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Loading...I’m celebrating my birthday today, a sparkling young 63. No cards or happy wishes necessary. Just send cash. But it occurred to me to look through old posts done on my birthday, and there was this interesting one from six years ago, on a very hot topic indeed! Very provocative. So here you are — be provoked on my happy day!
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One of the first books that I have re-read in thinking about how it is the man Jesus came to be thought of as God is Gerd Lüdemann’s, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (2004). Lüdemann is an important and interesting scholar. He was professor of New Testament at Göttingen in Germany, and for a number of years split his time between there and Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville. He is a major figure in scholarship, and is noteworthy for not being a Christian. He does not believe Jesus was literally, physically, raised from the dead, and he thinks that apart from belief in Jesus’ physical resurrection, it is not possible for a person to be Christian.
This book is written for people with a lot of background in New Testament studies. It is exegetically based, meaning that he goes into a detailed examination of key passages to uncover their literary meaning; but he is ultimately interested in historical questions of what really happened. To follow his exegesis (his interpretation) requires a good knowledge of how NT scholars argue their points: the book is aimed at other NT scholars and, say, graduate students in the field.
The basic historical conclusions that Lüdemann draws – based on a careful analysis of all the relevant passages and a consideration of the historical events that lie behind them – is this:
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o When Jesus was arrested and crucified his disciples fled. They did not go into hiding in Jerusalem – then went back home, to Galilee (where *else* would they go? They went home, to get out of Jerusalem!)
o Soon after, it was in Galilee (not in Jerusalem) that belief in the resurrection occurred. It occurred because Peter had a vision of Jesus that included auditory features (he thought he saw and heard him).
o This “vision” was induced by psychological factors. Peter felt terrifically guilty for having denied Jesus, and the “vision” he had brought forgiveness from his deep guilt.
o This vision was like other visions that people have (all the time): visions of dead loved ones; visions of the Virgin Mary. In these visions, of course the loved ones do not *really* come back to life from the dead, and the Virgin Mary does not *really* show up at Lourdes, etc. These are psychologically induced visions.
o Still, like other people who have visions, Peter took the vision to be real and assumed that Jesus was alive again, in heaven.
o Peter brought the other disciples together, and maintained with them that the end time was near, as Jesus had originally preached, and that the kingdom of God was soon to appear. The evidence? The resurrection of the dead had already begun. The evidence? Jesus had been raised. The evidence? He had appeared to Peter. All this is happening in Galilee.
o The vision was infectious, and the mission got underway.
o Even Jesus’ brothers were caught up in the excitement and James became a believer in Jesus.
o The other person who had a genuine vision of Jesus was much later, the apostle Paul, who too experienced a psychologically induced vision of Jesus. In this case, he found Jesus’ teaching of forgiveness and mercy appealing, even as he was violently persecuting the church as an enemy. But forgiveness won out and in a cataclysmic break from his past, Paul had a vision of the living Jesus, convincing him that Peter and the others were right: Jesus was still alive, and therefore had been raised from the dead.
o Some Christians thought that these visions showed that Jesus was spiritually exalted to heaven – not that his body had been physically raised from the dead.
o Others, including Peter and Paul, insisted that in fact Jesus had experienced a physical resurrection of the body, which had been transformed into an immortal body before being exalted to heaven.
o The implication was that the tomb was emptied before Jesus’ started to make his appearances (other Christians also claimed to see him, but it is hard to establish that any of the others actually had any visions – they may have simply been building on Peter’s original claim).
o But by this time it was too late to know whether the tomb was really empty. For several reasons:
We don’t know how much after his death the vision to Peter came; Acts suggests that it was fifty days before the preaching began; if so, the body would have decomposed.
No one knew where he was buried anyway (the story of Joseph of Arimathea may be a later account, not something that really happened; Jesus may have been buried in a common grave or somewhere no one knew.
It is worth pointing out, Ludemann notes, that Christians in Jersualem appear to have placed ZERO emphasis on the location of the tomb. It was not until 326, according to Eusebius, was the alledged site of burial “rediscovered” under a temple dedicated to Venus. Life of Constantine 3.26-28.
And so, the short story: Chrsitianity started among Jesus’ followers in Galilee, sometime after his death, after Peter had a vision of Jesus that was psychologically induced.
So, to be clear, I’m not saying I agree with this entire reconstruction. But it’s very interesting, based on a detailed examination of all the evidence from the NT (and outside) by a skilled interpreter, and worth bearing in mind when trying to figure out what really happened both to Jesus’ body and to the followers of Jesus to make them believe it had been raised from the dead.
This is really interesting and addresses THE CENTRAL question/belief of Christianity. I would like to make one small suggestion. Maybe Peter had a dream and not a vision. Over five decades of psychiatric practice, I was amazed about how often people told me that a loved one had actually visited them in a dream. So, I think a dream is far more likely than a vision. Moreover, the Bible is filled with meaningful dreams. With regard to Paul, I suggest an epileptic seizure provoked by sunlight flashing through trees resulted in Paul having a seizure with Paul falling down, etc. Finally, Freud considered the analysis of dreams to be the road to revealing unconscious wishes.
Happy birthday. .
Yes indeed. It seems very weird to us today, but in the ancient world they did not differentiate neatly between what we would call dreams (when asleep) and visions (when awake). I have a student who wrote a dissertation that dealt (in part) on this. Very odd!
The problem with putting the resurrection narratives down to a dream/vision or epilptic seizure is that lots of people have visions or seizures and they dont all lead to a new religion. Given peter had a vision and paul had a seizure – how this turns into a new religion still needs to be explained.
Even if Peter had actually seen the risen jesus that doesnt lead to anyone believing him.
The dream/vision and seizure would only have been two of many factors leading to a new religion. Other factors would be: the apocalyptic teachings of Jesus, the gathering of disciples who had left former lives to follow him, the need for Jesus’ followers to explain his death and continue the apocalyptic message of a fast-approaching end and general resurrection, the organization of Christians in Jerusalem and Antioch, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, followed by a diaspora of Jews and Christians, the adaptation of Christian teachings for Greek followers, the theological and organizational work of Paul in his letters, the gradual realization in the church fathers that an apocalypse was not quite as imminent as they had thought.
Jesus had already been teaching about a general resurrection in the last apocalypse, an idea that developed among some Jews during the Second Temple period. An individual resurrection and ascension of Jesus, was the only addition needed for Jesus’ followers to continue the preaching what they had already been preaching under his guidance.
I think that the real innovation of Christianity was not the resurrection – it was the inclusion of gentiles. Including everyone paved the way for a religion that could be widely accepted all over the existing empire.
In Fiddler On The Roof, Tevye has a “dream” that is a masterpiece of… pragmatism! Do you think pragmatism can be ruled out in the matter under discussion?
I’m not sure how that would work.
