The External Evidences and Other Considerations for the Historicity of Resurrection of Christ
Why we should believe that Gospel accounts are reliable
Content
My intention is not to give some proof of Jesus' resurrection, for it cannot be given in the strict sense of the word "proof." Another thing is that I will speak and write as a Christian and not as a historian. This however would not render my belief about the historic authenticity of Gospel accounts as valueless.
The historic controversy about Jesus life will always be present among historians who are concerned with it. There will always be respected scholars on both camps in the dispute on the reliability of Gospels and Book of Acts. I am aware that there is much controversy going on, but this would not disqualify my belief, quite on the contrary. What I am trying to say is that at the end I had to choose to whom I shall believe. I chose to believe in the authenticity of Gospel accounts. Here follows the reasons why I chose to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Those reasons had convinced me , and I do not expect that they will convince every one. We are different, are we not?
I could not be indifferent to the special narrative character of the Gospels during my reading, their particular way how they depict Jesus and give reports of what He said and did. Their testimony of Jesus' life was the key factor leading me to become a Christian. Comparing the Gospel's special rendering about the events surrounding Jesus' life to the mythical narration of other writings gave me a peculiar felling that what I am reading is something significant.
Well, Gospels are historical documents written in the first century, confirmed by thousands of new discoveries of papyri fragments of Gospels, dated from 1st century; their dating are even recognized as valid by non-Christian and liberal scholars. They are historical because they give reports of one of the important historical personalities, which have influenced all the history of our world, namely Jesus of Nazareth. What is peculiar to these reports are that Jesus not only taught some religious doctrine, as many rabbis did (rabbinic teachers, or Jewish teachers of Torah). It was reported that He performed numerous miracles and supernatural healing in full public, reports that could be easily refuted by other rabbis, who were strong enemies of the new Judeo-Christian movement. Strangely enough, they grant that Jesus indeed performed miracles.
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Archeology confirms of the historicity of the Gospels. It is interesting that Sir William Ramsey was a student of the German historical school of the mid-19th century. He became firmly confirmed that Gospels and the book of Acts were products of the mid-second century AD after making a topographical study of Asia Minor which compelled him to consider the writings of Luke. As a result of the overwhelming evidence uncovered in his research, he was forced to completely reverse his beliefs. Concerning Luke's ability as a historian, Ramsey concluded after 30 years of study that "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy (...) this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." (William M. Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery of the Trustworthiness of the New Testament , London, Hodder & Stoghton, 1915, p. 22). What reasons had led Ramsay to such conclusion about Luke's reliability as a historian? (Luke is the author of the third Gospel and the Book of Acts). Here follows some interesting facts about Luke's reliability as a historian.
Luke at one time was considered incorrect for referring to the Philippian rules as praetors . According to the 'scholars', two duumuirs would have ruled the town. However, as usual, Luke was right. Findings have shown that the title of praetor was employed by the magistrates of a Roman colony.
Luke's choice of the word proconsul as the title for Gallio (Acts 18:12) also has been proven correct, as evidence by the Delphi inscription which states in part: "As Lucius Junius Gallio, my friend, and the proconsul of Achaia ..."
The Delphi inscription (AD 52) gives us a fixed time for establishing Paul's ministry of one and one-half years in Corinth. We know this by the fact, from other sources, that Gallio took office on July 1, that his proconsulship lasted only one year, and that same year overlapped Paul's work in Corinth.
Luke gives to Publius, the chief man in Malta, the title "leading man of the island" (Acts. 28:7). Inscription have been unearthed which also give him the title, "first man."
Still another case for Luke's reliability is his usage of politarchs to denote the civil authorities of Thessalonica (Acts. 17:6). Since politarch is not found in classical literature, Luke again was assumed to be wrong. However, some nineteen inscriptions now have been found that makes use of the title. Interestingly enough, five of these refer to leaders in Thessalonica.
