8: Discrepancies and the Resurrection

8

Discrepancies and the Resurrection

Without much question, in terms of the frequency of the statements, the most common objection to the historical reliability of the Gospels in general, and to the resurrection accounts in particular, is that these texts contain numerous discrepancies and contradictions in the details. These comments are probably far more widespread among nonacademic critics than with the scholars. The implied (or often blatant) claim particularly among the more popular commentators is that such errors disqualify these sources from commenting on the message of Jesus’s resurrection. More specifically, this position may include the notion that such erroneous claims indicate that the biblical authors could have gotten a lot more reports incorrect as well, especially since they were writing about supernatural occurrences.

The intent in this chapter is to comment on these claims in general by first surveying the scholarly horizon to illustrate this prevalent tendency while commenting more specifically on applications to resurrection studies. While making no effort whatsoever to harmonize the resurrection accounts here, a few representative examples will hopefully clearly indicate that sometimes it is a matter of simply allowing the text to speak for itself. Many, though not all, of our examples of discrepancies and the critical sources are drawn from the resurrection and appearance accounts in the New Testament.

To set the stage here, critical scholar Reginald Fuller begins his influential book on the resurrection by framing the chief issue the way it is often thought of:

The best way to discredit a witness in court is for the cross-examiner to tie him up in knots and make his evidence appear to be such a tissue of in-consistencies that the jury becomes convinced he is entirely untrustworthy. One does not need to be a scientific New Testament scholar to do that with the resurrection narratives.

Fuller then adds: “It is no wonder that many have found these discrepancies a major obstacle to belief in the resurrection.” Then he provides a few examples of those who have struggled with these issues. And yet, Fuller holds that Jesus did indeed appear to his disciples! It is intriguing to observe how critical scholars pose the problem, sometimes thinking of modern courtroom situations, and then observe the responses. Actually, many other scholars make similar moves as Fuller.

A Historical Survey on the Near Unanimity of Citing Contradictions

The purpose of this initial section is to present a historical review of critical responses to these issues. Beginning with nineteenth-century German liberalism and a few of its forerunners, the goal is to work toward the present in a fairly detailed overview. For well over 200 years, the charge of New Testament (especially Gospel) discrepancies and contradictions is easily the most commonly raised objection to the belief that these texts present reliable information, especially concerning Jesus being raised from the dead. Conversely, addressing and answering this overall problem successfully would be a very helpful means of opening the way for the many additional chapters later in this volume that treat and address the more specific naturalistic hypotheses aimed at these Christian claims.

The scholars treated below are organized according to their time periods and schools of thought. While the bottom line may be close to the same, each set of similar views emerges from particular backgrounds and sets of presuppositions. Strangely enough, the wide variety of criticisms could move across a spectrum from the charge of errors and contradictions in Scripture, as addressed in this chapter, to a variety of similar critical allegations. Later chapters focus on the problems with biblical mira­cles and supernatural claims, the assimilation of mythology, and so forth. A large variety of these examples could be found across differing groups and views.

Old German Liberalism

The precursors and forerunners to the German liberalism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were much clumsier, to be sure. But the assumption that the Gospels were errant in some sense was common in English deism as well as with the various strands of continental rationalism, such as those of Benedict Spinoza or Hermann Samuel Reimarus.

Old German liberalism hit the ground running. Early to mid-nineteenth-­century liberals who often held a mixture of these critical positions included Friedrich Schleiermacher, F. C. Baur, David Strauss, and Ernest Renan. More than a few of their positions were aimed at the resurrection of Jesus.

Mid-nineteenth to early twentieth-century liberals often went in new directions. Perhaps taking their leads from a few of the more radical thinkers who emphasized mythology, such as Strauss, Bruno Bauer, and Renan, these later writers often followed the paths of searching for rival mythologies in the ancient world. While not being the case for Johannes Weiss, the movement known as the religionsgeschicht­liche Schule (history of religions school) was contributed to by the works of scholars like Otto Pfleiderer, Wilhelm Bousset, and perhaps, to a somewhat lesser extent, Ernst Troeltsch. As earlier in German liberalism, the resurrection was still often the main target. For believers, Jesus’s resurrection was the center of the Christian faith, so for many unbelievers it was the chief target!

Albert Schweitzer’s monumental study The Quest of the Historical Jesus cast its very long shadow over much of German liberalism. This work is absolutely replete with dozens of references to different authors, some from more than a century in the past, and their unanimous persuasion of the contradictions, errors, and other problems in the New Testament along with many different and rather wild scenarios, including naturalistic comments against the resurrection. (Schweitzer includes very few positive comments on the subject.)

But Schweitzer also notes the downfall of German liberalism: “There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the Life of Jesus. . . . He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb.” For Schweitzer, liberalism’s Jesus “has fallen to pieces” from within because they made Jesus in their own image. The liberal Jesus is “too small,” and these scholarly liberal studies “cannot call spiritual life into existence.”

So even though Schweitzer thought that several liberal scholars were correct in pointing out that Jesus was quite mistaken about the “delay” and “non-occurrence” of the Parousia, his teachings were still meaningful in the present because of his “mighty spiritual force” that flowed through him into our present world. He is in some sense “spiritually arisen within men . . . not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from Him . . . is that which overcomes the world.” Emphasizing the last thought is the comment: “The abiding and eternal in Jesus is absolutely independent of historical knowledge and can only be understood by contact with His spirit which is still at work in the world.” Then Schweitzer closes his study by affirming the “world-accepting ethic” and “the world-affirming spirit” of the Jesus who called to us, “Follow thou me.”

The First Half of the Twentieth Century

If Schweitzer’s shadow loomed large over the lengthy rise as well as the demise of nineteenth-century German liberalism, the shadows cast by Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann were even larger in the twentieth century. Barth (in particular) as well as Bultmann began by lending very willing and helping hands to the fall of German liberalism, under whose last leaders these two scholars had studied. Having treated at some length earlier the passing of the torch from this form of liberalism to the decades-long hiatus of studies on the historical Jesus, this changeover will not be belabored here.

Yet, even with Barth’s more conservative tendencies, he too located “obscurities and irreconcilable contradictions” in New Testament texts, even finding fault with Paul’s treatment of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. Barth especially objected to notions that favored claims that Paul was attempting to give “proof” of the resurrection appearances. Barth preferred terms such as “pre-historical” even though the resurrection is definitely “an event in space and time.”

Elsewhere, Barth stated clearly enough: “Unquestionably, the resurrection narratives are contradictory. A coherent history cannot be evolved from them.” He then specified that appearances in both Galilee and Jerusalem “cannot be harmonized. It is a chaos.” He also made his normal comment opposed to trying to prove the resurrection. He even added that harmonizing the accounts should not be attempted.

In comparison to Barth’s views on textual contradictions and the nature of history, Rudolf Bultmann was much more direct as well as radical. From the beginning, Bultmann was quite clear that the New Testament writings and the historical events they describe, in particular, were quite muddled. As such, Bultmann had no doubt that there were errors of various sorts and species. For example, prophetic preaching in the Old Testament was apparently translated into events in the New Testament. The result was our lack of assurance regarding the “considerable uncertainty” pertaining to the sorting out of Jesus’s sayings. While Jesus definitely lived in history, many details were unknown.

In Bultmann’s famous 1941 essay “New Testament and Mythology,” he began his section titled “The Resurrection” with the opening line: “But what of the resurrection? Is it not a mythical event pure and simple? Obviously it is not an event of past history.” These and similar themes show up throughout Bultmann’s work, whether it was carrying on the German liberal theme of Jesus being mistaken about the time of his coming; there being no proof or historical evidence for miracles; reported events that never occurred, such as Jesus’s predicting his resurrection; or the subjectivity of history and its events. While he agreed with Barth that there was no historical evidence for the resurrection, Bultmann disagreed with Barth in that he thought that Paul really intended the list of Jesus’s appearances to serve as evidence, while Barth disagreed.

Bultmann took such a strong stand against history as evidence for Christianity that some of his own disciples and former students reacted in an effort to bring back what would today be considered quite a nominal amount of historical information about Jesus backed by a relatively small amount of historical data. It was held that such information was necessary and indispensable to ground Jesus and his teachings as a real historical individual, not to be confused with mythology. Bultmann disagreed. But that did not dissuade scholars like Ernst Käsemann, Günther Bornkamm, and James M. Robinson from a rather short-lived undertaking that came to be called, in the title of Robinson’s book, A New Quest of the Historical Jesus.

Having discussed this development in an earlier chapter, do we find anything changed regarding the reduction of interest on discrepancies or other critical stances in this new quest? While surely not as negative as Bultmann’s research, similar critical emphases reoccurred. Most commonly seen was a similar resistance to “proof” or strong evidence for key kerygmatic historical truths along with emphasis still being placed on existential factors. Also a similar emphasis on discrepancies and the growth of legend is found among these scholars, or the lack of assurance regarding accurate reports in the Gospels. But a fairly large number of more positive trends developed too.

The End of the Twentieth Century to the First Quarter of the Twenty-First Century

Moving from those who may be considered earlier forerunners, such as Wolfhart Pannenberg, into the Third Quest for the historical Jesus scholars, we continue to find that the majority of critical scholars place themselves somewhere along a lengthy continuum that holds that there are some very difficult texts in the Gospels that are best considered as inconsistencies if not actual discrepancies and even contradictions. Though fewer in number, some researchers still opted for the presence of legends and myths in these texts. The scholars entertained here are specialists in at least one of the relevant fields that impinge on the areas discussed.

It will not always be easy to categorize recent scholars due admittedly to subjective categorizations as well as factors like when they hold positions in more than one group. This goal here will to be include researchers into three very general categories: (1) skeptics (including atheists, agnostics, and adherents of other religions who self-identify as non-Christians); (2) moderates (who at times may share similar views with the groups on either side of them); and (3) conservatives (who usually side with the New Testament texts in most situations, while still potentially agreeing that there clearly may be issues of one sort or another).

Only the third group here contains researchers who refer to themselves as in-errantists with regard to the New Testament. Though there are different definitional stances along with nuances even among these researchers, to be sure these scholars reject at least the presence of clear factual errors, particularly in the Gospel texts. Nonetheless, there are still scholars in this group who possess terminal degrees (quite often from nonconservative schools), specialize in relevant areas of research, usually have publications (sometimes major ones), and generally hold teaching positions in accredited colleges, universities, or seminaries. Among the reasons for including these scholars and their views in this chapter is that different definitions, nuances, and other issues preclude the knowledge of exact cookie-cutter responses as well as how strictly this is done. When explanations are given, even in critical settings, the response is often one of understanding and even agreement.

Perhaps most importantly of all, it will be argued here that the greater scholarly community probably includes comparable numbers of researchers who also hold crucial worldview commitments with every bit as much equal intensity and in areas that are similarly just as relevant as they are to the inerrantists. After all, it may well be the case that liberals frequently appear to be just as unlikely to change their own positions as the conservatives! In other words, all sides may have an analogous amount of nuancing of prior intellectual commitments that tend to level out the playing field when it comes to being open to differing scholarly positions and areas of belief. But this remains to be seen.

Skeptical Scholars

Many recent skeptical scholars may be thought of as being situated across the aisle from those who take conservative stands on New Testament issues. But this is frequently not the case, as friendships have often developed even after debates. The group of scholars known as the Jesus Seminar probably provides a representative example here, representing a large number of usually skeptical scholars. According to their own tabulations, as a whole the members of the Jesus Seminar rejected some 82 percent of the so-called red-letter words of Jesus in the Gospels. Further, of all the purported events concerning Jesus or his close followers, less than 6 percent of these were considered by this group to garner “a relatively high level of confidence that the event actually took place.” That would seem to qualify for a strong definition of skeptic.

Some of the better-known members of the Jesus Seminar, each of whom has questioned the veracity of a large number of major New Testament texts (from the Gospels in particular), would include John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Robert Funk, and Gerd Lüdemann. Another major list of Jesus Seminar scholars with views on a number of widely dispersed subjects includes James M. Robinson, John Kloppenborg, Howard Clark Kee, Richard Carrier, Robert Price, Burton Mack, Barbara Thiering, and John Shelby Spong. Still more Jesus Seminar members include Robert J. Miller, Roy W. Hoover, and Thomas Sheehan, some of whom have produced other detailed treatments of New Testament issues.

Numerous other scholars across a wide but relevant interdisciplinary swath, counting atheists and many other skeptical varieties along with some non-Christian authors who mention a number of negative problems with the New Testament accounts, include Willi Marxsen, Maurice Casey, Ingo Broer, Norman Perrin, Bart D. Ehrman, Michael Martin, Michael Goulder, Evan Fales, Larry Shapiro, A. J. M. Wedderburn, Gregory J. Riley, J. K. Elliott, Schubert M. Ogden, G. A. Wells, Morton Smith, Jack Kent, Geza Vermes, Daniel Cohn-Sherbok, Hans Küng, Duncan M. Derrett, John E. Alsup, Adela Yarbro Collins, James Keller, Robert Greg Cavin, John A. T. Robinson, Keith Parsons, Rudolf Pesch, Hansjürgen Verweyen, Frank Miosi, Theodore M. Drange, and Randel Helms. Still more authors are skeptical at points but are not necessarily skeptics in the same sense as the others above (not all of whom are specialists). These authors, who nevertheless doubt various aspects of the New Testament text, could also be listed here.

Moderates

Just as skeptical scholars cover a wide swath of theoretical territory and feature much variety, so do the moderate scholars. Similarly too, there is always a risk that some researchers will be misidentified, or that a single facet of their thought may be overemphasized. Though it is difficult to ascertain, the moderates across the board may be more influential than the skeptics, at least among the Third Quest for the historical Jesus researchers. This comparison would also seem to parallel Raymond Brown’s survey of contemporary christological trends as well as John A. T. Robinson’s investigation of recent scholarship regarding the reliability of the New Testament accounts. These two studies were mentioned earlier and in these two crucial areas of Christian thought, both Brown and Robinson concluded that the moderate to conservative positions were the most influential. While skeptics raise more critiques and tend to question far more passages, moderates are just as likely to locate problems, including many of the same issues, though they frequently think that a solution is actually close at hand.

Among the more influential moderate scholars are Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Karl Rahner, E. P. Sanders, Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, James D. G. Dunn, John Meier, Gerald O’Collins, and Reginald H. Fuller. Other significant moderates might include Luke Timothy Johnson, Walter Künneth, Jacob Kremer, Ben F. Meyer, Ulrich Wilckens, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Pheme Perkins, Walter Kasper, Xavier Léon-Dufour, Brian Hebblethwaite, Barnabas Lindars, Jean-Marie Guillaume, Frans Neirynck, as well as Jewish New Testament scholar Pinchas Lapide. Still others should also be numbered among these scholars, though some might be uneasy matches in one way or another.

One last, intriguing volume, edited by Ted Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker, contains eighteen essays, argued by scholars trained in either (or both) theological or scientific fields, that favor “embodied” existence after death based on the model of Jesus’s resurrection. Many of these essays argue for a non-reductive materialism or some other species of discontinuity at death, after which “God will draw into the divine memory the pattern of information that constitutes the human soul; and in the eschaton God will reinstate human personhood within the transformed material creation.” The information is “extracted from our present earthly bodies and reinstated in a future resurrected body.” Several of the essays in this text are of the moderate variety discussed here.

Conservatives

Although it may surprise some, as with skeptics and moderates there is much variety among conservative Christian authors on the questions being addressed in this chapter. Conservatives generally believe in the occurrence of miracles in the past and often in the present. While many of these scholars think that various levels of data may be produced on behalf of these events, even generating verification of one species or another, others—especially those who tend toward fideistic positions—do not think that such events can or even should be evidenced at all. Likewise, the latter often believe that while these events truly occurred, they are not exactly historical events in the same “objective” sense as are other nonmiraculous events.

Further, it is well known that a plethora of conservative views are held on various theological doctrines as well as other issues, as indicated clearly by the successful publication of dozens of so-called three-, four-, and five-views books. For example, while holding that Jesus Christ is the only path to salvation, some may think (taking more than one view on the way to this conclusion) that it is possible that some who do not even know specifically who Jesus was can still be “saved” through him, in spite of this lack of explicit knowledge. Divergent stances are taken on the importance and mode of baptism, the time of creation, whether God used evolution as the method of creation, and many aspects concerning the time of the end, the future mode of existence, and many other topics.

