Are the Resurrection Accounts Credible?

[Imprecise Interrupt]

The Resurrection of Jesus is often put forward as the proof of the legitimacy of Christianity. It is typically stated that there are multiple attestations of the event, thereby rendering it believable. It is the credibility of these several attestations that I intend to call into question. Please note that I am not rejecting ipso facto the idea of a dead body coming back to life. This was supposed to be a miracle, after all. Neither am I concerned with trivialities such as how many women went to the tomb. It is the credibility of the several accounts, and therefore the alleged fact of the resurrection, that I find lacking, for reasons other than simply the issue of a resurrection from the dead taking place.

The question for debate is therefore: Are the scriptural accounts of the resurrection of Jesus credible evidence that the resurrection took place?

[Clownboat]

@Yahwat

I will get back to your post in more detail when I can. I will be busy for probably a couple of days. I just want to note that IMO Paul invented his Jesus stories. As I argued above, his resurrection claim in 1 Cor. 15 seems to have been contradicted by others, leading Paul to either reiterate or elaborate on a prior witness story. Paul's claim of receiving information from Jesus that contradicts what the Apostles were preaching is very problematic. Did Jesus forget to tell the Apostles to abandon the Law they were raised up hold fast to?

I still like my idea that the body was stolen, as per the story Matthew says was going around, and that this got turned into a resurrection meme. If Mark or whoever he got his information from made up the Sunday morning story why would it sound so suspicious? Although the Gospel writers after Mark each modify and elaborate on the preceding version, none of them see fit to have Jesus seen coming out of the tomb. Matthew has the perfect setup for it, the dramatic angel coming down from the sky and opening the tomb in front of witnesses, including non-believers. But do we see Jesus come out like in the Easter cards? No, the tomb is already empty. It seems as if the empty tomb notion was too firmly established to mess with. And I doubt that Mark's minimalist narrative would be sufficient grounds for establishing it that strongly.

This explanation does make sense.

Especially considering that all the Gospels are consistent in claiming that Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple of Jesus and received permission from Pilate to take possession of the body of Jesus.

The body of Jesus is taken to Joseph's new tomb, because it was 'nigh at hand' to the place where Jesus was executed.

Rock cut tombs were common among the rich, but were never intended to be the burial site for a single person as they were constructed as family tombs intended to house entire generations of family members. Joseph, his wife, his sons and their wives would be expected to be buried in such a family crypt. Jesus was not family. Jesus had his own family, some 70 miles to the north east in Galilee.

Now, according to John, the corpse of Jesus was prepared exceedingly well, coated in 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes. Myrrh is a resin and is a natural insect repellent and has an extremely sweet and pungent smell. Mixed with aloe it forms a natural resin paste. Coating the body of Jesus with such a mixture would have served to stop the process of decay for a few days, but it was not a long term preservative. This expensive process would have served no purpose if the body had been intended to have been left to decay in Joseph's tomb. However, coating the body in this manner makes perfect sense if the intention was to take the body on a journey, say to Galilee.

What seems more likely, that a group of friends quietly took their dead friend, along with the dead man's mother, back to the dead man's family home burial in Galilee or that the corpse returned to life and eventually flew away?

For me, a missing corpse would seem to be more likely to be the result of action taken by the living then actions taken by the corpse.

IMO, the tomb was discovered to be empty, not because the corpse came back to life and wandered away, but because the priests had secured a tomb that was already empty.

(Much credit for this is due to a poster of this site, though I forget who).

[Imprecise Interrupt]

This is in reply to the first link provided by Yahwat in a previous post.

The origin of belief in Jesus' resurrection can be explained without appealing to the supernatural

Have you ever heard the argument from apologists that goes something like this?

"The disciples became convinced of the resurrection despite having every predisposition to the contrary." - William Lane Craig

"there was in Judaism no conception of a resurrection within history of an isolated individual apart from the general resurrection at history’s end." - William Lane Craig

Let's check the Bible on this shall we!

Even before looking at John the Baptist, let’s look at the Jewish scriptures. The prophet Elijah, his successor Elisha and even Elisha’s bones (!) performed isolated individual resurrections. There are several resurrection accounts in the Gospels.

Concerning the expectation of the resurrection of Jesus, what Craig said was that, although there are instances of revivification in the OT and in the NT, those people were raised back to mortal life. Jesus was unique in that he was raised to immortal life. The disciples who heard his predictions about rising from the dead would think that he was referring to the general resurrection at the end of the world. They would not have been expecting Jesus to rise from the dead so soon. [Ref]

The idea of Jesus ‘becoming’ immortal at his resurrection is obviously a problem. Paul and John say clearly that Jesus pre-existed in heaven. He would have been immortal to begin with. Mark says little about the nature of Jesus and nothing at all about a post-resurrection Jesus. Matthew seems to hedge on the pre-existence of Jesus. (Sounds uncomfortably close to polytheism for his Jewish community.) And Matthew tells us very little about the nature of the post-resurrection Jesus. (Except that he apparently can teleport out of a sealed tomb.) Luke sides with Paul against Matthew on other matters. His description of Jesus ascending into heaven sounds like a pe-existing Jesus.

Being raised to immortal life is addressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 as what will happen to the resurrected faithful. But he never says anything about the resurrected Jesus. That is already implicit in his concept of the pre-existing Son of God.

Concerning the reference to Jesus rising from the dead being understood as happening at the end of the world, this is in very significant variance from the Gospels.

Mark 8:31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Matthew 16 21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Matthew 17:22 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, 23 and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.� And they were greatly distressed.

According to Matthew the three days prediction was well known.

Matthew 27
62 The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63 and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ 64 Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.�

Enough about Craig. I just wanted to present what he really said. Now we move on to Herod.

Mark 6:14-16

King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.�

Others said, “He is Elijah.�

And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.�

But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!�

How could Jewish people even make this claim if the concept of an "isolated individual's" resurrection didn't exist? Obviously, it did exist, so Mr. Craig is either not familiar with the Bible or he's being deliberately dishonest.

The concept of John the Baptist returning from the dead could have been inspired by the scriptural passages mentioned above. Or, since Herod Antipas was privately Hellenized (Greek style statues in his home for example), although publicly an observant Jew, he might have had stories about people being raised from the dead in Greek mythology. It is not stated who first said that John was raised from the dead, but Herod’s inner circle (the Herodians) were likely Hellenized. Or maybe just a guilty conscience. He did not want to have John killed. He was maneuvered into it.

This is assuming that Mark’s account actually happened that way. While there are earlier stories about people raised from the dead, none of those stories involve miraculous powers. The Greek stories are about gaining immortality, permanent union of body and soul. (Read 1 Cor. 15:42-44 with that in mind.)

John the Baptist was never credited with miracles. Paul never mentions Jesus performing miracles, although that would have strengthened his case about Jesus being ‘Son of God’. Most of Mark’s miracle stories have a vagueness or oddity about them. And the most straightforward one, the curing of the women with the bleeding disorder, seems custom tailored to sell the two ideas of faith being essential even with Jesus gone, and the Pauline concept of Jewish Law being obsolete. (I described this someplace upstream.) It seems doubtful that Mark having people talk about John the Baptist being raised from the dead is anything other than a chance to connect the idea of miracles with Jesus and to have Jesus be the follow on to John, who Mark identities with Elijah, the precursor of the Messiah. If the Herod story were real, how would Mark know about it?

What's interesting here is John the Baptist was similar to Jesus in that he was the head of a Jewish apocalyptic sect who had been executed.

John the Baptist and Jesus compared:

Both preached a coming judgment or "wrath to come" - Mt. 3.7, Lk. 3.7.

Both preached an imminent eschatology - Mt. 11:12, Lk. 16:16, Lk. 7.28.

The whole region in that era was full of apocalyptic sentiments. Two charismatic proponents with followers is not at all surprising. And people were executed by the Romans all the time. The Messiah was associated with a military (or maybe priestly) figure who would throw out the latest of the oppressors (the Romans) and finally usher in the messianic age. One can read various passages in the Gospels as suggesting that a return to true righteousness would bring in the kingdom of God (as per Malachi). One can glimpse this idea in passages of Mark that sound very much like early traditions about Jesus.

BTW what is the difference between a coming judgment and an imminent eschatology? The linking of the two was already established in 1 Enoch a couple of hundred years before. We see strong hints of 1 Enoch in the NT.

Both used baptism as an integral part of their ministry.

Not so. The only mention in the Gospels of anyone performing baptisms other than John are:

Matthew 28:19 where the disciples are told by Jesus to go out and baptize. This is after the resurrection. But there is no mention of any actually performing baptisms in that Gospel. And as I have argued above, this entire section of Matthew is invention.

John 4
1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

Jesus did not perform any baptisms. There is no link here between Jesus and John with any scriptural basis. We should also note here that the Gospel of John is very different from the other Gospels. The parts of it not inherited from or adapted from the earlier Gospels look like pure purposeful invention. Actual disciples of an actual Jesus may have performed baptisms. Paul mentions it. But the idea is not unique. Ritual purification in the mikvah was already an old Jewish custom, and was also used in conversion to Judaism. The Essenes practiced ritual baptism, linking it to repentance, especially for converts. The idea of baptism does not uniquely link Jesus with John on any grounds.

Jesus even compared his authority to that of John the Baptist - Mk. 11:27-33. Both figures had disciples, John 1:35-42 even says two of John's disciples became disciples of Jesus!

The only reference to John the Baptist in Matthew 11 is this.

Matthew 11
2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?� 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.�

7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is he of whom it is written,

“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way before you.’

