Gary R. Habermas has completed an extensive survey of
contemporary exegetes on this matter, and has made several interesting
discoveries:
[1] The latest research
on Jesus’ resurrection appearances reveals several extraordinary developments.
As firmly as ever, most contemporary scholars agree that, after Jesus’ death,
his early
followers had experiences that
they at least believed were appearances of their risen Lord. Further,
this conviction was the chief motivation behind the early proclamation of the
Christian gospel. These basics are rarely questioned, even by more radical
scholars. They are among the most widely established details from the entire
New Testament.[1]
[2] Perhaps
surprisingly, more skeptical scholars often still acknowledge the grounds for
the appearances as well. … Helmut Koester [notes]: “We are on much firmer
ground with respect to the appearances of the risen Jesus and their effect….
That Jesus also appeared to others (Peter, Mary Magdalene, James) cannot very
well be questioned.” [2]
In view of this general agreement about the
historicity of the resurrection appearances, where do opinions diverge?
Habermas again notes, “the crux of the issue, then, is not whether there were
real experiences, but how we explain the nature of these early
experiences.”[3]
Habermas then proceeds to inquire into what
these exegetes consider to be the cause of the apostolic Church’s early and
widespread belief that Jesus rose from the dead. Was it a natural cause or a
supernatural cause? Surprisingly, the vast majority of exegetes
believe that the cause was supernatural. Nevertheless, Habermas examines the
minority opinion, namely, natural causation. His investigation ranges from the subjective
vision theory of Gerd Lüdemann (who grounds his hypothesis in
“stimulus,” “religious intoxication,” and “enthusiasm”[4] ), to the illumination theory of Willi
Marxsen (who asserts that Peter had an internal experience which led him to
convince the other apostles about Jesus’ resurrection).[5] These theories do not stand up to serious historical and
exegetical scrutiny. Indeed, most of them fail when subjected to quite superficial
applications of historical and exegetical criteria,[6] and so Habermas concludes, “In
the twentieth century, critical scholarship has largely rejected
wholesale the naturalistic approaches to the resurrection.”[7]
He then proceeds to an examination of
supernatural causes for the early witnesses’ experience of the risen Jesus. “Supernatural
causation” means that something happened to Jesus rather than to
His followers. What happened to Jesus must be supernatural because it effects a
transition
from death to new life. Variations among “supernatural causation”
explanations are centered on the ways in which the risen Jesus appeared – that
is, the ways in which His risen life was mediated in the physical world (in
history) so that it could be collectively experienced by His followers. There
are two major hypotheses in this regard: (1) a luminous appearance
and (2) a transformed corporeal appearance.
The luminous explanation holds that Jesus
appeared as light (divine glory) to individuals and groups of disciples. This
luminous appearance would have been mediated in the physical world and could
have been shared by several witnesses at once. Though it is not a “subjective”
appearance,[8] it accents the transformation
of Jesus’ risen life to the virtual total exclusion of continuity with His
previous human embodiment. The luminous explanation is derived mostly from the
accounts of Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus in Acts. Its two most famous
proponents are Joachim Jeremias and Reginald Fuller. Jeremias notes in this
regard:
…[T]he appearance of
Christ to Paul which is mentioned last in I Cor. 15.3ff., and which consisted
in a vision of shining light (II Cor. 4.6; Acts 9.3; 22.6; 26.13), clearly
attests the pneumatic character of the Christophanies (cf. I Cor. 15.44…); it
may be regarded as typical of all of them.[9]
Fuller agrees with Jeremias and concludes:
From this we would
suggest, very tentatively, that the form which the self-disclosure of the Risen
One took for Paul (and therefore presumably, also for the recipients of
appearances prior to him) was the form of a vision of light. ¶ In alluding to
his apostolic call in Galatians 1:16, Paul seems to imply that it was not
simply a visual experience of some sort, but that it also involved a
communication of meaning: God revealed his Son (i.e., Jesus in his
eschatological [heavenly and glorified]-christological significance) to Paul.[10]
As noted above, this explanation is not merely
subjective; it is mediated through the physical world, and as such, can be
sensorially experienced by many witnesses at once. Nevertheless, it puts an
almost total accent on Jesus’ transformed (glorious) appearance and eclipses
the corporeal qualities or human characteristics which were very likely part of
his appearance (see below, Section 2).
Though these theories enjoyed considerable
popularity in the exegetical community between 1956 to the 1980s, they began to
wane after that time because they tended to give too little credence to the
Gospel accounts of post-resurrection embodiment and even to Saint Paul’s
references to “spiritual body” (pneumatikon sōma). After the publication of
N.T. Wright’s extraordinarily comprehensive work, The Resurrection of the Son
of God, this hypothesis was overshadowed by the “transformed corporeal” explanation
of Jesus’ resurrection. According to Habermas, the luminous explanation is held
by only 19% of the contemporary exegetical community, while the “transformed
corporeal” explanation is held by 56% of that same community.
