episode shouldn’t be viewed as their questioning the overall historical reliability of the gospels because all of the authors you cited do believe the gospels are generally quite accurate.
They’d also tell you that the gospels and Acts are much more nuanced than a strictly literalist interpretation would allow for.
Pax vobiscum.
Lee.
“For example, for Licona to argue that the resurrection of the saints in Matthew’s passion narrative might be a case of Matthew employing figurative apocalyptic imagery is not the same thing as saying that Matthew was simply making stuff up out of thin air. Apocalyptic imagery was designed to imbue current historical events with cosmic religious significance.”
If I filled out a job resume using *your* employment history most people would consider that job resume to be fiction. So regardless of the literary terminology that you choose to employ, since most scholars do not believe that “Matthew’s” Raising of the Dead Story is historical, it is a fictional story. If it didn’t happen—it is fiction. The fictional story may have a theological or literary purpose, but if it didn’t happen, it is still fiction.
If one “creates” apocalyptic imagery in the form of a historical narrative one is creating historical fiction.
Hi Lee!
“nor does it call into question the overall historical reliability of the gospels.”
I agree that this does not call into question the existence of Jesus, his ministry as an apocalyptic preacher, his execution on a cross, or his burial. It also does not call into question the historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers sincerely believed that Jesus had appeared to them…in some fashion. The majority of experts (scholars) agree on the historicity of these points. But, is it an historical fact that the Apostle Thomas was given the opportunity to poke his finger into the resurrected Jesus’ wounds? is it an historical fact that the the resurrected Jesus appeared to two disciples on the Emmaus Road? Is it an historical fact that the disciples watched as the resurrected body of Jesus levitated into the air and disappeared into the clouds?
GARY: If one “creates” apocalyptic imagery in the form of a historical narrative one is creating historical fiction.
LEE: Only if one is attempting to assess ancient writings by modern standards. If one reads these texts like the ancients did without one’s modern presuppositions one will see them for what they are, *apocalyptic* and not historical fiction. You have to take your modern 21st c. blinders off.
As for the historicity of the details of the gospels, I would say that because they have proven accurate on the larger details, the historical details we *can* check, that that makes me inclined to trust them on matters we *can’t* check them on.
To use one of your examples, the incident where Thomas refuses to believe Jesus has been resurrected unless he can physically touch Jesus’ wounds. That hardly sounds like a detail the disciples would make up, because it portrays the disciples in a negative light. This is what academic historians call the criteria of embarrassment. Basically it means that people don’t usually tell deliberate lies that could embarrass them or make them look foolish. And yet the gospels are full of cases where the disciples come off as ignorant, angry, muddled, confused, unable to perform simple miracles Jesus says they should be able to do, etc. I mean the gospels portray all of them but the *women* and John as deserting him, and one of them verbally denying he’d ever met him three separate times. Nobody faking a religion would purposely include details lie that. And yet the gospels insist these things all happened. And *nobody* in the 1st c,, Jew or pagan, fudging on the details would invent stories of *women* being the first witnesses to the resurrection! Not if they want to be taken seriously. But darn it! There they are, front and center in all four gospels. Not a credible lie by 1st c. standards.
Nor would a deliberate faker portray the Emmaus disciples as totally unaware of the resurrection or of the fact they they were in fact talking with the resurrected Jesus. Again, the criterion of embarrassment.
You also have to explain how this group of 1st century, 2nd Temple messianic Jews came to believe, contrary to standard 1st c. AD Jewish Messianism, that their Messiah would not only suffer and die! (unthinkable to a pious Messianic Jew of AD 30!) but then, would be bodily raised *in the middle of history ahead of everyone else.*
So if the gospel authors were “padding” their accounts with stuff like this, it was not the kind of material they could reasonably expect fellow Jews to swallow easily. Why invent details like these that nobody else in Judaism (or paganism for that matter) would believe?
Pax.
Lee.
“Only if one is attempting to assess ancient writings by modern standards. If one reads these texts like the ancients did without one’s modern presuppositions one will see them for what they are, *apocalyptic* and not historical fiction.”
Excellent! We are agreed! Modern readers of the Bible (and all other ancient texts) should not read all the stories in the Bible as if they are historical accounts in a modern history textbook. In this ancient genre of literature, historical facts were intermingled with allegories, parables, and other figurative speech. The good historian must use standardized methods to tease apart the historical from the non-historical; the literal from the non-literal; the non-allegorical from the allegorical; in other words—the facts from the fiction.
So, when it comes to the three detailed appearance stories told in Matthew, Luke/Acts, and John, what parts of these stories can we be certain are historical and what parts of these stories are non-historical, Lee?
“the incident where Thomas refuses to believe Jesus has been resurrected unless he can physically touch Jesus’ wounds. That hardly sounds like a detail the disciples would make up, because it portrays the disciples in a negative light. This is what academic historians call the criteria of embarrassment.”
I’m sure your opinion is very astute, Lee. You sound very intelligent. But you are only one individual with one personal opinion. What is the opinion of the majority of scholars and historians? Do the majority of Bible scholars and historians believe that there is sufficient evidence to believe that the Story of Doubting Thomas is an historical fact?
Absolutely not.
If I were a Hindu and we were talking about the historical reliability of the Hindu Scriptures, would you consider my opinion or the opinion of any individual Hindu as sufficient reason to believe that the Buddha caused a water buffalo to speak in a human language for 45 minutes? I doubt it. If you even bother to investigate my claim for the historical reliability of the supernatural tales in the Hindu Scriptures, I’m sure your first question would be: What do the majority of historians think about this claim.? My personal opinion on this matter would be of no value to you, no matter how educated and intelligent I might be.
Gary, opinions are like noses: everyone has one. My or anyone else’s opinion is worthless unless I or they have some pretty good reasons for holding it. That said, I could probably name just as many scholars who accept the Thomas story as historical as you could who don’t. But again, it’s irrelevant whether four out of five academics surveyed disbelieve it. What matters is *why* they disbelieve it, and are their reasons *credible*? I don’t believe they are. Most of those academics don’t believe the resurrection narratives as a whole are in any sense historical, so obviously they don’t accept particular details like the Thomas story as any kind of factual history. Why don’t they believe the resurrection narratives are genuine? Because many of them are strict materialists. Nothing which does not fit into their materialist worldview is allowed. Thus miracles like resurrection are ruled out of bounds before they even begin.
But again, if that story’s fiction, why would the authors of the gospels purposely make up that kind of a story, knowing it could cast serious doubts on their credibility? Why didn’t they have Thomas and the other eleven instantly recognize and believe in the resurrected Jesus? Why portray all of them as ignorant and disbelieving?
Of course before you explain why they’d invent the Thomas story, you first have to explain why the early church invented the crucifixion and resurrection accounts.
As NT Wright argues, the skeptic has to satisfactorily explain 6 features of early Christian belief regarding resurrection:
1) In Christianity resurrection shifts from a peripheral item of faith, as in Judaism, to the center.
2) In Christianity the meaning of resurrection has been “sharpened up” whereas Jewish sources are vague as to just exactly what form the resurrection body will take.
3) In early Christianity there’s debate on precisely what happens after death, as there is in paganism and Judaism. There’s no spectrum of belief. Bodily resurrection is the norm.
4) Now resurrection as an event has split into two; whereas most Jews believed in a final resurrection of everyone together, as a single event, now in Christianity Jesus is resurrected ahead of everyone else in the middle of history.
5) Resurrection for the early church also functions in a newly metaphorical way. In Judaism resurrection could also be used as a metaphor for the Jews’ return from exile but in early Christianity that’s disappeared and now, while still referring to a literal bodily resurrection of the dead it can also be used as a metaphor for baptism and holy living.
6) Nobody in any version of ancient Judaism expected Messiah to be resurrected for the simple reason that nobody in ancient Judaism expected a crucified Messiah.Anyone who was crucified was considered to be cursed by YHWH.
So the skeptic has to plausibly explain these mutations of Jewish belief if the early church was just making up stories. It’s no use debating the doubting Thomas story until you explain how the belief in resurrection itself developed.
Pax.
Lee.
“But again, if that story’s fiction, why would the authors of the gospels purposely make up that kind of a story, knowing it could cast serious doubts on their credibility?”
Why do you assume that the authors’ intention was to write an historically accurate modern biography or history textbook? Most scholars believe that the Gospel authors were writing in the genre of Greco-Roman biograhpy. In that type of literature, as long as the core facts were not changed, embellishments to the details was perfectly acceptable and expected! It made for better reading.
What are the core facts of the Jesus story?
–Jesus existed
–He was an apocalyptic preacher
–He was crucified by the Romans
–He was buried in a tomb.
–Shortly after his death, some of his followers believed that he had appeared to them.
Most Bible scholars believe that this explains the wildly different Resurrection Stories in the four Gospels. They are literary/theological embellishments. The authors were NOT trying to deceive anyone. The audience for whom these books were written probably expected such embellishments. The point is: None of these embellishments change the core historical facts. The core facts about Jesus are not changed if the Doubting Thomas Story is theological allegory (fiction). And the same for the Emmaus Road Story, the Raised Saints from their Tombs Story, and others.
“As NT Wright argues, the skeptic has to satisfactorily explain 6 features of early Christian belief regarding resurrection:”
I can explain it very easily: Whenever a new sect or cult breaks off from the mother religion, it takes some of the key teachings of the mother religion and tweaks them just enough to be branded as “heretics” or “blasphemers”. The most recent example of this phenomenon is with the Mormons. Resurrection was not a new concept. Jewish Christians simply took an established concept from their mother religion and gave it a new twist.
Why?
Answer: Their despair due to the sudden, violent loss of all their hopes and dreams triggered a classic case of “cognitive dissonance”. To keep their hopes alive—that Jesus was the messiah and would keep his promise to establish a New Kingdom—they were forced to reinvent the concepts of messiah and resurrection. “Jesus has risen from the dead as the “first fruits” of the resurrection. The rest of the righteous dead will soon rise! He really is the messiah!”