More directly on our topic in this chapter, many conservative scholars also hold that the New Testament contains various amalgams of discrepancies or even contra­dictions, legends, or other issues. Skimming the list below would probably show this to be the case here as well. These researchers usually hold that scholars should interact with those who disagree in a congenial and helpful manner, even when one’s dialogue partners are also conservatives!

Not to forget some of the conservative voices from before the Third Quest for the historical Jesus, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (at least on Jesus’s death and resurrection), and C. S. Lewis were among the most influential. Very ­prominent since that time are Alvin Plantinga, Martin Hengel, Thomas F. Torrance, N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, Larry W. Hurtado, Richard Swinburne, C. F. D. Moule, Carl F. H. Henry, William Lane Craig, John Warwick Montgomery, Ben Witherington III, Craig A. Evans, Peter Stuhlmacher, I. Howard Marshall, Darrell L. Bock, Craig L. Blomberg, Paul Barnett, Ronald H. Nash, and Donald Guthrie.

Other major conservative scholars writing specifically on the issues discussed in this chapter and this study as a whole include Markus Barth, Stephen T. Davis, Paul L. Maier, Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, Craig S. Keener, Robert Gundry, C. E. B. Cranfield, Robert H. Stein, Graham H. Twelftree, Norman L. Geisler, Colin Brown, Frank J. Beckwith, Robert A. Larmer, Daniel P. Fuller, and William Alston. Additional conservative scholars have likewise contributed to the overall discussion on the subjects that we are considering here.

In the context of the earlier conversation in this chapter, an interesting phenomenon may be observed among the conservative researchers listed here. Although it is impossible to be objective, a quick estimate seems to indicate that the majority of the people listed are quite likely not inerrantists. One reason is seen in the frequent report that inerrantist evangelical scholars outside the United States are in the minority. This is a major response to those who tend to raise the question of prior doctrinal commitments by conservatives.

So far in this chapter, the attempt has been made to document some of the various types of textual issues that scholars often think can be located within the topics with which this study is most interested. After our foray into the scholarly trends from nineteenth-century German liberalism through the twentieth century and up to the present, it seems clear that the vast majority of researchers thinks that the New Testament writings contain various sorts of problems that have been treated as in-accuracies of several sorts, including outright errors and contradictions.

Frankly, the historical territory that has concerned us the most in this study regarding the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection appearances of Jesus has received more than its share of the scholarly concern. In fact, among the hundreds of separate sources mentioned in this chapter, it is probably safe to state that no objection to the Christian message has been mentioned more frequently over the past two centuries than the sheer presence of these textual issues.

Does this general objection have merit? Does such a move leave us with serious, intractable problems in other major areas of the texts? As the old question is asked, if the New Testament texts cannot be trusted or ascertained for sure in certain areas, how may it be known if the texts in other areas are reliable? We will begin here by surveying a few of the historical areas most frequently questioned. Then we will turn to some potential treatment options. Finally, it will be pointed out why none of these questions or objections is sufficient to nullify the force of the historical case presented in this study, consisting of data that are accepted even by the very skeptical scholars who raised these questions in the first place.

Specific Textual Questions

Among the best known and most common instances of discrepancy-type problems raised from the Gospel texts as a whole are those that zero in on aspects regarding the burial and resurrection appearance accounts. It may even be accurate to say that the post-crucifixion examples comprise the most popularly mentioned examples in the entire New Testament. There are several conundrums from which to choose here. These questions are expressed by commentators in a variety of ways too, from detailed charges and concise listings in the form of charts and diagrams to a large number of accusations enumerated in rapid-fire succession or even just tossed together in just a few words each.

Another couple of intriguing facets may be stated here as well. Even conservative scholars, including some who identify themselves as inerrantists, frequently acknowledge some of the difficult issues involved. So it simply will not do for the inerrantists to blame the examples that are raised below on the attacks of more critical scholars alone, as if they were due, perhaps, to liberal tendencies.

Moreover, the most important overall observations for our purposes will be indicated later in this chapter, and a number of these issues are addressed in more detail in other volumes in this study and will not be repeated here, as noted below. Except in a few cases, the potential concerns are more or less just identified in this context. Still, the popular, most commonly mentioned problems raised are sometimes also precisely the ones that appear to be the most readily solved.

The following list notes several of the most popular instances of discrepancy claims found in the literature, which are stated as questions. Many critical scholars only note the issues in passing, so being included among the listed researchers does not mean that they either necessarily agree or disagree with a particular position. A few crucial points will be addressed afterward in detail.

Was Jesus’s body buried by Joseph? The negative answer to this question is held only by a minority of commentators and is occasionally alleged to be anachronistic by some scholars. However, it has received more attention in recent years due to the press and influence of those who champion one or more related positions. It is variously suggested or held that the dead body of Jesus simply could have been unceremoniously dumped into a common pit for unclaimed bodies or for criminals, or perhaps buried in a rectangular plot dug in the ground, since this was the most common form of burial. As Crossan popularized, the body would have become food for ravaging dogs in the latter case. Similar to our interests, it is also claimed that Acts 13:29 may contradict the Gospel burial accounts by claiming that the Jewish leaders took Jesus’s body off the cross and buried it themselves.

Though it is not our purpose to critique each of the options here, a simple and multifaceted rejoinder to the last point is easily made. Initially, this would allow virtually the entire point regarding the Jewish leaders doing the burial to turn on the meaning of a Greek antecedent referring to the two prior verses. While antecedents are often worthwhile considerations, they are seldom capable of turning away by themselves a number of opposing rejoinders that argue otherwise. Further, Luke apparently saw no contradiction whatsoever between Acts 13:29 and his far more detailed Gospel report in Luke 23:50–56, where Joseph indeed was clearly indicated as the one who buried Jesus’s body. So Luke most likely did not consider it to be a straightforward clash. Could it be that Luke never understood the Acts account that way at all?

Even stronger, in contrast to the many sources that favor the traditional burial in a private tomb by Joseph of Arimathea (see the chapter in volume 1 of this study on the burial of Jesus’s body), this interpretation of Acts 13:29 has no first-century support. Where are its additional sources to place up against the traditional texts that argue otherwise? Finally and most pointedly, the Jewish leaders mentioned in Acts 13:27 could simply have been a reference to Joseph (a member of the Jewish council himself, after all) and those other members who probably knew of his planned action and simply concurred since they too would be concerned that the Jewish law not be broken by removing and burying the body during the Sabbath.

Is Matthew’s account of the guards stationed in front of Jesus’s tomb (27:62–66; ­28:11­–­15) some variety of legend? It has already been mentioned that, without much question, the majority of critical researchers view these events as never having occurred. But especially since these are not supernatural occurrences, the fact that this detail is only recorded by Matthew deserves some attention. As with the previous question on the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s honorable burial in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, both of these subjects are handled in much more detail in the lengthy chapter on Jesus’s burial in volume 1 of this study.

Which women (and how many) are named on their return trip to Jesus’s burial tomb? Three women are mentioned in the Gospel of Mark—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (16:1). Two women are mentioned by Matthew—Mary Magdalene and another Mary (28:1). Three women are named in Luke—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, though Luke does not list them until a little later in the story after they had gone back to tell the disciples (24:10). John mentions only Mary Magdalene by name as coming to the tomb (20:1), though the plural pronoun “we” is used when explaining to the disciples that they do not know the whereabouts of Jesus’s body (20:2). Beyond mentioning this single comment here, we will return to this situation later in the chapter.

How many angels or “young men” do the women find at the empty tomb? Mark mentions that the women encountered a young man dressed in white inside Jesus’s empty tomb (16:5), while a single angel is mentioned outside the tomb in Matt 28:2. Luke reports two men in dazzling clothing apparently inside the tomb (24:4). In John, no angels are mentioned until Mary Magdalene’s second trip to the tomb (which was the third trip overall, counting Peter and John running to the tomb in between Mary’s trips). When Mary Magdalene returned, bent down, and peered inside the tomb, she saw the two angels there (20:11–12). It should be noticed that each of the Gospels counts the number of angels as either one or two, even if they are located a little differently. This is a slight variance here, well within the constraints of common usage that is employed in everyday descriptions of the same event by different witnesses.

Is there a contradiction between the Gospel writers and Paul, who does not explicitly mention the empty tomb? This question is also discussed elsewhere in this study, though it is listed here due to its being a frequently addressed topic in the literature. Initially, no contradiction whatsoever is involved because Paul simply does not comment directly. There is no opposition to a Gospel statement here, and hence no juxtaposition of assertions in the same time, place, or manner. Additionally, a highly significant argument in this context that several major researchers have developed carefully and at much length is that Paul did not even actually have to mention the empty tomb at all in order to affirm it! Specifically in Jewish parlance, to be raised from the dead (anastasis, meaning to stand or rise up) involved a bodily event, thereby requiring that the burial tomb be vacated.

Did Jesus’s resurrection appearances occur in Jerusalem or Galilee, as presented in the Gospels? Back to the somewhat outdated discussions in the days of German liberalism, this was one of the most mentioned issues of all. But as the research moved closer to the present, particularly within the past two to four decades, the importance of this subject has fallen off considerably. Today the subject is mentioned by fewer critics and with much less concern than in the past. Those who do make remarks regarding this issue tend to do so more in passing, perhaps due to its former importance, and almost always without urgency.

Of the four Gospels, only Mark does not explicitly narrate any appearance stories, though there are several reasons why scholars very rarely question whether Mark knew about Jesus’s appearances. For example, Jesus clearly predicts several times that he would rise from the dead after his impending death (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34). He further tells his disciples that he would appear to them again after his death in Galilee (Mark 14:28). Plus, the young man at the tomb announces clearly that Jesus already had been raised from the dead, was no longer present in the tomb, and would appear to the disciples in Galilee “just as he told you” (Mark 16:7). Some scholars also think that Mark meant to foreshadow Jesus’s private appearance to Peter (as reported in 1 Cor 15:8 and Luke 24:34) by singling him out by name during the narrative at the empty tomb (16:7). So, Jesus’s earlier predictions plus the angel’s report foreshadow an appearance in Galilee and perhaps another one to Peter.

Matthew describes two appearances of the risen Jesus: the first appearance is to the women in Jerusalem on their way away from the tomb, after also hearing the message of the angel that the disciples were to meet him in Galilee (28:5–10). Then Jesus appears to the disciples later in that location (28:16–20). Interestingly in this last case, Matthew added that the latter location was “to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them” (28:16 NRSV).

Luke is the only canonical Gospel author who narrates only resurrection appearances in Jerusalem and its environs. These involve Jesus walking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus (24:13–33, 35), the report that Jesus had also appeared to Peter (24:34), then his appearance to all his disciples (24:36–49) followed by the ascension (24:50–53).

John narrates an appearance to Mary Magdalene during her second trip to the tomb (20:14–17), then another to the disciples without Thomas in Jerusalem (20:19b–25), plus another appearance in Jerusalem a week later to the disciples while Thomas was present (20:26–29). In the so-called Gospel appendix in the final chapter, Jesus appears to seven of his disciples on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias (Galilee) while they are fishing, followed by an early morning meal plus a chat with Peter and John (21:1–23).

One of the chief reasons why the Galilee-Jerusalem question has tended to calm down considerably in recent years is the way that the research is both viewed and carried out today, including how the relevant textual issues are presently framed. The different varieties of source, redaction, tradition, and narrative criticism have yielded an increased sense not only that the New Testament authors were relatively autonomous and freely investigated their preferred interests, but also that they sometimes focused on their chosen geographical areas and the themes that were most crucial there. Therefore, concentrating on a geographical region by no means rules out other venues. A particular theme that may have seemed absolutely necessary to one writer or area may not have had the same import elsewhere. As a result, perhaps even most critical scholars tend more frequently to view the overall subject as being of less vital impact and most frequently recognize appearances in both locations.

Are there contradictions between Paul, the Gospels, and Acts regarding the nature of Jesus’s resurrection appearances? This has long been a key issue where skeptics, moderates, and conservatives do not always “line up” where one might think. Often lurking behind the scenes in this question is whether, by adding his appearance (1 Cor 15:8) to the early creedal list in 1 Cor 15:3–7, Paul was stating or assuming that all the earlier resurrection appearances were of the same nature as his? Varying crucial responses are given here. This involved issue has been treated in volume 1 of this study and comes up again later.

Does the very early creedal list of resurrection appearances in 1 Cor 15:3–7 differ markedly from the combined list of appearances as reported in the Gospels and Acts? This is a very puzzling charge for more reasons than one. For starters, at least there appears to be a fairly strong similarity between these separate accounts. Only the appearance to James plus the one to the 500 persons at one time do not potentially correspond to narratives in the Gospels and Acts. But on second thought, why would these appearances have to line up precisely with each other anyway—as if there is some exhaustive list of appearances that must somehow be coordinated in virtually the same way?

Are statements that Jesus’s resurrection occurred on the “third day” or on the “first day of the week” meant to be taken literally or are these more general or even figurative comments? Like some other issues that have been mentioned, this discussion was also more common decades ago. But this question is addressed in more than one context, such as in the initial volume of this study.

Were the resurrection appearances meant to be legitimatization formulas for purposes of signifying those who were the leaders in the early church? In other words, was there less concern regarding the nature (or even the reality?) of the resurrection appearances themselves in favor of a means in the early church to position leaders? Given the early pre-Pauline creedal statement in 1 Cor 15:3–7 plus Paul’s addition in 15:8, the most frequently suggested names for appearances that indicated leadership roles are those of Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and Paul.

But the general conception here seems to be firm that, while these ideas may figure somewhere into the equation, as noted frequently by commentators, it is not the primary purpose or focus of the appearances. Nor does the notion of positioning override in any way the events themselves. For example, Crossan is perhaps the foremost defender of this position concerning the legitimatizing of apostolic leadership, without attempting to explain away appearances/real experiences of some sort. Whatever the latter were, they were real experiences, though not supernatural, according to Crossan.

Related to the previous question, did the resurrection appearances also serve as an apostolic (as well as a general) call to believers to engage in Christian ministry? Beyond issues related to historical and theological matters, by far the majority response from critical scholars on this idea is in the affirmative. The risen Jesus exhorted his followers to participate in various ministry endeavors such as preaching, teaching, and baptizing. For many scholars, radical discipleship is the reasonable result. These last themes are pursued in depth in the last volume of this study.

These are some of the most commonly raised questions from perhaps a majority of critical scholars regarding the items in the Gospel texts and elsewhere that they think may range from apparent discrepancies all the way to outright legends and myths. Some of the scholars produced easily accessible charts or lists of various sorts. It should be acknowledged as well that, depending on how selective one wishes to get, there are other potential issues to inquire about, though they tend to be usually of a more minor nature.

Going back further into the critical literature of the past two centuries, the question of whether Jesus’s appearances occurred or at least began in Galilee or Jerusalem would still have to rank very highly in terms of the topics that have evoked the most scholarly responses and interest. It is perhaps even the most commonly raised subject. But sticking to the original overview and proposed study that began as a survey of scholarship from 1975 to the present, it appears that the names and numbers of the women who visited Jesus’s tomb might be the most popular questions, followed closely by the cognate issue of the number of angels that the women encountered at the tomb. Also, ever since the age of German liberalism began well over two centuries ago, the contrast between the nature of the appearance to Paul “versus” those to the disciples has been a popular question.

Additional suggestions regarding the cases of the women and the angels will be offered in this chapter. Elsewhere in this study the nature of Paul’s appearance as compared to those of the others who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus is examined in the context of discussing the nature of Jesus’s resurrection body. Our earlier comments regarding Galilee and Jerusalem will have to suffice for now.

To Harmonize or Not to Harmonize?

Most critical scholars today, including even the conservative ones, generally eschew harmonizing scenarios. For example, after mentioning a list of textual issues and making a limited number of potential suggestions as to how a few inquiries might be explained, E. P. Sanders states, “We are still left with an intractable problem.” After mentioning various examples of discrepancies, Raymond Brown notes that “we must reject the thesis that the Gospels can be harmonized.” Yet, Brown describes these issues as “minor” and still affirms Jesus’s appearances in spite of them, as do many scholars. G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst think that it is “unlikely” that a harmony could ever be produced. In agreement with the other scholars, Walter Kaspar holds that “no harmonization is possible.” “At almost every point, the accounts go in separate directions. It is impossible to harmonize them in such a way as to produce a single, simpler tradition,” states Perkins. C. F. Evans asserts more strongly that it is “quite impossible” to harmonize the accounts. Neville Clark agrees that these sorts of efforts are “doomed to failure.”

