Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? (Part 2)

Written by Michael Horner

This is Part 2 of a 4 part series – Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?

The appearances

Most scholars agree that, even though there is interdependence between much of the gospel accounts, the appearance accounts are independent of one another. The evidence from five independent historical sources indicates that on 12 separate occasions various individuals and groups in various locations and circumstances saw Jesus alive after his death.⁶

The four gospels tell us about appearances to:

1. Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-17)
2. The women returning from the tomb (Matt 28:9-10)
3. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35)
4. Peter (Luke 24:34; cf. I Cor 15:5)


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5. The disciples with Thomas absent (Luke 24:33, 36-43; John 20:19-23; cf. I Cor 15:5)
6. The disciples with Thomas present a week later (John 20:26-29)
7. The seven disciples at the Lake of Tiberius in Galilee (John 21:1-22)
8. The eleven and others on a mountain in Galilee (Matt 28:16-20)
9. The disciples at the ascension (Luke 24:50-52; Acts 1:6-11; cf. I Cor 15:7)
10. Paul, besides repeating the appearances to Peter, the twelve and to all the apostles (probably the larger group of followers on the mountain in Galilee), also mentions appearances to James, Saul (himself), and to over 500 people at one time. (I Cor 15:5-8)

Legends?

Paul’s accounts of the appearances are likely not legendary because of his listing of this appearance to more than 500 people. Paul is using the accepted method of his day to prove a historical event: the appeal to witnesses. He specifically states that most of these people are still alive, thereby inviting cross-examination of his witnesses. He would not likely have done this unless these were real people who would back up his claims.

The gospel accounts of the appearances are more likely historical than legendary. The legend theory rests heavily on the premise that the gospels were written after AD 70. But even the liberal critic John A.T. Robinson challenges this late dating as largely the result of scholarly laziness, unexamined presuppositions and almost willful blindness on the part of critics. In fact, a growing number of scholars would argue for dating at least Acts, Luke, Mark and Matthew before AD 70. One of the reasons is that Acts makes no mention of known historical events which took place between AD 60-70, such as the destruction of Jerusalem (AD 70), the persecution of Christians by Nero (~AD 64), the death of James (AD 62) and the death of Paul (~AD 64). The best explanation for these significant events going unmentioned by the writer Luke is that they hadn’t yet occurred when Acts was completed. Hence, Acts was likely written before AD 62-64, and the Gospel of Luke, being part one of Luke’s writings was even earlier, possibly AD 57-62. Most scholars believe Mark was one of Luke’s sources, so it would be earlier still, somewhere between AD 45-56.

Two full generations (50-80 years) are not long enough for legend to wipe out the hard core of historical fact.

This pushes the gospel accounts of the appearances of the risen Jesus to within 15-32 years after the events or roughly one generation. More importantly, these gospels are based on earlier written and oral sources that are dated much closer to the events. Those sources contain sayings, statements, and hymns that are highly Semitic and translate nicely from Greek (in which they are written) back into Aramaic (the language Jesus and the disciples spoke). That points to an early Jerusalem origin, within the first few years and weeks after Christ’s death! There was simply not enough time for the basic set of facts to be replaced by legend or myth.

Professor A.N. Sherwin-White, an eminent historian of Roman and Greek history, has studied the rate at which myths were formed in the ancient Near East. He chides New Testament critics for not recognizing the quality of the New Testament documents compared to the sources he must work with in Roman and Greek history. Those sources are usually removed from the events they describe by generations or even centuries. Despite when they were written though and the typically biased approach of the writers, he says historians can confidently reconstruct what actually happened.

In stark contrast, Professor Sherwin-White tells us that for the gospels to be legendary, more generations would have been needed between the events and their compilation. He has found that even the span of two full generations (50-80 years) is not long enough for legend to wipe out the hard core of historical fact.⁷ Even the late dating of the gospels meets that criteria, let alone the early dating! In addition, there is no example in history where legendary stories supplanted the historical core in the same geographical location in less than two generations. The legends about Jesus the critics are looking for do exist, but they arose in the second century—consistent with the two-generation time frame discovered by Professor Sherwin-White—when all the eyewitnesses had died off. Thus, the trust-worthiness of the gospel accounts is highly probable because there just wasn’t enough time for mythical tendencies to creep in and prevail over historical fact.

