Mainstream New Testament scholarship on the Gospels is considerably more conservative than it was, say, forty years ago (or thirty, or perhaps even twenty). For example, the greater number of New Testament critics seemed to agree as a kind of in-house duty that the Gospels were written late in the first century – the later the better, and if you can find a way of saying that they weren’t finished until the second century, even better! The centre of what is “mainstream” has moved a long way since then. Now, voices like those of Bart Ehrman or the Jesus Seminar have been nudged well and truly to the fringes, well-known now more as curiosities than as sources of sober minded scholarship, and it is voices like N. T. Wright, Craig Evans and Richard Bauckham that are setting the pace. Much of the extraordinary scepticism and radical reconstruction of first century Christianity is now seen as simply unwarranted.
But I digress (I got distracted by a certain sense of satisfaction with the sea change that the world of biblical studies has seen). Even those with outdated and extraordinarily sceptical approaches to New Testament studies acknowledge the relatively early date of authorship of the letters written by the Apostle Paul. The first epistle to the Corinthians was composed in the mid fifties, around twenty-five years after the crucifixion. From reading through the letter you can see that one of the theological issues that the church in Corinth was struggling with was scepticism over the resurrection. This was understandable, given the pagan culture in which they lived. Dualism was a rampant belief system, and the idea of eternal survival as an immortal soul would have seemed perfectly natural. A physicalist idea like resurrection however would seem crude to some by comparison to a higher, “spiritual” existence. Part of Paul’s method of convincing them of the resurrection of the dead was to stress to them the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Here is part of what Paul said, from 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 3-7:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
Here’s where I want to draw your attention: “he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.” Why is this important? Consider the following:
There’s no serious doubt over the fact that this letter was written less than thirty years after the crucifixion (which was around AD 30). It was written, therefore, easily within the lifetime of the people that Paul was referring to (as he himself says). He is writing this as a means of persuading people of the resurrection, by giving a list of witnesses to the risen Christ. It is quite obvious why it is important, for the purposes of persuasion, to point out that most of these five hundred people are still alive. It meant that if there was any question over whether they were actually witnesses, they were still living and breathing and people could still check with them whether they had seen the risen Jesus. Paul may as well have been saying “look, if you still don’t believe me, there are hundreds of people who saw Jesus alive again, and they are still alive. Just ask them!”
Imagine the tremendous risk that Paul would be taking if he was lying, and that Jesus had not been raised from the dead and had not appeared to Paul. If a major testable claim like this one was false, then any recipient of this early Christian letter could have called Paul’s bluff and blown his cover. If the witnesses were supposedly numerous and still living members of the first century church but in reality they didn’t exist, then a simple question could have been devastating: “Oh really, well if you’re so confident that we can check with them, then give me a few names. I will check with them.”
This is why these comments by the Apostle Paul in very early Christian literature bear striking witness to the actual existence of eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Paul could not have been foolish enough to so openly expose himself to discovery as a fraud. His words betray an actual confidence of being acquainted with the witnesses themselves.
Glenn Peoples
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Tags: Apostle Paul, resurrection
Yeah, well, everyone knows Paul didn’t really exist!
After all, Jesus didn’t exist, and the apostles didn’t exist either, they were all made up by the early church, which didn’t really teach Jesus’ divinity until Constantine came to power, so Paul probably didn’t exist either. Of course, then again he did invent Christianity, so…darn it!
(End sarcasm).
Very good points Glenn
Joey, that only leaves open the question of which ancient myths Paul was copied from, since we all know that everything in early Christianity was adopted from the pagan religions around them, and the ones far away, and the ones on the other side of the world. I’m thinking if we can find an example of an Aztec myth of a holy man being cured of blindness, we got this in the bag. Double points if we can get one from 300 AD Greenland too.
The only concern I have with Paul’s appeal to this huge number of eyewitnesses to the resurrections is why, if Jesus actually did appear to this large number of people at once, we have no record of it in the gospel resurrection narratives. It’s hard to believe a story with such obvious apologetic value would not get included in the gospels. (Of course, if they were, their very apologetic nature would serve as a strike against their historicity in the thinking of most critical scholars.)
I’ve wondered about that too, Rob – not least because this letter is earlier than the Gospels, so if the even if this had all been a myth and the Christian community had wanted to “cook the books” to make everything agree neatly, as the Gospels were completed they could certainly have been made to include the event that Paul refers to.
I really couldn’t say why they don’t refer to it.
Some have suggested that the appearance at the end of Matthew 28 is the same as the appearance to the 500. The location would allow such a number of people, as would the fact that it was announced beforehand by the angel. And there’s also that “some doubted” part that would be explained by the presence of a larger crowd. Also, isn’t the angels’ words to the women in Matt. 28:10 one of the few places in the resurrection narratives of the Gospels where the word “adelphois” is used (John uses it a few times, I think), which makes me wonder if it has any connection to Paul’s mentioning it in 1. Cor. 15:6. Though admittedly this was a very common word, especially in Paul’s usage, so this point may not be that significant.
I emailed Mike Licona about Rob’s question to see if he had any interesting thoughts to offer. Here’s what he had to say:
Thanks Mike!
I appreciated Mike’s answer, thanks for that. I think he’s coming to my university in the spring for a “Veritas Forum,” so I look forward to seeing him if we can book him.
I think a curious implication of Mike’s answer is that the Evangelists did not always include what we consider the most ‘impressive’ or ‘conclusive’ evidence for the resurrection in their narratives. This in turn makes me think that the Gospels are meant more as in-house documents rather than for external evangelization, since a number of the resurrection appearances tend to emphasize issues like Jesus’ corporeality. We might be able to assume some sort of proto-docetic impulse provoking these sorts of resurrection narratives and not others, and therefore perhaps view the Gospels as texts for those who already believed in the resurrection but needed, like the Corinthian believers, to get their views about Jesus’ resurrection straightened out?
There was a recent comment here and my response to it, but due to issues with the move to the new server, these were both lost. My apologies.
There was a comment by Dr James F McGrath (Otherwise known as Dr Lost
)
Google seems to think they have a cache of it, but when you click on it, the page isn’t there.
solly :s
Basically he said that Paul’s comments about there being hundreds of living witnesses lose credibility because James gets spam/chaim/junk email all the time about far out things having happened “to someone I know.”
My response was to say that this was a clearly anachronistic comparison.
The reason we don’t raise an eyebrow when we get an email like that is that they are so common that they’ve become a bit of a cultural meme. We don’t think to look up the “someone I know” because we don’t care. It’s a chain email, which we get dozens of in a given week.
By contrast, if a person that James actually knew and trusted emailed him and said that he had seen something incredible, and that about two hundred other people had seen as well, and James could just ask them about it, I suspect he would not treat it in the same way as one of those chain emails. What’s more, I don’t think he would be at all inconsistent either.