Allison, Dale C., Jr., The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Criticism, History

Capítulo 5. La historia de la tumba: Viernes

La historicidad del descubrimiento de la tumba vacía no requiere la historicidad del entierro de Jesús por José de Arimatea. Sin embargo, considerar este último como ficticio aumenta la probabilidad de que el primero también lo sea. Para la mayoría de los estudiosos, entonces, ambos hechos son inseparables.¹ Por lo tanto, antes de investigar los sucesos del domingo, será conveniente analizar los del viernes. 

DUDAS 

Según John Shelby Spong, existe una alta probabilidad de que la historia de José de Arimatea se haya inventado para disimular el dolor de los apóstoles al recordar que Jesús no tuvo a nadie que reclamara su cuerpo y que murió como un criminal común. Probablemente, su cuerpo fue arrojado sin ceremonias a una fosa común, cuya ubicación nunca se ha conocido…² Spong insiste además en que, aunque María Magdalena buscó el cuerpo sin vida de Jesús, «no encontró la tumba vacía, sino la realidad de su fosa común. Nadie pudo identificar el lugar». Con el tiempo, «cuando Pedro reunió a los discípulos en Galilea y regresaron a Jerusalén, la historia de María sobre no haber podido encontrar dónde habían enterrado a Jesús… se incorporó a la tradición de la resurrección».³ 

John Dominic Crossan, con más recursos críticos a su disposición que Spong, también ha sostenido que los seguidores de Jesús desconocían su paradero.⁴ Los discípulos inicialmente dedujeron, a partir de Deuteronomio 21:22-23,⁵ que judíos hostiles y respetuosos de la ley lo sepultaron (cf. Hechos 13:29). Más tarde, Marcos transformó el entierro por enemigos en un entierro por “un miembro respetado del consejo, que esperaba con expectación el reino de Dios” (15:43). En cuanto a lo que realmente sucedió, Crossan observa que los romanos a menudo dejaban a los crucificados colgados como alimento para los carroñeros.⁶ En general, a los ejecutados se les negaba habitualmente un entierro honorable o familiar.⁷ Podemos, entonces, suponer con seguridad que, dado que Pilato era “un monstruo… sin ningún respeto por la sensibilidad judía”, el cuerpo de Jesús fue “dejado en la cruz o en una tumba poco profunda apenas cubierta de tierra y piedras”. En cualquier caso, “los perros estaban esperando”.⁸ 

David Aus también considera que José de Arimatea no es un personaje histórico.⁹ Según Aus, los discípulos huyeron a Galilea cuando arrestaron a su maestro. Las mujeres que habían subido con ellos a Jerusalén hicieron lo mismo. Por lo tanto, ninguno de los seguidores de Jesús supo su destino. Sin embargo, podemos hacer una buena suposición. Un servidor del Sanedrín —no un miembro del mismo— habría enterrado a Jesús en uno de los lugares que el tribunal judío había reservado para los criminales (m. Sanh. 6:5; t. Sanh. 9:8). 

¿Cómo explicamos entonces la historia de José de Arimatea? Un judío cristiano palestino de habla aramea, experto en métodos hagádicos, la creó. Lo hizo basándose en leyendas sobre la muerte de Moisés. La tumba de Jesús fue excavada en la roca porque, en la hagadá judía, el pozo/roca móvil que acompañó a Israel en el desierto (cf. 1 Cor. 10:4) había sido excavado a mano,10 y desapareció en el lugar donde Moisés fue enterrado (cf. Tgs. Neof., Ps.-Jn. Núm. 21:20). José se convirtió en miembro del Sanedrín debido a la leyenda de que el Sanedrín excavó ese pozo (así Frg. Tg. P V 21:18). “Esperando expectante el reino de Dios” (Mc 15:43) fue inspirado por una versión de Núm. 21:18 atestiguado en la LXX: “El pozo, lo cavaron los líderes. Los reyes de las naciones lo labraron de la roca en su reino”. Y “Arimatea” entró en la historia porque Pisga, el lugar de partida de Moisés, era conocido como un “lugar alto” (cf. LAB 19:16) o, en arameo, ה/רמתא,” ramatha,” “las alturas” (cf. Tg. Neof. Deut. 34:1). 

Bart Ehrman es otro que tiene dudas sobre la historicidad de Mc 15:42-47.11 Encuentra la ausencia de José de Arimatea en 1 Cor. 15:3-5 más que sospechosa: “si el autor de ese credo hubiera sabido tal cosa, seguramente la habría incluido, ya que al no nombrar a la persona que enterró a Jesús… creó un desequilibrio con la segunda parte del credo donde sí nombra a la persona a quien Jesús se apareció”.12 Más antigua que la historia de Marcos es la tradición en Hechos 13:29: “Y cuando ellos [los que viven en Jerusalén y sus gobernantes] hubieron cumplido todo lo que estaba escrito de él, lo bajaron del árbol y lo pusieron en un sepulcro”. Esto no menciona a José de Arimatea, y el versículo implica un entierro hostil.13 Sin embargo, incluso Hechos 13:29 marca un avance ficticio sobre los hechos. Los romanos no tenían “ningún interés en las sensibilidades judías”, y “lo que normalmente sucedía con el cuerpo de un criminal era que se dejaba descomponer y servía de alimento para los animales carroñeros”.¹⁴ Poncio Pilato, a quien las sensibilidades judías le preocupaban mínimamente, habría actuado en consecuencia. Ehrman infiere: “es muy improbable que Jesús fuera enterrado dignamente el día de su ejecución en una tumba que alguien pudiera identificar posteriormente”.¹⁵

MOTIVOS DE DUDA 

¿Es este el veredicto correcto? ¿Deberíamos, junto con Ehrman, Aus, Crossan y Spong, dudar o negar la historicidad básica del relato en Marcos 15? Las razones para respaldar su punto de vista incluyen las siguientes: 

Motivos para dudar de la historicidad de la tumba vacía.

1) Recibir un entierro deshonroso o no recibirlo habría colocado a Jesús en la categoría de personas deshonrosas. Por lo que habría sido un motivo para que sus seguidores inventaran una leyenda o relato hadágico afirmando lo contrario.

2) Los romanos no enterraban a sus criminales crucificados; y los familiares y amigos de Jesús se habrían dispersado, el encargado de enterrarlo tendría que ser las autoridades judías.

(2) La historia de José de Arimatea carece de testimonios múltiples. Marcos es la única fuente (los demás dependen de él).

(3) José de Arimatea es desconocido. Aparte de Marcos y sus sucesores, la historia, a diferencia de la leyenda cristiana, no ofrece más información. Esto concuerda con la propuesta de que alguien lo inventó como un deus ex machina para introducir a Jesús en su tumba y que Dios pudiera sacarlo de ella. 

(4) Las narraciones del entierro de Jesús, al ser comparadas, sugieren una marcada inclinación hacia lo legendario. Marcos afirma que José de Arimatea era un miembro respetado del consejo que esperaba el reino de Dios, y que la tumba de Jesús «había sido labrada en la roca» (Mc 15:43, 46). Lucas añade que José era «bueno y justo», que discrepó del veredicto del Sanedrín respecto a Jesús y que «nadie había sido sepultado» en la tumba (Lc 23:50-51, 53). Mateo relata que José era rico y discípulo, y que él mismo había labrado la tumba, que era nueva (27:57, 59).²⁵ Según Juan, José era discípulo (cf. Mateo), aunque en secreto, y contó con la ayuda de Nicodemo (cf. Jn 3:1-15), con quien cargó el cuerpo de Jesús con «unos 45 kilos» de mirra y áloe. El Evangelio de Pedro añade que el lugar se llamaba «el Jardín de José» (6:24) y que José era «amigo de Pilato» (2:3). 

Los primeros cristianos podían contar historias que se iban ampliando poco a poco, acumulando elementos apócrifos por el camino, y podemos vislumbrar este proceso en los diversos relatos de José enterrando a Jesús. ¿Por qué suponer que la bola de nieve comenzó a rodar solo después de Marcos?29 

(5) Además de la apelación de Ehrman a Hechos 13:29, donde los habitantes de Jerusalén y sus líderes bajan a Jesús del madero y lo depositan en una tumba, se puede encontrar en Marcos 12:8 («lo echaron fuera de la viña») y/o en Juan 19:31 («los judíos… pidieron a Pilato… que les rompieran las piernas a los crucificados y que quitaran los cuerpos») evidencia adicional de una tradición temprana independiente de, y que no concuerda con, la historia de José de Arimatea.30 

(6) Según Crossan, Gos. Ped. 6:21 proporciona un argumento más para el carácter secundario de la historia del entierro de Marcos: “Entonces sacaron los clavos de las manos del Señor y lo pusieron en la tierra. Y toda la tierra tembló y hubo gran temor”.31 Esto, para Crossan, “presupone que quienes crucificaron a Jesús son responsables, de Deut. 21:22-23 [citado en Gos. Ped. 2:5], de quitar su cuerpo de la cruz y enterrarlo antes del atardecer”.32 En otras palabras, la historia “da por sentado que Jesús fue crucificado, quitado de la cruz y enterrado por sus enemigos”.33 Dado que Crossan asigna Gos. Ped. 6:21 a una fuente pre-marciana que él llama “El Evangelio de la Cruz”, discierne aquí un rival al relato de Marcos. 

(7) Finalmente, con respecto a la teoría de Aus de que Mc 15:42-47 reelabora leyendas sobre la muerte de Moisés, la idea rabínica de que el último redentor (Mesías) será como el primer redentor (Moisés) era común en el siglo I.34 Esto explica en parte por qué los elementos mosaicos aparecen con cierta frecuencia en los evangelios canónicos.35 Es más, algunas historias cristianas primitivas sobre Jesús no solo aluden al legislador, sino que parecen derivar en gran medida de materiales mosaicos. La narración de la infancia de Mateo es la ilustración más obvia.36 La generalización incluye, significativamente, la aparición final de Mateo sobre la resurrección (28:16-20).37 Más allá de todo esto, otros textos antiguos modelan la partida de un héroe a partir de leyendas sobre la partida de Moisés,38 por lo que la teoría de Aus encaja con mucho de lo que sabemos.

  EL OTRO LADO 

Si bien los puntos anteriores no carecen de fundamento, no me convencen por las siguientes razones: 

(1) El erudito y fascinante intento de Aus de derivar la mayor parte de Mc 15:42-47 de elementos mosaicos, si bien me ha dado mucho en qué pensar, no ha logrado, al final, persuadir.39 Un problema es su premisa. Según Aus, tanto los seguidores varones como las mujeres de Jesús huyeron rápidamente, tras su arresto, a Galilea. Sin embargo, como ya indiqué anteriormente, no tenemos ninguna buena razón para suponer que estuvieran en otro lugar que no fuera Jerusalén o sus alrededores uno o dos días después de la muerte de Jesús.40 Aun si me equivoco en esto, no está claro por qué, al regresar más tarde a la capital, los discípulos de Jesús, si hubieran estado interesados, no podrían haber averiguado algo de alguien sobre lo que había sucedido en su ausencia. Dado esto, así como la sugerencia de Aus sobre lo que realmente sucedió, a saber, que un sirviente del Sanedrín enterró a Jesús en el cementerio de criminales, uno podría esperar algún rastro en nuestras fuentes de Isaías 53:9: «le hicieron una tumba con los impíos».41 No hay ninguno. 

Más crucial aún es el problema de evaluar las intrigantes correlaciones que Aus descubre entre Mc 15:42-47 y las leyendas sobre Moisés. ¿Cómo podemos determinar si son sustanciales o meramente imaginarias? Al reflexionar sobre esta cuestión, me pregunté si podría hacer lo que Aus ha hecho, es decir, crear una genealogía hagádica para la historia de Marcos, pero con materiales diferentes. Decidí que sí. Así fue como se desarrollaron mis reflexiones. 

Si yo hubiera sido un cristiano primitivo interesado en crear desde cero una historia edificante sobre el entierro de Jesús, podría haber recurrido primero a la historia de entierro más elaborada del Antiguo Testamento, la de Génesis 49:29–50:14. Esta narra cómo el patriarca José enterró al patriarca Jacob, también conocido como Israel. Tan pronto como recordara este pasaje, seguramente me habría llamado la atención que, así como Jesús tuvo doce discípulos, Jacob tuvo doce hijos.42 Esto podría haber sido suficiente para impulsarme a reflexionar más profundamente. Podría entonces haber notado que (i) José era gobernante, que (ii) sin embargo tuvo que obtener permiso del faraón para proceder con el entierro de Israel, y que (iii) José colocó a Israel en una tumba que había sido «excavada». Podría, entonces, haber construido una historia con estos paralelismos: 

• Nombre de la persona encargada del entierro: 

Génesis: el patriarca “José” 

Marcos: “José” (de Arimatea) 

• Su condición de gobernante: 

Génesis: segundo al mando del faraón 

Mark: miembro del Sanedrín43 

• La persona enterrada: 

Génesis: el patriarca Israel, padre de doce hijos 

Marcos: “el rey de Israel”, líder de doce discípulos 

• Se requiere permiso del gobernante: 

Génesis: José necesita el permiso del faraón para enterrar a Israel en la tierra. 

Marcos: José necesita el permiso de Pilato para enterrar a Jesús. 

• Dónde está enterrado: 

Génesis: en una tumba que había sido excavada 

Marcos: en una tumba excavada en la roca44 

Teniendo en cuenta estas correlaciones —que me fascinarían aún más si, como los Padres de la Iglesia, considerara a Jacob como Israel como una prefiguración de Cristo en otros aspectos45—, podría haber compuesto algo parecido a Marcos 15:42-47. Incluso, si recordara Génesis 29:2 y 10, donde Jacob aparta una gran piedra de la boca de un pozo, podría haber anticipado la resurrección haciendo que José colocara una piedra frente a la puerta de la tumba de Jesús. Por supuesto, habría tenido que considerar las inevitables diferencias, como que Jesús tendría que ser enterrado en Jerusalén y que un «gobernante» judío en la época y el lugar de Jesús tendría que ser un sanedrín. 

Para plantear una hipótesis más amplia: ¿Qué pasaría si, dos mil años después, apareciera un erudito del Nuevo Testamento y adivinara lo que yo había hecho? Ese erudito podría recurrir a la historia de la recepción, que a veces asocia Gén. 50:5 y Mt. 27:60 o compara al patriarca José con su homónimo de Arimatea.46 Mi académico imaginario podría argumentar además que el autor de Mc 15:42-47 debió haber conocido no solo el Génesis, sino también elaboraciones hagádicas del mismo, y también que Mateo, Lucas y Juan percibieron los paralelismos que he reunido, porque acertadamente les añadieron: 

• Tg. Sal.-J. 50:1 señala que Israel fue sepultado con especias, lo cual tiene su contraparte en Mc 16:1; Lc. 24:1; y Jn 19:39-40. 

• Tg. Onq. 49:24 informa que José guardaba la Torá “en secreto” (cf. b. Sotׂ ah 10b), y Jn 19:38 dice que José de Arimatea era un discípulo “en secreto”. 

• Abraham, legendario como “rico” (πλούσιος, LXX Gén. 13:2), compró la tumba en la que Israel fue enterrado, y el dueño de la tumba de Jesús es, en Mt. 27:57, “rico” (πλούσιος). 

Aquí me detendré. Quizás alguien con más recursos que yo pueda dilucidar cómo las tradiciones vinculadas a Génesis 49-50 podrían aportar la expresión «de Arimatea». Pero la lección es clara. Los paralelismos sorprendentes entre un texto y un conjunto de tradiciones no implican necesariamente la dependencia del primero respecto del segundo. Las coincidencias surgen tanto entre textos como dentro de la historia.47 Y en el caso del argumento de Aus sobre Marcos 14:42-47 y las leyendas vinculadas a la muerte de Moisés, no me dejo convencer porque no veo que mi propuesta alternativa, que sé que es falsa, se vea muy perjudicada en comparación. 

Un último punto sobre Aus. Incluso si se decidiera que la historia del entierro de Jesús se basa en tradiciones mosaicas, esto no establecería su génesis como una Hagadá pura. La leyenda puede parasitar la memoria. Abundan los mitos sobre el asesinato de John F. Kennedy. Sin embargo, alguien sí disparó al presidente. Los primeros cristianos podrían haber elaborado su recuerdo del entierro de Jesús con la ayuda del lenguaje religioso y las leyendas. De hecho, los evangelios sinópticos nos confrontan con este fenómeno una y otra vez: la intertextualidad es, para ellos, el atuendo de la memoria. El propio Aus, a pesar de encontrar motivos mosaicos en la historia de Getsemaní, no duda de que Jesús fue arrestado en el Monte de los Olivos.48 ¿Por qué no podría ser similar a Mc 15:42-47? Es decir, ¿no podría haberse escrito, pensando en Moisés, el hecho conocido de que un miembro del Sanedrín enterró a Jesús?49 

(2) ¿Qué decir del análisis de Crossan sobre el Evangelio de Pedro? No resiste bien el examen. Incluso si el Evangelio de Pedro conserva algunas tradiciones no derivadas de los evangelios canónicos, la reconstrucción de Crossan del «Evangelio de la Cruz» ha convencido a pocos.50 Mucho más importante aún, existe un problema exegético. El Evangelio de Pedro 6:21 no dice nada sobre el entierro de Jesús.51 Esto aparece solo dos versículos después: «(21) Entonces sacaron los clavos de las manos del Señor y lo pusieron sobre (ἐπί) la tierra. Y toda la tierra tembló y hubo gran temor. (22) Entonces resplandeció el sol, y fue hallado como la hora novena. (23) Y los judíos se regocijaron y dieron su cuerpo a José para que lo sepultara, puesto que había visto todas las buenas obras que él (Jesús) había hecho». Los “ellos” no especificados del v. 21 —que podrían ser soldados romanos o “los judíos” (cf. Mc 15:46)— colocan el cuerpo de Jesús en el suelo. Esto no se refiere al entierro, sino a ser bajado de la cruz y a una pausa temporal en el proceso. ¿Qué sucede entonces con el cuerpo? En el evangelio tal como está escrito, José de Arimatea lo recibe (v. 23). Crossan piensa que esta circunstancia se debe a una interferencia editorial posterior bajo la influencia de Marcos: Gos. Ped. 6:23-24 interrumpe la secuencia original, 6:22 + 7:25 + 8:28ss. Solo tal cirugía permite a Crossan encontrar una visión del entierro que no sea de Marcos, sino que sea anterior a Marcos. Sin embargo, no solo no se ve ninguna justificación convincente para la operación, sino que el resultado es peculiar. Si uno hace caso a Crossan y acepta 6:22 + 7:25 + 8:28ss. Como la secuencia prístina, luego pasamos, si estamos siguiendo el cuerpo de Jesús, de «sacaron los clavos de las manos del Señor y lo pusieron en la tierra» (6:21) a los ancianos judíos pidiéndole a Pilato: «Danos soldados para que vigilemos su sepulcro durante tres días, no sea que sus discípulos vengan y se lo roben…» (8:30). En otras palabras, el cuerpo se ha movido de alguna manera desde el pie de la cruz a un sepulcro hasta entonces no presentado. Esto no solo no se recomienda como una secuencia coherente, sino que el entierro, si Gos. Pe. 6:23-24 es una inserción secundaria, simplemente se pasa por alto.52 ¿Cómo califica esto como una tradición que compite con Marcos? 

(3) Hechos 13:29 ofrece escaso apoyo al carácter apócrifo del relato de Marcos. La frase aparece en una fuente posterior a Marcos, una fuente cuyo autor pasó por alto la supuesta contradicción con el entierro de Jesús por José. Hechos 13:29 podría incluso, además, ser una redacción.53 Sea como fuere, no es para nada evidente que tengamos aquí una tradición distinta y diferente del entierro. Tal vez deberíamos concederle a Lucas cierta laxitud en la expresión.54 Nadie encuentra una tradición antigua, no de Marcos, en Hechos 2:23, 36; y 4:10, que tienen a los judíos en Jerusalén crucificando a Jesús (cf. 1 Tes. 2:14-15), o en Lactancio, Inst. 4.19.6-7 (ed. Heck y Wlosok, pp. 393-4), donde “los judíos” bajan a Jesús de la cruz y lo ponen en una tumba. 

Incluso si se atribuyera Hechos 13:29 a la tradición pre-lucana, el versículo describe no a romanos sino a judíos dando sepultura a Jesús. Esto concuerda con Marcos. Además, los plurales en Hechos («lo bajaron… y lo pusieron en un sepulcro») coinciden con el plural de Marcos 16:6 («el lugar donde lo pusieron»; cf. también Juan 19:31). Suponiendo, entonces, que el Segundo Evangelio presenta a José como un personaje más o menos comprensivo, la hipotética tradición rival en Hechos diferiría solo en la cuestión del motivo, y eso no es suficiente para negar el núcleo histórico de Marcos 15:42-46.55 (4) ¿Tenemos buenas razones para postular que la imaginación, más que la memoria, engendró el nombre «José de Arimatea»? La narración de la pasión de Marcos tiene trece actores nombrados: Simón el leproso (14:3), Jesús (14:10 y passim), Judas Iscariote (14:10, 43), Simón Pedro (14:29, 33, 37, 54, 66, 70, 72), Santiago (14:33), Juan (14:33), Pilato (15:1-15, 43-44), Barrabás (15:7, 11), Simón de Cirene (15:21), María Magdalena (15:40, 47), María la madre de Santiago y de José (15:40, 47), Salomé (15:40) y José de Arimatea (15:43, 46). Según fuentes seculares, sabemos que Pilato fue una figura histórica, y salvo quienes erróneamente consideran a Jesús un mito, nadie duda de que Simón Pedro, Santiago, Juan y María Magdalena fueron personas reales. Si además se tiene la sensatez de pensar lo mismo de Judas Iscariote, más de la mitad de los personajes mencionados en Marcos 14-15 no son ficticios. 

¿Y el resto? La calificación de Simón como “padre de Alejandro y Rufo” (15:21) es extraña según la teoría de la invención, pues era costumbre presentar a los hombres por referencia a sus padres (“hijo de”), no a sus hijos (“padre de”). Se presume que Alejandro y Rufo aparecen porque alguien los conocía. Incluso es posible que tengamos el osario de Alejandro, hijo de Simón de Cirene.56 En cuanto a Simón el leproso, María la madre de Santiago y José, y Salomé, no veo cómo plantear un argumento sólido a favor de su historicidad.57 Sin embargo, tampoco veo cómo argumentar en contra. Pocos lo han hecho. 

El único nombre en Marcos 14-15, aparte de José de Arimatea, que ha suscitado considerable sospecha es Barrabás.58 No necesito entrar en el debate aquí. Solo dejo constatar mi opinión de que el asunto sigue sin resolverse y añado que la duda crítica ha surgido en parte del nombre mismo, Barrabás (= אבא בר”; Abba es un nombre bien documentado para la época y el lugar de Jesús). Significa “hijo del padre”. Los primeros cristianos no pasaron por alto el significado irónico de esto: un hijo del padre queda libre mientras que otro hijo del padre va a la ejecución. Esto explica Mt. 27:16, que convierte “Barrabás” en “Jesús Barrabás”. “José de Arimatea” es diferente. Si el nombre tiene un propósito teológico, las insinuaciones son ciertamente sutiles. Ingo Broer, en efecto, califica a “José de Arimatea” como un “bloque errático”.59 Tampoco parece que “de Arimatea” provenga de las Escrituras.60 Dado esto, lo más probable es que, como la mayoría o todos los demás personajes del relato de la pasión de Marcos, pertenezca a la historia.61 

La historicidad de un nombre no garantiza, por supuesto, la historicidad de una narración construida a su alrededor.⁶² Basta con recordar la hagádica narración de la infancia de Jesús en Mateo, protagonizada por el rey Herodes y José, el padre de Jesús. Los nombres son históricos, la narración, en su mayor parte, ahistórica. Aun así, José aparece en Mateo 1-2 porque, en efecto, era el esposo de María y padre de Jesús, y Herodes está presente porque Jesús nació durante su reinado. ¿Por qué aparece José de Arimatea en el entierro de Jesús en Marcos? Una explicación plausible es que, efectivamente, estuvo allí.⁶³

(5) Herodes, en Gos. Ped. 2:5, le dice a Pilato: «Aunque nadie lo hubiera pedido, deberíamos enterrarlo (ἐθάπτομεν) puesto que el sábado está amaneciendo. Porque está escrito en la ley: el sol no se pondrá sobre quien ha sido ejecutado». Esto supone que los judíos piadosos, siguiendo Deut. 21:22-23, no querían que los cuerpos se dejaran durante la noche en cruces o arrojados al suelo, sino que deseaban que los ejecutados recibieran algún tipo de sepultura, y además que las autoridades romanas accedieran a este deseo.

 Ehrman, al igual que Crossan, considera esto dudoso, y puede que tenga razón al afirmar que «las personas crucificadas solían ser dejadas en sus cruces como alimento para los carroñeros»64 (aunque no podemos respaldar su «suelen» con cifras concretas). Sin embargo, las cuestiones relevantes son si Roma alguna vez concedió peticiones de sepultura —como se describe en Marcos— y si, durante los períodos de paz en la Palestina anterior al año 70 d. C., era probable que se concediera tal solicitud. 

Sabemos que Roma a veces permitía el entierro de criminales ejecutados por el Estado. El Digesta dice lo siguiente: 

Los cuerpos de los condenados a muerte no deben ser negados a sus familiares; y el Divino Augusto, en el Décimo Libro sobre su vida, afirmó que esta norma se había observado. Actualmente, los cuerpos de los castigados solo se entierran cuando se solicita y se concede permiso; y a veces no está permitido, especialmente cuando las personas han sido condenadas por alta traición… Los cuerpos de las personas castigadas deben entregarse a quien los solicite para su sepultura (48:1, 3).65 

Estas palabras coinciden con las de Filón, Flacc. 83: «He conocido casos en los que, en vísperas de una festividad de este tipo [una celebración en honor al emperador], se bajaba a personas crucificadas y se entregaban sus cuerpos a sus parientes, porque se consideraba conveniente darles sepultura y permitirles los ritos habituales».66 

Filón, sin embargo, vivió en Alejandría. ¿Y qué hay de Palestina? Aquí el testimonio clave es el de Josefo, Bell. 4.317: «Los judíos son tan cuidadosos con los ritos funerarios que incluso los malhechores condenados a la crucifixión son bajados y enterrados antes del atardecer». Josefo se refiere aquí a la crucifixión romana de su época, y sus palabras coinciden con lo que encontramos en el Nuevo Testamento. 

La generalización de Josefo refleja la influencia de Deuteronomio 21:22-23, que para los judíos habría sido la ley del país: «Su cuerpo no permanecerá toda la noche en el madero, sino que lo enterrarás el mismo día, porque un hombre colgado es maldito por Dios; no contaminarás tu tierra».67 El mandamiento de no contaminar la tierra exigía el entierro de los criminales,68 y el mismo día de la ejecución. Esto presumiblemente habría sido suficiente para que un judío observante de la ley, actuando por cuenta propia o en nombre del Sanedrín, se hubiera preocupado, si le hubiera sido posible, por el cuerpo sin vida de Jesús. 

Desde luego, no debemos interpretar las palabras de Josefo sin imaginación. Reflejan una aspiración —los judíos enterraban cuerpos siempre que podían—, más que una descripción de cada ocasión en la vida real. Roma, obviamente, no entregaba los cuerpos de los enemigos caídos durante la guerra; y el Digesto enumera la «alta traición» —que no define aquí— como motivo para vetar el entierro. Probablemente hubo otras ocasiones en las que, por una u otra razón, se prohibía el entierro. Este es probablemente el trasfondo de Mc 15:43, que habla de José «atreviéndose» (τολμήσας) a pedir el cuerpo de Jesús. Esto parece presuponer que el gobernador solo accedía a las peticiones de entierro en ocasiones,69 y que existía incertidumbre sobre lo que Pilato haría en el caso de Jesús.70 

Semahׂot 2:9 parece contemplar la misma situación: los días de luto se contaban “desde el momento en que [los familiares de una víctima ejecutada por el gobierno] desesperaban en su petición [de obtener el cuerpo de las autoridades para su entierro] pero no [perdían la esperanza] de robarlo”. Esta norma, cuyo contenido podría provenir del período romano temprano,71 implica que los familiares de los criminales ejecutados estaban acostumbrados a pedir los restos de un ser querido; y, aunque el texto contempla la negativa, implica que a veces las autoridades accedían, de lo contrario no habría existido la costumbre de apelar. 

Los restos óseos del hombre crucificado, descubiertos fortuitamente en Giv'at ha-Mivtar y enterrados en una tumba familiar, respaldan la inferencia de que los romanos a veces permitían a los judíos enterrar a las víctimas de la crucifixión.72 Crossan discrepa: «Con los miles de personas crucificadas alrededor de Jerusalén solo en el siglo I, hasta ahora solo hemos encontrado un único esqueleto crucificado, y, por supuesto, conservado en un osario. ¿Era el entierro, entonces, la excepción y no la regla, lo extraordinario y no lo ordinario?»73 

Sin embargo, como otros han observado, los restos de las víctimas que fueron atadas en lugar de clavadas no mostrarían signos de haber sido crucificadas.74 Además, los clavos utilizados en la crucifixión —que algunos apreciaban como amuletos75— se extraían en el lugar de la ejecución (cf. Gos. Pet. 6:21), presumiblemente para su reutilización, y por lo tanto no se enterraban con los cuerpos.76 La única razón por la que sabemos que el hombre del osario de Giv'at ha-Mivtar fue crucificado es que un clavo en su hueso del talón derecho no pudo ser extraído de la madera: permaneció atascado en un nudo. En palabras de Byron McCane, 

Si no hubiera habido un nudo estratégicamente ubicado en la madera de la cruz de Yehohanan, los soldados habrían sacado fácilmente el clavo. Nunca habría sido enterrado con Yehohanan, y jamás habríamos sabido que fue crucificado. En otras palabras, no sorprende que hayamos encontrado los restos de una sola víctima de crucifixión; lo sorprendente es que hayamos identificado siquiera a una.77

 La afirmación de Crossan se enfrenta a otro obstáculo. Según la arqueóloga Jodi Magness, «las tumbas de foso y las tumbas de trinchera son escasas en hallazgos» y eran «más susceptibles a la destrucción que las tumbas excavadas en la roca», por lo que los arqueólogos han descubierto muchas menos de las primeras que de las segundas.78 Sin embargo, debió haber muchas más tumbas de foso y de trinchera, que pertenecían a la clase baja, que tumbas excavadas en la roca, que pertenecían a la clase alta. Por lo tanto, lo que tenemos a mano no es representativo de la realidad del siglo I. Nuestros hallazgos provienen desproporcionadamente del segmento de la población que más se benefició del statu quo, es decir, el segmento con menos probabilidades, antes de la revuelta judía, de haberse enfrentado a Roma y haber sufrido la crucifixión.79 

Volviendo al caso de Jesús, Eric Meyers opinó que los romanos probablemente habrían permitido su sepultura simplemente porque muchos lo amaban.80 Con el pretendiente mesiánico ejecutado, no había razón para agravar el malestar manteniendo su cuerpo en la cruz y ofendiendo así a quienes estaban ansiosos por obedecer Deuteronomio 21:22-23, especialmente durante una festividad, cuando los peregrinos piadosos abarrotaban Jerusalén. Lüdemann opinó sensatamente: «la liberación del cuerpo de Jesús y su retirada de la cruz podría… haber convenido a Pilato, porque esto evitaría a priori el descontento entre la gran cantidad de visitantes a la festividad».81 

(6) La propuesta de que los narradores cristianos trasladaron a Jesús de una pila de criminales a una tumba para evitarle la deshonra choca con un hecho obvio. Los primeros escritos cristianos no solo reconocen que Jesús sufrió el horrible y deshonroso destino de la crucifixión, sino que encuentran un profundo significado en la circunstancia. A su manera, sus autores incluso se regocijan en la cruz. Sin duda, personas capaces de una decisión teológica tan extraordinaria e inédita podrían haber justificado igualmente el entierro en una fosa o el secado de los huesos al sol si las circunstancias les hubieran presentado tal desafío.82 Esto es más cierto si se recuerda que su héroe dijo algo que, de haber sido necesario, podría haberse interpretado como indiferencia hacia el entierro: «Dejen que los muertos entierren a sus propios muertos» (Mt. 8:22; Lc. 9:60). 

(7) Respecto al razonamiento de Ehrman sobre 1 Corintios 15:3-5, me parece poco meditado. Sostiene que José de Arimatea no está en el credo porque quienes lo formularon no lo conocían. De haberlo conocido, habrían transformado «fue sepultado» en «fue sepultado por José» para establecer un paralelismo ingenioso con «se apareció a Cefas». Sin embargo, no está claro cómo se habría podido hacer esto. «Se apareció a Cefas» es, en griego, dos palabras: un verbo (ὤφθη: «se apareció») más un dativo simple (Κηφᾷ: «a Cefas»). No obstante, no se puede decir «fue sepultado por José» en griego con ἐτάφη y un dativo simple. En cambio, sería necesario usar la voz activa («José lo sepultó»)83 o emplear la preposición «por» (ὑπό).84 En cualquier caso, el paralelismo sería imperfecto. Además, para reflejar el singular «Cefas», se necesitaría el singular «José». Sin embargo, esto podría sugerir al padre de Jesús. Si se quisiera prever ese malentendido, se necesitaría el «José de Arimatea» completo, lo que de nuevo disminuiría el paralelismo, pues el credo tiene «Cefas», no «Cefas de Cafarnaúm». Más allá de todo esto, la fórmula del versículo 5 no es «se apareció a Cefas», sino «se apareció a Cefas, y luego a los doce». No se ve cómo se puede crear un equivalente lingüístico para eso con solo el singular «José de Arimatea». 

Además de estas consideraciones formales, ya he observado, en otro contexto, que 1 Corintios 15:3-8 está lleno de lagunas.85 No solo omite mencionar a José de Arimatea, sino también a Pilato. Asimismo, no sitúa ningún acontecimiento en Jerusalén ni en Galilea. Incluso afirma que Jesús «murió» en lugar de que fue «crucificado». Por lo tanto, falta mucha información, y me resulta más extraño que la ausencia de José sea más inesperada que la falta de otros detalles. Esto es aún más relevante si consideramos que Pedro y los doce eran líderes religiosos eminentes para los primeros seguidores de Jesús, mientras que José de Arimatea no lo era.86 Este último podría, como Caifás, figurar en una narración de la muerte de Jesús, pero que no aparezca en el credo de Pablo no resulta desconcertante. Tampoco figura en el Credo de los Apóstoles ni en el Credo Niceno, a pesar de que quienes formularon dichas declaraciones sin duda conocían su historia. 