As will be shown below, the resurrection
appearances of Jesus have both a transformational (spiritual) character as well
as a corporeal character. Since the luminous explanation puts so much emphasis
on light (glory), it is less complete than “transformed corporeal”
explanations, which leave room for combinations of exaltation (transmaterial or
spiritual) characteristics with corporeal (human) characteristics. These
explanations may be classified according to three kinds: (1) an appearance
which begins with corporeal characteristics and moves to spiritual/glorious
characteristics, (2) an appearance which begins with emphasis on
spiritual/glorious characteristics and then moves toward corporeal
characteristics, and (3) appearances which combine both spiritual/glorious and
corporeal characteristics at once (like a super-transfiguration of Jesus, in
which there is a clear corporeal feature animated by light and brilliance).
N.T. Wright’s work reveals that the departure of
the Christian notions of resurrection, kingdom, messiahship, and worldview,
from their roots in Second-temple Judaism, virtually requires an early
Christian experience of corporeal (as well as transformed) resurrection (see
Unit II-D). When this is combined with the early accounts of the empty tomb, it
lends great weight to the evidence for a transformed-corporeal resurrection of
Jesus.
Thus, the transformed-corporeal theory
comprehensively explains: (1) the full range of resurrection accounts in the
Gospels including the empty tomb, the appearance to the women, and the
appearance to the disciples, (2) the accounts of Saint Paul with their
spiritual and corporeal elements, and (3) the many departures of early
Christianity from its roots in Second-temple Judaism. There can be
no doubt that it has the widest and deepest explanatory power of any theory of
the risen appearances yet conceived, which is why it enjoys such great
popularity among contemporary scholars (over 56%).
The remainder of this Unit and the next will be
devoted to justifying this claim and presenting N.T. Wright’s comprehensive
analysis of the evidence for Jesus’ transformed-corporeal resurrection. This
will be done in six sections:
(1) Jesus’ risen appearance in Saint Paul (see
page contents below, Section 1);
(2) Witnesses, dates, and Gospel accounts of
Jesus’ risen appearance (see page contents below, Section 2);
(3) Wright’s argument for the historicity of the
resurrection from the unique development of the Christian Church (see
Encyclopedia Unit L)
(4) Wright’s argument for the historicity of the
resurrection from the uniquely Christian conception of “resurrection” (see
Encyclopedia Unit L, Section II);
(5) Wright’s argument for the historicity of the
resurrection from the uniquely Christian conception of “messiahship” and
“kingdom,” (see Encyclopedia Unit L, Section III);
(6) Jesus’ resurrection and the revelation of
His divinity (see Encyclopedia Unit L, Section IV).
Evidence of the Historicity of Jesus’ Resurrection in Saint Paul
The historical assessment of Paul’s testimony to
the risen appearance of Jesus will be taken up in four subsections:
A) The 1Corinthians 15 kerygma,
B) Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus,
C) Paul’s validation of his claim to have
experienced the risen Jesus, and
D) Wright’s argument for the historicity of
Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus.
The 1Corinthians 15 Kerygma
The kerygmas represent the earliest
extant proclamations of the primitive Church (AD late 30s and 40s?[11]). They are brief texts that resemble very simple creedal
statements, and are to be found mostly in the Pauline letters, and the Acts of
the Apostles (particularly in the speeches of Peter and Paul). These texts
predate the Pauline letters and the Acts of the Apostles in which they are
contained. They are identifiable through form critical methods, which were
elucidated by C.H. Dodd and his predecessors.[12]
Of the ten kerygmas Dodd has identified, nine
have explicit reference to Jesus’ resurrection: Acts 2:14-39, Acts 3:13-26,
Acts 4:10-12, Acts 5:30-32, Acts 10:36-43, Acts 13:17-41, 1Thess 1:10, 1Cor
15:1-7, Rom 8:34. The only kerygma that does not make explicit reference to the
resurrection is one that Dodd has pieced together from two sections of
Galatians (Gal 3:1 followed by Gal 1:3-4). Given the solidity of Dodd’s analysis,
the resurrection of Jesus is unquestionably central to the earliest strands of
apostolic preaching.
The most famous kerygma concerned
with the resurrection is the one found in 1Corinthians 15. Here, Paul says he
is repeating a tradition which he himself received (showing that it predates
the writing of 1Corinthians). It has an obvious formulaic character, relates
the resurrection to the death and burial, and gives a list of witnesses to
these appearances. This primitive formula contains some additions by Paul
(indicated below by square brackets). The kerygma may be translated as follows:
[For I delivered to you
as of first importance what I also received], that Christ died for our sins in
accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the
third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas,
then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one
time [most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.] Then he
appeared to James, then to all the apostles. [Last of all, as to one untimely
born, he appeared also to me.] (1Cor. 15:3-8)
Raymond Brown concurs with others that, even
though Paul arrived in Corinth in 50, and wrote his famous letter in 56, this
kerygma probably originated in the mid-30s. The reason is threefold. First,
this passage contains the various factors of an early kerygmatic formula.