I’ve always considered that as well. I’ve experienced several lucid dreams (I wasn’t able to control the dreams but was aware that I was dreaming). Two of them were particularly vivid and occurred shortly after the deaths of my grandmother and one of my dogs. I remember feeling the warmth of my dog’s breath when he licked my face as I leaned down to pet him. It was just as he had done thousands of times. My grandmother made her distinct mannerisms while talking, just as she had in life. It felt different than being awake, but closer to being awake than like being in any other dream that I can remember. If I didn’t know what a lucid dream was, or perhaps if I was more religious, I might have thought I was seeing their spirits.
In considering whether Paul may have had a hallucination caused by a psychiatric or neurological condition, the different accounts of his conversion are problematic. If a person has visual hallucinations without auditory ones, that is probably something medical. I agree that seeing a flash of light, falling off a horse and waking up with a religious focus sounds like a seizure. But hearing voices and believing you are the apostle sounds a lot like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder with psychosis. Depending on which account of the conversion you read, he might be having a visual or auditory hallucination but he is not having both in either one, he is having one or the other (Bart please correct me if I got that wrong). So which is it? There is also the problem of taking into consideration what is within normal limits in a culture and whether a phenomenon might be a “cultural syndrome.”
At the end of the day I think it is hard if not impossible to diagnose someone living 2000 years ago based on a few letters. Yet I must confess I’ve had the same suspicions about Paul and wonder if some of the prophets and religious leaders throughout history might literally have been psychotic (I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, it is a medical term referring to types of symptoms including hallucinations and delusions).
Very interesting, is there (other) evidence Paul was epileptic?
Dr. Ehrman,
Happy Birthday!
Geschwind syndrome?
Geschwind syndrome! “Geschwind syndrome” (Arch Gen Psychiatry 1975; 32:1580-1586) refers to an inter-ictal (that is, between seizures) personality change occurring in SOME sufferers of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). It ‘s characterized by, among other things, hyposexuality, hypergraphia, “cosmic concerns,” a “stickiness” to ideas and persons, and investing non-emotionally charged (for most of us) events and ideas with high emotional valence. Sounds like Paul, eh?
(There are) Reams of commentary in the medical literature about the event ‘on the road to Damascus’ and Paul’s conjectured TLE, based in great part on the account in Acts 9. I long ago commented about this on this blog, several times, and provided references for anyone interested.
Big problem: As Dr. E has demonstrated on this blog alone, Acts is not a reliable historical document, particularly related to this (Acts 9) event, and Paul’s undisputed (by most NT scholars) letters contain zero documentation other than the vague assertion of 2 Corinthians 12:7. Maybe Paul had a seizure, maybe he had epilepsy, maybe he had TLE. Maybe. Conjecture on.
or more likely Paul just made it all up and we don’t have to invent seizures or physcocis that might have inflicted him.
Happy birthday anyway sir
I am currently reading Michael Alters book The Resurrection a critical inquiry. He is a Jewish scholar who rebutts the apologetics in regard to the resurrection. Have you read it? What is your take?
John Loftus recommended it…
“Christian Apologist Vincent J. Torley Now Argues Michael Alter’s Bombshell Book Demolishes Christian Apologists’ Case for the Resurrection”
From Loftus fb page
Haven’t read it. But sounds interesting!
Very interesting reconstruction. I am no Bible scholar, but I thought that Mary Magdalene was the first person to see or experience Jesus after the “resurrection”, not Peter. She was the one who told Peter about the empty tomb. Different points of view I guess. Possibly there is no way we can/will ever really know. I have a soft spot for Mary Magdalene, so I prefer having her be the first witness.
In the Gospels it’s Mary (and other women); in Paul (1 Cor. 15:3-8) it is Peter. Very intriguing.
no wonder mark says paul never got to hear from the women, “they said nothing to anyone”
When i ask apologists why paul does not mention the women witnesses, they reply “argument from silence”
how is it an argument from silence when a source written later on admits that the women never told paul ?
The stories *about* the women were being told by people *other* than the women.
paul does not mention any appearance to the women or that the women told peter.
Mark says that they told no one.
i am not taking the story as real i am saying pauls silence is understandable because he didnt know anything about the women seeing jesus or the women reporting because they dod not tell anyone anthing.
in mark, there is nothing which says that the women saw jesus. In mark, the text says that after the eerie experience at the tomb , the women ran away with trembling and fear and said nothing to anyone. this news never reached paul, this explains why paul did not mention any appearance to the women,because he really didnt know and mark admitted that he is revealing to his hears they said nothing. So the oral traditions in marks day was that the women said nothing to anyone.
why would pete tell paul about his vision, but omit mention of womens testimony? Is it because they were women? So, werent the women verified by pete?
We don’t know what Peter knew or said about the discovery of the tomb.
Happy day of birth, mate.
Thanks for reposting this. Without any professional training in the subject, I came to a similar hypothesis when I was a teenager — without all the facts in place. This is very helpful for me to start digging into the Gospel of Mark. What also helped me grapple with the notion that much of what happened wasn’t recorded at all and the accounts of what we have weren’t recorded until much later, was the realization that Jesus and his followers, Peter and Paul, all appeared to believe the apocalypse would occur in their lifetimes. Reading the NT chronologically based on the current proposed dates of original authorship, certainly aided in clearing this up for me. I can see the evolution of authorships thought processes over time…
Happy birthday Bart!
Was James the brother of Jesus thought to have been one of the two James’ who were apostles? Or part of Jesus’ ministry during his lifetime? I ask because if James the brother of Jesus isn’t in the gospels but was a leader of the early church, perhaps he got on board after the disciples returned to Galilee and someone had a vision?
James was a common name; James the brother of Jesus, by all accounts, was not one of the earthly followers of Jesus, but became a “believer” after he had a vision of Jesus following his death.
On the subject of names, did Judas remain a common Jewish name after the death of Jesus?
Sure. It’s the same name (in Greek) as Jude. As in, say, Jude Law.
Oh right!
Thank you for the post. You’ll have to settle for birthday wishes, and no cash today. Sorry. This post brings up a strange question that occurred to me regarding the nature of the resurrected body of Jesus, as held by Christian theologians. Could you discuss what Paul meant, and what the common “orthodox” understanding is, in 1 Cortintians 15, when he spoke of being raised a “spiritual”body? That wasn’t the strange question btw. The strange question is, given the belief in a bodily resurrection, reports of the disciples handling him, and Jesus eating with them, do any Christian scholars discuss if Jesus resurrected body still preformed normal “bodily functions”, if you know what I mean? I told you it was strange.
Yes, I devote a discussion of this in my book. In short, the resurrection *was* of his actual body, but it was no longer a purely physical body but a glorified, immortal one (“spiritual”).
I have a number of quibbles:
1)While I agree the disciples would have fled Jerusalem, I don’t believe all or even most did so immediately. For one thing, escaping a city as well-guarded as Jerusalem would have been during Passover season would have taken some time. For another, some would have believed Jesus would survive. Perhaps even that this would be the moment he’d proclaim the Kingdom, and the Son of Man would come. I don’t think they would have been sure he had failed until he was sentenced to be crucified. The story of Peter denying Jesus hardly makes sense if Peter just ran away the moment Jesus was arrested. They would have hoped against hope that this was all part of the plan. I don’t believe any of the disciples witnessed the crucifixion. Assuming by ‘disciple’ you mean ‘male follower.’