CONSIDERACIONES ADICIONALES 

Dado que el argumento contra la historicidad de Mc 15:42-46, al ser examinado críticamente, se desmorona, no sorprende que se puedan esgrimir argumentos respetables para una conclusión más conservadora, a saber, que Mc 15:42-47 es, en esencia, histórico.87     

(1) Según la antigua confesión en 1 Cor. 15:4, Jesús “murió” y “fue sepultado” (ἐτάφη).88 El primer significado del verbo, θάπτω, es “honrar con ritos funerarios, especialmente mediante el entierro” (LSJ, sv). Además, en ninguna fuente judía la fórmula “murió… y fue sepultado” se refiere a otra cosa que no sea el entierro en la tierra, una cueva o una tumba. Por lo tanto, el lenguaje de la fórmula prepaulina no puede haberse usado para un cuerpo dejado pudriéndose en una cruz. Tampoco el abandono sin ceremonias de un cadáver en un montón para los carroñeros habría sugerido ἐτάφη. Tal destino no habría sido el entierro, sino su negación. La réplica de que Pablo escribió “fue sepultado”, no “sepultado en una tumba”, es engañosa. Así como «fue cremado» implica, para nosotros, «fue cremado hasta convertirse en cenizas», así también «fue enterrado» conllevaba, en el mundo de Pablo, algún tipo de sepultura.89

 Independientemente de si 1 Corintios 5:4 resume una versión temprana de la historia de José, «sería extraño», como observó Bernabé Lindars, «incluir este detalle en la declaración si el entierro de Jesús era, de hecho, desconocido».90 Más aún, lejos de ser desconocido, puede que fuera bien conocido. Romanos 6:4 afirma: «Hemos sido sepultados con él (συνετάφημεν αὐτῷ) en el bautismo».91 Esto presupone que Jesús fue sepultado, y Pablo introduce sus palabras con: «¿No lo sabéis?». La pregunta retórica sugiere que los destinatarios en Roma, un lugar que el apóstol aún no había visitado, estaban familiarizados con la idea de ser sepultados con Cristo, lo que a su vez sugiere su creencia de que alguien sepultó a Jesús. Más allá del testimonio inicial de Pablo, los cuatro evangelios canónicos narran la historia del entierro de Jesús, y cada uno incluye materiales adicionales —no todos puramente redaccionales— que presuponen que Jesús no fue arrojado a una pila de criminales, sino enterrado.⁹² El entierro de Jesús en una tumba está, por lo tanto, debidamente atestiguado.⁹³ 

(2) Las crucifixiones eran eventos públicos. Concebidas como elementos disuasorios, estaban diseñadas para llamar la atención sobre sí mismas y ser recordadas.94 Si Jesús hubiera sido crucificado en un rincón, el potencial “para disuadir la resistencia o la revuelta”95 se habría reducido considerablemente. Si a esto se le añade que Jesús estaba lo suficientemente expuesto al público como para llamar la atención del gobernador,96 que su destino probablemente habría despertado el interés de los curiosos, y que su terrible calvario, dada la naturaleza humana, habría tenido cierto valor de entretenimiento para algunos —se recuerdan las multitudes que en su día se congregaban para las ejecuciones públicas en Europa y América97—, resulta difícil imaginar que no hubiera una nube de testigos. Sin duda, Orígenes tenía razón: la muerte de Jesús en la cruz debió ser notoria (ἐπισήμως).98 Que los evangelios digan que había transeúntes no es razón para pensar que no los hubiera.99 Es intrínsecamente probable que al menos algunas personas, algunas amistosas, otras hostiles, otras indiferentes, presenciaran las últimas horas de Jesús, y que su crucifixión y sepultura se convirtieran rápidamente en tema de chismes callejeros, de modo que cualquiera que quisiera saber qué había sucedido, o al menos qué se decía que había sucedido, podía preguntar por ahí.100 Jerusalén era, cabe recordar, un lugar muy pequeño para nuestros estándares. Las murallas herodianas encerraban menos de una milla cuadrada, y en la Pascua el lugar estaba abarrotado, denso de multitudes.101 Crossan dice que a quienes lo sabían no les importaba y que a quienes les importaba no lo sabían.102 Es más probable, por el contrario, que casi todos lo supieran, les importara o no.103 

(3) Si Pilato ignoró los escrúpulos judíos sobre Deuteronomio 21:22-23, tenemos motivos suficientes para suponer que Jesús y sus compañeros crucificados habrían sobrevivido más de unas pocas horas. Los romanos no tenían prisa por extinguir el sufrimiento de enemigos y criminales, razón por la cual las crucifixiones podían durar días. Sin embargo, nuestras fuentes no contienen rastro alguno de tortura prolongada. ¿Por qué no? Si los fieles cristianos estuvieran inventando ficciones hagádicas, bien podrían haber hecho que Jesús muriera el domingo o el lunes, o que sobreviviera heroicamente incluso más tiempo. ¿Acaso esto no les habría permitido poner más palabras en su boca? Sin embargo, sus historias hablan de un final rápido: crucificado durante el día, muerto al atardecer.104 ¿Por qué inventar esto? ¿Qué propósito teológico tenía? Sin embargo, si hay memoria en los evangelios, Pilato no orquestó un asunto prolongado, presumiblemente debido a la proximidad del sábado; y si eso es así, entonces probablemente accedió al deseo judío de que los ejecutados fueran bajados antes del anochecer y enterrados. 

(4) Atribuir la historia de José de Arimatea a Marcos o a un predecesor inmediato parece implicar que, durante bastante tiempo, no circulaba ninguna tradición concreta sobre el entierro del cuerpo de Jesús. ¿Es esto creíble? Goulder cree que sí. Su propuesta es que «al principio, el esplendor del hecho de la Resurrección podía bastar para la celebración de la Pascua». Solo «con el tiempo» surgieron preguntas: «¿Qué fue de su cuerpo? ¿Quién lo enterró?, etc.».105 

¿Reflejan las palabras «con el tiempo», que representan el paso de unas tres décadas, el probable curso de los acontecimientos? ¿Por qué transcurrieron treinta años o más antes de que alguien se interesara por el entierro de Jesús, que, después de todo, formaba parte del kerygma primigenio? ¿Por qué la tradición que subyace a 1 Corintios 15:3-7, con su afirmación de que Jesús «fue sepultado», no despertó interés ni impulsó la narración o invención de una historia? La explicación lacónica y vaga de Goulder —que «el primer esplendor de la resurrección» se interponía en el camino— no aclara nada: es una afirmación vacía. ¿Acaso los primeros seguidores de Jesús, cuyas escrituras no carecían de detalles sobre los entierros de héroes religiosos,¹⁰⁶ eran tan indiferentes al entierro de Jesús que tuvieron que esperar a que Marcos, en los años 60 o 70, les contara una historia? 

 (5) Sería contrario a la costumbre de Marcos describir a un miembro del Sanedrín haciendo una bondad a Jesús. Si, entonces, Mc 15:43, como Lc. 23:50-51, describe a José de Arimatea como miembro de ese cuerpo —una lectura probable pero incierta de Marcos107— esto es sorprendente y, por lo tanto, un signo de tradición pre-Marcana.108 Ni Mateo (quien probablemente estaba descontento o perplejo con el “miembro del consejo” de Marcos) ni Juan identifican a José como consejero de ningún tipo; y los diversos intentos canónicos de explicar el acto de José —fue discipulado de Jesús o buscaba el reino de Dios o no estaba de acuerdo con el veredicto del Sanedrín o creía en secreto109— reflejan cuán irregular lo encontraron los evangelistas. 

Resulta insatisfactorio rebatir esto, pues, dado que todos sabían que ni los discípulos dispersos ni los despiadados romanos podrían haber sepultado a Jesús, Marcos o su tradición se sintieron obligados a encomendar la tarea a un miembro del Sanedrín. ¿Por qué era más fácil pecar contra el hecho de que Jesús no tuviera tumba que pecar contra el hecho de que los discípulos estuvieran dispersos?¹¹⁰ Si Marcos pudo tener a Pedro en el patio del sumo sacerdote después de que «todos huyeran» (14:50, 54), ¿por qué no pudo tener a los doce en la tumba el domingo por la mañana después de que «todos huyeran»? ¿O por qué el evangelista no nombró, como sepulturero de Jesús, al esposo de la mujer que lo ungió para su sepultura (Mc 14:3-9), o al «dueño de la casa» donde Jesús celebró la Última Cena (Mc 14:14), o a Simón de Cirene (Mc 15:21), o a Santiago, hermano de Jesús (Mc 6:3)? No se menciona que estos individuos huyeran. Si realmente nos encontramos en el ámbito de la leyenda sin restricciones y la memoria sin límites, ¿qué requería que el agente del entierro de Jesús fuera un miembro del Sanedrín? La respuesta no puede ser la similitud, porque el argumento escéptico parte de la premisa de la improbabilidad de que un miembro del Sanedrín enterrara a Jesús. De nuevo, ¿por qué no hacer que un soldado romano comprensivo, tal vez el centurión a cargo de la ejecución, realizara la tarea subrepticiamente? Eso no sería más escandaloso para la imaginación retrospectiva que el hecho de que el centurión declarara a Jesús hijo de Dios (Mc 15:39). La expresión de Marcos «un miembro respetado del consejo» sigue siendo inesperada. 

(6) El relato lacónico de Marcos no contiene ni elementos fantásticos ni motivos cristianos explícitos. Günther Bornkamm lo consideró «conciso, sin emoción y sin ningún sesgo».111 Ludgar Schenke coincidió: «la historia es objetiva y sin una "tendencia" teológica obvia».112 Más aún, si dejamos de lado las sugerencias de Aus, no parece ser un ejemplo de lo que Crossan ha llamado «profecía historicizada». El único elemento en la adaptación de Marcos que podríamos rastrear plausiblemente hasta las Escrituras es el entierro antes del atardecer.113 Esto podría, uno podría argumentar, provenir directamente de Deut. 21:22-23 (cf. Jos. 8:29; 10:17-18). Sin embargo, dado que los judíos en realidad intentaron cumplir la prescripción mosaica, podemos suponer igualmente que los actores históricos siguieron obedientemente el texto del pentateuco. Por lo demás, y como ya se ha observado, resulta quizás sorprendente, dado el interés de los primeros cristianos por Isaías 53, que la historia de José en Marcos no tenga en cuenta 53:9: «le echaron una tumba con los impíos».114 

(7) La afirmación de que Jesús pudo haber sido dejado en la cruz o que se le negó una sepultura genuina no se encuentra, que yo sepa, en ninguna fuente antigua, con una sola excepción. Esa excepción es el Apócrifo de Santiago de Nag Hammadi. En un pasaje, Jesús resucitado, dirigiéndose a Santiago y Pedro, les dice: «¿O no saben que aún les ha de ser maltratados y acusados ​​injustamente; que aún les ha de ser encerrados en prisión, condenados ilegalmente, crucificados sin razón y sepultados en la arena (àNn oyéoy), como me fue a mí, por el maligno?» (5:9-21). Sin embargo, uno duda en darle mucha importancia a esto.¹¹⁵ No solo la lectura del texto es incierta,¹¹⁶ sino que «la fecha de la composición original se suele situar en el siglo III».¹¹⁷ El texto presupone el martirio de Santiago y parece conocer los evangelios canónicos, por lo que difícilmente es un lugar seguro para buscar tradición antigua.¹¹⁸ 

La interpretación también es ambigua. Si las ilustraciones de abuso y acusación injusta —ser encarcelado, condenado ilegalmente, crucificado sin razón, sepultado en la arena— no solo profetizan el futuro de Santiago y Pedro, sino que además se supone que provienen de la vida de Jesús, entonces nos encontramos ante la idea de que Jesús fue encarcelado, para lo cual no tenemos ninguna otra evidencia. Parece mucho más probable que la aclaración final, «como yo mismo era», no se refiera a los detalles de la sentencia, sino a su significado general; es decir, que solo comunica que Jesús fue maltratado y acusado injustamente, no que sus enemigos lo encarcelaran y lo sepultaran en la arena. 

(8) Aun si José de Arimatea se ocupó del cadáver de Jesús, ¿por qué los cristianos se molestaron en recordar su nombre? ¿Lo habrían hecho si simplemente hubiera arrojado a Jesús a una fosa común para criminales, o si lo hubiera tratado como a otros criminales? Los evangelios están llenos de personajes anónimos. Matti Kankaanniemi tiene razón cuando infiere que «algo inesperado en el acto de José inspiró a los seguidores de Jesús a mencionar su nombre». Kankaanniemi observa entonces: «un entierro privado por parte de un sanedrín encaja bien con este “inesperado”».119 

(9) Marcos relata que la tumba de Jesús fue excavada en la roca. Las tumbas excavadas en la roca eran comunes alrededor de Jerusalén en el período del segundo templo. Marcos nos dice que se colocó una piedra frente a la tumba de Jesús. El registro arqueológico presenta tales piedras.120 Marcos afirma que Jesús fue enterrado por un “miembro respetado del consejo”. Solo las personas adineradas poseían tumbas excavadas en la roca.121 Así que Mc 15:42-47 coincide con gran parte de lo que sabemos. Magness puede afirmar: “los relatos de los Evangelios reflejan con precisión la manera en que los judíos de la antigua Jerusalén enterraban a sus muertos en el siglo I”.122 (10) La existencia de una narración de la pasión anterior a Marcos, antes dada por sentada, ya no se da por sentada. Sin embargo, la hipótesis, como he argumentado extensamente en otro lugar, aún se recomienda.123 Quienes concuerdan pueden atribuir Mc 15:42-48 a la fuente de Marcos en contraposición a su redacción. En mi opinión, es difícil imaginar la historia del entierro de Jesús como un relato independiente, que circule sin una narración de la crucifixión o la resurrección.124 

* * * 

Los párrafos anteriores revelan por qué considero probable que un hombre llamado José, probablemente un sanedrín, de la remota Arimatea, solicitara y obtuviera permiso de las autoridades romanas para organizar el entierro apresurado de Jesús. Admito que la evidencia es imperfecta y, a diferencia de John A. T. Robinson, no afirmo que el entierro «deba aceptarse como uno de los hechos más sólidos de la vida de Jesús».125 Sigue siendo posible que alguien haya inventado la historia. Sin embargo, no hay indicios reales de ello, sino más bien varias indicaciones de lo contrario. Además, nada de lo que sabemos sobre las prácticas funerarias judías, la ley y las costumbres romanas, ni la arqueología, contradice en ningún punto Marcos 15:42-47. 

Mis observaciones e inferencias sobre Mc 15:42-47 no se desarrollan, lo admito, de forma aislada de todo lo demás que creo acerca de nuestras fuentes más antiguas sobre Jesús. En general, tiendo a ser más positivo sobre su valor histórico que Strauss, Bultmann y Crossan. Por lo tanto, mi conclusión principal, que hay un núcleo histórico detrás de la historia de Marcos, se ajusta a mi visión más amplia de la tradición. Si mi orientación general fuera más escéptica, los puntos que he planteado sin duda parecerían menos convincentes, o incluso no lograrían persuadir. No hay argumentos independientes. Dicho todo esto, considero que mi conclusión principal es importante, porque en palabras de David Catchpole, 

Resulta extremadamente difícil creer que el recuerdo de su nombre [el de José] persistiera en relación con algo que había hecho, mientras que, al mismo tiempo, se desconocía el lugar donde lo había hecho. Es más fácil asociar un agente de sepultura conocido con un lugar de sepultura conocido y, por lo tanto, estar abiertos a la posibilidad de que, en efecto, existiera una tumba específica que pudiera visitarse poco después de la muerte de Jesús.¹²⁶ 

PREGUNTAS ABIERTAS 

Antes de concluir este capítulo, debo recalcar que, a pesar de mi conclusión principal, aún quedan preguntas por responder. 

(1) Si el relato de Marcos se aproxima a la realidad, ¿por qué Jesús, crucificado y perteneciente a una clase baja, terminó en una tumba de clase alta?127 ¿Por qué no fue sepultado en un cementerio para criminales, en una simple fosa común o en un lugar reservado para extranjeros, como relata Mt. 27:7 sobre Judas?128 “No hay evidencia de que el Sanedrín o las autoridades romanas pagaran y mantuvieran tumbas excavadas en la roca para criminales ejecutados de familias empobrecidas”.129

Para Mateo y Juan, la explicación de la inesperada mejora de Jesús radica en la devoción personal de José: era un discípulo. Es probable que esta sea una suposición tardía sin mérito histórico.130 Es mucho más plausible que la Torá dictara la decisión de José. Deuteronomio 21:22-23 exige el entierro antes del anochecer, y si, como parece, Jesús murió tarde el viernes, puede que, después de que José recibiera el cuerpo, no hubiera tiempo suficiente para cavar un pozo o una zanja, o incluso una simple tumba de campo poco profunda, ya sea en un lugar para criminales o en otro sitio.131 Quizás, entonces, José, movido por la falta de alternativas y presionado por el tiempo, obedeció Deut. 21:22-23 trasladando el cadáver de Jesús a la tumba de su familia.132 De ser así, presumiblemente habría considerado el lugar de descanso como temporal.133 Tal vez planeaba regresar y retirar el cuerpo en uno o dos días, o quizás suponía que los huesos serían extraídos en un año, posiblemente a un lugar reservado para judíos que no residían en Jerusalén.134 

Otra forma de explicar el entierro de Jesús en una tumba excavada en la roca es suponer que José, aunque no era discípulo, no era hostil, o incluso sentía cierta simpatía.¹³⁵ La insistencia de Marcos en que todo el Sanedrín, en un juicio exhaustivo, condenó a Jesús probablemente exagera los hechos. El pasaje mucho menos elaborado de Jn 18:19-24 resulta más plausible.¹³⁶ Quizás, entonces, José no estaba involucrado o no estaba del todo satisfecho con el resultado (cf. Lc 23:50-51). La descripción que hace Marcos de él como «esperando el reino de Dios» (15:43) podría reflejar esta circunstancia.¹³⁷

(2) Los evangelios canónicos afirman que Jesús no fue crucificado solo.138 Si esa es la historia, ¿qué pasó con los que estaban a su lado? La verdad se ha perdido entre las grietas de la historia. Sin embargo, el motivo para enterrar a Jesús rápidamente, en deferencia a Deut. 21:22-23, habría exigido también su entierro.139 Tal vez los ejecutados tenían familia en Jerusalén y los cuerpos les fueron entregados.140 O tal vez las autoridades judías se sintieron responsables solo de Jesús porque tuvieron un papel en su muerte, mientras que no tuvieron ninguna participación en lo que les sucedió a los demás.141 También es posible que un grupo de sepultureros, después de haber cavado un par de tumbas, se quedara sin tiempo para cavar una tercera, lo que llevó al manejo apresurado de Jesús por parte de José. ¿O acaso José, a pesar del silencio de nuestras fuentes, enterró el cuerpo de Jesús junto a los demás, cada uno en un estante o en su propio nicho? Sin embargo, en ese caso, los comerciantes deberían haber acogido con alegría el hecho, que habrían visto como el cumplimiento de Isa. 53:9: «Le echaron sepultura con los impíos». Pero, claro, reconocer que Jesús había sido sepultado junto a otros habría abierto la posibilidad de imaginar que el cuerpo desaparecido pertenecía a otra persona. Por desgracia, la ignorancia rodea lo que sabemos, o mejor dicho, lo que consideramos probable. 

(3) Aun cuando, como afirman los sinópticos, Jesús fue sepultado en una tumba excavada en la roca, estos ofrecen pocos detalles. No mencionan el número de habitaciones o nichos en las paredes, ni si la tumba tenía un foso para estar de pie debido a la baja altura del techo, ni cuántas depresiones poco profundas para cadáveres había en el suelo, ni si el cuerpo de Jesús fue colocado sobre un estante, en el suelo o en un kokh. 142 Sin embargo, algunos detalles invitan a la imaginación. 

Los evangelios sinópticos no mencionan que las mujeres fueran de cámara en cámara. Además, Lucas 24:12 muestra a Pedro viendo las vestiduras funerarias mientras aún estaba en la entrada, y Juan 20:5 muestra al Discípulo Amado haciendo lo mismo. Ahora bien, no abogo por la historicidad de estos hechos. Sin embargo, si se aceptaran como tales, sugerirían una tumba pequeña, de una sola habitación, sin antecámara. Esta inferencia concuerda con la afirmación de Mateo de que José era el dueño de la tumba. Dado que este hombre era conocido como «José de Arimatea», no nació en Jerusalén, sino que llegó allí posteriormente; por lo tanto, si tenía una tumba en la capital, no estaba llena de sus antepasados. Por el contrario, presumiblemente se encontraba en un terreno que había comprado después de mudarse a Jerusalén, en cuyo caso probablemente no había necesidad ni tiempo para construir un gran complejo para albergar múltiples cuerpos. Así pues, aunque me inclino a considerar la insistencia canónica en que la tumba de Jesús era nueva (Mt. 27:60; Jn. 19:41) y sin usar (Lc. 23:53) como pura teología o apologética,¹⁴³ podría estar equivocado. Quizás la expresión convencional «la tumba vacía», que implica una tumba sin un solo cuerpo, se corresponda con los hechos.¹⁴⁴ 

Chapter 7. Resurrected Holy Ones?

Perhaps the most curious text in the New Testament—James Dunn has dubbed it “completely puzzling”1 —is Mt. 27:51b-53. In exceedingly short space, it breathlessly unfolds, seemingly in three couplets, a series of astounding events: 

and the earth shook, 

and the rocks were split;

and the tombs were opened, 

and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 

and coming out of the tombs (after his resurrection) they went into the holy city, 

and they appeared to many. 

With an eye on the implications for the larger questions of this book, I should like, in this chapter, to discuss the origin and character of Matthew’s story. 

THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY 

N. T. Wright wants to leave open the question of the historicity of Matthew’s surreal episode. His rationale is this: “some stories are so odd that they may just have happened. This may be one of them, but in historical terms there is no way of finding out.”2 

This is not much of an argument. Who would urge, with reference to the tale of Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt, that some stories are so odd that they may just have happened, and this may be one of them? Surely oddness suggests fiction far more often than it suggests non-fiction.

Wright’s half-hearted argument arrives at no firm conclusion: “in historical terms, there is no way of finding out” whether Matthew’s little story mirrors an event of the past. My verdict is different. We can be almost pontifical here. Matthew 27:51b-53 recounts “a miracle unsurpassed anywhere else in the Gospels or other books of the Christian scriptures.”3 Indeed, if it happened, it is “the most amazing event of all time.”4 But it did not happen. 

The astounding series of prodigies has left no trace in the other gospels, Acts, Paul, Josephus, or, for that matter, any other pre-Matthean source.5 It stands alone, half a century or more after the incredible events it reports. Yet the stupendous marvels depicted in Mt. 27:51b-53, had they firm grounding in known fact, would quickly have become a bedrock of Christian apologetics, especially as the text speaks of “many” saints and “many” witnesses. While this is, to be sure, an argument from silence, some arguments from silence have force.6 Matthew 27:51b-53—which fails to name any of the “many” saints or any of the “many” to whom they appeared—is a religious fiction spawned by the religious imagination, the same source that gave us the seven sleepers of Ephesus and Saint Catherine’s exploding wheel. Reality has here melted into fable. 

Wright is nearly alone in his open-mindedness regarding Mt. 27:51b-53.7 These days, even many conservative or evangelical scholars express doubt, or more than doubt. In Donald Hagner’s words, “Matthew in these verses is making a theological point rather than simply relating history.”8 Although there may have been, according to Hagner, an earthquake near the time of Jesus’ death, that fact has undergone elaboration: Matthew’s scene is “theology set forth as history”; it is “a piece of realized and historicized apocalyptic depending on OT motifs found in such passages as Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2; and especially Ezekiel 37:12-14.” 

As justification for his view, Hagner not only deploys the argument from silence but adds that “the event makes little historical sense.”9 He is right. How, for instance, do we understand Matthew’s μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ, “after his resurrection”? The words, as they stand, seem to imply that, although the graves are opened when Jesus dies, the “holy ones” do not enter Jerusalem until Easter morn. If so, what are they doing in the interval between Jesus’ death and his resurrection?10 Are their bones, although open to the air and exposed to view, yet unanimated?11 Or have their spirits returned, so that they are conscious yet still in their graves, patiently awaiting their marching orders?12 Or are they rather up and about, doing this or that, before showing themselves two days later in Jerusalem, only a stone’s throw away?13 The questions are so strange because Mt. 27:51b-53 is so strange. Strauss remarked: “to render this incident conceivable is a matter of unusual difficulty.”14 Michael Licona shares Hagner’s judgment, although his justification is a bit different. Focusing on the prodigies often associated, in antiquity, with the deaths of important figures,15 he comes to this verdict: Mt. 27:51b-53 is written in the language of “special effects,” The piece is “poetic.” It emphasizes “that a great king has died,” and perhaps that “the day of the Lord has come.”16 

CONSCIOUS HAGGADIC FICTION? 

I concur with Licona’s historical judgment: Mt. 27:51b-53 is not history. I very much doubt, however, that the evangelist Matthew—as Licona and others hold17—was being consciously poetic, or that he anticipated readers who would find purely theological meaning. John Calvin, because of his Renaissance education, was quite aware that “the ancient poets in their tragedies describe the sun’s light being withdrawn from the earth when any foul crime is committed, and so aim to show a portent of divine wrath: this was a fiction that drew from the common feelings of nature.”18 Yet Calvin simultaneously thought that the sun did indeed go dark when Jesus died.19 In other words, the Reformer could discover a literary trope and history in one and the same sentence. Maybe it was not so different in Matthew’s time and place. The issues here quickly become complex. An increasing number of scholars have proposed that some stories in the gospels should be understood as purely metaphorical. Such stories, in the words of Marcus Borg, “are not based on the memory of particular events, but are symbolic narratives created for their metaphorical meaning. As such, they are not meant to be historical reports. Rather, the stories use symbolic language that points beyond a factual meaning.”20 Roger David Aus is of like mind: the gospels preserve haggadic tales that, in their original Jewish-Christian settings, were not mistaken for history as it really was. Hearers instead “greatly appreciated” a “narrator’s creative abilities in reshaping traditions already known to them in order to express a religious truth (or truths) about Jesus, their Lord, the Messiah of Israel.”21 

If Borg and Aus are right, the way is open to supposing that a Jewish evangelist could have incorporated or created an episode, such as the resurrection of the holy ones, whose fictional character he and his first audience took for granted.22 Literal readings came later, through misunderstanding. Yet the gospels do little, in my judgment, to make us think that their authors intended any of their narrative materials to be understood as purely metaphorical.23 The same is true, I now wish to argue, of Mt. 27:51b-53 in particular. 

(1) Matthew 27:51b-53 makes three large claims. First, there was an earthquake. Second, “holy ones” came to life. Third, they appeared to many in Jerusalem. While all this may strike us as fantastic, we have no reason to imagine that any of it would have surpassed the boggle threshold of Matthew or his first readers. He, who otherwise believed that miracles enveloped Jesus’ life, knew scriptural texts that recount earthquakes in the past and that prophesy them for the future.24 The evangelist also believed that God had raised Jesus from the dead and would raise others at the last judgment.25 And he knew about the resurrected Jesus appearing to others (28:7, 9-10, 16-20). Nothing in 27:51b-53 transgresses the possibilities that the rest of the narrative establishes for believing readers. 

(2) We must not confuse what seems legendary to us, or at least many of us, with what seemed legendary to those in another time and place.26 Consider the list of wonders in y. ‘Abod. Zar. 42c (3:1): 

When R. Aha died, a star appeared at noon. When R. Hanan died, the statues bowed low. When R. Yohanan died, the icons bowed down… When R. Hanina of Bet Hauran died, the Sea of Tiberias split open… When. R. Hoshaiah died, the palm of Tiberias fell down. When R. Isaac b. Eliasheb died, seventy [infirm] thresholds of houses in Galilee were shaken down… When R. Samuel bar R. Isaac died, cedars of the land of Israel were uprooted…[and] a flame came forth from heaven and intervened between his bier and the congregation. For three hours there were voices and thunderings in the world: “Come and see what a sprig of cedar has done for this old man!” And a voice came forth and said, “Woe that Samuel b. R. R. Isaac has died, the doer of merciful deeds.” When R. Yasa bar Halputa died, the gutters ran with blood in Laodicea… When. R. Abbahu died, the pillars of Caesarea wept… When R. Yasa died, the castle of Tiberias collapsed, and members of the patriarchate were rejoicing.27 

Maybe many rabbinic students viewed this series of marvels as fantasy.28 But I doubt it, because I would bet that they knew how such a list was generated: people went hunting for signs and found them. With reference to the catalogue quoted above, one can, if inclined to play the role of Paulus and the old German rationalists, easily offer non-supernatural accounts for most of them. “A star appeared at noon” is not so strange: one sometimes sees stars in the day time. Earthquakes could account for “the statues bowed low,” “the Sea of Tiberias split open,” “the palm of Tiberias fell down,” “thresholds of houses in Galilee were shaken down,” “cedars…were uprooted,” and “the castle of Tiberias collapsed.” Even “the gutters ran with blood in Laodicea” has an obvious, mundane explanation: so-called red rains—usually traced to winds sucking up red dust or sand— “are rather common.”29 If, after the death of a famous rabbi, his disciples were on the lookout for a sign, it would not perhaps have been so hard for them to find one, especially if some leeway were permitted in the timing.30 

Whether or not I am right on that matter, certainly the rabbinic scholars, like almost all Jews before them known to us, received at least the biblical miracles—many of which, like the parting of the Red Sea, are truly spectacular—at face value.31 Moreover, Josephus, near Matthew’s time, recounted marvels from his own age that he championed as historical. He wrote that, in the years before the temple was destroyed, a star in the form of a sword stood over Jerusalem; that, in the middle of the night, a brilliant light flooded the sanctuary for half an hour; that, in the temple court, a cow brought for sacrifice gave birth to a lamb; that, after being closed one evening, the massive eastern brass gate of the inner court opened of its own accord; and that, one day, “before sunset throughout all parts of the country, chariots were seen in the air and armed battalions hurtling through the clouds and encompassing the cities” (Bell. 6.288-300). Josephus conceded that this last wonder might be deemed a fable “were it not for the narratives of eyewitnesses and for the subsequent calamities which deserved to be so signaled.” Learned though he was, Josephus received the extraordinary claim as historical truth. 

(3) Nothing formally cordons 27:51b-53 off as different from the materials surrounding it, materials which Matthew must have thought of as historical.32 The passage follows closely the notice of Jesus’ death—“crying out with a great voice he gave up his spirit” (v. 50)—and it immediately precedes the confession of the centurion and those with him (v. 54). The latter, moreover, directly relates itself to the preceding prodigies: “When the centurion and those guarding Jesus with him, saw the earthquake and the things that took place, they became exceedingly afraid and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’” One fails to see how Matthew could have thought of the earthquake as fictional without also thinking of the centurion’s confession as fictional. 

(4) It is equally hard to see how Mt. 27:51b-53 can be taken as haggadic fiction without implying the same verdict for the resurrection of Jesus, for the evangelist has artfully created conspicuous parallels between the two scenes:33 

27:51 “and behold” (καὶ ἰδοῦ). 

28:2 “and behold” (καὶ ἰδοῦ). 

27:45-51 Darkness gives way to light. 

28:1 Darkness gives way to light. 

27:51 There is an earthquake (ἐσείσθη); Roman soldiers observe it. 

28:2 There is an earthquake (σεισμός); Roman soldiers observe it. 

27:52-53 Tombs (μνημεῖα) with bodies (σώματα) open. 

28:2, 8 Jesus’ tomb (μνημεῖον) with his body (σώμα, 27:58-60) opens. 

27:52 Saints are raised (ἠγέρθησαν). 

28:6-7 Jesus is raised (ἠγέρθη; cf. 27:63-64). 

27:54 Soldiers guarding (τηροῦντες) Jesus are afraid (ἐφοβήθησαν). 

28:4 Soldiers guarding (τηροῦντες) Jesus are afraid (φόβου). 

27:55 Mary Magdalene and another Mary are witnesses (θεωροῦσαι). 

28:1 Mary Magdalene and another Mary are witnesses (θεωροῦσαι). 

27:53 Witnesses (the saints) go into the city (ἐλθόντες εἰς τὴν πόλιν). 

28:11 Witnesses (the guards) go into the city (ἐλθόντες εἰς τὴν πόλιν). 

27:54 Roman soldiers respond to events (τὰ γενόμενα). 28:12 Roman soldiers relate events (τὰ γενόμενα). 

Would it make sense for Matthew to draw attention to parallels between events whose historicity he is anxious to defend (cf. 28:11-15) and events he takes to be fictional? 

(5) Matthew 27:50-51 relates this: “And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were split.” In v. 52, however, we run into the phrase, “after his resurrection”: “and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ they went into the holy city, and they appeared to many.” As already noted, the temporal clause baffles. Why narrate in ch. 27 events that occur only later, after the beginning of ch. 28? It is, furthermore, unclear exactly what happens “after his resurrection”—all the events recounted, including the earthquake and the opening of tombs, or only some of them? Interpreters here typically betray or confess confusion, and some have been reduced to woefully uncompelling ideas. On Matthew Poole’s reading, the evangelist, against the literal facts, gathered into one place prodigies from different times. Chronological precision would have put the earthquake and the communal resurrection later in the story, somewhere in ch. 28.34 Even more desperate is the thesis of Kenneth Waters, for whom the opening of the graves and the resurrection of the saints are examples of the historicized future or flash-forwarding: these incidents have not yet taken place but will occur at the end of the age.35 

A few, myself included, have found “after his resurrection” so awkward as to force the judgment that it is a secondary addition, tacked on either by Matthew to a tradition he inherited or (despite the near unanimity of the textual tradition) by someone after him.36 Whether or not such excision is justified, the point for us is that somebody seemingly wanted to make sure that Jesus was, in fact, really the first-born of the dead37 or, perhaps at the same time, wished to give him enough time to get to Hades to rescue the saints from death.38 In either case, the notice betrays an attempt to resolve a perceived chronological quandary. How could B have taken place before A? Clearly the evangelist or a very early scribe was thinking about Mt. 27:51b-53 as though it really happened. 

(6) Until recent times, interpreters have been, to my knowledge, at one in thinking of the preternatural events in Mt. 27:51b-53 as historical. As Fortunatianus of Aquileia put it: “all the facts truly happened.”39 Origen, the great allegorist, was of like mind.40 The interpretive habit has not been to deny history but to find history and symbolism at the same time, just as Rabbi Judah reportedly found both in the famous vision of the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37 (one of the intertexts behind Mt. 27:51b-53): “it was truth (אמת(, it was a parable” (משל, an allegory of national restoration; b. Sanh. 92b). The commentaries are thus full of attempts to answer the odd questions that, as we have seen, a literal reading of Matthew’s text poses. Who were the holy ones?41 Did they rise to eternal life or live out their lives and die again?42 Did they have glorified resurrection bodies, so that they were “like angels in heaven” (Mk 12:25), or did they, like Lazarus returned, walk about as flesh and blood, with stomachs and kidneys, needing to eat and drink?43 To whom exactly did they appear?44 Given the dominant mindset in the history of interpretation, which has been to understand the passage literally, it is unsurprising to learn that Cyril of Jerusalem and others appealed to our tale to account for certain fissures in and around Jerusalem,45 or that others (on the assumption that Matthew’s earthquake was worldwide) in like fashion explained fault lines and clefts in multiple places.46 

(7) As observed in the previous paragraph, b. Sanh. 92b has Rabbi Judah affirm that Ezekiel 37 narrates a past event. Shortly following his avowal, the Talmud has several rabbis give their opinion as to who exactly came back to life. R. Eliezer, the son of R. Jose the Galilean, says: “The dead whom Ezekiel revived went up to Palestine, married wives, and begat sons and daughters.” As if that were not outlandish enough from our point of view, R. Judah b. Bathyra adds, “I am one of their descendants, and these are the tefillin that my grandfather left me (as an heirloom) from them.” R. Johׂ anan then makes a geographical claim: “They were the dead of the plain of Dura…[which] extends from the river Eshel to Rabbath.”47 If at least some rabbis could think of Ezekiel 37 as chronicling a past event, why should we balk at the thought of Matthew receiving 27:51b-53, with its implicit claim to narrate the realization or proleptic fulfilment of Ezekiel 37, as a credible story? 

THE GENESIS OF MATTHEW 27:51B-53 

The discussion so far moves us to concur with Alfred Plummer, who long ago wrote that, while we should regard Mt. 27:51b-53 as, at least in large part, “legendary,” we “need not doubt that the tradition of these resurrections was believed by the Evangelist himself.”48 More recently, Joel Marcus, in a fascinating piece entitled, “Did Matthew Believe his Myths?,” has drawn a similar conclusion: while Mt. 27:51b-53 is not history, Matthew probably thought that it was.49 

Before drawing out the implications of such a conclusion, some brief remarks on the origin of Mt. 27:51b-53 are in order. Several scholars, including Marcus, assign the passage in its entirety to Matthean redaction.50 They could be right. On their side are several facts. Other earthquakes in Matthew have no parallel in Mark and appear to be redactional insertions.51 Much of the vocabulary is consistent with Matthean redaction.52 And Matthew is otherwise keen on suffusing the end of Jesus with eschatological themes and motifs.53 

This is not, however, enough to persuade me, although I am less confident about the matter than I once was. Part of the reason for denying a purely redactional origin is my sense—admittedly subjective—formed during years of working with the First Gospel, that its author was, above all, a tradent, and that while he felt free to rewrite his sources, he was not an inventor of brand new stories. 