11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, 14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

This passage very definitely has Jesus put himself above John. John is Elijah, the messenger who precedes the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. John performed no miracles. Jesus does. John is the old covenant. Jesus is the new.

Both were seen as Messianic figures (see evidence below).

As I noted above, Messianic figures were to be expected in that era. The Roman oppression made people want to believe. (Life of Brian just popped into my head. Begone!) Some comments on Messiah wannabees in that era.

“Their influence was mostly local and temporary; some, however, succeeded in attracting large numbers of followers, and created movements that lasted for considerable periods. The effects of these Messianic movements were pernicious. Many of these Messiahs and their followers lost their lives in the course of their activities; and they deluded the people with false hopes, created dissensions, gave rise to sects, and even lost many to Judaism.

The pseudo-Messiahs begin to appear with the end of the Hasmonean dynasty, when Rome commenced its work of crushing the independence of Judea. For the maintenance of the endangered state the people looked forward to a Messiah.

From Josephus it appears that in the first century before the destruction of the Temple a number of Messiahs arose promising relief from the Roman yoke, and finding ready followers.�
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/artic ... o-messiahs

Both had the claim they had risen from the dead soon after their unjust executions.
Both sects or followings went on after their deaths. For instance, Paul meets some of John's disciples in Acts 19.

Is it just pure coincidence that we have the followers of two Jewish apocalyptic sects claiming their leader had risen from the dead? Obviously, the concept existed and was being shared among Jewish apocalyptic groups so it makes sense that the followers of Jesus would apply it to him after his death.

There is no indication in Mark 6 that it was the followers of John who talked about him rising from the dead. And, as I argued earlier, this sounds more like purposeful invention.

BTW I once worked with someone from Iraq who was raised a Mandaean. While Mandaeans revere John the Baptist, there appears to be very little connection with the John described in the Gospels. Mandaeism is a gnostic, highly dualistic religion that disregards much of the OT, including Abraham and Moses and all of the subsequent prophets and consider the Holy Spirit to be an emanation of an evil spirit, who may or may not be Yahweh. The supreme creator being is a slippery concept in Mandaeism.

Daniel 9:26

After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.

Mark refers to the ‘abomination of desolation’ in Daniel 9:27, apparently a reference to Caligula having his statue placed in synagogues and attempting to have one placed in the Temple in Jerusalem. In Daniel 9, this is linked to the destruction of the city and the sanctuary. Mark links it to the destruction of the city and Temple in 70 CE. We may note that Mark’s Son of Man description in Mark 13 is straight out of Daniel 7, showing that Mark really read Daniel. Yet Mark makes no attempt to link Daniel 9:26 to Jesus.

Daniel 9 describes actual events in Jerusalem under Antiochus IV in the 2nd century BCE. The ‘anointed one’ could easily be the high priest Onias III who was killed by Antiochus in 171 BCE. This was not thought of as a messianic prophecy at that time.

Isaiah 53:8-9

By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living*; for the transgression of my people he was punished.* He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth*.*

Isaiah 40-66 is about the Jews being freed from the Babylonian Exile and returning to their own land. The Exile was punishment for them not following God’s Law. The ‘servant’ is explicitly and repeatedly identified with Israel. This is not a messianic prophecy. That claim is after the fact apologetics.

Wisdom 2:20 Let us condemn him to a shameful death,

Don’t forget
Wisdom 2:10 Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged.

This section is about the sufferings of all those oppressed by the ungodly. Pulling one verse out of context as proof of a belief in a suffering Messiah does not work well.

4 Ezra 7:29 And after these years my son the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath.

How about we put that in context…

[28] For my son the Messiah shall be revealed with those who are with him, and those who remain shall rejoice four hundred years.
[29] And after these years my son the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath.

Jesus lived 400 years? In Jewish thinking the Messiah would be only human, albeit a very special one. Of course he would die just like everyone else.

The Messiah as the son of God goes back to Psalms.

Psalm 2
7 I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.�

No dying Messiah there. A military Messiah who would conquer the nations.

But the real problem with 2 Esdras, which contains 4 Esra is that “modern scholarship places its composition between 70 and 218 CE.[4]:37“ In particular 4 Esra “was written in the late 1st century CE following the destruction of the Second Temple [14]�. Furthermore “The main body of the book appears to be written for consolation in a period of great distress (one scholarly hypothesis is that it dates to Titus' destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE).[19] The author seeks answers, similar to Job's quest for understanding the meaning of suffering, but the author doesn't like or desire only the answer that was given to Job.� [Ref] Too late to influence beliefs about John the Baptist or Jesus and serving a different purpose.

These passages are examples of how Jews could come to believe in a dying Messiah. There is evidence that John the Baptist was also seen as a Messianic figure (although his position has been demoted in the gospel literature in order to promote Jesus). The above passages show how both John and Jesus could be declared as the Messiah despite their deaths.

None of those passages demonstrate anything of the sort, as I have shown above. A dying Messiah would have been alien to the apocalyptic mood of the era. The Messiah finally comes … and fails?

Evidence for John's Messiahship:

Luke 3:15 "The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah."

John is referred to as "more than a prophet" in Mt. 11:9 and there were "none greater" than John in Mt. 11:11.

In John 1:20 and 3:28 the author goes out of his way to have John deny he was the Messiah which only makes sense if people were claiming he was.

First of all, anything that first appears in the Gospels after Mark is questionable. All additions to or changes from Mark show clear agenda bias, as I have argued at great length with extensive details.

Luke 3
15 As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

If we credit that people thought John was the Messiah based on this, then we need to credit that John denied being the Messiah.

Matthew 11
9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is he of whom it is written,

“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way before you.’

11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

John was more than a prophet because he was Elijah returned, preparing the way for the Messiah, not the Messiah himself. And “the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he�. Clearly not the Messiah. But quote mining can ‘prove’ a lot of things, can’t it?

John the Baptist being (in some way) Elijah returned goes back to the opening of Mark when he quotes Malachi, who identifies Elijah as the one who will precede the Messiah. However, Mark incorrectly assigns that quote to Isaiah. He then does quote Isaiah identifying John the Baptist as ‘the voice crying in the wilderness.

The Gospel of John has John the Baptist deny that he is Elijah and provides only the Isaiah quote. Why should the Baptist not be Elijah? It avoids the question of exactly how he could be Elijah, who went up in a flaming chariot. Did he come back in that chariot? In the Transfiguration scene, when Elijah appeared, did he look like John the Baptist? Note that the Gospel of John omits the Transfiguration scene.

Luke partly addresses the Elijah issue by having John the Baptist born in the normal way, by having it said of him that “he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah�, not literally Elijah. Luke omits the Malachi quote, giving a fuller Isaiah quote. Luke’s Transfiguration does not include the association of John the Baptist with Elijah as Mark and Matthew do.

The Gospel of John has John the Baptist excplicitly deny that he is Elijah, utilizing only the Isaiah quote to identify the Baptist. And John has no Transfiguration scene. Considering the changes that took place down the line, using the Gospel of John to infer what people really thought at the time is ill-advised.

Could John the Baptist have been thought of as the Messiah? Possibly. Apocalypticism was in the air. But the Gospels do not provide much real support for that. As I have argued in this Topic (and in this post) anything in the Gospels not in Mark is questionable. And Mark never mentions the idea of anyone thinking that the Baptist was the Messiah.

Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.54

"Yea, some even of the disciples of John, who seemed to be great ones, have separated themselves from the people, and proclaimed their own master as the Christ."

Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.60

“And, behold, one of the disciples of John asserted that John was the Christ, and not Jesus, inasmuch as Jesus Himself declared that John was greater than all men and all prophets. ‘If, then,’ said he, ‘he be greater than all, he must be held to be greater than Moses, and than Jesus himself. But if he be the greatest of all, then must he be the Christ.’

Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions dates from the 4th century. To put it in context, here is a comment from a translator.

“The Recognitions of Clement is a kind of philosophical and theological romance. The writer of the work seems to have had no intention of presenting his statements as facts; but, choosing the disciples of Christ and their followers as his principal characters, he has put into their mouths the most important of his beliefs, and woven the whole together by a thread of fictitious narrative.�
http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/0 ... f],_EN.pdf

The identification of John as the Messiah is clearly based on the same quoting of sentence fragments out of context that I described above. It requires belief in the Gospels as representing actual events, yet ignores that those very same passages deny that John was the Messiah. This cannot be taken seriously.

1 John 5:6

This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.

1 John 5:6 could be referencing a dispute between the Jesus and John sect in the late 1st or early 2nd century. John baptized with water only, while Jesus baptized with water and blood. https://books.google.com/books?id=eskHk ... &q&f=false

Here is 1 John 5:6 in context.

1 John 1
4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.

Who is it that does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God?

1 John 2
22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.

1 John 4
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist,

2 John 1
7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

It is not simply that the deceivers do not believe Jesus was the Messiah (Christ), a term with OT connotations. It is that they do not believe Jesus came in the flesh. This is Docetism, the belief that Jesus was just a spirit in disguise. This negates the sacrifice and resurrection ideas, the very heart of mainstream Christianity, and would obviously be seen as ‘the enemy’. This is more likely a diatribe against that form of Gnosticism, the ones who held Jesus to be special but not as portrayed in the Gospels or Paul. But those who would have considered John the Baptist as the Messiah would not have held Jesus as special in any way and would not have been the target of the Johannine epistles.

