I’m very excited to announce that I will be doing a new course on April 6, on the resurrection narratives of the New Testament, called “The Other Doubting Thomases: Did Jesus’s Disciples All Believe in the Resurrection?”
The course is not connected to the blog, but may well be of interest to all you blog members! For more information and registration, go to https://www.bartehrman.com/the-other-doubting-thomases/ Early bird pricing goes till March 23, and note: you can get a blog discount by using the code BLOG 5
Of course everyone assumes the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus did believe in the resurrection, and the New Testament certainly says so in places. But there are other passages that raise significant questions, that to my knowledge are almost never considered by scholars let alone other readers. Why is it that even in the passages that describe Jesus’ resurrection — nearly all of them in the Gospels and Acts — we are told that some of the disciples “doubted.” What was there to doubt? Especially if Jesus was right in front of them talking to them? Where do these doubt traditions come from? Why are they so regularly found? What do they mean? Can they possibly embody a historical reality known to the Gospel writers, that some of the apostles did indeed doubt? And never came to believe?
The questions have rarely been raised, but we will deal with them directly, over the course of two lectures. there may be no definitive answers, but as we’ll see, there is plenty of room for doubt, and for anyone who continues to be a Doubting Thomas.
Here is a video description of the course.
Registered!
To whet your appetite review my guest Platinum post of June 22, 2023: Did The Twelve Become Only Three?
Wow, I was just thinking today that a good course would be a thorough examination of the Resurrection narratives in the Gospels, Acts, and Paul. Might be interesting to include a section on how Church Fathers through the ages (like Irenaeus, Basil, Chrysostom, Augustine, just to rattle off a few) dealt with the apparent contradictions (such as Luke omitting any Galilee appearances and having Jesus insist that the Disciples stay in Jerusalem — in contrast to Mark and Matthew). For many years I never noticed these contradictions at all until I noticed them. Now I can’t unnotice them!
Dr.Bart, I’m registered and here are my thoughts coming into the course:
1.) I don’t understand why the verses confirming doubt among the Jesus-followers were kept in the record instead of being redacted.
2.) I think that a primary source for the author of Mark’s Gospel may have been one of the doubters. ”Mark” tells us (by lack of confirmation) that there were no post mortem appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion.
WHY? My Speculation: Because their Jewish-Jesus-apocalyptic theology required the messiah Jesus to return JUST ONCE (during their own generation) Not Twice, to bring God’s kingdom (Galilee being ground-zero). No kingdom, no Jesus.
Why would Thomas (or any apostle) doubt Jesus’ rising when they had seen Lazarus risen? In fact, wouldn’t they actually anticipate and expect that Jesus would rise?
You would think.