Beyond that generality, some of the linguistic features hint at the presence of tradition.54 No less significantly, 27:51b-53 stands in intertextual tension with 25:31. The latter reads: “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.” This introduction to Matthew’s memorable depiction of the last judgment is almost certainly editorial.55 Further, it takes up the language of Zech. 14:5, a prophecy of what will happen “when the Lord my God will come, and all his holy ones with him”: 

Mt. 25:31: ἔλθῃ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἄνθρωπου ... καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγγελοι μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ. 

LXX Zech. 14:5: ἥξει κύριος ὁ θεός μου καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ. 

Each line foresees the eschatological advent of a divine figure,56 and both have the same structure: 

form of ἔρχομαι (future tense or aorist subjunctive serving as a future) 

+ divine figure as subject 

+ καὶ πάντες 

+ οἱ ἅγγελοι or οἱ ἅγιοι57 

+ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ. 

Further, 1 Thess. 3:13 and Did. 16:6-8 establish that there was an early Christian tradition of applying Zech. 14:4-5 to Jesus’ future return.58 

All this matters because Mt. 27:51b-53 also draws on Zech. 14:4-5.59 Yet it does so in a very different way. Whereas Mt. 25:31 takes up the biblical prophecy in order to depict angels coming with Jesus at the end of days, 27:51b-53 uses the language of that oracle to recount a resurrection of holy ones in the past.60 In other words, we have two different applications of the same scripture. One equates “the holy ones” with angels and thinks of the future. The other equates “the holy ones” with dead saints and thinks of the past. It is natural, then, to discern two different hands at work in the two passages. If so, and if Mt. 25:31 is likely redactional, then 27:51b-53 is likely not redactional. 

What, however, of the point that 27:51b-53 accords so well with Matthew’s semi-realized eschatology, with his understanding of the end of Jesus as the beginning of the end, or as a proleptic manifestation of the eschatological finale? I do not deny that the passage well suits Matthew’s view of things; but then so does everything else—or maybe, it would be safer to say, just about everything else—in his gospel. He took over most of Mark precisely because most of Mark suited him; and the same holds for whatever non-Mark materials he integrated into his narrative. So if it is a general principle that Matthew took over what tallied with his religious ideas, we can scarcely move from our perception that something must have pleased him to the conclusion that he freely composed it. 

In this particular case, furthermore, we know that Matthew’s understanding of the end of Jesus as an eschatological event was not his invention. It was rather common theological property, for multiple texts attest to it.61 We saw, in an earlier chapter, that Mt. 27:51b-53 harmonizes with one way of reading the pre-Pauline tradition in Rom. 1:2-4, according to which Jesus was vindicated not by his isolated resurrection but by “the resurrection of dead ones.”62 Matthew’s tale also readily relates itself to Paul’s use of the first-fruits metaphor in 1 Cor. 15:20 and 23, a metaphor which assumes a Naherwartung and brings Jesus’ resurrection into close connection with the resurrection of others. In fact, my judgment is that Mt. 27:51b-53 could have had a home among any Christians who thought that the end was near and that his resurrection was the beginning of more to come.63 

Having, however, come this far, that is, having decided that Mt. 27:51b-53 probably comes in large measure from the evangelist’s tradition,64 I do not see how to go any further. Perhaps the story originated partly as an etiology, a Christian explanation of certain geographical features in or around Jerusalem. Or perhaps it grew out of a vision.65 Or maybe someone associated the crucifixion with an earthquake that really did take place not too long before or after that event66 and, with the help of Ezekiel 37 and Zech. 14:4-5, extrapolated what must have happened. Or maybe someone turned those prophecies into history after inferring, from the rending of the veil, that the earth must have quaked.67 Or, just possibly, some individual or group, overtaken by religious excitement, misconstrued some people they encountered and did not know as saints come back from the dead.68 Sadly, we can do nothing more than speculate about how Matthew’s theologically rich tale, which we should perhaps classify as a “rumor,” got started.69 

THE IMPLICATIONS

 The upshot of the preceding pages is that, at least in Matthew, fiction has found a foothold: we are here “in the region of Christian legend.”70 That fiction, moreover, is about empty tombs and people seeing the dead: “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city, and they appeared to many.” 

I observed, in Chapter 6, that people have sometimes created fictitious stories about miraculously vacated graves. In this chapter I have, in effect, contended that the originator of Mt. 27:51b-53 did precisely this. That individual, furthermore, alleged that a number of resurrected individuals appeared to many in Jerusalem. The potential implications of such story-telling are sobering, especially when one agrees with me that Matthew, who was a relatively sophisticated individual with some sort of scribal background, took the fiction to be fact. 

Whether the desire to avoid the repercussions of all this have anything to do with Wright’s refusal to recognize Mt. 27:51b-53 as unhistorical I do not know; and I refrain from conjecturing about Licona’s motives for classifying the passage as a piece of haggadah, as poetic legend, as theological “special effects” never intended to represent the literal past. One understands, however, why some conservative Christians found Licona’s proposal upsetting and, in defense of their idea of biblical inerrancy, anxiously took to berating him publicly.71 Once the nose of the camel of fiction is inside the tent of resurrection, who knows what else may enter?

My judgment is that far more than a nose has entered. Detailed demonstration of this claim would be tedious, and it would add too many pages to an already lengthy book. Here it suffices to ask, How do we account for Mark 16 if Matthew’s special material in 27:62–28:15 is historically true?72 One can understand someone adding, for theological and apologetical ends, the guard (Mt. 27:62-66; 28:4, 11-15), the sealing of the tomb (28:66), and an earthquake (28:2). But how do we explain someone subtracting those things, which are also missing from Luke and John? I am unable to conjure a satisfactory motive.73 Mark’s far simpler account of Jesus’ burial and resurrection commends itself as being earlier. Matthew’s much more elaborate and apologetically oriented narrative, which even features a trinitarian formula,74 impresses one as later, as full of secondary developments, as indeed being on its way to the Gospel of Peter, with its spectacular, colorful details that nobody mistakes for history.75 

Everyone who has read the apocryphal gospels knows that some Christians, in the second century and later, were motivated to invent religious fictions, including fictions about the Easter events.76 My argument in this chapter is that those inventors were not without first-century predecessors who, among other things, contributed to the canonical traditions about Jesus’ resurrection.77 

The scope of their contributions is, of course, in large measure the subject of this entire book. To what extent is the special Matthean material an aberration? Do the stories of Jesus offering himself for inspection in Lk. 24:36-43 and Jn 20:26-29 betray later apologetical interests? Does Mark’s angel derive, not from a vision recalled, but from a story improved, from a creative hand making a theological upgrade?78 Questions such as these are all the more pressing when one takes into account the numerous tensions and even contradictions that reveal themselves when one inspects the canonical accounts of Jesus’ resurrection side by side.79 Such contradictions and tensions raise acutely the issue of how often invention has intruded into historical recall. 

One final comment in this regard. While most of the Matthean embroideries may, to judge from comparison with Mark, come from the second half of the first century, we have no reason to suppose that the temptation to elaborate traditions for theological and apologetical ends went everywhere unfelt or, if felt, went everywhere unheeded in earlier days. Legends do not courteously wait to arrive until their protagonists are long dead and gone.80 Fables about Alexander the Great circulated from the beginning.81 The Syriac life of Simeon Stylites was composed within fourteen years of Simeon’s death, by a monk or monks living where Simeon lived,82 and yet it often stretches credulity.83 Legends trailed Sabbatai Sׂ evi before his apostasy.84 George Washington died in 1799, and a few months later Mason (“Parson”) Weems published a hagiographical account of the first President in which history and edifying romance are inextricable.85 Davy Crockett was, in part because of his own self-promotion, half a myth already to his contemporaries.86 That the angel Moroni revealed the whereabouts of the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith was part of Mormon’s foundational myth from day one. While the Sioux warrior, Red Cloud, was climbing the tribal hierarchy, rumors told of his ability to fly, to shape shift, to talk to animals, and to be in two places at once, and he appears to have done little to squelch such claims.87 And astounding tales surrounded Rabbi Schneerson long before he expired.88 “It is,” observed Renan, the greatest of errors to suppose that legendary lore requires much time to mature; sometimes a legend is the product of a single day.”89 Renan may have been wrong about much, but he was not wrong about this. “The answer to the question of ‘how long do legends take to form?’ is best answered with another question: ‘how long does it take to re-tell a story?’”90

Chapter 8. Rudolf Pesch Redivivus?

I introduced, in Chapter 2, Rudolf Pesch’s proposal—which he later withdrew—regarding the origin of Easter faith.1 Embracing the thesis, elaborately defended by Klaus Berger, that the theologoumenon of a dying and rising prophet was known in Jesus’ day, Pesch urged that Jesus’ disciples used that notion to interpret his martyrdom. That is, the belief that a prophet might die and rise was in place before the crucifixion, ready to be deployed after the crucifixion. Proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection required neither visions nor an empty tomb. The disciples needed only the idea that God could raise a martyred prophet, an idea that was to hand on Good Friday. Faith in the postEaster Lord was the upshot of faith in the pre-Easter Jesus. 

Pesch has not won many endorsements. Berger’s evidence, on which he relied heavily, is more suggestive than demonstrative, in part because his primary sources are Christian. And even if we were to grant his central thesis, we cannot determine when the conception of a dying and rising prophet came into being or how widely it was known.2 No less importantly, any explanation of Easter faith that sidelines purported encounters with Jesus is unpersuasive. It goes against too much clear textual testimony. 

Nonetheless, Pesch’s instinct to think about the onset of belief in Jesus’ resurrection by exploring what the disciples believed or anticipated prior to Easter was sound. If resurrection was not an interpretive possibility before Golgotha, no one would have employed it a few days after Golgotha. Albert Schweitzer was right: whatever their experiences after Jesus’ death may have been, his followers construed them in terms of their antecedent expectations, which they presumably shared with Jesus.3 Indeed, to quote another scholar, and as I shall attempt to establish in the following pages, “the primary and fundamental utterance of the community that looked back on Jesus’ activity was ‘He is risen,’ and this confession shows with sufficient clarity that the expectation of the resurrection of the dead as a now imminent eschatological act must have been an essential object of hope of the disciples who followed Jesus during his time on earth.”4 

THE PROSPECT OF MARTYRDOM 

When trying to fathom why some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that God had raised him from the dead, scholars commonly survey Jewish texts about resurrection. This involves, among other tasks, discussing the origins and prevalence of that doctrine in Judaism, both disputed issues.5 Yet the topic of resurrection in Judaism in general is, in important respects, a secondary matter. What we should really like to know is not what many or perhaps most Jews believed about resurrection but what Jesus’ disciples in particular believed. To be sure, whatever they thought must have been thinkable within their first-century Galilean context; but the endeavor to understand why, shortly after his crucifixion, they believed what they did can scarcely ignore what they believed prior to that horror. 

How then might we uncover their convictions? Even if the gospels were word-perfect memory, which they are not, they attribute few words to the disciples. This need not, however, plunk us down in a dead end. The traditions about Jesus agree, from beginning to end, that he was a teacher, whose followers paid him heed. So if we wish to ascertain what Peter and his fellows thought, the natural course is to discover, if possible, what they heard Jesus say and so may have taken to heart. I propose, then, that we begin by considering the fact that the gospels have Jesus, on multiple occasions, foreseeing not only his death but also his resurrection.6 

These forecasts were certainly to some degree, and probably to great degree, formulated after the facts. Strauss’ verdict was: “the minute predictions which the Evangelists put into his mouth must be regarded as a vaticinium post eventum.”7 We nonetheless have multiple reasons for holding, with a fair degree of assurance, that Jesus anticipated martyrdom, that he was not, in the end, caught off guard.8 In addition to the mass of material pointing in this direction,9 four observations of C. H. Dodd, recurrently quoted and restated after him, merit assent: 

We may observe (1) that the whole prophetic and apocalyptic tradition, which Jesus certainly recognized, anticipated tribulation for the people of God before the final triumph of the good cause;10 (2) that the history of many centuries had deeply implanted the idea that the prophet is called to suffering as a part of his mission;11 (3) that the death of John the Baptist had shown that this fate was still part of the prophetic calling;12 and (4) that it needed, not supernatural prescience, but the ordinary insight of an intelligent person, to see whither things were tending, at least during the later stages of the ministry.”13 

While there is some psychologizing in all this, that is inevitable, and Dodd’s claims harmonize with everything else known about Jesus.14

We can fortify Dodd’s comments with additional observations. (5) Among the very few words of Jesus that Paul quotes is an implicit prediction of death (1 Cor. 11:23-26). Mark and his fellow evangelists did not invent this motif. 

(6) Quite a few sayings attributed to Jesus have him anticipating distress and/or death for his followers.15 If any of these logia stem from things that he said, this greatly ups the odds that he foresaw suffering for himself. It is hard to imagine, and nothing suggests the thought, that he projected woe for those around him while presuming himself happily exempt.16 This is all the more true given the slew of sayings and stories that depict him as being in serious conflict with multiple authorities and powerful groups.17 

(7) In Mk 8:31-33, Jesus predicts that the Son of man will suffer and be killed (v. 31). Peter then rebukes him for this prophecy (v. 32). Jesus in turn reproaches Peter in the strongest possible terms: “Get behind me, Satan!” (v. 33; Luke omits this last). While some have argued that v. 33 originated apart from v. 31,18 this view is far from required;19 and if we opt out of the tradition-historical surgery and, in addition, doubt that Jesus calling Peter “Satan” was a post-Easter fabrication,20 then Mk 8:31-33 seemingly retains the memory that Jesus was gifted with the foresight to predict, to the dismay of at least one of his disciples, his own untimely death. 

(8) Mark’s three formal passion predictions (Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:32-34) differ from each other in several respects; and as with just about everything else, scholars argue over the tradition histories of the sayings and their relationship to each other. What matters for our purpose, however, is incontrovertible. 10:32-34 is more detailed than 8:31, and 8:31 is more detailed than 9:31. Further, the items appearing in 8:31 and 10:32-34 but not in the shorter 9:31—elders, chief priests, scribes, Gentiles, mocking, spitting, flogging—all appear in Mark 14–15. Over time, it appears, the tradition enlarged itself and grew more precise. 

The same phenomenon, as has long been noticed, emerges when one sets Mark’s sentences beside their parallels in Matthew and Luke. For instance, the “kill him” of Mk 10:34 becomes, in Mt. 20:19, “crucify him” (cf. Mt. 26:2), and the “after three days” in Mark’s three predictions consistently becomes, in Matthew and Luke, “on the third day,” which lines up better with the passion narratives.21 One might wonder, moreover, whether the general formulation in Lk. 17:25— “rejected by this generation”22—is more primitive than the much more definite formulation in Mk 8:31—“rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes.” However that may be, the facts move us to ask why all the predictions were not, from the beginning, fuller and more detailed.23 An explanation would be to hand if Jesus spoke in a general way of the possibility of suffering violence (cf. Mt. 11:12) and martyrdom, and tradents added after-the-fact clarity.24 

(9) Finally, one can, if so inclined—I forego the attempt here—make a case for the substantial authenticity of particular texts beyond Mk 8:31-33. In my judgment, Mk 10:38-39 (“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”); Lk. 13:33 (“I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem”); and 12:49-50 (“I came to bring fire on the earth,” “I have a baptism with which to be baptized”) are particularly attractive candidates.25 

RESURRECTION? 

Jesus, we may reasonably hold, expected, as did Justin Martyr in the second century and Óscar Romero in the twentieth, a premature, violent demise.26 Yet the gospels have him foreseeing not death alone but death and resurrection. Is it at all credible that he himself laid the foundation for such two-membered predictions? 

It is doubtful that Jesus “would content Himself with dark allusions to suffering, and nothing more,”27 that he simply predicted doom and death and, implicitly, the dissolution of his movement. Rather, given his eschatological optimism, his belief in the imminent coming of God’s reign, he would almost certainly have hoped or even confidently believed that his God would, notwithstanding troubles ahead, vindicate his cause. It would have been altogether natural for one who had faith in God’s victory in the latter days to look beyond misfortune and expect a favorable divine verdict. Such faith and hope mark the heart of Jewish eschatology, which Jesus whole-heartedly shared. Just as the visionary group that spoke of its sufferings in Isaiah 61–65 boldly declared its confidence in a swift victory (Isa. 66:5-16), so will Jesus have trusted in God beyond whatever calamity threatened him. 

If, furthermore, he had sought to verbalize the idea of vindication despite death, the idea of resurrection would readily have suggested itself, for (i) resurrection was closely tied to the thought of persecution and martyrdom;28 (ii) he, along with the Pharisees and against the Sadducees, embraced that doctrine;29 and (iii) Jesus hoped that the kingdom of God was at hand, which meant that the eschatological events, including the resurrection, were at hand.30 C. K. Barrett was, accordingly, on target: “That Jesus should…predict that, after dying in fulfilment of the commission laid upon him by God, he would be vindicated, and that he should give his vindication the form of resurrection, is…in no way surprising.”31 I note, as a parallel, that Ignatius, a century after Jesus, not only anticipated his own demise but also confidently contemplated his own resurrection (Rom. 2:1-2; 4:3). 

Pertinent here is the riddle in Mt. 10:39 = Lk. 17:33 (Q); Mk 8:35; and Jn 12:25. According to this, those who lose their lives will find them. Jesus’ predictions of death and resurrection are instantiations of this larger principle. Although the Son of man will be handed over and lose his life, he will, through resurrection, gain it back. The passion predictions tally perfectly with a logion that is almost universally ascribed to Jesus as well as with a larger theme—eschatological reversal—that was surely characteristic of him.32 

Equally germane is Mk 14:25, which likely reflects something Jesus said: “I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”33 This envisages departure through death followed by eschatological celebration.34 What enables the transition from death to life in the kingdom? Given what we otherwise know about Jesus, the most credible answer is: resurrection. Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jesus will feast in the kingdom of God (Mt. 8:11-12; Lk. 13:28-29) because God will have raised him from the dead.35 

 That Mk 8:31; 9:31; and 10:32-34 have Jesus rising “after three days” (μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας) may—I write “may,” not “is”—supply additional evidence for the view that the passion and resurrection predictions are not wholly post-Easter products. Mark’s phrase, taken literally, does not line up with the passion narratives, where Jesus dies on Friday and is risen by dawn on Sunday. “After three days,” moreover, is not the phrase found in the traditional and likely well-known tradition in 1 Cor. 15:3-8, which rather has “on the third day” (τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ; cf. Acts 10:40). It is not surprising that both Matthew and Luke, as already observed, trade in Mark’s phrase and replace it with “on the third day.” This is retroactive realignment.

Now if one counts parts of days as whole,36 one can force a fit between “on the third day” and the passion narratives. “After three days”—which is not a HB/OT idiom37—is more of a problem. Maybe, some have urged, it is not perfectly appropriate because it was formulated not after the fact but before.38 Maybe Jesus used “after three days” to say that, following suffering and death, vindication would not be far off.39 The use of “three days” to mean “a little while” or “without delay” was seemingly well known, and the idiom appears in words ascribed to Jesus in Lk. 13:32.40 The sense of “after three days” in connection with the eschatological turning point would then be comparable to the “speedily” (ἐν τάχει) of Lk. 18:8 (“he will speedily grant justice”), to the “very little while” (μικρόν) of Heb. 10:37 (“in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay”), and to the “quickly” (ταχύ) of Rev. 22:20 (“I come quickly”).41 Jesus might have found the idiom particularly apposite given the prophecy of resurrection in Hos. 6:2 (“on the third day he will raise us up”). In this scriptural prophecy, “on the third day” means “in a short time.”42 

In this connection one recalls the enigmatic Hazon Gabriel, a pre-Christian stone inscription in Hebrew. “Three days” occurs in three places:43 

• Lines 18-19: “My son, in my hands I have a new covenant for Israel, on the third day you will know it.” 

• Lines 53-54: “the next day…[a sign will be given to them, on] the third day it will be, as [the prophet] said.” 

• Line 80: “On the third day: the sign! I am Gabriel, king of the angels.” 

Although much in Hazon Gabriel is beyond recovery, the text inscribes an eschatological or apocalyptic vision in which the third day appears to be the day of salvation, perhaps with Hos. 6:2 in the background. The inscription establishes that “an eschatological hope could be connected with a breakthrough on ‘the third day’ already before Jesus.”44 This fact greatly enhances the plausibility that he used the idiom of the third day with reference to eschatological vindication.45 

OBJECTIONS 

Against the proposal just argued, that the passion predictions descend from a prophecy or prophecies of Jesus, Reimarus already registered the obvious protest: 

it is especially difficult to grasp why, if Jesus had spoken so clearly of his death and resurrection in three days, such a vivid promise would not have been remembered by a single disciple, apostle, evangelist, or woman when he really did die and was buried. Here all of them speak and act as if they had never heard of such a thing in their whole lives; they wrap the corpse in a shroud, try to preserve it from decay and putrefaction by using many spices; indeed, they seek to do so even on the third day after his death, even as the promised time of his resurrection was approaching. Consequently they know nothing of such a promise.46 

These words are reasonable rebuttal against any who contend that Jesus prophesied rising three literal days after death. Yet this is not the end of the matter. It is possible that Jesus spoke of death and resurrection but not about “three days.” It is also possible, and I think a bit more likely, that, for him, “after three days” was, as in Hos. 6:2, more figurative than literal, more theological than chronological, a way of avowing that God will not tarry long. This opens the possibility that Jesus’ followers construed “three days” in a literal fashion only after events handed them this possibility. 

A second objection requires more attention. Many have urged that the disciples’ abandonment of Jesus, that is, their flight and Peter’s denial, imply, in the words of Barrett, “that they had not understood Jesus to predict that he would die, and that his death would be followed after a very short period by his reanimation.”47 Géza Vermès is here emphatic: the passion predictions and the apostles’ behavior constitute “two sets of evidence that contradict one another, with no possibility for reconciliation.”48

 Such a peremptory assessment—which might also require branding as secondary all the sayings in which Jesus prophesies suffering for his followers—is, in my view, unimaginative. Why should we insist that Jesus and his disciples were of one clear mind, always and wholly spellbound by one pellucid view of the future?49 It is far more credible that they, although expecting to be “worn out” in the eschatological “time of anguish” (Dan. 7:25; 12:1),50 nonetheless hoped against hope that the kingdom might come before they all perished (cf. Lk. 19:11). Mark 9:1 would make good sense in such a context: “There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” The sentences speaks of “some,” not “all.” If Jesus ever uttered words like these,51 who among his followers would not have wanted to be among the “some”? Maybe even Jesus himself could, at moments, have hoped for such. “We all know those states of mind in which the most cruel and most rational fears do not deprive us of the vague hope that things may yet take another turn.”52 

This is, for what it is worth, how Mark depicts Jesus. The one who solemnly and repeatedly foresees his demise is the same character who, in Gethsemane, entertains an alternative (Mk 14:32- 42).53 B. W. Bacon once wrote: Jesus “did not go up to Jerusalem in order to be crucified,” yet he was “ready, if need be, to meet crucifixion.”54 My view is slightly different: Jesus went up to Jerusalem expecting to be crucified but hoping that he might not be. He was a perhaps bit like the cancer patient who, although the diagnosis is dismal, yet can still at times hope against hope for a better outcome. 

It may not have been so different for his followers. According to Mark, they misunderstood and even rejected the prospect of suffering (8:32; 9:32), and in the end they fled (14:50). Yet Mark also has them promising to abide with Jesus unto death (14:31), and the evangelist has one of them drawing a sword in Gethsemane (14:47).55 The Gospel may here remember rightly. It must have been one thing to expect the eschatological ordeal and to hope for resurrection, quite another, when caught off guard, to behave bravely. There is a reason that we have, in English, the expression, “failure of nerve.” People do not always live up to their ideals and to their expectations for themselves. They can resolve to do one thing and then do another.56 This is indeed an all-toocommon, sad fact of life, as Paul observed: “I do not do the good I want” (Rom. 7:19). Were Peter and his fellows above this generalization? Even soldiers steeled for battle sometimes turn and flee. That Peter denied knowing Jesus (Mk 14:66-72) does not mean he did not know him, and that the disciples faltered in the face of armed hostility scarcely entails that Jesus never warned them to expect serious trouble.57 

Life outside texts is rarely black or white, and our ignorance of what Jesus’ disciples thought and felt at the precise moment when their leader was arrested is close to oceanic. Maybe, if the circumstances had been slightly different, they would not have absconded. If, for example, a couple of them had loudly proclaimed their courage and stood their ground, perhaps the rest would have gone along. Or maybe the arrest in the middle of the night truly bewildered drowsy minds, and if the situation had been different, so that they had been able fully to steel themselves ahead of time, they would not have run. How can we ever know? Maybe one of them did draw a sword and strike someone with it (Mk 14:48), but then, in the face of countering “swords and clubs” (Mk 14:43, 48), lost his nerve and fled, whereupon his companions did the same. Cowardice can be contagious. 

FROM EXPECTATION TO INTERPRETATION 

If one grants the force of the previous pages, grants that there is a fair case for thinking that the passion predictions are not wholly misleading, for supposing that Jesus, at some point, anticipated an untimely demise and hoped for eschatological resurrection, and just perhaps in this connection spoke about “three days,” what follows? 

Here I return to Pesch. He, at one time, claimed that the disciples almost immediately made sense of Jesus’ end by means of the paradigm of the dying and rising prophet. The latter was the transparent sheet that they laid over what had happened. These individuals, because of their antecedent beliefs, could imagine that God had raised Jesus from the dead, and they could do this before any of them had reported seeing Jesus in his post-sepulcher state, or before a story about his empty tomb came to their notice. Expectation begot interpretation. 

Earlier I mentioned some of the problems with Pesch’s theory, and I am not its advocate. One is obliged to observe, however, that one could, if so motivated, reach his conclusion by tinkering only slightly with his premises. To explain Easter faith, one might claim, we do not need to reconstruct a pre-Christian tradition about a dying and rising prophet. All we require is the passion predictions, which are about a dying and rising Jesus. If the disciples really did hear their teacher reiterate, as the synoptics recount, that he would die and rise, and especially if they ever heard him speak of “three days,” then were not the main ingredients of Easter faith in place before Easter?58

The question is the more urgent given how often messianic movements have, without history’s help, transmuted prophecy into fulfilment. The devoted followers of the English prophetess, Joanna Southcott (1750–1814), believed that she, a virgin beyond child-bearing years, would give birth to a son who would rule the world. Southcott herself, suffering from pseudocyesis, displayed all the signs of pregnancy without being pregnant. But as the date for delivery drew near, she fell critically ill. Shortly before her death, a doctor examining her was heard to exclaim in jest, “Darn me, if the child is not gone!” A few of the faithful thereafter imagined that, in accord with Rev. 12:5, her child had been “caught up to God and to his throne” (12:5). Joanna then became “the woman clothed with the sun” (Rev. 12:1).59 

When William Miller (1782–1849) predicted that Jesus would return on October 2, 1844, some of his followers, after the non-event, maintained that the second coming had indeed occurred, but spiritually in heaven, not physically on earth. To this day, Seventh-Day Adventists, who trace their origins to Miller’s ministry, believe that, on October 2, 1844, Jesus, as the great high priest, entered (for the first time) a portion of his heavenly sanctuary, inaugurating a new phase of salvation history.60 

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jesus Christ returned to earth in 1874. This tenet derives from a prophecy that the second advent would occur at that time. When Christ failed to keep the appointment, the forecast was reinterpreted. According to the Witnesses, Christ came, but it was an invisible coming. The group has handled other faulty forecasts in like manner.61 

In 1994, the death of Rabbi Schneerson fostered a crisis for his zealous disciples. Most of them had become persuaded that he was Messiah. When he passed, many Lubavitchers dropped this belief, even though they still revered his teachings. Others, however, said that he would soon rise from the dead or return as the Messiah. Still others claimed him to be a spiritual presence they could sense. A few went even further, claiming that he had already been resurrected.62 Their response recalls the response of some Sabbateans after their messiah, Sabbatai Sׂ evi, apostatized to Islam. They affirmed, against the obvious truth, that he had not in fact done so: “his shadow only remains on Earth, and walks with a white head, and in the habit of a Mahometan; but his body and soul are taken into Heaven, there to reside until the time appointed for the accomplishment of these wonders.”63 

One could go on.64 The drive to maintain a vital intersubjective reality is reflexive, and the comparative materials are consistent with the claim that, after Good Friday, the disciples did not begin from scratch. They rather started with what Jesus had left them, namely, his words. Forsaking all to follow him meant not only being emotionally invested but also listening to him for months, if not years. They had to have internalized his teaching.65 We would anticipate, then, that they drew on what he had taught in order to fathom what he had suffered—just as the Lubavitchers, after the Rebbe died, went back over his teachings in their attempt to comprehend events.66 If Jesus, in his followers’ recollection, had taught that resurrection would follow not long after martyrdom, then maybe that memory stirred them boldly to imagine that, since he had died, he must have risen. Perhaps, one could urge, a pure postulate of faith turned eschatological expectation and rude ending into promise and fulfillment.67 Ernest Renan wrote long ago: “Enthusiasm and love do not know of the impossible, and, rather than renounce all hope, they do violence to reality… The faith of the disciples would have been sufficient to have invented it [the resurrection] in all its parts.”68 

This variation on Pesch is, to my mind, among the better reductionistic explanations of belief in Jesus’ resurrection. I shall, in a bit, make clear why I do not, in the end, go along. Before, however, offering another scenario, I wish to emphasize its strength. Not only can it call on history of religion parallels, but its account of belief in Jesus’ resurrection has, in my view, a parallel in the advent of another early Christian belief. 

JESUS ENTHRONED 

Christians held, from the earliest time, that Jesus is exalted in the heavens, enthroned and sitting at the right hand of God.69 They found their belief in Ps. 110:1: “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’”70 What explains their conviction? It was not an inference from his resurrection, for in surviving Jewish texts, resurrection is nowhere directly linked to heavenly enthronement. When early Christians brought Jesus’ enthronement and resurrection into the closest connection (as in Acts 2:22-36), they were conjoining eschatological themes that, in their religious tradition, had “no immediately causal relationship to each other.”71 

One might, then, propose that a Christian exegete, with a pesher-like mentality, first forged the link.72 This option, however, does not satisfy, for it fails to illuminate the antecedent convictions that inspired such eisegesis and made it welcome in the first place. What was brought to the text that encouraged finding Jesus in it?73 

Another option is that a Christian prophet had a vision of Jesus in heavenly glory. This is the thesis of David Aune. He appeals to Acts 7:55-56, where Stephen sees the Son of man standing at the right hand of God, and to Rev. 1:12-16, where the seer of Patmos beholds “one like a son of man,” a figure who has hair as white as wool and so is like the enthroned Ancient of Days in Dan. 7:9.74 Yet neither the vision in Acts nor that in Revelation presents itself as foundational for anyone’s christological convictions; and as the contexts make plain, it was individuals already persuaded of Jesus’ exalted status who saw him in splendor. So even though Aune is surely right that certain visions “both confirmed and supported Christian perceptions of Jesus as Messiah,”75 the allimportant antecedent question remains. Why was anybody primed or predisposed in the first place to see Jesus in heavenly glory? 

The most plausible answer, I submit, lies with the historical Jesus, not the risen Christ. Jesus understood himself to be the future king of Israel,76 which means that he anticipated enthronement. This explains why the tradition remembers him and his disciples seeing thrones when they imagined the future: 

• Mk 10:37: “And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’” 

• Mk 14:62: “You will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power.” 

• Mt. 19:28: “When the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”77 

• Mt. 25:31: “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.” 

I leave it to others to debate which if any of these utterances we should attribute directly to Jesus.78 I content myself with observing that if he, as is overwhelmingly likely, had messianic aspirations, the shared import of these texts has a plausible setting in his ministry. Furthermore, taken together they supply a straightforward explanation for the conviction that he was enthroned at God’s right hand. Jesus and his adherents hoped, before his crucifixion, that God would make him king. After his crucifixion, they were convinced that their hope must have been realized.79 Their conviction, to be sure, entailed exchanging an earthly throne for a heavenly throne, but adjustments like this are commonplace with messianic movements faced with the task of bringing prophecy into line with events.80 

The correlation between the expectation of Jesus’ enthronement and its subsequent realization in the earliest Christian theology is, to my mind, a potential boon for those who seek a wholly psychological account of belief in Jesus’ resurrection. If, in one particular, a pre-Easter expectation gave birth to a post-Easter conviction, then perhaps it was the same with other convictions, including resurrection. If Jesus prophesied death and resurrection, and especially resurrection after three days, then maybe that was enough. His disciples, like some Southcottians, Millerites, Seventh Day Adventists, and Lubavitchers, concocted history from hope. Maybe, when conservative apologists defend the authenticity of a text such as Mk 8:31, they know not what they do. Would not the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection be stronger if we could believe that he did not forecast his resurrection, so that the appearances were unprepared for, altogether surprising, utterly out of the blue?81 

Apologists have an unwelcome choice here. Either Jesus composed passion and resurrection predictions or he did not. In the latter case, the gospels are less reliable than apologists want them to be. In the former case, the idea of Jesus dying and rising shortly thereafter was in the disciples’ minds before Easter. T

o the best of my memory, there is no protracted discussion of this point in the critical literature on Jesus’ resurrection, only the occasional, passing suggestion, or nod to the possibility, that Jesus’ predictions could have contributed to Easter faith.82 It is an odd lapse. Perhaps, however, the explanation is this. Many who do not believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead also disbelieve that he uttered the passion predictions, so it does not occur to them to use the latter to explain the former. On the other hand, perhaps most who hold that the passion predictions derive from Jesus also believe that God raised him from the dead, so they are hardly predisposed to employ the former to explain away the later. In this way, an argument that so strongly suggests itself has received insufficient attention. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 

Whatever the cause of this lacuna in most treatments of our topic, how might apologists respond? They might appeal to an oft-repeated argument. Here it is, in the words of Charles Cranfield: 

Another thing to be said in support of the truth of the Resurrection is that, before the event, neither the women nor the disciples had the slightest expectation of their Master’s being raised from the dead before the general eschatological resurrection… That the various predictions of the Passion (in particular, Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:32-34), if in their present form made by Jesus himself (something which is, of course, strongly denied by many), were not understood by the disciples at the time, seems clear enough.83 

How can it be that the disciples had not the “slightest expectation” of Jesus rising from the dead if, as the gospels report, he plainly and repeatedly told them that he would? The two facts, if indeed they are facts, do not go together. They are like magnetic poles that push each other away. Cranfield’s solution? The disciples misunderstood. In short: if Jesus uttered passion predictions, the disciples did not understand them, so those predictions cannot be the dynamo behind belief in his resurrection.84 

It is easy to pull the plug on this reasoning. Apart from the gratuitous rhetoric—Cranfield elsewhere stoutly defends the dominical origin of the passion predictions85—the argument is feebly evidential. It unreflectively assumes the truth of a post-Easter point of view—people did not understand Jesus until after he was gone—and mistakes a literary trope and apologetical stratagem for straight historical reporting. The canonical gospels do relate that the disciples misunderstood (although in Mk 8:31-33 Peter seems to comprehend Jesus’ forecast of suffering and death well enough). They often do this, however, in order to justify distinctively Christian reinterpretations of the tradition86 and in order to emphasize the epistemological centrality of the cross and resurrection.87 The “messianic secret” is not unsullied memory, a forthright rendering of history. Charles Gorham observed: “These predictions are reported in such precise terms that, if delivered, stupidity itself could not fail to understand them.”88

 Even if, however, one disagrees on that point, Cranfield’s line of reasoning is still friable.89 He assumes that, if the disciples misunderstood Jesus, then what he said must have gone without effect. This is naïve. Human beings are far larger than their conscious minds. Beginning with Pierre Janet and Edmund Gurney, numerous researchers have shown us how much unconsciously perceived stimuli affect us.90 Buried memories and dissociated mental subsystems unavailable to introspection are constantly influencing us and moving us to think this or that.91 It is, then, no stretch at all to suppose that, even if the disciples did not, before the fact, welcome Jesus’ intimations of death— which he may not have expressed until close to the end92—and so initially disregarded the promise of resurrection, his words nonetheless, after his death, had their effect. What had theretofore been slumbering in the unconscious depths now awoke in the conscious mind. 