2)Peter might well have had a vision of Jesus, but why would account after account tell us that it was Jesus’ female followers who first bore witness to the resurrection? Why would that honor be granted to them by what was already becoming a patriarchal religion by the time the gospels were written? I think Mary Magdalene is a more likely candidate for having first spoken of seeing the risen Jesus. To be sure, Mark only has her seeing an angel robed in white, but that might in fact be a way of diminishing her role, without outright denying it. The women closest to Jesus would not have fled Jerusalem, for the simple reason that they didn’t need to. The Romans wouldn’t take them seriously, because they were women. Whatever kind of tomb Jesus was given, they would have tried to go there. Some of them very likely did witness the crucifixion. They were the ones in a position to tell a story, and they did. And we have altered fragments of the story they told. In that sense, they were the true founders of Christianity. Because they could not accept that the only man who had ever treated them as an equal was gone, his life rendered meaningless. They would give it meaning.
3)We’d still have to speculate about what happened after the crucifixion, even if Jesus had risen from the dead. 🙂
1) We really don’t know how well guarded Jerusalem was or how interested the Romans would have been in the disciples once they’d captured Jesus. That can only be speculation. Since it was Passover, there would have been many visitors passing in and out of the city.
2) Though the gospels give conflicting versions of the tomb story, they all begin with elements in the first gospel, Mark. Bart argues elsewhere -https://ehrmanblog.org/women-at-the-tomb/- that an invented story of women at the tomb makes sense if you want to tell a story about the resurrection but it’s already historically known that the men had fled to Galilee.
3) True – it’s all speculation.
What were the possible motivations for the Gospel writers having Peter at Jesus’s trial?
What passage are you thinking of.
I will have to look it up and then get back to you.
Do you think the followers of Jesus would have known that crucified victims were usually left on the cross? If they lived in the boonies, perhaps they didn’t. Maybe they had never been to a city before, perhaps never met a Roman before and didn’t stay in Jerusalem long. Might they have assumed then that Jesus was buried and wouldn’t have known otherwise?
That’s a good point. The rural folk in remote Galilee maybe didn’t know this.
Hello Doctor Ehrman,
Sorry for my difficult writing of English! But if History could not erase the crucifixion (considering the ecclesiastical embarrassment about the crucifixion as the most sure evidence of the historical reality of Jesus) how could it have erased the fact that Jesus has rotten several days on his cross?
My guess is that hte disciples fled town and didn’t know what happened to the body.
Wouldn’t folk in those parts have known because of what happened in Sepphoris?
Only if they happened to see crucifixions in Sepphoris. My guess is most people never went there, and I can’t recall any evidence of crucifixions happening there (there was not a Roman presence there regularly)
Didn’t the Romans put down pretty savagely an uprising there around the time Jesus was born? I believe they crucified several hundred Galileans, so I assume that event would have been discussed at length in those parts.
Maybe I’m mixing it up with some other uprising, though…
Yes, it was destroyed by the Romans because of an uprising right around the time Jesus would have been born. So maybe so. Good point.
Happy Birthday, Doctor Ehrman!
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with us.
What would you say are your primary disagreements/reservations about this proposal?
My main questions have to do with whether it is possible to psychoanalyze Jesus’ followers and know the psychological reasons for the beliefs they had.
Is he claiming to “know” that, or does he admit it’s (obviously) speculation based on the evidence?
Well, I think it’s what he thinks.
Bart:
I’ve never been convinced that there is any stoicism in Jesus’ teachings (apart from “generally held wisdom”).
Steefen::
Stoicism in Early Christianity Edited by Tuomas Rasimus et al.
– Chapter 2: Stoicism as a Key to Pauline Ethics in Romans
– Chapter 4: Jesus the Teacher and Stoic Ethics in the Gospel of Matthew
I would like to add:
“Stoic ideas from the very beginning permeated Christian teaching. Seneca and Epictetus were regarded as Christians by nature, as it were, though they had been deprived of Christian revelation.”
– Ludwig Edelstein, Preface to “The Meaning of Stoicism” pages ix and x
I would like to acknowledge a divergence of Jesus from Stoicism. Some say Jesus is too emotional to be a Stoic. I bring up the anguish in the Garden of Gethsemene.
Edelstein also says in his Preface:
…if the sage finds himself at a place and in a situation where he cannot do the right as he sees it, then he believes that it is his duty to die [like Cato the Younger]; and he says to God: “I do not abandon Thee [though you abandon me and my taking a living role in the Kingdom of God/Righteousness of the Son of Man Movement], heaven forbid! But, I recognize that Thou has no need of me.”
How strikingly different these words are from those of Christ: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” The Stoic’s are daring words. They can be spoken because the sage and God are equals, friends on the same level. Like God, the sage has the power to will and not to will, to desire and to reject, in short to master his thoughts. He has in his possession the true nature of good and evil. The sage is like God and distinguished from Him only by his mortality.
Jesus could be forgiven by Stoics for his anguish given the end of his taking a living role in his ministry and the horror of crucifixion. His acceptance of his fate could be Stoic resignation.
Jesus is one with the Father in that he is the Stoic Sage of the gospels.
= = =
You, Bart, may take the position that when Edelstein speaks of Stoicism permeating Christianity that is not in the gospels but in the literature after the gospels. Is that your position?
Do any of your trade books or textbooks mention the permeation of Stoicism on Christianity?
No, I don’t address it because I do not think it is a central point. Jesus certainly never studied or even read any Stoic philosophers.
Bart:
Jesus certainly never studied or even read any Stoic philosophers.
Steefen:
And you seem to say Stoicism is not central to Jesus’ words in the gospels and first century Christianity.
First, we don’t know that Jesus never studied Stoicism through Jewish scribes exposed to Stoicism.
David A. deSilva (PhD, Emory University), Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio, author of over twenty-five books in his book The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude tells us Jesus was acquainted with the works of the Hebrew scribe Yeshua Ben Sira who lived and taught during a time of Hellenization which opens the door to Greek as opposed to Roman Stoicism. “Ben Siira remained open to the contributions other cultures could make to the pursuit of Wisdom.”
Second, we don’t know if Jesus came in contact with Stoic speakers in Palestine.
Silva says there were Stoic philosophers who were in Palestine and Syria or who traveled to Palestine and Syria including the Stoic Antiochus of Ascalon.
= = =
The Our Father Prayer and the Golden Rule, both with at least one Stoic element are quite central to the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
I already discussed how the Stoic Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus informs the Our Father Prayer with the Matthean phrase deliver us from evil which is not in Luke.
The Golden Rule:
“A noble and high-minded spirit will assist others and help them out. Those who confer benefits imitate the gods; those who seek repayment imitate loan sharks.”
