[The Case for Subjective Visions] [Paul and John's Visions] [The NT Differentiation] [Physical Rez] [Gospels and Legendary Accrual] [Primitive Tradition Indicators] [Individual Narratives] [The Disciples' Convictions] [The Wrong Way Legend] [Problems with Mass Hallucinations] [Lack of Explanatory Scope] [Objective Visions vs. Ordinary Sight] [Conclusion] [Postscript]

I. Introduction

That numerous individuals, including Jesus' closest disciples, had experiences subsequent to the crucifixion that led them to conclude that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead is a fact accepted by essentially all New Testament scholars, even those that are most skeptical of Christianity and of the resurrection itself. How these experiences are to be properly understood, however, is a subject of intense debate. It seems though that the different explanations of Christ's post-mortem appearances generally fall into one of three categories: "ordinary sight", "objective visions", and "subjective visions". Before proceeding, we need to define what exactly we're intending to convey in the context of Jesus' post-mortem appearances through the use of these particular terms.

First, there is that of "ordinary sight", by which we mean simply that Jesus appeared in a way that would be essentially no different than, say, when he was present with his disciples before the crucifixion. This categorization does not preclude the possibility that Jesus had a supernatural body with supernatural features (e.g. the ability to appear and disappear at will), but simply that these appearances otherwise took place in as mundane a fashion as Christ's presence with the disciples would have been before he was crucified. Another way of putting it would be that these appearances were perfectly a part of the earthly realm (as opposed to say, the heavenly realm), and that Jesus would have been just as visible to anybody that happened to be around at the time as he was to those to whom he wished to explicitly make his appearance.

Second, there is the argument of many scholars that Jesus' post-mortem appearances were that of "objective visions". This entails that Jesus really did appear to his followers, but he did so through the use of visions, not through mundane appearances in the earthly realm. Under this scenario, Jesus would have only been visible to those that he allowed specifically to see him.

Finally, according to the "subjective visions" theory, those that saw Jesus did so within the context of a dream, vision, etc., but Jesus did not really appear. In other words, it was the result of the mind playing tricks, or a hallucination. While this latter theory, along with the other classic alternative theories that were in vogue more than a century ago to explain away the evidence for Christ's resurrection (e.g. Swoon Theory; "Wrong Tomb" theory; "The Disciples Stole the Body" theory, etc.), is widely rejected by New Testament scholars, it nevertheless remains the most popular of the lot among skeptical scholars today.

So, while the "ordinary sight" and "objective visions" categories each entail that Jesus was resurrected, the "subjective visions" category is compatible with naturalistic alternatives to Jesus' resurrection. It is the purpose of this article to demonstrate that the "subjective visions" hypothesis is untenable, while at the same time arguing that the data best supports the "ordinary sight" hypothesis as opposed to that of "objective visions".

II. The Case for the Subjective Visions Hypothesis

It should first be mentioned that a vision's authenticity, particularly if it occurs to just one individual at a time, is almost impossible to prove or disprove. In other words, when somebody claims to have had a vision, whether in ancient or modern times, it cannot be proven whether or not it was objective (i.e. real) or subjective (i.e. not real). Certainly many that have such visions, particularly in cultures where such are relevant, believe that they are real events (i.e. objective). However, since these occur in contexts only perceivable by the persons having them, it is impossible to determine whether or not the event is merely all in the person's mind or if there truly is some kind of extra-mental correlate. Thus, the objectivity of the appearances cannot be disproved even if they can be shown to be just as plausibly explained as the result of subjective influences, but if the latter is achieved, it must be conceded that the "subjective visions" hypothesis could serve as a reasonable naturalistic explanation of the data.

Such a proposition seems to become especially tenable when we consider some background knowledge on the issue of visions. Consider the following:

Anthropologists studying cross-cultural psychology define altered states of consciousness as conditions in which sensations, perceptions, cognition, and emotions are altered. Such states are characterized by changes in sensing, perceiving, thinking, and feeling. When a person is in such a state, the experience modifies the relation of the individual to the self, body, sense of identity, and the environment of time, space, or other people. One scholar has identified twenty such states of consciousness: dreaming, sleeping, hypnagogic (drowsiness before sleep), hypnopompic (semiconsciousness preceding waking), hyperalert, lethargic, rapture, hysteric, fragmentation, regressive, meditative, trance, reverie, daydreaming, internal scanning, stupor, coma, stored memory, expanded consciousness, and 'normal.' In trance or in any other altered state of consciousness, a visionary encounters, indeed enters, another level or aspect of reality registered physiologically in the brain in the same way 'normal' experiences are. Culturally 'normal' or consensual reality is that aspect or dimension of reality of which a person is most commonly aware most of the time. Alternate reality describes that dimension of reality in which the deity and spirits reside, which human beings from culturally 'normal' reality can sometimes visit in ecstatic trance by taking a journey (variously called 'sky journey' or 'soul loss' and the like), and to which people go when they die. (Those who do not believe any of these things would call this nonconsensual reality.)

During the centuries before and after the Gospels were written, countless persons reported a range of visions and appearances involving celestial entities. There is no reason not to take the experiences of these persons seriously, at their word. Their experiences have to be interpreted within the framework of their own culture's consensus reality (rather than ours)…

Mainstream U.S. culture frowns upon and even denies the human capacity for visions, trances, and experiences of alternate realities. We are very curious about nonrational dimensions of human existence, but tend to label all such occurrences as irrational. John Pilch cites the work of Erika Bourguignon, who compiled a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world, at various levels of technological complexity, and found that ninety percent of these societies evidence 'alternate states of consciousness.' Her conclusion: 'Societies which do not utilize these states clearly are historical exceptions which need to be explained, rather than the vast majority of societies that do use these states' (cited by Pilch 1993). Thus it would be quite anachronistic and ethnocentric to take our post-Enlightenment, post-industrial revolution, technologically obsessed society as normative for judging anyone other than ourselves. For most of the world, even today, a report of alternate states of awareness would be considered quite normal. [Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003; pp. 327-329; emphasis added]

Malina and Rohrbaugh also attribute numerous events within the gospels regarding Jesus to visions, including the resurrection appearances:

The appearances of Jesus raised by God are visions of Jesus in alternate reality, where he, as God's chosen holy one, continues to live. The appearances of a holy man are altered-states-of-consciousness experiences and therefore are quite real. The interpretation that the disciples gave to these experiences was that God had raised Jesus from the dead. [ibid. 328]

Whether or not we agree with the Context scholars in this case we'll get to later, but for now it is important to note that the phenomena of visions are firmly embedded within most cultures, ancient and modern.

More importantly, when we come to the New Testament itself, it becomes clear that visions were common in the life of the early church, including angelic visions and visions of Jesus (see Acts 9:10-16; 10:3-6; 10:9-17; 18:9-10 for a couple of examples of each). But, even more to the point, critics claim that since Paul's encounter with Jesus was in the form of a vision (see Acts 9:3-9; 22:6-11; 26:12-18), and since he places the appearance of Jesus to him in the same list as that of the other apostles (I Corinthians 15:3-8), it is reasonable to assume that the appearances to the other apostles were also visionary in character. The vision of John in Revelation is also sometimes appealed to in this regard (see Rev. 9:8-11ff.). This is again significant in the mind of critics since it is widely regarded that John is the author of the book of Revelation. Thus, it is asserted that the only direct accounts we have of those reporting post-mortem appearances of Jesus describe them as visions.

So, in sum, the skeptic can rightly assert that the cultural background of the Biblical period (and indeed, of most cultures throughout history) provides fertile grounds for the occurrence of visions, there are numerous visions recorded in the New Testament itself (including to the likes of key apostles themselves such as Peter and Paul), and that the only two instances of direct testimony we have (i.e. Paul and John) indicate that the appearances were visionary in character. In addition, given that Paul equates his appearance to those of the other apostles in I Corinthians 15:3-8, it is most likely that we are to take the appearances to them as visionary in character as well.

III. Refutation of the Subjective Visions Hypothesis

Having summarized the typical arguments (as I've seen them at least) used to legitimate the "subjective vision/hallucination" hypothesis, we now move on to the main point of this article, which is to demonstrate why this hypothesis nevertheless remains untenable. This will be a fairly lengthy treatment of this subject, so I tried to avoid the temptation of reinventing the proverbial wheel as much as I could on topics that have already been addressed on-line, particularly here on Tekton. Thus in such places I provide a link (or links) to articles that I felt establishes the case(s) for which I'm arguing. Furthermore, the reader that wishes to delve into the various issues raised here in more depth, including that which provides responses to some push-backs that, for the sake of brevity, we will not address here, we highly recommend that they check out the sources that we reference in the appropriate sections.

I have divided this section of the article into several subsections for organizational purposes. But, it seems that the best way to begin our analysis is to critically consider the assertions commonly made in favor of the subjective visions/hallucinations hypothesis (see above).

IIIa. Problems with Making the Visions of Paul and John Paradigmatic for the other Appearances

As mentioned above in section II, the arguments by some in favor of the visionary character of the post-mortem appearances of Jesus revolve partially around the fact that the appearances to Paul and John were visionary in character, and it is supposedly only in these two cases that we have first-hand descriptions of the post-mortem appearances of Jesus. In regards to John's vision in Revelation, it is easy enough to respond by simply pointing out that the vision John experienced on Patmos occurred well after the time of Christ's Easter appearances (30-60 years later), and thus the comparison of this event to the Easter appearances is invalid. The critic could respond, however, by suggesting that this appearance of Jesus to John in a vision was the same in nature as his appearances to John (and the other disciples) shortly after he was allegedly resurrected, but whether or not such a suggestion is tenable rests on other grounds, which we will discuss later.

The matter with Paul, however, is more complex. First of all, it should be pointed out that, even if the appearance to Paul was in the form of a vision, this does not necessitate that the appearances to the other apostles were of the same nature (even though Paul included the appearance to himself in the same list as that of the other apostles in I Corinthians 15). William Lane Craig notes, in regards to this:

In including himself in the list, Paul in no sense implies that the foregoing appearances were the same sort of appearance as the one to him (32). He is concerned here, not with the how of the appearances, but with who appeared. He wants to list witnesses of the risen Christ, and the mode of the appearance is entirely incidental. But furthermore, in placing himself in the list, Paul is not trying to put the appearances to the others on a plane with his own; rather he is trying to level up his own experience to the objectivity and reality of others (33). He wants to say that what he saw was every bit as much a real appearance of Jesus as that which they saw. Hence, no inference can be made from the sort of appearance Paul received to the sort received by the earlier apostles. Paul affords no such deduction.

