14: Illumination and Illusion Hypotheses

14

Illumination and Illusion Hypotheses

This chapter considers two naturalistic theses that are enigmas. Both have been seldom considered and have virtually never been identified by name while still finding support by some major researchers. Their ideas are somewhat related, as both potentially involve sight and can be confused with hallucination or other subjective theses. This often accounts for the multiple confusions and the often strange ways they are grouped. Few researchers actually champion either one as their primary suggestion, and most of those who mention them do so almost as side issues or illustrations. Even then, these writers sometimes only attempt to mix and match dissimilar ideas rather than buttress these theses as primary theories. It would be a mistake to consider these naturalistic theories as hallucinations, as should be clear after this treatment, but the inaccuracies are hardly even noticed by those who make the connections, hence some of the reasons for the misunderstandings.

The Illumination Hypothesis

Perhaps taking hints from Luke 24:36–40, both natural as well as supernatural varieties of visionary hypotheses have been a popular means of explaining the nature of Jesus’s resurrection appearances since the birth of the Christian faith. In the second century AD, the Greek philosopher and severe critic of Christianity, Celsus, commented that a hysterical and deluded woman hallucinated Jesus as being alive after his crucifixion.

Among the subjective visionary theories, the charge of hallucinations has been the most popular. Though far from a widespread view, what I have dubbed as the illumination thesis argues that, through an almost completely nondescript internal process, the disciples became convinced that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Rarely are many details provided. Almost always, the apostle Peter is the key. His insights provided the initial impetus, and his enthusiastic encouragement was the engine that empowered and persuaded his friends. As a result, the nearly contagious-sounding conviction that Jesus was alive spread to the others. Some idea of autosuggestion or other form of transmittable faith is thereby suggested.

Championed largely by German New Testament scholar Willi Marxsen in a day when his treatment was a rare but perennial example of a naturalistic attempt to dismiss the historical nature of the resurrection, his prototypical position espoused an inner, organized enlightenment on Peter’s part, which led to the belief of the other disciples that Jesus was alive. In a later volume, Marxsen continued to hold that Peter’s faith was the primary motivation for the faith that was generated in the other disciples, although Marxsen concluded that he did not know whether this vision(s) of Jesus to Peter was subjective or objective. There is a marked sense here in which the fading influence of Rudolf Bultmann may be seen, though it had grown less over the years. Edward Schillebeeckx expressed some quite similar thoughts to Marxsen’s, though without necessarily denying the resurrection appearances.

Philosopher Thomas Sheehan perhaps supplied the most details concerning the new understanding of Jesus arrived at by Peter and the other disciples. In a flash of revelatory “insight,” they understood that Jesus had been exalted and glorified by God. So, in some “ecstatic” occurrence that could have been as “ordinary as reflecting,” they “saw” Jesus and “believed.” Peter and the others began proclaiming that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Like Marxsen (and Cupitt below), we do not really know what happened in the first century, although Sheehan is quite clear that no resurrection event took place. Rather, all we have is the interpretation of what Peter and the other disciples experienced.

Some of Sheehan’s comments were absolutely stunning, such as these gathered from a single article: “Perhaps the point is not to salvage Catholicism or Christianity but to let go of them.” “Christianity begins with Simon, not with Jesus,” so anyone who holds this tradition regarding Simon “can also rightly claim the title ‘Christian,’ even if he or she believes that Jesus is as dead as a doornail. For ultimately Jesus is not essential to Christianity. But Peter is.” Sheehan also ends his volume The First Coming with the words, “That means learning to live at the uncertain point that is the present-future, without any appeal to the ‘beyond.’ . . . It is the same message that Jesus preached.”

Theologian Don Cupitt is another who expresses some reluctance to precisely outline the nature of these experiences. But like Marxsen, he is also much more interested in the disciples’ faith than in any event, for contrary to the vast majority of recent commentators, Cupitt thinks that the former precedes the latter. Through “a shocking flash of recognition everything fell into place and they saw the meaning of this man.”

Exhibiting several similarities sufficiently close to the ideas of Marxsen, Sheehan, Cupitt, and Spong, theologian Edward Schillebeeckx also holds that after Peter was converted, he was then instrumental in bringing the other disciples to convert. It is difficult to decipher the precise intent and direction of the (purposely?) vague language, but it seems that Schillebeeckx proposes that the disciples’ experiences were not really visual appearances, at least not as reported by Paul and the Gospel writers. Schillebeeckx later explains further that religious parallel legends can account for the empty tomb and appearance reports.

Yet, theologian Gerald O’Collins cautions that Schillebeeckx still allows the possibility that the disciples’ experiences with the risen Jesus could have been real events and that he never denies that possibility. This caution aside, N. T. Wright (writing at a later date) is clear in his own evaluation that Schillebeeckx did indeed hold that the disciples reported only subjective experiences rather than appearances of a living Jesus.

John Shelby Spong’s writings on the subject created quite an uproar when ­published, perhaps because he was an Episcopal bishop. Once again, for Spong, Peter was the key individual, for it was Peter rather than Jesus himself who “was resurrected to new life, a new being.” Standing “as if in a trance,” Peter was “suddenly aglow with life.” But there were no visions, hallucinations, or anything to do with the real world. No one else in the room (including Peter) really saw Jesus. Peter then helped to open the eyes of the other followers of Jesus. In a later work, Spong provides the disclaimer that, after all, we really cannot know what happened to Peter and the others. Reminiscent of the views of the influential nineteenth-century German liberal scholar David Friedrich Strauss, Spong also removes Peter’s transformative experience to about six months after Jesus’s death.

A last, similar thesis to be mentioned here is Milan Machoveč’s ideas that Peter “was the first to assimilate the tragedy and absurdity of a Calvary without a parousia . . . and to realise that Jesus’s crucifixion was his victory.” Hence, Peter led the other disciples to grasp Jesus’s death in this new light, in order “to regard Calvary not as the end but as the transition to victory and exaltation.” In this sense, Peter is thought to have had an insight that snatched victory from the apparent embarrassment and ignominy of crucifixion by somehow interpreting Jesus’s death event as the true victory! By dying especially in that manner and remaining dead, Jesus’s defeat somehow still turned into his means of exaltation. Further, Peter successfully convinced the other disciples of the same message and thereby inspired the Christian ideas that changed the world.

One other more sophisticated view will be cited here, although it was different in several respects from the ramifications of the illumination thesis as just outlined. Prominent German scholar Rudolf Pesch’s early research is probably the most notable example of a few scholars who thought that Jesus’s pre-crucifixion authority and message were in themselves so incredibly influential, riveting, and magnetic that they were largely sufficient in themselves to cause his followers to survive the horrors of the crucifixion with their faith intact. Even in the absence of the “flash of insight” views in the illumination theses outlined earlier, Pesch’s position still utilized the utterly transforming power of Jesus’s teachings to inspire his disciples to the same level of transformation in the absence of either an empty tomb or actual resurrection appearances, which he rejected as not being sufficiently established on historical grounds.

A major firestorm against Pesch’s views developed with a cadre of prominent German scholars largely arguing against several angles of Pesch’s research. There was a strong sense among these German critics that the level of transformation in the apostles after the crucifixion was far greater than anything that possibly could be accounted for by Pesch’s pre-crucifixion transformation ideas alone. This is especially the case when their convictions would have had to survive the tremendous psychological jolt of Jesus’s unexpected and heinous crucifixion, which realistically would have tended to crush their hopes and may even have caused them to view Jesus as a failed messiah figure. John Galvin presents a masterful overview of this controversy, headlined by a remarkable reaction among many very prominent and influential German scholars such as Martin Hengel, Peter Stuhlmacher, Hans Küng, Jacob Kremer, Walter Kasper, Anton Vögtle, Hans Werner Bartsch, and several others.

Under the scholarly onslaught, Pesch actually changed his position, still not granting the historicity of the empty tomb narratives but embracing the idea that Jesus’s resurrection appearances could be established by careful historical research, and that these events took the form of visions of Jesus in his heavenly glory as the Son of Man exalted to the right hand of God. Galvin notes that these moves were sufficient for Pesch to have “joined a widespread consensus among contemporary exegetes and systematic theologians” though there was still some question about how he fit the Son of Man visions into his scenario.

Intriguingly however, largely due to the influence exerted by Pesch’s earlier position, another German scholar, Hansjürgen Verweyen, continued to emphasize the role that the pre-Easter message of Jesus played in preparing his disciples. Like Pesch, Verweyen also was not very positive toward the historicity of the empty tomb but realized, also like Pesch, that the disciples’ turnaround and their ability to get past the severe psychological roadblock of Jesus’s crucifixion would only have been possible due to the appearances of the risen Jesus.

The illumination theses definitely share a common core. The single key element throughout is undoubtedly the priority of Peter’s experience(s), which could have consisted of a range of just about anything from a simple idea bursting in upon his personal radar to some sort of full-blown mystical experience. As the leader of the apostles, Peter would have had tremendous influence on the others. Somehow, Peter relating his thoughts and conclusions plus any potential mystical experiences on his part must have impressed the group enough that, after some unspecified amount of time, the others either had similar insights or experienced something that made them likewise comfortable in agreeing that they too had somehow “experienced” the risen, exalted Jesus. Machoveč’s main idea adds a bit of an enhanced twist here—that Peter’s insight involved the idea that even the crucifixion, in spite of all its embarrassment and other horrid aspects, did not truly mark the end, but was actually the means by which Jesus was exalted.

These scholars agree that this hypothesis is naturalistic in nature. Whatever the nature of the disciples’ thoughts, intuitions, or experiences, they were all strictly internal and subjective in nature rather than based on any sort of actual events. But the result was very similar: they all responded by exercising faith and came to believe that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead, or at least that he had been exalted to heaven after his death, perhaps in some sort of apotheosis. The key emphasis, then, is strictly on the disciples’ internal faith rather than on any sort of external resurrection appearances by Jesus. The potential delay in these experiences, such as that mentioned by Spong, further highlights these ideas.

Critiquing the Illumination Hypothesis

An enormous scholarly outcry has ensued regarding both the general positions taken above as well as the various ideas among the individual thinkers. Several of these numerous critiques appeared in print quite early, even before the majority of the publications that argue in favor of the illumination views were published. These critiques were delivered over a wide range of related issues as well. Perhaps surprisingly, these critical responses were chiefly delivered mostly from a large number of very influential researchers, in spite of the frequent tendency among many researchers of this caliber not to engage overly often in these sorts of ­exercises, which is sometimes eschewed.

Thus the illumination theorizers had definitely struck a few scholarly nerves, some of which seemed a little “raw,” judging from the tone of the remarks! Those scholars who were the most frequently critiqued for holding the illumination views were Marxsen, Schillebeeckx, and Sheehan. In fact, Sheehan’s comments sparked such a huge outburst from major scholars (mostly in the Roman Catholic tradition) that questions were asked in terms of whether his onslaught may mark the end of traditional theological Catholicism. For instance, an entire series of articles was published by Sheehan and others responding to him over a few months in Commonweal.