The fact that women are listed as the first witnesses of the empty tomb and of the appearances lends powerful credibility to these incidents. Women were of such low status in first-century Jewish society that their testimony in court was considered worthless. It would have been purposeless, even counter-productive, to the credibility of the story in that culture to record the incidents in this manner if it were not the way it actually happened.

In addition, the gospels are not written in a legendary style. The style of the gospels lacks the legendary embellishments that are clearly part of the later writings. C.S. Lewis, one of the great literary experts on ancient myths, commenting on the gospels, writes, “I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, myths all my life. I know that not one of [the gospels] is like this.”⁸

Moreover, where external verification is possible the New Testament has demonstrated reliability, thus supporting its credibility. In 1961 there was the discovery of inscription referring to Pilate in Caesarea during the time of Tiberius. There was the discovery of an ossuary (bone-box) of a crucified man from first century Palestine confirming the practice of driving nails into ankles. In 1992 the burial grounds of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest were found. We have the discoveries of the pool of Bethesda, the pool of Siloam, Jacob’s well, the GABBATHA (pavement) where Pilate pronounced judgment on Jesus, and very possibly the discovery of the ossuary of James, Jesus’ brother. The book of Acts had been shown to be full of reliable historical information.⁹

As R.T. France, the British New Testament scholar reasons, “Again and again, where it is possible to check their accounts against `hard’ external data, they are found to ring true. Where no such external check is available… it therefore seems responsible to treat their record as factual rather than imaginary.”¹⁰

Another New Testament scholar, Craig Blomberg, argues that, “as investigation proceeds, the evidence becomes sufficient for one to declare that what can be checked is accurate, so that it is entirely proper to believe that what cannot be checked is probably accurate as well.  Other conclusions, widespread though they are, seem not to stem from evenhanded historical analysis but from religious or philosophical prejudice.”¹¹

It is hard to deny on historical grounds that numerous people had experiences that they interpreted as appearances of the risen Jesus. Some suggest that these incidents are not to be understood as physical, bodily appearances, but merely as visions or hallucinations. They argue that Paul refers to the resurrection body as a “spiritual body” and that the physicalism of the gospel appearances is an anti-Gnostic¹² apologetic.

Visions?

Some contend that Paul’s experience of the risen Christ was a mere vision, and that since Paul adds his experience to the list in I Cor. 15, they all must have been non-physical visions. But Paul’s experience involved extra-mental phenomena. It did not all happen in the mind of Paul. This is in stark contrast to the vision Stephen had in Acts 7. Stephen’s experience was purely subjective; no one else saw or heard anything. But in Paul’s experience, his companions heard sound and saw light. We know that some people were suspicious of Paul’s encounter with the risen Lord, so he was adding his experience to the list of other appearances in order to raise his experience up to the level of objectivity the others were known for, not to drag those others down to some non-physical, subjective level.

A spiritual body?

When Paul refers to the resurrection body as a “spiritual body” he cannot be meaning a body made out of spirit. That would be a contradiction in terms, for a spirit is precisely the absence of a body. The idea of seeing a non-physical body is incoherent, since sight apprehends its object by means of light waves reflected from it and a non-physical body cannot reflect light waves. Paul is not talking about the substance the body is made of, but its orientation. When we say, “The Bible is a spiritual book,” or “Betty is a spiritual person,” we don’t mean that they are made out of spirit, but that they are orientated toward the spiritual.

This is not to say that Paul teaches the resurrection body is ordinary, the same as before. On the contrary, he explicitly states that it’s glorious, imperishable, immortal, and powerful. It is transformed – but not from physical to non-physical, rather from perishable to imperishable in order to inhabit a renewed creation!¹³ Virtually all New Testament scholars admit that Paul did not teach immortality of the soul alone, but this position is intelligible only if he also taught a physical, bodily resurrection. A better translation of the Greek term Paul uses for “spiritual body” would be “supernatural body,” since the term is used in contrast to a natural body.

Next: Part 3 – Anti-Gnostic Argument?

Notes:

7. A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman society and Roman Law in the New Testament, Oxford University Press, 1963, p. 189-191.

8. C.S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, Walter Hooper ed., Eerdman’s, 1967, p. 155.

9. Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, Eisenbrauns, 1990.

10. R.T. France, The Evidence for Jesus, IVP, 1986, p.133.

11. Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, IVP, 1987, p. 254

12. Docetism was a particular Gnostic heresy that matter was evil and that therefore God could not really have become incarnate in Jesus.

13. I Corinthians 15:35-55.