VII. Responses to Alternative Theories

1. GENERAL COMMENTS

A. Overall Problems with Alternative Theories

1. Various Scholars: Various scholars have offered responses to the challenges facing alternative theories.

2. Allison: Allison examines multiple views that he places into seven categories (excluding Jesus mythicists): orthodox belief, misinterpretation, hallucination, deliberate deception, genuine visions, belief in God’s vindication, and disintegrating body. Regarding more specific theories, he considers the following to be merely conjecture: (1) The Jewish authorities removed the body to prevent veneration. (2) The women went to the wrong tomb and thought it was empty while interpreting it as Jesus being raised from the dead. (3) Joseph of Arimathea moved the body. (4) Sorcerers stole the body for magical rights. (5) Similarly, necromancers stole the body. (6) The tomb was robbed, which was a consistent problem during that period. (7) An earthquake swallowed Jesus’s body and then the earth quickly came back together. (8) Jesus’s body quickly disintegrated, leaving the tomb apparently empty, and accompanying visions are, according to Allison, a poor hypothesis. Finally, (9) Allison elsewhere considers and rejects the likelihood of aliens reanimating Jesus with a better body.

3. Barnett: Barnett says Paul’s statements in the 1 Corinthian 15 creed are precise and create challenges to various alternative theories. He names the swoon, wrong tomb, mistaken identity, and stolen body hypotheses.

4. Baxter: Although a little confusing in parts, Baxter basically proposes, as a historian, that we look at the resurrection data through the lenses of three potential approaches: (1) naturalistic “fraud” or “delusion”-type scenarios, (2) naturalistic inward, psychological constructions, and (3) the miraculous option. He finds no good reasons to discard the last option.

5. Brown: Brown notes that naturalistic theories were chiefly popular in the nineteenth century. And he says, similar to Ehrman below, that Christians have recognized, “quite correctly,” that the New Testament does not support these alternative hypotheses.

6. Cranfield: Cranfield thinks that the actual resurrection of Jesus, incredible as it is, represents “the least incredible of the [choices]—by a long way.”

7. Davis: “The old nineteenth-century rationalistic explanations (hallucination, swoon theory, stolen body, wrong tomb, etc.) all seem to collapse of their own weight once spelled out.” Speaking about a typical Christian argument, he adds, “No strong new theory has emerged as the consensus of scholars who deny that the resurrection has occurred.” Davis notes the objection to the continuity personal identity theory and explains why he believes it fails. He thinks that one should typically prefer naturalistic theories in most other cases. Still, the evidence for the resurrection is strong enough. Davis’s position is that the historical data “decisively rules out all the naturalistic explanations of the resurrection that have ever been suggested.” Unbelievers have been unable to come up with a consistent theory that is able to properly take into account all of the data. “All of the alternative hypotheses with which I am familiar are historically weak; some are so weak that they collapse of their own weight once spelled out.” Alternative theories are not only weaker, “but far weaker.” Twentieth-century alternative theories are all open to significant critiques.

8. Drane: Drane concludes, “No other hypothesis gives an adequate account of all the evidence.”

9. Dunn: Dunn concludes that “alternative interpretations of the data fail to provide a more satisfactory explanation.” He states this after having listed several naturalistic theories.

10. Ehrman: Although not a believer of the resurrection, Ehrman notes that Christians typically have a “field day” with naturalistic explanations because they recognize the problems of alternative theories. Anyone who “says that the disciples stole the body is attacked for thinking that such moral men who firmly believed what they did could never have done such a thing. Anyone who says that the Romans moved the body is shouted down with claims that they would have no reason to do so and would have produced the body if it had been theirs to produce. Anyone who says that the tomb was empty because the women went to the wrong tomb is maligned for not realizing that it might occur to someone else—for example, an unbeliever—to go to the right tomb and reveal the body. Anyone who claims that Jesus never really died but simply went into a coma and eventually awoke and left the tomb is mocked for thinking that a man who was tortured to within an inch of his life could roll away a stone and appear to his disciples as the Lord of life, when in fact he would have looked like death warmed over.” Ehrman’s suggestion, then, is that those who do not think Jesus rose should not feel required to given an explanation of the empty tomb.

11. Johnson: Johnson places an emphasis that the resurrection should be understood as a true religious experience (as opposed to counterfeit). He notes that naturalistic theories that fail to address these issues are doomed to fail. He describes that it was not a matter of projection, fantasy, autosuggestion, witnessing of ghosts, or conspiracy theories.

12. Ladd: Says naturalistic theories must be tested against the “several strictly historical facts which the historian must try to explain.” Responses are given to a number of naturalistic theories. Ladd concludes that each of them are lacking and that the resurrection is the best explanation.

13. Lowder: Although he takes the relocation hypothesis, Lowder acknowledges that “the traditional theft, apparent death, and wrong tomb hypotheses are unlikely.”

14. Maier: Maier argues that none of these alternative theories offers “any solid base for historical reconstruction” and “all of them raise far more difficulties than they solve.”

15. Pannenberg: States that if, like Hume, miracles are thought to be impossible, then it will not matter what the evidence is because any explanation other than the resurrection will be preferred. He claims the resurrection is a historical matter and not one that can be decided a priori, but sadly, this attitude is still prevalent. This indicates more of a problem with critics than those who think Jesus rose.

16. Peters: “In raising this challenge within Scripture [1 Cor 15:14], St. Paul is assuming that the faith of a Christian is in principle falsifiable.” “Such falsification could come in two forms,” with the first being that evidence would be put forward showing that Jesus stayed dead, and the other being a future consummation of new creation that never occurs.

17. Robinson: John A. T. Robinson notes the empty tomb could be explained by natural or supernatural theories. But some naturalistic explanations “can surely be ruled out as so improbable as to be incredible.” In this category he includes deliberate fraud by the disciples, wrong tomb, that Jesus’s body “dissolved in a lime-pit,” and swoon. He also includes wish-fulfillment, deception, and hallucination. Concerning the appearances, he says, “It is indeed very difficult to dismiss these and still find a credible explanation.”

18. Samuel: Samuel argues that alternative accounts are “less satisfactory and less convincing” than the resurrection.

19. Staudinger: He writes in the last sentence of his article: “Significantly, not one disbeliever has so far succeeded in giving a plausible explanation for the existence of all these testimonies. These scholars tend rather to lose themselves in speculations which are in part sheer fantasy, and which in their entirety are in the end significantly less trustworthy than what they declare to be the incredible resurrection of our Lord.”

20. Stein: Says alternative theories (fraud, hallucinations, etc.) “have never been convincing, and evangelicals have been quick to point out the inadequacy of such rationalistic attempts.”

21. Swinburne: Swinburne concludes, “Alternative hypotheses have always seemed to me to give far less satisfactory accounts of the historical evidence than does the traditional account.”

22. Viney: Viney writes that “Habermas correctly notes the failure of any naturalistic hypothesis.”

23. Watson: Although from a critical perspective, Watson concludes that the “old rationalist views that were popular in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries . . . are not generally taken seriously today.”

24. Wilckens: Wilckens says history can refute many naturalistic responses.

25. Williams: T. S. M. Williams says, “It has to be admitted that alternative answers to the question all have their problems.”

26. Wright: “No other explanations have been offered, in two thousand years of sneering skepticism toward the Christian witness, that can satisfactorily account for how the tomb came to be empty, how the disciples came to see Jesus, and how their lives and worldviews were transformed.” Wright states that historians must inquire and explain the best explanation for the origin of early Christianity. The critical responses have led to “some fairly well-known false trails.” Those who think Jesus’s body remained in the tomb have a historically “formidable task ahead of them.” Wright comments on the difficulty one’s worldview plays regarding the evaluation of evidence of events, but says that some events can be strong enough to challenge a worldview.

B. Versus Historical Epistemological Objections

1. General Comments

A) Fuller: Fuller notes that everyone has to posit some historical cause for the change in the disciples and what really happened shortly after Jesus died. The New Testament is clear—it was the empty tomb and appearances. When Fuller summarizes the appearance phenomena, he calls them “their outward, historically definable form.” Fuller also thinks that at least the “early Palestinian” nature of the empty tomb can (perhaps) be affirmed by “the historian” and especially by “the Christian historian.” But Fuller also says repeatedly that present-day faith is not based on believing historical events. (Cf. the difference between intellectual assent and faithfulness.)

2. Resurrection Data as an Event Open to Historical Inquiry

A) Davis: Davis argues that because history refers to actual events that have occurred in the past, and historians are supposed to discover past events, then Jesus’s resurrection, which occurred in space-time (e.g., our world), is like other historical events that can be investigated.

B) Ehrman: Ehrman acknowledges that there are several facts surrounding Jesus’s resurrection that are open to historical inquiry. For example, it is “possible even to say that Jesus was crucified, and buried, and then he was seen alive, bodily, afterward. A historian could, in theory, argue this point without appealing to divine causality.” It seems, then, the issue for Ehrman is not the data but the interpretation of the data.

C) O’Collins: Says fideism is mistaken. Given the historical standards listed by O’Collins, it might appear doubtful that history has much to say. But O’Collins still agrees that a historian as a historian should be able to “affirm that Jesus was raised from the dead.”

D) Pannenberg: Similar to Davis, Pannenberg points out that past events are liable to testing and evidence, and this includes Jesus’s resurrection, which was an event that occurred in our world in the past. Accordingly, the evidence for Jesus’s resurrection is good, and Christians should embrace it because it causes greater challenges for secular historians.

E) Purves: “The resurrected Jesus’ appearances happened in time and space. There is, then, a stubborn historicity to the resurrection of Jesus.”

F) Wedderburn: States that historians still determine what happened to Jesus’s body since it “is a historical question”—it was something that happened in space-time like other historical events. Therefore, these things are open to history. What happened to Jesus’s body is a historical question. Therefore, it is “highly problematic” to remove these issues from historical scrutiny. Yet his conclusion is ultimately that the resurrection cannot be proven by historical investigation; agnosticism is the final answer.

3. Response to No Witnesses to Jesus’s Resurrection

A) Davis: Davis briefly responds to this objection.

4. Responses to History Does Not Do Theology or Address One’s Worldview

A) General Comments

(1) Bird: Bird states that he is reluctant to limit what is possible in the world a priori. This is not necessarily a religious conviction but simply the result of being open-minded.

(2) Davis: Davis argues that a historian who holds to methodological naturalism or deism cannot affirm that Jesus was raised from the dead by God, but such a methodological limitation is unwarranted.

(3) Moule: In answer to Cupitt, Moule says if there is no clear explanation currently in view, then the historian may have to expand his or her search and cannot simply ignore it. The event, after all, has left a “dent” in the historian’s territory.

(4) Pannenberg: As noted above, Pannenberg points out that past events are liable to testing and evidence. This includes Jesus’s resurrection. Accordingly, the evidence for Jesus’s resurrection is good, and Christians should embrace it because it causes greater challenges for secular historians. Pannenberg offers some additional challenges for Troeltsch’s principle of analogy.

(5) Pinnock: Pinnock seems to suggest that demonstrating the resurrection is an initial step, with belief and application following. Everyone has beliefs, apologists and historians alike.

(6) Robinson: For the New Testament writers, states John A. T. Robinson, the resurrection was a real “event of history—as real as the crucifixion.”

(7) Wright: Wright notes that everyone has a bias (including theological or nontheological biases). Ruling out a conclusion a priori is hardly the way to achieve objectivity here. Accordingly, history cannot exclude theology and, in some cases, “it actually requires it.”

B) Historical Events Can Be Theological Events

(1) Neill and Wright: They summarize three ways one can move from history and theology to practice. The first is the classical model, as epitomized by F. C. Baur, in which earliest Christianity may provide normative theology. The second is a subdivision of the first and can be understood as a canon within a canon. The third method is one like that of Bultmann, whereby the historical overtones must first be removed.

(2) Purves: Purves states that the empty tomb is an example of a theological and empirical event. Purves notes the connection between the historical and the theological elsewhere too.

(3) Samuel: Says for faith to be saved from subjectivism, it needs to be grounded in a real event in history.

C) History and Worldviews Are in Dialogue with One Another

(1) Wright: Wright notes that Jesus’s resurrection is the type of event that challenges worldviews, and so worldviews are at issue here. Wright adds that he is not pretending to make his case from a neutral position uninfluenced by worldview. (See also Wright’s comments on critical realism throughout Wright, New Testament and the People of God. See also my comments on Wright’s views of bias and of postmodernism in sections 1.D.1.K and 1.F.2.B in chapter 1 of this volume.)

5. Events Requiring Explanation

A) Cause of Event Can Remain Unknown

(1) Various Scholars: Various scholars note that an event’s occurrence can still be pursued even if its cause is unknown (i.e., whether the event was a miracle or not is separate from whether or not the event actually occurred). Thus, the historical method can be used to verify at least the historical aspects of the resurrection according to the canons of probability.

(2) Allison: “Would it be an historical sin to content oneself with observing that the disciples’ experiences, whether hallucinatory or not, were genuine experiences that they at least took to originate outside their subjectivity?” Allison then adds that, as another example, one can reasonably discuss Socrates without commenting on the nature of a spirit that he heard.

(3) Davis: Davis offers some comments on distinguishing between whether or not a miracle can occur and whether or not miracles have occurred. One can look at the historical evidence to consider what happened, and sometimes a perceived cause can affect whether one thinks the event occurred.

(4) O’Collins: Says resurrection details that a historian can investigate include several relevant things: (1) the claim that the tomb was empty, (2) those who claimed to have appearance experiences (including the possibility of hallucinations), (3) the disciples’ transformations, and (4) these events being reported at particular times. There is a “historical ‘fringe’” here that can be pursued by the historian.

(5) Sanders: Sanders says that although historians cannot accept the Gospel reports uncritically, they can say that “something happened” even if they do not know what it was (e.g., the cause). So, Sanders, who refers to himself as a historian, states: “I think that the Christian leaders really experienced the appearance of Jesus after his execution.”

B) Beliefs of the Early Church Need Explanation

(1) Neill and Wright: These two note multiple times that the cause of the church is something that needs to be explained.

(2) Wright: Wright argues that historians must explain not only the early church but also the transformations that occurred (e.g., in the lives of the disciples, eschatologically). Presumably this would also include events like Jesus’s death and burial (cf. Ehrman’s point above). Wright notes that the accounts of the experience of Apollonius’s disciples are not a parallel to the experiences of Jesus’s disciples.

2. VERSUS VARIATIONS OF HUME’S, INCLUDING ANTECEDENT PROBABILITY

A. Versus Hume

1. Various Scholars: A variety of scholars have recognized that historians should not rule out miracles a priori, as Hume does.

2. Brown: During Habermas’s debate with Flew, Brown states Habermas exploited “the fairly obvious weaknesses of the Hume position.”

3. Davis: Davis argues against Hume’s view of miracles. Davis contends that philosophers have demonstrated Hume’s arguments fall short and miracles “can occur” (though whether any have actually occurred is another question). In answer to Martin—who argues that the resurrection has very low initial probability even on theism—Davis responds in five areas (see details on antecedent probability below). He concludes that Martin is unsuccessful in his case. Davis also discusses Hume’s treatment and updates on Hume’s thought, and he provides reasons against Hume. Elsewhere, Davis states that the “vast majority of philosophers” from all backgrounds believe that Hume (and Kant) are highly problematic. Davis thinks that there can be cases in which naturalistic theories fail and the theistic option is the best explanation. Unfortunately, remarks Davis, for some people their adherence to naturalism or deism will lead them to say the evidence “must be weak” rather than that the evidence is weak (seemingly circular). Davis, however, curiously states that he does not know how to argue one worldview over another. Yet we can at least counter naturalism.

4. Mavrodes: Says Hume’s work on miracles “is probably the most celebrated and most influential discussion of miracles in Western philosophical literature.” Summarizing Hume, Mavrodes states that Hume wants to “compare the probability of miracles with the probability of error and deception in human testimony.” The problem of the miracle is that it is “always lower” than mistaken testimony. Thus, testimony for miracles is to be rejected. As a result, we need some general probabilities concerning at least two items: “one about miracles and one about testimony.” Accordingly, a major issue is that the entire enterprise is couched in terms of the initial probability. “The first probability which is assigned generates arithmetically all the other values, including the one with which the first one will be compared. Thus, the result of the putative comparison is guaranteed by the assignment of that single probability. Surely there is something fishy in that.” Then, “Hume wants the comparison of probabilities to serve as a guide to the rational use of the testimonial evidence. If we are to be Humeans here, then we don’t know what to do with the testimonial evidence until after we have made this comparison.”

5. O’Collins: After a brief discussion, O’Collins contends that Hume rejects Jesus’s resurrection a priori. He also notes that modern science is more open to miracles.

6. Pannenberg: Pannenberg notes that modern science is open to various possibilities regarding the miraculous.

7. Swinburne: Swinburne offers some considerations in light of Hume’s errors (the laws of nature, antecedent probabilities, and naturalistic presuppositions).

B. Definition of Laws of Nature

1. General Comments

A) Gibson: Says Hume’s notion of natural law is mistaken for three reasons: (1) laws are not necessary but contingent; (2) there is no one identity for contingency, so Hume’s version is contradictory here; and (3) science cannot provide a “global” empiricism. Then, including Hume along with Rorty, Gibson says, “Their unprovable status commits the user to holding a sort of anachronistic totalitarian mythology. Oddly, this is exactly the type of imperious dogmatism which Hume was attempting to controvert.”

B) Johnson: Johnson points out that even the ancients were well aware of the fact that dead people stayed dead. The claim that Jesus rose from the dead is just as challenging now as it was then.

C) O’Collins: Says the New Testament does not use the language or paradigm of fixed natural laws being broken when discussing miracles.