And what triggered all this frenzied speculation: An empty tomb!
Literary brushstrokes–a better term IMO.
ANOTHER reason the followers of Jesus kept going after his death–he actually resurrexted.
” Most of those academics don’t believe the resurrection narratives as a whole are in any sense historical, so obviously they don’t accept particular details like the Thomas story as any kind of factual history.”
You need to explain why most Roman Catholic scholars, who believe in the supernatural and the bodily resurrection of Jesus, doubt that eyewitnesses or the associates of eyewitnesses wrote the Gospels. If these Roman Catholic Christian scholars are correct, we only have ONE author telling us the Doubting Thomas Story and if this one author was not an eyewitness or an associate eyewitness why should we believe the historicity of this one, uncorroborated story when most Roman Catholic scholars agree with the majority of scholars that embellished, non-historical stories (fiction) exist in the Gospels???
I know you, like most conservative Protestants, believe that most scholars are liberal snobs who don’t believe in the supernatural. The problem for your argument, however, is explaining why such a large percentage of scholars who do believe in the supernatural and the bodily resurrection of Jesus question the historicity of some of these stories.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t find the way you are framing the issues to be really accurate or helpful.
The gospels are historical biographies, but the NT writers weren’t writing “objective news.” They were story tellers who used artistic license, and that was wholly acceptable to do. To go throw the gospels with a fine-toothed comb and attempt to say, “Oh, THIS bit is ‘fiction,’ THAT bit is ‘history’–it’s a fool’s errand IMO.
I agree 100%. We should appreciate the Gospels for what they are, not what we want them to be. They are works of evangelism, written in an ancient genre of literature that allowed for embellishments. We should not read them as history texts. We should not read them as modern biographies.
But here is the question: Should we believe as historical fact the fantastical supernatural tales of first century people claiming to see a walking, talking, back-from-the-dead body from books which we know contain non-historical embellishments? If not, then we must ask: If we can’t be sure of the historicity of these detailed Appearance Stories, should we believe in the historicity of a bodily resurrection of one man living 2,000 years ago?
“They are works of evangelism, written in an ancient genre of literature that allowed for embellishments. We should not read them as history texts. We should not read them as modern biographies.”
No–they are most definitely ancient HISTORICAL biographies. Just because they have literary brushstrokes, that doesn’t negate their historical reliability. Read them as history with literary style. And they are quite clear: Jesus rose from the dead, he healed people, he cast out demons.
Simply put, I think you are taking your skepticism too far, quite frankly.
“ANOTHER reason the followers of Jesus kept going after his death–he actually resurrexted”
Possibly.
But the evidence for this possible explanation can’t be very good if the majority of experts are correct that the books which provide the details of this alleged event were written by persons one or more generations removed from the alleged events they describe, and, they were not eyewitnesses or the associates of eyewitnesses.
You wouldn’t believe the fantastical supernatural claims of another world religion based on non-eyewitness claims, would you?
To the point: Mark, Matthew, and Luke are generally believed to have been written anywhere from the mid-late 60s to late 70s/early 80s. They weren’t made up out of whole cloth then. They were put together from earlier stuff (could’ve been written or oral sources) that had been preached and claimed for the previous 30-40 years. Plus you have the resurrection claims Paul makes in his letter that date within 20-25 years. That is all extremely early in ancient standards. It is quite clear that claims of resurrection were made from the very beginning, and yes, they were made by the original followers of Jesus themselves. To the point, normally, “fantastical supernatural claims” creep into accounts of historical figures more than 400-500 years later. The fact you have the resurrection claimed (to be generous) within 30 years in writing, and probably from the very beginning needs to be taken seriously. It’s NOT like other claims in other religions.
“To the point, normally, “fantastical supernatural claims” creep into accounts of historical figures more than 400-500 years later.”
Says who?
The Bible itself contradicts this claim. According to the Gospels, Herod, a real historical person, and his entire court, believed the fantastical (supernatural) claim that Jesus was John the Baptist, raised from the dead! If this story is true about Herod, this fantastical claim arose within just a few years of John’s death. It was just a rumor; a legend. Gossip. Hysteria. Herod and his court may have sincerely believed that this supernatural claim was true, but even you agree that they were mistaken.
“They were put together from earlier stuff (could’ve been written or oral sources) that had been preached and claimed for the previous 30-40 years. Plus you have the resurrection claims Paul makes in his letter that date within 20-25 years.”
I do not doubt for a second that the Resurrection Belief arose very soon after Jesus’ death. What I question is, why? Is there good evidence that people claimed to have seen a walking, talking (resurrected) corpse, or did the original eyewitnesses see something else, like an illusion (bright light)? Paul never tells us what he saw in any of his epistles. The Early Creed gives zero details about what anyone claims to have seen.
Maybe they all saw bright lights…and believed it was Jesus.
John the Baptist was also an historical person, according to Josephus.
So here we have a rumor/legend about a first century man develop within years or even months of his death. This account alone proves your assertion false.
What rumor? The gospels record that Herod THOUGHT that JB might have been resurrected. There was no CLAIM that he actually was. JB’s disciples never claimed that; there are no records of anyone ever claiming that–we just have the account of one paranoid king saying that.
1. Says what we know about ancient writings. For example, the fantastical, supernatural claim associated with Alexander the Great crept into story a long time after his life, not during or shortly after.
2. You are mistaking a report about some fear Herod had with claims about resurrection.
3. As for the “why” question–I think the evidence we have is clear: the resurrected Jesus spoke and interacted with the disciples. Paul’s case is a bit different. His encounter came after the ascension…. His encounter was therefore bound to be different than the resurrection accounts mentioned in the gospels.
Gary, the gospels insist that Jesus’ resurrection was a literal, historical fact, an event which happened at a specific point in actual, real, space-time history. They knew they were making an astonishing, absurd on the surface claim.
Nor would the mere existence of an empty tomb create the kind of speculation which would cause them to posit a resurrection. In that case trhey’d assume grave robbers or body-snatchers.
Jews also had language to describe apparitions and yet the gospels *don’t* use this terminology, but instead insist that Jesus came back from the dead in a transformed in some way, yet still physical body, which got hungry. As Jesus himself says in Luke, ghosts don’t have physical bodies; they certainly don’t eat a meal of broiled fish!
Nor does “cognitive dissonance” explain the resurrection As NT Wright points out in *The Resurrection of the Son of God,* if the early Church did that they were the *first* and *only* Jewish messianic group that ever did so. As Wright says, you’d NEVER hear one of Simon Bar Kochba’s disciples saying, “Y’know guys, I know the Romans killed Simon, but somehow inexplicably, I have this warm fuzzy feeling deep inside me that tells me he’s not really dead. It’s almost as if he’s still here with us. I almost thought I saw him just yesterday!”
No. As Wright insists, if the leader of a Jewish messianic sect gets himself killed by the Romans, that’s proof positive that he wasn’t the Messiah after all. Because a crucified Messiah wasn’t on anyone’s radar back then. That’s the whole point of the Emmaus road disciples. They assumed that since Jesus was crucified that was proof that he was a false messiah. It isn’t parable or allegory. It isn’t a detail the gospel authors would invent or embellish.
So the skeptic must explain how a group of Messianic Jews came to believe their crucified leader was the real deal after all. Peter insists that for them it was his resurrection appearances.
You say that Jesus’ followers simply took an established religious tenant, resurrection, and gave it a new twist. I agree. But what you haven’t explained is *why* they gave that concept, not just one, but *six new twists.* Paul insists that Christianity stands or falls on Jesus’ literal resurrection. No Jew ever said that the truth of Judaism stands or falls on the liteteral resurrection of Moses or the Maccabbean martyrs because in Judaism resurrection was a peripheral tenet. Yet by the time of AD 33-35 (the approximate date of the credal statement in I Cor. 15:3-7) resurrection has become the central tenet of the faith. That doesn’t make any sense and you still haven’t explained it yet.
Pax.
Lee.
As everyone knew, if your leader got killed, that proved he wasn’t the Messiah. In that case, you either picked a new Messiah or you disbanded and went home. Jesus’ movement is the *only* messianic Jewish movement in history to survive the death of the founder. As Wright insists, this is simply inexplicable without the resurrection.
Pax.
Lee.
Good morning, Lee.
“So the skeptic must explain how a group of Messianic Jews came to believe their crucified leader was the real deal after all. Peter insists that for them it was his resurrection appearances”
If your neighbor told you that he woke up at 3 AM last night and saw a Martian space ship hovering over his house with little green Martians beaming themselves up and down to his back yard, how could you prove him wrong? Answer: You can’t. So since you can’t prove his claim wrong, does that mean you must accept his fantastical claim as fact? Of course not! The burden of proof is on your neighbor, not you, to provide sufficient evidence for you and the general public to believe this event occurred!
What if TWELVE people claim that they saw a Martian spaceship with little green Martians last night? Once again, the burden of proof is on these twelve alleged eyewitnesses to provide sufficient evidence for the public to believe their claim. The burden of proof is not on skeptics who suspect that these twelve people most probably saw an illusion or that there is some other natural explanation for their claim.
And the same is true for claims of resurrected bodies.
I will respond to the rest of your comment shortly.
Gary, I can’t *prove* the resurrection happened, not in the way you mean. But I also can’t *prove* in that sense that John Wilkes Boothe shot Abraham Lincoln. But because we have written and other solid evidence that he did, I take it on faith, an informed faith, but still faith, that Boothe did in fact shoot Lincoln. I take it on faith that the eyewitnesses at Ford’s theater weren’t lying, that the other evidence uncovered by the US Gov’t implicating Boothe as the assassin wasn’t fabricated, etc.