Those who stipulate that the disciples misunderstood Jesus’ prediction always go on to claim that they later remembered and understood. This entails that the prophecy lingered somewhere in their minds. Maybe, then, one could posit, half-forgotten words suddenly popped into the head of a sad, desperate brain and worked their magic, triggering a eureka moment: Oh, I get it! Now I remember. Jesus foresaw his death, which we know happened; and he foresaw his resurrection, so it too must have happened, “just as he said” (Mk 16:7). 

EXPECTATIONS, EVENTS, AND REINTERPRETATION 

In my judgment, however, this solution of things, if taken to be sufficient of itself, should not win our assent. Although it is, to my mind, highly likely that Jesus’ followers heard him forecast death and resurrection, there is more to the story. Expectations do inevitably modulate what human beings perceive, so this must have been true for Jesus’ followers. Nonetheless, their expectations before the crucifixion did not, by themselves, generate Easter faith. 

The extant sources indicate that Easter faith was, in large measure, a response to appearances of the risen Jesus. I more than hesitate to set aside their united testimony, especially as the comparative study of visionary and apparitional experiences, as argued in Chapters 9–10 and 13, enhances their basic credibility in this regard. It is, in addition, more likely than not, as urged in previous pages, that, very soon after Jesus’ death, his tomb was reported to be empty. What I take all this to mean is that it was not eschatological expectations alone that fashioned belief in Jesus’ resurrection. It was rather the complex interplay of three vital elements that begot such belief: pre-Easter expectations, appearances of Jesus, and a story about his empty tomb. To establish this, however, requires additional comments on what Jesus, and so his disciples, probably envisaged. 

While Jesus likely prophesied death and resurrection, he did not imagine those events as occurring, so to speak, in the middle of history. Those prospects were rather part and parcel of his eschatological scenario. Jesus had a Naherwartung, 93 and his premonitions of death followed by resurrection were, for him, about affliction in the tribulation of the latter days and vindication on the day of judgment. Suffering and resurrection were, in other words, end-time, collective categories.94 He alone, to be sure, is the focal figure of the passion and resurrection predictions as we know them. But this is because forecasts of suffering and resurrection were reinterpreted, after the fact, as realized in the fate of one man and filled out in the light of his historical passion. The original horizon was wider. 

The passion predictions had their origin, in my view, in prophecies about the final affliction and eschatological salvation, about the messianic woes and the general resurrection. This is why the structure of the passion predictions—death then resurrection—is the same as that of the eschatological sequence—tribulation then vindication. On this point at least Cranfield was right: “before the event, neither the women nor the disciples had the slightest expectation of their Master’s being raised from the dead before the general eschatological resurrection.”95 For Jesus, things looked like this:

1. Present and immediate future 

 Eschatological tribulation; suffering and death for the saints, including Jesus96 

2. Further future 

 Resurrection of the dead; triumph of the Son of man; judgment; eternal kingdom 

It is, to my mind, no coincidence that this scenario can be read out of Daniel 7–12, where the “holy ones” suffer (7:21, 25) during a time of unprecedented anguish (12:1), where the one like a son of man comes on the clouds (7:13-14), where the dead are raised (12:2-3, 13), where the world is judged (7:9-10, 26; cf. 12:2), and where an everlasting βασιλεία arrives (7:14, 18, 27).97 The main point here, however, is that the picture changed soon after Easter: 

1. Past 

 Suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus 

2. Present 

 Tribulation, suffering, and persecution of the saints98 

3. Future 

 Resurrection of the dead; return of the Son of man; judgment; eternal kingdom 

Given how important this reconstruction is for my understanding of what likely happened soon after Jesus’ crucifixion, I should like, before continuing, to fortify it by observing that it is consistent with four facts, the first being this: resurrection was, in Judaism, typically and perhaps invariably envisaged as a public and communal event of the future. It was not about a lone martyr.99 If, then, Jesus took up the idea, it is antecedently probable that he anticipated not Easter morning but the general resurrection of the dead.100 It was only Christian theology that turned his resurrection into an event unto itself and thereby created two resurrections—the Messiah’s resurrection within a few days of his death and the general resurrection further down the road.101 

Second, and as already noted, if Jesus believed that the kingdom of God in its fullness was near, then he believed that the general resurrection of the dead was near. The one belief entailed the other, as in Daniel 7–12 and 1 Thessalonians.

Third, the thesis that Jesus construed his fate as belonging to the eschatological turning point neatly explains a feature of the passion narratives that otherwise remains exceedingly perplexing, despite the commentators’ nearly universal failure to sense the problem.102 I refer to the presence in them of properly eschatological motifs. Why do the latter chapters of the canonical gospels cite and allude to Zechariah 9–14, implicitly claiming fulfilment of its apocalyptic oracles?103 Why are there striking links between the eschatological discourse in Mark 13 and the account of Jesus’ end in Mark 14–15?104 Why is it that, when Jesus dies in Matthew, graves open and the dead come forth (27:51-53)?105

 The habit of associating Jesus’ death and resurrection with genuinely eschatological motifs derives, I submit, from a post-Easter inclination to find the fulfilment of Jesus’ imminent expectations in his end. A closely related disposition helps explains why, in Paul, Jesus is “the first fruits of those who have died,” a conviction which makes Jesus’ resurrection the beginning of the general resurrection, something like the first swallow of summer.106 It further elucidates why, for the apostle, the crucifixion is the rift between the old evil age, over which principalities and powers rule, and the new creation, over which Jesus the messianic Lord reigns.107 The eschatological interpretation of Jesus’ death also informs John’s Gospel, where the crucifixion is the “judgment” (κρίσις) of the world (12:31) that terminates the malevolent reign of Satan (12:31-33; 16:8-11; cf. 14:30-31).108 

Fourth and finally, the early sources nowhere juxtapose predictions of Jesus’ resurrection with prophecies of his parousia. The synoptics have nothing like 1 Thess. 1:10, where Paul summarizes his missionary preaching by putting precisely these two things side by side: “to wait for his Son from heaven [a future event], whom he raised from the dead [a past event].” That the synoptics go another way is consistent with the inference, which Wilhelm Weiffenbach drew already in 1873, that prophecies of the resurrection and of the future coming of the Son of man were originally about the same complex event—the arrival of the eschaton—and that Jesus’ followers sundered what his prophecies had held together.109 As C. H. Dodd put it, Christians, in the light of what had transpired, referred some of Jesus’ predictions about “the ultimate triumph of God” to his resurrection, others to his return on the clouds: “Where He had referred to one single event, they made a distinction between two events, one past, His resurrection from the dead, and one future, His coming on the clouds.”110 

FOLLOWING CRUCIFIXION 

We can now turn to this chapter’s big question. If Jesus taught the presence and future of eschatological woe, and if at some point he expected to suffer and even die during the eschatological trial and then, on the last day, to participate in the resurrection of the dead, what might we expect his supporters to think in the days directly following his crucifixion? 

Some sympathizers, we may guess, just gave up the cause. Without their charismatic leader, the crucifixion became, for them, the end of the road. When the English messiah, Richard Brothers (1752–1824), “God Almighty’s nephew,” was imprisoned, his followers disbanded, his support dissipated. No life remained in the movement.111 The same thing happened upon the death of “the Peasants’ Saviour,” John Nicholas Tom (1799–1838). After he was killed in a revolt that he had instigated in the English countryside, faith faded. The death of the leader was the death of his movement.112 

Examples could be multiplied. Faith does not always procure “for herself all the illusions she needs for the conservation of her present possessions and for her advance to further conquests.”113 Closer to Jesus’ time, a slew of popular movements seemingly came to naught when their leaders met a violent death. This was the case, to the extent of our knowledge, with the so-called Samaritan prophet and Theudas, with “the Egyptian false prophet” and the one-time slave Simon, with the shepherd Athronges and Lucuas (Andreas) of Cyrene, as well as with, most famously, Simon bar Kokba.114 

Even when a group survives its founder’s death and/or unfulfilled expectations, it may face a crisis in membership. Most of the Millerites abandoned the adventist ship when their prophet’s second forecast came to nought, just as most of the devotees of Joanna Southcott forsook her cause when she perished. Again, the apostasy of Sabbatai Sׂ evi occasioned considerable defection among his supporters,115 and when Rebbe Schneersohn died, many of his followers concluded that he was not, despite their previous conviction, the Messiah.116 One understands Rodney Stark’s conclusion: “Other things being equal, failed prophecies are harmful for religious movements.”117 

It is, then, quite likely that, after Jesus was crucified, some who sympathized with him turned away and took up again their former lives (cf. Jn 6:66). They “had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Lk. 24:21), and that hope was buried along with his body. Our sources, I concede, do not confirm this, but what else could we expect? Telling stories about the disillusioned who fell away would doubtless not have edified those who chose to stay. 

What, however, of the core of Jesus’ inner circle? How did they respond after his demise?118 One could posit, revising Pesch, that they bestowed on Jesus what he had foreseen. That is, they initially came to believe in his resurrection specifically and only because he had foretold that he would rise soon, or even after “three days.” Their unmoored faith later led to them to project confirming visions and, moreover, moved someone at some point to concoct the rumor about his vacant tomb. 

This account, however, must dispute the evidence that the story about the tomb probably goes back to the beginning and is likely historical. It must, in addition, explain why, if Jesus used “three days” to mean “a little while,”119 those not psychically overcome by the debacle in Jerusalem did not just bide their time, waiting for the next eschatological development. A martyr’s fate agreed perfectly with what Jesus had predicted, so in that particular there was no cognitive dissonance to surmount.120 

Beyond this, the sources, however much they otherwise disagree, concur that something earthshattering occurred in the days immediately after the crucifixion. According to 1 Cor. 15:4, Jesus rose “on the third day.” According to the Markan passion predictions, this happened “after three days” (8:31; 9:31; 10:34). According to Mk 16:1-8, the tomb was found to be empty on the Sunday morning following a Friday execution. According to Mt. 28:8-10 and Jn 20:11-18, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene on that same Sunday. This combined testimony is enough for me to infer that, within a few days after Jesus was buried, the disciples were not just sitting and thinking, or pondering recent events after retreating to Galilee. More happened than that.

On my view, while the interpretation, “resurrection,” did indeed come straight out of the preEaster period, it was not foisted on pure imaginings. Rather, Jesus’ followers employed the language of resurrection because, although there was a mismatch between events and expectations, they were nevertheless able, to their own satisfaction, to force a fit between the two.121 Once they had the report of an empty tomb, and once a few had reportedly seen Jesus, they could begin to believe that God had raised him, and that the general resurrection had commenced.122 

This seemingly differentiates the earliest Christians from what happened with the Millerites in 1844 and with Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1874. None of them, to the extent of my knowledge, had unexpected experiences that reinforced the content of new claims. No one, for instance, had visions of Jesus entering a heavenly sanctuary or of him riding clouds. Rather, the reinterpretations of fervently held expectations were, in these cases, forwarded without any unexpected, external prodding. The new propositions were, that is, nothing but interpretive resolutions of cognitive dissonance. The same holds for those Lubavitchers who, immediately after the death of the Rebbe, claimed that he had not really died, or that his body was not in his grave, or that he had been resurrected. These were posits of faith unassisted by circumstances. 

With Jesus’ followers, by contrast, there was evidently more, in the matter of resurrection, than projected faith born of expectation. There were also accounts of seeing Jesus and the story of the empty tomb. We are dealing with an interpretation laid over circumstances, not with an interpretation that postulated Jesus’ resurrection independent of all circumstances.123 

The inexact fit most assuredly created difficulties. To believe in Jesus’ isolated resurrection was to hold, against all expectation, that “a piece of eschatology” had been “split off from the end of the world and planted in the midst of history.”124 The upshot must have been a degree of cognitive dissonance, which may in part explain why the sources have the disciples confused about the meaning of resurrection.125 This dissonance, however, fostered theological innovation. Jesus’ followers reinterpreted and edited his predictions of eschatological tribulation so that his words came to be fixed on an individual facing torture and death rather than the saints facing the end-time. They imagined that Jesus, in rising, was the “first fruits,” the beginning of the impending resurrection of all the dead. Somebody fashioned the tale, preserved in Mt. 27:51b-53, that he was not the only person to exit the grave. It occurred to someone else to correlate his last week with apocalyptic prophecies from Second Zechariah.126 Jesus’ faithful followers did their best to paint Jesus’ passion with eschatological colors. 

Those colors were, unsurprisingly, borrowed from their lord’s palette. As his expectations had become their expectations, Jesus’ followers utilized his teaching in order to fathom his fate. In the light of events, they rewrote his eschatological forecasts even as they claimed their realization. 

THE RESURRECTION AND DANIEL 7 

If, against what I have urged, belief in the resurrection of Jesus had been, à la Pesch, the unalloyed consequence of pre-Paschal faith, one might expect a closer correspondence between forecast and fulfillment than actually obtains. It seems altogether likely that, when Jesus sought to peer into the near future, he beheld the scenario in Daniel 7, with its one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven.127 Yet there is no trace of Daniel 7 in 1 Cor. 15:3-8. Nor, apart from the redactional allusion in Mt. 28:19,128 do the appearance stories in the gospels, including the Gospel of Peter, recall Daniel 7. The same holds for the accounts of the empty tomb, with the possible exception again of an editorial insertion of Matthew.129 So why, apart from a couple of secondary Matthean touches, do the resurrection traditions and stories lack Danielic imagery and fail to feature—apart from resurrection itself—eschatological motifs? Why do they not have the resurrected Lord coming on the clouds of heaven? Why are they, in contrast to Daniel 7, relatively this-worldly?130 Why do they, unlike Acts 7:56, where Stephen sees “the Son of man standing at the right hand of God,” and Rev. 1:9-16, where John of Patmos beholds “one like a son of man,” fail to speak of “(the) Son of man”? And why do the appearance narratives in the gospels and the three accounts of Paul’s vision in Acts find their closest parallels neither in Jesus’ prophecies nor in Jewish apocalypses but in the commissioning stories and anthropomorphic theophany narratives of the HB/OT?131 I see no suitable answer to these questions if one wants to reduce Easter faith entirely to eschatological expectations formed at the feet of Jesus and imaginatively deployed after his death.132

THE MOTIF OF DOUBT 

One final point. The canonical gospels relate that news of the empty tomb or encounters with the risen Jesus triggered doubt or bewilderment: 

• Mt. 28:17: “some [of the eleven] doubted.”133 

• Ps.-Mk 16:10: the disciples “would not believe” Mary’s report. 

• Ps.-Mk 16:14: Jesus upbraided the eleven “for their lack of faith…because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.” 

• Lk. 24:11: the women’s report of the empty tomb and their vision of angels seemed to the apostles “an idle tale,” which they did not believe (cf. vv. 22-24). 

• Lk. 24:25: the disciples were “slow of heart to believe.” 

• Lk. 24:37-38: the apostles and others were “startled and terrified” when Jesus appeared to them, for which he rebuked them: “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” 

• Lk. 24:41: although overjoyed, the disciples were still “disbelieving.” 

• Jn 20:25: Thomas “will not believe” unless he can see for himself. 

These notes of unbelief are, in the judgment of some, memory-free inventions to combat ecclesiastical doubt. Their purpose was to indicate that the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection was so compelling that even skeptical minds felt persuaded.134 Yet an apologetical function on the literary level hardly excludes the possibility that an authentic memory lies beneath the multiple notices, that a number of Jesus’ followers did indeed have trouble knowing what to think.135 This is indeed my view, and it implies that at least some of them were not wholly captive to “an emotional reality which nothing in the world of ‘outward’ events could shake.”136 A few appear to have wanted or required more than their own faith. 

In line with this, Mk 16:1 purports that, “when the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.” If this holds any memory, Jesus’ followers were not expecting his resurrection right then and there, before the consummation; and if they were not expecting his resurrection at that point in time, their doubt makes sense. We probably have here a historical datum. 

* * * 

So to conclude this chapter: pre-Easter expectations alone did not precipitate proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection. Certain events after Good Friday also made their contribution.137 Without those events, the cause of Jesus, like that of John the Baptist, might have continued, but its contours would surely have been very different from what we now find in the first Christian sources.

PART III: Thinking with Parallels

Chapter 9. Apparitions: Characteristics and Parallels

In order to be understood, I must, as preface to this and subsequent chapters, distinguish my project from others. 

Many apologists reflexively deny or relativize substantial parallels between Jesus’ resurrection appearances and all other phenomena. Their logic is this. If what happened to Jesus was, as they believe, utterly unique, then similarities with other events are beside the point. Indeed, they are bound to obstruct understanding.1 Skeptics, by contrast, are wont to call attention to and develop parallels in order to reveal that Christian claims are bogus. Their logic is this. If many people have seen and heard what was not there—ghosts, the BVM, Bigfoot—then Jesus’ disciples likely saw and heard what was not there. They perceived nothing but vain imaginings. 

My project is different. Unlike apologists, I do not dismiss or downplay parallels. I rather parade them. I refuse to ignore similarities because there are also differences. Unlike skeptics, I do not marshal correlations in order to fashion a reductionistic explanation of Easter. My goal is rather to compare like with like and almost-like in order to enlarge understanding. 

Our primary sources for Jesus’ resurrection are full of gaping holes. Too little entered the historical record, and that which did is laconic more often than not. If, then, we are to perceive in the shadows a little more of what occurred and come closer to a useful approximation of the past, we need help. I find such help in reports of experiences from other times and places. 

Jesus’ disciples were human beings and, to rewrite Terence, nothing human was foreign to them. So they must have responded to their unusual experiences in ways not wholly dissimilar from how others have responded to their unusual experiences. If it were not so, they and their history would be unintelligible. So while I believe that Jesus, after his death, made himself known to his followers,2 I have no desire to bat away every intriguing parallel that comes into view. On the contrary, thinking without parallels means being pretty much stuck with rehearsing the Biblical accounts and leaving off there.3 That would be little more than Sunday school. We can do better than that.4 

MEETING THE DEAD 

In defending the Christian stories about Jesus’ resurrection, Gilbert West urged that “the Number… of these Visions, and their being seen by different Persons at different Times, make it, according to the natural Course of Things, utterly incredible that there should have been in them either Illusion or Imposture.”5 These words from the eighteenth century, which have their parallels in every apologetical tome on the resurrection since written,6 are understandable. Yet problematic is the assumption, regularly made, that the resurrection appearances are, because of their multiple witnesses and shared nature, without analogy. There are, on the contrary, many first-hand accounts of several people seeing at once a person recently deceased. Likewise innumerable are accounts of various people seeing an apparition at various times. Indeed, psychical researchers, just like Christian apologists, have long used precisely the same two reported facts—collective appearances and multiple recipients—to argue that some apparitions are somehow veridical.7 Whether one is persuaded, the truth of the matter, welcome or not, is that the literature on visions of the dead is full of parallels to the stories we find in the gospels. This must mean something. But what?8 

Putative encounters with the newly departed are, if not exactly everyday events, rather far flung. The circumstance is often overlooked because, given our current cultural prejudices, many are discouraged from sharing their seemingly paranormal or mystical experiences,9 including ostensible encounters with the dead10—a circumstance that allows popular, uninformed stereotypes about so-called ghosts to persist. People do not want to be stigmatized, to have others think them shackled to superstition. But the censuring of testimony does not allow us to remain loyal to the realities of human experience; and although the facts are too little known, surveys from various parts of the world indicate that perceived contact with the dead is, however we interpret it, a regular part of human experience.11 

THE FORMAL STUDY OF APPARITIONS 

The last few decades have witnessed a revolution in the study of this subject. To tell the story, however, we must go back to the nineteenth century. 

The English Society for Psychical Research undertook, in 1882, a survey of so-called paranormal experiences among the British population. Their questionnaire, which was the grandparent of all modern public polling, was sent to approximately 17,000 people. It asked, among other questions, “Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched…or hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external cause?” Of the 15,316 replies, about 10% replied in the affirmative—a number that is, given what we now know, surprisingly small. Among the 10%, 163 reported the apparition of an individual within 24 hours of death. In the follow-up to those 163, fully 9% claimed that their vision was shared: one or more persons witnessed the apparition with them.12 

After this early survey and Elanor Sidgwick’s subsequent major study,13 several writers, such as the French astronomer Camille Flammarion, dabbled in collecting stories of apparitions and conducted interviews with percipients.14 The gathering and analysis of relevant testimony was pretty much confined to the parapsychologists until the middle of the twentieth century, when psychologists, medical doctors, and sociologists slowly began to warm to the subject. In 1944, E. Lindemann, in an article for the American Journal of Psychiatry, noted that several of his patients in bereavement saw their dead loved ones.15 In 1958, Peter Marris, in Widows and their Families, reported that 36 of the 72 London widows he interviewed reported a strong sense of the presence (SOP) of a dead family member.16 In 1970, Colin Murray Parkes, in the journal Psychiatry, reported that 15 of the 22 widows he spoke with were likewise familiar with SOP, and that often it was all-too-real.17 Also in 1970, another study, this one from Japan, reported that eighteen of twenty women who had been suddenly widowed had experienced SOP. Half had seen their dead husbands.18 

These small studies were eclipsed when Dewi Rees, a British medical doctor, wrote his dissertation at the University of London in 1971 and reported his findings in the British Medical Journal. Rees discovered that, of the 293 widows and widowers he interviewed, fully 47% of them believed that they had experienced contact with their dead spouse. Most of these encounters took place not long after death, but there were also intermittent occurrences years later. A fair percentage of these encounters were full-fledged apparitions.19 

Rees’ work caught the eyes of other researchers, and the time since has witnessed a plethora of similar surveys and related popular works.20 The upshot is that, in study after study, and from different regions of the globe, we have learned that at least half of all widows and widowers believe that they have run into their dead spouses, that is, have seen them and/or heard them and/or felt their presence.21 This is clearly a normal, non-pathological part of the mourning process.22 We have also learned that such contact is not confined to surviving partners or those in mourning. Indeed, all parts of the general public report a high incidence—surveys from Western Europe and North America vary anywhere from about 10%–40%23—of apparent contact with the dead through dreams, voices, felt presences, as well as visions while wide awake. These experiences are often experienced as very vivid and very real. Furthermore, the relevant reports, which come from all age groups—children relate these experiences, as do teenagers—often have nothing to do with the grieving process. How far-flung such experiences are appears from the fact that, in the United States at the end of the twentieth century, fully 30% of those disbelieving in an afterlife reported feeling at least once “as though I was in touch with someone who had died.”24 Most striking of all, surveys regularly uncover people who claim that their experience was shared with others, that more than one person saw an apparition or heard a disembodied voice or felt a presence.25 Another result of some interest is that religious faith is not a necessary prerequisite for these experiences.26 Sometimes, on the contrary, people are moved to change their attitude toward death and their opinions about the hereafter.27

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF THE AUTHOR AND HIS FAMILY 

Perhaps it is not out of line here to relate my own experiences. One of my best friends was, in 1987, tragically run over by a drunk driver. After several weeks in a coma, she, along with her unborn baby, died. It was about a week after this that I was, as it seemed to me, awakened in the middle of the night. There, standing at the end of my bed, was my friend Barbara. She said nothing. She simply was there. Her appearance did not match the traditional lore about ghosts. She was not faint or transparent or frightening. She was, to the contrary, beautiful, brightly luminous, and intensely real. Her transfigured, triumphant presence, which lasted only a few seconds, gave me great comfort. Although she said nothing, this thought entered my mind: this sight is ineffably beautiful, and any person in that state would be ineffably beautiful. Whatever the explanation, this is exactly what happened. 

This was not my only ostensible encounter with my deceased friend. One afternoon, several weeks later, I was typing in my study, in the full light of day, wholly focused on my work. Suddenly I felt a strong physical presence, which I sensed as being up, behind, and to my left. I knew immediately, I know not how, that this was Barbara. Unlike the first time, when I saw something and heard nothing, this time I heard something and saw nothing. As clear as could be, my mind picked up the words: You must go and see Warren—Barbara’s distraught husband—right now. Overwhelmed by this communication out of the blue, I instinctively obeyed. I called Warren and made a late luncheon date. He seemed, in the event, to be doing as well as could be expected. There was no emergency that I could see. The voice, however, had been urgent, and I unhesitatingly heeded its request. 

I relate all this not so that others may believe that Barbara survived death and spoke to me, nor that readers might regard me as fantasy prone or a victim of mental dysfunction. The point is only that these things really happen, and in my case I know this from first-hand experience. I also know how overwhelmingly real such events can seem—so real that I took them at the time to originate in something other than my subjectivity and have difficulty thinking otherwise even now, decades later.28

 Perhaps readers will indulge me further if I report on the series of events related to me after brain cancer dispatched my father, Cliff Allison, in the spring of 1994. My wife, Kris, was with him when he died. I was home with the children. When she returned from the hospital, one of the first things she told me was that, shortly after the doctors declared him dead and left her alone with the body, his spirit somehow returned, hovered near the ceiling, and told her quite clearly that he was overjoyed at finally being free from all his ills. 

Three or four days later, my six-year-old son Andrew came to me one evening and told me that he had just seen grandpa. My father, he said, had just now been sitting beside him on a bed, wearing his green bathrobe, the last piece of clothing Andrew had seen him in. My son, who responded to the experience rather matter-of-factly, then told me that grandpa had shared with him a secret and that he could not tell anyone what it was. 

A few weeks after this, my brother John informed me that he had been walking down the street and had plainly heard our father’s voice in his head. That voice instructed him about several matters, both personal and of a business nature. My brother had no doubt that the voice, which responded to questions, was real. When John asked, “What did you think of the funeral, dad?,” the voice said, “I don’t know; I got lost.” Months later my brother told me that the voice had returned once more and asked him to call a certain individual and wish her happy birthday. Upon making the call, he learned it was indeed the woman’s birthday. 

I shall not continue this narrative any further, except to note that my nephew, David, reported seeing my father at the interment; that my mother, Virginia, months after my father’s passing, claimed that he had made his presence known to her one night; that my daughter, Emily, in 1995, had a vision of her grandfather while she was playing one afternoon in our backyard; and that I also heard from two people outside the family, Bill and Jane, of their alleged encounters with Clifford. 

I have inevitably thought of this series of reports when subsequently reading 1 Corinthians 15. Most of the stories were shared with me independently of each other, and if I were looking for reasons to believe in my father’s survival of bodily death, I suppose I could compose a little list like Paul’s and regard it as evidential: Clifford passed away in the hospital, after which he communicated to Kris; then he appeared to David; then he appeared to Andrew and spoke with him; then he gave guidance to John, after which his presence made itself felt to Bill, Virginia, and Jane; and last of all he appeared to Emily; six of them are still alive, although two have died. 

Whether one regards my family’s stories or those like them as a farrago of nonsense, as the hallucinatory projections of self-deceived mourners, or instead seriously reckons with the possibility that some of them were genuine encounters with the other side, the first point for historians of early Christianity is that the sorts of experiences just recounted are common, and they typically seem quite real to percipients. Moreover, different accounts from various times and sundry places show so many similarities that we are indubitably dealing with a phenomenon about which generalizations can be made, regardless of the etiology one advances.29 

COMPARING STORIES 

Although many will resist amassing parallels between what we find in the gospels and what we find elsewhere, it is simply not true that the events in the gospels are “utterly without analogy.”30 Indeed, the canonical gospels themselves know the analogy just indicated, for they seek to refute it. According to Lk. 24:39-43, Jesus cannot be merely a spirit or ghost (πνεῦμα) because he can eat and be handled. John 20:24-29 is similar. Jesus says to doubting Thomas: “Put your finer here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 

Matthew 28:9 (“And coming to him, they took hold of his feet”) might be cut from the same apologetical cloth, for throughout world-wide folklore ghosts often have no feet.31 If the text presupposes this idea, then the grasping of feet indicates that Jesus is not a ghost in the popular sense. In the Epistle of the Apostles, from the second century, the risen Jesus says, “You, Andrew, look at my feet and see if they do not touch the ground. For it is written in the prophet, ‘The foot of a ghost or a demon does not join to the ground.’”32 

When the sources protest that Jesus is not a phantom, it is because they know that some people might or do imagine otherwise. To protest the parallel is to acknowledge it.33 When one reads the literature on apparitions, not all of it uncritical, one understands why. In many reports, an apparitional figure:34 

• Is both seen and heard.35 

• Is seen now by one person, later by another or others.36

• Is seen by more than one percipient at the same time.37 

• Has been a victim of violence.38

• Appears and creates doubt and/or fear in some percipients.39 

• Speaks very briefly, often only a sentence or two.40 

• Offers reassurance and comfort.41 

• Gives guidance, makes requests, or issues imperatives.42 

• Seems overwhelmingly real and indeed seemingly solid.43

• Appears and disappears in abrupt and unusual ways, displaying what has been called “fourdimensional mobility.”44 

• Is not perceived as unusual or extraordinary at the beginning of the experience.45

• Manifests so convincingly that the percipient undergoes changes in belief.46 

• Is seen less and less as time moves on; most appearances (although certainly not all) take place within a year of the death of the person represented by the apparition.47 

What follows from parallels such as this? Some will hope, and others will argue, very little. One can also parade parallels between the resurrection stories and tales from Jewish tradition and GrecoRoman mythology. Do not the various lists of likenesses somehow moderate each other, maybe even cancel each other out? More importantly, do not the analogies just listed leave the important historical particularities unexplained? Typical encounters with the recently deceased do not issue in claims about an empty tomb, nor do they lead to the establishment of a new religion. And they certainly cannot explain the specific content of the words attributed to the risen Jesus. Apparitions, furthermore, rarely eat or drink,48 and they are not seen by crowds of up to five hundred people.49 So, one might contend, early Christianity does not supply us with just one more variant of something otherwise belonging to common experience.

I am not unsympathetic to this rebuttal. I do not believe that the early Christian traditions are wholly accounted for by stories gathered from later times and other places, stories which are themselves of a disputed nature and so, instead of enabling us to explain what we do not understand by way of what we do understand, might be thought to leave us with ignotum per ignotius. I also disbelieve that, if only we knew enough about apparitions of the dead in general, we would necessarily know enough about the appearances of Jesus in particular. I make no pretense to having some grand, reductionistic theory that presumes to cover all the facts. 

And yet, just as later christic visions should not be ignored by New Testament scholars, and just as the parallels between the resurrection stories and certain Greco-Roman legends assuredly have their place to play in discussions of Christian origins, so too do we need to learn what we can from the study of apparitions of the dead. The differences or points of contrast between such apparitions and early Christian sources are, in any case, too often taken to prove too much. The postmortem manifestation of an average husband to his isolated widow is not going to generate the same significance as the reappearance of a messianic figure whose followers are living within an eschatological scenario that features the resurrection of the dead.50 Context begets meaning. When Roger Booth protests that the effect of feeling the presence of a loved one in modern bereavement experiences is not “so cataclysmic as to inspire a continuing course of conduct so contrary to past character, as did the appearances of Jesus to the disciples,”51 he is right, but his implied conclusion is wrong. Similar experiences, if they occur within different interpretive frameworks, may have radically disparate effects. Parallels, one should not need to observe, come with differences.52 

My view regarding the resemblances that I have catalogued is that, while they may not be our Rosetta Stone, they are nonetheless heuristically profitable. They have their place once we embrace a methodological pluralism, which in this connection means attempting to sort and then explain the data to the best of our abilities from different points of view and within different interpretive frameworks. No one method or set of comparative materials will give us all that we seek. We should strive rather to learn what we can from each method or set, in the knowledge that each may help us with some part of the large picture we are trying to piece together. In the present case, then, I eschew accounting for the appearances of Jesus wholly in terms of typical appearances of the dead—an unfeasible task anyway given our limited knowledge and understanding of apparitions in general—but simply ask what light a wider human phenomenon might shed on some of the issues surrounding the resurrection traditions.

THE STORIES IN THE GOSPELS 

Pannenberg speaks for many when he affirms that “the appearances reported in the Gospels, which are not mentioned by Paul, have such a strongly legendary character that one can scarcely find a historical kernel of their own in them.”53 Although such skepticism is not undone by my historicalcritical analysis in Chapter 4, apparitions of the dead, if they are relevant to this subject, introduce second thoughts. The unexpected appearance and disappearance of Jesus, for instance, and the brevity of the speeches, are par for the apparitional course.54 It is also credible that encounters with the risen Jesus, like some apparitions, produced doubt as well as belief, and likewise plausible that the earthly setting for the canonical stories is not a fiction, for apparitions are typically terrestrial. To expand on this last point: the gospel accounts are often dismissed thorough this line of reasoning:55 

• Paul aligns his experience of the risen Jesus with the experiences of Peter and the twelve (1 Cor. 15:3-8). 

• Paul’s vision was, as Acts has it, of a heavenly Jesus,56 and whatever he saw led him to speak of a “body of glory” (Phil. 3:21) and a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44), the latter being an oxymoron as mystifying as a square circle.57 

• It follows that Peter and the twelve also saw a heavenly Jesus with a “spiritual body,”58 which explains the texts about Jesus being “glorified”: he was thought of as having a luminous heavenly body.59 

• It also follows that the appearance stories in which Jesus does not appear from heaven and proves himself to be physical are late and apocryphal.60 

• These stories can perhaps be explained as a response to doubt about the resurrection from outsiders and/or to less physical interpretations of Jesus’ vindication by insiders.61

• One also often reads that, for early Christians, Jesus’ resurrection was his ascension, so the Easter witnesses must have seen him in heaven.62 “As the earliest proclamation does not make any distinction between the resurrection of Jesus and his exaltation to the right hand of God, it is best to assume that the series [in 1 Cor. 15:3-8] consists of appearances of the exalted Lord.”63 

Against all this,64 one very much doubts that the appearance to the five hundred was of the same character as Peter’s experience, yet they are on the same list. We cannot, moreover, assume that early Christian Jews shared Paul’s notion—perhaps ad hoc for the Corinthian occasion—of a “spiritual body,” a body which he, in any case, did not conceive as immaterial.65 I agree with Kirk MacGregor: “From a historical perspective, Paul’s interpretation of the resurrection of Jesus in 1 Corinthians is simply irrelevant to the original understanding of Jesus’ resurrection,” that is, it is “anachronistic to assert that the Pauline portrayal of Christ’s resurrection c. AD 55 has any bearing on the preceding disciples’ understanding of his resurrection at least twenty years earlier.”66 

The apostle, moreover, nowhere discusses the nature of the appearances to himself or others. 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 says only that there were christophanies, not what their apparent origin in space was, nor what Jesus looked like, nor what sort of body he had; and why should we presume that Paul’s encounter, in Leslie Houlden’s words, “was generally admitted to be of the same sort as its predecessors”?67 Who generally admitted this? Peter? James? John the son of Zebedee? Surely not Paul’s Christian Jewish opponents. They would hardly have applauded on learning that he had added his name to the old credo in 1 Corinthians 15. In addition, Paul does not subjoin his experience to those before it with a simple “and then” (ἔπειτα). He rather prefaces “appeared also to me” with “last of all as to one aborted,” cryptic words which in some way distinguish him from others.68 

Beyond all this, I am unsure that the apostle or others would have perceived a distinction between a heavenly appearance and an earthly appearance.69 This may be the sort of distinction that occurs to modern scholars but did not occur to ancient visionaries.70 Yet even if such a distinction were operative, Jewish and Christian texts quite often feature heavenly beings descending to earth, and why the resurrected, angelic-like Jesus should have to stay in heaven, away from the faithful, escapes me. In line with this, although the Gospel of Peter, as we have it, breaks off before its conclusion, at one time it likely ended with an appearance to Peter, Andrew, and Levi on or by the Sea of Galilee (14:60)71—despite the fact that Jesus has already ascended to heaven straight from the tomb (10:40).72 Similarly, in the Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle, Jesus consistently returns to heaven between postmortem appearances. One also recalls modern visions of Mary: while she dwells in heaven with her Son, she reveals herself on the earth, often standing just a few feet off the ground, from which position she sometimes touches a chosen visionary. 