Considering the widespread use of water for baptism and/or purification in that era, it is not so easily justified to think that this is referring specifically to followers of John the Baptists. We can see clear references in the 1 John 5 passages to both Paul and John, who are of a mind on many matters. To Paul, baptism meant receiving the Holy Spirt, making obedience to Jewish Law unnecessary, this freedom purchased by the blood of Jesus. In the Gospel of John, being born again of water and the Spirit (Pauline images) are brought up in a discussion with a Jewish teacher. Throughout John, opposition to and from ‘the Jews’ is a frequent theme. 1 John 5 sounds like a reiteration of core beliefs of proto-orthodox Christianity in an overall setting of protecting the author’s community against incursion from outside, specifically, as per the other related quotes, docetic Christianity,

So the origins of belief in Jesus' resurrection can be explained completely within the context of Jewish apocalyptic beliefs and expectations without a resurrection actually occurring. No supernatural magic required.

The evidence given above does not present a convincing case that John the Baptist was considered the Messiah. But then he could have been since there were apparently a lot of wannabees around. But the connection to John being thought to have been raised from the dead is very tenuous and problematic, as I have argued above. If this were a widespread notion, why did not the followers of John produce stories about it? Why is there no such idea mentioned in Recognitions? A rival sect revering John the Baptist? Sure, why not? Mandaeans are still around today. John the Baptist as the inspiration for the Jesus resurrection story? Not so much.

The belief in the resurrection of Jesus as a real event is best explained by a stolen body as I have argued upstream. It explains why Mark, with his apparent access to old traditions, would write such a narrative as he did. It would explain why the disciples would believe that it happened. This could actually convince those who would want to believe that it really happened. And it would explain why there was a stolen body story going around. And it would explain why nobody wants to go against the empty tomb meme, No supernatural magic required.

Making up a story about it being inspired by a one-liner from Mark that does not sound very much like anything real and having it widely accepted? How exactly would that have come about?

[Imprecise Interrupt]

@Yahwat

I will get back to your post in more detail when I can. I will be busy for probably a couple of days. I just want to note that IMO Paul invented his Jesus stories. As I argued above, his resurrection claim in 1 Cor. 15 seems to have been contradicted by others, leading Paul to either reiterate or elaborate on a prior witness story. Paul's claim of receiving information from Jesus that contradicts what the Apostles were preaching is very problematic. Did Jesus forget to tell the Apostles to abandon the Law they were raised up hold fast to?

I still like my idea that the body was stolen, as per the story Matthew says was going around, and that this got turned into a resurrection meme. If Mark or whoever he got his information from made up the Sunday morning story why would it sound so suspicious? Although the Gospel writers after Mark each modify and elaborate on the preceding version, none of them see fit to have Jesus seen coming out of the tomb. Matthew has the perfect setup for it, the dramatic angel coming down from the sky and opening the tomb in front of witnesses, including non-believers. But do we see Jesus come out like in the Easter cards? No, the tomb is already empty. It seems as if the empty tomb notion was too firmly established to mess with. And I doubt that Mark's minimalist narrative would be sufficient grounds for establishing it that strongly.

This explanation does make sense.

Especially considering that all the Gospels are consistent in claiming that Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple of Jesus and received permission from Pilate to take possession of the body of Jesus.

The body of Jesus is taken to Joseph's new tomb, because it was 'nigh at hand' to the place where Jesus was executed.

Rock cut tombs were common among the rich, but were never intended to be the burial site for a single person as they were constructed as family tombs intended to house entire generations of family members. Joseph, his wife, his sons and their wives would be expected to be buried in such a family crypt. Jesus was not family. Jesus had his own family, some 70 miles to the north east in Galilee.

Now, according to John, the corpse of Jesus was prepared exceedingly well, coated in 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes. Myrrh is a resin and is a natural insect repellent and has an extremely sweet and pungent smell. Mixed with aloe it forms a natural resin paste. Coating the body of Jesus with such a mixture would have served to stop the process of decay for a few days, but it was not a long term preservative. This expensive process would have served no purpose if the body had been intended to have been left to decay in Joseph's tomb. However, coating the body in this manner makes perfect sense if the intention was to take the body on a journey, say to Galilee.

What seems more likely, that a group of friends quietly took their dead friend, along with the dead man's mother, back to the dead man's family home burial in Galilee or that the corpse returned to life and eventually flew away?

For me, a missing corpse would seem to be more likely to be the result of action taken by the living then actions taken by the corpse.

IMO, the tomb was discovered to be empty, not because the corpse came back to life and wandered away, but because the priests had secured a tomb that was already empty.

(Much credit for this is due to a poster of this site, though I forget who).

Actions taken by the living? Surely. But we are talking about different actions by different people. I have seen this idea before but never had the opportunity to reply to it. I will stick with body snatching.

If the body had been taken away back to Galilee, why would anyone have gone looking for the body in a tomb in Jerusalem? Where does that story come from? If that part of the story was made up, why is it so suspicious sounding? Why was a story going around about a stolen body? And why is the empty tomb so solidly ensconced that none of the Gospel writers changes it to have witnesses to the resurrection event itself even though they make other substantial changes.

The 100 pounds of preservative is only mentioned in John’s narrative, who can be seen to have roots in Luke’s, which is Matthew’s (awkward) narrative turned upside down as Luke likes to do to Matthew. And Matthew’s narrative can be seen to be Mark’s narrative with the suspicious parts elaborately patched over. John tells a different story than the other Gospels, sometimes small but obvious differences, sometimes huge ones. Why should John’s fourth in line narrative be taken seriously?

Mark’s Last Supper pericope raises a serious problem. There is just no way that the Sanhedrin would ever plan to have a trial on the first night of Passover. (Or any night for that matter.) But Mark wants to combine Paul’s Lord’s Supper ritual and his Jesus as sacrificed Passover Lamb images, making it all into a Seder. Paul has the bread and wine ritual take place on the night Jesus was betrayed. Mark now has to have Jesus betrayed on the first night of Passover. And so the impossible trial.

Mark has Jesus buried without the proper rites being performed because it is too close to sunset and the Sabbath is about to begin, those rites not being allowed on the Sabbath. But wait! It is the first day of Passover (which began at sunset the night before) and Sabbath rules are already in effect! Mark has the women go to the tomb early on Sunday morning, the earliest reasonable time to perform the burial rites and find the tomb empty.

Paul said that Jesus ‘was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’. (1 Cor. 15:4) He does not identify the exact scriptures but it is probably Hosea 6. However, Mark says no less than three times that Jesus will rise again ‘after three days’. (8:31, 9:31, 10:34) And then he tells us that Jesus is buried on Friday afternoon and the tomb is empty on Sunday morning. That might be stretched to ‘on the third day’, especially if one wants it to be ‘in accordance with the Scriptures’ and if one only knows the details second hand. But ‘after three days’ is not going to work. What reason might Mark have for making it after three days? The same reason that the Gospel of John has Jesus wait until Lazarus has been dead four days.

"For three days after death the soul hovers over the body intending to reenter it." (Lev. Rabbah 18:1) [Ref]

After three days is definitely the work of God. A day and a half has another potential explanation, that the soul got back in the body by itself. So why does Mark contradict himself this way? Maybe the Friday afternoon to Sunday morning story is what really happened and that is well known, even to Paul. Jesus gets crucified on a Friday (not Passover) or at least finally dies on a Friday. The city is packed with people for the Passover festival, which in Second Temple days would be a total of about ten days. This is why Jesus is in Jerusalem, for the festival. Some large number of those people are fans of Jesus. Rather than let the body of Jesus hang in full sight of everyone (according to Mark there has been one uprising already), Pilate is willing to let it be taken down. But it is too late to do the burial rites and the body is placed in a nearby tomb for safekeeping until Sunday morning when the rites can be done. [/speculation]

Mark and Luke both have the women go to the tomb on Sunday morning to perform those rites. Matthew has them go to the tomb but gives no reason for it. John has elaborate and very expensive things done to the body and has Mary Magdalene go to the tomb alone on Sunday morning for no apparent reason, discovering it empty. If you want to accept the claim that John was preparing the body for travel (which John does not say), why reject the part that says Jesus was buried in the tomb and someone visiting the tomb? If John knew that the body was sent to Galilee, why would he say that Jesus was buried in Jerusalem?

Time does not permit me to launch into an analysis of the timeframe differences in the several Gospels and why they were written that way: on the third day, after three days, three days and three nights, Matthew omitting to mention that the Sabbath was about to start and giving no reason for visiting the tomb, John changing the day of the crucifixion to the day before Passover and having the body of Jesus prepared before the burial, the ambiguity in John about what day of the week the crucifixion took place on. Like I said, no time for all that, especially since I have only begun answering Yahwat.

[Clownboat]

@Yahwat

I will get back to your post in more detail when I can. I will be busy for probably a couple of days. I just want to note that IMO Paul invented his Jesus stories. As I argued above, his resurrection claim in 1 Cor. 15 seems to have been contradicted by others, leading Paul to either reiterate or elaborate on a prior witness story. Paul's claim of receiving information from Jesus that contradicts what the Apostles were preaching is very problematic. Did Jesus forget to tell the Apostles to abandon the Law they were raised up hold fast to?

I still like my idea that the body was stolen, as per the story Matthew says was going around, and that this got turned into a resurrection meme. If Mark or whoever he got his information from made up the Sunday morning story why would it sound so suspicious? Although the Gospel writers after Mark each modify and elaborate on the preceding version, none of them see fit to have Jesus seen coming out of the tomb. Matthew has the perfect setup for it, the dramatic angel coming down from the sky and opening the tomb in front of witnesses, including non-believers. But do we see Jesus come out like in the Easter cards? No, the tomb is already empty. It seems as if the empty tomb notion was too firmly established to mess with. And I doubt that Mark's minimalist narrative would be sufficient grounds for establishing it that strongly.

