Loading...I was just now browsing through posts from seven years ago, and came across this one, which is related to questions I get from time to time. It is an absolutely fundamental issue for Christian faith, but I almost *never* see anyone talk about it. Surprising! Here’s the interesting question and my response (back when I was starting just to do work on the resurrection stories for my book How Jesus Became God).
QUESTION:
Are we to understand from this that some of the actual disciples, the inner circle, doubted? Is this the origin of the “Doubting Thomas” character in John? Maybe not everyone got a vision of the risen Christ? Perhaps these are hints that after the crucifixion some of the group ran away and DIDN’T come back!
RESPONSE:
This is a question specifically about the stories of the resurrection of Jesus, and it is one that I’ve been pondering myself intensely for a couple of weeks. It would help to have the data in front of us.
The tradition that the disciples doubted that Jesus was raised from the dead – even though they have seen him – is in every Gospel that has resurrection appearances (i.e., Matthew, Luke, John; it may be suggested in Mark; and it is clearly implied as well in Acts). But why in the world are they doubting he was there, if they’re seeing, hearing, and touching him???
Hey, ever have doubts? You’re not alone. Want your doubts answered and assuaged? Read on. Not a blog member? Sorry, you’ll be stuck in your doubts for ever. So join the blog!
Isn’t this theme of doubt due to the Gospels being later texts, and now have an audience that might doubt that Jesus rose from the dead. So we find characters to resonate with those that doubt. We are even told that people who believe without seeing like the disciples would be blessed. And this explains why the doubting theme is not found in the writings of Paul. Isn’t that a simple reasonable explanation?
Yup! Or possibly there were doubts at the outset?
It is also possible that no one was ever raised from the dead before so how could jesus do so. Therefore they doubted. They needed extraordinary convincing to believe.
But all 4 gospels have a story of Jesus raising someone from the dead, all with at least some disciples present?
Isn’t it also possible that these proofs to the doubting apostles were inserted to persuade the hearers of the Gospels? After all, resurrection is pretty implausible, and it would have helped to have characters in the narrative itself who also thought so and had their doubts satisfied.
According to the “Gospel according to Me” it seems that if the resurrection didn’t occur then we have the 12 greatest liars the world has ever seen. I find it difficult to believe that people would martyr themselves for a lie. If we are not raised from the dead, regardless of the form of the body or spirit, if there is no afterlife then why act in this life like a good person. If, as some argue that it cannot be scientifically proven, then what is the definition of belief? If as some argue, you are cremated, how can there be a bodily resurrection. Then I remember a book by (I think) J.B. Phillips titled “Your God Is Too Small” which pretty much answers that question.If God can create man out of dust He can certainly put the ashes back together. If we try to put limits on the ability of God to do certain things, then truly your God IS too small. In any case that is what I choose to believe.
“According to the “Gospel according to Me” it seems that if the resurrection didn’t occur then we have the 12 greatest liars the world has ever seen.” —> there is no testimony from the 12. ” I find it difficult to believe that people would martyr themselves for a lie.” ——torah says that if the jews were to see a sign and wonder and cause family members to believe in other gods, then the jews are to stone these people(the ones who SEE the sign and wonder) to death. why would the people who saw sign and wonder willingly RISK their lives ? we do not know the STATE of the belief of these “martyrs” . mark says that the last peter was seen was DENYING and lying about jesus. maybe mark saw that peters credibility gets shot when things got tough for peter and 40 years later had to tell his audience not to be like peter. mark again and again, writing decades later, says that the disciples of jesus were not willing to die for jesus. i find it strange that he would not tell his readers about what a changed man peter was.
The gospels were written anonymously 40-50 years after Jesus’ death based on oral traditions. They were written by men who didn’t know Jesus, his disciples or have any direct knowledge of the life, death and burial of Jesus. The lives, beliefs and deaths of the “12” is largely based on legends written about much later in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Most likely the disciples stayed in Jerusalem which was the headquarters of the church. There is very little mention of Jesus by independent Jewish or Roman historians living at that time. Legends and oral traditions are not lies. They are just stories pasted on verbally. That’s why its called “the greatest story ever told”.
People find it difficult to believe that someone would martyr themselves for a lie? No… just ask Muslims that are blowing themselves up right and left. It’s not difficult to believe that happens at all.
I wish to address this objection often stated by observers of early christian martyrs, the one in reference to those being martyred as a result of their beliefs, the objection is why would they risk their lives based on a lie. As I student of history, I find over and over again, hucksters and charlatans who are killed for deceiving and manipulating others in an attempt to gain power, wealth and notoriety. Let’s not be naive and suppose early christian martyrs were not in it for the later, they were human after all. Use your brain.
You have a hard time believing followers would martyr themselves for a lie… Please explain then why the Islamic terrorists flew their planes into the twin towers. Didn’t they martyr themselves for a lie or do you also believe in the words of Mohammed (sp)?
