gavriel said

The survival hypothesis does not explain why early Christianity thought Jesus had risen, and that he would soon return. 

The survival hypothesis proposes that the disciples thought Jesus had risen and would soon return because they saw him alive after his crucifixion and he told them he would return as soon as he had recovered.

The vision hypothesis does not provide any explanation of where, when and how such crucial visions could have occurred.

gavriel said

If they are independent, they confirm the story.

Paul originally got his information from the small communities he tried to suppress and had it later supplied from talks with Peter and James and probably many more central members of the early communities.

The Gospel traditions constitute a conglomerate of various independent and semi-independent traditions.

That should be sufficient to conclude that soon after 30 CE, there existed small communities whose members thought that Jesus died, and some of those members claimed to have been his disciples.  

If there were several different stories about how Jesus died and was resurrected then some or all of them would necessarily be fictional but one story with independent references is probably true.

I agree that Paul originally got his information from the small communities he tried to suppress but (as explained previously) I think it unlikely that these people believed that Jesus was divine. It is not clear where these communities were located as the only record comes from Acts, which is notoriously unreliable, but it has the disciples remaining in Jerusalem after the crucifixion. Acts 1: 3-4 claims that Jesus appeared to the disciples over a period of forty days and it is possible that the disciples had visions during this initial period, as a result of their belief that Jesus had been resurrected rather than as a cause for their belief. Other reports may be the result of illusion, the difference being that a vision or hallucination is generated without any external stimulation so is like an extreme case of memory and imagination whereas an illusion results from misconception of an external cause which could be a natural sound resembling a human voice or a pattern resembling a face. By their nature, visions tend to be individual whereas illusions can involve groups of people. If not entirely fictional, the reports in Acts 1: 9-11 of Jesus ascending to heaven and in Acts 2: 1-4 of tongues of flames like fire were possibly based on illusions. Whatever their cause, these experiences reinforced the belief that Jesus had been resurrected and would soon return. It seems likely that, by the time that some or most of the disciples returned to Galilee later that summer, there was already a substantial body of several hundred people in Jerusalem who shared this belief.

In summary, it is possible that post-crucifixion visions did occur, but as a result of belief in resurrection rather than its cause.

gavriel said

I think the stories in the beginning of Acts are highly fictional and of little historical value. Luke knew some basic themes of the earliest communities and gave them a literary expression using colourful stories and speeches. The question of when the disciples returned to Jerusalem is difficult. It is likely that they initially fled to Galilee, because that would be a politically safe haven. They must have returned pretty soon, (some months later ?)  or else the communities would not start spreading quickly enough to trigger Pauls’s opposition to communities outside Judea, no later than 33 CE.  If so, Matthew’s version of where the first visions took place is near the truth. 

The disciples and the women were not sleeping in the streets while they were in Jerusalem. They were provided with a large room for their Passover supper (Matthew 26: 17-19; Mark 14: 12-16; Luke 22: 7-13) so they must have had support from a wealthy person who could have provided lodging (Acts 1: 13) while they remained in Jerusalem. Authorities could have arrested all of them at the same time that they took Jesus but did not do so, so why would the disciples need to flee a few days later?                      As I asked at the very start of this topic, if the disciples did immediately return to Galilee where they had visions, then how did these visions occur? Where were the disciples when they happened? Were they together or separate? Did they imagine that Jesus had spoken to them, and if so, what did they think he said? Did they return to Jerusalem together or separately? The lack of possible answers to such questions indicates that the hypothesis that the disciples fled to Galilee is false.                                   If the disciples waited two months before announcing that Jesus had been resurrected, how could anyone have taken them seriously? I suggest that they did actually see Jesus alive a few days after his crucifixion and they started telling people this news the very next day.

gavriel said

Actually, they were sleeping in the Oil Press garden, the gospels are very explicit on this. Assuming the community consisted of around 50 apostles and disciples, rented rooms would have been outside their financial ability.

Gospel references in a previous quote indicate that they had support from a wealthy person who provided a large room for their Passover meal.

It is unclear why Jesus was not seized immediately, provided his actions in the temple area were considered gross transgressions against the temple. There is hardly a Jesus book who does not discuss this at length. My favourite theory, probably very unoriginal is that Jesus actions in the temple area were moderately serious, culminating a week of provocative teachings, and that Judas immediately realized that they were all in deep shit. He went immediately to the temple authorities to save his own neck, and betrayed the messianic status and the resting place, thus providing them with the instruments for getting rid of him, in the quietness of the night.