So no, I can’t empirically *prove* to you that Jesus was literally resurrected. However I believe the resurrection makes the best sense of all the available data. And I’ve read all the alternative theories, such as the women went to the wrong tomb, grave robbers stole the body, the apostles faked the whole thing, the apostles mass hallucinated the resurrection appearances, Barbara Thiering’s strange swoon and resuscitation theory, etc.
I don’t just uncritically take the gospel resurrection accounts for granted. I’ve spent the best part of the last 25 years studying this issue (and the overall reliability of the gospels). The more I study and the more I read the works of modern scholars the more convinced I become in my beliefs. Ultimately it’ comes down to a matter of faith, but then most people takes lots of things on faith every day of their lives. For example, if you’re married, and your wife brings you a glass of tea, you drink it upon faith that she hasn’t spiked it to poison you. You take it on faith that your wife loves you and wouldn’t try to kill you because you’ve known her for years and over that time have developed a deep and abiding trust in her. But it’s still faith. My belief in the resurrection is similar to that kind of belief.
The reason most liberal NT scholars don’t accept the resurrection as an actual literal event is because of their prior commitment to materialism. Their world-view simply won’t allow for even the possibility of the miraculous. This is especially sad when it comes to scholars like Borg and Crossan who still want to be Christians and follow Jesus. But their version of Jesus isn’t any better or worse that Socrates, Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. I know of lots of open-minded skeptics who embraced Christianity and the resurrection as a real event after they set aside their prejudices and biases and honestly examined the evidence.
Pax.
Lee.
“Gary, I can’t *prove* the resurrection happened, not in the way you mean. But I also can’t *prove* in that sense that John Wilkes Boothe shot Abraham Lincoln. But because we have written and other solid evidence that he did, I take it on faith, an informed faith, but still faith, that Boothe did in fact shoot Lincoln.”
Authorities at that time had confirmed eyewitness testimony of persons seeing Boothe jump out of the president’s box shortly after the shot was fired. The identities of these eyewitnesses is undisputed. We have their signed statements. Can you provide even one confirmed, undisputed eyewitness who claimed that he saw Jesus exit his tomb? No. Not even the Bible claims that anyone saw Jesus’ body revive and exit his tomb. But let’s ignore that and address the alleged appearances of this resurrected body: Do you have even ONE confirmed, undisputed eyewitness testimony who alleges that he or she saw the walking, talking, resurrected BODY of Jesus?
Gary, what you are doing is rejecting the written record/evidence that we DO have, and are then postulating what your own fancy comes up with. You can be skeptical all you want, but the fact is that there were many messianic movements in the 1st century and many people who claimed to be the messiah–and every single one of them was killed; and every single movement disbanded after their leader was killed…all expect one: the movement that was centered around Jesus. If you reject what his actual followers claimed had happened choose to come up with your own explanation, more power to ya.
One, you can’t prove that we possess even ONE eyewitness statement by one of Jesus’ actual followers regarding this alleged event. Most Bible scholars, including a significant percentage of Bible scholars who believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, reject the eyewitness or associate of eyewitness authorship of the Gospels. Even if we just look at the Early Creed, there is ZERO mention in this creed of what anyone claimed to have seen! The author of Acts claims that Paul claimed before Felix that the appearance by the resurrected Jesus to him on the Damascus Road only involved seeing a bright light. How do you know that the other “appearances” were not also bright lights?
Secondly, you are correct that none of the other messiah-pretenders continued to have a following after their deaths. However…none of the other messiah-pretenders had an unexplained empty tomb!
Here is what I think probably happened:
Jesus was crucified on Friday. He did not die until mid-late afternoon. The Jewish authorities (the Sanhedrin) wanted to make sure that all the bodies would be down and in the ground before sunset, the start of the Sabbath, to avoid a violation of the Law of Moses. They ordered one of their own, Joseph of Arimathea, to quickly get the bodies down and to bury Jesus (and maybe the others) in a temporary tomb near Golgotha, which he did. However, they also ordered that as soon as the Sabbath was ended (sundown Saturday night) that the bodies should be moved to another location, most probably a burial ground for criminals and the poor. They did not tell anyone else about these plans. So Saturday, after sunset, Joseph and his servants move Jesus’ body to another location, bury him in an unmarked grave, the location of which remains a secret to this day.
The women come to the original tomb on Sunday morning and find it empty. They run away in fear thinking that someone has stolen the body. They return to Galilee to join the male disciples who had fled the city upon Jesus’ arrest. They tell the male disciples that Jesus’ tomb was empty. The male disciples also surmise that someone moved the body; However, one of them, very likely Peter, has a vivid dream/trance about the “true” cause of the Empty Tomb. In this dream, Jesus appears to Peter, tells him that God has raised him from the dead and that he will soon return to rule as the Messiah, and that Peter should preach this message to the entire world. This vivid dream dramatically changes Peter. He is certain that this dream or vision was a real appearance of Jesus, just as real as when Jacob of old saw a ladder to heaven in his dream. Peter’s story and his enthusiasm spreads like wildfire through the small band of Jesus followers. Soon others are having vivid dreams of a risen Jesus. Others:”see” Jesus in the distance or in a large crowd (cases of mistaken identity). Others see bright lights and believe that it is an appearance of Jesus.
But if Jesus is the Messiah, the Resurrection is supposed to happen when the messiah comes…Wait!
What if God hasn’t just raised Jesus from the dead, What if Jesus was resurrected? But…how could just one person be resurrected? I’ve got it, one of the disciples excitedly exclaims: Jesus was resurrected as the “first fruits” of the resurrection. The remainder of the righteous dead will soon be resurrected! The resurrection has begun! The End is near!!! Let’s sell all our possessions, move to the capital Jerusalem, live in a commune, praying and fasting until the day that Jesus comes to sit on David’s throne in the holy city!
And that is how this supernatural tale began.
1. What we have are writings from very early on that claim resurrection–not hallucination, etc. In 1st century Judaism, resurrection MEANT physical, bodily resurrection.
2. Because the resurrection accounts in the gospels do not say the disciples interacted with a “bright light.”
3. An unexplained empty tomb—imagine that! 😉 I wonder why?
4. Your theory has ZERO evidence whatsoever to support it. Zero. And by “zero” I mean ZERO…nada…nil. No need to respond to it–it is wholly baseless.
Gary, Doc Anderson is right. You’re applying a level of skepticism to the resurrection accounts you wouldn’t apply to the Lincoln assassination or any other historical event.
As for your confirmed eyewitnesses to the Boothe assassination of Lincoln, if I said we have witnesses to the resurrection-a dozen or so (the women, the apostles, etc.) you’d say, why should we believe them? Well, by the same logic, why should we believe the witnesses to the Lincoln assassination? Witnesses can lie, after all. Of course the witnesses to the Lincoln assassination had no reason to lie.
You’re only being hyper-skeptical because an alleged miracle is in the microscope. But because it’s Jesus, the resurrection and the gospels, you assume something rotten’s afoot and the eyewitnesses suddenly can’t be trusted. The same eyewitness, by the way, who reported his crucifixion. An incident you’ve said you accept as a historical fact. So you trust the gospels with regards to the crucifixion but not the resurrection? One’s history the other’s myth or legend? Again, trying to have your cake and eat it too.
And it makes no difference whether anyone actually saw Jesus exiting the tomb. If he was in there Friday, then you see him alive again and out of it on Sunday, what’s important is that he’s alive again, not how he got out. The gospels insist that what was seen was a *person* not an apparition or mass-hallucination. They were smart enough to know the difference.
Pax.
Lee.
“As for your confirmed eyewitnesses to the Boothe assassination of Lincoln, if I said we have witnesses to the resurrection-a dozen or so (the women, the apostles, etc.) you’d say, why should we believe them? Well, by the same logic, why should we believe the witnesses to the Lincoln assassination? Witnesses”
The Mormons have better evidence for their supernatural claim than you guys do for yours. At least they have signed affidavits from 13 known individuals.
The Mormons have 13 people who claimed they saw the tablets that supposedly were written about an ancient race of people in North America of which there is no evidence. There were no witnesses to the supposed events in the Book of Mormon.
Huge difference. Surely you know that
According to the Mormons, three of these witnesses not only saw and touched the golden tablets but the angel Moroni (an angel) himself appeared to them all at one time and place! Three eyewitnesses with signed affidavits claiming to have seen something have more legal standing in a court of law than four anonymous first century books!
Read this excerpt from the “Mormon Encyclopedia” on the Brigham Young University website:
Beginning with the first edition of 1830, the Book of Mormon has generally contained two sets of testimonies-the “Testimony of Three Witnesses” and the “Testimony of Eight Witnesses.” When Joseph Smith first obtained the gold plates, he was told to show them to no one. As translation progressed, he and those assisting him learned, both in the pages of the Book and by additional revelation, that three special witnesses would know, by the power of God, “that these things are true” and that several besides himself would see the plates and testify to their existence (Ether 5:2-4; 2 Ne. 27:12-13; D&C 5:11-13). The testimonies of the witnesses affirm that these things occurred.
The witnesses were men known for truthfulness and sobriety. Though each of the Three Witnesses was eventually excommunicated from the Church (two returned), none ever denied or retracted his published testimony. Each reaffirmed at every opportunity the veracity of his testimony and the reality of what he had seen and experienced.
A June 1829 revelation confirmed that Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris would be the Three Witnesses (D&C 17). Soon thereafter, they, with Joseph Smith, retired to the woods near Fayette, New York, and prayed for the promised divine manifestation. The “Testimony of Three Witnesses” summarizes the supernatural event that followed, when an angel appeared and showed them the plates and engravings and they heard the Lord declare that the Book of Mormon was “translated by the gift and power of God.” They said that the same divine voice “commanded us that we should bear record of it.”
Joseph Smith’s mother later recounted Joseph’s great relief at no longer being the sole witness of the divine experiences of the restoration (see Law of Witnesses). That others had also seen an angel and “will have to testify to the truth of what I have said for now they know for themselves” relieved him of a great burden (Lucy Smith Preliminary Manuscript, Church Archives).