General responses even from conservative academics, most of whom are not inerrantists anyway, are not all that different. N. T. Wright remarks that it is “notoriously difficult” to explain all the problem areas, and we shall never know “some of the details.” Grant Osborne concurs: “No true harmonization of the appearances is possible since they originally appeared as isolated units in kerygmatic situations; the actual chronology of them is unknown.” Speaking of the problem areas in question, Paul Rhodes Eddy remarks, “though we may agree that they are not fatal, nevertheless some are not small,” and they “cannot be harmonized.”

After providing a list of some of the problematic details that are tough to reconcile completely, Robert Stein comments on the difficulty of working out a harmonization. William Lane Craig observes briefly: “Discrepancies in secondary details could exist.” On another occasion, like Brown above, Craig also observes that “the sort of disparities in the secondary details . . . do not suffice to undermine the historical core” of the resurrection appearance details. Then Craig correctly adds, “No professional historian jettisons his sources because disparities exist at points,” using the example cited by Murray Harris of the “two irreconcilable accounts” by Livy and Polybius of Hannibal crossing the Alps in his wars against Rome. Yet, “no historian doubts that Hannibal did carry out such a campaign.”

A few conservative scholars have nonetheless tried to assemble a harmony of the reported events that took place after the crucifixion, though usually only pertaining to a limited number of occurrences at a time rather than attempting to reconcile an entire, long-range scenario. Often preferable to actual harmonized lists are the attempts to treat individual problem areas by explaining enough details in order to shed some light on particular recalcitrant issues. But even inerrantists do not make these attempts very often.

Well-respected theologian George Eldon Ladd did attempt to construct a basic route to account for the details concerning the women’s trip to the empty tomb as well as the resurrection appearance accounts. New Testament scholar Murray Harris comments, “A harmonisation of the resurrection narratives is not impossible, at least in principle. There is at present a strong antipathy among New Testament scholars to the procedure of harmonisation, although it is one of the historian’s tools of trade.” Then he directs some initial comments to the individual issues of the Galilee and Jerusalem appearance scenarios plus, like Ladd, attempting a potential listing of events from the women’s trip to the tomb through the appearance accounts. Philosopher Richard Swinburne provides a chart to align the resurrection appearances along with an accompanying discussion. But none of this should be construed as harmonizing attempts per se, especially in light of Swinburne’s straightforward comments that such cannot be done.

Moderate scholars have also done similarly, as we have already seen above in a few instances. More typically, these efforts are briefer suggestions directed to fewer events, seemingly those where it appears that a few well-placed comments could be really helpful. Thus, without being a traditional harmonization, Brown still produced helpful tables that line up the crucifixion and burial accounts in the Synoptic Gospels as well as produce another comparison of the events in all four Gospels from before Jesus’s death on Friday to the empty tomb occurrences of Easter. Elsewhere, Brown makes precisely the point just mentioned here, actually arguing against a harmonization in the context while making a number of pertinent and helpful comments regarding how the resurrection appearances of Jesus might fit into the Gospel scenario.

Then there are what might be called the “un-harmonies” of some moderate scholars who, while shunning or perhaps even disdaining harmonizations, nonetheless make some excellent efforts themselves to work out some of the tangled details. This includes James D. G. Dunn’s scholarly work that unpacks a number of the key questions that we have discussed in this chapter. Another example could occur where a single issue is addressed and dissected, such as Gerald O’Collins devoting a chapter to a question in Luke 24, weighing and suggesting various options as to whether the risen Jesus ate fish. Then there are William Alston’s thoughts on Reginald Fuller’s attempts to “make a coherent harmonization impossible,” after which Alston develops his own efforts at making some progress in this regard.

Without much question, one of the most ambitious efforts at harmonizing the death, burial, empty tomb, and resurrection appearance accounts regarding Jesus in recent decades was produced by British New Testament scholar and theologian John Wenham. Not going into the project with his head in the sand, so to speak, Wenham acknowledges from the outset that the five major and relevant New Testament authors present accounts that “differ from each other to an astonishing degree” and cites much scholarly testimony to that fact. Going beyond the call of duty, Wenham includes a few chapters of background information, followed by incorporating details regarding the crucifixion and the burial of Jesus, the women’s trips to the tomb, and each of the appearances. Wenham also designates some appendices that include more brief thoughts on harmonizing efforts as well as an attempt to work out details pertaining to “theories of relationship” in Jesus’s family as well as the identities of the “Marys” who are quite apparent throughout, such as in their heading to the empty tomb. In the process, Wenham claims that his own harmonized account could be construed differently and thus makes no claims to “any infallibility of detail” on his part.

True Contradictions and Easy Explanations

Here we will direct some comments to the more general philosophical issue of what constitutes a “contradiction” and then will make some suggestions regarding two of the most common and frequently raised Gospel questions of all, both having been listed above. Namely, what were the names and numbers of women who visited the empty tomb on the first Easter Sunday morning? Also, how many angels did the women encounter when they arrived at the tomb? As already mentioned, these two subjects are perhaps the most frequently raised inquiries in the most recent studies of these specifics.

In an article that received much acclaim, prominent philosopher Eleonore Stump questioned the methodology taken by well-known New Testament theologian Raymond Brown. Stump complained of methodologies where “any tension in a narra­tive will constitute an apparent inconsistency.” Her chief point was that scholars sometimes reveal their personal biases, interpretations, or other attitudes when scenarios that could be explained without much effort are simply passed off as problems, conflicts, discrepancies, or even contradictions when they are not necessarily anything of the sort. Stump thinks that these overly easy generalizations often reveal more of the author’s own attitude about the documents in question. Instead of an apparent solution being offered, which would not have been difficult in many circumstances, the real problem is thought by the exegete to be a lack of ancient historical acumen or even the writers’ fabrication of the stories in question or other issues. Stump comments, “I find this claim very difficult to believe.”

Stump objects throughout this essay to subjective judgments that are justified neither historically nor philosophically but are too commonly based on the exegete’s presuppositions and expectations. For instance, Stump chooses the examples of the differences in the Gospel accounts concerning the women coming to Jesus’s tomb on Sunday morning, noting Brown’s many areas where he thinks there are issues, no matter how small. Brown often attempts to account for these differences by suggesting various sources and editors of the material. The different issues are summarized in a chart.

Stump remarks that, for all the “good judgment” that Brown shows, his surmisals do not constitute historical demonstration—in fact, they are often quite subjective in nature: “It is important to see that Brown’s suppositions are not themselves demonstrated by historical evidence.” Rather, they “remain more a matter of speculative inference than of historical data.” In short, Brown’s approach is problematic because of tendencies such as too easily concluding that discrepancies are present, that editors freely invented new material, and that very little effort is made to ascertain how these accounts may actually be compatible when he needs instead to back up his suppositions with data and sound reasoning. Perhaps the implied weak areas could be propped up with relatively simple explanations. But as is, Brown is overly subjective without appropriate support for too many of his conclusions.

Another prominent philosopher, William Alston, likewise critiqued influential New Testament scholar Reginald Fuller along similar lines, though Alston makes many concessions to Fuller’s critical stance. Fuller accepts the actual though nonbodily resurrection appearances of the risen Jesus, and Alston concentrates on Fuller’s denial of bodily appearances. He announces that Fuller’s argument “is extremely weak” and, later, identifies it as “much too weak.” Alston is quite critical of New Testament scholars who too frequently champion the slogan “It is possible that it happened this way, therefore it did.” Or if something could have happened because the Gospel writers enjoyed telling stories, “then we will assume that they did.” If sayings of Jesus could have originated elsewhere, “then we will suppose that they did.”

Briefly, Alston’s chief complaints pertain to Fuller’s “extremely speculative suggestions that are allowed to play a major role in an argument.” Further, “recent Gospel critics seem driven to achieve definite results at any cost, despite the thinness of the data at their disposal.” The critics rely too much on the argument from silence, having “produced much chaff along with this wheat.” Is there a hidden agenda somewhere?

Often when scholars “cross lines” and critique researchers in other fields, they are criticized themselves. This may be the case with some of the items in these two examples here and the New Testament scholars could no doubt defend themselves at several critical junctures. But two comments can be made very briefly. First, the definition of a “contradiction” as well as the structure of argumentation are within the areas of logic and critical thinking. Second, it is not necessarily a matter of two different disciplines here. New Testament scholar John Wenham likewise critiqued the tendency of critical scholars who tend to overuse terms such as “discrepancy” and “contradiction” when these are not always present.

Again, to repeat, many other important issues like those raised in this chapter are also treated elsewhere throughout this study. For example, two such instances are the similarities between the exceptionally early pre-Pauline creedal list of resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians 15 and those appearance accounts narrated in the Gospels, and a comparison of Paul’s teaching concerning his own appearance of Jesus to the other appearances as to whether or not they were bodily in nature.

Evangelicals and Inerrantists in These Discussions

Evangelicals

Evangelical scholars should not shy away in the least from historical Jesus studies and conversations. For several reasons, they should be involved, participating in this research. Conservatives should be willing to acknowledge their presuppositions as well, but so should liberals and skeptics. This is an absolutely crucial issue because there is a need for everyone to acknowledge, initially, that all scholars have presuppositions. None are exempt here. Everyone views the world through their own variously colored glasses. Some of the lenses on these glasses are rose colored and others are opaque, but is one better than the other? Or does one guarantee truth while the other does not? No one owns the market on presuppositions.

Of course, there are large differences between liberals and conservatives. However, some disputes are between liberals and their fellow liberals, or between conservatives and their fellow conservatives. All of these can be equally as strident. So why are radical or liberal presuppositions often somehow viewed as seemingly privileged, more intelligent, or more scholarly? It could have much to do with liberals more frequently composing the leadership in the best universities, or the “left” often being thought of as the “freethinkers.” But is that a well-celebrated perception or the actual state of affairs in the world? Regardless, good arguments do not follow one group or another.

As asked earlier in this chapter, are conservatives too tied to their creeds, as liberals often assert, daring not to venture too far away from these standards for fear that they will be viewed as liberal or moving over to the opposition’s side? Is it not also the case that skeptics are perhaps just as unlikely to wish to appear narrow-minded by crossing into conservative territory and trying to avoid the raised eyebrows of their colleagues? Frankly, there are places where neither side can venture—the fear of movement is definitely not all on one side or the other. The retort may be that liberals are freer to roam. But again, is that simply the perception? It often seems that both sides are roughly as unlikely to cross over the invisible lines of separation. Conservatives, on the other hand, often claim that liberals prefer window dressing to strong arguments, whether or not the latter are popular.

However, whatever the angle taken, a more basic ground of measurement remains. While the arena of ideas is where these dialogues and discussions should be aired, heard, and decided, this ultimately concerns the discourse of ideas. More crucial than the issues of whether or where lines can or should be drawn and crossed is the subject of where the data lie. If there is truth to be gained and it may be ascertained, according to the canons of probability, how is it determined?

More specifically for our present purposes regarding the study of the historical Jesus or New Testament studies as a whole, there are many issues that conservatives discuss and ought to be interested in dialoguing through and prepared to exchange ideas or even change views. If this is not the case, as has already remarked more than once, why are the multiple-views volumes currently so popular? This seems to be a clear enough indication.

For examples, who wrote each of the four Gospels? What were their most likely dates of composition? Especially in the Epistles, what is the nature of the early creedal traditions, such as Rom 1:3–4; 10:9; 1 Cor 11:23–26; 15:3–7, or the sermon summaries in Acts? How early are such statements and confessions held by scholars of all persuasions to precede the writings of the canonical New Testament books? How accurate are these reports likely to be? How do we evaluate the uses of coauthors, amanuenses, or other writers in addition to the critically assigned authors of the epistles? Conservatives and liberals both, in fact, dialogue regularly through each of these subjects.

Further, what about questions concerning which both conservatives and liberals have frequently or even generally changed their minds, chiefly in the last few decades. These might include whether or not the Gospels fit most closely the genre of the Greco-Roman bios? Was Jesus a healer and an exorcist? What role might be played by writings that are sufficiently close to New Testament times to be helpful, but which are admittedly noncanonical? Is there a particular time of demarcation within which noncanonical writings may be most helpful?

There are also relevant philosophical and religious issues where all sides converse freely. These include questions concerning God’s existence, the problem of evil, the question of miracles, and the afterlife, among other topics. Occasionally, conservatives have engaged in debates or dialogues with other conservatives, moderates, and especially skeptics, either as live or written events. This has furthered the exchange of ideas on many of the important issues that have been raised in this study.

Inerrantists

Granted, when the subject of evangelicalism arises, a huge question concerns the subject of inerrancy. Yet, very few religious subjects today are more misunderstood by nonevangelicals and evangelicals alike. Probably the major, detailed statement pertaining to this movement, in a doctrinal sense, was from the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI), which produced “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.”

Each of the nineteen articles contains an affirmation and a denial. The latter statement for article 13 reads:

WE DENY that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.

For all of the “woodenness” with which the Chicago Statement is sometimes blamed, it would seem that the majority of biblical scholars would want to affirm that the actual phenomena of the New Testament writings may well contain “a lack of modern technical precision” as spelled out in each of the subject areas above, such as grammar; spelling; a lack of scientific descriptions of the world; topical arrangements of material rather than, say, a strict chronological or other means of citation; and the use of hyperbole, round numbers, and free citations in parallels or other formats.

Many scholars would no doubt appreciate even more details being spelled out here, but it would seem that there was widespread agreement on these particular matters across the conservative spectrum. After all, it cannot be denied that these phenomena exist in the biblical texts, so these elements were exempted from a definition of the inerrancy, reliability, or even a description of the text, since these traits were already simply part of the text that was the starting point of the study.

Further, in the “Exposition” section following shortly after article 13, these additional comments appear:

So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed: since, for instance, non-chronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers.

It should be acknowledged as well that words like “generalization and approximation” are presumably quite surprising to many who thought otherwise regarding a statement on the nature of inerrancy, especially when found in the most widely accepted document signed by nearly 300 conservative scholars.

The last portion of the “Exposition” paragraph, just cited, ends as follows:

When total precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.

The next paragraph spells out and repeats the items just mentioned in the earlier “denial” statement, but adding the comment, “The truthfulness of Scripture is not negated by . . . seeming discrepancies between one passage and another.” Further, Scripture is not “culture-bound” but “it is sometimes culturally conditioned.”

Of course these comments from the Chicago Statement are still considered too narrow for many scholars today. Others no doubt would like to work through it and hammer out some of the details expressed here in even more detail. But once again, what this text does state explicitly may surprise many readers, especially given that this is probably the most widely accepted statement of inerrancy among inerrantists.

A couple of observations might follow, even on statements of this nature, without much further explanation here. First, there is perhaps a surprising amount of potential room here, especially for not judging the biblical texts by standards that were foreign to them and beyond the aims, intentions, and purview of the writers. This may even be called the first rule of literary criticism—that authors are not to be judged for what was specifically excluded from the discussion. Especially for those who may have expected that there was no room for them in the “inerrancy inn”—or rather at the discussion table—this understanding may have come as a pleasant surprise. Even taken at its apparent face value, these words may surprise many. Second, these words may have a bearing on some or even many of the “contortions” within evangelicalism in recent years or even decades.

Of all the scholars who might weigh in on these issues, Jesus Seminar member Robert Price addressed the subject of the Chicago Statement a few years ago. Sporting provocative titles, as he is known to do, Bob included chapter titles such as “Prodigal Fundamentalists: The Neo-Evangelical Ferment,” “Inerrancy, Ltd.: The Inerrancy of (Some) Assertations,” and, “It Ain’t Necessarily So: Do Evangelicals Demythologize?” His Conclusion was titled: “Onward to Post-Evangelicalism”! Recommendations on the back of Price’s book were written by a variety of commentators (including the present writer). Another Jesus Seminar member, J. Ramsay Michaels, wrote provocatively, “To the many voices reminding us that ‘evangelicalism’ is a highly unstable coalition comes another, from outside the camp. The charm of Bob Price’s work is that everyone gets skewered for their inconsistencies and evasions, the non-inerrantists as much (or more) than the inerrantists. Price demonstrates convincingly that there is about as much diversity within so-called evangelicalism as within Christianity as a whole.”

