V. Questions from the Gospels
V. Questions from the Gospels
1. QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS
A. General Comments
1. Neill and Wright: Neill and Wright note that the issues that the Third Quest seeks to address are the relationships between Jesus and Judaism as well as Jesus and the early church. An outworking of the research in these areas should lead, according to Neill and Wright, to more investigation on the resurrection and Christology. E. P. Sanders is an example of this. These two provide twelve positive results of New Testament research since 1861:
A) Utilizes a more scientific and critical approach.
B) Development of textual criticism.
C) Better consolidation of the New Testament Greek.
D) More cautious and serious dating of the New Testament writings.
E) Universal agreement that the study of the earliest church must begin with Paul.
F) The establishment of the priority of Mark and Q.
G) The questioning of the existence of Q.
H) Gospel materials have been shaped, to a degree, by the needs of the church.
I) The heart of Jesus’s message was the kingdom of God.
J) The importance of first-century Judaism.
K) The importance of the pagan environment of early Christianity.
L) The Gospel of John is unique and cannot be treated in the same way as the Synoptics.
2. Blomberg: According to Blomberg, although some evangelicals have recently started contributing to the Third Quest, the “most significant observation about the third quest is that none of its major contributors are evangelical Christians.” He also states they are not “susceptible to the charge that they are simply reading their religious beliefs into their historical research and thereby skewing their results.”
2. CRITIQUE OF HIGHER CRITICISM
A. General Comments
1. Various Scholars: Various scholars raise concerns about how higher criticism is applied.
2. Alston: Has some telling critiques versus Reginald Fuller’s exegesis (and that of comparable New Testament critics), noting numerous foibles of Fuller, like the ways he argues that texts are late, his move from textual similarities to direct composition or dependence, and that “could” doesn’t mean “must.” He provides a great list of these sorts of fallacies and other items. However, in her response in the same book, Coakley agrees that Alston “has established very elegantly and convincingly” but is “coy—or downright repressive—about supernatural events” and especially the resurrection.
3. Stump: Using Brown’s exegesis of John 20:1–11 as an example of how many New Testament scholars argue, Stump concludes that Brown is overly zealous in applying his methodology to the Gospels when his methods can’t be supported by either historical or philosophical arguments. While Brown decries harmonizations, “it seems clear that his own methodology is itself a sort of harmonization.”
B. Form Criticism
1. Bauckham: Bauckham provides nine critiques of form criticism.
A) Blomberg: Blomberg describes the checks and balances performed by the Jerusalem church.
B) Dunn: As noted elsewhere, Dunn argues quite strongly that the differences, not contradictions or mistakes, in the Synoptic Gospels are best explained in terms of their “oral traditioning process.”
2. Wright: “Source-, form-, and redaction-criticism were the order of the day . . . [but now] look decidedly passé.”
C. Source Criticism
1. Johnson: Johnson does not find various types of source criticisms appropriate, as they are “far too circular and arbitrary to be considered legitimate.”
3. PRE-EASTER JESUS AND THE POST-EASTER JESUS OF FAITH
A. General Comments
1. Barnett: Referring to Paul’s writings, Barnett finds them consistent with the beliefs of those who followed Jesus before Paul did. Barnett contends that “any reconstructed view of the pre-Easter Jesus must be consistent and continuous with what the immediate post-Easter churches believed, and for which they were persecuted by Saul of Tarsus and other Jews.” Attempts to reconstruct the accounts without these aspects “must be historically suspect.” Barnett adds that the “continuity” between earlier believers and Paul can be found within Paul’s writing alone but are further supported by the narratives in Acts.
2. Crossan: Crossan believes this dichotomy should be “given a respectful burial.”
3. Dunn: Dunn persuasively objects to this dichotomy.
4. Pesch: The chief expression of this view is likely early Pesch.
B. Disciples’ Pre-Easter Faith
1. Allison: Allison thinks that Jesus’s teachings provided the disciples with some pre-Easter expectations. This “is one of the most plausible” of the naturalistic theories versus the resurrection. However, Allison then concludes that the thesis falls far short.
2. Cupitt: Places important emphasis here: “So I say the Easter belief is prior to the Easter experiences, which expresses it. . . . Easter faith is indeed older than the Easter stories.”
3. O’Collins: O’Collins lists other proponents of what he calls “the continuity hypothesis” as being found in essays by I. Broer, P. Fiedler, and H. Verweyen.
4. Perkins: Perkins also cautions that Jesus’s charismatic effect on the disciples could have accounted for portions of their transformation, lessening the force of this point.
C. Miracles
1. Twelftree: After noting the reality of Jesus as a miracle worker is “well and widely established,” Twelftree points out that these miracles “dominated” the “whole pre-Easter ministry.”
4. TREATING THE NEW TESTAMENT LIKE OTHER ANCIENT TEXTS
A. Ehrman: Ehrman argues that Luke “meant to write a history of early Christianity, not a novel. Moreover, all of the ancient Christian authors who refer to the book appear to have understood it in this way.” “Whatever one thinks of them as inspired scripture, they can be seen and used as significant historical sources.” He also notes that because the sources are biased or Christian, that does not invalidate them as historical sources any more than we should discount historical sources for the American Revolution written by Americans. Ehrman states they should be treated as any other piece of ancient literature.
B. Grant: Grant discusses the importance of treating the New Testament like other historical documents.
C. Meier: Meier discusses treating the New Testament using normal historical principles.
D. Price: “Whether this or that item in the gospels is authentic must be settled case by case, and on the basis of appropriate historiographical criteria.”
E. Robinson: For several reasons, John A. T. Robinson states the New Testament is “by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.”
F. Wright: Discusses treating the Gospels by strictly historical procedures.
5. FROM JESUS TO THE GOSPELS
A. Barnett: Barnett provides a good historical path from Jesus to the Gospels. He also notes the use of Jewish rabbinic language in many places throughout the New Testament.
B. Neill and Wright: These two note that it was the work of F. C. Baur that helped shift people’s acceptance of the reliability of John to widespread acceptance of the reliability of the Synoptics. They provide a summary of the acceptance of the priority of Mark.
6. JEWISH BACKGROUND OF JESUS
A. General Comments
1. Blomberg: Blomberg argues that of all the things that contemporary scholars disagree about, Jesus’s Jewishness is not one of them. There is “widespread consensus” that Jesus must be understood in this context. Blomberg notes the Jesus Seminar as the problematic exception.
2. Dunn: Jesus should be understood as a Jew in the Second Temple period. This is a “predominant feature” of contemporary accounts of Jesus. Jesus’s Jewishness is a “firm” place to begin a historical inquiry into the life of Jesus.
3. Meier: Situating Jesus in the context of the Judaism of his day is one of the “main characteristics” of the Third Quest for the historical Jesus.
B. Versus Non-Jewish Contexts
1. General Comments
A) Blomberg: “The Seminar’s Jesus simply is not sufficiently Jewish to be a historically credible figure.”
B) Dunn: Dunn is very grateful that the anti-Jewish descriptions are not taken seriously. Referring to recent attempts to remove Jesus from Judaism, this was done to help give some “universal significance” to Jesus.
2. Versus Galilee as Overtly Hellenistic
A) Dunn: Dunn points out that Galilee during Jesus’s time was a thoroughly Jewish culture. There was, at best, only a thin veneer of Hellenism present, unlike in other more Hellenized cities. Archaeological evidence has “hugely reinforced” the rejection of the anti-Jewish arguments because “there are no indications of large numbers of non-Jews and plenty of evidence of stone vessels, miqwaoth, absence of pork remains, and kochim shafted tombs with ossuaries.”
7. GENERAL UNRELIABILITY OF the GOSPELS
A. Ehrman: “So of course there are discrepancies, embellishments, made-up stories, and historical problems in the Gospels. . . . Does this mean that the Gospels are useless as historical sources? No, it means that we need to have rigorous historical methods to help us examine books that were written for one purpose.” Ehrman gives his standard presentations of contradictions.
8. GENERAL RELIABILITY OF the GOSPELS
A. General Comments
1. Blomberg: States that in Luke 1:1–4 we see the same three stages that “most” critical scholars detect in the Gospels: (1) Eyewitness testimony (1:2b). (2) What was “‘handed down’ in the oral tradition (v. 2a).” He adds that the Greek word used here is important since it infers an almost technical type of transmission. (3) The written documents created based on the first two stages, with Luke being involved in the process.
2. Ehrman: Referring to the seven Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Thomas, Peter, and Egerton (no Q), Ehrman writes, “For a historian these provide a wealth of materials to work with, quite unusual for accounts of anyone, literally anyone, from the ancient world.” Elsewhere he states that the Gospels are the “most important” writings about Jesus and that Paul’s writings are also important.
3. Evans: Craig Evans provides details on the most recent trends concerning the general reliability of the Gospels regarding historical Jesus research and the demise of “the extreme skepticism” that “dominated gospel research” for so many years.
4. Johnson: After mentioning the Nag Hammadi finds, he says the New Testament books were included in the canon because they were believed to be the best records of Jesus’s life and of the early church. He adds that no recent discoveries have proven otherwise. Although the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, “some of these memories are originally from eyewitnesses and first hearers.” Johnson argues that, despite real differences, we have essentially the same picture of Jesus throughout the New Testament, and in the Gospels in particular.
5. Ladd: After a chapter of reasons to accept the testimony of the Gospels, Ladd concludes that although the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, “they embody a tradition which in its oral form was under the control of eyewitnesses.”
6. Meyer: He asks if the early Christians intend to report historical events. He also asks whether the Gospels supply real data about Jesus. He answers “yes” in terms of meeting normal historical criteria of confirmation as well as being able to answer objections. First Cor 15:3–5 “illuminates . . . early Christian faith as a faith that intends and interprets events: present meaning hinges on past happening.” Meyer gives some examples of events in Jesus’s life—baptism, teaching the kingdom as a central proclamation, and activity with sinners—that are recognized by “common consent . . . [as] historically accurate.”
7. O’Collins: O’Collins gives several reasons for reliability, especially for the Synoptic Gospels: attestation from Dead Sea Scrolls, extrabiblical confirmation, Luke’s proven accuracy in Acts details, New Testament chronology, writers’ unexaggerated claims. He concludes, “It is relatively easy to mount a persuasive case for the basic trustworthiness” for the Synoptics; “its writers passed on with substantial fidelity what was remembered from Jesus’ ministry.” Even John fares better than was previously thought.
8. Robinson: John A. T. Robinson lists several reasons, concluding that the New Testament is “by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.”
9. Wedderburn: The accounts cannot “be written off or discounted as pure fiction . . . they are unlikely to be sheer invention, and aspects of them seem to mesh with the historical.”
10. Wright: Gives three stages in the writing of the Gospels: (1) preliterary oral traditions, (2) collection of these traditions and placement of them into literary sources, and (3) the editing and finalizing of these accounts into their final Gospel form. Though they are theological, they are also historical.
B. General Dates
1. Casey: Casey dates Mark (agreeing with Crossley) from AD 40, Matthew from ca. 50 to 60, and Luke ca. 80–90. See also Casey’s comments that although he dates the Gospels (particularly Mark) early, he should not be considered a Christian apologist because he has left the Christian faith.
2. Ehrman: Ehrman gives his standard dates that he believes are within the consensus view: Mark from 65 to 70, Matthew and Luke from 80 to 85, and John from 90 to 95.
3. Helms: Even Randel Helms dates the Gospels to the normal AD 70–100 range.
4. Johnson: Johnson notes that the Gospels were written around AD 60–90 and Paul’s writings were around 40–60. He dates the Gospel of John closer to the turn of the century. In a similarly general fashion, Johnson dates Acts from sometime in the “latter part of the first century.”
5. Tabor: Tabor states Matthew is typically dated to the 80s, Luke to the 90s, and John to around the start of the first century or within “forty to seventy years after the death of Jesus.” He then notes that one should not infer from this that the Gospels are unhistorical.
6. Wright: Wright notes the historical value of first-century accounts.
C. Early
1. Blomberg: Blomberg notes that the Synoptics were likely completed “within about thirty years of Christ’s death” and “well within the period of time when people could check up” on the validity of the claims and reports within.
2. Dunn: Dunn argues that the Gospels were written within forty years of Jesus’s death and that there was a “significant oral tradition already in circulation before that.”
3. Ehrman: Says, “Virtually the only Christian writings that can be reliably dated to the first century are found in the New Testament itself,” though he also notes other writings (e.g., Clement’s letter to Corinth).
D. Jesus as Temporally Accurate
1. Barnett: Barnett discusses how the Gospels present Jesus appropriately with respect to the time, culture, and context within which the author is writing.
2. Bauckham: Bauckham states that it “has often been demonstrated” that early Christians were concerned about the past and accurate historical reconstructions.
E. Easily Remembered
1. Barnett: Barnett cites R. Riesner as arguing that 80 percent of the teachings of Jesus were given in a form that was easy to remember.
F. Contains Eyewitness Tradition
1. General Comments
A) Bauckham: This is a theme throughout Bauckham’s book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. There is “stress in the Gospels on the eyewitness qualifications of those who were with Jesus from beginning to end.” Bauckham notes the importance of witnessing in ancient history rather than hearing (but hearing is important too). Bauckham argues that the Gospels are much closer to the forms of eyewitness accounts than is commonly viewed and that John was written by an eyewitness. Noting Byrskog’s demonstration of the place of eyewitness testimony in ancient historiography, Bauckham shows that the Gospels possess such eyewitness info.
B) Johnson: As noted above, though the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, “some of these memories are originally from eyewitnesses and first hearers.” Elsewhere, Johnson comments that the Gospel narratives are older and “stem at least in part from eyewitness accounts.”
C) Ladd: As noted above, Ladd concludes that although the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, “they embody a tradition which in its oral form was under the control of eyewitnesses.”
2. Names in the Gospels Relate to Witness Tradition
A) General Comments
(1) Bauckham: Bauckham argues that “we need to account for the fact that some Gospel characters are named, whereas most are not. We also need to account for the tendency to omit names that we can observe in Matthew’s and Luke’s redaction of Mark.” He argues that “in most cases it is very plausible to consider these named characters the eyewitnesses who not only first told but through their lifetimes continued to tell stories of events in which they had participated.” He notes that one explanation for these names is that “these people joined the early Christian movement and were well known at least in the circles in which these traditions were first transmitted.”
B) Papias
(1) Bauckham: Bauckham argues that the “most significant implication” of Papias’s testimony is that oral traditions were connected to “specific named eyewitnesses” and that this argues against older form-critical views regarding anonymous or collective transmission.
C) Observations from the Names in the Gospels
(1) Bauckham: Bauckham argues that unnamed characters in Mark are not given a name in Matthew or Luke, which “therefore shows an unambiguous tendency towards the elimination of names.” This argument assumes Markan priority, as noted by Bauckham. Bauckham notes that there are eleven names mentioned in Luke’s special Lukan material. This should not be seen as contradictory to Bauckham’s thesis since these names are in Luke’s special material. John names four individuals who are not named in the Synoptics, though there is one name given to a previously unnamed individual: Malchus. This provides little evidence for the invention of names.
G. Oral Tradition
1. General Comments
A) Barnett: Barnett notes various evidence of oral transmission in the New Testament, including in Paul, Luke, Hebrews, 2 John, and Jude.
B) Blomberg: Blomberg describes the checks and balances performed by the Jerusalem church as it relates to oral traditions.
2. Reliable Memory
A) Bauckham: Bauckham argues for the general reliability of memory.
B) Dunn: Dunn notes that because our memories today are poor compared to those in the ancient world, “we can scarcely appreciate a society where only the memory could be relied on to retain important information.”
3. Explains Differences
A) Dunn: Oral tradition makes the best sense, according to Dunn, of the differences between the Gospels and reflects the diverse forms of the same traditions.
4. Character of Oral Tradition
A) Dunn: Dunn notes that Homer was “recited orally for a lengthy period before being written down,” and the written text itself reflects this early oral character. Dunn cites Birger Gerhardsson’s investigation of the oral procedures as providing relevant research for understanding the rabbinical traditions and Jesus’s “most immediate context.” He also finds the research from recent studies on African oral communities to be helpful. Dunn similarly finds somewhat helpful the “anecdotal accounts by Kenneth Bailey of thirty years’ of experience of oral communities in the villages of Egypt and Lebanon.”
5. Conclusions
A) Dunn: For Dunn, the oral tradition can be seen as an “alternative or complimentary explanation” with regard to literary interdependence, and it “has been recognized in principle . . . that there must have been a period before the writing of the Gospels (or their written sources) when the Jesus tradition, or at least the bulk of it, would have circulated and been used only in oral form.”
H. Gospels as Bioi (Ancient Biographies)
1. General Comments
A) Bauckham: Bauckham notes that the fact that the Gospels are bioi is generally accepted in scholarship.
B) Dunn: Dunn argues that it has been made even more clear since the 1970s that the Gospels are ancient biographies. The bottom line for Dunn is that there is “considerable historical interest” regarding the material included in the Gospels.
2. Versus Other Ancient Biographies
A) Blomberg: Remarks that although the biographies of Alexander the Great come over four centuries after his death, “historians generally consider them to be trustworthy.”
B) Yamauchi: “We have better historical documentation for Jesus than for the founder of any other religion.” He then notes that although the Gathas reports about Zoroaster were not written until the third century AD, they report events from around 1000 BC. Buddha’s biography was also not written until several centuries after his death. The first biography of Muhammad also comes about a century after his death.
I. Luke–Acts
1. Luke’s Reliability
A) General Comments
(1) Dunn: Dunn notes that a balanced approach needs to be taken regarding Luke and that one should be careful to avoid calling Luke a historian.
(2) Ehrman: As noted above, Ehrman argues that Luke “meant to write a history of early Christianity, not a novel. Moreover, all of the ancient Christian authors who refer to the book appear to have understood it in this way.” Ehrman believes Acts to be comparable to some degree with Josephus’s Antiquities.
B) Acts Speeches
(1) Dunn: Regarding the speech in Acts 3:11–26, Dunn argues Luke “made an effort to uncover and use such material,” which “is a clear indication that he felt under some constraint in formulating such speeches.” Luke was not free to do whatever he wished, but had to conform himself to the material he had in order to give “a fair representation.” Dunn envisions that for Luke to have done this, he would have had to “carefully” inquire with those who remembered these early preachings and sermons (cf. Luke 1:1–4). Luke worked within the typical standards for those in the ancient world when recording speeches.
2. Authorship
A) Dunn: “That Luke and Acts were written by the same author is still the major consensus.”
3. Luke Not an Eyewitness Source behind Acts
A) Lüdemann: Lüdemann makes some surprisingly weak arguments (e.g., arguments from silence) that Luke did not know Paul personally.