This explanation does make sense.

Especially considering that all the Gospels are consistent in claiming that Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple of Jesus and received permission from Pilate to take possession of the body of Jesus.

The body of Jesus is taken to Joseph's new tomb, because it was 'nigh at hand' to the place where Jesus was executed.

Rock cut tombs were common among the rich, but were never intended to be the burial site for a single person as they were constructed as family tombs intended to house entire generations of family members. Joseph, his wife, his sons and their wives would be expected to be buried in such a family crypt. Jesus was not family. Jesus had his own family, some 70 miles to the north east in Galilee.

Now, according to John, the corpse of Jesus was prepared exceedingly well, coated in 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes. Myrrh is a resin and is a natural insect repellent and has an extremely sweet and pungent smell. Mixed with aloe it forms a natural resin paste. Coating the body of Jesus with such a mixture would have served to stop the process of decay for a few days, but it was not a long term preservative. This expensive process would have served no purpose if the body had been intended to have been left to decay in Joseph's tomb. However, coating the body in this manner makes perfect sense if the intention was to take the body on a journey, say to Galilee.

What seems more likely, that a group of friends quietly took their dead friend, along with the dead man's mother, back to the dead man's family home burial in Galilee or that the corpse returned to life and eventually flew away?

For me, a missing corpse would seem to be more likely to be the result of action taken by the living then actions taken by the corpse.

IMO, the tomb was discovered to be empty, not because the corpse came back to life and wandered away, but because the priests had secured a tomb that was already empty.

(Much credit for this is due to a poster of this site, though I forget who).

Actions taken by the living? Surely. But we are talking about different actions by different people. I have seen this idea before but never had the opportunity to reply to it. I will stick with body snatching.

If the body had been taken away back to Galilee, why would anyone have gone looking for the body in a tomb in Jerusalem? Where does that story come from? If that part of the story was made up, why is it so suspicious sounding? Why was a story going around about a stolen body? And why is the empty tomb so solidly ensconced that none of the Gospel writers changes it to have witnesses to the resurrection event itself even though they make other substantial changes.

The 100 pounds of preservative is only mentioned in John’s narrative, who can be seen to have roots in Luke’s, which is Matthew’s (awkward) narrative turned upside down as Luke likes to do to Matthew. And Matthew’s narrative can be seen to be Mark’s narrative with the suspicious parts elaborately patched over. John tells a different story than the other Gospels, sometimes small but obvious differences, sometimes huge ones. Why should John’s fourth in line narrative be taken seriously?

Mark’s Last Supper pericope raises a serious problem. There is just no way that the Sanhedrin would ever plan to have a trial on the first night of Passover. (Or any night for that matter.) But Mark wants to combine Paul’s Lord’s Supper ritual and his Jesus as sacrificed Passover Lamb images, making it all into a Seder. Paul has the bread and wine ritual take place on the night Jesus was betrayed. Mark now has to have Jesus betrayed on the first night of Passover. And so the impossible trial.

Mark has Jesus buried without the proper rites being performed because it is too close to sunset and the Sabbath is about to begin, those rites not being allowed on the Sabbath. But wait! It is the first day of Passover (which began at sunset the night before) and Sabbath rules are already in effect! Mark has the women go to the tomb early on Sunday morning, the earliest reasonable time to perform the burial rites and find the tomb empty.

Paul said that Jesus ‘was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’. (1 Cor. 15:4) He does not identify the exact scriptures but it is probably Hosea 6. However, Mark says no less than three times that Jesus will rise again ‘after three days’. (8:31, 9:31, 10:34) And then he tells us that Jesus is buried on Friday afternoon and the tomb is empty on Sunday morning. That might be stretched to ‘on the third day’, especially if one wants it to be ‘in accordance with the Scriptures’ and if one only knows the details second hand. But ‘after three days’ is not going to work. What reason might Mark have for making it after three days? The same reason that the Gospel of John has Jesus wait until Lazarus has been dead four days.

"For three days after death the soul hovers over the body intending to reenter it." (Lev. Rabbah 18:1) [Ref]

After three days is definitely the work of God. A day and a half has another potential explanation, that the soul got back in the body by itself. So why does Mark contradict himself this way? Maybe the Friday afternoon to Sunday morning story is what really happened and that is well known, even to Paul. Jesus gets crucified on a Friday (not Passover) or at least finally dies on a Friday. The city is packed with people for the Passover festival, which in Second Temple days would be a total of about ten days. This is why Jesus is in Jerusalem, for the festival. Some large number of those people are fans of Jesus. Rather than let the body of Jesus hang in full sight of everyone (according to Mark there has been one uprising already), Pilate is willing to let it be taken down. But it is too late to do the burial rites and the body is placed in a nearby tomb for safekeeping until Sunday morning when the rites can be done. [/speculation]

Mark and Luke both have the women go to the tomb on Sunday morning to perform those rites. Matthew has them go to the tomb but gives no reason for it. John has elaborate and very expensive things done to the body and has Mary Magdalene go to the tomb alone on Sunday morning for no apparent reason, discovering it empty. If you want to accept the claim that John was preparing the body for travel (which John does not say), why reject the part that says Jesus was buried in the tomb and someone visiting the tomb? If John knew that the body was sent to Galilee, why would he say that Jesus was buried in Jerusalem?

Time does not permit me to launch into an analysis of the timeframe differences in the several Gospels and why they were written that way: on the third day, after three days, three days and three nights, Matthew omitting to mention that the Sabbath was about to start and giving no reason for visiting the tomb, John changing the day of the crucifixion to the day before Passover and having the body of Jesus prepared before the burial, the ambiguity in John about what day of the week the crucifixion took place on. Like I said, no time for all that, especially since I have only begun answering Yahwat.

IMO, the tomb was discovered to be empty, not because the corpse came back to life and wandered away, but because the priests had secured a tomb that was already empty. A likely reason it could have been empty would have been due to body snatching like you have suggested and supplied evidence for it being a plausible explanation.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

This is in reply to the second link provided by Yahwat in a previous post.

Jesus' resurrection was originally understood as an exaltation straight to heaven

Traditionally, Paul's letters have been interpreted in light of the later Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. The story goes that Jesus was physically resurrected to the earth and after 40 days he ascended to heaven - Acts 1:1-10. Rather than assuming this anachronistic approach to reconstructing history I will attempt to recover the earliest passages which refer to how Christ went to heaven. First of all, in the "early creed" of 1 Cor 15:3-8 there is no mention of a separate and distinct Ascension. All it says is that Jesus was "raised" which is ambiguous. This is where we would expect a mention of the Ascension because it is presented as a chronological list of events.

Let’s look at 1 Cor 15:3-8.

1 Corinthians 15
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

The word used for ‘he appeared’ is ΩΦΘΗ indicative, aorist, passive 3rd person singular of ΟΡΑΩ whose primary meaning is ‘to see with the eyes’. The KJV renders this as the more literal but awkward ‘was seen of Cephas’ etc.

Paul talks about Jesus being raised from the dead and all the hundreds and hundreds of people who saw him. Since 1 Corinthians 15 is all about convincing the Corinthians of the reality of resurrection when apparently he has been contradicted by others, the appearances would need to be intended as physical and not ‘visions’, or they could just be dismissed as imaginary.

It is not that ‘there is no mention of a separate and distinct Ascension’. There is no mention of an Ascension at all. The word for ‘was raised’ is ΕΓΗΓΕΡΤΑΙ indicative perfect passive 3rd person singular of ΕΓΕΙΡΩ, which is ‘to arouse’. Jesus was aroused from death after having died and been buried. Not ambiguous.

Phil 2:8-9 – "And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:"

Notice how this passage goes straight from Jesus’ death on the cross to his exaltation in heaven. There is no mention of the resurrection nor is there even a distinction made between resurrection and exaltation. This hymn is very early and can be interpreted as a simultaneous resurrection/exaltation to heaven. Notice how even in the later tradition found in Acts 2:33-34 and 5:31 the exaltation happens when Jesus goes to heaven.

The word used for ‘exalted’ is ΥΠΕΡΥΨΩΣΕ� indicative aorist active 3rd person singular of ΥΠΕΡΥΨΟΩ, which is used metaphorically in the sense of ‘to exalt to the highest rank and power, raise to supreme majesty’. It does not convey the sense of ascending in a physical way, as in Acts 1:9. BTW the word used there is ΕΠΗΡΘΗ which really does mean to lift up in a physical sense.

Incidentally, the English word ‘exalt’ does not convey any sense of physical raising either.

Exalt as per Merriam Webster
1: to raise in rank, power, or character
2: to elevate by praise or in estimation

Philippians is the only use of this word in the NT but it is used several times in the Greek Septuagint.

ὑψώσει
https://en.katabiblon.com/us/index.php? ... k=Ps&ch=36
Psalm 37 (36 in Septuagint)
34 Wait for the LORD and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on when the wicked are cut off.

ὑπε�υψώθης
https://en.katabiblon.com/us/index.php? ... k=Ps&ch=96
Psalm 97 (96 in Septuagint)
9 For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.

ὑψώθης
https://en.katabiblon.com/us/index.php? ... =DnOG&ch=3
(Greek) Daniel 3:52
“Blessed are you, O Lord God of our fathers;
and praised and exalted above all for ever.
And blessed is your glorious and holy name;
and praised and exalted above all for ever.

None of these can be interpreted as ascending into heaven. It is all about praise and honor.

