Dear Bart
I felt compelled finally to write to you after hearing a classic replay Unbelievable? podcast between you and Mike Licona on the Biblical evidence for the resurrection, first aired on 16th April, 2011. Inexplicably, I can no longer find it on the Unbelievable? podcast, but I’ve found it on YouTube as posted by yourself, so I obviously didn’t imagine hearing it!
Near the end of that debate, when you said that miracles must be excluded from any historical study of figures from the ancient world, I think you are right up to a point. Where the miracle of the resurrection is concerned, an interdisciplinary approach is called for, one which weaves together science, philosophy and history. The philosophical implications of the scientific data must be carefully considered, together with the testimonies of those who at least were convinced that they saw appearances of a Jesus who they believed had been resurrected from the dead, and were willing to be persecuted, even die, for their beliefs. (Personal conviction and willingness to suffer persecution, neither of which are miraculous in themselves, can surely be admitted as historically valid data thereby subject to historical investigation.) Justin’s comparison of Biblical evidence for the resurrection (or miracles in general) with Intelligent Design was a pertinent one, since many evolutionary biologists define ID as a kind of pseudo-science; but this description, whether fair or unfair, is based upon the legitimate fact that God’s existence is not subject to observational testing in the same way that, say neutrinos or other sub-atomic particles, are. ID is a theory where philosophy and science intertwine: the fundamental question is whether we can make a legitimate inference to divine activity from the scientific data that we do observe – fine-tuning in terms of the constants of physics, the genetic code, biochemical organization at the molecular level, and so on.
Similarly, regarding the resurrection of Jesus, can one make a legitimate inference from the reported data, namely the discovery of an empty tomb by the first witnesses, the appearances of a ‘posthumous’ Jesus to those same witnesses, and the willingness of those witnesses to suffer persecution and even death for what they were convinced had really taken place, that Jesus really had been resurrected from the dead? None of this would constitute hard evidence in the scientific, or indeed historical, sense, but if miracles understood as extraordinary, supernaturally caused events are considered inadmissible from the outset, then that will obviously rule out the resurrection of Jesus a priori. That’s precisely why an interdisciplinary approach is called for. Similarly, I agree with atheist philosopher Stephen Law that we cannot establish Jesus’ historical existence beyond all reasonable doubt, but is there, to use Alvin Plantinga’s terminology, strong warrant for believing that not only Jesus of Nazareth historically existed, but also that he was resurrected from the dead after being put to death on the orders of Pontius Pilate?[1]
In that debate with Mike, you pointed out an apparent contradiction between Jesus’ command to the disciples to meet him in Galilee where they would see him, as reported in Matthew and Mark, and the command as reported by Luke where Jesus instructs the disciples to remain in Jerusalem. If there is an apparent contradiction, however, that contradiction would still apply if no miracle had happened at all. Suppose Jesus had informed his disciples that he was going away on a business trip, but that when he returned, he would meet them in Galilee. On returning to Jerusalem, he meets up with some of the women disciples, and tells them to report to the apostles that which he had told them before departing on his trip, that they were to meet up in Galilee. Later, the same day, he meets up with the apostles (in Jerusalem) and tells them to remain in the city until they receive holy spirit. The apparent contradiction doesn’t suddenly arise because of the miracle; it would have been there anyway, just as there are many apparent contradictions in scripture that have nothing to do with miracles at all.
It seems easy enough to reconcile this apparent contradiction by considering the order of post-resurrection events:
On Nisan 16, the day of Jesus’ reported resurrection (on the first day of the week), Jesus first appears to the women, then to Simon Peter, then to the other apostles. Later the apostles, in accordance with the instructions given by Jesus, go to Galilee. This would have been logical since much of Jesus’ ministry was conducted, including the performance of many of his miracles, in Galilee, so he had a large number of disciples in that region. This was most likely where he appeared to upwards of 500 disciples as recorded by Paul at 1 Corinthians 15:6.