(32) D.H. van Daalen The Real Resurrection (London: Collins, 1972), p. 53. Even Fischer, who propounds the heavenly vision view, agrees that Paul does not concern himself with the kind or manner of the appearances, but with the unity of the apostolic testimony (Karl Martin Fischer, Das Ostergeschehen, 2d ed. [Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980], p. 74).

(33) For good statements of this point, see Brooke Foss Westcott, The Gospel of the Resurrection (London: Macmillan, 1906), pp. 93-94; James Orr, The Resurrection of Jesus (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1909), p. 39; P. Gardner-Smith, The Narratives of the Resurrection (London: Methuen, 1926), pp. 21-22; Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. "Resurrection in the New Testament," by J.A.T. Robinson. Dunn even hypothesizes that Paul's placing himself in the list could be a case of special pleading-interpreting a less distinctive religious experience as a resurrection appearance in order to boost his claim to apostolic authority (Dunn, Jesus, p. 99)! Dunn rejects the hypothesis in the end because the pillar apostles accepted Paul's claim without serious dispute (Ibid., p. 108). [Craig 1989; pp. 73-74; emphasis the original]

Moreover, the description of Paul's vision does not come from Paul's own pen, but rather from the second hand testimony of Luke. N.T. Wright remarks:

Common though this interpretation is, it is as much a figment of the imagination as Caravaggio's splendid horse. What seems to have happened is that mainstream critical scholarship has forgotten its much-trumpeted principle of reading Paul's own letters as primary evidence and the accounts in Acts as secondary. (5) The spectacular picture of the Damascus Road event, related no fewer than three times in Acts, has coloured the imagination of those who have read the brief and perfunctory mentions in Paul himself; it has been wrongly aligned with one passage in particular (2 Corinthians 4:6) which is about something else; and this imaginative reading has distracted attention from what Luke was trying to do through telling the story in that way (or 'in those ways', since the three accounts differ). All this should prevent us from taking it as decisive evidence for a non-bodily 'seeing' of Jesus. To make this case we must look at the evidence piece by piece. [Wright 2003; p. 376] [1]

Wright furthermore suggests that Luke's account of Paul's conversion is not necessarily to be taken literally. He suggests instead that Luke tailored his account to other well known parallel stories in ancient literature (i.e. 2 Maccabees 3:24-28 and a romance entitled Joseph and Aseneth (14:2-8)), and that he may have been "also evoking biblical stories of the call of the prophets" like Ezekiel and Daniel in order to "align Paul with the prophets and visionaries of Israel's history, and also (less certainly, but with strong possibility) to place him alongside penitent pagans who turned round and went in a new direction." [See Ibid. 388-393 for details]

Wright's theory appears to be plausible, though in light of the fact that Luke reports Paul describing the appearance to King Agrippa in Acts 26:19 as a "heavenly vision" (ouranios optasia), it seems most likely that Luke is trying to relate what actually happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. But, there remain numerous obstacles to the critic that tries to derive from this event that Paul experienced a subjective vision. First, it is clear that Paul's companions also experienced something along with Paul. In Acts 9:3-9, they heard the voice; in Acts 22:6-11, they saw the light, but did not hear the voice; in Acts 26:12-19, they fell to the ground with Paul. While the apparent contradictions in these accounts are well known, I find it unlikely that Luke would have truly so blatantly contradicted himself within the space of a single document (see here for some thoughts on harmonization), and at any rate all three accounts agree that Paul's companions did experience something.

Secondly, Paul was blinded for 3 days from the moment that the vision ended. This is also suggestive that the event was more than just a mere vision. It has been theorized by some critics that Paul may have suffered from a conversion disorder. This is a phenomenon that occurs when a person is experiencing some sort of subconscious conflict or emotional distress, resulting usually in a neurological abnormality, including blindness. It is often suggested that Paul had a guilt complex due to his struggling under the Jewish law and/or because of his persecution of Christians. This in turn resulted in his having a hallucination of Jesus. Sometimes added to this is the conversion disorder theory (cf. below the comments by Goulder), accounting for Paul's short bout of blindness.

First, Craig points out some problems with the idea that Paul suffered from a "guilt complex":

3. Is it plausible? Let me give two reasons why I think Dr. Lüdemann's hypothesis has little plausibility. First, I do not find his psychoanalysis of Peter and Paul very plausible for these reasons: (1) The data to do this kind of psychoanalysis is simply insufficient. Psychoanalysis is notoriously difficult even when the patient is seated in front of you, but is virtually impossible with historical figures. That is why psychobiography is rejected by historians. Martin Hengel, a great New Testament scholar, writes, 'Lüdemann…does not recognize these limits on the historian. Here he gets into the realm of psychological explanations, for which no verification is really possible….The sources are far too limited for such psychologizing analyses.' [2] (2) The evidence we do have indicates that Paul did not struggle with some guilt complex under the Jewish law. Nearly forty years ago, the Swedish scholar Krister Stendahl pointed out that Western readers have the tendency to interpret Paul in light of Martin Luther's struggles with guilt and sin. But Paul the Pharisee experienced no such struggles. Stendahl writes:

"Contrast Paul, a very happy and successful Jew, one who can [say,] 'As to the righteousness under the law, (I was) blameless' (Philip. 3:6). That is what he says. He experiences no troubles, no problems, no qualms of conscience. He is a star pupil, the student to get the thousand dollar graduate scholarship in Gamaliel's Seminary….Nowhere in Paul's writings is there any indication…that psychologically Paul had some problem of conscience. [3]"

And thus Dr. Lüdemann's hypothesis simply has little plausibility in its psychoanalysis of Peter and Paul.

[2] Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Paul Between Damascus and Antioch, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, KY.: Westminster John Knox, 1997), p. 342; cf. pp. 40-41.

[3] Krister Stendahl, "Paul Among Jews and Gentiles," in Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), pp. 12-13; cf. p. 80, "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West." [Craig "First Rebuttal" 2000; pp. 50-51; emphasis the original]

Moreover, the whole idea of "guilt" may be irrelevant in honor-shame societies such as that of first-century Palestine. See here for more.

Michael Goulder espouses another psychological theory, calling on Carl Gustav Jung for assistance:

Paul tells us that he, like Peter, was liable to 'revelations' (2 Cor 12:7), the word he uses for his call (Gal 1:16). But two features of his conversion make us think that psychological forces are at work, similar to those at work in other people: his persecution of the church and his blindness. Here we may allow the psychoanalyzing to be done by Carl Gustav Jung:

"Fanaticism is only found in individuals who are compensating secret doubts. The incident on the way to Damascus marks the moment when the unconscious complex of Christianity broke through into consciousness. Unable to conceive of himself as a Christian on account of his resistance to Christ, he became blind, and could only regain his sight through complete submission to Christianity. Psychogenetic blindness is, according to my experience, always due to unwillingness to see; that is, to understand and to realize something that is incompatible with the conscious attitude. Paul's unwillingness to see corresponds with his fanatical resistance to Christianity. (11)"

Again, Jung as a psychologist is offering a theory. No doubt some improvements have been made on his theory, though it may sound rather convincing to the amateur. But what matters is Jung's experience as a doctor. He has known a good number of people whom he defines as 'fanatics'; that is, they force their creed on other people-in Paul's case by persecution. Such people are especially liable to strong changes of commitment. He has also treated a number of people who have experienced temporary blindness arising without external physical causes ("psychogenetic blindness") and has found that they regain their sight when they come to accept a situation to which they had been strongly resistant.

(11) Carl Gustav Jung, Contributions to Analytical Psychology (ET; New York: Harcourt Brace; London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1928), p. 257 [Goulder 2000; pp. 94-95]

Again, however, problems arise. First, as was alluded to earlier in the previous quote from Craig, with our limited data, Jung was in no position to psychoanalyze Paul to nearly the same degree as his own patients (I might add that in Paul we're talking about a person living in a completely different culture separated in time by a couple of millennia as well, which makes psychoanalysis that much more difficult). Secondly, the suggestion that Paul was harboring secret doubts is pure speculation. It is more likely that Paul was so zealous because he perceived Christianity to be a dangerous cult that could lead many of his countrymen astray, rather than that it could be true. Third, it is one thing to have a strong change in commitment, but it is quite another to do so to the extent that one goes from trying to stamp out a new religious movement to being quite possibly its most staunch advocate, and making this radical transition in an almost-immediate fashion. This is particularly telling given that for Paul this entailed moving from a prestigious position as a Pharisee to one that resulted in a great deal of suffering (see e.g. II Cor. 11:23-28) and eventually martyrdom under Nero in probably 64 A.D. Fourth, Paul was not a likely candidate to experience a conversion disorder:

Third, Paul does not fit the profile of one who is likely to experience a conversion psychosis. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV (28), the primary source used by professional psychologists and psychiatrists for diagnosing psychological conditions, women are more likely than men to experience conversion psychosis by as much as a 5:1 ratio. Adolescents, military persons in battle, those of a low economic status, and those with a low IQ are likewise more prone to experience the phenomenon. Paul does not fit into any of these categories (29). This does not mean that he could not have experienced the disorder. Men still experience depression, although women are much higher candidates for it. However, combined with other challenges to the theory, the fact that Paul does not fall into any category of those likely to experience a conversion disorder renders the condition all the more unlikely as the cause of his experience of the risen Jesus. [Habermas & Licona 2004; 114]

Additionally, this theory does not account for the full range of the data of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. Craig notes in response to Goulder:

Gary Habermas has pointed out to me in personal conversation that Goulder's hypothesis also has little plausibility in that it requires the conspiration of at least four separate psychological disorders occurring simultaneously in Paul: a conversion disorder (these are not, contrary to Goulder's representation of them, hallucinatory in character), a visual hallucination, an auditory hallucination, and a messianic complex involving the belief that one had been commissioned by God. [Craig "Closing Response" 2000; 196, n. 41]

Perhaps most remarkably of all, a third problem with treating Paul's experience as a subjective vision is that a parallel vision was experienced at approximately that same time by Ananias, a disciple staying in Damascus. It could, of course, be argued that the vision by Ananias was subjective, but if such is the case, how strange is it that he should have had such a vision that would serve not only to vindicate a great persecutor of the new faith, but to authenticate this persecutor as the primary instrument that would be used by the Lord in bringing the Gospel to the Gentiles? This seems like very unlikely content for a hallucination. For that matter, how strange is it that the timing of this parallel vision ended up being so perfect, occurring no more than 3 days after Paul arrived in Damascus in his blinded state subsequent to his own vision? For Ananias to have braved entering the presence of this great persecutor of the new Christian Way, I submit that the vision he experienced is likely historical. It also seems reasonable to assert that the occurrence of such a peculiar vision along with its impeccable timing makes coincidence a highly unlikely explanation.