Perhaps the hardest-hitting conclusion Price draws about the inerrantist Chicago Statement is his comment that article 13 “sounds remarkably like the non-inerrantist (or limited inerrantist) position it purports to challenge.” He then cites an essay by Clark Pinnock, asserting in Price’s words that “inerrantist polemicists often wind up condemning non-inerrantists who hold virtually their own position minus the slogan.” For Price, one anomaly of the document is that it could include Francis Schaeffer, who held strictly to the literal, nonallegorical existence of Adam and Eve, while allowing that J. I. Packer need not endorse Schaeffer’s position.

The upshot of Price’s comments here seems to be that article 13 of the Chicago Statement is fairly lenient and open to some important interpretation, enough so that it at least fails to separate strictly between inerrantists and noninerrantists who could potentially hold close but different views. Price illustrates this by the juxtaposed positions of Schaeffer and Packer. As such, Price apparently thinks that noninerrantist critics of the Chicago Statement could even conclude that the document contradicts itself. This last comment possibly means or implies that article 13 actually nullifies, or at the very least strains against, the remainder of the document.

Price then follows up these important and insightful comments by repeating the observations and fears of those inerrantists who pointed out that, without a rudder or other stopping point, there was very little to keep scholars or others from sliding further away toward higher critical approaches to Scripture. As Price noted, the “fundamentalists sought to push the Trojan horse back outside of the gates.”

Bob Price’s criticism here is certainly challenging. If he is correct, then article 13 of the “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” might be said to be quite open to questions such as how exactly could researchers know the “focused truth at which its authors aimed”? Stating that texts can be inerrant as long as they have “violated no expectations in those days, [then] we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers” could open the field to the genre of New Testament times. If the Gospels follow the genre of Greco-Roman bioi, then will inerrantists be open to the sorts of compositional devices employed by these classical authors, since they were fine in that genre but would not be favored today? This would be to allow methods such as transferral, displacement, conflation, compression, spotlighting, or even expanding and inventing details.

It would seem that if the Chicago Statement comments were taken in a straightforward manner, Price could be correct that it would sometimes be difficult to tell inerrantists from noninerrantists. One indication of this is precisely the case that Price raised—namely, how to determine and decide between the positions of Francis Schaeffer and J. I. Packer on the matter of Genesis and creation. After all, there is potentially a long range of views between a literal Adam and an allegorical one. Interactions such as these above have been defended or denied for years since the publication of this document.

Final Thoughts on Conservative Research and the Historical Jesus

At any rate, several lessons may hopefully be drawn from this overview regarding whether or not conservative scholars should be involved in the recent studies of the historical Jesus. In a chapter on potential discrepancies in the canonical Gospels following Jesus’s crucifixion, these are important overall considerations to be discussed. And all views are welcome to the ensuing discussions. A few last thoughts are worth noting.

First, it could easily be argued from more than one direction as to whether skeptics and liberals are better equipped than moderates and conservatives in their abilities to express their views on this subject more freely, fairly, and accurately. As pointed out, there are many factors to consider here. Undeniably, researchers on all sides think that their views are correct, while at the same time wearing glasses that are colored variously, and anyone could be guilty of prejudice, drawing faulty conclusions, and so on. Liberals and conservatives both can be just as likely to begin with preconceived ideas. Further, it is often the case that neither group wants to give in or concede to the opposite positions. Like political discussions, these exchanges can grow very heated. As an antidote here, all anyone can do is to investigate the data in the best way possible and decide where the strong and weak points are laid out in a case-by-case basis. Dialoguing through the issues step by step is the best way to proceed, preferably with both sides operating on friendly grounds.

Second, there are many relevant topics in the study of the historical Jesus that interest scholars from all sides of the aisle where the major options are not necessarily either liberal or conservative. One’s personal perspective may have a bearing on some of these discussions, but the outlooks do not seem to be quite as overbearing here. Questions regarding the Gospel genre provide some good examples. But pro and con angles potentially could be pursued with perhaps even significantly more freedom.

Third, while personal beliefs in the inerrancy of the New Testament might be relevant in some of these discussions, relevant questions concerning how these terms are being used could also be important. Robert Price has shown that it should not be taken for granted that everyone is clear on what is being discussed. There is plenty of room for dialogue, even between researchers who hold very similar theological positions. As Price’s examples indicate, it is not impossible that roles might even be reversed on occasion.

Fourth, it is often thought to be the case that conservatives are more likely inclined to prejudge the issues based on a prescribed regimen of beliefs, rules, or doctrinal statements. But it should also be recalled that the members of the Jesus Seminar began both of their major treatises by listing some three dozen parameters that circumscribe what should and should not be concluded concerning the historical Jesus, at least from their perspectives. Their color-coded rejection of at least 82 percent of all the so-called red-letter words of Jesus (depending on which colors are counted) lead to their comments like these, which are common: “Jesus was a social deviant”; he apparently did not perform any nature miracles; he did not as a rule “initiate dialogue or debate”; he rarely “speaks about himself in the first person”; he made “no claim” to being the Messiah; and of course he never uttered comments after the crucifixion simply because dead men neither rise nor talk.

These may be good examples of how skeptics can likewise enforce their agendas due to their own presuppositions, but from the “left” this time, perhaps rivaling the conservatives in that regard. Strangely enough, this last list of restrictions is located in volume 2 of the Jesus Seminar under the heading “Additional Tests for Historicity,” when they are actually nothing of the sort but rather serve as what might be called prejudicial guidelines—not unlike those of some conservatives, although emanating from opposite directions.

Add to these issues the charges from respected scholars like Eleonore Stump and William Alston that the critics themselves almost always impose other, highly subjective standards when there are contradictions in the Gospels. For example, why cannot two seemingly different things both be uttered during a normal conversation even in today’s world? Regarding the women who visited the empty tomb, why should phrases such as “plus others” not normally mean that additional women were also present besides the few whose names were specifically mentioned? Such simple, straightforward language seems quite difficult to twist and appears to solve a number of questions. This side of the agenda is rarely mentioned when skeptics address the problems introduced by conservatives.

A Last Crucial Issue: The Place of the Minimal Facts Argument

Throughout this present study we have favored an overall probable case for the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection that is based primarily on what has been termed the “minimal facts argument” for this event. Namely, this method is based on two features: most crucially by far, each individual historical fact employed in this process is itself established by a large number of other probable, well-evidenced historical facts, such that, as a result, the vast majority of critical scholars across the entire skeptical-to-conservative spectrum of theological views recognizes the historical status of these events. Few scholars would reject these events themselves.

Where does this approach fit here? Employing this argument at this juncture applies a final perspective to this charge of Gospel discrepancies, since the minimal facts argument builds on what we might call the lowest common denominator of the most basic historical facts. Obviously, none of these facts is thought by scholars to be contradictory. In other words, the case for Jesus’s death by crucifixion followed by his resurrection appearances can be established in probable terms on these foundational, hardly objectionable data alone. As such, if these individual puzzle pieces are true, established by secure research, then that is the case whatever else may be known. So even if the exact number or the specific names of the women who visited the empty tomb on the first Easter morning are not finally known, or even if the number of angels that were present remains a question, the tomb was empty. Or again, even if it is unknown as to whether Jesus appeared first in Galilee or Jerusalem, the point is that the best data confirm his death and subsequent appearances, so these events are all well established.

To view this matter from another angle, this chapter introduced Reginald Fuller’s comparison of the burial and empty tomb Gospel scenarios to a situation in a court of law, implying that the overall Gospel accounts would not fare well if they had been on trial. But the intriguing situation here was that even while Fuller wrote these words, he actually embraced both the empty tomb as well as Jesus’s appearances. How could this be the case? Fuller’s conclusion actually follows from an argument that is not all that far removed from the one used here. Rather than regarding the more objectionable details as being the more crucial facts, Fuller viewed the best-established data as the key to this discussion.

So it is in our present case as well. It is precisely these latter, more crucial data that serve as the ones that are capable by themselves of establishing the empty tomb and resurrection appearances. That is a normal move in historical research—to establish the more central foundation that is then capable of providing the needed answers for the most important research at hand. In other words, while there are situations where scholars think that only the best guess is available, the more vital, probable arguments can indeed be established in historical terms. This is the normal historical approach, since conflicts are noted by the majority of scholars. What follows from this, especially in terms of this chapter, is that nonessential issues do not stand in the way of viewing and verifying the essential, established ones.

Conclusion

It is fair to say that the majority of critical scholars across the theological schools of thought, all the way from atheists and skeptics to conservatives, think that various sorts and levels of problems, such as apparent discrepancies, clear discrepancies, or contradictions, are found within the Gospel texts. However, few of these scholars think that any of these issues annul the Gospel message any more than similar differences in the classical texts nullify the existence or exploits of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or other ancient heroes. As ancient historian Paul Meier attests, “The earliest sources telling of the great fire of Rome, for example, offer far more serious conflicts on who or what started the blaze and how far it spread, some claiming that the whole city was scorched while others insist that only three sectors were reduced to ash. Yet the fire itself is historical: it actually happened.”

Similarly, with historians and other scholars, our method must include weighing the strength of the most probable historical sources and facts available over against the likelihood that there are serious problems at hand, all the time searching for potential explanations. Then how do the troublesome questions along with the possible interpretations stack up against the most likely, favorable data? Which are the strongest overall conclusions? As Meier pointed out, historians can be unsure of a good many details, but still quite certain about the chief underlying event.

Again, Bart Ehrman lists some fifteen early, independent sources for the crucifixion of Jesus, all dating within the first 100 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, with at least four of these texts being found outside of the New Testament. Ehrman also argues that the Gospels as a whole are not very reliable texts. Yet he nonetheless recognizes that the sources for Jesus’s crucifixion are among the very strongest arguments for the historicity of Jesus, as are several other items in Jesus’s life. This is yet another angle from which to view the comments that have been made throughout this chapter. Textual problems in areas that do not seriously affect the central items under consideration do not annul the overall essential conclusions.

Notes

It is not so much that attempting to harmonize the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and appearance accounts in the Gospels is an unscholarly pursuit, or that it does not work, or that it has been disproven, or that it is just plain silly, or so on. Discussions surrounding a single case or a small number of incidents are more commonly addressed in the relevant literature than larger endeavors, where the overall goal seems to be to explain everything. Quite a surprising number of strong points have been made in the historical studies of the past, including even by liberal scholars themselves. A number of newer and more recent approaches have also indicated even ingenious paths to solving sometimes difficult scenarios. In the latter portion of this chapter, viable approaches in answering a few of these well-known cases will be attempted by way of example. But the chief reason for the hesitation on harmonizing is that when the minimal facts method is employed, seeming discrepancies are definitely secondary—not because they are unimportant or given up for lost causes, but because if the very center of the gospel message (at a minimum) of the deity, death, and resurrection appearances of Jesus obtains, the case itself is established. Thus, if additional time needs to be spent on the tough questions for any reason, so be it. But the straightforward point here is that this is not an absolute necessity. Virtually nothing turns on cases that are decided to the satisfaction of most. Having stated this, however, it is important to indicate that the Gospel texts can still be shown to be reliable, especially where they stand strongly in the face of strong accusations.

Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: Macmillan), 2. Then Fuller lists some of these inconsistencies (2–5, also 125), yet he calls them “minor” (5). James D. G. Dunn also makes the comparison between conflicts in testimony and court cases in The Evidence for Jesus (Louisville: Westminster, 1985), 64. Howard Clark Kee begins one of his volumes similarly, except that Kee employs the court case scenario very positively due to the fact that the Christian message would actually make the grade in the courtroom! This seems to be high praise, especially from a scholar who is listed as a member of the Jesus Seminar on the Westar Institute website as of July 23, 2018 (https://www.westarinstitute.org/membership/westar-fellows/­fellows-­directory/)! See Kee, What Can We Know about Jesus? Understanding Jesus Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. 1–2.

Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, this additional quotation is on 5, with a short list of those who stumbled over these problems on 5–6.

Fuller, 46–49, 180–83.

For English deism, note Thomas Woolston, A Sixth Discourse on the Miracles of our Saviour, In View of the Present Controversy between Infidels and Apostates (London: Printed by the Author, 1729), 5, 14, 16, 19, 27, 47; Benedict Spinoza, Theological–Political Treatise, ed. Jonathan Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), in his chapters that comment on prophecy (1–2) and Scripture (7–13) in particular. Note also Reimarus’s text as edited by Charles Voysey, Fragments from Reimarus (London: Williams & Norgate, 1879), chap. 5, sections 54–57.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Life of Jesus, ed. Jack C. Verheyden, trans. S. Maclean Gilmour (Mifflintown, PA: Sigler, 1997), 205–9, 476, and esp. the pages listed in note 10.

Ferdinand Christian Baur, Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works, His Epistles and Teachings; A Contribution to a Critical History of Primitive Christianity, trans. A. Menzies, 2 vols. (London: Williams & Norgate, 1873, 1875; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 1:5–8, 13, 34, 65, 112, 119–27, 255.

David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, ed. Peter C. Hodgson, trans. George Eliot (Mifflintown, PA: Sigler, 1972), 86–92, 441, 461–62, 495, 518, 534.

Ernest Renan, Vie de Jésus (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1864), particularly chap. 15, “Commence­ment de la légende de Jésus. Idée qu’il a lui-même de son rôle surnaturel” (esp. 235–40) and chap. 16, “Miracles,” plus esp. 243–48, 251.

Schleiermacher, Life of Jesus, 415–17, 428–36, 440–44, 455–58, 463–65; Baur, Paul, 1:63–81, 109–11, 264; 2:251–53; Strauss, Life of Jesus, 563–74, 702–23, 741–44, 753, 755; Renan, Vie de Jésus, 310, 418–22.

Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, trans. and ed. Richard Hyde Hiers and David Larrimore Holland (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971; repr., Mifflintown, PA: Sigler, 1999), 65–66, 73–74, 129–30. The original edition of the German of this work was published in 1892.

Otto Pfleiderer, The Early Christian Conception of Christ: Its Significance and Value in the History of Religion (London: Williams & Norgate, 1905), 7–9, 14. This entire volume consists of a comparison between Christianity and many claimed parallel beliefs in ancient religious views on the subjects of “Christ as the Son of God” (chapter 1), “Christ as Conqueror of Satan” (chapter 2), “Christ as a Wonder-Worker” (chapter 3), “Christ as the Conqueror of Death and the Life-Giver” (chapter 4), and ”Christ as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (chapter 5).

Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970), 47–48, 188–94. The original German edition was first published in 1913.

Ernst Troeltsch, Writings on Theology and Religion, ed. and trans. Robert Morgan and Michael Pye (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990), 189, 192; Troeltsch, The Christian Faith, ed. Gertrud von le Fort, trans. Garrett E. Paul (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 88.

Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation, 83–84, cf. 130; Pfleiderer, Early Christian Conception of Christ, chapter 4; Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 57–59, 191–94, though positive notes on the resurrection are also present (58, 120); Troeltsch, Christian Faith, 88–89, 96.

Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: Macmillan, 1968).

Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, includes brief comparisons to Buddha (291), Jesus being mistaken about the time of his return (353, 358–60), and many naturalistic resurrection hypotheses, a few of which include the fictional swoon theories of Karl Friedrich Bahrdt (42–43) and Karl Heinrich Venturini (44–47), and Heinrich Paulus’s more serious swoon theory (53–54), all from 1782 to 1828; the emphasis on myths and subjective visions by Strauss, Renan, and some of the attendant problems as well (83–84, 187).

But see Albert Schweitzer’s provocative though unexplained comments in his volume, Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography, trans. C. T. Campion (New York: Holt, 1949), 40–41.

Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, 398.

Schweitzer, 398–400.

Schweitzer, 353, 358–60, with the words quoted above from 360.

These citations are from Schweitzer’s forceful close to this study on 399 and 401.

Schweitzer, 402–3. Many years later in his autobiography, still repeating that Jesus’s future expectations were incorrect (Out of My Life, 39, 57), Schweitzer still issued these same words with which he ended his Quest volume many years earlier: “Follow thou Me!” (56, similarly, 54).

Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, vol. 4.1 of Church Dogmatics, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 334–37, 340, with the quoted phrases on 335 and 336. Barth’s repeated opposition to “proof” is found especially on 335–36, 341, though Barth gives his unquestioned support for the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection and appearances (esp. 351–53). More opposition to this notion of proof without sacrificing the truth of the resurrection is found especially in Barth’s earlier works, such as The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns, 6th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), 30, 195, 203–5, 381–82; Barth, “Biblical Questions, Insights, and Vistas,” in The Word of God and the Word of Man, trans. Douglas Horton (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), 89–92; and perhaps most of all, Barth, The Resurrection of the Dead, trans. H. J. Stenning (New York: Revell, 1933), 130–43. Locating some of these ideas in Barth, though, can be very difficult, as these ideas are often not well stated and changed somewhat over the years. Even seasoned commentators often differ in discussions of Barth’s ideas here.