If we look at Philippians 2 in context, the meaning becomes plain.

Philippians 2
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Do not be selfish and conceited but act with and for others.

Philippians 2
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Even though Christ had every reason to feel superior, he gave all that up and humbled himself as an obedient servant even to the point of dying in a nasty way.

Philippians 2
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The word used for ‘name’ is Ο�ΟΜΑ. The primary meaning is a proper name (Jesus). There is also a secondary meaning.

“the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i.e. for one's rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds etc.�
https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/le ... ongs=g3686

Paul has just reminded the reader that Jesus gave up being divine to become an obedient servant even to the point of dying. That is the meaning of the name Jesus that matters and that is what God praised Jesus for to the highest possible degree. Recall that Jesus was already divine. All this praise and honor is because of what he did.

What is the take away lesson from this?

Philippians 2
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

The point is that Jesus was subservient to God and was praised and assigned a high status for it. You (the recipients of the letter) should do the same. Nothing about the Ascension.

In Romans 8:34 it says he was “raised to life - is at the Right Hand of God.�
Eph. 1:20 – “he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,�

In each one of these, the logical sequence is Jesus died——> raised/exalted——> to heaven. In the Pauline literature we are never told of the sequence that Jesus was raised to the earth first and only later went to heaven.

Let’s take a look at other places in Romans where Paul talks about Jesus being raised from the dead.

Romans
4:24 raised from the dead Jesus our Lord
4:25 delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
6:4 just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
6:9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
7:4 him who has been raised from the dead,
8:11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
10:9 God raised him from the dead

Not one of these other places gives the impression that Jesus was raised spiritually. The impression that his readers would get would have been of a bodily resurrection, that being both the Jewish concept and the Graeco-Roman one.

‘Raised for our justification’ (4:25) touches on a theme that appears often in Paul. The resurrection of Jesus is an assurance that there will be a future resurrection for the righteous. (See 6:4) If Jesus did not get bodily resurrected but just went back to heaven where he started in spirit form, what good would that do for ordinary mortals?

And while we are on it, why should Jesus have waited until the third day (as Paul says in 1 Cor. 15) to go back to heaven as a spirit? His body was dead, why hang around? But because Jesus did get raised from the dead in bodily form (Paul tells us) he will never die again (6:9). That only makes sense if there was a bodily resurrection. The spirit of Jesus, the pre-existing Son of God who took on human form, could not possibly die anyway. This was a bodily resurrection into an immortal form (as described in 1 Cor. 15) and the promise of a future resurrection into immortal form. If that future resurrection were merely spiritual, why wait? The spirit is separated from the body at death.

Now let’s look at the quote you provided, in context.

Romans 8
34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Died and was raised are paired, the important elements of Pauline theology, undoing the sin of Adam and the promise of a future resurrection. It does not say that Jesus went from the grave (and again why not from the cross when he died?) It says that Jesus is at the right hand of God interceding for us. That is, there is a special reason for mentioning that Jesus is there.

Ephesians 1 and 2 is a pastiche of quote mined snippets from all over the Pauline epistles but especially Romans. It was not written by Paul but by someone who wanted to be thought of as Paul to lend authority to his codes of conduct that constitute the bulk of Ephesians. There are stylistic issues and similar matters that render Ephesians quite suspicious. But the real problems are the absence of any eschatological expectations (it was too late to believe what Paul said about that) and fragmented phrases that totally change the meaning of Paul’s original fuller phrases. One that has caused much to do is this:

Ephesians 2
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

This is straight out of Romans except that Paul’s ‘works of the law’ has become simply ‘works’. That is a major misunderstanding of what Paul talked about endlessly in Romans, that works of Jewish law did provide justification. Ephesians is just of grab nag of quotes. Repetition of phrases from real works of Paul do add anything to the original and sometimes subtract.

1 Thess 1:10 "and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming."

Notice how this passage connects the resurrection to being in heaven without explaining "how" he came to be there. It is just assumed that being "raised from the dead" entailed going straight to heaven.

The author of Hebrews indicates a similar view.

Hebrews 1:3 – “After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.�
Hebrews 10:12-13 – [i“But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.�[/i] – cf. Psalm 110.
Hebrews 12:2 – “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.�

True, Thessalonians does not explain how Jesus came to be in heaven. Neither does it explain why it is that Jesus is going to return from heaven. That is referenced in 1 Corinthians 15, which talks about how all those people saw Jesus with their eyes, as described above. To demand that every sentence contain every last detail of the theology is obviously unreasonable.

If you want to be that nitpicky, then it is necessary to have Hebrews say that Jesus was raised into heaven immediately when he died on the cross since it does not mention his burial or the resurrection on the third day followed by those hundreds of people who saw him with their eyes.

And to top it all off we find an early tradition of the ascension occurring the same time as the resurrection in Codex Bobiensis following Mark 16:3 –

"But suddenly at the third hour of the day there was darkness over the whole circle of the earth, and angels descended from the heavens, and as he [the Lord] was rising in the glory of the living God, at the same time they ascended with him; and immediately it was light."

Bobiensis???? That is an Old Latin biblical manuscript dating to the 4th or 5th century. The Old Latin manuscripts were of generally of poor and very uneven quality, differing from each other in large degree and from the Greek manuscripts. The passage you cited appears only in Bobiensis and as should be obvious by now, contradicts Paul’s ‘on the third day’ and the eyewitness stories and the general feeling of a bodily resurrection. Bobiensis merely repeats the beliefs of 2nd century Valentinian Gnosticism that Irenaeus described in detail. It cannot be taken seriously as in any way representing the earliest Christian beliefs.

So all of these passages can be interpreted as a direct exaltation to heaven without any intermediate time on the earth. Without prematurely reading in our knowledge of the later gospel appearances and Ascension in Luke/Acts, we would have no reason to interpret “raised� otherwise.

Sorry, no they cannot be interpreted that way as I have explained in detail above.

“The important point is that, in the primitive preaching, resurrection and exaltation belong together as two sides of one coin and that it implies a geographical transfer from earth to heaven (hence it is possible to say that in the primitive kerygma resurrection is ‘resurrection to heaven’).� – Arie Zwiep, The Ascension of the Messiah in Lukan Christology, pg. 127

“If in the earliest stage of tradition resurrection and exaltation were regarded as one event, an uninterrupted movement from grave to glory, we may infer that the appearances were ipso facto manifestations of the already exalted Lord, hence: appearances ‘from heaven’ (granted the the act of exaltation/enthronement took place in heaven). Paul seems to have shared this view. He regarded his experience on the road to Damascus as a revelation of God’s son in/to him (Gal 1:16), that is, as an encounter with the exalted Lord. He defended his apostleship with the assertion he had ‘seen the Lord’ (1 Cor 9:1) and did not hesitate to put his experience on equal footing with the apostolic Christophanies (1 Cor 15:8).� ibid pg. 129

“the general conviction in the earliest Christian preaching is that, as of the day of his resurrection, Jesus was in heaven, seated at the right hand of God. Resurrection and exaltation were regarded as two sides of one coin…� – ibid, pg. 130 https://books.google.com/books?id=QIW7J ... &q&f=false

As I have shown above, any use of the word ‘exaltation’ as equivalent to ‘ascension’ is in error. The Greek word does not mean anything like that. Also ‘an uninterrupted movement from grave to glory’ is inherently problematic. If Jesus ascended spiritually from the cross than the grave would not be involved. If he ascended from the grave, what was the delay, especially such a long one? There were no appearances ‘from heaven’ since the witnesses saw Jesus with their eyes, as the Greek says. (And if it was all about visions, Paul’s ‘proof’ falls apart.) The experience on the road to Damascus is an invention by Luke many years later to cover up the fact that Paul claimed to have gotten information from Jesus that the Apostles did not have and in fact contradicted their beliefs. Acts has Paul converted to an already fully formed religion. Equating Galatians with Acts demonstrates not having read either for content.

Zwieg has problems elsewhere in his book. His main theme in “The Ascension of the Messiah in Lukan Christology� assumes a thematic continuity between the Gospel of Luke and Acts concerning the Ascension, with the ascensions in both being directed to resolving the delay in the expected return of Jesus. In fact, the Gospel of Luke goes along with Mark’s theme of that return being imminent, as does Matthew (although both throw in hedges about the exact timeframe). The brief mention of the ascension at the end of Luke is more likely directed to finally giving an answer to ‘where is Jesus?’ Luke as ‘fixer upper’ of outstanding problems is especially evident in Acts, which is all about smoothing over problems in earlier scriptures. The more detailed Ascension scene in Acts 1 is definitely directed to addressing delay in the return of Jesus.

Since Paul has Jesus come from heaven originally, having Jesus back in heaven at some point in order to give Paul messages in visions is not surprising. Paul never addresses the question of what happened in between. Nobody does until Luke. This fits perfectly with my theme that the original story was the one told at the end of Mark, who shows strong evidence elsewhere of having early traditions in his possession. The body gets stolen (like Matthew tells us people were saying), someone says Jesus rose from the dead and went to Galilee. Enough for some people to believe it to be true and to spread the story. Since it fit the apocalyptic sentiments of the day, including resurrection of the dead, it would be accepted or at least told widely, If Jesus never dd rise from the dead, nobody ever saw him and all the different (and mutually contradictory) stories about witnesses get created from Paul on.

It goes without saying that if this was the earliest view in Christianity then it follows that all the "appearances" were originally understood as spiritual visions/revelations from heaven and the later gospel depictions of the Resurrected Christ, where he's physically seen and touched on earth are necessarily false.

