A New Book On 1 Corinthians 15

Sean Luke of Anglican Aesthetics interviewed James Ware about a book Ware recently published on 1 Corinthians 15, The Final Triumph Of God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2025). I've bought it, but haven't read it yet. The interview is worth listening to, since it makes a lot of good points about a lot of significant topics (the physical nature of Paul's view of the resurrection, the unity of the apostles, etc.).

There's Not Much Apostolic Disunity In The Gospels

Critics of Christianity often allege that there was widespread disunity among the early Christians: Paul disagreeing with the Twelve, a Petrine community opposing a Johannine community, and so on. There's a large amount of evidence against such claims. I've written about the evidence for apostolic unity in 1 Corinthians 15:11, in the earliest patristic documents, and elsewhere. I've been struck lately, though, by how much material there is against these claims about disunity in the gospels. In John 13:10-11, for example, why would the author have Jesus commenting on how all of his rivals (or rival communities, etc.) are "clean"? Or think of the sitting on twelve thrones in passages like Matthew 19:28. That isn't just an expression of unity, but even unity in an eschatological context, which rules out a future falling away. (Judas is explicitly and repeatedly referred to as not being included in such comments in one way or another, whereas nothing comparable is said of any other apostle. The authors were capable of communicating that they had exceptions in mind if they wanted to, as their comments on Judas demonstrate.)

Cameron Bertuzzi's Backfiring Cannon

Cameron Bertuzzi recently put out a video about the New Testament canon. I've addressed the subject many times, such as in a lengthy 2009 series here that discusses the issues raised by Cameron. Or see here for a more recent overview that addresses some of the issues more briefly. For a listing of all of our posts under the "canonics" label, go here (keep clicking Older Posts in the bottom right to see more).

What I want to do in this post is briefly address some of the problems with Cameron's video. You can read our earlier posts for more.

Where's James the son of Zebedee in later New Testament history?

Acts 12:2 reports his martyrdom. Notice the corroboration of that account elsewhere in the New Testament. Though James is so prominent in the gospels and was the first apostle taken by Herod in Acts 12, he's not referred to as still alive, much less prominent, in the portions of the New Testament covering later history. The James of Galatians 2:9 is most naturally taken as the James of chapter 1, the brother of Jesus, and the James of chapter 2 isn't mentioned next to John in 2:9, as the son of Zebedee probably would be. So, James the son of Zebedee is conspicuous by his absence in Galatians 2. He's also not mentioned elsewhere in the material that covers post-Acts-12 history, and none of the apostolic documents are attributed to him.

Paul's Familiarity With The Other Resurrection Witnesses

Last year, I wrote about the significance of the details mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6 regarding the appearance to more than five hundred. Something else worth noting is that Paul's comments elsewhere corroborate the idea that he was closely following the lives of the other resurrection witnesses. Think of his comments in Galatians 1-2 about visiting other apostles, spending a lot of time with them, and coordinating his efforts with theirs. Or his discussion of the sufferings of the apostles in 1 Corinthians 4:9-13. Or his discussion of the practices of the apostles when traveling in 1 Corinthians 9:5. Or his reference to how they were all proclaiming the same message, a comment he makes shortly after 1 Corinthians 15:6, in verse 11.

The Departure Material In John

I've written about what I've called the departure passages in scripture and how they relate to issues like the papacy and sola scriptura. See here, for example. Acts 20, 2 Timothy, and 2 Peter have been discussed a lot, but I want to expand on John's material, which has been neglected.

How much does Acts support the apostles' willingness to suffer for their resurrection testimony?

Lydia McGrew just concluded a good series of videos on the following topic:

This week I'm starting a series about this question: Does Acts support the idea that at least twelve specific, named individuals were willing to risk their lives for the claim that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead?

Some skeptics have claimed that even if we take Acts at face value in its account of the early days of Christianity, it still doesn't support this claim. They may downplay the seriousness of the risk. They may imply that only Peter and John among the original twelve disciples actually stood up and took a risk or that the others stopped taking a risk after the religious leaders first told them to stop preaching.

In the coming weeks I'll be addressing these claims from Acts itself. Here I am setting up the question.

Remember, this is addressing what we can learn from Acts itself if we take the narrative at face value about who was proclaiming the resurrection and what they were risking.

Here are links to each part in the series:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Did the resurrection witnesses have an opportunity to recant?

