Skip to main content

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~

The first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” (2 Corinthians 5:16) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days.

After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his letters—Paul didn’t immediately hie himself to Jerusalem to meet with Jesus’ family, or retrace Jesus’ steps, or sit at the feet of Jesus’ apostles. Au contraire, “I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.” (Galatians 1:17) And when, after a number of years, Paul suddenly decided he’d been born to preach Jesus, he says in no uncertain terms, “ I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:11-12, NIV) In short, like other early Christian writers, Paul appears to have had casual relationship at best with historical details.

Here is Paul on the resurrection:

“I passed on to you as of primary importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the Twelve, then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, the greater number of whom remain until now, but some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all he appeared even to me, as to one born before his time.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

In Paul’s account there is no mention of an empty tomb, no women witnesses, and no Men in White. Instead, “more than five hundred brothers”—not mentioned in the gospels—see Jesus “at one time.” Apologists have cranked out a veritable mountain of verbiage attempting to paper over the several cracks in this narrative, but the opinion of George Riley summarizes the general conclusion of mainstream scholars: “a simple comparison of the Gospels and 1 Corinthians 15 shows that the two traditions cannot be reconciled.” (Resurrection Reconsidered, 89.) Even apologetic writers are forced to admit, “Paul’s list of appearances in 1 Corinthians and the resurrection narratives in the gospels are remarkably—and puzzlingly—ill-matched.” (Richard Bauckham, The Laing Lecture at London Bible College, 2.)

The core of the 1 Corinthians passage—“that Christ died...that he was buried...that he was raised...that he appeared”—almost certainly derives from early Christian liturgy like a similar passage in 1 Timothy 3:16, falsely attributed to Paul: “Who was manifest in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on by the world, taken up in glory.”The phrasing of the text of 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 raises several questions. First, did Paul even write it?

There is no way to know if the texts in our copies of the New Testament are reliable representations of what the authors—whoever they were—originally wroteCiting “tensions” between the passage and its context, Hans Conzelmann concluded, the “language is not Paul’s.” (Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 20 (1966), 22.) The inconclusive debate over what, if any, part of the five hundred-witness story could be traced back to Paul raises the possibility that none of it was written by Paul and that it is instead an interpolation, a pious forgery inserted into a genuine letter to bolster belief in the resurrection. As Peter Kearney observes, the mention that “some have died” marks the letter as addressed to “a community moving toward an expectation of fulfillment, but already marked by death.” (Novum Testamentum 22 (1980), 282.) Indeed, 1 Corinthians 15 addresses what appears to be acute anxiety provoked by the death of believers who expected an imminent Parousia as a comparison with 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 suggests.

Scholars have proposed as many as seven instances of interpolated text in 1 Corinthians—a forged passage inserted into a genuine letter or a marginal note included in the text due to careless copying. (Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 (1981), 582-589.) Robert Price has identified a number of reasons for regarding the 1 Corinthians passage as suspicious: Paul’s dependence on “revelation” rather than “historical” sources, the absence of the five hundred witnesses in the gospels, and the speculative and unconvincing efforts by apologists to harmonize Paul’s account with the gospel material. (The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, 69-104.)

In short, there is no way to know if the texts in our copies of the New Testament are reliable representations of what the authors—whoever they were—originally wrote. Eldon Epp, a respected textual scholar, calls the surviving form of the New Testament text the “interpretive text-form,” noting that “it was used in the life, worship, and teaching of the church” and therefore subject to “reformulations motivated by theological, liturgical, ideological, historical, stylistic, or other factors.” (Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999), 277.) Anyone who doubts this was the case can take a gospel parallel in hand and compare how Matthew and Luke alter Mark, adding, subtracting, and editing Mark’s text to suit their whim, even while preserving much of Mark’s original wording and timeline.

Textual scholars believe Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around 55 CE. Our first continuous-text manuscript that contains the passage in question is P46, tentatively dated from the late 2nd to early 3rd century (175-225 CE)—there is no known original of any New Testament document or, for that matter, of any book of similar antiquity. So we have, at the very least, a century between the composition of 1 Corinthians and our first surviving copy of real significance. To claim, as apologists usually do, that the text in question is authentic and that it reliably reflects “what happened” is a convenient assumption, nothing more.

And that raises a second question: assuming Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, was he primarily making a historical claim or a theological claim? Samuel Brandon, in an article entitled “The Historical Element in Primitive Christianity,” concluded, “the Eucharist, as set forth by Paul, in effect lifts the historical event of the death of Jesus completely out of its setting in time and space and confers upon it that transcendent significance that characterizes...the various mystery cults.” (Numen 2 (1955), 167.) That Paul was writing theology, not history, is clear and the verdict of historian Robert Grant remains secure: “No word in this account [1 Corinthians 15:3-8] suggests that the appearances of Jesus were other than ‘spiritual’: it was not the ‘flesh and blood’ of Jesus which the witnesses saw...what [Paul] saw, and what he believes other Christians saw was the ‘spiritual body’ of Jesus.” (Journal of Religion 28 (1948), 125.)

Inconsistent and internally contradictory, the resurrection accounts are by turns hallucinatory and comically improbable, bearing all the marks of folklore and ad hoc invention. The original “witness” of the women at the tomb is by turns disbelieved and dismissed. An angel rolls away the stone blocking the entrance to the tomb, yet Jesus walks through locked doors. Jesus is palpable to the touch, yet suddenly appears and disappears. The disciples see Jesus, but mistake him for someone else, or see him and yet continue to doubt or react with fear. Jesus repeatedly foretells his resurrection, but the disciples have to be reminded of his prediction and when confronted with evidence, do not know what to make of it. If this potpourri of contradiction is really the sine qua non of Christian faith, we must ask, just how dumb are Jesus’ current disciples?




Several books authored by Robert Conner are available here: Amazon.com.
 
Conner's current editor offers many more salient authors and titles here: http://tellectual.com/vvv

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi