We now come to the last installment of my extended book analysis of Dan Barker’s godless. In this post, we will look at Barker’s argument that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead. Now, to be sure, the claim that Jesus rose from the dead certainly is one of the most extraordinary claims in history. And, to be sure, it cannot be scientifically proven or reduplicated. Nevertheless, though, the claim in there, smack dab in the middle of ancient historical biographies we call the gospels. How do we go about dealing with this claim? Well, for one, let me suggest not going about it in the way Barker does. That being said, let’s look at how he goes about making his argument that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.
“Spiritual” Resurrection?
One of the first things Barker does is try to convince us that the elaborate “myth” we now have in the gospels developed from some sort of original story within the span of about 60-70 years. He claims that the earliest Christians “believed in the ‘spiritual’ resurrection of Jesus,” but then, “during the 60 to 70 years it took for the Gospels to be composed, the original story went through a growth period that began with the unadorned idea that Jesus, like Grandma, had ‘died and gone to heaven.’ It ended with a fantastic narrative produced by a later generation of believers that included earthquakes, angels, and eclipse, a resuscitated corpse and a spectacular bodily ascension into the clouds” (277-278).
Related to this is another odd reason why Barker doesn’t believe that Jesus was actually resurrected was because he claims that by the time the earliest gospel of Mark was written (40 years after the events described in the gospels), “Almost all adults who were alive in the year 30 CE were dead by then.” (296). Barker then thanks Richard Carrier for that data in a footnote. And then, later, he asks, “How did the disciples survive the alleged persecution and torture to live long enough to write those books?” (299).
This is the basic narrative that mythicists like Barker put forth: there may have been a guy named Jesus who died, but originally, the earliest Christians simply said he had “gone to heaven” and was “spiritually” resurrected. But then a generation later, when all those original Christians were dead, a new group of elites re-wrote the story to make it sound like Jesus was literally bodily resurrected within history. As to why a later group of elites would do this, although Barker doesn’t go into it, his fellow mythicist Richard Carrier argues that they felt it would be able to bring in more pagan converts, because it sounded so much like other pagan stories of dying and rising gods.
A number of points are in order. First, this claim of Barker flies in the face of his other claim, namely that Christianity was a second century phenomenon. How can he claim that Christianity was a second century phenomenon and that there was no group of Christians in the first century, but then turn around and argue that the gospels were written around 70-90 AD and they represent the claims of a second generation of Christian elites who intentionally distorted the original Christian claims in order to appeal to pagans more? That simply makes no sense.
Second, and this is crucial to know, within second Temple/first century Judaism, there was no such belief in a “spiritual” resurrection. By very definition, the Jewish belief in the resurrection was a belief in a bodily resurrection. It was not a belief that one “dies and goes to heaven.” It was a belief that when God final establishes His kingdom on earth, that that righteous who have died will be bodily raised and transformed. The Christian claim of Jesus’ resurrection is a claim that the long-awaited resurrection that the Jews had been hoping for had happened in a way they were not expecting. It was the resurrection of the Messiah that acted as the “firstfruits” of God’s new creation; the full resurrection of all and the consummation of the new creation would happen at some point in the future—it is what New Testament scholars call the Already/Not Yet worldview of early Christianity. That is a whole topic in and of itself, but for our purposes, one thing needs to be made clear: the claim of the bodily resurrection of Jesus comes from a thoroughly Jewish belief in the resurrection of the body, not some Platonic “shedding this mortal coil” belief where the body decays but the person’s spirit is now the equivalent of Casper the friendly ghost in heaven.
Third, there simply is zero evidence that there was any kind of “evolution” of the Jesus story within a time span of 60 years. It just isn’t there. There is zero evidence that what Barker is asserting is true.
Resurrection Contradictions?
Another thing Barker does is to say that since the various resurrection accounts in the gospels do not agree in every single detail, that they are therefore contradictory and unreliable. There have been plenty of responses to this accusation, like different witnesses at a car accident will see different details—that doesn’t mean their accounts are contradictory. While that is true, I think one simply needs to realize that the gospel writers were not doing newspaper reporting. Yes, they were relating actual, historical events, but they weren’t trying to give “just the facts.” They were also writers and storytellers. The easiest analogy would be to consider what movie directors do when they make a movie of a historical event. Yes, it is history, but at the same time they are using artistic license and are shaping the story in a certain way.
Therefore, the differences we see in the resurrection accounts aren’t so much contradictions as they are examples of the writers using a certain amount of artistic license. For example, in Mark, the “young man dressed in a white robe” acts as a contrasting parallel to the “young man” in 14:51 whose linen cloth was ripped off as he escaped during the arrest of Jesus. The point is simple: if one reads the Bible with such a wooden literalism, assuming it is doing “just the facts” news reporting, then one is bound to misread and misinterpret it. Therefore, when Barker says, “I have challenged believers to provide a simple non-contradictory chronological narrative of the events between Easter Sunday and the ascension, without omitting a single biblical detail” (290), it is a red herring. You can’t because not all the details are meant to be taken as “just the facts.” It is like challenging someone to proof that Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night is a realistic, photographic depiction of the night sky. You can’t, because it isn’t attempting to be a realistic, photographic depiction—it is an impressionist painting. Still, only a fool can’t realize that the painting is of the night sky.
I Corinthians 15?
But what about I Corinthians 15, where Paul devotes an entire chapter to not only defending the bodily resurrection of Jesus, but the centrality of the resurrection to the Christian faith? Well, Barker isn’t buying it because he feels it being written 25 years after the supposed events to people living 1500 miles away just screams “legend” and not “bodily resurrection.” The 500 people Paul mentions? Nope—the Corinthian believers had no way to confirm that.
In addition, Barker makes a big deal that Paul doesn’t mention a tomb: “Since Paul does not mention a tomb, we can hardly conclude with confidence he was thinking of an ‘empty tomb.’ Neither is there a resurrection in this passage. The word ‘raised’ is egeiro, which means to ‘wake up’ or ‘come to.’ …Whatever Paul may have believed happened to Jesus, he did not say that his revived body came out of a tomb” (294).
Well, to the point, what Barker is saying isn’t true. The Greek word egeiro is used countless times in the gospels to denote actual resurrection. Therefore, when he also says, “The physical body is not important to Christian theology” (295), that just is nonsensical. In I Corinthians 15, we have Paul, a Pharisee, talking about the centrality of Christ’s resurrection to the Christian faith—and the Pharisaic belief was that “resurrection” entailed an actual, bodily resurrection—how Barker can conclude that (a) “resurrection” didn’t mean a bodily resurrection, and (b) it was therefore not important to Christian theology is just astounding.
A Proposed Explanation
There is obviously more in Barker’s chapter that can be addressed, but after you realize that Barker’s claims regarding (a) a “spiritual” resurrection, (b) the supposed imaginary evolution of the story within the span of 60 years, (c) the supposed contradictions in the resurrection accounts, (d) Paul knowing nothing about a bodily resurrection, and (e) the meaning of the Greek word egeiro—at some point, the proof that he is wrong on every count is obvious.
That being said, there is one more rather absurd claim he puts forth as to how the belief in a bodily resurrection really got started. He takes it from the mythicist Robert Price. The claim goes something like this. After Jesus’s crucifixion, Peter is distraught over denying Jesus…
Wait…right there—so are Barker and Price acknowledging there was a historical Jesus who was really crucified and whom a historical Peter really denied? Where did they get that information? From the gospels they claim were written in the late first century by Christian elites who took the original belief of a spiritually resurrected Jesus and changed it to sound like there was a historical Jesus who was bodily resurrected? And all this took place in the first century, but there was no such thing a Christianity or a group known as Christians until the second century?
Well now, talk about being unbelievable, contradictory, and illogical…oh well, go on…
Anyway, “Believing in God and the survival of the soul, Peter prays to Jesus, ‘I’m sorry. Forgive me.’ (Or something like that.) Then Peter gets an answer: ‘I’m here. I forgive you.’ (Or something like that.) Then Peter triumphantly tells his friends, ‘I talked with Jesus! He is not dead! I am forgiven!’ His friends say, ‘Peter talked with Jesus? Peter met Jesus? He’s alive! It’s a spiritual kingdom!” (Or something like that.) Paul then lists Peter as the first person to whom Christ ‘appeared’” (302).