I have a different take, and that is that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross. I’m thinking of his appearance when he is hungry and asks if they have anything to eat and they give him fish and bread and he seems to have a good appetite. So there he is, in the flesh, not the spirit. Crucifixion victims were normally kept on the cross for several days and ultimately died from stress and strangulation. (If someone knows more specifically the cause, I’m open to it.) Jesus was on the cross for 6 hours because it was Passover, and he already had a rich friend to take his body away. No one describes seeing him put into the tomb. My theory is that, as did happen in those days, sympathetic women would provide narcotics to drink from the sponge when it was raised to the victim’s lips. It is after he says “I thirst” and they give him the sponge that he “dies” – or at least appears to. I think he passed out. I believe that he was cared for and revived by Joseph of Aramathea and whatever friends could help him, and then later appeared to the disciples. Jesus had an active social life outside of what the disciples knew or the later writers reported – we know because of the many friends outside the group he eats with and socializes with. And (if this isn’t bad enough) I think he planned it all – the “betrayal’ using Judas who clearly didn’t know that what he did would mean Jesus getting crucified. Jesus said “Go do quickly what you have to do.” And when Judas saw what the repercussions were, he hanged himself. I know I am pretty much alone in this belief, but it answers quite a few questions for me.
Your highly plausible scenario was the subject of “The Passover Plot” (1965) by biblical scholar Hugh Schonfield, a carefully reasoned book which caused quite a stir in its day and is available at amazon.com.
Want to add one more thing to that – Josephus reports in his History that he, himself, had a friend who was crucified and when he interceded with the centurian (or whoever was in charge) his friend and two others were taken down. This was after a full day on the cross. The other two died, but his friend survived.
Yes, the theory has been around a long time. See Hugh Schonfield, The Passover Plot!
The gospels suggest that women were the first to “see” the risen Jesus. I can imagine the men were eager to follow suit; can’t have those women be the only witnesses! But not all of them fell in, hence the doubting traditions. Makes sense to me.
Kind of related to this topic for me is Acts 1:3 where resurrected Jesus spends 40 days teaching them- 40 full solid days is a lot of intense teaching time. yet they seem to know so little, or at least don’t get any instructions in exactly what the plan is – how to deal with a guy namd saul who will show up claiming apostlic authority, exactly what does one have been to believe to be saved, circumcision or not, eat with gentiles or not, are all foods now clean, is there a trinity etc.
Having read “When Prophecy Fails” by Leon Festinger what I found fascinating was that after the failure of the predictions of the 1950s UFO cult prophetess only one or two members leave. The vast majority stick it out and double down their efforts to spread the word. The cult still exists to this day.
So maybe a couple of them became disillusioned with Jesus, but it’s quite reasonable to assume most stayed even if they felt Jesus failed to do what he promised. They could just reinterpret what he said.
John Gager took taht ball and ran with it, with respect to early Christianity, in his book From Kingdom to Community.
This UFO story comment reminds me of a great book by Tavris and Aronson: Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me). It shows what great lengths we can go to in reducing the mental pain of cognitive dissonance, and how we can prioritize keeping our beliefs consistent over acknowledging new information. Ramachandran’s work also comes to mind where he shows how his patients will prefer to make up stories rather than acknowledge their odd hallucinations and behaviors. Very humbling to think about what we could be constructing, even in more normal circumstances.
We see for centuries after thst Gospels and epistles being written trying to create a narrative of one version of the Resurrection over another.
I thought the article might touch on the reasons the Gospel writers stressed so much that Jesus had to prove his bodily Resurrection. Could it be it was in response to certain believers who were saying Jesus rose spiritually?
Yes indeed!
The fact that the entirety of the NT depends on the resurrection lends support to the prospect that the writers were trying to make an ‘end run’ around the unavoidable doubts of future converts. “Of course you don’t believe in the resurrection! We didn’t either…. until Jesus appeared to us physically.” The verses cited above seem of an ‘ad hoc’ style when compared, do they not?
I honestly think there is no definitive textual answer to the endless debate of such issues as the resurrection. I view Jesus in other ways, primarily as a man who brought to us the idea of unconditional love and how we can love other people unconditionally. The mysterious (magical) aspects in the New Testament are unprovable and I would prefer to be honest about my human doubts concerning them. I think that the unconditional love taught and demonstrated by Jesus is far more relevant to us as we try to live a good life now and let us just keep such matters as the resurrection a mystery we can not prove.
While I do agree that the message you describe is indeed worthy of admiration, it’s origins go further back and are not exclusive to the nt. “Love thy neighbor”, for simplicity sake, ensures the survival of the tribe, clan, what have you. The fact that the humans species has been around well before the written word is evidence of this. If this hadn’t been the case, would we be here to have this pleasant conversation?
Was Jesus’ supposed resurrection believed by some of his earliest followers to be the beginning of the general resurrection of the coming Kingdom of God? And, if so, did they have a general idea of how long it would be until the rest of the resurrections would occur?
Yes! And they thought the rest was going to happen very soon. Probably next week sometime. Even Paul still thought so.