Archeologists at first questioned Luke's implication that Lystra and Derbe were in Lycaonica and that Iconium was not (Acts 14:6). They based their belief on the writings of Romans such as Cicero who indicated that Iconium was in Lycaonica. Thus, archeologists said the book of Acts was unreliable. However, Sir William Ramsay found a monument that showed Iconium to be a Phrygian city. Later discoveries confirmed this.
Among other historical references made by Luke is that of "Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abilene" (Luk. 3:1) at the beginning of John the Baptist's ministry in 27 AD. The only Lysanias known to ancient historians was the one who was killed in 36 BC. However, an inscription found near Damascus speaks of the "Freedman of Lysanias the Tetrarch" and is dated between 14 and 29 AD.
It is no wonder that E. M. Blaiklock, professor of classics at Auckland University, concludes "Luke is a consummate historian, to be ranked in his own right with the great writers of the Greeks." (E. M. Blaiklock, The Acts of the Apostles , Grand Rapids, Michigan, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1959, p. 89)
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Reading other historical books can confirm historical reports of numerous performed miracles by Jesus, which were performed in full public. By that token they can confirm the reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The historical documents in question are many, but I will mention the body of writings that were written by Jesus' enemies, namely Jewish religious teachers who tried to preserve the oral rabbinic teaching. At the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, that happened 70 A.D., Jews started to write down their oral traditions of their law, and they compiled their material in various compilations, known as Misnah, Tosefta, Gemara and various Talmuds. The material in the Misnah and Tosefta is written in the Tannaitic period, from A.D. 70 to 200. Rabbi Judah the Patriarch finished the compilation of Misnah around A.D. 200. Tosefta (meaning "addition" or "supplement") is a material not selected for Misnach. During the Tannaitic period more traditions were produced which were outside of or external to the Misnach. These special traditions were known as Baraithoth and were preserved both in Tosefta and in Gemara of the Ammoraic period. Out of the vast body of Rabinnic commentary, both Christian and Jewish scholars agree that there are several passages which unambiguously refer to Jesus; (for instance, the Münich Bairathoth, which makes clear references to Jesus).
Baraithoth are traditions from Tannaitic period (from 70 to 200), so recognized by scholars. They can be found in independent collections, and the best known of which is called Tosefta. Talmuds are from Ammoraic period, and even they contain Bairathoth. These writings are historically significant because of the following facts:
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They do not deny Jewish involvement in Jesus' death
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They do not deny that Jesus performed miracles
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They say that Jesus was a deceiver who "led Israel astray"
Why would they grant that Jesus was a great performer of miracles if they were truly enemies to the new movement, which was spreading by an exponential rate in Judea? So, we have to conclude that the Gospel's reports of numerous performed miracles by Jesus are indeed true.
The important thing however is not only miracles, but also the historical fact of Jesus' empty tomb, where he was put when he died. The core message of the Christian early preaching was that Jesus physically resurrected from the death and that He was seen by many of His disciples before He ascended to the heaven. He was seen at least by 500 persons (1 Cor. 15:6, 14). How could this message have been believed on in Jerusalem and Judea, which was a hostile environment for the new Christian movement and where the message had originated precisely there, if Jesus' tomb was not empty and His body was not seen any more, either dead or alive? Jesus' enemies could not have stolen it, since they could just point out His dead body and put a decisive blow to the preaching of the new movement.
Equally, it is implausible to assume that His disciples had stolen His body (which were guarded by Roman centurion) and thus fabricated a lie which they were ready to be tortured and even die for. They claimed that they had seen Jesus alive, that they had touched His body confirming it was not some illusion, they who were cowards and disillusioned at the time when their Master died (a title given to the rabbinic teachers). They did not expect Him to be alive again, as it was reported of Peter and Thomas. At the event of Jesus arrest, Peter even denied that he knew Jesus, a report of the cowardice of one of the founders of the Christian faith! However, after 50 days of the death of Jesus Christ, they started boldly to proclaim that they have met resurrected Jesus, risking their lives.
