4. Veridical visions of dead persons only occur to individuals who are unaware of the person’s death. The casebooks show, that people who have veridical visions are not aware that the person seen has died. That consideration seems to be decisive against this theory. For the disciples not only knew of Jesus’ death; they were shattered by it. Therefore, they could not have been subject to a veridical vision.
5. The hypothesis fails to account for all the evidence. Again we find a familiar problem: the theory seeks to explain part of the evidence, but leaves other important aspects unexplained. Many additional theories would need to be added in order to account for the full range of the data. The empty tomb would have to be accounted for by some unrelated hypothesis. The appearance to the five hundred would have to be explained as a mere hallucination, not a veridical vision, Perry admits, since too many people were involved. The appearance to Paul would also have to be explained as a coincidental hallucination, not a veridical vision, Perry acknowledges, presumably because Paul lacked the intimate contact with Jesus necessary for a veridical vision. Thus, multiple hypotheses, against which weighty objections could be lodged, are necessary to account for the evidence that the single, overarching hypothesis of the resurrection plausibly explains. Historically, therefore, the explanation that Jesus rose from the dead is to be preferred.
In summary, we have examined in detail four lines of historical evidence concerning the appearances of Jesus after His death. Those demonstrate that Jesus on several occasions and in different places appeared physically and bodily alive from the dead to His followers, to His brother, and to Paul. Neither hallucinations nor veridical visions provide an adequate explanation of those appearances. On this basis alone, we would be justified in concluding that Jesus rose from the dead, as the disciples proclaimed. But all the evidence for the resurrection is not yet in: we still have to consider the evidence for the origin of the Christian faith. So before we draw any final conclusion, let us turn to the next chapter to consider the question, How is the origin of the Christian faith to be explained?
NOTES
1. C. H. Dodd, “The Appearances of the Risen Christ: A study in the form criticism of the Gospels,” in More New Testament Studies (Manchester: U. of Manchester Press, 1968), p. 128.
2. Josephus Jewish War 3. 41-43.
3. Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 20. 200. There is also an account by Hegesippus recorded in Eusebius Historiae ecclesiasticae 2. 33.
4. Eusebius Historiae ecclesiasticae 1. 7, 14.
5. Hans Grass, Ostergeschehen und Osterberichte, 4th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), p. 102.
6. Indeed, so strong is the evidence for these appearances that Wolfhart Pannenberg, perhaps the world’s greatest living systematic theologian, has rocked modern, skeptical German theology by building his entire theology precisely on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus as supplied in Paul’s list of appearances (Wolfhaft Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, trans. L. L. Wilkins and D. A. Priebe [London: SCM, 1968], pp. 88-99.) Pannenberg also argues for the empty tomb, but its role in his case is subsidiary and confirmatory.
7. Julius Müller, The Theory of Myths, in its Application to the Gospel History, Examined and Confuted (London: John Chapman, 1844), p. 26.
8. A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963), pp. 188-91.
9. Ibid., p. 189.
10. Ibid., p. 190.
11. Müller, Theory, p. 29.
12. John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (London: SCM, 1976), pp. 3, 342-48.
13. Bo Reicke, “Synoptic Prophecies on the Destruction of Jerusalem,” in Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature, ed. D. E. Aune (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), pp. 121-34.
14. Robinson, Redating, p. 343.
15. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 3d ed. rev. (London: Inter-Varsity, 1970), pp. 340-45.
16. Vincent Taylor, The Formation of the Gospel Tradition, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1935), p. 41.
17. Walther Künneth, The Theology of the Resurrection, trans. J. W. Leitch (London: SCM, 1965), pp. 92-93.
18. Ibid., p. 93.
19. Jean Héring, La première épître de saint Paul aux Corinthiens, 2d ed., Commentaire du Nouveau Testament 7 (Neuchatel, Switzerland: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1959), p. 147.
20. Grass, Ostergeschehen, pp. 229-32.
21. E. E. Ellis, ed, The Gospel of Luke, New Century Bible (London: Nelson, 1966), p. 275.
22. Irenaeus Against Heresies 1. 26. 1.
23. Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium, 2d ed., 3 vols., Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 4 (Freiburg: Herder, 1972-76), 3: 383.
24. Michael Perry, The Easter Enigma (London: Faber & Faber, 1959), pp. 141-95.
25. Ibid., p. 214.
* J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English.
5
The Origin of the Christian Faith
THE FACT OF BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION
Whatever they may think of the historical resurrection, even the most skeptical scholars admit that at least the belief that Jesus rose from the dead lay at the very heart of the earliest Christian faith. Bultmann, though he denies the historical resurrection, yet acknowledges that historical criticism can establish that the first disciples believed in the resurrection.1 Gerhard Koch states, “It is everywhere clear that the event of Easter is the central point of the New Testament message. Resurrection by God and appearing before his disciples constitute the basis of the New Testament proclamation of Christ, without which there would be virtually no witness to Christ.”2 When Paul wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14), he was not giving just his own opinion. The entire New Testament testifies to the fact that the resurrection of Jesus stood at the center of the disciples’ faith and preaching.
It was on the basis of Jesus’ resurrection that the disciples could believe that He was the Messiah. It is difficult to exaggerate how devastating the crucifixion must have been for the disciples. They had pinned all their hopes, their lives, on Jesus, but He had died. Even though Jesus had predicted his resurrection, the gospels are clear that the disciples did not understand Him. They had no conception of a dying, much less a rising, Messiah, for the Scriptures said that the Messiah would reign forever (Isaiah 9:7; compare John 12:34). Thus, Jesus’ crucifixion shattered any hopes they might have entertained that He was the Messiah.
But the resurrection turned catastrophe into victory. Because God had raised Jesus from the dead, He was proved to be the Messiah after all. In Acts 2:32, 36, Peter declares to the Jews, “This Jesus God raised up. . . . Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” “Christ” was the Greek word for “Messiah,” and it became so closely connected to Jesus’ person that it became practically a proper name: Messiah Jesus became Jesus Christ. The resurrection was God’s decisive vindication of who Jesus was. It showed that the crucifixion was no defeat, but part of God’s plan. Belief in the resurrection enabled the disciples to proclaim that their crucified Master was the Messiah of God.