Thus, the Lukan account indicates that there were extra-mental correlates to Paul's conversion experience, and also that it was associated with other incidents that make the explanation that it was the result of a hallucination highly improbable. Critics that wish to use Luke's description of Paul's conversion to argue for a subjective vision would thus have to select only the aspects of the account that fit their theory while at the same time ignoring other key aspects of the account which would clearly contradict their theory. It seems perhaps that the evidence best warrants the conclusion that Paul experienced an objective vision on the road to Damascus. That is, what Paul experienced, while containing some visionary characteristics, truly did occur, and cannot be accounted for as a mere projection from the apostle's mind.

Before moving on, it behooves us to emphasize another very important point regarding what can be gleaned from the post-mortem appearances of Jesus as they are described by Luke. To reiterate the critic's typical argument, it is often stated that since the appearance to Paul was a vision, and since Paul places the appearance to him within the same list (I Cor. 15) as that of the other apostles, then the appearances to the other apostles must also have been visions, and that the appearance traditions we have in the gospels must therefore be late legends. In addition to the arguments against this by Craig we provided above, it should be noted that this argument is fallacious because it is Luke that serves as our actual source for the visionary characteristics of Christ's appearance to Paul, not Paul himself. This is significant because it is also Luke that provides us with some of our most important testimony to the physical, rather mundane nature of the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, both at the end of his gospel and at the beginning of Acts. Since Luke's gospel was obviously penned before Acts, the appearances Luke details in his gospel therefore cannot be considered legendary based solely on the fact that he describes an appearance with visionary characteristics to Paul.

IIIb. The New Testament Differentiation

What reasons then are there to assert that the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus were in fact NOT subjective visions? The first and most obvious reason to differentiate the post-resurrection appearances from the later visions of the early church seems to be that the writings of the New Testament themselves both implicitly and explicitly make this distinction.

The place to start this discussion is with a consideration of the gospel narratives themselves. Sandra Schneiders elaborates on how the post-resurrection appearances contained in the gospels are not descriptive of visionary experiences:

Secondly, the appearances, however extraordinary and non-physical in the natural sense of the term, were objective in the sense that they were not self-induced on the one hand or hallucinatory on the other. They were real and their cause was independent of the experiencing subject. The narratives testify to this 'objectivity' in a number of subtle but convincing ways. The recipients, we are told, did not expect to see Jesus alive. Mary Magdalene, the disciples on the way to Emmaus, the gathered disciples in Luke were lost in grief and despair and were totally astonished, even to the point of disbelief, by the appearance. Furthermore, the recipients were manifestly incapable of inducing the appearances. Mary Magdalene searches for the body, questions the angels and Jesus himself; the disciples on the way to Emmaus admit to Jesus their despair. Had they been able to 'conjure up' his presence these stories would have been unnecessary and pointless. It is also important to note that the appearances are not 'visions of the night' like Joseph's or the Magi's dreams in Matthew's infancy narrative (see Mt 1:20-23; 2:12, 19-20) or ecstatic experiences like Paul's rapture to the third heaven (2 Cor 12:2) or Peter's vision at Joppa (Acts 11:5-20) or the apocalyptic vision of the Seer on Patmos (Rev 1:9ff) (14). The Easter appearances happened in 'broad daylight' while their subjects are fully awake and going about their ordinary, historical business such as meeting, eating, traveling, and fishing in the very real world of houses, gardens, cities, roads, and boats. Finally, the Easter appearances were unique, limited to the time just after the death of Jesus, and they came to a definitive end after the appearance ('as to one untimely born' [1 Cor 15:8]) to Paul on the road to Damascus (15). Although the history of spirituality is replete with accounts of visionary encounters of the mystics with Jesus, e.g. those of Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, or Catherine of Siena, the church has never suggested that these visions were identical in kind or comparable in significance with the Easter appearances. The faith of the church does not rest upon these experiences even though it is greatly enriched by them. [Schneiders 1995; 90-91]

So, the description of the appearances themselves within the gospels indicate that they were essentially mundane in nature, lacking in visionary elements. Note here the contrast in how the gospels present the post-resurrection appearances from the "altered states of consciousness" described in section II by Malina & Rohrbaugh. More evidence of the New Testament differentiation can be found in Acts:

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." (Acts 1:1-11; emphasis added)

It is first of all notable that Luke states that the time frame of Jesus' appearances was finite, occurring over a period of 40 days. Furthermore, Luke appears to clearly be describing a "final appearance" here in chapter 1 of Acts given that Jesus' ascension takes place at the end of it. After this scene, the disciples returned to Jerusalem, instated Matthias as the twelfth disciple to replace Judas Iscariot, and then chapter 2 describes the coming and advent of the Holy Spirit (the theme of the Holy Spirit's advent after Christ's departure from earth is not peculiar to Luke - see John 14:16-20, 25-31; 15:26-27; and esp. 16:7-16). Furthermore, while the pre-ascension appearances of Jesus to his disciples are obviously physical, yet essentially mundane, the post-ascension encounters of Jesus found in the book of Acts are visionary in character, including even the appearance to Paul (see last section). Thus, it is clear that for Luke the visionary encounters experienced in the early church are different from Christ's post-resurrection appearances that preceded his ascension.

Next, we turn to the evidence from John:

After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you." Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing." Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed." Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. (John 20:26-31; emphasis added)

Kendall and O'Collins comment briefly on this passage:

What is the difference between those who have seen the risen Lord and believed, and those who believe without having seen him? This question is taken up by Raymond Brown in his commentary on John 20:29 (61). Brown emphasizes that the contrast here is between seeing and not seeing rather than between seeing and believing….Brown, in maintaining his position, is in good company. C.K. Barrett points out that John 20:29 contrasts seeing with believing apart from site-Thomas who saw contrasted with the later Christian believers who did not see. Barrett adds: "but for the fact that Thomas and the other apostles saw the incarnate Christ there would have been no Christian faith at all" Barrett stresses the unique importance of those who saw the risen Lord: "The disciples of the first generation had the unique distinction of standing as a link between Jesus and the church; John indicates this in saying that their successors equally may believe, and that their faith places them on the same level of blessedness with the eyewitnesses, or even above it" (p. 574). Barrett then concludes his comments as follows: "It is not true that the first apostles have no particular and unique importance; for later generations believe through their word (17:20), that is, it is in their word that later generations encounter the Risen Christ and become believers" (pp. 574-75). While the era of visible signs has ended, it remains indispensably important for all subsequent believers (64).

(64) Rudolf Schnackenburg (The Gospel According to St. John [3 vols.; New York: Crossroad, 1982] 3. 334) similarly argues that the special experience of Thomas can be summed up in "seeing." "Thomas is the exponent of that experience by a disciple, of Jesus' "appearances", which is denied to later believers." He explains his position in more detail thus: "The participle forms in the aorist (instead of in the present) are noticeable but not inexplicable. The attention is turned to the future when Christians, without having seen the risen Lord, attain to faith in him. The sense of the Greek puts him vividly in the future and then looks back on events which have already taken place; comparable to the aorist in 4:38; 15:8; 17:14,18 (q.v.). Also a need for stylistic variation can have had an effect; cf. the alternation between perfect and aorist in 1 John 1:1. In any case, the beatitude is no general concluding sentence, but was consciously and concretely expressed into the historical situation at the time of the evangelist, an appeal to the later believers without the 'seeing' granted Thomas, to come to the same firm faith and high-minded confession as he did" (pp. 334-35). R. H. Lightfoot (St. John's Gospel [Oxford: Clarendon, 1956] 334) also holds that the Easter appearances, which were essential for the apostles to bear witness to the resurrection of the Lord, came to an end. John 20:29 emphasizes that such manifestations were temporary, and that the Lord's words in this verse "would come charged with special relevance and value to those many disciples who, not having themselves been eyewitnesses, first read this gospel; and they should so come also to all disciples through the centuries." [Kendall & O'Collins 1992; 303-305]

So it is clear that Luke and John believed that the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus came to an end and were only for an exclusive group of people. This is despite the fact that others were having visions of Jesus in the early church (a fact that Luke not only acknowledges, but even tells us of in Acts). Before moving on, however, let us see if any data can be gleaned from our earliest New Testament writer on this differentiation of Christ's post-resurrection appearances and the visions of Jesus experienced in the early church. Once again, Kendall and O'Collins write:

Many commentators understand the list in I Cor 15:5-8 (of individuals and groups to whom the risen Christ appeared) to follow a chronological sequence (29). Within the context of this article, two points are important: the tense of the verb ophthe, and Paul's phrase of "last of all".

The aorist tense of "appeared" which Paul uses in I Cor 15:5-8 suggests events over and done with in the past and not repeated (30). As regards I Cor 15:8 and the appearances to Paul, C.F. Evans wonders whether Paul meant "last of all" to be a factual statement. Or is it an expression of Pauline egoism (31)? Evans does not answer his own questions but implies that the apostle holds that the appearance to him was in principle the last: "Paul envisages the whole series as coming to a close only with the appearance of the Lord to himself." (32)

Hans Conzelmann argues that the long list of witnesses, starting with 1 Cor 15:5 and ending at 1 Cor 15:8, is there to maintain the resurrection's "temporal distance from the present and thereby to rule out the [present] possibility of a direct appropriation of it." (33) Here Conzelmann seems to be saying that the witnesses, from Peter to Paul, directly appropriated the resurrection (directly encountered the risen Lord) in a way that was simply not possible for believers when Paul wrote I Corinthians.