All of the nearest apostles were tortured to death, except John who died peacefully on the island of Patmos. I cannot believe that all 10 apostles were willing to die for a self-made deception, a deception they were aware of if they had stolen Jesus' body. Someone can die and be tortured for a lie but not for a self-made and conscious fabricated lie. Their martyrdom is testified by the tradition of early Church Fathers; Papias (ca A.D. 60 or 70 to 130 or 140), Polycarp (the disciple of John, ca A.D. 69-155), The Didache (ca. A.D. 95), Justin Martyr (100 - 166). We have not to ignore Eusebius (d. 341/2) and his work History Of The Christian Church .
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The early church writers, both by their lives and words, certified that the historical details of Jesus' life, as presented in the gospel accounts, are correct and must be trusted. But there are two objections which critics may raise to the historical value of their testimony.
First, since these writers obtained their historical information from the gospel accounts, how can they be used as extra-biblical evidence for historical details about Jesus? This question is actually somewhat misleading. Consider these perspectives:
1) The early writers didn't always use the gospels as their sources. You may have noticed it was the later writers who more specifically quoted the gospel accounts as written sources. The earliest writers, for example Papias, obtained their information from a wide variety of sources and even considered the "living and abiding voice" of the apostles through their disciples as more valuable than the written sources which could be corrupted. As for the disciples, they risked everything in their commitment to the truth of the gospel accounts which they left behind.
2) A vast network of multiplication sprang from Jesus and the first apostles. If any had included historical errors in their reports, the early literature would reflect controversy over matters of fact concerning what actually took place. We find this type of controversy nowhere in the early literature. There was controversy over how to interpret the facts, the details of Jesus' life, but not over the facts themselves as actual events of history. The fact that early literature does reveal controversy over interpretation of the life of Jesus also shows that no one would have been able to suppress controversy over the fact of His existence if such a controversy had ever occurred.
3) The early writers consistently appealed to the availability of evidence for anyone who wanted to check it out. They cited the existence of government records. The earliest writers appealed to eyewitnesses who could confirm or deny the facts. Finally, they appealed to the moral integrity of their own lives. They had nothing to gain by spreading lies. They gave up their possessions and even their very lives standing for the truth.
But, the critic may ask, and this is the second possible objection, was the testimony of the early Christians based on historical facts or just their own psychological experience of a mystical "Christ" which compelled them to establish Jesus as a figure of history? To this question we can answer with another question: Would you give up everything, suffer hardship, torture and death in order to spread lies, fabrication, or even just beliefs you had some doubts were true? What critics so often overlook, especially when criticizing the gospel accounts, is that if these reports are false, then those who wrote them were not just misguided. They were deceivers of the worst kind, who knew the documents were fabricated. The early church writings are so dominated by the themes of moral integrity and ethical consistency that for them to propagate known falsehood would have been a psychological impossibility. Similarly, it is doubtful that so many people following the disciples would have blindly submitted to a mystical experience without first assuring themselves that the historical reports upon which that experience was based, were beyond question. It is at this point I choose to believe that what they testify is true. You can choose to ignore this. It is your choice.
Both you and me are confronted with some degree of uncertainty, and therefore we are free to choose what we see as more plausible, without acting irrational in our beliefs. For Christians is this belief a crucial point, seen from a Christian point of view. From a Christian point of view Jesus said that by this very belief we would be justified by God. My point is that the belief has an inner and consistent logic, and by no means is it fanatical. It is not blind, since it has some basis on certain reasons. Let us consider further reasons that can render a Christian belief more probable.
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What is the significance that NT is written in the 1st century? The NT accounts of Jesus began to be circulated within the lifetimes of those alive at the times of his life. These people could certainly confirm or deny the accuracy of the accounts. In advocating their case for the gospel, the apostles had appealed (even when confronting their most severe opponents) to common knowledge concerning Jesus. They not only said, "Look, we saw this"; or, "We heard that"; but in addition they turned the tables around and right in front of adverse critics said, "You also know about these things ... You saw them, you yourselves know about it." One had better be careful when he says to his opposition, "You know this also," because if he isn't right in the details, it will be shoved right back down his throat.
Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as yourselves know. (Acts 2:22)
The disciples could not afford to risk inaccuracies (not to speak of willful manipulation of the facts), which would at once be exposed by those who would be only too glad to do so. On the contrary, one of the strongest points in the original apostolic preaching is the confident appeal to the knowledge of the hearers; they not only said, "We are witnesses of these things"; but also, "As you yourselves know." Had there been any tendency to depart from the facts in any material respect, the possible presence of hostile witnesses in the audience would have served as a further corrective.
Eyewitnesses of the events in question were still alive when the tradition had been completely formed; and among those eyewitnesses were bitter enemies of the new religious movement. Yet the tradition claimed to narrate a series of well-known deeds and publicly taught doctrines at a time when false statements could, and would, be challenged.
At the time the synoptic gospels were written or may be supposed to have been written, there were eyewitnesses and their testimony was not completely disregarded. This means that the gospels must be regarded as largely reliable witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed - the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confession of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic, would be a miracle far more incredible that any recorded in the gospels.
So, I had to believe that Gospels are truly historical documents about Jesus.
If we believe that Acts is a 1st century document, as we should, and we also take some accounts of Acts as reliable, what would then be a criterion which accounts are true? Shall we just reject all accounts that give reports of miracles, just because they do not fit our naturalistic philosophy? On what basis, may I ask? It seems that such objections can be inconsistent if our reasoning are based partly on what Luke himself wrote. Recall also the significance of the fact that they are written in the 1st century. Luke himself says that he investigated the reports of eyewitnesses, and he was a disciple of Paul. He was accurate in many historical details, and his reliability was many times confirmed by my above explanation.
Jews were very strict in their religion, and they did not allow to be influenced by gentile influences. There is no evidence that the origin of Christianity occurred by influence of the mystery religions. Its roots were too deeply sunken in Jewish soil. More about it below when we touch about the myths of the Hellenistic world.
What is more reliable in our evaluations of the origin of Christendom, the Canonical or Gnostic gospels? It is certainly that we should not rely on Gnostic gospels, which are from 2nd and 3rd century? Canonical gospels have more weight in our evaluation, since they are from the 1st century, and they are not filled with window dressing as Gnostic gospels are.
Reading Gnostic Gospels and Elaine Page's excellent work I became more convinced on the truth of Canonical Gospels. The very fact of persecutions of the early Christians cannot be so easily ignored. Gnostic Christians, especially Valentines, were cowards in that respect.
Even if we assume that gospels were not written by apostles, you cannot explain why should first Jews and then Gentiles be under a heavy persecution, which only lunatics would undergo unless Jesus was both killed and most importantly did resurrect from the dead. Even if we assume that Jesus existed and was killed then no overwhelmingly mass of people would undergo such heavy persecutions, as to be expelled from the cities, or to be crucified or thrown to lions, unless Jesus had been physically resurrected. It is this persecution the critics heavily ignore and overlook.
Elaine has tried to explain this by the political factors in the Church (in her Gnostic Gospels ). However, even if her account of the political aspects in the question of the leadership in the early Church is correct, this would not explain the very origins of Christianity. She does not explain the first persecutions at the early 1st century. There were the persecution of Jewish Christians, and later persecutions of Gentile Christians at the time of Nero. Elaine's account is about the social and political structure of the Church after the first century, when the last apostles had died. Even she does not doubt that apostles were real people. It was much easier to accept syncretistic and tolerant cults or some Gnostic sects that avoided horrible tortures, than not to reject Christ in honoring the divinity of the Emperors.
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Some critics, as Doherty, say that Christians were borrowing from Greco-Roman salvation cults. Yes, there surely must have been certain myths and superstitions existing in surrounding pagan lands which could have shaped Christianity. But the evidence shows that the early Christian spokesmen steadfastly refused to accept anything contrary to the gospel which had been revealed to them. Look at Paul and Barnabas in Lystra. No sooner had a lame man been healed at Paul's command than the whole city rushed out raising
... their voice, saying in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have become like men and have come down to us."
And they began calling Barnbas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.
