FOCUS: While much has been made of Jesus’ literal and physical resurrection being the core historical event of Christianity, the Biblical texts themselves present conflicting evidence. For many today, the resuscitation of Jesus’ body is less important than the idea of resurrection as a credible and meaningful
principle for living.
Resurrections of Jesus
“…and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.” – Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:14Even as Jesus’ virgin birth and healing miracles are embraced as metaphor, the resurrection remains for many the one core, non-negotiable, and historical fact at the heart of Christianity. Yet the only way one can maintain an unquestioning literal interpretation of the events surrounding that first Easter is by steadfastly
avoiding the reading of the Bible.
Paul, author of our earliest New Testament writings, tells us nothing of the third day’s events jumbled together later by the gospel writers. Instead, he opts for trying to explain the “idea” of resurrection to the Corinthians with a tortured discourse on its importance. Evidently having been asked how a body is raised,
Paul bursts out in response with “You fool!” before explaining that “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (1 Corinthians 15:44) Nowhere does Paul speak of Jesus’ body having been resuscitated or of his having interacted with the disciples as he is portrayed twenty to fifty years later in the gospels. He does, however, proclaim that regardless of the details, the events of Easter reversed the outcome of humanity’s actions and character. He attributes knowledge of this to Jesus having appeared in visions to select witnesses – himself included.
As Paul died before any of the gospels were written, he never had a chance to read any of the various accounts. If he had, he would have undoubtedly written a letter of protest over their many inconsistencies.
Starting with our earliest gospel, Mark, the Risen Christ fails to make an appearance. Mark’s abrupt and unexpected ending verges on the anti-climactic: the women find the tomb empty, are instructed by a young man to tell the disciples to go to Galilee to meet Jesus, but instead scatter in fear and tell no one anything. That’s it. The end. No angels, no soldiers and no Jesus appearances.
Such a cliffhanger was simply too much for later writers, so over the years a variety of new endings were written to “flesh out” Mark’s unsatisfactory finish. Several of these now appear in most Bibles as footnotes or as the “shorter” and “longer” endings of Mark. So we’re left with the account written closest to the action being woefully short on any of the details we’ve come to associate with Easter.
As Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels some fifteen to twenty years later, they each had a copy of Mark in front of them. We know this because they copy much of Mark almost verbatim. What is interesting is what they choose to change about the stories to reflect other information they might have had or to fit into their own theological agendas.
Even a casual reading of Matthew and Luke reveals a number of changes: Mark’s young man is transformed into a supernatural angel in Matthew – and two angels in Luke! Matthew has the women embracing the resuscitated body of Jesus at the tomb and appearing to the disciples out of the sky on a Galilean
mountaintop. Luke places the action in Jerusalem and not in Galilee. Although Luke’s Jesus can appear and disappear seemingly out of thin air, he also does his best to prove he is not a ghost by eating, teaching, and having the disciples investigate his wounds. Matthew doesn’t feel a need to explain how the risen Jesus, at some point, is no longer with the disciples. But Luke, still centered in Jerusalem and in a dramatic preparation for his sequel, Acts, introduces the story of the Ascension. But even Luke is inconsistent, placing the Ascension on Easter itself in his gospel account but forty days later in Acts.
The moving account in John enhances the physical nature of Jesus’ body even further with Mary mistaking him for a simple gardener and Jesus having to insist that she not “cling” to him. Jesus ascends at this point only to appear to the disciples later that night in the Upper Room. A week later he appears to the disciples again, this time to upbraid “doubting” Thomas (and any readers of like mind) for their lack of faith. In a much later Galilean appearance, the disciples have returned to their nets. Jesus materializes to direct them in a great catch of fish and ends by empowering Peter to be on about feeding his lambs. John ends by assuring readers that:
“… there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:25The above seems especially true when considering the resurrection accounts, according to which Jesus did many things and events transpired that were mutually exclusive of one another. As we become familiar with the texts themselves, it’s obvious that stories developed over time and that none of the accounts can be claimed as definitive – or historical.
Yet something happened in the days following the crucifixion that transformed the disciples from uncertain followers to heralds of the Jesus message, evidently willing to die for their convictions. While we will never know the details of how the Jesus of their daily lives became the Christ presence of their future, the gospel
accounts are testimony to people’s hunger to know more.
Although painfully obvious, the inconsistencies of the gospel accounts have proven oddly insignificant to generations of believers. Through willful ignorance or just plain not paying attention, the stories of this supposedly ultimate and defining moment of the faith have been synthesized into supporting various notions of resurrection as a physically resuscitated body. Looking back through the lenses of time and tradition, it’s clear to see how even Paul is now almost impossible to read without the influence of the later gospels distorting and redefining his original meaning.
"...Thomas did not believe the resurrection [John 20:25], and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I, and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas." – Thomas Paine, Age Of ReasonWhatever happened in the days following the crucifixion, the followers of Jesus were propelled into a new way of living and relating to this Galilean peasant they had been following. They were compelled to re-evaluate their Jewish heritage in ways that accounted for their experience of Jesus, both in his temporal life and as a spiritual presence in the present.
With only the gospel accounts as our guide, we, too, are left to re-evaluate our heritage in ways that account for the clearly non-historical resurrection stories and our experiences of a spiritual presence we call the Christ.
To receive a complete copy of the text used for the session, please contact Pastor Marj at daytonfirstcong@gmail.com. It will be sent as an email attachment for your perusal as opposed to printing multiple pages, a stewardship practice. Because of copyright law, we are not able to make the materials available here. Another option would be to purchase a copy of Felten and Procter-Murphy's newly-released book, Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity from your local bookseller.
Questions to be considered in light of the video and readings:
What evidence points to the physical resurrection of Jesus being a legendary, late-developing tradition?
How would making the resurrection about believing “some extraordinary thing that’s against all natural laws” not make any sense to preenlightenment pagans?
How would Paul have demonstrated the benefit of the resurrection to his listeners?
Why is the resurrection of Jesus “the most radical idea that humans have ever come up with?”
The disciples have to 1) put together the message of the kingdom with 2) the experiences of Jesus’ appearances before what could happen?
According to Varghese, how does the resurrection support the work God calls us to do?
Why does the power of resurrection “upset entrenched authority of any kind?”
How is resurrection more than simply victory over death – or even the spiritualized notions of sin and evil?
When considering Jesus’ death and resurrection, how does the notion of the spirit of Jesus dwelling in us strengthen us for new life in the here and now?
How is “the expenditure of our life for the community” a form of the resurrected life?
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