D) Pannenberg: States the resurrection has been challenged because it “violates the laws of nature.” But due to the state of “modern physics,” we should make our judgments more cautiously. Pannenberg makes some comments that these laws are not unassailable, and then says, “The judgment about whether an event, however unfamiliar, has happened or not is in the final analysis a matter for the historians and cannot be prejudged by the knowledge of natural science.”

E) Torrance: States miracles must not be understood as breaking, or even as “an interruption” or infringement of, nature’s laws.

2. Resurrection as a New Law of Nature

A) Lampe: Says the spiritual body is “part of a new creation with new possibilities.” It is not part of the present created order.

B) Murphy: Murphy states that “because we know that the very laws of nature will be transformed in the eschaton we cannot know by means of what ‘physical’ processes this body functions.”

C) Russell: States the resurrection of Jesus and believers is both continuous and discontinuous with present science. Peters summarizes Russell’s position well: Jesus’s resurrection is the “first instantiation of a new law of nature. Rather than a miracle that violates nature’s laws, resurrection is a divinely instituted event that changes nature’s laws. In the future all of us will rise, naturally.”

D) Wright: “The fact that dead people do not ordinarily rise is itself part of early Christian belief, not an objection to it.” The early believers contended that new creation had broken into the world with a new form or mode of existence.

C. Versus Antecedent Probability

1. Beckwith: After mentioning Flew’s antecedent probability approach, Beckwith says, “The problem with this assertion is that it is simply question-begging.” Among other problems with Flew, Beckwith says that his investigation means to study data, and the common data point to a resurrection, and “the question cannot be answered by simply saying, as Flew does, that the pieces of evidence (that is, the known facts) must be faulty because dead men do not rise.”

2. Davis: Among other points, Davis responds to Martin’s charge of low antecedent probability by asking who gets to decide the initial probability. Christians have every right to count their data too, and Davis cites an argument by Swinburne to show this.

3. Griffith: Griffith sets up a nice scenario on how the disciples could be convinced on good grounds that Jesus had risen, perhaps even to the point where it would be unreasonable for them not to have believed. Along the way, he addresses a priori objections to miracles and why they are insufficient to refute the disciples’ experience. On his definition, this would be a “strong” belief (similar to Davis’s definition of strong apologetics) by the disciples. By analogy of seeing his wife, Griffith judges that without any contrary evidence, it would be unreasonable for him to not conclude that he saw her. He answers Bernard Williams’s objection regarding a claim of personal identity. So even though Jesus’s resurrection would be unlikely, the disciples could be correctly convinced on some “fairly ordinary” grounds that Jesus was alive after they knew that he was dead. “Humeans are simply wrong” because (1) they think that generalizations can be enough to outweigh an individual’s specific experience, and (2) “no one of these ‘common’ experiences is any more certain or compelling than those conviction-producing experiences which I have attributed to the disciples would have been, and the generalization derived from them is less so. But can Humean considerations be dismissed so easily? I think they can.” Further against Hume, Griffith points out that the issue with the disciples is not whether they were reasonable for believing in the resurrection because of testimony, but whether they were reasonable for believing because of “their own personal experiences.” Hume is wrong on laws of nature because statistical generalities have replaced his “exceptionless” concept and because events don’t have to contradict nature to have “religious significance.” In conclusion, “it is not unreasonable to believe that” the disciples could have had enough good evidence to believe that they had seen the risen Jesus, which can also play a role on “whether it is or is not reasonable for us to believe.”

4. Keller: Keller says that we can draw examples either from the Bible or from “contemporary life.” Although they are not miraculous, the latter examples open the door for the discussion of near-death experiences to “raise the bar” regarding the nature of the world.

5. Mavrodes: A major issue for Mavrodes is that, for Hume, the entire enterprise is couched in terms of the initial probability. The first probability is “assigned” and affects subsequent values. “Surely there is something fishy in that.” Then Mavrodes notes some additional problems regarding the “rational use” of testimonial evidence if we are to follow Hume. Mavrodes points out that miracles are supposed to be assigned probability, but not on the eyewitness reports. They are, however, supposed to “acquire the relevant probabilities from experience.” Hume’s essay “is full of claims and arguments whose mutual coherence is immediately suspect.” Additionally, Mavrodes recognizes a significant form of cognitive dissonance. One example of this is that in our ordinary life, there are “massive counter examples to what appears the Humean proposal.” There may be almost infinitesimal odds of an extraordinarily high prior probability of four particular bridge hands being dealt. But all we need is just one piece of testimonial evidence that it happened last night, and all of a sudden that event informs the prior probability. In fact, this single report “seems sufficient to convert a staggering improbability into something considerably more likely than not.” How might all of this be applied to Hume’s own example of a resurrection of a dead man? What would make it the case that a low probability should be assigned to such a resurrection? Presumably, no one has ever seen a resurrection; doesn’t this count against it? Here we have Mavrodes’s main point: “These negative experiences, Hume’s and yours and mine, are (for all practical purposes) completely irrelevant to the probabilities of R and NR. And the reason is simple and straightforward. Hume’s sample is just too small. . . . And so is your sample and mine.” But Humeans often seem to translate the belief that resurrections are rare to the view that they are unlikely. This is because Hume doesn’t need the proposition that resurrections are rare (to which everyone agrees anyway). He needs them to be very unlikely, but he doesn’t get this from his argument from experience because both his experience and ours provide too little data to make such a strong statement. But can Hume expand his sample against resurrections to the experiences of many more people? If so, he creates two potential problems: (1) this would be an inconsistent move given Hume’s own argument; and (2) Hume tells us that expanding his sample would never yield a resurrection, because it has “never been observed.” But, Mavrodes points out, the “clearest fact in this whole area would seem to be that the testimony about resurrections, and other apparently miraculous happenings, is not uniform.” So we can either rely on our own experience, which is too small, or we can expand the sample to many others, but if we do that, we have to take the testimony of miracles too. For we cannot “leave out testimonies just to suit ourselves.” The bottom line: Hume’s project gives no foundation for “a low probability” that some miracles could occur. “Nor does it provide a sound basis for assigning a low antecedent probability to singular miracle claims, such as that of Jesus’ resurrection.” Accordingly, comparing probabilities does not always yield reports regarding miracle claims negatively.

6. Moreland: Responding to Keith Parsons’s antecedent probability, Moreland answers: (1) Parsons’s approach seeks to account every event as natural, whatever the consequences. However, this approach is using a “question-begging naturalism” that is ultimately a “Procrustean bed that could never allow a miracle even if one actually occurred.” (2) “It is generally recognized” that Hume exaggerates the argument and that unlikely events can and do occur. (3) Parsons should not use irrelevant data (cf. his example of a flying Mother Teresa). (4) Parsons misunderstands Moreland’s approach.

7. Packer: Packer comments on Flew’s problematic a priori reasoning regarding miracles.

8. Pannenberg: Pannenberg thinks Flew gave away his position that the evidence for the resurrection is good if it weren’t for it being a miracle. Thus, Flew is rejecting resurrection a priori.

3. VERSUS STRONG AGNOSTICISM

A. France: France says Wedderburn’s approach to the resurrection is “frustratingly elusive,” as his view is unclear. France says Wedderburn’s book has the feel of “the high days of German liberalism,” and he “moves further into Cupitt-land.” His attempt “to try to enlist Paul and John in its defence is surely a tour de force.”

B. Habermas: Habermas responds to Greg Cavin’s charge that there is not enough evidence for Jesus’s resurrection. Neither the New Testament nor recent apologists argue the way Cavin portrays. The point is that God raised Jesus so that we have God’s confirmation both concerning what happened and the truthfulness of Jesus’s teachings. This most specifically applies to Jesus’s central message of the kingdom of God. Since Cavin grants the historicity of the resurrection for the sake of argument, he concedes the most important point. Since this event indicates God’s approval, it is God who confirms that Jesus will live forever and so will we, since Jesus and his apostles taught this. Cavin’s repeated use of “conceptual possibilities” does not disprove this. This argument works against Cavin, since he has admitted far too much. If the resurrection occurred in the presence of Jesus’s teachings and indicated the “divine action pattern,” then the traditional argument is far more likely.

C. Pannenberg: Notes that Flew wants more evidence, but we must, at least, recognize and acknowledge the evidence we do have. We can’t always “suspend judgment.” Flew also resembles the “kind of a priori rejection that Professor Flew disclaims.” Pannenberg observes that Flew was close to arguing that if it weren’t for the impossibility of a resurrection, the historical data we have would be quite acceptable. In other words, Pannenberg seems to be saying that Flew spoke as if the evidence for the resurrection is good if it wasn’t a miracle.

D. Wright: Regarding those who wish to say that something happened and we don’t know what it was, but we do know that dead people don’t rise, Wright wants to stress that this is a respectable position, but it is a “matter of choice” and not something that the historical data forces upon us.

4. VERSUS ALTERNATIVE THEORIES

A. Swoon Theory

1. General Comments

A) Allison: In response to the swoon theory, Allison agrees with Straus.

B) Ladd: Ladd calls Hugh Schonfield’s book (The Passover Plot) a clearly “highly imaginative piece of fiction” that completely overlooks Paul (who is a key witness).

C) Letters to the Editor: The “Letters to the Editor” section in the issue after the Davies and Davies article on Jesus’s apparent death offers some points in response that indicate Jesus did die. These include: asphyxiation, side wound in heart, and swoon rejected from multiple angles.

D) O’Collins: Offers two responses to the swoon theory: (1) We have many historical sources for Jesus’s death, both inside and outside the New Testament. (2) He highlights Strauss’s critique of the theory. His responses to a variety of swoon theses (including Thiering, Derrett, and Joyce) are that they all misuse the New Testament, and many of them uncritically use apocryphal works and claim special insight or privilege while misusing theology and history.

E) Oden: Oden gives three main reasons against the swoon theory.

F) Osborne: Osborne says the swoon theory “seems more like a miracle than the resurrection itself.”

G) Purves: Purves rephrases Strauss’s critique in the form of an interesting question: “Yet, even as the resurrection body of Jesus still bore the wounds, can we be bold to say that his resurrection body contains the victory over these wounds”?

H) Stein: Following are Stein’s responses to the swoon theory: (1) The soldiers knew Jesus was dead and didn’t break his legs. (2) How could Jesus emerge from the grave and roll the stone uphill? (3) He notes Strauss’s critique.

I) Tabor: Referring to what Tabor believes to be the various versions of the swoon theory (e.g., Jesus drugged himself, traveled to India, married Mary and moved to France, or was a part of the Jewish Revolt), he responds by stating that these theories do not appeal to any historical basis. “I think we need have no doubt that given Jesus’ execution by Roman crucifixion he was truly dead and that his temporary place of burial was discovered to be empty shortly thereafter.”

J) Wells: Seems (but tough to tell) to be referring to the swoon theory as “nonsense.”

K) Wright: Notes that “the Romans knew how to kill people,” plus notes Strauss’s response to the swoon theory. Wright gives several reasons against it. Wright quickly dismisses this view. He observes that the swoon theory, as it sometimes resurfaces, carries the unlikelihood described in Strauss’s critique.

2. Responses to Derrett’s Argument

A) Anderson: Says Derrett arbitrarily picks and chooses Scripture texts. Moreover, Derrett “runs up against Strauss’ trenchant criticism.”

B) Derrett: Admits (and documents) the spear wound in Jesus’s side but thinks it was only superficial. He says Paul’s appearance experience and conversion are the “greatest obstacle” to his view, but Paul had a vision, although unjustified.

C) Harvey: Says Derrett’s theory that Jesus underwent cremation is “totally alien in Jewish practice, and utterly scandalous in Jewish beliefs.” A cremation “must have been nothing less than traumatic” for the disciples. Similar to Strauss, a “difficulty” is that “the lingering life . . . of a man who could barely speak or walk is the historical germ from which grew the narratives of Jesus’ resurrection appearances.”

D) Merk: The German scholar Merk concludes that Derrett’s basic thesis and execution are unacceptable; his book must be dismissed.

E) O’Collins: Says Derrett totally misses the point that Paul uses the verb egeirō rather than the noun anastasis in his early creed (1 Corinthians 15), so the former goes back to the earliest stages of the church. Derrett even seems to admit the early creedal sense of ēgerthē, in what he thinks is a pre-Markan formula. According to O’Collins, Derrett says that the earliest Christianity began in the tomb, even though the earliest material does not proclaim the empty tomb. O’Collins says that the Shroud of Turin is a problem for Derrett. He notes that Derrett seems to date the crucifixion to AD 40. He also acknowledges that Derrett seriously misuses facts, New Testament definitions, and other data: “Derrett is an enviably learned and well-read scholar. This makes it all the sadder to find him misusing what data we have to support a conjecture for which there is not a shred of hard evidence.”

F) Perkins: Asks in response to Derrett how we explain all the rich Christology and soteriology in the New Testament, “which most scholars agree develop from the resurrection . . . are now collapsed in the post-resurrection experience of Jesus himself.” Perkins also notes, “Derrett knows the literature well enough to realize that the scholarly community will not take this book seriously. Nor should it.”

G) Swetnam: Says the disciples never give any indication that they cremated Jesus’s body, so “this conspiracy seems implausible.” Indeed, “worse is coming to worse.” Similar to Strauss, Swetnam argues that “no discussion is given to the way in which such a seriously debilitated man could open up a tomb from within when the closing stone was in place.”

H) Walker: Walker says in his book review that Derrett’s reconstruction “is essentially conjectural” and “often based upon questionable generalizations.” Walker also states that Derrett utilizes “highly conjectural etymologies or antecedents of key words and phrases in the texts.”

I) Williams: T. S. M. Williams ends his review of Derrett’s book with a critique similar to that of Strauss: “That a man appallingly injured and dying of gangrene could have developed new theological ideas of world-shaking significance is scarcely conceivable; that in that shattered state he would be recognized as the power of God, or that with a few years he would be looked upon as ‘the Lord who has transcended death,’ imparting resurrection life to his followers, is to my mind unbelievable.” Williams states that Derrett “drags protesting impossibilities one by one into the realm of the just conceivable” with “many breathtaking speculative leaps . . . the limits of credulity are stretched too far, both on historical and theological counts” that ultimately make his book “hard to swallow.”

B. Versus Fraud Type 1: Disciples Stole the Body

1. Allison: Notes some have argued that the disciples enjoyed being the religious leaders who got free meals and housing and then stole Jesus’s body and proclaimed that he resurrected. Allison points out that deliberate deception is argued only in modern times by Richard Carrier. Allison finds Carrier’s proposal the best among the group, although he still does not appear to believe it to be probable that a single disciple wanted to restore Jesus’s good name and stole the body, and that this led to hallucinations of the risen Jesus.

2. Craig: “The conspiracy theory has been universally rejected on moral and psychological grounds.”

3. Cranfield: Cranfield provides several objections to this theory: (1) What was the disciples’ motive for “embarking”? (2) What did they do with Jesus’s body? (3) Could they have carried on with their “ministry”? (4) Why the “discrepancies” in the accounts if they arranged the story? (5) What about their transformation? (6) “And, last and most telling of all,” what about “the character and conduct of the earliest Christians?”

4. Davis: Lists the disciples’ transformation plus the lack of evidence necessary to sustain the fraud theory, and that their behavior is not consistent with those committing fraud. Further, no leaks of the conspiracy ever came out, and there is no data to support turmoil among the disciples over the claim of the resurrection. All the evidence says the disciples truly believed in Jesus’s resurrection. Davis adds that attempts to argue that a few disciples defrauded the other disciples is likewise unsupported by the historical data.

5. Dunn: Dunn points out components of the deception theory that he thinks are “inconceivable.” Included in these considerations is the moving of Jesus’s body and tomb veneration.

6. Eddy: “We may agree at once that conscious, deliberate, concerted and sustained fraud is unthinkable as the origin of the Easter faith.”

7. Kasper: Kasper notes that deception on the part of the disciples has been abandoned by scholars.

8. Lüdemann: Although the ancient rumor that Jesus’s body was stolen is a historical fact, the theft is not a historical fact according to Lüdemann. Fraud is disproven by the disciples not even knowing where Jesus was buried; and “because of their utter disappointment, they would not have been in a position to perpetrate such a fraud.”

9. Maier: Speaking similarly about the disciples’ fraudulent claims apart from stealing Jesus’s body, Maier asks why they would have risked their lives for a lie since “myths do not make martyrs.”

10. Oden: Oden offers various arguments against fraud.

11. Osborne: Says “the theory never gained much support; it is highly unlikely that unethical men would have produced the morality and ethics of Christianity. It is also improbable that such men would have been willing to die for their beliefs.”

12. Pannenberg: States that with the fraud theory it is difficult to figure why the disciples “could risk their lives for such a conspiracy.”

13. Sanders: Sanders considers it “rash” to think that they “all” were liars or had the same delusion. He wonders why the disciples would be “willing to suffer and die” for their efforts. “Deliberate fraud seems to me not to be the answer.” “I do not regard deliberate fraud as a worthwhile explanation” because Jesus’s followers spent their lives preaching that he was risen, and several died for their message.

14. Staudinger: Staudinger does not think we can “reckon” with a fraud or conspiracy theory since it would work against the disciples’ self-interest.

15. Stein: Stein notes three problems with the fraud theory: (1) the guards; (2) no motive; and (3) the best response is the disciples’ belief in Jesus’s resurrection, which is admitted by “the vast majority of biblical scholars.”

16. Wedderburn: “We have no reason to suggest that these early Christians deliberately lied.”

17. Wells: Wells notes Flew’s dismissal of the fraud thesis as “equally unsatisfactory.”

C.Versus Fraud Type 2: Someone Other Than the Disciples Stole the Body or Wrong Tomb

1. Allison: Allison mentions the view in passing that the gardener took the body and thinks it to be conjecture.

2. Cranfield: Cranfield points out that both Jewish and Roman authorities had an interest in making sure Jesus was dead, and going to the wrong tomb would have been “quickly corrected.”