Is it plausible or is there any evidence for the notion that the disciples “visions” were influenced by Paul’s writings? Also, is there any evidence that Paul actually held the status he claimed before his vision? Or that he actually persecuted Christians?
No, these visions had to have happened long before Paul converted, and decades before his writings.
Okay. Also I don’t understand how we have 3 synoptic gospels. If Matthew and Luke borrowed from Matthew then why can’t it be argued that we really have one synoptic gospel, with two “recreations.” I know they have other material in them, but could it not just be additions to what Matthew said as embellishments.
Also, if Christianity were real, it’s crazy that people will “go to Hell” for unbelief, when the closest followers apparently all struggled with doubt and unbelief.
We have three documents. Two of them (Matthew and Luke) borrowed from the earlier (Mark), but added more material. So they are different books. But they can be placed in columns next to each other to see their many similarities and their many differences. “Synpotic” means “seen together.” In this case, that means, more or less, side-by-side.
It’s just an instance of a group of intensely indoctrinated believers facing a crisis of faith. We know how these very human situations play out. What the Gospels are describing is what now is called cognitive dissonance resolution. The mental shock of the Crucifixion had caused every Apostle to doubt that there was a resurrection (i.e. they were very conflicted, the dissonance between crucifixion and indoctrination that Jesus was the “Son of God”).
It was only when Peter and Mary Magdalen claimed to have had visions of the risen Jesus, that the others in that group began to have similar visions (the resolution of that conflict). If you wanted to remain a member of the group, you had to buy into these visions of resurrections and claim that you could see the risen Jesus also.
There was nothing actually “objective” about these visions, in the sense that any rational person would agree they are “real”. They were real only to that in-group of highly indoctrinated believers at first. Then the Resurrection became the central article of belief—if you wanted to be a Christian, you had to believe first and foremost in the fantasy of the Resurrection. The Gospel stories are a simple-minded fantasy of a journey from doubt to belief.
Other than the last vitriolic sentence, not saying I disagree with it btw, great comment. Thank you.
Could some of the “doubting” traditions e.g. Matt 28:17, be doubt concerning something else other than actuality of the resurrection? Matt 28 seems to be doubt about practice of worshipping Jesus (doubt over his divinity).
It’s usually read that they realized who he was but some weren’t so sure. Those who were sure worshiped him. All that means is that they bowed in front of him. (It’s the same word as used for people bowing before a king)
Is there really any history at all in the gospels? For a long time, I assumed there were at least a few historical facts sprinkled in among the fantasy stories. But I’m beginning to wonder about that, especially after re-reading them again in the cold light of advanced adulthood. 🙂 As far as I can tell, everything in the gospels can be traced back to two sources: the letters of Paul and the Old Testament (where the gospel authors found many miracle stories and references that they could rework and attribute to Jesus). So where’s the history, really? And if any of it really happened, why does Paul say nothing about it? I know scholars have come up with lots of rationalizations for Paul’s silence, but honestly? He never had “occasion” to mention any parables or miracles or empty tombs in his letters? How could he keep his mouth shut about it, LOL? Paul was a lot of things, but he was not reticent. 🙂
There is absolutely historical material in the Gospels. If you’re intersted, see my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet. I explain how it all works. They definitely didn’t get their informatoin about Jesus from Paul or the Old Testament (neither of whom tell any of the Gospel stories)
Interesting. Though the Eucharist story seems to come from 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (written at least 15 to 20 years before the first gospel). The miracles seem to derive from sources like the Elijah/Elisha narratives in the Old Testament (reworked and attributed to Jesus).
I wouldn’t say they *derive* from the OT; the miracles Jesus does are not just like those of the others. I’d say they were *influenced* by these stories, in some instances; and in others not. (And probalby influenced by lots of other stories we no longer have access to, Jewish and pagan)
The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples sometimes described him as having a different appearance. He looked different. I think that’s why some doubted as they didn’t recognise him as the guy they had been following for the last few years.
I reckon this was due to his transformation from mortal to immortal, from a human to a divine being. Paul described this in 1 Cor 15:40 when discussing resurrected bodies: “There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another.”
Professor Ehrman, I have long thought that the resurrection was a matter of belief and not one of “fact.” As you so marvelously point out, if it were actual, historical fact, in the physical realm, then there could have been no doubt. Yet, doubt extends back in time to the very days following the event, even among those who “saw” it. The Bible gives a number of clues, other than the passages you note in your post. For example, Mary Magdalene did not recognize the risen Jesus, even when face to face with him outside the tomb: “…she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). Or again, in Luke’s Emmaus road pericope, the two travelers (supposedly, followers of Jesus who had known him pre-crucifixion, did not recognize him for the entire walk to Emmaus, though chatting with him all the way. They did not recognize him until “…he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35). Wasn’t this oddity the reason for the evangelization efforts of the apostles, to encourage (and instill) belief in “resurrection to new life” they believed was offered by emulating the life of Jesus? Even St. Paul seemed to claim almost overtly that resurrection was a spiritual event. He even appears to ridicule the Corinthians for their questions about literal resurrection of dead bodies, “But, someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool!…” (1 Cor. 15:35). He then continues in verses 42-44, “So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable…It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Was it this understanding of the early believers that drove the Christian movement precisely because of the absence of fact (physical evidence)? Did they understand, as the author of Hebrews did that, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things NOT seen” (Heb.11:1, emphasis added)? Has the resurrection been literalized over time when it was never understood that way originally?