Fuller is quite clear in holding that the appearance in Paul (I Cor 15:8) is in principle the last appearance of the risen Lord. He argues for two types of appearances (founding the eschatological community and inaugurating the Christian mission). He asserts that Paul not only knew of no other appearances during the past twenty years after his own, but also ruled out in principle any such appearances (34). Fuller sums up his points by saying: "The appearances occurred over a period of some three years or so, the last and definitive one being to that of Paul" (49). (35)

In commenting on I Cor 15:8 Jacob Kremer argues that the "of all" refers to all the Easter witnesses listed in I Cor 15:5-8, and not simply to "all the apostles" just mentioned in v 7. He further argues that even if "last of all" might in theory mean "least of all the apostles" (a sense of values), it reflects the "then" of vv 6-7 and clearly carries a temporal meaning (36).

Charles K. Barrett faces the same question and decides more emphatically for the temporal sense of "last of all." (37) Similar opinions are expressed by Grosheide ("Paul was the last to see the glorified Lord with his own eyes, in order that he might be a true apostle") (38), Morris ([Paul] "thinks of himself as the last in the line of those who have seen the Lord") (39), Wand (the "historical accuracy [of Paul's preaching] was guaranteed by a number of witnesses of whom Paul himself was the last") (40), and Rengstorf (41). Finally, Gordon Fee states that the appearance to Paul "was a unique and gracious gift that occurred after the time when such appearances were understood to have ceased" (42)

The conclusion seems well supported: Paul understood the risen Lord's appearance to him to be, both in fact and in principle, the last of a series. With his special case such experiences ended.

(30) Beda Rigaux (Dieu l'a ressuscite: Exegese et theologie biblique [Studii Biblici Franciscani Analecta 4; Gembloux: Duculot, 1973] 123) is one of the few authors to note the significance of the difference between the aorist tense of "he died," "he was buried," and "he appeared" (four times) and the perfect tense of "he has been raised" (I Cor 15:4). The perfect indicates the beginning but not the completion of an act. The aorist tense, however, locates an event in the sphere of past history, among things that happened, so as to be over and done with. Kessler similarly notes how the aorist tense of ophthe (I Cor 15:5,6,7,8) indicates a closed series of events (Sucht den Lebenden, 152). Grammars of NT Greek agree that in the first century A.D. the aorist indicative normally pointed to something that had simply come about, without being continued or repeated (Maximilian Zerwick, Biblical Greek [ed. Joseph Smith; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963] 77; Friedrich Blass and Albert Debrunner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek (ed. Robert Funk; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1961] 176). In our case, while the present impact of the resurrection itself continues (perfect tense), the appearances of the risen Christ, like the death and burial (all in the aorist) tense, are once-and-for-all events of the past that are not repeated.

(37) C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on The First Epistle to the Corinthians (HNTC; New York: Harper & Row, 1971) 334-44: "The last of the witnesses of the risen Christ was Paul himself. It is true that 'last of all' could be taken to mean 'least in importance', and would agree with verse 9; but at the end of a list punctuated by then…then…then, the other meaning of the word must be accepted." [Kendall & O'Collins 1992; 295-297]

Furthermore, N. T. Wright has some commentary on the uniqueness of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances. First of all, concerning I Corinthians 9:1, he notes:

As far as Paul was concerned, an 'apostle' was someone who had seen the risen lord; but the proof of apostleship came in the fruitfulness of the apostolic ministry (28). Paul takes it for granted that apostleship bestows a freedom of sorts, and he mentions this first because this is the point he is going to develop. But for us the critical connection is between the second and third questions. He is an apostle because he has seen Jesus the Lord (29). He is one of those, a finite and limited number, who saw Jesus and remained marked forever by the fact of having done so (that is the significance of the perfect tense of heoraka, 'I have seen': the perfect draws attention to the present and continuing significance of a one-off past event) (30). This is not a way of speaking that Paul has been drawn into by adopting, despite his own better judgment, 'the Christian practice of referring to such revelatory experiences as "seeing" the Lord' (31). He wants to make his point because he believes it to be true, and the truth of it matters for his argument.

The combination of this verse with 15:8-11 (see below) makes it clear that Paul intends a 'seeing' which is something quite different from the manifold spiritual experiences, the 'seeings' with the eye of the heart, which many Christians in most periods of history have experienced. The Corinthians had had all kinds of spiritual experiences, for which indeed Paul congratulates them in 1.4-7; but they had not had this experience. Paul, too, has had many spiritual experiences as his life and work have progressed, but he is not here referring to something that might occur again. This was, for him, a one-off, initiatory 'seeing', which constituted him as an apostle but would not be repeated. The resurrection appearances of Jesus came to a stop. His was the last; almost, in fact, too late.

The word heoraka, 'I have seen', is a normal word for ordinary sight. It does not imply that this was a subjective 'vision' or a private revelation; part of the point of it, as Newman stresses, is that it was a real seeing, not a 'vision' such as anyone in the church might have (32). The same is emphatically true of the other text from I Corinthians. [Wright 2003; 381-382]

Concerning I Cor. 15, Wright goes on to discuss four factors that "tell strongly in favour of Paul's intention to refer to a real 'seeing' with his ordinary eyes, rather than a 'seeing' in the sense of a private or internal 'experience'." First, Wright notes because of the proximity of this passage to I Cor. 9:1, which implies a real seeing, that must be the case here as well. Second, the "last of all" phrase used by Paul (see discussion quoted from Kendall & O'Collins above) indicates the post-resurrection appearances were different, especially in light of the fact that it was obvious that ongoing spiritual experiences were still occurring in the church (including there in Corinth). Third, Wright notes:

…it is noteworthy that 15.1-11 as a whole clearly speaks of a public event for which there is evidence in the form of witnesses who saw something and can be interrogated. As we saw earlier, those who have wished to say that the risen Christ was not that kind of being, that the resurrection was not that sort of event, that it did not have that kind of evidence, and that any witnesses would simply be speaking of their own inner conviction and experience rather than the evidence of their eyes, have had to say that Paul has here undermined the point he really should have been making. The best example of this, giving hereby a sign of hermeneutic that is about to walk blindfold over a cliff, is Rudolf Bultmann (34). [Ibid. 382-383; emphases the original]

Fourth, Wright appeals to the fact that I Cor. 15 clearly does not speak of a "non-bodily resurrection", an oxymoron in context:

The very close connection between Paul's view of what happened to Jesus and his view of what will happen to all Christians, and the robustly 'bodily' account of the latter given throughout I Corinthians 15, present an unanswerable case for the fact that when Paul spoke of Jesus 'appearing' in verse 8 he did not mean that Jesus appeared in his (Paul's) heart or mind, but to his bodily eyes and sight, as a real human being, truly and bodily raised from the dead. Paul knows there was something different about this 'seeing' of Jesus from that of the others in the list. He was out of time; the appearances had all but come to a stop; but he was granted this not least as a sign of grace (15.10). [Ibid. 382-383]

On this last point of Wright's, I would argue that even an apparently physically risen Jesus would not rule out the possibility of it being the result of a subjective vision (see next section), though it is obviously clear that Paul thought that he had seen the risen Jesus, and that the event was not merely a subjective vision.

Finally, Craig writes:

In including himself in the list, Paul implicitly asserts to have been the recipient of a genuine appearance of Jesus, not simply a vision. Paul was familiar with religious visions (II Cor. 12:1-7), and what he saw on the Damascu [sic] road was no mere vision. His use of εωραηα (I Cor. 9:1) is not only reminiscent of the language of the appearances, but also indicates an event in the past with enduring consequences: the unrepeated event of seeing Christ and being commissioned as an apostle. His use of εσχατον δε παντωυ (I Cor. 15:8) also indicates that the appearance to him was not repeated. The εητρωμα in the same verse could also be an indication of the uniqueness of that event. Paul held that the resurrection appearances ceased with himself and that this event was therefore essentially different from his later "visions and revelations of the Lord" (II Cor. 12:1). Convinced that this was no mere vision, Paul seems eager to include himself among those who had received an appearance of the Lord, perhaps because his detractors denied or doubted his apostleship (I Cor. 9:1-2; II Cor. 11:5; 12:11) and his having seen Christ would be an argument in his favor (Gal. 1:1, 11-12; 15-16; I Cor. 9:1-2; 15:8-9). A vision of Christ so much later than the appearance to the Twelve would naturally be regarded with suspicion, (31), and so Paul is anxious to include himself with the other apostles as a recipient of a genuine, objective appearance of the risen Lord. [Craig 1989; 70-72]

Thus, the New Testament itself clearly differentiates the post-resurrection appearances to the apostles from the visions of Jesus that were apparently fairly common in the early church [2]. Obviously, those that were experiencing these later visions probably thought that they were "objective" in nature, yet they still were unlike those experienced by the earliest followers of Jesus. In light of the contrast spelled out by the New Testament itself between the post-mortem appearances of Jesus and the later visions of Jesus experienced by many in the early church, reducing the former to mere subjective visions is without foundation [3].

IIIc. The Physicality of the Resurrection

The debate over the nature of the resurrection body becomes indirectly relevant when considering the feasibility of the subjective vision/hallucination hypothesis. The resurrection narratives in the gospels (particularly in Luke and John), while depicting Jesus' post-resurrection body as somehow different from that of before the resurrection (e.g. containing the apparent ability to appear and disappear at will), nevertheless present the post-resurrection appearances to be physical in nature.

Zusne and Jones relate, regarding the content of hallucinations:

Hallucinations may be visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, haptic, kinesthetic, or organic. Visual hallucinations range from simple light phenomena to the seeing of life-sized, life-like persons engaged in various activities. Objects usually appear to be three dimensional and solid. They cast shadows, people do not walk through walls and furniture, but around them, and the entire vision may not appear any less detailed, vivid, or substantial than ordinary perceptions. Sometimes, however, the hallucinations may be less substantial and may appear to be larger or smaller than natural size. Micropsia and macropsia-the seeing of objects as being of a size smaller or larger than their natural size-in hallucinations may have given rise to stories about diminutive people, such as fairies or leprechauns, or of giants. [Zusne & Jones 1982; 133]

Thus it should be noted that establishing the physicality of the resurrection would not necessarily rule out the possibility of their being explained as subjective visions. However, doing so would serve to bolster our confidence in the historicity of the gospel narratives, which in turn would allow us to make some observations about them which are difficult to account for under this hypothesis.