3. Küng: Against a view like Crossan’s, Küng contends that the Romans did allow crucifixion victims to be handed over to friends or relatives.

4. Oden: Oden provides arguments against the wrong tomb and other fraud type 2 arguments.

5. Pannenberg: Speaking of views like those of Crossan and Spong, and mentioning the significance of Jesus being buried in Jerusalem, Pannenberg notes that it is a “pure” modern “invention” that Jesus’s burial location would not have been known; there is no evidence for such a view. He adds that it seems unlikely that nobody would have been interested in where he was buried.

6. Robinson: John A. T. Robinson argues against what he refers to as the “dissolved in a lime-pit” view, and answers that “the burial of Jesus is one of the best attested facts about him.”

7. Stein: Mentions a couple versions of the wrong tomb theory and provides objections: (1) Did everyone forget the location of the tomb after such a brief time? (2) There is good data for the tomb being private, with no look-alikes. (3) There was a guard at the tomb. Versus the idea that Joseph stole the body, he writes: (1) There is no data for this. (2) There is no motive. (3) There was a guard at the tomb. Other tomb explanations, like Jesus’s body decomposed after thirty-six hours or that the priests stole the body, also all fail.

8. Tabor: Tabor thinks the comments in John about a gardener appear to be “embellishments.”

9. Thrall: After saying that Lake’s wrong tomb theory is the “most plausible” natural hypothesis for the empty tomb, she raises several critiques (although seemingly confusing this at times with fraud type 1): (1) Someone could still have informed the women of the actual tomb location. (2) The “right grave would still contain the body of Jesus.” (3) The guard at the tomb shows that Jesus’s opponents “were forced to accept that Jesus’s tomb was empty.” (4) It is unlikely the first Christians would be willing to suffer and die for a fraud. (5) The women could have gone to the wrong tomb (or Jesus could have been buried in a common grave), and he still could have been raised from the dead.

10. Wright: Wright “rules out” this alternative hypothesis along with other theories that cite the earliest Christians as having made some mistake (going to the wrong tomb, mistaking someone else for Jesus, etc.).

D. Versus Legend

1. General Comments

A) Barnett: Barnett thinks that the time between the events and when they were written “rules out theories of development and evolution.”

B) Bauckham: Claims that the Gospels are bioi is generally accepted in Gospel scholarship. There is a concern for historical truth rather than fiction.

C) Johnson: Johnsons states the fact that a diverse group of New Testament writings written within fifty years or so of the events must be explained.

D) Oden: Oden argues against the view that the resurrection was invented.

E) Twelftree: Twelftree argues that there is “no good evidence” that “any of the miracle stories are legendary or have their origins outside the Christian tradition.”

F) Wenham: Although in a context that refers to Paul inventing Christianity, Wenham warns against parallelomania (finding unconnected parallels with Christianity and other religions) and also offers some possible thoughts on how to avoid it.

G) Wright: Says incorrect reports could readily be addressed and corrected in an ancient context.

2. Paul

A) Boyd: Boyd presents a lengthy critique of Mack’s conception of Mark and Paul and the possibility of fabrication.

B) Johnson: Says scholarship has demonstrated that “Paul was not the inventor of the ‘Christ cult’ but was, rather, the inheritor of liturgical and creedal traditions already in place before his conversion which he received by means of human tradition.”

C) Wright: “Virtually all Pauline scholars now recognize” that all hypotheses that seek to find mystery religion, Hellenistic, or other pagan ideas in Paul have failed. Finding parallels between Jesus’s death and resurrection in Paul and the mystery religions is now rejected.

3. Versus Divine Man Comparisons

A) Allison: Allison points out that many will “hesitate” before accepting the alleged appearances of Sabbatai Zevi.

B) Alsup: On comparison of Jesus with Apollonius, Alsup writes that Philostratus offered accounts of Apollonius’s death that were “apparently current” in his time. Although there are some similarities between Apollonius’s and Jesus’s ascensions or Paul’s appearance experience, Philostratus’s accounts “have no likeness whatsoever to the appearance stories of the gospel tradition,” and the literary form is entirely different. In perhaps the closest story, “Apollonius is not appearing after death.” And while there is “striking similarity,” there are also “considerable dissimilarities, too.” It is “probable” that Philostratus was “dependent upon the gospel accounts.” We can note “dependence of a direct nature.” On the accounts of Romulus’s apotheosis and appearance, Alsup states they were greeted “by the little interest [these accounts] generated among Roman authors . . . it made no significant impression on them.” Alsup raises several problems with the accounts of Romulus as well as Aristeas of Proconnesus’s apotheosis and appearances and Cleomedes of Astypaleia’s disappearance. Alsup also includes Aristeas’s earlier appearance as a bird. He notes “the uncertainties fixing the death” as well as the lack of an appearance in Cleomedes. There is also a lack of appearance after Alcmene’s disappearance. Peregrinus Proteus’s death, ascension, and appearance also exhibit both similarities and differences to Jesus, including “the probable later addition of the ascending soul.” Demainte’s appearance after her cremation is actually “a visionary dream experience” where the figure of the wife “disappears when his dog interrupts the dream.” Some fragments of other cases also “probably stem” from dream appearances. Overall, Alsup’s conclusion is that even in the areas where there is some similarity, “dependence of a direct nature . . . is probable.” Alsup notes other issues: (1) In the Gospels, the disappearance motif has “a different function” from the Hellenistic accounts, where it is a major aspect. (2) In the Gospels, Jesus’s continued existence somewhere else is not the focus. (3) Upon close examination, it is “impossible” to see these cases as analogous in a relevant way. Apparent similarities, upon closer inspection, show distinctions that are not “parallel,” and there are “sufficient differences between them” such that further investigations into their backgrounds is necessary. On the similarities to Old Testament and other Jewish parallels, Alsup concludes that these connections are far more evident; “some kind of direct relationship existed.”

C) Blackburn: Provides a list of ancient miracle workers. Notes that no pagan was called “son of God” or had his divinity attributed to his miracles. He also notes there is no fixed or typical type of a divine man. Almost all of Jesus’s motifs are also paralleled in Old Testament, Palestinian Jewish, or rabbinic literature. Blackburn can find only three stories that are “formally reminiscent of the Gospel accounts” in Hellenistic sources that are “undoubtedly pre-Christian.” However, they are common after Jesus. He cannot conclude that there is early, pervasive influence from divine men to Jesus. Even to prove any single case is “questionable.”

D) Bolt: Bolt briefly summarizes this phenomenon of divine man in antiquity.

E) Ehrman: He argues that our one source dates from after Jesus’s time and is thoroughly biased.

F) Evans: Says the “older notion” that Jesus’s miracles are due to Hellenistic influences and especially to divine man parallels “has largely been abandoned.” He also notes that the “concept of the ‘Divine Man’ (theios anēr) is a synthetic creation of the History of Religions School.” Evans says a “convenient summary” of these critiques has been provided by Kee, Hengel, and Blackburn.

G) Lorenzen: Lorenzen points out that there are “worlds of difference” between Jesus’s resurrection and divine men who have been exalted. The chief Greek word used to express this apotheosis (epiphaneia) is not used in the New Testament, which means that the biblical writers “avoided them” or were unaware of such stories. Thus, it is “unlikely” that the New Testament has generated these aspects of early Christianity.

H) Wright: Wright argues the distinctive meanings of resurrection among pagans, Jews, and Christians. Jesus was vindicated through the resurrection. This vindicated who Jesus was already thought to be. It was through king Jesus that Israel’s hope was found and through whom pagan gods were defeated. Wright notes that Apollonius continues living in a nonbodily state, which is consistent with both Homer and Plato.

4. Versus Mystery Religions Comparisons

A) General Comments

(1) Allison: Allison provides some good warnings regarding the differences between the appearances of a “normal” person that may not have garnered much change, and those of an appearance of a messianic figure. The latter would inspire more change as the context begets meaning for the appearance. However, he also seems to indicate that potential parallels with mystery religions are of a controversial nature and do not really help explain the origins of Christianity.

(2) Bird: “None of the possible parallels” contain an “eschatology whereby [Jesus’s] resurrection inaugurates the new age.”

(3) Bolt: States that mystery myths like “Attis, Adonis, Osiris, and Mithras—largely postdated” the first century AD.

(4) Boyd: Offers a critique of Mack’s view of Paul as the leader of the new mystery cult.

(5) Brown: Brown also notes that Jesus is far different than the gods of ancient mystery religions.

(6) Craig: Says contemporary scholars are “more skeptical concerning such alleged parallels” with mystery religions. Only with myths of Osiris, and possibly Adonis, do we find a three-day motif and, following Grass, it is “completely unthinkable” that early Christians “could be influenced by such myths.” Plus there is minimal evidence, if any, of this “in first century Palestine.”

(7) Crossan: Crossan argues that the different portraits of Jesus indicate that Jesus was a real person.

(8) Dunn: Says Paul’s trip to Jerusalem (Galatians 1) and his own experiences tell us what influenced him. There is no need to add unnecessary hypotheses in a manner similar to those who try to connect Paul with various mystery religions. He adds that such attempts have shown themselves to be “almost wholly groundless.”

(9) Ehrman: Like Craig, Ehrman notes that contemporary scholars are “less inclined” to consider Christianity among the mystery religions or to claim that Christianity borrowed ideas of practices from those religions. Elsewhere, Ehrman uses stronger language against this view and states the “majority of scholars” contend that there is “no unambiguous evidence that any pagans prior to Christianity believed in dying and rising gods.” Nor is resurrection considered to have been a “widespread view” by pagans. “Even more important” is, and again similar to Craig, that there is no evidence that such gods were known or worshiped in rural Palestine during Jesus’s time. Those who wish to argue otherwise must cite some sort of evidence that Jews in this time period were actually influenced by these groups. The fact that there is no evidence is “precisely” why scholars do not think this theory has any weight. Ehrman argues that while there may be some interesting parallels, those pushing mythicist theories will “typically go way too far,” and even go so far as “making them up.” He refers to Kersey Graves, Frank Zindler, and Robert Price here. See also Ehrman’s overall comments on this topic.

(10) Fuller: On the proposal of Gunkel and others that there are history of religion and mystery religious parallels to the “third day,” Fuller says that such approaches are based on “dubious evidence” and that even the parallels are questionable and disconnected from the New Testament writers.

(11) Grant: Argues against G. A. Wells’s “extreme” thesis, noting in particular that (1) Judea was “so entirely foreign” to such mythical development, and (2) “above all,” applying the normal criteria for ancient accounts to the New Testament establishes Jesus’s existence.

(12) Johnson: For Johnson, the dying-and-rising gods hypothesis has failed, and it is not, as some mythicists suggest, because there was a “failure of nerve” by scholars. It was, in fact, the “failure of such theories” to properly account for the historical data.

(13) McKenzie: Says pagan resurrection myths are evidence of a universal, archetypal idea of resurrection. He also includes and provides an overview of Jung’s concepts. The risen Jesus can be understood as “the realization and validation of pagan dreams of resurrection/renewal that were themselves based on archetypal structures of the collective unconscious.” McKenzie emphasizes that the “resurrection of Jesus would be unacceptable to many of us, if it was not redolent of ancient structures of imagination and thinking.” On postmodernism and our imagination, McKenzie seems to suggest that it opens the possibility of resurrection and offers “a new way of looking at traditional images of what is possible.” He also critiques Frazier’s Golden Bough. He notes there are some similarities with mystery religions to Christian teachings, but there are also substantial differences: “These myths do not really deserve to be called ‘resurrection’ myths.” McKenzie later calls this “equivocation at its worst.” He does this for at least four reasons: (1) Jesus was a historical figure while the pagan heroes were not. (2) Jesus’s resurrection wasn’t a “renewed” presence as part of nature’s cycles. (3) Christian teachings are tied to “a real person” and not a hero figure. (4) The resurrection “produced historical effects that completely overshadowed” the pagan personages. Other differences include that these myths were not necessarily or obviously connected to a specific doctrine, and they did not push toward faithfulness to their deity. McKenzie concludes that, after investigation, Jesus’s resurrection and so-called pagan resurrections have “little in common.” McKenzie critiques Sheehan for not delineating “the relationship” between these two more clearly. In a review, Ruble says that McKenzie “seeks to defend the orthodox view of Jesus’ resurrection. It is very critical of resurrection critics.”

(14) Meier: Meier points out that the areas of agreement “attract more attention” than the differences. For example, there is no mention or allusion to Jesus in the Qumran documents (though it is not a mystery religion). Meier treats in great detail the dissimilarities between Jesus and Qumran. Meier writes that such approaches are “generally dismissed today by serious scholars.” The reason for this is because (1) they are “the academic equivalent of reading tea leaves,” and (2) the Dead Sea Scrolls predate Jesus’s public ministry. Ultimately, the differences are multiple and significant.

(15) Nash: Nash responds to the view that Christianity borrowed from mystery religions. He provides an overview of ancient mystery religions. He also describes their different forms. He notes several different components that are often associated with alleged analogies between Christianity and mystery religions, such as Christian sacraments; the deity of Christ; critique of Bousset; death, resurrection, and rising mystery gods; differences on salvation; Paul and mysteries religions; Gnosticism; and a closing summary.

(16) O’Collins: The pagan myth thesis is “reductive” and “far less popular today” because it contrasts a “mythical hero or agricultural deity” with the “thoroughly historical person” of Jesus. O’Collins addresses some of Helmut Koester’s comments from a 1984 TV program, critiquing Koester’s remarks about mystery gods. Here are O’Collins’s responses: (1) There are too many differences between Jesus and mystery gods. (2) Jesus was a historical figure while the mystery gods are not. (3) Mystery religions had little influence in Palestine.

(17) Osborne: Gives four brief critiques: (1) brevity of time argues against myth; (2) the disciples would not be willing to die for a myth; (3) Jesus’s resurrection account is “vastly different from pagan myths,” especially since resurrection is an actual historical event; and (4) the New Testament writers “tell pagans that their religious longings had now come true in Jesus the Christ.”

(18) Pannenberg: After discussing the pre-Pauline creed, Paul’s early trip to Jerusalem, and the “good historical foundation” favoring resurrection appearances, Pannenberg concludes that it is an “idle venture” to try to connect parallels from these mystery religions to cause “the emergence of the primitive Christian message about Jesus’ resurrection.”

(19) Smith: Regarding the term “myth” in Christian origins and its overuse, J. Z. Smith writes, “What a mad farrago of notions confronts the observer’s gaze!” “It is a scandal to note that, by and large, scholars focusing on early Christianity continue to use the same literary evidence available to a Dupuis or a Frazer, when discussing the ‘mysteries,’ while ignoring the newer inscriptural and archaeological data.”

(20) Wright: Wright comments on this issue, noting that the language and meaning of “resurrection” in Christianity is different than in mystery religions.

(21) Yamauchi: Yamauchi discusses the end of the earliest mystery texts and how these texts do not represent a resurrection anyway.

B) Decline of the Mystery Religion Position

(1) Ehrman: Ehrman points out that “serious doubts” exist about whether there were any dying and rising gods and, if they did exist, whether they were in any way similar to Jesus. Indeed, such views are actually on “hard times.” Part of the reason is that they received “devastating critique” in the late 1900s, and even the few who think that there are dying and rising gods do not think that it is a relevant category for understanding Jesus. Ehrman mentions Mettinger as an example of a scholar who does not think this category to be relevant to Jesus. Ehrman notes the instrumentality of Jonathan Z. Smith in the demise of this view. Ehrman further states that actual historians are “scandalized” by the comments found in books such as Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries (n.p.: Thorsons,1999).

(2) Smith: J. Z. Smith argues that since the work of Lambrechts and Wagner, “it has become commonplace to assume that the category of Mediterranean ‘dying and rising’ gods has been exploded.” Though these works have been challenged and may have various limitations, nevertheless they reveal a “genuine reversal in scholarly thought. That which was positive as most primitive . . . has turned out to be an exceedingly late third or fourth century development in the myths and rituals of these deities.” To put that matter succinctly, Smith writes, “It is now held that the majority of gods so denoted appear to have died but not returned; there is death but no rebirth or resurrection.” Additionally, prior scholarship depended upon documents that were not properly interpreted, were later than Christianity, or even borrowed from Christianity. Smith goes on to discuss examples in Mithras, Marduk, Tammuz, Osiris, Adonis, and Attis and Cybele.

C) Examples

(1) Mithras

(a) Di Donato: Di Donato thinks that the comparisons made between Jesus and Mithras are “misleading.” There is no “clear reference” to Mithras’s death in art or literature. Nor is there evidence for his resurrection (which is “inconceivable without the former”). Early Mithraism also lacked a concept of rebirth, and the integration of Mithras with Sol “takes place too late to have any impact on early Christianity, as does the belief in an astrological ascent of the soul.” Di Donato dates Sol and the astrological ascent to around the second century AD.

(b) Smith: J. Z. Smith argues there “has never been a claim for the ‘rising’ of Mithras in any Late Antique document.”

(2) Marduk

(a) Smith: J. Z. Smith writes, “The notion of the ‘dying and rising’ Marduk is based on a misreading of the ancient Near Eastern sources.”

(3) Sumerian Dumuzi/Akkadian Tammuz

(a) Smith: J. Z. Smith states, “The alternation of Tammuz and Kore (as well as Adonis in some traditions) between the underworld and the land of the living does not conform to the usual stipulation of the ‘dying and rising’ pattern.”

(b) Yamauchi: Yamauchi evaluates these claims and points out that the end of the myth is missing in both the Sumerian and Akkadian versions. He contends that the final twelve lines of the Akkadian “Descent of Ishtar to the Nether World” have occasionally been argued as alluding to Tammuz’s resurrection. However, this is not correct because it is, instead, “a depiction of the ascent of Tammuz’s spirit to smell the burning incense and partake of the offerings made for the dead.”