Secondly, Paul uses the technical words for “transmit” (paralambanō) and
“receive” (paradidōmi), which indicate that he is handing on a tradition he
likely received at the time of his conversion (the mid-30s).[13] Thirdly, Joachim Jeremias[14] and later, Reginald Fuller
(with modifications) have argued for an Aramaic (older, mostly Palestinian)
origin of this kerygma. Fuller sums up the evidence as follows:
The safest conclusion
for the moment seems to be that the tradition as Paul received it was
originally Palestinian, but that it has subsequently passed through a
Hellenistic Jewish milieu, and that it was this Hellenized form that Paul
received. Although Hellenized, the content of the formula is certainly
Palestinian in origin. It was in that milieu that the title “Christos” was
first associated with the passion. It was there, too, that the atoning
interpretation of Christ’s death was first developed (Mark 10:45; 14:24). It
was there that the statement about Christ’s burial is most likely to have
originated. It was there apparently that the resurrection of the Christ was
first proclaimed. It was there that the apologetic which asserted that Christ’s
death took place in fulfillment of scripture originated, and it was with
Palestine – specifically with Jerusalem – that Cephas, the Twelve, and James
were associated.[15]
Two parts of the kerygma are obviously Pauline
additions (see the passages above which are indented and in square brackets).
Evidently, the passage beginning with (“Last of all…he appeared also to me”) is
Pauline in origin, for Paul does not need to refer to a tradition about
himself. The first passage (“most of whom are still alive, though some have
fallen asleep”) is also Pauline in origin. This passage merits special
attention, not only because it is a Pauline addition, but because of its value
in ascertaining the historicity of the events portrayed in the kerygma. By
phrasing the passage in this way, Paul is virtually inviting his Corinthian
audience to “check out the facts” with the living witnesses. The fact that Paul
is writing within living memory of these extraordinary events, and seems to be
acquainted with many of the witnesses he lists, that he is aware that these
witnesses are still alive, and challenges the Corinthians to investigate them,
gives considerable evidential weight to the claims in the passage.[16]
Who are the Witnesses in the 1Corinthians 15 Kerygma?
There are many interpretations of this list.
Some exegetes believe that the list could be chronological, as Paul seems to
suggest with his use of “first,” “next,” and “last of all…He appeared to me.”
Others have suggested that the first part of the list establishes Church
governance,[17] while the second part of the
list establishes the missionary Church.[18] It is not inconceivable that all three interpretations could
be true, such that Jesus could have established Church governance and a
missionary Church through the precise chronology elucidated by the kerygma.
The first appearance to Peter and to the Twelve
appear to be linked and probably occurred in Galilee. Fuller notes in this
regard:
…[T]he appearances to
Cephas and to the Twelve form a closely linked group. A single ōphthē (“he
appeared”) functions for both appearances, and the particle eita (“then”), used
in verses 5-7 to join two items within a single group, connects these two
appearances. … Even if we assume that the disciples remained hidden in
Jerusalem until after the Sabbath, as Mark seems to suppose, yet according to
the earliest available tradition (Mark) it was in Galilee that the first
appearances took place. … We may conjecture that upon arriving back in Galilee,
Peter proceeded to assemble the disciples for the second appearance. Luke
contains a hint that this was the procedure: “When you [singular] have turned
again, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32).[19]
The third appearance (to the 500+) probably took
place after the Twelve returned to Jerusalem and gathered the community
together. Fuller believes that this Jerusalem appearance may have been the point
at which the risen Jesus bestowed the Holy Spirit upon the large crowd gathered
there.[20] Jeremias adds to this contention by noting:
Paul’s remark in I Cor.
15.6 that of the five hundred “most are still alive, but some have fallen
asleep,” which is meant to underline the reliability of the account, also
contains an indirect reference to the place of the appearance. That it is
possible to ascertain which of the eye-witnesses to this appearance are still
alive a quarter of a century later makes one wonder whether at least the
majority of the five hundred lived in one and the same place, and that would
apply to Jerusalem. Since the days of the Tübingen school, therefore, the
hypothesis that the appearance to the five hundred and Pentecost are two
different traditions of one and the same event has found many supporters. A
further point in favour of this combination is that in John 20.22 we find
Christophany and the receiving of the spirit linked together.[21]
Some exegetes stress caution with this thesis,
because the appearance to the 500 is clearly a Christophany, while the gift of
the Holy Spirit in Acts is a charismatic activity, including speaking in
tongues. But there is no evidence from Scripture to preclude both of these from
being combined (i.e., the risen Christ giving the Holy Spirit to the disciples
at Jerusalem). Even if one separates the gift of the Holy Spirit from the
appearance to the 500+, the remainder of Fuller’s thesis could still be true,
namely, that “the +500 are the first-fruits of the church-founding function of
Peter and the Twelve after their return from Galilee to Jerusalem.”[22]
The fourth appearance to James would seem to be
(like Paul’s) a post-Pentecost event. Fuller notes that this “James” would
almost certainly have to be James the brother (the relative/follower)[23] of Jesus, for James the Less
is too insignificant, and James the Greater is martyred very early on. The
appearance to this James would explain why he experienced such a rapid rise in
the post-Pentecost Church when he does not appear to be even a significant
disciple of Jesus during the ministry. Fuller goes so far as to say:
It might be said that if
there were no record of an appearance to James the Lord’s brother in the New
Testament we should have to invent one in order to account for his
post-resurrection conversion and rapid advance.[24]
There is ample evidence in the Acts of the
Apostles to show that James serves a double role – he is at once the head of
the Jerusalem Church, and also appears to be head of all missionary activities stemming
from Jerusalem.[25] If this is the case, then the post-Pentecost appearance to
James both establishes Church governance and initiates the mission function of
the Church.