The place where such a debate must start is with the data provided by Paul, given that his writings are almost universally accepted to be our earliest sources. If it can be determined that Paul taught a physical resurrection, this lends credibility to the gospel narratives. As far as I can tell, there are four theories on the proverbial market regarding Paul's teaching on the nature of the resurrection body:

1. The body that is raised is supernatural, though still physical, and is a transformation of the same body that died and was buried.

2. The body that is raised is spiritual, and was a transformation of the same body that died and was buried.

3. The body is not raised at all as the resurrection Paul refers to is only of the spirit, and the body that died stays in the grave.

4. The body that is raised is a completely different body from the one that died, and thus the body that died stays in the grave.

Clearly, theory 1 seems to be the most harmonious with the testimony contained within the gospels, and it is this one that we believe is best supported by the data. Given the extensive work already performed on these issues by JPH, this is one area where I'll avoid the temptation of "reinventing the wheel". Thus, I refer the reader to the following links where this premise is argued and defended in substantial depth:

http://tektonics.org/lp/physrez.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/pricer06.html#rez

http://www.tektonics.org/tomb/carrier11.html

http://www.tektonics.org/tomb/carrier12.html

Additionally, see the helpful discussions in [Craig 1989; pp. 117-159] and [Wright 2003; pp. 312-398]. In fact, more than the first 500 pages of Wright's magisterial book on the resurrection is dedicated largely to very thorough analyses of how "resurrection" was defined in the ancient world by pagans, Jews, and Christians through about 200 A.D. [Ibid. chapters 1-11] Finally, there is Robert Gundry's painstaking treatment of the pivotal word used by Paul in I Corinthians 15: Soma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology.

Next we come to the gospel narratives themselves. As I'll argue in more depth below, if the appearance traditions found in Matthew, Luke, and John can be established with reasonable confidence to reflect real events, or even if only a couple of them can so be established, this renders the subjective vision hypothesis extremely tenuous. We will describe in more detail later why this is the case, but for now we need to discuss whether or not there are good reasons to believe in the essential historicity of the appearance traditions in the gospels. It should be noted here that it is not my intent to provide a harmony of the four gospels' resurrection narratives, though I think JPH has successfully demonstrated here that such is possible. The important point for us is not to establish that the four evangelists provide us with accounts consistent with Biblical inerrancy, but rather to determine whether or not at least some of the post-resurrection traditions utilized by the evangelists are likely to be based on historical cores of truth.

IIId. The Gospels and Legendary Accrual

Obviously, of prime importance when attempting to answer this question is whether or not Christ's post-resurrection body as portrayed in the gospels is consistent with what we find in the writings of Paul. Of course, we believe that Paul, along with the gospels, do indeed teach that the post-resurrection body was physical, and that the sources we provided above demonstrate this persuasively. However, if any ambiguity as to the nature of the resurrection body remains after thoroughly examining the Pauline corpus, it seems that the unanimous testimony of Matthew, Luke, and John to the physicality of Jesus' post-resurrection body would clearly tilt the balance of evidence in favor of the assertion of the bodily resurrection of Christ. This is especially so given that these gospels each report different traditions and were penned no later than between about 70-100 A.D. It seems then that we have multiple, independent accounts contained in documents written at least within two generations of when the alleged events took place.

Our confidence against significant legendary accrual is further enhanced by the basic reliability of the oral tradition that would have underlined the writing of the gospels as well as a very good possibility that Jesus' followers actually recorded Jesus' words and deeds shortly after they occurred! Here we quote John Wenham at length:

There is one further consideration which should be taken into account at this point: that is the unique fittedness of Matthew to be the author of the first gospel. This matter has been examined with great thoroughness in an undeservedly neglected book by E. J. Goodspeed, Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist (21).

Goodspeed has no doubts about the priority of Mark, but at the same time he believes in the traditional authorship of Matthew, arguing that it was normal practice to use sources without acknowledgement. But he considers it improbable that in the Greek world of books the author should have been forgotten. He stresses the sheer greatness of this gospel, which throughout the whole history of the Christian church has usually been regarded as the greatest of the four. Its very quality presupposes a writer who knew his subject at first-hand. How could his name have been forgotten, and why was Matthew's name adopted if he was not in fact the author? Goodspeed suggests that Jesus found himself in a similar position to Isaiah, when it became clear that his message was going to be rejected by the people as a whole. He deliberately took steps for the preservation of his teaching among his disciples. He observed the faith and commitment of Levi the tax-collector and recognized him as one who was capable of making a record of his teaching. The other leading disciples could doubtless read and write, but from what we know of them they all seem to have been essentially practical men. The only one who was a professional pen-pusher was Matthew.

Goodspeed shows how sophisticated the tax system was. It is known that in Egypt at this date there were 111 kinds of tax, and many of the tax-collectors knew shorthand. Matthew's livelihood was earned by intertwining tax-payers and discussing their affairs (usually in Aramaic) and then writing up his reports in Greek. He had a lifelong habit of noting things down and of preserving what he had written. It cannot be too strongly stressed that the world of Jesus' day was highly literate and that (whether or not Goodspeed's notion that Jesus made Matthew his recorder is true) it is altogether likely that there were people who made notes of what Jesus said. He made a tremendous impact on a wide variety of listeners, and it seems unlikely that no one attempted to make a record of what he taught.

This point was commonly made in an earlier generation, for example, by such scholars as W. M. Ramsay and G. Salmon (22). But, as it is now unfashionable, it may be well to quote some modern writers on the subject. R. H. Gundry says:

"The only hypothesis with enough flexibility to meet the requirements is that a body of loose notes stands behind the bulk of the synoptic tradition. The wide use of shorthand and the carrying of notebooks in the Graeco-Roman world, the school practice of circulating lecture notes and utilizing them in published works, and the later transmission of rabbinic tradition through shorthand notes support this hypothesis. As a former publican, the Apostle Matthew would have been admirably fitted to fill a position of note-taker in the band of uneducated apostles (23)."

M. Lowe and D. Flusser write: 'It was common practice for the disciples of rabbis to make notes of their sayings. It is also notable that Justin Martyr repeatedly refers to the gospels as απομνημονευματα… a technical term for memoirs.' (24) (it is particularly important to observe this note-taking in rabbinical circles since learning by rote was the method of education favoured by the rabbis. Goodspeed 48 summarises the Jewish rule as "Commit to memory', and the Greek rule as 'If you have no paper, write it on your garments!') L. C. A. Alexander observes in connection with the training of professional men in the Greek-speaking world that note-taking was 'necessary in academic life' (25).

D. A. Carson says: 'Recent research has argued for written records that go back to Jesus' ministry,' and he gives further references from the works of H. Schürmann (1961), and R. Riesner (1981) (26). E. E. Ellis (1987) says: 'Traditions of Jesus were carefully cultivated, transmitted by an authorized leadership and fixed in writing much earlier than was formerly supposed.' And in 1988 he wrote: 'There are good grounds, then, for supposing not only that the traditioning of Jesus' acts and teachings began already during his earthly ministry, as H. Schürmann has argued, but also that some of them were given written formulation at that time.' (27) P. H. Davids writes:

"There is no reason to assume that the early transmission was exclusively oral. The apostles may not have been studied in the Jewish law (so Acts 4:13), but due to the prevalence of education in Jewish communities many, if not most, of them must have been literate. We should therefore not be surprised if at least a minimal amount of the testimonia, narratives, and teaching which found their way into the gospels was recorded in writing before or soon after Easter… The pre-Easter Sitz-im-Leben of such material was the mission of the twelve and the need to leave teaching behind as the itinerant band traveled. The post-Easter setting was the teaching needs of the growing church and especially the mission outside Jerusalem. The Hellenists of the Stephen group had reduced much of the Gospel to writing in Greek (28)." [Wenham 1992: 112-114; emphases the original]

For more on oral tradition and the possibility of written notes utilized by the early church, see the following:

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/orality01.html

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/stil09.html

With the time frame that we're working with in mind, William Lane Craig discusses 3 factors that make it very probable that the traditions as we have them are basically historical:

(a) There was insufficient time for legend to accrue significantly. Ever since Strauss broached his theory that the gospel accounts of Jesus's life and resurrection are the products of legendary development, the unanswered difficulty for this conception has been that the temporal and geographical distance between the events and the accounts seems to be simply insufficient to allow for the extent of development postulated. Julius Müller's critique of Strauss has yet to be answered:

"Most decidedly must a considerable interval of time be required for such a complete transformation of a whole history by popular tradition, when the series of legends are formed in the same territory where the heroes actually lived and wrought. Here one cannot imagine how such a series of legends could arise in an historical age, obtain universal respect, and supplant the historical recollection of the true character and connexion of their heroes' lives in the minds of the community, if eye-witnesses were still at hand, who could be questioned respecting the truth of the recorded marvels. Hence, legendary fiction, as it likes not the clear present time, but prefers the mysterious gloom of grey antiquity, is wont to seek a remoteness of age, along with that of space, and to remove its boldest and more rare and wonderful creations into a very remote and unknown land." (3)

Roman historian A. N. Sherwin-White has urged the same consideration. He remarks that in classical historiography the sources are usually biased and removed at least one or two generations or even centuries from the events they narrate; but historians still reconstruct with confidence what happened (4). In the gospels, by contrast, the tempo is "unbelievable" for the accrual of legend; more generations are needed (5). The writings of Herodotus enable us to test the tempo of myth-making, and the tests suggest that even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core of oral tradition (6). Müller challenged scholars of his day to show where in 30 years a great series of legends, the most prominent elements of which are fictitious, have anywhere gathered around an important historical individual and become firmly fixed in general belief (7); the challenge was never met. Dibelius sought an analogy in the Apophthegmata Patrum (8), but the tradition in this case took a century to form, not thirty or forty years; such a temporal gap for the gospel traditions would land us in the period when the apocryphal gospels were beginning to originate.

(b) The controlling presence of living eyewitnesses would retard significant accrual of legend. Related to the temporal and geographical proximity of the gospels to the events they narrate is the controlling presence of living eye-witnesses who knew what did and did not happen. Taylor has twitted skeptical New Testament scholars for their neglect of this factor, observing that if these critics were right, then the disciples "must have all been translated into heaven immediately after the Resurrection." (9) The witnesses listed by Paul in I Cor. 15 continued to live and move in the early community and would exercise a control on the appearance traditions. As Plummer observes, those who had seen Christ after the resurrection would soon become "marked men." (10) Similarly, if the persons like Mary Magdalene and the women did not see Jesus, then it is difficult to see how the tradition could arise and continue that they did, in opposition to the better knowledge of first generation believers.