Seneca, On Benefits (Ben) Book 3, 15.4 translated by Miriam Griffin and Brad Inwood p. 68
In the context of Jewish ethics in general and Jesus’ teachings in particular, the Golden Rule has more to do with the elaboration of the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself than with the ethic of reciprocity and inciting beneficent reciprocal relationships. Luke correctly understands that the Golden Rule is indeed moving the hearers beyond the ethos of reciprocity … toward an ethos of imitating God’s self-motivated, self-sustained beneficence. [Luke 6:30-34, not just Luke 6: 31] (The understanding of giving as a means of provoking generous response was, incidentally, censured by Seneca as a poor way to engage even the social practice of reciprocity.
The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude ps 278-279
1. The sudden appearance of Mary Magdalene in the gospels – does that suggest she might have been the first to have such visions, not Peter? Otherwise, why mention her? (Luke just mentions Peter’s vision as an aside, 24:34.)
2. If the movement started in Galilee, why is Acts so clear on it starting up in Jerusalem? Legendary account to tie the Jewish and Gentile Christians together?
3. Happy birthday!
1. It suggests there were certainly stories that she was the first; Paul seems to have other stories; 2. Luke has a theological investment in making Jerusalem the center of his story. He does this in all sorts of ways. Notice, e.g., how he switches the order of the Temptations so that the third is in Jerusalem. 3. Thanks!
It appears like a simple conclusion from examining the writings through the lense of their context in time and history. Considering Luudeman studied NT most of his adult life… I’d say the weight of his conviction not accepting the resurrection is very persuasive. It is NOT reasonable to believe people come back from the dead just because one person has an experience they claim to eyewitness resurrection; especially AFTER someone is has been dead long enough to decompose. Now we know people can die and spontaneously come back to life within a few minutes- there are people alive today you can find who folks thought they were dead????… and ???? they wake up and scare everyone. ‘Tis a miracle (of the sturdiness of human biology)! But those people eventually die and do not come back to life. Luudeman’s reliance upon an almost common sense approach to human psychology and sociology applied to the ancient texts actually makes the whole story more enjoyable because as a fable, it’s pretty cool. Christianity DOES contain a lot of good stuff. Like anything else, THE READER gets to decide what to keep and what to throw out. Bart, thank you for modeling your own personal style the way you have evolved as a student and master of thinking. For your birthday ???? I wish your big ???? good health and longevity ❤️. You made it possible for me to go back to To my old Quaker church and enjoy the whole experience again. No God required. You behave as a really good Christian… regardless you don’t believe anymore or identify as a believer. In the end, “belief” only matters to the people who remember us after we die. While YOU have been alive 62 years, you really have made many people’s lives better- even if they don’t recognize it. Not just your books, or your professor ship, nor those 4 old NT classes of yours I watched ON VHS TAPES????. All your debates and constantly pushing and challenging people to THINK. I bestow upon you the birthday gift of a new name:
“Bartcratese, of Chapel Hill” (yes – you are a the reincarnated/resurrected Socrates. Metaphorically of course). Happy 62
Ha!
You mention that Lüdemann thinks that a person cannot be a Christian without believing in the physical resurrection of Jesus; however, Jesus did not refer to his followers as Christians. What did people need to believe about Jesus during his ministry in order for him to accept them as his followers?
They had to implement his teachings and, possibly, credit him with them.
Happy birthday, Bart! In a world where people increasingly look for information that confirms their personal biases, this blog is my oasis of logic and rational argument.
Sort of off topic but I’ve always been somewhat skeptical of Paul’s persecution of Christians. I can accept that he spoke against them and perhaps hassled and annoyed the hell out of them but what do we really know about his persecution of them? It seems Christians have blown this into everything from killing them to torturing them, etc. Do we have any evidence as to what his persecution actually was? Part of the problem is that he was outside of Judea and had no authority to really DO anything other than speak ill of them. Is there more information I’m missing?
My view is that it’s relatively certain *that* he persecuted Christians, but virtually unknown *how* he did so.
Isn’t it likely that synagogue leaders gave out the lashings and Paul gave his approval?
Yes, that could certainly be.
Happy Birthday Professor Bart I hope to live to the next century
inconceivable . .
Lüdemann’s “exegetically based New Testament studies” led to the conclusion that
“. . . by psychological factors. . Peter felt . . .terrifically guilty for having denied Jesus, and the “vision” . . had brought forgiveness from his deep guilt”
I did not know that NT exegeses could lead to determination of a person’s psychological state .
[absolutely totally and in all other ways]
also though i know nothing about exegesis and i have never even taken a college class in religion
i find Gerd Lüdemann claim
” that apart from belief in Jesus’ PHYSICAL resurrection, it is not possible for a person to be Christian”
somewhat pretentious .
Not that it necessarily bothers me whether Gerd Lüdemann considers me a christian or not
Dr. Ehrman, as I’ve stated in previous comments, I think this explanation has is somewhat backwards. The most sensible order of events to me seems to be as follows:
~ Jesus and his followers already believed that they were living in the end times, and that the Mass Resurrection and Judgment were going to happen any day now. Moreover, they already believed that the “saints” — i.e. those who were especially holy or righteous, such the martyrs of the previous generations — would be raised first (cf. Matt. 27:52).
~ When Jesus was arrested and killed, his followers really had only two options: either A) they could realize that the end times weren’t coming after all and, therefore, they should disband the movement, or B) they could continue to believe that the end times were imminent, so, therefore, they should continue their movement.
~ Clearly many, if not most of Jesus’s followers chose option B. That would naturally lead them to expect that Jesus would have to be resurrected soon anyway, to satisfy what they already believed would happen soon. Moreover, since they believed that Jesus was now a holy and righteous martyred saint that he would be one of the first to be soon raised.
~ This expectation of Jesus’s imminent resurrection is what primed this followers’ brains to then experience visions of Jesus alive (in dreams and/or in waking hallucinations), which then led to outright proclaiming that Jesus was, indeed, resurrected as the “first fruits” of the soon to arrive Resurrection of the Saints.
~ But when they proclaimed to other Jews that Jesus was resurrected, their Jewish critics sensibly asked, “So where is Jesus now if he was raised from the dead?” The apostles couldn’t just say they didn’t know where he was, because that would undermine the message. So they gave the obvious answer. They gave the risen Jesus the same fate as other great prophet’s like Elijah. “Jesus was taken up to heaven to be seated at the right hand of God.”
~ And, as one would expect, the critics needed more proof that Jesus was resurrected and taken up to heaven, and thus was started the “empty tomb” legend, as a way to answer the naysayers and justify expectations. And it basically just snowballed from there.
This is the only explanation, as far as I can tell, that answers each and every question one would have about the resurrection story.
A movement based solely on the belief in the end times and that jesus just the first of many to be resurrected would quickly die out when no more resurrections occured. It doesnt explain christianity. You’ll need to come up with a further explanation for why Jesus susequently became the messiah and son of god.
And if you come up with a further explanation for christianity you may as just use that one from the beginnning.
“A movement based solely on the belief in the end times and that jesus just the first of many to be resurrected would quickly die out when no more resurrections occured.”