I’d say anyone after the very first disciples were basing it on what they heard, rather than personal experience. Those who had “visions” were basing it on experience. But in either case, yes, it is faith. But the original belief was that it had literally happened, that Jesus was physically raised. Paul is dealing with later Christians who were saying htat it’s not *literal* but “spiritual*. He wants to insist that it was an actual bodily resurrectoin. I’ll be dealing with this in my book on the afterlife coming out in the spring.
“Or again, in Luke’s Emmaus road pericope, the two travelers (supposedly, followers of Jesus who had known him pre-crucifixion, did not recognize him for the entire walk to Emmaus, though chatting with him all the way. They did not recognize him until “…he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35).”
Isn’t that story very much like someone’s description of a dream?
“We were walking along, and this man joined us. We did not recognize him, but talked all the way to Emmaus. Then when breaking bread, we suddenly saw that the man was Jesus! Then, suddenly, he was not there.”
Professor Ehrman, you wrote: “What’s really going on is that the early Gospel writers knew full well that there were members of the twelve disciples who never did come to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead.”
Do the texts you cite actually show this?
The texts clearly show *initial* doubt, that some (all?) of the twelve disciples psychologically needed co-witness: multiple, corroborating sense experiences of sight, touch, etc. But which texts, would you argue, show that some (most?) disciples persisted to doubt after the visionary appearances came to an end?
You need to note: I say that is my *hunch*. I’m not stating it as a fact. And I certainly am not arguing that “most” of the disciples thought this. But if some really did doubt it — i.e., they didn’t buy it — that would make sense of the texts in their totality. there are so many of these “doubting” texts that it must have been a big deal. The authors of the texts, of course, want to affirm that everyone believed. Just as most readers today want to affirm. But my view is that you probably wouldn’t have had all these doubting texts unless there really was an issue of some not believing it.
Thank you for the response, Professor. I don’t have a personal horse in this race, for what it’s worth. Also, I do understand that this idea is a hunch, and should have noted so.
I agree that these doubting texts exist because there was some issue of, well, doubting. My question is on the duration of the doubt. Can the textual evidence support the kind of protracted doubt – that some of the twelve never came to believe – that you’re considering?
I also agree that the authors would want to affirm that everyone believed, and so if some of the twelve never did, the authors would have reason to omit that. But that’s my point. If we don’t have unambiguous textual evidence that some of the twelve “never” came to believe, then what evidence do we have to go on?
At any rate, interesting idea!
My sense is that the authors of these texts knew that their readers knew about it, and had to try to explain it away.
Thanks again.
Would there be any sense in writing a gospel in which the apostles (at least some of them) didn’t doubt/seem surprised to see Jesus alive? Given how miraculous a resurrection would be, I would think they should be surprised. In Mark at least (a source for two of the other three), the apostles never seem to get it, so why should they expect to see Jesus alive? I don’t doubt there were followers of the historical Jesus who ended up not believing in the resurrection. But I wonder if the doubt/surprise in the text might serve a literary purpose rather than reflect a historical reality?
I’d say yes, absolutely. Most miracles stories about a great miracle worker stress that his *followers* completely believed, even if outsiders were not always persuaded.
This is a bit of an offshoot question…
Do you think there really were 12 apostles? I can see how the historical Jesus, if he believed he was the messiah, would have chosen 12 followers. But perhaps its just as (or even more) likely that this was an invention of later authors? I ask because it makes me wonder what stories about the apostles, other than a few (say Peter and James) have any solid historical basis.
Yup, I definitely do. I’ve talked about it a bit before, but maybe I should post on it again.
THINGS I DON’T UNDERSTAND AND WHAT I BELIEVE CANNOT BE UNDERSTANDED WITH A MINIMUM OF CRITICAL THINKING.
1 Corinthians 15: 3-6 New International Version (NIV)
“3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. ”
————————————————– —–
1st Paul does not give any information on how or from whom he has received that vital information about Jesus that he transmits to the Corinthians. He may have invented it or simply believed a rumor, a story that ran from word of mouth without anyone worrying about knowing its origin or its truth. This alone, in my opinion, disqualifies the so-called “formula or creed” of Paul.
2nd Paul interprets in his own way the suffering of Isaiah’s servant (Is. 53: 4,6,11,12). That is, he actually invented that in the Scriptures is writen that Christ died for our sins, for you have to have a lot of imagination to see Jesus in the story of the suffering servant of the dream that Isaiah narrates. It is clear that this is another invention of Paul.
