Loading...Back to issues related to my book. In ch. 4 I talk about why the Gospels are problematic as “witnesses” to the resurrection (apart from the question of whether you can have *any* historical “evidence” for a miracle). This is the first part of my short discussion there, again, in rough draft
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We have already seen why the Gospels of the New Testament – our earliest available narratives of Jesus’ life – are so problematic for historians who want to know what really happened. They are written decades later, not by eyewitnesses, but by authors living in different countries from Jesus and speaking a different language. These authors are basing their accounts on written sources and, especially, oral traditions that had been in circulation year after year, decade after decade, until the authors themselves wrote them down. In this long process of oral transmission, stories about Jesus were changed, embellished, and made up. That in no small measure is why we find so many discrepancies and contradictions in our various Gospel accounts. Story tellers – including the Gospel writers themselves – were changing their stories as they retold them.
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Yes, it is amazing what “interpretive gymnastics” fundamentalists will resort to when attempting to explain away the contradictions, not only in the gospels, but in the entire Bible!
Bart, if I remember correctly, you said, or at least implied, that it was OK for us to ask you questions in a comment thread that may not have anything to do with the post. So, here I go. If I misunderstood you, I apologize.
We are sure that there was a historical Jesus. However, I have a question about the historicity of another religious figure. I know your area is not Islam, but do you know what the consensus is among scholars on the historicity of Muhammad? Is it the consensus among scholars that there was a historical Muhammad? A man named Robert Spencer ( he has a website called jihadwatch.org, which is dedicated to critiquing Islam) has written a book called “Did Muhammad Exist” where he at least implies that Muhammad was not a historical figure. Is this a view held by scholars, or is it on the fringe? I’m just asking out of genuine curiosity and because I’m very ignorant on this subject. I have difficulty believing that Muhammad wasn’t a historical figure, but what do I know?
Hope you don’t mind answering this question that I admit has little to nothing to do with the topic at hand.
I’m not an expert, but I don’t think there’s any real doubt among scholars that there was a historical Mohammed.
Hi Mikail78,
Coming from a Muslim, this may sound biased, but I can assure you, “Jihadwatch” is the last place on earth you’ll find reliable information about the historicity of Muhammad and Islam, and Robert Spencer is by no means a scholar, let alone of Islam. Questioning whether there *was* a historical Muhammad is along the lines of questioning whether there was a historical Jesus – there are those who do it, but it’s a fruitless exercise. May I recommend researching some more scholarly works on Muhammad’s life?
Peace
Good summary. I am amazed that you were able to contrast these differences so well in just one paragraph. With it being Easter, I thought you might be doing this just like you did with the Christmas story at Christmas.
Sixth line of next to last paragraph: change “tome” to “tomb.”
When you said “imaginative interpretive gymnastics” in the last sentence, I got this mental image of a pot-bellied, pinch-faced, self-righteous fundamentalist theologian dressed in spandex running around a gym mat with long flowing ribbons, leaping and prancing in a vain attempt to tie up all the lose ends in his inerrent canon, trying not to look foolish and inept in the attempt.
Thanks, Bart; I’m gonna need therapy after that visual.
The standard apologetic response is to encourage one to look at different reports of modern events and note the differences. It used to convince me years ago, until I realized that it was a weak analogy. The discrepancies in the Gospels simply cannot be reconciled. As always, I point out the zombies in Matthew. Wouldn’t every Gospel, plus every additional extant Christian epistle include this incredible detail. Matthew 27-52-53 was the beginning of the end of my belief in the inerrant NT when I was a teenager. There’s a major reason those two verses aren’t featured in the weekly pulpit.
Bart, the accounts are totally incoherent indeed. But assuming there was an empty tomb at all (and Paul doesn’t even mention one): what do you make of the theory that Jesus’ corpse was temporarily put in an empty tomb nearby since everything had to go quickly (like John 19:42 seems to indicate: ‘*because* it was the Jewish day of Preparation and *since* the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus *there*’)?