J. Gospels Contain Historical Material
1. Ehrman: Although Ehrman thinks the Gospels are problematic, “they nonetheless do contain some historically accurate recollections of what he [Jesus] said, did, and experienced amid all the embellishments and changes.” Arguing similarly elsewhere, he writes, “Does this mean that the Gospels are useless as historical sources? No, it means that we need to have rigorous historical methods to help us examine books that were written for one purpose.”
K. Gospel Authorship
1. Anonymous Gospels
A) Other Anonymous Ancient Works
(1) Summaries
(a) Bauckham: Bauckham provides a helpful summary of anonymous works (i.e., texts with no ascribed author). “Many ancient works were anonymous in the same formal sense [as the Gospels], and the name may not even appear in the surviving title of the work.”
(2) Lucian
(a) Bauckham: He notes the formal anonymity of “Lucian’s Life of Demonax (Demonactos bios), which as a bios (ancient biography) is generically comparable with the Gospels.”
B) Anonymous Works with Understood Authorship
(1) General Comments
(a) Bauckham: Bauckham argues that in Matthew, Luke, and John there is evidence to suggest that they were not intended to be anonymous or intentionally anonymous. For Bauckham, John 21:23–24 shows that the Beloved Disciple was an identifiable figure of whom it was at least possible for rumors to circulate. Bauckham acknowledges that Matthew is complex, and he provides various reasons why Matthew’s readers would have expected to know the author.
(2) Passing of Authorship When Formally Anonymous
(a) Bauckham: Says one way in which authorship would be passed on would be when copies of the work were made for new readers. The name would need to be noted, identifiable, and likely placed as a label on the outside of the scroll.
(3) Luke Specifically
(a) Bauckham: “It is inconceivable that a work with a named dedicatee should have been anonymous.” For Bauckham, the dedicatee would absolutely have known who the author was in this situation, so the idea that the Gospels were originally or intentionally anonymous is problematic.
C) Traditional Titles
(1) The Need for Names
(a) Bauckham: Bauckham agrees largely with the work of Hengel on the subject. Both point out the early need for names, especially to distinguish between different Gospels. For multiple reasons, readers would need to differentiate between the various writings in their collections, and names would be one natural way to do this (this would have been the same issue in other technically anonymous works outside the Gospels too).
(2) Only Known by the Names We Have
(a) Bauckham: Says there is “no evidence” the Gospels went by any different names than the four we have. The “universal form” and usage of these titles “as soon as we have any evidence suggest that they originated at an early stage.”
9. GOSPELS ARE NOT RESPONDING TO GNOSTICISM
A. Ehrman: Ehrman argues that there is no evidence that later Christian Gnosticism was present in early Christianity.
B. Muddiman: Similarly says that such would be unlikely, given that the Gospels would then “short-circuit themselves.” When Jesus appears and suddenly disappears, Luke and John are interested in showing that Jesus was physical. These episodes would be counterproductive in terms of refuting Gnosticism.
C. O’Collins: O’Collins argues similarly that the Gospel accounts were not responding to Gnosticism.
D. Wright: According to Wright, if the Gospels were responding to Gnosticism, they did not do a very good job in several areas, like making Jesus appear and disappear. He also defends the thesis that Paul and the Gospels portray two separate, but highly compatible, traditions. Both agree that Jesus was raised bodily. Wright thinks it is unwarranted to suggest the Gospels, especially Luke and John, developed from a Hellenistic to a Jewish basis.
10. GOSPELS CORRESPONDING TO PAUL’S CREEDS
A. Allison: Notes that the creed in 1 Corinthians 15 would have been expressed more fully on other occasions (the Gospels could be just such an example).
B. Alsup: Says that except for the “single reference” in Luke 24:34, “not one single reference to the appearance participants . . . shows a direct overlap.”
C. Barnett: States that the list of appearances in 1 Corinthians 15 “is entirely consistent” with the four Gospels.
11. JESUS’S PREDICTIONS OF HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION
A. General Comments
1. Allison: Allison appears to take for granted that there are passion predictions in the Gospels (referring to Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34).
2. Casey: States that Jesus could have guessed it would be likely that he would die in Jerusalem as an atoning death for Israel. He predicted his death and his resurrection, but it was not bodily or with an empty tomb.
3. Crossley: Says Jesus “quite probably predicted his death.” For Crossley, it is “clear enough” that Jesus thought or recognized that he would die soon. One of the reasons Crossley thinks this is because it is multiply attested.
4. Dunn: Dunn thinks Jesus believed that he would be arrested, which entails a subsequent death.
5. Ehrman: Ehrman appears to consider it reasonable to think that Jesus recognized the circumstances and what had happened to prophets in the past. Elsewhere, Ehrman thinks that Jesus might have simply been realizing the consequences of his message in Jerusalem during Passover. Ehrman notes that Jesus’s prediction fails the criteria of dissimilarity because we can easily see why early Christians would have invented it, although that does not mean that it did not actually happen.
6. Tabor: Tabor thinks the prediction in Mark 10:33–34 was included later in an effort to honor Jesus. However, he notes that Jesus “might have told his disciples . . . of the impending trials ahead.” However, if Tabor is wrong and Jesus did make these predictions, then he thinks that Jesus would have thought he would be “saved from death.”
7. Wenham: Wenham notes that Jesus was surely aware of what happened to John the Baptist, being a popular religious leader in Roman Palestine, and that Jesus could have done this without supernatural intervention.
8. Wright: Wright notes that Jesus gave “dark hints” that one person was going to be resurrected ahead of everyone else (general resurrection).
B. Support for Jesus’s Death and Resurrection Predictions
1. Allison: Notes Jesus “announced” that the tribulation of the last days and the resurrection of the dead were “just around the corner” and that he would die in the first and be vindicated by the second. Jesus expected his suffering, death, and vindication in the general resurrection of the dead.
2. Bayer: According to Ellis, Bayer, as evidenced in his published Aberdeen dissertation (supervised by I. H. Marshall), thinks it is “closely-argued” and uses form-critical conclusions to demonstrate that Jesus’s predictions go back to a “Palestinian-Jewish milieu” and to Jesus himself. Sumithra’s review likewise notes how Bayer’s book covers all the key verses in the Synoptics and concludes that Jesus did predict both his vindication and resurrection: “Jesus not only anticipated the necessity of his death but also rested assured of his resurrection from the dead—very much indeed.”
3. Borg: Says Jesus maybe spoke about his death, but he surely knew “he was in great danger.”
4. Brown: At the conclusion of a lengthy appendix on whether Jesus predicted his passion, Brown seems to think that “Jesus anticipated a violent death.” Brown concludes that Jesus might have had some “foresight” regarding his future but probably not enough to think that “he would be rejected and die violently but emerge vindicated.”
5. Craig: Gives some reasons supporting Jesus’s predictions: we can’t reject them a priori, there are no good empirical reasons for rejecting them, and the concept was “utterly foreign” to the disciples.
6. Evans: Says there are “many reasons” to conclude that “in all probability” Jesus anticipated his suffering and death. They include Jesus’s knowledge of John the Baptist’s fate, the parable of the wicked tenants, his teachings to take up our cross and follow him, and Jesus’s “garden prayer.” It is also probable that he predicted his resurrection because Jews believed in postmortem existence, especially for martyrs. Evans then offers conclusions on both matters.
7. Hengel: Writes that “it should no longer be doubted” that Jesus probably knew of his death beforehand.
8. Jansen: Says Jesus probably predicted his death and resurrection, and at least “without doubt” knew he was going to die.
9. Kee: Alistair Kee says Jesus predicted his passion, but Jesus did not predict his resurrection. That was added later.
10. Kee: Howard Clark Kee notes Jesus predicted both his own death and the fall of Jerusalem.
11. Ladd: Says Jesus predicted his death and resurrection a few times. Due to the two independent traditions involved, it is difficult to explain away these passages as later additions by the church. Plus this makes us ignore some Son of Man passages, which is especially interesting because “the Son of Man is not a suffering and dying figure.”
12. Lindars: Writes that even though the passion predictions were probably added later considering the events, there is reason to think that the teachings on Jesus’s death and resurrection are rooted in Jesus.
13. Meier: Says Jesus may have sensed his coming death as a martyr.
14. Nickelsburg: Notes Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple and held to a model of discipleship that involved his willing death.
15. O’Collins: States Jesus knew of his impending death and made predictions of it. These accounts were not “free inventions.” He concludes that Jesus thought he would die and be quickly vindicated by resurrection.
16. Perkins: Says the predictions of Jesus’s death and vindication may be authentic.
17. Pesch: For Pesch, according to Galvin, the pre-Easter Jesus believed in and prepared his disciples for his approaching death and its “redemptive value,” thereby providing at least some buffer against the shock of it. However, apparently Pesch did not think that Jesus directly predicted his own resurrection.
18. Senior: Says “the most authentic interpretation” we have of Jesus’s knowledge of his death for others was revealed at the Last Supper.
19. Sheehan: “Jesus prepared his disciples for his inevitable fate.”
20. Wedderburn: Says that if Jesus predicted his death, it was perhaps nothing more than a hint.
21. Williams: Claims Jesus knew of his approaching death.
C. Arguments against Jesus’s Death and Resurrection Predictions
1. Elliott: Elliott says it is probable that Jesus did not prophesy his resurrection.
2. Küng: Küng reluctantly considers the mere possibility that Jesus “expected a violent death.”
3. Lüdemann: Lüdemann does not think Jesus predicted his death and resurrection.
4. Pannenberg: Pannenberg says that he accepts “the doubts of most scholars” regarding Jesus’s predictions of his resurrection.
5. Price: Says the predictions are “obviously artificial ‘prolepses.’”
12. DISCREPaNCIES IN RESURRECTION ACCOUNTS
A. General Comments
1. Various Scholars: Various scholars from all backgrounds have commented on the alleged discrepancies in the resurrection accounts.
B. Affirm the Presence of Discrepancies
1. Casey: Casey argues that the Gospel accounts of the resurrection appearances “contain internal inconsistencies” that are “organically serious disagreements.”
2. Ehrman: Says the Bible and its authors are “not inspired by God, in my opinion, any more than any other genius is. And they contradict themselves all over the map.” The New Testament “tales of Jesus are full of discrepancies in matters both large and small . . . much of the material in the Gospels in fact is not historically reliable.”
3. Johnson: Johnson notes various discrepancies between, for example, Mark and John. Elsewhere, Bock responds to Johnson.
4. Lewis: Very briefly mentions discrepancies.
5. Tabor: Tabor does not think the accounts can be harmonized and notes that the writers do not seem to be concerned about the “contradictions” between the accounts. He argues that the accounts represent theological beliefs and developments more so than history. However, “that does not mean these gospels contain nothing of historical value.”
C. Deny the Presence of Discrepancies
1. Blomberg: Blomberg argues that practically all the alleged contradictions in the Gospels can be resolved.
D. Addressing Discrepancies
1. General Comments
A) Craig: “The sort of disparities in the secondary details . . . do not suffice to undermine the historical core” of the resurrection facts. “No professional historian jettisons his sources because disparities exist at points.” Craig uses the examples cited by Harris’s comparison of the accounts between Livy and Polybius of Hannibal’s military campaign versus Rome.
B) Harris: Harris provides some responses to this concern.
C) Stump: Looks at Raymond Brown’s exegesis of John 20:1–11 and argues that many New Testament scholars like Brown are overly zealous in applying their methodologies to the Gospels when their methods can’t be supported by either historical or philosophical arguments. While Brown eschews harmonization, “it seems clear that his own methodology is itself a sort of harmonization.”
D) Wenham: Wenham’s book addresses the issue of discrepancies.
E) Wright: Wright notes that it does not follow from discrepancies that therefore nothing happened.
2. Oral Tradition
A) Blomberg: Blomberg argues that the disciples would have “carefully preserved” Jesus’s teachings, even though this could be done with some flexibility regarding the exact wording. He also notes that the apostles in Jerusalem would have “checked up” on the passing on of these traditions.
B) Dunn: Dunn thinks that oral traditions “make better sense” of the differences between the Synoptics. He adds that these differences are not contradictions or mistakes but represent diverse forms of oral tradition.
3. Theudas in Acts 5
A) Barnett: Barnett finds this discrepancy highly questionable and posits the possibility of another Theudas, as it is unlikely that Luke would have been mistaken regarding an infamous contemporary.
4. John 20:17
A) Brown: Brown translates John 20:17 as “Do not cling to me.” He remarks that this may be similar to the women “clutching” Jesus in Matt 28:9.
B) Fuller: On Jesus telling Mary either “don’t touch” or “stop touching,” Fuller prefers the latter.
C) Lieu: Takes a similar view as Brown and Fuller.
D) Stanley: Also agrees.
E) Witherington: Witherington notes that the Greek of John 20:17 should “not” be translated “Don’t touch me” before saying that the “issue here is that Mary seeks to reinitiate the old relationship (calling Jesus rabbouni), but Jesus wants her to move on to a new way of relating to him, no longer clinging to the past.”
13. RELIABILITY OF PASSION AND RESURRECTION NARRATIVES
A. General Comments
1. Alsup: Says Luke 24:34 “comes directly from the kerygma.”
2. Caird: Caird thinks that Luke 24:13–43 closely resembles John 20:3–29, “and both are almost certainly dependent upon allied streams or oral tradition.” Luke possibly got the “tradition” in Acts 10:36–43 “from the Aramaic-speaking Church.”
3. Craig: Craig lists three examples of scholars who hold a pre-70 dating: Guthrie, Reike, and John A. T. Robinson.
4. Marshall: Marshall, according to O’Collins, says that Luke is citing historically trustworthy material that is “well-attested tradition,” giving a few (seemingly weak) reasons for his view.
5. O’Collins: “Luke seems to have received an old tradition of Christ appearing to his disciples on the occasion of a meal,” as in Acts 10:41.
6. Pannenberg: “The details have possibly been reshaped, yet a factual core may still underlie the narratives.”
7. Plevnik: Plevnik thinks that both Lohfink and Dillon “see within the Lukan account the presence of a pre-Lukan tradition in vv. 36–43” as opposed to Luke 24:44–49.
B. Early
1. Bauckham: Acknowledges that if there was a passion narrative that was around before Mark, then many scholars think it goes back to the Jerusalem church and dates to, at the latest, the 40s.
C. Embarrassing Testimony
1. Presence of Women
A) Wright: Wright finds it “impossible” to think that the women were invented after Paul’s time. Wright provides good sources and refers to the debate between Origen and Celsus as an example of the problems of the references of women.
2. Women as Eyewitnesses
A) Bauckham: As noted above, Bauckham stresses the women’s role as eyewitnesses to Jesus’s death, burial, and empty tomb. The Synoptics appeal to the women’s role as eyewitnesses. It is “natural” to think that these women were also known for being “authoritative sources” by remaining available for the rest of their days. These women were certainly not “anonymous.” He also mentions some of the issues related to various divergences between the accounts.
D. Luke–Acts
1. General Comments
A) Various Scholars: Various scholars appear to recognize that Luke–Acts were written by the same person. Various scholars also find support of this from the “we” passages.
B) Brown: Brown seems to respect the text of Luke 24:12, 24, which discusses the disciples going to inspect the tomb.
C) Fuller: Says accounts of this experience, like those in Luke 24 and John 20, have their “historical nucleus” in either the appearance to the Twelve or to all the apostles listed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 (or a combination of the two appearances). Fuller notes “pre-Lucan” material in several aspects of Luke’s resurrection account in Luke 24. Fuller seems to trust the Acts accounts of Paul’s conversion because they have only “minor variations.” From this we learn that there were “outward details.”
D) Guillaume: “This book is a closely-argued and convincing defence of the presentation of the narratives in Luke-Acts” of the women and Peter at the tomb, Emmaus, the appearances, and ascension “as being both a faithful rendering of authentic and independent tradition.” Guillaume makes good use of several critical methods, archaeology, and comparative religion. Regarding Peter’s trip to the tomb and early tradition, he writes, “La tradition primitive plus ancienne certainement que la tradition presynoptique” (The primitive tradition [is] certainly older than the pre-Synoptic tradition.) On the appearance to the disciples, he says John’s account is probably the chief one here. He also writes on the parallels between the disciples running to the tomb in Luke and John.
E) Hedrick: On whether or not Paul’s companions heard the voice, Hedrick gives options for and against this. He refers to Acts 9:7 and 22:9 as “perhaps the most obvious contradiction and the most difficult to explain.” Even if Paul’s companions saw the light but heard nothing, Luke is “again confirming the objectivity of the event.” Also in 26:14, Luke notes the companions fell down.
F) Marcus: Says the apologetic use of the Old Testament in the speeches in Acts “probably mirror[s] the missionary strategy of the early church,” though they are later products.
G) O’Collins: He says three stages apply to Luke (these presumably could be applied to other New Testament authors too): (1) What Jesus actually did when he appeared to the disciples. (2) What the earliest church thought and taught about what Jesus did. (3) Luke’s own views in his Gospel. O’Collins thinks that Luke himself does not mean that Jesus literally ate fish, since the previous Emmaus account portrays Jesus’s nonmaterial body.
H) Osborne: Discusses Luke’s doubt motif. Citing R. Fuller, Osborne provides a number of indications that the Emmaus account has “a historical nucleus” that includes “geographical details” and “the place-name ‘Emmaus.’” The presence of a “literal place speaks much in favor of a reliable tradition.” The fact that this town wasn’t well known is an argument in favor of it being historical.
2. Luke and Paul
A) Discrepancies
(1) Akenson: Akenson notes several “incompatibilities” between Acts and Paul that “cannot be reconciled.” Some examples include the degree of Saul’s persecution, the persecution of the Jerusalem church (Acts 8:3; cf. Gal 1:22), whether Saul had been involved in Stephen’s martyrdom, the circumstances of Saul’s conversion, and the number of missionary journeys.
B) Paul’s Conversion
(1) Allison: Allison says there are good reasons to think that Luke got Paul’s conversion correct. “The apostle does this three times in Acts, and . . . there is every reason to suppose that Luke got this particularly right.”
E. Other Gospel Resurrection Accounts
1. Alsup: On Mark, Alsup thinks it is passing on two traditions (the pre-Markan passion account along with his own) and appears to be “undisturbed” by the “contextual difficulties” of putting the two together. Although Mark has an empty tomb account and is familiar with an appearance account, Mark did not feel comfortable using it. It was sufficient to refer to the empty tomb and to an appearance in Mark 16:7. On John, Alsup thinks the tomb story was adapted from an early tradition and a late tradition. The earlier one is associated with the women and like that found in the Synoptics, but different enough to indicate “either an earlier form or an alternate source to them.” Alsup seems to say that John’s account in 20:1 is the “oldest form” regarding the women. Alsup also speaks to Luke’s story of the disciples running to the tomb. Alsup thinks that most of the Gospel appearance accounts (except Matt 28:9–10 and “perhaps part of Jn. 20:14–18”) build a tradition that is next to those found in the kerygma and empty tomb.