(4) Osiris

(a) Ehrman: Ehrman stresses that Osiris “decidedly does not—return to life” but instead merely rules in the underworld. Ehrman also criticizes various attempts to draw parallels from Osiris’s life to that of Jesus.

(b) Smith: J. Z. Smith says Osiris is similar to Tammuz and to Kore/Adonis because he does not properly fit into the dying and rising god category because Osiris merely continues his existence in the world of the dead.

(5) Adonis

(a) Ehrman: There is “nothing” that indicates either the death of Adonis or a resurrection.

(b) Smith: J. Z. Smith points out that there are myths and “early rituals” that focus on Adonis’s death and include mourning for Adonis. “The ‘gardens of Adonis’ (the képoi), to which Frazer devoted so much attention, were proverbial illustrations of the brief and transitory nature of life, and contain no hint of rebirth. The point is that the young vegetative shoots rapidly wither and die, not that the seeds have been ‘reborn’ when they sprout.” It is not until later that clearer indications of rebirth are found.

(6) Cybele and Attis

(a) Smith: J. Z. Smith says most scholars who put forward a connection with Attis have relied upon a “mistaken” Cybele-ritual. Faulty assumptions and connections have been made between the Day of Blood (March 24) and the Day of Joy (March 25) so as to be analogous to Jesus’s death on Friday and resurrection on Sunday. These scholars have incorrectly believed that the “Day of Blood included, among other activities, mourning for Attis—it did not—then the ‘joy’ on the following day must be in celebration of his resurrection. There is no evidence for this hypothesis.” In fact, Smith points out that the Day of Joy is actually a later addition to the ritual “in which the Day of Blood was followed by a purificatory ritual and the return of the statue of the goddess to the temple. The new feast of the Day of Joy celebrates this cleansing and returning of Cybele. Attis appears to play no role. The sole text that unambiguously connects the Day of Joy with Attis is a fifth century biography” in which Attis is really saved from Hades. Smith notes that there is “no comfort” for humanity in the Attis myth.

(7) Socrates

(a) Smith: J. Z. Smith states that Socrates is the “most persistent” parallel given with Jesus. But “it is impossible . . . to escape the sense that they are largely rhetorical.” He then notes that it is more interesting to utilize categories like divine man or even martyr.

D) Parallels Do Not Automatically Negate Historical Events

(1) Crossan: Crossan disagrees with Price regarding the results of connecting the typologies. Although there may be some similarities, this does not negate Jesus’s existence, and such comparisons would also challenge Augustus’s existence. Note Crossan’s point where he observes that in his previous work, The Cross That Spoke, he noted parallel incidents, particularly with Jesus’s death and resurrection without other Greco-Roman types, which led him to the opposite conclusion of those arguing for the influence of mystery religions.

E) Bad Parallels for Resurrection

(1) Assmann: Says Jesus’s resurrection was a one-time event that “belongs to history and not of nature, to linear not cyclical time.” Some commonalities are noted in Assmann’s chapter, such as Jesus providing a way to paradise similar to that of Elysium and, potentially, Osiris. He also notes that the redemption of death is like Egyptian ideas. To have eternal life while in the presence of divinity is “likely” an originally Egyptian idea.

(2) Bock: Says the alleged parallel accounts are “not really parallel.”

(3) Crossan: Notes these parallels have “nothing” in common with Jesus’s resurrection. Paul cannot “even imagine” in a way analogous to dying and rising gods.

(4) Dunn: Dunn notes that these analogies are difficult to make with Jesus due to our limited knowledge and that bad analogies hardly indicate a causal connection. He points out that water rituals (e.g., as in the initiation to the Isis cult) are more about purification than part of the initiation itself. Dunn adds that Dionysius’s meals are “hardly” a “precedent” for the Christian understanding of the Last Supper. He also argues that it is likely that there is more of a fear of the afterlife and the fears associated with it in these religions than any notions of being redeemed from sin. For Dunn, “no clear concept of a mystical identification with the cult deity is evident, more that of re-enacting the fate of the god.”

(5) Johnson: Johnson states the “historical” fact to be explained is that there was a quick appearance to a group that was committed to a crucified Jesus who was reported to be alive, and not to a dying and rising god. Christianity was not a movement that started before Jesus but appeared in the context of a crucified Messiah who had been recently executed. In other words, to appeal to “an ‘ideal type’ fails to account for the specific contours of the religion.” Johnson also offers some comments regarding Lucian’s Death of Perigrinus as describing a superstition and not a dying and rising god.

(6) Lampe: Notes the cultural settings of Corinth and the growing popularity of Persephone, a dying and rising god representing vegetation and mortal destiny. Paul thus used the language of dying and reviving seeds. “Paul met his Hellenistic readers with cultural presuppositions familiar to them. At the same time he modified this imagery.” He modified it because, similar to Assmann’s point above, for Paul, Jesus’s “resurrection had no cyclical aspects at all, as the linear eschatological timetable in [1 Cor] 15:23–28 shows.”

(7) Smith: J. Z. Smith provides some detailed and technical analysis of attempts to compare Paul’s views with other mystery religions along with cyclical and linear views of history.

F) Parallels and Allusions to Torah Acceptable

(1) Johnson: Notes that it is reasonable to understand how the Torah affected the New Testament writers. He adds that two additional factors should be considered: (1) there is still a significant difference between the Gospels and the Torah, and (2) one would not think that Jesus would die and rise again just from reading the Torah.

G) Versus Claims That There Are No Miracles in Non-Christian Ancient Sources

(1) Bock: Bock argues that such claims ignore not only Josephus but also other Jewish traditions.

(2) Crossan: Crossan notes the “convergence” between Tacitus and Josephus regarding the start of the Jesus movement. Despite Pilate’s execution of Jesus, the movement continued and still continues. He also notes that these sources did not uncritically copy from Christian sources but drew from common knowledge about Christians.

(3) Dunn: Dunn notes that Jesus is mentioned as a miracle worker in both Christian and non-Christian sources, citing Josephus, Ant. 18.3.3.

(4) Johnson: Johnson argues, similar to Crossan, regarding the “converging lines of outsider and insider sources.” He also notes the importance of Josephus and Tacitus since they are likely not based on the New Testament writings.

H) Critique of Price’s Legend Thesis

(1) Criterion of Dissimilarity Pushed Too Far

(a) Bock: Bock notes that Price has stacked the deck in his favor in his application of the criterion of dissimilarity. Accordingly, Price uses this criterion in such a way that it removes Jesus from his historical and cultural context.

(b) Dunn: Says there are important nuances about using this criterion that Price fails to properly address and that subsequently undercut his use of them.

(2) Ignored Evidence

(a) Bock: Bock refers to multiple pieces of evidence ignored by Price (including 1 Corinthians 15).

(b) Dunn: Dunn also refers to multiple evidences ignored by Price (also including 1 Corinthians 15). He refers to Price’s dismissal of the letters as evidence for the historical Jesus as “a ludicrous claim.” Dunn adds that Price has “blithely ignored” Acts as well.

(3) Versus Principle of Ideal Type

(a) Dunn: Dunn notes that the “fatal flaw” of mythical arguments like that of Price’s is that they try to apply an ideal type to someone who obviously made a historical impact and who lived within a generation of those who supposedly invented him.

I) Critique of Jackson’s Legend Thesis

(1) Allison: Allison adds that the disciples’ despair after Jesus’s death, and even the resurrection, “did not conform so nicely” to the disciples’ pre-Easter conditioning. Allison also comments, “While we have documented cases in which the falsification of prophecy did not wreck belief, it is even easier to cite cases where it did.” Here Allison cites the “numerous instances” in Jewish messianism, a couple of Christian cases, and says more could be presented (further mentioning the Millerites, Zevi, etc.). Allison raises the question: If the pre-Easter teachings of Jesus are the chief source of the disciples’ faith, then why is the emphasis placed on the appearance narratives and not on the specific teachings of Jesus that gave rise to their faith in the first place? Allison’s final contribution is that Jesus’s appearances to individuals and groups “has no point of contact with the messianic movements and sects” and thus failed prophecies don’t offer much help regarding the appearances.

(2) Habermas: Cognitive dissonance theory has been criticized on more than one front. At least one study has dismissed “the paradoxical effect” of believers being even more committed after a failure. Even Hugh Jackson himself admits to discarding this portion of the hypothesis. But it appears to be the crucial portion of the theory. Even the original scholars who developed the dissonance theory “were unable to decide” whether Jesus’s crucifixion constituted such an instance. Note the very poor analogy from Sabbatai Zevi, where most of his followers left him after his failure! Also, some of David Koresh’s and Jim Jones’s followers similarly deserted him. Jackson says “many” of Zevi’s followers continued to believe in him. (But see “some” a few pages later.) However, we know of none of Jesus’s followers recanting. Jackson obviously picks and chooses the Scripture portions he wants to support his theory. For example, Jackson rejects Jesus’s predictions of his death. Jackson also says the New Testament doesn’t help us much in discovering what happened immediately after the crucifixion, dismissing what the sources do say on this since they obviously dispute his thesis. There is no first-century evidence for Jackson’s position, yet he says, “Let us assume . . .” to fill in the cracks when asserting that the disciples didn’t lose their faith. He begs the question on Jesus being wrong about the imminency of the kingdom. A very major problem is that Jackson has no mechanism for the reported appearances (i.e., why did the disciples say not only that Jesus was alive but also that they saw him?), so Jackson fails to explain the toughest aspect. On Jackson’s thesis, what would account for Paul’s conversion, James’s conversion, or the empty tomb?

E. Versus Various Hallucination Theories

1. General Comments

A) Various Scholars: Various scholars have noted what they feel is a pejorative use of “hallucination” in that the term prejudices the case in favor of mental illness or something similar. The problem is that the preferred term, “vision,” is also used by many in an objective sense. So, if vision is used, it ought to be explained that there is a vast difference between subjective and objective visions, and we need to be very careful to differentiate. It could also be said that the category of hallucinations is not being used in the negative sense but in a purely descriptive sense, to differentiate the sort of vision, in order to curtail another problem.

B) Borg: Speaking about Paul’s experiences, Borg says, “I do not put them in the category of hallucinations.” Elsewhere, in speaking of the resurrection visions, Borg again says that “visions can be true” and that he does not categorize them as hallucinations.

C) Craig: States hallucinations are opposed by (1) the Gospel resurrection accounts being trustworthy; (2) specific resurrection accounts being trustworthy; (3) evidence favoring bodily resurrection appearances; (4) the diverse contexts in which the appearances occurred, which make it unlikely that they were subjective; (5) the differences between visions and resurrection appearances in the New Testament; (6) the fact that hallucinations would lead to exaltation views but not a resurrection; (7) the empty tomb also being tough to properly explain;(8) the Jewish belief in resurrection as something occurring in space-time; and (9) the resurrection happened to “an isolated individual.”

D) Cranfield: Offers a few critiques, including (1) there is “no evidence” indicating the women were in such a state of mind that would have made them susceptible to hallucinations, and (2) “so many different individuals and groups as are listed in 1 Cor 15:5–8 or are represented in the Gospels . . . in such varied situations, is hard to envisage.”

E) Crossan: For clear statements, see Crossan at a few points in his debates with Craig and Wright. Crossan says that Paul “had a revelation of Jesus—a vision, not a hallucination.” However, Crossan adds, he would expect visions even if none were reported, since they are at the start of religious movements.

F) Davis: Notes that the concept of group hallucinations is highly problematic. Also states versus hallucination that there were at least three occasions in which Jesus was not recognized or was doubted (Davis’s point seems to be that the disciples were in an improper frame of mind). Plus, the diversity of circumstances in which people saw Jesus creates issues for hallucination theory. Davis notes that the disciples were not expecting an individual resurrection before the general resurrection of the dead.

G) Dawe: Says there is no data suggesting the psychology of the disciples was indicative of wish-fulfillment. They were in the process of running away in fear.

H) Dunn: Dunn asks if hallucinations in the form of wishful thinking are an adequate explanation of why the language of resurrection was used. Similar to Wright, Dunn argues that “there were precedents for visions of a dead hero, now seen as exalted to heaven,” and such visions would have likely described Jesus “clothed in heavenly majesty” (such as in Rev 1:12–16), but the appearance accounts we do have of Jesus are described in quite an “earthbound” manner. Visions of such heavenly imagery would be similar to that found in Daniel 7, but we don’t find this. Dunn emphasizes that the “unexpectedness of the interpretation put upon the resurrection appearances” is what is surprising because of other descriptions of those who were heroes or martyrs. Rather, the experiences of the risen Jesus “impacted on the witnesses as resurrection appearances did not conform to any known or current paradigm.” Nevertheless, “the articulation in a formulation in these terms, is the impact [of the appearances on the disciples].” Their experiences led them to interpret the events as resurrection, which means that it was something that “happened to Jesus” and not merely something that occurred within them. According to Perry, Dunn says ōphthē “can hardly have any other sense than visual perception.”

I) Elliott: Elliott simply states one should be cautious of referring to resurrection appearances as subjective experiences or hallucinations and, moreover, the New Testament writers do not appear to refer to them like this either.

J) Fiorenza: States critics like Strauss, Kaufman, and Lüdemann “fail to take seriously the affirmation and meaning that these texts seek to disclose.” The failure is that they do not understand the important meaning of the texts before explaining them historically. The disciples’ own lives are an “important criteria for discounting such a psychological dependency theory.”

K) Fowler: Responding to Davies and Davies: “The hallucination theory is implausible because hallucinations arise from expectations or wishful thinking, whereas the record tells us that the followers of Jesus had abandoned hope and it was only with difficulty that he persuaded them that he was a real person, not a ghost.”

L) Grant: Says hallucination “can hardly be applied to a mass affair” like the ones recorded in the New Testament.

M) Gundry: States that some, like Lüdemann (and others such as Hick and Carnley), compare Jesus’s subjective visions to dreams or grief visions. Gundry answers by saying that many visions of deceased people are reported in the Bible and elsewhere, “which prompted no inference of a physical resurrection resulting in an empty tomb.” Marian visions have not generated belief in her resurrection either. Most of these sorts of dreams or visions lead to the belief in “ghostly apparitions,” and this works against Lüdemann’s thesis.

N) Hebblewaite: Hebblewaite observes that “the nineteenth-century ‘subjective vision’ hypothesis” does not “retain much psychological credibility.” The appearance accounts are, in fact, “uniquely suggestive of some objective manifestation from beyond the natural sphere.”

O) Kent: Though a skeptic, Kent admits that most scholars reject hallucinations.

P) Ladd: Notes Milligan disproved the subjective vision theory long ago when he responded by saying it was inconsistent with the mindset of the disciples, the appearance to the 500, and more.

Q) Lapide: After detailing the disciples’ despair and change, he concludes that “no vision or hallucination is sufficient to explain such a revolutionary transformation.” Just before this, Lapide also pointed out that in rabbinic literature, when others have visions, we do not see this type of change.

R) Lorenzen: After some caution and appreciation, he gives several reasons against the hallucination thesis: (1) The “widespread agreement” by witnesses that the appearances were “real” experiences with the risen Jesus that were “initiated by God.” (2) The appearances weren’t produced by their psychology. (3) One must account for the disciples’ transformation. (4) Jesus’s personality did not prevent the disciples from fleeing, so why would it be strong enough to create subjective experiences? (5) Strauss cannot explain why the New Testament distinguishes between resurrection appearances and other visions. (6) Moreover, the diversity of the contexts in which the appearances occurred also creates a challenge for this view. Lorenzen’s conclusion against Strauss’s thesis is “its problems are greater than its promises.” Ultimately, psychological explanations are “inadequate” to account for Jesus’s resurrection.

S) Moule: Moule argues that Cupitt’s view of collective hallucinations offers “scarcely serious parallels to the genesis of the Christian church.”

T) O’Collins: Presents a few critiques: (1) the disciples’ doubt and despair is not the proper attitude for a hallucination; (2) no reason for chain reactions of hallucinations and doesn’t explain Paul, who wasn’t conditioned; (3) “the religious novelty” in the disciples’ claims is not accounted for by hallucinations, which are drawn from what we already believe; and (4) the hallucination theory doesn’t account for Jesus being raised singly and before the end of time. In another context, O’Collins also focuses on the disciples’ doubt and despair as a key argument against subjective visions. The argument creates a huge problem, especially for the first appearance, along with the three years separating Peter’s and Paul’s appearances. It mitagates against “a quick chain reaction” thesis, along with the disciples not being visionaries “by disposition” and Paul’s appearance. O’Collins mentions Sallie McFague as another reductionist who interprets resurrection in terms of “continuing presence and empowerment.” O’Collins gives a detailed critique in terms of the New Testament language and notes her approach is self-defeating because her technique applies to her own language too (she would also not be speaking about reality but only telling us about her own psyche!).

U) Oden: Oden offers three main critiques of the hallucination thesis, including the disciples not expecting the resurrection.

V) Osborne: Provides several critiques: (1) those who saw Jesus weren’t in the proper frame of mind for hallucinating (cites Wilckens, Goppelt, Moule, and Schweizer as agreeing here); (2) the disciples’ despair; (3) conversion of Paul is unexplained; (4) so is James’s conversion; (5) and Peter’s restoration; (6) short duration of resurrection appearances; and (7) the appearance to the 500. Osborne concludes the theory is “highly improbable.”

W) Packer: Speaking about Flew’s hallucination theory, Packer says we should not extend the category of hallucinations beyond what psychologists have confirmed. Doing so is “hazardous” for an empiricist (!) and enables Flew’s position, which is “impregnable.”