The fifth appearance to “all the apostles”
refers to “apostles” in another sense than “the Twelve.” Paul commonly uses the
term apostolos in a way similar to its common usage (“sent forth” or “those
sent forth”)[26] – that is, “missionaries.”
This meaning would certainly correspond to the theory that the second set of
appearances (James, “all the apostles,” and Paul) in the 1Corinthians 15 kerygma
are “mission-initiating.”
If “all the apostles” is meant in this
missionary sense, then it refers to all the primary missionaries mentioned in
the Acts of the Apostles. This would include both Aramaic-speaking Jewish
Christians and Hellenistic Jewish Christians in the early Church (i.e., prior
to the conversion of Paul).[27] Fuller conjectures further:
Were these perhaps the
missionaries referred to in Acts 11:19, who embarked upon a mission to
Hellenistic Jews in Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch? Were the seven of Acts 6
originally part of the group consisting of “all the apostles?”[28]
Whether or not they were, “all the apostles”
seems to refer to a significant group of Aramaic-speaking and Hellenistic
missionaries who enjoyed prominence in the pre-Pauline Church.
It seems that these missionaries may have received
multiple appearances in a post-Pentecost setting in Jerusalem. Why multiple?
Because there is no specific reference to “all at once” as is noted in the
passage about the 500+. It would seem, though, that these multiple appearances
were shared in groups because specific individuals are not named (as they are
for Peter, James, and Paul). Furthermore, Jerusalem is a likely place for these
appearances, because it follows upon the Church-founding and mission-initiating
activities which had already occurred there. The final appearance to Paul will
be taken up below.
If the above conjectures are correct, then the
1Corinthians 15 kerygma refers to: (1) an appearance to Peter and (2) a
subsequent appearance to the Twelve (both of which probably took place in Galilee
and were both Church-founding and governance-establishing), (3) an appearance
to 500 brethren, which may well be a Christophany associated with the gift of
the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem (which is both Church-founding and
mission-establishing), (4) a post-Pentecost appearance to James, the “brother”
of Christ, in Jerusalem (which was both governance-establishing and
mission-initiating, given that James is both the head of the Jerusalem Church
and the head of the mission activities originating in Jerusalem), and (5)
multiple post-Pentecost appearances, probably in Jerusalem, to the primary
Aramaic-speaking and Hellenistic missionaries in the early Church (prior to the
conversion of Paul). Most of the witnesses (from the above five groupings)
would have lived within Paul’s writing of the 1Corinthians 15 kerygma (as Paul,
himself, notes). The above list of witnesses is probably incomplete, for it
does not account for the appearances to the women,[29] or seemingly to minor
disciples (such as those on the way to Emmaus).
The Meaning of Ōphthē in the 1Corinthians 15 Kerygma
What does ōphthē in the 1Corinthians 15 list of
witnesses mean? It can have meanings ranging from the simple passive “was seen”
(in the sense of being seen with the eyes – physical sight – which puts the
emphasis on the seer) to “appeared” (“made manifest” or “made accessible to
sight,” which puts the emphasis on the reality being seen).
In light of Habermas’ analysis (see the
introduction to this Unit above), it is probably best to translate ōphthē
through a set of boundary conditions. There is ample evidence to show that from
the kerygmas, the writings of Paul, and the resurrection narratives, Jesus
was not simply a resuscitated corpse. Though He had corporeal
features which resembled His embodied condition during His ministry, He
was also transformed, manifesting trans-corporeal (spiritual)
qualities which were apparently not conditioned by the laws of physics. Thus,
the translation of ōphthē cannot mean “physical sight seeing a merely physical
reality.” However, it could mean “physical sight seeing a transformed corporeal
reality.”
Why attribute the experience to physical sight?