Soon afterward, at the Smith farm in New York, eight others were allowed to view and handle the plates: Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith, Sr., Hyrum Smith, and Samuel H. Smith. Their signed “Testimony of Eight Witnesses” reports that Joseph Smith showed these eight men the metal plates, which they “hefted” while turning the individual “leaves” and examining the engravings of “curious workmanship.”
Gary: Now, I don’t believe for a second that any of these people saw an angel with golden tablets. I think that they were highly religious, highly superstitious, highly gullible people who let their imaginations run wild. And I assert that probability suggests that this is most likely the same explanation for a group of first century peasants claiming to have received an appearance from a dead man.
This is getting a bit ridiculous.
(1) Eight people claimed to have seen the plates–the plates were about supposed events at least a thousand years before. None of them witness those events in the Book of Mormon. Nothing in the book is historically true.
(2) The Gospels were written within 40 or so years of the events–the people mentioned in them were real, historical people and real events. Even if the actual writers of the Gospels weren’t the actual disciples, they are conveying the message and teaching and claims that had been around for 40 years and that originated by the disciples.
It is an absurd connection you are making. If you don’t believe the resurrection happened, fine. If you don’t believe the claims, fine. But YOUR pseudo-psychological assertion for the origin of the resurrection story has literally ZERO evidence for it.
Joel: “What we have are writings from very early on that claim resurrection–not hallucination, etc. In 1st century Judaism, resurrection MEANT physical, bodily resurrection.”
I never once used the word “hallucinations”. Dreams are not hallucinations (I am a medical doctor.)
Must one see a resurrected body to believe that a body has been resurrected? No. Millions of Christians today believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected but NONE of them have ever seen his resurrected body. If Paul can see a bright light and believe that he has seen the resurrected Jesus then why couldn’t Peter, James, and the others?
“Because the resurrection accounts in the gospels do not say the disciples interacted with a “bright light.” ”
You admitted earlier that we should not read every story in the Gospels as history. Sometimes stories in the Gospels are allegories or other forms of figurative language. So why when it comes to the detailed appearance stories, do you insist that we must believe these stories as historical fact?? Maybe these stories are theological or literary embellishments of the bare bones claims in the Early Creed?
“An unexplained empty tomb—imagine that! 😉 I wonder why?”
I can think of a lot of reasons why a tomb would be empty before I would arrive at the possibility that the corpse came back to life and turned into a superhero.
“Your theory has ZERO evidence whatsoever to support it. Zero. And by “zero” I mean ZERO…nada…nil. No need to respond to it–it is wholly baseless”
Exactly! And neither do I have evidence that proves that your neighbor was dreaming, high, or drunk when he claimed to have seen a Martian spaceship hovering over his house last night. I am merely suggesting possible explanations for his fantastical claim. Skeptics do not need evidence for an alternative explanation for the fantastical Christian supernatural claim of a resurrected first century corpse. We only need to provide plausible alternative explanations—much more probable, natural, alternative explanations—that could be the cause of this supernatural belief..
Joel: “It is an absurd connection you are making. If you don’t believe the resurrection happened, fine. If you don’t believe the claims, fine. But YOUR pseudo-psychological assertion for the origin of the resurrection story has literally ZERO evidence for it.”
As I said immediately above, if someone makes the fantastical claim that he saw a Martian spaceship hover over his house last night, NO ONE expects me to provide evidence proving him wrong if I say I don’t believe him! The onus of proof is on the person making the fantastical claim. However, it is perfectly acceptable for me to suggest possible explanations for why this man is making such a fantastical claim. That is what I did above regarding the fantastical claim of a first century corpse resurrection. I nor any other skeptic is obligated to give you one shred of evidence for our hypothetical explanations for the origin of the resurrection claim. We are NOT claiming that this is what happened only what might have happened. This is what criminal detectives do all the time.
Bottom line: The onus is on Christians to provide better evidence than anonymous hearsay!
Gary, you say “Must one see a body to believe in physical resurrection? No!”. Actually, yes, in first century Judaism one MUST have seen a body to believe that they had been resurrected. As N.T. Wright and other have noted, first century Jews were very well acquainted with visions and dreams. At no point would they attribute or confuse dreams of a dead person to the belief that they had been physically raised from the dead.
And in any case, belief in a resurrection prior to the general resurrection on the day of judgement was a concept wholly foreign to first century Jews. In other words, they would have no cultural prompting to suggest that their dreams or visions meant that a person had been physically raised from the dead, precisely because Judaism taught them that the resurrection did not happen until the end of the world.
Nick,
Well said!
Hi Nick,
“As N.T. Wright and other have noted, first century Jews were very well acquainted with visions and dreams. At no point would they attribute or confuse dreams of a dead person to the belief that they had been physically raised from the dead.”
According to the Gospels people in the first century took their dreams very seriously. The step-father of Jesus allegedly moved his family to another country in the middle of the night due to a dream. The apostle Peter allegedly had a day dream (trance) in which believed he saw a bunch of animals in a sheet suspended in midair. It was because of this dream, that Gentiles were welcomed into the Christian movement. The author of Acts even mentions that Peter was unsure whether he had actually seen the sheet of animals or not, yet he proceeded to act on his daydream.
The apostle Paul claims that he may or may have not taken a trip to a “third heaven” where he saw and heard things which he could not repeat.
This is evidence that first century people could have a dream and confuse it with reality. And not only that, there is evidence from the Bible that first century Jews were just as superstitious as people of other cultures. According to the Gospels, when John the Baptist started his ministry, Jews were saying that he was Elijah come back from the dead. And when Jesus started his ministry, Jews were saying that Jesus was John the Baptist come back from the dead.
Animals floating in sheets; intergalactic trips to a third heaven; dead people coming back to life! This evidence overwhelmingly refutes your claim that first century Jews would not confuse dreams with reality.
Gary,
You are spouting nonsense. Nick’s point is that no first century Jew would use the term “resurrection” if they had claimed to have seen Jesus in a dream or vision. “Resurrection” meant, by definition, a PHYSICAL, BODILY conquering of death, not some sort of “I saw Jesus in a dream!” For example, when Herod heard of Jesus and thought it could be John the Baptist come back from the dead, he would have thought that John the Baptist was PHYSICALLY alive again, not that John the Baptist was lurking in some dream world like Freddie Kreuger.
Let’s see what NT Wright says on this subject:
“It is in fact impossible to build a theory of what people thought Jesus’ resurrection appearances consisted of (i.e. whether they were ‘objective’, ‘subjective’, or whatever—these terms themselves, with their many philosophical overtones, are not particularly helpful) on this [Greek] word [opthe] alone. The word is quite consistent with people having non-objective ‘visions’; it is equally consistent with them seeing someone in the ordinary course of human affairs.”
–NT Wright, “The Resurrection of the Son of God”, p. 322
According to NT Wright, it is possible that when early Christians claimed that Jesus had “appeared” to them, they were speaking of seeing him in a vision, similar to the description of Paul’s “heavenly vision” on the Damascus Road, at least according to the author of Acts.
No, you are purposely distorting Wright’s book. He is adamant that in 1st century Judaism, the wors “resurrection” meant physical resurrection. Various Christians’ visions, dreams, etc. of Jesus do not negate the clear claim that he was physically resurrected.
If you really have read the entirety of “Rez of Son of God” you know this. Therefore, it is disingenuous of you to misrepresent Wright’s work.
Hi Nick,
“Must one see a body to believe in physical resurrection? No!”. Actually, yes, in first century Judaism one MUST have seen a body to believe that they had been resurrected.
How, then, do you explain Paul’s statement, as recorded by the author of Acts, that he believed in the reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus based solely on seeing a bright light in a “heavenly vision”?
Paul clearly said that he had actually SEEN the Lord Jesus.
I never said that Wright believes that “resurrection” can mean something other than physical resurrection. What I am saying is that Wright admits that what these people actually claimed to have seen, which led them to this belief, did not necessarily need to have been a literal body based on the meaning of the Greek word translated as “appeared to” in our English Bibles. Wright says that these people could have seen something in their minds (a vision, dream, or trance) and believed that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to them.
You are asserting that the only way that a first century Jew could come to believe in the resurrection of one body was by seeing that resurrected body with their own two eyes. Even the writings of Paul prove this false. How did the Jews in Asia Minor come to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus? By seeing his resurrected body?? No, they took Paul’s word for it. And what did Paul see? Answer: a bright light in a “heavenly vision”, according to the author of Acts.
Simple point: in 1st century Judaism, “resurrection” meant physical, bodily resurrection.
What contributed to the growth of the early church was the power of the Holy Spirit. The apostles (a) proclaimed Jesus resurrected and conquered death, and (b) demonstrated the power of the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, and the early believers experienced the power of the Spirit. It wasnt just a matter of saying, “Wow, I’m intellectually convinced that Jesus rose from the dead.”
What contributed to the growth of the early church? Answer: The BELIEF that Jesus had been resurrected. That does not necessarily mean that anyone was claiming to have seen a walking, talking, broiled-fish-eating (resurrected) BODY in the first few years after Jesus’ death. These stories, which do not appear until late in the first century, could be theological embellishments. Based on NT Wright’s above interpretation of the Greek word translated into English as “appeared to”, it is entirely possible that every person listed as a witness to an appearance of Jesus in the Early Creed in First Corinthians 15, “saw” Jesus in a vision (or an illusion).
1. Yes, “resurrection” means exactly that the claim was Jesus was physically risen from the dead.
2. Of course the early Church BELIEVED he was, because that was the claim from the very beginning.
3. The resurrection accounts are found in documents within a generation that were compilations of the tradition and oral teaching that had gone on for the previous 40 years. The claims were not made up out of whole cloth.
Again, you are ignoring reality, distorting what Wright says, and putting your own baseless speculations in the place of what the first century texts say.