Besides the exceptionally long list of critiques and remarks cited in various studies, a mostly different array of major problems will be enumerated below. A few of the many comments raised by other scholars will be mentioned along the way, often to illustrate the evaluations below.

First, regarding the available details, it is almost impossible to imagine how the lasting, utterly transformed lives of Jesus’s disciples would have resulted from the suppositions of the illumination thesis. The claimed details seem to be based on such a thin gruel for lifelong makeovers, including the willingness to die for the truth of the message! These are the same apostles who were for years constantly on the move away from their homes, sacrificing the bulk of their personal time away from their family and livelihoods, not requesting personal wealth and eschewing fame, while all the time exposing themselves to constant and serious pressures and threats of danger. How could their motivation be simply due to their having heard someone’s testimony, however stirring that may have been, even if Peter had given his own assurance of his supposed mystical experience? He may have been their leader, but he had also denied his Lord. The accessible specifics of the traditional view are conceded by virtually all critical researchers.

Granting that hearing a leader like Peter testifying in inspiring terms could carry some weight, would even that be enough in itself to result in an enduring, lifelong commitment of this nature? Would the public ministry that the apostles exercised have continued to last even after some of them began suffering martyrdom? Moreover, could we reasonably expect that all of these results would be the unquestioned result of unevidenced, subjective experiences? Could this basis account for no apostles quitting their ministries or recanting their faith, as far as is known, in spite of such a flimsy foundation? It might more likely engender a few incredulous responses of “Really? Just because you say so?”

Then further, even concerning Peter himself, how could he continue to be so sure and settled through all the intervening years since his initial insight or mystical communication? Without any sort of external evidence to which he could point, could he know that his experience was really from the Lord? Was this subjective conviction alone enough to assuage any of Peter’s ongoing questions and break forth into his sweeping, encompassing, all-conquering triumph of faith followed by probable martyrdom? Even the nature of doubt in general is such that virtually no one escapes without questions, especially in the most crucial beliefs in one’s life.

Would Peter’s intensely personal, subjective experience have caused him to forget his deep knowledge of Jesus’s gruesome death as well as his own previous denials and resulting utter despair? This anguish and hopelessness is acknowledged by the vast majority of even skeptical scholars today (including Sheehan, as pointed out elsewhere in this study) since it is a normal psychological consequence of losing one’s closest friend in a sudden, horrendous, and unplanned manner. Then there is the constant turmoil and physical grief during Peter’s ongoing ministry, including ignoring the endangerment to his life that resulted from being convinced by some insights, however profound. Did Peter meet others throughout these years of ministry who likewise claimed subjective religious experiences that were opposed to his own experiences? Were his own subjective experiences many years earlier still sufficient enough to keep his personal reservoirs full, unaccompanied as they were by any real event, his own physical sight, or anything else of a tangible nature?

Sheehan admits Peter’s tortured mental state here, but he moves too easily in the space of just five lines from admitting Peter’s “despair” as a “drowning man” to Peter being the recipient of an inward, subjective “ecstatic vision.” Worse, the claim is made without any external evidence whatsoever. Is the latter capable of overpowering forever the extreme emotional weight of the former issues? If the inward emotional experience of Peter could fire up the other disciples to this extent, then other opposing, inward emotional experiences could potentially plague any of the recipients with overwhelming doubts. The foregoing problem is a precarious situation indeed, and this alone points to the tenuousness of the illumination thesis. It plainly does not have the substance to secure a long-term commitment from its experiencers, chiefly when the original occurrence extended from one person to many others who frankly were not witnesses themselves, which is what the evidence indicates.

Second, those who favor this hypothesis may prefer to emphasize subjective religious experience and the value of faith apart from evidence. Or they may simply want to arrive at a viable naturalistic thesis for the Gospel accounts. But one of the chief issues in this discussion is whether this or any alternate position squares with what the New Testament teaches. It must be noted immediately that the point here is definitely not that what the New Testament teaches is automatically the case. Rather, the critique is that in order to postulate what happened to Jesus’s disciples, we must at least attempt to come to grips with the data we possess, even if it is rejected. But the illumination hypothesis does not do so; on a comparison of hypothesis to data, it misses widely.

But what is to be done with the actual, exceptionally early evidence that Jesus really did appear to his followers after his death by crucifixion? This or any hypothesis needs to begin there. The influential list(s) of resurrection appearances in 1 Cor 15:3–7, not to mention other data, such as that garnered from the Acts sermon summaries, the Gospel appearances, and elsewhere, indicates that those present at the outset actually claimed to have seen Jesus in bodily form. The majority of scholars today, including skeptical ones, actually acknowledge that the data itself indicate that this represents the view in the early church, whether or not contemporary scholars themselves believe these accounts. To state it another way, Jesus’s appearances were described in the New Testament with the language of sight. Group appearances add to the force of this theme. To begin with a notion that fails to take this language seriously is not the way to do justice to the texts.

Again, the chief point of this second critique is not to announce simply that the resurrection is a fact because Jesus’s disciples may have proclaimed that to be the case. Rather, the point here is that to characterize what caused the incredible change in Jesus’s disciples as other than being due to visible appearances of the risen Jesus, as done in this naturalistic manner, does justice neither to the New Testament accounts nor to the historical evidence that clearly favors these accounts.

In fact, the illumination hypothesis turns the entire scenario around almost totally backwards by making the inner workings of the individual apostles themselves the central object lesson instead of placing the attention exactly and squarely where all the data place it: firmly resting on the risen Jesus and his appearances. In short, we must account for what the earliest and most authoritative texts claim rather than totally sidestepping them and heading in another direction altogether. It is not about the disciples’ inner psychology or experiences in their minds but about their outward perceptions, whatever they were.

The predominant scholarly view at present appears to be that Jesus’s earliest followers held not just that Jesus had appeared to them, but that he did so in bodily form. Of course, this does not require that the contemporary scholars themselves accept the historicity of the resurrection, let alone believe that the appearances were actually bodily in nature. But these researchers do acknowledge generally that this was at least the major position held by the initial witnesses in the early church. Buoying this majority view is that a sizeable number of skeptical and even radical researchers hold this position, among them, John Dominic Crossan, Gerd Lüdemann, Bart Ehrman, James Crossley, Dale Allison, and Jonathan Reed. Most of these critical scholars would add that this was Jesus’s own notion of the afterlife as well.

The significance of these areas for our present discussion concerns both Jesus’s own beliefs in this matter as well as those of his disciples. The illumination hypothe­sis once again inverts this early distinction and teaches the opposite: it is a view held by some contemporary critical scholars in recent times but is clearly not the view that Jesus or his followers held in the earliest times.

It may be asserted that this distinction by itself does not make illumination theorists wrong. But this comment also misses the chief point, in that it clearly does not address or represent the earliest teachings of those closest to the resurrection experiences that were thought to be appearances of the risen Jesus. As such, the hypothesis fails to resolve the question of what really occurred at the outset of Christianity. The disjunction here between the original New Testament teachings and a modern reductionist rendition are the chief issue here. In the words of Wright, “Schillebeeckx first sweeps all the evidence under the carpet, and then exclaims, ‘Look! No evidence!’” Ancient historian Paul Maier states that, on historical grounds, Sheehan’s thesis is “pure conjecture.”

Third, the illumination hypothesis by itself neither requires nor explains the empty tomb. Yet, the empty tomb accounts are strongly evidenced and, as a result, a strong majority of recent critical scholars favor the historicity of this event. True, the scholars who hold this thesis generally reject the idea that Jesus’s burial tomb was discovered to be empty just a short time later. Some may even favor an alternate burial in another location. But on what grounds? These theorists seldom actually argue the details involved in this line of thought. Yet most recognize that the data favoring a vacated tomb are strong enough to overcome both theses involving alternate burials as well as naturalistic accounts for the actual tomb being open. If not, then the majority of scholars most likely would not embrace its historicity.

But it remains the case (as enumerated elsewhere in this study) that the empty tomb accounts in the Gospels possibly comprise the single report after Jesus’s crucifixion accompanied by more strong reasons than any of the other data points! Though not a point to be developed here, it often appears that objections to the empty tomb, especially the seeming majority that are mentioned without early or specific backup evidence, are proposed simply because another thesis is needed to explain this fact, in addition to whatever is suggested to account for the appearances.

Should the empty tomb be a historical fact, as we have argued in this study, this would be a powerful reason alone for disfavoring the illumination thesis. It would seem that a separate alternative account would need to be devised to explain each of the almost two dozen pieces of data that have been provided on behalf of this event. Further, as many have pointed out, an empty tomb would best indicate that something happened to Jesus’s physical body.

Do natural hypotheses work better for the empty tomb? If so, which ones? Critics generally tend to be slow about coming up with powerful alternative views here, perhaps because none of these alternate positions is accompanied by much evidence—certainly nothing approaching the empty tomb accounts presented in the Gospels. As skeptical New Testament scholar Dale Allison reminds us after mentioning several of the possible empty tomb options, “We have no reason to endorse any of these speculations, for which there is not a shred of evidence. They must all be deemed unlikely.” But if something still happened to the body, and if natural hypotheses are rather problematic, then a view that totally ignores Jesus’s body or any other external physical explanation seems not to make the grade. Thus, the probable emptiness of Jesus’s tomb needs to be explained, but quite clearly the illumination theory does not do so.

Fourth, among those who argue for less than physical appearances of Jesus, including those embracing the illumination thesis, a common tendency is to assert that the Greek verb horaō often (or even usually) indicates less than physical sight. Sometimes this pronouncement is followed by the assertion that the resurrection appearances of Jesus as described in the New Testament, even in Paul, therefore teach, indicate, or at least allow the meaning that Jesus never really appeared to anyone. Rather the phenomena, whatever they were, are then referred to as some sort of internal, subjective experiences or even just simply due to unique insights or the drawing of personal conclusions. Once again, seldom is there specific argumentation given that would confirm or support these points.

It needs to be acknowledged from the outset that determining word meanings here will not solve this question, for there are too many other components involved in the discussion. For just one example, a definition may be interpreted or even manipulated, “held hostage” as it were and virtually overpowered by the way it is construed from within one worldview or another. Thus, the “spinning” of a meaning can easily make it appear that an entirely different thesis is true. Of course, this problem cuts both ways; all sides in a debate can make use of this tactic.

In our case, rather than attempting to make an argument stand on a definition, the point here is to answer those who charge that particular terms, such as the Greek verb horaō and its aorist passive form ōphthē, actually support a nonliteral sense of Jesus’s appearances. It seems safe to say that this issue is more often suggested from the critical side against those who would argue for the historicity of the resurrection. It can be a fairly common plank in a platform, so the claim must be answered.