Because the risen Jesus was experienced by groups of disciples – that is, by
multiple individuals sharing the same experience. How else could multiple
individuals have shared the same experience? The only alternative would seem to
be that 500 individuals had their own private “ray of experience” of Jesus,
which takes Cartesianism’s intrasubjective prioritization to such an extreme
that it completely violates the principle of Ockham’s razor (the simpler
explanation is preferable to the convoluted). Instead of one
appearance shared by many, we now have poor Jesus having to appear 500 times to
500 individuals, and having to coordinate His 500 distinct appearances to those
individuals in some simultaneous fashion! Why would anyone go to such an extent
to deny that Jesus was experienced through physical sight?[30]
Therefore, it might be safe to consider ōphthē
as referring to “the physical sight of a trans-physical reality which is
accessible to physical sight without being limited to the laws of physics.”
This not only corresponds to the above boundary conditions, but also respects
both meanings of “ōphthē” as passive (“was seen by”) and middle (“appeared”).
Paul’s Experience of the Risen Jesus
There are two main sources of Paul’s experience
of the risen Jesus: (1) the texts from his letters, and (2) the texts from the
Acts of the Apostles. Paul’s own accounts of seeing the risen Christ must take
precedence over Luke’s accounts of the same event, because Luke received his data from
Paul. Furthermore, Luke would not have wanted to be in the position
of telling Paul what Paul “really” experienced.
Paul’s Experience of the Risen Jesus – Implications in his
Writings
There are five passages in Paul’s writings which
refer to his experience of the risen Jesus: Galatians 1:11-17, 1Corinthians
9:1, 1Corinthians 15:8-11, 2Corinthians 4:6, and 2Corinthians 12:1-4. Wright
assesses the common elements in these five passages, and concludes that Paul
had an experience of the risen Christ which was similar to the ones described
in the Gospel narratives, namely, that the experience occurred through physical
sight, that it had a transformed corporeal ground, and it was not an interior
vision or an ecstatic experience. A brief summary of Wright’s conclusions in
this regard follows.
(1) Paul physically saw the risen Jesus.
At first glance, this might seem to be a very implausible claim because Luke
implies that Paul had a vision of Jesus which other witnesses around him did
not see. This would seem to indicate that Paul had an interior vision of Jesus
(which stands in contrast to the light which all the witnesses saw). However,
if we are to value Paul’s own words above the narrative constructions in Luke
(which Wright correctly insists must be our hermeneutical priority) and we are
not to read the Lukan narrative into Paul’s own vocabulary, and if we are to
read Paul’s vocabulary according to its normal meaning, then it would seem that
Paul physically saw Jesus. According to Wright:
The combination of this
verse [1Corinthians 9:1] with 15:8-11 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 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….[31]
(2) Paul’s experience was not of a non-corporeal being.
We should begin with the text of 1Corinthians 15:36-49, because there is
excellent reason for believing that Paul grounds his description of our future
risen bodies in his experience of the risen Christ.[32] He implies this when he says, “Just as we have borne the
image of the earthly one [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly
one [the risen Christ]” (15:49). If Paul had not experienced the heavenly
man (Christ), he would not have been able to give a description of our future
risen bodies (the image of the heavenly man). Thus, the forthcoming
passage could be read not only as a description of our future risen bodies, but
also as Paul’s experience of the risen Christ:
What you sow is not brought
to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a
bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind; but God gives it a body
as He chooses, and to each of the seeds its own body. … So also is the
resurrection of the dead. It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible.
It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised
powerful. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body (pneumatikon
sōma). If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one. … Behold, I
tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in an
instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. … For that which is
corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal
must clothe itself with immortality (1Cor.15:36-53).[33]
The key feature throughout Paul’s description is
continuity between our natural body and our future spiritual body. Though it is
clear that our natural bodies will be significantly transformed, it is equally
clear that there will be continuity between the natural body and the spiritual
body. This can be seen not only from Paul’s use of the word “sōma” of both the
natural and spiritual body, but also his wording in the above passage. The
natural body is a “kernel” or a “seed” of what is to come; it is “sown” and
“raised” – it is not destroyed and recreated; the natural body “clothes itself”
in incorruptibility and immortality – the word “itself” implies that it does
not go away. One would have to do violence to this text to remove
the dimension of continuity between natural and spiritual body.