“The resurrection accounts are found in documents within a generation that were compilations of the tradition and oral teaching that had gone on for the previous 40 years. The claims were not made up out of whole cloth.”
I never said that ALL the claims were made up. I am only suggesting that SOME of the narratives in the Gospels may be made up. I am suggesting that maybe the detailed appearance stories in the later Gospels (Matthew, Luke, and John, but not Mark) MAY be theological embellishments of the bare-bones appearance claims in the Early Creed. Even many conservative Protestant scholars such as Mike Licona, NT Wright, and Craig Blomberg state that some non-historical narratives may exist in the Gospels.
Therefore, it is entirely possible that all the witnesses listed in the Early Creed saw exactly what Paul claims he saw (according to the author of Acts): a bright light, and nothing more..and believed it to be Jesus, risen from the dead.
Acts was written after the Gospel of Luke, in which there are clear claims of a bodily resurrection of Jesus, interaction with the disciples, followed by the ascension at tge beginning of Acts, and then Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus.
I’m well aware that the Book of Acts was written after the Gospel of Luke, most probably by the same author.
” here are clear claims of a bodily resurrection of Jesus [in the Gospels]”
I do not deny that the authors of the Gospels claim that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead. But, are you denying the possibility that these detailed stories of people literally seeing a walking, talking body could be theological or literary embellishments?
GARY: But, are you denying the possibility that these detailed stories of people literally seeing a walking, talking body could be theological or literary embellishments?
LEE: As I keep asking, why invent details like this that nobody else in Judaism or paganism would believe?
You need to explain where the early Church got the idea of a crucified, resurrected messiah in the first place before you obsess over whether they saw a real, flesh and blood Jesus three days later.
It’d be like a physician obsessing over a patient’s really high fever rather than trying to find out what caused it.
So tell us what caused Paul and the authors of the gospels to go off script the way they did and insist on Messiah’s death and resurrection before anyone else.
Pax.
Lee.
No…they are presented as really happening. Without an actual, physical resurrection, nothing in Christianity makes sense, and the very beginning of the Christian movement after the death of Christ has no valid, historical explanation.
Paul allegedly saw a bright light and believed that the bodily resurrected Jesus had appeared to him. Why couldn’t the same have happened to Peter, James, the Twelve, “all the apostles”, and the 500??
GARY: According to NT Wright, it is possible that when early Christians claimed that Jesus had “appeared” to them, they were speaking of seeing him in a vision, similar to the description of Paul’s “heavenly vision” on the Damascus Road, at least according to the author of Acts.
LEE: I have this book in my library and that’s not exactly what Wright is saying. Wright clearly believes that a) Jesus was bodily resurrected and b) Paul and over 500 eyewitnesses met him after said bodily resurrection.
What Prof. Wright is saying in the paragraph you cited is that you can’t build a case for Jesus’ bodily appearance to Paul et. al based *only* on the GK word *opthe* used in I Co. 3-7. You have to take other evidence into account and not just that one passage.
GARY: Therefore, it is entirely possible that all the witnesses listed in the Early Creed saw exactly what Paul claims he saw (according to the author of Acts): a bright light, and nothing more..and believed it to be Jesus, risen from the dead.
LEE: These eyewitnesses could tell the difference between a bright light and a real, flesh and blood human being who eats real food. The gospels are clear that Jesus had a physical body, which they not only saw with their eyes but touched with their hands.
Pious Jews believed in bodily resurrection, not mysterious lights in the sky. So why would the Jewish authors of the gospels and Paul in his letters insist that Jesus body was raised but then invent fictitious scenarios in which all they’d really seen was a mysterious light? That doesn’t make any sense.
As I keep saying, nobody expected Jesus to a) die b) be resurrected three days later. The gospels portray ALL of the eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus as surprised to see him alive. Again, that isn’t a detail they’d be likely to make up. So why go to all the trouble to explain that the tomb was empty, when all they really saw relative to the resurrected Jesus was a bright light? The Jews had religious language for that and it wasn’t *anastasis* (resurrection). Paul specifically mentions the burial to remind people that Jesus was bodily dead, then bodily alive again three days later. If all the saw was a light there’d be no need for an empty tomb. Again, they had language for such visions and it was totally different from resurrection, which *always* referred to a dead body coming back to life again.
The Christian proclamation doesn’t make room for hallucinations. Paul is clear in I Cor. 15 that if Jesus’ body wasn’t literally raised from the dead, then Christianity is a lie. Without a bodily resurrected Jesus, Paul’s theology crumbles. Otherwise how do you explain Romans 8:11?
“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”
Pax.
Lee.
“LEE: I have this book in my library and that’s not exactly what Wright is saying. Wright clearly believes that a) Jesus was bodily resurrected and b) Paul and over 500 eyewitnesses met him after said bodily resurrection. What Prof. Wright is saying in the paragraph you cited is that you can’t build a case for Jesus’ bodily appearance to Paul et. al based *only* on the GK word *opthe* used in I Co. 3-7. You have to take other evidence into account and not just that one passage.”
Exactly. I never said that NT Wright does not believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected. I suggest that you and Joel read my comments a little more carefully. But, where do you get the claim that Wright believes that Paul and 500 eyewitnesses “met” with Jesus? Please give source and page number.
I am simply suggesting that the Early Creed MAY describe people seeing (opthe) Jesus in their heads or in an illusion (bright light). similar to Paul’s alleged experience on the Damascus Road.
Gary, Wright is saying that the GK word *opthe* can sometimes refer to visions, thus trying to prove that Paul met Jesus in the flesh on the road to Damascus from that one passage (I Cor. 15:3-7) alone, using that one word (*opthe*) alone is problematic. But then, as Wright does, when you add this evidence with the mountain of other evidence in the NT, you build a very strong case for a bodily resurrection and the fact that Jesus bodily appeared to over 500 people.
But all of this is totally academic until you explain to me how it is that the authors of the gospels went off script from orthodox 1st c. Judaism to claim that Jesus was resurrected ahead of everyone else in the middle of history. You keep ignoring my calls for you to adequately address that issue first.
What convinced these 1st c. 2nd Temple Jews that Jesus was bodily resurrected, ahead of everyone else, in the middle of history, seeing as how this belief wasn’t on anyone’s radar ahead of time? Saying it was a vision ain’t gonna cut it.
As Doc Anderson keeps saying, if the Jews wanted to describe a dream or vision they had words for that which wasn’t *resurrection.* Give them credit for not being idiots. They knew the difference between a dream and a real human being as well as you do. Because some people theorized that Jesus might be Elijah in no way invalidates this fact, any more than the fact that some gullible people believe Elvis is still alive means we’re all that gullible.
But again, before you obsess over the details of the resurrection appearances you’ve first got to explain how they got to resurrection itself.
Pax.
Lee.
GARY: I am simply suggesting that the Early Creed MAY describe people seeing (opthe) Jesus in their heads or in an illusion (bright light). similar to Paul’s alleged experience on the Damascus Road.
LEE: Why would 1st c. 2nd Temple Messianic Jews who believe in bodily resurrection describe said bodily resurrection in one of their earliest creeds as really nothing but a dream or vision? Why would they do this? It doesn’t make any sense. The Christian claim has ALWAYS been that Jesus was BODILY resurrected. Part of the reason critics thought the Christians were crazy was *because* they insisted that a) God could/would incarnate as a man b) that said god-man would be executed c) that said god-man was bodily resurrected (and that the first witnesses were a group ogf hysterical women)
Certainly, as I’ve said, *nobody* in the early Church would make up stories of Jesus’ first resurrection appearances being to a group of hysterical women.
Pax.
Lee.
If first century Jews would never believe in the bodily resurrection of one person without seeing an actual body, why did Paul, an educated Jewish pharisee, believe in the bodily resurrected Jesus, not because he saw a resurrected body, but because he saw a bright light in a “heavenly vision”?
But again, he believed Jesus was bodily resurrected. The core claim of Christianity was a physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus. And that in some way, he was transformed to where, though resurrected, he could now appear to people; walk and talk with his disciples, then just disappear from a room. It is odd, to be sure. But that is what was proclaimed.
Joel: “But again, he [Paul] believed Jesus was bodily resurrected. The core claim of Christianity was a physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus.
I do not dispute that.
What I am asking is: How can you, Lee, and Nick claim that the only way a first century Jew would believe in a bodily resurrection of one person was to literally see a resurrected body, when according to the author of Acts, all Paul claims to have seen in his “appearance experience” was a bright light in a “heavenly vision”???
Isn’t that strong evidence that first century Jews COULD come to believe in a bodily resurrection of one person by means of experiencing a vision (or an illusion, vivid dream, daydream/trance, etc.}? And if Paul could see a bright light in a heavenly vision and come to belief in Jesus’ bodily resurrection, why couldn’t the same have happened to Peter, James, and others listed in the Early Creed?
No, we are saying that when a first century Jew heard, “resurrection,” he would have taken that to mean a physical, bodily resurrection.
If all there was, was a vision or dream, they would not have claimed resurrection. Paul didnt witness the actual resurrection appearences on that Sunday. He had some kind of encounter on the Damascus Road. At the same time, he also says in I Corinthians that he had actually “SEEN the Lord.” That would suggest that Paul was convinced that it wasnt just some sort of vision; rather that his encounter with the risen Jesus was the same as that of the disciples.
You keep wanting to ignore the clear claims there was a physical resurrection, and you want to psycoanalyze them to mean the disciples just had visions and mistakenly thought there was an actual resurrection.
Had the Christian claim been that Jesus’ resurrection was nothing but a vision, nobody would’ve objected to that. A few skeptics might’ve called them crazy but nobody would’ve objected a resurrection thatr’s nothing but a dream or vision. What got Jesus executed was his claim to be a rival king to Caesar; what got Peter, Paul, etc. martyred was that same claim. Rome wouldn’t consider a dream any threat to the stability of the empire.