It is very clear that the earliest view in Christianity was that the resurrection of Jesus was bodily and that the post-resurrection appearances were of a physical ‘with their eyes’ nature. All the attempts to show otherwise are seriously flawed, as shown above. Any ‘spiritual resurrection’ story would be extremely unimpressive. Jesus died and his spirit went someplace. So what? But ‘Jesus rose from the dead and was seen walking around in his body’? Wow!

[Imprecise Interrupt]

IMO, the tomb was discovered to be empty, not because the corpse came back to life and wandered away, but because the priests had secured a tomb that was already empty. A likely reason it could have been empty would have been due to body snatching like you have suggested and supplied evidence for it being a plausible explanation.

I am confused about the tomb being secured by the priests. Priests would have been from the Temple and would likely have had no interest in getting Jesus a tomb. Or am I understanding what you are saying?


BTW I will probably not be back here until sometime tomorrow.

[YahWhat]

[Replying to post 75 by Imprecise Interrupt]

"It is very clear that the earliest view in Christianity was that the resurrection of Jesus was bodily and that the post-resurrection appearances were of a physical ‘with their eyes’ nature."

No, the Greek word ὤφθη (ophthe) didn't necessarily mean a physical seeing with the eyes. Ophthe is the aorist passive form of horao.

"horá� – properly, see, often with metaphorical meaning: "to see with the mind" (i.e. spiritually see), i.e. perceive (with inward spiritual perception)." https://biblehub.com/greek/3708.htm

The same verb ὤφθη is used in the Greek Septuagint to refer to "the glory of the Lord" appearing, theophanies of God and also to visions and dreams. It is used a total of 36 times in the LXX and 30 of those are in reference to theophanies or angelic visitations. Here are a few examples:

1 Kings 3:5
At Gibeon the Lord appeared (ὤφθη) to Solomon during the night in a dream...

2 Samuel 22:11
He rode on a cherub, and flew; he was seen (ὤφθη) upon the wings of the wind.

Daniel 8:1
...a vision appeared (ὤφθη) to me...

In the New Testament out of 18 occurrences it is only used once to clearly refer to a physical appearance - Acts 7:26. Every other time it refers to supernatural appearances, visions, or signs being "seen" in heaven. https://biblehub.com/greek/o_phthe__3708.htm

So the word DOES NOT necessarily indicate physical seeing with the eyes and is usually implemented to designate the "spiritual revealing" type of seeing.

As for the resurrection appearances being "physical with their eyes" in nature, does Gal. 1:16 sound like Paul met a physical person face to face? He says "God revealed His Son in me" and in verse 12 refers to a "revelation." He uses this "revelation" as a resurrection appearance in 1 Cor 15:8. It therefore follows that visions/revelations of a personal nature counted as "resurrection appearances." Paul uses the verb ὤφθη for each "appearance" in the list and makes no distinction regarding nature, quality, or type. So we have an inference that the resurrection appearances were understood to be spiritual in nature, not physical real world encounters and Paul gives no evidence of a resurrected Jesus walking around on earth. We don't get the "two step" resurrection view where Jesus is resurrected to the earth then later floats to heaven until Luke/Acts. Paul's theology is perfectly consistent with the Risen Jesus going straight to heaven and "appearing" spiritually from there regardless of what "bodily" form he had.

As for Jesus appearing "bodily" there is some dispute over what Paul meant exactly by a "spiritual body." It seems he believed they were located in heaven though - 1 Cor 15:40-44 and 2 Cor 5:1-10.

I find your hand waving to be extremely weak and am not sure if I want to waste my time responding to your points. Obviously, if you believe the entire New Testament is fictional then the arguments won't be convincing. That's why they're tailored for apologists who actually do assert the documents are credible. I apologize if that wasn't clear.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

[Replying to post 75 by Imprecise Interrupt]

"It is very clear that the earliest view in Christianity was that the resurrection of Jesus was bodily and that the post-resurrection appearances were of a physical ‘with their eyes’ nature."

No, the Greek word ὤφθη (ophthe) didn't necessarily mean a physical seeing with the eyes. Ophthe is the aorist passive form of horao.

"horá� – properly, see, often with metaphorical meaning: "to see with the mind" (i.e. spiritually see), i.e. perceive (with inward spiritual perception)." https://biblehub.com/greek/3708.htm

The same verb ὤφθη is used in the Greek Septuagint to refer to "the glory of the Lord" appearing, theophanies of God and also to visions and dreams. It is used a total of 36 times in the LXX and 30 of those are in reference to theophanies or angelic visitations. Here are a few examples:

1 Kings 3:5
At Gibeon the Lord appeared (ὤφθη) to Solomon during the night in a dream...

2 Samuel 22:11
He rode on a cherub, and flew; he was seen (ὤφθη) upon the wings of the wind.

Daniel 8:1
...a vision appeared (ὤφθη) to me...

In the New Testament out of 18 occurrences it is only used once to clearly refer to a physical appearance - Acts 7:26. Every other time it refers to supernatural appearances, visions, or signs being "seen" in heaven. https://biblehub.com/greek/o_phthe__3708.htm

So the word DOES NOT necessarily indicate physical seeing with the eyes and is usually implemented to designate the "spiritual revealing" type of seeing.

As for the resurrection appearances being "physical with their eyes" in nature, does Gal. 1:16 sound like Paul met a physical person face to face? He says "God revealed His Son in me" and in verse 12 refers to a "revelation." He uses this "revelation" as a resurrection appearance in 1 Cor 15:8. It therefore follows that visions/revelations of a personal nature counted as "resurrection appearances." Paul uses the verb ὤφθη for each "appearance" in the list and makes no distinction regarding nature, quality, or type. So we have an inference that the resurrection appearances were understood to be spiritual in nature, not physical real world encounters and Paul gives no evidence of a resurrected Jesus walking around on earth. We don't get the "two step" resurrection view where Jesus is resurrected to the earth then later floats to heaven until Luke/Acts. Paul's theology is perfectly consistent with the Risen Jesus going straight to heaven and "appearing" spiritually from there regardless of what "bodily" form he had.

As for Jesus appearing "bodily" there is some dispute over what Paul meant exactly by a "spiritual body." It seems he believed they were located in heaven though - 1 Cor 15:40-44 and 2 Cor 5:1-10.

I find your hand waving to be extremely weak and am not sure if I want to waste my time responding to your points. Obviously, if you believe the entire New Testament is fictional then the arguments won't be convincing. That's why they're tailored for apologists who actually do assert the documents are credible. I apologize if that wasn't clear.

I was referring to the verb optanomai (G3700) as per Textus Receptus. But if you want to use horao (G3708) as per Novum Testamentum Graece, so be it. G3700 is a cognate of G3708. (Switching to English transliterations for the sake of the readers.)

The primary meaning of horao is to see with the eyes. [Ref] The connotation is to stare or actively look. If you examine the uses of horao in the NT (Ref), you will find that it is used mainly as actually seeing with the eyes, with the second most common use being in the sense of ‘see to it’ or ‘understand’ with the same meanings as in English (used that way six times). The only times that it is used in the sense of seeing a vision (Luke 1:22, Luke 24:23.) it is explicitly identified as being a vision. It is even questionable whether these really ought to be called visions. Were the angels not there and only broadcasting from heaven? The word is translated as ‘see’ 51 times in the KJV NT, which excludes Paul’s uses. (The KJV is based on Textus Receptus.) Excluding the 6 instances of ‘see to it’ etc., it means ‘see with the eyes’ 43 times and ‘see a vision’ only 2 times. This does not demonstrate that the 500+ witnesses in 1 Cor. 15 saw a vision. Statistically, one should infer that they saw with their eyes, the primary meaning of horao.

As I have said before, my interest is in what the authors intended to be understood. For Paul to have intended his readers to think that Jesus was only seen in visions would render his argument that the resurrection really happened untenable. His readers in Corinth were already doubting and he was trying to overcome their doubt. Visions? You mean like imaginary? It would also make hash of his statement that Jesus was buried and rose on the third day. The spirit of Jesus hung around until the third day and only then went to heaven? It is clear that Paul wanted his audience to understand a bodily resurrection. Since dead bodies generally need some reconditioning before they are suitable for immortality, Paul launches into his elaborate metaphor about plants being buried and spiritual bodies coming out of dead bodies. Definitely talking about bodily resurrection.

[YahWhat]

[Replying to post 78 by Imprecise Interrupt]

First of all, are you familiar with the numerous passages in the Old Testament where God appears to people or reveals important messages in visions? This alone makes it perfectly plausible that the Resurrection appearances were understood to be visions but in addition to that just read my argument #3 which demonstrates the visionary nature and cultural background of Second Temple Judaism. Just because something was claimed to have been "seen" it doesn't follow that these were understood to be objective sensory experiences that would have been witnessed by other bystanders.

I was referring to the verb optanomai (G3700) as per Textus Receptus.

1 Cor 15:5-8 doesn't use optanomai. It uses ὤφθη (ophthe) which is the aorist passive form of horao. I gave plenty of evidence above of this verb being used to indicate the spiritual/supernatural type of seeing. Did you miss that?

The primary meaning of horao is to see with the eyes.

It doesn't matter what the "primary meaning" is. What matters is the context in which the word is used. For instance,

Mark 1:9-11
At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw (εἶδεν) heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.�

Luke 10:18
He replied, “I saw (Ἐθεώ�ουν) Satan fall like lightning from heaven."