As to the final question, there is not enough information. My guess is that some may have left the community (Matthew says some doubted) , but that the majority somehow came to recover their faith, and went back to Jerusalem as a group.

If the disciples had visions of Jesus in Galilee, why did they not stay and tell people there? Why return at all to Jerusalem? If they had fled for their lives immediately after Jesus’s arrest, wouldn’t they still be in danger a couple of months later?  This whole story does not make sense.

A crucified person , nursed back to life, would not have had the ability to walk for months. If they “saw” him, as a patient, they would have identified a patient, and that would not have supplied them with the idea of a risen Jesus. 

Jesus was not nursed back to life. He was badly injured and died a few days later. There is no conclusive evidence that he was nailed through the feet as well as through the hands and in any case he could have been capable of just walking into a room, especially if there was a servant to help him, and his ability to talk was not impaired.

Stephen said
The overall objective of any hypothesis is to find the most probable explanation for the origin of biblical documents which exist today. The most important requirement is for an explanation to be complete and consistent… Stories are more probable if there is independent corroboration or if the event had multiple witnesses…

All of which invalidates your hypothesis.

The vision hypothesis is neither complete nor consistent. How could the disciples have returned to Galilee, had visions which convinced them that Jesus had been resurrected and then returned to Jerusalem a few weeks later with a coherent story? The questions from the very first post on this topic have never received any possible answer.

Reports which violate modern scientific principles should be considered as fabrication or misunderstanding of what actually happened.

People report hallucinations and visions all the time. And psychologists and neuroscientists who study such things report that one of the most common hallucinations is of recently deceased loved ones. 

Quite so, but people do not now die and then come back to life again although this was thought possible 2000 years ago.

There are many wartime examples of people who survived injuries comparable to those which Jesus received.

And there no examples of someone being rescued from a Roman crucifixion.

There is a well-known report from Josephus of someone surviving crucifixion. In any case, the hypothesis is that survival was possible so a counter-argument needs to show that survival was impossible.

Simple hypotheses that the disciples had visions or that stories were made up make no sense if there is no explanation of how it could possibly have happened.

For a summary of the simple hypotheses that Jesus was rescued from the cross before he died, see the explanation of what could possibly have happened from the post on this topic dated February 14th.

gavriel said

Blackwell said

gavriel said
How will you explain that the disciples and apostles, including Paul, thought that he had risen from the dead? 

The disciples believed that Jesus had died on the cross and had been buried and then they discovered two days later that his tomb was empty so when they saw him alive they naturally concluded that he had been resurrected. How would Jesus himself have known that he had not died if he had been unconscious? Such distinctions were not clear 2000 years ago. (See my previous post on this topic on February 24th). Note that Jesus did not say that he had been to heaven and back. The original message from the disciples was simply that they had seen Jesus alive after his crucifixion. The idea that he had been taken up to heaven came later, from Paul. (See the previous post dated February 14th).      

If the disciples returned to Galilee, had visions which convinced them that Jesus had been resurrected and then returned to Jerusalem a few weeks later with a coherent story, then when, where and how did such visions occur? These questions from the very first post on this topic have never received any possible answer.  

I’m sorry to say, but this is nonsense. If they discovered Jesus as a patient , having been taken care of by somebody, he would have been identified as such, and not as someone who had supernaturally risen. Jesus was initially badly tortured, and presumably fixed to a pole for many hours. Assuming he was taken down in some way, he would still have been completely wrecked,  and completely unable to move.

The idea that he was supernaturally risen is not a Pauline idea. The fact is that this idea, that a cursed person was elevated to the right hand of God, was exactly what brought Paul to initially combat the early Jewish-christian sect.  

I’m sorry to say that your comment is nonsense. You are confusing the modern reaction with the way people thought 2000 years ago when belief in resurrection was normal. When Jesus brought people back to life, no-one questioned whether they were really dead in the first place and when the disciples saw Jesus alive after his crucifixion and burial, the matter of who was caring for him was irrelevant to their conclusion that he had been resurrected. There are many examples of badly injured people who manage to walk and talk and I do not suggest that Jesus did anything more than take a few steps into a room where the disciples were seated.

What is really nonsense is the hypothesis that the disciples fled to Galilee in fear for their lives when Jesus was arrested and then returned to Jerusalem a few weeks later telling everyone about visions of him being elevated to the right hand of God. There is not a shred of evidence that this is what actually happened.