Pax.
Lee.
I’ve been liking all of Lee’s comments. But this one: Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!
Had the Christian claim been that Jesus’ resurrection was nothing but a vision, nobody would’ve objected to that. A few skeptics might’ve called them crazy but nobody would’ve objected a resurrection that’s nothing but a dream or vision.
Paul’s claim was (A) Jesus was resurrected, and (B) After Jesus ascended to heaven, he appeared to Paul
A Jesus who’s nothing but a dream or a vision is Gnosticism, and Rome didn’t consider Gnosticism any threat to it’s empire. It was the Christians who insisted Jesus was bodily resurrected as opposed to the Gnostics who insisted his bodily incarnation was an illusion who were considered the threat by Rome and persecuted.
Pax.
Lee.
Arkentaten, if I may.
How close they are to the events they describe certainly makes the gospels more reliable than if they were written from memory 500 years later.
Modern skeptics seem oblivious to the fact that Rudolph Bultman’s views were discarded over fifty years ago. Nobody now except Jesus Mythers believes Bultmann was right.
As Doc Anderson says we have more and better ancient evidence for the life and ministry of Christ than we do for lots of other ancient figures who’s existence and careers nobody seriously questions, such as Socrates.
The gospels in several particulars fit the criteria of ancient Greco-Roman bios.
And as even the popular agnostic NT textual critic Bart Ehrman admits, 99% of the textual errors in the NT are innocent, accidental scribal errors, such as copying the same word or sentence twice, accidentally leaving out a word or sentence, misspelling a word, misreading a word in the original, etc. He admits that we are able to “reconstruct the oldest form of the words of the New Testament with reasonable (though not 100 percent) accuracy,” recovering “the oldest and earliest stage of the manuscript tradition for each of the books of the New Testament.” (Ehrman, *The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture,* p. 62) And of the remaining handful of genuine textual variants, none of them ultimately changes any essential teaching in the NT.
Some of Jesus’ teaching in the canonical gospels may have been written during his lifetime (the NT says that one of his disciples, Levi/Matthew, as a tax collector, and publicans were literate). The rest circulated as oral history. Skeptics often claim that oral history is unreliable, and cite the modern game “telephone,” where one person whispers a phrase to another person, who whispers it to another, and so on, and by the end of the game the original message gets terribly garbled, as proof.
However the telephone analogy is a bad example because what critics fail to realize is that the ancient cultures that produced the NT were oral societies, in which perhaps only 15-20% of the people could read. Hence the ancients put more stock in oral tradition than in written material. To ensure that the material was passed on accurately, there were safeguards in place. For one thing, it was a community endeavor, in which the community would correct the tradent (story-teller) if he got something wrong, thus, as Prof. Mark Strauss says, oral tradition was self-correcting all the way. Studies have been done over the past 30 years which demonstrate the ability of so-called “primitive” oral societies of accurately passing down oral history through several generations. Tradents were free to organize the material to meet the needs of the occasion, and certain minute, peripheral details might vary, however they were not free to drop/add anything important. As Dr. J. P. Moreland says, this was sacred tradition, not simply what Joe was having for dinner Wednesday night.
Finally, there are presently about 5,500 ancient manuscript copies and manuscript fragments in existence today of the New Testament in Greek alone. In addition, we also have over 19,000 ancient manuscript copies of the New Testament in Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic. So that the total number of ancient manuscript copies of the New Testament is something like 24,000. Compared to other ancient writings you thus discover that the NT manuscripts far outweigh any of the others in both quality and quantity. There are literally thousands more ancient New Testament manuscripts than any other ancient texts. The internal consistency of the New Testament texts is about 99.5% accurate and textually pure. No other ancient texts even come close! (Slick)
Our earliest copies of many ancient Greek and Roman texts date to several centuries after they were originally written. For example, our oldest manuscript copies of Plato, originally written between 427-347 BC, date to 900 AD—1200 years later and there are only seven of them! Our earliest copies of Aristotle, originally written between 384-322 BC, date to 1100 AD—1400 years later and we only have forty-nine copies of them. And our earliest copies of the writings of Julius Caesar, originally written between 100-44 BC, date only to 900 AD—1000 years later and we only have ten copies! But we have over *five thousand* ancient manuscript copies of the New Testament, a few gospel fragments which date to about 120 AD, a mere twenty years after the last gospel, John’s, was written! And our earliest complete New Testaments, Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, date to approximately 350 AD, a mere two hundred-fifty years after the New Testament was written!
Pax.
Lee.
Yes….Lee obviously has the data in front of him, or else he is a genius. There’s only so much I can write on my phone while taking care of my son! Lol
The gospels accurately describe/record/portray historical figures we know from ancient secular historians:
Caiaphas
Herod. The gospels portray Herod as paranoid and vacillating.
John the Baptist. The gospels portray John’s counter-cultural desert ministry and his martyrdom by Herod which we also know of from Josephus.
Philip the Tetrarch
Pontius Pilate. The gospels portray Pilate as a thug who only wants to release Jesus to annoy the Jewish Sanhedrin but doesn’t because Jesus claims a kingship which could be viewed as rivaling Caesar’s.
Quirinius, Governor of Syria
Tiberius Caesar
The gospels don’t record 1s c. 2nd Temple Palestinian Judaism as monolithic, but instead accurately record the various sects and factions within Judaism, such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the Sanhedrin, etc. They accurately note that the Pharisees were generally anti-Roman and believed in bodily resurrection and a stricter Torah observance than the Sadducees, who rejected any idea of resurrection or an afterlife, and were generally pro-Roman.Furthermore, the gospels present us descriptions of some of the with subtle, nuanced ways Palestinian Juadism had accommodated Hellenism.
The gospels reference Jewish festivals such as Passover and Tabernacles/Booths.
They get geography right, such as countries, cities and towns, districts, etc.:
Bethlehem
Caesarea
The ten cities of the Decapolis
Jericho
Jerusalem
Joppa
Trachonitis
Samaria
Syria
These are just a few I thought of off the top of my head.
If they’re this accurate in peripheral details like this, on matters we can investigate, it makes me much more inclined to trust what they say regarding matters we *can’t* investigate.
Pax.
Lee.
It isn’t historical fiction because then, as now, authors made a distinction, and generally considered their audiences to be smart enough to know the difference.
The gospels with a straight face and far more restraint than any other work of ancient fiction I’ve ever read, insist that what they record actually happened in real, space-time history.
Most Jews already believed in bodily resurrection. No need to invent that. Of course, Jews who accepted bodily resurrection believed all of YHWH’s faithful would arise together, at the same moment when history concluded; before Peter and Paul nobody ever claimed ONE Jew (and he a *crucified* would-be messiah!) would rise again, in the *middle of history.* Then cap that ludicrous claim off by insisting that *women* were the first witnesses. There’s a reason critics like Celsus were still mocking Christianity 100 years later–because they found these claims absurd.
So, I’ve thrown down the gauntlet to Gary, who either can’t won’t pick it up, to explain why on earth the early Church would invent such ridiculous stories, knowing how their fellow-Jews and even pagans would respond to them? What Jew in his/her right mind would go so far off book?
From the standpoint of 1st c. Jews and Greeks, there’s historical fiction, and then there’s *believable* historical fiction.
Pax.
Lee.
The gospels are ancient historical biographies: basically history put within a story/narrative structure. They’re not putting things in strict chronological order; they are free to use artistic license to highlight certain points and themes they’re making. But they are still historical, and they still are biographies of a real, historical person.
Arkentaken, Gary, etc el., if it were any other historical or pseudo-historical figure, we wouldn’t be having this discussion because skeptics wouldn’t exhibit such an extraordinary level of skepticism towards any other figure. But because it’s Jesus, the founder of Christianity, then the skepticism proceeds at warp speed and never lets up. A standard of proof not required of any other historical figure is somehow required of Jesus.
Yet actually, what’s happened here, to paraphrase Prof. Craig Evans from his book *Fabricating Jesus,* is that modern skeptics have mistaken their radical skepticism for critical thinking, when in fact, such radical skepticism is no more critical than the credulity it claims to disdain.
I’ve met a lot of what I would call “credulous skeptics,” skeptics who’ll believe almost anything, so long as it tends to discredit Jesus and the gospels, over the past 15 years or so.
Pax.
Lee.
“Is this why when called on to demonstrate the veracity of your claim you get all pissy and throw your toys out of the cot?”
Said the pot to the kettle.
Arkenaten, using YOUR hyper-skeptical criteria, I couldn’t regard William Schirer’s *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich* or any other historical work as historically reliable.
Even if we had videotapes of the resurrection as it happened you’d just claim they were doctored or it was all just CGI.
No evidence will satisfy your level of hyper-skepticism.
Pax.
Lee.
Arkenaten, the “bare bones” of the TF is genuine. A lot of otherwise liberal scholars will admit as much for multiple reasons:
As for the resurrection, please explain WHY the gospel authors made THAT particular faith claim, seeing as how it wasn’t on anyone’s radar at the time they started making the claim. Why make up a faith claim like that which they weren’t even sure anybody would even believe?
That is irrational.
As for Ehrman, in his popular work he disregards evidence and scholars that don’t support his hypothesis. His recent book *How Jesus Became God* is a classic example. Imagine! Not one discussion of the Shema in the whole book! Nor does Paul’s exceedingly high and exceedingly early christology get an examination. And one would expect Ehrman to engage with Richard Bauckham, Martin Hengel and Larry Hurtado (the so-called ”Early High Christology Club” to fellow-academics), which three with their most recent works have demonstrated that the early Church had a very high christology from day one. But Ehrman only bothers to reference Bauckham–to dismiss him. He doesn’t even bother with Hengel or Hurtado. These are the biggest defects in that particular book by Ehrman.