That’s it—that, according to the mythicist Robert Price (and endorsed by Dan Barker), that is how belief in the resurrection got started. Let’s just cut to the chase: that is silly. If someone responses with, “Is it any more unbelievable that the claim Jesus was bodily resurrected?” my answer is a resounding, “YES!” You may not believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected, but everything in both the New Testament and post-apostolic writing—both from the Church Fathers and Roman historians—points to the fact that the early Christian claim from the very beginning was that Jesus was a historical person, that he really was crucified and buried, and that he really bodily rose from the dead. You can choose to believe it isn’t true, but you can’t put forth such mythicist nonsense and retain any shred of credibility.
Conclusion
Barker ends the chapter with the kind of deception that I mentioned at the end of my last post. He claims “Bible scholars conclude: ‘On the bases of a close analysis of all the resurrection reports, [we] decided that the resurrection of Jesus was not perceived initially to depend on what happened to his body. The body of Jesus probably decayed, as do all corpses. The resurrection of Jesus was not an event that could have been captured by a video camera… [We] conclude that it does not seem necessary for Christians to believe the literal veracity of any of the later appearance narratives.’”
Want to guess who these Bible scholars are? If you guessed The Jesus Seminar, you’d be right! And no, they do not represent mainstream scholarship and the majority opinion of biblical scholars. They represent a fringe group that toys with mythicism and the new atheism.
To say that Barker’s book is deficient in all aspects is an understatement. Ultimately, these are the two most important takeaways from the book:
1. Barker’s book is an indictment on the Christian Fundamentalism that has dominated much of Evangelicalism for the past 50+ years. What he is really attacking is that—and it does need to be attacked, because it is a poor and shallow caricature and distortion of the historical Christian faith. Atheists like Barker come from the Christian Fundamentalist movement. At some point they realize the answers Fundamentalism gives are thin, shallow, simplistic, and outright wrong. Not surprisingly, they walk away from it, as they should. And that leads me to the second takeaway…
2. At the same time, Barker’s book displays the very same Fundamentalist mindset as the Christian Fundamentalism he left so long ago. He still thinks in the same categories and reasons in the same dogmatic ways. He is still a Fundamentalist, he’s just switched teams.
I will be debating Dan Barker in April over a variety of topics, from morality, life after death, free will, and a few others. When it is over, I will be writing another series that focuses on his new book Mere Morality.
Great summation.
Does/how does Barker deal with the annoying (for his position) fact that nearly all NT scholars, whether Christians, Jews, or atheists, believe that I Corinthians 15:3-7 is an early Christian hymn or credal statement which dates to ca. 35-38 AD? In other words, in I Corinthians 15, written ca. 55 AD, Paul was quoting material that dates to a few years after Jesus’ death claiming Jesus was resurrected. Not proof that Jesus *was* bodily resurrected, but proof that the first generation of Christians *thought* he was bodily resurrected.
And Bart Ehrman has recently decided that since I Corinthians 15 doesn’t specifically reference a tomb, that Jesus probably wasn’t buried however Craig Evans answered those objections in an article in the anthology *How God Became Jesus,* which was designed to be a companion volume by conservative scholars to Ehrman’s *How Jesus Became God.*
As for Christianity itself, as NT Wright asks in many of his works, how do you explain the formation of the church if Jesus wasn’t resurrected? Because, as Wright points out, every other Jewish messianic movement we know of imploded with the death of the founder. Because as every 1st century, Second Temple messianic Jew knew, a *dead* messiah was a *false* messiah. A crucified, resurrected messiah was not on anyone’s radar (except Jesus’), so the idea that any pious messianic Jew would claim that the messiah had died but was figuratively resurrected and now lived in his heart, is historically anachronistic and patently absurd. I’m amazed Price and the other Seminar Fellows could make this argument with straight faces.
Jewish belief in a bodily resurrection goes all the way back at least to the Maccabees if not even earlier.
Pax.
Lee.
Yep. There is a lot more I could have said, but it boils down to the fact that Barker is really just haphazardly throwing anything against the wall to see if anything sticks, without any regard for trying to consider the historical context and realities of 1st century Judaism.
I thought Dan’s point would be much simpler. “The Resurrection couldn’t occur because there was no Jesus to come back from the dead.” He can’t keep his arguments straight.
Thanks for this, Joel. What is your ‘take’ on Matthew 27:52-3, specifically regarding its historicity?
Bradley,
A simple and honest answer would have to be, “I’m not completely sure.” It could be metaphorical as a way to declare that the long awaited Kingdom of God/Turn of the Ages had begun (The Jews were looking forward to a coming Messiah who would usher in the Kingdom of God, and that would coincide with the resurrection of the dead). Or it could be a combination of that, along with a recognition that perhaps some people claimed to have been visited by formerly dead relatives at that time. Perhaps a few “weird” things happened, and Matthew is acknowledging them and tying it in with his belief that the death and resurrection of Jesus HAD ushered in the Kingdom of God IN PART.
But one thing I am sure of: this is not a description of a “zombie hoard,” although many mythicists and atheists like to claim that is what it is talking about, as a way to mock the Bible. No, it’s not about zombies. lol
Plus, these works like Barker’s seem to be targeted to a non-specialist, popular audience that hasn’t read much, if anything in the primary or secondary sources. Yet, again, even Bart Ehrman believes Jesus existed, and thinks Jesus-mythers are crazy.
Pax.
Lee.
These books seem to be targeted to popular audiences, whose only real knowledge of the subject are the Jesus documentaries on PBS and cable every year at Easter. But again, even Bart Ehrman believes Jesus existed and thinks the Jesus-mythers are crazy.
Pax.
Lee.
I think Dan believes there is a good chance that Jesus never existed, but he goes on to explain what might have happened is indeed he did exist. Just covering as many bases as possible.
There is evidence that the resurrection story was created and then embellished.
The earliest manuscripts of Mark, the first written gospel, mention no post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. The man at the tomb simply tells the women that he is risen. But out of fear, they don’t tell anyone about it.
Later, in Matthew and Luke, we now actually have resurrection appearances, but they are not compatible, indicating that two different traditions about this post-resurrection appearances arose and were reported in these two gospels. The most incompatible difference is that Matthew says the disciples were told to meet Jesus in Galilee, which they do. In Luke, Jesus appears to the disciples in Jerusalem and tells them to stay there until Pentecost. There is no indication at all that they went to Galilee.
In John a third tradition is indicated. The disciples had gone back to fishing in Galilee when Jesus appears to them. There was no indication that they were attempting to start a ministry.
Randy,
A brief response:
1. To not believe Jesus was divine or rose from the dead–I get that. But to not think there was a historical Jesus as described in the Gospels is really out there. 99.9% of scholars and historians agree that there was a historical Jesus, that he led a Messianic movement of some sort, that he had 12 disciples, that he had the reputation of being a healer, that he was crucified by Pilate on the eve of Passover (either 30 or 33 AD), and that his followers CLAIMED he rose from the dead shortly after that. It really is the fringe mythicists who deny those basic facts.
2. I don’t think there is any evidence that the resurrection story was created and later embellished. The argument is based on the occasional letters of Paul, in which he was addressing specific questions and issues of particular churches at a particular time. It would be like someone having a copy of a few of my letters to a few people in which I talked about various issues, but didn’t happen to write about the resurrection–and then that person concluding that I held no belief in the resurrection because I didn’t mention in a few letters.
3. Yes, the earliest manuscripts of Mark we have don’t have the post-resurrection appearances, but that doesn’t mean Mark didn’t believe Jesus was resurrected. Indeed, even in the shorter ending, the women are told he was resurrected. The original ending could have been lost or torn off. Who knows? There is also the point to consider that Matthew and Luke were both written around the time of Mark, so it wasn’t like a long time had passed. Even if you just take the synoptic gospels, and consider that they were all written close to each other, it still is obvious that the actual physical resurrection of Jesus was emphasized from very early on.