3rd Paul also invents that in the Scriptures it was prophesied that Jesus is going to be resurrected on the third day. At least, I have been unable to find such a prophecy that can be interpreted without forcing words or their meaning as Paul does.
If I am wrong, I beg that you please correct the error.
4th It is impossible for Jesus to appear to the 12 apostles, for there were only 11 at the time Paul refers to. The incorporation of the 12th apostle, Matthias, replacing Judas the traitor, is subsequent to the ascension of Jesus to the “stratospheric skies.”
The truth is that this evidence of the resurrection of Jesus that the great majority of Christians apologists value so much is bogus.
I think it is quite possible that some who did have a “vision” did doubt it. After all, even in a time when such things may have seemed more credible than in ours, to suddenly “see” a person you believed was dead would be quite shocking, and for some it may have been easier to deny the reality of it than to believe it was authentic. As to whether such visions were authentic or simply hallucinations, I think it is impossible to say, since we have no way of repeating the original occurrence.. In our 21st century world it is probably easier for most people who do not accept them on a basis of “faith,” it is simply easier to dismiss them as hallucinations. However, the evidence, or more properly the lack of evidence, does not necessarily point in that direction.
They probably doubted the resurrection because it is not physically possible except in one’s imagination. Even the ancients had that much science behind them!
Except in antiquity people did not have science behind them! And so far as we can tell, the idea of bringing someone back to life was not at all thought of as impossible, since it was known to happen!
And there are the Sadducees who say there is no resurrection. ..of anyone. Outside of their law keeping maybe they were ahead of their time and like Epicurus believed death is nothing to us or no afterlife judgments were coming’
You make a good point, one that I never thought of before. I would think that after spending 2 or 3 years with someone and they showed up at my door after 3 days, I would recognize them right away. I would be in shock but I wouldn’t doubt who they were. Are the gospels alluding to the fact that Jesus’ appearance must have somehow changed? And that’s why they’re having doubts? Could it be that some other person was walking around masquerading as the risen Christ?
What’s to doubt? The apostles might have thought the risen Jesus was an impostor, or a spirit, or a vision. I see nothing odd or surprising about multiple proofs being offered that he was genuinely alive. As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence–and “he rose from the dead” is about as extraordinary as it gets.
What I do find noteworthy is that no proofs are mentioned in Matthew. There, the risen Jesus appears, the apostles doubt, and there’s no mention of their doubts being addressed in any way. I have a hunch Mark originally had an even more doubt-filled ending that was lost very early. Maybe the last page gave a pretty clear impression the apostles were merely having visions of Jesus. Early copyists might well have decided that last page was best omitted.
What do you think of Elaine Pagels work? She focuses on Thomas as a symbol of a sect that believed in Jesus as a savior, but not in the risen Jesus. Seems there could have been a few variations on that theme.
Some of her work has been ground-breaking for a general audience. I’m not sure she puts it quite that way about Thomas, though. In Thomas the death and resurrection do not bring salvation, but that doesn’t mean the community didn’t think he was raised from the dead.
****But both believers and unbelievers can agree they were visions (that is, things that the disciples “saw”). ****
I don’t think we should all (necessarily) agree that anybody actually saw anything, real or imagined. Doesn’t the distinct possibility remain that one (or a few) of them simply made it up and convinced others that he/ they ‘saw’ him; in other words, it was, initially, a hoax?
It’s possible, yes. But I don’t think it’s probable. The visions are too widely reported, and I don’t see any evidende of a hoax being behind it all.
Is it true that Paul’s resurrection appearances tend towards ‘visions’ or a spiritual being, while the Gospels had a need to convert those appearances into ‘real body’ appearances in order to appeal to their new Greco-gentile audience ?
( I’ve been watching From Jesus to Christ on Youtube 🙂
Paul certainly thought Jesus rose i n the body, and that Jesus’ body was transformed at his resurrection (that’s the point of 1 Corinthians 15). Paul too, btw, was preaching to pagans, not Jews. The Gospel writers take it to a different extreme, claiming that it was *precisely* Jesus’ corpse that was raised (wounds and all); Paul insisted the body was raised but *transformed*.
It may just be a message to new converts who werent fully convinced – its ok to doubt even the 12 doubted at first.
I need a Greek lesson. In Mt 28:17, the “some” in “some doubted” is “hoi” (same as in hoi polloi?). Nearly all the online English translations I have looked at use “some” but I found one (New American Bible Revised Edition) that simply says “they doubted”. In other contexts, “hoi” seems to mean “many” or just “the” (plural). I’m wondering how certain the “some” translation is. (Not that it matters for the point you are making in this post — I’m just curious.)
Yeah, it’s tricky. Words mean what they do only in their context, of course (no word means only one thing everywhere every time). One of the problems in this case is what to do with the adversative that follows the hoi (the word “de” = but), and what then to do with the next verse that presupposes the disciples *did* really believe.
This begs an interesting question–if some of Jesus’ followers never did believe he’d risen from the dead in physical form–why did they remain his followers after his cruxifixion (which was certainly meant and taken as a warning of potential consequences to those who remained faithful to him), spend their lives trying to keep his memory alive?
