The Credibility Of The Gospel Resurrection Narratives

Those who have listened to the Licona/Ehrman debate on the resurrection that I discussed yesterday might be interested in some other resources that address issues like the ones raised in that debate. Concerning the credibility of the resurrection narratives in general, I would recommend N.T. Wright's The Resurrection Of The Son Of God (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003) and commentaries on the gospels such as Craig Keener's A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999), his The Gospel Of John: A Commentary, Vol. 2 (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), and Darrell Bock's Luke, Volume 2, 9:51-24:53 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1996). On the genre of the resurrection narratives, see here. Regarding whether the resurrection narratives were unhistorical legends that grew over time, see here. Concerning the unexpected nature of the resurrection narratives, see here. On the authorship of the gospels, see here, here, here, and here. On the general reliability of early Christian authorship attributions, see here. Last year, I wrote four articles on some evidence that's often neglected for the traditional gospel authorship attributions: here, here, here, and here. Two years ago, I had some lengthy interactions with a member of the Debunking Christianity staff regarding many of the issues surrounding Jesus' resurrection, including some of the issues addressed in the Licona/Ehrman debate. Two of the most significant articles I wrote in that context are here and here. I'll close with a quote of some portions of the second article that are relevant to Bart Ehrman's vision theory and his dismissal of the resurrection narratives in the gospels:

Demanding more evidence doesn't explain the evidence we have. And considering that the early Christians preserved eyewitness testimony from apostles and their associates (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Jude, Polycarp, etc.), why should we believe that this testimony can't be accepted unless it's accompanied by more testimony? Why should we believe that what we have is insufficient? Considering that modern skeptics have to resort to highly speculative theories about widespread memory loss, widespread hallucinations, widespread apathy, etc., the evidence we have is sufficient to make skeptics resort to ridiculous theories that are far less plausible than the Christian alternative. Why isn't that sufficient? And that's just on the one issue of Jesus' resurrection. When other issues are taken into consideration as well, such as fulfilled prophecy, the skeptical theories become even more ridiculous....

People also knew that men like Abel and Zechariah were put to death unjustly (Matthew 23:35), yet no resurrection occurred just after their death. Their resurrection in the end times might be viewed as some sort of reversal of what had been done to them unjustly, but an unjust death by itself wasn't enough to convince people that a resurrection was going to occur just after the death. And the early Christians tell us that people weren't expecting to see Jesus risen (Matthew 28:1-6, 16:1-3, Luke 24:11, John 20:25, Acts 9:1, etc.), even after they heard of the empty tomb (Luke 24:11, 24:21-24, John 20:2, 20:15, 20:25). Men like James, Paul, and Paul's travel companions weren't Christians, so why should we think that they were expecting any vindication of Jesus? And the people who saw Jesus repeatedly failed to initially recognize who they were seeing (Luke 24:13-31, John 20:15, 21:4, Acts 9:5). If they were expecting to see Jesus, then why would they initially not recognize who they had seen?...

If first century Jews thought that a resurrection had occurred, they would expect physical evidence to accompany it. As I explained to Matthew [Green of Debunking Christianity] before, it's highly unlikely that a group of eleven men or more than 500 (1 Corinthians 15:6), for example, would all naturalistically experience a vision in an altered state of consciousness on the same subject at the same time, without realizing that they were mistaken. If these visions occurred in their minds, not outside their minds, then we would expect one person to see Jesus standing 500 feet away to the south, while another person would think he sees Jesus standing 10 feet away to the east. Different people would hear Jesus saying different things. When they compared their experiences, there would be major, widespread contradictions. Where's Matthew's evidence that people can naturalistically share detailed visions on the same subject at the same time? And if he thinks it can happen, why does he think it's probable with all of the resurrection accounts?...