4. As for the differences between Matthew and Luke, they had literary license to later smaller details to fit in with their overall story. Luke has them stay in Jerusalem because he’s writing “Part 2” (Acts) that starts in Jerusalem at Pentecost. He didn’t feel it necessary to have the disciples go back to Galilee for a few weeks, and then return for Pentecost. It just wasn’t need for the purposes of what he was doing. As it stands, I don’t know any scholars (outside of the more extreme mythicists) who don’t believe that the “Christian movement” began shortly after the death of Jesus, and essentially got kick-started at Pentecost that same year. Whether or not the disciples went back to Galilee for a few weeks is rather irrelevant.
1. A agree it is an extreme position to say Jesus didn’t exist. I was just trying to explain why Dan would be arguing that Jesus did not exist and then assume his existence when talking about the resurrection.
2. I just gave you evidence.
3. Perhaps the end of Mark was lost. But we have to base what we know on what exists.
4. The difference in Matthew and Luke is not trivial. It is a MAJOR discrepancy. You give too much leeway to the authors. They are reporting these events as historical. In Matthew, the disciples don’t even see the resurrected Jesus until they go to Galilee. In Luke they see him the day of the resurrection. Jesus tells them to stay in Jerusalem until Pentecost. By all indications they do just that. This is a far cry from Matthew’s account. Of course they can be reconciled if you allow an infinite amount of bending. All religions can be reconciled if that is allowed.
Okay, we can strike #1 off…
2. Not sure what evidence you’ve given that the resurrection story is a later embellishment.
3. But you also have to base it on the realization that Mark, Matthew, and Luke were all pretty much written around the same time. If scholars deemed Mark to have been written in, let’s say 35 AD, and if Paul NEVER mentioned Jesus’ resurrection, and THEN if along comes Matthew, Luke, and John with post-resurrection appearances, then that would be the beginning of an argument. But as it stands, that’s not the case. To point to Mark’s gospel, in which the earliest manuscript we have doesn’t have a post-resurreciton appearance, and to claim that the post-resurreciton appearances in Matthew and Luke are later embellishments, when Matthew and Luke weren’t necesarry “later” is a pretty shaky argument.
4. This is something you don’t get about the way history writing was done in the ancient world. Don’t think that the only way to write about history is as a “reporter.” They did their history much more like a movie director doing a movie about a historical event–they were free to tweak certain things to fit in with the shape of their story. Let’s take “Hacksaw Ridge” as an example. Mel Gibson changed a number of “facts” to fit his story: The fight that convinced Desmond Doss to be against fighting was between his dad and his uncle, not between his dad and is mom; Dorthy, his wife, was not a nurse when they met; Doss was threatened with a court martial, but never was court martialed; Desmond’s father never contacted his former commanding officer from WWII to write a letter to support Desmond in his court martial.
But no one is going to deny the historical reliabilty of the basic, fundamental claims about Private Doss in WWII. Therefore, pointing to whether the disciples saw Jesus in Galilee or Jerusalem is really a weak point to then say, “Therefore, NONE of the resurrection accounts can be trusted.”
Basically, it comes down to whether or not you see the gospel writer as “just the facts” journalists reporting on a war or as movie directors doing a movie about a war.
3. I thought most scholars believed that much of Mark was used in the writings of Luke and Matthew. If so, it would have to have time to circulate around and reach the other future writers. But even if that’s not true, there could be several traditions that arose about the resurrection that got written down by different writers. Having divergent stories is evidence, for me at least, that the stories were made up, especially if one of them doesn’t even mention any resurrection appearances. Given the times that I have seen as estimates of these writings, they were most likely written at various places in Europe since Jerusalem would have already been destroyed. They could have been written by people who had only heard the stories second, third, or more hand.
4. What you say is fine if the stories were written for our entertainment. But, it seems weird if our eternal salvation is based on our belief in the right things about Jesus. To me, seeing these radically different resurrection stories, one of which has no appearances, prompts me to question the stories in their entirety as being myths that were constructed over the 40-60 years between Jesus’ life and the times of the writings. Even with today’s advanced technology, myths can be created very quickly and have sustaining power. I believe it was more so 2000 years ago.
3. Basically, it is quite clear that Matthew took Mark, kept pretty much the entire structure of it, and then made explicit many of the things Mark made implicit. He clarifies a number of things that are in Mark, but some readers might miss. Luke has a lot of Mark’s material, but has a very different structure to his entire gospel. In any case, I see in your comments quite a lot of assumptions that don’t really fit with what we know of the earliest Christian communities. In the first century, the Christian movement was still REALLY small. According to estimates, there probably were only about 140,000 Christians by 150 AD. Rodney Stark estimates there were probably only a few thousand by 70 AD. What that means is that, contrary to some claims, the idea that there were vast amounts of divergent traditions simply isn’t feasible: small groups of Christian communities throughout the empire who communicated with each other (i.e. Paul’s letters were distributed by the churches). Most of the early Church leaders were still around by the 60s. Put that (as well as other things) together, it is quite clear that the Christian story found in the Gospels (circa 70 AD) reflected the Christian proclamation that was there from the start. The apostles and earliest Christians made the claim that Jesus was bodily resurrected. Again, one can choose not to believe it, but I don’t see how one can honestly think that wasn’t the actual claim the earliest Christians made. Just say, “I don’t believe it.” But don’t say, “Oh, I don’t think they really claimed that in the beginning,” because there literally is no evidence that they never did claim Jesus was resurrected.
4. It’s not a matter of “writing for entertainment.” It just is a fact: we are creative beings and we learn about our world much more through stories and creative means than through lists of facts and textbooks. EVEN TODAY, in supposed “documentaries,” a story is being told–that is why people watch them. And remember, even in that one Gospel where the earliest manuscript doesn’t have any resurrection appearances, it still clearly declares that Jesus was resurrected, and in the Jewish worldview, “resurrection” meant BODILY resurrection. And finally, “myth” is not the proper way to describe them, even if you don’t believe them to be true. Myth is a specific genre of ancient literature about “the gods” in the realm of the gods; they aren’t seen as historical at all. And it is just a fact that the synoptic gospels are acknowledged to be ancient historical biographies–that is their genre.
A follow up about the book of John. What I meant to say was that there was no indication that the disciples were starting a ministry after seeing the resurrected Jesus in Jerusalem.
Hi Randy.
A few thoughts. Okay, not a “few” thoughts. : )
Dr. Anderson is right The ancients didn’t write the kind of historical biography that we’d write. We have to think like the ancients who wrote/read the gospels. As Magnolia’s minister Jimmy Hayes says, though the gospels were written *for* us they weren’t written *to* us. You can’t read the gospels the way you’d read David Fraser’s biography of Erwin Rommel.
As the Doc says, tradents (story-tellers) in the ancient world were free to rearrange.their material and to perhaps “tweak” it with peripheral details, but because the transmission of this material was done within/for a larger community, which depended upon the accuracy of the material, if the tradents dropped/added anything important he/she/they could be corrected. That’s one reason the gospel material isn’t always arranged chronologically.
As for the resurrection, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees here. To insist that *all* of the peripheral details *must* harmonize completely, is again, to misunderstand how ancient historians worked.
As Prof. Richard Bauckham says, the very fact that with regards to the resurrection the four gospels *don’t* read as if they were carefully written and edited, is one factor that argues for the general authenticity of their accounts; because the gospel resurrection accounts read as if they were written by people who haven’t had the time to think carefully about what happened or what it meant, who hadn’t had the time to sort everything out.and edit these narratives they way they had, say, the Sermon on the Mount or Jesus’ teaching on the destruction of the Temple found in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. You want some minor details to vary. Say you have a wreck which one eyewitness describes as occurring at 2:45 pm, and involving a blue Toyota and a red Ford, while another eyewitness claims it happened at 2:30 pm and involved does that invalidate the whole account?