One would think, but the tenacity of strongly held beliefs says otherwise. For example, the Branch Davidians still exist.
The way such movements continue to exist is by rationalizing away the unfulfillment of expectations. For instance, the current version of the Branch Davidians rationalize away their failures under David Koresh’s leadership by simply claiming that Koresh was a false prophet who misled the group. The Jews did the same thing when the Temple was destroyed. They rationalized it away as evidence that God had a different plan for the Jews. After the 17th century Jewish messianic claimant Shabbatai Tzvi ended up converting to Islam, there were STILL loyal followers of Tzvi who believed he was still the Messiah! Why?!? This is such a common feature of being human — rationalizing away the disappointment of expectations — that we actually have a word for it: HOPE. Even after further disappointment, we still cling to our beliefs, because we have “hope”.
If you look back at the NT tradition, what do you see? You see exactly this same kind of rationalizing away the disappointment of expectations. Why hasn’t the Resurrection happened yet? Because God is waiting for the Gospel to be spread to all of humanity.
Or because “about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Or because “if anyone tells you, ‘There [the Messiah] is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.”
Or because “nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
Or because maybe there actually were resurrections after Jesus! such as when “They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” (Matt. 27:53)
And so on. The entire NT is essentially one giant collection of rationalizations as to why the Resurrection has not happened yet! It’s basically a manual for inspiring “hope” in Christians. Just read Paul’s letters! The fact that so many Christians do not see this fact only goes to prove how we as human beings are biased on our beliefs.
Sure – but the rationalising that Jesus was messiah and son of god and died for humanities sins should happen after the crucifixion not later on when the full resurrection of the dead fails to happen.
otherwise you’re proposing two rationalising events (jesus is first-fruits of resurrection and later jesus died for sins) when one will do.
Once you’ve rationalized your way into a firm belief, it’s very difficult to rationalize your way out of it.
Dr. Ehrman himself regularly talks about how it took years — decades, really — for him to realize that his firmly held Christian beliefs were basically wrong — even though the actual facts and evidence that would have shown him that his beliefs were wrong were right in front of him the whole time. Once your beliefs have become a part of you, almost like a body part itself, it becomes very difficult change them. Changing your entire weltanschauung in one fell swoop is almost like trying to cut off your own foot with one swing of the ax.
I’ve always also wondered if the “Jewish Critics” did not also accuse the apostles of “seeing a ghost”, thus prompting the doubting Thomas story as well perhaps as the empty tomb.
Quite possibly. If you want to get a good sense of what Christians’ Jewish critics were like, the kind of questions they asked and the kinds of doubts they held, just read Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho.
Bart,
Do you mean a bereavement vision like this from Oliver Sacks’ book Hallucinations (pg. 233) resulted in the resurrection belief?:
“[Jesus] walked in and I was so happy to see him that I got up to meet him. I said, ‘[Jesus],’ and as I moved towards him, he suddenly wasn’t there.”
Can you please explain more clearly how a follower of Jesus could get from this experience to the resurrection belief instead of concluding it was just a figment of their imagination or Jesus’ dead non-Messiah spirit trying to communicate from the dead.
It’s a long story, but it’s what I discuss at fuller length in my book How Jesus Became God. Short story: *most* people who see a deceased loved one (or, say, a beloved religious figure) think they really truly saw and/or heard the person. That’s the power of a vision.
One problem I see with the interpretation is that Peter is said to have believed in a physical resurrection of Jesus’ body. But simply by being a Jew living in 1st century Palestine, he (and Paul as well, come to think of it) would certainly have known that the vast majority of victims of crucifixion were *not* buried. Considering the fact that Peter and at least the other male disciples probably did flee Jerusalem – probably immediately after his arrest and not even waiting until after he was crucified, they would have had no way of knowing what happened to his body anyway. The only way that Peter’s belief in a physical resurrection makes sense is if we assume that someone (some female disciples?) stayed behind in Jerusalem to later relay to him the fact that Jesus was indeed buried and that his tomb was later found by them to be empty. (Then again, perhaps Jesus himself gave Peter this information when he appeared to him?! Or was his vision so realistic that he believed he had actually seen Jesus in the flesh?)
So if Gary Habermas reads Ludemann’s book…He includes Ludemann among the scholars who agree that the disciples had experiences that they thought were appearances from the risen Jesus. I’m not quite sure what he’s saying about the empty tomb.
I don’t know if Ludemann’s reconstruction (or something similar) is representative of a large number of scholars…but if it is, these scholars would be included in Habermas’ group that admits that the disciples had experiences like this…and this type of reconstruction hardly requires a resurrection to explain it. But those who hold a similar type of reconstruction gets lumped in with all the conservative scholars, who think the gospel accounts are all accurate…and the conservative view is very far apart from Ludemann’s.
Isn’t this the very problem with the ‘minimal facts’ argument? The ‘facts’ are too vague. How many disciples were there around the crucifixion? Did they stay in Jerusalem, or go straight home to Galilee? How many had experiences and how many did not? How many stayed unconvinced the rest of their lives? Were there group appearances? In what ‘form’ (visual, auditory, touch) did these appearances occur? Were they half asleep? Did Peter invite everyone to his house and induce everyone into a trance-like state, so they would be more susceptible to visions? It’s only when we can answer those types of questions that we can assess the evidence properly.
Yes, I’m not a fan of the “minimal facts” approach, which is really just apologetics.
Is Lüdemann’s argument based on Paul’s pre-Gospel account of the resurrected Christ first appearing to Cephas, before anyone else?
Yes, in part.
Happy Birthday Bart and thanks for this wonderful blog (recent subscriber).
Does Lüdemann explain why the story developed that the women were the first to see the empty tomb?
Christoper Hitchens said for him this was good evidence that there was a historical Jesus – ie nobody in first century Judea would invent a story that a group of women were the first to witness the resurrection.
I don’t recall what he says about this (and I’m on the road with no access to my books just now).
Happy birthday!
It is a really interesting and provocative theory. But on the other hand it does not sound like nonsense either. Could a vision of one uneducated person (Peter) somewhere in Galilee start such massive movement changing history? Does he comment on the role of Mary Magdalene?Fascinating. Would it be too daring to ask if you have your personal version? Thanks.
Yes, it’s certainly possible. My main questions with Luedemann have to do with whether it is possible to psychoanalyze Jesus’ followers and know the psychological reasons for the beliefs they had.
Dr. Ehrman,
Happy Birthday! I hope you have a special day. Thanks for everything you do for the blog and for including us in your professional world!
I have watched Dr. Lüdemann participate in debates like you. Those events are always my favorite.
Could you expound on how some of your conclusions differ from Dr. Lüdemann’s?
Thanks, Jay
My main questions have to do with whether it is possible to psychoanalyze Jesus’ followers and know the psychological reasons for the beliefs they had.