And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gate, and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. (Acts 14:11-13)
What an opportunity! If ever the early Christians had wanted to borrow from the mystery religions (even if just to attract more people to the faith), they could have made Christianity polytheistic right then and there! But no. It took Paul, formerly Saul the Pharisee, up to three years in Arabia and Damascus to reconcile the idea of a suffering, rising and divine Messiaha with his Old Testament monotheistic convictions. It was the same man who organized persecution of jewish Christians. He was a man who was indeed skeptical about Christians! But a man who became changed because he met Resurrected Jesus.
Critics also tend to use exaggeration and oversimplification in order to parallel Christianity and the mystery cults. One will encounter exaggerated claims about alleged likeness between baptism and the Lord's Supper and similar "sacraments" in certain mystery cults. Attempts to find analogies between the resurrection of Christ and the alleged "resurrections" of the mystery deities involve massive amounts of oversimplification and inattention to detail.
The question of who's influencing whom is a cause to another error committed by critics. This error is probably the most serious methodological fallacy committed by those charging that Christianity borrowed its doctrine and practice from the mystery religions. The error here is to propose that Christianity adopted a particular feature of a mystery religion when there is no evidence that the feature existed in the particular religion until after Christianity had begun. What many fail to recognize is that the growth of the church was so explosive that other religions adopted Christian elements in order to attract Christians and to prevent to loss of their adherents to Christianity. Metzger attests, "In what T. R. Glover aptly called 'the conflict of religions in the Early Roman Empire,' it was to be expected that the hierophants of cults which were beginning to lose devotees to the growing Church should take steps to stem the tide."
The key here is dating. Most of the alleged parallels between Christianity and mystery religions, upon close scrutiny will show that Christian elements predate mythological elements. In cases where they do not, it is often Jewish elements which predate both Christianity and the myth, and which lent themselves to both religions.
There is a flip side to the coin. Following the first century A.D., Christianity's chief rival was Mithraism. Mithra, according to the Romans, was Sol Invictus (unconquered sun). The worship of Mithra therefore became associated with the sun, and, in A.D. 274, the date of its major festival was established as December 25, the date of the winter solstice. Apparently, sometimes before 336 the church in Rome, unable to stamp out this pagan festival, spiritualized it as the Feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Righteousness." The exact date of Jesus' birth has been a matter of debate for centuries, but it does seem clear that in this instance the date of the Christmas celebration was influenced by pragmatic rather than historical factors. In addition, after the third century there is increasing evidence of pagan and secular doctrines affecting changes in Christian belief. But these are later developments. There is no evidence that the origin of Christianity occurred by influence of the mystery religions. It roots were too deeply sunk in Jewish soil.
Scholars often fail to recognize that the real source for a Christian practice was an actual historical event or a Jewish practice or belief. Because something looks similar in a mystery religion, it gets attributed as the source for the Christian practice or belief. Critical discussions regarding the source of the Lord's Supper often fall into this error.
Of all the mystery cults, only Mithraism had anything that resembled the Lord's Supper. A piece of bread and a cup of water were placed before initiates while the priest of Mithra spoke some ceremonial words. Any quest for the historical antecedents of the Lord's Supper is more likely to succeed if it stays closer to the Jewish foundation of the Christian faith than if it wanders off into practices of the pagan cults. The Lord's Supper looked back to a real, historical person and something he did in history during the Last Supper. And as every student of the New Testament knows, the occasion for Jesus' introduction of the Christian Lord's Supper was the Jewish Passover feast. Metzger is correct when he notes that "the Jewishness of the setting, character, and a piety expressed in the Christian rite is overwhelmingly pervasive in all accounts of the origin of the supper.
This conclusion is further confirmed by avoiding the fallacy in ignoring the dating of influences between Christianity and mystery religions. According to all available evidences, Mithraism did not gain a foothold in the Roman Empire until after A.D. 100. M. J. Vermaseren, a specialty on the cult of Mithra, certifies, "No Mithraic monument can be dated earlier than the end of the first century A.D., and even the more extensive investigations at Pompeii, buried beneath the ashes of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, have not so far produced a single image of the god."