The chief question regarding this particular argument concerns whether the illumination theorists and other similar subjective thinkers are correct that the key New Testament terms do indeed point to the experiences of the original witnesses being subjective and revelatory in nature. It is noteworthy that by far the majority view in contemporary scholarly circles is that the textual basis to support the more subjective interpretation fails, and quite badly. Of the times where horaō and its related variants occur in the New Testament, many of the usages refer to neither physical nor nonphysical sight (involving other meanings such as “understand,” “discern,” “perceive” and so on) and thus have very little if any bearing on this discussion. For our purposes, these meanings are subtracted from the overall word count since they do not indicate a particular sort of sight at all, thereby favoring neither category.

Of the seventeen remaining times horaō and its forms appear in Paul in reference to either objective or subjective sight, sixteen of them clearly refer to physical sight, with only one reference indicating a heavenly vision. Of the 118 relevant usages of these terms in Luke-Acts, 107 clearly refer to physical sight, while only 11 refer to a personal vision!

These definitional counts far from solve the overall issues here. But whatever is made of this usage tally, it should be clear that it is incorrect for critics to make ungrounded comments about horaō and its cognates, claiming that they usually refer more often to nonphysical sight or attempting to make these terms more conducive to inner, subjective states of mind. This is especially the case when the context from critical scholars makes it more than obvious that these comments are made chiefly to embarrass or belittle those who disagree, especially when the bombast is clearly incorrect in itself!

More helpful in terms of the overall meaning of these terms is how the verbal forms of horaō are actually employed specifically in narrative passages to describe Jesus’s resurrection appearances. These terms even refer to the very physical resurrection appearances of Jesus as depicted in the Gospels of both Luke and John. In the most physical references to Jesus’s resurrection body in the entire New Testament, Jesus offered himself to be touched and held, eating in the presence of his disciples, and is observed by many people at once. By no means, then, does horaō veer away from highly physical meetings with the risen Jesus. It needs to be remembered at this point that the immediate issue here is not what actually happened on these occasions, but the nature of the original language that was employed to describe these events.

Even further, Michael Licona attests that both the Greek terms and the context in these texts and elsewhere make it clear that, for both Luke and Paul, it was Jesus’s physical body that was actually raised from the dead! For Luke, the tomb was empty while Jesus’s graveclothes remained behind, though Jesus himself was not present. Jesus appeared to his disciples as “flesh and bones” and later ascended in a fully bodily manner. For Paul as well, Licona concludes that resurrection is “an event that happens to a corpse,” as depicted in Rom 8:10–11, 23. Of course, saying that Jesus’s corpse was raised by no means rules out that, in the process, his body was transformed and, as some would add, glorified, in keeping with Paul’s teachings in 1 Cor 15:35–55. After all, the New Testament hardly teaches that Jesus rose as some sort of zombie corpse to die once again.

From a perspective slightly different from that of word studies alone, the usage of horaō in these original contexts from Luke and Paul above, especially in reference to Jesus’s resurrection appearances, increases the likelihood tremendously that these authors are referring to normal, physical sight when they speak of how Jesus appeared when the original witnesses saw him postmortem. So even these brief word studies and other comparisons seem to make it obvious by a large margin that there is far more support for horaō and related terms being references that indicate external rather than subjective sight or revelation. It would appear, then, that the critical refrain that tries to argue that it means something subjective is far less likely. It is difficult not to notice that more radical critical arguments such as these appear to be rather self-serving, in that they are not confirmed by the actual data.

Fifth, N. T. Wright provides strong additional force to the notion that Paul clearly referred to his own appearance of Jesus being physical in nature. Without concentrating on the verb horaō and its aorist passive form ōphthē, Wright develops a completely separate argument that also centers on New Testament language. More generally, Wright argues that whether the relevant terms were used by Christians, Jews, or pagans in the ancient world from the third century BC up until the (late) second century AD, the key Greek terms anastasis (noun: resurrection, a standing up) and egeirō (verb: to raise up, arise) virtually always and only were used to described bodily events, which is the basic root meaning of the words. While it is true that ancient peoples also spoke of ghosts and other sorts of disembodied wraiths, the point is that they never utilized terms like anastasis for these latter beliefs, since this term signified bodily events alone.

The insight to be gained from this argument is that if Wright is correct about the virtually “universal” usage of the terms anastasis and egeirō, then these are horrible word choices by the New Testament authors if they are trying to describe illumination-­like, subjective, or personal insights. Rather, other words were readily available to them other than the ones chosen by Paul. For example, when Luke explains that the disciples thought that the risen Jesus standing in front of them was really a disembodied spirit, the term pneuma is used (Luke 24:37). Or earlier when the disciples saw Jesus walking across the sea and thought that he was a ghost, the Greek term phantasma (apparition, ghost, specter) is utilized (Mark 6:49). But it must be kept in mind that the illumination thesis usually concerns subjective experiences rather than visionary occasions, creating an even larger gap between these descriptions immediately above and resurrection appearances.

Some critics may charge that, in their opinion, since the Gospels are not written by eyewitnesses, these volumes might simply be reflecting the bodily ethos a few decades after the crucifixion. But bracketing the question of the Gospels’ authorship, this would definitely not apply to Paul, who was a scholar and knew better. Yet, after claiming to have seen the resurrected Jesus (1 Cor 9:1; 15:8), he repeatedly made quite powerful comments strongly favoring the bodily resurrection of both Jesus as well as believers.

Next, Wright moves on to a specific application of his general argument. Paul states clearly in 1 Cor 9:1 that he was an apostle who had seen the risen Lord (possibly referring to the early tradition that being a witness to Jesus’s resurrection was a condition for apostleship in Acts 1:21–22). Wright notes that the perfect verb heoraka in 9:1 “is a normal word for ordinary sight. It does not imply that this was a subjective ‘vision’ or a private revelation . . . it was a real seeing, not a ‘vision.’”

Then Wright moves from 1 Cor 9:1 to 15:8 and argues that “four factors tell strongly in favour of Paul’s intention to refer to a real ‘seeing’ with his ordinary eyes, rather than a non-physical ‘seeing’ in the sense of a private or internal ‘experience.’” These factors, drawn from 15:8, are (1) the textual proximity of 9:1 argues that the seeing of the resurrected Jesus in 15:8 refers to the same sense of sight as previously mentioned—meaning that neither episode was a private experience. (2) There is a sequence of appearances in 15:3–7 followed by the phrase “last of all” in 15:8, most likely indicating that the series of real events came to an end at that point. In particular, Paul is hardly referring to a lineup of those who had spiritual experiences or insights! Nor would such a lineup of testimonies have stopped. (3) First Corinthians 15:6 clearly indicates that Paul considers the appearances to be public events with witnesses who were capable of providing real evidence. No one is going to travel back to Judea to check out witnesses regarding their internal intuitions. (4) The remainder of 1 Corinthians 15 indicates that Paul really thinks that believers will be raised from the dead, which correlates well with the idea that Jesus’s resurrection body was literal as well.

Stephen Davis adds a few more reasons of a similar nature for Jesus’s bodily appearances being perceived by normal sight. Davis considers a half dozen arguments in favor of objective visions of a resurrected Jesus who was really present, though involving actual, “enhanced perception.” Then Davis considers reasons in favor of the resurrected Jesus being seen via normal sight. He considers the strongest counterpoint to be “the massive physical detail of the appearance stories” even though these come primarily from Jesus being held by the feet in Matthew plus the accounts in Luke and John. One supporting reason is that the earliest postapostolic church also interpreted the resurrection appearances as normal sightings perceived by physical eyes.

Sixth, how does the illumination hypothesis square up with the resurrection appearance to Paul, leading to his revolutionary, lifelong conversion followed by his martyrdom? That Paul was a previous enemy and scholar with an opposing mindset further heightens the force of this argument. As unlikely as it would be in itself, even an internal conviction or insight for Peter—a believer, insider, and the leader of the apostles—would not command the force of an actual appearance of the risen Jesus to Paul the persecutor. What best accounts for Paul’s complete transformation—the beauty of an internal understanding and insight, or actually having met the resurrected Jesus, as Paul proclaimed himself? Which experience would best account for his radical, lifelong reversal?

Seventh, as with the previous question concerning Paul, how does the illumination hypothesis explain the appearance to James, the longtime family skeptic, who had apparently concluded that his brother had lost his mind (Mark 3:20–21; cf. John 7:5)? James’s experience, like Paul’s, had to be far greater than Peter’s personal intuition and internal cognition from an insider in order to explain his conversion from unbelief to his absolute transformation and leadership in the early church, as well as following his brother in martyrdom.

Eighth, how does this hypothesis explain Jesus’s probable death and resurrection predictions, which many critical scholars recognize as historical? On the surface, it might be thought that such comments from Jesus might precisely “prime the disciples’ internal pumps” for personal experiences like those proclaimed by the illumination theorists.

But it must also be remembered that on these occasions, we are told that the disciples misunderstood Jesus and even went as far as to object strenuously to Jesus making these comments. In fact, we are told that Jesus even rebuked Peter in the strongest of terms for denying that he would be killed (Mark 8:33), qualifying as a highly embarrassing statement. The Gospel writers also reported that the disciples had to be reminded later of Jesus’s predictions (Mark 16:6–7; Matt 28:7), since they still did not expect Jesus to rise from the dead even on resurrection morning (John 20:9).

But if Jesus’s predictions are historical, as the best textual and historical evidence indicates, this points favorably to Jesus having special knowledge of these events ahead of time, thereby comprising a worldview consisting of items beyond the resurrection itself. By increasing the explanatory range of the resurrection message, this leans further in the direction of a literal resurrection explanation than toward a naturalistic hypothesis that attempts to account for these occurrences as normal internal convictions.

A little background is necessary before continuing with our next critique of the illumination hypothesis. Like many ideas, this option (along with a few other negative responses) thrived at particular times due to the more fertile ground of the prominent ideas available. The close of the Bultmannian era was quite compatible with the more positivistic presuppositions that still remained in the 1970s and early 1980s as a hangover from the more anti-supernatural hypotheses still in vogue during the time in which the illumination stance had gained a little attention. Some scholars have pointed out that highly reductionist responses such as this thesis stood in fairly stark contrast to the emerging times, methods, and historical approaches that were gaining more prominence. The new trends were changing significantly, producing important rejoinders to older ideas due to being more open and less naturalistic.

This does not deny that the illumination hypothesis could still have sprung up in more recent times, for more severe critics may always feel constrained to defend their positions that oppose the chief New Testament event of Jesus’s resurrection. However, today’s research often emerged from far different perspectives where some of the old doorways no longer appeared to have been left as wildly open. The critical responses in recent decades, frankly, has been far more balanced, less one-sided, and much more desirous of producing reasons (usually historical) for the views that were taken. Good arguments are far more often conceded by virtually all sides, even when they do not necessarily mesh with every other view. Of course, the interpretations of those ideas vary.