One answer might be that even if he never came to them in a vision, he was still haunting them. The dead always rise, one way or another, but most of all someone you loved and lost.
Dr Ehrman –
To your point about Paul not mentioning a doubting tradition amongst the original apostles – Paul, in 1 Cor 15, cites the (pre-Pauline) creed which lays out who Jesus appeared to post resurrection (including The Twelve). If Galatians accurately relates his itineraries in Jerusalem, it would be suggestive that Paul didn’t meet the full membership of The Twelve, but did meet at least some outside of the 12 who had experiences (e.g., James). If that is true, is it a reasonable conjecture that he (Paul) may have remained (willfully?) ignorant of the doubting apostles tradition? Cheers!
Interesting idea.
If Jesus appeared in some transformed body it wasn’t transformed enough– the wounds were still there. That simply does not fly. What if he’d been decapitated? Burned at the stake? Grossly disfigured in some way? None of this adds up. Also, if the followers of Jim Jones were willing to drink poisoned Kool Aid, is it any surprise that other true-believers might have been willing to be martyred? I rather suspect that the martyrs were primarily people who were not original disciples– those martyr stories are doubtful. Paul had an epileptic seizure and a concussion after falling off his horse perhaps. He was a fanatic before and turned into a different kind of fanatic. Peter’s martyrdom seems apocryphal, as do many of the other stories. Don’t get me started on eating the fish– that bit of the story is so irrational it beggars the imagination. I’ve ranted about that in a discussion thread: “Afterlife Oddities”…
In at least one case [the story of Doubting Thomas] I think the striking evidence of a physical resurrection was included specifically to refute the tradition in the Gospel of Thomas, in which the physical resurrection is not mentioned. Instead it is the knowledge of the secret truths that brings salvation. This gnostic idea was a major threat to the proto-orthodox tradition that salvation comes only through faith in Christ’s atoning death and resurrection. So even if the early Gospel writers didn’t know “that there were members of the twelve disciples who never did come to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead” some of these writers certainly knew that there were many Christians who doubted, and attributed their ideas on the resurrection to members of the 12. But I have to admit when it comes knowing to who knew what, and when they knew it, well… we can’t even answer that about events that happened a year ago.
Professor,
Do you think it took a long time for the tradition of resurrection appearances to take root in the Christian theology? How “long” is a long time? The reason I ask this is certain evangelical scholars (e.g. Gary Haberman, Mike Liconia) cute you in believing Paul’s conversion was within 6 months of the death of Jesus. Now yo me this does not seem a long enough time for a tradition to take root of a resurrection v”visions”. They both claim we can trace Paul’s footsteps in his record of travels within that time period (6 months). To me I think too much is being speculated to justify belief in the resurrection appearance as historical, but I would like your thoughts about this.
I think the appearances tradition started within weeks or months of Jesus’ death. Certainly by Paul’s converstion they were deepy rooted. It takes about 20 seconds for a tradition to get rooted. happens all the time, every day. But no, I don’t think Paul could have converted within six months. It is usually dated to three or four years. (He as living outside Palestine and already knew of sizeable numbers of Christians *there*, wherever he was. No way that happened within six months of Jesus’ death)
Some of the details you point out reminded me of the story of Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter. In all three Synoptics, they (the people, not sure the apostles were included/excluded) laugh at Jesus when he says the girl isn’t dead. In Mark and Luke, Jesus also orders that the raised girl be given something to eat, which has been suggested to mean that she is bodily raised and not just a spirit.
Does this need to be taken into account when interpreting the apostles doubting Jesus’ resurrection? Does this speak only to the apostles doubting Jesus’ resurrection, or something more? I realize the story I am citing refers to a resurrection, so there is a theme here.
Yes he too eats, and it’s for the same reason: to show he’s an actual raised body (with a digestive system fully intact, apparently). There’d be no reason for teh story unless people doubted it.
Paul said that he knew that resurrection is a reality, because Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Paul said that he knew that Jesus was resurrected from the dead because he appeared to Paul and even spoke to him. Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus & later in a Jerusalem jail. In Acts 26:19 Paul says that when he saw the resurrected Christ it was a “heavenly vision”.
Paul calls Jesus the “last Adam” in Romans 5:12. In 1 Corinthians 15:45: Paul again calls Jesus the “last Adam” and he explains how Jesus was resurrected: “So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
When Jesus died he became a spirit.
The Apostle Peter, also speaking of Jesus’ death and resurrection, agrees with Paul. Peter asserts that Christ was “put to death in the flesh (SARX), but made alive in the Spirit (PNEUMA).” -1 Peter 3:18 (Interlinear Bible)
I wish to address this objection often stated by observers of early christian martyrs, the one in reference to those being martyred as a result of their beliefs, the objection is why would they risk their lives based on a lie. As I student of history, I find over and over again, those who are killed for attempting to defraud others in an attempt to gain power, wealth and notoriety. Let’s not be naive and suppose early christian martyrs were not in it for the later, they were illiterate peasants after all. Use your brain.