We may now return to our original point that
Paul grounds his description of our future risen bodies in his experience of
the risen Christ. It would seem that Paul’s experience of the risen Christ was
certainly not purely spiritual/glorious. His use of “body” and the continuity
between “natural body” and “spiritual body” imply that the risen Jesus
manifested Himself in a transformed corporeal form. Wright notes in this
regard:
…the rest of chapter 15
[of 1Corinthians] does not (as we have seen) speak of that interesting oxymoron,
a non-bodily “resurrection.”[34]
(3) Paul’s experience on the road to
Damascus is distinct from the ecstatic experiences he later had and described
in 2Corinthians 12:1-4. The revelation (or vision) referred to in
2Corinthians 12:1-4 must be different in nature than Paul’s experience of the
risen Christ on the road to Damascus, because the latter was thought by him to
be unrepeatable.[35]Furthermore, the ecstatic experiences are not present to his
physical sight (eiden and heoraka) in the world; they are a revelation which
snatches him up to the third heaven or paradise. Wright notes in this regard:
The particular ecstatic
experience to which he refers in [2Cor] 12.1-4 took place, it seems, around the
year 40 (assuming a date in the mid-50s for 2 Corinthians)…. It seems clear
from later in the passage that Paul is talking about himself.… [T]his cannot be
a reference to his Damascus Road experience; it is chronologically far too
late, and belongs in a different category.[36]
Wright goes on to say that Paul does not intend
to associate these later ecstatic experiences with the earlier experience of
the risen Christ on the road. Indeed, the Corinthian community does not expect
him to. They are already familiar with Paul’s “road to Damascus” experience, and
are looking for more contemporary experiences:
What they [the
Corinthians] want is an up-to-date account of his wonderful spiritual
experiences, the more recent the better. If Paul is a true apostle, surely he
will be able to regale them with splendid tales of heavenly journeys, of
revelations of secret wisdom, of glimpses of glory far beyond mortal eyes.[37]
As Wright notes, the above three characteristics
present a considerably different portrait of Paul’s experience of the risen
Christ than the one given by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. If one reads
between the lines, it seems that Paul had an experience of a significantly
transformed yet corporeal Jesus which he saw with his physical sight, and which
was quite distinct from an interior vision. This would make Paul’s experiences
very similar to the ones recounted in the Gospel narratives (which accentuate
the corporeal elements), but distinct from the accounts given in Acts (which
accentuates an appearance as an intense light). How, then, should we interpret
the three accounts in Acts?
Paul’s Experience of the Risen Jesus as Described in the Acts of
the Apostles
Before proceeding to the three Lukan accounts of
Paul’s experience in the Acts of the Apostles, we will want to follow Wright in
investigating the other minor or passing references to Paul’s experience in the
same work. Wright notes here that these passing references indicate precisely
what Paul says in 1Corinthians 9:1, namely, that he physically saw the risen
Jesus:
This point is…clear from
Acts 9:17, where Ananias speaks of Jesus having “appeared (ophtheis) to you,”
and 9.27, where Barnabas explains how Saul had seen (eiden) the lord on the
road.[38]
This reinforces the view that Paul
actually saw the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus.
At first glance, this does not seem to square
with the three Lukan accounts of Paul’s experience in Acts, because they imply
that Paul had an interior vision of the risen Jesus in that he saw the risen
Jesus while his companions did not. If Jesus was accessible to physical sight,
it would seem that his companions would have seen Him as well as Paul.
Moreover, the Lukan accounts do not agree among
themselves. The first Lukan account (Acts 9:3ff) indicates that his companions
did not see anybody, but they heard a voice. The second and third Lukan
accounts indicate that his companions saw a light, but did not hear anything.
Luke must have been aware of these inconsistencies among the accounts, and was
certainly intelligent enough to have reconciled them, which provokes the
question of why he would have deliberately written these inconsistent accounts
of Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus.
Wright believes that this can be explained by
Luke’s interest in legitimating Paul’s call within the longstanding Jewish
prophetic tradition. Luke has deliberately created a narrative which follows
the calls of Ezekiel and Daniel (two of the greatest prophets in the history of
Israel). By putting Jesus’ call of Paul into the same form as God’s call of the
great prophets, Luke shows that Jesus is acting in the same way as the God of Israel,
and Paul is receiving a call similar to the great prophets. Paul is legitimated
to Jewish audiences despite his seemingly rebellious character.[39]
In the call of Ezekiel, no companions are
mentioned, however, the mention of light, falling down, a divine voice, and
being urged to rise resemble Luke’s account of Paul’s call by Jesus:
Like the bow which
appears in the clouds on a rainy day was the splendor that surrounded him. Such
was the vision of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I had seen it, I
fell upon my face and heard a voice that said to me: Son of man, stand up! (Ez
1:28-2:1).[40]
In the call of Daniel we see many similarities
to the call of Paul in Acts: a vision which Daniel’s companions did not see, a
divine voice, falling down, being urged to rise, and a loss of strength:
I looked up and saw a
man clothed in linen, with a belt of gold from Uphaz around his waist…. I
Daniel, alone saw the vision; the people who were with me did not
see the vision, though a great trembling fell upon them, and they fled and hid
themselves. So I was left alone to see this great vision. My strength left me,
and my complexion grew deathly pale, and I retained no strength. Then I heard
the sound of his words; and when I heard the sound of his words, I fell into a
trance, face to the ground. But then a hand touched me and roused me to my
hands and knees. He said to me, “Daniel, greatly beloved, pay attention to the
words that I am going to speak to you. Stand on your feet, for I have now been
sent to you.” So while he was speaking this word to me, I stood up trembling
(Daniel 10:5-11).[41]
It is difficult to resist Wright’s contention
that Luke intentionally contoured the narrative of Paul’s call by Jesus to
resemble that of the call of Ezekiel and Daniel by the God of Israel, because
it explains why Luke would deviate from the Pauline testimony with which he was
familiar (as evidenced in Acts 9:17 and 9:27). Luke wanted to show that Paul
was operating within the scope of Jewish tradition, and therefore possessed the
authority of Israel’s God. He also wanted to show that the call of
Jesus was virtually identical to the call of Israel’s God.