The best example here is that of the most influential area of study in the New Testament at present, that of the Third Quest for the historical Jesus. Far different from the more sterile and hard-line divisions of a few decades ago, conservatives, moderates, and liberal scholars alike, even those who count themselves as non-Christian, agnostic, or even atheist thinkers, are much more conversant in spite of their sometimes quite wide differences.

This new approach to the historicity of Jesus, based on different research methods and often featuring new historical insights, has definitely emerged in recent decades, even drawing together scholars of differing theological outlooks. While the spirit of the times might simply account for some of these more open attitudes, it may also be the case that mutual respect for the results of historical and other empirical research has grown. Since we have pursued each of these subjects elsewhere in this study, we will simply mention here briefly a few of these new historical emphases.

Heading the list of the underlying historical developments was the predominant, unifying theme of the Third Quest regarding the Jewishness of Jesus, including the Jewish backgrounds found in New Testament thought. Complementing this refrain is the apparently majority view and growing conviction that the Gospels are actually a species of Greco-Roman biography (bioi). To be sure, there are differences in how this emphasis has played among the various ancient historians themselves, such as the second-century authors Plutarch (in his Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans) and Suetonius (in his The Twelve Caesars), though some trends were similar.

For instance, some of the chief ideas in these texts involved factual accuracy, including the notion that other ancient sources had been employed as data. In the New Testament accounts, these additional sources included the potential use of the Q text (from the German Quelle, “source”), a sayings text, or Luke’s sources mentioned in 1:1–4, a passage often recognized for its research element, along with the majority scholarly view that Mark employed a pre-Markan passion and empty tomb narrative, or John making use of an earlier miracle document.

Another highly influential recognition among the Third Quest researchers is the presence of early oral sayings that were embedded as creedal texts particularly in the New Testament Epistles as well as in the sermon summaries in Acts. The early dates of these traditions, chiefly centering on the Gospel message of the centrality of the deity, death, and resurrection of Jesus, reflect the content of the earliest historical reports and go back to the time of the apostles. Even very critical scholars have particularly recognized the value of these confessions as records of the very earliest Christian proclamation. But only in the last generation have the incredible benefits of these early confessions been recognized more fully.

Last, the employing of historical criteria, applied primarily to the Gospels, has produced insights that have helped determine when a report probably recorded reliable data. Examples would be the presence of early or eyewitness material and embarrassing or enemy reports that point to backhanded indications of what really occurred in the first century. Multiple independent attestation of sources has become another major indication that an account is probably trustworthy. The overall impact of these criteria have pushed further in the direction of locating dependable reports in antiquity.

Ninth, back to the effect of worldviews and changing perspectives on the illumination thesis, some of the Third Quest critical scholars who responded to this view were fairly strong in their denunciations, even being sarcastic at times. Regarding Schillebeeckx, along with a few similar subjective views, N. T. Wright concluded, “It requires enormous credulity to suppose that, even allowing Peter and Paul to have had such fantasies or hallucinations, they would have generated more than a passing comment of sympathy among their colleagues or contemporaries.” Elsewhere, Wright commented that undergoing such a postmortem vision of someone in this manner would convince them of precisely the opposite view—reminding them rather forcefully that their loved one was indeed dead. Hence, the thesis is actually counter­productive in producing the disciples’ conviction that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Theses like these tend along reductionist lines of thinking, similar to those of Bultmann and Marxsen.

Plantinga scolds Sheehan repeatedly. For example, in an age where liberal theologians manifest “a kind of desperate quest for novelty” and “vie with each other to see who can make the most outrageous pronouncements,” we should give “credit where credit is due: Sheehan, it seems, has topped it.” While some theologians (like Thomas J. J. Altizer) have in the past encouraged atheism, “now Sheehan adds, in a spectacular burst of insight, that this is the gospel Jesus Christ himself brought! Colossal!” Now the only remaining move to make is “to hold that God himself . . . was an atheist even before Jesus. . . . But even this suggestion, logically impossible though it is, doesn’t have quite the sheer bite and panache of Sheehan’s preposterous claim.”

Raymond Brown states that Sheehan sometimes has a tendency “to set up straw men easily knocked down.” Sociologist and Roman Catholic priest Andrew Greeley stated that Sheehan was guilty of “dismissing myths in a fashion which suggests he is not paying attention to anything written on the subject since Bultmann.” In a later article, Greeley accused Sheehan of being “serenely innocent of understanding,” “blithely unaware,” guilty of “oversimplifications,” and of displaying “his own sad and rather shabby ignorance” across several fields of research, indicating “that he does not know what he is talking about.”

Moule also compares Don Cupitt’s version of the illumination thesis to a Bultmann-type move. Wright states similarly regarding Schillebeeckx’s “variations on the Bultmannian scheme.” Carnley critiques Marxsen’s view in the context of the reductionism of David Strauss and especially Bultmann. Ancient historian Paul Maier refers to Sheehan’s thesis as “St. Peter’s happy hunch.”

Of course, strong comments do not demonstrate that other views are false. But behind these criticisms is the general ethos of the Third Quest researchers and especially the research that fuels their comments, such as those observed in the details mentioned by Wright and Carnley.

Tenth, a very crucial point in its own right is that those who hold the illumination hypothesis rarely provide historical or any other reasons that indicate the nature of their interpretation of Peter’s actual experience, or anyone else’s for that matter. In this regard, their thesis suffers mightily from not having any significant historical data that evidences these testimonies. Not only do many arguments stand against this thesis, such as those above, but like Bultmann himself, this approach exhibits a rather fideistic approach, perhaps not far from Bultmann’s own angle, in that it is simply proclaimed to be the case. Scholars have referred to such an approach as groundless.

Wright argues that naturalistic treatments like that of Schillebeeckx are built on taking solely internal insights in place of external appearances and “are at best unprovable and at worst wildly fantastic.” Moule responded to Cupitt that there is nothing in either Scripture or experience that would trigger Cupitt’s internal view giving rise to the resurrection faith. O’Collins faults Machoveč for reducing and altering the New Testament claims in a way that allows him to state whatever he wants without answering the central questions. Greeley refers to Sheehan’s “shallow agnostic arguments” where he is constantly guilty of asserting “once again as proven that which remains to be proven.” J. M. Cameron asserts confidently that there is “no text, no primitive record, no known fragment, to which we can appeal to justify this view . . . Sheehan’s interpretation is implausible.” Paul Meier judges that Sheehan’s proposal is “pure conjecture.”

However, these skeptical scholars do not hesitate to challenge other positions by asking for their evidence while not producing many positive reasons in return. Thus, those who embrace the illumination hypothesis need to do more than simply assert their own positions, especially when requested to produce their reasons. Some historical backup should be forthcoming.

Altogether, the illumination thesis quite simply comes up very far short of the mark at every turn. The ten critiques above began with there simply not being enough transformative power to last for many years, including potential martyrdoms, all because of a personal insight or reflection, as most scholars have agreed. Another problem includes this view not coming to grips with the strong data favoring the New Testament descriptions of the disciples’ experiences. The strong evidence for the historicity of the empty tomb is likewise a large issue, remaining unrefuted but necessarily having to be denied nonetheless. Moreover, the Greek verb horaō and its aorist passive form ōphthē speak far more of ordinary sight than of mental or spiritual events alone, contrary to several illumination claims. Wright’s arguments for the terms anastasis and egeirō always being bodily terms also weigh heavily against illumination. The argument from 1 Cor 9:1 on Paul’s resurrection appearance is also impressive.

Further, illumination is not the best way to explain the conversions of Paul or James the brother of Jesus. Jesus’s resurrection predictions of literal occurrences also militate against the subjective understandings of these occurrences. Being formulated during the influence of the Bultmannian era without facing the challenges of the Third Quest, plus the lack of purported evidence for the position, plagues this view as well. The overall weight against the illumination hypothesis is impressive.

The Illusion Hypothesis

This often-unrecognized natural supposition occurs when one physical object or condition is mistaken for another actual object. Illusion may thus be defined as the “misperception or misinterpretation of real external sensory stimuli.” Though very much unlike hallucinations (which are subjective sense stimulations, usually sight, in the absence of any actual physical presence), illusions can quite often be confused or categorized with hallucinations. The illusion thesis, involving genuine objects or events, concerns situations where people mistake actual phenomena for something other than what they are actually experiencing. These occasions can occur singly or in groups.

Examples of Illusion

With regard to the resurrection question, examples of illusion would be a “twin brother” thesis, such as those by A. N. Wilson or Robert Greg Cavin, where a look-alike was taken to be Jesus himself. For Wilson, the second individual was most likely James, Jesus’s brother, though we cannot say for sure. More creatively, Frank Miosi suggests what we might call the “John the Baptist Theory.” In this case, just as some thought that Jesus was actually John the Baptist having returned from the dead (Mark 6:14–16), Miosi thinks that early Christians may have considered later that Jesus was raised when they saw someone else who reminded them of Jesus.

Atheist philosopher Michael Martin also mentions the possibly of a look-alike individual seen by the followers of Jesus. Other potential illusions have been mentioned as possible parallels, including UFO cases! Michael Goulder cites some odd illusional incidents that he considers analogous to certain aspects of the ­resurrection accounts—such as statues of the Virgin Mary that reportedly move, concentrating especially on stories of Bigfoot appearances!

What illusion theorists hold in common is that something real was mistakenly thought to be something else that was also real. For our purposes, something or more likely someone was wrongly thought to be the risen Jesus. As Martin suggests, “A person who looked like Jesus could have triggered a collective delusion.” Then ­presumably, other early Christians probably would have approved enthusiastically of the idea that they had seen their Lord raised from the dead.

A Critique of the Illusion Hypotheses

These ideas are difficult to evaluate because they span a very wide array of phenomena and often involve quite odd, even outlandish, ideas. Perhaps the best way to appraise them is to treat separately cases where Jesus was witnessed from a distance from those encounters that occurred at a closer range.

Examples from a distance obviously lend themselves to easier responses for more than one reason. At any rate, there are fewer instances of such encounters with regard to the New Testament reports of Jesus’s resurrection. John 21:1–10 relates that while seven of Jesus’s disciples were fishing in the Sea of Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee), the risen Jesus stood on the shore and called out to them. But the text states that Jesus was about 100 yards away from them, far enough away that they did not recognize him (21:4, 8). But as might be expected, when the disciples arrived back on land, they were close enough to ascertain that it was indeed Jesus who had been on the shore and had called out to them. Once being in his presence, no one needed to ask Jesus who he was (21:10, 12). In another possible instance, we are not told how far away Jesus was while he was teaching on a mountain (Matt 28:16–17), but it would have been counterproductive to stand very far from his audience without voice-projection devices.