And though one gospel may list certain women coming to the tomb, while another lists different women, they *all* say that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection, and *all* of them say Mary Magdalene was there. This fact is hugely important because if the gospel authors were faking the resurrection accounts, they would NEVER have made women the first witnesses to the resurrection. Because in the ancient Jewish world the testimony of women on such matters wasn’t very highly regarded. And indeed, a hundred years later the pagan philosopher and critic of Christianity Celsus was making fun of Christianity for that very reason (among others), the fact that the first witnesses to it’s central miracle were a group of hysterical women.
So all of the gospels harmonize on the essential facts: Mary Magdalene and some other women (it doesn’t really matter how many or who, because to an ancient what would stand out was that *any* women were there, and *no* men) go to the tomb; an angel tells them he’s been resurrected; they tell the disciples, who then promptly tell these women that they’re off their rockers. Which itself is important, the fact the fact that the gospels each portray the disciples as essentially clueless regarding not only the death, but also the resurrection. I mean, the disciples come off in the gospels as impetuous, quarreling, at times dim-witted cowards who (all but John) get out of Dodge when Jesus gets arrested (even though they vowed to fight if necessary). Then three days later when the WOMEN, who, remarkably, DID stick by him, tell the lads that Jesus is alive again, they won’t believe them. It’s what academic historians refer to as the criterion of embarrassment. In other words, people telling tall tales don’t normally tell stories that would tend to weaken their credibility or make them look foolish. So why would the disciples allow themselves to be portrayed in such a negative light in all four gospels then allow themselves to be one-upped by a group of WOMEN?
More later.
Pax vobiscum.
Lee.
As for the disciples not immediately starting a ministry after Jesus’ resurrection, that, too reads as 100% genuine to me. Because none of the disciples were expecting a) Jesus to be crucified b) Jesus to be then resurrected from the dead, *ahead* of everyone else in the middle of history. As every pious 2nd Temple messianic Jew knew, a dead messiah was a false messiah. So even though he alluded to both his impending death and resurrection in the gospels, Jesus’ death and resurrection were not really on anyone’s radar because it was such a radical, counter-intuitive thing to get their heads around. The disciples the resurrected Jesus encounters on the road to Emmaus in Luke express the sentiment when they basically say “We thought he (Jesus) was the Messiah, but the Romans executed him so obviously we were wrong.”
And certainly if you were inventing a faith you hoped to sell to ancient Greeks and Romans, one that involved the death by crucifixion and then bodily resurrection of the founder is the last one you’d come up with. Because as Paul admits in I Corinthians, such an idea was a “stumbling block to Jews (because under Torah a crucified person was cursed), foolishness to Greeks (because the very idea not to mention desirability of bodily resurrection was absurd. And of course a condemned criminal was nobody to listen to in matters of religion). These are some of Celsus’ other objections to the Christian faith. He couldn’t believe that god would deign to incarnate as a human, and even if he did, certainly not as an obscure Jewish peasant. And then the idea that anyone would want* to be resurrected was silly.
As I said above, every other Jewish messianic movement ended with the death of the founder at the hands of the Romans and then the destruction/dissolution of the movement.
Messiah was popularly expected to purify and/or rebuild the Temple (one reason Herod the great rebuilt it, for PR purposes), gather an army, wage war on the Romans driving them out of Palestine, then re-instituting the Davidic monarchy in Jerusalem. That was generally how popular messianic Judaism expected the kingdom of God would come to earth. Which is also why the Sadducees wanted no part of it, because it involved armed insurrection against Rome, which they believed was not in Israel’s national interests, or their own interests (the high priests and the Sanhedrin derived their authority from Rome).
So that’s why no member of Bar Kochba’s rebellion in the 130s AD, for example, would’ve said “Y’know, guys,I know Simon is dead, but, I feel like he’s still with us in some kind of spiritual sense, which I can only describe as a resurrection.” No, for Jews, resurrection *always* meant a dead body coming back to life. And as NT Wright says, if you’re one of Bar Kochba’s disciples, after his death you either pick a new leader to lead the movement or you go home. Bar Kochba’s disciples (those who were still alive) went home. Yet 2,000 years ago Jesus’ messianic movement is alive and kicking. As NT Wright asks, how do you explain that?
So if you’re the authors of the gospels trying to convince your fellow-Jews that Jesus really was the messiah, the LAST thing you’d do is have him executed by the Romans, then, as if that wasn’t audacious enough, have WOMEN be the first witnesses to his bodily resurrection. That’s one possible reason why the early Christian credal statement in I Corinthians 15:3-7 doesn’t mention the women witnesses to the resurrection, because, for Paul, writing to a patriarchal pagan culture in AD 55, it was still too sensitive an issue, so Paul only lists the male witnesses; but by the time the gospels were written down a few years later, they couldn’t “airbrush” the women out of the resurrection accounts because they’d been there.
Yet even if we didn’t have the gospel accounts, we’d still know Jesus was resurrected because Paul references the resurrection dozens of times in his letters, the earliest of which dates to ca. 49 AD. Anyway, on a historical scale 19 odd years between Jesus’ death and the time Paul was writing isn’t enough time for a large body of myth and legend to accrue to Jesus. And if, as most scholars of whatever stripe believe, I Cor. 15:3-7 is an early Christian credal statement that dates back to ca. 335-38 AD then the belief in Jesus’ resurrection was present a mere 3-5 years after his death. It took roughly 300 years for that kind of embellishment and superstition to attach to the stories of Alexander the Great.
Pax.
Lee.
Here’s what Jesus said about the resurrection in Matthew 22:
29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’[b]? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
Resurrected people will be like angels. But angels, as I understand it, do not have physical bodies.
God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are living. But not in physical form.
You say there were only a few thousands Christians by 70 AD. But Acts 2 says there 3000 on that first Pentecost after the resurrection. What happened?
If those first century writers were storytellers, why can’t the resurrection itself be a story. The story starts with a missing body, but no appearances. Later, appearances are added, but since there really weren’t any appearances, varied stories arose about them that were incompatible. Three different ones appear in Matthew, Luke, and John. There may have been more that never got written down or were and didn’t survive. In 2 John, the writer tells us that there people in the first century who were preaching that Jesus didn’t even come in the flesh. So, the varied stories about Jesus started very early.
In Matthew 22, what precipitated Jesus’ comments was a question from the Sadducees who did not believe in a resurrection. The question was an attempt to mock Jesus’ belief in the resurrection. In any case, I think you are reading into Jesus’ comments your own assumptions. Is he saying that in the resurrection, people won’t get married because they won’t have physical bodies? What is the purpose of marriage, from a biblical standpoint? It is to make the two “one flesh”–i.e. to complete people, to make them whole. What Jesus is saying isn’t, “Oh, resurrected people can’t get married and have sex because they won’t have bodies.” He’s saying that there will be no need for marriage because in the resurrection, people will be transformed and made whole. In any case, when one is faced with so much in the New Testament AND first century Judaism that clearly displays a belief in a bodily resurrection, point to this one instance and then read into it an assumption about how Jesus MIGHT be talking about a “non-physical resurrection” is kind of a weak argument.
I’m just telling you what sociologists who have studying Roman populations patterns at that time have said. Nobody things there were hundreds of thousands or millions of Christians in the first century. It still was a small community with obviously tight ties between the churches.
Why can’t the resurrection be a story? Because there simply is no evidence that it ever was a made up story. Virtually all scholars acknowledge that the claim of a PHYSICAL resurrection was part of the earliest Christian community shortly after the Passover during which Jesus was crucified. They claimed that from the very beginning. There is no getting around it. You can not believe them. But you can’t make things up an make baseless claims that that is not, in fact, what they were claiming from the very beginning.
1 Corinthians 15:
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
I do not know of any documents that were written at the beginning of church that asserts that they believed in physical body post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. These stories came later. And to assert that there wasn’t enough time for such stories to be created is absurd. We know from our current day that false stories can arise very quickly. They are called Urban Legends.
No…What Paul says in I Corinthians 15:42-44 is not that the resurrected body will be a non-material body. That is not what he means by “spiritual body.” That is an example of our modern assumption that takes its cue from a decidedly Greco-Roman understanding that view this material body as a “mortal coil” that needs to be shed so our “spirits” can fly off somewhere. That is not the Biblical view and that is not what Paul is talking about. The “matter vs. spirit” dualism we assume (because we are influenced by Greek thought and Enlightenment assumptions) is not there in the Bible.