2. Barnett: Says Paul’s list in 1 Corinthians 15 “is entirely consistent” with the Gospel resurrection accounts.
3. Collins: Like Fuller, Lindars, and Lincoln, Collins says that Mark expected his readers to complete the story by remembering that 16:7 refers back to 14:28 and the return of the Son of Man. So, Mark accepts that Jesus was raised and seen by Peter and the Twelve.
4. Craig: Craig argues that the Gospel reports of Jesus’s resurrection are “fundamentally reliable historically.” Some of the reasons include an insufficient time for legend to develop and living eyewitnesses in the apostles. These reasons “insure” the historicity of the appearance narratives. The specific appearance accounts to the women, Peter, and the Twelve at the Lake of Tiberius and in Galilee all have special details that attest to their historicity. Responding largely to Neirynck (below) and others on a comparison of Luke 24:12, 24 with John 20:1–10, Craig argues that there is likely a common tradition behind Luke 24:12, 24 and John 20:2–10 (but it is unknown who borrowed from whom). He then offers four points against Luke inventing the story. There is, for Craig, likely a “common tradition rather than interdependence.” The “disparities” are in “secondary details” and “do not suffice to undermine the historical core” of the resurrection data (noting that Miller is rash to try to do so).
5. Fuller: On the tradition behind Luke 24 and John 20 treatments of the disciple(s) running to the tomb, Fuller says Luke 24:24 is apparently more significant than Luke 12:12. Luke 24:24 “must” belong to an early tradition. John’s account is a modification of “the primitive view” that argued “Peter was the primary witness.” Fuller adds that “it is reasonable” to conclude that the disciples went to Galilee and, upon returning, verified Mary’s claim about the tomb. Mark alludes to two appearances to Peter and the Twelve (14:28; 16:7), which conform to these same appearances in Paul’s list. Mark 9:9; 14:28; and 16:7 all point to an appearance in Galilee. Mark also implies an appearance to Peter. Similarly, Luke 24:34 provides “valuable testimony” to Peter’s appearance and corroborates 1 Cor 15:5 and Mark 16:7. Historical elements in the Johannine passion narrative, such as John’s accurate topography, are mentioned. Fuller notes “pre-Johannine” elements in Jesus’s appearance to Mary Magdalene. He also discusses the materials in the appearance account in John 21. Jesus’s discussion with Peter in John 21 is also part “of the primary appearance to Peter.”
6. Goergen: Says Peter running to the tomb is “a pre-Lucan and pre-Johannine tradition” and “cannot be simply labeled as late.” They “provide historically reliable material,” and the events historicity is the “best explanation.”
7. Grant: Although not opting for either a close relationship between Mark and Peter or for Mark as the author of the Second Gospel, Grant still thinks that, on other matters, Papias is probably correct.
8. Johnson: Says the large amount of agreement on Jesus’s death between Synoptics and John argues that there is a concrete tradition behind them.
9. Kremer: Offers treatments of the appearances in the Gospels.
10. Lincoln: Takes the minority view that Mark’s angle on the women’s response in 16:8 was negative but made positive by 16:7. The reader knows that Jesus will appear, so “the silence of the women was overcome by Jesus’ word of promise.” Therefore, Mark 16:7 must be seen in light of Mark 14:27–28. Lincoln gives six reasons why 16:7 is a reference to Jesus’s resurrection, not his parousia: (1) although the Greek term parousia is used twice, it is also the normal term for resurrection appearance; (2) Matthew understands Mark to mean resurrection appearance; (3) singling out Peter makes much more sense for resurrection appearance; (4) Mark has other events occurring before the parousia (e.g., “conflicts, earthquakes and famines”); (5) Mark 9:9 points to a resurrection appearance; and (6) Mark 16:7 refers back to 14:28, which is the resurrection appearance.
11. Lindars: Like Fuller above, Lindars says “we must take seriously” Mark’s implication concerning both the first appearance to Peter in Galilee (16:7) as well as the appearance to the disciples in Galilee.
12. Meier: Says some pre-Matthean tradition can be found in Matt 28:18–20.
13. Neirynck: Presents some very creative answers to classic “tomb questions” in John: (1) scholars regularly say that John got some or much of his material from Synoptic Gospels. (2) On John having only Mary Magdalene go to the tomb, many scholars think this is the Johannine tendency to “individualize for dramatic purposes.” Seemingly recasting the classic response can be attributed to John simply choosing to discuss just one of the women present. (3) On Jesus telling Mary not to touch him, Jesus is prohibiting her continued action, and it is the commentators who cause the problems!(4) Concerning whether one or two disciples go to the tomb, Neirynck says that “there is a growing tendency to rely upon Lk. 24.24 . . . rather than Lk. 24.12 (Peter alone).” Both Luke and John show their own tendencies in their tellings of their stories. The two accounts actually fit quite nicely (with details).
14. Osborne: Osborne argues for a number of indications of historicity in the Gospel resurrection accounts.
15. Pannenberg: Pannenberg acknowledges that, concerning the resurrection, the Gospels are not “historically worthless” but rather include “historical information.” Speaking of the Gospel resurrection accounts, Pannenberg says a “factual core” might lie behind the narratives (citing Alsup). But Pannenberg still agrees with Craig that the appearance accounts in the Gospels are generally reliable.
16. Perkins: Similar to Neirynck above, Perkins says that Peter and the disciples checked the women’s claims (Luke 24:12, 22–24) and this report may be based on or connected to John 20:3–10. Perkins thinks John 20:11–18 is based on an earlier tradition.
17. Senior: “Mark ends his gospel with a powerful affirmation of resurrection” in the empty tomb report to the women and the predicted appearance in Galilee.
18. Stuhlmacher: Commenting on what archaeology tells us concerning the “accuracy” of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s passion and burial, Stuhlmacher contends that these reports are dependable, “even down to the details of topography.” He notes the “accuracy” of retracing Jesus’s passion, especially in details like Caiaphas, the scourging and nailing of Jesus to the cross alongside two others, Jesus’s quick death, and Joseph of Arimathea’s role in the burial.
19. Watson: Like Fuller above, Watson says that even though Mark doesn’t narrate any appearances, Jesus’s appearance in Galilee “is guaranteed” by the promise of the young man and the “promise in the prior word of the Lord.” Thus, the reader is led to the conclusion that this account took place or that Jesus’s promise did not come true. The narrative makes it clear that it did happen.
20. Wright: Similar to Dunn and others, Wright notes that problems in the Gospel resurrection accounts reflect what oral testimony from witnesses might look like if there wasn’t any collusion.
F. Disagreements among the Gospels
1. Callahan: “In short, no one account agrees with another.” He says the Gospels provide “contradictory” reports “as to when, where, to whom, and in what manner the risen Christ appeared.” Similar claims of others who “triumphed over death” have been made concerning Osiris, Adonis, Attis, Sol Invictus, and Dionysus. Callahan contends further that “conflicting testimonies would have to be discounted.”
2. Carroll and Green: They ask a few questions concerning when Jesus was brought before the Jews (at night or in the early morning), the mockery by Roman soldiers after Pilate handed him over to his death, and when the temple veil was torn.
3. Crossan: Compares the supernatural aspects of Jesus’s life, like the virgin birth and his divinity, to Suetonius’s report of Augustus being Apollo’s son and divine. Later he raises the issue of Buddhist miracles and asks why we accept historicity for Jesus’s supernatural actions but not those of other figures.
4. Elliott: Says the Gospels cannot be used to demonstrate the resurrection historically because they are theological and thus their historical reliability can be “dismissed.”
5. Lüdemann: Says the Gospels weren’t written by eyewitnesses. They are “thirdhand reports” and shouldn’t be used in reconstructing the resurrection. He also states he’s glad Craig doesn’t think any of the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses.
6. O’Collins: O’Collins questions whether the three Acts accounts of Paul’s conversion are “a reliable paradigm for the previous Easter appearances.”
7. Price: Notes some critics, like Mack, Koester, and Robinson, “shy away from the conclusion” that the Gospels could very well be fictional “hero biographies” with a lot of details. Price questions the existence of Jesus: “The gospel story of Jesus is itself apparently mythic from first to last.” He adds that Jesus might have been a real person, but we cannot tell.
8. Sanders: Sanders says that the three Acts accounts of Paul’s conversion “differ appreciably.”
9. Sheehan: In an article and a book, Sheehan attacks the historicity of Mark. He says Mark was written about AD 70 and used an “earlier legend.” This pre-Markan account wasn’t a historical description but “another, if earlier, religious legend.” This “First Stage” was an “oral story” that was “invented by the community in Jerusalem.” The pre-Markan account proclaimed only the resurrection, no appearances. Other Gospels developed their much more elaborate versions later.
G. Trial
1. Gibson: Gibson notes various details regarding the trial by the Sanhedrin and Pilate.
14. TEKMĒRION (ACTS 1:3)
A. Alsup: Alsup translates the noun tekmēriois in Acts 1:3 “proofs of his reality!” He also mentions that there may be “a pre-lukan source” behind Acts 1:3–4.
B. Green: Joel Green notes that tekmēriois, “convincing evidence,” appears only in Acts 1:3 in the New Testament. It is used by Aristotle, who “designated evidence of this nature as irrefutable, proven, and conclusive.”
15. AGAINST SIGNIFICANT LEGEND IN THE GOSPELS
A. See also: “Versus Legend” (section 4.D) in chapter 7.
B. O’Collins: O’Collins points out that critical exegesis “shows up such differences that it is hard to see the first tradition producing the second through a kind of snowball effect.” First Corinthians 15 and Mark, for example, reveal major differences, such as Mark having the visit by women occur on the first day of the week and referring to Jesus by his name, whereas 1 Corinthians 15 ignores the women, mentions the third day, and calls Jesus “Christ.”
16. JESUS’S RESURRECTION DIFFERS FROM OTHER BIBLICAL RESURRECTIONS
A. Brown: Brown says that Jesus’s resurrection “was unlike all the other restorations to life mentioned in the Bible.” Those raised in the New Testament return to normal human life and are not glorified never to die again.
B. Fitzmyer: Says the resurrection of Jesus was not “a return to his former mode of physical, terrestrial existence” like the other resurrections.
C. Oden: Says Jesus’s resurrection differs from all the others because they had to die again.
17. THE GUARDS AND RESURRECTION SAINTS ARE LEGENDS (MATT 27:52–53)
A. Guards
1. Various Scholars: Various scholars think the account of the guards is a legend.
2. Brown: Brown argues that the guards are widely regarded as legendary. Reasons against Matthew’s account of guards for Brown are that they are not mentioned in other Gospels, the guards would render “unintelligible” what the other Gospels say about the tomb, and it is problematic that the Jewish authorities understood Jesus while the disciples didn’t. There are “implausibilities.” The account of guards at the tomb also appears “dramatized” and serves “apologetic function.”
3. Craig: Craig recognizes that the report is apologetic. This is only in Matthew, but a different form of story is also found in Gos. Pet. Craig argues that there are several reasons that favor the guard being Jewish. He identifies a “tradition history behind” the account in Matthew. Craig addresses a number of objections, including what he says are the two toughest objections: (1) the account of the guards is not connected to the other Gospels or pre-Markan narrative; (2) the Jews understood what Jesus meant when his disciples didn’t. But there are also positive reasons to accept the story. Craig notes that if it is purely apologetic, how come Matthew depicts the guards doing such a lousy job (the soldiers don’t come until Saturday, the tomb is not checked first, he could have had Jesus appear to the guards, etc.)? Craig notes that the Gos. Pet. does a far better job in portraying the guards. Further, one reason this pericope is largely rejected is because of the physical resurrection that proceeds from it. Perhaps the strongest reason for Craig is that if there were no guard, the Jews would simply have repudiated the account and not responded that the nonexistent guards were sleeping. Still, Craig ultimately concludes by leaving it “an open question.”
4. Davis: Davis thinks more is needed other than the fact that this addresses a potential objection. In other words, the guards need to do more than serve an apologetic purpose.
5. Osborne: He provides an outline of the text about the guards. This includes a section about the priests paying the guards. Returning later to study the issue, Osborne mentions that the account evidences “non-Matthean language.” It is not necessarily late but colored.
6. Staudinger: Notes some caution regarding this conclusion and that many deny its historicity.
B. Saints (Matt 27:52–53)
1. Brown: Considers Matt 27:52–53 to be part of “popular storytelling traditions.”
2. Elliott: Comments on the saints raised from the dead in Matt 27:52–53 as “a theological insertion” within the passion narrative.
3. Grayston: Considers this a “pious fancy.”
4. Hebblethwaite: Discusses the saints in light of legends.
5. Miller: States that there is “no basis” for taking Matt 27:51–53 as historical. Matthew didn’t even intend it as literal but symbolic. “Historians have no real choice” but to conclude it is unhistorical. There is “no objective evidence.”
18. INFERRING A RESURRECTION WITHOUT DESCRIPTIONS
A. Brown: Says that since no one witnessed the resurrection, the conclusion depends on the empty tomb and especially the experiences of Jesus.
B. Fuller: Fuller points out that the resurrection is inferred from the experiences of the disciples.
C. O’Collins: Says the resurrection is based on evidence of appearances and the empty tomb.
D. Witherington: States the resurrection took place three days after Jesus’s burial, after which there were many appearances. Witherington notes that “the resurrection is not the same as the appearances of the risen Lord. . . . What the disciples saw were the results of this event.”
19. MARK’S ENDING AND THE WOMEN’S SILENCE
A. General Comments
1. Various Scholars: Various scholars have noted that Mark either originally ended at 16:8 or the original ending was lost for some reason.
2. Fenton: Fenton surveys the responses to the issue but makes no decision.
3. O’Collins: Gives four options on the women’s silence: (1) With von Campenhausen, perhaps their silence meant the disciples were not involved in the empty tomb. (2) The women could not relay the message because the disciples had already left for Galilee. (3) Silence was appropriate in light of what the women had seen and heard. (4) The women’s silence was part of the “disclosure and concealment” of Mark’s view of revelation.
4. Osborne: Osborne argues that there is widespread agreement that Mark ended at 16:8 and presents four reasons for this conclusion. Osborne gives the arguments for 16:8 being the ending as well as the possibility of a lost ending. He also discusses longer and shorter potential endings and proposes an ending.
B. Mark Ends at 16:8
1. Various Scholars: Various scholars have argued that Mark’s Gospel ends at 16:8. Others seem to agree as well.
2. Fuller: Fuller provides three explanations of the ending at 16:8:(1) “Accidental premature conclusion” where the writer was prevented from finishing (e.g., death, persecution). (2) Mutilation of the manuscript with two variations (accidental or intentional). (3) Mark meant to stop at 16:8. Fuller seems to think that Mark meant to end there, wishing only to hint at the appearances to the disciples (14:28) and to Peter (16:7).
3. Lindars: Seems to agree that most scholars think 16:8 is the original end of Mark.
4. Neirynck: Similarly recognizes that most scholars think Mark ends at 16:8 but also includes a section on the apologetic nature of the silence motif.
5. Osiek: Osiek says the ending of Mark at 16:8 is the “scholarly consensus.”
6. Perkins: Perkins thinks Mark ends at 16:8. Perkins raises questions as to whether Mark was thereby saying that the women acted like the men in their flight. It is clear the women ultimately followed through with their mission (according to Matthew).
7. Senior: Senior says that “almost all modern interpreters agree” that Mark ends at 16:8.
8. Watson: Watson says that “most recent scholars” think Mark ended his Gospel at 16:8.
C.Mark 16:8 Is Not Mark’s Original Ending
1. Alston: Alston thinks “that the most reasonable hypothesis” is that the ending was lost or Mark could not finish the Gospel.
2. Casey: Says there are multiple lines of evidence that indicate Mark was left unfinished.
3. Moule: Moule argues against Cupitt and seems to favor a lost ending.
4. Segal: Segal is adamant that Mark doesn’t purposefully end there. One reason for this is because “no Greek sentence can properly end with the word gar. It is even more difficult than ending a sentence with the word ‘furthermore’ in English because grammatically gar should not be the last word in a sentence.”
5. Witherington: Witherington doubts that Mark 16:8 is the intended ending.
6. Wright: Says the end of Mark (and maybe the beginning) was broken off and lost.
D. Mark’s Specific Mention of Peter
1. Bauckham: Bauckham argues the specific reference to Peter indicates that there was a resurrection appearance to him. Paul and Luke also make reference to such an appearance (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor 15:4). Bauckham adds the peculiarity that there are no narratives of Peter’s appearance.
2. Grayston: Says Mark apparently ends at 16:8 without an appearance, though an appearance was likely known because Peter is specifically identified. Further, Mark ends with the women saying nothing because he didn’t want to lend any support to the idea of making the tomb a memorial. Mark was arguing against tomb devotion.
E. Mark’s Ending Does Not Mean the Appearances or Reports Never Occurred
1. Eckstein: Notes that although Mark ends by sending out the women, “the oldest Gospel leaves its readers in no doubt that the disciples will see the bodily risen Christ there [Galilee].”
2. Ehrman: Says Mark is “completely unambiguous that Jesus has been raised from the dead.”
3. Kee: After noting the ending at 16:8, Howard Clark Kee says it is clear that Mark is satisfied to indicate that “God will bring Jesus among them again, but he [Mark] does not depict that event.”
4. Kirby: “The Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the four, alludes to the appearance to ‘the disciples and Peter’ in Mark 16:7. This is the only appearance mentioned in Mark, and it is fairly safe to assume that it is understood to be the first one [appearance to Peter].”
5. Witherington: Says even if Mark ended at 16:8, it does not follow that the women never said anything ever. They could have spoken to someone eventually and could have, as Matthew reports (28:9–10), seen the risen Jesus. Witherington also thinks the report accords well with their state of mind.
6. Wright: Wright notes that there is a “strong implication” of the resurrection appearances in Mark.
20. APPEARANCES AS CAUSE FOR FAITH
A. See also: “Disciples’ Experiences” (section 2) in chapter 3.
B. Allison: For Allison, Jesus must have, at the very least, been experienced as risen by the disciples if we are to explain the origins of the church.
C. Alsup: Alsup notes that “the consensus of opinion” is that the appearance and empty tomb traditions were separate and “existing independent of one another.”
D. Avis: Says faith was derived as an inference from the appearances and, “to a lesser extent,” from the empty tomb.
E. Bartsch: Bartsch asserted that the appearances were what activated faith.
F. Brown: Brown says that belief in the bodily resurrection comes from the empty tomb and “above all” from the experiences of the risen Jesus.
G. Davis: Davis argues that the earliest appearances were based on having an experience of the risen Jesus rather than just an experience of the empty tomb.
H. Ehrman: Ehrman stresses that “it was the visions, and nothing else” that created the belief in Jesus’s resurrection.
I. Fuller: States the women’s report did not convince or cause the Easter preaching, but that was the result of the appearances.