Also to be considered, if we wish, is the phenomenology of visionary experience. To judge by modern reports, occasionally an apparition is perceived as being, in origin, neither distinctly terrestrial nor clearly heavenly. In my experience, for instance, my dead friend Barbara seemed to have walked into my room from another dimension, a space next door, although I have no idea what that means. Words often fail to capture anomalous experience. I have run across one narrative in which a woman reports that her deceased husband, in the room with her, was at the same time “in heaven.”73 Another tells of seeing Jesus who “waited above the earth, not on the ground, yet [was] in the room.”74 Some exegetes have been similarly confused about Mt. 28:16-20. Is Jesus in heaven (cf. Acts 7:55) or on earth?75 In like fashion, Paul could not figure out whether his visit to the third heaven was in the body or out of the body (2 Cor. 12:2). 

* * * 

Despite their myriad disagreements with each other and their late and legendary features, the appearance stories in the canonical gospels, if reckoned akin to other apparitional accounts, may on account of that kinship be reckoned not wholly imaginary but instead reminiscent in certain particulars of the original experiences, although delineating those particulars is an uncertain business. Such a conclusion would be consistent with my claim, made earlier, that old appearance narratives probably lie behind 1 Cor. 15:3-8, for if the traditions in the gospels are not the descendants of those narratives, where did they all go? Did the original stories simply disappear, to be replaced by a new batch of tales of a wholly different character? Is it not intrinsically more likely that the narratives known to us, with their parallels in first-hand reports of apparitions, were outgrowths of more primitive narratives? I myself am emboldened by the relevant parallels to reckon with more historical memory in the canonical Easter stories, or rather more memory in some of their repeated motifs, than I otherwise would. I agree with Wedderburn: “the stories cannot just…be written off or discounted as pure fiction: there are too many puzzling features about them which are unlikely to be sheer invention, and aspects of them seem to mesh with the historical in such a way that they are indeed woven into the fabric of the history of the early church.”76 

SPIRITS AND ANGELS

 Luke 24:39 has the risen Jesus declare that he is not a πνεῦμα, a spirit or ghost.77 His proof is that he has σάρκα καὶ ὀστέα, flesh and bones. John 20:24-29 is of similar import, and in Jn 21:9-14, Jesus, returned from the dead, both cooks and serves food. In part because of these texts,78 Christians through the ages have thought of the resurrection appearances as involving a body as concrete as any run-of-the-mill, normal human body. They have accordingly supposed that the disciples saw Jesus with their normal faculties of visual perception. Much modern scholarship, however, regards the texts just cited as relatively late and apologetical, perhaps even directed at an emerging docetism;79 and, as already observed, this has in turn cleared the way to understand the first meetings with the risen Jesus as being akin to Paul’s experience on the Damascus road, which was a “vision” (ὀπτασία, Acts 26:19). A trajectory from less literal to more literal is, then, plausible, with Paul’s notion of a spiritual body being closer to the primitive tradition, the seemingly solid figures in Luke and John being later developments.80 

Before offering dissent by considering how apparitions of the dead might bear on this issue, it is useful to recall the old Jewish and Christian texts in which angels are not recognized as such because they seem, to all outward appearances, to be perfectly human,81 or in which an angel is actually handled and its identity is still not revealed,82 or in which angels appear to eat and/or drink.83 Such stories mean that, apart from the express denial in Lk. 24:39, the risen Jesus, in the stories that have come down to us, does nothing to distinguish himself clearly from the angels, who were reckoned to be רוחות, πνεῦματα, spirits, creatures lacking flesh and blood, indeed to be ἀσώματος, incorporeal.84 Romanos the Melodist can characterize an angel as ἀσώματος and yet deny that it is a φάσμα, an apparition or phantom.85 

How then would ancient readers have understood the eating, the drinking, and the seeming solidity of the risen Jesus? Maybe the answer lies in the fact that angelic spirits were imagined to be very different from ghostly human spirits (cf. Mt. 14:26; Lk. 24:37), and presumably Lk. 24:39 has only the latter in mind. That is, the Lukan Jesus denies that he belongs with the specters of popular superstition: he is no fleeting, half-dead, insubstantial, transparent, helpless, restless shade who haunts the earth because he has failed to go to a better place.86 He is rather robust and fully alive, wholly real. 

Just as the seemingly solid nature of the risen Jesus fails clearly to distinguish him from the incorporeal angels, so too, interestingly enough, does it not set him apart from many apparitions. “The majority of visual apparitions” are “opaque rather than transparent,” so much so that the figure of the apparition seems “to blot out the part of the real environment behind it, as a real person would.”87 Most apparitions of the dead seen during bereavement are not, in the usual sense of the word, “ghosts” (which is why the bereaved rarely use the word of their experiences). Apparitions commonly appear rather to be just like real human beings. It is accordingly often only their odd arrival or sudden disappearance or identification with a deceased individual that gives them away. 

Tertullian quoted a visionary as reporting that she saw “a soul in bodily shape” that “could even be grasped by the hand,” and “in form being like a human being in every respect.”88 Saint Catharine Labourè told of seeing the Virgin Mary “en chair et en os.”89 The novelist Reynolds Price wrote that his encounter with Jesus exhibited “a concrete visual and tactile reality unlike any sleeping or waking dream I’ve known or heard of.”90 The Elder Pasios of Mount Athos reported that the Virgin Mary and other saints materialized before him “in their physical bodies in a manner similar to that in which Jesus had materialized in his physical body when He appeared to Maria Magdalene and the apostles after the Resurrection.” He claimed to touch them and to be touched by them.91 Whatever the experiences behind such claims, the following contemporary story, told by a young girl, who was sleeping with her sister, is not that unusual: 

My grandfather was lying between us, on his back but with his head turned, looking at Janet. I asked him what was the matter, thinking it most strange that he should be in our bed at all. He turned his face towards me, when I spoke, and I put my hand out and started stroking his beard. (He always allowed me to brush it for him as a special treat). He answered quietly, saying not to jump around too much in case I woke Janet, and that he was only making sure we were alright. It was only then that I remembered that he had died the previous June, and the fear and horror I felt then can be imagined and I started screaming for my mother. The grown-ups passed it off as a bad dream, but I was able to tell them a lot of their conversation of the evening, that had drifted up to me, as I lay awake. I’d like to stress that in no way was I conscious that he was a “ghost.” He felt solid, warm and looked and spoke quite naturally.92 

Here are two more examples of the same phenomenon: 

She asked if she could touch him [her deceased son]. Without a moment’s hesitation, the apparition of her son stepped forward and hugged her, lifting her right off the ground. “What happened was as real as if he had been standing right there… I now feel as though I can put my son’s death behind me and get on fully with my life.”93 

I was in the dining room. She was there. I put my arms around her, she was as real and warm as 

I knew her. She smiled and was gone.94 

Even more striking, because of the explicit comparison with the Jesus tradition, are these words from a widow regarding encounters with her dead husband:

He looked and felt just like when he was living. He didn’t look like something you could see through, neither time. He just looked real, alive, real. I put my arms around him, it felt just like you or I, just real. You know like, the Lord reappeared, you know when he died, and he was alive and he asked the man to feel the nail hole in his side. My husband was just as real as if he was here with me now.95 

Testimony such as this adds real ambiguity to the stories of people touching the risen Jesus and seeing him eat and drink, even were one to take those stories to enshrine video-like history.96 What Karl Rahner wrote on the subject of religious visions in general holds here, too: “It is not to be taken as a proof of the corporeality (and divine origin) of the vision if the person seen in it ‘speaks,’ ‘moves,’—and even lets himself ‘be touched’ (for even this happens in purely natural, purely imaginary processes).”97 

Now I personally remain hesitant to find history in the demonstrations of Luke 24 and John 20–21. I rather detect Christian apologetics here, an answer to the criticism that Jesus was merely a specter or hallucination. At the same time, and even though there was quite likely a tendency over the decades to make the appearances more solid,98 the comparative study of apparitions might be taken to reinforce the possibility that Luke 24 and John 20–21 preserve the primitive conviction that the risen Jesus seemed to some of those who encountered him to be not ethereal but utterly real, even solid. 

“TRANSPHYSICALITY” 

The phenomenology of visions might also be brought to bear on what N. T. Wright has called the “transphysicality” of Jesus’ resurrected body.99 Paul envisages for the resurrected saints a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44), and Wright believes that this idea coheres with the stories in which the risen Jesus is seemingly physical and yet can behave in very peculiar ways: he can appear out of nowhere and disappear into the same.100 Wright further argues that the notion of resurrected body seemingly shared by the gospels and Paul cannot be explained against the background of Jewish thought. It must rather have grown out of reflection on the encounters with the risen Jesus, encounters in which Jesus seemed wholly real, bodily present, while at the same time showing himself capable of transcending normal physical barriers.101

Albeit Wright’s main point could well be correct, the phenomenon of “transphysicality” is less unexpected than he implies. Whatever else we take them to have been, the appearances were seemingly short-lived and sporadic. Jesus was seen, then he was gone. He would appear, then he would disappear. This matters because, within a Jewish context, such a supernormal facility would remind people of nothing so much as angels. They come and “appear”102 and go in mysterious ways and, like Jesus on the Emmaus Road, are, for a time, unrecognized for who they are.103 Given, then, that Christians in other ways thought of Jesus as being like an angel,104 his “transphysicality,” his solid reality with unreal abilities, is not so peculiar. This is all the more the case because Jewish and Christian sources can model human destiny on the imagined life of angels105 and because angels were heavenly-dwelling “spirits” who yet were thought of as solidly real.106 They are, in Jub. 15:27, circumcised, and a popular exegesis of Gen. 6:2 imagined them to be capable of sexual intercourse with human women. To all this one may further add Hans Cavallin’s conclusion that, throughout early Jewish literature, “we find suggestions about the heavenly, transcendent, glorified and spiritual state of the righteous in the new life after death.”107 

Apart from the parallel with angels, we may also keep in mind that modern experiences of apparitions often involve, on the phenomenological level, what might be termed “transphysicality.” As indicated on the previous pages, apparitions can be perceived as solid and can even sometimes be touched. And yet they also appear and disappear just like the Jesus of the gospels and, if I may so put it, live outside this world. So those who regard the encounters with the risen Jesus as related to visionary experiences will not be surprised at the “transphysicality” of the resurrected Jesus. 

SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE? 

The study of apparitions does not help us determine whether some or all the appearances of Jesus were purely subjective or partially derived from a reality independent of the percipients. This is only to be expected as the serious literature on apparitions is itself divided over their nature. The one side is well known. Just as we can feel phantom limbs, so we can see phantom bodies. “Our brains,” without external stimulation, “are capable of generating very vivid, realistic, and compelling imaginary experiences.”108 Various culprits are to hand: the projection of unconscious wishes; dysfunction of the neurotransmitter dopamine; errors in the cholinergic system; transient microseizures in the temporal lobe; activation without sensory stimulation of the thalamine reticular nucleus; and metacognitive failure to distinguish between self-generated states and external sources of information.109 

Even without the enlightenment of modern science and psychology, it has long been obvious, as Lewes Lauaterus wrote centuries ago, “that many men doo falsly persuade themselues that they see or heare ghostes: for that which they imagin they see or heare, proceedeth eyther of melancholie, madnesse, weaknesse of the senses, feare, or of some other perturbation…”110 As Macbeth observed: 

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. …art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat oppressed brain? 

Beyond all this, human testimony, including first-hand testimony, can be fragile,111 and human beings can be astoundingly credulous. Pious pilgrims by the thousands visited the shrine of the holy tortilla in Lake Arthur, New Mexico, before the relic was dropped and broke into pieces. 

Yet there is the other side, too. In Pannenberg’s words, “the thesis that we must regard all visionary experiences as psychological projections with no basis in reality cannot be regarded…as an adequately grounded philosophical postulate.”112 This is not an irresponsible assertion. If one sets aside ill-informed preconceptions and exercises the patience to examine carefully the critical literature on apparitions, one discovers numerous well-attested reports, reasonably investigated, where several people at once saw an apparition and later concurred on the details, or where an apparition’s words contained information that was not otherwise available to the percipients, or where witnesses independently testified to having seen the same apparition at the same place but at different times, or where people saw the apparition of an individual who had just died although they did not know of the death.113 It is not obviously true that all so-called visions are purely endogenous, the projection of creative human minds, that they “are grounded on no other Bottom, than the Fears and Fancies, and weak Brains of Men.”114 Maybe, as Rhawn Joseph has put it, “not all dreams and hallucinations are dreams and hallucinations.”115 

But even when one allows, as I do, the force of all this—others will not—we still have the problem of individual cases. For although we might admit that some visionary experiences are veridical, we also know for a fact that many are not. Most of us might hesitate before crediting the sightings of the postmortem Sabbatai Sׂ evi.116 How, then, do we make a decision about the early Christian experiences? Did Peter and the others project the risen Jesus? Or did a post-crucifixion Jesus communicate with his own? Or—an alternative invariably overlooked—did perhaps both things happen? 

The questions are even more complex than my simple alternatives might imply once we acknowledge the inevitable, that all perception is projection, is active construction as opposed to passive reception, and that no human experience can be independent of thoroughly psychological and neurochemical mechanisms.117 “What people see depends fundamentally on what their minds are interested in seeing and what their brains are capable of representing. In this regard, C[ognitive] N[euroscience] finds an unexpected harmony with postmodern philosophy from Nietzsche onward—reality is not a given but is actively created by the human psyche.”118 In the present case, it is relevant that many who regard some apparitions as veridical regard them as projections of the percipients in response to a paranormal stimulus.119 Rahner’s understanding of divinely inspired visions seems similar: a vision can be part of the human response to, or a secondary effect of, the divine activity, “a kind of overflow and echo of a much more intimate and spiritual process.”120 I note that one modern individual—a professor of psychiatry—said this of his vision of Jesus: I “was fully aware that what I saw was a product of my own brain. I felt that God was, as it were, using my mind as a projectionist uses a projector.”121 

The pertinent data from early Christian sources are in any case, and if we are candid, really quite thin. One can only regret that the sort of detailed ethnographic and psychological facts available to William Christian, Jr., in his splendid study of Spanish visions of Mary and saints in 1931, are not to hand.122 We know enough to dismiss conscious deceit or illness as the cause of Easter faith. But how can we absolutely dismiss, on historical grounds, the possibility of subjective hallucinations and mass wish-fulfillment? 

It is most often said in response that the first believers could not have hallucinated because too many people were involved, and especially because “one may ask whether simultaneous identical hallucinations are psychologically feasible.”123 This, however, is inadequate rebuttal. The plurality of witnesses does not quench doubt. Hypnotists can persuade a group of good subjects that they all see the same phantasmal object, and religious enthusiasm can work the same trick.124 Attached to the Shakers’ Sacred Roll and Book are the names of eight people who testified that “we saw the holy Angel, standing upon the house-top…holding the Roll and Book,”125 which scarcely settles the issue; and more than one person has sincerely reported having a vision of the departed Elvis Presley.126 If counting heads were all that mattered, there would be no question that short, large-headed, bug-eyed aliens have kidnapped thousands of sleeping Americans: the stories are legion. But surely, despite all the testimony, there is room to debate what has been going on here. 

As for the New Testament’s stories in which Jesus appears to more than one witness, how do we know, without interviewing them, that the twelve, let us say, saw exactly the same thing on the occasion of Jesus’ collective appearance to them? There are examples of collective hallucinations in which people claimed to see the same thing but, when closely interviewed, disagreed on the details, proving that they were after all not seeing exactly the same thing.127 How do we know that the twelve, subjected to a critical cross-examination and interviewed in isolation, would all have told the same story?128 Perhaps their testimony would rather have raised questions.129 And even if they said much the same thing, their collaborative testimony might have emerged from conversations with each other ex eventu. 130 Origen thought that “Jesus was not seen in the same way by all who beheld him.”131 Was he right? No one will ever know. 

Eduard Schweizer, playing the role of apologist, asserts that while “mass-ecstasies do happen… they are in some way prepared, and this seems not to have been the case after the death of Jesus.”132 Even if true, such a remark can only hold for the very first encounter, that to Mary Magdalene or Peter. Once one of them had told of seeing Jesus, then the idea would have been planted in the mind of others, so how can we exclude the thought of psychological contagion? Even the pre-Christian Paul must have heard claims of people seeing the risen Jesus. 

Skepticism, however, runs both ways. If the data are too meager for the apologist’s needs, they equally do not suffice for the rationalistic antagonists of the church. One can establish without doubt the illusory character of the early Christian experiences only if a materialistic naturalism so saturates one’s mind that it cannot allow either paranormal phenomena or divine disruption of the ordinary course of events.133 If one comes to the texts without such a predisposition, there is nothing in them that determines the nature of the experiences of Peter and the twelve and the others shortly after Good Friday. Historical knowledge just does not reach that far. We have restricted access to the past, some things are intractable, and this may be one of them. Carnley opined: “we are very unlikely ever to be able either to prove or to disprove the thesis that the appearances were psychologically induced ‘subjective visions,’ rather than some kind of ‘objective vision.’”134 We cannot accomplish all the tasks we set for ourselves. 

The situation is such, I believe, that nothing would prohibit a conscientious historian from playing it ontologically safe and steering clear of both theological and anti-theological assumptions, or of both paranormal and anti-paranormal assumptions, and simply adopting a phenomenological approach to the data, which do not in and of themselves demand from historians any particular interpretation.135 It would not be a historical sin to content oneself with observing that the disciples’ experiences, whether hallucinatory or not, were genuine experiences which at least they took to originate outside their subjectivity.136 One can profitably discuss Socrates without denying that he heard a voice and without speculating on the nature of his familiar spirit.137 

THE ONE AND THE MANY 

Those who regard all modern postmortem experiences as purely subjective may be strongly inclined to dismiss the resurrection appearances of Jesus in the same way. Myers wrote long ago: 

Suppose, for instance, that we collect many such histories [of postmortem encounters], recorded on first-hand evidence in our critical age; and suppose that all these narratives break down on analysis; that they can all be traced to hallucination, misdescription, and other persistent sources of error;—can we then expect reasonable men to believe that this marvelous phenomenon, always vanishing into nothingness when closely scrutinised in a modern English scene, must yet compel adoring credence when alleged to have occurred in an Oriental country, and in a remote and superstitious age?138 

My answer to Myers’ question is that we cannot expect such. One similarly suspects that those of us who believe that some apparitional encounters are not wholly subjective will be more inclined than others to entertain a non-hallucinatory genesis for the appearances of Jesus, if only because we do not view the world as a closed system or fully explicable in current scientific terms.

Chapter 10. Visions: Protests and Proposals

Having, in the previous chapter, made a case that the stories about the risen Jesus can be, in several respects, profitably compared with visionary experiences from various times and places, I should like, in this chapter, to carry the argument further. I shall begin by addressing attempts to diminish the significance of the sorts of parallels I have drawn or to discount them altogether. After doing that, I shall offer, cautiously and with due modesty, a typology, based on comparative materials, for the early Christian experiences. 

PARAPSYCHOLOGY AND “POPULAR” NARRATIVES 

Gerald O’Collins, in reviewing my earlier work on visions, has scolded me for drawing on the literature of parapsychology: “When comparing the postresurrection appearances with reports of people experiencing their beloved dead and, in particular, alleged collective experiences of that kind, he [Allison] introduces in an undifferentiated way references to a mass of literature, some of it unreliable popular publications, [and] some [of] it coming from parapsychologists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” This, according to O’Collins, is problematic. “Apropos of ‘reports of collective apparitions,’ Allison notes that they are ‘prominent in the literature of parapsychology but not in normal psychology.’ That should have warned him against introducing…references to a number of long-discredited parapsychologists. Very many scholars, including professional psychologists, find only pseudo-science in the works of parapsychologists.”1 

The first snag in this criticism is that it lacks specificity.2 O’Collins fails to divulge in what ways this or that parapsychologist has been discredited and who did the deed. His appeal to “many scholars” and “professional psychologists” thus hangs in the air: it is unsubstantiated rhetoric. While it is assuredly true that many psychologists “find only pseudo-science in the works of parapsychologists,” it remains to ask whether they are correct to do so. In my judgment, they are not.3 Aside from that, the circumstance that “many” psychologists disdain parapsychology hardly settles the issue. One could just as easily assert that “very many scholars, including professional psychologists, find only pseudo-science in the writings of Roman Catholic theologians.” This is, beyond doubt, a true statement. Yet O’Collins, being himself a Roman Catholic theologian, would find no evidential force in the assertion. He would rather regard it as a gratuitous appeal to anonymous, underinformed authority. His criticism of me, which lacks any appeal to evidence, is no different. 

Much more importantly, the main controversy surrounding psi phenomena over the last hundred years has been whether the experimental data are sufficiently robust as to signify something truly anomalous. Studies in the lab, however, have next to nothing to do with the arguments in this book. Herein I have quarried the literature of parapsychology primarily for its collection of first-hand stories of ostensible encounters with the dead; and unless O’Collins wishes to accuse the parapsychologists of inventing their stories rather than transcribing or paraphrasing them—an accusation beyond preposterous if one knows the empirically based literature4 —then I cannot see that he has a substantive point to make. He certainly has not directly disputed any of the generalizations I have drawn from examination of the reports. 

O’Collins does, however, imply that paying attention to the literature of parapsychology has led me astray concerning collective visions, although here again he is vague. Perhaps he is suggesting that such visions are altogether absent from “normal psychology.” It is, however, no secret that much of “normal psychology” has been close-minded about the metanormal and has, accordingly, often ignored phenomena—including the miracle claims of O’Collins’ religious tradition—that might suggest anything much out of the ordinary. It cannot surprise, then, that it has been the parapsychologists, more open-minded in such matters, who have paid far greater attention to people who have claimed to share visions. I have, then, simply gone where the data are. And again, if O’Collins is insinuating that the data are faulty for the sole reason that parapsychologists have done the collecting, then he is the victim and promulgator of an uninformed prejudice. Whatever one finds in the sanitized textbooks of mainstream psychology, the truth is that many human beings have, at least according to their first-hand testimony, shared visions, a point to which I shall return below. The interpretation of that circumstance is, most assuredly, up for discussion. The fact is not. 

One final remark about O’Collins. He is bothered because I draw, “in an undifferentiated way,” on a mass of literature, including not only the writings of parapsychologists but “unreliable popular publications.” But I deliberately sought to compare like with like, which in this context means popular with popular. The New Testament, which is our chief source for the rise of belief in Jesus’ resurrection, is hardly a peer-reviewed anthology of critical investigations. Its authors were not modern psychologists or social scientists or scientists of any kind, nor can we regard them as objective reporters.5 They were enthusiastic advocates and evangelistic story-tellers who produced, among other things, writings full of “religious experiences.” Setting their narratives beside other popular narratives from other times and places—the majority of which are, in contrast to most of the New Testament materials, in the first person—in the hope that comparison may disclose something interesting is scarcely unreasonable. 

People, to be sure, misperceive, reinterpret, exaggerate, misremember, and in other ways rewrite their experiences, so they can be quite “unreliable”; and in this connection many “popular publications” are unquestionably far too sanguine. Yet this is precisely why I have proceeded as I have, by collecting numerous stories from sources far and wide. My working hypothesis is this. If narratives from various parts of the world and from different historical periods report, again and again, similar phenomena, and if a significant number of those narratives are memorates, this is reason to suspect that, notwithstanding the different cultural codings,6 we may be dealing with subjectively real, cross-cultural human experience. 

Reasoning like this does not depend on the reliability of any one story, report, or author; nor can it confine itself solely to studies from modern academics. It rather gains its force from the larger patterns within a mass of first-hand testimonies scattered hither and yon. And the more the better. This is why the footnotes on pages 217–21 herein are so long and full of diverse sources—ancient texts, lives of the saints, modern autobiographies, stories gathered by parapsychologists, and so on. I fully recognize that many contemporary academics resist this sort of cross-cultural and crosstemporal approach to human experience. To my mind, however, it is a path to knowledge.7 

VISIONS AND MENTAL STATES 

If O’Collins’ remarks about parapsychology are useless simplifications, the same holds for many of the generalizations about visions that one runs across in the apologetical literature.8 The most egregious sinner on this score known to me is William Milligan, an otherwise accomplished scholar. Almost every (undocumented) generalization about visions that he makes in his book on the resurrection—for example, that they are all momentary, that they must be expected, and that they are typically the product of enthusiasm—is false.9

Milligan was not the last one to miss the mark. E. G. Selwyn believed that positing subjective visions behind the gospel stories would entail attributing to Jesus’ disciples “morbid and pathological dispositions,”10 and Gary Habermas has asserted that “belief, expectation, and even excitement” are typical preconditions for hallucinations, which “usually result from mental illness or from physiological causes like bodily depravation.”11 The apologetical payoff is that, since the disciples were not expecting the resurrection, and since they were not mentally disturbed, they could not have seen what was not there. Origen is on record as the first to take this tack: “to posit a waking vision (ὕπαρ) in the case of people not utterly frenzied, delirious, or mad with melancholy is implausible.”12 

Origen, despite his erudition about so much, was wrong here, as are his modern successors. While much of the older psychological literature did indeed regard having a vision either as a symptom of schizophrenia or as the product of delirium, drugs, alcohol, or brain lesions,13 more recent studies, informed by, among other things, the data from numerous surveys, do not.14 We have learned that “a substantial minority of the population”—anywhere between 10 and 25%, depending on the study—“experiences frank hallucinations at some point in their lives,” and that “for every person who receives a diagnosis of schizophrenia…it would appear that there are approximately 10 who experience hallucinations without receiving the diagnosis.”15 While visions are indeed associated with certain pathological states as well as with stress and trauma,16 they are far from being exclusively coupled with such states. Many people have visions—of sight or sound or both together—without being in any way mentally or physically ill.17 

More specifically, and as documented in Chapter 7, there is nothing pathological about seeing the dead, however one explains the phenomenon. Psychologists now recognize this experience as an almost routine part of bereavement, and the reports I have used herein come not from psychiatric hospitals but from ordinary people. In addition, acquaintance with the pertinent literature offers no support for supposing that seeing a dead individual is typically the product of enthusiasm or excitement, or the upshot of conscious expectation. Visions blow where they will. 

It is true, if we switch from individual experiences and very small groups, that enthusiastic expectation has preceded some famous collective visions involving large crowds. One thinks, for instance, of the curious events that occurred at Limpias, Spain in 1919, when numerous people in a Roman Catholic church saw saints leave their paintings.18 Yet this does not help the apologists’ cause, for we cannot expunge all expectation and excitement from the resurrection witnesses. According to 1 Cor. 15:3-8, Peter was the first to see Jesus. Obviously he did not keep the fact from his friends. He certainly does not do so in Lk. 24:33-35. In that passage, when the two people who have walked to Emmaus meet up with the eleven, the latter announce, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” At this point, Peter, alone of the twelve, has seen Jesus. Here, then, the apostles seemingly believe on the basis of one person’s testimony, before their own encounter. This is what explains one commentator’s remark that they were “half-expecting” an appearance for themselves.19 The judgment could correspond to the historical circumstances. And Peter himself may already have half-believed on the basis of Mary Magdalene’s testimony.20 In addition, the appearance to the “more than five hundred,” according to 1 Cor. 15:3-8, came after the appearances to Peter and the eleven; and if any of the latter, moved by their post-Easter experiences, were responsible for gathering those five hundred—who else could it have been?—is it not possible that the large assembly was in an enthused or expectant state?21 Beyond all this, those of us who judge that Jesus spoke of the resurrection of the dead and perhaps his own resurrection as near22 will have to concede that his followers were, at least on an unconscious level, primed for something that could be interpreted in eschatological terms. 

MORE OBJECTIONS 

According to Murray Harris, while the theory that Jesus’ appearances were visions might “account for sight,” they do not account for “sound.”23 If I understand Harris correctly, he is asserting that, since the appearance stories in the gospels have Jesus being heard as well as being seen, they do not line up with what we would expect from visionary experiences. The claim is devoid of force. Apparitions of the dead do not just appear. In two recent studies from Iceland, 20% of the reports involved more than one of the senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, or an immediate sense of presence— and the most usual combination was hearing and seeing the deceased, amounting to 10% of the reports.24 Other surveys have reported larger numbers.25 

To make the point concretely, here are three representative accounts, selected at random from the literature: 

• “I saw a figure, which…I at once recognised as my older brother-officer… [He] looked at me steadily, and replied, ‘I’m shot…through the lungs… The General sent me forward.’”26 

• “I was sitting in a room alone when a woman simply walked in… This woman was my maternal grandmother. I would have known her anywhere… I did hear her voice clearly, the only difference being that there was a crisp, electric quality to it that seemed clearer and louder than her voice before she died.”27

• “Erica was standing at the end of the bed… She seemed solid and looked very, very peaceful. Erica had a slight smile and said, ‘I’m fine, Mom. I’m all right. Don’t worry about me.’”28 

In view of reports such as these, the New Testament accounts, insofar as they have the risen Jesus both appearing and speaking, do not distinguish themselves from all reported visionary experience.29 

Other objections to setting the New Testament accounts beside reports of visions are equally fallacious. According to Glen Siniscalchi, while “postmortem apparitional experiences almost always happen indoors,” the “New Testament writers seem to suggest that Jesus appeared both inside and outside.”30 This not only misjudges the incidence, in recent times, of visions set outdoors31 but overlooks the elementary fact that most modern people spend a lot more time indoors than did first-century Jews. Siniscalchi further urges that, “because many parapsychologists are indecisive about the nature and cause of apparitional experiences, it is unfruitful to compare them with the Easter appearances.”32 Yet many scholars of early Christianity are just as indecisive about the nature and cause of Jesus’ resurrection appearances. This is what motivates their search for the parallels in the first place; and why we cannot profitably undertake phenomenological comparison without unequivocally resolving issues of ultimate causation is unclear to me. 

Siniscalchi also objects that whereas “one of the basic features of the appearances [in the New Testament] is that they were mission-inaugurating experiences…in the majority of apparitional reports…there seems to be no life-changing mission that accompanies the experience.”33 This is no more pertinent than abjuring comparison because none of the apostles ever drove a car. Similarities always come with dissimilarities—potentially an infinite number—and they may or may not be germane. In the present case, the disciples and their leader, unlike more than 99% of moderns who report postmortem visions, were, before their experiences, itinerant missionaries, and the perceived vindication of Jesus and his cause at Easter naturally occasioned the resumption of missionizing. One would not, then, expect resemblance on this precise point. There is, however, a more general parallel insofar as modern accounts of interactions with the dead are full of voices telling people what to do.34 Messages from the beyond can also be “life-changing.”35 Once more, Siniscalchi’s criticism fails to impale his target.36 

Larry Hurtado forwarded a different objection: 

Unlike the various kinds of things reported by grieving relatives and friends, the reports of resurrection experiences present significant differences. These do not portray sightings or visitations of the dead Jesus, but encounters with the resurrected Jesus. That is, these are not experiences that simply allow grieving disciples to maintain for a while attenuated contact with their beloved master though he was dead. He is not portrayed as communicating with them from the realm of the dead and as a dead person, but instead as confronting followers in a new and more powerful mode of existence and a more august status, delivered from death, divinely vindicated and glorified.”37 

Many apparitions, however, appear in a “new and more powerful mode of existence.” This was my experience with my friend Barbara, as related in the previous chapter. Consider also these two accounts: 

• “I suddenly became aware of a very bright blue and gold light of tremendous brilliance. There are no words in our language to describe these colors. A sense of the magnitude and beauty of this being was impressed on me as this light. It became very clear that this was Joshua [a nine-year boy who’d died three days earlier] and that he wished to send a message to his mother.”38 

• “I was sitting in a chair in my living room when I suddenly realized Gladys was coming down the stairway. I was just dumbfounded when I saw her! Her appearance was not the same as when she was sick—she was beautiful. The brilliant lighting and the intensity of her was next door to unbelievable! It’s impossible to describe the brilliance, absolutely impossible.” 

Aniela Jaffé, who analyzed a collection of 1500 visions reported mostly by Europeans in 1954 and 1955, offered this generalization: “the great or even supernatural beauty” of apparitions is sometimes “recorded as a kind of transfiguration. The light that accompanies the transfiguration usually appears in cases involving the manifestations of deceased relatives or beloved persons.”39 This sort of experience has led some people to liken a dead individual they have seen to an angel. Here is one example: 

My mother passed away last February 17, a little after midnight. She was in California while I was in Wichita, Kansas. At 9.40 am, February 17, I was sitting in my bedroom at my mirror setting my hair when the room was suddenly lighted with the strangest light. One I can’t fully describe. I felt a rustle of wind across my shoulders and a faint sound as the brushing of bird’s wings. Then I looked in the mirror. My mother was standing behind my chair, the most beautiful angel you can imagine. She just stood and smiled at me for 30 seconds. I said, “Mother,” and rushed for her and she, light and all, disappeared… About 1 pm that same day, the call came that my mother was gone.40 

COLLECTIVE SIGHTINGS 

Our sources purport that Jesus ostensibly appeared on more than one occasion to more than one person. Apologists for the faith often say that these sightings of Jesus must have been objective since a person can hallucinate, but not eleven or five hundred at the same time.41 The comparative materials, however, raise questions.

To expose the issues, I should like to consider an article by Joseph Bergeron and Gary Habermas.42 They reason this way: 

Hallucinations are private experiences. Hallucination hypotheses, therefore, are unable to explain the disciples’ simultaneous group encounters with the resurrected Jesus. While some may consider the disciples’ post-crucifixion group encounters with the resurrected Jesus as collective simultaneous hallucinations, such an explanation is far outside mainstream clinical thought. What are the odds that separate individuals in a group could experience simultaneous and identical psychological phenomena mixed with hallucinations? This is a non sequitur. Concordantly, the concept of collective hallucination is not found in peer reviewed medical and psychological literature.43 

These remarks appear to assume that the groups who saw Jesus beheld exactly the same thing, that they simultaneously had identical perceptions.44 Perhaps they did. Yet one fails to understand how anyone can ascertain this. Even in everyday life, people who witness the same public event can fail to see the same thing.45 Beyond that, we possess no details as to what the five hundred saw (1 Cor. 15:6). All our important questions go unanswered. The same holds for the appearance to “all the apostles” (1 Cor. 15:7), if that was indeed (against my argument in Chapter 4) a single event. This leaves us with John 21 and the several stories in the gospels that probably descend from an early report of the appearance to the twelve.46 None of those involved, however, have left us their first-hand accounts, so we cannot put their stories side by side and compare them. Beyond that, the texts speak of doubt (Mt. 28:17; Lk. 24:38), which may reflect the circumstance that the disciples had different responses because they did not all have the same experience.47 

I recall, in this connection, the accounts of a collective vision of Mary at Betania, Venezuela on March 25, 1984. The Catholic devotional literature reports, over and over, that 108 people “saw” Mary on that day.48 So, did everyone see exactly the same thing? I do not know. Without their individual testimonies to hand, we cannot argue one way or the other. Why is it different with the first followers of Jesus? 

Another difficulty with Bergeron and Habermas is that their focus on modern medical literature narrows the range of comparative materials. The cases that editors permit to enter journals cannot be equated with the real world. The mainstream journals take for granted and guard a worldview which holds that, from beginning to end, all visions are “hallucinations” explicable in terms of biology, chemistry, and/or psychology. That is why purported collective visions fail to put in an appearance. If, however, we turn to the wider world, it is otherwise. 

I have already, in the previous chapter, documented quite a few instances of two or more people purporting to have seen a recently deceased individual at the same time, and I shall offer more  examples in subsequent pages.49 But collective visions are reported in other contexts, too. Indeed, there is a wealth of material here. There is, for instance, the puzzling case of two trapped miners who claimed to have shared the same complex visions.50 There is the report from Carl Jung of seeing, along with a friend, a painting that was not there.51 There is the story of Henry Hugh Gordon Dacre Stoker and two others escaping from a Turkish prison and, while on their harrowing trek over the Taurus Mountains, not only sensing the presence of a friendly fourth man but seeing this comforting figure who cheered them on.52 There is the all-important and mystifying story of Ruth, the patient of New York psychiatrist Morton Schatzman, who could hallucinate at will. On two occasions, others claimed to observe one of her projections.53 There is the utterly bizarre collective vision of six school children in Nottingham in 1979, all of whom, when interrogated, told the same story of seeing several exotic little people.54 There are multiple first-hand reports of people at a death bed sharing the vision of the dying.55 And there are of course the many narratives in which more than one person supposedly sees the Virgin Mary at the same time.56 One could go on and on. The reports are there.57 

I refrain from evaluating the miscellany just introduced. Many in our culture reflexively know that all such stories can be slotted into the usual explain-them-away categories: optical illusion, ex post facto exchange of information, etc. I do not share their kneejerk optimism. Here, however, the key point is another. If one were to judge all group visions to be, for whatever reasons, counterfeit, it would be wholly natural to suspect the same for the New Testament reports. But if one were to decide, as I have, that not all collective sightings can be dissolved with the usual critical solvents, it would be reasonable to be open-minded about the early Christian claims. What does not seem so reasonable is to brand all extra-biblical collective sightings as bogus, as “hallucinations” in the deprecatory sense, while at the same time urging that the appearances of Jesus must have been veridical, in large part because, in some instances, more than one person purportedly saw the same thing. 