Regarding 1 Corinthians chapter 15, it’s highly unlikely that the resurrection accounts in the gospels were constructed on the basis of that chapter, even if they were written chronologically after Paul wrote the first letter to the Corinthians. At 1 Corinthians 15:4-8, Paul only lists men as witnesses to the resurrection appearances; he doesn’t list any women. If the gospel writers were constructing their resurrection appearances using 1 Corinthians 15 as their launchpad, why do Matthew, Luke and John have women as the first witnesses to the resurrected Jesus, as well as the first to discover the empty tomb? (Mark only describes the latter, since in the original manuscript, before the later addition of vv. 9-20 to Mark 16, we simply have the report of the resurrection, but no resurrection appearances.) As N.T. Wright rhetorically asks, “Excuse me, Paul, where are the women?”[2] It was well known that women were not regarded as trustworthy witnesses in first-century Palestine unless their testimony could be seconded by that of at least one man. However, Matthew, Luke and John have a resurrected Jesus not only appearing independently to women, but also that those same women should report to the apostles what they had seen, such that the gospel accounts are consistent in describing Jesus’ resurrection appearances to men as following the women’s reports of Jesus’ resurrection to those same men (which, according to Luke 24:12, the apostles didn’t believe, treating the women’s sayings as “nonsense”).
From the gospel narratives, it is possible to construct the following sequence of events:
- Appearances of the resurrected Jesus to women
- Appearance of the resurrected Jesus to Simon Peter / Cephas; here Paul and Luke agree
- (1 Corinthians 15:5, Luke 24:34). It seems reasonable to infer that Jesus appeared to Peter after he discovered the empty tomb, following the women’s report, as recorded at Luke 24:12
- Appearance of the resurrected Jesus to the other apostles; instructions to stay in the city of Jerusalem (Luke 24:49)
- The apostles (and presumably other disciples in Judea) go up to Galilee, where Jesus gives them instructions (Matthew 28:19)
- The apostles and others return to Jerusalem, where they remain until the promised holy spirit arrives (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4).
Points 1-3 would have taken place on Nisan 16, the day of Jesus’ reported resurrection. Points 4 and 5 would have taken place after Nisan 16, but before Jesus’ ascension to heaven on Iyyar 25, assuming that he remained on earth for 40 days after his resurrection, according to Acts 1:3.
Jesus’ instructions to his apostles that they were to remain in Jerusalem so as to wait for the promised holy spirit dovetails with the instruction that they were to be witnesses first of all in Jerusalem, then in Samaria, and finally to the most distant parts of the earth (Acts 1:8). The outpouring of holy spirit, recorded at Acts chapter 2, takes place in Jerusalem, where many Jewish proselytes besides Jews themselves had come in order to celebrate the Passover festival and the subsequent seven-day Festival of the Unfermented Cakes, and were evidently still in Jerusalem at the time of the Festival of Pentecost (Acts 2:1,5-11).
The point therefore that Jesus was making when he instructed his apostles to remain in Jerusalem was that they should do so following his ascension to heaven, when he departed from them, and when they would receive holy spirit a few days after that event (Acts 1:5). At Luke 24:49 he was simply giving them advance instructions to remain in the city of Jerusalem. Since the apostles fled when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and were in hiding due to the fear of the Jews (John 20:19), Jesus was most likely reassuring them that the holy spirit would give them courage not to flee from their persecutors. Indeed, they seem to receive a ‘down payment’ of the holy spirit when Jesus says to them, “Receive holy spirit” (John 20:22).[3]
The apostles could have been tempted to remain in Galilee where all of them (except Judas who had committed suicide, and who came from Judea) were originally from, but Jesus’ instructions would have made it clear that they were to return to Jerusalem later and to remain there. The trip to Galilee was to be a holiday excursion, as it were, not where they would permanently reside in supposed safety from their persecutors.
Coincidentally, John’s account in the final chapter of his gospel (21) explains that Jesus manifested himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, i.e. the Sea of Galilee. So the apostles had obviously travelled to Galilee, and it seems reasonable to conclude that they did this in accordance with Jesus’ instructions expressed both prior to, and reiterated after, his death and resurrection, as the parallel accounts of Matthew and Mark make clear (Matthew 26:32, 28:10; Mark 14:28, 16:7).