I am reading the blog today backwards (starting with the most current)…have several weeks to read, but last I read you were asking input/comments concerning the afterlife. Maybe you have already addressed this and I just haven’t read it yet, but did any of your research lead you to the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies research concerning afterlife? I find some of it interesting (consciousness as an energy that can continue/etc…maybe)…or is this venturing outside the focus of your book? Ps: Happy Birthday
It did not, but yes, it does sound like something I’d be interested in. (I’m restricting the book to ancient devleopments: where the ideas of heaven and hell came from)
OK, that’s what I assumed, that it was outside the scope of your book but knowing these same ‘experiences’ would have been happening and puzzling people in ancient times (of course a lot less understood) may have had some impact on what they made themselves believe to explain it.
Did you post something previously on your best reconstruction of what might have happened to Jesus’ body after the crucifixion?
Yes, at some point. I think he wsa probably left to decompose on the cross and then was simply tossed into some burial pit of some kind.
Peter must have been feeling pretty bad after Jesus was killed.
Happy Birthday!
What would be your best construction, please let us know.
My main questions have to do with whether it is possible to psychoanalyze Jesus’ followers and know the psychological reasons for the beliefs they had.
Happy Birthday Dr. Ehrman! I hope you had a great day! October birthdays are the best! My daughter will be 31 on the 16th and I’ll be 55 on the 22nd!
I think much of Ludemann‘s theory is plausible but I’m struck with the notion that he does seem to believe Jesus was indeed buried somewhere even though the question of whether or not the tomb was empty didn’t seem important to the early Christians.
So my questions are do most scholars support the belief Jesus was buried somewhere or do they support the belief Jesus was left on the cross to rot as most criminals were?
My other questions are: is, if Ludemann is correct and “Christians in Jersualem appear to have placed ZERO emphasis on the location of the tomb” was the belief in an empty tomb important to those early Christians? On the one hand (to answer my own question) it seems on some level the empty tomb was important because this event was important enough to be written in the Gospels. However, if plausibility and historical proof were important to the Gospel writers you would of thought that the Gospel writers would’ve included the location! Is the absence of the location of the tomb in the Gospels due to it being irrelevant, or that it was unknown?
I want to take the opportunity of your birthday to thank you for this forum and to say I greatly appreciate your interacting with us here.
Most scholars think Jesus was given a decent burial. With Ludemann, I think he was not.
Dr. Ehrman,
Supposing the story about Joseph’s conveniently located tomb is historically accurate, wasn’t the tomb meant to be only temporary anyway (according to something I read about Jewish burial practices)? So why would it be that surprising to find it empty? I also remember reading that the tomb story may have been inspired by a prophesy, which would make it seem less historically likely, no?
Because he was buried immediately before Sabbath and the tomb was found immediately after the Sabbath and (supposedly) no one could move the body *during* the sabbath.
The tomb was found empty early Sunday morning. That is certainly not “immediately” after the Sabbath. The Sabbath ended Saturday evening at sunset. So theoretically there’s plenty of time for somebody (eg. Joseph of Arimathea) to move the body from a temporary burial place to a proper tomb.
Most likely there wasn’t enough time for this news to reach Maria, so naturally she went to the tomb where she had seen Jesus being buried after crucifixion. Keep in mind that during that initial burial the women were watching “from a distance”. They never spoke to Joseph to synchronise plans for after the Sabbath. Furthermore, according to John, Maria’s report to the disciples was that “they have taken away the Lord from the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2), as if she also assumes a human intervention to account for the empty tomb.
good point.
When did they feel that it was safe to return to Jerusalem? And in returning, doesn’t this indicate that it was the Romans they feared, whose presence was limited?
It’s hard to say. Weeks later? But yes, I suppose that is what it means, since Romans were there only for the festival.
Bart, I hope this is not too wildly off-topic, but I have become fascinated in Jesus’ supposed saying to his apostles regarding the Kingdom of God being instituted during the lifetimes of some of them. Apologists seems to be all over the place on this one…I’ve seen the Kingdom described as the Transfiguration ( which you debunked in December 2013), as the destruction of the Temple, as the advancement of the Church. I would like to know what you think of Jesus’ statement regarding the appearance of the Son of Man, and the failure of this to occur. I watched some of Gerd Ludemann’s Youtube appearances…Impressive fella.
Yes, all these are a “stretch” in my opinion. I think Jesus really did mean that there would be cataclysmic disasters and a completely new order.
Ludemann’s theory is both interesting and feasible, but it is hardly historically or scientifically provable. I think it is particularly weak when it comes to explaining what Paul experienced. Of course those that claim they can “prove” the resurrection experiences are the real thing are on no firmer ground.
Dr. Ehrman,
My minister, in a sermon this past summer in a sermon series on The Beatitudes, said Q Source has no crucifixion and no resurrection. He went on to say that The Gospel of Thomas has no crucifixion and no resurrection.
Do you agree?
With Q being older than Matthew and Luke, is Q from Jesus’ lifetime before Holy Week?
Steefen
Here is the sermon:
http://www.hpumc.org/sermon/introduction-and-overview-2018/
Thomas certainly has no passion narrative. What we can *reconstruct* of Q also does not, but that does not mean that the original document did not (if Matthew borrowed some of its passion material from Q but Luke did not, we’d have no way of knowing if it came from Q!)
If Jesus was talking about the apocalypse, does that imply he was talking about the resurrection of the dead?
If Jesus did talk about these things, did he unwittingly *prime* the disciples to think he’d be resurrected once he did die?
My sense is that htey were already apoclayticists themselves before they met Jesus, that they, like other Jews, already “knew” that at the end of time there would be a resurrection.
My understanding is that some Jewish sects, Sadducees and Essenes, denied the resurrection of the body.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sadducee
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Essene
Hence, when you say…
“they, like other Jews, already “knew” that at the end of time there would be a resurrection.”
…that actually only applies to Pharisees, right? And it was Sadducees that got Jesus arrested, I assume.
Maybe it was Paul who originally created all the stories about resurrected Jesus to convert the other sects into Pharisean beliefs. We know that Paul’s teachings about Mosaic Law were different from Jesus’. Maybe the same is true with the bodily resurrection. Maybe Paul never ceased to persecute early Christians and just wanted to corrupt their doctrines.
It would be interesting to speculate how Sadducees and Essenes reacted to not-so-good news about Jesus resurrection.
The Sadducees definitely rejected the idea of the resurrection; it’s much less clear about the Essenes.
Mark 6:14-16 retains the tradition/rumor that some thought John the Baptist had been “raised from the dead.” If historical, this would show that the basic concept of a single dying and rising prophet figure existed in the apocalyptic Judaism that both Jesus and John shared with their followers. It should go without mentioning that John and Jesus were both similar apocalyptic preachers with a similar message and, thus, would have attracted a similar audience. So that is a plausible explanation of how the belief in Jesus’ resurrection could have originated. The concept existed and was being shared among apocalyptic groups prior to his death.