So, where does this leave us in our
investigation of how Jesus appeared to Paul? We must return to Paul’s own
accounts which indicate that Paul physically saw the risen Jesus as both
embodied and transformed. “Body” is implied to be continuous with Jesus’
embodiment during His ministry; and “spiritual” refers to a transformation
(re-clothing) of that earthly body into immortality, incorruptibility, power,
and glory. Paul seems to have seen a risen Jesus at once glorified and
embodied, which closely resembles the accounts given in the Gospel narratives.
Does this mean that we have to discount
completely the light and the voice described by Luke (that is, to relegate them
to mere literary license)? I would suggest that such a leap goes much too far,
because light is consistent with the spiritual transformation of Jesus’ body,
and that the voice which Paul hears is consistent with His previous
corporeality. One should not infer from this that Jesus appeared as pure light,
because this is not consistent with Paul’s account of a re-clothing of Jesus’
physical body. Light may have accompanied the transformed body of Jesus,
without, as it were, “taking it over.” Whatever we conclude, it should be
consistent with two well-established evidential grounds: (1) Jesus’ appearance as
“physically seen” (not an interior vision, but rather accessible to multiple
witnesses through exterior physical sight simultaneously), and (2) Jesus’
appearance having characteristics of both spiritual transformation and earthly
corporeality. As will be shown below, the Gospel accounts are quite
consistent with this Pauline description, explaining why the vast majority of
contemporary exegetes subscribe to it.
Paul’s Validation of his and other Witnesses’ Claims about Seeing
the Risen Jesus
Immediately after the 1Corinthians 15 kerygma
(with its list of witnesses), Paul presents an interesting dilemma which could
apply to all the witnesses in that list:
[1] …if Christ has not been raised, then our
preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are also found to be false
witnesses [pseudomartures] of God because we witnessed
[emarturēsamen] of God that He raised Christ….
[2] If for this life only we have hoped in
Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. …Why am I in peril every hour? …I
die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at
Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we
die” (1Cor 15:14-32).
If one looks at this passage carefully, one can
see the makings of a classical dilemma which has the objective of verifying the
witness value not only of Paul, but also of the Twelve, the 500, James, and the
“other apostles.” From a legal perspective, the most objective way of validating a witness’
testimony is to show that that witness has “everything to lose, and nothing to
gain.” From the opposite perspective, a witness who has everything
to gain and nothing to lose may be telling the truth, but there is no extrinsic
way of validating this. Indeed, there is a haunting suspicion that the witness
may be acting in his own self-interest. A better witness would be one who had
nothing to gain or lose, for at least he would not be acting in his own
self-interest. But the best witness would be one who had everything to lose
(and nothing to gain) because this witness would be acting against his own
self-interest, which is a disposition which most of us want desperately to
avoid. I believe that Paul is trying to show that not only he, but also the others
in the list of witnesses, are in this third category, and therefore deserve to
be ranked among the best possible witnesses.
Paul sets out his test for witness validity in a
dilemma with (of course) two opposed parts: (1) the assumption that the witnesses
believed in God, and (2) the assumption that the witnesses did not believe in
God. Let us return to the passage above, and insert these phrases:
1) [If, on the one hand, we believe in God, and]
if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is
in vain. We are also found to be false witnesses [pseudomartures] of God
because we witnessed [emarturēsamen] of God that He raised Christ….
2) [If on the other hand, we do not believe in
God, and] if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are, of all men,
most to be pitied. …Why am I in peril every hour? …I die every day! What do I
gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not
raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
The first part of the dilemma assumes that Paul
(and the other witnesses) believe in God. If Paul truly believes in God, He
does not want to bear false witness of God, because this would not only
disappoint the Lord whom He adores, but also might, in fact, jeopardize his
salvation. This problem is compounded by the fact that his false testimony
would be leading hundreds, if not thousands of people astray, which would not
only be a colossal waste of his ministry and time (“our preaching is in vain”),
but also a colossal waste of the time and lives of the people he is affecting
by his false testimony (“your faith is in vain”). If Paul really does believe
in God, why would he waste his life, waste the faith of believers, bear false
witness, and risk his salvation? This does not seem to be commensurate with
someone of genuine faith (or common sense).
The second part of the dilemma hypothesizes that
Paul does not believe in God. In other words, that Paul’s preaching of the
resurrection is not for the sake of converts to God, but for converts to Paul.