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF VISIONS 

It may be helpful to attend again to the general phenomenology of visions (emphasizing once more that I do so without assuming that they are, in every case, altogether endogenous). James Orr, in making his case against visionary theories of the resurrection appearances, asserted: “‘Visions’ are phantasmal, and would [have] be[en] construed [by the disciples] as ‘apparitions’ of the dead, not as proofs of resurrection.”58 This objection has occurred to many.59 What weight should we give to it? The glitch in this line of reasoning is that it naively assumes one particular stereotype about “ghosts” or “apparitions.” As observed in the previous chapter, however, only some apparitions are ethereal or vaporous. Others can seem “very real.”60 Anyone familiar with either the psychological literature on hallucinations or the parapsychological literature on apparitions knows that many figures seen in visions appear convincingly lifelike in every respect. One recent survey of modern visions of the dead offers this generalization: “almost three quarters of our informants said the deceased person had been physically present until he or she disappeared.”61 

I have already offered illustrations from first-hand accounts of the sense of physicality. Since, however, many find this idea difficult to absorb, I wish to offer three more samples of the sort of thing people report: 

• This is a man speaking of his late wife: she “lay down in my arms. I cannot tell you how happy I was to see her. I stroked her face and kissed her. She was as solid as the last time I had held her. I told her how much I missed her and she spoke to me saying she loved me, too… I pinched myself, as I was sure I was dreaming. It hurt…she was still there… She then slowly faded away.”62 

• After recounting her vision of and conversation with her dead son, who hugged her and lifted her off the ground after she asked whether she could touch him, the mother commented: “What happened was as real as if he had been standing right there. I now feel that I can put my son’s death behind me and get on fully with my life.”63 

• This is a woman’s testimony about an experience with her dead husband: “I awoke one morning to find Harold’s warm hand in mine… He was wearing his favorite sky-blue sweater and he was wearing his wrist watch. It was as real as life and the warmth of his hand I can still feel.”64

What exactly is going on in such accounts is a good question. One possibility is that, if we take modern science seriously, all perception is projection and so, to some extent, imaginal. In response to incoming electrical and chemical signals, our inner theatre—for lack of a better metaphor— shows us a film.65 But we can also show ourselves films without the usual input, and not just in dreams or under hypnosis or in a drug-induced condition but in the fully conscious waking state. The most interesting and controversial question with regard to apparitions of the dead, of course, is whether they are, in each and every case, all-in-the-mind illusions, wholly self-induced, or whether some of our virtual reality productions are staged in response to unusual, mind-independent input. 

However readers answer that puzzle, no one acquainted with the facts can doubt that human beings free of mental illness or physical impairment can, even in the absence of signals from the five ordinary senses, see wholly realistic scenes and encounter characters who are experienced as solidly real.66 Apparitions can imitate in every respect ordinary perceptual experiences. Moreover, visionary objects, such as images of a deceased loved-one, commonly impress themselves on the eyes just like ordinary objects: people seem to see them as they see other things, and recent neuroimaging studies suggest that visionary experiences, unlike conscious exercise of the imagination, implicate the same areas and pathways of the brain that ordinary perception excites.67 In the words of Oliver Sacks, “not only subjectively but physiologically, hallucinations are unlike imagination and much more like perceptions. Writing of hallucinations in 1760, Bonnet said, ‘The mind would not be able to tell apart vision from reality,’” and recent work “shows that the brain does not distinguish them either.”68 

Let us now return to the disciples, who had not read a single modern book or article on “hallucinations” or apparitions. If they operated with James Orr’s folklorish idea of an ethereal ghost—a common idea in their world as in ours69—what would they have thought if one or more of them had an experience like the people I have quoted above? What, that is, would they have thought if their visions of Jesus were not opaque and dreamy or in any way phantomic but wholly lifelike, so that their experience did not match their culturally derived idea of a ghost?70 

We can offer an answer once we take into account that Jesus’ followers must have shared his eschatological expectations. As Lk. 19:11 remembers: “they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.” This entails that, prior to Easter, they expected the eschatological resurrection to take place soon.71 In such an eschatological context, experiences of a Jesus who appeared solid and lifelike would not have led anyone to declare, “I’ve just seen a ghost!” Such experiences might rather have led them to believe that he had risen from the dead and that the resurrection of the last day had begun. This is why I am unpersuaded by the refrain of the apologists, that an apparition of Jesus would not have encouraged the disciples to believe in his resurrection because they knew well enough the difference between a ghost and a resurrected man. The argument not only ignores the phenomenology of a substantial number of visionary experiences but also overlooks the disciples’ eschatological expectations. 

Nothing I have said enables us to ferret out exactly how much history lies embedded in Mt. 28:8-10; Lk. 24:36-43; or Jn 20:24-29. I do not know how anyone can establish that Mary Magdalene really believed that she had touched the risen Jesus, or that a group of Jesus’ followers really thought that they had seen him eat and offer his body for inspection. Historians cannot, in my judgment, do so much, and on such matters agnosticism commends itself. I am again only urging, as I did in the previous chapter, that the ostensible physicality of some of our stories is scarcely an insurmountable objection to visionary theories, for those stories could descend from experiences that were visionary and yet seemed to the participants to be utterly unghostlike.72 

A TYPOLOGY OF THE APPEARANCES AS VISIONS 

Having tackled some common objections to comparing the Easter experiences with certain visionary experiences, I should like to draw some much-needed distinctions. 

It is customary to differentiate stories about the empty tomb from stories about the appearances of the risen Jesus. It is also common to sort the latter into subgroups. Scholars have, for this or that end, distinguished between episodes set in Galilee and those set in Jerusalem, or between those in which Jesus appears to women and those in which he appears to men, or between those where Jesus appears to an individual and those where he appears to a group, or between those highlighting a word of command and those highlighting recognition of an initially unidentified figure, or between those with a Jesus seen in heaven and those with a Jesus seen on earth.73

While all these distinctions have their place within critical analysis of the resurrection traditions, I should like to offer yet another. My suggestion is that the comparative study of visions suggests a four-fold taxonomy for our materials. 

(1) There are, to begin with, traditions about Jesus appearing to individuals who knew him before Good Friday—Mary Magdalene, Peter, James. These, as argued throughout this and the previous chapter, share features with well-attested visionary experiences. People often see and even interact with a deceased friend or relative in the days, weeks, and months following his or her death. Furthermore, cases in which a dead individual appears now to one percipient and then to another are plentiful.74 

(2) The second sort of experience is that of a small group sharing a vision. To this category belong the story about Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, the appearance(s) to the twelve, and the complex story in John 21.75 Such collective reports are less rare than one might think. In the original “Report on the Census of Hallucinations,” 8.7% of the visual reports were collective, 6.9% of the auditory reports collective. Working with the same data, G. N. M. Tyrrell calculated, more precisely and amazingly enough, that, “when the percipient is not alone, about one third of the cases are collective.”76 Hornell Hart, after eliminating cases where potential viewers were asleep or not in a position to see what another was seeing, came up with a much higher figure for the data from the Census of Hallucinations—56%.77 In a more recent, twentieth-century survey, 12% of apparitional experiences were collective;78 and the data from a study in Iceland, which collected 349 reports, show that, of 89 cases in which two or more people were in a position to share a supposed encounter with a dead individual, they did so in 41 cases.79 Unfortunately, these assessments fail to distinguish between visions of figures known and unknown and between figures recently deceased or long deceased. Nonetheless, and even if one finds the fact hard to explain, people do report sharing their visions with others, so the New Testament is not unique here. 

THE VISION OF THE FIVE HUNDRED 

(3) The appearance to the five hundred (1 Cor. 15:7) belongs, in my view, to a wholly different category. We have, to be sure, no details about this event, for attempts to equate it with anything in the gospels or with Pentecost fail to sway.80 Yet if we cast about for possible analogies, we do not come up empty. Parallels appear, not in the literature on apparitions, but in accounts of religious enthusiasm. History knows of occasions where a large crowd, gathered for a religious purpose, reportedly saw a miraculous manifestation. The climactic appearance of the BVM at Fatima, Portugal in 1917, or the multiple sightings at St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Zeitoun, Egypt in 1968 come to mind.81 In these cases, crowds looked up and, whatever the explanation, saw something. That 1 Cor. 15:7 refers to a vision in the sky is a good bet. It is very hard to fathom how an assembly of “more than five hundred” could see an earthbound man “at one time” or “all at once” (ἐφάπαξ), or, if they did, how the majority of them could, unless there was a receiving line, have identified the figure or seen or heard much of what was going on. There were no concert projection screens back then. 

A skeptic could offer that people must have naively misinterpreted some natural phenomenon. Even today, some Christians eagerly pass around pictures of clouds that, to them, look like Jesus.82 So did a first-century crowd, naive about pareidolia, look up and marvel at a figure in the clouds?83 Paul says that Jesus appeared ἐπάνω πεντακοσίοις ἀδελφοῖς. While the usual translation is “to more than five hundred,” the adverb, ἐπάνω, can mean “above” or “over,” and some older exegetes took that to be the sense here.84 Is there any chance they were right? One recalls the cross of light that Constantine’s “whole army”—in number far more than five hundred—allegedly saw; and if Eusebius could credit such an event (which he claims to have heard from the emperor himself),85 maybe a similar phenomenon explains 1 Cor. 15:6. “Things in the sky, or at least overhead, are the most commonly seen collective hallucinations: radiant crosses, saints, religious symbols, flying objects, sometimes all these in combination.”86 

This, however, is hardly the sole option. I, for one, am unsure as to what exactly happened at Fatima, and I am nonplussed by what I know about Zeitoun.87 So it is not self-evident to me that additional knowledge of the five hundred and their circumstances would free us from all puzzlement. Still, because we cannot, from our far-removed tim e and place, exclude the possibility that a large crowd made out a pattern in a natural phenomenon and thereby turned the mundane into the miraculous, the appearance to the five hundred is, in my judgment, the least evidential of all the appearances.88 Let me illustrate with a parallel. This is the testimony of a pilgrim to Medjugorje: About 50 neighbours went along… All at once seven or eight of us began shouting, “Look at that light.” It came from the sky, as if the sky had opened up about ten metres, and it came toward us. It stopped over the hole in the ground…where the people had been digging up the earth… There was a wooden cross in the hole and the light seemed to stream from it. It was as if a balloon of light had burst and there were thousands of tiny stars everywhere. We were just bathed in light… We were all crying. As long as I live I shall never forget that night.89 

How do we account for these words? Perhaps they are, despite the first-hand source, sheer invention, a pious fable. Or maybe something happened, but it was nothing more than excited imaginations construing some natural phenomenon as a religious event. Or maybe, if we knew more, we would still be stumped as to what really happened. The problem is that, without further investigation, such as interviews with several of the “50 neighbours,” one has, to my mind, no business thinking much of anything. It is the same with the appearance to the five hundred, the reason being that we know next to nothing about it. All we have is a single Greek sentence from someone who was not there. 

PAUL’S VISION 

(4) Paul’s experience was not that of a relative or close friend encountering a loved-one newly dead. Nor, despite Acts 22:9 (“those with me saw the light”),90 should we characterize it as a collective vision. I also cannot see that we gain much from comparing it with the experiences of merkabah mystics.91 

Once in a while, someone wonders whether Paul’s vision was part of a so-called near-death experience (NDE).92 The NDE is a subjectively real, often life-changing phenomenon that is well attested cross-culturally and cross-temporally.93 It “is best regarded,” for the purpose of definition, “as a collection of typical sub-experiences: a variable combination of a number of possible elements from an established repertoire, the details of which differ on a case-by-case basis for reasons which remain largely obscure.”94 One of its common elements is encounter with what the literature most often speaks of as “a being of light.”95 Those reporting NDEs in the Western world often identify this being with God, Jesus, or an angel, although just as often they attempt no identification. This being of light typically communicates a vital message.

 All this might remind one of Paul, or at least the Paul of Acts 9:1-9; 22:1-16; and 26:12-18. For in Acts not only does the apostle’s life take a radical turn after encountering Jesus in the midst of light, but his experience is accompanied by a serious physical ailment: “though his eyes were open he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.” Maybe Paul’s blindness was not an effect of his visionary encounter but rather a symptom of a medical condition that precipitated his experience; and might this occasion have been one in which Paul, to recall 2 Cor. 11:23, was “near death”? 

I do not dismiss this possibility out of hand. Neither, however, do I endorse it. While I have, in Chapter 4, argued that the accounts in Acts may not be far from Paul’s historical experience, there is no real evidence that the apostle was, on the Damascus road, close to death. And too many common features of NDEs are missing. There is no separation from the body, no autoscopic experience, no tunnel, no life review, no entering a transcendent realm. 

It makes more sense to set Paul’s experience alongside other conversion visions. such as that of Hugh Montefiore, introduced above.96 Even closer to Paul’s experience, at least as Acts depicts it, is that of Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889–1929), the one-time well-known Indian convert to Christianity. An encounter with an unearthly light, which Singh identified with Jesus Christ, issued in a new religious life.97 Here are his words: 

I was praying and praying but got no answer; and I prayed for half an hour longer hoping to get peace. At 4.30 A.M. I saw something of which I had no idea at all previously. In the room where I was praying I saw a great light. I thought the place was on fire. I looked round, but could find nothing. Then the thought came to me that this might be an answer that God had sent me. Then as I prayed and looked into the light, I saw the form of the Lord Jesus Christ. It had such an appearance of glory and love. If it had been some Hindu incarnation I would have prostrated myself before it. But it was the Lord Jesus Christ whom I had been insulting a few days before. I felt that a vision like this could not come out of my own imagination. I heard a voice saying in Hindustani, How long will you persecute me? I have come to save you; you were praying to know the right way. Why do you not take it? The thought then came to me, Jesus Christ is not dead but living and it must be He Himself. So I fell at His feet and got this wonderful Peace which I could not get anywhere else.98 

One further recalls the famous conversion of Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne (1814–1884), although in this case the percipient identified the figure in dazzling white not as Jesus but as Mary. Ratisbonne walked into a church in Rome an atheistic Jew. He exited a Roman Catholic convert. In his words: 

I had been but a few moments in the church when I was suddenly seized with an unutterable agitation of mind. I raised my eyes, the building had disappeared from before me; one single chapel had, so to speak, gathered and concentrated all the light; and in the midst of this radiance I saw standing on the altar lofty, clothed with splendours, full of majesty and of sweetness, the Virgin Mary… An irresistible force drew me towards her; the Virgin made me a sign with her hand that I should kneel down; and then she seemed to say, That will do! She spoke not a word but I understood it all.99 

Given what many apologists have urged about Paul, it is of interest that Roman Catholics have often emphasized that Ratisbonne converted notwithstanding his atheism, his often-expressed hostility towards Christianity, and the ensuing alienation from his Jewish family, friends, and fiancée. 

Less well known is the conversion of the British Colonel James Gardiner in 1716, here recalled by Philip Doddridge: 

He thought he saw an unusual blaze of light fall on the book while he was reading, which he at first imagined might happen by some accident in the candle. But lifting up his eyes, he apprehended, to his extreme amazement, that there was before him, as it were suspended in the air, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, surrounded on all sides with a glory; and was impressed, as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him, to this effect, (for he was not confident as to the very words;) “O sinner, did I suffer this for thee, and are these the returns?” But whether this were an audible voice, or only a strong impression on his mind equally striking, he did not seem very confident… Struck with so amazing a phenomenon as this, there remained hardly any life in him, so that he sunk down in the arm-chair in which he sat, and continued, he knew not exactly how long, insensible.100 

Here is a more recent story, from 1949: 

The room gradually filled with light… It was not light in the accepted sense—rather a diffused glow which left the perimeter of the room in deeper darkness. I was intrigued rather than frightened… The glow of light slowly assumed the shape of a man. Quite tall, he was dressed in a loose white robe, had thick, dark, shoulder length hair in the style of an Ethiopian, a small dark beard (no moustache), a prominent but symmetrical nose and the most sad and compassionate brown eyes I have ever seen. He just looked at me over his left shoulder, smiled, and said, “I—am the resurrection and the life.”101

From our own time and place we have the story of Susan Atkins, a follower of Charles Manson: 

I looked again at my future, my alternatives: Stay in prison. Escape. Commit suicide. As I looked, the wall in my mind was blank. But somehow I knew there was another alternative. I could consciously choose the road as many people…had been pressing upon me. I could decide to follow Jesus. As plainly as daylight came the words, “You have to decide… Behold I stand at the door, and knock.” Did I hear someone say that?… I assume I spoke in my thoughts, but I’m not certain. “What door?” “You know what door and where it is, Susan. Just turn around and open it, and I will come in.” Suddenly, as though on a movie screen, there in my thoughts was a door. It had a handle. I took hold of it, and pulled. It opened. The whitest, most brilliant light I had ever seen poured over me… In the center of the flood of brightness was an even brighter light. Vaguely, there was the form of a man. I knew it was Jesus. He spoke to me—literally, plainly, matter-of-factly spoke to me in my nine-by-nine prison cell: “Susan, I am really here. I’m really coming into your heart to stay”… I was distinctly aware that I inhaled deeply and then, just as fully, exhaled. There was no more guilt!102 

Here is one more story, from an unnamed contemporary European: 

One night I suddenly woke up & saw a blazing light between the cupboard & the wardrobe—I could see nothing but the light, yet I knew Jesus was in the midst of it. I scrambled from bed, fell on my knees & sobbed my heart out, asking for forgiveness… I was in fact “converted”… Like St. Paul, I had to have a blinding light before I would believe.103 

In contemplating stories such as these, one should keep in mind that visions of otherworldly beings of light are not confined to conversion experiences or NDEs. In fact, seeing such a being is not uncommon, although there are few serious studies of the phenomenon.104 The Bible itself, in Ezekiel 1, perhaps offers an illustration: the prophet, in his inaugural vision, beholds something in the heavens that seems to be “like a human form,” and it is in the midst of fire and splendor (vv. 26-28). Whatever one makes of Ezekiel—which has influenced the accounts of Paul’s call in Acts105—here are four modern illustrations: 

• A woman was crying with her eyes closed when a “voice said, ‘What’s the matter? Why are you crying? What is it? Tell me.’ And I just said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.’ And she said, “What are you sorry for?’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry for my reaction to my mother when I was young.’ She then said, ‘Is that all? Anyone in your family would have reacted in the same way.’ At that I opened my eyes to look at her. And standing there was this huge being in a brilliant white light. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Words just can’t express.”106 The conversational nature of this visionary encounter recalls Paul and Jesus in Acts. 

• “Ten years ago my husband was in hospital, dying of cancer, I was sitting alone in the lounge, in despair. I had the feeling that I was no longer alone, & saw a figure of light standing quite near me. That is the best way I can describe what I saw, as it appeared as a form, about 5ft tall, & I know that it radiated comfort to me; all my worries faded away, & I was elevated to Heaven, & carried right out of this world. No miracle saved my husband, but I am convinced that this was an angel of goodness, sent to comfort me.” Note that the percipient is sitting in a lounge yet understands herself to be simultaneously in heaven (cf. 2 Cor. 12:2).107 

• In connection with the Welsh revival of 1904, a man reported this encounter: “I beheld a faint light playing over my head and approaching the earth… It came downwards and stood before me, about the size of a man’s body, and in the bright and glorious light I beheld there the face of a man, and by looking for the body in the light a shining white robe was covering it to its feet and it was not touching the earth and behind its arms there were wings appearing, and I was seeing every feather in the wings…the whole was heavenly beyond description. And then the palms of the hands were appearing, and on each hand there were brown spots… I beheld that they were the marks of the nails, and then I recognized him as Jesus.”108 

• An individual in a spiritual crisis wrote this: “I opened my eyes. In front of me, suspended several feet off the ground, I saw a pair of feet. They had sandals on them. They weren’t normal feet. They seemed to be made of light. They were translucent white, and they seemed to glow. The sandals were white, too. I could see the hem of a garment, and I looked up quickly. As quickly as I could comprehend what I was seeing, I began to question. And as the being disappeared, I saw a flowing white robe and sash. The light that came from them was dazzling…I could see a face made of the same dazzling white light… I know that the young woman next to me saw nothing. If it was Jesus Himself, or an angel, I cannot say with certainty.”109 Here there is no voice, and the identity of figure remains a mystery. 

Such parallels should, to my mind, occasion reflection. If, as Acts has it, Paul encountered the risen Jesus as a blinding light, or as a shining being within that light, and if he conversed with that light and the occasion changed his life, then his experience is not without parallel. 

Before moving on, I wish to quote one more first-hand testimony to a vision in which someone saw a being of light. I do this because, in certain particulars, it is so markedly similar to what happens to Paul in Acts. I quote the account in full, solecisms and all: 

I was sitting in my kitchen crying, and asking for help from god, I was praying with my eyes closed, when all of a sudden i saw a light, that started to come closer and closer, it knocked me backwards off my stool, I turned over on my hands and knees and opened my eyes, but found I had no eyesight, I crawled and pulled my self up by the sink unit, I opened my eyes and still had no eyesight, I was just about to scream for help, when I heard a voice telling me not to panic, that my prayers had been heard, and that this light had defeated armies and knocked people off horses in the past. I was then told to find my stool and say my prayers and my eyesight would be returned, of which it was. I was told my life would be altered and it has.110 

As this is the only story of its kind known to me, I can do nothing with it. I have asked myself whether this man was an epileptic, because seizures can occasion visions, voices, and transient blindness.111 To that question, however, I have no answer. I can only observe that, if one were to find similar accounts, further comparison with Paul might be in order.112

THE SERIES AS A WHOLE 

Even if one grants that the four-fold typology I have introduced is useful, one might wonder how things stand if we put everything together. Are there any cases in which an apparition allegedly appeared to one individual, then to another, and then, beyond that, to a group of people at once? That is, does the literature on apparitions offer any analogies, however imperfect, to the New Testament series as a whole?113 

In June of 1932, a chimney-sweep named Samuel Bull died, leaving behind his invalid wife and his twenty-one-year-old grandson, James. Shortly thereafter, as the story goes, Bull’s daughter— Mrs. Edwards—and her husband, along with their five children, moved into the Bull’s crowded and dilapidated residence in Ramsbury, Wiltshire to help care for the aged wife. In February of the next year, Mrs. Edwards and one of her daughters reported seeing Samuel Bull climb stairs and enter his wife’s room. Not long after, Mrs. Edwards saw him again, this time along with her nephew James. After hearing of these events, Mrs. Bull confessed that she too had seen her husband. Subsequently, the entire family claimed to see, on more than one occasion, the apparition—which appeared to be solid—at one and the same time. Mrs. Bull further claimed to have felt his hand touch hers twice and to have heard him once call her name.114 The events ended in early April, about three months after they began.

 More recently there are the stories associated with Eastern Airlines flight 401, which crashed in the Everglades in December of 1972. Soon after the tragedy, reports began to circulate among the flight crews of multiple airlines about sightings of two of the dead crew, Captain Bob Loft and flight engineer and second officer, Dan Repo. Perhaps the most remarkable account had it that, on one Eastern flight, a full-scale apparition of Loft appeared in a first-class seat. On this occasion, two flight attendants supposedly saw him, as did a captain who recognized him, whereupon he vanished. Other Eastern personnel, including a Vice President of the airlines, recounted seeing Repo in full or his disembodied face on various flights, and one captain declared that Repo warned a flight engineer of an electrical problem which was then resolved. A catering crew, moreover, became frightened and exited a plane when a flight attendant, standing in the galley, instantly disappeared; and on yet another occasion, two attendants and a flight engineer reportedly saw Repo’s fully formed face warn them about a fire. In a totally separate incident, Repo’s wife claimed he returned to her one evening while she lay in bed, and that she was able to feel his hand. The stories stopped about a year after they started.115 

Before proceeding, something needs to be said about the provenance of my two narratives. Samuel Bull was not a fictional character, and his family did, without question, recount the events outlined above, events that were (unlike the stories of Jesus’ resurrection) on paper within two months of the onset of the apparitions. The family, furthermore, was carefully interviewed not only by a local Vicar, the Rev. G. H. Hackett—he spoke with the family more than once and judged them to be credible116—but also by others of good repute, including Lord Arthur Balfour, the former Prime Minister. The story of Samuel Bull is, then, neither legend nor friend-of-a-friend tale. We rather have to do either with witnesses who told lies they had rehearsed together or with a family genuinely puzzled by their experiences.117 

As for flight 401, things are more complicated. Afraid that the ghost story would be bad publicity, Eastern Airlines officially dismissed the rumors and let it be known that employees recounting a metanormal experience would be subject to psychological evaluation. In such circumstances, it is obvious why it was hard for interested parties to collect first-hand testimonies. Nonetheless, a journalist was able to get several witnesses to confide in him. Three claimed to have been overwhelmed by the sense of an invisible presence. One of these also told of seeing Repo’s materialized face. Two of the stewardesses also said that they had themselves heard from the flight attendants who claimed to have the full-bodied apparition of Loft in a first-class seat, and this on the very day that it happened. So once again we are seemingly not in the land of unbridled legend. We are rather dealing with people who, whatever the explanation, reported that they and others had run into the dead. 

My purpose in clarifying the sources for the stories about Samuel Bull and crew members of flight 401 is not to maintain that everything happened as reported, much less to insist that the sole explanation of the stories is the postmortem survival of certain individuals (although that explanation would help account for the data, if they are close to accurate). It is simply to show that the reports are first-hand, and that we have little cause to doubt the sincerity of the reporters. The historical ground here is no less firm than it is for the New Testament stories about Easter, or so it seems to me. 

If the point be conceded, one cannot oppose the visionary interpretation of the appearances of Jesus on the ground that there are no other decently attested reports of a figure appearing, soon after death, to both individuals and groups. Apparitional narratives are not always one-act plays. Of course, it remains beyond obvious that the stories about flight 401 and Samuel Bull are, in manifold and significant ways, profoundly different from what we find in the earliest Christian sources. My sole point here is that early Christian literature is not unique in reporting that a deceased individual appeared to one person, then to another, and then to several people at once.

A THEOLOGICAL FOOTNOTE 

The previous pages are not intended to explain, much less explain away, the resurrection appearances of Jesus. My goal has rather been to show that many of the standard objections to comparing those appearances with visionary experiences fall flat, and that, despite protests, the stories in the gospels exhibit salient parallels with reports of apparitional encounters from various times and places. I do not deny the differences. Those differences do not, however, cancel the similarities. 

The upshot of comparison is, for this writer, the conviction that real human experiences of a visionary nature likely lie behind the canonical accounts, despite all the later overlay.118 If so much of what we see in stories in the gospels resembles first-hand testimony from other sources and other contexts, this is reason to suppose that the stories are not pure ideological constructions but rather reflect odd things that happened. 

Many of my fellow Christians will balk at this. They want Jesus’ resurrection to be unique in every respect. Given this, I should like to add two brief remarks. 

First, this chapter says nothing at all about the empty tomb. Someone accepting the drift of my argument—the parallels tell us something important—could hold that Jesus’ tomb was empty because he vacated it and that, after entering a different state of existence or parallel space, he appeared to his immediate followers, as he did to Paul, via visionary experiences.119 This was Pannenberg’s view. In the language of Mt. 16:17, revelation does not always come through flesh and blood. 

Second, regarding the ontological nature of veridical appearances, if such there be, none of us knows much of anything. We habitually suppose that things are either there or not there. But a veridical apparition seems to be something that is there and not there at the same time, or inexplicably there one minute and inexplicably gone the next. 

It is similar with the resurrection appearances of Jesus. They are peculiar in the extreme. They fail to befuddle only because we are so used to reading and hearing them. The risen Jesus is not like the Lazarus of John’s Gospel, who exits his tomb for all to see (11:44-45). He rather appears out of the blue and disappears abruptly, as though he were instantly materializing and dematerializing.120 Unlike the pre-Easter Jesus, who often walks away and can be followed,121 no one goes after the post-Easter Jesus as he exits. Something is wildly different. He seems to pop in from elsewhere122—unless one absurdly imagines that, between appearances, he is present but veiled by a cloaking device or expertly hiding out in some top-secret locale.123 Mysteriously free from the laws that rule the rest of us, he is unhampered by material conditions. His corporeal attributes are, if he is a corpus, extraordinary. One understands why Origen, trying to make sense of the texts, surmised that the risen Jesus “existed in a sort of intermediate body, between the grossness of that which he had before his sufferings and the appearance of a soul uncovered by such a body.”124 

It is equally anomalous that, according to the reports, when the risen Jesus appeared, some who had known him failed to recognize him or doubted what they saw.125 Something more than run-ofthe-mill perception was involved.126 The appearances rather had uncanny features that suit visionary experiences better than everyday seeing.127

To my mind, the enigmatic, other-worldly Jesus of the Easter stories is kin to the mysterious Jesus of John’s Gospel: he conceals even as he reveals. Like the apophatic deity, he does not correspond to familiar concepts but instead punches holes in conventional knowledge. He is a mystery on the other side of an onto-epistemic gulf.

 What follows? Most early Christians operated with a simple, dualistic anthropology: human beings have or are bodies and souls.128 Further, they regarded the latter as imperfect and deficient without the former; and since the risen Jesus was, for them, in no way deficient or incomplete, and since they believed his tomb to be empty, they thought of him as having a material body in his risen state. 

The problem for us, however, is that we do not know what bodies are because, having been instructed by modern physics, we no longer know what matter is.129 The seemingly solid has dissolved into waves of probability. If, moreover, there is a spirit or soul, we know even less about it. Given this, we can no more take over, without further ado, the disciples’ unsophisticated anthropology than we can adopt a literal reading of Genesis.130 We are wholly in the dark as to the metaphysical nature of bodies and souls. 

At least I am. For all I know, maybe some form of idealism is true. Or perhaps the so-called simulation hypothesis is correct and we are information bits in God’s virtual-reality program, so that the whole world is an apparition. Or—to pick at random another option out of a thousand— maybe Ibn ‘Arabi’s idea of the imaginal as interpreted by Henri Corbin is close to the truth, and the post-Easter Jesus existed in a subtle body of “immaterial matter”: real but not physical in the ordinary sense.131 

What counts in the end, or so it seems to me, is not the metaphysical or ontological status of the bodily form of the enigmatic post-Easter Jesus—something nobody can know anything about—but the personal identity of the risen one with the crucified Jesus of Nazareth,132 and the circumstance that, whatever else he seemed to be, he was not an insubstantial, ghostly relic, the defeated victim of death. What is the advantage of an interpretation of the resurrection so literal that it forces the conclusion that the risen Jesus retained his kidneys and genitals, had a body full of carbon and oxygen atoms, and sported a material costume?133 

Traditionally, most Christians have believed that, at some point, Jesus passed “into a new mode or sphere of existence.”134 I see no theological deficit in supposing that this happened before he appeared to Mary and Peter.135

Chapter 11. Enduring Bonds

The previous two chapters have addressed certain resemblances between encounters with the risen Jesus and other visions of the recently departed. In this chapter, I should like to propose some additional parallels between the experiences of the disciples after the crucifixion and common experiences of people after the loss of a loved one. It is my purpose to suggest, quite tentatively, and with due caution, that the recent literature on bereavement may offer several helpful ways of conceptualizing certain aspects of Christian origins.1 

ANTICIPATING OBJECTIONS(2) 

Here at the outset I must address two obvious objections. The first is that it is inappropriate to compare the situation of ordinary people in bereavement with the situation of Jesus’ disciples, whose “mourning and weeping” (Ps.-Mk 16:10) were so soon turned into joy. The disciples saw the risen Jesus; they knew his abiding presence; and their sadness became thanksgiving. How then can we suppose them in any way akin to average people suffering the loss of a close friend or family member? 

The problem with this protest is that it misapprehends the nature of the disciples’ situation. The joy begotten by belief in the resurrection did not obliterate either the memory that Jesus had been publicly humiliated and tortured to death or the fact that they themselves had abandoned him.3 Nor did the appearances, whatever view we take of their nature, turn back the clock and make all as it had ever been. Jesus, although present in a new way, remained in the old way absent. A profound deprivation remained. This is why his followers longed for his return, why the idea of his parousia was so important for them. 

Jesus’ followers, moreover, had to make decisions without his counsel. They had to fashion new roles for themselves in a world that was different without him. And they had to undergo a process of internalization, had to learn how to transform an external relationship into memories and internal images. So when Jesus died, some things died for good with him and never came back. In all this, as also in their need to find meaning in his tragic end, the disciples were not so different from others who have had to come to terms with the premature or painful death of a loved companion. Surely, then, we might expect them to have had some of the same thoughts, to have exhibited some of the same behavior, and to have suffered some of the same stress as other people in not wholly dissimilar situations. 

A second possible protest against thinking about the disciples in terms of bereavement as analyzed by modern psychologists is that we cannot compare first-century Mediterranean Jews with modern Western individuals, as though human nature were static, impervious to cultural influence. In response, I concede that my points of comparison are inevitably based on data gathered from the contemporary world. Yet one can hardly regard as culturally specific the few generalizations I make over the next few pages. While it is true enough that mourning behaviors differ from place to place and time to time,4 “intercultural and intracultural differences appear to be more related to bereavement rituals and practices rather than to basic human emotional responses”;5 and the five points that I wish to focus on—sensing an invisible presence, suffering guilt, feeling anger, idealizing the dead, and recollecting one recently deceased—are scarcely restricted to the modern Western world but are rather cross-cultural phenomena.6 With this in mind, then, I should now like to make some exploratory suggestions.

THE SENSE OF PRESENCE (SOP) 

Early Christians conceptualized part of their religious experience as the presence of Jesus. In Mt. 18:20, Jesus says that, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I, in their midst,” and in 28:20 he promises, “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age.” In Gal. 2:20, Paul writes, “Christ lives in me,” and in Rom. 8:10 he says the same of his readers: “Christ is in you.” For the first Christians, Jesus was, despite his bodily absence, present.7 

This theologoumenon of Jesus’ abiding presence may go back to the very beginnings of the Palestinian Jesus movement, to the days and weeks after the crucifixion. Those who have recently suffered the loss of a loved one commonly sense that individuals’ continuing presence. The experience, defined by Dewi Rees as “a strong impression of the near presence of the deceased which is not associated with any auditory, visual or tactile hallucination,”8 is common enough to have produced a large literature.9 “A number of studies have found that approximately half of the bereaved population experience the sense of presence of the deceased…although the true incidence is thought to be much higher, given a great reluctance among the bereaved to disclose its occurrence to clinicians for fear of ridicule or being thought of as ‘mad or stupid.’”10 Here are a few representative reports of SOP from experiencers:11 

• “I had a feeling that he was with me and the feeling stayed with me for about a year. It was like having a comfortable shawl around me. Even though I was anxious, I felt he was with me.” 

• “It was like the phantom pain of my limb loss. The limb was still there even though it wasn’t. It was the same with Phil.” • “He’s always with me.” 

• “She did come last week. She was there in spirit. I was surprised.” 

• “I feel that no harm can come to me because he is always around me.” 

• “It was sunny, still and peaceful. Then I felt he came to me like a storm through the calm weather. I could really feel him all around me.”

• “From time to time, since the deaths of both of my grandfathers, I have had the feeling of the sense of their presence in my bedroom just before going to sleep… I just feel they are near, standing next to the bed. It makes me feel reassured that maybe they’re looking after me.”12 

• “I always feel the presence of my father in fearful situations. I am more accepting of his death because I know he is around me when I need him.” 

• “I had this feeling that Matt was there in the room. I tried to shrug it off. As I turned to my left to look at Alice and Marie, they were both looking at me, wearing the most unusual expressions. The silence seemed forever until I said, ‘Do you feel what I feel?’ Almost in unison they nodded their heads and said: ‘Yes.’ We all felt he was there.” 

• “It was as if the room filled with his presence, a presence almost palpable, as vivid and as real as if he had just physically entered the room, spoken to me, or touched my shoulder”13 

• “All that talk about ‘feeling that he is closer to us than before’ isn’t just talk. It’s just what it does feel like—I can’t put it into words.”14 

• “When my father died, I had a feeling of his presence. I knew that he was not dead but alive.”15 

• “I became aware of…my husband’s ‘presence.’ No face to be seen just an intense feeling that he was near, so close that I could feel a kind of ‘aura’ around me and such intense joy and love. All I could do was say to myself ‘I know, I know.’”16 

As with visions of the newly departed, the explanation of these experiences, which are not pathological,17 is open for debate. A reductionist can refer to Justin Barrett’s thesis that human beings have a hypersensitive agency detection device,18 observe that it is possible to induce artificially a felt presence via electrical stimulation,19 and then add that the pious from different religious traditions sense the presence of different religious figures.20 The other side can appeal to occasions when more than one individual reportedly senses an unseen presence at the same time and place.21 The story of Ernest Shackleton and “the fourth man” is a famous illustration.22 The subject is of course vast because there are countless reports of people somehow sensing all sorts of invisible presences—an evil force or a loving presence or, as already noted, a religious companion, such as a god, guardian angel, or saint.23

 All that matters for our immediate purpose, however, is that the sense of an invisible presence is both subjectively real and common, and this fact may offer an experiential background for the early Christian understanding of Jesus as a sort of ubiquitous presence in which one dwells.24 He was known to be gone yet believed to be present. Is it not likely that this idea grew, if only in part, out of some having a vivid sense of Jesus’ presence soon after his death, of experiencing him as “still caring for them, watching out for their welfare, and protecting them.”25 

GUILT AND FORGIVENESS 

Jesus’ end likely fostered guilt as well as sadness. The disciples had forsaken their master, who had died without them. Peter had added verbal insult to cowardly injury by denying that he knew his companion and leader. If Jesus ever declared that whoever denied him would be denied before the angels of God, the avowal must have hung heavily over those who had gone up with him from Galilee and Jerusalem, only to abandon him in his hour of need. Belief in his resurrection would not, moreover, in and of itself have erased the unpleasant facts. On the contrary, Jesus’ resurrection would have confirmed his followers’ failure: they had forsaken the one God had vindicated. To the public dishonor of having a friend and teacher crucified, the disciples had heaped shame on themselves by their failure of nerve. The week of Passover, even after Easter, or maybe even especially after Easter, likely left them not only confused but bearing a measure of guilt, left them mulling over what might have been and uncertain about what might be.26 

All this matters for us because bereavement is more often than not the occasion for regret and so guilt. When the dead leave us, we are left with ourselves, and we typically end up asking what we could have done to make things better, or regretting what we did to hurt the one we loved.27 Sentences that begin with “I should have” or “If only” are recurrent. “The unfinished work, the unspoken farewell, the guilt of not being with the deceased or of being in some way responsible” for his or her death “can cause deep distress.”28 The upshot, in Nicholas Harvey’s words, is that, in bereavement, “characteristic forms of what might be called symptomatic guilt” appear—“a sense of hopeless unworthiness in relation to the dead person, a sense of having somehow hastened or caused the death, and a guilty reaction to one’s own resentment at being abandoned by the person who has died.”29 

The first weeks and months of bereavement, then, frequently become a time of self-reproach. Surveys show that, at least in the modern world, up to half of the grieving wrestle with guilt in one way or another, and all the more so when great pain or tragedy is involved, as was the case with Jesus.30 Psychologists indeed speak of something called “survivor guilt,” which emanates from “the belief that one death has somehow been exchanged for another, that one person was allowed to live at the cost of another’s life.”31 A parent will say, “I wish I’d died instead of my son.”32 

This psychological syndrome becomes intriguing for the reconstruction of Christian origins when one recalls the emphasis on the forgiveness of sins in early tradition. Even if Jesus attended to this subject in the Lord’s Prayer and some of his parables, there seems to have been a singular interest in the subject this side of Easter.33 One finds a natural genesis for this keen interest among the companions of Jesus, among those who had known him and followed him, but not to the bitter end. We may assume on their parts a preoccupation with regret and guilt, with self-recrimination, so that their perceived need for forgiveness was considerable.34 

We may also assume on their parts, and at the very same time, a fixation on the question of why, which is the human response to all tragedy: Why did Jesus die? Or rather, Why was he crucified? People search for meaning in the face of death, and they especially try to make sense of tragedy. They seek to find benefit and purpose in unnatural, unexpected, and violent death.35 It is no surprise at all, then, that some early Christians not only addressed the topic of the forgiveness of sins but did so in a way that found meaning in the crucifixion. At least some of Jesus’ followers were able to address the problem of guilt and the problem of the meaning of a violent end by relating them to each other. A death that somehow won forgiveness accomplished two things at once: it found sense in Jesus’ sickening execution, and it freed his followers from the guilt of their failure.36

IDEALIZATION 

There is little need to document that early Christians idealized Jesus. Not only did they think of him as a moral model embodying virtue,37 but 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 7:26; and 1 Pet. 2:22 claim that he was without sin (cf. Mt. 3:14-15). It is an interesting question to what extent this idealization of Jesus had begun already in the pre-Easter period. I doubt that we can return much of an informed answer. One thing we do know, however, is that there is a very strong impulse to idealize the dead.38 Death summons recollections and at the same time rewrites them, and distance often brings a perspective that exalts. The following comes from an interview with a man who had lost his wife: 

Bereaved husband: “Looking back over the past—what a perfect woman she was.” 

Interviewer: “Flaws?” 

Husband: “No, as a matter of fact, we were married for thirty-five years and never had a bad argument… I’d get mad sometimes at something she might do, you know, or something she had done. And she’d always smooth my ruffled feathers and I’d be ashamed of myself.” 

Interviewer: “She didn’t have any faults?” 

Husband: “I never knew of any.”39

 Although this humorous example is extreme, it well illustrates a very human tendency, and there is no need to doubt that, whatever one’s estimation of Jesus, his tragic death and the remembrance that followed in its wake must have augmented the disciples’ idealization of their master. Such idealization on their part clearly led, as it has with others, to a desire to incorporate his virtues, heed his speech, and follow his example. Modern studies have shown how a deceased loved one regularly becomes an “internal referee,”40 a role model, a source of guidance, a measure of value.41 

ANGER AND POLEMIC 

If death can turn an accusing finger inward and so foster guilt, it can also, above all in cases in which mourners have been highly dependent on the deceased, turn an accusing finger outward and so foster anger.42 There may even be biological changes that inhibit impulse control.43 Loss of a loved one in any event may make one feel the unfairness of the world, or it may move one to blame God or others, above all if the passing away comes before old age.44 Whomever they blame, people can find themselves saying, “I feel angry that it happened.”45 

What does all this have to do with early Christianity? The disciples would not have been human had they not felt anger and resentment towards those they held responsible for crucifying the man to whom they were devoted. “Love your enemies” and “Whoever is angry will be liable to judgment” may have echoed in their minds, but such words surely did not suffice to eradicate all feelings of ill-will and hostility. 

This circumstance may matter because scholars have tended to hypothesize two different settings in life for the polemical material in the gospels and their passion narratives: either it reflects preEaster conflicts between Jesus and Jewish teachers or it reflects conflict between church and synagogue from a much later period. What I should like to suggest, by way of partial correction, is that the earliest Jesus tradition could not have been devoid of all bitterness towards those thought responsible for Jesus’ end, that is, bitterness toward certain Jewish and Roman authorities—the former probably more than the latter46—and anyone who could be associated with them.47 Perhaps indeed the most intense feelings of hostility welled up right after the crucifixion, not years or decades later. The torture of a friend and revered leader is no recipe for equanimity. Surely, then, the earliest post-Easter Jesus movement was strongly inclined to remember incidents in which Jesus bests his opponents and to create stories in which they appear in a very bad light. Perhaps some of the controversy stories and certain unpleasant portions of the passion narrative go back to stories first told within the context of an enmity that, despite belief in the resurrection, must nonetheless have followed in the wake of Jesus’ horrific end.

REHEARSING MEMORIES 

In their desire for continued communion, those who have lost a loved one typically respond by seeking out others who knew the deceased in order to share stories. Bereavement is “remembering, not forgetting.”48 It is eulogies, memorials, epitaphs. Shortly after a death, moreover, memories often converge on a life’s end, on “the events leading up to the loss.”49 This is especially true when death has been unexpected, premature, or violent.50 As one woman survivor put it, “I go through that last week in the hospital again and again; it seems photographed on my mind.”51 The newly bereaved commonly “recall in infinite detail the actions taken by them or by the dead person in the days and hours before the death.”52

Most of us can here supplement the secondary literature53 with our own experience by recalling how, after the death of a loved one who was an important member of a larger community, people got together in the days and weeks that followed and shared their recollections of the departed, including the final days. There was a preoccupation with memory and new memory construction. Stories were told, sayings repeated. Attachment lingered. There was a need to put the remembered fragments together and to construct some sort of overview which brought to light the meaning of the life in its entirety.54 Certainly the funeral would have been incomplete, even offensive, without tributes. Unless one has left an autobiography, it is the survivors, not the deceased, who write the memoirs. 

It was, we may suppose, not otherwise with the disciples, a circumstance which may well give us the initial Sitz im Leben for the construction of a post-Easter Jesus tradition. When Jesus’ followers were bereft of their friend’s physical presence, they would naturally, when together, have remembered him. Anything else would have been abnormal. Such recollection, furthermore, was almost certainly one of their collective preoccupations; and it would have included above all the things that Jesus said and did toward the end of his life, or what they imagined that he then said and did.55 For not only does a tragic, violent death typically draw attention to itself in powerfully emotional ways and so stimulate imaginations and create commanding memories, but it is a healthy human instinct to come to terms with the horrific by creatively reclaiming it. Reliving trauma can be lifeenhancing.56 Surely, then, it is no coincidence that all four canonical gospels concentrate on Jesus’ last few days—I suggest that this focus goes back to the birth of the post-Easter Jesus tradition— and that the first extended narrative about him was probably a passion narrative.57 After violent death “the story of the dying may become preoccupying,” so that it “eclipses the retelling of their living—the way they died takes precedence over the way they lived”; only later does the rest of the life get remembered.58 The evolution of the Jesus tradition as many modern scholars reconstruct it, according to which large portions grew backwards from the end, matches a process of memorialization commonly exhibited in bereavement. 

Before closing, I should like to add that remembering Jesus was not simply a normal psychological reflex to his death. It was also a theological necessity occasioned by the resurrection. The proclamation, “God raised Jesus from the dead,” could not have meant anything to anybody unless Jesus were a known entity. Those who proclaimed the resurrection were saying nothing unless they were remembering Jesus before he died, and those who heard their proclamation could not have understood it unless they too remembered the man or were informed about him. The resurrection was not a declaration about a blank cipher. It was inevitably a statement about a particular, historical individual and so inevitably an invitation to remember him. To understand the point all one has to do is substitute another name. If the first Christians had gone around saying, “God raised Fred from the dead,” the only sensible response, the only possible response, would have been, “Who the heck is Fred?” 

* * * 

Shortly after his death, the followers of Jesus saw him again, sensed his invisible presence, contracted their guilt by finding sense in his tragic end, repeatedly recalled his words and deeds, and otherwise idealized and internalized their teacher. Given that similar circumstances often attend the bereaved in general, it may be that, to some extent, Christian theology and experience were summoned and shaped by the psychological process that trailed his disciples’ loss. Perhaps indeed the Christian church is in some sense the Wirkungsgeschichte or “effective history” of what the disciples’ bereavement wrought.

Chapter 12. Rainbow Body

In an autobiographical account of his early life, Chögyam Trungpa, the famous twentieth-century Tibetan scholar and teacher, wrote these words: 

We had been told the story of a very saintly man who had died there [Manikengo] the previous year [1953]… Just before his death the old man said, ‘When I die you must not move my body for a week; this is all that I desire.’ They wrapped his dead body in old clothes and called in lamas and monks to recite and chant. The body was carried into a small room, little bigger than a cupboard and it was noted that though the old man had been tall the body appeared to have become smaller; at the same time a rainbow was seen over the house. On the sixth day on looking into the room the family saw that it had grown still smaller. A funeral service was arranged for the morning of the eighth day and men came to take the body to the cemetery; when they undid the coverings there was nothing inside except nails and hair. The villagers were astounded, for it would have been impossible for anyone to have come into the room, the door was always kept locked and the window of the little resting place was much too small. 

The family reported the event to the authorities and also went to ask Chentze Rinpoche about the meaning of it. He told them that such a happening had been reported several times in th past and that the body of the saintly man had been absorbed into the Light. They showed me the nails and the hair and the small room where they had kept the body. We had heard of such things happening, but never at first hand, so we went round the village to ask for further information. Everyone had seen the rainbow and knew that the body had disappeared. This village was on the main route from China to Lhasa and the people told me that the previous year when the Chinese heard about it they were furious and said the story must not be talked about.1 

Christians are fond of affirming that the resurrection of Jesus is sui generis. In the words of Ben Witherington: “To date, there has been only one example of resurrection on this planet.”2 If by this he means that Jesus is the only individual whose dead body has disappeared from this world and moved into some parallel universe or realm of being, then what of Trungpa’s report? Witherington and like-minded others might reply that whereas the story in the New Testament is true, Trungpa’s report is false. This is invariably the apologetical strategy apropos the old tales about Romulus, Empedocles, Apollonius, etc.3 Such a response to Trungpa’s story is, however, nothing but an uninformed prejudice if one knows nothing of the relevant sources. 

THE TIBETAN TRADITION 

Trungpa’s narrative does not stand alone. Not long ago, the Dalai Lama told a very similar story, but about a different individual, a Tibetan yogi named Achok, from Nyarong. One day in 1998, according to the Dalai Lama, Achok surprised his disciples 

by announcing that he would leave. He put on his saffron robe and told them to seal him inside his room for a week. His disciples followed his request and after a week opened the room to find that he had completely disappeared except for his robe. One of his disciples and a fellow practitioner came to Dharmsala, where they related the story to me and gave me a piece of his robe.4 

One might, using arguments analogous to those Christian apologists sometimes marshal, urge that we should not lightly dismiss this narrative. If N. T. Wright’s dictum, that “some stories are so odd that they may just have happened,” works for Mt. 27:51b-53,5 why not for this Tibetan report? And if Richard Swinburne, in defending Jesus’ resurrection, can set the stage by urging that, in the absence of counter evidence, we should trust what others tell us, why then disbelieve the Dalai Lama without further ado?6

There is, in any case, no doubt that the Dalai Lama is a man of upright character who believes that Achok’s body disappeared. He furthermore knows first-hand some of the witnesses involved, witnesses who handed him physical evidence related to the alleged event. Beyond all this, one cannot accuse the Dalai Lama of being a religious dupe who naively accepts all pious yarns as facts. Not only has he promoted the scientific study of Buddhist meditation techniques, but when asked recently whether he had ever observed someone levitating, he answered in the negative and then, after adding that a nun once told him of seeing two religious adepts flying through the air, opined: “she may have been hallucinating. I don’t know.”7 

Happily, one contemporary scholar, Francis V. Tiso, set out not long ago for Tibet and India to investigate the claims about Achok (whom he refers to as Khenpo A Chö). He has recounted his discoveries in a book, Rainbow Body and Resurrection.8 Although his lengthy work is too involved and complex to recap here, the upshot of it, for our immediate purposes, is this. Within two years of Khenpo A Chö’s death, in 1998, nuns close to him were in possession of a written biography which contained these words: 

his old and young attendants took the main responsibility [for the funeral services], and together with them the relatives, servants and close disciples of the Lord made extensive funeral ceremonies and prayers… Each day the body was observed under the cloth, becoming smaller and smaller until finally, on the day after one week had passed, there was manifested the stainless rainbow body, the vajra body. This accords with the prophecy by Sera Yantrul Rinpoche, holy lama of this Lord, who said that this will happen to a couple of his most important disciples… “There will appear a couple [of people whose] stains of illusory body will be extinguished and who will be liberated in stainless body of light. They will attain rainbow body—the body of great transference.” “The rainbow body of great transference” is…the liberation into the body of light without leaving even hair and nails.9 

In addition to gaining access (in 2000) to this biography (and additional biographies), Tiso was able to interview three people—all Tibetan monks—who were on the scene in the days after Khenpo A Chö died. They agreed on the essential facts, which they claimed to behold for themselves: each day the object under a yellow robe or cloak, presumed to be Khenpo A Chö’s corpse, became smaller and smaller until finally, on the eighth day, nothing was there at all.10 One of these monks also told Tiso that, thereafter, the postmortem Khenpo appeared to “many” of his disciples.11

 Despite the multiple sources he uncovered12 and the three first-hand witnesses with whom he spoke, Tiso, who is a broadminded Roman Catholic priest, has come to no firm conclusion as to what really happened.13 He seriously entertains the possibility that Khenpo A Chö’s disciples witnessed “a remarkable phenomenon out of the normal course of nature.” Yet he also does not altogether disallow the alternative that we are dealing here with a “hagiographical symbol,” and that the people with whom he spoke made things up, “perhaps in collaboration with one another, perhaps following the dictates of a cultural tradition.”14 

It is important to set the report about Khenpo A Chö within its larger cultural context. There are other stories of the bodies of Tibetan religious masters diminishing upon death and even disappearing. Indeed, Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, the well-known expert on and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, believes that “hundreds of Dzogchen adepts in Tibet have realized rainbow body.”15 In his words: “Some adepts totally dissolve their gross/mortal bodies at the time of their death… This dissolution is called ‘the attainment of rainbow-body’ since while their bodies totally dissolve, a mass of rainbow-lights in the form of beams and circles, and especially spheres of light…appear for days.”16 Their corpses become “smaller and smaller” until, “within a few days,” they disappear completely, leaving behind “only the nails and hair.”17 As supporting evidence, Thondup cites traditions about Nyang Tingdzin Zangpo (9th century), Vimalamitr (9th century), Padmasambhava (9th century), Chetsun Senge Wangchug (11th century), Lochen Rinchen Zangpo (11th century), Khadroma Kunga Bum (13th century), Drupchen Chökyi Dorje (17th century), and Padma Duddul (19th century).18 

Like the resurrection of Jesus, the stories of individuals gaining the rainbow body are sometimes employed as apologetical props for sectarian proselytizing,19 and my post-Enlightenment education and historical-critical training strongly incline me to imagine, despite my inability to assess adequately the relevant primary sources, that we are dealing, in at least some of these cases, with religious propaganda akin to the wholly fictional tales about Thecla and Saint George; and that in other cases we likely have the melding of legend with historical memory in such a way that it is impossible to disentangle the two, as in old Christian hagiographies such as Athanasius’ “Life of Anthony.”20 

And yet the most detailed account Thondup offers comes not from the distant past but from the twentieth century. The affair concerns a certain Sönam Namgyal (1874?–1952/3), a lay Dzogchen meditator. Namgyal’s son told Thondup that, after his father died, 

people started noticing beams, circles, and auras of lights of different colors and sizes appearing in and around the house. Father’s body kept reducing in size. Finally, they realized that father was attaining enlightenment and that his gross body was dissolving into rainbow body. After a couple of days, Father’s whole body had disappeared… Only the twenty fingernails and toenails and the hair of his body were left behind at the spot where his body had been kept.21

 I have run across additional accounts from recent times. There are reports about the famous Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (d. 1934), about his disciple, Rasé Dawa Drakpa—they both purportedly left behind fingernails and toenails—and about Gangri Pönlop (d. 1960), master of the Bön monastery of Yungdrung Ling—he left no remains22—as well as a story about Togden Ugyen Tendzin, who reportedly attained the rainbow body in 1962. The source of this story is Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, Togden’s nephew and student. According to Norbu, Chinese officials, after seizing Togden, put him in 

an old nomads’ winter barn [near Lhari at Yilhung]…where he was locked up as if in a prison for maybe more than a year. Mainly Tsedön [an official sympathetic to Togden], and also other officers and local administrators, would take turns every week to go there for inspection… One day Tsedön went to inspect Togden’s conditions together with an assistant, but when they knocked at the door of the barn, nobody answered. Tsedön’s assistant said, “It seems this old man has escaped somewhere. If he really has, we’ll be in trouble.” They broke down the door… When they went into the room where Togden slept, they saw his sheepskin robe sitting upright as if wrapped around a human body. They looked inside the sheepskin robe and saw Togden’s dead body sitting up straight, the size of a three- or four-year old child… Tsedön clearly understood that Togden Rinpoche was in the process of realizing the rainbow body, but he did not say anything to his assistant. They immediately went back to the local district office and related in detail to the other officers what had happened… [Some days later,] the [local] head of the Communist party…as well as the chief of police, the chief of the district government, and so on, went to inspect the barn… When they looked inside, Togden Rinpoche’s sheepskin robe was still standing upright. They saw quite clearly that nothing was left except Togden Rinpoche’s hair and the nails of his hands and feet.23 

HISTORICAL OPTIONS 

What are we to make of the stories of Khenpo A Chö, Togden Ugyen Tendzin, and the others like them? I refrain from hazarding an opinion because I am not qualified to have one. While my interest in Buddhism is long-standing, I am no expert. I have, furthermore, never been to Tibet, nor do I know a single Tibetic language. So my competence to evaluate the sources for the accounts of disappearing bodies is near to non-existent. All I can do, as an ill-informed outsider, is pose some questions and outline a few proposals for further consideration.

First, what would follow if every single one of the stories from Tibet is a hagiographical fabrication or the product of pious hocus pocus?24 A Christian, wanting to defend the uniqueness of Jesus’ resurrection, might think this the obvious view to back. Yet to my mind the apologist should here be ill at ease. Would not rejection of all the non-Christian stories reinforce the skeptic’s repeated insistence that religious sincerity and eye-witness testimony do not ensure historical truth? If Tibetan bodies never mysteriously dissipate in a few days but rather, against the multiple testimonies—some of it indisputably first-hand—invariably succumb to the usual phases of biological decay, then some must be, if not liars, then deluded victims of someone’s misperception or trickery.25 And surely the more examples of such delusion and/or deceit surrounding dead bodies that one can amass, the more confident skeptics will be in rejecting the testimony to the resurrection of Jesus. 

Second, what if, to the contrary, some of the Tibetan stories are not fictitious? Or rather, what if one were to become persuaded, after ample investigation, that the corpse of a Tibetan master now and then gradually shrinks and even, after a few days or so, evaporates into nothing? Might this not, for the open-minded, raise the odds that something similar happened to Jesus? Critical history relies on the principle of analogy, and the more analogies to this or that, the greater the historian’s confidence in this or that. This explains in part why John A. T. Robinson, when defending the possibility that Jesus’ tomb was empty because of a “total molecular transformation,” appealed to Trungpa’s story (with which I opened this chapter) when he wrote the following: 

There are accounts…of rare but recently attested examples of Buddhist holy men who have achieved such control of their body that their physical energies and resources are so absorbed and transmuted that what is left behind after death is not the hulk of an old corpse but simply nails and hair. An empty tomb would thus be the logical conclusion and symbol of the complete victory of spirit over matter.26 

According to Robinson, if it happened in modern Tibet, it could have happened in ancient Palestine. This line of reasoning should, of course, work the other way around, too. If one believes that Jesus’ tomb was vacant because his corpse became transformed and entered a new state of existence, then might one not be more broadminded about the Tibetan claims? One guesses, however, that many Christians would be loath to take this road, for, if I may generalize, their non-pluralistic theology discourages them from finding close, positive correlations between their Lord and nonChristian religious figures.27 That, however, is a purely doctrinal predisposition or prejudice. It will play no role for historians with a different theology. 

Third, how might we come to a better understanding of how much truth or fiction lies behind the Tibetan stories?28 One possibility is that interested, suitably educated individuals undertake the sort of investigation Tiso has conducted.29 We do not know what others, perhaps with more luck, might uncover. This is especially so as we have good reason to suppose that reports of the alleged phenomena will continue to surface. The practice of Dzogchen is ongoing, and it holds out the prospect to practitioners that they can achieve the rainbow body.30 

In fact, the episode with Khenpo A Chö was not the last. In 2001, on January 3, a Bonpo monk named Rakshi Topden died in eastern Tibet. After he allegedly began to manifest the signs of rainbow body, his nephew notified the press and sought to measure the yogi’s body as it contracted. When, however, the Chinese government learned of the matter, authorities put the nephew in jail and called a halt to the affair.31 

Beyond quizzing more witnesses to supposed manifestations of the rainbow body, investigators could, if granted permission, examine corpses in Tibet. While I have, in the preceding pages, dealt with the purported phenomenon of complete bodily disintegration, most adepts who reportedly achieve the rainbow body shrink, after death, without disappearing, and their shriveled remains are venerated in shrines.32 Their bodies should be amenable, if permission is ever granted, to scientific examination, with a view to learning the cause of their contracted state. 

Many religious skeptics would regard my proposals as superfluous. Incanting Hume, they might profess to know, prior to empirical enquiry, that nothing truly extraordinary can have happened to Khenpo A Chö and the rest, or at least that the odds against a body inexplicably disappearing are so astronomical as to render further exploration foolish. All the stories, they might opine, must be little more than fairy tales, legendary descendants of the fables about Taoist immortals, with perhaps some influence from Christian ideas about resurrection.33 One should not waste time, money, and resources wandering around this religious theater of the absurd. 

Christian apologists, by contrast, and however much some of them might wish to join their secular opponents on this one, will at least have to pretend to have open minds. For they regularly accuse skeptics of discounting religious claims solely on the basis of contentious metaphysical presuppositions.34 They in addition implore others to consider, without prejudice, all the facts about Jesus’ resurrection. Surely, then, to avoid being hypocrites they must heed their own counsel and do the same with rainbow bodies.

INTERPRETIVE POSSIBILITIES 

Turning from historical questions to theological matters, what might follow for Christians who decide that the lore of the rainbow body is not one hundred percent myth, that the bodies of Tibetan religious adepts now and again dwindle to nothing?35 

One option would be to attribute the phenomenon to Satan or demons. Over the ages, one common apologetical strategy for taming potentially recalcitrant facts—the wonders Pharaoh’s magicians worked, the doctrinal errors of heretics, the positive near death experiences of non-Christians, for instance—has been to appeal to demonic agency. The operative principle has been: if our miracles and beliefs are from God, your miracles and beliefs must be from Satan.36 One would think that Christians might shy away from this all-purpose polemic since Jesus’ opponents utilized it against him: “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of demons, that this fellow casts out demons” (Mt. 12:24). Still, one could, if so inclined—I emphatically am not—urge that demons, in their attempt to keep Tibetans mired in a false faith, now and then make a body disappear, a circumstance which pious Buddhists misinterpret as vindication of a life well lived. Does not the dragon in Revelation 12 heal a “mortal wound” so that all the world follows the beast in amazement? Does not Satan, according to 2 Thess. 2:9-10, use “all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception” to delude “those who are perishing”? 

An alternate, more charitable Christian tactic would be to argue that, although the phenomena surrounding attainment of the rainbow body are real, the cause is unknown: we here confront an authentic mystery. This would differentiate the Tibetan cases from Jesus’ resurrection, if one ascribes the latter directly to divine agency. That is, whatever happens to Tibetan adepts is not, one could affirm, what happened to Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. One might, in support of this proposal, observe that, whereas Jesus’ tomb was emptied within two days, the bodies of Tibetan monks typically, according to the reports, shrink over a week or so; and further that, while some vanish, many do not but rather become shriveled relics.37 A Christian embracing this point of view would still be able to make a crucial apologetical point: truly astounding things happen. The downside, however, would be that skeptics would sensibly query whether there is any truly rational basis for insisting that whereas the resurrection of Jesus was a bona fide “miracle”—an inexplicable event worked directly by God—attainment of the rainbow body is instead a “wonder”—an inexplicable event occasioned by some unknown cause or agent.38 

A more liberal Christian, however, might come to a very different conclusion, namely, that Jesus’ resurrection is not strictly unique. What happened to him has happened to others. It is just that the same phenomenon has been conceptualized differently within different religious frameworks. Tibetans have interpreted the disappearances of corpses via the lore of the “rainbow body” and their Buddhist theology while Jesus’ followers explained the disappearance of his remains in terms of “resurrection” and their eschatological expectations. Where such a judgment might lead theologically I do not pretend to know. On the one hand, it might push one toward a wholesale rethinking of basic Christian doctrine, including the nature and activities of God. On the other hand, the tradition has always, following Jn 5:28-29,39 thought of resurrection as the ultimate fate of countless human beings, not Jesus alone; and Mt. 27:51-53 has the bodies of many holy ones rising from the dead long before the consummation. Maybe, then, an ecumenically minded Christian could find room for the metamorphosis of some non-Christian saints prior to the eschaton.40 

There is, of course, yet another option for the more liberal Christian. If one were to decide that all the stories of adepts realizing the rainbow body are, in the last analysis, fiction, this might incline one to think, or confirm one in thinking, the same about the reports of Jesus’ empty tomb. If religious Tibetans manufacture fictitious tales of disappearing bodies, then is it not sensible to suppose that a few religious Jews of the first century did the same thing? One would then be free to demythologize the resurrection of Jesus in the manner of Rudolf Bultmann, Willi Marxsen, or John Dominic Crossan. Their distinctly modern versions of Christian faith eschew the historicity of the empty tomb.41 

Finally, it is worth asking what someone who thinks outside either a Christian or Buddhist box might make of Jesus’ resurrection, acknowledged as a historical event, and of the attainment of the rainbow body, acknowledged as a reality. One option would be to understand the rainbow body as an indication of the unfathomed potential of human beings, and then to regard Jesus as instantiating such potential. Maybe, one might imagine, human nature is far more plastic than most of us are wont to assume, and the eschatological future Christians have envisaged for our bodies need not be postponed until the end of the age.42 As David Steindl-Rast has put it, “If we can establish as an anthropological fact that what is described in the resurrection of Jesus has not only happened to others, but is happening today, it would put our view of human potential in a completely different light.”43 

PARALLELS OUTSIDE OF TIBET 

It is important to recognize that the stories from Buddhist Tibet are not unique. Reports of the bodies of sanctified individuals disappearing at death also occur in other religious traditions.44 There is, for example, the famous anecdote about Kabir, the fifteenth-century Indian poet and aphorist from Banaras. When he died (at Maghar), throngs of Muslims and Hindus fought over his body. The latter wanted to burn it. The former wanted to bury it. Kabir himself then miraculously appeared, instructing the quarreling crowd to lift the death shroud and look beneath. Doing this, they beheld nothing but a heap of flowers.45 This is evidently a later development of an earlier, simpler account, in which Kabir “asked for some flowers, spread them out as a bed, and merged forever into the infinite love of God.”46 

We are here, without doubt, in the realm of legend. An almost identical story is told about the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak (1469–1539), who died in what is today Pakistan. As Nanak was nearing death, Hindus were declaring that they would cremate his body while Muslims were insisting that they would bury it. Nanak said: “Let the Hindus place flowers on my right, the Muslims on my left. They whose flowers are found fresh in the morning may have the disposal of my body.” After these words, he lay down and pulled a sheet over himself. When it was lifted the next morning, there was no body, but all the flowers to left and right were fresh and in bloom.47 I leave it to the experts to decide whether the followers of Guru Nanak borrowed from the legend about Kabir or whether the followers of Kabir borrowed from the legend of Guru Nanak. 

Closer to our own time is the story about the Hindu, Ramlinga Swamigal, popularly known as Vallalār. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, in 1823, he passed away in the same place in 1874. Revered today as a great Tamil poet and as an opponent of the caste system, he is also remembered for his exceedingly odd exit from this world. An engraved stone, quoting words originally published in 1878 in the “South Arcot District Gazette,” reports on the incident in these words: 

In 1874 he locked himself in a room (still in existence) in Mettukuppam (Hamlet of Karunguli) which he used for Samadhi or mystic meditation. And instructed his disciples not to open it for some time. He has never been seen since. And the room is still locked. It is held by those who still believe in him that he was miraculously made one with his God and that in the fullness of time he will reappear to the faithful. Whatever may be thought of his claims to be a religious leader, it is generally admitted by those who are judges of such matters that his poems, many of which have been published, stand on a high plane. And his story is worth noting as an indication of the directions which religious fervor may still take.48 

Whatever the truth behind this narrative, it indubitably appeared less than five years after Ramlinga’s departure. The non-Tibetan stories generate the same questions as the claims about rainbow bodies; and the more stories of this type that one gathers from various times and places, the more urgent the comparative issues become. 

AN APOLOGIST’S RESPONSE 

I should like to enlarge on this point by reflecting on an article of Gary Habermas, the well-known evangelical apologist. It is entitled, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions.”49 In this, Habermas reviews five non-Christian “resurrection” stories. They concern Rabbi Judah the Prince, Kabir, Sabbatai Sׂ evi, and the Hindu gurus Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar.50 His major thesis is that not one of the stories stands up to critical scrutiny.

In making his case, Habermas employs arguments that, for the most part, make good sense, and it is hard to disagree with his negative conclusion: “non-Christian resurrection claims have not been proved by the evidence.”51 Consider, however, some of the points he makes along the way: 

• In rejecting the case for Kabir’s miraculous exit, Habermas asserts that “legend crept up quickly in the aftermath of Kabir’s life, especially at each of the points involving supernatural claims, such as a miraculous birth, miracles done during his life and his appearing to his disciples.”52 He offers a similar judgment regarding Sabbatai Sׂ evi: “miracles stories concerning Sabbatai spread almost immediately after his appearance in various cities, with letters from Palestine being sent to various communities in Northern Europe. The letters… contain many rumours and unsubstantiated reports.”53 

• Habermas downgrades the value of Kabir’s story by observing that “there are no reliable historical data from early, eyewitness sources against which such later claims can be critically compared and ascertained.”54 

• With regard to a story about Sabbatai Sׂ evi’s brother finding his tomb empty, Habermas observes that the extant sources reveal that the legend grew in stages.55 

• Concerning the purported appearances of the dead gurus, Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar, Habermas stresses that they “were to single individuals while they were alone,” so we may be dealing with “hallucination” or “autosuggestion,” especially given the percipients’ predisposition to accept “belief in such phenomena.”56 

• One of those who saw Yukteswar had, just days before, seen Krishna above a nearby building. This raises, for Habermas, questions about “the credibility” of the man’s testimony: “the simply incredible nature” of this claim “would bother many researchers.”57 

Those who do not share Habermas’ theological outlook may well wonder how to reconcile what he says about non-Christian sources with what he believes about the New Testament materials. The reason is that the objections he advances would seem, at least to many, to work equally well or almost as well for Jesus’ resurrection, even if Habermas would, obviously, dispute this. One can certainly find variations of all his arguments in the critical literature on Christian origins: 

• Myriads of historically minded biblical scholars have believed, if I may rewrite Habermas, that legends quickly grew up around Jesus and involved extraordinary claims, such as a preternatural conception and miracles done during his life. This widespread critical conviction is in fact why the so-called quest for the historical Jesus got underway in the first place, and why, in large measure, it continues today. Furthermore, in an earlier chapter, I argued at length that, at the barest minimum, Matthew’s passion and resurrection narrative is not free of legend.58 

• In the case of Kabir, according to Habermas, we have “no reliable historical data from early, eyewitness sources against which such later claims can be critically compared and ascertained.” How different is it with Jesus? Even if the traditional attributions of two canonical gospels to  John Mark and Luke the physician are correct, neither individual was an eyewitness of Jesus’ last week; and Matthew’s Gospel was, despite the tradition, almost certainly not composed by one of the twelve.59 As for John, although I tend to favor the old-fashioned opinion that the so-called Beloved Disciple should be identified with John the son of Zebedee, that is not a mainstream opinion in today’s academy; and in any case, and along with most Johannine experts, I do not believe that the Beloved Disciple wrote the Fourth Gospel. In other words, in my judgment, which is hardly idiosyncratic, not a single canonical gospel was penned by an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry. This leaves, when it comes to Jesus’ resurrection, Paul as our sole first-hand source. In his extant correspondence, however, he says next to nothing concrete about his inaugural vision of Jesus. Nor does he offer any details about Jesus’ tomb or events associated with it. The only Pauline passage to offer details about the resurrection is 1 Cor. 15:3-8, much of which is the composition of someone whose identity escapes us. In the end, then, how much “reliable historical data from early, eyewitness sources against which…later claims can be critically compared and ascertained” do we truly have? 