The theory then says that Joseph of Arimathea had the corpse moved immediately after the Sabbath was over (night from Saturday to Sunday) and before Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. But MM, being part of those lower-class people who followed Jesus, didn’t have any way to find out where the corpse was brought to. The disciples and the women went home dispirited to Galilee then where they would get an ‘epiphany’ about why Jesus had to die, why he didn’t really die, etc.
Yes, John is the youngest Gospel but why couldn’t there be elements of the story closer to the actual truth?
I know I’ve asked this before but maybe something has changed in your opinion since then?
I guess the issue with your scenario would be why, if Joseph knew where the body was, he didn’t simply tell someone when the disciples claimed it had been raised.
My own view is that we don’t know if there was an empty tomb. That’s a change in my view that I’ve made just recently.
Maybe because those ‘the tomb was empty *because* Jesus walked out of it’ claims/legends only came up much later, somewhat before the Gospels were written and outside of Jerusalem? Probably as a result of people misunderstanding the concept of ‘resurrection’ mixed with the rumors of an empty tomb (because Joseph of A moved the corpse to a different tomb).
The scenario would be like this: the disciples don’t know where the corpse has been moved to, they leave Jerusalem, crushed by the death of their cult leader (and the disappearance of his body) and return to Galilee where they then have an ‘epiphany’ and get convinced that Jesus has triumphed after all, that he has been ‘raised’ (which is different from being ‘revived’ in a physical sense and doesn’t involve or require an actual corpse), they get back to Jerusalem and preach that ‘the Christ’ has ‘risen’. And since ‘the Christ’ had received a ‘new, glorified, spiritual body’ during his ‘resurrection’ the actual corpse (present or not) didn’t matter. Such a scenario would also be supported by Paul’s views on what a ‘resurrection’ is or how it’s supposed to work.
Yeah, that’s close to how I read it too….
Also, what about John 20:8-9: ‘Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)’?
So the ‘other disciple’ believed that the tomb was empty indeed. It’s not, as 20:9 confirms, about believing that Jesus had resurrected! That apparently didn’t even come to their minds. Despite that the other Gospels claim that Jesus had repeatedly told them that he would resurrect after his death …
Discrepancies, special traditions and independent traditions are good: they mean that it doesn’t exist a single source (maybe a false source, a mere invention!) for the facts.
Moreover, I’m under the impression that if all gospels would have been written at the same time in the same place saying exactly the same things then probably they would not have a big historical value. Am I correct?
Well, if they all said exactly the same thing it would be hard to account for that unless one was the source for the other, in which case they would not be independent witnesses.
Same time, same place, *and* saying the same thing would be suspect, but different times, different places, saying the same thing, would be more trustworthy. The fact is that with all the discrepancies, there’s no way that they can be divinely inspired accounts, let alone historically accurate ones.
What, if anything, do you think is probably historical in the resurrection narratives? Empty tomb? A women or women discovering the empty tomb? Is it likely the women had a vision at the tomb or what it says is simply unhistorical about the appearnce of a man or angel or someone at the tomb
I’ll be dealing with this questio nat length in the book. The one thing I think we can say with relative certainty is that some of Jesus’ followers claimed to see him alive afterwards.
But how would we know what they meant with ‘alive’ and in which form they ‘saw’ him?
What is the evidence that the Apostles (and/or women) did indeed claim that they had seen the ‘resurrected Jesus’ in a physical, humanoid form? Paul surely did not claim this. Paul instead claimed that God revealed ‘the risen Christ’ IN him (Paul), making it sound more like a subjective, spiritual experience. And Acts describes Paul as having seen a light and heard a voice, not as having interacted with a humanoid Christ.
Aren’t all these ‘he ate and we could touch him’ stories simply later apologies by people who wanted to counter classical Greek ideas of immaterial ‘souls’ being the final way of existence? With the Christians rather believing that the ‘soul’ will get clothed with a ‘new, spiritual, glorified, eternal body’ at the ‘resurrection’. A body not made of flesh and blood, a body not of the earth but of heaven. Why would you need a (rotting) corpse in order to get this body? Let’s also not forget that Paul yearned to ‘leave this tent’ and to get clothed with the ‘heavenly dwelling’!