First, as the passage in John 21 states, once the distance gap was closed and the men were all together, Jesus was close enough to be properly identified. The distance factor was clearly the problem, and no further questions were necessary. This would certainly seem like the chief answer in such cases.

Second, on a few occasions the Gospel texts state that Jesus was not readily recognized even when he was close by, such as in the garden with Mary Magdalene (John 20:14), or on the walk to Emmaus with the two companions (Luke 24:16; cf. Mark 16:12 in pseudo-Mark). Regarding the two men walking, one issue concerns the interpretation of the Greek words in question, that they were ekratounto tou mē epignōnai auton (unable to recognize him) in Luke 24:16 and then their eyes were diēnoichthēsan (opened, or no longer restrained) in Luke 24:31, plus en heterāi morphēi (in another guise) in the longer ending of Mark 16:12.

There are a few possible explanations that may be applicable in these texts. The implications in Luke 24:16, 31 (as well as the long ending of Mark 16:12) seem to be that the witnesses were supernaturally kept from recognizing Jesus until that was no longer the case. In the case of Mary Magdalene, paintings often picture her with her back turned to Jesus or with her face covered at the graveside, or looking through tear-blurred eyes. Of course, we do not know for sure. Others might surmise that the emotional shock of seeing someone who was so brutally executed and buried just a brief time before might militate against allowing themselves to admit recognizing Jesus.

But it seems that the major and probably best rejoinder overall is simply that people’s appearances certainly change over the years. When people think they have just spotted an old friend whom they have not seen in some time, they often do a double take, especially if the experience is unexpected. The verbal response is almost always the same: “Is that really you?” And they might be mistaken in their guess as often as they are correct. The same thing may have been the case with the risen Jesus, even though the time difference was not a factor. Crucially, Paul states that the believer’s resurrection body will change after death too (1 Cor 15:35–55; Phil 3:21). We are also told that this change will be patterned after Jesus’s own resurrection body (cf. 1 John 3:2). The point here is that it would make perfect sense if Jesus’s body and outward appearance had actually changed just enough to make his followers do a double take as well.

Of course, no one knows how closely the risen Jesus may have appeared if compared to his pre-crucifixion body, but when combined with the emotional shock given that the resurrection was so unexpected (see John 20:9), this could very plausibly explain the couple of situations where certain persons did not recognize Jesus. But most crucially, whatever the reasons, each of the texts agrees that the situation was rectified very quickly.

Third, concerning the suggestions of look-alike persons being mistaken for Jesus, such as his own brother James or any other cases that might be mentioned, these scenarios come crashing down pretty quickly when a variety of angles and circumstances are considered. The Gospel narratives teach that one or more of Jesus’s disciples were usually present during the appearances, as were his mother or the other women, his brother James, and others who knew Jesus exceptionally well. Virtually everyone mentioned in these groupings could probably tell the difference between Jesus and his brother James or other look-alikes, but certainly Jesus’s mother Mary knew the difference between her two sons. Plus, would James or any others allow the confusion to go uncorrected had a misunderstanding of this sort occurred?

Additionally, Jesus’s crucifixion wounds (Luke 24:39; John 20:25–28) were also crucial for the purposes of identification, and neither James nor anyone else but Jesus possessed them. Virtually no matter how someone construes these Gospel texts, there were enough people who knew Jesus well who could answer these suppositions.

On the other hand, the John the Baptist scenario was suggested as a potential rumor that was conceivably noised about, circulating at that time concerning Jesus, not at all in the sense of folks making that claim after seeing the two men side by side. In the cases regarding Marian statues, these are obviously not living people and these reported phenomena could have been cleared up quickly enough by empirical testing or other data-gathering. With the Bigfoot suggestions mentioned by more than one critic, we are presumably back to distant-sight situations that would have been corrected at close range.

Again, it could hardly be maintained seriously in any of these situations, whatever scenario was devised, that the one(s) drawing the false conclusions would continue to maintain their thesis once they were surrounded by all the witnesses among Jesus’s family members and best friends. When confronted by those who knew Jesus and the facts well, or even by the risen Jesus himself, it would certainly seem that the doubting individual(s) could not plausibly keep holding their look-alike, distant-sight, or rumor-based alternative claims. After all, in John’s narrative (20:24–28), the apostle Thomas played precisely the sort of role that is represented by the cynics here, having concluded that his colleagues had misapprehended the situation at hand. As mentioned, these are precisely the sorts of matters that are straightened out by those who best know the situations, this time by the Lord Jesus himself, and we are told that Thomas went away believing!

Illusions do indeed occur often in normal, everyday life, perhaps even on a daily basis. One reality is quite often thought to be something, and sometimes it turns out to be something quite different altogether. This is especially the case when the perception happens at night or at a distance, and the further away it is, generally the less likely is the report. When these situations occur, we are normally aware of ways to sort out our observations by checking our perceptions against the data that we can find at our disposal or by inquiring of living eyewitnesses. So it was in the first century AD as well. The testimony favoring Jesus’s resurrection appearances could be checked against any of the alternative hypotheses, as we have done in this chapter. The process continues unabated.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have addressed two scenarios that in literature are quite often confused with hallucinations but are, strictly speaking, not the same. The first option was termed here the illumination hypothesis and refers to the supposition that Peter, followed by the other disciples, experienced an internal conviction, insight, or understanding that persuaded them that after Jesus’s crucifixion and death, Jesus was actually alive and had been exalted to God’s right hand. This view was formulated as a reflection of the time in which it was birthed, during the Bultmannian era, when fideistic expressions of faith were frequently postulated as the way the earliest Christian preaching began. But its ideas were short-lived in light of the Third Quest for the historical Jesus and its historically based search for data that accounted for the foundations of the church.

Specifically, most scholars were much dissatisfied with the illumination hypothesis, as indicated by the huge backlash and outcry aimed at these ideas. That these repercussions even emerged from major researchers, which is very seldom the case, is an indication of how far this view was judged to have differed from the early records. In particular, it was determined chiefly that the suppositions were far too inconsequential, exaggerated, and ungrounded to have supported grand notions of transformation, all based on foundations that were far too inadequate. In short, the views were much too top-heavy and unsupported. We also noted nine additional problems, some of which were also quite severe. These included the lack of correspondence to the New Testament claims, the empty tomb, the Greek terms in the very early accounts, plus the conversions of Paul and James. Not surprisingly, this natural thesis has basically come and gone without standing the test of time.

The second scenario of illusions is derived from false conclusions due to incorrectly thinking that a particular visual object is in fact something else. It comes in many different forms, some of which are quite wild (UFOs, cattle mutilation, folie à deux, and witchcraft, for examples). Accordingly, these mistaken perceptions were suggested as the grounds on which Jesus was falsely thought to have appeared to his followers though on this view, he had not in fact done so at all. Rather, something or someone quite different was seen and mistakenly identified by the witnesses.

However, this second, often strange concoction of false examples fails rather miserably as well. It almost appears as if this set of responses represents a catchall for any remaining odd ideas that might just possibly be invented. In a sense, the cases would have been confronted by the light of day, so to speak. The risen Jesus was either there or he was not, and the evidence that was gained “close up” should sort out the matters, curing any ongoing instances of misapprehension and confusion.

Notes

A few exceptions would include the primary scholars listed below who take the illumination view as their naturalistic theory of choice, but they are usually alone in doing so.

The lost but reconstructed argument is taken from Origen’s systematic critique Against Celsus; see Celsus, On the True Doctrine: A Discourse against the Christians, trans.R. Joseph Hoffmann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 67–68.

In Gary R. Habermas, “The Late Twentieth-Century Resurgence of Naturalistic Responses to Jesus’ Resurrection,” Trinity Journal 22 (2001): 188–89, 196. The next page and a half of this chapter has been edited and adapted from this article by permission of Trinity Journal.

Willi Marxsen, The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, trans. Margaret Kohl (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), esp. 88–97. The overall tone is critical in nature and tends to devalue the results of historical research. In that sense it is more reminiscent of Bultmann’s conclusions on the resurrection, as expressed in the latter’s exceptionally influential essay, “New Testament and Mythology,” in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch, trans. Reginald H. Fuller (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), esp. 34–39, 42. This approach by Marxsen, emphasizing faith over history, presents an intriguing contrast with an earlier essay on the same subject by Marxsen that was argued in a different vein: “The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical and Theological Problem,” in The Significance of the Message of the Resurrection for Faith in Jesus Christ, ed. C. F. D. Moule (London: SCM, 1968), 5–50. This earlier writing by Marxsen tends to be more positive and presents more emphasis on recent historical research, such as that in the early pre-Pauline creed in 1 Cor 15:3–7.

Willi Marxsen, Jesus and Easter: Did God Raise the Historical Jesus from the Dead?, trans. Victor Paul Furnish (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 70–74. The “signs of the times” perhaps were detected in this writing by Marxsen, in the sense that we all are generally influenced in some ways by the contemporary trends around us. Marxsen’s 1970 Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth reflects a time when Bultmann’s influence was waning but was still strong. A larger number of naturalistic comments were made freely during that era. But in 1990, the major influence of the growing Third Quest for the historical Jesus was underway, and even critical scholars were often much more open to historical research, revealing for instance that Jesus was a healer and often viewing even the resurrection appearances more positively, as pointed out often in this study. One may wonder if that new historical outlook and greater openness to the Gospels exercised an influence on Marxsen’s backing off the more avowed and open naturalistic stance of his 1970 text. At least the slight appearance of openness is noticeable toward the possibility that the risen Jesus may have appeared to his followers.

Karl Lehmann is rather reminiscent of Bultmann’s emphasis on the centrality of the disciples’ faith rather than being grounded in any event, as explained in Lehmann, “Zugang zum Ostergeschehen Heute: Am Beispiel der Emmauserzählung,” Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift 11 (1982): esp. 45–49; also Robert F. Scuka, “Resurrection: Critical Reflections on a Doctrine in Search of a Meaning,” Modern Theology 6 (1989): esp. 79, 85, 90.

Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology, trans. Hubert Hoskins (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 369, 385–90.

Thomas Sheehan, First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (New York: Random House, 1986), 103–9, 112–14, 118; Sheehan, “How Did Easter Originally Happen? An Hypothesis,” in The Resurrection of Jesus: A Sourcebook, ed. Bernard Brandon Scott (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2008), 110–15.

Thomas Sheehan, “On Satan and Catholic Liberals: A Response to David Tracy,” Commonweal, September 21, 1984, 498 and 500.

Sheehan, First Coming, 227.

Don Cupitt, Christ and the Hiddenness of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 143, cf. esp. 164–67. Cf. also C. F. D. Moule and Don Cupitt, “The Resurrection: A Disagreement,” in Cupitt, Explorations in Theology 6 (London: SCM, 1979). Peter Carnley, in The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 154–82 provides an in-depth critique of both Marxsen and Cupitt, as do others (including directing additional comments at Sheehan and Spong).

Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology, trans. Hubert Hoskins (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 369, 385–90 for some of these comments.

Schillebeeckx, 336, 441–515.

O’Collins, Jesus Risen: The Resurrection—What Actually Happened and What Does It Mean? (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1987), 115, referring especially to the Schillebeeckx volume, Interim Report on the Books ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ,’ trans. John Bowden (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 147n43, 148n46. This volume was reissued as The Collected Works of Edward Schillebeeckx, vol. 8, Interim Report on the Books Jesus and Christ (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).

N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 559, 692, 701–2, 704–5.

John Shelby Spong, The Easter Moment (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 196–98.

John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 239–41, 255–57. Strauss also separates the beginning of the disciples’ experiences from the time of the crucifixion in order to make the situation more conducive for his theory! The point, as Strauss states specifically, is so that the disciples have a sufficient time to get over the shock of the sudden, unexpected crucifixion and allow for their mental states to clear sufficiently for their “highly wrought enthusiasm” to grow. See David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, ed. Peter C. Hodgson, trans. George Eliot (Mifflintown, PA: Sigler, 1994), 743–44. One wonders why Spong feels as if he too must adjust the time element?

Milan Machoveč, A Marxist Looks at Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), with the citations above from 163, 161, 164, 171, as cited by Gerald O’Collins, “Peter as Easter Witness,” Heythrop Journal 22 (1981): 5, although the edition being cited here is different from that used by O’Collins.

Rudolf Pesch, “Zur Entstehung des Glaubens an die Auferstehung Jesu,” Theologische Quartalschrift 153 (1973): 219–26; Pesch, “Materialien und Bemerkungen zu Entstehung und Sinn des Osterglaubens,” in Anton Vogtle and Rudolf Pesch, Wie kam es zum Osterglauben? (Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1975), 157–68.

John P. Galvin, “Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu: The Foundational Christology of Rudolf Pesch,” Theological Studies 38 (1977): particularly 517–20.

Rudolf Pesch, “Zur Entstehung des Glaubens an die Auferstehung Jesu: Ein neuer Versuch,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 30 (1983): esp. 87; John P. Galvin, “The Origin of Faith in the Resurrection of Jesus: Two Recent Perspectives,” Theological Studies 49 (1988): with 27–35 containing an excellent summation of the shift in Pesch’s thought.

Galvin, “Origin of Faith,” 31. The Son of Man role is outlined by Galvin on 31–33.

Hansjürgen Verweyen, “Die Ostererscheinungen in fundamentaltheologischer Sicht,” Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 103 (1981): 429. See Galvin’s excellent contrast of Pesch and Verweyen (“The Origin of Faith in the Resurrection of Jesus,” 35–40). A later contribution to the subject is Verweyen’s “Die Sache mit den Ostererscheinungen,” in “Der Herr ist wahrhaft Auferstanden” (Lk 24,34): Biblische und systematische Beiträge zur Entstehung des Osterglaubens, ed. Ingo Broer and Jürgen Werbick (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), esp. 77–78.

Though similar in a few regards, we are not counting here the view just described, formulated by the early Pesch and later by Verweyen, given the aspects that are significantly different, such as these two German scholars not even denying the resurrection appearances.

Depending for example on one’s evaluation of O’Collins’s caution regarding being open to Schillebeeckx allowing real appearances of Jesus.

Raymond E. Brown, “The Resurrection of Jesus,” in Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 81:1375; C. F. D. Moule, “The Resurrection: A Disagreement,” in Cupitt, Explorations in Theology, 27–41; Gerald O’Collins contributed to the critique in spite of his caution on behalf of Schillebeeckx, as mentioned above in Jesus Risen, 63–66, 103–7, 115–17; O’Collins, “Peter as Easter Witness,” 5; O’Collins, What Are They Saying about the Resurrection? (New York: Paulist, 1978), 91–92, 106–15. For Francis Schüssler Fiorenza’s critique of especially the thesis by Schillebeeckx, see “The Resurrection of Jesus and Roman Catholic Fundamental Theology,” in The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 221, cf. 243–44; G. B. Caird with L. D. Hurst, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 241; Hans Küng, Eternal Life: Life after Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and Theological Problem, trans. Edward Quinn (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 106; Peter Carnley, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 156–82, 199–222; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2:355–56; Pannenberg, “History and the Reality of the Resurrection,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), particularly 70. Without referring to specific thinkers, Peter Stuhlmacher critiques similar ideas in his essay, “The Resurrection of Jesus and the Resurrection of the Dead,” Ex Auditu 9 (1993): 47–50; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 138–39; Reginald H. Fuller, “John 20:19–23,” Interpretation 32 (1978): 94–96; Pheme Perkins, Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 55, 108n53; Perkins, “The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 424; N. T. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, particularly 692, 698, 701–12, cf. 558–59; Wright, “Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Problem,” Sewanee Theological Review 41 (1998): 115–16, 119–21; Wright, Who Was Jesus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 62–63; Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Discovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 147–48; Robert C. Ware, “The Resurrection of Jesus, I: Theological Orientations,” Heythrop Journal 16 (1975): 25, 27, 29; Ware, “The Resurrection of Jesus, II: Historical-Critical Studies,” Heythrop Journal 17 (1975): 190; John Muddiman, “‘I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body,’” in Resurrection: Essays in Honour of Leslie Houlden, ed. Stephen Barton and Graham Stanton (London: SPCK, 1994), 129–37; Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 16.

Some of the major scholarly interaction with Sheehan’s views, largely within the Roman Catholic community, include Alvin Plantinga, “Sheehan’s Shenanigans: How Theology Becomes Tomfoolery,” Reformed Journal (1987): 19–25; Raymond E. Brown, Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1985), see chap. 3, “Liberal Misunderstanding of the Interaction between Biblical Criticism and Dogma,” with 58–65 devoted specifically to Sheehan. The three Commonweal magazine issues on these topics related to Thomas Sheehan were published on August 10, September 21 (chiefly consisting of short articles and letters to the editor, often by major Catholic scholars), and October 5, 1984. Some of the representative Commonweal articles included: Editors, “The End of Catholicism?,” Commonweal (1984): 425–26; David Tracy, “Levels of Liberal Consensus: Exegesis, Tradition, and Authority,” Commonweal (1984): 426–31; Andrew M. Greeley, “The Ways of Knowing: Neither Fundamentalism nor Agnosticism,” Commonweal (1984): 431–33; Greeley, “The Provisional Path to Mystery: The End of Catholicism, Part 3,” Commonweal (1984): 530–32; Greeley, “The Ways of Knowing: Neither Fundamentalism nor Agnosticism,” Commonweal (1984): 530–32; David Tracy, “To Trust or Suspect: The End of Catholicism, Part 3,” Commonweal (1984): 532–34. A number of key book reviews of Thomas Sheehan’s volume The First Coming also appeared from the pens of scholars; see those by Paul L. Maier in The Christian Century, January 7–14, 1987, 28–30; J. M. Cameron in The New York Review, December 4, 1986, 23–27; William M. Thompson, Commonweal (1986): 377–79.

On the lack of any evidence regarding Jesus’s apostles recanting their faith, see Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus (Surrey: Ashgate, 2015), 6, 8, 243, 259–65.

One could imagine a more cynical critic asking how we know that the disciples’ commitment went on until the end of their lives anyway rather than occupying some shorter time commitment? One response is that there are far more data favoring the disciples’ continuing ministries after the crucifixion (as pointed out in the Sean McDowell volume just mentioned in the prior note; see esp. chaps. 2–4) than there are that favors only a brief experiment in faith. Then these more cynical critics are still confronted with the severe problem of how a rather simple insight or other subjective experience rather magically inspired a number of total life transformations and not a few martyrdoms. In at least the cases of Peter, Paul, and James the brother of Jesus, the approximately two plus decades of total sacrifice and service before their likely martyrdoms is sufficient testimony to the force of their convictions.

Realizing of course that five lines does not describe the time element involved, but it still sounds from the description that a fast turnaround is envisioned.

Sheehan, First Coming, 105.

While neither holding this position nor speaking about this specific issue, Bart D. Ehrman intriguingly makes several quite positive comments about the value of faith; see Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 132, 143, 150.

Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 35; Lüdemann, “Closing Response,” in Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment? A Debate between William Lane Craig and Gerd Lüdemann, ed. Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), 151; Carnley, Structure of Resurrection Belief, 64, 82, 170, 246.

For more on this topic, see the treatments in this study of the various visionary hypotheses. Few commentators on the issue are as clear as Gerald O’Collins, as in his Saint Augustine on the Resurrection of Christ: Teaching, Rhetoric, and Reception (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 11, 16, 43–44, 75–76, 79; O’Collins, Interpreting the Resurrection: Examining the Major Problems in the Stories of Jesus’ Resurrection (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1988), 12–17, 19. Moule makes this point against Cupitt’s illumination view too in C. F. D. Moule and Don Cupitt, “The Resurrection,” 34; note as well as some similar points by Cupitt, “Ghosts, Visions and Miracles” in Christ and the Hiddenness of God, 143–44, 157. Cf. also Richard Bauckham, “The Eyewitnesses and the Gospel Traditions,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 1 (2003): 51–52.

N. T. Wright, “Early Traditions and the Origin of Christianity,” Sewanee Theological Review 41 (1998): 125, 128–40.

Gary R. Habermas, “Mapping the Recent Trend toward the Bodily Resurrection Appearances of Jesus in Light of Other Prominent Critical Positions,” in The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue, ed. Robert B. Stewart (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 199–204.

John Dominic Crossan, “The Resurrection of Jesus in its Jewish Context,” Neotestamentica 37 (2003): 29, 42–43, 48–52, 55–56; Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom. A New Vision of Paul’s Words and World (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 6–10, 173–74, 296, 341–45, cf. 133–35; Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 35; Lüdemann, “Closing Response,” 151; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 132–33, 137, 168–69, 176–78; Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 256–58; James Crossley, “Against the Historical Plausibility of the Empty Tomb Story and the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus: A Response to N. T. Wright,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3 (2005): 178; Michael F. Bird and Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin? A Believer and Nonbeliever Examine the Evidence (London: SPCK, 2008), 52; Dale C. Allison Jr., Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (London: T&T Clark. 2005), 317, 324–25, cf. 226 among others.

A major critical study on this subject is William Strawson, Jesus and the Future Life, rev. ed. (London: Epworth, 1970), particularly 177–83, 196–97, 209–10, 225–30. An oft-cited classic is Oscar Cullmann’s volume, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament (London: Epworth, 1964; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 210), esp. chap. 4 and conclusion; cf. also Cullmann’s text Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, trans. Floyd V. Filson, 3rd ed. (London: SCM, 1962; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2018).

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 705.

Maier, review of The First Coming (by Sheehan), 30.