Is ὀπτανόμενος αὐτοῖς (Acts 1:3) consistent with the view that Jesus’ appearances took the form of “visions”? Is the participle’s import better understood as “appearing in visions” than as “visually perceived in the flesh”? Cf. Acts 16:9 τῷ Παύλῳ ὤφθη ἀνὴρ Μακεδών. One may think that the Macedonian man appeared to Paul in a vision, not in the flesh.
I don’t think the verb involves a statement on the nature/quality/features of the thing that was seen; it deals only with sight-perception. I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure it is used for example of what people could see in dreams. (And in my dream I saw….)
An absolutely fascinating and intriguing post. Thanks for summarizing the issues so well.
If a friend of mine would visit me and tell me that he just got resurrected, I would also doubt: not the resurrection itself but his actual death. Isn’t that what doubting Thomas is also doing before putting his fingers into Jesus’ wounds?
“Now Thomas called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands, and put my finger where the nails have been, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe.”
How surprising is it that Jesus’s own twin brother was not present when the other disciples saw Jesus the first time after the resurrection 😉
Yes, that is what we today would doubt. In the ancient world the question would be different: is it a body that has been raised or is this a spirit/ghost.
Dr. Ehrman,
Given the fact that even some who were among the 12 doubted, can it be said that after Jesus death no one was expecting Jesus’ resurrection, and that the visions caught them by surprise?
That’s certainly my view.
So the resurrection visions were NOT caused by an expectation of a resurrected Jesus?
Not in my opinion. I thought that’s what I said!
Then what do you think was at the root of these hallucinatory visions? If no expectation, were all of them mentally ill? It is the case that you at least accept that 4 of them had visions: Peter, Paul, Mary, and James, which is still more than just 1 person experiencing something once (and there is evidence that 2 of the 4 were not followers of the earthly Jesus).
You need to read my book How Jesus Became God, where I discuss all this. Lots of people have visions, all the time, that they are convinced by. It’s an extremely well documented phnomenon. Most of these people are not mentally ill.
Bart
You point out that the resurrection stories vary significantly in content. Mark doesnt have any but he does refer to the empty tomb – so he implies a risen Jesus. So the earliest tradition may not have had any specific stories (except Paul and his vision) If we assume that the other resurrection stories developed in response to the challenges facing the church then Luke 24:41-43 is likely a response to the Gnostics claim that Jesus was not human.
Tp put it bluntly, Luke made up the Jesus-eating-fish story to disprove the false teaching of the Gnostics.
Is that your position ?
Thanks
No, Mark does not imply a resurrection. He states that Jesus was raised from the dead. What he doesn’t have are appearances of Jesus *after* the resurrection. (None of the Gospels have resurrection stories strictly speaking, that is stories of Jesus emerging from the tomb; they all have stories about what happened after he did, including Mark)
Dr. Ehrman,
A scholar wrote this: “There is some allusion to resurrection in the end-time in texts written about two centuries prior to Jesus’s birth, particularly in Daniel 12 and in 2 Maccabees 7, but these passages envision the resurrection of all people, not one particular messianic individual. There are also, on the other hand, earlier texts which envision the coming of a Son of Man (and in a few cases, Son of God), in Enoch and at Qumran. The New Testament merges these two tropes and envisions the resurrection of this messianic figure in a novel way.” I’ve never heard about the Enoch and at Qumran before, are they about a solo resurrection? Did the followers of Jesus know about these?
Qumran refers in this context to the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is no resurrection of an individual person from teh dead in these texts, though there are messiahs and resurrections of the people at the end of time, and in 1 Enoch there is an exaltation of the Son of Man to heaven. But he does not die and then get raised from the dead. There is no idea of that in Judaism prior to Christainity, at least in the texts we have available to us from the time.
Dr. Ehrman,
One prof. wrote: “Visions” or epiphanies in the G-R world were widely recognized phenomena, and would not have generally been confused with “hallucinations.”
My question is: Would it be going too far to just shrug the claims of the apostles off as just another epiphany from the Greco-Roman world, because unlike many of those cases, the claim about Jesus was that he was a real life person who died and then rose from the earth and appeared bodily? Plus can’t we also say something about Jewish culture too? They generally did not care for the Greco-Roman ways, isn’t this true as well?
I’m afraid that professor really doesn’t know what he’s talking about! Either about the ancient world or about the psychology of visions. That’s the whole point of them. When someone hallucinates, it seems completely real, in almost every instance. And always has.
Dr. Ehrman,
I went back to quote the highly frustrating line that prompted me to ask about this:
“Visions” were understood as perceived (experienced) in the visual faculty of the Soul, which was (in their medical understanding) the bodily organ of sense perception and cognition.”
In contrast to whatever urbane postulation he is trying to sell here, do you concur with me that for Jesus’ followers themselves, they were convinced they were seeing the risen Jesus in everyday plain sight?