Now if you were standing there would you have actually seen heaven being torn open or Satan falling like lightning with your eyes? Obviously not. That's why you need to be careful and read the context. Even though these passages are using the normal Greek words for "seeing with your eyes," the "seeing" is being used as a figure of speech or describing a subjective/personal visionary experience. This is not surprising considering the cultural background context. Second Temple Jews routinely claimed to have visionary experiences all the time.

If you examine the uses of horao in the NT (Ref), you will find that it is used mainly as actually seeing with the eyes, with the second most common use being in the sense of ‘see to it’ or ‘understand’ with the same meanings as in English (used that way six times). The only times that it is used in the sense of seeing a vision (Luke 1:22, Luke 24:23.) it is explicitly identified as being a vision. It is even questionable whether these really ought to be called visions. Were the angels not there and only broadcasting from heaven?

Why are you ignoring my main point which is how ὤφθη is used? You know, the actual form of the verb used by Paul and the early creed in 1 Cor 15:5-8? The characteristic term used in the LXX to refer to theophanies, the "Glory of the Lord" appearing, visions and dreams?

Matthew 17:3 V-AIP-3S
GRK: καὶ ἰδοὺ ὤφθη α�τοῖς Μωυσῆς
INT: and behold appeared to them Moses - Called a "vision" in Mt. 17:9.

Mark 9:4 V-AIP-3S
GRK: καὶ ὤφθη α�τοῖς Ἠλίας
INT: And appeared to them Elijah - Same Transfiguration appearance described in Matthew

Luke 1:11 V-AIP-3S
GRK: ὤφθη δὲ α�τῷ
INT: appeared moreover to him - "an angel appeared"

Luke 22:43 V-AIP-3S
GRK: ὤφθη δὲ α�τῷ
INT: appeared moreover to him - "an angel from heaven appeared"

Luke 24:34 V-AIP-3S
GRK: κ��ιος καὶ ὤφθη Σίμωνι
INT: Lord and appeared to Simon - taken directly from 1 Cor 15:5 where Paul equates the appearance to his vision with the same verb

Acts 7:2 V-AIP-3S
GRK: τῆς δόξης ὤφθη τῷ πατ�ὶ
INT: of glory appeared to the father - "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham"

Acts 7:26 V-AIP-3S
GRK: �πιο�σῃ ἡμέ�ᾳ ὤφθη α�τοῖς μαχομένοις
NAS: day he appeared to them as they were fighting together,
INT: following day he appeared to those who were contending

Acts 7:30 V-AIP-3S
GRK: �τῶν τεσσε�άκοντα ὤφθη α�τῷ �ν
INT: years forty appeared to him in - "an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush"

Acts 13:31 V-AIP-3S
GRK: ὃς ὤφθη �πὶ ἡμέ�ας
INT: who appeared for days - compare this to Acts 10:40-41 "but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead." If they were physical appearances then why wasn't he seen by everyone? Why does the author go out of his way to restrict the appearances to a choice few? Saying God "caused him to be seen" is an odd way of saying they were physical appearances. It sounds more like he was flipping a switch.

Acts 16:9 V-AIP-3S
GRK: τῷ Πα�λῳ ὤφθη ἀνὴ� Μακεδών
INT: to Paul appeared A man of Macedonia - (in a vision)

1 Corinthians 15:5 V-AIP-3S
GRK: καὶ ὅτι ὤφθη Κηφᾷ εἶτα
INT: and that he appeared to Cephas then - the same verb is used for Paul's vision in the same list.

1 Corinthians 15:6 V-AIP-3S
GRK: ἔπειτα ὤφθη �πάνω πεντακοσίοις
INT: Then he appeared to more than five hundred - the same verb is used for Paul's vision in the same list.

1 Corinthians 15:7 V-AIP-3S
GRK: ἔπειτα ὤφθη Ἰακώβῳ εἶτα
INT: Then he appeared to James then - the same verb is used for Paul's vision in the same list.

1 Corinthians 15:8 V-AIP-3S
GRK: τῷ �κτ�ώματι ὤφθη κἀμοί
INT: the untimely birth he appeared also to me - which was a vision

1 Timothy 3:16 V-AIP-3S
GRK: �ν πνε�ματι ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις �κη��χθη
INT: in [the] Spirit was seen by angels was proclaimed

Revelation 11:19 V-AIP-3S
GRK: ο��ανῷ καὶ ὤφθη ἡ κιβωτὸς
INT: heaven and was seen the ark - takes place in heaven

Revelation 12:1 V-AIP-3S
GRK: σημεῖον μέγα ὤφθη �ν τῷ
INT: a sign great was seen in - heaven

Revelation 12:3 V-AIP-3S
GRK: καὶ ὤφθη ἄλλο σημεῖον
INT: And was seen another sign - in heaven

The only occurrence where the word can plausibly be argued to clearly mean a physical appearance indicating normal seeing is in Acts 7:26 but it seems Luke is just using the word there to compare Moses to Jesus. All the other instances are in reference to spiritual visionary seeing, angels appearing, things being "seen" in heaven.

The word is translated as ‘see’ 51 times in the KJV NT, which excludes Paul’s uses. (The KJV is based on Textus Receptus.) Excluding the 6 instances of ‘see to it’ etc., it means ‘see with the eyes’ 43 times and ‘see a vision’ only 2 times. This does not demonstrate that the 500+ witnesses in 1 Cor. 15 saw a vision. Statistically, one should infer that they saw with their eyes, the primary meaning of horao.

The appearance to the 500 could have been nothing more than a shared mass ecstatic worship experience like people have in Pentecostal churches today. It doesn't follow that they physically saw the Risen Jesus standing in front of them. Plenty of people claim to have "experienced" Jesus without actually seeing him and, as I've demonstrated, the word ὤφθη can carry the meaning of just "experiencing the presence" of God or Jesus.

Notice how Paul uses ἀποκαλ�ψεως/ἀποκαλ�ψαι "revelation" "a revealing" in Gal. 1:12-16 which is not a verb of seeing with the eyes. Yet, he still felt comfortable using this experience as a "resurrection appearance" of Jesus in 1 Cor 15:8. We know Gal. 1:16 and 1 Cor 15:8 are talking about the same experience because of the genetic link established by comparing Gal. 1:13 and 1 Cor 15:9. In both instances, Paul mentions persecuting the church. He ceased doing so when Jesus "was revealed" or "appeared" to him. It follows that horao and the aorist passive form ophthe can have the "spiritual revealing" connotation.

As I have said before, my interest is in what the authors intended to be understood. For Paul to have intended his readers to think that Jesus was only seen in visions would render his argument that the resurrection really happened untenable.

Prove it. Are you even familiar with how superstitious people were from 2,000 years ago? Are you familiar with the diversity of afterlife beliefs these people held?

His readers in Corinth were already doubting and he was trying to overcome their doubt.

Which makes perfect sense if the original appearances were understood to be visionary experiences of Jesus from heaven. That's why we see, in each consecutive source, (after the story was being peddled to the gentiles) that the resurrection appearances become more physical/corporeal in nature. See my argument #5.

May I ask, if the resurrection belief spawned from Jesus' body going missing from a tomb, then, why doesn't Paul mention that to convince the doubting Corinthians? Wouldn't that have greatly helped his argument and also clarified the question "with what type of body will they come?" in verse 35?

You mean like imaginary? It would also make hash of his statement that Jesus was buried and rose on the third day. The spirit of Jesus hung around until the third day and only then went to heaven?

Standard Jewish belief would have Jesus' soul go to Sheol - Romans 10:6-7. Being "raised" on the third day is ambiguous and does not necessitate that the Risen Jesus was physically raised to the earth, stayed there, then only later floated to heaven. Without your knowledge of the later two-step resurrection/ascension in Luke/Acts, you'd have no reason to interpret "raised" other than a simple one-step raising to heaven.

It is clear that Paul wanted his audience to understand a bodily resurrection. Since dead bodies generally need some reconditioning before they are suitable for immortality, Paul launches into his elaborate metaphor about plants being buried and spiritual bodies coming out of dead bodies. Definitely talking about bodily resurrection.

I'm not disputing that the resurrection involved a "body" of some sort. What I'm disputing is that the body was necessarily a physically risen corpse that walked around on earth, was physically seen, touched and so forth.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

This is in reply to the third link provided by Yahwat in a previous post.

The cultural background of Judaism supports the hypothesis that the Resurrection appearances of Jesus were originally understood to be visions.

An often cited competitor to the Resurrection hypothesis is the "hallucination hypothesis." It usually goes like this:

"The apostles just hallucinated Jesus after his death."

While some atheists and agnostics may make this argument, I intend to show when apologists address it as such they're actually arguing against a strawman and failing to take into account the Jewish cultural background at the time.

First of all, the biblical texts do not use the word "hallucination." That is a modern conception we're superimposing onto an ancient culture that wouldn't have necessarily thought about the experiences in that way.

Rather,

"Second Temple Judaism was a visionary culture, in which people believed that people saw appearances of God and angels, and had visions and dreams in which God and angels appeared to them." - as the scholar Maurice Casey puts it in his book Jesus of Nazareth. https://bulletin.equinoxpub.com/2011/04 ... urrection/

So no, these experiences would have not been seen as "hallucinations" but as genuine experiences with the divine, no different than real world encounters to them. These types of experiences were considered perfectly normal to Jews in this time period. Of course, today, us modern folk see a problem with accepting testimony from people claiming to have "visions" due to their subjective and uncorroborated nature. Even Christian apologists have a hard time accepting visionary testimony. This becomes immediately obvious when apologists vehemently argue against the notion that the appearances of Jesus were just mere "visions." They obviously don't take visions seriously either which is ironic considering both the OT and NT have numerous passages where people experience "visions." More on this in a moment.