As we’ve said, we’ve adduced enough evidence for the basic reliability of the NT that any *reasonable* person–and I stress the word *reasonable*–would be satisfied. But the kind of proof you want doesn’t exist and you know it. Because of your prejudice you’re holding the gospels to a higher standard than you would documents concerning the historical existence of the legendary medieval king Prester John or Bigfoot.
Pax.
Lee.
Joel: Besides, why would Roman historians living in 30 AD feel it worth writing about some Jewish paesant who was crucified in a backwater part of the empire?
Gary: What Roman historian living in 30 AD wrote about Jesus??? None. Josephus wasn’t even born until 37 AD. There are no contemporary Roman accounts about Jesus. None of Jesus contemporaries wrote about him.
Sorry, Joel! I did not read your comment correctly. Please delete my last comment.
However, note that Philo, a Jewish writer in Alexandria and a contemporary of Jesus, wrote not one word about him, but did comment on Pilate. If Jesus was raising people from the dead, walking on water, and causing thousands of Jews in Jerusalem to hail him as the next Jewish king, he certainly was more noteworthy than Pilate.
Not necessarily….it isnt like they were able to download Jesus’ sermons and acts on social media. Besides, Philo was when Jesus began his ministry. He was dead by the time Paul started his first missionary journey.
It is not hard to believe he was unaware of Jesus.
Ok, so I guess raising dead people. walking on water, healing lepers, and entering Jerusalem hailed as the son of David “spread to all Judea and Galilee” but never made it past the border to Egypt (Alexandria).
Interesting.
And I suppose if Philo didnt mention any number of things in 1st century Judea, then they didnt happen?
I’ve never mentioned Jim Jones and the mass suicide at Jonestown. Did it not happen because Ive never mentioned it in my blog? Does that mean I never knew about it? Of course not.
Joel: Had the Christian claim been that Jesus’ resurrection was nothing but a vision, nobody would’ve objected to that. A few skeptics might’ve called them crazy but nobody would’ve objected a resurrection that’s nothing but a dream or vision.
Gary: Joel, Nick, and Lee have argued above that no first century Jew would have believed that one individual had been bodily resurrected without seeing that resurrected body with their own two eyes. However, according to the Book of Acts, Paul of Tarsus believed that Jesus had been bodily resurrected simply by experiencing, in his own words, a “heavenly vision”, in which he saw nothing more than a bright light.
Please explain.
Joel, Nick, and Lee have argued above that no first century Jew would have believed that one individual had been bodily resurrected without seeing that resurrected body with their own two eyes. However, according to the Book of Acts, Paul of Tarsus believed that Jesus had been bodily resurrected simply by experiencing, in his own words, a “heavenly vision”, in which he saw nothing more than a bright light.
Would someone please explain.
“Paul of Tarsus believed that Jesus had been bodily resurrected simply by experiencing in his own words, a ‘heavenly vision’, in which he saw nothing more than a bright light.”
This sentence is problematic because there was much more to Saul’s conversion than this. You’re making it sound as if the *only* resurrection appearance was this “heavenly vision,” when such isn’t the case at all.
Paul can’t argue for a *bodily* resurrection in Romans 8, I Corinthians 15, I Thess., et. al. if his only experience/knowledge of the resurrected Jesus was a bright light. Paul was describing Jesus’ resurrection, not the Fatima apparition of the Blessed Virgin in Oct., 1917.
For Jews, the whole concept of resurrection revolved around a *dead body coming back to life again.* It had *nothing* to do with visions. As I keep saying they had words for “vision” which aren’t “resurrection.”
None of the women or the 11 disciples were convinced that Jesus had been resurrected until *they met him in the flesh.* The empty tomb alone wan’t enough evidence. Nor would the empty tomb and Paul’s “heavenly vision” be enough. But empty tomb plus accounts of the bodily resurrection appearances from Peter and James plus “heavenly light” would probably be enough to do it for Paul.
As I said Tuesday, the Roman and Jewish establishments would not have considered reports of an apparition treason or heresy. Jews and Romans saw visions all the time in antiquity. Apparitions aren’t a threat to the establishment.
But if your would-be Messiah made a claim to kingship, so that Rome executed him for treason and sedition, and then you insist that he’s bodily back from the dead to begin reign as king, that would likely get the attention of the Romans and the Jews.
The Romans would view Jesus as a Jewish upstart rival to the emperor and the Jews would view Jesus and the early Church as dangerous heretics who could unwittingly bring the wrath of Rome down on all of Judaism.
It wasn’t primarily the Gnostics who were persecuted by Rome because the *last* thing the Gnostics wanted was a *human* Jesus ruling over *this* world.
Pax.
Lee.
“The scholarly consensus is that Acts is historically reliable.”
This is simply not true, Joel. There may be some historically accurate material in the Book of Acts, but the overwhelming majority of (non-evangelical) scholars do not believe that we can read the Book of Acts as if it were a modern biography, accepting as fact every detail. Once again I must point out, the overwhelming majority of experts believe that the Gospel authors were writing Greco-Roman biographies which are very different from modern biographies. Embellishments (fictional, non-historical, details and stories) were perfectly acceptable. Even very conservative evangelical scholar Michael Licona has admitted this and has written a book on it.
Again, you are wrong. And I’m afraid you are mischaracterizing just want ancient historical biographies are. I do not know one scholar who doubts that Paul had some kind of experience on the Damascus Road that changed him from being a persecutor of the Church to a follower of Christ; or that he went on missionary journeys to the places Acts mentions, or that he wrote letters to those churches, or that he was arrested in Jerusalem, or that he was held in Caesarea for a time, or that he was taken to Rome as a prisoner. The basic historical picture of Acts is reliable, and no scholar really challenges that.
Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. 13 None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem. 14 Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, 15 so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by. 16 A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured. —Acts 5
Do you believe that all the claims in this passage are accepted as historical facts by most scholars, in particular, that people in Jerusalem were healed by Peter’s shadow?
I believe the early believers in Jerusalem met in Solomon’s Portico and healings and exorcisms occurred in some fashion.
But you admit that this particular story about Peter’s shadow may be non-historical, right? You admit that probably no scholar on the planet would claim that this story about Peter’s shadow is an historical fact, right?
If so, then you have contradicted your claim above which was: “The scholarly consensus is that Acts is historically reliable.”
Most scholars may believe that Paul existed, that he traveled to the cities listed in Acts, and that he wrote epistles to some of these churches, but to claim that most scholars (not just most evangelical scholars) believe that Acts is historically reliable in the sense of a modern history text of a modern biography is just not true, Joel. Do you really claim that most scholars believe that it is an historical fact that:
–Jesus levitated into the clouds in front of his disciples on a mountain outside of Bethany?
–that Peter preached in the Temple and that thousands of Jews converted on Pentecost.
–that Peter’s shadow healed the sick.
–that Paul saw a bright light and heard a voice on the Damascus Road.
etc, etc,
Is so, please provide the source, author, and page.
Gary, I’m afraid this is getting almost as tiresome of Art-what’s-his-name. It boils down to the fact that you simply don’t believe the miraculous claims mentioned in the Bible. Your view is, “Okay, the general historical picture is reliable, but I don’t believe the miraculous stuff because I don’t believe God exists and I don’t believe miracles happen.” Fine. But the fact is we have documents that do, in fact, relate very reliable historical information, and within those very documents are miraculous claims, right alongside the clearly historically reliable stuff. Christians (and loads of Christian scholars) believe them to be historical, every bit as much as the other stuff. Atheists don’t.
For example, concerning the ascension, Christian scholars (including myself) will say we shouldn’t read that like Jesus literally “did a Superman,” just as we shouldn’t think that heaven is literally in the clouds. Whatever happened, the point was that the resurrected Christ really did talk with and teach the disciples for a short time after his resurrection, and then no more. And shortly after that, they experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus had said would happen.
But what it really boils down to for you is this: “I don’t believe the miracle stuff because I don’t believe the miracle stuff.” Okay, I get that. Stop beating a dead horse.
Just because most historians believe that the Greek-Trojan War was a real historical event; that the Greek and Asian cities mentioned in “The Iliad” were real cities; that some of the Greek kings and Trojan kings mentioned in The Iliad were real historical persons, does not in any way prove that most historians believe that one-eyed Cyclops exist or that some men can be robbed of their supernatural powers by shooting an arrow into their heel.
Ancient texts often combined history with fantasy and allegory.
Based on these facts, I suggest that we take the story of the magical powers of Simon Peter’s shadow (and Jesus’ levitation into outer space) with the same level of seriousness that we take Homer’s stories of Cyclops and supernaturally endowed demi-gods.
If you can’t tell the difference between The Iliad and the Gospels and Acts, I can’t help you.
GARY: This is simply not true, Joel. There may be some historically accurate material in the Book of Acts, but the overwhelming majority of (non-evangelical) scholars do not believe that we can read the Book of Acts as if it were a modern biography, accepting as fact every detail.
LEE: We don’t believe that, either. Neither of us has argued that Acts can be read as if were a modern historical work (not a biography). One of our main contentions is that too many skeptics do, in fact, try to read the NT as they would a historical chronicle by William Shirer’s *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,* which is a mistake.
Probably *most* NT scholars do view the majority of Acts as historically accurate.
You’re making waay too much out of the statements of Michael Licona and other conservative scholars. “Embellishment” doesn’t equal “total historical fiction.”
70 years ago one criticism against Acts’ historicity was that no such city officials for the city of Thessalonica, called *politarchs,* as attested in Acts 17, existed. And then they discovered archeological inscriptions at Thessalonica which referenced politarchs.
Pax.
Lee.
“Gary, I’m afraid this is getting almost as tiresome of Art-what’s-his-name. It boils down to the fact that you simply don’t believe the miraculous claims mentioned in the Bible.”
I hear you, Joel. This is my last comment on this thread. I don’t want to annoy you.