Karl Barth, The Faith of the Church: A Commentary on the Apostle’s Creed according to Calvin’s Catechism, ed. Jean-Louis Leuba, trans, by Gabriel Vahanian (London: Collins, 1960), particularly 92.

It is difficult to read this distinction and not think of John Dominic Crossan’s catchy notion of “History Remembered and Prophecy Historicized” as stated in the first chapter (and elsewhere) of his volume Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 1–4.

Rudolf Bultmann, “The Study of the Synoptic Gospels,” in Form Criticism: Two Essays on New Testament Research, trans. Frederick C. Grant (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), 57–61.

Rudolf Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” in Bultmann et al., Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch, trans. Reginald H. Fuller (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 38. Other relevant texts include 4–5, 10–11, 34–44 (including here and elsewhere the constant theme that we viewed in Barth regarding there being no historical proof for revelatory truths).

Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel, 2 vols. (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1951, 1958), 1:22, 92–93; Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 12–13.

Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, 61–62, 71–72, 80, 84.

Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 1:29, 83.

Rudolf Bultmann, History and Eschatology: The Presence of Eternity (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), 118–22.

Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” 39; Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 1:295.

Such as Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” 34–43; Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 2:250–51; Bultmann, History and Eschatology, 70, and chap. 8, esp. 115–22. Barth likewise disagreed on this matter when, late in his life, he also noticed this trend back toward history. See Barth, How I Changed My Mind, trans. John D. Godsey (Richmond, VA: Knox, 1966), 68–69.

James M. Robinson, A New Quest of the Historical Jesus (London: SCM, 1959). Stephen Neill and N. T. Wright make a comment that may be summarized in terms of this movement not drifting overly far from Bultmann; see their volume, Stephen Neill and Tom Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1986, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 288n1. This interlude in historical Jesus studies is now more commonly referred to as the Second Quest for the historical Jesus. For example, see Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995), 11–12. Witherington notes that the movement was “dead in the water by the early 1970s” (11) but some of the ideas also morphed into the period that is usually termed the Third Quest for the historical Jesus.

Ernst Käsemann, “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,” in Essays on New Testament Themes (London: SCM, 1962), also included in the anthology by Gregory W. Dawes, ed., The Historical Jesus Quest: Landmarks in the Search for the Jesus of History, rev. ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 281–84, 288–89, 299; Günther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, trans. Irene and Fraser McLuskey with James M. Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 131–32, 180, 184; Robinson, New Quest, 90–92.

Käsemann, “Problem of the Historical Jesus,” 297, 300, 304; Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, 66–67, 131, 175–78, 182–83. Though decades removed from this time, Robinson’s later work on the mostly gnostic works from the Nag Hammadi find seemed to open up areas that may be thought to revert back to some of Bultmann’s religionsgeschichtliche roots of alternate, even rival, movements to Christianity. See James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).

This takes us beyond the focus here. But some examples are not difficult to locate, such as critical assessments and even critiques of these scholars’ German liberal and Bultmannian forerunners, being more open to research options such as the value of the Gospels, sources for Jesus’s existence, the new emphasis on historical aspects in Jesus’s life including Jesus’s healings and exorcisms, the centrality of the kingdom of God, the importance of personal decision-making and ethical actions, total commitment to Jesus, and last but most importantly in terms of this study, more positive evaluations of the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus. Details are found in Käsemann, “Problem of the Historical Jesus,” 284, 288–89, 299–303, 306–7, 312; Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, 27–29, 54–63, 67–69, 96–108, 130–31, 169–75, 180–86; Robinson, New Quest, 37, 64, 111–12, 121–22.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Die Auferstehung Jesu—Historie und Theologie,” in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 91 (1994): 318–28; Pannenberg, Die Auferstehung Jesu und die Zukunft des Menschen (Munich: Minerva, 1978), 12–18; Pannenberg “Response to the Debate,” in Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?, ed. Terry Miethe (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 125–35, esp. 132. Of course, one of Pannenberg’s original efforts was his monumental break from Barthian and Bultmannian christological trends in his volume Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 53–106, esp. 65–73, 89–106; Pannenberg, Rolf Rendtorff, Trutz Rendtorff, and Ulrich Wilckens, Revelation as History, ed. Wolfhart Pannenberg, trans. David Granskou (New York: Macmillan, 1969), see Pannenberg’s introduction plus chap. 4, particularly 11–12, 125, 130, 140, 143; cf. G. E. Michalson Jr., “Pannenberg on the Resurrection and Historical Method,” Scottish Journal of Theology 33 (1980): 345–59.

It is worth being reminded again of the periodic discussions that emerged as to whether the scholars of the “New” or “Second Quest for the historical Jesus” were early forerunners of the “Third Quest for the historical Jesus” at all, or more accurately belonged either to the previous Bultmannian camp or even to Schleiermacher’s German liberal movement before that. The views seem to favor the latter Bultmannian view. Again, see Neill and Wright, Interpretation of the New Testament, 288n1, cf. also 379, 397–99.

When Bart D. Ehrman discusses examples of the relevant subjects that are pertinent as a background for studying the historical Jesus, he includes those trained in New Testament or early Christian studies (2), classics (19, 167), and ancient history and theology (20), though he also cites relevant contributions from other scholars as well. Other areas might include archaeology, Jewish studies, church history, religion, or philosophy (especially religious philosophy or philosophy of religion). The page numbers above are from Ehrman’s text, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperCollins, 2012).

Other lists by scholars may be reminiscent here in one way or another. For example, John A. T. Robinson noted four categories of researchers in his book Can We Trust the New Testament? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977). He included one radical view each on the far left and on the far right, which he termed “The Cynicism of the Foolish” and “The Fundamentalism of the Fearful.” In between were two, more moderate positions: “The Skepticism of the Wise” and “The Conservatism of the Committed” (13–29). Robinson thinks that the last group of conservative scholars is quite well entrenched, and he even seems to identify it most with his own position (28–29). These are interesting comments, since Robinson had often been categorized with the radicals, as in his revolutionary text, Honest to God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963). Another study of this general sort was that by New Testament scholar Raymond E. Brown. Surveying four views as well, the radical views on the right and the left were, respectively, “Nonscholarly Conservatism” and “Nonscholarly Liberalism.” The two more respected positions in between were “Scholarly Liberalism” and “Scholarly (Moderate) Conservatism” (4–15). Like Robinson, Brown concludes that “moderate conservatism” was “perhaps the most agreed upon scholarly approach to christology” (102), the topic of his volume. Brown’s own conclusions seem to be firmly in this moderate conservative camp as well (85–89, 92–102, 112–15, 189–92, 203n304). See Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1994).

It may be objected that conservatives frequently sign doctrinal statements that identify them as holding certain specific theological positions to which they are bound. While that is often the case, increasing numbers of conservatives either teach in secular institutions or denominational schools where these positions are not spelled out. Further, many professors who sign these statements do so after nuancing their own views and making those known, since there is a range of possible clarifications, as noted in the sources below. Last, it is strange to overlook liberal expectations and commitments to their own schools and especially to their own colleagues who may well be quite bothered if they disagreed with the guild. Each side has its own enforcement measures, and the liberals’ unspoken rules may possibly be even more stringent, as often manifested and observed in present political and social conversations. On several of these nuanced options, see especially R. Albert Mohler Jr., Peter Enns, Michael F. Bird, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and John R. Franke, Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, ed. J. Merrick, Stephen M. Garrett, and Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013); Benjamin C. F. Shaw, “What’s Good for the Goose Is Good for the Gander: Historiography and the Historical Jesus,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 15 (2017): 291–309.

The scholars listed in all three areas in this chapter are not listed in any particular order. Nor was any attempt made to be anywhere near exhaustive or to purposely exempt anyone. These lists are hopefully to present some of the representative examples of these many researchers.

The group has grown considerably over the years. The roster published in their second group volume in 1998 listed over seventy-five fellows. See Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), with the roster being found on 537–42. Later, the website of the Westar Institute, “the home of the Jesus Seminar,” listed more than 200 scholars, including charter and deceased members (https://www.westarinstitute.org/membership/westar-fellows/­fellows-directory/). Without attempting to identify several members in particular, some of the Jesus Seminar fellows appear from their own publications to hold more conservative views than the group as a whole. The Acts of Jesus also addresses this question in a few places (1, 37–38, 549).

Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels, The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 5; Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Acts of Jesus, 1.

Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Acts of Jesus, 1.

The comment above that the Jesus Seminar may be representative of skeptical scholars refers to their numbers and the fact that several members have been well published rather than their speaking on behalf of other skeptics. But this is not to say that they are overly respected as a group even by their fellow critical scholars. In fact, the sorts of criticisms that have sometimes been aimed at them are often harsh enough to be surprising—not at all the kinds of comments that are often heard by one scholar toward another. For example, in a no-holds-barred critique, Luke Timothy Johnson aimed numerous harsh volleys their way. Johnson referred to the Seminar as “a ten-year exercise in academic self-promotion . . . a far better example of media manipulation than of serious scholarship.” See Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 1. Of the Seminar’s scholarship expressed in their first volume, The Five Gospels, Johnson added, “It is not of an impressive quality. The most notable lack in the publication is any discernible demonstration or even argument. Much is asserted here without either evidence or even substantial logic” (25). Elsewhere, in a written dialogue, Johnson remarks concerning John Dominic Crossan, the Seminar’s best-known scholar: “What is perhaps most disappointing . . . is the way [Crossan’s] essay plays fast and loose with the sources, with logic,” which Johnson considered to be “a product of Crossan’s imagination.” See Johnson, “Response to John Dominic Crossan,” in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, ed. James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 2009), 140–41. In the same work, James D. G. Dunn asserted, “I have no doubt that Birger Gerhardsson and David Aune are better guides on these features than the most prominent members of the Jesus Seminar” (221). Dunn also referred to Crossan’s work: “The selective acceptance of one sequence of texts, and effective dismissal or denigration of others . . . is poor scholarship” (145). Dunn’s first statement is located in his chapter, “Remembering Jesus: How the Quest for the Historical Jesus Lost Its Way,” and Dunn’s second comment comes from his essay, “Response to John Dominic Crossan” in Historical Jesus: Five Views.

John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately after the Execution of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 558, 561–62; John Dominic Crossan and William Lane Craig, “Dialogue,” in Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan, ed. Paul Copen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 53, 55.

Marcus J. Borg, “Thinking about Easter,” Bible Review 10 (1994): 15; Borg, “The Truth of Easter,” in Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 132–33.

Robert W. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 267.

Gerd Lüdemann, “Opening Statement,” 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), 43, and “Closing Response,” 154–56.

James M. Robinson’s earlier-mentioned works above include his New Quest of the Historical Jesus and his influential Nag Hammadi Library in English.

Especially relevant for this present study is John Kloppenborg’s important essay “An Analysis of the Pre-Pauline Formula 1 Cor 15:3b–5 in Light of Some Recent Literature,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 351–67.

Howard Clark Kee, Medicine, Miracle and Magic in New Testament Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Kee, Miracle in the Early Christian World: A Study in Sociohistoric Method (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); Kee, What Can We Know, 1–2, 86, 111–13.

Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014). On the burial of Jesus and afterward, see Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb,” 105–231; Carrier, “The Plausibility of Theft,” 349–68; and Carrier, “The Burial of Jesus in Light of Jewish Law,” 369–92; all three essays being found in The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005).

Robert M. Price, “Is There a Place for Historical Criticism?,” Religious Studies 27 (1991): 380–81; Price, Deconstructing Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2000), chaps. 1 and 7; Price, “Apocryphal Apparitions: 1 Corinthians 15:3–11,” 69–104; and Price, “By This Time He Stinketh: The Attempts of William Lane Craig to Exhume Jesus,” 411–31, in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb.

Burton L. Mack, The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 5–11, 245–61.

Barbara Thiering, Jesus the Man: Decoding the Real Story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene (New York: Atria, 2006), esp. chaps. 24–27.

John Shelby Spong, The Easter Moment (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), chaps. 15, 17–18; Spong, Resurrection, Myth or Reality? A Bishop’s Search for the Origins of Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), chapters 15, 19–20.

Robert J. Miller, “What Do Stories about Resurrection(s) Prove?,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 82–85.

Roy W. Hoover, “A Contest between Orthodoxy and Veracity,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 131–36.

Thomas Sheehan, The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (New York: Random, 1986); Sheehan, “Two Easter Legends,” Philosophy and Theology 1 (1989): 36–47.

Willi Marxsen, The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, trans. Margaret Kohl (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 27, 55, 68, 75–76, 146–48; Marxsen, Jesus and Easter: Did God Raise the Historical Jesus from the Dead?, trans. Victor Paul Furnish (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 42, 91.

Such as Maurice Casey’s text Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 4–8, 134, 207, 243, 245.

Ingo Broer, “‘Seid stets bereit, jedem Rede und Antwort zu stehen, der nach der Hoffnung fragt, die euch erfüllt’ (1 Peter 3,15): Das leere Grab und die Erscheinungen Jesu im Lichte der historischen Kritik,” 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), 60–61.

Raymond Brown treats Norman Perrin as within the critically conservative fold in Introduction to New Testament Christology, 15, and in some respects that may be deserved. Perrin also followed Bultmann in other aspects as well, such as his comments on 38, 58, 77 in Perrin, The Resurrection according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), esp. 78–84; Perrin, Rediscovering the Teachings of Jesus (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), with more thoughts at least somewhat reminiscent of Bultmann particularly on 11–12, 37–47.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, chaps. 2–5; Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), chaps. 4–5.

Michael Martin, The Case against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 83–84, 89–90; Martin, “Reply to Davis,” in Philo 2 (1999): 62–76, esp. 71–73.

Michael Goulder, “The Empty Tomb,” Theology 79 (1976): 206–14, particularly 210.

Evan Fales, “Taming the Tehom: The Sign of Jonah in Matthew,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 307–48.

Larry Shapiro, The Miracle Myth: Why Belief in the Resurrection and the Supernatural Is Unjustified (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), xiv–xv, 57, 77, 93–95.

A. J. M. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 8, 24–37, 124.

Gregory J. Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 65, 90, 155.

J. K. Elliott, “The First Easter,” History Today 29 (1979): 211–18.

Schubert M. Ogden, Christ without Myth: A Study Based on the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 177–81.

G. A. Wells, A Resurrection Debate (London: Rationalist, 1988), 24–27.

Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: A Renowned Historian Reveals How Jesus Was Viewed by People of His Time (New York: Harper & Row, 1978; repr., Newburyport, MA: Hampton Roads, 2014), 48.

Jack A. Kent, The Psychological Origins of the Resurrection Myth (London: Open Gate, 1999), 17, 20, 67, 86–87.

Geza Vermes, The Resurrection (London: Penguin, 2008), 86, 109–11; Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 23–24.

Daniel Cohn-Sherbok, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish View,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 197, 199.

Hans Küng, On Being a Christian (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 346–48; Küng, Eternal Life? Life after Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and Theological Problem, trans. Edward Quinn (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 100–103, 107.

Duncan M. Derrett, The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as an Historical Event (Shipston-on-Stour: Drinkwater, 1982), 59; Derrett, “Financial Aspects of the Resurrection,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 393–409.

John E. Alsup, The Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories of the Gospel Tradition: A History-of-Tradition Analysis with Text-Synopsis (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1975), 117.

Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Empty Tomb and Resurrection according to Mark,” in The Beginning of Gospels: Problems of Mark in Context, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 119–48, esp. 133.

James Keller, “Contemporary Christian Doubts about the Resurrection,” Faith and Philosophy 5 (1988): 113–14; Keller, “Response to Davis,” Faith and Philosophy 7 (1990): 112–16.

Robert Greg Cavin, “Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence to Establish the Resurrection of Jesus?,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 19–41; Robert Greg Cavin and Carlos A. Colombetti, “Swinburne on the Resurrection: Negative versus Christian Ramified Natural Theology,” Philosophia Christi 15 (2013): 253–63.

John A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 125–26.

Keith Parsons, “Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli on the Hallucination Theory,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 433–51.