Matthew hasn't proven any "discrepancies and embellishments", and even if there were some errors in the resurrection accounts, an error on one issue wouldn't justify a dismissal of what's reported on every other issue. Some of the details most problematic for Matthew's theory are details that are agreed upon by all of the sources. For example, all of the sources agree that the resurrection witnesses weren't expecting to see Jesus resurrected (Matthew 28:1-6, Mark 9:10, 16:1-3, Luke 24:11, John 20:25, Acts 9:1, etc.). The three documents that go into the most detail about the resurrection appearances (Luke, John, and Acts) tell us that people sometimes didn't initially know that they were seeing Jesus (Luke 24:13-31, John 20:15, 21:4, Acts 9:5). All four gospel authors refer to physical evidence produced by the resurrection (Matthew 28:9, Mark 16:4-6, Luke 24:42-43, John 21:9-13, etc.). All of the sources reporting on resurrection appearances agree that Jesus appeared to groups of people (Matthew 28:17, Luke 24:36, John 20:26, Acts 9:7, 1 Corinthians 15:6, etc.). Thus, characteristics such as a lack of expectation, a lack of initial recognition of Jesus, an interest in and the presence of physical evidence, and appearances to groups of people (not just individuals) are widely attested, and there's nothing about the reporting of such characteristics that suggests "discrepancy" or "embellishment". These characteristics are widely reported and are inconsistent with what we know about hallucinations and other psychological disorders.

And you can't just assume that there was some type of naturalistic experience that occurred in ancient honor-shame societies that would be able to overcome such obstacles. If you have no evidence for such naturalistic experiences, then assuming the existence of them whenever you need to, in order to maintain your theory, isn't convincing....

The suggestion that John was unaware of all of the earlier gospels, or that he thought that it would be acceptable to contradict them, is highly unlikely. As Craig Keener writes:

"Suggesting that the Fourth Gospel is not directly dependent on the Synoptics need not imply that John did not know of the existence of the Synoptics; even if (as is unlikely) Johannine Christianity were as isolated from other circles of Christianity as some have proposed, other gospels must have been known if travelers afforded any contact at all among Christian communities. That travelers did so may be regarded as virtually certain. Urban Christians traveled(1 Cor 16:10, 12, 17; Phil 2:30; 4:18), carried letters (Rom 16:1-2; Phil 2:25), relocated to other places (Rom 16:3, 5; perhaps 16:6-15), and sent greetings to other churches (Rom 16:21-23; 1 Cor 16:19; Phil 4:22; Col 4:10-15). In the first century many churches knew what was happening with churches in other cities (Rom 1:8; 1 Cor 11:16; 14:33; 1 Thess 1:7-9), and even shared letters (Col 4:16). Missionaries could speak of some churches to others (Rom 15:26; 2 Cor 8:1-5; 9:2-4; Phil 4:16; 1 Thess 2:14-16; cf. 3 John 5-12) and send personal news by other workers (Eph 6:21-22; Col 4:7-9). Although we need not suppose connections among churches as pervasive as Ignatius’ letters suggest perhaps two decades later, neither need we imagine that such connections emerged ex nihilo in the altogether brief silence between John’s Gospel and the ‘postapostolic’ period. No one familiar with the urban society of the eastern empire will be impressed with the isolation Gospel scholars often attribute to the Gospel 'communities.'" (The Gospel Of John: A Commentary, Vol. 1 [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003], pp. 41-42)

John surely was familiar with at least one of the Synoptics, probably all of them, and he probably regarded them highly, as other Christians of the time did. John's disciple Papias, for example, speaks highly of Mark's gospel....

As I've documented, there are many details in the early documents (and not just the gospels) that are inconsistent with Matthew's theory. For Matthew to sustain his theory, he has to propose that large portions of the early documents are unhistorical, and at a time when contemporaries and eyewitnesses of Jesus and the apostles were still alive and in prominent places of leadership. Matthew would have us think that Jews believing in a resurrection would mistake naturalistic visions for a physical resurrection, and would fail to look for the sort of physical evidence referred to in the gospels and Acts, then would allow their later contemporaries to make up the accounts we find in documents like the gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians. Not only did the early Christians allow it to happen and not leave any trace of opposition in the historical record, but the early enemies of Christianity either didn't notice it or also failed to leave any trace of their objections in the historical record. And Matthew proposes all of this, and more, just to dismiss one miracle associated with Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus. When you include the other theories he has to propose to dismiss everything else he dislikes, you end up with major portions of documents written by eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Jesus and the apostles that Matthew has to dismiss. What we have under Matthew's scenario is a Jesus who is radically redefined by eyewitnesses and contemporaries who were willing to suffer and die for what they were reporting about Him, and the people alive at the time who knew better apparently were too apathetic to do much about it.