Yes, I think Paul precisely does claim that he saw Jesus’ body. In fact, that’s the point of 1 Corinthians 15. It wasn’t the mortal body that was resuscitated — it was a glorious, immortal, resurrected body. But it was definitely a body, the glorified version of the body that went into the grave. Paul stresses this point to counter what his opponents in Corinth are saying. I’ll post my discussion of htis soon, since it’s a key point and it’s important to get the nuances right.
Ok, looking forward to that post. I assume you will also address Paul’s seed analogy there? A lot of people seem to ignore that Paul points out there that God actually GIVES each seed (after it has, as Paul thinks, died) a certain body; he does not claim that the seed *transforms* into a certain body. The seed will be destroyed (like the corpse of a human who rots and turns to dust) so that the ‘essence’ of the seed could be clothed with a specific, new body (like the soul of a human would be put into that new, spiritual, glorified body). This means that the earthly bodies can be left behind because the souls, when they’re called back from the realm of the dead, are immediately clothed with their definitive, heavenly bodies. No need to first recreate the old bodies from dust only to then change them into something very different. Such a change will ONLY occur to those *alive* at the time of the General Resurrection!
Paul’s ‘resurrection body’ is neither immaterial like the Greek soul nor is it physical like a revived corpse. It’s somewhere between those two …
Interesting point. But I still think there’s a connection between what is sown and what grows. It goes in the ground one thing and comes out another.
Bart, yes, there is a connection. The kind of seed indicates which kind of body God will give to the ‘essence of the seed’ after the seed has ‘died’ (in the ground). The (dead) shell of the seed will remain in the ground while the ‘glorified body’ of the seed will come out of it. Same with humans: their natural bodies die, get left behind and rot until God calls their souls back from the realm of the Dead and clothes them with new, glorified bodies.
Don’t forget that Paul longs to be away from the body and with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8), that he claims that the ‘earthly tent’ will be *destroyed* (2 Cor 5:1) and that as long as people are at home in the body they’re away from the Lord (2 or 5:7).
So it seems like 1 Cor 15 cannot be addressed without also addressing 2 Cor 5 at the same time?
Correction: “Same with humans: their natural bodies die, get left behind and rot; they don’t matter anymore. At some point, God will then call the souls, that once were connected to these bodies, back from the realm of the Dead and will clothe them (the souls) with newly created, glorified bodies: the ‘resurrection of the dead’.
Otherwise it would just be a kind of revivification like in the alleged cases of Lazarus, that girl, those ‘saints’, etc.
Aren’t the resurrection narratives in the gospel rendered even more problematic given Pau’s conspicuous omission of the empty tomb narrative in his defense of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians, which was likely written at least 30 years before Mark’s gospel? Why would Paul NOT have included the empty tomb story in his apologetic of the resurrection? Was he unaware of the narrative? Did he not think it necessary to his argument? Or, had the story itself not yet been invented? My bet is on the latter.
Yes, I doubt if Paul knew the story. Either it hadn’t been invented yet or, more likely in my view, it was not known everywhere yet.
Of course there are discrepancies in the Gospel narratives! This could be said for most narratives in the Bible where oral transmission was the norm. It could also be said for just about any kind of story that’s transmitted orally, ancient or modern.
I will respond later with a few more comments, but for now I’m obliged to make a simple point. You ask, “Did the women enter the tomb as in Mark and Luke or not as in Matthew?” Indeed, Mark and Luke specifically mention that they entered the tomb. When I read read Matthew carefully, however, I don’t see that the women did not enter the tomb, as you seem to be suggesting. In fact, the angel told them to “Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (v. 6). It was after this that he told them to go quickly and tell the other disciples. Matthew does not say or imply that they did not enter the tomb. Every indication is that they did enter it, and that they otherwise would not have gone quickly afterwards to tell the story.
Therefore, I would suggest deleting this question from the book.
I’ve heard this a few times in your videos, so I bet you could write this with your eyes shut! A great presentation of the problems in the account.
I hadn’t considered this before, but after reading talitakum’s question above, do you think the four accounts were perhaps DELIBERATELY written ever so slightly different so that they’d appear to be “independent witnesses”? Or is that kind of thinking maybe too modern for that to occur to them to do?
And the fact that Paul doesn’t know about the empty tomb, nor the Virgin Birth, nor much about the teachings of Jesus, and had a semi-Adoptionist Christology, says to me that there were many different traditions in the early years that coalesced only much, much later.
Also: third paragraph starts off “To realize that the Gospels differ in significant way,” Missing an “s” there at the end.
Yes, I think that view is way too modern to have occurred to anyone in antiquity.
To continue … you ask, “Did they immediately go and tell some of the disciples what they had seen as in John, or not ,as in Matthew, Mark, and Luke?” Well, according to Matthew, they “departed quickly … to report it to his disciples” (Matt. 28:8) and, according to Mark, if you accept vv. 9ff, Mary indeed “went and reported [it].” They may have been gripped with astonishment and said “nothing to anyone” (v. 8), but how long did that last? Five minutes, ten minutes ….? Or, was it thirty minutes before Mary Magdalene went to report it? And, finally, according to Luke, they also “reported all these things to the eleven ….”
The “discrepancy” is, according to what I’m interpreting you to say, not whether they were told but rather how many of the disciples were told by Mary Magdalene and at what time. John does mention that Peter and the “beloved disciple” were first to be told by Mary Magdalene. But, does John say that she didn’t tell the others? I’m afraid not. Matthew seems to agree with John that Mary met two disciples before meeting up with the others, since, according to v. 8, the women “ran to report it to his disciples” (there could have been two indeed) and, then in v. 9, she meets up with the risen Jesus with some instructions to apparently take the word further to the rest of his brethren. Mark seems to agree with John as well that Mary met the two disciples first (Mk. 16:10), after which the risen Jesus meets with the two (v. 12), and then they go on to report it to the rest. Mark clearly implies that the “two of them” were Mary Magdalene and one of the other two women, since the other disciples did not believe them “either,” just as Peter and “the beloved” did not believe Mary previously. With respect to Luke’s account, Peter does run to the tomb, but at what time, it’s unclear (this v. 12 is not in earlier mss.).
I agree that fundamentalist Christians do love mental gymnastics (BTW, it should be quite clear that I’m not one of them), but how do agnostic-atheists respond to the fact that Matthew does indicate that the women were told to view the tomb and then to go quickly and tell what they had seen [i.e., no Jesus] to the disciples – something you deny Matthew indicates; in fact, you accuse the women of not doing as the angel of the Lord requires! Why would they be with “fear and great joy” if they had not seen an empty tomb? How do the same respond to the apparent agreement between Matthew, Mark, Luke (to a lesser extent) and John that the women went first to two of his disciples (Peter and “the beloved”), then to the rest? And, how do they respond to the fact that John does not even say, despite your implying, that the two women went “immediately” from the tomb? In fact, Matthew and Mark are the ones who specifically indicate that the women “quickly left” or “fled” the tomb, not John, although he seems to be aware of the other two accounts.
Finally, this is a bit off topic from this thread, but I was also wondering how other agnostic-atheists respond to the fact that the kingdom of God was said by Jesus to be “within” or “inside” individuals, not “outside” or “among individuals,” as you interpret Luke 17:22. Does not the Greek adverb ἐντός (entos) mean “within” or “inside” (http://biblesuite.com/greek/1787.htm)? And, where in the NT is the word meant otherwise, especially the opposite? The answer is nowhere! You’re not alone, Bart, in misconstruing the Parable of the Kingdom of God. There are even fundamentalists who misconstrue it! It takes a humility from both camps to interpret the Greek correctly as expressing the Aramaic that Jesus apparently spoke.
I can’t think of any scholars (including my evangelical friends) who consider Mark 16:9-21 as original. So they can’t be used to this end.
My exegesis of Luke 17:21-22 is not “agnostic” or “atheist.” It is simply the common scholarly view. The question is not what Jesus himself may have meant by it, since the verses are unique to Luke and fit the Lukan agenda; they are almost certainly not authentic. The issue then is what they mean in Luke. And in Luke they clearly do not mean that the Kingdom is “inside” the people Jesus is speaking to, since he is speaking to people that he things — in Luke’s narrative — will not enter into the kingdom. These are his enemies, and they certainly do not have the kingdom within them. In Luke’s Gospel, the Kingdom is in the midst of people in the sense that Jesus manifests the kingdom in his ministry.
I’ve never been one to simply whiteout bracketed scripture or refuse to question how it was determined necessary for inclusion. Even so, my above questions that are not dependent on Mark 16:9ff still go unanswered. Not being fond of argument by silence, I think they should be answered. Some of your “discrepancy” questions appear to have entered the keyboard, as one member suggested elsewhere, during a state of sleep, so I challenged a few of them, e.g., where does Matthew state that the women did “not” enter the tomb when I’ve shown quite clearly, I think, that they did? It would be incumbent to show that they did not follow the angel of the Lord’s dictate. And, where does Matthew or Luke state that they did not immediately go tell some of his disciples what they saw? When we compare what Matthew said (Matt. 28:7-8) with what you’re saying, now there’s a real discrepancy! It’s not an answer to take refuge with unnamed scholars and evangelical friends.
Regarding your exegesis of Luke 17:21, the “common scholarly view” becomes less common when you acknowledge that there are as many or more Greek translators who have rendered ἐντός ὑμῶν (“within you”). If the Greek texts instead had ἐκτός ὑμῶν (“without you”), then it would make perfect sense to render the phrase “among you” or “in your midst.” This is not a variant but a mistranslation by some scholars to displace (disingenuously, I propose) the actual kingdom of heaven.
To argue that the Pharisees are not to be viewed as having the kingdom within themselves is a straw man. To exempt Jesus’ enemies is analogous to saying that Cain, the enemy of Abel, could not have been “made in the image of God [Elohim]” since he slaughtered a good person – obviously another straw man. And, I can’t think of any credible scholar (if I might borrow comeback) who would wager that God only made Adam and Eve in his image, and that all else are deficient – especially those who don’t agree with you. In fact, the argument of the “Image” as applying to all human beings can be (or should be) paralleled with the “kingdom of heaven” as existing within us all. To be sure, the Pharisees could not gain access to this because of their disbelief and ignorance, but this would apply as well to anyone, ancient or modern, who misconstrued his parables, not to mention those who never heard of Jesus but still refuse to open their mind. Jesus tried to get this point across when they tried to stone him for blasphemy (John 10:34-35), but they would have nothing to do with recognizing other gods.
When trying to resolve the definition of this phrase ἐντός ὑμῶν, I’m reminded of the debate between W.F. Albright and T.J. Meeks over “monotheism,” which debate was never resolved either. As Meeks said in a personal letter (January 22, 1938) to Albright, “it’s unfortunate when people define words in different ways” (cf. Mark S. Smith’s “The Origins of Biblical Monotheism” (2001), p. 150). I would add that it’s just as unfortunate (probably more so) when people define a Greek phrase not only differently but with opposite meanings, and then to attribute it to a Lucan agenda. If Luke had an agenda here (Luke 17:21), he would have used the phrase ἐκτός ὑμῶν instead of ἐντός ὑμῶν, and, of course, we would not be having a debate.
If it’s possible to resolve the debate over the definition in question, it might prove enlightening to explore the “inner room” of the true prophet Micaiah (1 Kings 22:25). For those who care, it’s actually within the kingdom that Jesus taught, and you won’t find it in a temple built with men’s hands – it won’t be among you or within your midst either.
Ron, I’m sorry you’re feeling ignored, that I’m not answering your questions. The unfortunate reality is that I simply do not have time to engage with very long comments and queries and to carry on long backs and forths on the blog. I wish I did! But if you want to make a short comment with a quick question, I can deal with it; and then you can go on to the next one. I wish it were otherwise, but alas, there are only so many hours of the day, and I can only spend one of them on the blog.