Skeptics occasionally suggest that the people who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead may have been willing to renounce that claim, but were never given an opportunity to do so. Or it will be suggested that we should be agnostic on issues of recantation, since we don't have enough evidence to go by.

The Timing Of The Conversion Of Jesus' Brothers And Their Witness To The Resurrection

I've discussed the subject before, such as the significance of John 19:26-27, which implies that Jesus' brothers either weren't Christians yet or had only recently become Christians. Another issue that should be raised is what best explains the broader pattern of references to the brothers.

They're referred to in several places in the gospels, Acts, and Paul's letters, and we have two letters attributed to the brothers (James and Jude). They're mentioned in multiple places in the gospels as unbelievers. And there's an implication that they're believers in Acts 1:14. They're mentioned many times after Acts 1 (in the remainder of Acts, in Galatians, etc.). But they aren't mentioned in contexts in which close relatives often would be mentioned leading up to and just after the resurrection (e.g., Jesus' trial, the cross, the burial). Jesus' mother is referred to as present at the cross in John 19, but his brothers aren't mentioned there or in any other relevant context. Because of her gender and older age, we'd expect Mary to be less present in these contexts than Jesus' brothers would be, but she's more present instead. And it's striking how wide a diversity of individuals are mentioned in these contexts: Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, the women at the tomb, the men on the road to Emmaus, all of the Twelve, etc. So, the absence of any reference to the brothers of Jesus, especially in light of their later prominence in church history, is significant.

It's possible to reconcile all of this evidence with an earlier conversion of Jesus' brothers. But the issue isn't what's possible. The issue is which explanation is best. A later conversion of Jesus' brothers, one later than the events immediately following his death, makes better sense of the evidence. But the lateness also has to account for evidence like Acts 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:7. The best explanation seems to be that one or more resurrection appearances, like the one in 1 Corinthians 15:7, brought about their conversion. They might have converted on the basis of what others told them about the resurrection or on some other such basis, but that explanation has less explanatory power than something like 1 Corinthians 15:7.

Given the plural "brothers" in Acts 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 9:5, the high status of the individuals mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9:5, and the inclusion of a letter of Jude in the canon, a resurrection appearance to at least one brother of Jesus other than James, at least Jude, seems likely. Maybe Jesus appeared to more of his brothers than James and Jude, but it seems probable that he at least appeared to those two.

I suspect all of the appearances to Jesus' brothers happened later rather than earlier. The appearance to James is mentioned fourth among the five chronologically ordered pre-Pauline appearances in 1 Corinthians 15. Furthermore, it would make sense for the gospels to give more attention to the earlier appearances than the later ones, since the earlier ones most closely follow the preceding events and would tend to involve the most intense reactions to the resurrection, since the witnesses' knowledge of the event was so new. The absence of references to the brothers of Jesus in the gospels' resurrection accounts makes more sense if the appearances to Jesus' brothers happened later rather than earlier. I suspect they occurred during the latter half of the forty days referred to in Acts 1:3.

How Much The Early Sources Agree About The Apostles

In a recent post on Peter's prominence in the New Testament, I mentioned a significant similarity in how Matthew 14:29 and John 21:7 portray Peter. When people discuss agreements among the gospels and other early Christian sources, agreements about Jesus get the most attention, for good reason. But there are many agreements on other matters as well, including about other individuals. Peter is a good example, and I provide some illustrations in my post linked above (his impulsiveness, his outspokenness, etc.).

But something else should be noted, which doesn't get as much attention, and it's illustrated in the passages in Matthew 14 and John 21 mentioned above. Notice that the passages not only portray Peter behaving so similarly, but also agree about the behavior of the other disciples. They're more reserved, more hesitant to act, or however you'd put it. That's also reflected in another passage I cited in my earlier post, John 20:6. John refrains from entering the tomb, but Peter goes in. There are many examples of agreements like these in the gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, etc. That's a problem for skeptical views that involve less common ground among the early Christian sources, higher levels of carelessness, and so on.

The Simplest Explanation For Peter's Prominence

There are many places in the New Testament in which Peter is prominent for reasons that are obviously of a non-papal nature. I'll start with some examples in the gospels of Matthew and John that are striking in how similar they are, despite appearing in such different contexts. When Peter leaves the boat he's in and enters the water in Matthew 14:29 and John 21:7, while the other disciples remain in the boat, he does so because of the nature of his personality, not because he's a Pope. Similarly, Peter's entering the tomb, while John remains outside, in John 20:6 is best explained by Peter's personality, not a papal office. And so on. Peter was outspoken, impulsive, rash, and so forth, so that he would often stand out for reasons other than a papacy. There's no reasonable way to deny that Peter's prominence in the early sources is due partly to such personal traits.