This especially applies to the writings of the early Rudolf Pesch: “Zur Entstehung des Glaubens an die Auferstehung Jesu,” Theologische Quartalschrift 153 (1973): 201–28, esp. 212–18; Pesch, “Materialien und Bemerkungen zu Entstehung und Sinn des Osterglaubens,” in Anton Vogtle and Rudolf Pesch, Wie kam es zum Osterglauben? (Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1975).

Hansjürgen Verweyen, “Die Sache mit den Ostererscheinungen,” in Broer and Werbick, Der Herr ist wahrhaft auferstanden, 77–78; cf. John P. Galvin, “The Origin of Faith in the Resurrection of Jesus: Two Recent Perspectives,” Theological Studies 49 (1988): 35–40, 43–44, particularly 36.

Frank T. Miosi, “The Resurrection Debate.” Free Inquiry 8, no. 2 (1988): 55–57.

Theodore M. Drange, “Why Resurrect Jesus?,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 55–67.

Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1988), 121, 130–32.

Not all of the sources here are opposed to the resurrection per se, nor are these authors always skeptical of this event. Not all fit our stricter mold of critical scholars who specialize in relevant areas. Such a list might include Peter F. Carnley, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 64, 69–72, 79, 82, 244–45; Carnley, “Response,” in Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 35–40;C. F. Evans, Resurrection and the New Testament (London: SCM, 1970), esp. 130–31; Brooke Hopkins, “Jesus and Object-Use: A Winnicottian Account of the Resurrection Myth,” The International Review of Psychoanalysis 16 (1989): 93–100, 93 in particular; Kenneth Grayston, “The Empty Tomb,” Expository Times 9 (1981): 263–67; Charles W. Hedrick, “Paul’s Conversion/Call: A Comparative Analysis of the Three Reports in Acts,” Journal of Biblical Literature 100 (1981): 415–32, esp. 422, 427, 428, 432; Rolland E. Wolfe, How the Easter Story Grew from Gospel to Gospel (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1989), 91, 101, 124, 128; B. C. Johnson, The Atheist Debater’s Handbook (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1983), 119–22; Lloyd M. Graham, Deceptions and Myths in the Bible (New York: Bell, 1975), 356–62. Frank J. Tipler initially rejected the resurrection before changing his position and embracing this event; see Tipler, The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 308–9. Dale Allison is a special case here. This influential New Testament scholar and friend is often thought of as a skeptic, though he denies it in his recent volume, Dale C. Allison Jr., The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 338, but then cf. 4. See also Allison, The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), chaps. 11–12, and excursus; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (London: T&T Clark, 2005), particularly 199–219, 228–69, 299–337, 340, 346–50.

Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. James W. Leitch (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 165–66, 172, 197–202; Moltmann, “The Resurrection of Christ: Hope for the World,” in D’Costa, Resur­rection Reconsidered, 76.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Die Auferstehung Jesu,” 318–28; Pannenberg, Die Auferstehung Jesu, 12–18; Pannenberg Jesus: God and Man, 53–106.

Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. William V. Dych (New York: Seabury, 1978), 276.

E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 276–77, 279; Sanders, “But Did It Happen?,” The Spectator 276 (1996): 12–13, incl. the three accounts of Paul’s conversion according to Acts. Intriguingly, Sanders identifies himself as a liberal in his book Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 334.

Raymond E. Brown, Virginal Conception, 116–19nn197 and 198, incl. the chart on 118; Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 166–70 (incl. a detailed list of issues); Brown, A Risen Christ in Eastertime: Essays on the Gospel Narratives of the Resurrection (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991), 25–28; Brown, “The Resurrection of Jesus,” in Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 1373–77, esp. 1375 incl. a detailed chart on 1376; Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1994).

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the New Testament,” The Month 20 (1987): 402–10, 409 in particular, 418–20; Fitzmyer, “The Ascension of Christ and Pentecost,” Theological Studies 45 (1984): 409–40.

James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 329, 335, 490, 670, 836, 864, 879; Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 105–8, 333, 348–50, 368–69; Dunn, Evidence for Jesus, 74–76.

John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 3, Companions and Competitors (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 9–12, 251–52, 433–44, 625, 641–42, 646.

Gerald O’Collins, The Easter Jesus, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1980), 18–19; O’Collins, What Are They Saying about the Resurrection? (New York: Paulist, 1978), 51, 55, 61, 78; O’Collins, Interpreting the Resurrection: Examining the Major Problems in the Stories of Jesus’ Resurrection (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1988), 11, 20–21; O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, Introducing Catholic Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1983), 125; Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collins, “The Uniqueness of the Easter Appearances,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 54 (1992): esp. 306–7.

Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 2–6, 46, 130, 136; also Reginald H. Fuller, Eugene LaVerdiere, John C. Lodge, and Donald Senior, The Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord: A Commentary on the Four Gospels (Mundelein, IL: Chicago Studies, 1985), 54.

Luke Timothy Johnson, “Luke 24:1–11: The Not-So-Empty-Tomb,” Interpretation 46 (1992): 57–61, esp. 59–60; Johnson, Real Jesus, 24–25, 119–26, 151–52, 172, 175–77; Johnson, Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 10, 130–32.

Walter Künneth, Theologie der Auferstehung (Munich: Claudius, 1951), 82–99.

Jacob Kremer, Die Osterevangelien: Geschichten um Geschichte, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), concerned with the appearance accounts in all four Gospels (30–229) and the conclusions that can be drawn regarding the “Stories about History” (the subtitle; see 231).

Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM, 1979), chap. 4 on “Jesus and Critical History,” including the known data, the nature of history, and verification (81–92); Meyer, Critical Realism and the New Testament (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1989).

Ulrich Wilckens, Resurrection: Biblical Testimony to the Resurrection. An Historical Examination and Explanation, trans. A. M. Stewart (Atlanta: Knox, 1978), 1, 83–88, 112, 117, 119, 121, 124–25, 132.

Especially Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Tradition and Redaction in 1 Cor 15:3–7,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 (1981): 582–89, with his summary on the last page.

Pheme Perkins, Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 91, 198; Perkins, “Reconciling the Resurrection: The Central Act of the Christian Faith,” Commonweal 112 (1985): 202–5.

Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ, trans. V. Green, rev. ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1977), 125, 127–29.

Xavier Léon-Dufour, Résurrection de Jésus et message pascal (Paris: Seuil, 1971).

Brian Hebblethwaite, “The Resurrection and the Incarnation,” in The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, ed. Paul Avis (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1993), 158.

Barnabas Lindars “The Resurrection and the Empty Tomb,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 32; Lindars, “Jesus Risen: Bodily Resurrection but No Empty Tomb,” Theology 59 (1986): 90–96.

Jean-Marie Guillaume, Luc interprète des anciennes traditions sur la résurrection de Jésus (Paris: Gabalda et Cie, 1979), particularly 50–52, 65, 201, 265–74.

Frans Neirynck, “John and the Synoptics: The Empty Tomb Stories,” New Testament Studies 30 (1984): 161–87, esp. 172–75, 179.

Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983), 34–35, 112–15.

A few scholars who may fit here uneasily according to the assessment of some, for whatever reasons, might include Richard R. Niebuhr, Resurrection and Historical Reason: A Study in Theological Method (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1957); Joseph Doré, “Croire en la résurrection de Jésus-Christ,” Études 356 (1982): 525–42, particularly 531–32, 537–38, 541–42; A. M. Ramsey, The Resurrection of Christ: A Study of the Event and Its Meaning for the Christian Faith, rev. ed. (London: Fontana, 1961); the spiritualist interpreter Michael C. Perry, The Easter Enigma: As Essay on the Resurrection with Special Reference to the Data of Psychical Research (London: Faber & Faber, 1959), chaps. 13 and 17. Others include Thorwald Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995), 169, 183; Carolyn Osiek, “The Women at the Tomb: What Are They Doing There?,” Ex Auditu 9 (1993): 97–107; John Frederick Jansen, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ in New Testament Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980); Neville Clark, Interpreting the Resurrection (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967); Hugo Staudinger, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ as Saving Event and as ‘Object’ of Historical Research,” Scottish Journal of Theology 36 (1983): 309–26, particularly 318, 320, 324; Donald Viney, “Grave Doubts about the Resurrection,” Encounter 50 (1989): 132; Charles Austin Perry, An Interpretation of the Easter Narratives (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986); Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 35–36, 57–58, 70–74; Violaine Monsarrat, “Le récit de la passion: Un enseignement pour le disciple fidèle,” in Foi et Vie 81 (1982): 40–47, esp. 44, 46–47.

As Ted Peters explains in his introduction, the description just given is drawn chiefly from the well-known physicist John Polkinghorne, whose essay “Eschatological Credibility: Emergent and Teleological Processes,” 43–55, is included in this volume. The volume is entitled Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, ed. Ted Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).

Besides Polkinghorne’s and Peters’s later essay “Resurrection: The Conceptual Challenge,” 297–321, examples of other moderate essays would probably include at least those by Michael Welker, “Theological Realism and Eschatological Symbol Systems,” 31–42, and Nancey Murphy, “The Resurrection Body and Personal Identity: Possibilities and Limits of Eschatological Knowledge,” 202–18.

In the sources beginning in the next note and listed further below, the page numbers reference the divergences just noted as related further to the overall topics of these volumes, namely regarding the scholar’s stance on whether or not miraculous events have occurred, whether they can potentially be verified in whole or in part, specifics on the resurrection appearances of Jesus, as well as regarding the issue of discrepancies in the New Testament.

Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:334–53.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center, trans. John Bowden (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), see the discussion on 63–66, and especially 71–77.

On the topics that we have been discussing, C. S. Lewis’s most influential book has easily been Miracles: A Preliminary Study, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1960), chaps. 3, 8, 13.

Plantinga’s influence with regard to our discussions here is not directly on the subjects of the death and resurrection of Jesus so much as his groundbreaking theorizing on topics such as belief in God apart from evidence and his notion of proper warrant for religious belief. Even on the latter topic, where he has been critical of historical arguments from the past, his further clarifications still have been very helpful. On believing in God without evidence, see Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 16–93. (Incidentally, this volume does contain an essay on Jesus’s resurrection by D. Holwerda, “Faith, Reason, and the Resurrection,” 265–316.) On the issue of warrant specifically with reference to historical arguments of the past, a rigorous, enlightening dialogue ensued between Plantinga and Timothy McGrew: see Timothy McGrew, “Has Plantinga Refuted the Historical Argument?,” Philosophia Christi 6 (2004): 7–26; and Alvin Plantinga, “Historical Arguments and Dwindling Probabilities: A Response to Timothy McGrew,” Philosophia Christi 8 (2006): 7–22. Crucially, Plantinga clarified that his volume Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) was not primarily attempting to disallow historical arguments per se as much as to postulate that they were not strictly necessary moves for a religious argument to succeed. Plantinga concluded that if there were also strong historical arguments, then he was “delighted to discover that” and “I admire his [i.e., McGrew’s] way of making the point” (20–21). Plantinga ended his essay by noting that this dialogue had been “a real step forward and contributes substantially to our understanding of historical arguments” (22).

Martin Hengel, “Ist der Osterglaube noch zu retten?,” Theologische Quartalschrift 153 (1973): 252–69; Hengel, “Das Begrabnis Jesu bei Paulus und die leibliche Auferstehung aus dem Grabe,” in Auferstehung-Resurrection, ed. Friedrich Avemarie and Hermann Lichtenberger (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001); Hengel, “Maria und die Frauen als Zeugen,” in Abraham unser Vater: Juden und Christian im Gespräch über die Bibel. Festschrift für Otto Michel zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Otto Betz, Martin Hengel, and Peter Schmidt (Leiden: Brill, 1963), 243–56; Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), esp. 25, 28, 31–32, 83, 87, cf. 73; on the theological ramifications of Jesus’s death, see Hengel, The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 31–39, 57–60, 65–75; Hengel, The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 89–93.

Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 3–4, for the recognition of “difficulties and contradictions” in the resurrection accounts.

Such as N. T. Wright’s four-volume magnum opus, Christian Origins and the Question of God, including (especially for our purposes) vol. 3, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003).

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), esp. 25, 264–287, 304–8. See also the update on the earliest resurrection data in the second edition of this work (8); Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), ix–xii, 182–232.

Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 11–26; Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 68, 94, 116–19, 124.

Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003), esp. chaps. 9–13; Swinburne, The Concept of Miracles (London: Macmillan, 1970); Swinburne, ed., Miracles (New York: Macmillan, 1989).

C. F. D. Moule, The Origin of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), chaps. 1, 4.

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 2nd ed., 6 vols. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1999).

William Lane Craig, “On Doubts about the Resurrection,” Modern Theology 6 (1989): 53–75. Craig comments, “Discrepancies in secondary details could exist” (62); also, Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1989), particularly chaps. 9–10.

John Warwick Montgomery, Where Is History Going? Essays in Support of the Historical Truth of the Christian Revelation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969), chaps. 1–3; Montgomery, The Shape of the Past: A Christian Response to Secular Philosophies of History (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975), 138–45, 288–93, 296–98; Montgomery, History and Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1971); Montgomery, Faith Founded on Fact: Essays in Evidential Apologetics (Nashville: Nelson, 1978), chaps. 2–3; Montgomery, Tractatus Logico-Theologicus, 5th ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013).

Ben Witherington III, The Christology of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 22–31 on the critical textual criteria, also 157–60, 164–67; for a more popular presentation and critique of critical claims, see Witherington, The Gospel Code: Novel Claims about Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Da Vinci (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 36–37, 80–109 on Gnosticism.

A serious volume that still exposes popular renditions of Jesus is Craig A. Evans’s Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), esp. chaps. 3–5 on the gnostic and other newer approaches to Jesus.

Peter Stuhlmacher, Was geschah auf Golgatha? Zur Heilsbedeutung von Kreuz, Tod und Auferweckung Jesu (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1998), particularly 43–64; Stuhlmacher, “The Resurrection of Jesus and the Resurrection of the Dead,” trans. Jonathan M. Whitlock, Ex Auditu 9 (1993): 45–56, esp. 46–49; Stuhlmacher, Jesus of Nazareth–Christ of Faith, trans. Siegfried Schatzmann (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 8, 22–28; Stuhlmacher, Schriftauslegung auf dem Wege zur biblischen Theologie (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975).

I. Howard Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977). Marshall concludes in chaps. 10–11 by dealing specifically with what can be known of Jesus from history, beginning with a bare minimum of Jesus’s factual teachings according to Norman Perrin. Marshall terms this list “extremely meagre” even for “the most skeptical of scholars” (217) and works up to more material. Then in chap. 11 he sets out parameters for what the historian may conclude if supernatural-looking data should appear in his or her research; see also Marshall, The Origins of New Testament Christology, rev. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990).

Darrell L. Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods (Grand Rapids, Baker, 2002); also Bock, Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Final Examination of Jesus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998); reprinted by Baker in 2000 with the title Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism: The Charge against Jesus in Mark 14:53–65.

Most of Craig L. Blomberg’s work is on the Gospel texts and related questions, such as The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2007), chap. 4 is devoted to the question of Gospel contradictions. Also Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues & Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011); David Wenham and Craig Blomberg, eds., The Miracles of Jesus, vol. 6 of Gospel Perspectives (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986).

Historian Paul Barnett’s works include: Is the New Testament Reliable? A Look at the Historical Evidence (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986); Jesus and the Logic of History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997); The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005); Finding the Historical Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). On the question of ancient accuracy and discrepancies, Barnett notes some discrepancies in the New Testament (Birth of Christianity, 18, 65 for example) and asserts that in this earliest time frame, “nothing hangs on absolute precision” (9). But Barnett also points out, “In terms of the historical reference to noted persons in antiquity, this would represent a brevity without parallel” (210, cf. 11–12).

Ronald H. Nash, Christian Faith and Historical Understanding (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), chaps. 3, 5–7; Nash, Christianity and the Hellenistic World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), chaps. 7–13, 16.

Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1981), 365–407.

Markus Barth and Verne H. Fletcher, Acquittal by Resurrection: Freedom, Law, and Justice in the Light of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964), with Barth’s material on v–96; Markus Barth, “Introduction,” in Leonhard Goppelt, Helmut Thielicke, and Hans-Rudolf Müller-Schwefe, The Easter Message Today: Three Essays, trans. Salvator Attanasio and Darrell Likens Guder (New York: Nelson and Sons, 1964), 9–25.

Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 180–85 on the rationality of the resurrection, 169–70 on discrepancies in the accounts.