Likewise, Historian Edwin Yamauchi concluded after several investigations, "Apart from the visit of the Armenian King, who was a worshiper of Mithra, to Nero, there is no evidence of the penetration of Mithra to the west until the end of the first century A.D."
No wonder Justin Martyr referred to the Mithraic meal as a satanic imitation of the Lord's Supper. In view of the late date for the cult of Mithra in the Roman Empire, we can safely dismiss it as a possible influence on Christian origins.
Obviously, something true of one mystery religion in the fifteenth century B.C. but which ceased to be a part of it or any other religion by 1000 B.C. is probably not going to strongly influence Christianity. Or something true of a religion in another culture or area of the world may be thoroughly repulsed by the Jewish culture in Palestine. Again, elements from different religions when combined may look like something in Christianity even though the combined trait never really existed as such until practiced or believed by Christians.
If you are more interested in the comparison between Christianity and salvation myths of ancient cults, please follow the below link.
The salvation myths of ancient cults
To make a summary of the reasons why we should dismiss the theories that the origin of Christianity lies on Gentile mystery religions:
1) The amount of time between the subject of the myth and the sources which tell about the subject is very long, hundreds of years at the least. In many cases the subjects of the myth are not even located in history.
2) The sources which sound like precursors of Christianity were actually written after the New Testament canon was complete. If borrowing took place, it was the mystery religions which borrowed from Christianity. Not until later do we see language from the mystery religions penetrating the vocabulary of the church. It was in the third century, and not before, that the first real meeting took place between Christianity and the mystery religions. It was after A.D. 300, when during Constantine the Christianity becomes the State religion of the Roman Empire, that the terminology of the mystery cults first began to appear in the language of the State Church. It was most likely that the mystery religions, faced with the loss of members of the expanding church in the first two centuries, incorporated attractive elements of Christianity into their literature and practice.
3) The mystery religions were syncretistic while Christianity preached an exclusion of elements foreign to its revelation.
4) Differences far outweight similarities. The mystery religions have consort, a female deity who is central to the myth. They have no real resurrection, only a crude rescitation. The mysteries have little or no moral context, fertility being what the mystery rites sought to induce. The mysteries are polytheistic, syncretistic legends unrelated to historical individuals.
5) The mystery religions were more concerned with the emotional state of their adherents than with correct doctrine.
6) Many alleged similarities between Christianity and the mystery religions appear only when Christian terminology is used to describe a mystery religion practice or myth.
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Virtually all biblical scholars today agree that, whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, at the very least the first disciples sincerely believed that He had. The question, then, is where did the early Christians get this belief in the resurrection?
Without belief in the resurrection of Jesus, Christianity could never have come into being. The crucifixion would have remained the final tragedy in the hopeless life of Jesus. The origin of Christianity hinges on the belief of the earliest disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead. The question now inevitably arises: How does one explain the origin of that belief? As Fuller urges, even the most skeptical critic must posit some mysterious X to get the movement going but the question is what was that X?
Scholars, especially in Germany, have tried and found wanting the theory that Christianity borrowed its resurrection story from the Greek myths and pagan mystery religions. However, there is no evidence for such theories. Increasingly, therefore, scholars today are looking for Jewish roots of the resurrection accounts.
There is no doubt that religious Jews did believe in a bodily resurrection. The Jewish doctrine of resurrection is attested three times in the Old Testament (Ezek 37, Isaiah 26-29, Daniel 12:2) and flowered during the intertestamental period (2 Maccabees 7:9-42, 12:43-5, 1 Enoch 5:7, 22:114, 51:1, 61:5, 90:33, 91:9-10, 100:4-5, 2 Baruch 30:2-5, 50:1, etc.). It was probably not the result of Iranian influence, but rather the logical outworking of Yahweh's power over death and the future (Psalm 16:10, Isaiah 25:8, 49:16). The deaths of the Jewish martyrs provided a powerful stimulus to the development of this doctrine. During Jesus' day the belief in bodily resurrection had become a widespread hope, being championed by the Pharisees, with whom Jesus sided on this score against the Sadducees (Mat 22:23-33, Acts 23:8)
There are two significant differences, however, between the Jewish belief in bodily resurrection and the Christian belief in Jesus' resurrection. First, though Jewish biblical history contained accounts of resuscitation, the Jewish people believed that the true bodily resurrection would only occur at the end of time or history, not within history as a historical event. Every "resurrected" person eventually died again. Second, the Jewish view of resurrection conceived it as general, not just of a single individual. These two aspects, that the resurrection would be (1) general, and (2) at the end of history, are always in view in the Jewish perception of resurrection.