J. Kee: Oddly enough, Alistair Kee states that neither the appearances nor the empty tomb were the cause of early Christian faith.
K. Küng: Says the empty tomb did not lead the disciples to the belief that Jesus was resurrected; it was the appearance experiences.
L. Moltmann: Moltmann says that the early preaching is founded upon the appearances of Jesus.
M. Neill and Wright: These two point out that for years, a common starting point of agreement among New Testament scholars has been “that the belief of the disciples in the Resurrection depended on their encounters with the risen Jesus, and that the ‘legend’ of the empty tomb grew up at a later date to reinforce a belief that was already had.” Note Wright’s comments below on the empty tomb and appearances.
N. O’Collins: States that Jesus’s appearances and the empty tomb were the “two major catalysts of Easter faith.” But the appearances were more crucial. The appearances were “the primary historical catalyst” to Easter faith. This is similar to Wright’s comments below.
O. Osiek: Osiek states that the focus was not on the empty tomb for the early church, but the appearances (cf. 1 Corinthians 15).
P. Pannenberg: Pannenberg calls the appearances the “basis of the Easter witness,” since the empty tomb could be interpreted in different ways. Moreover, the empty tomb gains its clarity in light of the appearances. For Paul, the appearances were the proof.
Q. Stein: Stein points out, similar to Osiek, that the early Christians emphasized the appearances rather than the empty tomb.
R. Welker: Welker notes that this belief originated from a “variety of appearances” rather than from a single experience.
S. Witherington: Witherington argues that Jesus’s resurrection could not have started the church unless the disciples also knew that it had occurred. Thus, Jesus appeared to them so that they would know that Jesus was now alive. The way in which these appearances occurred (to different people at different times in different settings) argues against mass hallucinations or visions. Witherington notes that the empty tomb alone could not have created belief in a resurrected Jesus; the appearances were also needed.
T. Wright: Wright makes many comments about the appearances in general, including the “secure” historical reality of these events. He notes that it was the empty tomb and appearances that caused the early Christian faith to be considered a “watertight” argument. He points out that other messianic groups disbanded after the death of their leader but Christians claimed, from the beginning, that Jesus rose from the dead (something that was not expected). He also notes that pagan analogies fall short. Wright further points out that if Jesus had not risen from the dead and appeared to the disciples, then Jesus would not have been considered the Messiah by anyone.
21. LOCATION OF JESUS’S APPEARANCES
A. General Comments
1. Barclay: Barclay thinks that the initial appearances were in Galilee.
2. Barnett: Says Paul’s list in 1 Corinthians 15 represents a sequence: (1) the appearances to Peter and the Twelve likely happened in Jerusalem, (2) the ones to the 500 and to James were in Galilee, and (3) Paul’s experience was close to Damascus.
3. Brown: Brown says that if one wanted to “venture beyond the evidence to establish a sequence,” both the Jerusalem and Galilean appearances could be postulated. Brown says we just don’t know where they occurred, but this says nothing about the historicity of the appearances.
4. Conzelmann: Conzelmann says it “is a moot point,” but the simplest solution is Jerusalem for all the appearances except Paul’s.
5. Cranfield: Cranfield argues that since Luke specifies a time period of forty days from Jesus’s resurrection to the ascension, this “underlines the fact that there was ample time to allow for appearances both in Jerusalem and its neighborhood and also in Galilee.”
6. Doré: Doré apparently supports both the Jerusalem and Galilee options.
7. Fuller: Says the earliest appearances to Peter and the Twelve were in Galilee. The others in Paul’s list probably happened in Jerusalem.
8. Funk: Funk thinks “many scholars” locate the appearances in Galilee because the disciples abandoned Jesus, and he agrees with this since Jerusalem appearances are too unlikely, but we cannot say for sure.
9. Goergen: Goergen supports appearances in both Jerusalem and Galilee.
10. Ladd: After explaining how the appearances probably occurred in both Jerusalem and Galilee, Ladd concludes that “competent critical scholars accept both” locations.
11. Lorenzen: Lorenzen thinks that the earliest appearances to the male disciples occurred in Galilee. Some later ones then occurred in Jerusalem.
12. Moltmann: Moltmann also says it “is certainly a moot point.” He locates the chief appearances in Galilee, with the women’s appearance being in Jerusalem.
13. O’Collins: Leaves it “unresolved” but favors Galilee, at least for the “original geographical location for the appearances.” But O’Collins still notes the normal critical delineation of appearances as Galilee for Peter and the Twelve, and Jerusalem for Mary Magdalene and James.
14. Osborne: After surveying some critical approaches, Osborne says, the “best answer” is to follow Moule. The disciples “may have followed that of festival pilgrims who remained in Jerusalem for Passover, went home to Galilee, then returned for Pentecost.” This would argue that the first appearances were in Jerusalem, then Galilee, then in Jerusalem again. So there are no real problems here.
15. Wedderburn: Whatever happened, Wedderburn holds that appearances probably occurred in both Galilee and Jerusalem.
B. Galilee Appearances
1. Craig: Says Jesus’s appearance in Galilee are found in the pre-Markan passion narrative, which likely records the remembrance of a real event. Craig thinks the appearances to the 500 “probably” happened in Galilee before the disciples returned to Jerusalem. He thinks the Galilee appearances could have happened outside in the open.
2. Twelftree: Twelftree notes that a proper context for Galilee is a fishing expedition. Historical reliability is added to the Galilee appearances because there appears to be multiple independent testimony from Matthew, Mark, and John that place the “focus” of Jesus’s appearances here. Twelftree concludes that “it is probable that the risen Jesus appeared to his followers and performed a miracle [catching of fish in John 21:4–14] as broadly outlined in this story.”
3. Wenham: Wenham places the appearances to the 500 with the Galilean appearance foretold in Mark 16:7 and Matt 28:10. Wenham adds that Matt 28:16 might mean only the eleven disciples were there, but something bigger could be possible since “some doubted.” He also thinks that the meeting in Galilee was specifically coordinated by Jesus. He adds that the language of “brothers” might be indicative for one to favor Galilee. Wenham also thinks that Galilee is a more appropriate setting for the appearance to the 500 than Jerusalem.
C. Tiberius Appearances
1. Craig: Craig argues that it is “unusual” that the disciples are fishing shortly after Jesus’s resurrection and the appointing of them. For Craig, this reflects an “early and probably accurate” account of Jesus’s appearance to the disciples at the Lake of Tiberius. Craig adds that the testimony of the Beloved Disciple adds more weight to the account.
22. NONRECOGNITION OF JESUS
A. General Comments
1. Alsup: Besides Mary and the road to Emmaus, Alsup also includes in the discussion the Galilean appearance to the Twelve (probably Matt 28:17?) and says that the recognition element is the “strongest” point of variance between the accounts.
2. Bloesch: The nonrecognition of Mary Magdalene and the two on the road to Emmaus means that Jesus’s appearance was somewhat altered.
3. Brown: Brown notes that nonrecognition is a “common feature” in the Gospel accounts of the resurrection.
4. Dunn: Referring to the core tradition, Dunn notes that the disciples saw Jesus and “somewhat paradoxically, an almost equally attested motif is failure to recognize Jesus.” It is reported in John and Luke, while “doubt and disbelief” are mentioned in Matthew, Luke, and John.
5. Fitzmyer: Fitzmyzer finds a connection between the nonrecognition of Jesus and Paul’s distinction between a physical and spiritual body.
6. Goergen: Thinks the nonrecognition of Jesus could be explained by Jesus appearing differently at different times.
7. McDonald: Says the two on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus because “the moment of truth has not yet arrived.”
8. Osborne: Osborne says that the point in Luke is that nonrecognition was God’s act; he opened their eyes at the appropriate time.
B. Multiple Attestation
1. Dunn: Dunn notes that Jesus’s nonrecognition (and aspects of doubt) is multiply attested.
23. DISPLACED RESURRECTION ACCOUNTS
A. Alsup: After a detailed treatment of numerous candidates (Luke 5:1–11 [miraculous catch of fish]; Mark 6:45–52 and parr. [Jesus walking on water]; Mark 9:2–8 and parr. [transfiguration]; Mark 4:35–41 and parr. [stilling the storm]), Alsup concludes that these accounts “do not assist us in our pursuit of the pre-redactional form of the gospel appearance stories.” The only possible exception is Jesus walking on the water.
B. Boring: On a related issue, Boring argues at length that sayings of the historical Jesus probably became resurrection sayings in a number of ways.
C. Nickelsburg: Nickelsburg notes that it has been argued “often” that the resurrection of the saints could be a displaced resurrection account.
D. Stanley: Says “there can be little doubt” that Jesus rebuking the storm is an apparent resurrection account, or at least a reminder of the resurrected Jesus.
24. FORTY-DAY PERIOD
A. Alsup: Alsup doesn’t say much about the forty-day period, except that it introduces “a new element.”
B. Brown: Brown says it is a symbolic period of time.
C. Crusemann: Crusemann thinks that in the case of Luke, the resurrection appearances stopped after the ascension, while Paul thought he was the last one in a series.
D. Moltmann: Moltmann thinks the forty days “are symbolic.”
E. Oden: Oden treats it as the literal length of time for Jesus’s resurrection appearances.
25. ASCENSION
A. Brown: Notes differences in the Gospels between Luke’s forty days (a symbolic number) and other texts (Luke 24:51; cf. Mark 16:19; John 20:17) that imply an ascension on Easter Sunday. He mentions Benoit’s “very important distinction” between ascension as the termination of the appearances and the theological distinction as Jesus’s exaltation. He claims Luke’s ascension account might be part of a “preGospel tradition.” Luke is coloring an account that existed before the writing of the Gospels.
B. Davis: Responding to Lüdemann, who seems to think that the ascension is a very serious problem for the resurrection, Davis makes some strong points: (1) While the ascension is narrated only in Luke–Acts, it is alluded to often in the New Testament. (2) If God can raise Jesus, why “recoil” at the ascension? (3) He concludes there is “nothing” that Lüdemann presents that should cause doubt regarding Jesus’s resurrection.
C. Fitzmyer: Fitzmyer distinguishes between two sorts of references: texts that allude to ascension without a description, and texts that “situate it in time and space.” The ascension is simply the “appearance from glory in which Christ took his final leave.” The ascension is a “guarantee” for believers.
D. Fuller: On Luke’s ascension, Fuller thinks the “central statement” could be founded upon a “primitive kerygmatic formula, belonging to the Palestinian-Aramaic christological stratum.” Similarly, the Acts ascension was based on “a very primitive kerygmatic affirmation” that was “expanded into a narrative” and finally included in Luke’s “historical work.” On John’s ascension, Fuller thinks, for John, it happened somewhere in between the appearances to Mary Magdalene and to Thomas.
E. Goergen: Goergen has a section on the ascension but is not concerned with what happened.
F. Guillaume: Guillaume says that the ascension in Luke is the “conclusion d’une apparition.”
G. Küng: Küng compares the ascension to pagan accounts of apotheosis and rejects the literal nature of the ascension.
H. LaVerdiere: Says the ascension is “very important” in both Luke and Acts. It reflects “Jesus’ entry into glory” and is connected to the blessing and mission of the church.
I. Lüdemann: Lüdemann thinks that the ascension is a huge problem because it betrays a three-storied universe, and Luke 24 contradicts Acts 1. Further, there were many parallels to the ascension in antiquity.
J. O’Collins: Says Luke doesn’t know of any problem between timing of the ascension in his Gospel and Acts. There is no problem with the delay of Jesus’s coming here, because Luke thinks there was a delay anyway. The ascension also fits a key Lukan theme of salvation history.
K. Oden: Oden treats a number of details regarding the ascension, although still rather generally.
L. Osborne: Osborne doesn’t think that the discrepancies are very difficult to explain, giving some examples. He includes other New Testament portions that mention the ascension.
M. Stein: Stein also includes a brief section on the ascension.
N. Torrance: Torrance devotes a chapter to the ascension and the second coming.
26. JESUS’S EXALTATION
A. Avis: Citing C. F. Evans, Avis says there are New Testament passages that bypass resurrection and go straight to exaltation.
B. Brown: Mentions Benoit’s “very important distinction” between ascension as the termination of Jesus’s appearances and Jesus’s exaltation.
C. Fitzmyer: Writes that “the earliest NT references to the phase of Christ’s existence following his burial cast it in terms of his exaltation.” They sometimes omit any reference to Jesus’s resurrection. But then the exaltation became “coupled with his resurrection” as “found in the so-called Jerusalem kerygma” in the early speeches in Acts.
D. Goergen: In a section on Jesus’s exaltation, Goergen says although there is a difference between resurrection and exaltation, “they are still closely connected. Thus it is best to see them as distinguishable aspects but not as separate events.”
E. Guillaume: Guillaume offers a brief discussion on Jesus’s exaltation.
F. Küng: Jesus’s resurrection in the New Testament, according to Küng, means “nothing more than that he was elevated to God by the very fact of being raised.” “Resurrection from death and exaltation to God are one and the same.” Luke is the only possible New Testament exception that separates the two.
G. Lindars: Lindars argues along the lines that resurrection was similar or synonymous with exaltation at the beginning, which means that interpreting the resurrection is of more “fundamental importance than the fact. It can even be asserted that the idea of the exaltation of Jesus could have been reached . . . without the experience of the resurrection as an historical event.” Lindars adds that it is not a “translation” from earthly life to glory but instead a translation that comes after death.
H. Meyer: Jesus’s exaltation was always present according to Meyer.
I. O’Collins: Presents four New Testament patterns: (1) Death followed by resurrection (Mark 9:31; 1 Cor 15:3). (2) Death followed by “heavenly exaltation” (Phil 2:8; Mark 14:62) or “by ‘entering into glory’” (Luke 24:26). (3) Death followed by resurrection and exaltation (Rom 8:34; Acts 2:32) or “enthronement as Son of God and Messianic king of the last age” (Rom 1:4). (4) Resurrection and exaltation “used interchangeably” (Luke 24:26, 46; probably Matt 28:16).
J. Oden: Oden treats a number of details regarding the exaltation, kingship, and glory of Jesus, although still rather generally.
K. Rowland: Rowland sees these two themes as “intimately interwoven” and notes that attempts to disentangle them are not easy.
L. Spong: Spong seems to think that Jesus’s resurrection was exaltation.
27. CENTRALITY OF GOD’S KINGDOM AND JESUS’S RADICAL CALL
A. General Comments
1. Brown: Brown comments that throughout Jesus’s life there is an “unshakable confidence” that he was authorized to “interpret the demands” of God’s kinship.
2. Caird: Says when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, he was making his last appeal to be accepted “as the Messiah of God’s Kingdom.” Jesus sought to make appeals “to the nation to put itself under God’s sovereignty once and for all.” Caird notes that in Jesus, the kingdom has arrived and requires “radical obedience to his—and its—demands.” He also notes the threefold distinction of a kingdom that “has come . . . is in the process of becoming . . . and is yet to come.”
3. Charlesworth (via Eddy): According to Charlesworth, that Jesus taught an apocalyptic message is “one of the strongest consensuses in New Testament research.”
4. Crossan: Crossan acknowledges that “the majority [of New Testament scholars] clearly say” Jesus talked about the kingdom of God.
5. Dunn: Dunn does not doubt that Jesus preached God’s kingdom.
6. Grant: Grant recognizes both future and present aspects of the kingdom. A decision was required. Jesus initiated the kingdom too.
7. Hengel: Says the coming of the kingdom was Jesus’s central message.
8. Jackson: Jackson notes that Jesus’s central message was the kingdom of God, which is “generally accepted by scholars.”
9. Johnson: Says that the kingdom is implicit in Mark’s teachings about “God’s rule” in Jesus. Jesus is “God’s spokesperson . . . knows the plan of God . . . in his preaching the goal of history is being reached.”
10. Kasper: “Jesus’ message about the approaching Kingdom of God is God’s firm and final offer, and demands a decision.”
11. Kee: Howard Clark Kee says Jesus’s “major task” was to preach the kingdom of God. His answer was to repent in light of what had already begun.
12. Ladd: Says Jesus’s “central message was the Kingdom of God.”
13. Lindars: States that repentance before the kingdom comes is “fundamental” to Jesus’s preaching and related to Jesus sending out the apostles.
14. Meier: Says scholars are “sharply divided” concerning “the nature” of this message of the kingdom and whether it was already present, coming soon, or something else. He notes that the Jesus Seminar and E. P. Sanders express doubts. Meier says there is “too much authentic material in various streams of Gospel tradition to deny” that Jesus spoke about a “future coming of God in his kingly rule.” On the other hand, there are “authentic sayings” that refer to it occurring in the present, such as Luke 11:20. It was “central” to Jesus’s teaching. Jesus thought the kingdom would come soon but did not specify a time. Meier also discusses future components and notes that accounts must do justice to the eschatological future, otherwise they will be considered inadequate. Still, not everything Jesus taught on the kingdom can be explained in terms of the future. There was a present component, but the relationship with the future component is unclear. There is a mix between present and future. Jesus’s “basic proclamation of the coming of God’s kingdom” was that it was imminent. Jesus believed in a general resurrection at the end of time. The general resurrection was related to Jesus’s concept of the kingdom and was part of God’s action.
15. Meyer: “By common consent,” Meyer says one item that we know to be “historically accurate” about Jesus is “making the reign of God his central proclamation.”
16. Neill and Wright: Neill and Wright note there is a consensus that at the heart of Jesus’s message is the kingdom of God.
17. O’Collins: Similar to Dunn above, O’Collins argues that Jesus’s preaching about the kingdom of God is one of the most certain facts about Jesus’s ministry. Everyone was invited to accept it as a gift. “It would take a skeptic with nerves of steel to deny the centrality of this theme in Jesus’ preaching.” Jesus connected the kingdom with salvation. What one does with Jesus and his message is the “decisive criterion of human worth before God.”
18. Perkins: Says some scholars have tried to reconstruct a Jesus that “eliminates all apocalyptic speculation about the Son of Man.” These scholars concentrate on Jesus’s message of wisdom. Perkins contends “that the historical Jesus used the apocalyptic imagery of his time to describe both God’s present and future rule.” Then Perkins comments (seemingly) positively about Craig Evans’s thesis on Jesus’s blasphemy before the high priest in Mark 14:62.
19. Sanders: Says Jesus’s preaching of the kingdom is one of the key aspects of the historical Jesus that is “almost beyond dispute.” It is “certain or virtually certain.”
20. Stein: States the coming kingdom of God was at the center of Jesus’s teachings.
21. Tabor: Tabor notes that what caused the Jesus movement to continue after his death was not his resurrection, but one factor was Jesus’s message of the kingdom of God.