But Paul presents a poignant objection: “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us
eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’” Paul is saying that the cost of preaching
a false resurrection (without any belief in a God who saves) is simply too high.
He and the other witnesses are not only being challenged by Jewish and Roman
authorities, they are being actively persecuted. As he puts it, he is dying
every day and is being subject to trials with substantial risk of martyrdom.
Paul is probably using this dilemma to show (in
a quasi-legal fashion) that he and the other witnesses have everything to lose
and nothing to gain by bearing false witness to the resurrection of Christ. But
this cannot be viewed merely as a test of witness validity. It must also be
viewed as a real, internal tribulation that would have occurred to any false
witness who either did or did not believe in God under conditions of
persecution. In short, it can hardly be believed that such a thought process
would not have occurred to a person being persecuted for testimony which he or
she knew to be false. Could all of the so-called witnesses within living memory
of Christ’s resurrection have been so naïve? It seems to me that they could
not. If authentic motivation fails, self-interest seems to occur to us, and the
above dilemma makes clear that the witness’ self-interest could not be
furthered (in conditions of persecution) if their testimony to Christ’s
resurrection were untrue.
It must be stressed that Paul makes the above
“contra-self-interest” argument to state clearly why he and the other witnesses
would not testify falsely. It does not express the full range of Paul’s
positive motivation for enduring persecution through the preaching of the
resurrection. Paul not only believes that he is speaking the truth, but that he
is speaking the truth about the Lord he loves (that is, the Lord who has loved
him first). He endures persecution not simply because he believes he has a duty
to bear witness to the truth about the resurrection, but also because he loves
the One about whom he bears witness. If Paul’s love is true, then it can hardly
be thought that he is preaching a falsity about his Beloved. Paul’s sense of
authenticity would probably not permit him to live with such a contradiction.
As one probes the depths of Paul’s authenticity, integrity, and love, it is
very hard to believe that he (and others like him) could deliberately falsify
their claim about the resurrection.
Wright’s Argument for the Historicity of Paul’s Experience of the
Risen Jesus
Wright demonstrates, in considerable detail,
that the early Christian view of resurrection does not resemble the pagan
notion of the “afterlife.” Indeed, the pagan notion of afterlife (disembodied
immortality) does not resemble the Jewish notion of resurrection.[42] He notes in this regard, “…no pagans known to us ever
imagined that resurrection could or would really take place, let alone offered
any developed framework of thought on the subject.”[43]
Though Paul views the resurrection through the
lens of his Jewish background, he alters it considerably, “indicat[ing] that he
thought he knew something more about what resurrection was, something for which
his tradition had not prepared him.”[44] He develops and changes the Jewish tradition in four
respects:
[1] Resurrection was now
happening in two stages (first Jesus, then all his people);
[2] resurrection as a metaphor meant, not the restoration of Israel (though
that comes in alongside in Romans 11), but the moral restoration of human
beings; [3] resurrection meant, not the victory of Israel over her
enemies, but the Gentile mission in which all would be equal on the basis of faith;
[4] resurrection
was not resuscitation, but transformation into a non-corruptible body.[45]
As Wright notes, “the only explanation
for these modifications is that they originated in what Paul believed had
happened to Jesus himself.”[46] It is very difficult to
imagine why Paul (with his pharisaical training) would have ever changed the
restoration of Israel (the metaphorical meaning of resurrection) to the
foundation of the kingdom of God which would include the Gentile peoples, and
then extended the privilege of resurrection to these Gentile peoples, unless he
had experienced the resurrection as a “kingdom-initiating” event – the establishment
of a new Jerusalem. Furthermore, it is very difficult to imagine why Paul would
have moved from the Jewish tradition of resurrection to one which entails a
“transformation of our embodiment through a sharing in divine glory,” unless he
truly believed that we would share in the same glory he had witnessed in the
risen Jesus. Paul’s movement from the “this worldly,” “Israel-centered” notion
of resurrection, to the universal “other worldly,” “transformation in divine
glory” view of resurrection, and his placement of this movement at the very
center of his theology, makes no sense unless he had another source of evidence
for resurrection beyond the Jewish tradition.
It is very likely that this
additional evidence was his experience of the risen Jesus, because Paul’s
departures from Jewish tradition resemble those in the Gospel narratives and
other New Testament sources. It would again be very difficult to imagine how
all of these peculiar departures from Jewish tradition occurred within a
multiplicity of non-overlapping sources without their having shared a common
historical origin. Given that these peculiar departures from Judaism are found
in the risen Jesus in all three non-overlapping Gospel narratives (Matthew,
Luke, and John), and that this description corresponds to Paul’s own experience
of the risen Jesus, their common origin may be reasonably attributed to Paul’s
and other early witnesses’ experience of the transformed embodiment of the
risen Jesus. This conclusion will be taken up in detail in the next unit which
is devoted to Wright’s arguments for the historicity of the resurrection
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