Witnesses claimed that they had seen Jesus alive from the dead (e.g., 1 Cor 15:5- 8); virtually all the narrative accounts also suggest significant conversation with him (rather than merely fleeting appearances). They were so convinced of the veracity of their claims that many devoted their lives to proclaiming what they had seen, and some eventually died for their faith that rested on it. Whatever one makes of what happened at the tomb, clearly the disciples’ testimony was not fabricated.140 Ancients also recognized that the willingness of people to die for their convictions verified at least the sincerity of their motives, arguing against fabrication.141 People of course die regularly for values that are false; they do not, however, ordinarily die voluntarily for what they believe is false. Intentional deception by the disciples is thus implausible; as E. P. Sanders notes, “Many of the people in these lists [of witnesses] were to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming that they had seen the risen Lord, and several of them would die for their cause.”142 These disciples plainly believed that Jesus had risen; and not only that, but that they had seen him alive.
As noted above, some scholars deny the empty tomb tradition; most, however, affirm that the disciples believed they had seen Jesus alive. For example Sanders, while conceding his agnosticism as to what lay behind the disciples’ experiences, concludes, “That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact.”143 Yet some scholars deny the historical value of even these resurrection appearances; Mack, for example, suggests that before the Gospels we have only Paul’s account of “visions.”144 But while the language Paul employs is general enough that it could include visionary experiences, he is reporting earlier Palestinian tradition in 1 Cor 15:3-7,145 and Palestinian Jews did not speak of nonbodily “resurrections” (see discussion of the Jewish resurrection belief above).146
Nor would anyone have persecuted the disciples for simply affirming that they had seen someone who had been dead; apart from the bodily character of the resurrection — the sort that would leave behind an empty tomb — people would merely assume that they were claiming to have seen a ghost, a noncontroversial phenomenon in antiquity.147 Ghosts were “phantasms” thought to appear especially at night,148 but this phenomenon is not what the resurrection narratives report (Lk 24:40).149 Further, Jesus “appeared” to his followers in Acts 1:3 yet there provided concrete proofs of his physicality (cf. Lk 24:39-40).150 Finally, Paul himself distinguishes between the Easter appearances and (the more common phenomenon) mere visions (cf. 1 Cor 9:1; 15:8; 2 Cor 12:1-4).151
Few alternative proposals seem persuasive as explanations of the disciples’ experiences. The pagan thinker Celsus compared Jesus’ resurrection appearances with hellenistic epiphanies.152 In Greek tradition deities periodically “manifested” themselves to mortals, sometimes in sleep and sometimes as apparitions. 153 Yet from the late hellenistic age “epiphanies” of Greek gods usually meant the activity of a deity rather than its appearance;154 it is primarily these activities that witnesses attest,155 though additionally appearances in personal dreams and visions occur.156 Appearances of deities visible to large numbers of people normally belonged to an era many centuries earlier than the writings,157 in contrast to early Christian reports about Jesus, arising from the beginning of the movement. We also lack Palestinian Jewish parallels to the claims of the resurrection appearances.
Further, very little evidence suggests the plausibility of successive and mass, corporate visions (see especially 1 Cor 15:5-7).158 Conditions in first-century Judea and Galilee were not those that later produced the seventeenth-century messiah Sabbetai Zevi, many of whose followers failed to be deterred by his apostasy,159 and some even by his death.160 Aside from different social conditions, knowledge of the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection and redefinition of messianic models through him could provide later messianic movements a model for redefining the messianic mission in a manner that did not exist prior to Jesus.
I have elsewhere noted some potential parallels not usually exploited in this connection, though with the observation that they are unpersuasive. Josephus claims that people saw heavenly chariots moving through the clouds and surrounding cities,161 and priests heard voices in the temple. Some scholars plausibly regard these as collective fantasies,162 but other explanations that could be offered are that they were (1) somehow true (a Postenlightenment perspective might allow for this possibility, though few of us are likely to embrace it); (2) the sun playing tricks on eyes at dusk; (3) propaganda to justify Jerusalem’s fall after the event, which Josephus has accepted;163 or (4) Josephus’ own propaganda (he is the only extant witness concerning the witnesses apart from sources dependent on him).164
In fact, Josephus may be following a standard sort of report of such events as portents of destruction.165 Some poetic writers engaged in poetic license;166 other writers were fairly sober historians citing reports for particular years. Portents included events such as we might regard as natural phenomena today, such as physical deformities at birth, lightning striking temples, comets, and so forth,167 but also included visions of celestial figures or armies.168 The armies were sometimes heard rather than seen;169 sights that were seen were often acknowledged as divine illusions rather than objects physically present;170 and the apparitions of armies did not draw near anyone.171 Such reports were normally not verified by citing witnesses, and the historians who report them sometimes express skepticism concerning their value, at times allowing for imagination in their production172 and at times pointing out that such reports fed on each other among the gullible.173 Some of what was genuinely seen at a distance may have been misconstrued; thus for example the report of two suns and light at night may reflect an aurora.174 In any case, this phenomenon of celestial noises and appearances is quite different from meeting again and talking with a person one had personally known, which the Gospel accounts stress.
But the difference again concerns the resurrection. To most ancient Mediterranean peoples, the concept of corporal resurrection was barely intelligible; to Jewish people, it was strictly corporate and eschatological.175 Yet if one grants, from a neutral starting point, the possibility of a bodily resurrection of Jesus within past history, the appearances would follow such an event naturally with or without parallels. In a Jewish framework, Jesus’ resurrection within history must also signify the arrival of the eschatological era in some sense.176