The Biblical view is that God’s creation is good and that He would redeem and resurrection THE BODY. In 15:44, Paul says the body is originally a “soulish” body (the Greek word translated there as “natural)–meaning the original body/original creation is succumbed to corruption and decay: i.e. a physical body that will die. He then states that the resurrected body is going to be a “spiritual” body–meaning a Holy Spirit-empowered body that has overcome physical corruption and death: i.e. a physical body that will not die. That is the consistent message throughout the New Testament.
I Corinthians was written in the mid 50s–20-25 years from the actual events regarding Jesus. That is early. The Synoptic Gospels were written within 40-45 years after the actual events regarding Jesus–again, really early. If “resurrection” meant some sort of non-material/airy existence after the death of the body, Paul would not have been mocked in Athens for talking about that kind of “resurrection,” because that kind of “shed this mortal coil” view was the very view of Greek philosophy.
And it isn’t absurd to say such “physical resurrection” stories couldn’t have been created within 20 years of the events. The NT documents are the original, earliest documents we have–and in them, they talk about the bodily resurrection. The very Jewish notion of resurrection was that of a bodily resurrection. The notion of a bodily resurrection was considered crazy in the Greco-Roman world, and they mocked Paul for claiming it. The NT claims fit within that cultural context. It is undeniable. To say that the earliest Christians preached some sort of “spiritual” (i.e. non-bodily) resurrection is to (A) ignore the Jewish belief regarding resurrection; (B) ignore the Greek mockery of Paul for preaching the resurrection; and to (C) reject the very earliest NT documents we have that date to within decades of the events and to instead cling to a claim that literally has NO written attestation or evidence. It LITERALLY is an argument from silence after one has thrown out all the evidence and knowledge we have about first century Judaism and Christianity.
It simply is not an intellectually-defensible position. Again, once can say, “Yes, the early Christians claimed Jesus was bodily raised and they expressed a belief in a future bodily resurrection of all beleivers, but I don’t believe it.” But one CANNOT say, “No, they didn’t claim that at all.”
Well, it looks like there is an explanation for anything I say, whether real or a rationalization. So, there is no need for further discussion on this matter. I have found that one can argue just about any position and find Biblical verses to justify that position.
Let me just say that, for me, much much more evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is needed than the contradictory stories of four unknown first century authors.
Many years ago a Sunday School teacher was talking about how we should not trust him, or the deacons, or the pastor, or really any human being to know the truth. Rather, we needed to trust God’s word. I asked, “If we are not to trust any man for the truth, then how can we trust the Bible since it is written by men?” The only way for us to truly know what God has to say about something is for him to speak to us directly, cutting out the middle MEN.
Okay, I think our lines are a bit crossed.
First, what I’m pointing out is basic scholarship based on many historians’ and scholars’ knowledge of first century Judaism, first century Christianity, and ancient texts. It’s not a matter of finding verses to justify any particular position–it is clearly explaining original claims and texts.
Second, I haven’t been trying to convince you that Jesus literally bodily rose from the dead. I’m trying to convince you that, as a purely historical question about first century Christianity, THAT is what the original Christian claim was. Let me give an example of Scientology. Let’s say you said, “I don’t believe Scientology because I don’t believe there was an evil Lord Xenu, or ancient spaceships that froze aliens then put them in the volcanos of Hawaii, and then giant soul-catchers in the sky that caught the escaping souls, and then brainwashing facilities that gave the souls a sense of false reality–I think that is all insane crap.” I would say, “Yes, that is nutty.”
But if you said, “I don’t believe Scientology because I think all that Lord Xenu/spaceships/soul-catchers/brain-washing facilities stuff was all later embellishments in Scientology, and that L. Ron Hubbard just taught that we will all be spirits in heaven after we die,” I would say, “Why bother with making such speculations?” (A) There is no evidence that all that Xenu etc. stuff was NOT a part of Hubbard’s original claims; and (B) Why can’t you just acknowledge that yes, the “Xenu stuff” IS and has ALWAYS BEEN a part of Scientology, and that yes, it is crap?
Just say you don’t believe Jesus rose bodily from the dead. Just say you don’t feel there’s enough in the NT to go on to convince you. That’s fine. But don’t dip your toe into the absurdities of mythicism and try to say that the earliest Christians didn’t CLAIM that Jesus bodily rose from the dead. I honestly don’t get the motivation for trying to say that. It accomplishes nothing and it ignores what virtually every NT historian and scholar knows.
I guess what I find very interesting is that you seem to think that the idea of some Jews believing in a spiritual resurrection is more unbelievable than the idea of an actual physical resurrection.
We know that the Jews had varied beliefs in the first century. Look no further than the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The former believing in angels and demons and resurrection; the latter believing in none of these. We see greatly varied beliefs today among groups of people. But we never see a physical resurrection. I think the belief in Jesus’ physical resurrection has become so normalized that it no longer seems strange and unusual. But it is! We simply don’t see people being resurrected. But we see a lot of varied beliefs.
It’s fine if you don’t want to call it a resurrection. Just call it being raised from the dead (which seems to be used more frequently in the Bible than the term resurrection), spiritually reborn, or whatever.
But again, the issue at hand is fundamentally a historical question that historians can investigate. And that question is this: “What did the term ‘resurrection’ mean in first century Judaism? Is there any evidence that first century Jews understood ‘resurrection’ as anything other than BODILY resurrection?” And the answer to that question is this: “There is no evidence that first century Jews used the term ‘resurrection’ to denote the idea of a spirit ‘going off into heaven’ while leaving their body behind or being ‘spiritually reborn.'” Historically-speaking, there is no evidence of what you are asserting. The first century Jewish belief in resurrection was a belief that formerly dead bodies would be raised and transformed into physical immortality. Such a belief was seen as stupidity in the Greco-Roman world.
I understand that. But whether or not a resurrection or a miracle in general can occur is a scientific question. And as far as I’m aware, there is no scientific evidence that any resurrections have occurred.
Yes, but that is a different question than, “What did the earliest/original Christians claim?” And all evidence points to the fact that they really did claim Jesus was bodily resurrected. The mythicist argument, by contrast, is based on nothing–just a rejection of all the evidence we do have, a rejection of 99.9% of biblical scholars and historians, and instead a decontextualized reading of cherry-picked verses.
Okay, so we are left with there being no historical evidence that the early disciples believed anything other than Jesus was bodily resurrected. And we have no scientific evidence that resurrections occur. Putting these two together we are left with the early disciples somehow coming to believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected without it actually happening. That’s fine. I’ll go with that.
Haha…not quite. But it is good to see I convinced you to step back from the absurdities of mythicism!
Randy, without speaking for Dr. Anderson, I think his and my point is that the NT authors wouldn’t make up stories that went against what the majority of pious Jews believed in, which was bodily resurrection.
One big reason the Sadducees didn’t buy into bodily resurrection was because in the popular Pharisaic thought it was linked with martyrdom, which was linked by zealous Pharisees with armed resistance against Rome. The Sadducees believed the safest course for Israel was to cooperate with Rome (as far as possible under Torah);also, most of the High priests and much of the Sanhedrin were Sadducees, thus also didn’t want to lose their power-base, thus the last things they wanna hear are about Messiahs, kingdoms, and resurrections. In the intertestamental Maccabee texts the Jewish martyrs taunt their Syrian captors by saying basically “Go ahead and cut off our arms and legs; God will just give them back to us when we’re resurrected.” So a non-physical resurrection would be an anachronism to most Jews. And for most Greeks and Romans too. They had words to describe ghosts and spirits which are different from the words used to describe bodily resurrection.
And the gospels are clear that Jesus’ body was physical because Thomas refuses to believe Jesus has been resurrected (not because he doesn’t buy bodily resurrection but because in Jewish theology a crucified messiah was a fake messiah, besides which the messiah would be resurrected *with* everyone else at the *end* of history, not *ahead* of everyone else in the *middle* of history) until he can see him and touch the wounds. Then, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples he isn’t a ghost because ghosts don’t have flesh-and-blood bodies, then eats a meal of broiled fish to prove it.