Thus, when Jesus assures Martha that her brother Lazarus will raise again, she responds, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day" (John 11:24). She has no idea that Jesus is about to bring him back to life. Similarly, when Jesus tells his disciples he will rise from the dead, they think he means at the end of the world (Mark 9:9-13).
The resurrection the Pharisees looked for was the resurrection of the dead at the end of history, the "general resurrection" - the resurrection of which Daniel speaks: "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan 12:2). The unusual feature about the Christian claim was their belief that Jesus alone had been raised before the end.
There is therefore no reason, according to Jewish belief, that the earthly Christians should have developed a belief in the bodily resurrection (1) within history, or (2) of a single individual, namely Jesus. The mysterious X is still missing. We are therefore driven back to the resurrection accounts for an explanation.
How can it be explained that, against all plausibility, His adherents did not finally scatter, were not forgotten, and that the cause of Jesus did not reach its infamous end on the cross?
How could a proclaimer of salvation, three times disappointed, three times disappointing, become the starting point of the greatest and most influential world religion.
How was it possible that His disciples, who by no means excelled in intelligence, eloquence, or strength of faith, were able to begin their victorious march of conversion only after the shattering fiasco on Golgotha - a march which put all their successes before Easter completely into the shadow.
In other words: How did it nevertheless come about that the adherents of Jesus were able to conquer this most horrible of all disappointments, that Jesus despite everything, became the Savior of the church, although his predictions were not fulfilled and his longed-for parousia (the Second Coming) did not take place?
When this scared, frightened band of the apostles which was just about to throw away everything in order to flee in despair to Galilee, when the peasants, shepherds, and fishermen, who betrayed and denied their master and then failed Him miserably, suddenly could be changed overnight into a confident mission society, convinced of salvation and able to work with much more success after Easter than before Easter, then no vision or hallucination is sufficient to explain such a revolutionary transformation. For a sect or school or an order, perhaps a single vision would have been sufficient - but not for a world religion which was able to conquer the Occident thanks to the Easter faith.
If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested by the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of the resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with? The birth and rapid rise of the Christian Church before the A.D. 50 remains an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the Church itself .
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To repeat an important observation, virtually all biblical scholars today agree that, whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, at the very least the first disciples sincerely believed that He had. There is no doubt that the first disciples believed that Jesus had resurrected. The theories that Jesus' body was stolen cannot be taken seriously. Therefore there are those who propose an explanation for their belief by attributing to the first disciples various hallucinations. Those who do that seem not to understand what hallucinations actually are, otherwise they would not come with such ridiculous explanations. A hallucination is a false sensory perception in the absence of an actual external stimulus; it is an apparent perception of an external object when no such object is present. Why is the hallucination "theory" so ludicrous? First, it contradicts various conditions which most psychiatrist and psychologists agree must be present to have a hallucination. A hallucination is a very private event - a purely subjective experience void of any external reference or object. If two people cannot initiate or sustain the same vision without any external object or reference, how could more than 500 do so at one time? It is not only contrary to this principle of hallucinations but also strongly militates against it. The many claimed hallucinations would be a far greater miracle than the miracle of the resurrection. This is what makes the view of Christ's appearances being hallucinations so ludicrous.