Paul L. Maier, First Easter: The True and Unfamiliar Story in Words and Pictures (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), chap. 9 on the historical facts favoring the resurrection, chap. 11 on the empty tomb, and chap. 10 plus pages 94, 96 on “Doubts and Criticism.” See also Maier, “The Empty Tomb as History,” Christianity Today 19, no. 13 (1975): 4–6.

Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007); Eddy and Boyd, Lord or Legend: Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007); Boyd, Cynic Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton, IL: BridgePoint, 1995).

Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 330–48. For those interested, Keener’s two-volume work Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011) has already become a classic.

Robert H. Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), see esp. the exceptional chapter, “The Sōma in Death and Resurrection,” 159–83.

C. E. B. Cranfield, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” Expository Times 101 (1990): 167–72, esp. Cranfield briefly addressing several of the main issues (167–68).

Robert H. Stein, Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 260–62 on the difficulty of working out harmonizing details, including Stein listing many of the issues; also Stein, Gospels and Tradition: Studies on Redaction Criticism of the Synoptic Gospels (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1991), chaps. 1, 4, 5, 8–9 on critical methodology, incl. a note on the resurrection in Mark (chap. 7).

Graham H. Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker: A Historical and Theological Study (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 304–10, 314–28, esp. Twelftree’s conclusions on 328–30, 345.

Norman L. Geisler, Miracles and the Modern Mind: A Defense of Biblical Miracles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992); Geisler, The Battle for the Resurrection (Nashville: Nelson, 1989).

Colin Brown, Miracles and the Critical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 281–92, 370–71.

Francis J. Beckwith, David Hume’s Argument against Miracles: A Critical Analysis (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989).

Robert A. Larmer, The Legitimacy of Miracle (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2014), chaps. 3, 6, and 7 in particular; Larmer, Dialogues on Miracle (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2015).

Daniel P. Fuller, Easter Faith and History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 145–261.

William P. Alston, “Biblical Criticism and the Resurrection,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 148–83, particularly Alston’s own critical comments (160–61, 179).

F. X. Durrwell, La résurrection de Jésus, mystère de salut, 10th ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1976), esp. chap. 1:3, 1:5.i–ii; David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), esp. 380–92, where Wenham differentiates the items about the historical Jesus known to Paul as “Highly Probable,” “Probable,” and “Plausible,” plus states a cumulative case argument regarding these data, see also 3–7; Laurence W. Miller, Jesus Christ Is Alive (Boston: Wilde, 1949), particularly chap. 1:1–12 and 45–52; Floyd V. Filson, Jesus Christ, The Risen Lord: A Biblical Study Based on the Resurrection (Nashville: Abingdon, 1941), 31–57, 270–72 in particular; Leonhard Goppelt, “The Easter Kerygma in the New Testament,” in Goppelt, Thielicke, and Müller-Schwefe, Easter Message Today, 27–58; Helmut Thielicke, “The Resurrection Kerygma,” in Goppelt, Thielicke, and Müller-Schwefe, Easter Message Today, 59–116; Grant R. Osborne, The Resurrection Narratives: A Redactional Study (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984); Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 52, 68–71; Bernard L. Ramm, An Evangelical Christology: Ecumenic and Historic (Nashville: Nelson, 1985), 87–99; Norman Anderson, Christianity and World Religions: The Challenge of Pluralism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984), chaps. 2–4 on comparing the early Christian historical record to that of other ancient religious claims; Norman Anderson, Jesus Christ: The Witness of History, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1985); Stephen Neill, Christian Faith and Other Faiths (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984), 280–87 in particular, listing unique features of the early Christian message; John Drane, Introducing the New Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 101–3; David Basinger and Randall Basinger, Philosophy and Miracle: The Contemporary Debate (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1986); Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987).

See Michael F. Bird, “Inerrancy Is Not Necessary for Evangelicalism outside the USA,” in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, 145–73.

Craig, “Opening Address,” 25–26, and Craig, “Resurrection and the Real Jesus,” 160–61, both in Copan, Real Jesus.

For examples, John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 391–94; Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 152–58, 160; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 7, 141–42, 151–64, 173–74, esp. 155; Spong, Resurrection, 239–42; Dale Allison mentions this as a popular view, though it is one with which he disagrees, in Resurrecting Jesus, 202–3, 352–63.

It is true that Acts 13:29 is usually identified as one of the Acts sermon summaries that predates the Gospels and may even go back to the early 30s, as in Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 154–55, 225–26. But that should not have a bearing on why Luke included this description if he considered it to constitute a contradiction with his Gospel report.

Ehrman makes a point of arguing that Acts 13:29 states that the Sanhedrin “council as a whole” buried Jesus’s body whereas Joseph is only a single individual; see Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 154. But there is no reason that one of their own members could not have been taken as operating on their behalf as well, especially if, as just mentioned, others in the Sanhedrin also knew of Joseph’s actions and agreed in order to uphold the law. After all, the reader is told that Joseph was a prominent or respected member of the council (Mark 15:43). So multiple assent is a serious possibility. But regardless, in normal parlance, one member of a group could stand for the whole. It is just too narrow of a way to push the meaning here. One scholar who agrees is Raymond Brown, Virginal Conception, 114–15.

These questions are chiefly discussed in the previous volume, as just noted, though a list of a very few critical scholars may be pertinent: Perrin, Resurrection, 45–46; G. W. H. Lampe, “Easter: A Statement,” in G. W. H. Lampe and D. M. MacKinnon, The Resurrection: A Dialogue, ed. William Purcell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), 38; Miller, “What Do Stories about Resurrection(s) Prove?,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 83.

Bornkamm views the entire episode as a legend, thus concluding that a response “need not be assessed in detail here” (Jesus of Nazareth, 183). Some of the scholars here who mostly just note the overall situation while sometimes making just a few additional comments include Wright in Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 121; Miller, “Stories about Resurrection(s),” 83; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 134; Vermes, Resurrection, 109; Helms, Gospel Fictions, 132; George Eldon Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 80, 84–86; John M. G. Barclay, “The Resurrection in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 24; James McLeman, Resurrection Then and Now (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967), 138–39; Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 199–200, 216–17, cf. 233–35; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 247–53; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 828–34, noting differences though without mentioning problems here; Brown, Virginal Conception, 117–18, where little comment is provided, except that two separate traditions may be present in Mark; Kaspar, Jesus the Christ, 127, 129; Perkins, Resurrection, 91, 126, 156, 172, including a chart of differences on 91–93; cf. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 125–26.

One suggestion may be helpful regarding what the canonical Gospels actually state concerning which women visited the tomb on that first Easter morning. As several specific examples indicate during that weekend from the crucifixion until the burial and empty tomb stories, it is quite clear that the Gospel authors never intended to exhaustively name each of the individual women. Regarding the crucifixion, Mark relates that some women had been watching “from a distance,” naming Mary Magdalene, another Mary, and Salome. Then Mark specifies that these were among the “many other women” who had accompanied them up to Jerusalem, but the others remain unnamed (15:40–41). Matthew records that “many women” were present in the vicinity of the crucifixion scene, naming in particular Mary Magdalene and another Mary (27:55–56). However, it would seem that “many women” at the crucifixion in Matthew would number more than just these two named individuals, hence Matthew presumably chose not to name the others. Luke similarly records that women were present at the crucifixion, without naming a single one of them in this context 23:49). At Jesus’s burial, Luke again mentions that the women watched and saw how Jesus’s body was buried, though still not naming any (23:55–56). Each of the Synoptic Gospel authors narrates that the women went to the tomb that first Sunday, though Luke does not name them until they report to the men, adding clearly that there were “other women with them who told these things to the apostles” (24:10 ESV). This statement that Luke did not name all the women going to the tomb shows that, like the early pericopes, this was simply not the intent of the narration.

Last of all, John mentions only Mary Magdalene (by name) going to the tomb. However, when she ran to the apostles and told them what she saw, the plural “we” was used (20:2). The use of “we” in 20:2 is intriguingly contrasted with the reversion to the singular just a few verses later in John 20:13. On the strength and potential meaning of the plural in the last point here, see Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John XIII–XXI, Anchor Bible 29A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 984.

The chief point here is that when the four authors address the crucifixion, the burial, or the empty tomb, the presence of the women observers is mentioned frequently in each Gospel. However, all four accounts state that women were present at least once without mentioning the specific names of the women involved in that particular story. So why should the Gospel authors be held to some random modern standard that attempts to pin them down on naming each of the specific women on each occasion, with discrepancies being freely acclaimed when the writers do not measure up to what appears to be a modern counting preference? Incredibly, these modern charges are made even when the writers have already indicated over and over that an exhaustive naming of all the women was not their intention. Yet, this regular critical practice is done so commonly, even blatantly so. It is the modern error that is egregious here. This ought not even have to be pointed out, especially when it runs counter to perhaps the best-known rule of contemporary literary criticism, namely, never judge an author for something that they clearly indicated was beyond their intentions.

Another issue that may garner the attention of some scholars is why or if the young men in Mark and Luke should be identified as angels. Of course, the issue here is not whether contemporary scholars think that these men were actually angels or even whether they themselves believe in such beings. The question being answered here is who do Mark and Luke think they are? Actually, scholars generally do identify the “young man” dressed in white clothing in Mark 16:5 and the “two men . . . in dazzling clothes” in Luke 24:4 as angels due to several considerations. To start with, the white, festive or special occasion clothing worn by the men, even when viewed inside a dark tomb, along with Luke’s use of the adjective “dazzling” for the appearance of their garments (en esthēti astraptousē) is quite striking and out of place inside the burial chamber. After all, it should be kept in mind that Luke describes the return of the Son of Man with this term too (17:24), a word often translated as “lightning,” having the same root (astrapē). Further, in his account, Luke specifically identifies these two “men” as “angels” just a little later (24:23). Moreover, the response of the women to these messengers was one of bewilderment or fright (emphobōn genomenōn autōn, Mark 16:5). Thus, referring to these men as angels in these two Gospel texts is hardly a stretch, but is entirely appropriate in each case, fitting well with the contexts. (Reginald Fuller is among the many critical scholars who agrees that the young men at the tomb in both Mark and Luke are most likely angels; see Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 2–3).

As with the names and numbers of the reported women who went to Jesus’s tomb, so here as well many scholars simply mention that there were slightly different numbers of angels or young men at the tomb, without much by way of critical interaction; see Karl Barth, Resurrection of the Dead, 137; Wright in Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 121; Miller, “Stories about Resurrection(s),” 83; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 134; Vermes, Resurrection, 109–10; Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 80; Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 210–11; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 252–53; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 829n12, in reference to the differences though without mentioning any issues or concerns; Brown, Virginal Conception, 118–19, who simply notes the situation but with seemingly little else to say; Kaspar, Jesus the Christ, 127, 129; Perkins, Resurrection, 92, including the chart already mentioned above; cf. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 125–26.

As John Wenham states concerning the angelic headcounts, this “does not constitute a contradiction or discrepancy. If there were two, there was one.” See John Wenham, The Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Accounts in Conflict? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 87.

Lindars, “Jesus Risen,” 90–91, 94–95; Vermes, Resurrection, 111–12; Helms, Gospel Fictions, 130; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 7, 142, 151, 157, 164–69, 173–74, 184–86; Lampe, “Easter,” 17, 40, 53, 58–59; Clark, Interpreting the Resurrection, 90–91; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 299–337; Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, 91, 100; and Alan Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection, 57, who speaks for many scholars when he points out simply that an empty tomb is not explicitly mentioned in Paul’s Epistles, hence he may simply have chosen to remain silent on this subject.

Detailed linguistic studies that make this argument include John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), which Cook considers to be one of the chief conclusions in this entire lengthy study (591–93, 618, 623); Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 164, cf. 176; Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, see some of these many comments in xix, 31, and elsewhere, driving the point home quite clearly in 321, 691, 694.

Dunn, Why Believe in Jesus’ Resurrection? (London: SPCK, 2016), who states, “The answer is hardly very clear, but the question itself may not be very important in the event” (20–21). In this context, Dunn raises other related questions as well (16–25).

A. M. Ramsey terms the Galilee-Jerusalem question the biggest discrepancy of them all in Resurrection of Christ, 68–69. Even a little more recently than Ramsay, Ladd refers to the Galilee or Jerusalem subject as “the most foreboding problem” (Resurrection of Jesus, 81–82, 86–90). In 1967, McLeman called the subject one of the biggest disputes (Resurrection Then and Now, 140, 145, but see 152). Reginald Fuller referred to it as “major” (Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 5). Other scholars who either express doubts or sometimes simply note the issue include Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, 182; Miller, “Stories about Resurrection(s),” 84; Hoover, “Orthodoxy and Veracity,” 135; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 134–35; Vermes, Resurrection, 110–11; Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 125; Barclay, “Resurrection in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship,” 25; Lampe, “Easter,” 40; Clark, Interpreting the Resurrection, 90; Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 212–14, 272, 281–82; Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 122, 127–28, cf. 184; Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, 104–5; Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 278.

One indication of this growing change is that even Rudolf Bultmann stated many years ago that “after Jesus’s arrest, the disciples fled to Galilee” (a common critical view) and the first appearances occurred there. However, “the appearances of the risen Lord probably were not confined to Galilee but also occurred at Jerusalem after the disciples had return[ed] there (Luke reports only such).” See Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 1:45. Of course, it should be noted that Bultmann by no means recognized literal resurrection appearances of Jesus at all; see Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” 34–44.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:335; Borg in Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 132–33; Hoover, “Orthodoxy and Veracity,” 131; Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 125; Reginald Fuller calls this one of the two “major” questions (Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 5); Barclay “Resurrection in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship,” 17, 24; Lampe, “Easter,” 18, 40, cf. 58; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 265–68, 317; Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 276–78; Pannenberg thinks that the Gospel appearance narratives are much too physical and of “such a strongly legendary character that one can scarcely find a historical kernel”! See Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, 89, also 92. For Ehrman along with many other researchers of late, Paul at least believed that Jesus was raised bodily. See Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 133, 137.

Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:335; Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, 182; Lüdemann, “First Rebuttal,” 54–55, and “Second Rebuttal,” 60–61, in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection; Barclay “Resurrection in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship,” 17, 24; Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 281; Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 178–80; Helms, Gospel Fictions, 130.

Ehrman, for example, argues that these times are “not necessarily a historical recollection of when the resurrection happened, but a theological claim” (140). Further, “But as I argued . . . the idea that Jesus rose on the ‘third day’ was originally a theological construct, not a historical piece of information” (175). See Ehrman, How Jesus Became God. This is a popular position, as in Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 267–68, among other commentators.

As recognized, for example, in Rudolf Pesch’s major position change, as observed in his 1973 publication, “Zur Entstehung,” 96–97, 201–28, esp. 212–18. After many critical responses to his ideas and the ensuing interaction, he moved to a more robust view that involved the necessity of the postresurrection visions and appearances of Jesus, as expressed in Pesch, “Zur Entstehung des Glaubens an die Auferstehung Jesu: Ein neuer Versuch,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 30 (1983): 73–98. The key words here are in the addendum to the title: “Ein neuer Versuch,” or “A New Attempt.” Other pertinent works by Pesch include “Materialien und Bemerkungen.” See also Crossan, Historical Jesus, 397–404. Additional relevant works by other critical scholars include Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 169–92; Wilckens, Resurrection, 13, 16, 48–50, 65, 114; Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 49; Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 130–31, 136–37, 143–44, 185; Perkins, Resurrection, 131–32; Allison, at least in part, rejects this view of positioning within the early Christian leadership (Resurrecting Jesus, 237–38, 245, 268); Pannenberg agrees with many in thinking that this understanding may be possible, though without negating the actual resurrection appearances of Jesus themselves ( Jesus: God and Man, 90–91, 97); cf. Williams, Resurrection, 116–17.

John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue, ed. Robert B. Stewart (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), see esp. the “Dialogue,” 33–34, 38, and Crossan, “Opening Statement,” 24–25; also, Crossan, Historical Jesus, 397–98; Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 190.