X) Pannenberg: Says the “very strong evidence” for the resurrection appearances is why “few scholars” doubt, whether critical or not, the visionary experiences. This, then, makes the understanding of what is meant by “visionary experience” an important issue. Pannenberg contends that there are “no sufficient reasons” that allow us to assume hallucinations. Regarding Strauss’s subjective theses, he notes that they have repeatedly “failed.” Then he gives some refutations that include Paul and early Christianity distinguishing between the resurrection appearances and other visions. Pannenberg gives two other critiques: (1) The disciples’ psychological state after Jesus’s death makes it unlikely that encouraging subjective visions would have been able to endure their feelings from the recent events. (2) The diversity of appearances along with their occurrences over a period of time is another challenge. Moreover, “a mental chain reaction is questionable” because the appearances did not quickly follow one another (quoting Grass here with details). Pannenberg concludes again that explanations that focus solely on psychology “fail.” Pannenberg repeats at the close of the section that the time frame and division of the appearances continue to be a problem for subjective theories like this. Theses involving subjective or mental visions “cannot be regarded in any case as an adequately grounded philosophical postulate.” The empty tomb also “creates difficulty” for the hallucination theory and “resists any superficial spiritualizing of the Easter message.”

Y) Parsons: Parsons thinks it is strange that the disciples have doubts, and this doubt causes him to doubt the reliability of the accounts. The reason for this, he contends, is that if they saw Jesus, either they should not doubt or they did not see Jesus. A quick response is that the dramatic change of one’s worldview often faces initial doubt (Kuhn), and even if this is not the case, it does not mean that the disciples were expecting a resurrection or, if someone claimed it, that they would think that miracle is true. Further, Parsons acknowledges a sense of embarrassing testimony.

Z) Pinnock: States that Bultmann was “mistaken to view the resurrection as something that happened only to Jesus’ disciples, as the rise of Easter faith in them, when the New Testament plainly regards it as something that affected Jesus himself and his body.”

AA) Spong: “This was no mirage, no vision, no hallucination.”

AB) Staudinger: Staudinger thinks that a number of those who had experiences, and the context in which they occurred, challenges the notion that these experiences were merely hallucinations generated by their own insights. He says bodily appearances are indicated by the nature of the empty tomb.

AC) Stein: Stein makes two responses: (1) the disciples’ despair, and (2) visions “tend to be individualistic in nature.” He states that the Gospels indicate “something that happened to Jesus, not the disciples.”

AD) Thrall: Although she apparently thinks this response is not great, Thrall says Christians could “legitimately argue” that the state of the disciples was not one that could have generated appearances of a resurrected Jesus.

AE) Wedderburn: Implies that Lüdemann’s psychological theory “seems less than convincing.”

AF) Wells: On collective hallucinations, he writes, “It is of course true that, even when induced by some common physical means, they will not be the same for different people, since they depend not only on the present physiological state but on the stock of memories in the mind of each individual.” But then Wells goes on to say that these experiences (hallucinations?) could have been just different enough so that all these individuals thought they had seen Jesus, and he cites early American witchcraft trials and remarks that Habermas’s view “hardly does justice to group psychology.”

AG) Wiebe: Wiebe offers a discussion against group hallucinations.

AH) Witherington: Witherington stresses that the diversity of the appearances (people, locations, time, individuals, groups, skeptics, etc.) makes it “clear that these events cannot be categorized as mass hallucinations or the dreams of the deluded or even mere subjective visions.” Witherington writes against hallucinations: (1) Since the disciples abandoned Jesus, they were not in a condition to create an internal “fantasy” of a resurrected Jesus. (2) As noted, mass hallucinations are unlikely because of the diverse appearance accounts. (3) The appearance to the women is difficult to account for on this hypothesis because they weren’t good witnesses.

AI) Wright: Wright argues that in both ancient and modern times, people will experience “visions.” The disciples merely seeing or even thinking they saw Jesus would not have led to the accounts we have. People recognized then, as they do today, that strange appearances of the dead occur and the language for this, emphatically, “wasn’t resurrection.” Wright argues that visions alone do not explain the claims made in the New Testament regarding Jesus as “resurrected” if the tomb contained Jesus’s body.

2. Psychological Analysis Inappropriate

A) Dunn: Dunn does not find a “refined psychological analysis” to be appropriate, as it takes the discussion away from history and uses other presuppositions (which are also disputed). Dunn also finds most of these discussions to be fruitless conjecture, especially as they relate to Paul.

B) Wright: Not in the context of hallucinations, Wright offers some good discussion regarding the limitation of psychology in history. Although history seeks to discuss and understand what motivated certain individuals to do and say certain things, it does not follow that “history is covert psychology.”

3. Versus Marian Apparitions

A) Various Critiques: Multiple arguments have been presented against Marian apparitions. Here are a few: (1) It begs the question in an a priori manner because these group experiences could be objective or even supernatural in some sense. Blomberg says, “It may well be that genuine miracles have occurred at Lourdes and elsewhere.” Not just as acts of God, but demonic possibilities as well. (2) They are unfalsifiable as collective hallucinations—this explanation could be applied to almost any natural event. (3) Even if they were hallucinations, it doesn’t follow that they were collective. Individual hallucinations are more likely. (4) The requirement of expectation, such as emotional excitement (Lüdemann, Zusne and Jones), can’t be explained well on the resurrection thesis. Sudden loss of a best friend, future expectations, fear, despair—these are not funeral responses. (5) Plus, there are many other critiques of hallucinations. Crossan says of experiences of both Kali (in the Hindu tradition) and seeing the Virgin Mary: “I know it’s a vision.” Although Crossan says that, by visions (at least regarding Jesus), he does not mean hallucinations. Yet in Crossan’s context here, “vision” strongly implies that these Hindu and Roman Catholic visions are subjective.

4. Responses to Lüdemann’s Hallucination Thesis

A) Lüdemann Summary: Lüdemann holds hallucinations as the explanation for Jesus’s resurrection appearances (but thinks this word is pejorative). He admits the disciples’ despair. He recognizes certain preconditions for visions, such as “religious intoxication,” “infectious” experiences, contagious enthusiasm, ecstasy, and excitement, even in the face of death. He notes that Renan understood that there was “intense fever” and that the disciples were “mutually inebriated.” Lüdemann, however, can’t show that (1) these conditions were present for the disciples (in fact, some conditions were assuredly not there, such as images that disappear and “quickly vanish,” or the person admitting that it was “only an idea”); or (2) similarities indicate causation (fallacy of false cause). Further, he admits that James’s vision requires different dynamics. Regarding Paul, Lüdemann accepts ridiculous preconditions: Paul saw what he unconsciously desired to be reality. Paul suppressed his thoughts until he “was overcome,” “in rapture,” and engaging in essentially wishful thinking. Paul’s “religious zeal” finally manifested itself in a vision of Jesus.” He adds that we shouldn’t take “a one-sidedly reductionistic course.”

B) Craig: He applies McCullagh’s rules of historical explanation to the resurrection. Craig notes that Lüdemann’s hallucination thesis doesn’t fare well when tested by the same criteria.

C) Pannenberg: Pannenberg blames Lüdemann for attempting to separate the Christian faith from the knowledge of past events. He agrees with most of Lüdemann’s exegesis on 1 Corinthians 15. He finds Lüdemann’s treatment of Paul’s conversion not very impressive. He opposes Lüdemann basing the experiences of Peter and Paul on their guilt, since this wouldn’t completely explain their appearances in psychological terms. Further, Lüdemann’s procedure oversteps the bounds of historical investigation and becomes reductionistic. Lüdemann also has a serious problem handling the empty tomb, especially in light of von Campenhausen’s research and the disciples’ Jerusalem preaching. Lüdemann thinks that the solution is either fundamentalism or his position, but, in conclusion, Pannenberg says that a historical-critical examination is sufficient as long as Lüdemann doesn’t make a metaphysical error by ruling out a priori God’s creative actions in the world.

5. Responses to Kent’s Multiple Illusions Thesis

A) Habermas: Kent prefers multiple illusions to group hallucinations for disciples, probably because of the many problems of the latter. There are many problems in Kent, such as his dating of the Gospels a bit late without any arguments. He is critical of the Gospels but freely uses and defends Acts because it is specifically necessary for his thesis. He comes to overly easy conclusions. He repeatedly misunderstands critics. Habermas is the only evangelical source in his bibliography along with at least ten radical critics.

6. Responses to Goulder’s Conversion Vision Thesis

A) Habermas: There are several problems with Goulder’s thesis: (1) Peter and Paul experienced conversion disorder, which by Goulder’s definition are causes that are “arising without external physical causes.” He also thinks that only these two were in a “position” to experience conversion disorder, which is “relatively rare.” Goulder would fall prey to all the serious, debilitating problems with this disorder from the DSM-IV (just like the critique of Kent). (2) Goulder confuses two hypotheses: his conception of spreading visions, whereby others have the same vision after one person already had one; and delusions, which Goulder calls “collective delusions” like Bigfoot, UFOs, and moving statues of Mary. So now we are discussing the likelihood of something or someone else being mistaken for Jesus, and all the problems of the missed apprehension by his mother, closest friends, and enemies. (3) Goulder says that these collective delusions spread among the early believers, who “are likely to have the same experience” since they “expect to see Jesus.” This is highly reminiscent of the “expectation” and “emotional excitement” that is a “prerequisite” for Zusne and Jones. But Goulder is mixing two different cases. One major problem is that the psychological state from the despair regarding the death of the disciples’ best friend virtually rules this out. Even if one (say, Peter) excited the others, there are still major problems like those for whom the excitement doesn’t work via their personality, those who don’t see anyway for whatever reasons or doubt afterward, and any who recant later in the face of life-threatening dangers. (4) We still have many of the classic problems with any kind of subjective vision hypothesis, such as the empty tomb as well as appearances to groups, Paul, and James, along with the detailed psychoanalyzing that must go on without any real evidence, which Goulder intriguingly admits we can’t do, but he still does in the very same paragraph.

7. Response to Wedderburn’s Use of Broer and Vollenweider

A) Habermas: Wedderburn cites Broer’s comment concerning alleged “group-visions,” like Jung’s citation of “a collective vision” of Niklaus von der Flue to a regiment of troops. However (from the German), (1) Broer uses only one sentence of Jung’s statement without any further explanation. So Wedderburn has virtually no further details from Broer’s text. (2) Wedderburn doesn’t tell us that, in his very next sentence, Broer questions Jung’s report. (3) There is no defense of the veracity of this vision—could the troops have succumbed to bodily (or other types of) deprivation, like the Navy SEALs? Were their views changed later, again like the Navy SEALs (i.e., were any soldiers talked out of it later)? How many soldiers saw it? How many didn’t? Could the vision actually have occurred? Interestingly enough, Wedderburn reports that Vollenweider’s findings are contrary to Broer’s concerning the “rarity of group-visions in the history of religions.” Wedderburn then cites just one sentence in Vollenweider, which Vollenweider words in terms of “my knowledge.” Another indication of Broer’s subjective thesis is found in his critique of the later Pesch, where Galvin cites other “ancient nonbiblical texts which describe appearances of the dead.” Broer thinks a historian will still “incline toward classifying the appearances as subjective phenomena.”

8. Response to Carnley’s Challenge

A) Brown: Colin Brown notes that, from the beginning, Carnley minimizes the bodily nature of Jesus’s resurrection. The resurrection is also not treated historically like other events (death, burial, etc.). (If Carnley chooses to “downplay” any physicality in Jesus’s appearances and consider it historically different from Jesus’s death and burial, plus downplaying the empty tomb, then it’s no wonder that he says we have few good responses to subjective vision theses! At most, this assessment only comes from the viewpoint of his (or a similar) position. We must first determine if any physical indicators of Jesus’s appearances (Gospel accounts, Jewish plus Paul’s view of resurrection of body, etc.) and data for the empty tomb are legitimate. If so, then we already have the basis for numerous critiques of subjective hypotheses.

F. Versus Other Subjective Theses

1. General Comments

A) Brown: Brown argues that it is “biblically irresponsible” to discuss Jesus’s resurrection and the Christian faith as separate from whether or not Jesus’s body was still in the tomb. There is “no evidence” that the earliest followers did not care what happened to Jesus’s body.

B) Caird: Against Bultmann’s idea of an entirely private event, Caird says that for the New Testament authors, the resurrection is believed because something happened to Jesus (as opposed to something happening to the disciples). There was an external event that transformed them.

C) Cohn-Sherbok: Those who deny the historicity of the resurrection while “maintaining that it was a spiritual event are . . . obtuse.”

D) Davis: Davis briefly discusses the “something happened” thesis.

E) Johnson: Johnson states concerning two related hypotheses:(1) The theory that some (like Peter) but not all saw Jesus “suffers from a lack of positive evidence,” and the New Testament writings “all assume the resurrection.” (2) The theory that Peter saw Jesus and communicated his vision to the others is challenged by 1 Cor 15:3–8, where many saw Jesus, and that theory is also “incommensurate with the explosive character of the movement.”

F) Küng: Against views like Marxsen’s, Küng argues that it is now “clear” that Jesus’s resurrection means something more than his cause continuing on following his death as his body remained in the tomb.

G) Moule: Moule offers some responses to Cupitt’s subjective thesis.

H) Muddiman: Offers two critiques seemingly aimed at an early Pesch-type position: (1) How did faith arise in the first place, especially considering that resurrection in typical Jewish thought was a general resurrection at the last day and not something anticipated to happen to a single individual? (2) Additionally, other interpretations were available to Jews, like exaltation or ascension. Jesus does not appear in an eschatological sense at all but appears normally.

I) O’Collins: Against Scuka and other reductionists, O’Collins argues that it is “outrageous” to say with Scuka that we are interested in what the New Testament “should” mean by resurrection “regardless of what the New Testament may have said, or meant.” This would not be applied this way to any other piece of historical writing, and it “backfires” on Scuka and others because we can take them differently too. In other words, one could argue what Scuka should have meant by this or that. O’Collins argues that such reductionists “accept the truth which they have fashioned for themselves.” O’Collins critiques Machovec. He also critiques Schillebeeckx, although O’Collins acknowledges that Schillebeeckx recognized in his 1982 Interim Report on the Books “Jesus” and “Christ” that Jesus’s appearances “can also imply a historical event.” O’Collins likewise critiques several similar views. In answer to “Reductionist Views” (different forms of the thesis that Jesus’s words live on in us, called “resurrection-talk”), he says that they are “untrustworthy” because they fail to do “justice” to the New Testament data. Also, the reductionist position fails to address the fact of the disciples’ belief that something happened to Jesus. Against the thesis where Peter has an experience that was communicated to the others in “a quick chain reaction,” O’Collins points out that the three years separating Peter’s and Paul’s appearances militates against the position. He gives three reasons against the continuing influence view of resurrection, which O’Collins calls the “new insight” theory: (1) It fails to match the apostolic claims. (2) It provides no checks and balances for the view. (3) This critical thesis means that Christianity has been misunderstood at its core for centuries. But the New Testament authors meant what their words said, and they said that something happened to Jesus, not just to them. If they wanted to argue like these subjective theories suggest, they could have done so, but they didn’t. O’Collins is very good on these theses that deny the repeated and basic claims of New Testament writers, as he argues that these theorists have to continually deny and redefine what the New Testament authors mean. This view denies that the disciples’ faith “was derived from a real event affecting Jesus himself.”

J) Pannenberg: Says Schillebeeckx’s explanation does not account for the “basic significance” of the appearance experiences of Jesus. Pannenberg says his “argument from silence” goes against both Paul and the Gospels while being a poor basis for understanding the development of early Christianity. The empty tomb “seriously reduced” the chances of “spiritualizing interpretations” of the resurrection message.

K) Sanders: Notes that “mass hysteria” might be suggested by the appearance to the 500, but “it does not explain the other traditions.”

L) Thatcher: Against the view that Jesus’s influence lives on without a resurrection, Thatcher argues that it appears to answer the question beforehand and is inconsistent with Christian teachings (although he acknowledges that this may not be a decisive argument). There is also “too big a gap” between the New Testament resurrection language and the continuing influence language. Finally, of course, he notes Christ wouldn’t be alive on this view.

M) Ware: Mentions Klappert’s survey of Marxsen, Gogarten, Pannenberg, Kummel, Bultmann, and O. Weber, all of whom Klappert found to “rest upon reductive correlations” where “a one-sided Christology emerges which cannot do justice to the fulness of meaning of the Christ-event.” Klappert says a more comprehensive approach is needed that moves to more well-rounded theological aspects. Others viewed include Barth, Moltmann, and Kasemann, who “produced conclusive results.”

N) Williams: Rowan Williams gives three reasons against the “Peter first” hypothesis of Marxsen and Goulder.

O) Wright: Responding to views like those of Bultmann, who understands Jesus’s resurrection in Christian faith and preaching—a serious objection that Wright calls “perhaps the most famous in this century”—or Schillebeeckx, who understands the disciples as treating their grief by projecting the idea that Jesus was raised, or Lüdemann on hallucinations, Wright provides three responses: (1) Such views demand “enormous credulity” to believe that if Peter and Paul had “such fantasies or hallucinations,” they would have garnered more than mere sympathy or a “passing comment” from peers. (2) These hypotheses “are at best unprovable and at worst wildly fantastic.” (3) It is “most important” to note that these theories do not make sense in their original contextual settings. Although Wright refers to hallucination and visions, his description refers to something different whereby Peter and Paul had experiences and this led to a type of “corporate version of the same fantasy,” and here Wright mentions Bultmann and Schillebeeckx. While Wright says he can’t deal in details here, he provides a couple of critiques: (1) For Peter and Paul, the category for their experience would have been an angel or spirit, not resurrection.(2) This never would have convinced a first-century Jew that, as a result, the end of the age had come. (3) The use of language—we had better learn what Christians were claiming and not assume foreign categories of thought or meaning. Wright then again notes that such a view doesn’t fit the first-century Jewish context and that even when others faced death, there were no claims of resurrection.

2. Versus Gnostic Theories

A) General Comments

(1) Dunn: Dunn points out that attempts to connect first-century Christianity with Gnosticism have failed. Dunn argues that redeemer myths associated with the gnostic worldview are not “clearly” attested before “the second century CE” and that these redeemer figures are “probably Christianity’s contribution to syncretistic Gnosticism!”