So I do think that there’s a way of looking at the post-resurrection accounts in the gospels where we can see a series of apparently unintended, ‘happy’ coincidences that override what appear to be contradictions on a superficial reading. It’s true that there are discrepancies in the accounts regarding the number of angels at the tomb and where they are situated, e.g. Matthew’s account has an angel sitting on the stone rolled away from the tomb entrance, Mark’s account has a young man sitting on the right side of the tomb clothed in a white robe, and Luke’s account has two young men in shining garments standing by the women. Could it be that the two young men are the first angel sitting on the stone that the women initially see, together with the second man in white robes sitting by the tomb when they go inside? If you’re sceptical about the resurrection, you’ll see a half-empty glass and a contradiction between the three accounts; if you believe that the resurrection really occurred, you’ll see a half-full glass where the discrepancies between the three accounts can be reconciled.
If you factor in John’s account, you have two angels seen by Mary Magdalene, who has returned to the tomb after reporting to Peter and John that the tomb is empty, but at that point she assumes that Jesus’ body has been removed from the tomb and laid elsewhere (John 20:2, 12-13). (There is no hint at this stage that she thought Jesus had been resurrected from the dead.) These two angels may well be the same as the two men reported by Luke, and the appearances of these two to Mary Magdalene, as well as the subsequent appearance of Jesus himself to her (20:14-17), would have taken place after Jesus’ appearance to the other women who also witnessed the empty tomb, but stayed behind whilst Mary Magdalene immediately left the tomb to report to Peter and John that Jesus’ body had apparently gone missing.
If you adopt the half-empty-glass sceptical point of view, you could argue that such a position would not at all be satisfied by four gospel accounts where the description of post-resurrection events – from the discovery of the empty tomb to the later appearances of Jesus to first the women, then the apostles, and then other disciples in Galilee, before Jesus’ ascension back to heaven 40 days after the resurrection in Bethany, as recorded at Luke 24:50 – are virtually the same, since you could argue that, adopting the orthodox consensus view that Mark was the first of the four gospels to have been written, Matthew, Luke and John would have simply copied their accounts from Mark and added a few details of their own so that their accounts wouldn’t have been facsimiles of Mark’s account. From that point of view, as a believer, you’re in a no-win situation.
However, if, as I wrote at the beginning, you adopt a multidisciplinary approach to the resurrection that encompasses science and philosophy as well as history, then I think you can make a really strong case (even if it can’t meet the criterion of beyond all reasonable doubt) that the resurrection was indeed a historical event; and if it didn’t really happen, then I think we can both wholeheartedly agree that Christianity would be dead in the water. As Paul himself wrote, “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied more than anyone” (1 Corinthians 15:19).
Warm regards
Gareth
[1] Please find attached with this letter the letter of response I wrote to Stephen Law after he sent me his “Evidence, Miracles and the Resurrection of Jesus”. In the final section of my response (“From Deism to Biblical Monotheism – Not Such a Great Leap”) I implicitly argue that, when it comes to determining the historicity of Biblical miracles, a historiographical approach is insufficient; we must adopt an interdisciplinary approach which weaves together philosophy and science as well as history. You can read Law’s essay on his website: https://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2012/04/published-in-faith-and-philosophy-2011.html
[2] N.T. Wright, “The Self-Revelation of God in Human History”, Appendix B to Anthony Flew (with Roy Abraham Varghese), There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (HarperOne, 2007),
p. 207. He goes on to cite the Greek philosopher Celsus, who, as you know, was a fierce critic of Christianity, denouncing the resurrection as a myth based on the testimony of some hysterical women (Against Celsus, 2.55).
[3] It certainly looks, prima facie, that the appearance of Jesus recorded at John 20:19-23 is the same as the appearance recorded at Luke 24:36-49; at this point, Jesus has already appeared to Simon Peter/ Cephas and now appears to the rest of the apostles, where Thomas is described as not being present the first time this happens. John’s account makes it clear that this first appearance to the apostles as a group (minus Thomas) takes place on Nisan 16, the same day as Jesus’ resurrection, and following the thread in Luke 24, it would have been most likely well into evening, after sundown, that Jesus would have made this appearance to the 10 apostles. Indeed, John 20:19 affirms that this appearance took place “late that day”.