The problem with Casey is that he wants to have his “hallucination� theory apply to every instance in the Gospels of Jesus being post-resurrection. As I have discussed at length above, in the only resurrection account that could be based on early tradition (Mark), nobody sees the risen Jesus. All the others are obvious fiction each deriving from the previous one in accordance with the agenda of each. The sightings of Jesus in those resurrection narratives are visibly invented. No need to apply ‘hallucination’ labels to them. Casey himself even admits that they are all rewrites but does not take to heart the ramifications of that. He also thinks that Paul’s witness list in 1 Cor 15 is real, that there really were 500+ simultaneous witnesses, explained by 500+ identical hallucinations going on at the same time. I have argued upstream that Paul made it all up to convince the Corinthians who have been told some other story.

I get the sense from reading Casey of a divinity student turned non-believer (which he was) possibly trying to put to bed emergent doubts that ‘maybe the scriptures are true after all’ and having to deal with every single bit of scriptural resurrection ‘evidence’ with the same handy hallucination sledgehammer employed throughout the latter part of the book. (Which BTW is “Jesus of Nazareth: An independent historian's account of his life and teaching�.)

In addition to the famous visions in Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel, 1 Enoch, etc which would have been well known to the Jews in Jesus' day let's take a look at a couple of passages in the New Testament to give an example of what was claimed to have been "seen" while using Greek verbs for normal seeing.

Mark 1:9-11 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.�

Note that Mark 1:10 uses the word eido (G1492) and not horao, which supposedly means vision but as seen in my post above, usually does not. While eido is commonly used for ordinary seeing, it is also very often used in the sense of knowing or understanding.

Mark may be referring to the opening of Ezekiel.

Mark 1:10
And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open

Ezekiel 1
1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

If so, Mark may be saying that Jesus is seeing a vision from God, conveying knowledge, that he is indeed the Son of God. Notice that no one else seems to see this. Because of this, it is clear that this is literary invention, connecting Paul’s Son of God image to Jesus.

Luke 10:18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

This one is just silly. Jesus is expressing joy that sending out all those disciples on their own worked out. They were successful and the enemy (Satan) is on the run. It’s a metaphor, just like ‘on the run’. BTW Luke uses theoreo (G2334) for seeing, not horao. Do all words that mean ‘see’ refer to visions?

Luke 10
17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!� 18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.�

Acts 7:55-56 "But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,� he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.�

Acts 10:9-10 "He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners."

I am sure you know by now my opinion of Acts. It is an attempt to This section is a bunch of references to earlier scriptures.

Acts 7
51 “You stiff-necked people [1], uncircumcised in heart and ears [2], you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One [3], whom you have now betrayed and murdered, 53 you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.[4]�

54 Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. 55 But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. [5] 56 And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.� [5][6] 57 But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. 58 Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.� [7] 60 And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.�[8] And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearc ... ultspp=500
[2] Romans 2:29
[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearc ... ultspp=500
[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=ESV
[5] Romans 8:34
[6] Ezekiel 1:1
[7] Luke 23:46
[8] Luke 23:34

Obvious invention. BTW Luke uses ateniao (G816) “look steadfastly� in the above passage, not horao.

The Acts 10 scene with the sheet coming down and all the animals on it is Luke’s way of covering up the friction between Paul and Peter about keeping a kosher diet. Jesus forgot to tell Peter that the Law in no longer in effect, so God tells him later on. This scene is once again invention. But notice that Luke has Peter in a trance. As with the angels in the Gospel of Luke who are identified as visions and the dove in Mark 1 that only Jesus sees, it is always made apparent when it is a vision.

John 1:32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him."

The dove in the baptism of Jesus scene appears in all four Gospels. BTW John uses the word theaomai (G2300) not horao.

Did Jesus, Stephen, Peter and John really "see" these things? Obviously, we're dealing with an ancient superstitious culture that did not make distinctions like we do between normal "seeing" with the eyes and having some sort of spiritual religious experience. The authors also may be just using "seeing" as a figure of speech. This must be kept in mind when reading passages in Paul such as 1 Cor 9:1 "Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" or saying Jesus "appeared/was seen" in 1 Cor 15:5-8.

None of these people ever saw any of those things. The stories are fictional. But as I just showed, they did know the difference between seeing real things and visions and the passages made it clear.

What must be kept in mind is that Paul really wanted to establish himself as equal to the original Twelve. He needed to have encountered Jesus face to face. In 2 Corinthians 12 he describes being “caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know�. That is, not a vision sent from heaven but Paul being taken up to heaven. Paul claims that he really saw Jesus face to face there, just like those Apostles did on earth when Jesus was alive. (Or so Paul says.) This is how he justifies claiming to have seen Jesus just like all those witnesses. If he wanted that ‘seeing’ by the witnesses to be just visions then he would not have had to justify anything. Nonetheless he does. Note that 2 Corinthians is once again about Paul having been contradicted and claiming that he is the equal of those highly esteemed Apostles.

Even the esteemed Jewish historian Josephus claims that visions he had in dreams inspired his historiography.

"For as shown in the historical works of Josephus, our only other extant example of first-century Jewish-Greek “historiography�, vision reports were widely accepted as a legitimate historical source. As Robert Gnuse explains (in Dreams and Dream Reports in the Writings of Josephus, 1996), Josephus considered that by virtue of the revelations that he received in dreams, he was also a prophet, and treated his revelatory experiences on a par with other historical sources. Josephus believed that “the best historians were the prophets who interpreted events under divine inspiration� (Gnuse, p. 23), and also believed that he was creating an “inspired� historiography based on his own revelatory experiences. This only goes to show us how different Luke’s historiographical criteria would have been from our own modern standards." http://bulletin.equinoxpub.com/2011/04/ ... istencies/

Josephus said nothing about visions. It was all about dreams and he knew they were dreams. This is irrelevant.

Now, as for the "appearances" of Jesus, Paul, in the earliest and only firsthand source in reference to the resurrection, tells us in 1 Cor 15:5-8 that Jesus "appeared" to some of his followers and "appeared" to Paul himself. The word Paul uses for each appearance is ὤφθη (Greek - �phthē) which, according to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. 5 pg. 330 is:

“the characteristic term to denote the (non-visual) presence of the self-revealing God.�

The word is a technical term for being “in the presence of revelation as such, without reference to the nature of its perception, or to the presence of God who reveals Himself in His Word. It thus seems that when ὤφθη is used to denote the resurrection appearances there is no primary emphasis on seeing as sensual or mental perception. The dominant thought is that the appearances are revelations, encounters with the risen Lord who reveals Himself or is revealed, cf. Gal. 1:16…..they experienced His presence.� – Pg. 358

“When Paul classifies the Damascus appearance with the others in 1 Cor 15:5 this is not merely because he regards it as equivalent….It is also because he regards this appearance similar in kind. In all the appearances the presence of the risen Lord is a presence in transfigured corporeality, 1 Cor 15:42. It is the presence of the exalted Lord from heaven.� – pg. 359

Interestingly enough, the "appearance" to Paul in 1 Cor 15:8, an experience that he describes as "God revealing his Son in him," (Gal. 1:16) happened to Paul while Jesus was believed to be in heaven. It was not a physical encounter with a revived corpse that was located on the earth like the later gospels describe the disciples seeing and touching Jesus. Therefore, when Paul uses ὤφθη for each appearance in the list it seems he's saying Jesus just spiritually "appeared" to everyone "from heaven" as well. Paul makes no distinction between the appearances nor does he give any evidence anywhere in his letters where the Resurrected Jesus was experienced in a more "physical" way. The physical encounters in the gospels and the Ascension in Luke/Acts seem to be later developments that show a tendency to a more corporeal/physical resurrection. As for the "group" appearances in 1 Cor 15:5-7, these could have been nothing more than mass ecstatic worship experiences like people have in church today. When praying, singing, or speaking in tongues, groups of people will claim that they "experienced" Jesus without actually "seeing" him! So apologists can't just appeal to the group appearances and say "See, they weren't subjective. They must have really happened because multiple people experienced them." We have, on record, group visions - the Virgin Mary sightings that happened in Zeitoun, Egypt and the "Miracle of the Sun" that supposedly happened in Portugal. Not only do we have documented cases where groups of people experience "visions," as we've seen, just appealing to the common shared religious experience in church refutes the apologist's argument.

As I have documented earlier, when the uses Paul makes of the word horao are put to the side, the word is used 43 times in the normal sense of seeing and only two times as visions, both specifically identified as such. It is simply not the case that horao is a ‘technical term’ for anything. It means ‘see’ in the ordinary sense. Anyway, as I have shown above, different words are also used for ‘seeing’ when the intent is clearly a vision.

Once again, Paul’s prior explanation to the Corinthians was contradicted by others. For him to have the witnesses only have visions is going to defeat his argument that the resurrection was real. For him to use any term other than horao, used with respect to the witnesses, with respect to himself would be to undermine his claim of special knowledge. Recall that he claims that this is his gospel. Paul justifies having met with Jesus in heaven and not a vision on earth in 2 Corinthians 12 as quoted above. And a purely spiritual resurrection cannot be reconciled with, as Paul says, Jesus being buried and rising on the third day. This is about a bodily resurrection. And as I have said before, that claim can easily traced to Mark having access to an early tradition about an empty tomb and Jesus leaving town. Maybe what Paul was contradicted about was the claim that there were witnesses to the risen Jesus. That certainly seems to be what he is trying to defend.