Dr. Anderson’s right in that I Corinthians 15 doesn’t argue for a non-bodily resurrection; in fact, just the opposite. Paul kicks that chapter off by quoting what scholars of all religious stripes and none agree is a very early Christian hymn or credal statement, dated to ca. 35-38 AD in which Jesus bodily resurrection and appearance to over 500 witnesses is stressed. And any time Paul wants to talk about a physical body, as he does with regards to the resurrection of Jesus and believers, he uses the GK word *soma.* (See Rom. 8:11 and 23) However when he’s talking about our fallen, sinful human nature, as in I Corinthians 15:50, (translated “flesh and blood”), he uses the word *sarx.* Unfortunately most translations have drop the ball in that passage.And in vs. 42 the word translated “spiritual” in the phrase “spiritual body” is the GK word *pneumatikos* which basically means “a body driven or powered by God’s Spirit” rather that a “psychikos” (natural) body or “a body driven by our sinful nature.”
And the Doc’s right in that no academic NT scholars believe the resurrection accounts were coopted from pagan myths. Those views really died out 50 years ago.
Pax.
Lee.
Hey Lee.
We still call Carl “Andrew”. Too hard to break a 20+ year habit.
I don’t find it strange having the women in the story. They were going to put spices on the body since there was no time before the burial. Men probably didn’t do this. Notice that in the stories the women’s testimony was not sufficient. The stories went on to have appearances to the disciples as well. So, I see no problem with telling the story this way.
You mentioned Thomas’ skepticism. You might be interested in an article I wrote many years ago. I present it to you here:
The Apostles Are Our Example
by
Randy C. Finch
(11/29/2000)
Christians have a difficult time understanding why skeptics are so skeptical of the miracles of Jesus and the apostles, especially the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus himself. After all, we have all the eyewitness testimony of the New Testament writers, who were disciples of Christ. Christian apologists have for centuries defended the testimony of the New Testament writers, showing how the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation for the origin of the Christian faith and its continued existence even in the face of persecution. Even non-Christian writers of the first and second century made reference to the historical Jesus and allude to his rising from the dead.
How could anyone not take all this eyewitness testimony, toss in a bit of faith, and come to the conclusion that Jesus did indeed die on the cross for our sins and rise from the dead three days later? My answer to this question is that Jesus’ apostles are our example and I want to be like them. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s take a look at a few verses from the Bible and see what we find.
At the beginning of the 24th chapter of Luke, we find the women visiting the tomb, which they find empty. Angels announce to them that Jesus has risen from the dead. Then in verses 9-11, we find this strange passage:
“When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”
What? The 11 apostles and all the others did not believe the women, thinking that what they were saying was nonsense? Why would they think this, given that there were at least five women who were giving the testimony? And not only that, these women were themselves disciples of Jesus and most likely good friends with many of the ones who did not believe them. Yet, their eyewitness testimony was totally unbelievable to them.
Let’s look further. In the 20th chapter of John, Jesus appears to the disciples. Unfortunately, Thomas was not present. Later, when Thomas comes back, the apostles tell him that they have seen the Lord. Then in verses 25b-27, we find this interesting passage.
“But he [Thomas] said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.’
“A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.'”
How could this be? Thomas was one of the 12 original apostles. He had supposedly sojourned with the other apostles and fellowshipped with them for three years. They were best friends. Yet, Thomas disbelieved his brethren, even when they all claimed to be eyewitnesses of Jesus’ appearance. He had to actually see Jesus for himself before he would believe.
Now, it is understandable how the apostles might be skeptical of the reports of others, even those of close friends, had they never experienced any miracles. But what makes the skepticism of the apostles far exceed that of any skeptic alive today is that they had experienced miracles. The Gospels record miracles on top of miracles that Jesus performed and the apostles witnessed. Turning water into wine, healing the sick, feeding the thousands, walking on water, making the blind see. On and on the list goes. In addition, Jesus raised at least two people from the dead (Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus). And in Matthew 10:5-8, we read about Jesus sending out his 12 apostles.
“These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message: `The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.'”
Here we see that even the apostles performed miracles, including raising people from the dead.
So, let’s see what we have here. Jesus performed many miracles, including raising people from the dead. The apostles not only witnessed these miracles, but they also went out and performed miracles themselves, including raising people from the dead. Jesus had told his apostles that he was going to be killed and then resurrected three days later. This should have been a very believable prophecy considering that seeing the dead raised was a somewhat common thing for the apostles. And to make it even more believable, the person they considered to be the one and only Son of God and a speaker of truth was the one telling them this.
Yet, in light of all this, the apostles could not even fathom the possibility of Jesus having been resurrected, even with the eyewitness testimony of other disciples, without actually seeing him in the flesh. Talk about your skeptics! And as if you couldn’t get any more skeptical, we read in Matthew 28:16-17:
“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”
Wow! Some of the disciples doubted Jesus’ resurrection even after seeing him alive after his entombment. I don’t see how you can get any more skeptical than that!
So, the next time someone asks you why you do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, tell them you are just following the good example set by Jesus’ hand-picked apostles. Tell them you will not believe any eyewitness testimony that Jesus rose from the dead until you can see him alive for yourself. And hey, even then you might have a few doubts!
As I said above, if the disciples were faking a religion they hoped to sell to fellow-Jews the *last* thing they’d say was that Jesus was crucified, because again, every pious Jew understood that a crucified messiah was a false messiah. And they for sure wouldn’t invent stories in which the first witnesses to their resurrected messiah was a bunch of hysterical women ; 130 years later critics of Christianity were still making fun of Christians because of the fact that all four gospels insist that Mary Magdalen and other women came to the tomb and encountered the risen Jesus. It makes absolutely *no* difference how many or which (although all four accounts have Mary Magdalene; some gospels mentioned certain women who came, others mentioned other women who came; but all have Mary Magdalen coming) women came–the important point is that *any* women came at all. As late as 55 AD, this was still enough of an evangelistic hurdle in Corinth and other patriarchal societies that the creed Paul cites in I Corinthians 15:3-7 leaves out the women for the purposes of evangelization, however as they were historically there at the empty tomb, they couldn’t be airbrushed out, but as (in RCC theology) “the apostles to the apostles” are included in the gospel accounts of the resurrection.
No. Every messianic movement either side of Jesus ended with the death of the founder and the shattering of the movement. Jesus’ is the *only* one in recorded history that is still going strong 2,000 years later, and that claims its Messiah was crucified then resurrected.
What the disciples would’ve done if they were crating a faith around Jesus that they wanted to sell to Greeks and Romans would be to create a version of Gnosticism, a 2nd-6th c. c. heresy which insisted that creation and the space-time universe were the evil creation or tragic mistake of an impostor god. Gnosticism insisted that at creation divine “sparks” got trapped in human bodies. In the Christian version of Gnosticism, Jesus was a spirit-being who only *appeared* human, in order to show a select group of mostly male followers how to recognize their divinity and spiritually evolve out of the need for a physical existence. Thus Gnosticism has been described as Platonism on steroids.
You should read the recent studies by NT scholars Martin Hengel, Larry Hurtado and Richard Buackham which for the past 20 years have been building an increasingly compelling case that the early church had a very *early* and very *high* Christology.
By the way I saw Carl a few weeks ago. He showed me an antique book he bought. Very cool! I still want to call him “Andrew.”
Pax.
Lee.
Randy thanks for the essay. Interesting. However I have some thoughts. Sorry to be so verbose.
You ask how is it possible for the disciples of Jesus to be so skeptical, first of Jesus (they saw his miracles after all, and even performed a few of their own), then of the women.
To reiterate something Dr. Anderson and I have been saying, you have to consider the attitude of first century, 2nd Temple Jews to a) resurrection b) the testimony of women in religious matters. Basically you have to try to think like “the average Jew” (if I can use that phrase) of ca. 30 AD.