Furthermore, unless the appearance of Christ correspond to the essential conditions for the presence of hallucinations, referring to them as hallucinations is meaningless. The first principle is that, generally, only particulate kinds of people have hallucinations - usually only paranoid or schizophrenic individuals, with schizophrenics being the most susceptible. In the New Testament, however we have all different kinds of people, from different backgrounds, and in different moods. (An eventual objection to my reference to NT would be misplaced, since such hallucination "theory" makes only sense when it is already assumed the historicity of the empty tomb; i.e. we take the Gospel's accounts as partially true, in that we interpret Christ's appearances as hallucinations).
Second, hallucination are linked to an individual's subconscious and to his particular past experiences, making it very unlikely that more than two persons could have the same hallucination at the same time. Christ appeared to many people, and descriptions of the appearances involve great detail, like those which psychologists regard as determined by reality.
Christ also ate with those to whom He appeared. And He not only exhibited His wounds, but He also encouraged a closer inspection. An illusion does not sit down and have dinner with you, and cannot be scrutinized by various individuals at will.
Another principle of hallucinations is that they usually are restricted as to when and where they can happen. In the New Testament situation, favorable circumstances are missing. And the appearances were involved. You have fifteen different appearances - at one time to over 500 people. Consider the great variety of times and places: One was an early morning appearance to the women at the tomb. Another was the road to Emmaus, followed by a couple of private interviews in broad daylight. Another was by the lake early one morning. Indeed the variety of times and places of Christ's appearances defies the "hypothesis" that they were mere visions.
Hallucinations usually occur over a long period of time with noticeable regularity. What is interesting in applying this principle to the New Testament situation is that the appearances came to an abrupt end. They all stopped at the same time except for Christ's appearance to the apostle Paul whose circumstances and conditions were totally different.
Another principle is that hallucinations require of people an anticipating spirit or hopeful expectancy which causes their wishes to become father of their thoughts and hallucinations. As we look at the disciples, the last thing they expected was a resurrection. They thought Christ had been crucified, buried ... That was the end of it.
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If it is true that gospel writers had fabricated the story, or if they are mere myths, well why is there no window dressing, which one would normally expect to accompany an event of this magnitude. As the Jewish scholar, Pinchas Lapide, writing from a Jewish perspective, states:
Nowhere is the event designated as a "miracle," as an event of salvation, or as a deed of God, a fact which tends to support the plausibility of the report for the disinterested reader. We do not read in the first testimonies of an apocalyptic spectacle, exorbitant sensations, or of the transforming impact of a cosmic event.
According to all New Testament reports, no human eye saw the resurrection itself, no human being was present, and none of the disciples asserted to have apprehended, let alone understood, its manner and nature. How easy it would have been for them or their immediate successors to supplement this scandalous hole in the concatenation of events by fanciful embellishments! But precisely because none of the evangelists dared to "improve upon" or embellish this unseen resurrection, the total picture of the gospels also gains in trustworthiness.
This is a remarkable statement by one who has no Christian axe to grind.
What legend-monger would ascribe the first interview with the risen Christ to Mary Magdalene, a woman of no great standing in the Christian church? Would he not have ascribed such an honor to Peter, the leading apostle; or to John, the "disciple whom Jesus loved"; And who can read the story of the appearance to Mary Magdalene, or to the incident in which the risen Christ appeared to two disciples on Easter Day on an afternoon walk to Emmaus, or to the episode in which Peter and John raced each other to the tomb, and seriously conclude that these are legends? They are far too dignified and restrained; far too true to life and psychology. The difference between them and the sort of stories recorded in the Gnostic gospels of a century or two later is both striking and significant. Think also about the honesty regarding disciples' failures.
Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed - the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confession of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. More importantly, these simple facts refute the idea about the mythical character of Gospels, since such element of honesty is alien in myths. Neither myths nor fabricated lies depict something which could discredit them.
Recall that eyewitnesses of the events in question were still alive when the tradition had been completely formed; and among those eyewitnesses were bitter enemies of the new religious movement. Yet the tradition claimed to narrate a series of well-known deeds and publicly taught doctrines at a time when false statements could, and would, be challenged.
At the time the synoptic gospels were written or may be supposed to have been written, there were eyewitnesses and their testimony was not completely disregarded. This means that the gospels must be regarded as largely reliable witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
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