Certainly, I understand all of that. When asking the readers for comments and objections to your drafts, however, especially to those statements and questions that are highly problematical in my view, it seems only prudent to confront the challenge seriously. While I appreciate your going head-to-head with certain groups, e.g., fundamentalists, mythicists, etc., you must also appreciate my challenges to you – I would hope so anyways.
Since none of the gospel writers were eye witnesses of events in Palestine, and thus had to rely on oral traditions, and scant written material then I wonder why scholars don’t pay more attention to the fact that Paul was the primary writer and it was from HIS churches in the Greek speaking world that supplied the oral traditions. Paul certainly based his preaching on the resurrection of Christ Jesus. And more importantly wrote in Greek, the language of the gospel writers. As a gospel writer it seems to me that if Paul was considered an authority, then one had to invent an empty tomb to account for a risen Jesus. I think that there are other gospel narratives which rely on Paul that was not part of the Jerusalem followers. The most interesting to me is the claim by Paul in his letter to the Corinthians that Jesus himself (in some kind of vision apparently) told him that the symbolism of the bread and wine was his spilled blood and broken body. I believe the gospel writers used this information to construct the story of the Last Supper and put the words into a very physical Jesus PRIOR to his death. Confirmation for this postulation is the fact that in the Didache, we find a completely different symbolism for the bread and wine. Very much more in line with the Jerusalem church under the leadership of James.
Scholars don’t think that Paul’s churches provided the oral traditions about Jesus for a very good reason: oral traditions about Jesus are notably lacking in the Pauline letters! That’s one of their most startling features. Jesus traditions simply weren’t important for Paul (or else he didn’t know very many)
i dont think there was an empty tomb. its not mentioned by paul and they were expensive, esp for a peasant. if there was why didnt it become a shrine and holy place for early Christians? why was it completely forgotten about? and how r they able to know so much specific detailed info about Joseph of Arimathea yrs latter? it makes more sense that its a latter development required for a risen body.
Bart, what do you make of the claim that, according to the NT, the ‘risen Christ’ only ‘appeared’ to some lucky few, some elect people, in secret? Why wouldn’t the ‘risen Christ’ appear publicly to everyone? Why would he hide instead?
Why would one have to be ‘chosen’ in order to ‘see’ the ‘risen Christ’? According to Acts 10:40 “God raised him up on the third day and caused him to be seen, **not by all the people, but by us, the witnesses God had already chosen**, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”
Actual physical beings could be seen by everyone who happened to be there, right? So what does this tell us about the ‘risen Christ’?
My guess is that the NT is trying to explain precisely the problem that Jesus appeared only to followers afterwards (one exception, James his brother). My hunch is that the only ones with “visions” were the ones who desperately missed him.
Yes, that makes sense. Although I guess there’s also the aspect of social dynamics: some didn’t want to feel left out or wanted the same thing as the others so they too had their ‘visions’. A bit like once a couple of your friends got babies a lot of your other friends suddenly want one too … 😉
What are your thoughts on the interpretation that the Resurrection is to be understood as a “mega-parable”? That it was never literal and the early church from the start never understood it to be so. It was a parable of overcoming the pier of evil. This is the highly controversial view of JD Crossan.
I don’t see why this is true. Why would Paul be discussing the resurrection body of Jesus in a parable? Why would the apostles be getting themselves imprisoned, shipwrecked, and killed for a parable that they never told anyone was a parable? If it was a parable, you’d think one of the 27 NT books would infer or mention it.
Crossan thinks that if you call it a parable it means that it coudl be true whether or not its historical. That leaves *open* the question if it happened. His point is that the brute historical fact is not where the “meaning” resides. Parables can be true whether or not they happened.
Dr. Ehrman,
Which book of yours are you referring to in your post? Also, have you written a book specifically about the resurrection and all the problems with trying to mount a case in favor? I have watched your most recent debate with Licona, but was wondering if your research was in book form?