(c) The authoritative control of the apostles would have helped to keep legendary tendencies in check. Since the apostles were the guardians of the Jesus tradition, it would have been difficult for fictitious appearance stories incompatible with the apostles' own experience to arise and flourish so long as they were alive, or for the true story to be supplanted by a false. Künneth's judgment is worth repeating:

"It is extremely difficult to see how the gospel accounts of the resurrection could arise in opposition to the original apostolic preaching and that of Paul…The authority of the apostolic eyewitnesses was extraordinarily strong. It would be inconceivable how there should have arisen in opposition to the authoritative witness of the original apostles a harmonious tradition telling of an event that has no basis in the message of the eye-witnesses." (11)

Fabrication of stories on the part of Christians, he believes, would have been "sharply contradicted by the apostles or their pupils." (12) Discrepancies in secondary details could exist, and the theology of the evangelists could affect the traditions, but the basic traditions themselves could not have been legendary so long as the disciples were in charge of the deposit of Christian tradition and directing the Christian community. The accounts which are unhistorical in substance did not arise until the second century, and even then they were universally rejected by the early church.

These three factors-the insufficient temporal and geographical distance between the events and the accounts, the controlling presence of eye-witnesses, and the authoritative control of the apostolic leaders-seem to insure that the traditions underlying the gospel appearance narratives are not unhistorical legends and that therefore the appearance stories of the gospels are substantially accurate accounts of what took place.

(3) Julius Müller, The Theory of Myths, in its Application to the Gospel History, Examined and Confuted (London: John Chapman, 1844), p. 26. Müller further argues that one cannot ascribe to the apostles such carelessness that they should not have remarked the formation and general diffusion of unhistorical legends about Jesus among the communities of Palestine, or if they remarked them, that they should not have opposed them vigorously. Moreover, were the stories without historical foundation, the enemies of Christianity would surely have seized upon this fact. Luke's use of eyewitnesses in particular (Lk. 1:4) ensures that he at least is not copying down myths, thinking it is history (Ibid., pp. 29-33). Compare the argument of August Tholuck, who in his critique of Strauss also laid great weight on Luke's proximity to the events in question and ability as a historian (A. Tholuck, The Credibility of the Evangelical History [London: John Chapman, 1844]). He argues that the author of Luke-Acts was a companion of Paul and that several lines of evidence point to a date for Acts of AD 63-64, which puts the gospel even earlier (Ibid., pp. 5-8). We are thus placed in the time of eyewitnesses to the recorded events. Tholuck then argues on the basis of the details in Acts for Luke's competence as a historian (Ibid., pp. 8-23). This means not only that Luke's narratives are historically credible, but the narratives of the other gospels as well, since they generally concur. Athanase Coquerel also scored Strauss for allowing insufficient time for the accrual of legend. Comparing the gospel stories to the myths about Charlemagne, he maintains that it takes ages for myths to form; the legends Strauss seeks are actually the apocryphal gospels (Athanase Coquerel, Reply to Dr. Strauss's Book, 'The Life of Jesus' [n.p.; n.d.], pp. 37-45). All these considerations press with almost equal force today. [Craig 1989; pp. 381-82; 387-89; emphasis the original]

In order to avoid potential confusion, we should perhaps elaborate on a very important point made by Craig regarding the accrual of legend. Once again, it is the historical core of truth that is unlikely to be supplanted within such a short period of time. This obviously does not preclude that some falsehoods could be generated and even circulate widely within two generations. However, it is very unlikely that such falsehoods could become the generally accepted facts among the relevant population(s) to the point where the true historical foundations are completely eclipsed within such a short period of time. Let's consider an analogy from the gospel portraits of Jesus as a miracle worker. Our argument would thus entail that since Jesus is universally portrayed as a miracle worker by the four gospels, each of which was written within 2 generations of his death, it is very unlikely that such a portrayal could have been the result of legendary accrual. This does not preclude the possibility that some elements within the various miracle traditions incorporated into the gospels are unhistorical, or even the possibility that spurious miracle stories crept into the gospel accounts. However, the data is such that we can state with a very high degree of confidence that the miracle-working aspect of Jesus' ministry in general is very firmly embedded within the true historical tradition. Similarly, in the case of the post-resurrection appearances, while our argument would not necessitate that all of the various elements of the appearance traditions be historical, it would make it very unlikely that the appearance traditions, at their historical core, would have become so tainted by legendary accrual so as to have been universally accepted within such a short period of time, thereby supplanting the original form of the appearance traditions that some critics would have us believe were originally circulated by the church. See the following article where JPH demonstrates the importance of this principle in greater detail in a response to Robert Price regarding legendary "build-up":

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/pricer02.html

Of course, if at least a couple of the gospels were written prior to 70 A.D., then the probability of the above conclusions are that much more accentuated. If such was the case, the reports are located firmly within one generation of when the actual events took place. John Wenham argues cogently that Matthew may have been written in Aramaic as early as 42 A.D., with Mark and Luke having been originally composed in 45 and 55 A.D., respectively. John A.T. Robinson argues that all four gospels, including John, were composed prior to 70 A.D. See [Wenham 1992] and [Robinson 1976], and the link provided below.

Another important factor to consider is whether or not any of the four gospel authors (whoever they may have been) can be directly connected to apostolic testimony. If the answer is yes, particularly in the cases of Matthew, Luke, or John, then our confidence thus increases that much more in regards to the essential historical reliability of the appearance narratives contained therein. For starters, in the case of Luke, we are told at the beginning of his gospel that his information comes from eyewitness sources. From the "we" passages in Acts (see e.g. 16:8-10), it is most natural to conclude that the author knew and traveled to at least some extent with Paul. Furthermore, Paul tells us directly that he visited the apostles 3 years after his conversion (e.g. Gal. 1:18-19). Gary Habermas informs us as to the possible nature of Paul's visit:

Describing his personal and lengthy visit with Peter in Jerusalem shortly after his conversion, Paul uses the term historeo, most likely indicating an investigative inquiry. William Farmer argues that the word in this context signifies that Paul cross-examined Peter. During this visit Paul also visited James (Gal 1:19). In any case, the immediate context suggests that the chief topic of conversation concerned the nature of the gospel (Gal 1:11-16), which included reference to Jesus' resurrection (I Cor 15:1-4). As Dodd declares, a maximum of "seven years after the crucifixion" Paul "stayed with Peter for a fortnight, and we may presume they did not spend all the time talking about the weather." [Habermas 1997; 265]

The significance of this for our present purpose is that it seems probable that Paul would have known something about Christ's post-resurrection appearances to the disciples based on his two week stay with the disciples, particularly if it was indeed an investigative inquiry, as postulated by Habermas. It is at this meeting between Paul, Peter, and James that most scholars argue that Paul probably received the information contained in I Corinthians 15:1-8. If that was the case, it seems reasonable to suggest (out of human curiosity if nothing else) that Paul would have inquired as to the story behind the appearances contained therein as well. Thus, not only does Luke inform us at the beginning of his gospel that he passed along eyewitness testimony, but it seems that through Paul he would have been in a very good position to do so regarding the post-mortem appearances of Jesus to the disciples as well. In fact, our confidence in Luke's reporting of what actually took place is substantially strengthened by the fact that he has been proven to be very reliable in areas where his testimony can be checked against outside sources. See here, for instance. Also see [Hemer 1990].

As far as Mark is concerned, church tradition tells us that he penned his gospel from the teachings of Peter. Martin Hengel discusses several internal considerations from Mark that support the external evidence, among which I found the following significant:

1. Peter is the first disciple to be called immediately after Jesus' public appearance. His name is also the last of the disciples to appear in Mark (Mark 1:16; 16:7).

2. In Mark 16:7, the and Peter, according to Hengel "disrupts the narrative and is completely superfluous", and it is notable that this unnecessary addition is omitted by Matthew. Hengel states that it is also odd that only here when the disciples and Peter are mentioned together that Peter is mentioned at the end, whereas elsewhere he always is mentioned at the beginning. From this Hengel concludes that Mark structured his gospel so that Peter would be named at the beginning and end in order to give it Peter's stamp of authority.

3. Mark's gospel is predominantly Galilean in character compared with Luke and John, which is significant since Peter served as the "spokesman of the Galilean disciples."

4. According to Hengel, the "disciples" are mentioned a total of 43 times, but Peter is emphasized as he is mentioned 25 times. Matthew also mentions Peter 25 times, but the "disciples" in his gospel are mentioned 75 times. Plus, Matthew's gospel is 70% longer than that of Mark. In an end-note, Hengel cites the work of Feldmeier, who determined ratios for the number of times Peter is mentioned per the number of words in the three Synoptic gospels. The ratio is substantially higher for Mark at 1:443, with that of Matthew and Luke standing at 1:772 and 1:648, respectively. Of course, if the Markan priority paradigm is accurate, then this is that much more significant since the emphases that Matthew and Luke also place on Peter could be largely the result of their use of Mark as a source.

5. Finally, Hengel states that the mentions of Peter tend to accumulate at important parts of Mark's gospel, such as at the beginning of Jesus' activity (ch. 1), the denouement in chs. 8 & 9, and of course, the passion narrative in ch. 14.

From this, Hengel concludes:

Only secondarily is it to be noted that the period of tradition between Jesus and the time of Mark is not more than forty years and the remembrance of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee and Jerusalem was still vivid. In other words, the fact that the name of Simon Peter has been quite deliberately and massively retained in his Gospel is grounded not only in the importance of Peter for the evangelist, but also in remembrance and historical reality. For Mark, the chronological distance from Jesus of about forty years could still be surveyed relatively easily, and hardly more than five years separate him from the martyrdom of Peter, his teacher. Even if we did not have the reports of Irenaeus, the two Clements and Justin, the Papias note and I Peter 5.13, we would have to assume that the author of the Second Gospel is dependent upon Peter in a striking way, for historical, theological, and quite personal reasons. [Hengel 2000; 82-85]

Of course, Mark is of limited help for our present cause since he does not record post-resurrection appearances. Or, if he did, we do not at present know what he wrote about them. On the other hand, he does report the empty tomb, so for him we do know that only options 1 and 2 listed above regarding the resurrection body would be feasible. If we have in his gospel the authority of Peter, we thus have an indirect link to apostolic testimony that is at least in harmony with what we are arguing for here, bodily resurrection.