(2) Wright: Wright discusses some of the issues involved regarding the Nag Hammadi texts and their language of resurrection as either denying or significantly altering the meaning of the word.

3. Versus Cognitive Dissonance

A) General Comments

(1) Allison: Allison notes that Wright “scores some points” with his assessment of Festinger’s cognitive dissonance hypothesis.

(2) Wright: Wright discusses cognitive dissonance as a possibility and is clearly dissatisfied with it.

B) Resurrection as a Cause of Cognitive Dissonance

(1) See also: “The Disciples Did Not Expect the Resurrection (or Crucifixion)” (section 4.C) in chapter 3 and “Resurrection Language” (section 3.A.3) in chapter 9.

(2) Allison: Allison stresses that without the belief that Jesus’s actual body returned to life, which was “against expectation,” the disciples would not have referred to the event as resurrection, and that mere visions would not have done this. “Far from being the straightforward product of dissonance, then, Easter faith must have been, if anything, the cause of dissonance.”

C) The Disciples Did Not Claim Soul Ascension, Vindication, or Ghost

(1) Allison: Allison points out that in church history there is talk of the ascension of the souls of saints rather than resurrection. The earliest Christians, however, did something entirely different. They claimed that an individual, Jesus, resurrected before the general resurrection of the dead. He notes that a soul’s ascent is something distinct from resurrection.

(2) Dunn: As noted above, Dunn argues that “there were precedents for visions of a dead hero, now seen as exalted to heaven,” and such visions would have likely described Jesus “clothed in heavenly majesty” (such as in Rev 1:12–16), but in the appearance accounts Jesus is described in quite an “earthbound” manner. Dunn emphasizes that the “unexpectedness of the interpretation put upon the resurrection appearances” is what is surprising compared to other descriptions of those who were heroes or martyrs. The experiences of the risen Jesus “impacted on the witnesses as resurrection appearances did not conform to any known or current paradigm.” The disciples’ experiences led them to interpret the events as resurrection, which means that it was something that “happened to Jesus” and not merely something that occurred within them.

D) Other Shortcomings

(1) Bird: Bird, in one sentence referring to cognitive dissonance regarding the appearances, notes that the predictions argue against the disciples compensating for Jesus’s death. Bird’s three brief responses seem to be the opposite point of other responses to cognitive dissonance. Bird, again briefly, comments that temporal distance is required between the failed prophecy and its reinterpretation. However, the resurrection was preached immediately. No references are given to support the claim that temporal distance is needed, but he is quite brief in his response. The appearances “confirmed” that Jesus’s teachings on eschatology were true and the end of the ages was near.

(2) Wright: Wright notes that problems for this view are the empty tomb, the appearances, and the fact that other failed messianic movements never had such experiences or made similar claims.

4. Versus the Disciples Having an Existential Experience of Grace

A) Wright: Wright discusses this possibility and is dissatisfied with it.

5. Versus Aliens Restoring Jesus

A) Allison: Discusses the theory that aliens reanimated Jesus with a better body. Allison argues that although this theory is conceivable and possible, there is no evidence in its favor, making it “wholly unlikely.” This example shows how easy it is for one to imagine an alternative scenario apart from evidence.

6. Versus the Resurrection as Metaphor

A) Blomberg: Says it is a “slippery” move to go from using one of Paul’s metaphors to then argue that all the reports are also metaphors. Using metaphors to help explain some aspect of reality does not mean the reality itself is a metaphor too. Blomberg adds that Crossan fails to address Craig’s primary arguments that the resurrection accounts are historical, not metaphorical.

B) Davis: Davis contends that Jesus’s resurrection has meaning as a historical event, and if nothing happened to Jesus’s body, then there was no resurrection.

C) Dunn: Dunn argues against the position that the disciples meant that Jesus’s teachings and mission could not die when they used resurrection language (Marxsen’s view). Dunn notes that there was other language available at that time instead of resurrection (e.g., exalted to heaven), but that resurrection was the claim from the beginning. Interpreting Jesus’s resurrection as a metaphor about his significance “is not to interpret the metaphor but to empty it. . . . To remove any idea of personal survival from the concept ‘resurrection’ is not to make the metaphor more meaningful but to destroy it.”

D) Fiorenza: Fiorenza argues for the “inadequacy” of metaphorical interpretations. He holds that though we should be cautious to note that there are important symbols in the texts, it is illegitimate to ignore the context in which the metaphors are made as well as their significance. “The reason is that the metaphorical talks about the reality of Jesus, whereas the other language talks primarily about the reality of existential self-understanding of the community.”

E) Habermas: Various critiques include these: (1) The presence of some nonliteral speech (Paul’s seed to plant; Jesus’s parables) does not nullify portions that are to be taken literally. (2) Crossan admits the existence of historical reports in the Gospels in the very same context as the resurrection accounts. So how do we know that the appearance portions are not also historical? (3) Differences in the resurrection accounts, especially when narrating different appearances, are just what they appear to be—different appearances! This by no means shows that the appearances are metaphor, as per Crossan or Miller. (4) Most scholars would simply say that Matt 27:51–53 is legendary. But how do we know that Matthew thought of these events as unhistorical, especially when Miller freely admits we will never know the difference between historical and nonhistorical in Matthew? (5) There are no data that early Christians ever took the meaning of Jesus’s resurrection to be merely his present existence. (6) The unnarrated appearances mentioned in the 1 Corinthians 15 creed are taken by virtually all scholars to be at least a straightforward account of what early Christians actually believe happened predating the circulation of the narratives. Thus, these scholars can affirm that a Bultmannian-type position is their view. But it is an entirely different matter to say that it was what the New Testament authors meant by resurrection.

F) Lewis: Lewis argues that there is “no good news” if Jesus was not raised “in the manner the narrative asserts, that is, in a ‘history-like’ event.”

G) Witherington: Witherington points out that Crossan is really changing definitions regarding resurrection. Such Bultmannian moves and definitions are anachronistic to how the New Testament writers use these terms. After discussing Paul’s metaphor of the seed, Witherington states that the earliest evidence makes a stronger, but surprising, claim about Jesus. Witherington also notes that metaphors do not automatically mean “fiction.” The earliest believers did not invent the events from studying the Old Testament because its texts don’t indicate Jesus’s death and resurrection. Nor were Jews at that time “looking for a resurrected Messiah,” let alone a crucified one. Witherington calls approaches like Crossan’s “Resurrection Lite,” where everything is metaphor. The earliest Christians would have disagreed: “‘Less intellectually filling, still tastes great’ was not their motto.”

H) Wright: Wright points to the list of witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15 to show that Paul was presenting witnesses regarding events that had occurred in history, not some truth outside of history. Jesus’s resurrection is not a metaphor. Language like “dry bones” used in Ezekiel 37 is not used in the New Testament. On his differences with Crossan on metaphor, Wright says, “The fact that the language is to be taken metaphorically doesn’t, of course, mean that there isn’t a concrete referent.” Crossan seems to reject concrete truth behind the metaphor.

7. New Testament Language of Sight and Resurrection

A) Alsup: Alsup thinks that ōphthē (as in 1 Corinthians 15), the passive form of the verb horaō, “to see,” places the “emphasis on divine initiative.”

B) Barnett: Says the passive form of horaō “literally means ‘was seen by’” and “does not, of itself, demand a non-literal definition of the word ‘see’ in other contexts. Ophthe does not necessarily mean heavenly revelation by visionary means.” So this verb could have been used in the normal sense of seeing.

C) Carnley: Says the language of sight in Paul “seems to be some kind of awareness of acquaintance with an objective reality,” although in some way it is different from objective reality too. The language indicates that it is simultaneously similar and dissimilar to normal seeing.

D) Dunn: Says we must do justice to ōphthē in 1 Corinthians 15, which Dunn says must be visual perception. It is virtually “impossible” to question whether the “historical roots” of Christian belief are experiences of the risen Jesus. It is un-justifiable to change the definition of resurrection to something that only means a continuing presence or significance. “God had raised him, not merely reassured them.”

E) Fuller: Fuller begins by pointing out that scholars, even skeptical ones, must explain the historical transformation of the disciples. What event(s) gave rise to their new beliefs? The New Testament is clear—it was the empty tomb and appearances that transformed the disciples. Fuller thinks the use of the verb ōphthē is “neutral” and doesn’t determine the type of sight.

F) Gundry: Argues the following specifics: ōphthē refers more to earthly, physical sight than heavenly sight. Still, the use of the word can’t be made to prove either physical or nonphysical sight. The meaning of anastasis and egeirō in the context of Jesus being buried and raised indicates “the raising of a formerly supine corpse to the standing posture of a live body.” Finally, Paul was a Pharisee, and we know from Josephus that the Pharisees believed in “physical resurrection” of the body.

G) Harris: “The appearance narratives leave us in little doubt that certain persons believed that . . . with their physical eyes, and when they were awake, they had seen someone whom they recognised.”

H) Hodgson: Even Hodgson admits that the New Testament concept of resurrection is a “miraculous idea . . . that dead people can be brought back to life,” which appears to be what was meant by Jesus’s resurrection.

I) Kasper: Discusses ōphthē opposing Marxsen and other “legitimizing formulas.”

J) Kee: Howard Clark Kee emphasizes the fact that for Paul, the resurrection was clearly a “fact of past history.”

K) Kelly: Says that ōphthē can refer to both revelatory and objective experiences (“ideally” containing both). Kelly spends a lot of time on the treatment of ōphthē by Wilhelm Michaelis regarding the Septuagint usage and biblical texts. Kelly then says it would be difficult to hold to “either a corporeal or even mental perception of Jesus.” But Paul’s emphasis is on the revelatory aspect, and “it is highly improbable” that he thought of this as something internal (also referring to Brown). That Paul relates his appearance to that of the 500, and with the prophetic vocation where it was believed that prophets really encountered God, argues against Paul thinking this was merely an internal event.

L) Lapide: Lapide agrees regarding the normal language of resurrection as referring to physical bodies.

M) Lüdemann: Says the meaning of ōphthē cannot be explained as “a literary form of expression” because it is a verb regarding sight. Accordingly, Paul would have anticipated the church in Corinth to interpret the word “historically.” Paul is speaking of his own appearance experience too. Incredibly, Lüdemann says, Paul does “not question the physical nature of Jesus’ appearance from heaven” or that “Christians will receive a transformed physical body like the one that the heavenly man Christ has.” Lüdemann notes that in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul develops the idea and concept of bodily resurrection.

N) O’Collins: He writes that in LXX, ōphthē meant either normal sight or revelatory sight. In the New Testament, ōphthē can be translated as “seen” or “appeared,” among other meanings. Commentators usually translate the passive verb as “he appeared.” Other than Paul, the term usually refers to a revelatory vision of some sort, and it is probably best to maintain this sense for Paul too. The term emphasizes objective and subjective components, but O’Collins doesn’t think they should be called “visions,” which connotes psychological explanations. Later he argues that the New Testament authors tell us that something happened to Jesus, and they are able to speak of his death and resurrection in the same context. Paul uses other terms, such as the verbs egēgertai and anistēmi, to describe resurrection. O’Collins’s basic argument comes “from the ordinary use of words” and that spiritual interpretations “do violence to the terms.” Early believers reported a “new event.” “The decisive argument” against spiritualizing attempts to explain the resurrection is that such language would have been very odd and would have confused Jews and been incomprehensible to gentiles, and this is not what the New Testament authors said. Similarly, see especially “Disciples’ Experiences” (section 2) in chapter 3 for O’Collins’s contention that New Testament language concerning Jesus’s resurrection appearances is a “preference for ‘the language of sight.’”

O) Osborne: Agreeing with Grass, “the term ophthe does not of itself indicate a visionary experience; in fact, vocabulary by itself cannot demonstrate the nature of an appearance.” He notes that 1 Corinthians 15 “contradicts” the objective vision thesis, but he doesn’t really say how.

P) Wright: Wright stresses that the wording used is clearly not about private subjective experiences or feelings; rather, it is about the inbreaking of a new reality and eschatology. “It is about eschatology, about something happening within history that resulted in a world being now a very different place. Neither Bultmann nor Schillebeeckx can explain from the texts the rise of Christianity as we know it.” First-century Jews had other linguistic ways of addressing these sorts of things (cf. Acts 12) with a final resurrection at the end of the ages, but they would not have said that the kingdom “had now arrived,” or that such a raised person would be the Messiah, or “above all,” that the person had been raised from the dead. Moreover, while acknowledging that ōphthē has multiple meanings, Wright believes that the proximity of 1 Corinthians 15 (ōphthē) to Paul’s language in 9:1 (heoraka) is consistent with normal sight, and “it may have been more, but was not less.” First Corinthians 15:1–11 “clearly speaks of a public event for which there is evidence in the form of witnesses who saw something and can be interrogated.” For Wright, this undermines the argument that Paul was referring to some sort of inner conviction. The word for resurrection (anastasis) was used to refer to bodily life after death; it was not related to souls moving here or there. When the word was used, it referred to a real event at the end of time whereby the dead would return to bodily life. Wright makes these comments elsewhere too.

8. Responses to Marxsen’s Nonliteral Faith-Centered Thesis

A) Carnley: Offers a lengthy treatment and critique of the theses of both Marxsen and Cupitt.

B) Fuller: Fuller critiques Marxsen by arguing that he is the “one dissenting voice” that doesn’t date Paul’s creed to the 30s. As Fuller asks, why shouldn’t there be more than the one appearance to Peter? Because that wouldn’t fit Marxsen’s functional thesis of positions in the early church. Further, “Peter’s believing . . . is the result of his seeing, not the same thing.” Finally, “Marxsen is confusing” causes and effects. While it is true that the faith of the community is crucial, it is only possible if Jesus was risen bodily.

C) O’Collins: Provides an extended critique of Marxsen’s view: Marxsen exhibits “sudden and unjustified conclusions.” He “remains silent” on the date for Paul’s early creed. He has an “anti-resurrection thesis.” Marxsen also holds to historical positivism. Other critiques of Marxsen are also offered.

D) Perkins: Says Marxsen’s view of the singularity of Peter’s experience is “a simple reduction.” Perkins seems to cite approvingly that “resurrection language does refer” to Jesus and not the what the disciples experienced.

E) Ware: Ware seems to think Marxsen’s position is too reductive.

9. Responses to Pesch’s Pre-Easter Expectation Thesis

A) Galvin: Galvin helpfully summarizes several German responses to Pesch.

(1) Bartsch: Bartsch argued against Pesch in 1975 that “the ophthe formula” is not a “legitimation formula.”

(2) Hengel: Says Pesch is “misguided” in his characterization of the risen Jesus simply occurring only in the “consciousness of the disciples.” In response, he offers three points: (1) Pesch’s analysis of the disciples’ reaction is “unconvincing.” (2) Pesch needs some event to explain the disciples’ transformation. (3) He thinks “the ophthe formula” indicates “visions.”

(3) Kremer: Has “joined other critics” on the ōphthē formula being far more than legitimation. The Easter message is more revelation than reflection.

(4) Küng: Charges that “the origin of faith lies in new experiences, encounters with the crucified Jesus now raised up.”

(5) Stuhlmacher: Says Pesch is too speculative. Stuhlmacher “considers the ophthe formula” as referring to the appearances of Jesus.

(6) Vögtle: Vögtle (Pesch’s professor) judges that Pesch’s reconstruction is “impossible to establish” and disagrees “that the ophthe formula” is wholly a legitimation formula. He says there is too much interpretation to tell exactly what its historical basis was, but new experiences for the disciples are virtually required.

B) O’Collins: Critiques a little broader view that is similar to Pesch: (1) The earliest testimony like 1 Corinthians 15 shows that the belief in the resurrection came from the appearances. (2) There is no strong evidence that the Jews believed in a rising messiah. (3) Individual resurrection before the end of time is different from the Jewish view. (4) This view doesn’t correspond to New Testament teachings.

10. Responses to Spong’s Resurrection Insight of Peter Thesis

A) Jensen: Jensen notes that Spong tries to “save” the resurrection by reinterpreting the “Bible and the resurrection.” Un-fortunately, the faith that he rescues significantly reduces the very faith his thesis is trying to save.

B) Peterson: Although David Peterson does note that Spong recognizes that a historical explanation is needed for Christianity, “what he comes up with is pathetic” and is “purely speculative.” Accordingly, it is “neither historically nor psychologically adequate enough to account for the emergence of Christianity.”

5. VERSUS THE USE OF THE APPEARANCES TO CREATE POWER OR PRESTIGIOUS POSITION

A. Various Scholars: Various scholars realize that Jesus’s appearances had something to do with the authority or credentials of early church leaders, but they don’t think it leads to any major critique or disavowing of the resurrection itself.

B. Allison: Allison disagrees with those who think they can explain the disciples’ “visionary experiences” by treating Paul’s list as purely a “legitimation formula.”

C. Alsup: Alsup thinks that the “rivalry-hypothesis” (the Peter versus James contingents in the pre-Pauline creed) is a possibility. However, we just don’t have information to make any statements regarding such tensions.

D. Kloppenborg: Says Paul might have a secondary authority motive in aligning himself with Peter, James, and the other apostles; “however, this is clearly a secondary issue.” Paul’s primary motive was “to support the argument concerning the reality of the resurrection.” One indication of this is Paul’s comment that the 500 could still be consulted, which is unrelated to legitimizing their authority.

E. Wedderburn: Notes that if Paul’s list in 1 Corinthians 15 had anything to do with “the authorization of leaders” in the early church, then “Paul shows little interest in this function.”

6. VERSUS THE TWIN BROTHER THEORY

A. Griffith: After describing several ways it could happen, Griffith gives an analogy of seeing his wife that illustrates the sort of evidence the disciples could have had to disprove such a “mistaken identity” scenario.