And that's a problem for Roman Catholicism. Since Peter's personality explains his prominence so well, no papacy or any other concept of a similar nature is needed to explain that prominence. All other things being equal, we prefer simpler explanations. Simplicity isn't the only criterion we take into account, but it is one of the criteria we consider. Why seek a second explanation for Peter's prominence when the first one is sufficient?

Andrew Before Peter

Several years ago, I wrote a post responding to the popular Roman Catholic claim that Peter is always mentioned first in lists of the apostles. Something that I didn't mention there is that Papias lists several of the apostles in the early second century, and he places Andrew before Peter (in Eusebius, Church History, 3:39:4).

An Upcoming Book On Papias

Stephen Carlson is nearing completion of a book on Papias. Bart Ehrman recently put up two guest posts from Carlson on his blog, here and here, and it looks like at least one more is on the way. I've recommended Carlson's material in the past, especially on Christmas issues. I expect his book on Papias to be good, and Ehrman anticipates that the book will be "a definitive, full-length study of Papias". Judging by what I've read of Carlson's views so far (at Ehrman's blog and elsewhere, including in an email exchange), I expect to agree with most of what Carlson has to say about Papias, but not all of it. And we need to be careful to distinguish Carlson's views from Ehrman's.

In the introduction to his first guest post by Carlson, Ehrman refers to how Papias "claims to have known and interviewed the companions of disciples of Jesus’ own apostles (it’s a bit confusing: but Jesus had his apostles; after his death they themselves had disciples; Papias knew people who knew these disciples of the apostles)". It's highly unlikely that Papias was always so far removed from the apostles, though, as I explained in a response to Richard Bauckham a couple of years ago. (To get to the most relevant section of the post, do a Ctrl F search for "beginning with Papias", and start reading at that paragraph.) Most likely, Papias was a disciple of John the son of Zebedee, the apostle, and consulted other people who had been in contact with John and the other apostles. And he probably relied on sources further removed from the apostles on other occasions. So, the degree to which Papias was removed from the apostles varied from one situation to another. But he did on some occasions have closer contact with the apostles than Ehrman refers to. Remember, Ehrman's views aren't equivalent to Carlson's. But I recommend reading Ehrman's posts and Carlson's book when it comes out.

Holy Ghost Greek

A common objection to the traditional authorship of some NT books is that Palestinian Jews or "fishermen" lack the requisite command of Greek. I've discussed this before, but I'd like to approach it from a different angle. Even conservative scholars who defend traditional authorship usually offer naturalistic explanations. 

But what about xenoglossy? I think the best interpretation of glossolalia in Acts is xenoglossy. That's a supernatural understanding of a foreign language. The individual didn't acquire his command of that language by natural means.

If we take that phenomenon seriously, then why would NT writers be exempt? If one or more NT writers needed to be able to write in competent Greek, but didn't have natural proficiency in the language, what's to prevent God from endowing him, at least temporarily, with a supernatural grasp of the language (i.e. xenoglossy)?

Indeed, that isn't sheer speculation. Isn't that exactly what God did with the disciples on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-12)?

This needn't be a permanent endowment. Perhaps it comes and goes as the need arises. Perhaps there is such a thing as "holy Ghost" Greek after all, if not in the traditional sense. 

The McDowell/Humphreys Debate On Apostolic Martyrdom

Sean McDowell and Ken Humphreys recently debated whether the apostles died as martyrs on the Unbelievable? radio program. Some other issues came up along the way, like historical methodology and the existence of the apostles.

Humphreys spent a lot of time trying to cast doubt on the reliability of Christian sources. He kept referring to Christian documents, like the gospels, as biased or unreliable in some other manner. And he kept changing his standards during the discussion, which sometimes makes it difficult to evaluate his position. At one point, he asks for sources other than the gospels. At another point, he asks for non-Biblical sources. Then he asks for secular sources. To make matters worse, he would sometimes ask for such sources after McDowell had already provided some. When Josephus, who meets Humphreys' definition of a secular source, was brought up again after initially being ignored by Humphreys, he objected that the passage in Josephus is so short, was preserved by Christian sources, etc. At one point, around the 47:30 mark in the program, Humphreys refers to how having "a secular source to back it up" would make McDowell's case far more convincing. He refers to "how very convincing that might be" if we had a secular historian somewhere in the Roman empire who commented on the death of an apostle. He goes on to refer to how we have to rely on Christian sources instead, apparently implying that there aren't any secular sources to support a traditional Christian view of the death of any of the apostles. Though he added the "historian" qualifier at one point, as if the secular source in question has to be a historian, most of the time he doesn't include or imply such a qualifier. So, it seems that he's arguing that we only have Christian sources to go by.