Of course, as Allison adds, the naturalistic tomb theories “are not impossible” (Resurrecting Jesus, 334).

Noteworthy examples here come from Thomas Sheehan, First Coming, 114–18; Sheehan, “Resurrection,” 96–97, 101; and Sheehan, “How Did Easter Originally Happen,” 111–13, both of the latter essays in Scott, Resurrection of Jesus. Many of the works that make statements like this are of older vintage, and Sheehan is not the only scholar who argues like this. Another example is Paul Badham, “The Meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus,” in The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, ed. Paul Avis (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1993), 31.

For example, Sheehan jumps from how horaō could possibly be translated in a nonphysical way, even when referring to Paul’s view in 1 Cor 15:5–8, to comments in the same context that “the text makes no claim that Jesus appeared in a body . . . those stories would come thirty years later” (“Resurrection,” 97). He repeats elsewhere comments such as these, declaring that the appearances need not be actual events at all. In Sheehan’s sequence, “might” seems too easily to become “was,” and “was” morphs into the basis for proclaiming a natural thesis involving no actual appearances (as in Sheehan, First Coming, 104–9, 112–18). Sheehan calls this idea his “hypothesis” (108–9). The sleight-of-hand moves are simply amazing!

Tracing where this claim may have started can be tricky. Some (like Sheehan, First Coming, 115) mention Wilhelm Michaelis’s lengthy article on horaō in the highly influential Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), 5:315–82, and it may have provided some push in this direction. Michaelis makes it clear that horaō has a variety of meanings, including spiritual and physical sight (325, 341). Still, he cautions against overemphasizing the eyewitness aspects of horaō (347–50). Regarding its import for the resurrection passages, some of the comments that Michaelis makes shows his hand on what theological positions he prefers, sometimes by making statements that would be questioned at least by many scholars today (355–61). He thinks that the resurrection appearance accounts emphasize chiefly the subjective, revelatory aspects (356, 358), downplaying the more physical aspects of sight (358–59). Rather strangely, Michaelis even employs the less clear usage of horaō in 1 Cor 15:3–8 to interpret the clearer reference to Paul’s seeing the risen Lord in 1 Cor 9:1, where Paul uses a straightforward Greek term (heoraka) that indicates regular sight to refer to his viewing the resurrected Jesus. Yet Michaelis turns the situation around backwards in order to interpret even heoraka in terms of the less-clear horaō, arguing that all these experiences were probably revelatory and internal in nature rather than being more indicative of normal sight (358)! (Compare Wright’s thoughts on 1 Cor 9:1 in the next point immediately below.) Michaelis does note, however, that Barth “resolutely opposed” this emphasis, and Michaelis still comments that Paul thought of Jesus’s appearances as “transfigured corporeality” (359). But as remarked above, the theological aspects in Michaelis’s article appear to trump the grammatical responses. In line with this, in another article from the same set of volumes, Gerhard Kittel argues regarding the terms akouō, blepō, and horaō in almost direct contrast to Michaelis’s article that sight is usually emphasized over hearing, especially with the specific cases of the appearances of the risen Lord (Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1:216–25, particularly 220). Responding to some of Michaelis’s thoughts, James D.G. Dunn noted “the famous attempt by W. Michaelis, ‘horaō’, TDNT 5:355–361, to argue that ōphthē indicated ‘revelation’, a ‘perception’ of non-visionary reality.’” In response, Dunn noted from similar texts that the aspect viewed here is one of “a visual seeing, not a mental perception” alone. Then Dunn objected to views like Michaelis’s by citing Jesus Seminar scholar Gerd Lüdemann’s comments on 1 Cor 15:3–8, where the latter emphasized the “inescapable conclusion” that Paul clearly “had in mind an experience of ‘seeing’” Jesus. See James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 872n211.

Ten times in Acts the references are to resurrection appearances, but these were not included in the above count so as not to beg the question by favoring either type of sight. The word counts here for the usages of horaō were taken from Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 2010), 330–33.

As seems more than evident in Sheehan, “Resurrection,” 100–104. These sorts of comments and additional innuendos are definitely out of place in scholarly discussions.

For examples, Luke 24:34, 39; John 20:18, 20, 25, 29.

Licona’s strong reference to a resurrected corpse will no doubt startle and even alarm many readers because this is one of the items that contemporary scholars often avoid stating whenever possible. For instance, the Jesus Seminar is fond of repeating, “The resurrection of Jesus did not involve the resuscitation of a corpse.” See Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 461. Without embracing what we have termed the illumination thesis, great pains are taken by the Seminar members to separate what the New Testament states about Jesus’s resurrection appearances from any inkling of bodily vestiges (454, 458–62). See Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, where 332–33 are especially hard hitting. See also the argument by Robert H. Gundry, a specialist in these matters who concurs with at least the general tenor of Licona’s remarks in “The Sōma in Death and Resurrection,” in Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 176–77, 182; compare also Gundry’s comments in “Trimming the Debate,” in Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment? A Debate between William Lane Craig and Gerd Lüdemann, ed. Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), esp. 116. See also William Hendriksen, Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 251–53, 269–71.

Again, while a word count may not totally solve the issue of the word meanings here, it still remains instructive that in the examples above from the writings of Paul and Luke-Acts, 121 of 133 relevant New Testament references favor physical, objective meanings for the term horaō and its cognates.

As when the Jesus Seminar comments, “It is difficult to distinguish Stephen’s vision of Jesus from other resurrection appearances.” Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Acts of Jesus, 460.

Wright states, “‘Resurrection’ (anastasis and its cognates) was not in use elsewhere in the ancient world as a description of non-bodily life after death. It did not denote the passage of the soul into the life beyond or below, or even the migration of the soul into a different body.” Resurrection of the Son of God, 83–84. See also Wright, xix, 31, 71, 82–84, 127, 201–6, 273, 314, 321, 350–74, 477–79, 551–52. Also important are: Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 400–440, 468–69; John A. T. Robinson, The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), esp. chap. 1; see also Ronald J. Sider, “The Pauline Conception of the Resurrection Body,” New Testament Studies 21 (1975): 428–39; Sider, “St. Paul’s Understanding of the Nature and Significance of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:1–19,” Novum Testamentum 19 (1977): 124–41.

Such as Rom 8:11, 23; 1 Cor 15:12; Phil 3:11, 21; cf. the incident Acts 23:6–9, which may be helpful in this context, as well. Cf. Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 164, 169, 176, 180, 182; Gundry, “Trimming the Debate,” particularly 116.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 381–84, cf. also 321–22.

These six common arguments listed by Davis often cited on behalf of objective visions of the risen Jesus are (1) Jesus appearing only to believers (causing Davis to retort, “If this claim were true, it might constitute a powerful argument”); (2) the resurrection not being a resuscitation; (3) the meaning of the Greek term ōphthē; (4) some of those to whom Jesus appeared experienced doubts, plus some did not always recognize him;(5) the three accounts in the book of Acts that describe Paul’s conversion, which sometimes seems to be less than physical; and (6) Paul’s emphasis on the spiritual body of raised believers. See Stephen T. Davis, “‘Seeing’ the Risen Jesus,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 130–40.

Davis, 140–44.

John A.T. Robertson, the acclaimed Greek scholar of a couple of generations ago, explained that the idiom in Mark 3:31 implies strongly that it was Jesus’s family who had concluded these negative things about him. Then Robertson remarked that in modern parlance, “We say that one is out of his head.” See A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. 1, The Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to Mark (Nashville: Broadman, 1930), 281.

For perhaps the best summation of individual arguments for and against Jesus’s resurrection predictions, including the conclusion that the positive evidence is much weightier, see Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 284–302, with 299–302, 468–69 addressing the positive conclusion that Jesus did make these predictions. Hans F. Bayer has written a major treatment of the relevant issues here; see Bayer, Jesus’ Predictions of Vindication and Resurrection: The Provenance, Meaning and Correlation of the Synoptic Predictions (Tübingen: Mohr, 1986); also Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 230; Dale C. Allison Jr., The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 184–88, 198.

As in Mark 8:31–33; 9:31–32; 14:27–31.

It might be objected here that the illumination thesis could be broadened to favor the real though still nonobjective appearances of Jesus. But it must be remembered that a naturalistic hypothesis is being evaluated here, which is its major weakness. Further, if an objective visionary thesis is being suggested instead, that is the subject of the later chapter in this volume.

In all fairness, an important example here is Ehrman’s works, such as his volume Did Jesus Exist? Because Ehrman refers to himself as an atheist New Testament scholar, one must of course allow for his anticipated conclusions that the New Testament is not generally a reliable text (70–71, 268–69), that there are no direct eyewitness reports of Jesus in the New Testament (46, 49, 101, cf. 145), that Jesus did not refer to himself as deity (22–23, 159, 167, 170, cf. 172, 305–7), that Jesus’s miracles cannot be confirmed historically ­(315–16), and that Jesus was incorrect about the time of his return (1, 313–14, 316, 336). But Ehrman also seems to acknowledge the historical likelihood of many quite positive areas pertaining to Jesus’s historicity, including that mythicist attacks on the existence of Jesus are fully unwarranted (2, 17, 20–34, 167, 194–96, 268), that there are more than sufficient independent sources and historical attestation for Jesus’s existence (56, 77, 92, 97, 140–41, 163, 171, 251, 262, 290–91, cf. 140–41), and that there are more than a dozen independent sources for the historicity of Jesus’s crucifixion within 100 years (71, 156–58, 163–64, 173, 290–91, 327–31). Ehrman challenges thoroughly any notions that Christian origins were based on the mystery religions and related positions, which are totally wrongheaded (26, 207–18, 221–30, 256–58); he defends the notion that the earliest Christian preaching of the Gospel message dated from as early as one to two years after the crucifixion and certainly to no later than the 30s (22, 27, 92–93, 97, 109–13, 130–32, 141, 144–45, 155–58, 163–64, 170–73, 232, 249–51, 254, 260–63), that the historical sources for Jesus are the best among similar religious founders in the ancient world (78, 291), that there are good data for Paul’s early conversion (131, 144, 157, 246, 261), Paul’s holding to bodily resurrection appearances of the risen Jesus (257–58), the legitimate use of historical criteria as applied specifically to the Gospels (151, 163, 193, 262, 271, 288–93), and that the gnostic beliefs postdated the birth of the Christian message (290). In this overall process, Ehrman comes across as a fair-minded dialogue partner who concedes ground when the evidence determines it, while still holding to skeptical views when he thinks that they are warranted. Further, Ehrman is not the only critical scholar who exemplifies these attitudes. Other similar examples among major critical scholars include James Crossley, Dale Allison, James D. G. Dunn, E. P. Sanders, Luke Timothy Johnson, Paula Fredriksen, John P. Meier, Larry Hurtado, and, in different areas, Antony Flew. But in my opinion, that sort of fair attitude and willing give-and-take is also exhibited among some more or less conservative authors, such as N. T. Wright, Scot McKnight, Nancey Murphy, Craig A. Evans, Ben Witherington, William Lane Craig, David Wenham, Michael Licona, Richard Bauckham, and Greg Boyd. I believe this general ethos is far more common today but would not have characterized the more positivistic and dogmatic generation of Bultmann and others.