• If the story about Sabbatai Sׂ evi’s empty tomb developed over time, New Testament scholars have, on the basis of the myriad differences between the final chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, inferred the same with regard to the story of Jesus’ empty tomb. Furthermore, if one can document growth after Mark, how can one dismiss the possibility of growth before Mark, during the forty years or so following Jesus’ death? 

• When Habermas suggests that “hallucination” or “autosuggestion” may account for the visions of Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar, on the ground that they “were to single individuals while they were alone,” individuals who were open to visionary experiences, others have alleged the same for the appearances of Jesus to Mary Magdalene, Peter, and Paul.60 Mary is by herself in Jn 20:11-1861 while nothing is said about a group in connection with Peter’s experience in Lk. 24:34 and 1 Cor. 15:5. As for Paul, those with him did not, at least according to Acts 9:7 and 22:9, see Jesus.62 One understands, then, why somebody skeptically inclined could urge that the experiences of Mary, Peter, and Paul were not in an altogether different category than those of Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar. • Habermas disparages the “credibility” of a man’s claim to have seen Yukteswar because this same person also claimed to have seen Krishna, which Habermas brands as “simply incredible.” Habermas cannot mean that no one ever sees Krishna or other non-Christian deities.63 He must mean that visions of non-Christian deities are nothing but subjective hallucinations. This judgment, however, makes him sound just like those scourgers of Christianity who declare that, in principle, they find sightings of a postmortem Jesus incredible. In this connection, moreover, why would non-Christians not wonder about the sobriety of Paul, who claims to have had multiple “visions and revelations of the Lord” (2 Cor. 12:1) and even to have entered the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2-4);64 and about Peter, who in the tradition has more than one visionary experience (Mk 9:2-8; Acts 10:9-16);65 and about Mary, who was remembered as being possessed by seven demons (Lk. 8:2), a sign, some have imagined, that her mental health was not always first-rate?66 

All of which is to say: If the skeptical arrows that Habermas aims at Kabir, Sabbatai Sׂ evi, and the others hit their targets, why do they miss when others aim them at Jesus? 

A related challenge for conservative Christians arises from an unintended consequence of Habermas’ article, one on which he fails to remark. The more resurrection stories that one successfully explains away, the more natural it is to suspect that Jesus’ story can also be explained away, and by the same arguments used to puncture comparable claims. This is not an argument from analogy but a disposition from analogy. The habit of debunking has its own momentum. If you have a series of, let us say, ten similar extraordinary claims, and if you find satisfying mundane explanations for nine of them, you may find yourself nudged to explain number ten the same way. If you play the consistent skeptic regarding other people’s religious claims, your conscience may incline you to pass some of your own cherished beliefs through the critical gauntlet. Putting the jinni of skepticism back in the bottle is not so easy. 

Finally, Habermas’ article fails to consider any of the Tibetan stories which this chapter has introduced. This is unfortunate. Those Buddhist cases are the most recent of all, and the evidence for them is potentially the strongest of all.67 While, for the critical historian, dismissing the old tales about Rabbi Judah the Prince and Kabir is child’s play, getting to the bottom of what has been going on in contemporary Tibet may prove more of a challenge. 

* * * 

I close this chapter by emphasizing the issue of agency. If one dismisses as fictional all the stories about disappearing bodies—which are often coupled with visions of the deceased68—the problem of causation is solved. Human beings have misperceived, misinterpreted, and misunderstood this or that circumstance and so come to deceive themselves, and their spurious and embellished testimony has in turn sucked others into the whirlpool of their religious credulity. There is no more to it than that. 

If, to the contrary, one believes that, in one or more cases, something beyond the mundane has been involved, one faces several choices. One can ascribe one, some, or all the alleged events to the Christian God. Or one can assign one, some, or all the alleged events to a Buddhist power or a Hindu deity or to the Transcendent Reality imperfectly revealed in multiple religions. Or one can accredit one, some, or all the alleged events to Satan or evil forces. Or one can think in terms of extraordinary human potential or simply confess agnosticism about a mysterious, occult power at work: sometimes the bodies of religious adepts disappear, and nobody knows why. Whichever possibility or combination of possibilities one embraces, a fair, informed judgment will require open-minded inquiry, not knee-jerk defensiveness. One will need to leave the echo chamber of one’s sacred discourse and acquire unfeigned knowledge of a broader religious realm.

Chapter 13. Cessationism and Seeing Jesus

Consider the following claims, all from books and articles defending Jesus’ literal resurrection from the dead: 

• “If those appearances [of the risen Jesus] were purely subjective, how can we account for their sudden, rapid, and total cessation?”1 

• “The appearances began on the third day and ceased after the fortieth. Can psychology explain these limits of time?”2 

• “If the visions were purely subjective, there is no reason why they should have ceased suddenly at the end of forty days. It is far more likely that they would have gone on for months or even years, a free rein being given to fancy to satisfy natural curiosity until they ended in palpable absurdities.”3 

• “Why did the hallucinations [if that is what they supposedly were] stop after 40 days? Why didn’t they continue to spread to other believers, just as the other hallucinations had?”4 

What should we make of these sentences, which exhibit a topos in the modern apologetical literature? 5 

“OVER THE COURSE OF FORTY DAYS” (ACTS 1:3) 

All these sentences plainly advert to Acts 1:3: “After his suffering he presented himself alive to them [the apostles] by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”6 Questions at once arise. How close to the historical truth is Luke’s assertion, which features a biblically hallowed span of time?7 Does it have a basis in early tradition, or is it a retrospective theological judgment without literal merit? Is it any closer to the facts than Luke 24, where the resurrection appearances seem to be over and done with after one day?8 Other early Christian sources reckon the period of the appearances to have lasted eighteen months or 545 days or 550 days.9 The forty days in Acts stands by itself until Tertullian.10 

In both 4 Ezra and 4 Baruch, the rapture of a prophet terminates forty days of teaching.11 Did this scheme influence Luke?12 Or did Luke, with his extraordinary love of parallel episodes,13 preface the post-Easter mission with forty days of preparation because that was the pattern for Jesus’ public ministry (cf. Lk. 4:1)? The questions are open.14 

How, moreover, does the remainder of Luke’s own narrative, which recounts post-Pentecost appearances of Jesus to Stephen and Paul, tally with Acts 1:3? My best guess is that the writer thought of the appearances before Pentecost as encounters with Jesus on earth, the appearances after Pentecost as encounters with the heavenly Jesus. Yet the quotations at the head of this chapter speak of the appearances, without qualification, stopping after forty days. How does this fit the textual facts? One might, I suppose, contend that the appearances to Stephen and Paul are the exceptions that prove the rule. They do not, however, prove the rule. They rather negate it. 

First Corinthians 15:3-8 also raises issues about the apologists’ claim. The appearance to Paul clearly occurred after the first Pentecost, and those to James and the five hundred most likely did also.15 There must in any case have been additional, later christic visions of which we know nothing. Authority figures populate 1 Cor. 15:3-8: Peter, the twelve, James, the apostles, Paul. The anonymous five hundred are the exception, and they matter not in themselves—not one of them is named—but only because their outsized number buoys their testimony. If little-known people without power or influence ever claimed that they, while alone, saw the resurrected Jesus, early Christian tradition would likely have taken no note of them, just as 1 Cor. 15:3-8 passes over Mary Magdalene. 

For this chapter, however, the most pressing question is this. What do we make of the undeniable fact that many have, over the course of the last two thousand years, reported seeing Jesus? A slew of well-known names comes instantly to mind—Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Swedenborg, Charles Finney, William Booth, Sadhu Sundar Singh, Padre Pio, Henri Nouwen, Oral Roberts. One could go on and on. I myself know three sincere, highly intelligent, well-educated individuals who claim to have seen Jesus. Even the New Testament itself, in its final book, written decades after Pentecost, tells of a certain John seeing and conversing with the risen Jesus (Rev. 1:9–3:22). 

Acts 1:3, when examined judiciously, does not seem to be a solid rock on which to found a solid argument. We certainly cannot just affirm, without making a historical-critical case, that the verse is true to the facts.16 If, furthermore, we are trying to think historically, we cannot begin and end with the canon, as though the New Testament texts—above all the four canonical gospels and 1 Corinthians 15—are all that matters. 

The canonical focus of most apologists, I suggest, is not unrelated to the theological idea known as “cessationism.” Indeed, the secondary literature sometimes speaks of the “cessation” of the resurrection appearances in the early New Testament period.17 

Cessationism is the doctrine that miraculous incursions concluded with the apostles or after the New Testament period or shortly thereafter.18 As the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it, God’s former ways of revealing his will unto his people have now ceased. King James I filled out the idea this way: “since the coming of Christ in the flesh, and establishing of his Church by the Apostles, all miracles, visions, prophecies, & appearances of Angels or good spirites are ceased.”19 

The rationale for this theologoumenon was this. Now that the Old and New Testaments are in hand, the miracles attending the revelatory events in the Bible are no longer required. So “the last miracles in human history wrought immediately by God were in connection with the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Christ.”20 Proponents of this point of view—including Jonathan Edwards, C. H. Spurgen, B. B. Warfield, and Lewis Sperry Chafer—have tended to hold that the risen Jesus appeared to those mentioned in 1 Cor. 15:3-8, to Stephen (Acts 7), and to John of Patmos, and then forever withdrew from view.

CHRISTIC VISIONS 

This, however, is pure theology, and when one thinks beyond the canon and looks to wider history, it is impossible to hold that christic visions ceased to be reported after Pentecost or the first century. On the contrary, accounts through the centuries are legion, and they have continued into modern times. For the underinformed, here are four illustrations: 

• Seraphim of Sarov, the renowned nineteenth-century Russian anchorite, reported: “One Holy Thursday…I was suddenly dazzled as though by a sunbeam and, as I glanced toward that light, I saw our Lord Jesus Christ in his aspect of Son of man, appearing in dazzling glory surrounded by the heavenly hosts, the seraphim and cherubim! He was walking through the air, coming from the west door towards the middle of the church. He stopped before the sanctuary, raised his arms and blessed the celebrants and people. Then, transfigured, he went into his icon by the royal door, still surrounded by the angelic escort which continued to illuminate the church with its shining light.”21 

• This is the testimony of a modern British man: “It was here, sitting in a chair, that I met my mate Jesus who visited me in this room. He was there to the right. I had a vision of this man with a great friendly smile on his face. He was a very tall man with a white robe and a staff in his hand. He just stood over me. Jesus was there, he was there as large as life. He was there as clearly as I can see you now. He was there to see that my cancer was blown away as I call it.”22 

• These are the words of a “confirmed atheist” who, before her experience, took Jesus to be “an ideal, a fairy-tale figure”: “Suddenly, the hall, the people, the chairs were blotted out; I could see nothing but the Being in front of me: long white robe, arms opened wide in welcome. Horrified, my mind said, ‘It looks like Jesus!’ Not that he wasn’t real enough, for I knew that if I just stretched out my arm I could have touched him. There was no question of his being real. For I could feel him, too, in tremendous waves of power that seemed to throb out from his whole body… In my mind, I heard him answer me, gently and almost amused, ‘Yes I am Jesus. Won’t you accept me?’… My whole being seemed to become filled with light and incredible joy. This Jesus, who was the Jesus of my childhood and yet now was something infinitely more, loved me totally and wanted to be a part of my life! Light and happiness poured in waves over me.”23 

• An American woman, a former atheist, began, in the 1980s, having encounters with Jesus, among them this one: “I immediately experienced a tingling sensation throughout my head and neck, and saw our Messiah in front of me as clearly as one might see a person in the flesh. I saw him bleeding and broken, for I was emotionally the same at that time. When the vision faded, I looked at the carpet where he had stood and saw footprints in the carpet that seemed to glow white. I told my sister and mother about the vision, and they also saw the footprints.”24 

Readers interested in additional accounts may consult the first-hand reports collected in the works of Chester and Lucile Huyssen, G. Scott Sparrow, and Phillip Wiebe.25

MULTIPLYING THE WITNESSES 

The many stories of Jesus appearing to people down through the ages, including the present, pose intriguing issues. Apologists are always quick to stress that it was not Mary Magdalene alone or Peter alone who saw Jesus. Rather, it was Mary and Peter and the twelve and Cleopas and his companion and the five hundred and James and Paul. The logic is understandable: the more witnesses and the more occasions, the greater credibility. Paul himself seems to adopt this strategy in 1 Cor. 15:3-8. 

Given this, why not urge that the many later, non-canonical visions of Jesus add further evidential force? Yet the vast majority of modern apologists have not done so. Part of the reason must be their canonical partiality and focus—something historians should in theory eschew—a focus and partiality that go hand in hand with a conscious or unconscious cessationism. Another factor, however, may be at work. It is not always the case that there is strength in numbers. Sometimes there is weakness. 

I do not believe in Sasquatch, although I would be delighted were new evidence to change my mind. I doubt not because there is no relevant testimony but, in part, because there is too much.26 It is exceedingly unlikely that huge, hirsute hominids roam North America in numbers sufficient to account for all the eye-witness reports. If there were so many of them, they could not continue to remain concealed from the world at large. By this time, a few corpses or some skeletal remains would, almost certainly, have come to the attention of the scientific community. So I do not take the many witnesses, sincere and seemingly informed as some of them are, at face value, as offering compelling testimony that an unclassified, ape-like creature yet furtively prowls the North American landscape. Many of these people, I am sure, have seen something. That they have seen a flesh-and-blood Bigfoot I doubt. 

In like manner, I do not believe in Saint Denis of Paris. Or rather I do not believe the mostfamous story about him, which has it that, after being decapitated for his Christian profession, he picked up his head and strode off, preaching a sermon.27 Why do I disbelieve this tale? Among the multiple reasons is this: the story is not one of a kind. It is rather one of many. Christian hagiography is home to a host of head-carrying saints, more than a hundred in all. One problem with Saint Denis, then, is that there are so many stories about cephalophores that, taken together, they establish how easy it was for someone to spin a fictional tale that, soon enough, others came to receive as factual. So again we have an illustration of how an abundance of testimony can subtract from credibility rather than add to it. 

Returning to the resurrection, what should one make of the countless extra-canonical professions to have seen the risen Jesus? Do they strengthen or weaken the New Testament’s claims about what happened with Jesus? Perhaps the latter, for even those who do not disdain all visions of whatever sort as unalloyed projection are unlikely to embrace the authenticity of every claim to have run into Jesus; and if some or many of those claims are bogus, is this fact not an ally for those eager to dissolve the earliest Christian experiences into pure subjectivity? If some are certainly counterfeit, why not all? 

SIMILARITIES AND DISSIMILARITIES 

How might apologists respond? They could, on phenomenological grounds, try to distinguish the New Testament materials from all later materials.28 Perhaps they can do this. But I am doubtful  about this approach.29 I do not deny that early Christians at some point came to differentiate early experiences from later experiences. Yet this was not due to studied reflection on the phenomenological content of those experiences. It was rather the inevitable upshot of ecclesiastical development and the routinization of charisma. There were multiple visions of Jesus during the first days and weeks after his death, and these became foundational events. That is largely why they show up in the pre-Pauline confession behind 1 Cor. 15:3-8. Once the church had taken off, once it had a primitive creedal statement about its birth, and once it had established leaders and a rudimentary hierarchy, later reports of seeing Jesus would unavoidably have been of secondary import and so understood as possessing a different character. Theodore Keim wrote: “The specific distinction of the resurrection-vision in contrast to the later visions follows to a large extent naturally…from the relation of earlier and later, of original and derived, of indescribable first impression and of repetition of that impression.”30 

Moreover, and to revert to the issue of phenomenology: if one asserts that the canonical accounts distinguish themselves because only in them is the risen Jesus solidly real or physically present, the facts stand in the way. Wiebe interviewed one individual who claimed that, when she touched Jesus, he felt solid.31 Others have said similar things. I have already, in this chapter, quoted these sentences: 

• “Not that he wasn’t real enough, for I knew that if I just stretched out my arm I could have touched him. There was no question of his being real. For I could feel him, too, in tremendous waves of power that seemed to throb out from his whole body.” 

• “I…saw our Messiah in front of me as clearly as one might see a person in the flesh… When the vision faded, I looked at the carpet where he had stood and saw footprints in the carpet that seemed to glow white. I told my sister and mother about the vision, and they also saw the footprints.” 

Here is yet another illustration: 

• “I saw Jesus carrying a candelabra with seven lit candles… He walked into my room, placed the candelabra on the floor, and knelt to pray by the side of my bed. I moved my right hand and touched his hair. I shall never forget the way his hair felt. I was engulfed with his love and the soft glow he and the candles brought to the room.”32 

Given that these are words from the experiencers themselves, on what grounds, other than religious partisanship, can one blithely discount them yet insist that the physical nature of the encounters in Luke 24 and John 20–21 distinguish them from all later experiences? Wiebe’s collection even includes one account in which a woman claims that Jesus gave her wine to drink, after which “people around her were distressed because they smelled a strong aroma of sweet wine coming from her mouth.”33 

Nor can one contend that communal sightings appear only in the New Testament. Wiebe’s collection includes two such accounts from the late 1950s. One involved approximately fifty people, the other about two hundred. Wiebe was able to interview multiple witnesses to the latter event. They concurred on the main points.34 

If the phenomenological retort fails, an apologist might, alternatively, insist that only the New Testament juxtaposes its christic appearances with a missing body. The assertion would be true. Yet what would thereby be accomplished? Even if one believes that the tomb was empty, and even if one believes that the responsible agent was God, the phenomenological parallels, which on the surface seem so suggestive, remain. What explains them? The question is there no matter what one thinks about Jesus’ grave. 

My view, which is also that of Wiebe, is that it is not so easy to segregate the first-century stories from all the later stories. For this reason, I believe that if one were to find sufficient cause to explain away all the later accounts, many of which are first-hand, one should be emboldened to explain away, in like fashion, the New Testament’s stories and its claims. But if, to the contrary, and as Wiebe has argued at length, reductionistic explanations of all the later visions come up short, because they fail to explain all the data, then the skeptic’s program regarding the earliest claims to have seen Jesus will be harder to bring to successful completion.35 

It is sensible, if one deems the ancient apparitions of Jesus to have been wholly illusory, to regard all later apparitions as likewise illusory. It is likewise sensible to hold that, if there were veridical appearances in the first century, there have been veridical appearances since, and vice versa. Is it, however, sensible to cordon off the New Testament and contend that, while its claims are true, all later claims of a like nature are false? Would that not be a wholly doctrinal contention, a species of cessationism? 

Such cessationism about christic visions is, to my mind, just as intellectually hollow as the traditional cessationism about miracles in general. The latter was an impossible half-way house, as appears from the theological history that unfolded after Luther. The Reformers’ rejection of all specifically Roman Catholic miracles led, unsurprisingly, to the deists, who judged all miracles to be beyond the limits of rational discourse. The Protestants and the deists were, in a crucial sense, kin. The latter had God creating the world and doing little or nothing thereafter. The former had God creating the Bible and doing little or nothing thereafter. The deists, moreover, having learned from the Protestants how to reject every miracle that came after the New Testament, were able, with the same historical methods and critical outlook, to reject every miracle within the New Testament. The reasons for dismissing one set of wonders worked equally well for the other set of wonders. The journey from disbelieving every miracle outside of the Bible to disbelieving every miracle in the Bible did not take long.36 

* * * 

Comparativism is, in my mind, essential for rightly understanding the New Testament materials. It makes little sense to study and assess experiences from the first century while ignoring similar experiences from other times and places, especially when the latter are often far richer and more detailed than anything antiquity supplies.

Wiebe has made an excellent start on the comparative project. Other scholars, however, need to take up and extend the sort of work he has done. He is not our end but our beginning.37 As for the apologists, they should, when discussing purported appearances of Jesus, pay less attention to Acts 1:3 and more attention to materials outside the canon.38 

One last note. Those inclined to accept the authenticity of some post-canonical christic visions will, as noted, not credit them all. Yet, when it comes to the New Testament, skeptics and apologists invariably adopt an all or nothing approach: Jesus really appeared to Peter and all the rest, or he appeared to none of them. It was all one thing or all the other. Yet these two antithetical options hardly exhaust the possibilities. Jesus could, at least in theory, have truly appeared to Mary Magdalene and the twelve but not to James, whose experience was purely subjective, only imagined. At this distance, of course, we do not have the ability to make these sorts of distinctions. By the same token, we do not have the ability to rule them out of court. Perhaps, as both the apologists and polemicists always assume, a single cause explains everything. Then again, perhaps matters were not so simple.39

 

Chapter 14. Zeitoun and Seeing Mary

The following pages attend to visions of Mary the mother of Jesus, or rather to one spectacular series of visions in modern Egypt. Skeptics of the resurrection have sometimes compared visions of the BVM with the visions of Jesus’ first disciples and urged that, if we should regard the former set as hallucinatory—as seems self-evident to them—we should so regard the other set. A Roman Catholic or Orthodox apologist could, however, turn things around, contending that, since we have good cause to believe that some Marian apparitions are veridical, we have all the more reason to think the same of biblical visions. The lessons I shall draw out will be different. 

THE STORY1 

Zeitoun, Egypt, is a heavily populated, predominately Muslim suburb of Cairo, fifteen miles to the north. There, around 8:30 on the evening of April 2, 1968, two Muslim auto mechanics, standing before the Public Transit System garage, saw, across the street, a white kneeling figure atop the large central dome of St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church. Thinking that a girl or nun was about to commit suicide, one mechanic ran to get a priest, the other to notify the police. 

A crowd had already gathered around the small church by the time officers arrived. In a vain attempt to dispel the gathering, the police asserted that the figure was only a reflected light. But the custodian of the church offered instead that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, was manifesting herself. Once made, the identification immediately gained the concurrence of the crowd, which was mostly Muslim. (The Qur᾽an honors Mary.)

 The figure of light disappeared a few minutes later. Yet the belief that the Virgin Mary had appeared brought the crowds back; and, one week later, on April 9, the shining apparition with large halo was seen again. 

After that second appearance, the light was seen often, usually (at least for the remainder of 1968) two or three times a week. Every night, beginning about 9:00 p.m., the pious and the curious— whose number, during the summer months, some estimated at 100,000 or more—waited both inside and outside the church for the luminous Mary to appear. The excited throngs of Muslims and Christians sang Coptic hymns and chanted verses from the Qur᾽an, and their numbers swelled so much that city officials demolished several old buildings to make room for the nightly on-lookers. Church officials also altered the landscape, cutting or trimming the trees around St. Mary’s so that people would not climb and hurt themselves. 

The sightings continued off and on until 1971.2 Certain patterns emerged. For one thing, the main dome of the church often became luminous. For another, before, during, and after the main apparitions, and sometimes on nights when there was no apparition at all, bright bird-shaped lights would rapidly glide (without moving their apparent wings) around the church domes. They appeared singularly, in pairs, in threes, and sometimes in larger groups. They never alighted and often just dissipated into the night sky. 

As for the apparition itself, the best introduction is the testimony of eye-witnesses. Here are two samples: 

At dawn some of those who had come with me came running from the northern street along the church and said: “The Lady is over the middle dome.” I was told that some clouds covered the dome, when something like fluorescent lamps began to illumine the sky. Suddenly there she was standing in full figure. The crowd was tremendous. It was too difficult to move among the people. But I tried and worked my way in front of the figure. There she was, five or six meters above the dome, high in the sky, full figure, like a phosphorous statue, but not so stiff as a statue. There was movement of the body and of the clothing… I stood there and tried to distinguish the face and features. I can say there was something about the eyes and mouth I could see, but I could not make out the features. That continued until about five minutes before five. The apparition then began to grow fainter, little by little the light gave way to a cloud, bright at first, then less and less bright until it disappeared.3 

About nine or nine-thirty at night a light appeared in the center of the opening beneath the small dome. The light took the shape of a sphere, moving up and down. Then very slowly it moved out through the supporting archway and took the form of St. Mary. It lasted two or three  minutes, and as usual the people shouted to her. She usually acknowledges their greetings with both hands, or with one, if she should be holding the olive branch or the Christ Child. She looks somewhat happy and smiling, but somewhat sad, always kindly. She then returned to the dome and the figure became again a round ball of light and gradually faded into darkness.4 

The two accounts just quoted appear, on the surface, to put us in touch with a remarkable phenomenon, one that the Western press and scientific investigators unfortunately ignored at the time. One is not surprised that the committee commissioned by the Coptic Patriarch of Egypt determined that the apparitions of light were both veridical and supernatural in origin: “We have come to the conclusion that the Blessed Virgin appeared several times on and in the domes of the Church…”5 

EXPLANATIONS 

Those inclined to this religious judgment have on their side the fact that we are not here dealing with a hallucination. Not only did multitudes behold the lights over a protracted period of time, but photographs put the issue beyond doubt.6 Believers claim, moreover, that numerous miraculous cures accompanied the sightings. A commission of seven physicians and professors appointed by Patriarch Kyrillos VI documented some of these. For those predisposed to take Marian apparitions at more or less face value, maybe not much more is needed. 

What should the rest of us think? The first observers did not initially take the figure to be Mary. The two mechanics rather thought they were looking at a nun or a girl. And at no time did the figure at Zeitoun—which never spoke and left the “impression of an animated statue”7 —interpret itself. 

What prompted the identification of the luminous form with Mary and then the far-flung acceptance of this interpretation? Mary was already firmly associated with Zeitoun. Christian and Muslim legend has it that Mary and Joseph, when fleeing from the murderous machinations of Herod the Great, visited Zeitoun with the infant Jesus. Indeed, the sycamore tree under which the holy family purportedly rested is even today a proud object of veneration. St. Mary’s itself was built (in 1925) after a man reported a vision in which the BVM instructed him to erect a church in her name. 

Another significant fact is that the appearances began during a time of severe political crisis, with the Israeli army not far away.8 The Six-Day War, which took place in 1967, was a disaster for Egypt. Many military officers and politicians were subjected to public trials. Egypt’s future looked uncertain. In this context, belief in the appearance of Mary at Zeitoun generated great comfort. Was not the mother of Jesus on the side of the Egyptians? Was she not consoling the people, reminding them that she sympathized with their plight? 

If the political situation is clear, it is otherwise with the lights themselves. We have the instructive testimony of one witness who came away without religious convictions. Cynthia Nelson, a social scientist who was then teaching in Cairo, recorded her experience in these words:

When I looked to where the crowds were pointing, I too, thought I saw a light… As I tried to picture a nunlike figure…I could trace the outlines of a figure. But as I thought to myself that this is just an illusion…the image of the nun would leave my field of vision.9 

This testimony, which underlines the ambiguity of what someone saw, at least on one occasion, might lead us to conjecture that observers construed an unexplained electro-magnetic phenomenon in accord with their religious desires and expectations. We can all trace animal shapes in the clouds. 

A skeptic, then, might boil it all down to this: the crowds witnessed some sort of electro-magnetic phenomenon, and mass hysteria gave them their devout interpretation. Yet that is hardly a satisfying solution to the puzzle. Although the world is filled with ill-understood lights—ball lightning, the very rare rainbow that is exclusively purple, the underwater luminescent circles that sometimes radiate from ships at sea—there appears to be, from what I have been able to learn, no natural phenomenon that closely resembles the lights in the pictures from Zeitoun.10 

Taking another route, one might speculate that it was all a hoax. Perhaps someone in the domes or attic of the church, with motives unknown, set up sophisticated electronic equipment. A Van de Graaff generator (which produces an electronic plasma by ionizing matter) might mimic some of the effects observed at St. Mary’s. We have, however, no evidence of such a sophisticated trick; and if the church committee convened to investigate the phenomenon was not utterly incompetent, it would have found such equipment when it examined St. Mary’s. Beyond that, the electrical utility in Zeitoun at one point cut off electricity to the area to see if that would put out the lights. It did not. 

The most unconventional attempt to explain the Zeitoun sightings came from the late D. Scott Rogo, who suggested that the St. Mary’s apparition was the product of a collective “psychic” projection, something like a collective dream come to life. Affirming that the Zeitoun episode “represents the strongest proof ever obtained demonstrating the existence of the miraculous,” he wrote: 

During the years 1925 [when St. Mary’s was built] and 1968, many of the visitors to St. Mary’s Church were probably either consciously or unconsciously preoccupied with the role of the Blessed Virgin in the building of the church. They probably held firm expectations that she would eventually appear at the site. These preoccupations may have gradually built up a psychic “blueprint” of the Virgin within the church itself—i.e., an ever-increasing pool of psychic energy created by the thoughts of the Zeitounians which in 1968 became so high-pitched that an image of the Virgin Mary burst into physical reality!11 

Rogo’s speculative, out-of-the-box solution, which explains one unknown in terms of another, will appeal only to those willing to entertain radically unconventional ideas.  

In the end, I can offer no explanation or interpretation.12 Even when allowing that some of the pictures in the books and on the internet have been enhanced, one remains perplexed.13 Two images are especially puzzling. One shows a haloed figure with folded hands, the other a haloed figure with a clear, gull-like form above it. Although details that would demand identification of the main light with the Mother Mary of traditional Christian art, East or West, are absent, neither image is indistinct: one immediately thinks of a human figure and a bird. Without these pictures, I might bet that the roof of St. Mary’s was the focus of a strange if not understood electro-magnetic display. With my eyes on these pictures, I cannot come up with anything. 

LESSONS 

Zeitoun holds several lessons. One is that some events, including some events of an ostensibly religious nature, resist easy, skeptical dissolution. It is not always the case that the more one learns, the clearer a matter becomes. Sometimes, as with Zeitoun, increased knowledge leads to increased puzzlement. Inquirers who are not materialistic chauvinists will uncover, if they undertake openminded enquiry, additional episodes that seemingly serve to indict routinized reductionism.14 Hamlet’s words to Horatio have been endlessly quoted for good reason. 

Given this, we should not, I submit, when studying the resurrection of Jesus, confidently assume, at the outset, that we will be able to squeeze everything into a straight and narrow materialism. Of course, one may, after looking into the problem, decide that one can. The Roman church itself has refused to endorse a slew of Marian apparitions.15 We should not, however, settle any particular case in advance, in the sure and certain knowledge that today’s ideological status quo will explain away everything. 

A second lesson from Zeitoun is this. Our knowledge of what happened in the days after Good Friday is depressingly sparse over against our knowledge of what happened in Zeitoun. With respect to the latter, we have interviews with multiple eye-witnesses. We have photographs. We have on-thespot, as-it-unfolded journalistic reports from religious and irreligious. We have a statement from an investigative committee. We have none of this, by contrast, with respect to Jesus’ resurrection, only a lamentable paucity of evidence and lack of detail at every turn. One wonders how, if we cannot solve the puzzle of Zeitoun, about which we know so much, we can solve the puzzle that is Jesus’ resurrection, about which we know so little. 

To make the point concrete, consider the first-hand accounts of those who witnessed phenomena at Zeitoun. We know that some claimed to see the clear outline of a haloed woman in white whereas others, at the same time and place, saw something less distinct. Despite this, the devotional and apologetical literature on Zeitoun often simply asserts that thousands saw the Virgin Mary. One cannot but wonder how it was in the first century. Paul avows, in 1 Cor. 15:3-8, that Jesus appeared to the twelve and also to “more than five hundred at the same time.” Zeitoun cautions us that, despite the credo, we cannot know that everyone in those groups saw exactly the same thing.16 It is easy to envision some among the five hundred or the twelve, on hearing others declare that they were seeing Jesus, decide that they were too, even if their perceptions were indistinct or confused. They might readily have succumbed to the social pressure to go along with the crowd, or have not wanted others to judge them to be of little faith.17 To be sure, the sources report no such thing. If, however, the scenario just envisioned took place, we would not anticipate such reports. That is precisely the problem. 

Zeitoun is additionally instructive in that it reveals the importance of one’s religious worldview for evaluating a historical event. Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic Christians of a certain stripe could make, or rather have made, large claims about the evidential nature of the apparition at Zeitoun. Multitudes saw the lights. Many said they unmistakably saw Mary the Mother of Jesus. Cameras caught the image. The sightings went on for years. Dramatic healings took place. When officials hunted for a hoax, they unearthed nothing. And skeptics have as yet no satisfying explanation for the whole series of events. It is clear, then, to apologists for Zeitoun, that Mary revealed herself. Only unrestrained skepticism, the faithful are convinced, can think otherwise. 

But not all of us go along. Despite my open mind, I remain unpersuaded. I concede that I cannot debunk the facts, and I confess that I have no satisfactory counter-narrative. Still, I do not believe, or rather am agnostic. The cause is not just the seemingly mechanical and repetitive nature of the lights, which strike me as impersonal, but my worldview. I prefer, because of my general outlook, to ascribe the odd phenomena at Zeitoun not to Mary of Galilee but to a something-weknow-not-what. An apologist for Zeitoun could regard me as an unreasonable, hard-hearted cynic. What more could one ask for in the way of evidence? Yet I remain unmoved. 

My response to Zeitoun mirrors the response of skeptics to arguments on behalf of Jesus’ resurrection. Their doubt is typically grounded in a worldview inside of which the Christian savior coming back to life is utterly foreign, outrageously alien, and so surely impossible. Although our disbelief has different objects, we are in some ways alike. 

A worldview is not broached so easily. A few good historical arguments, even new and improved, whether on behalf of Mary appearing at Zeitoun or for Jesus appearing to his disciples, are not going to induce change in a mind robustly confident of its skeptical convictions. In my case, perhaps nothing short of Mary setting me straight in person could undo my dubiety that she was the chief actor at Zeitoun. So I understand the skeptic well enough. This is why I presume that, whatever the rhetorical posturing, books defending Jesus’ resurrection must have the most effect on doubting Thomases within the churches.18 Perhaps such books also, on occasion, move a nonChristian who is already, for other, personal reasons, looking for a change. For the rest, they must miss the mark.19 

Two more morals from Zeitoun. First, most thinking about Zeitoun has been binary. Either Mary appeared, or there is a mundane explanation.20 This dichotomy, however, exemplifies the fallacy of the excluded middle. It is possible that Mary did not appear, and also that the true explanation is not mundane. The metanormal does not, in and of itself, demand a supernatural explanation at home in someone’s religious tradition. Catholics and Orthodox of a certain bent may, when it comes to Mariophanies, readily move from the puzzling to the divine. If there is no good mundane explanation, then the explanation must be theological. This, however, is a Mary-ofthe-gaps argument. The road from enigmatic event to theological interpretation is much longer and more winding than usually imagined. Zeitoun is illustration.21 

Finally, a psychological point. Sometimes one can have a lot of information and still be nonplussed. Zeitoun is a case in point. Although we know much, our knowledge does not, to my mind, compel a decision as to the cause of the perplexing lights. Personally, I am fine with this, with drawing a blank. Confessing ignorance is not a crime, and it causes me no anxiety. Others, however, seem to feel pressure to find a solution, to establish either that Mary appeared or that she did not appear. The pressure derives not from the puzzling facts but from personal agendas. Apprehensive about letting their ideological competitors elucidate things, some are moved to offer explanatory narratives—all of them to my mind premature—that cohere with their own religious sentiments or lack thereof.22 Although opposed to each other, our two camps have a common enemy: the reservation of judgment. 

It is not otherwise with the resurrection of Jesus. One could, in theory, remain content with recovering what we firmly know and stop there. That few of us do this is not because the data inescapably shove us toward this or that far-reaching conclusion. As I argue throughout this book, again and again we lamentably come up against ignorance, so much so that the data force few unassailable inferences. If this leaves us discontent, the cause lies not in the nature of the evidence but in ourselves.23