In regards, to the “appearances” of Jesus, the earliest reconstruction in 1 Cor 15:5-8 would imply that they were visions/revelations of the Resurrected Christ in heaven, not physical interactions with a revived corpse. Paul places his experience, which was a vision/revelation (Gal. 1:16), in parallel with the “appearances” to the others. He makes no distinction but uses the same verb (ophthe) for each one. The physical resurrection to the earth was a later gradual development beginning in the gospel of Mark. It gets progressively more “physical” when you read the gospels in order which indicates we’re dealing with a story that grew over time as opposed to actual history.
re: “Mark 6:14-16 retains the tradition/rumor that some thought John the Baptist had been “raised from the dead.” If historical, this would show that the basic concept of a single dying and rising prophet figure existed in the apocalyptic Judaism that both Jesus and John shared with their followers.”
This bit of scripture doesn’t necessarily say anything about some concept of a single dying and rising prophet existing in apocalyptic Judaism. What this says is “Elvis is alive”. This is just the “religious” version of folklore. Sure, there were people who were saying that John had risen from the dead, but, that doesn’t mean that in “Judaism” – as some kind of “norm” – there was any such expectation at all of some single prophet rising from the dead. Heck, Herods repetition of “John is raised from the dead” sounds more like something I’d expect in some dark, Shakespearean play… “Macbeth, come back to haunt me”.
Besides, one of the chief “objections” to the “Jesus was resurrected” story was that “resurrection” wasn’t supposed to happen in that fashion at all. There was to be a “general resurrection” at the “last day”.
There are Christians that believe all kinds of stuff that just isn’t in the bible. Just as I’m sure there are Muslims that believe stuff that isn’t in the Quran. To me, it just looks like Mark is just relating some of the “nonsense” that people – including the (perhaps) guilt-ridden Herod – were saying. But, this doesn’t mean that “a single prophet rising from the dead” was some kind of widely-expected thing, by any means.
Does anyone have recommendations for reading on the Empty Tomb? I’m not a Christian, but I’m interested in the very best writing on it (from any perspective–or better yet, from multiple perspectives). Thanks.
Are you looking for Christian defenses that hte tomb was empty, or something else? I’m not sure what to recommend!
I’m definitely interested in Christian defenses that the tomb was empty (however, my experience of these is that they are often low quality) so I guess what you might be considered the best (most academic? most intellectually honest?) from the Christian perspective, and then academic books/articles from a non-Christian perspective?
My quick internet research leads me to think that there really aren’t books devoted to this topic, rather it seems piecemeal: an article here, a chapter there?
Yes, I don’t know of any books about this. Maybe someone else on the blog does?
parabéns!!
Happy Birthday, Professor! I have a child your age. I very much enjoy your books and this blog!. Your studies make so much sense. Much of Christianity, unfortunately, doesn’t. And yes, I consider myself a Christian. I try to follow the teachings of Jesus but I don’t accept any nonsense such as a virgin birth or a trinity….man made beliefs, not able to be backed up by any modern day science. Christians really need to consider the culture of the times Jesus lived when accepting Christianity and make sense of it through using some common sense..
According to the Gospels, the resurrected Jesus was first seen by Mary Magdalene (and perhaps a few other women). But the first mention of the risen Jesus is in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 (written by Paul), which indicates Peter was the first to see Jesus. Was Paul not even aware of Mary? It seems odd that if Paul was relying on existing oral traditions at the time, he would have at least known about her.
It’s hard to know whether he had heard the Mary traditoin and decided to suppress it, or (more likely in my personal opinion) simply hadn’t heard it.
Maybe you’ve written about this, but regarding the short ending of Mark, what do you think of the idea that it was written with the women not telling anyone to show why people didn’t know where the empty tomb was or anything about it?
In other words, when people began to wonder, say in the 50’s, “Why don’t we know where this tomb is, or are there stories about the tomb?”, some tradition begins saying that some women did know, but were so freaked out they kept it to themselves.
It’s an interesting idea! (But I suppose Joseph of Arimathea would still know…)
but the problem is that in all gospels, jay of a buries the body and is never heard from again. if matthew thought jay of a was enough to do a report , he would never need to reverse the role of the women found in mark.
Whether Ludemann’s theory is correct is not what matters to me. William Craig & others contend the Resurrection is historical because it is the most likely possibility explaining the death/empty tomb/sightings. As Ludemann and your bloggers have pointed out, numerous OTHER scenarios are possible (though not necessarily likely) and do not require supernatural action.
Yes, it’s always a question of whether an intervention by God is *more* probable than, say, someone stealing the body, someone telling a lie, someone having a vision, etc….
How does one calculate “probability” of an “intervention by God”? What one would have to do is somehow calculate the probability of an intelligent and thinking being that has agency might decide to do this-or-that at any given moment.
It’s like this: You and I are playing pool, and I am a mathematical genius with absolutely flawless eyesight. You take a shot, and immediately, from the trajectory of the cue ball, I can tell you the probability that it’s going to hit some other ball, and heck, since I’m a flippin’ genius, I can even tell you what’s going to happen after that. I can *calculate* those probabilities.
However, I cannot possibly calculate the probability that you’re going to decide to hit the cue ball toward the 7 ball or the 12 ball, or how hard you’re going to decide to hit the cue ball, or, if you’re going to decide to throw down your cue in frustration and go home.
So, I’ve seen you talk about this “probability” thing every now and then – but – can you explain to me how it’s supposed to work in the case of a God who has agency and may or may not decide to do anything at all at any given point?
Right. And even more, how do you calculate the probability that at the last millisecond God will make the ball swerve so as not to hit anything?
“o This vision was like other visions that people have (all the time): visions of dead loved ones; visions of the Virgin Mary. In these visions, of course the loved ones do not *really* come back to life from the dead, and the Virgin Mary does not *really* show up at Lourdes, etc. These are psychologically induced visions.”
Not saying I disagree, but This particular argument seems problematic because you can’t prove that any of the visions are “false.” You can’t prove Mary’s appearances are purely psychological or mass hallucinations and so one can’t use them as evidence for Jesus’ appearances as also being psychologically induced mass hallucinations.
Likewise the opinion that the visions people sometimes have of their dead loved ones are purely psychologically induced and have no spiritual component depends mostly on ones own philosophical/religious/spiritual perspective.
1955! ‘Twas a fine year! Vintage stuff.
And now I have to add Ludemann to my list of people I admire. I hope that’s not too ‘confirmation bias’-y! (of course it is).
Bart,
Is there an explanation somewhere as to how Peter ended up with a Jerusalem following rather than Galilee?
The disciples apparently came back to Jerusalem not long after they had fled to Galilee. Probably after the Passover (and the Roman presence) was over, and possibly because they expected Jesus to return there.
Professor,
Another controversial post that would be good in this blog would be on the story of M. Smith and the secret Gospel of Mark. (I do not want to give any spoilers here)
It’s an intriguing story- I do not think you have a full post on this (other than Jesus the magician). I know it is on your lost Christianities book and lecture. Maybe you can give us the latest scholarly view on this?
Happy B-day.
I have a chapter on it in my book Lost Christainities. I need to look to see if I’ve ever posted on it.
Jesus the magician? Sounds provocative!