22. Twelftree: Like Meier, Twelftree recognizes that there is a present (including miracles) and future component of the kingdom that needs to be taken into account. Reading texts like Matt 12:27–28 // Luke 11:19–20, Twelftree notes they are not signs of a future coming but “the exorcisms were, in themselves, the kingdom of God—expressed in the lives of those healed.”
23. Vermes: “The principal distinguishing feature” for Jesus’s healings and exorcisms, according to Vermes, is that they “heralded the coming of the kingdom.”
24. Watson: “It seems that the coming of the Kingdom of God was at the heart of Jesus’ teaching and the disciples’ belief.” Watson adds that the “earliest Christians believed that Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of the eschatological event,” which would soon be completed.
25. Wilckens: Says at the “heart” of Jesus’s teachings is the kingdom of God and its eternal significance. “Chosen Ones by their righteousness shall be granted eternal salvation and . . . all sinners by contrast shall be consigned to eternal damnation.” There was a divine confirmation that was also God’s final decision. As a result of Jesus’s preaching, the disciples endeavored on their new mission of making disciples.
26. Wright: Says the kingdom of God was the “main theme” of Jesus’s preaching. It was the “very center of his mission and message.” This included Jesus’s own work, which meant the “kingdom as both present and future.” Wright argues that Jesus came to “inaugurate” God’s kingdom. It is one of the facts that we know “more securely.”
B. Kingdom and Resurrection
1. Meier: Says it should be of little surprise that the general resurrection was rarely mentioned by Jesus or was assumed in the preaching.
28. DELAY OF KINGDOM
A. Allison: States Jesus expected the kingdom to come soon. But even though the messianic age has not appeared in 2,000 years, “the eschatological interpretation of Jesus’ fate should not be completely abandoned.” Even though the kingdom was not ushered in, many of Jesus’s promises were fulfilled. Allison notes that Jesus’s life is a foretaste of the world to come, and those that join Jesus can partake of that life. Apparently he thinks Jesus was wrong about timing, but Allison has no problem allowing for meaning in his message anyway.
B. Bayer: Reviewing Bayer’s book on Jesus’s predictions of vindication and resurrection, Sumithra says, “The study assuredly demonstrates that several of the old positions need to be re-evaluated,” like the messianic secret and “the expectation of the early return of Jesus.”
C. Caird: “It has been generally accepted that either Jesus expected an imminent End, and was wrong, or the early Church so thoroughly misunderstood him as to attribute to him this erroneous belief.” Caird proposes two well-known questions in British scholarship. He adds that Luke introduces a longer time frame. Finally, he states that the Fourth Gospel has “nothing that could be construed as an imminent Parousia.”
D. Jackson: Says Jesus predicted the imminency of the kingdom but was mistaken.
E. Kaufman: Kaufman says that Jesus and his followers thought history was soon coming to an end, but when it didn’t happen, they changed their message. They came to think of Jesus being exalted at God’s side and ruling from this glorified position.
F. Küng: Says Jesus “expressly rejected any precise calculations” on the timing of the eschaton, but he was still mistaken in having an “imminent expectation.” Still, it’s not an issue any more than many people in his time being mistaken about the nature of the world.
G. Lüdemann: On the kingdom and Jesus’s return, Lüdemann argues that Jesus thought it would be beginning very soon.
H. Moule: Although Jesus and the entire New Testament corpus apparently expected an early vindication by God, Moule states this didn’t seem to be a major concern to the church. Early believers didn’t think this invalidated their message, because they were much more concerned about “the proclamation of an event.”
I. O’Collins: O’Collins notes that Luke thinks the end will be delayed and that the inauguration of the church and its mission began at Pentecost. To the issue of the delayed coming, Luke basically says that the church needs to be about her mission and Christ is here with us.
J. Pamment: Pamment says that Paul “believed the world would shortly come to an end.”
K. Pannenberg: For Pannenberg, there was a “firm expectation” that the world would end imminently. In a section on the subject, Pannenberg states that in spite of this, the time (or estimated time) between Jesus’s death and the expected end of all things is unconnected. Rather, what is important is “the coming judgment with the present attitude of men toward Jesus.” The interval between, which is close to 2,000 years, “is not a refutation of the Christian hope and of the Christian perception of revelation as long as the unity between what happened in Jesus and the eschatological future is maintained.”
L. Price: “Early Christians . . . expected the second coming of Jesus. . . . But time went by and he never showed up.”
M. Sanders: Sanders thinks this is a “major problem.” Jesus expected the kingdom to come “apparently during the lifetime of his followers” but was mistaken. Paul still held this view in the 50s. Luke “downplays this idea, but does not eliminate it.”
N. Torrance: Thinks this issue “looks rather like a legend of the critics!” The chief problem comes from a lack of understanding of the New Testament idea of imminency. There are few, if any, indications of problems in post–New Testament writings. Torrance gives several reasons why there is no problem here.
O. Wright: Says material on this is largely “a simple misreading” of Jesus’s language, that mistakes “apocalyptic” for “eschatological.” “This means, of course, that the old scholarly warhorse of the ‘delay of the parousia’ has had its day at last. . . . But there is no sign of dismay, in any of the literature that has come down to us from the period after AD 70, at the fact that Jesus himself has not returned.” Nor does Paul provide an indication that it was expected within the first generation of believers. Early Christians definitely used apocalyptic language, but “all the evidence suggests” that it was not used literally; this usually occurs due to misunderstandings of the Jewish context. Jesus spoke of the coming Son of Man, but this “has to be taken quite strictly in its Danielic sense, in which ‘coming’ refers to the son of man ‘coming’ to the Ancient of Days. He is not ‘coming’ to earth from heaven, but the other way around.”
29. DEITY OF JESUS
A. General Comments
1. Barnett: Due to the brevity of time between Jesus and the earliest letters, Barnett does not think it likely that Christological development or evolution occurred. He thinks it much more likely that the “early exalted view of Jesus” is due to the impact of the risen Jesus on his disciples.
2. Bartsch: Says the title of Lord was transferred to Jesus after his resurrection. Early Christianity moved “initially” to a functional Christology (“with a functional significance”), “the first function of the primitive Christian Easter faith that must be assumed.” However, this “was soon superseded by the ontological” Christology. By the time Paul wrote 1 Cor 12:3, “this confession already had ontological significance.” In another article, Bartsch also says that early Christians only believed Jesus was the Messiah in a functional sense, later moving to an ontological “Kyrios cult.”
3. Blomberg: Blomberg argues that Christology may be found extensively in the Gospels, though it is primarily implicit and rarely explicit, with claims of messiahship being more common. He then notes that even for Jews, “to be messiah did not necessarily mean to be divine.”
4. Brown: Presents four critical views on Christology. He identifies “moderate conservatism” as the most popular scholarly approach.
5. Callahan: Callahan thinks that Jesus died under a “messianic pretense” is “probable.” He also thinks Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man.
6. Craig: Speaking in terms of implicit Christology, Craig argues against Borg that Jesus’s self-understanding is found in the early traditions and in the historically ascertained statement of Jesus (e.g., the parable of wicked tenants), which are all part of the mainstream of scholarship.
7. Davis: Davis makes some general comments regarding the deity of Jesus (referring to John).
8. Johnson: Says the Gospels used titles and comments about Jesus’s divinity.
9. Kee: Although it is not very clear what Howard Clark Kee means by the titles, he writes that Jesus “saw himself in a special relation to God,” and the disciples used special names for him.
10. Meier: States that during Jesus’s lifetime, he was possibly considered to be the “Davidic Messiah.” Early creeds like Rom 1:3–4 and 2 Tim 2:8 point in this direction. Jesus appears to have “implied a claim to royal authority over Jerusalem and its temple.”
11. Moule: Moule seems to favor the view that the Jews thought Jesus taught blasphemy but turned him over to the Romans to be killed as a rebel.
12. O’Collins: Says titles for Jesus can be drawn from Paul’s early creeds. O’Collins thinks that “the divine reality was not fully and comprehensively present to the mind of Jesus.”
13. Pannenberg: Pannenberg says that the basic point of his Christology was to argue that a Christian is one who believes “the divinity of Christ” as defined by Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon.
14. Robinson: Four views are presented by John A. T. Robinson, who apparently favors “The Conservatism of the Committed.”
15. Stuhlmacher: Says the Son of Man and Messiah are Jesus’s own self-designations. He was considered to be a “messianic blasphemer” according to the Jewish leadership.
16. Wright: States Jesus didn’t know he was God in the normal way someone would know they were tired or happy. He doesn’t think Jesus thought of himself as deity based solely from titles like “son of man” or “son of God.” Rather, Wright says this comes from “Jesus’ basic kingdom proclamation” and Jesus seeming to believe that he would share God’s throne. Once this is grasped, it becomes more evident. Wright does think that some of this went back to Jesus himself. One example is Mark 14:61–64, where Jesus “saw himself in messianic terms.” It is unlikely that this passage was added later. There is little evidence that suggests Daniel 7 was a Christology developed by later Christians. Jesus was said to have spoken blasphemy because, in his answer to Caiaphas, “he quoted side by side” Psalm 110 and Daniel 7, which “could” be considered a way of placing Jesus alongside of Yahweh. Jesus’s defense not only admitted guilt but also put forth a claim that was understood as blasphemous. Jesus was considered to be the Messiah by those who followed him from the beginning.
B. Jesus’s Relationship to the Father
1. Hurtado: Hurtado argues that Paul distinguishes Jesus’s role from that of the Father, and that in John it is widely recognized that a high Christology and submissiveness or subordinationism to the Father is present.
C. Son of Man
1. General Comments
A) Brown: Provides some discussion on the Jewish background. He states that the view that Jesus used the future sense of the title Son of Man but didn’t apply it to himself “has lost much of its following.” He notes Mark 14:62 is phrased in a Christian manner, but “there is reason to believe that in 14:62 we may be close to the mindset and style of Jesus himself.” It is “likely” that Daniel’s notion of the Son of Man figured into Jesus’s understanding.
B) Caird: Notes this was not a common expression used by those in the early church. Those who would attribute the Son of Man to later Christian theology “have little foundation on which to base their case.” Daniel 7 has multiple connections regarding the throne and the image of the throne.
C) Gathercole: Gathercole briefly notes Jesus as the Son of Man in Mark.
D) Grant: Grant makes various comments regarding Jesus and the Son of Man.
E) Kasper: Says the Son of Man sayings are an authentic teaching of Jesus with many details.
F) Ladd: Notes the Son of Man in early Judaism “was a heavenly supernatural figure.” Ladd references 1 Enoch’s description of the Son of Man as one that is a preexistent person who comes to reign over and establish God’s kingdom. The early church never used this title to designate Jesus except for the “heavenly Jesus” in Rev 1:13 and Acts 7:56. For Ladd, it is a safe conclusion that the “Gospels accurately reflect the mind of Jesus.”
G) Lindars: “If [this tradition is] authentic,” Lindars leans toward saying that in Mark 14:62, Jesus thought “of himself as God’s future agent, so that, when directly challenged, he cannot refuse to be called Messiah in this sense.” Although, as Lindars notes, Jesus is careful to avoid the title’s use elsewhere during his ministry.
H) Newman: He makes several points: (1) The fact that Jesus uses this phrase “almost exclusively” is a good argument for its historicity. (2) There is no evidence for Jesus referring to the Son of Man as another person, and the key text, Mark 8:38, shows that “me” is a reference to Jesus himself. (3) Jesus knowingly alludes to Daniel 7. (4) Jesus speaks of his own return in this way. (5) Jesus will sit on God’s “throne of glory,” a phrase found in 1 Enoch 71. (6) Jesus thereby participates with Yahweh.
I) O’Collins: Notes the tide of criticism seems to have shifted against those who would deny that Jesus used this title of himself. These critical scholars have “nerves of steel” if they take an “extreme position” like denying the “Son of Man” as a saying of Jesus. There are multiple lines of good evidence for holding that Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man.
J) Oden: Says if there was any question before, the resurrection showed that Jesus was the Son of Man.
K) Pesch (via Galvin): The later Pesch incorporated the importance of Jesus’s Son of Man sayings (especially the authenticity of Mark 9:31a; 14:62; Luke 12:8–9 in terms of Daniel 7) as an insight to what the pre-Easter Jesus believed about his approaching death and its “redemptive value.”
L) Segal: States Jesus apparently used the Son of Man as a title but may not have referred to Daniel 7 at all. The Son of Man tradition predated Christianity, and after Jesus’s death, his followers placed the phrase in the context of the “enthronement” of Daniel 7 and gave the phrase “a uniquely Christian interpretation” along with other indications of Jesus’s divinity.
M) Stein: Calls it the “most important self-designation of Jesus.” He notes the “Son of Man” appears sixty-nine times in the Synoptics and thirteen times in John. It is “found in all the Gospel layers (Mark, Q, M, L, and John).” All uses except two (Luke 24:7 and John 12:34) are made by Jesus, and these two refer to Jesus’s words. He adds that Jesus uses this expression often in connection to Daniel 7 (e.g., Matt 10:23; 19:28; 25:31; Mark 8:38; 13:26; 14:62), and with a specific person in view. Additionally, “one of the reasons Jesus chose this expression . . . was its ambiguity.”
N) Stuhlmacher: Stuhlmacher says the Son of Man is Jesus’s own self-designation.
O) Witherington: Witherington notes that Jesus claimed to be the Son of Man.
2. Mark 14:61–64 Was Invented
A) Casey: Casey believes this text was Mark’s concoction and that Mark had no source for this discussion (even though Casey dates Mark very early). There is evidence in Mark’s account that some of his crucifixion details came from eyewitnesses, most likely Simon of Cyrene, who was not yet a believer.
B) Ehrman: Among the Son of Man sayings that Ehrman believes are authentic, none of them indicate Jesus is referring to himself (and to think otherwise, Ehrman argues, is to bring this into the text beforehand).
D. Son of God
1. Brown: Referring to Matt 11:27, Brown believes this text doesn’t “prove” that Jesus described himself as “the Son,” but could. Mark 12:1–12 is a probable case of Jesus doing so. So is Mark 13:32. Jesus’s use of Abba to refer to God is also discussed. If Jesus spoke of God as his Father, Brown contends that “his sonship was in some way superior” to others. The three passages singled out by Brown show that it is “likely” that Jesus considered himself as God’s Son in such a way that Jesus had a special status. But it is not indisputable. There is good evidence that Jesus described himself as having a special relationship with the Father, “sometimes portraying himself as Son.”
2. Caird: Referring to Matt 11:27, Caird says the one speaking is the Son. That Jesus used Abba is also “certain.” “The further back we go, the more we discover the intense conviction of Jesus that God is his Father and he is His son.” The Matt 11:27 // Luke 10:21–22 text “may be enough to suggest that Jesus thought in this way and that the Fourth Gospel does not here represent a later theological development.”
3. Grant: States that Jesus thought of himself as unique. This uniqueness is indicated in part by the use of Abba.
4. Kasper: Regarding Matt 11:27, Kasper appears to see a relationship between Jesus and God.
5. Lindars: Lindars discusses Jesus using Abba.
6. O’Collins: Notes how in Matt 11:27 Jesus demonstrates a unique connection to God. Mark 13:32 is also likely to be historical. O’Collins notes that Jesus addressed God “with astonishing intimacy” (Mark 14:36). Jesus thought he was unique.
7. Robinson: Regarding Matt 11:27, John A. T. Robinson offers his comments regarding Jesus’s relationship to God. Regarding Jesus’s use of Abba, he calls it “one critically unshakeable word that he spoke!”
8. Stein: Says the most important text from Jesus is probably Mark 13:32, since it was “clearly not” made up by the church and is historical. “This saying reveals that Jesus understood himself as possessing a unique relationship with God . . . his uniqueness.” Two other helpful passages are the parable of the evil tenants and Matt 11:25–27. These also demonstrate a special relationship between Jesus and God.
9. Wedderburn: Mentions Jesus’s use of Abba.
E. Low Christology
1. General Comments
A) Casey: According to Casey, Jesus didn’t use exalted titles of himself.
2. Adoption
A) Ehrman: At some point, Ehrman states, Jesus was considered divine by His followers and then eventually understood as equal with God. Although Ehrman holds to an adoption view, he acknowledges that a high, incarnational Christology could also have been very early (keeping in in mind for Ehrman that the preexistent Jesus was still understood as an angel). Ehrman thinks it is possible that such a Christology is earlier than the 50s. He thinks that followers could have thought of Jesus as an angel within “perhaps” the first few years.
3. Arguments against Adoption
A) Gathercole: Gathercole argues from preliterary traditions in Rom 1:3–4 and in Acts (and quite scathingly against Ehrman) that adoptionist views are not to be found there. Gathercole then goes on to present a conservative alternative.
B) Hill: Hill points out the late date of adoptionist views.
F. High Christology
1. Early
A) General Comments
(1) Barnett: Barnett argues that “the birth of Christianity and the birth of christology are inseparable, both as to time and essence. Christianity is christology,” adding that there is an “existence of ‘high’ christology in the immediate aftermath of Jesus.” Barnett discusses the early high Christology found within the earliest churches. Referring to Paul’s writings, he shows that early churches held to a high Christology. Barnett argues for a high and early Christology.
(2) Ehrman: As noted above, Ehrman thinks it is possible that such a Christology is earlier than the 50s. He thinks that followers could have thought of Jesus as an angel within “perhaps” the first few years after his death.
(3) Hebblethwaite: Says there was a “swift emergence of ‘high’ Christologies.” The resurrection and incarnation belong together here ontologically and epistemologically. Hebblethwaite makes references to Jesus as “God the Son,” “the one God-man,” and “the second Person of the Trinity.”
(4) Hurtado: Hurtado provides comments on early high Christology that can be seen as occurring within Jewish monotheism. Hurtado is known for holding to an early high Christology.
(5) Neill and Wright: State there is evidence within the New Testament that the early church “wanted to say of Jesus things that could only be said, within the Jewish framework, of God himself.”
(6) Segal: Says Paul is our first Christian writer. His writings present us with the first reflections on the faith that the man Jesus was both Christ and God and that, through him, all who have faith will be resurrected.
(7) Tabor: Tabor notes that Paul taught that Jesus was a divine, preexistent heavenly being and was equal to God. He also notes that John’s language is more exalted than the Synoptics.
(8) Wright: Wright asks a series of helpful questions given the disciples’ mindset after the crucifixion. For example, how did it come about that they went from weeping for Jesus to worshiping Jesus? Wright notes that the accounts of the experience of Apollonius’s disciples are not a parallel to Jesus’s disciples’ experiences. Wright then points out that the resurrection alone would not have led to him being called the Messiah unless Jesus was thought to have been the Messiah in some sense during his lifetime. Wright also stresses the messianic notions that were both similar and dissimilar to the common conceptions.