Why should people believe in the supernatural claims of the Bible when even conservative/moderate Christians like yourself agree that some of these supernatural tales are not historical (the Creation Story, for instance). You ask us to trust you and other conservative/moderate Christian theologians to determine which of these stories are historical and which stories are not. What people need to ask themselves is: How can anyone really know??
Genre recognition. I don’t ask anyone just to trust me when it comes to Genesis 1-11. I’ve written a whole lot of posts on that topic and have included a chapter on that very thing in my book. How can people know whether or not the parable of the Good Samaritan was historical or not? Well, it’s a parable–therefore, it isn’t presented as history. Understanding the genre and style of writing is not impossible to do. Job is not a historical narrative. How do we know that? In the Hebrew Bible, it is listed among the Wisdom Literature, right along Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Just because some modern people are unaware of ancient genre doesn’t mean it cannot be known. You just need to do a bit of study.
https://www.amazon.com/Biblical-History-Israel-Second/dp/0664239137/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=iain+provan&qid=1559841901&s=gateway&sr=8-3
Arky, from this point forward, any and everything you write will be deleted. And by all means, convince yourself that the reason isn’t because you have been a conceited, belligerent troll. Wrap yourself up in your snug confirmation bias blanket.
Here is a challenge for you, Joel: Provide evidence that even ONE first century Christian was claiming that he or she had seen the literal body of the resurrected Jesus, while awake, with their own two eyes (a literal sighting) prior to circa 80-90 CE, the writing of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
You can’t.
The Early Creed makes no such explicit claim. Paul makes no such explicit claim in his epistles. And since even NT Wright agrees that “opthe” can mean “to see in a vision”, it is entirely possible that all claims of appearances by Jesus involved non-literal sightings such as dreams, daydreams, trances, hallucinations, or even illusions.
Just because the earliest Christians believed Jesus had been bodily resurrection is not evidence that any of them ever claimed to have seen with their own two eyes, while awake, a literal resurrected body.
And that is the great weakness of your belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus: there is no good evidence than anyone claimed to have seen a literal body until more than FIFTY years after Jesus’ death!
Yep, when you ignore the gospels, it is really hard to provide written evidence that the disciples witnessed the resurrection. It is amazing what one can conclude if one discounts the evidence we do have.
If we had a written account from Peter himself that was dated to 35 AD, you’d still discount it and say he just mistook a vision for the actual resurrected Jesus.
And again, to be clear, you are discounting the reliability of the gospels, ignoring what “resurrection” meant to 1st century Jews, and are mischaracterizing what scholars like Brown and Wright are saying.
And again, no one is claiming the only ones in the 1st century who believed Jesus rose from the dead were ones who actually witnessed it.
And you’ve continued to ignore Lee’s challenge about accounting for the rise of Christianity without a resurrection.
“Yep, when you ignore the gospels, it is really hard to provide written evidence that the disciples witnessed the resurrection.”
I’m not ignoring the Gospel of Mark, the very first Gospel, according to the overwhelming consensus of scholars; the Gospel upon which most of Matthew and Luke is based, often word for word. And the original Gospel of Mark makes ZERO mention of anyone seeing a resurrected body.
It is amazing that you appeal to three books (Matthew, Luke, and John) as trustworthy historical sources which the majority of scholars believe to have been written by non-eyewitness/non-associates of eyewitnesses; persons at least one and maybe more generations removed from the alleged events they describe. In addition, the consensus of scholars is that these books were written in the genre of Greco-Roman biography, a genre which allowed for embellishments (fictional details). ALL scholars other than fundamentalists believe that some of the stories in the Gospels are embellishments (non-historical, fiction). Therefore, since these authors were not eyewitnesses or the associates of eyewitnesses, AND they were writing approximately FIFTY years or more after the death of Jesus, AND they were writing in a genre which allowed for embellishments, AND the fact that the Appearance Stories in Matthew and Luke (whom most scholars believe did not know of the existence of each other’s gospels) are so very, very different…it is entirely plausible that NO ONE was claiming that anyone had seen a walking, talking body until late in the first century!
You have ZERO evidence that anyone between the time of Jesus’ death (c. 30 CE) and the writing of Matthew/Luke in (c. 80-90 CE) knew anything about a walking, talking, broiled-fish eating, resurrected body. All you have is conjecture and assumptions.
“If we had a written account from Peter himself that was dated to 35 AD, you’d still discount it and say he just mistook a vision for the actual resurrected Jesus.”
Strawman argument. Beneath you.
“you are…ignoring what “resurrection” meant to 1st century Jews, and are mischaracterizing what scholars like Brown and Wright are saying.
Nonsense. Resurrection to most first century Jews meant “bodily resurrection”. But again, we have proof from the story of Paul’s conversion on the Damascus Road that one does not need to see a resurrected body to believe that a body has been resurrected.
The tomb was empty—>speculation began about why—>someone had a dream or vision in which Jesus appeared to him telling him he was risen from the dead—>”risen from the dead” quickly morphed into “resurrected from the dead” with the twist that the general resurrection would occur in stages: the first stage was Jesus, the first fruits, the second stage was everyone else.
This scenario is plausible because this is what happens with the development of every new cult. They take a concept from the mother religion (resurrection) and give it a new twist.
I have not mischaracterized Wright or Brown. I gave you their word for word quotes. I never said that either one of them denied the bodily resurrection or that they did not believe that Jesus appeared to his followers in bodily form. But no where do they claim that their belief in the supernatural resurrection of Jesus is based on evidence alone. Both state that their belief in this event is based on evidence PLUS faith. Historians never ask people to believe in Alexander the Great’s destruction of Tyre by evidence PLUS faith. Remove faith from the equation and the evidence for the bodily resurrection of a first century corpse is pitiful.
“And you’ve continued to ignore Lee’s challenge about accounting for the rise of Christianity without a resurrection.”
Hundreds of new religions, cults, and sects have begun due to very sincere, good people being sincerely MISTAKEN. That is what I believe happened. An empty tomb triggered dreams and false sightings of Jesus, which eventually led to the belief in his resurrection. The belief that Jesus was the first stage of the resurrection as the “first fruits” fueled emotional hysteria among these poor. oppressed first century Jews: “The new Kingdom will break through any day; the Romans will be destroyed; Jesus will sit on David’s throne; and WE will sit next to him as princes! Sell all your belongings; move to the city of David, Jerusalem; live together in a commune; you don’t need a house; fast and pray; Jesus’ return will happen at any moment!!!”
I see it is useless to continue with this discussion. We are just going round in circles. My advice to you is this: Okay, you’re no longer a Christian. Stop obsessing over it. Go live your life. But I’m quite frankly tired of this.
Yes, you are mischaracterizing Brown and Wright; no, your proposed answer to the origins of Christianity are not based in fact or history; yes, you are also misunderstanding what scholars say about the Gospels as ancient historical biographies; and finally, when Paul says Christ died, was buried, and raised on the third day, he is speaking of being resurrected, and (AGAIN) that meant bodily resurrection; and so when he then says that the resurrected Christ appeared to Peter, the 12, and to 500, a rational person would take that to mean that Paul means the resurrected Christ actually spoke with and was with Peter, the 12, and the 500–not appeared in a dream or vision; an actual physical encounter of some sort. Yes, “appeared” in some context COULD mean as in a vision; but in the context of speaking of a RESURRECTED Christ, the context determine the meaning of “appeared.”
You are twisting everything up into a pretzel to try to get around the plain meaning of the texts we have so you can throw out your own baseless assertion that is lacking in any evidence whatsoever.
Again, if I was an atheist, I’d move on with my life. Your obsession with this strikes me as really strange.
“Your obsession with this strikes me as really strange.”
–The topic fascinates me since it was such a huge part of my life at one point in time.
–I enjoy debating.
–I am part of one of the greatest movements in human history: the debunking of fear-based religious superstitions.
–As an ex-member of your cult, I feel an obligation to help other cult members see the real truth. I see myself as an evangelist.
Joel: You can make up all the excuses you want but you have not provided any evidence of anyone in the first FIFTY years after Jesus’ death claiming to have seen a resurrected BODY. The evidence for this ancient superstition is weak. Very weak. No modern, educated person should believe that these tall tales really happened. The supernatural exploits of Jesus are no more believable than the supernatural exploits of Peter Pan.
Believe this stuff by faith (wishful thinking), if you wish. But don’t claim to believe it by good evidence. No such evidence exists. The truth is, my friend, like most Christians, you believe these tall tales for emotional reasons. You’ve been through some hard times. This supernatural belief system gives you hope, comfort, and security. But it is a cult, my friend. If you value truth, give up the comfort and security of the cult and escape to a world based on reason and rational thought!
Peace and happiness to you, Joel.
Gary: “I see myself as an evangelist.”
Thank you for finally admitting that…like I said, you have the mindset of a Fundamentalist evangelist street preacher.
By chance, what specific early creed are you referring to?
Paul of Tarsus, in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15:
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received:
–Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures
–and that he was buried
–and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,
–and that he appeared to Cephas,
–then to the twelve.
–Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters[c] at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.[d]
–Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
Paul then adds his own appearance of Jesus claim to this “early creed”.
“Thank you for finally admitting that…like I said, you have the mindset of a Fundamentalist evangelist street preacher.”
I liken myself to the sower in the Parable of the Sower: I cast the seed of reason and non-supernatural thinking wherever I can. Sometimes the seed falls on fertile ground and takes root. Sometimes it falls on the rocks and dies. I cannot control the outcome, but I can continue to cast the seed.
I hope that one day, Joel, you will find the freedom that comes with discovering that capricious gods and devils do NOT control your life or destiny. Your life is what you and random chance make of it. Come and visit me on my blog anytime! I do not moderate comments and I am never bothered by Christian efforts to evangelize me. I enjoy the discussion. Take care, my Christian friend!
Great Job Gary! I read the entire thread and it is obvious your reasoning is sound. 50-year window for a single eyewitness was generous, in my opinion, due to shorter life expectancy. Keep planting those seeds brother.