As has been said, most “average Jews” at the time of Christ took bodily resurrection for granted. Talk of a disembodied “spiritual” resurrection wouldn’t have made any sense to them. Maybe Philo of Alexandria however he was the notable exception to the rule, as his theology tried to harmonize Judaism and Platonism. But Philo’s views wouldn’t fly anywhere else though, certainly not in Palestine.
“Average Jews” in the first century expected all of God’s faithful to be resurrected to a renewed bodily existence on a renewed/recreated/restored earth. This would happen at the end of history when God’s promised new heavens and new earth came to pass (see Isa. 65:17 and 66:22):
But here’s Jesus, predicting his death and then his resurrection. These beliefs weren’t on anyone’s radar, hence explains why the disciples seem clueless. Because in popular Jewish theology the Messiah would do certain things, chiefly: cleanse or rebuild the Temple, gather an army and wage war on Rome, thus liberating Israel from its bondage to Rome, and then reinstitute the Davidic monarchy in Jerusalem. The Messiah dying, certainly by crucifixion was unthinkable, because every pious Jew knew what Torah said about anyone dying by being hung on a tree being cursed. So if I’m Thomas (or Peter) and hear Jesus’ talk of the Kingdom of God coming I’m thinking “Alright! Now we can get this party started! Where’s my sword?” But then when he tells me to sheathe my sword because the Kingdom isn’t coming via armed resistance to Rome, but instead via his own death–by crucifixion!–and then resurrection three days later, I’m probably going to think he’s off his rocker (which Jesus’ own relatives thought at the start of his ministry. See Mark 3:21. Another case of the criterion of embarrassment, as Mark here says Jesus’ family thought he was crazy, not likely something Mark would invent.).
This explains the disciples’ refusal to believe Jesus was resurrected, because despite roughly three years with him which included a handful of not always clear teaching from Jesus that he would die and be resurrected, they had 500 years of Jewish tradition about what Messiah would be/do behind them which pointed totally the opposite way. Think about it a moment. If the disciples, Paul, Peter, whoever were faking the whole thing, why make themselves look so bad? If you’re fabricating a faith why make the chief apostles of said faith look as impetuous, rash, clueless and foolish as they do? Again, this is an example of what academic historians call the criterion of embarrassment. In other words, people don’t knowingly tell lies that could damage their credibility or make them look foolish. But if, on the other hand, they feel compelled to report events that make them look foolish, because they actually happened . . . All of the original disciples except John and including Paul were martyred for their proclamation about Jesus. I don’t know very many people who would die for what they obviously knew to be a lie.
As for the women’s testimony, had the women simply simply said “We went to the tomb and to anoint his body and it was gone” they could believe that, and would probably just assume his body had been stolen. However since resurrection wasn’t on anyone’s radar, the male disciples all assumed that the women were hysterical when they insisted that they’d seen him bodily in the flesh. All of this would be fine to keep within the fledgling Jesus movement. But if you’re going to tell everyone else about what happened it falls apart because in the ancient world the testimony of women carried no weight in regard to religious matters. No Jews faking a religion would purposely insist that *women* were the *first* witnesses to its *central* miracle. Not if they wanted educated Jews, Greeks and Romans to believe their story. They just wouldn’t do it. But the gospels all insist that Mary Magdalene and other women witnessed the risen Jesus. 130 years later pagans were still making fun of them for that. But they stuck to their story. Again, the embarrassment criterion–they weren’t likely to make up stories involving women because they knew people would laugh at them for saying that. That’s probably why the credal statement in I Corinthians 15 (vss. 3-7) leaves out the appearances to the women, because it was still an impediment to evangelization; but because the women *did* really witness the event the gospels put them front and center in their resurrection accounts.
Jesus’ resurrection differs markedly from, say, the resurrection of Lazarus or the son of the widow of Nain, in that both of these men would die again after living out the balance of their natural lives. Jesus didn’t die again, but was bodily assumed into heaven at the ascension.
And as for the burial itself, where was Jesus’ family when it came time to bury him? That’s yet another instance of the criterion of embarrassment. Not only was the long-awaited Jewish Messiah crucified, but his own family ditched their obligation to ensure he had a proper Jewish burial, instead leaving it to a total stranger, Joseph of Arimathea–a member of the very Jewish Sanhedrin that had Jesus executed by the Romans! That detail, too, was a total embarrassment and yet the early Church didn’t airbrush it out, either.
No, if the gospels are prefabricated and edited to prove a point they do a terrible job of it from an ancient orthodox Jewish standpoint.
The early Church inherited this belief in bodily resurrection from Judaism. However, as NT Wright notes the Christian views about resurrection are mutations:
1. Belief in resurrection has moved from being a peripheral item of belief, as it is in Judaism, to the center.
2. Jewish sources are kind of vague as to exactly what form the resurrection body will take whereas now the Christians are insisting that the resurrection body involves a new type of immortal physicality.
3. There’s no spectrum of belief in early Christianity as to what happens when we die as their was in Judaism in paganism. Now everyone except the Gnostic Christian heretics of the 2nd century take bodily resurrection for granted.
4. Resurrection has now split into two. In Judaism YHWH’s faithful are resurrected together, at the end of history. But it is central to Paul and other early Christian writers that now resurrection is a two-stage event, or a single event taking place in two stages, as Paul puts it: Christ the first fruit, and then at his second coming, everyone else who belongs to him.
5. Resurrection functions in a new metaphorical way. In ancient Judaism, for example Ezekiel 37, resurrection could be used as a metaphor for the return of Israel from exile. But that view has vanished with Jesus[‘ resurrection. Instead what you find is that *resurrection* still has its primary bodily reference, but can now also function metaphorically in regard to baptism (Rom. 6) and holiness (Col. 2 and 3).
6. As I’ve said several times, nobody expected the Messiah to be resurrected, again, because nobody expected a Messiah who would die. Yet the Christians, contra to what any pious Jew faking a religion would do, make Jesus’ resurrection a key component in their argument that he really was the Messiah, even developing several brand-new exegetical arguments to make their point, particularly from the Psalms and Isaiah, as in Romans 1, Romans 15, Acts 2, etc.
7. The early Christians, esp. Paul, are now talking in terms of “collaborative eschatology.” in other words, if there is a future bodily resurrection and a renewal of the cosmos, then what we do in the present in the way of loving God and neighbor as self, justice, mercy, grace, healing, etc. in the name of Christ will not be lost but will be a part of that eventual renewed cosmos that God will make.
Wright says these mutations are inexplicable unless, at the very least, the disciples thought Jesus was resurrected. They would’ve gone with the traditional Jewish death/burial customs otherwise.
Obviously none of this *proves* the resurrection. But it does make it nigh impossible to insist, as scholars did 60 years ago, that the NT authors coopted myths and legends from ancient paganism. So most scholars who are skeptics have been forced to concede this point.
If you’re up for a challenge, check out NT Wright’s 800+ pg *The Resurrection of the Son of God.* Wright examines the resurrection of Jesus in the light of ancient Jewish and Greek religious/theological beliefs about life after death, then examines the NT accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, then examines it from every conceivable skeptical angle.
Or if you don’t wanna slog through 800 pages there’s a 1 hr dvd documentary based on the book called *Resurrection.*
Then there’s his 2005 or so debate with liberal NT scholar John Dominic Crosson titled *The Resurrection of Jesus.*
One more: *The Jesus Tradition: A Case for the Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition* by Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd.
I guess that’s way more than enough for now.
Pax vobiscum.
Lee.
Lee, you present more material than I have time to respond to. But let me say this. I am not claiming that the disciples who knew Jesus made up stories about his resurrection. I’m saying that legend built up over time such that the stories became more elaborate. I have no problem with the disciples believing early on that Jesus was bodily resurrected. They could have believed that without seeing the body. Many people today believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus without having seen that resurrected body, so they could have believed the same thing back then. Mark, the gospel thought to be the earliest, has no resurrection appearances, just an empty tomb and a man telling the women he is no longer there. And that story was written about 40 years after the event. Matthew and Luke talk of resurrection appearances, but they are incompatible, indicating that different resurrection appearance legends developed in different places and ended up being written down by the authors of Matthew and Luke. John tells yet another version of the resurrection appearances. So, a third line of legends existed. There may be more that didn’t survive. Based on my knowledge of the world, if a seeming supernatural occurrence has a natural explanation, even if not very likely, the chances are the natural explanation is the correct one. The supernatural one cannot be ruled out completely, but natural explanations tend to always win the day.