B) Some Key New Testament Texts Reflecting an Early High Christology
(1) General Comments
(a) Bauckham: Bauckham says that the Epistle of James’s Christology is high “at a very early stage,” and we can’t say this developed only as Christianity spread outside of Jewish Palestine.
(b) O’Collins: Notes that many scholars interpret Jesus’s “extraordinary claims to personal authority” as analogous or parallel to the authority of God.
(2) 1 Corinthians 8:5–6
(a) Bauckham: Says that a higher Christology is scarcely possible than that which is found in 1 Cor 8:6. It is a Christian adaption of the Shema.
(3) Philippians 2:6–11
(a) Bauckham: Bauckham argues that this passage shows Jesus was included in, not added to, the divine identity. He then makes three additional observations. Bauckham compares Paul with Isaiah 45 and 52–53.
(b) Crossley: Says Jesus’s preexistence in this text is one of the “major pieces of evidence for Paul equating Jesus with God in the strongest sense,” along with Paul calling Jesus “Lord.”
(c) Hengel: Says Phil 2:6–11 is a “hymn with its description of the divine essence of the pre-existence of the crucified figure . . . Lord of the whole creation and bearer of the divine name Kyrios.”
(d) Segal: Segal says, “In Philippians 2:6, the identification of Jesus with the form of God implies his pre-existence.” He notes further that Yahweh was “understood as the Greek name kyrios, or Lord,” and that the early Christian prayers to Jesus, as seen in Paul, are “striking” given that both Christians and Jews refused veneration to other gods.
(4) Romans 10:9–13
(a) Bauckham: Bauckham stresses the relationship of Rom 10:13 with Joel 2:32.
(5) 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
(a) Segal: “This formula demonstrates Paul’s transferral of the traditionally divine name YHWH to a designation of the Messiah [Kyrios = LORD].”
(6) John 20:28
(a) Brown: States that John 20:28 is “the highest evaluation of Jesus uttered in any gospel.” “No greater praise can be given to Jesus.”
C) High Christology Existed before Easter
(1) Barnett: Referring to Paul’s writings, Barnett argues that exalted views of Jesus must have been “consistent” with how Jesus was viewed before the crucifixion (similar to Wright’s arguments above). Any historical views that create a discontinuity and inconsistency between the pre- and post-Easter Jesus should be questioned.
D) Jewish Monotheism and Early High Christology
(1) Hurtado: Hurtado provides a brief overview on hymns to Christ, prayers to Christ, the name of Christ, the Lord’s Supper, confessing Jesus, prophecy and the risen Jesus, and the pervasive nature of these elements in relation to high Christology.
2. Uniqueness of Jesus’s Resurrection
A) See also: “The Disciples Did Not Expect the Resurrection (or Crucifixion)” (section 4.C) in chapter 3.
B) General Comments
(1) Davis: Referring to the uniqueness of Jesus among the other “gurus,” Davis points out that the resurrection distinguishes Jesus. It is God’s affirmation and sign that Jesus was no fraud and is Lord.
(2) Johnson: Johnson argues that Christianity at its core is not about mere “enlightenment” but Jesus’s resurrection, which is “unique” and transformed the disciples’ understanding in new ways.
(3) Wright: Wright argues that the “resurrection thus vindicates what Jesus was already believed to be.” Wright notes four features in the early Gospel resurrection narratives that are unique: (1) silence regarding scriptural allusions to the resurrection (except for Paul); (2) the women were main witnesses; (3) the portrait of Jesus is not shining or transfigured but transphysical; and (4) no mention of Christian hope.
3. Messiah
A) Wright: Wright points out that it was not just Jesus’s life and ministry alone that led to the belief that he was the Messiah. Nor was it just the resurrection alone that led to this belief. Neither of these two alone would have caused people to say Jesus is the Messiah. However, it is clear what happens when they are connected. It was these two elements that led people to say that Jesus not only was the Messiah but is the Messiah.
4. Included in Divine Identity
A) General Comments
(1) Bauckham: Bauckham’s argument is that when Jewish monotheists exalted Jesus in the ways they did, this “could only mean” that Jesus was now included in “the unique identity of God.” Moreover, the language they used in doing this was intentional and done to “make this inclusion unequivocal.” Bauckham stresses the connection of Jesus within the divine identity throughout his book. He also discusses the importance of the throne of God as it relates to Jesus’s inclusion in the identity of God. It is central for both Judaism and early Christianity. It is “one of the essential characteristics definitive of the divine identity.”
(2) Brown: States Jesus is probably called God at least eight times.
B) Jesus’s Divine Name
(1) See also: “Jesus as Miracle Worker and Exorcist” (section 3) of chapter 2 (esp. subsection 3.D.3 “Exorcisms Performed in the Name of Jesus”).
(2) Bauckham: Bauckham argues that Jesus is being included into the divine identity when he is given the divine name.
(3) Dunn: Dunn notes the multiple attestation to the power of Jesus’s name with regards to exorcism when asserting, “As a successful exorcist his name was widely regarded as one to conjure with by other exorcists.” Dunn cites texts such as Mark 9:38; Cels. 1.25; PGM 4.1233.
C) Yahweh Translated to Kyrios and Kyrios Applied to Jesus
(1) Segal: “This formula demonstrates Paul’s transferral of the traditionally divine name YHWH to a designation of the Messiah [Kyrios = LORD].”
D) Worship of Jesus
(1) Bauckham: Says when Jesus was worshiped, it was because his divine identity was recognized, and this worship “goes far back into early Jewish Christianity.” It was also a central feature of early Christianity.
(2) Hurtado: “The fact is that we simply have no evidence that any figure, whether human or angelic, ever featured in the corporate and public devotional practice of Jewish circles in any way really comparable to the programmatic role of Jesus in early Christian circles.” Hurtado points out that Paul emphasizes that he is in alignment with the early Jerusalem church on these issues (citing 1 Cor 15:1–11) and that there is “really no basis” for thinking Paul invented reverence for Jesus. Instead, the evidence points in the opposite direction (cf. Paul’s trips to Jerusalem). Hurtado argues that the worship of Jesus was radically new and nothing like the reverence given to angels, other beings, or divine attributes.
E) Preexistence Of Jesus
(1) Bauckham: Bauckham argues that Jesus is included into the divine identity when he participates in creation.
(2) Hurtado: Hurtado notes that the “overwhelming majority of scholars” agree that within Paul’s undisputed letters are comments that reflect and “presuppose the idea of Jesus’ preexistence.” Referring to Rom 8:3; 1 Cor 8:6; 10:4; 15:47; 2 Cor 8:9; Gal 4:4; and Phil 2:6–11, Hurtado notes Dunn as one dissenting or qualifying view and responds to him.
5. Miracles
A) Lüdemann: Lüdemann notes that the miracles in Luke–Acts are intended to communicate Christological significance.
B) Twelftree: Twelftree argues that “the miracles of Jesus reveal his identity as God himself at work: indeed, God is encountered in the miracles.”
6. Against Pagan Influence
A) Hurtado: Hurtado provides some good general comments against the possibility of pagan influence affecting Jewish monotheism.
G. Ontological and Functional Christology
1. Borg: Borg points out that Jesus is a reflection of God and tells us about God. Indeed, Jesus is a form of divine revelation about God.
2. Caird: Says titles like Son of God were not at first ontological but functional, but the ontology came quickly.
3. Kasper: States these two “cannot be opposed. They cannot even be separated; they are mutually dependent. Jesus’ function . . . is simultaneously his essence; conversely, functional Christology implies an essential Christology.”
4. O’Collins: Says Jesus’s nature was that of the “incarnate Son of God.”
5. Spong: States Jesus thought that “in some strange and mysterious way God was acting in human history through him.”
H. Fully God and Fully Man
1. Neill and Wright: Note that John emphasizes both the divinity and humanity of Jesus.
I. Questions and Objections
1. General Comments
(1) Funk: Funk refers to the Son of Man in Daniel 7 as “the cosmic figure.”
(2) Perkins: Perkins says we can’t get back far enough “to any certainty about Jesus’ own teaching.” However, she says that some uses of Daniel 7 are clearer than others and that there can be several relevant passages.
(3) Segal: Segal apparently thinks that Paul “clearly identifies the Christ with the ‘son of man’ figure in Dan 7:13” even though he doesn’t use the title. He implies that its application to Jesus came later than Paul.
2. Objections
(1) Borg: Borg is similar to Crossan in this debate in that he thinks it is “highly unlikely” that a majority of scholars think Jesus “made claims to divinity” (contrary to Craig’s claim that the majority of scholars do believe that Jesus made such statements). Borg does not find statements of divinity or messiahship in the earliest reports, but rather claims the titles were given to Jesus in later New Testament texts like John. Elsewhere, Borg appears to possibly contradict himself a bit as he thinks Jesus is the Messiah but can’t say Jesus was aware of being the Messiah for two reasons: (1) Mark doesn’t present Jesus calling himself the Messiah, the Son of God, or other titles. (2) The Gospels “display a demonstrable tendency to add exalted language to earlier texts.” Note that Borg gives two examples from Matthew and then goes right to John to make his first point. Regarding his second point, it is important to note that some change doesn’t mean the entire message changed.
(2) Crossan: Crossan disagrees with Craig that the “majority” of scholars think Jesus claimed to be God. Moreover, Crossan is not convinced the majority even think Jesus said he was the Messiah.
(3) Cupitt: Cupitt argues that the deity of Jesus is not true. Jesus didn’t claim it. The New Testament doesn’t teach the “full deity of Jesus.” While it used to be central to Christianity, it is not so now.
(4) Donahue: Donahue argues that “literary criticism reveals” Mark 14:61–62 is Mark’s creation.
(5) Kent: Kent asserts there is “not a shred of evidence” in the New Testament that Jesus was thought of as God.
(6) Perrin: Says that in Mark 14:61–62 there are “three christological designations—Christ, Son of the Blessed, i.e. Son of God, and Son of Man.” “Ego eimi is, for Mark, a Messianic claim formula.” But it is all apparently a Markan creation.
Notes
Stephen Neill and N. T. Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1986, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 399. See also 399–403.
Neill and Wright, 400.
Neill and Wright, 360–67.
Craig L. Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” in Jesus Under Fire, ed. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 20. Blomberg notes here Ben Meyer, Sanders, Charlesworth, Vermes, Horsley, Theissen, Harvey (26–27).
Robert W. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 259–60, 263–64, 267–69, 273–74; Jack A. Kent, The Psychological Origins of the Resurrection Myth (London: Open Gate, 1999), 62, 70, 73–78; Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 168–69; John A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), chaps. 1 and 8; N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, vol. 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 93–94.
William P. Alston, “Biblical Criticism and the Resurrection,” in The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 172–78.
Alston, 181–82.
Sarah Coakley, “Biblical Criticism and the Resurrection: Response to Alston,” in Davis, Kendall, O’Collins, Resurrection, 184.
Eleonore Stump, “Visits to the Sepulcher and Biblical Exegesis,” Faith and Philosophy 6, no. 4 (1989): 353, 366–71.
Stump, 357.
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 246–49.
Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 33.
James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), xvi. See also 25, 38, 44.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 25.
Luke Timothy Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus: Historical Criticism and Literary Criticism,” in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, ed. James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 158.
Paul W. Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 94–95.
Barnett, 91, 95, 133, 164.
John Dominic Crossan’s response to Darrell L. Bock, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 289.
James D. G. Dunn, “Remembering Jesus: How the Quest of the Historical Jesus Lost Its Way,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 200–207. Cf. Eddy and Beilby, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 36–37.
Rudolf Pesch, “Materialien und Bemerkungen zur Entstehung und Sinn des Osterglaubens,” in Wie kam es zum Osterglauben?, ed. Anton Vögtle and Rudolf Pesch (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1975), 157–68.
Dale C. Allison, The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 168, 170. Cf. 163.
Allison, 164.
Allison, 164–68. Note his more recent discussion in Dale C. Allison, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (New York: T&T Clark, 2021).
Don Cupitt, Explorations in Theology 6 (London: SCM, 1979), 29. See also 30, 34–35, 38.
Gerald O’Collins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Some Contemporary Issues (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1993), 15. See also 37n3. The essays of Broer, Fiedler, and Verweyen appear in Ingo Broer and Jürgen Werbick, eds., “Der Herr ist Wahrhaft Auferstanden” (Lk 24,34): Biblische und Systematische Beitrage zur Entstehung des Osterglaubens, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 134 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988).
Pheme Perkins, “The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce D. Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 433–34.
Graham H. Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker: A Historical and Theological Study (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 345. See also 358.
Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 124. See also 122.
Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperOne, 2012), 74. See also 259–63.
Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels, repr. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 176, 199–201. See also Funk, Honest to Jesus, 258; Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 90–92, 95.
John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 5 vols., Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1991–2016), 3:9–10, 625, 641, 646.
Robert M. Price, “Is There a Place for Historical Criticism?,” Religious Studies 27, no. 3 (1991): 379.
J. A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 36.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 90–92, 95.
Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, 137–53.
Barnett, 142.
Neill and Wright, Interpretation of the New Testament, 28.
Neill and Wright, 116–28.
Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 21.
Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels, 6. This fact is a starting presupposition for Dunn in this book (5–7).
Dunn, 6. See also 7.
Dunn, 7. Similarly, Dunn, “Quest of the Historical Jesus,” 219–25.
Meier, Marginal Jew, 3:3.
Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 21.
Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels, 6.
Dunn, 6.
Dunn, 6. Dunn cites J. L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000) 23–61.
Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 93. See also 88–93, 125.
Ehrman, 133–36.
Craig L. Blomberg, “The Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith: Harmony or Conflict?,” in Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan, ed. Paul Copan (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 104.
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 78. See also 291.
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 133.
Craig A. Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology,” Theological Studies 54, no. 1 (1993): 14–15, 34–36.
Luke Timothy Johnson, Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 30–31.
Johnson, 126–27.
Johnson, 171, 179–80, 194.
George Eldon Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 76.
Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM, 1979), 60.
Meyer, 72.
Meyer, 72–75.
Meyer, 63.
Meyer, 82.
Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus (London: Chapman, 1983), 43–45.
J. A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 36.
A. J. M. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 37–38.
Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 20.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 95.
Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (London: Continuum, 2010), 39, 65, 74, 97, 441, 459, 500.
Casey, 39.
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 48. See also Ehrman, New Testament, 43; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 90–91.
Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions (New York: Prometheus, 1997), 24, 130, 133, 148.
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 144.
Johnson, 470.
Johnson, 198.
James D. Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 232–33.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 77–79.
Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 29.
James D. G. Dunn’s response to Robert M. Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 94.
Ehrman, New Testament, 2.
Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, 156–57, 164.
Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 275–76. The overall section on this issue is 271–78.
Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, 139.
Richard Bauckham, “The Eyewitnesses and the Gospel Traditions,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 1, no. 1 (2003): 59.
Bauckham, 51–52.
Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 6, 240, 260, 304–5.
Bauckham, 11.
Johnson, Living Jesus, 126–27.
Johnson, Writings of the New Testament, 103.
Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 76.
Bauckham, “Eyewitnesses and the Gospel Traditions,” 49.
Bauckham, 50.
Bauckham, 49. See also 58, 60.
Bauckham, 35.
Bauckham, 47.
Bauckham, 47.
Bauckham, 47–48.
Paul Barnett, Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 114–16.
Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 33.
Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 330–35, 341–46. He also notes interpretation of memory on 335.
Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels, 9. See also 21.
Dunn, xvi. See also 25, 38, 44.
Dunn, 37. See also n16.
Dunn, 37. See also n17.
Dunn, 37. See also n18.
Dunn, 37. See also n19.
Dunn, 35.
Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 276.
James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 185. See also James D. G. Dunn’s response to Luke Timothy Johnson, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 189.
Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 29–30.
Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Jesus Outside the New Testament: What Is the Evidence?,” in Wilkins and Moreland, Jesus Under Fire, 229n105.
James D. G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, vol. 2 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 87.
Ehrman, New Testament, 124. See also 122.
Ehrman, 122.
Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 93. See also 89–90.
Dunn, 91.
Dunn, 89.
Dunn, 65n44. See also 76.
Gerd Lüdemann, Early Christianity according to the Traditions in Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 4–9.
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 94.
Ehrman, 93. See also 88–93, 125.
Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 300–305.
Bauckham, 300.
Bauckham, 300.
Bauckham, 300.
Bauckham, 301.
Bauckham, 301–2.
Bauckham, 300.
Bauckham, 301 (emphasis added).
Bauckham, 302–4.
Bauckham, 303.
Bauckham, 303.
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 290.
John Muddiman, “I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body,” in Resurrection: Essays in Honour of Leslie Houlden, ed. Stephen Barton and Graham Stanton (London: SPCK, 1994), 132.
Gerald O’Collins, “Did Jesus Eat the Fish (Luke 24:42–43)?,” Gregorianum 69, no. 1 (1988): 69–70.
N. T. Wright, “Early Traditions and the Origin of Christianity,” Sewanee Theological Review 41, no. 2 (1998): 131–38.
N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 147.
Dale C. Allison, Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 235–39, 245, 288.
John E. Alsup, The Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories of the Gospel Tradition: A History-of-Tradition Analysis with Text-Synopsis, Calwer Theologische Monographien 5 (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1975), 57.
Paul Barnett, Peter Jensen, and David Peterson, Resurrection: Truth and Reality (Sydney: Aquila, 1994), 27.
Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 230.
Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, 377–81, 404–8, 419, 428, 434–35, 497, 505, 507.
James G. Crossley, “Against the Historical Plausibility of the Empty Tomb Story and the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus: A Response to N.T. Wright,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3, no. 2 (2005): 173.
Michael F. Bird and James G. Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin? A Believer and Non-Believer Examine the Evidence (London: SPCK, 2008), 53, 61.
Crossley, “Historical Plausibility,” 173.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 802.
Ehrman, New Testament, 247.
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 328.
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 97–98.
Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 181.
Tabor, 181.
David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 139. See also 294.
N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 177.
Allison, End of the Ages, 100, 116–18, 137–41.
E. Earle Ellis, review of Jesus’ Predictions of Vindication and Resurrection, by Hans J. Bayer, Southwestern Journal of Theology 30 (1987): 59.
Sunand Sumithra, review of Jesus’ Predictions of Vindication and Resurrection, by Hans J. Bayer, Evangelical Review of Theology 11 (1987): 276.
Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 87. Cf. 99.
Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 2 vols., Anchor Bible Reference Library (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1994), 2:1487. For the entire section, see 2:1468–91.
Brown, 2:1488.
William Lane Craig, “The Guard at the Tomb,” New Testament Studies 30, no. 2 (April 1984): 276–77.
Craig A. Evans, “Did Jesus Predict His Death and Resurrection?,” in Resurrection, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Michael A. Hayes, and David Tombs, JSNTSup 186 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 86–87.
Evans, 87–88.
Evans, 91–97.
Evans, 97.
Martin Hengel, The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 70–71.
John Frederick Jansen, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ in New Testament Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 38.