Ha! I think you’ve asked me that 29 times! 🙂 Same answer. yes. That’s what virtually everyone who has a vision thinks.
Dr. Ehrman,
So then per that quote: “Visions” were understood as perceived (experienced) in the visual faculty of the Soul, which was (in their medical understanding) the bodily organ of sense perception and cognition.” Do you think it is sophistry?
A bit: I don’t think they thought of it like that. They didn’t have a complicated explanation: they just saw something they took to be real, as most people who have visions do.
Dr. Ehrman,
Those in the ancient world were at least aware that from time to time people had hallucinations, is that correct?
I don’t know. They certainly knew people had visions.
I have a question. You say that everyone agree there were visions. But why? Are we to believe every person in history ever who has made claims of having visions? Including Mohammed and Joseph Smith? Why this apparent agreement that the visions were actually real and not made up?
No, we certainly are NOT to believe that. The reasons I believe some of the disciples did are a bit complicated, but I lay them out in my book How jesus Became God. I don’t recall ever saying that everyone agrees though. (Uh, did I? It’s absolutely not true that everyone agrees on that)
Hello Bart and thanks for the response!
On second reading I see that I based by question on a misunderstanding. In your blog post you write:
“But both believers and unbelievers can agree they were visions (that is, things that the disciples “saw”). “.
You are correct that “can agree” is not the same thing as “do agree”. I really wasn’t reading carefully enough, and got the mistaken impression that both believers and unbelievers (which would be everyone) agree on this issue.
Also, now I am really curious about your book. It seems like the number of books “you really should read” is almost endless. I think we need some sort of eternal life to sort through it all.
Disregarding the reasons, do you have a shortlist of *which* disciples you think had actual visions? Or, if that is impossible to figure out; what do you think of Paul’s visions in particular? Do you think he was truthful or did he make it up so he could claim some authority in his teachings?
Yes, that’s what I meant. To think they had visions does not mean you are a believer. Yes, as I think I’ve said, it appears that the disciple Peter did; Mary magdalene shows up regularly; and the apostle Paul tells us he did. As chance would have it, that would be Peter, Paul, and Mary. (Hence my book on the three)
Thank you for your response. I know feel rather silly though, as it turns out you’ve already answered my questions previously. Most likely, you have a book for every question I can come up with in the upcoming twenty years!
I hope you don’t mind that I’ve taken up your time with these questions. I am a very new reader to your blog (I used your corona-discount and am thinking of becoming a more permanent reader). In any case, thanks for all the well-made and informative blog posts!
There is a theologian who summarized the “facts” of the resurrection narratives. These are (in my own words):
1.) Jesus was crucified.
2.) After crucifixion, Jesus was buried (in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea).
3.) On the Sunday after the crucifixion, the tomb was found empty (by women followers).
4.) Many people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead.
5.) The original disciples believed Jesus rose from the dead (despite being Jews who generally don’t have a belief in a dying and rising Messiah).
In connection to these, here are my questions:
a.) He mentioned that these are agreed by a majority of New Testament scholars. Is there really such a consensus?
b.) Considering all the evidence available, are these really hard facts in the same level as “the earth is a planet” or “the sun is a star”?
c.) How would you rate the “degree of truth” of the abovementioned “facts”? (i.e., rating from 0% as the lowest up to 100% as the highest).
d.) Based on your “degree of truth” rating, what can you conclude? (i.e., did Jesus resurrect or not)?
a) Yes. But it’s important to realize, most NT scholars are believing Christians. b) Not at all. I do not thing statements 2, 3, and 4 pass historical muster. c) I think 1 is absolutely true; I think 5 is indisputably true if you change “the” to “many” or “most” (but we simply don’t know if the “all” did. d) I personally don’t think history can demonstrate that Jesus was raised. It can’t show he wasn’t either. History, as it turns out, can’t be invoked to show whether MOST things in the past happened or not, strange as that seems (those easily shown)
What are the “strongest” evidences (outside the Bible) commonly used by apologists to support the resurrection “facts” 1 to 5 that I mentioned above? How strong (or weak) are these so-called “evidences”?
I don’t believe there are any “facts” outside what one finds in the Bible, since there are no discussions of Jesus’ resurrecdtion until after the NT period….
I just wanted to get your specific view on this topic in case I misunderstood it.
So you believe the doubting tradition is based on some of the disciples not getting visions of Jesus or not believing what Peter, Mary and James had to say…so they left.
This doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t *actually* appear to them, just that some didn’t see him for themselves and didn’t believe Peters claims? Jesus still could’ve *actually* appeared to Peter, Mary, James and Paul. Thank you!
To say Jesus *actually* appeared to them would require us to say he was actually raised from the dead. As a historian that’s more than I can say. All I’m saying is that some of the apostles *believed* he appeared to them (whether he did or not) and a number of them *doubted* that he had appeared; I don’t think all the apostles claimed to have seen Jesus and I’m not at all sure that all of them believed that *some* of them had.