For instance, Reginald Fuller thinks that Jesus’s tomb was empty and Jesus ­actually appeared to his followers (though in a less than fully bodily manner), while speaking of how Jesus’s message to his disciples “involved a communication of meaning: God revealed his Son.” Further, for Fuller, this message was often an auditory communication from Jesus that set up the apostolic leadership and inaugurated the mission to the Aramaic-speaking Jews in Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond, to the Hellenistic Jews, and finally to the Gentiles (Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, particularly 46–49, also 169, 172, 181). Jürgen Moltmann divides the structure of the resurrection appearances into “three different dimensions.” First, the “prospective visions of hope” due to “God’s coming glory.” Second, the retrospective remembrance of the past: “The One who will come is the One crucified on Golgotha.” The third aspect is comprised of Jesus’s “personal call ”—an invitation to men and women to heed his call and follow him in ministry and mission. See Moltmann, “The Resurrection of Christ,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 76; also, Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 202. Another instance is Thorwald Lorenzen’s extensive emphasis that projects outwardly from Jesus’s resurrection appearances to every area of the Christian worldview and the ensuing Christian life, including faith and praxis (part 3) as well as the new relation to the God who raised Jesus from the dead, salvation, and the mission of the church (269–74, plus all of part 4). See Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 191–320. A few more of the many examples here include Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, 93–95; Perkins, Resurrection, 72, 136, 167; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 145.

As a brief but relevant excursus, a major theological line of interpretation proceeds through Barth’s view of radical discipleship, such as in Barth’s Church Dogmatics, 4.1:102–22 (and also Church Dogmatics 4.2 on Bonhoeffer’s contributions), and to those theologians whom Barth influenced. Barth’s view similarly reflects earlier influences from key aspects of Søren Kierkegaard’s thought too, as in Kierkegaard’s Attack upon “Christendom,” trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1944), esp. “What Christ’s Judgment Is about Official Christianity,” 115–24, and “The Instant, Nos. III–VII,” 125–52; also, Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing: Spiritual Preparation for the Office of Confession, trans. Douglas V. Steere (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), esp. essays 7 and 8.Dietrich Bonhoeffer is best known for this theme of radical discipleship, including how this subject is tied to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. See Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, rev. ed., trans. Reginald H. Fuller (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 340–44. This also includes Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on the basis for human government as emanating from the cross, atonement, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ. See Bonhoeffer, Ethics, ed. Eberhard Bethge, trans. Neville Horton Smith (New York: Macmillan, 1986), particularly 336–39. For ideas on the Anabaptist tradition of thinkers that he terms “Radical Protestantism,” including both Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaard, see Donald F. Durnbaugh, The Believer’s Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism (New York: Macmillan, 1968), particularly chap. 8, “Discipleship and Apostolicity,” 209–25. Durnbaugh states, “Nothing has called attention recently to the demands of Christian obedience as has Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship, sealed as it was by his martyrdom in 1945 at the hands of the SS troopers” (209). Later in the same chapter, Durnbaugh places Kierkegaard in the same radical tradition (211). Though separated somewhat in theological terms, this theme also emerges in Bultmann’s writings, such as in Theology of the New Testament, 1:11–22; 2:203–31, esp. 229–30 on Christian views on personal property. Bultmann’s position is also mapped out well in Thomas C. Oden’s volume, Radical Obedience: The Ethics of Rudolf Bultmann (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), including a response from Bultmann that notes some of his concerns about Oden’s interpretation on 141–47. Cf. also James D. G. Dunn, Jesus’ Call to Discipleship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), and N. T. Wright, Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), along with many other scholars.

Such as those by Perkins on the narratives of the empty tomb and the women’s trips to the tomb (Resurrection, 91–93) and the three charts by Miller with regard to the empty tomb accounts (83), the resurrection appearance stories (84), and the post-Easter appearance accounts (85). See Miller, “Stories about Resurrection(s).”

For examples, Perkins along with others mention additional items, like the time of day that the women visited the tomb, their purpose in going there, the state of the tombstone, what they discovered upon reaching or entering the tomb, their reactions to the situation, the angelic message to the women, their physical and emotional responses, plus the type of report that they imparted to the others (Perkins, Resurrection, 91–93). Miller includes many of the same additional questions, plus whether or not there was a guard posted at the tomb, who else was involved, and a conclusion. As far as post-Easter appearance accounts, Miller also inquires concerning the times, persons involved, places, messages, reactions, any confirmation plus another conclusion. See Miller, “Stories about Resurrection(s),” 83–85.

It is rather intriguing that this issue seems to be framed fairly often as two opponents being pitted against each other, as in Galilee “versus” Jerusalem options, when they are very far from being directly opposed. Even Bultmann was clear about the “both/and approach” in his citation quoted in this chapter above, and that probably remains the most frequent response.

It must be noted here carefully that given all the other more careful tallies throughout this entire study, the question about which apparent discrepancies are mentioned most commonly by scholars is definitely not meant to be an exact count.

Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 276–79, quotation on 279.

Brown lists some of these problems in Virginal Conception, 101–29. The quotation above is from 106.

Brown, 106, 125–29. The one-word quotation is from 106.

G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 239.

Kaspar, Jesus the Christ, 128.

Perkins, Resurrection, 93.

Evans, Resurrection and the New Testament, 128.

Clark, Interpreting the Resurrection, 84.

Wright, in Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 121–22.

Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 282.

Eddy, “A Response to William Lane Craig,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 328.

Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 260–62.

Craig, “On Doubts about the Resurrection,” Modern Theology 6 (1989): 53–75.

Craig, “Resurrection and the Real Jesus,” 164.

No effort is made here to single out those scholars who are inerrantists and those who are not, chiefly because of the often extreme efforts of some writers to attempt to force upon others their own definitions and interpretations of what inerrancy must indicate.

Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 90–94.

Harris, Raised Immortal, 68–69.

Harris, 52, 68–71.

Swinburne, Resurrection of God Incarnate, 147–59, with the chart on 157.

Brown, Death of the Messiah, with the charts on 2:902–3 and 1016, respectively.

Brown, Virginal Conception, 99–111, with a chart on 100 that shows variations that also indicate similarities.

Dunn, Jesus Remembered, chap. 18, particularly 828–32, 840–57, 861–62, including the chart of Jesus’s resurrection appearances in all four Gospels on 841–42. Cf. also Dunn’s earlier volume The Evidence for Jesus, when, treating the empty tomb and appearance traditions, he includes in each section a discussion of “Conflicting evidence” followed by more detailed “Considerations in favour” (63–72). See also Dunn, Why Believe in Jesus’ Resurrection?, which states, “The answer is hardly very clear, but the question itself may not be very important in the event” (20–21). In this context, Dunn raises other related questions as well (16–25).

O’Collins, Interpreting the Resurrection, 39–52.

Alston, “Biblical Criticism,” 170–73. Alston was listed above as more likely being closer to the conservative camp, though he makes numerous concessions to moderate scholars like Reginald Fuller.

John Wenham, Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Accounts in Conflict? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 9, with a lengthy list of scholars who agree on tough issues being apparent in the text (9–12). A dozen tables and diagrams throughout the volume are also very helpful. Wenham acknowledges freely that harmonizing efforts are “generally frowned on in modern study of the gospels” (126). In recommending this book on its cover, another British New Testament scholar R. T. France states that Wenham’s text is “clearly and deliberately refusing to play the critical game according to the accepted rules, and is for that reason to my mind refreshing and deserving of notice. . . . Some of the major reconstructions which are offered on the basis of odd hints and bits of New Testament information carefully drawn together I find extraordinarily suggestive.”

Wenham, Easter Enigma, 54. It must be confessed that for years my copy of Wenham’s book was kept on a library shelf off by itself due to its lack of consultation and use. But of late, several factors have shown it to be very useful. Besides some very creative suggestions in keeping with R. T. France’s comment directly above, some of which seem quite likely (such as those on 49, 57, 66–67, 81–85, 87–89, 93–99, 114), there are a few considerations that leave one wondering why this or that solution had not been proposed more frequently in the past. On the other hand, additional comments indicated Wenham’s humility and recognition of the tentative nature of certain other of his comments (9, 32–33, 42, 46, 54, 64, 78–79, 84, 147n8).

Eleonore Stump, “Visits to the Sepulcher and Biblical Exegesis,” Faith and Philosophy 6 (1989): esp. 369.

Stump, 368–69.

Brown, Gospel according to John XIII–XXI, 974.

Stump, “Visits to the Sepulcher,” 366.

Stump, 367.

Stump, 355–59, 366–72.

William P. Alston, “Biblical Criticism,” 161, 163, 169–70, 177, 79, 182.

Alston, 160,

Alston, 181.

Alston, 181–82.

Cf. Stump’s somewhat similar comments here (“Visits to the Sepulcher,” 365, 367). Stump remarks, “It is important to recognize the difference between historical evidence, on the one hand, and philosophical presuppositions and methodological commitments, on the other,” whereas Brown relies too heavily on the latter (371).

Wenham, Easter Enigma, 85, 87.

As per Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 264–71, 578; James P. Ware, “The Resurrection of Jesus in the Pre-Pauline Formula of 1 Cor 15.3–5,” New Testament Studies 60 (2014): 475–98; Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 92–93, 97, 109–13, 140–41, 251, 254; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 139, 225–30.

The answers to some of these latter questions pertaining to the early pre–New Testament creeds play a central and crucial role in this present study and were addressed in much detail in the initial volume of this study.

Examples might include the words, “I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord” (Rom 16:22); or the opening, “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy” to the church in 2 Thess 1:1; or the role played by “Silvanus” in 1 Pet 5:12.

One of the very best discussions of some of these topics, including a few of the many ramifications here, written by a conservative author is the excellent volume by Michael R. Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), particularly chaps. 3–5; John H. Walton and D. Brent Sandy, The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013), 279–80, ask about the issues involved with “applying modern genre criteria to ancient literature.”

Intriguingly, arguably the two best investigations of this subject were written by a moderate researcher and a conservative scholar. See Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:507–1038, for the treatment of miracles, and conservative scholar Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 328–59, for the conclusions. Here in particular, it is the skeptical views that have changed somewhat, at least in terms of the frequency of the exceptionally widespread amount of recent assent. For instance, after a lengthy discussion, Marcus Borg writes, “Despite the difficulty which miracles pose for the modern mind, on historical grounds it is virtually indisputable that Jesus was a healer and exorcist.” Then Borg follows this comment by providing three reasons for backup. See Marcus J. Borg, Jesus, A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (New York: HarperCollins, 1987), 61 for the quotation in the context of pages 47, 59–61, 65–67, 71. Jarl Fossum is in basic agreement with Borg’s assessment in “Understanding Jesus’ Miracles,” Bible Review 10 (1994): 16–23, 50.

Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus, which surveys historical criticism (chap. 6), source criticism (chap. 7), form criticism (chap. 8), redaction criticism (chap. 9), tradition criticism (chap. 10), narrative criticism, plus some thoughts on Greco-Roman biographies in relation to the Gospels (chap. 11), including treatments of places where evangelical scholars can and have made many contributions (40–41, 148–52, 161–62, 171–79, 187, 196–97, 203, 213–16); also Darrell L. Bock, The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth behind Alternative Christianities (Nashville: Nelson, 2006), see especially the earlier-than-might-be-expected composition dates for books, like the possible dating of the Gospel of Thomas to the late first century by an evangelical scholar (218–19). Conservative New Testament scholar Robert Stein also covers many of these same critical categories in his volume on redaction criticism as well as the use of the criteria for authenticity; see Stein, Gospels and Tradition, chaps. 1–4, 8–9 in particular.

J. P. Moreland, Chad Meister, and Khaldoun A. Sweis, eds., Debating Christian Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), featuring a who’s-who lineup of scholars debating twenty key philosophical, religious, and theological themes over more than 500 pages. See also R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas, eds., In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God’s Action in History (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 1997).

Mark Allan Powell, “Editorial Foreword,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 1–2; Darrell L. Bock, “A Brief Reply to Robert Miller and Amy-Jill Levine,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 107–11; Bock, “Faith and the Historical Jesus: Does A Confessional Position and Respect for the Jesus Tradition Preclude Serious Historical Engagement?,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 3–25; Craig S. Keener, “Assumptions in Historical-Jesus Research: Using Ancient Biographies and Disciples’ Traditioning as a Control,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 26–58; Robert L. Webb, “The Rules of the Game: History and Historical Method in the Context of Faith: The Via Media of Methodological Naturalism,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 59–84; Robert J. Miller, “When It’s Futile to Argue about the Historical Jesus: A Response to Bock, Keener, and Webb,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 85–95; Amy-Jill Levine, “Christian Faith and the Study of the Historical Jesus: A Response to Bock, Keener, and Webb,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 96–106; Keener, “A Brief Reply to Robert Miller and Amy-Jill Levine,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 112–17; Robert L. Webb, “Methodological Naturalism: Engaging the Responses of Robert J. Miller and Amy-Jill Levine,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 118–23; Mark Allan Powell, “Evangelical Christians and Historical-Jesus Studies: Final Reflections,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 9 (2011): 124–36; James G. Crossley, “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays? A Critical Engagement with Key Events and Contemporary Quests for the Historical Jesus,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 11 (2013): 224–41; Michael R. Licona, “Historians and Miracle Claims,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 12 (2014): 106–29; Shaw, “What’s Good for the Goose,” 291–309. Also, Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus: Five Views.

See http://library.dts.edu/Pages/TL/Special/ICBI_1.pdf for what is sometimes called the short statement or summary statement.

“The Chicago Statement” article 13, denial statement, page 5. A small book by well-known New Testament theologian Clark H. Pinnock, written even earlier, also employed a list of items regarding “What infallibility does not mean.” See Pinnock, A Defense of Biblical Infallibility (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967), 19. In addition to the excellent information itself, the purpose of the list (18–31) was to show that these characteristics “mark the Bible off to be an ancient book, but which in no way lessen or impair its claim to infallibility or inerrancy” (20). Pinnock quoted Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield, who asserted that “so long as the proper evidence by which a proposition is established remains unrefuted, all so-called objections brought against it pass out of the category of objections to its truth into the category of difficulties to be adjusted to it” (18–19n37). Pinnock cited Warfield’s volume, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948), 174. On such a position, having a firm foundation for one’s view of Scripture allows the individual not to have to “rush to judgment” and define a conundrum that they were unable to explain as an error. Rather, they could hold the problematic issue in tension with the rest of their views, since they have good reasons for their foundation, thus, waiting for the opportunity to do further research. In a slightly later text, Pinnock expanded his treatment of items that do not invalidate the belief in inerrancy; see Clark H. Pinnock, Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of Christian Theology (Chicago: Moody, 1971), 185–207. In the place of the above statement by Warfield, this time Pinnock quoted John Warwick Montgomery, who remarked that, when there is no potential answer to an apparent discrepancy, “the exegete must leave the problem open” (179–180), here citing Montgomery’s The Validity and Relevance of Historic Lutheranism versus Its Contemporary Rivals, vol. 1 of Crisis in Lutheran Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1967), 103. Later, Pinnock stated that “minor imperfections in the text do not obscure the message of the Scripture,” so we should attempt to “show that these discrepancies are not original errors” (196).

“The Chicago Statement,” 9.

“The Chicago Statement,” 9.

“The Chicago Statement,” 9.

Robert M. Price, Inerrant the Wind: The Evangelical Crisis of Biblical Authority (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2009).

Michaels’s comment appears on the back cover of the book’s dust jacket.

Price, Inerrant the Wind, 22.

Price’s words summarizing Pinnock’s essay “The Inerrancy Debate among the Evangelicals,” apparently came from Theology, News and Notes (1976), though Price notes that he referred to page 9 of Pinnock’s essay and that Price’s own copy was mimeographed without a publisher or a date; see Price, Inerrant the Wind, 22.

Price, 21.

Price, 36 in the context of 34–42.

As in Licona, Differences in the Gospels, 19–21 and elsewhere.

Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 5; Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Acts of Jesus, 1.

The quotations above are taken from Funk and the Jesus Seminar, 32–35, where some of the long list of “rules” from volume 1 are discussed further. For the original, longer list of just more than three dozen presuppositions that are included in their first major study, see Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, 19–36.

It should be noted carefully that these thoughts at the close of this chapter are not at all to accuse the skeptics of being the real culprits here or anything like that. Rather, it is an effort to indicate that all sides have their own presuppositions and perspectives and need to be sensitive to each other in these conversations. But since it is often the views of the conservatives that are thought to be more problematic in this context (as in the series of articles cited above from the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus), it is simply being pointed out that there is more than one angle to this discussion.

Of course, interpretations of these facts do vary. That is precisely why this present volume is devoted to these alternative suggestions.

Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 46–49, 180–83.

Paul L. Meier, In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 180.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 140–41, 163, 290–91, cf. 92–93, 156–58, 171–72, 251.

Ehrman, 70–71, 268–69.

Ehrman, with chap. 2 (35–68) listing some important arguments for the historicity of Jesus’s life, some of which derived from pagan sources.

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