I talk about it most in How Jesus Became God; that’s the book I’m referring to in the post.
What is the difference between the way of seeing the resurrection of the first disciples, influenced by the apocalyptic conception, about the resurrection of the body as it was when it was alive and the conception of Paul who theorized a resurrection with a Glorious Body? why do you think these different conceptions were created in such a short time, given that Paul was also an apocalyptic?
I’d say Paul had a much more sophisticated, philosophical view of it, and that the difference was mainly because he was a highly educated Greek speaking Jew and they were illiterate Aramaic speaking peasants.
Ok, but I wonder why, later the evangelists returned to the previous conception by making Jesus appear to the disciples with his own body even wearing the signs of the passion
A glorified body can look just like the mortal one.
Dear Dr Ehrman,
Can we consider the story of the resurrection a *legend*? Or a *myth*?
Technically speaking, Is it correct to call it this way?
Thanks
I usually define legends as natural but fictional accounts of actual humans and myths as involving the divine realm, stories meant to convey an important point. I frankly never use the term for the events in the life of Jesus since it always leads to rather serious misunderstandings.
Dr. Ehrman,
I have a question. I was listening to William Lane Craig recently and he argues that the disciples who first had an experience of Jesus post-death wouldn’t have thought he would have been bodily resurrected, but that he would have been in heaven or in Hades (similar to if somebody today has a vision of their grandmother a few days after she died. They think she is in heaven or has come back from heaven for a quick visit, not that she has been bodily resurrected).
Craig seems to speak convincingly of this point and, I think, he even said that no Jew would have expected to see a bodily resurrection, so this wouldn’t match with a hallucination because it wouldn’t have been what any Jew would have expected. Instead, they would have assumed Jesus just came back to them from the dead not that he had been bodily raised (such as other accounts in the Bible like Samuel in 1 Sam. 28).
Why would the disciple(s) think their experience of Jesus post-death was with a bodily resurrected Jesus and not just a heavenly vision or Jesus appearing to them from the dead?
The author of 1 Samuel was not an apocalypticist. The apocalyptic views of the afterlife came to prominence a couple of centuries before Jesus. In this view “afterlife” meant a “bodily resurrection,” not the survival of the soul goint go heaven. “Coming back from the dead” necessarily mean “bodily.” That, by the way, is why in the Gospels they can touch him and watch him eat. He’s a body raised. That’s THE apocalyptic expectatoin, and they were all apocalypticists. They didn’t have a concept of the soul existing apart from the body. I disucss this at some length in my book Heaven and Hell.
What do you make of the appearances of Elijah and Moses? The tradition wasn’t that they were bodily raised from the dead. Plus, even in the Gospels, the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost earlier in the ministry.
What sources are you basing your apocalyptic ideas on that the disciples WOULD have thought their visions of Jesus would have been of a bodily resurrected Jesus because that is what they would have expected? I have your book on Heaven and Hell but have yet to read it. Is there a chapter where you discuss this in detail and have you changed on this from your earlier days?
It appears in your earlier debates you were arguing Peter/some of the disciples just had a spiritual resurrection/vision appearance? Or did I misread you?
Also, do you believe the first appearances were actually believed to have been bodily or do you think this was a later tradition? Paul used the same word for “appear” to describe his vision. Could it be the case that the earliest people who had experiences of Jesus just had a “vision” and was later projected to be bodily?
What counted as a vision of Jesus?
The visions of Moses and Elijah were not narrated/told by apocalyptic Jewish followers of Jesus but by Greek writers living elsewhere and later. They believed in souls that lived apart from the body.
A “vision” is anything you see (from Latin VIDEO, to see). Non-veridical visions are things you see that aren’t there. I discuss this at greater length in How Jesus Became God, but I think some of Jesus’ disciples thought they say him alive after his death. that’s what led them to conclude, on the spot, that he had been raised from the dead, since that’s how they understood it was possible for a dead person again to be alive (as apocalyptic Jews)