Happy Birthday! You said that there was not a neat differentiation between visions and dreams in 1st century. Without you explaining more, I think they were more knowledgeable which altered states were real and connected to light worlds, than we are. Light heals. I have a Mandaean friend, age 22, who says Mandaeans get visits from Angel Gabriel and it is really happening, not vision or dream. I told him I had a powerful visit from a man but didn’t tell him it was ‘Jesus’. At that time in my life I believed in Jesus. They don’t believe in Jesus. I am older now and know that we frame our mental experiences according to the culture we’ve been raised in. I had a life-changing mental experience at a church camp, prefaced by a terrifying experience in which I was being chased in a game of ‘Romans against Christians’, which culminated in seeing and being taught in silence (no words) by ‘Jesus’. A Buddhist would have seen Buddha, a Hindu would have seen Krishna. The vision happened at age 17 and healed a 5-year clinical depression from the shock of finding my father dead, and many more things happened in the vision. I now am atheist, don’t believe in a manmade God, but by all means know “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than we have dreamt of.” Our brains work that way. I was a psychology and religious studies major. When traumatized we get explanatory healing knowledge. I believe Jesus was invented to develop a son of God narrative and to hide the secrets (divination). Divination knowledge would have been an end-game for god worshippers. The Roman Christians had 300+ years to develop their story of the son of God, using aspects of John’s teachings, but John the Baptist was a Nazoraean and didn’t believe in God(s), which attracted attention and brought trouble down on their heads. The Nazoraeans had reincarnation beliefs, were healers, diviners, mind readers, exorcists and prophesiers. They could heal themselves. This leads me to think John (not Jesus) was crucified, was taken off the cross alive, the Romans had immediate plans and later took him out of the tomb, beheaded him and hid his body. This explains the empty tomb. The Romans developed the “ascension story” as a strong point to attract converts. Do you ever mistrust Clement 1 and Irenaeus for exaggerating and elaborating?
Yes, 1 Clement and Irenaeus and all our other sources have to be treated critically (not credulously)
I believe in a natural God rather than a supernatural God. A God who is active in the world through everyday, non-supernatural means.
I do not buy the ‘visions’ theory at all. If we read the original ending of Mark (ending at verse 8), we see an empty tomb and some stranger saying that Jesus got up and went to Galilee. Nobody saw the resurrection itself and nobody sees the risen Jesus. Mark contains a number of passages that sound very much like early traditions about Jesus including things that would be of negligible interest to later Christians. One example is the argument over the Written Torah versus Oral Torah in Mark 7. It could be that Mark’s ‘resurrection’ story is an early tradition as well and might be an accurate depiction of something that really happened. This could be the real origin of the resurrection story.
If that is the case, what really happened? We might note that Matthew goes to great lengths to dress up Mark’s version to counter the obvious inference of the body having been stolen. Matthew even says that such stories were going around. Why make up stories to explain away an empty tomb that never happened? The ‘vision’ theory would not account for grave robbery stories being told.
I find relying on the 1 Corinthians 15 based ‘vision’ theory to be very unconvincing. Apparently, the Gospel writers felt the same way since none of them chose to incorporate the extravagant details Paul provided into their works. And we know that Mark read 1 Corinthians since he quotes from it in his Last Supper account. In 1 Cor. 15, Paul is providing ammunition to the believers in ‘his’ gospel (as he calls it) against those who do not believe resurrection is even possible. To my mind, Paul’s colorful story of 500+ witnesses is simply something he made up to support his case.
The qeustion is: what led the early followers of Jesus to believe he was raised from the dead. *Something* did. It wsan’t an empty tomb (which even Mark admits didn’t convince anyone) All the evidence suggests it was visions (not just Paul). See my discussion in How Jesus Became God.
I am aware of the ‘vision’ theory as put forth by Lüdemann and your commentary on it. I do not buy it. Mark appears to have had access to early traditions about Jesus. The Oral Torah argument in Mark 7 is one example, this being a totally believable example of the kind of argument that would go on in the heyday of the Beit Shammai Pharisees. The absence of any mention of tension between the Romans and the populace fits the atmosphere in Judaea prior to the Caligula incident in 40 CE. Some of the stories told about Jesus seem to have been around long enough to spawn variants. Mark presents two calming the sea passages and two feeding the multitudes passages with detail differences. The suggestion here is that Mark received multiple stories and included them all.
We know that Mark read 1 Corinthians since he quoted from 1 Cor. 11 in his Last Supper passage. Yet instead of incorporating any of Paul’s account of witnesses to a resurrected Jesus in 1 Cor. 15, Mark has the minimalist story of empty tomb, somebody says Jesus rose from the dead and left town. End of story. If this were not the original story, why did Matthew need to go to such lengths to counter the grave robbery story that he said was going around.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is pushing the idea of resurrection against skeptics. His elaborate story, which none of the Gospel writers were interested in incorporating, sounds like it was made up to support his argument. Paul’s claims of seeing Jesus in visions was simply his way of providing justification for his contradicting the original Apostles on the matter of following the Law.
I find the stolen body theory as the origin of the resurrection story far more convincing than the vision theory.
Does Ludemann address the fairly obvious question: Why do multiple sources attribute the first resurrection report to a woman if Peter, the most prominent of the twelve, was actually the first? Does he think there was a feminist agenda at work?
I don’t remember.
Dr Ehrman: The resurrection is crucial to the Christian faith. Take it away and the whole thing comes crashing down. As Paul boldly says, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless, and your believing it is useless” (1 Corinthians 15:14). The question is what do we mean by “resurrection?” What is the criterion used to say, only one’s idea of resurrection is valid while another is not? What type of reality are we dealing with anyway? I recall the late former bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, understanding the resurrection in term of the “livingness” of Christ. Christians have different understandings today on what is meant by “on the third day he rose again from the dead.” I know only too well the conventional, traditional notion of the literal “bodily” resurrection. Therein we see Jesus having risen from the dead, walked and spoke with the apostles for 40 days and taught them truths about God. But I see a significant problem with this literal understanding of the resurrection. The big stumbling block is that they continued to accept the false belief of the impending return of Christ. Did Jesus not know the truth? It’s highly unlikely. Then why did he not correct them about their false belief and explain that the second advent was not a literal doctrine? I believe it was because he was not bodily and continuously present with them during that time. To this end, the remythologizing and reformulating of the underlying reality is essential to shatter those “idols of the heart.”
Do you put any stock in the story of The Walk to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35? Not that it necessarily happened, but that the story itself (or some event like it) is most likely how the belief of the resurrection emerged, ie. emerging not from Peter but from two of the lesser apostles.
I know Luke begins with the finding of the empty tomb but (unless I’m wrong) he’s unique in including a story of two apostles wearily traveling with a stranger well outside Jerusalem whom they only recognize to be the risen Jesus right before he vanishes.
Even in Luke Christ appeared to “Simon” first. My view is that it is a later story, and its main importance is it’s claim that the disciples recognized Jesus “in the breaking of the bread.” That is to say, it is precisely in the communion meal that others, outside the 12, can still see Jesus as raised from the dead.