Now, if traditional authorship is accurate in the case of the other two evangelists, or even of just one of the two, then this is all the more remarkable. Given that Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus, and thus would be among those that actually experienced these post-resurrection appearances, we would have in their cases actual first-hand testimony as to the nature of the post-resurrection appearances! The significance of this cannot be understated. But, even if traditional authorship is to be rejected in both of their cases, it seems more than reasonable to suggest that their pupils, in this case, would have given us basically historically reliable accounts since we'd still only be one remove away from those that actually experienced the events contained within the gospels [4]. Before leaving the issue of apostolic testimony, I'd like to briefly touch on the apparent eyewitness accounts we find in John's gospel, namely that of the "Beloved Disciple" [5]. Since the post-resurrection narratives in John are arguably our best witnesses to the bodily resurrection of Jesus, this seems to be pertinent for our present purposes. Leon Morris summarizes some of the internal evidence:

We should also notice that there are touches which many have felt indicate an eyewitness (21). This is not universally agreed, but then it is difficult to know what all would agree does indicate the eyewitness. What to one is unmistakable evidence of first-hand observation is to another no more than a touch introduced to give an air of verisimilitude to the narrative. But it is difficult to think that that is an adequate explanation of all the passages adduced in this Gospel. Sometimes these concern the time of day at which a thing happened (1 : 39; 4 : 6, etc.), or perhaps they link it with one of the feasts (2 : 13, 23, etc.). Place names are brought in very naturally, and often for no apparent reason save that it was there that the incident happened (e.g. Cana in ch. 2). Many have seen the reminiscence of an eyewitness in the way the call of the disciples is described (1 : 35-51), or again the episode of the feet-washing (13 : 1-20). With this we should take information about persons not mentioned elsewhere such as Nicodemus, Lazarus and others. It is difficult to see a reason for introducing the name of Nicodemus into the narrative, for example, other than that this was in fact the inquirer's name. And why else should we be told that the name of the high priest's servant whose ear Peter cut off was Malchus (18 : 10)? Or that he was related to one of those who accused Peter of being a follower of Jesus (18 : 26)? To personal knowledge again we should surely ascribe the information that Annas was father-in-law to Caiaphas (18 : 13). All in all the information supplied by this Gospel gives good reason for us to hold that its author knew the facts at first hand and wrote of what he knew and had seen.

It is also the case that there are claims to eyewitness testimony. The first is in 1 : 14, "we beheld his glory". Some see this as meaning, "we Christians", "believers generally". But in the first instance this is a very unnatural way to take the words, and in the second the word "see" appears to mean, "see with the outward eye" (22). It is much more likely that the words refer to what the writer and his friends have seen physically. A second appeal to witness appears in 19 : 35, "he that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true: and he knoweth that he saith is true, that ye also may believe." There is a problem as to whether the writer means that he himself has borne the witness or that someone else has done so. But there is good reason for seeing eyewitness testimony behind the statement (see the note on the passage) (23).

With this we should consider the controversies referred to in the Gospel. These are not the kind of questions that Christians discussed among themselves in the second century (like episcopacy, Gnostic emanations, the date of keeping Easter, etc.), nor are they the standard disputes between Christians and Jews. There is an authentic note about them as of the kind of subject that was in dispute in first century Palestine. So we get discussions of the use and abuse of the Sabbath (ch. 5), about the Messiah and his credentials and whether he would rescue the Jews from the Romans (6 : 15; 11 : 47-50), about true and false Judaism. P. Borgen has made a close study of the sixth chapter and he points out that in subject matter and method this is authentic Palestinian (24). From another angle Raymond E. Brown has discussed the concept of the "Logos" in this Gospel. He has shown that it is not a Hellenistic philosophical idea that has strayed into a Jewish work, but that the form and content given it by John shows it to be of Palestinian origin (25).

The writer of this Gospel had a good knowledge of the apostolic band. He recalls words the Twelve spoke among themselves (4 : 33; 16 : 17; 20 : 25; 21 : 3,7). He shows knowledge of their thoughts on occasion (2 : 11, 17, 22; 4: 27; 6: 19, 60f.). He knows the places they frequented (11 : 54; 18 : 2). Sometimes he speaks of mistakes they made which were later corrected (2 : 21f.; 11 : 13; 12 : 16). If he were of their number all this would fall into place.

(21) For example, W. C. van Unnik says, "Many things in this Gospel are suggestive of personal reminiscence (1 : 39f.; 4 : 6; 13 : 21 ff., especially in chs. 18 to 21)" (The New Testament, Its History and Message, London, 1964, p. 61). So also Barclay: "Many of these things are such apparently unimportant details that they are inexplicable unless they are the memories of a man who was there" (I, p. xx). B. P. W. Stather Hunt goes as far as to say, "no other Gospel bears upon its face such undeniable proof that its author was an eyewitness of the scenes which he records" (Some Johannine Problems, London, 1958, p. 7).

(22) The verb is θεαομαι of which AS says, "in NT apparently always in literal, physical sense of 'careful and deliberate vision which interprets…its object'".

(23) Sanday refers to "all those marks of an eye-witness which we shall see to be present in great number and strength. They point to a first-hand relation between the author and the facts which he records. If the Gospel is not the work of an eye-witness, then the writer has made a very sustained and extraordinary effort to give the impression that he was one" (op. cit., p. 70) [Morris 1971; pp. 14-16]

Of course, even if the gospel was not written by the Beloved Disciple, it seems clear from John 21:24-25 that the Beloved Disciple was at the very least the source of information for the 4th evangelist. Craig notes:

If, in order to allow the use of sources by the evangelist, we differentiate between the Beloved Disciple and the evangelist, then in order to give due weight to the considerations adduced by Morris, we must interpret 21:24 as stating the Beloved Disciple is bearing witness in the written gospel and that he caused these things to be written. In this case, the Beloved Disciple is the authority and personal source behind the fourth gospel, though not himself its author. As Brown remarks, this is the minimal interpretation that can be given to v. 24 (75). [Craig 1989; p. 300]

Thus, as mentioned earlier, we are probably at worst one remove from apostolic, eyewitness testimony in the case of John, which is very significant. Of all of the gospel events, we would expect the post-resurrection appearances to be discussed by those that experienced them in as great of depth and in as much detail as virtually anything contained therein, and that these discussions would have taken place quite often and from the very beginning of the church's existence. This is because potential converts being evangelized by the apostles would almost certainly desire to know as much as possible regarding the nature and detail of these experiences, as these experiences served as the basis of the movement to which they were being asked to turn over their lives. So, it is likely that those who may have served as pupils to any of the evangelists, particularly in the cases of Matthew and John, would have heard their teachers tell the stories many, many times, and hence would have been in great position to retell and/or record these stories accurately.

For more on Johannine authorship, see [Morris 1971; pp. 8-30]; [Robinson 1985; 93-122]; and [Blomberg 2001; pp. 17-41]. For a more extensive treatment, see the dated work of [Westcott 1908; ix-lii], and especially that of [Morris 1969; 139-280]. Finally, there is JPH's comprehensive defense of traditional authorship and dating of the four gospels:

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html

While the debates about gospel authorship will continue, regardless of what may be the truth in this matter, we can be confident that the actual authors had access to reliable apostolic tradition, and this is another factor mitigating against the claim that the post-resurrection narratives as they appear in the gospels are substantially tainted by legendary embellishment.

IIIe. Indications of Primitive Tradition in the Resurrection Narratives

While the combined factors of 1) the short period of time between the occurrence of the events and the composition of the gospels and 2) the likelihood that the gospel authors were interested in and had access to eyewitness testimony (even if traditional authorship is to be rejected) makes legendary embellishment highly unlikely, it is intriguing that the narratives themselves appear to reflect very old material for a number of reasons. For example, Craig, citing Wolfgang Nauck, notes:

Nauck observes that many theological motifs that might be expected are lacking in the story: (1) the proof from prophecy, (2) the in-breaking of the new eon, (3) the ascension of Jesus' spirit or his descent into hell, (4) the nature of the risen body, and (5) the use of Christological titles [8].

[8]Wolfgang Nauck, "Die Bedeutung des leeren Grabes für den Glauben an den Auferstandenen," ZNW 47 (1956): 243-67. According to Kremer, every theological reflection on the meaning of the resurrection is lacking, so the tradition must come from a very early time. For its origin in Palestine (Jerusalem) counts not only the interest in the empty tomb itself, but also the names of the women and the Semitic τπ μια των σαββατων (cf. πρωτη σαββατου [16:9]; "after three days" [8:31; 9:31; 10; 34]) (Jacob Kremer, "Zur Diskussion über 'das leere Grab,'" in Resurrexit, p. 153).

N.T. Wright discusses four intriguing features of the narratives that indicate that this may be the case. These four features are, as Wright entitles them:

I. "The Strange Silence of the Bible in the Stories"

II. "The Strange Absence of Personal Hope in the Stories"

III. "The Strange Portrait of Jesus in the Stories"

IV. "The Strange Presence of the Women in the Stories"

Here all we can do is attempt a brief summary of Wright's points. In regards to I, it is noted that the narratives are told with only a marginal amount of embroidery and echoes from the Old Testament when compared with the rest of the stories contained within the gospels up to that point. Given the obvious importance, extending all the way from very early sources such as the early sermons in Acts and I Corinthians 15:1-7, to Paul's letters, to the gospels up to the point of the post-resurrection narratives(!), and through to the early church fathers ("the line from Athenagoras to Tertullian" as Wright makes note), of connecting the words and deeds of Christ to the Old Testament Scriptures by the early church, why would the evangelists do so comparatively little of this in the most important of places, the obvious climax to Christ's ministry? [Wright 2003; pp. 599-602] [6]

As for II, Wright notes the lack of mention of such things as "life after death", "eternal life", or the "resurrection of all Christ's people" in the stories. Instead, the stories are more about the vindication of Christ and his Messianic claims, and the commissioning of the disciples to spread the message to the world. Wright rightly asks why this should be the case given that "this marks out the resurrection narratives from virtually every mention of resurrection in Paul and the rest of the New Testament outside the gospels and Acts, and virtually every mention of it in the post-canonical literature" where such links are either made explicit or are implied [Ibid. pp. 603-604] [7].