Alistair Kee, From Bad Faith to Good News: Reflections on Good Friday and Easter (London: SCM, 1991), 59.
Howard Clark Kee, What Can We Know about Jesus? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 112.
Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 34.
Ladd, 35–36.
Barnabas Lindars, “The Resurrection and the Empty Tomb,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 125–26.
John P. Meier, “Dividing Lines in Jesus Research Today: Through Dialectical Negation to a Positive Sketch,” Interpretation 50, no. 4 (1996): 369.
George W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Genre and Function of the Markan Passion Narrative,” Harvard Theological Review 73, no. 2 (1980): 182.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 85–87.
Perkins, “Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth,” 431. See also n42.
Pesch, discussed in John P. Galvin, “The Origin of Faith in the Resurrection of Jesus: Two Recent Perspectives,” Theological Studies 49, no. 1 (1988): 28–29, 31–33.
Galvin, 40–41.
Donald Senior, “Crucible of Truth: Passion and Resurrection in the Gospel of Mark,” Chicago Studies 25 (1986): 24.
Thomas Sheehan, The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (New York: Random House, 1986), 103.
Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 45.
Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1982), 108.
J. K. Elliott, “The First Easter,” History Today 29, no. 4 (1979): 218.
Hans Küng, Eternal Life? Life after Death as a Medical, Philosophical and Theological Problem, trans. Edward Quinn (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 94.
Gerd Lüdemann, “Closing Responses,” 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), 159.
Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Response to the Debate,” in Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, ed. Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1987), 132.
Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2000), 224.
John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately after the Execution of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 55, 561–62; Paul Copan, ed., Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 55 (in the dialogue portion); Marcus J. Borg, “Thinking about Easter,” Bible Review 10, no. 2 (1994): 15; Funk, Honest to Jesus, 267; 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 (with examples); Michael Martin, The Case Against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 83–84, 89–90; Martin, “Why the Resurrection Is Initially Improbable,” Philo 1, no. 1 (1998): 71–73; Michael Goulder, “The Empty Tomb,” Theology 79 (1976): 210; Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 43 (Lüdemann’s opening statement) and 154–56 (Lüdemann’s closing response); Thomas Sheehan, “Two Easter Legends,” Philosophy and Theology 1, no. 1 (1986): 36–47; Kent, Psychological Origins, 17, 20, 67, 86–87; Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 8, 24–37, 124; James Keller, “Response to Davis,” Faith and Philosophy 7, no. 1 (1990): 113–14; Brooke Hopkins, “Jesus and Object-Use: A Winnicottian Account of the Resurrection Myth,” International Review of Psychoanalysis 16, no. 1 (1989): 93; J. K. Elliott, “The First Easter,” History Today 29, no. 4 (1979): 211–18; Hans Küng, On Being a Christian (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 346–48 (including a list of some of the key issues); Küng, Eternal Life?, 100–103, 107; Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. William V. Dych (New York: Seabury, 1978), 276; Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 2–6 (on discrediting a court case with “inconsistencies”), 46, 130, 136; John C. Lodge, Donald Senior, Eugene LaVerdiere, and Reginald H. Fuller, The Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord: A Commentary on the Four Gospels (Mundelein, IL: Chicago Studies, 1984), 54; Geza Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism (London: SCM, 1983), 23–24; Price, “Historical Criticism,” 380–81; G. A. Wells, A Resurrection Debate (London: Rationalist, 1988), 24–27; Frank Miosi, “The Resurrection Debate (Review of Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate),” Free Inquiry (1988): 55–57; Adela Yarbro Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 133; Peter Carnley, “Response to Gerald O’Collins,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 39; Pannenberg, “Response to the Debate,” 132; E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin, 1993), 276–77, 279 (after mentioning some discrepancies, he says on 279 that some can be explained but “we are still left with an intractable problem”); Sanders, “But Did It Happen?,” Spectator 276 (1996): 12 (including the three Acts accounts of Paul’s conversion), 13; Pheme Perkins, “‘I Have Seen the Lord’ (John 20:18): Women Witnesses to the Resurrection,” Interpretation 46, no. 1 (1992): 34n17; Luke Timothy Johnson, “Luke 24:1–11: The Not-So-Empty-Tomb,” Interpretation 46, no. 1 (1992): 59–60; Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1994), 166–70 (says on 168 that we cannot harmonize problems and includes 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; Francis J. Moloney, Resurrection of the Messiah: A Narrative Commentary on the Resurrection Accounts in the Four Gospels (New York: Paulist Press, 2013), 1375–76 (including a detailed chart); Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ According to the New Testament,” The Month 20, no. 11 (1987): 409; Fitzmyer, “The Ascension of Christ and Pentecost,” Theological Studies 45, no. 3 (1984): 418–20; Gerald O’Collins, The Easter Jesus, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1980), 18–19; J. A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 125–26; Lapide, Resurrection of Jesus, 34–35, 112–15; Hugo Staudinger, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ as Saving Event and as ‘Object’ of Historical Research,” Scottish Journal of Theology 36, no. 3 (1983): 318, 320, 324; Alston, “Biblical Criticism and the Resurrection,” 170–71, 179; Galvin, “Origin of Faith,” 36; G. T. Eddy, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A Consideration of Professor Cranfield’s Argument,” Expository Times 101, no. 11 (1990): 328 (“Though we may agree that they are not fatal, nevertheless some are not small . . . cannot be harmonized”); Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 4; Donald Wayne Viney, “Grave Doubts about the Resurrection,” Encounter 50, no. 2 (1989): 132; Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ, trans.V. Green (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1976), 125, 127, 129; Brian Hebblethwaite, “The Resurrection and the Incarnation,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 158; Barnabas Lindars, “The Resurrection and the Empty Tomb,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 132; Paul Badham, “The Meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 30; Thorwald Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship: Interpretive Models, Biblical Reflections, Theological Consequences (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995), 169, 183; Robert Morgan, “Flesh Is Precious: The Significance of Luke 24.36–43,” in Barton and Stanton, Resurrection, 18; Kenneth Grayston, “The Empty Tomb,” Expository Times 92, no. 9 (1981): 264, 267; Donald G. Dawe, Jesus: The Death and Resurrection of God (Atlanta: Knox, 1985), 103, 107–8; Frans Neirynck, “John and the Synoptics: The Empty Tomb Stories,” New Testament Studies 30, no. 2 (1984): 175 (who still makes some very creative suggestions); Nickelsburg, “Markan Passion Narrative,” 183; Sarah Coakley, “Is the Resurrection a ‘Historical’ Event? Some Muddles and Mysteries,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 94–95, 99; Muddiman, “Resurrection of the Body,” 131; A. Kee, From Bad Faith to Good News, 102; Geffrey B. Kelly, “‘He Appeared to Me.’ 1 Cor. 15:8 as Paul’s Religious Experience of the End Time,” in Critical History and Biblical Faith: New Testament Perspectives, ed. Thomas J. Ryan (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1979), 118; Carolyn Osiek, “The Women at the Tomb: What Are They Doing There?,” Ex Auditu 9 (1993): 97–99, 101; C. E. B. Cranfield, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” Expository Times 101, no. 6 (1990): 167–68 (briefly addresses several of the main issues); Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 77, 79 (also tries at length to harmonize accounts on 84–101); G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 239 (say it is “unlikely” that a harmony could ever be produced here); Charles W. Hedrick, “Paul’s Conversion/Call: A Comparative Analysis of the Three Reports in Acts,” Journal of Biblical Literature 100, no. 3 (1981): 422, 427–28, 432 (focusing on Paul’s conversion accounts in Acts); Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 121–22 (“notoriously difficult to harmonize. We shall never know” some of the details); Robert H. Stein, Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 260–62; William Lane Craig, “On Doubts about the Resurrection,” Modern Theology 6, no. 1 (1989): 62 (“Discrepancies in secondary details could exist”); Dan Cohn-Sherbok, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish View,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 197, 199; John M. G. Barclay, “The Resurrection in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 17, 24; Gerard Loughlin, “Living in Christ: Story, Resurrection and Salvation,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 123; Robert H. Gundry, “Trimming the Debate,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 102–6; J. Duncan M. Derrett, The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as an Historical Event (Shipston-on-Stour: Drinkwater, 1982), 59; Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 308–9; Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 48; Rolland 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 of the Bible (New York: Bell, 1975), 356–62; Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions (New York: Prometheus, 1997), 121, 130–32.
Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, 461.
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 36–37.
Ehrman, 268–69.
Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus,” 165–66.
Darrell L. Bock’s response to Luke Timothy Johnson, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 196.
Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 57.
Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 233. See also 234.
Tabor, 234.
Tabor, 233.
Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 44.
William Lane Craig, “Resurrection and the Real Jesus,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 164.
Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 67–71.
Stump, “Visits to the Sepulcher,” 353, 366–71.
Stump, 357.
John Wenham, Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Accounts in Conflict?, Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984).
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 53.
Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 44.
Blomberg, 33.
Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels, xvi. See also 25, 38, 44.
Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 199–200.
Brown, Risen Christ in Eastertime, 31.
Brown, 72.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 137–38.
Judith Lieu, “The Women’s Resurrection Testimony,” in Resurrection: Essays in Honour of Leslie Houlden, ed. Stephen Barton and Graham Stanton (London: SPCK, 1994), 38–39.
David M. Stanley, “‘To Know Him and the Power of His Resurrection’ (Phil. 3:19): The New Testament Witness to the Central Mystery of Faith,” in How Could We Sorrow? Essays on the Resurrection, ed. Michael W. Higgins (Waterloo, ON: University of St. Jerome’s College Press, 1989), 32.
Ben Witherington III et al., eds., New Proclamation: Year B, 2003, Easter through Pentecost (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 7.
Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 63. Details on Luke 24:34 are on 61–64.
Caird and Hurst, New Testament Theology, 240.
Craig, “On Doubts about the Resurrection,” 74n21.
O’Collins, “Did Jesus Eat the Fish,” 66, citing Marshall.
Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting the Resurrection: Examining the Major Problems in the Stories of Jesus’ Resurrection (New York: Paulist, 1988), 45–52; O’Collins, “Did Jesus Eat the Fish,” 73.
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2:354.
Joseph Plevnik, “The Origin of the Easter Faith According to Luke,” Biblica 61, no. 4 (1980): 505–6.
Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 243.
N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 607–8.
Bauckham, “Eyewitnesses and the Gospel Traditions,” 51.
Bauckham, 54.
Bauckham, 52. See also 55.
Bauckham, 53. See also 54.
Elliott, “First Easter,” 216; Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 127–30; Fitzmyer, “Ascension of Christ and Pentecost,” 418–20; Johnson, Living Jesus, 159.
Michael Grant, Saint Peter: A Biography (New York: Scribner, 1994), 43–44; Colin Hickling, “The Emmaus Story and Its Sequel,” in Barton and Stanton, Resurrection, 29; Lodge et al., Passion, Death and Resurrection, 36, 38.
Brown, Risen Christ in Eastertime, 44.
Reginald H. Fuller, “John 20:19–23,” Interpretation 32, no. 2 (1978): 180–81.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 119–20.
Fuller, 46.
Fuller, 46.
Jean-Marie Guillaume, Luc interprète des anciennes traditions sur la résurrection de Jésus (Paris: Gabalda, 1979), 166–67.
Guillaume, 65. See also 269.
Guillaume, 201.
Guillaume, 269.
Hedrick, “Paul’s Conversion/Call,” 428–29.
Hedrick, 430.
Hedrick, 431.
Joel Marcus, “The Old Testament and the Death of Jesus: The Role of Scripture in the Gospel Passion Narratives,” in John T. Carroll and Joel B. Green, The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 233.
O’Collins, “Did Jesus Eat the Fish,” 65–66.
O’Collins, 72, 76.
Grant R. Osborne, The Resurrection Narratives: A Redactional Study (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 113, 146. Cf. 252.
Osborne, 237–38.
Donald Harman Akenson, Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 137–43.
Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 236, 263–64.
Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 90.
Alsup, 93–94.
Alsup, 102.
Alsup, 105.
Alsup, 105.
Alsup, 268–69.
Barnett, Jensen, and Peterson, Resurrection, 27–28.
Collins, Beginning of the Gospel, 147.
Craig, “On Doubts about the Resurrection,” 61.
Craig, 62.
Craig, 62–63.
Craig, 63.
William Lane Craig, “The Disciples’ Inspection of the Empty Tomb (Lk 24,12.24, Jn 20,2–10),” in John and the Synoptics, ed. Adelbert Denaux, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 101 (Leuven: University Press, 1992), 614.
Craig, 618–19.
Craig, 619.
Craig, “Resurrection and the Real Jesus,” 164–65.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 102–3, 135–36.
Lodge et al., Passion, Death and Resurrection, 59.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 135.
Lodge et al., Passion, Death and Resurrection, 59.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 66–68.
Reginald H. Fuller, “The Resurrection Narratives in Recent Study,” in Critical History and Biblical Faith: New Testament Perspectives, ed. Thomas J. Ryan (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1979), 100.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 112.
Lodge et al., Passion, Death and Resurrection, 54–56.
Lodge et al., 59.
Lodge et al., 61.
Donald Goergen, The Death and Resurrection of Jesus, vol. 2 of A Theology of Jesus (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1988), 140. See also 151.
Goergen, 151.
Grant, Saint Peter, 31.
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 110–11.
Jacob Kremer, Die Osterevangelien: Geschichten um Geschichte, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Katholoisches Bibelwerk, 1981), on the mountain in Matthew (80–95); the road to Emmaus (112–35); the Twelve in Luke (136–59); the Twelve in John and on the Sea of Galilee (184–236); on the truth and evidence for the appearances (153–55).
Andrew T. Lincoln, “‘I Am the Resurrection and the Life’: The Resurrection Message of the Fourth Gospel,” in Life in the Face of Death: The Resurrection Message of the New Testament, ed. Richard N. Longenecker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 291. See also 286.
Lincoln, 292.
Lincoln, 295.
Lincoln, 285.
Lindars, “Resurrection and the Empty Tomb,” 126.
John P. Meier, “Two Disputed Questions in Matt 28:16–20,” Journal of Biblical Literature 96, no. 3 (1977): 411.
Neirynck, “John and the Synoptics,” 164–65, 172–73, 179.
Neirynck, 167.
Neirynck, 173.
Neirynck, 175.
Neirynck, 176–77.
Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 233–72.
Pannenberg, “Response to the Debate,” 132.
Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:353–54.
Pannenberg, 2:353–54n83.
Perkins, “I Have Seen the Lord,” 36.
Perkins, 40.
Senior, “Crucible of Truth,” 32–33.
Peter Stuhlmacher, “The Resurrection of Jesus and the Resurrection of the Dead,” trans. Jonathan M. Whitlock, Ex Auditu 9 (1993): 46.
Stuhlmacher, 45–46.
Francis Watson, “‘He Is Not Here’: Towards a Theology of the Empty Tomb,” in Barton and Stanton, Resurrection, 99.
Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 121–23.
Tim Callahan, Secret Origins of the Bible (Altadena, CA: Millennium, 2002), 427.
Callahan, 357.
Carroll and Green, Death of Jesus in Early Christianity, 61–62.
See Crossan’s opening statement in Copan, Real Jesus, 38–39.
Elliott, “First Easter,” 219.
Lüdemann, in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 41 (Lüdemann’s opening statement), 54–55 (Lüdemann’s first rebuttal), 61 (Lüdemann’s second rebuttal).
Gerald O’Collins, “The Risen Jesus: Analogies and Presence,” in Porter, Hayes, and Tombs, Resurrection, 200–201.
Price, Deconstructing Jesus, 221. He provides lots of details on 257–60.
Price, 260–61.
Sanders, “But Did It Happen?,” 13.
Sheehan, First Coming, 129–35; Sheehan, “Two Easter Legends,” 36.
Sheehan, “Two Easter Legends,” 40.
Sheehan, 47.
Sheehan, 38.
Sheehan, First Coming, 135–46; Sheehan, “Two Easter Legends,” 36–37, 47.
Shimon Gibson, The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 82–91.
Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 70.
Alsup, 80.
Joel B. Green, “‘Witnesses of His Resurrection’: Resurrection, Salvation, Discipleship, and Mission in the Acts of the Apostles,” in Longenecker, Life in the Face of Death, 229–30.
O’Collins, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 21–22.
Raymond E. Brown, “The Resurrection of Jesus,” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland Edmund Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 1373.
Fitzmyer, “Ascension of Christ and Pentecost,” 422.
Thomas C. Oden, The Word of Life, vol. 2 of Systematic Theology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1989), 470.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 73 (agreeing with Bultmann); John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 177–81; John Dominic Crossan, “Empty Tomb and Absent Lord (Mark 16:1–8),” in The Passion in Mark: Studies on Mark 14–16, ed. Werner H. Kelber (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 138–39; Norman Perrin, The Resurrection according to Matthew, Mark and Luke (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 45–46; Perkins, “I Have Seen the Lord,” 34n17; Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 183; Morgan, “Flesh Is Precious,” 9; Osiek, “Women at the Tomb,” 90 (apparently part of Matthew’s elaboration); Lodge et al., Passion, Death and Resurrection, 18 (“The scene is created by Mt as an apologetic response”); O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 12–13 (probably so); Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 117 (Alsup excludes the guard account from his study because it is redactional and isn’t an appearance story anyway); Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research,” seeming to agree on 33; Leslie Houlden, “The Resurrection: History, Story and Belief,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 63; Derrett, Anastasis, 59 (Derrett thinks the tomb was perhaps “guarded,” but Matthew’s account is “comical”); Staudinger, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 324 (says that we shouldn’t be so quick to assume it was invented; from secular history, “it must rather be assumed that Matthew’s account . . . arose from some sort of actual proceedings”).
Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1310–11.
Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1311–12.
Brown, Risen Christ in Eastertime, 25–26.
Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1377.
Craig, “Guard at the Tomb,” 273.
Craig, 274.
Craig, 275.
Craig, 278.
Craig, 279.
Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 75.
Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 74–75.
Osborne, 214–16.
Osborne, 201, citing Broer that the account comes from tradition.
Osborne, 204.
Staudinger, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 310. Cf. 324.
Brown, Risen Christ in Eastertime, 27.
Elliott, “First Easter,” 217.
Grayston, “Empty Tomb,” 264.
Hebblethwaite, “Resurrection and the Incarnation,” 158.
Miller, “What Do Stories about Resurrection(s) Prove?,” 91–93.
Miller, 92, 95–96.
Miller, 93.
Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1374.
Fuller, “Resurrection Narratives in Recent Study,” 97.
Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall, “Mary Magdalene as Major Witness to Jesus’ Resurrection,” Theological Studies 48, no. 4 (1987): 632–33.
Ben Witherington, “Resurrection Redux,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 134 (emphasis added).
Craig A. Evans, “Mark’s Use of the Empty Tomb Tradition,” Studia Biblica et Theologica 8, no. 2 (1978): 52–53; Goergen, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, 228; A. Kee, From Bad Faith to Good News, 91.