B. Wright: States it is “such a tissue of nonsense.”

7. VERSUS OBJECTIVE VISION THEORIES

A. General Comments

1. Pannenberg: Pannenberg identifies Mark 6:14, 16 as indicators that one could conceive of a resurrection without an empty tomb. “But the reembodiment of a dead person in someone else is very different from an eschatological resurrection.” He adds, “Those who want to dispute the empty tomb of Jesus must show that contemporary Jewish witnesses to belief in the resurrection included some who did not think the resurrection of the dead need have anything at all to do with the body in the tomb.” But wouldn’t the very example in Mark be such an example?

2. Stein: Stein offers two brief responses to objective vision theories: (1) the bodily nature of Jesus’s appearances, (2) the moral problem of Jesus convincing the disciples he was there.

3. Welker: Welker makes some general comments about objective vision theory.

B. Bereavement Visions Do Not Account for Group Appearances

1. Bird: Assuming that ancient people experienced grief visions in ways similar to today, Bird points out that those who have grief visions do not think their loved ones were resurrected. The disciples are, apparently, the first to make this claim because of the difference between visions and resurrection. The language of “resurrection” is, for Bird, “a clear mismatch for the phenomenon of bereavement visions.” He then uses Peter in Acts 12 as an example and points out that “no one thought the resurrected Peter was at the door.”

2. Casey: Although Casey holds to bereavement visions as the best explanation, he acknowledges the following issue utilizing Allison’s studies: “while there were reports of corporate visions, we do not have cross-cultural evidence of appearances of recently dead people to as many as 11 bereaved people at once” in any way applicable to the eleven disciples. He then comments that an appearance to the 500 is “paradoxically not as improbable as an appearance to the Eleven all at once.” Casey rightly acknowledges that Paul was not in a position to have a bereavement vision of Jesus. Casey notes that Paul’s experience was different from the disciples, in that he was not bereaved.

Notes

Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 120–26; James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1985), 71–73; John Drane, Introducing the New Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 104–6; Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 189–96, 205; Paul W. Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 128; Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 60–62.

Dale C. Allison, Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 201–14.

Allison, 203–4, 334. He mentions Gerald Bostock.

Allison, 203–4, 334. He mention Kirsopp Lake and Percival Gardner-Smith.

Allison, 203–4. He mentions Oskar Holtzmann, Joseph Klausner, and Guillaume Baldensperger.

Allison, 203–4. He mentions Richard Carrier and David Whittaker.

Allison, 203–4. He mentions George Luck and Hans Dieter Betz.

Allison, 203–4. He cites the Nazarene Decree inscription.

Allison, 203–4. He mentions Reinhold Schmiedel, Gerhard Lohfink, and Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel, all of whom mention the theory in passing.

Allison, 212–13. He mentions John Michael Perry.

Allison, 339–40. He mentions R. L. Dione.

Paul Barnett, Peter Jensen, and David Peterson, Resurrection: Truth and Reality (Sydney: Aquila, 1994), 27.

Anthony Baxter, “Historical Judgement, Transcendent Perspective and ‘Resurrection Appearances,’” Heythrop Journal 40, no. 1 (1999): 22–23, 28.

Baxter, 37.

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), 1374.

Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1994), 163.

C. E. B. Cranfield, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” Expository Times 101, no. 6 (1990): 171.

Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 16. Similarly, 181.

Davis, 132–46.

Stephen T. Davis, “Is Belief in the Resurrection Rational? A Response to Michael Martin,” Philo 2, no. 1 (1999): 13; Stephen T. Davis, “The Question of Miracles, Ascension and Anti-Semitism,” 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), 74.

Davis, “Belief in the Resurrection,” 54.

Davis, “Question of Miracles,” 76, emphasis added.

Davis, “Belief in the Resurrection,” 57; Davis, Risen Indeed, 16, 181.

Davis, “Belief in the Resurrection,” 58.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 181.

Drane, Introducing the New Testament, 106.

Dunn, Evidence for Jesus, 76.

Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 164.

Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 99–100, 103, 105.

George Eldon Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 132.

Ladd, 133–39.

Ladd, 139–40.

Jeffery Jay Lowder, “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig,” in The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), 274.

Maier, Fullness of Time, 196.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “History and the Reality of the Resurrection,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 63.

Pannenberg, 66.

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), 262.

Ted Peters, “Introduction: What Is To Come,” in Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, ed. Ted Peters, Robert J. Russell, and Michael Welker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), vii. See also Robert John Russell, “Bodily Resurrection, Eschatology, and Scientific Cosmology,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 18.

John A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 123.

Robinson, 124–25.

Robinson, 124.

David Samuel, “Making Room in History for the Miraculous (Part 2),” Churchman 100, no. 2 (1986): 111.

Hugo Staudinger, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ as Saving Event and as ‘Object’ of Historical Research,” Scottish Journal of Theology 36, no. 3 (1983): 326.

Robert H. Stein, “Was the Tomb Really Empty?,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 20, no. 1 (1977): 23.

Richard Swinburne, “Evidence for the Resurrection,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 201.

Donald Wayne Viney, review of Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, by Gary R. Habermas and Antony Flew, Midwest Quarterly 30, no. 5 (1989): 394.

Francis Watson, “‘Historical Evidence’ and the Resurrection of Jesus,” Theology 90 (1987): 369.

Ulrich Wilckens, Resurrection: Biblical Testimony to the Resurrection: An Historical Examination and Explanation (Edinburgh: St. Andrew’s Press, 1977), 117–19.

T. S. M. Williams, review of The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Fact, by J. Duncan M. Derrett, Journal of Theological Studies 36 (1985): 445–46 (incl. the miraculous option).

N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 68. See also 48, 59.

N. T. Wright, “Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Problem,” Sewanee Theological Review 41, no. 2 (1998): 118–19.

Wright, 119.

Wright, 122.

N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 27–28 (similar to Steve Davis), 718.

Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 169.

Fuller, 2.

Fuller, 49.

Fuller, 69–70.

Fuller, 169, 172–73, 180–81, 183.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 24–25.

Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 149. See also 147–48, 173.

Gerald O’Collins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Some Contemporary Issues (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1993), 31–32.

Gerald O’Collins, The Easter Jesus, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1980), 58–59.

O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 60. See also Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 98–99, 105; Davis, Risen Indeed, 27–28.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2:360.

Pannenberg, 2:363.

Andrew Purves, The Resurrection of Ministry: Serving in the Hope of the Risen Lord (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010), 39. See also 81, 90, 93.

A. J. M. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 14–15. See also 38–39.

Wedderburn, 21.

Wedderburn, 12.

Wedderburn, 22.

Wedderburn, 95–98, 134, 153, 218–19, 225.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 25–26.

Michael F. Bird and James G. Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin? A Believer and Non-Believer Examine the Evidence (London: SPCK, 2008), 65.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 27.

See Moule’s comments in “The Resurrection: A Disagreement: A Correspondence with C. F. D. Moule,” in Don Cupitt, Explorations in Theology 6 (London: SCM, 1979), 37.

Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:360.

Pannenberg, 2:363.

Pannenberg, 2:360–61.

Clark H. Pinnock, “Salvation by Resurrection,” Ex Auditu 9 (1993): 10.

J. A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 127.

N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, vol. 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 95.

Stephen Neill and N. T. Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1986, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 440–44.

Purves, Resurrection of Ministry, 93.

Purves, 81, 90.

David Samuel, “Making Room in History for the Miraculous,” Churchman 100, no. 1 (1986): 54.

Wright, Surprised by Hope, 67. See also 69.

Wright, 64.

Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 176; Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 4–6; Staudinger, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 312. Maier says, “History can, however, penetrate at least to the outer periphery of the events of the first Easter.” See Paul L. Maier, “The Empty Tomb as History,” Christianity Today 29, no. 13 (1975): 4.

Pannenberg, Jesus, 98–99, 105; Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:360–61, 363; Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 22–23, 89, 173, 189–90; Moule, “Resurrection: A Disagreement,” 37; Samuel, “Making Room in History (Part 2),” 107–12.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 298.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 19.

O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 60.

E. P. Sanders, “But Did It Happen?,” Spectator 276 (1996): 17.

Neill and Wright, Interpretation of the New Testament, 20, 138–39, 194, 376.

N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 110. See also 109, 111.

Wright, 2:110–12n102.

Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus (London: Chapman, 1983), 57; Thomas C. Oden, The Word of Life, vol. 2 of Systematic Theology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1989), 499–500; Pannenberg, “Historicity of the Resurrection,” 262–63; Michael Goulder, “The Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 102.

Raymond E. Brown, review of Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, by Gary R. Habermas and Antony Flew, International Philosophical Quarterly 27, no. 4 (1987): 451.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 2–15. See also 172.

Davis, 19. See also 172.

Michael Martin, “Why the Resurrection Is Initially Improbable,” Philo 1, no. 1 (1998): 63, 72; Michael Martin, “Reply to Davis,” Philo 2, no. 1 (1999): 62.

Davis, “Belief in the Resurrection,” 51.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 2–15.

Davis, “Question of Miracles,” 72.

Davis, 74.

Davis, 76.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 172.

Davis, 188.

George I. Mavrodes, “David Hume and the Probability of Miracles,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43, no. 3 (1998): 167.

Mavrodes, 169.

Mavrodes, 169. Cf. 171.

Mavrodes, 172.

Mavrodes, 173.

Gerald O’Collins, “Believing in the Risen Christ,” in Gottes Zukunft—Zukunft der Welt: Festschrift für Jürgen Moltmann zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Hermann Deuser et al. (Munich: Kaiser, 1986), 73.

O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 57.

Pannenberg, Jesus, 98.

Swinburne, “Evidence for the Resurrection.”

Arthur Gibson, “Logic of the Resurrection,” in Resurrection, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Michael A. Hayes, and David Tombs, JSNTSup 186 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 168–69.

Gibson, 172–73.

Johnson, Writings of the New Testament, 108.

O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 57–58.

Pannenberg, Jesus, 98.

Torrance, Space, Time and Incarnation, 23, 181.

Peter Lampe, “Paul’s Concept of a Spiritual Body,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 106.

Nancey Murphy, “The Resurrection Body and Personal Identity: Possibilities and Limits of Eschatological Knowledge,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 202.

Robert John Russell, “Bodily Resurrection, Eschatology, and Scientific Cosmology,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 19–25. See also John Polkinghorne, “Eschatological Credibility: Emergent and Teleological Processes,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 50; Lampe, “Paul’s Concept of a Spiritual Body,” 106, 109.

Peters, “Introduction,” xiv.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 712.

Francis Beckwith, David Hume’s Argument against Miracles: A Critical Analysis (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989), 94–95.

Beckwith, 98–100.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 56.

Davis, 57.

Stephen Griffith, “Could It Have Been Reasonable for the Disciples to Have Believed That Jesus Had Risen from the Dead?,” Journal of Philosophical Research 21 (1996): 307.

Griffith, 308.

Griffith, 313.

Griffith, 314.

Griffith, 312, 315.

Griffith, 315.

Griffith, 315–16.

Griffith, 317.

James Keller, “Response to Davis,” Faith and Philosophy 7, no. 1 (1990): 115.

Mavrodes, “David Hume and the Probability of Miracles,” 172.

Mavrodes, 173.

Mavrodes, 167.

Mavrodes, 168–69.

Mavrodes, 170–71, 174.

Mavrodes, 173.

Mavrodes, 176.

Mavrodes, 177–78 (both sides accept).

Mavrodes, 178–79.

Mavrodes, 180.

Mavrodes, 181.

J. P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, “Atheism and Leaky Buckets: The Christian Rope Pulls Tighter,” in Does God Exist? The Debate between Theists and Atheists (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2009), 231–32.

James I. Packer, “Response to the Debate,” in Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, ed. Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1987), 147.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Response to the Debate,” in Miethe, Resurrection Debate, 128, 134.

R. T. France, review of Beyond Resurrection, by A. J. M. Wedderburn, Theology 102 (1999): 369.

Robert Cavin, “Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence to Establish the Resurrection of Jesus?,” Faith and Philosophy 12, no. 3 (1995): 370.

Cavin, 373–74.

Pannenberg, “Response to the Debate,” 128.

Pannenberg, 128. Cf. 134.

Pannenberg, 134.

Wright, Surprised by Hope, 63.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 203–4.

Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 135–36.

See the responses of V. Leinster, V. Wright, and A. W. Fowler in “Letters to the Editor: Resurrection or Resuscitation?,” Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London 25, no. 3 (1991): 268–70. These letters respond to M. Lloyd Davies and T. T. Lloyd Davies, “Resurrection or Resuscitation?,” Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London 25, no. 2 (1991): 167–70.

Gerald O’Collins, Jesus Risen: An Historical, Fundamental and Systematic Examination of Christ’s Resurrection (New York: Paulist, 1987), 100–101.

Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall, “On Reissuing Venturini,” Gregorianum 75, no. 2 (1994): 263–64.

Oden, Word of Life, 484.

Grant R. Osborne, The Resurrection Narratives: A Redactional Study (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 276.

Purves, Resurrection of Ministry, 77.

Robert H. Stein, Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 268–69.

James D. Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty: Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 230.

G. A. Wells, A Resurrection Debate (London: Rationalist, 1988), 46.

Wright, “Christian Origins,” 119. See also Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 709. Additionally, Wright, Surprised by Hope, 61.

N. T. Wright, Who Was Jesus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 32–34; N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 127.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 709. See also n70.

Wright, 709n70. See also Wright, Surprised by Hope, 61.

Norman Anderson, Jesus Christ: The Witness of History (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1985), 163.

J. Duncan M. Derrett, The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as an Historical Event (Shipston-on-Stour: Drinkwater, 1982), 50, 67n16.

Derrett, 97.

A. E. Harvey, “A Short Life after Death: Review of The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Fact by J. Duncan M. Derrett,” The Times Literary Supplement 4153 (1982). No page number provided.

Otto Merk, review of The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Fact, by J. Duncan M. Derrett, Gnomen: Kritische Zeitschrift für die gesamte klassische Altertumswissenschaft 59, no. 8 (1987): 763.

Gerald O’Collins, review of The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Fact, by J. Duncan M. Derrett, Heythrop Journal 26, no. 1 (1985): 59.

O’Collins, 59.

O’Collins, 60. See also O’Collins and Kendall, “On Reissuing Venturini,” 258, 264.

Pheme Perkins, review of The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Fact, by J. Duncan M. Derrett, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 45, no. 4 (1983): 685.

Perkins, 685.

James Swetnam, review of The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Fact, by J. Duncan M. Derrett, Biblica 65, no. 1 (1984): 131.

Swetnam, 130–31.

William O. Walker, review of The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Fact, by J. Duncan M. Derrett, Journal of Biblical Literature 103, no. 4 (1984): 655.

Walker, 656.

T. S. M. Williams, review of The Anastasis by Derrett, 446–47.

Williams, 446.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 207–8. He cites Thomas Woolston (1729) and Hermann Reimarus (1694–1768).

Allison, 207–8.

William Lane Craig, “The Guard at the Tomb,” New Testament Studies 30, no. 2 (1984): 279.

Cranfield, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 171.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 181–82.

Davis, 181–82.

Davis, 182.

James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 838.

G. T. Eddy, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A Consideration of Professor Cranfield’s Argument,” Expository Times 101, no. 11 (1990): 328.

Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ, trans. V. Green (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1976), 130.

Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus, 52.

Maier, “Empty Tomb as History,” 5.

Oden, Word of Life, 484–86.

Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 276.

Pannenberg, “Historicity of the Resurrection,” 262.

Sanders, “But Did It Happen?,” 17.

E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin, 1993), 279–80.

Staudinger, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ as Saving Event and as ‘Object’ of Historical Research,” 321.

Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 269.

Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 123.

Wells, A Resurrection Debate, 46.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 203–4. He mentions Tertullian and Price.

Cranfield, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 171.

Hans Küng, Eternal Life? Life after Death as a Medical, Philosophical and Theological Problem, trans. Edward Quinn (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 95.

Oden, Word of Life, 484–86.

Pannenberg, “Reality of the Resurrection,” 69.

J. A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 123.

Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 267–68, 270.

Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 234.

Margaret E. Thrall, “Resurrection Traditions and Christian Apologetic,” Thomist 43, no. 2 (1979): 199.

Thrall, 200.

Thrall, 203.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 709.

Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, 56.

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 276.

Luke Timothy Johnson’s response to Robert M. Price, in James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy, eds., The Historical Jesus: Five Views (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 91.

Oden, Word of Life, 487.

Graham H. Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker: A Historical and Theological Study (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 330.

David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 25–31. See also 14.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 709.

Gregory A. Boyd, Cynic Sage or Son of God?: Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1995), chap. 8.

Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 118–19.

N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 172–73. Cf. 20, 70, 77.

Wright, 173.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 295.

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), 222.

Alsup, 222.

Alsup, 230.

Alsup, 231.

Alsup, 232.

Alsup, 238.

Alsup, 232.

Alsup, 235.

Alsup, 236.

Alsup, 236–37.

Alsup, 237–38.

Alsup, 238.

Alsup, 238–39.

Alsup, 239.

Alsup, 270.

Barry L. Blackburn, “‘Miracle Working ΘEIOI ANΔPEΣ’ in Hellenism (and Hellenistic Judaism),” in The Miracles of Jesus, vol. 6 of Gospel Perspectives, ed. David Wenham and Craig Blomberg (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), 187.

Blackburn, 189.

Blackburn, 191, 205.

Blackburn, 196–98.

Blackburn, 199–200, 202.

Blackburn, 200–202.

Blackburn, 204–5.

Blackburn, 205.

Peter G. Bolt, “Life, Death, and the Afterlife in the Greco-Roman World,” in Longenecker, Life in the Face of Death, 70–72.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 288.

Craig A. Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology,” Theological Studies 54, no. 1 (1993): 17–18. See also n56.

Thorwald Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship: Interpretive Models, Biblical Reflections, Theological Consequences (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995), 118–19.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 74–84.

Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 400.

Wright, 370.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 74–77, esp. 75.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 284.

Bird and Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin?, 45.

Bolt, “Life, Death, and the Afterlife,” 76.

Boyd, Cynic Sage or Son of God?, chap. 8.

Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 146; Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1374.

William Lane Craig, “The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus,” New Testament Studies 31, no. 1 (1985): 43.

Craig, 44.

John Dominic Crossan’s response to Robert M. Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 88. See also 86–88.

James D. G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, vol. 2 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 373.

Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 31.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 230.

Ehrman, 210, 215.

Ehrman, 26, 207–18, 221–30, 256–58.

Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 25.

Grant, Jesus, 199–200.

Johnson’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 91.

Leon McKenzie, Pagan Resurrection Myths and the Resurrection of Jesus: A Christian Perspective (Charlottesville, VA: Bookwrights, 1997), 15.

McKenzie, 58–61.

McKenzie, 39.

McKenzie, 71.

McKenzie, 105.

McKenzie, chap. 2.

McKenzie, 37–39.

McKenzie, 46–47.

McKenzie, 49.

McKenzie, 14.

Richard Ruble, review of Pagan Resurrection Myths and the Resurrection of Jesus, by Leon McKenzie, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 50, no. 2 (1998): 153.

John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 5 vols., Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1991–2016), 3:489.

Meier, 3:489–532, 633–36.

Meier, 3:490.

Meier, 3:532.

Ronald H. Nash, Christianity and the Hellenistic World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 115–30.

Nash, 131–48.

Nash, 149–59.

Nash, 161–64.

Nash, 165–70.

Nash, 170–78.

Nash, 180–81.

Nash, 183–99.

Nash, 241–50.

Nash, 263–70.

O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 130.

O’Collins, Jesus Risen, 114–15.

O’Collins, 102–3.

Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 277.

Pannenberg, Jesus, 91.

Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 87.

Smith, 102.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 80–81 (see also nn263 and 265). The wider context is 74–84.

Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Life, Death, and the Afterlife in the Ancient Near East,” in Longenecker, Life in the Face of Death, 30–32.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 222.

Ehrman, 223.

Ehrman, 224, 226, 230.

Ehrman, 226–29.

Ehrman, 25–26.

J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 100.

Smith, 103.

Smith, 100–101.

Allan Di Donato, “The Mithraic Cult and Christian Origins,” Christian Apologetics Journal 6, no. 1 (2007): 37. Cf. 44.

J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 101.

Smith, 101.

Yamauchi, “Life, Death, and the Afterlife,” 32.

Yamauchi, 32.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 228.

Ehrman, 26, 228.

J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 101.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 227.

J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 101.

Smith, 101.

Smith, 101–2.

Smith, 101.

Smith, 85.

Smith, 86.

Crossan’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 85.

Crossan, 85.

Jan Assmann, “Resurrection in Ancient Egypt,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 124, 135.

Assmann, 135.

Darrell L. Bock’s response to Robert M. Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 102.

Crossan’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, 85.

Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 37–38.

Dunn, 38.

Johnson’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 91.

Johnson, 92.

Lampe, “Paul’s Concept of a Spiritual Body,” 107.

J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 106-9.

Johnson’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 92–93.

Bock’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, 101.

Crossan’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 86.

James D. G. Dunn, “Remembering Jesus: How the Quest of the Historical Jesus Lost Its Way,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 222.

Luke Timothy Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus: Historical Criticism and Literary Criticism,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 159.

Johnson’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 92; Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus,” 159.

Bock’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 100–101.

James D. G. Dunn’s response to Robert M. Price, in Beilby and Eddy, 95.

Johnson’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, 90.

Bock’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, 101–2.

Dunn’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, 96–97.

Dunn, 96.

Dunn, 97

Johnson’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, 92.

Dunn’s response to Price, in Beilby and Eddy, 95.

Dale C. Allison, The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 164.

Allison, 165–66.

Allison, 167.

Allison, 168.

Hugh Jackson, “The Resurrection Belief of the Earliest Church: A Response to the Failure of Prophecy?,” Journal of Religion 55, no. 4 (1975): 417n9.

Jackson, 417.

Jackson, 417n8.

Jackson, 421.

Jackson, 425.

Jackson, 418–19.

Jackson, 422.

Jackson, 418.

Gerd Lüdemann, “Opening Statements,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 53; Lüdemann, “Closing Responses,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 150; Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus, 99; Goulder, “Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions,” 91; Robert H. Gundry, “Trimming the Debate,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 110.

Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 132–33.

Marcus Borg, “The Irrelevancy of the Empty Tomb,” 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), 123.

William Lane Craig, “On Doubts about the Resurrection,” Modern Theology 6, no. 1 (1989): 70.

Cranfield, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 171.

See Crossan in Copan, Real Jesus, 66; Robert B. Stewart, ed., The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 33, 38.

Crossan, quoted in Copan, Real Jesus, 63.

Crossan, in Copan, 64.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 179.

Davis, 183–84.

Davis, 183. “Confused, fearful, discouraged, and disorganized immediately afterward, they soon became bold and courageous revolutionaries who started a religious movement that changed the world order” (181).

Donald G. Dawe, Jesus: The Death and Resurrection of God (Atlanta: Knox, 1985), 107.

Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 874.

Dunn, 874–75.

Dunn, 875.

Dunn, 876.

Charles Austin Perry, The Resurrection Promise: An Interpretation of the Easter Narratives (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 14.

J. K. Elliott, “The First Easter,” History Today 29, no. 4 (1979): 219.

Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, “The Resurrection of Jesus and Roman Catholic Fundamental Theology,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 231.

Fiorenza, 248.

Fowler, “Letters to the Editor,” 270.

Michael Grant, Saint Peter: A Biography (New York: Scribner, 1994), 93.

Gundry, “Trimming the Debate,” 108.

Gundry, 109.

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

Jack A. Kent, The Psychological Origins of the Resurrection Myth (London: Open Gate, 1999), 120n120.

Ladd, Resurrection of Jesus, 138.

Lapide, Resurrection of Jesus, 125.

Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 61.

Lorenzen, 124.

Moule, “Resurrection: A Disagreement,” 41.

O’Collins, Jesus Risen, 108–9.

O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 31–32.

Gerald O’Collins, “The Resurrection: The State of the Questions,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 6–9.

Oden, Word of Life, 487–89.

Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 277–78.

Packer, “Response to the Debate,” 148–49.

Pannenberg, “Historicity of the Resurrection,” 260–61.

Pannenberg, Jesus, 95–96.

Pannenberg, 94.

Pannenberg, 96–97.

Pannenberg, 106.

Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:354.

Pannenberg, 2:359.

Keith Parsons, “Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli on the Hallucination Theory,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 443.

Pinnock, “Salvation by Resurrection,” 9.

John Shelby Spong, The Easter Moment (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 196.

Staudinger, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 320–21.

Staudinger, 322.

Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 271–72.

Stein, 274.

Thrall, “Resurrection Traditions and Christian Apologetic,” 204.

Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 96. Cf. 16.

Wells, Resurrection Debate, 39 (emphasis added).

Wells, 39–40.

Phillip H. Wiebe, Visions of Jesus: Direct Encounters from the New Testament to Today (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 210.

Ben Witherington III et al., eds., New Proclamation: Year B, 2003, Easter through Pentecost (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 5–6.

Ben Witherington III, “Resurrection Redux,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 137.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 689–90.

Wright, Surprised by Hope, 58. See also 62.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 690–96.

Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 873–74.

Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 356.

Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 111.

See Gary R. Habermas, “Explaining Away Jesus’ Resurrection: The Recent Revival of Hallucination Theories,” Christian Research Journal 23, no. 4 (2018): 30–31.

Craig L. Blomberg, “The Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith: Harmony or Conflict?,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 115.

Habermas, “Explaining Away Jesus’ Resurrection,” 31, 47–48.

Crossan, quoted in Copan, Real Jesus, 63.

See Crossan’s comments in Copan, 62.

Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 97.

Lüdemann, 106–7, 174.

Lüdemann, 229n437.

Lüdemann, 98, 106.

Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 109; Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus, 102.

Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 84.

Lüdemann, 99, 175, 177.

Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus, 128.

Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 99.

Craig, “Historicity of the Empty Tomb,” 36–37.

William Lane Craig, “First Rebuttal,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 49–51; William Lane Craig, “Second Rebuttal,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 59.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Die Auferstehung Jesu—Historie und Theologie,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 91, no. 3 (1994): 318.

Pannenberg, 320.

Pannenberg, 321.

Pannenberg, 321–22.

Pannenberg, 324–25.

Pannenberg, 328.

Kent, Psychological Origins, 89–90, 120.

Kent, 5–6.

Kent, 62, 70, 73–78.

Kent, 12, 18–19.

Kent, 9, 19–20, 33, 87.

Goulder, “Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions,” 94.

Goulder, 96. Cf. Goulder’s primary secondary distinction concerning the other disciples in Michael Goulder, “The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 54.

Goulder, “Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions,” 96.

Goulder, “Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” 52–55; Goulder, “Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions,” 96–98.

Goulder, “Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions,” 97–98 (emphasis added).

Goulder, 95.

Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 276n275.

Ingo Broer, “‘Seid stets bereit, jedem Rede und Antwort zu stehen, der nach der Hoffnung fragt, die euch erfullt’ (1 Petr 3,15) Das leere Grab und die Erschenungen Jesu im Lichte der historischen Kritik,” in “Der Herr ist wahrhaft auferstanden” (Lk 24,34): Biblische und systematische Beiträge zur Entstehung des Osterglaubens, ed. Ingo Broer and Jürgen Werbick, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 134 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), 55.

Broer, 56.

Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 276n275.

Samuel Vollenweider, “Ostern—Der Denkwürdige Ausgang Einer Krisenerfahrung,” Theologische Zeitschrift 49 (1993): 42.

For more on Pesch’s view, see John P. Galvin, “The Origin of Faith in the Resurrection of Jesus: Two Recent Perspectives,” Theological Studies 49, no. 1 (1988): 34.

Colin Brown, Miracles and the Critical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 240.

Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1375.

G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 241.

Dan Cohn-Sherbok, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish View,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 199–200.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 16.

Johnson, Real Jesus, 138.

Johnson, 138–39.

Küng, Eternal Life?, 105.

Moule, “Resurrection: A Disagreement,” 37.

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), 133.

Gerald O’Collins, What Are They Saying about the Resurrection? (New York: Paulist, 1978), 91–92n4.

O’Collins, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 6–10.

O’Collins, 10.

Gerald O’Collins, “Peter as Easter Witness,” Heythrop Journal 22, no. 1 (1981): 5.

O’Collins, Jesus Risen, 115–17.

O’Collins, 103–7.

O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 33.

O’Collins, 34.

O’Collins, 32.

Gerald O’Collins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Some Contemporary Issues (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1993), 422.

O’Collins, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 423.

O’Collins, What Are They Saying about the Resurrection?, 44–45.

O’Collins, 46.

O’Collins, Jesus Risen, 104–7; O’Collins, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 422–23.

O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 34.

Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:355–56.

Pannenberg, “Reality of the Resurrection,” 70. Similarly, Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:359.

Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 280.

Adrian Thatcher, “Resurrection and Rationality,” in Avis, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 175–77.

Robert C. Ware, “The Resurrection of Jesus, 1: Theological Orientations,” Heythrop Journal 16, no. 1 (1975): 25.

Ware, 27.

Ware, 29.

Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1982), 105.

Wright, “Christian Origins,” 119.

Wright, 121. He also notes the “failure to think in first-century terms also vitiates those who have offered variations on the Bultmannian scheme” (120).

Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 147–48.

Wright, Challenge of Jesus, 147–48.

Wright, Who Was Jesus?, 63; Wright, “Christian Origins,” 115–16, 121.

Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 42.

Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 41.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 547–50.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 382n485.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 697–701. Cf. 691 regarding the peculiarities of the disciples claiming a “resurrection” while a body is in the tomb.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 324–25. See also 323.

Allison, 324.

Allison, 325.

Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 874.

Dunn, 874–75.

Dunn, 876.

Bird and Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin?, 44.

Bird and Crossley, 44–45.

Bird and Crossley, 45.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 699–700. Cf. 691 regarding the peculiarities of the disciples claiming a “resurrection” while a body was in the tomb. See also 707, 709.

Wright, 701–6. See also 324.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 339–40. He cites R. L. Dione.

Allison, 340.

Blomberg, “Jesus of History,” 109.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 192.

Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 875–76.

Dunn, 876.

Dunn, 878–79.

Fiorenza, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 239–41.

See Crossan’s comments in Copan, Real Jesus, 54.

For Crossan, see Copan, 54–55; Robert J. Miller, “What Do Stories about Resurrection(s) Prove?,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 91–96.

Miller, 95.

Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 69–70. See also 58 (à la Hans Frei).

Witherington, “Resurrection Redux,” 133. See also 137.

Witherington, 135.

Witherington, 143.

Witherington, 140–41.

Witherington, 140.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 324.

Wright, 478–79. Cf. 371 and 373.

N. T. Wright, “Doing Justice to Jesus: A Response to J. D. Crossan: ‘What Victory? What God?,’” Scottish Journal of Theology 50, no. 3 (1997): 367.

Wright, 368. See also 369.

Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 81–82.

Barnett, Jensen, and Peterson, Resurrection, 23.

Peter Carnley, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 227, 229–30.

Carnley, 234.

James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 105.

Dunn, Evidence for Jesus, 75.

Dunn, 75.

Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 169.

Fuller, 2.

Fuller, 30–31, 46.

Gundry, “Trimming the Debate,” 116.

Gundry, 117.

Gundry, 118.

Harris, Raised Immortal, 60.

Peter C. Hodgson, Winds of the Spirit: A Constructive Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 269.

Kasper, Jesus the Christ, 137–38.

Howard Clark Kee, What Can We Know about Jesus?, Understanding Jesus Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 23.

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), 117.

Lapide, Resurrection of Jesus, 129–30.

Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 37.

Lüdemann, 50; Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus, 103.

Lüdemann, “Closing Responses,” in Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 151.

Lüdemann, 152.

O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 7–8.

O’Collins, 7.

O’Collins, 34.

O’Collins, 9–10.

O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 112–14, 122–23; O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 33–34.

O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 113–14, 118.

O’Collins, 114.

O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 116–17. See also Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting the Resurrection: Examining the Major Problems in the Stories of Jesus’ Resurrection (New York: Paulist, 1988), 13.

Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 231.

Osborne, 278.

Wright, “Christian Origins,” 121.

Wright, 122.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 383. See also 317–18.

Wright, 383.

Wright, 83–84.

Wright, xix.

Wright, 31, 71, 82–84, 201–6, 215, 273, 314, 350–74, 414, 477.

Carnley, Structure of Resurrection Belief, 163–82.

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), 94.

Fuller, 95.

Fuller, 96.

O’Collins, What Are They Saying about the Resurrection?, 106–15.

O’Collins, 110.

O’Collins, 112.

O’Collins, 113, 115.

O’Collins, 114.

O’Collins, Jesus Risen, 63–66; O’Collins, “Peter as Easter Witness,” 3.

Pheme Perkins, Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 108n53, referring to details on 55.

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), 424.

Robert C. Ware, “The Resurrection of Jesus, 2: Historical-Critical Studies,” Heythrop Journal 16, no. 2 (1975): 190.

John P. Galvin, “Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu: The Foundational Christology of Rudolf Pesch,” Theological Studies 38, no. 3 (1977): 513–25.

Hans Werner Bartsch, “Der Ursprung des Osterglaubens,” Theologische Zeitschrift 31 (1975): 16–31, cited in Galvin, “Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu,” 518.

Martin Hengel, “Ist der Osterglaube noch zu retten,” Theologische Quartalschrift 153 (1973): 252–69, cited in Galvin, “Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu,” 517n19.

Jacob Kremer, “Entstehung und Inhalt des Osterglaubens: Zur neuesten Diskussion,” Theologische Revue 72 (1976): 1–14, cited in Galvin, “Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu,” 518–19n25.

Hans Küng, “Zur Entstehung des Auferstehungsglaubens,” Theologische Quartalschrift 154 (1974): 103–17, cited in Galvin, “Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu,” 518n23.

Peter Stuhlmacher, “Kritischer müßten mir die Historisch-Kritischen sein!,” Theologische Quartalschrift 153, no. 3 (1973): 244–51, cited in Galvin, “Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu,” 517n20.

Anton Vögtle, “Wie kam es zum Osterglauben?,” in Wie kam es zum Osterglauben?, ed. Anton Vögtle and Rudolf Pesch (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1975), 9–131, cited in Galvin, “Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu,” 519–20.

O’Collins, Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 14–17.

Barnett, Jensen, and Peterson, Resurrection: Truth and Reality, 40.

Barnett, Jensen, and Peterson, 43.

Barnett, Jensen, and Peterson, 9.

Bartsch, “Der Ursprung des Osterglaubens,” 19, 26; Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 35–49; Lorenzen, Resurrection and Discipleship, 136–37, 143–44; Gerald O’Collins, “Did Jesus Eat the Fish (Luke 24:42–43)?,” Gregorianum 69, no. 1 (1988): 73–74, 76.

Allison, End of the Ages, 168n15.

Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 64.

John S. Kloppenborg, “An Analysis of the Pre-Pauline Formula 1 Cor 15: 3b–5 in Light of Some Recent Literature,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40, no. 3 (1978): 359n45.

Kloppenborg, 360n45.

Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 116.

Griffith, “Could It Have Been Reasonable,” 313.

Wright, Who Was Jesus?, 61.

Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 2:357n107.

Pannenberg, 2:358. See also n109.

Stein, Jesus the Messiah, 272.

Michael Welker, “Theological Realism and Eschatological Symbol Systems,” in Peters, Russell, and Welker, Resurrection, 35.

Bird and Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin?, 47.

Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (London: Continuum, 2010), 494–95.

Casey, 495.

Casey, 490, 492.

Casey, 496, 508.

↑ Back to top