Another feature (III) Wright draws attention to is the relatively mundane portrayal of Jesus in the resurrection narratives. While Jesus' new body appears to be vested with certain remarkable properties, such as the ability to appear and disappear at will, and to occasionally be unrecognizable even to his closest colleagues, he is not (as we have argued above) portrayed in a manner so as to emphasize the fact that he had been vindicated and exalted by God. Wright elaborates:

The sightings of, and meetings with, Jesus are not at all like the heavenly visions, or visions of a figure in blinding light or dazzling radiance or wreathed in clouds, that one might expect to find in the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, or in connection with Merkabah mysticism. Whatever we say about Paul's conversion (chapter 8 above), these stories are not at all like that. Whatever account we give of the vision of Jesus in Revelation 1, there is nothing in the gospel narratives that corresponds to it. They are not, that is, the sort of thing one would expect if the evangelists or their sources had wanted to say that Jesus had been exalted to a position of either divinity or heavenly glory. Nor are they the kind of thing that would have been said if the tradition had begun by wanting to say that Israel's god had approved Jesus' project, that his death was a success not a failure, and that the Bible had been fulfilled. [Ibid. pp. 604-605]

Wright suggests that the above description would be deemed even more likely given an Old Testament text like Daniel 12:1-3, which would clearly have served as a great template for the early church to describe the resurrection of Christ as one that "shall shine like the brightness of the sky…like the stars forever and ever". But, once again, despite the fact that Jesus' body does have some remarkable properties, his appearances are quite free of such spectacular descriptions (save with that of the appearance to Paul). This is a another feature mitigating against the possibility of legendary embellishment, especially since even the angels in the post-resurrection narratives are in a couple of places described as wearing very radiant, white garments (Matthew 28:2-3; Luke 24:4). In fact, it is interesting to compare the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus with that of the Transfiguration (e.g. Mark 9:2-3), where Jesus' "clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anybody in the world could bleach them". The features of the Transfiguration have led some scholars to postulate that this pericope is actually a displaced post-resurrection appearance of Jesus, though ironically Jesus is not portrayed in such terms in the actual post-resurrection narratives. Some have suggested that the evangelists, in making these appearances so mundane, are doing so for the sake of an anti-docetic apologetic (though see below in section IIIh) [Ibid. 604-606].

Finally, Wright discusses the prominence of women in the narratives. Given the tendency of this particular era to greatly devalue the testimony of women, it is unlikely that they would be the first to find the tomb empty or be the ones to whom Jesus would first appear if the narratives are legendary (for more on the issue of women witnesses see the next section) [Ibid. pp. 607-608].

After a discussion of these four points, Wright concludes:

The very strong historical probability is that, when Matthew, Luke and John describe the risen Jesus, they are writing down very early oral tradition, representing three different ways in which the original astonished participants told the stories. These traditions have received only minimal development, and most of that probably at the final editorial stage, for the very good reason that stories as earth-shattering as this, stories as community-forming of this, once told, are not easily modified. Too much depends on them. [Ibid. p. 611]

Unfortunately, the above summary in no way, shape, or form does justice to the brilliant case espoused by Wright, so we highly recommend the reader to check out his treatment of these subjects in [Wright 2003; pp. 599-615]. However, this should suffice to illustrate the point that the resurrection narratives as we have them, without substantial Biblical embroidery, with little indication that Christ's vindication implies our own, with narratives that are essentially mundane, and finally with women serving such prominent roles, are very likely to be reflective of some of the earliest traditions we have of them!

IIIf. Indicators of Historicity in some Individual Narratives

While it seems that there are numerous good reasons to consider the post-resurrection appearances as recorded by Matthew, Luke, and John to be generally reliable, there are some additional considerations to be drawn when we consider some of the individual appearance stories as well.

The Appearance to Women

First and foremost is the appearance(s) of Jesus to women. While all 4 gospels report that it was the women that discovered the empty tomb, 2 of the 3 in which we have actual post-resurrection appearances report that Jesus made his first appearance to women as well, that being Matthew and John. The fact that such an appearance is said to come first is remarkable given the general disdain for women's testimony in this place and time (See here for more on that) [8].

Richard Bauckham expands on this issue after considering a couple of passages from Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities, a book (possibly written by a woman) from the relevant period that accords women great prominence and importance in Israel's history. There are two passages within the book that Bauckham considers where women receive divine revelation, only to be disbelieved by those that receive the information that they pass along. Here we will discuss one of the two passages that Bauckham analyzes, that being a revelation sent to Miriam, the sister of Moses:

The spirit of God came upon Miriam one night, and she saw a dream and reported it to her parents in the morning, saying, "I had a vision this night, and behold a man was standing in a linen garment and he said to me, 'Go and say to your parents, "Behold the child who will be born of you will be cast forth into the water; likewise through him the water will be dried up. And I will work signs through him and save my people, and he will exercise leadership always."'" When Miriam reported her dream, her parents did not believe her (31).

(31) Translation from H. Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum vol. 1 (AGAJU 31; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 105. [Bauckham 2002; 272]

Bauckham then elaborates:

The parallel to the story of the women at the tomb is striking, though it is Mark and Matthew who have the command of the angel, "Go and tell," and Luke who reports that they were not believed. What is striking about Pseudo-Philo's account is that Miriam's parents are the righteous couple Amram and Jochebed. Amram has been portrayed as a man of great faith and faithfulness to God, approved by God. There does not seem to be any strong reason in the plot for their failure to believe their daughter's prophetic dream. It seems as though Pseudo-Philo sees their unbelief as the expected reaction, even by such admirable characters as Amram and Jochebed, to a claim by a woman to have received divine revelation. Yet there is no doubt that Pseudo-Philo portrays the revelation given to Miriam as authentic (at the end of the chapter he points out that it was fulfilled: 9:16) and readers are surely therefore entitled to think that Amram and Jochebed should have believed it. [Ibid. 272]

Intriguingly, Bauckham then goes on to discuss a parallel account of this revelation from Josephus, but at the same time gives us a further glimpse of how divine revelation to women was minimized during that time period:

Indirect confirmation of this understanding of the story is provided by the striking parallel and contrast in Josephus, who also records a dream predicting that Amram and Jochebed's child would deliver Israel. In this case, however, the dream is Amram's; it is Amram who then tells his wife about it; and they believe the promises of God (Antiquities 2.210-18). Here the revelation is given by God to a man and there is no problem of belief. Whether Josephus knew the tradition about Miriam's dream and corrected it (32), or Pseudo-Philo knew the tradition Josephus records and transformed it, we cannot be sure. Josephus was certainly capable of correcting even a biblical text portraying revelation given directly to a woman. Whereas in Genesis Rebekah inquires of the Lord about her unborn children and receives a prophetic oracle about them (Gen 25:22-23), in Josephus it is her husband Isaac who prays and receives the prophecy from God (Antiquities 1.257). Josephus does not consistently remove every case of God speaking directly to or through a woman that he found in his Scriptures, but he does seem to minimize them (33), and largely restricts them to a few women whom the Bible calls prophets, such as Deborah (Antiquities 5.200-209) and Huldah (Antiquities 10.59-61), but not including Miriam, whom the Bible (Exod 15:20) but not Josephus calls a prophet (34). It looks as though Josephus represents an opinion that was disinclined to believe that God communicates revelation directly to women and that Pseudo-Philo was concerned to counter this notion.

(33) In Josephus's retelling of the story of Manoah and his wife (Antiquities 5.276-281) the theme of revelation is subordinated to the picture of Manoah as a jealously suspicious husband of a remarkably beautiful wife. Compare Pseudo-Philo's version discussed below. [Ibid. 272-273]

Sometimes skeptics will counter the apologetic argument of the women's prominence in the resurrection narratives by suggesting that this was mainly an issue in legal settings and hence of marginal to no relevance when it comes to a general historical setting. However, the data from Josephus and Pseudo-Philo seems to indicate that this was also a substantial problem when it came to women being used as vessels for divine revelation, which is pertinent here given that Jesus appears first to women in two of the gospels, and all of the gospels tell us that women received the initial revelation through angels of Jesus' being raised from the dead. Bauckham then goes on to draw a connection here to Luke's narrative:

In Luke's resurrection narrative the reaction of the apostles to the women's report from the tomb functions similarly to the comparable motif in Pseudo-Philo: It counters the male prejudice about revelation to women. There is no doubt that the apostles ought to have believed the women (43). When the travelers to Emmaus report what the women had said and imply that, though right about the empty tomb, they were evidently wrong about the risen Christ, since the men had not seen him (Luke 24:22-24), the incognito Jesus retorts: "O how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!" (24:25). [Ibid. 276; highly recommended is the full discussion in Bauckham, particularly pp. 268-277]

Some more indications for historicity come about when we consider the appearance Jesus made to Mary Magdalene in John 20:11-17. Ben Witherington III notes:

C. H. Dodd once suggested that the story of Mary Magdalene at the tomb is one of the most self-authenticating stories in all the Gospels. In his view, it has all the elements of the personal testimony of an eyewitness. First of all, given what the tradition said about Mary Magdalene's past (Luke 8:2), it is hardly credible that the earliest Christians would have made up a story about Jesus' appearing first to her. Second, it is not credible that a later Christian hagiographer would have had her suggest that perhaps Jesus' body had been stolen from the tomb [This is especially the case when we discover that the earliest Jewish polemic against the resurrection was that the disciples stole the body (Matthew 28:11-15)]. Third, it is not believable that later reverential Christians would have suggested that the first eyewitness mistook Jesus for a gardener! The portrait of Mary and her spiritual perceptiveness is hardly flattering here. Fourth, it is not believable that the early Christians would have created the idea that Jesus commissioned Mary to go proclaim the Easter message to the Eleven. On this last point we have the clear report of I Corinthians 15, where we see that the testimony of women to the risen Lord, if not totally eliminated in the official witness list (they might be alluded to in the reference to the appearance to the five hundred), is clearly sublimated. [Witherington 1998; 141-142]

Finally, speaking of Dodd, we will close this subsection with an oft-quoted passage f