John Fenton, “The Ending of Mark’s Gospel,” in Barton and Stanton, Resurrection, 1–7.
O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 41.
Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 56.
Osborne, 58–63.
Osborne, 63–65, 70–72, 271.
Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?, 201; Crossan, Birth of Christianity, 559–62; Crossan, “Empty Tomb and Absent Lord,” 145; Perrin, Resurrection, 16–34; Küng, Eternal Life?, 99; Hoover, “Contest between Orthodoxy and Veracity,” 135; Brown, Risen Christ in Eastertime, 9–10; Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1375–76; Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 167 (“seemingly”); Derrett, Anastasis, 131, 135, cf. 64; Elliott, “First Easter,” 211; Fuller, “Resurrection Narratives in Recent Study,” 97–98; Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 88, 94; Johnson, Living Jesus, 134–35; Collins, Beginning of the Gospel, 128; John Fenton, “The Four Gospels: Four Perspectives on the Resurrection,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 40; Stanley, “Power of His Resurrection,” 27–28; Cranfield, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 168; Lincoln, “I Am the Resurrection and the Life,” 284 (for seemingly practical reasons).
Staudinger, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 318–19; Robert H. Smith, Easter Gospels: The Resurrection of Jesus According to the Four Evangelists (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983), see appendix; Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research,” 32; William Lane Craig, “The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus,” New Testament Studies 31, no. 1 (1985): 54; Frances Young, “The Mark of the Nails,” in Barton and Stanton, Resurrection, 139, see also 149n2; James Ian Hamilton McDonald, The Resurrection: Narrative and Belief (London: SPCK, 1989), 69, 140.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 64–65.
Fuller, 66–68.
Lindars, “Resurrection and the Empty Tomb,” 131. See also 101.
Frans Neirynck, “Marc 16,1–8: Tradition et redaction,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 56 (1980): 63–64.
Osiek, “Women at the Tomb,” 98.
Perkins, “I Have Seen the Lord,” 36.
Perkins, 32.
Perkins, 33.
Senior, “Crucible of Truth,” 32.
Watson, “He Is Not Here,” 99.
Alston, “Biblical Criticism and the Resurrection,” 162–63.
Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, 477.
C. F. D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament, 3rd rev. ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), 131–32n1.
Segal, Life after Death, 450.
Witherington et al., New Proclamation, 8. See also Witherington, “Resurrection Redux,” 135–36.
Wright, “Early Traditions,” 136–37.
Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 125. Bauckham cites Hengel as another scholar who notices that the mention of Peter is unnecessary, as Peter was one of the Twelve.
Grayston, “Empty Tomb,” 266.
Hans-Joachim Eckstein, “Bodily Resurrection in Luke,” in Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, ed. Ted Peters, Robert J. Russell, and Michael Welker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 116.
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 29.
H. C. Kee, What Can We Know about Jesus?, 86.
Peter Kirby, “The Case against the Empty Tomb,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 248–49.
Witherington et al., New Proclamation, 8.
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 234.
Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 200. See also 298–99.
Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 85–86, 267.
Paul Avis, “The Resurrection of Jesus: Asking the Right Questions,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 3.
Hans Werner Bartsch, “Der Ursprung des Osterglaubens,” Theologische Zeitschrift 31 (1975): 16–17.
Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1374.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 77.
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 184.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 70.
A. Kee, From Bad Faith to Good News, 90, 107.
Küng, Eternal Life?, 104.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 226.
Neill and Wright, Interpretation of the New Testament, 308.
O’Collins, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 17.
O’Collins, 18, 20.
O’Collins and Kendall, “Mary Magdalene,” 645.
Osiek, “Women at the Tomb,” 102.
Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:353, 359; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 96, 105.
Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 263.
Michael Welker, “Theological Realism and Eschatological Symbol Systems,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 37.
Witherington et al., New Proclamation, 5.
Witherington et al., 5–6.
Witherington, “Resurrection Redux,” 136–37.
Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 686, 710. See also Wright, Surprised by Hope, 58, 63.
Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 707.
N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 110–12. Similarly, Wright, Surprised by Hope, 69–70.
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 488. See also 538, 659–60.
Barclay, “Resurrection in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship,” 25.
Barnett, Jensen, and Peterson, Resurrection, 26–27.
Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1375.
Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 167–69.
Hans Conzelmann, First Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 257.
Cranfield, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 168.
Joseph Doré, “Croire en la résurrection de Jésus-Christ,” Études 356 (1982): 541.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 34–42, 49.
Funk, Honest to Jesus, 270–71.
Goergen, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, 133.
Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 90. See also 86–89.
Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 122, 127–28, 172; cf. 184.
Lorenzen, 128.
Moltmann, Way of Jesus Christ, 217–18.
O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 23, 36–37.
O’Collins and Kendall, “Mary Magdalene,” 641.
Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 212–14.
Osborne, 214. See also 272.
Osborne, 281–82.
Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 95.
William Lane Craig, “Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?,” in Wilkins and Moreland, Jesus Under Fire, 155.
Craig, 156.
Craig, 156.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 325.
Wenham, Paul, 367–68n89.
Wenham, 367–68n89.
Wenham, 367–68n89.
Craig, “Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?,” 155.
Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 211.
Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, vol. 2, Life, Ministry, and Hope (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 185.
Brown, Risen Christ in Eastertime, 71.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 859.
Fitzmyer, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 409.
Goergen, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, 129.
McDonald, Resurrection, 104–5.
Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 118–19.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 859.
Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 144. This is after the detailed treatment (139–44).
M. Eugene Boring, Sayings of the Risen Jesus: Christian Prophecy in the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 231–33.
Nickelsburg, “Markan Passion Narrative,” 184n86.
Stanley, “Power of His Resurrection,” 28–30.
Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 69–70.
Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1377.
Frank Crusemann, “Scripture and Resurrection,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 101.
Moltmann, Way of Jesus Christ, 218.
Oden, Word of Life, 503.
Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1377.
Brown, Risen Christ in Eastertime, 57.
Brown, 57n68.
Stephen T. Davis, “The Question of Miracles, Ascension and Anti-Semitism,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 77n7 lists: John 3:13; 6:62; 8:14, 21; 13:3, 33, 36; 14:4–5, 28; 16:5, 10, 17, 28; 20:17; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; 4:8–10; 1 Tim 3:16; Heb 4:14; 1 Pet 3:22.
Davis, 78–79.
Davis, 80.
Fitzmyer, “Ascension of Christ and Pentecost,” 414.
Fitzmyer, 424.
Fitzmyer, 425.
Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 123. See also 120–23.
Fuller, 129. See also 127–30.
Lodge et al., Passion, Death and Resurrection, 62.
Goergen, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, 170–74.
Guillaume, Luc interprète, 260. For additional discussion on the ascension, see 270–71.
Küng, Eternal Life?, 120–23.
Lodge et al., Passion, Death and Resurrection, 49, 50.
Lüdemann, “Closing Responses,” 154–56.
Lüdemann, “Second Rebuttal,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 60.
O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 87.
O’Collins, 88.
Oden, Word of Life, 502–10.
Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 136–38, 266–70.
Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 274–75.
Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection, 143–58.
Avis, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 17.
Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1377.
Fitzmyer, “Ascension of Christ and Pentecost,” 410–11.
Fitzmyer, 411, 413.
Fitzmyer, 413.
Goergen, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, 169. His section on Jesus’s exaltation is 167–70.
Guillaume, Luc interprète, 273.
Küng, On Being a Christian, 352.
Küng, Eternal Life?, 123.
Küng, 121.
Barnabas Lindars, “The Apocalyptic Myth and the Death of Christ,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 57, no. 2 (1975): 380.
Lindars, 384.
Meyer, Aims of Jesus, 68.
O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 51.
Oden, Word of Life, 510–25.
Christopher Rowland, “Interpreting the Resurrection,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 77. He cites Phil 2:6–11.
John Shelby Spong, The Easter Moment (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 50–52.
Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 100. Cf. 101.
Caird and Hurst, New Testament Theology, 415.
Caird and Hurst, 404. Cf. 418.
Caird and Hurst, 411.
Charlesworth, cited in Paul Rhodes Eddy, “John Dominic Crossan on the Resurrection of Jesus: Response to Craig,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 273n2.
Crossan, in Copan, Real Jesus, 46 (rebuttal).
Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels, 98–99.
Grant, Jesus, 10–11, 34, 44–45, 52, 76, 94, 151.
Grant, 45, 61, 77.
Grant, 10, 34, 45. Cf. 46, 77, 101, 151.
Hengel, Atonement, 34.
Hugh Jackson, “The Resurrection Belief of the Earliest Church: A Response to the Failure of Prophecy?,” Journal of Religion 55, no. 4 (1975): 418.
Johnson, Living Jesus, 183.
Kasper, Jesus the Christ, 78.
H. C. Kee, What Can We Know about Jesus?, 65–66.
Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 150. Similarly, 144.
Lindars, “Apocalyptic Myth,” 368.
Meier, “Dividing Lines,” 359.
Meier, 359.
Meier, 360.
Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:398. See also 3:438. Cf. 3:624, 626.
Meier, 2:349.
Meier, 2:350. See also 2:398.
Meier, 2:350.
Meier, 2:451.
Meier, 3:338. Cf. 3:494, 633. See also 1:248, 338, 438.
Meier, 3:248.
Meier, 3:494.
Meier, 3:638. See also 3:624.
Meyer, Aims of Jesus, 82.
Neill and Wright, Interpretation of the New Testament, 363.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 49.
O’Collins, 87–88.
O’Collins, 88.
O’Collins, 52. See also 54.
Perkins, “Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth,” 430.
Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 10.
E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 326.
Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 125.
Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 244, 312.
Graham H. Twelftree, “The Miracles of Jesus: Marginal or Mainstream?,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 1, no. 1 (2003): 118. See also 117 on centrality.
Twelftree, 120.
Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism, 28.
Francis Watson, “‘Historical Evidence’ and the Resurrection of Jesus,” Theology 90 (1987): 367.
Ulrich Wilckens, Resurrection: Biblical Testimony to the Resurrection: An Historical Examination and Explanation, trans. A. M. Steward (Edinburgh: St. Andrew’s Press, 1977), 126–27.
Wilckens, 127.
Wilckens, 130.
Wilckens, 130–31.
Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 403.
Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 33.
Borg and Wright, 37.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 111.
Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 23.
Meier, Marginal Jew, 3:438. See also 438–44 where Meier provides six arguments for his claim.
Allison, End of the Ages, 100, 112, 114.
Allison, 174. Cf. 178.
Sumithra, review of Jesus’ Predictions of Vindication and Resurrection (by Bayer), 276.
Caird and Hurst, New Testament Theology, 242.
Caird and Hurst, 255–56, 258, 260.
Caird and Hurst, 257–60.
Caird and Hurst, 263.
Jackson, “Resurrection Belief of the Earliest Church,” 418.
Gordon D. Kaufman, In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 380.
Küng, Eternal Life?, 92.
Lüdemann, “Closing Responses,” 159.
Moule, Birth of the New Testament, 139–43.
Moule, 144–45.
O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 87.
Margaret Pamment, “Raised a Spiritual Body: Bodily Resurrection According to Paul,” New Blackfriars 66 (1985): 387.
Pannenberg, Jesus, 96.
Pannenberg, 107–8.
Price, Deconstructing Jesus, 55.
Sanders, “But Did It Happen?,” 13.
Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection, 154.
Torrance, 153–54.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 401.
Wright, 462–63.
Wright, 464.
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 632.
Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, 56. See also 55–56 where Barnett presents several arguments: earliest documents; close in time to the readers’ own hearing and conversion; not evangelistic tracts. See 45 on 1 Corinthians 15.
Hans Werner Bartsch, “Inhalt und Funktion des Urchristlichen Osterglaubens,” New Testament Studies 26, no. 2 (1980): 194–95.
Bartsch, 196.
Bartsch, “Der Ursprung des Osterglaubens,” 23.
Blomberg, “Jesus of History,” 99–100.
Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 4–15.
Brown, 102.
Callahan, Secret Origins, 370.
Callahan, 419.
Craig, “Resurrection and the Real Jesus,” 158–59.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 195.
Johnson, Living Jesus, 136, 183, 185–87.
H. C. Kee, What Can We Know about Jesus?, 111. Cf. 62–65.
Meier, “Dividing Lines,” 364.
Meier, 365.
Moule, Birth of the New Testament, 137–38.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 14–16, 92.
O’Collins, 185–86.
Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Historicity of the Resurrection and the Identity of Christ,” in The Intellectuals Speak Out about God: A Handbook for the Christian Student in a Secular Society, ed. Roy Abraham Varghese (Chicago, IL: Regnery Gateway, 1984), 264.
J. A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, chaps. 1 and 8.
Peter Stuhlmacher, Jesus of Nazareth: Christ of Faith (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 23–37.
Stuhlmacher, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 45.
Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 166.
Borg and Wright, 164–65.
Borg and Wright, 164.
Borg and Wright, 100–101.
Wright, Challenge of Jesus, 118–20.
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 552.
Wright, 486.
Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 49, 53.
Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 92–96.
Brown, 97.
Brown, 99. Cf. 96.
Brown, 102.
Caird and Hurst, New Testament Theology, 370.
Caird and Hurst, 377. Cf. 418.
Simon J. Gathercole, “What Did the First Christians Think about Jesus?,” in How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature. A Response to Bart D. Ehrman, ed. Michael F. Bird (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 111.
Grant, Jesus, 203.
Kasper, Jesus the Christ, 107–9.
Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 32, 35.
Ladd, 64–66.
Ladd, 36.
Ladd, 36.
Lindars, “Apocalyptic Myth,” 383.
Carey C. Newman, “Resurrection as Glory: Divine Presence and Christian Origins,” Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 70–73.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 64.
O’Collins, 62.
O’Collins, 62–64.
Oden, Word of Life, 460.
Galvin, “Origin of Faith,” 28–29, 31–33, 40–41, citing Pesch.
Alan F. Segal, “The Risen Christ and the Angelic Mediator Figures in Light of Qumran,” in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. James H. Charlesworth, Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 321–22.
Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 149.
Stein, 150.
Stuhlmacher, Jesus of Nazareth, 22–37.
Witherington, “Resurrection Redux,” 131.
Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, 441.
Casey, 447.
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 106–7. See also 119.
Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 88–89.
Brown, 89.
Brown, 86.
Brown, 87.
Brown, 89.
Brown, 101.
Caird and Hurst, New Testament Theology, 401–2.
Caird and Hurst, 398. Cf. 401.
Caird and Hurst, 400.
Caird and Hurst, 402.
Grant, Jesus, 10, 101, 104, 107–8.
Grant, 107–8.
Kasper, Jesus the Christ, 109–10.
Lindars, “Apocalyptic Myth,” 382.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 52–53; O’Collins, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 12.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 52–53.
O’Collins, 52; O’Collins, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 12.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 52.
J. A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 106–7.
Robinson, 106.
Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 146.
Stein, 147.
Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 199.
Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, 399, 505–6.
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 44. See also 3, 49, 231–35, 249.
Ehrman, 279. See also 3, 84, 249, 370.
Gathercole, “What Did the First Christians Think,” 110–16.
Charles E. Hill, “An Exclusive Religion: Orthodoxy and Heresy, Inclusion and Exclusion,” in Bird, How God Became Jesus, 158–64.
Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 8.
Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, 93–95.
Barnett, 94.
Barnett, 45, 93–95. Cf. 129.
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 279. See also 3, 84, 249, 370.
Hebblethwaite, “Resurrection and the Incarnation,” 160.
Hebblethwaite, 160.
Hebblethwaite, 163–65.
Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 4, 11–15, 99–116.
Neill and Wright, Interpretation of the New Testament, 387. See also 400.
Segal, Life after Death, 399.
Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 262–64.
Tabor, 139.
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 111.
Wright, 110–12n102.
Wright, 488. See also 538, 659–60.
Wright, 538.
Richard Bauckham, “James and Jesus,” in The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission, ed. Bruce Chilton and Jacob Neusner (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 165.
Gerald O’Collins, “The Resurrection: The State of the Questions,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 11.
Richard 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), 30.
Bauckham, 97–104, 210–18.
Bauckham, 197–210.
Bauckham, 43–45, 205–6.
Bird and Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin?, 82.
Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 62.
Alan F. Segal, “The Resurrection: Faith or History?,” in Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue, ed. Robert B. Stewart (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 126.
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 195–97.
Segal, Life after Death, 405.
Brown, Risen Christ in Eastertime, 79.
Brown, 80.
Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, 94–95.
Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 93, 101–14. See also 124 (cf. 112) and generally 99–124.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 197. See also 193–98.
Johnson, Writings of the New Testament, 100. See also 99, 103, 105.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 400.
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 53–58.
Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 244–45. See also 553–54, 583.
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 23–31.
Bauckham, ix–xii, 23–31, 101, 106, 207–9, 211, 216–17, 233–35, 253, 264–68.
Bauckham, 164–66. See also 23–25, 44, 168–81, 249–51.
Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, see appendix 3 (esp. 189).
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 24–25.
James D. G. Dunn’s response to Darrell L. Bock, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 222.
Segal, Life after Death, 405, 438.
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 25, 127–39, 151.
Bauckham, 151.
Hurtado, How on Earth, 22, 23–24, 28, 30, 48.
Hurtado, 36. See also 2–9, 23–30, 36–42, 48–49.
Hurtado, 22, 24–25, 46–48.
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 26–30.
Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 119.
Hurtado, 119–21.
Lüdemann, Early Christianity, 45–46, 54, 59.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 343.
Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 98–99, 110, 121, 123, 125, 131n11.
Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 155–56.
Caird and Hurst, New Testament Theology, 414.
Kasper, Jesus the Christ, 110–11.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 167.
Spong, Easter Moment, 179.
Neill and Wright, Interpretation of the New Testament, 437.
Funk, Honest to Jesus, 38.
Perkins, Resurrection, 80–84.
Perkins, 105–6n35.
Alan F. Segal, “Paul’s Thinking about Resurrection in Its Jewish Context,” New Testament Studies 44, no. 3 (1998): 417.
Marcus Borg, “The Irrelevancy of the Empty Tomb,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 118. See also 125n5.
Borg, 126.
Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 55–56.
Crossan, in Copan, Real Jesus, 46 (rebuttal).
Cupitt, Explorations in Theology, 71–72.
Cupitt, 72–73.
Cupitt, 73–75.
Cupitt, 75–78.
John R. Donahue, “Temple, Trial, and Royal Christology (Mark 14:53–65),” in The Passion in Mark: Studies on Mark 14–16, ed. Werner H. Kelber (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 71.
Kent, Psychological Origins, 86.
Norman Perrin, “The High Priest’s Question and Jesus’ Answer (Mark 14:61–62),” in Kelber, Passion in Mark, 81.
Perrin, 82.
Perrin, 81, 95.