The problem: We have zero confirmed, uncontested eyewitness testimony of anyone claiming to have seen Jesus’ resurrected BODY. The overwhelming majority of scholars (including the overwhelming majority of Roman Catholic NT scholars who very much believe in the supernatural and miracles) reject the claim that the Gospels were authored by eyewitnesses or even the associates of eyewitnesses. For all we know the detailed bodily appearance stories in the latter three Gospels are rumor, legend, or pure fiction.
Therefore, all we are left with is the agreed upon fact that soon after Jesus’ death some of his followers believed that he had appeared to them in some fashion. For all we know…they all saw a bright light…and believed it was an appearance of Jesus.
That is not very good evidence upon which to base one’s entire worldview
Gary, the statement that “the overwhelming majority of scholars . . . reject the claim that the Gospels were authored by eyewitnesses” is an exaggeration. If all one read was Bart Ehrman one might think few scholars thought so however Ehrman doesn’t always do a great job of engaging with major scholars who disagree with him. There are a lot of NT scholars, such as Richard Bauckham, author of *Jesus and the Eyewitnesses,* who accept that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses.
As to what the “eyewitnesses” saw, they weren’t expecting to see anything, because, as I said, they expected a general resurrection of everyone at the end of history, not one man ahead of everyone else. That being said, they were not so confused that they couldn’t tell the difference between a “bright light” and a human body, which is what they claim they witnessed. If they’d wanted to say that they’d seen a ghost or disembodied spirit they had words for that that *didn’t* include “resurrection,” which *always* indicated a dead body coming back to life. The gospels go to great pains to say that Jesus had a body, which could be touched (as Thomas did) as well as eat, since he ate at least two meals after his resurrection. Ghosts don’t do that. So the best explanation is that, while they weren’t expecting Jesus to be resurrected three days later, they were convinced pretty quickly that he really was after they met him and shared a meal with him.
The gospel accounts of the resurrection don’t read as if they’ve been heavily edited or embellished (save, possibly Matthew’s account of the earthquake and dead bodies coming to life); they don’t read like something a pagan recounting myths would write. Certainly they haven’t “theologized” them yet, going through and annotating them with lots of OT references, connecting all the dots and putting everything in a neat and tidy package. As Richard Bauckham says, they read like the accounts of eyewitnesses who haven’t had time to sort through and reflect on what they’ve just witnessed.
Pax.
Lee.
Interestingly, the word resurrection is not used in any of the Gospels when referring to Jesus rising from the dead. They talk about him rising, not being resurrected. Well, at least the NIV doesn’t use the term. Does this make a difference?
Randy,
1. Matt 28:6: Jesus has been raised…there was no longer a body in the tomb; and then the women encountered him and took hold of his feet; then later the disciples see him and talk with him.
2. Mark 16:6: Jesus has been raised…there was no longer a body in the tomb.
3. Luke 24:5-7: Jesus has been raised, just like he told you he’d be raised after three days…there was no body in the tomb; then the encounter and talking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus–the two disciples say the women had seen Jesus alive. Then later, he appears to the disciples and shows him his hands and feet.
4. Throughout Acts, the actual word “resurrection” is used (it was written along with Luke)
5. Throughout Paul’s letters, “resurrection” is used (and these letters were written before the Gospels)
Put all that together, it is pretty hard to say that the Gospels were not, in fact, emphasizing the bodily resurrection of Jesus. If they were saying that “Jesus’ spirit flew up to heaven,” then why emphasize there was no body in the tomb, and why claim that his followers talked with and touched him?
Here’s my main point. You say that there is no evidence that the first century Jews ever thought of resurrection as being a spiritual thing. I say that there is no physical evidence in the entire history of mankind throughout the entire world that a person can be bodily resurrected. So, if the choice is between believing that some first century Jews believed in a spiritual resurrection or that a bodily resurrection occurred, which is more believable? For me, it would be hands down the former. But this is just a side point. The false story of the resurrection could have started even among those that only believed in a bodily resurrection.
You are still conflating two different things.
1. There IS no evidence from 1st century Judaism that anyone interpreted “resurrection” as anything other than an actual bodily resurrection. That is a fact.
2. It is also a fact that Jesus’ disciples DID claim that Jesus was bodily resurrected.
Now, you can say, “I don’t believe their claim that Jesus resurrected because dead people dont come back from the dead.”
But it would not make sense to say, “I think the disciples claimed Jesus’s spirit was ‘resurrected’ into heaven”–because (A) an obvious reading of the NT is clear they claimed Jesus was physically resurrected, and (B) there is no evidence anywhere in 1st century/2nd Temple Judaism that the Jews ever interpreted “resurrection” as anything other than a bodily resurrection.
The Greeks had a word for ghosts/spirits/apparitions which wasn’t *anastasis* (resurrection) or *egeirō* (raised), that word being *phantasma* (an apparition or spectre). A non-bodily resurrection would be a contradiction in terms for 2nd Temple Jews.
It seems to me that the skeptic must explain what could/would convince Jesus’ disciples, none of whom were expecting any of this (crucifixion followed three days later by resurrection), that it had actually happened? Or, if they were making it up, why go so far off book that it would initially be difficult for other Jews to accept any of it?
Pax.
Lee.
If the resurrection was unexpected, then how do these verses make sense in Matt 27? How is it that the chief priests and Pharisees understood what Jesus was teaching about his resurrection and the disciples didn’t?
62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”
65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
The point is that the Jewish expectation was a resurrection of all the righteous dead when the messiah comes and establishes the Kingdom of God. No one expected the Messiah to be crucified and then him only to resurrect in the middle of history.
Jesus had clearly declared that he would resurrect. Obviously the chief priests were aware of that. They were afraid that his disciples might try to scam people by stealing the body and then claiming he was resurrected. They didnt expect Jesus to ACTUALLY resurrect.
Apparently the Sanhedrin zeroed in on something that the disciples themselves had missed. The Sanhedrin apparently correctly interpreted Jesus’ prophecy concerning his resurrection in three days whereas when the women inform the disciples that he was raised the disciples refuse to believe them until they actually witness the empty tomb. Even the women were clueless at first; Mary Magdalene assumes they’ve removed his body and put it somewhere else until the “gardener” (Jesus) reveals himself to her. Prior to this time they ALL shared the typical Jewish expectation of a general bodily resurrection at the end of history, not one single resurrection in the middle of history.
Regardless, this whole section is not favorable to the disciples, so it’s hardly stuff they’d make up.
A) All of the male disciples flee (after insisting they would never betray him).
B) No one from Jesus’ biological family came to claim his body for a proper Jewish burial. Instead, a member of the very Sanhedrin who had condemned him had to request the body from Pilate. None of the disciples came to claim it, either.
C) All four gospels report women as the first witnesses to the resurrection which pagans like Celsus were still making fun of 100 years later as proof it was all just silly nonsense because the conventional wisdom was that nobody could believe a group of hysterical women.
D) The women themselves, like the men, assumed Jesus was still dead three days later, and showed up to anoint his body with the customary spices. When they found the tomb empty they assumed the officials had moved the body.
Upon finding an empty tomb the Sanhedrin try to bribe the Roman guards into saying his disciples stole the body. Why didn’t the Sanhedrin and/or the Romans simply present Jesus’ corpse if it was still in the tomb? By attempting to bribe the guards the Sanhedrin admitted that the tomb was empty. There’s no evidence of Jesus’ tomb becoming a pilgrimage site (as was the case with David’s tomb and those other Jewish prophets and kings) until ca. the early-mid second century, which is further evidence that everyone knew there was no body inside to venerate. Hadrian erected a pagan temple on the site to discourage the increasing number of Christian pilgrims to the site in the 130s but if Jesus’ remains were there chances were good that his disciples would’ve venerated the tomb (and his remains inside it) much earlier.
Pax.
Lee.