(4) The appearance stories themselves do not have the rigorousness of a defense against Docetism. The physicalism of the gospel appearance stories is not a point trying to be scored; rather it is just naturally assumed and is found in the incidental details of the stories: Jesus’ breaking bread, the women’s holding his feet in worship, His coming to the disciples on the hilltop. Even in Luke’s and John’s accounts of Jesus’ showing His wounds, it is not said that the disciples actually touched Jesus. As Schnackenburg has said, if this were a defense against Docetism, then more would have been done than Jesus’ merely showing His wounds.23 The physicalism of the appearances was taken for granted, and no defense against Docetism is here in view.
(5) If visionary “appearances” had been original, then physical appearances would never have developed. For, in the first place, Docetism would not be a threat. Christians and Docetists might argue over whether Jesus was physical during His life, but both could agree that He did not appear physically after His death. Thus, Docetism would not bring forth the counterreaction of physical appearances, if the appearances were originally visionary. In the second place, physical appearances would have been offensive to potential converts in both Judaism and paganism. Jews would tend to reject Jesus’ physical resurrection appearances because they held only to a physical resurrection at the end of history. Pagans would tend to reject a physical resurrection because they held to the immortality of the soul alone. Thus, had the appearances been originally visionary, the Christians would never have invented physical appearances, but would have held onto the original visionary experiences.
The considerations demonstrate that the physicalism of the gospel appearance stories is not a conscious defense against Docetism, but rather just a natural part of the stories. But we can go further than this, for there are positive reasons to accept the historical reliability of the gospel stories of Jesus’ physical, bodily appearances.
(1) Every resurrection appearance narrated in the gospels is a physical, bodily appearance. The unanimity of the gospels on that score is very impressive when one remembers that the appearance stories were originally more or less separate, independent stories, which the different gospel writers collected and arranged in order. All their separate sources of information agree that Jesus appeared physically and bodily to the disciples and other witnesses. There is no trace of nonphysical appearances in the sources, a remarkable fact if all the appearances were really visionary, as some critics would have us believe. That strongly suggests that the appearances were not in fact visions, but actual, bodily appearances. The fact that all the separate gospel stories agree on that point, and that no trace of visionary “appearances” is to be found, weighs strongly in favor of the gospels’ historical credibility in this matter.
(2) The really decisive consideration in favor of the physical, bodily appearances of Jesus as narrated in the gospels is that, as we have seen, the gospel accounts are fundamentally reliable historically. We have seen that the time was too short for legends of Jesus’ physical appearances to accumulate, that the presence of the living eyewitnesses to the appearances would have served as a control against false accounts of what happened, and that the authoritative control of the apostles would have served to preserve the accurate accounts. If the appearances were originally only visions, then those three factors would have prevented them from being perverted to physical appearances. It is inexplicable how a series of mere visions could be so thoroughly materialized and corrupted into the unanimous physicalism of the gospel appearance stories in so short a time, in the presence of the very witnesses to those appearances themselves, and under the eyes of the apostles responsible for preventing such corruption. This shows decisively that the appearances of Jesus were physical, bodily appearances, as the gospels report.
Thus, the gospels demonstrate that the appearances of Jesus were physical, bodily appearances. At the same time, however, it should be emphasized that Jesus’ resurrection body possessed superhuman capabilities, according to the gospel accounts, such as the ability to appear and disappear at will, without regard to spatial distances. It was as though He could, so to speak, step out of this dimension into another, then back into this one at any place He wished. Paul’s description of the resurrection body as immortal, glorious, powerful, and supernatural well describes the resurrection body of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels.
Both Paul and the gospels, then, combine to provide solid evidence for the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus. Paul and the entire New Testament make a clear distinction between an appearance and a vision of Jesus. This distinction is understandable only if appearances were physical events. Taken together with his teaching on the resurrection body, this strongly suggests that Paul took the appearances of Jesus to be physical and bodily. Confirmation of that comes from the fact that if the original appearances had been visionary, the development of Paul’s teaching on the resurrection body is very difficult to explain. For their part, the gospels provide unanimous, independent testimony for physical appearances and show no trace of visionary “appearances.” The evidence for the fundamental historical reliability of the gospel accounts proves that the physicalism of the accounts is historically well-founded. Thus, amazing as it may seem, the evidence solidly supports the fact that Jesus physically and bodily rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples.
4. Specific considerations make individual gospel appearance stories historically probable.
a) The appearance to the women is historical. That women and not men should be the first to see Jesus risen lends credibility to this account. It would be pointless for early believers to manufacture a story of an appearance to legally unqualified women. In fact they are probably not mentioned in Paul’s list because of that very fact. So why have such a story at all? Any conceivable purpose for this appearance story would have been much better served by having Jesus appear to Peter at the tomb. Hence, the story is probably reliable. Confirmation of that comes from the fact that fictions could not be invented about persons who would be well-known in the Christian fellowship in Jerusalem.
b) The appearance to Peter is historical. Since this appearance is mentioned by Paul, who spoke with Peter, as well as by Luke, it is historically certain. It probably occurred in Jerusalem after Peter’s visit to the empty tomb and before the appearance to the Twelve.
c) The appearance to the Twelve is historical. Also referred to by Paul, this appearance also certainly took place. Since the disciple whom Jesus loved was present, John’s account must be accurate. The appearance took place Sunday evening in Jerusalem.
d) The appearance by the Lake of Galilee is historical. Since the disciple whom Jesus loved was also present there, this appearance must also be historical. It shows clearly that after Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem, they returned to Galilee, where they saw Him again.
e) The appearance in Galilee mentioned by Mark is historical. Since this appearance was probably part of Mark’s source material, it is a very old and therefore no doubt reliable piece of information. It also shows that Jesus appeared to the disciples in Galilee.
The individual considerations go to confirm the point that has been demonstrated repeatedly: that Jesus appeared alive on various occasions to various persons after His death.
EXPLAINING THE RESURRECTION APPEARANCES