When longtime atheist Antony Flew shocked the intellectual world by changing his mind and becoming a deist/theist (with those words being used interchangeably by Flew), he famously declared repeatedly that he had to follow the argument and its evidence, wherever it might lead him. See Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 22–23, 42, 48, 52, 56, 75, 89, 147, 155.

The most influential study that accounted for the shift was Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

The beginning of this creedal recognition even extended back into the days of the German liberalism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly toward the latter portions of this theological movement. David Strauss does not show much recognition of the creedal element when he treats the resurrection appearances in 1 Cor 15:3–7 (Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, 727–28, 738–44). However, several decades later Wilhelm Bousset conceded the traditional nature of the pre-Pauline creeds but did not trace them to the Jerusalem church, preferring a Hellenistic origin, which reflected the popular ideas of the time, as just mentioned. See Bousset, Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginning of Christianity to Irenaeus, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970), 58, cf. 120. A few more decades after Bousset, Bultmann began to recognize the value of these creedal texts along with brief snippets in the Acts sermon summaries, listing several of them and referring to their pre-Pauline character; see Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel, 2 vols. (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1951), 1:81–83, 86, 125–26. Unlike Bousset though, Bultmann traced the resurrection tradition in 1 Cor 15:3–7 to the earliest Jerusalem church (1:295–96). Though the creedal scholarship was not yet honed in a way that recognized the full, incredible value of these traditions, early volumes were already pointing out their importance. Among these were the influential studies by C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments: With an Appendix on Eschatology and History (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1936); and Oscar Cullmann, The Earliest Christian Confessions, trans. J. K. S. Reid, ed. Gary Habermas and Benjamin Charles Shaw (London: Lutterworth, 1949; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2018).

Wright, “Christian Origins,” 121.

Wright, “Dialogue,” in Crossan and Wright, Resurrection of Jesus, 35.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 701.

Plantinga, “Sheehan’s Shenanigans,” 21, with numerous other similar critiques throughout the essay.

Brown, Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, 61.

Greeley, “Ways of Knowing,” 432. Greeley seems to be insinuating here that Sheehan was overly dependent on Bultmann’s ideas while neglecting key ideas since that time. Though the idea could have come from more than one place, of course, including from his own study, Sheehan emphasizes that the earliest resurrection teaching was about Jesus’s exaltation rather than about any resurrection “event” (First Coming, 106–7, 117–18), which was also a key teaching of Bultmann’s (Theology of the New Testament, 1:45, 82). Whether or not the idea came from Bultmann’s writings, Sheehan’s bold assertion that the idea of exaltation first is “the virtually unanimous opinion of mainstream scholars of the New Testament” is assuredly false. Sheehan, “Resurrection,” 94.

Greeley, “Provisional Path to Mystery,” 530–32. Frederick J. Crossan makes a similar point to the previous one, that Sheehan “dogmatically leaps beyond his data” in Crossan, “A Challenge, Not a Threat,” Commonweal (1984): 491.

C. F. D. Moule and Don Cupitt, “The Resurrection: A Disagreement,” in Cupitt, Explorations in Theology, 27, 33–34, cf. 29.

Wright, “Christian Origins,” 120–21.

Carnley, Structure of Resurrection Belief, 156–58.

Maier, review of The First Coming (by Sheehan), 30.

Wright, “Christian Origins,” 121.

Moule and Cupitt, “Resurrection,” 33.

O’Collins, “Peter as Easter Witness,” 5.

Greeley, “Ways of Knowing,” 432.

J. M. Cameron, review of The First Coming (by Sheehan), 27.

Maier, review of The First Coming (by Sheehan), 30.

See Jerrold S. Maxmen and Nicholas G. Ward, Essential Psychopathology and Its Treatment, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1995), 483–85; Harold I. Kaplan, Benjamin J. Sadock, and Jack A. Grebb, Synopsis of Psychiatry, 7th ed. (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1994), 306–7.

A. N. Wilson, Jesus (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992), 242–44; Robert Greg Cavin, “Miracles, Probability, and the Resurrection of Jesus: A Philosophical, Mathematical, and Historical Study” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Irvine, 1993), 314–58. Some related thoughts are found in Cavin, “Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence to Establish the Resurrection of Jesus?,” Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995): 361–79.

Frank T. Miosi, “The Resurrection Debate,” review of Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, by Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, ed. Terry L. Miethe, Free Inquiry 8, no. 2 (1988): 56–57.

Michael Martin, The Case against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 83, 92–95.

Michael Goulder, “The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 48–61. A briefer version of these thoughts is found in “Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?,” in Barton and Stanton, Resurrection, esp. 58–62. Some parallels are also mentioned by Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 310–12. Tipler denied the resurrection in this work (309–13) but later changed his naturalistic views and embraced the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection and his appearances; see Tipler, The Physics of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007), chaps. 1, 8 in particular!

Martin, Case against Christianity, 93. The word “delusion” in Martin’s quotation most likely should be “illusion,” especially so as to remove the notion of mental or psychotic problems; see Kaplan, Sadock, and Grebb, Synopsis of Psychiatry, 488–89. In many places throughout this volume, Martin employs simply exasperating comments and unsubstantiated claims to make his points, as if he needs no backup data in many key places. For just a very few examples, it seems that anytime Martin dates a New Testament writing or an early Christian author like Ignatius or Polycarp, he can be counted on to add one or two decades to the date of the writing. After all, what’s a decade or two extra among friends! And it must be noted very carefully that these are not cases where Martin’s personal dates simply differ from those of the specialists, because it still would be his right to disagree. But in almost all the cases cited here, Martin purports to be telling his readers where the critical scholars themselves line up on these subjects today, and he is usually quite far from being accurate. We will list several examples, drawn from just his two chapters on the historicity of Jesus and his resurrection, where he is seriously in error. While most critical scholars date Mark at about AD 70–75 (see Ehrman below), Martin thinks that scholars place the date for Mark at AD 70–135, stating that the Gospel of Mark may actually have originated in the second century AD (44)! While most critical scholars date Luke at about 80–85, Martin adds fifteen years to make it AD 100. Polycarp magically moves from about 110 to 120–135 (43). Martin pronounces that virtually all scholars “are almost in uniform agreement” that the famous Testimonium Flavianum passage in Josephus’s Antiquities is spurious, even though almost the exact opposite is the case and, in fact, a number of the very scholars he lists in his endnote (including Habermas!) specifically disagree with his statement here, stating otherwise (48). He basically repeats this again on 85 and 91. He is badly mistaken on where critical scholars are with regard to the unanimously accepted Pauline Letters, numbering seven (see Ehrman at the end of this note), whereas Martin lists only four of Paul’s Epistles being allowed by scholars for sure (52–53). It must be remembered, once again, that Martin is telling his readers where he thinks critical scholars line up, but he frequently misses the mark by miles. Against the vast majority of scholars today, Martin downgrades the value of 1 Cor 15:5–8 (83). More cases of his exceptionally weak claims can be found on 45, 55–56, 75, 85, 88, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95. Often throughout, Martin seems frequently to set a very low threshold for his own comments and what he thinks is worth reporting, noting in one place that even if a particular thesis of his cannot be shown to be probable, “Surely, it is not beyond the realm of psychological possibility” (95). Really? This is not the only place where he reasons in this manner either (with another major example on 55–56). So is he trying to present probable arguments, or only ones that are psychologically possible? For substantiation of my own arguments against Martin on the subject of where the majority of contemporary critical scholars are today, note that atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman dates Mark from the 60s to the early 70s rather than possibly into the second century as per Martin, while Ehrman dates both Matthew and Luke from 80 to 85 (Martin says AD 100 for Luke). On other places where we have reported on Martin, notice Ehrman’s views: Polycarp wrote shortly after 110 (415), not 120–135 like Martin, and Paul wrote seven “undisputed” epistles (262, 290), not the four epistles allowed by Martin when he claims to be speaking for critical scholarship as a whole. Page citations from Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Such as Matt 28:16–20; Luke 24:34, 36–53; John 20:19–25, 26–29; 21:1–22; cf. Acts 2:32; 3:15; 5:30–32; 10:39–41; 13:30–31; 1 Cor 15:5–8; 1 Clem. 42; Ignatius, Smyrn. 3.

Depending on whether Jesus’s mother, Mary, is identified in Matt 28:1, 9; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10; cf. Acts 1:14. Even without specific texts, how could it be questioned that Jesus’s own mother Mary would have seen her resurrected son at least a few times?

See 1 Cor 15:7 (cf. the Gospel of the Hebrews 7), as applied to Jesus being together with his brother James as well.

Critics occasionally suggest some rather wild and chaotic scenarios, perhaps like an impersonator attempting deliberately to play the role of Jesus for some unknown reason. Perhaps naturally looking just a little like Jesus, or keeping his distance whenever possible, conceivably faking the scars somehow and so on, he could get away with this charade. Yet the number of contrary responses would mount rapidly, such as the fake scars being discovered very quickly, family members and close friends like the male or female disciples not discovering anything amiss, the Jewish leaders who were present at his crucifixion to ensure his death not discovering the ruse either, the exceptionally brief time limitations involved in a two-day window before the caper beginning, even imagining a worthwhile alibi that would “inspire” someone to take such chances in the first place, and more. Then what about the empty tomb? Another thesis of some sort would be needed here. And then perhaps last of all, where is the evidence that anything of such a nature ever occurred anyway? It probably would not take much thought to realize that such a situation would not exactly be at the very top of the naturalist’s options to expose Jesus’s resurrection!

Examples such as Bigfoot, UFOs, and statues of Mary as used by Goulder (“Baseless Fabric,” 52–55), as well as UFOs, cattle mutilations in the western United States, witchcraft, satanic cults, and the very odd species of psychosis (folie à deux) referred to by Martin (Case against Christianity, esp. 93–95), seem designed to explain how people in sometimes large numbers can be tricked, deceived, or otherwise duped, which can hardly be denied, rather than being the sorts of visual illusions that we are considering in the present context. Note here that folie à deux is a psychosis. Regarding what skeptics sometimes refer to as mass or collective delusions (such as Martin, Case against Christianity, 93; Goulder, “Baseless Fabric,” 52–55; Tipler, Physics of Immortality, 310–13), these are different phenomena and are treated in the chapter on hallucinations. As per the explanation above, note also that the use of “delusions” here should probably be understood as collective illusions, so as both to be much more accurate and to not imply psychotic situations that are not necessarily warranted. Further, recall that the illusory objects in question are real, not hallucinatory.

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