At his web site, he goes as far as to say:

There is NO corroborating evidence for the existence of the twelve Apostles and absolutely NO evidence for the colourful variety of martyrs' deaths they supposedly experienced. The Bible itself actually mentions the death of only two apostles, a James who was put to death by Herod Agrippa (see James for a discussion of this tricky character) and the nasty Judas Iscariot (see below), who gets several deaths because he's the bad guy.

Humphreys is wrong. A few years ago, I wrote an article that addresses what ancient non-Christian sources tell us about the death of the apostles. One of the points I make there is that the relevant sources go beyond Humphreys' secular category. Some of the ancient heretics had an interest in denying the martyrdom of one or more of the apostles. Think, for example, of how many ancient heretical groups were opposed to one or more of the apostles and therefore had a motive to deny accounts of those apostles' deaths that made them look good. It wouldn't make sense to exclude such heretical sources just because they aren't secular by Humphreys' standard. It seems that the principle Humphreys is getting at is that we should be looking for sources who don't have a bias toward affirming a traditional Christian view of an apostle's death. But secular sources aren't the only ones who can fall into that category.

In his book on the martyrdom of the apostles, McDowell gives some examples of ancient Christian sources saying or implying that various apostles didn't die as martyrs. And many modern Christians do the same. It's common for Christians to say that the apostle John died of natural causes, for example (though I disagree). So, having a Christian bias doesn't require that you believe that a given apostle died as a martyr. And it's somewhat common, not just a rare occurrence, for a Christian to say that one or more of the apostles didn't die as a martyr or that the evidence for an apostolic martyrdom is weak or too ambiguous to justify a conclusion.

Anybody who's interested in doing more research on the death of the apostles can read my series on the topic here. You could also read McDowell's book, The Fate Of The Apostles (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2015).

Ehrman's Argument Against Bauckham And The Gospels Fails

The second half of the gospels debate between Bart Ehrman and Richard Bauckham is now available. Before I address that second part of the debate, I want to summarize what I've argued so far.

Ehrman's position is highly speculative and highly unlikely, relying on layer after layer of implausibility. He has no good explanation for the internal evidence for the traditional authorship attributions of the gospels, ignores most of the external evidence prior to Irenaeus and may not even be aware of much of it, doesn't have a good explanation for the evidence from Irenaeus onward, and provides no external evidence for his own position. He has Matthew and Luke using Mark as a source, yet refuses to acknowledge the likely implication that those gospels would have been given titles and/or other identifying marks involving the authors' names, so that the documents could be distinguished in contexts in which they were being used together. (Since authors' names were the widespread means of distinguishing among the gospels from the second half of the second century onward, that means of distinguishing among them is the most likely one to have been used earlier. Continuity is more likely than discontinuity.) Ehrman wants us to believe that the gospels were collected in libraries, public and private, for several decades and were used in church services during that time, all the while remaining anonymous. I've used Irenaeus as an illustration of how implausible such a scenario would be. The general principles I've applied to Irenaeus must also be applied to Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and every other relevant source, including the many heretical and non-Christian sources who corroborated the traditional authorship attributions of the gospels. When that kind of scrutiny is applied to Ehrman's hypothesis, it breaks down again and again and again.

Paul's Physical Experience With The Physical Risen Christ

Steve and I have already said a lot about the physical nature of Paul's experience with the risen Christ in recent discussions with Faith Slayer here and here. I want to expand on some themes I mentioned in those discussions.

The New Testament doesn't just say that Paul saw a light and heard a voice. We're also told that Paul saw Jesus (Acts 9:27, 22:14, 1 Corinthians 9:1). By contrast, Paul's companions are referred to as "seeing no one" (Acts 9:7). Notice, too, that Acts 22:14 uses physical language to describe Paul's hearing of a voice ("hear an utterance from his mouth"). That language could be used in a non-physical way, but those who take it that way bear the burden of proof. All of these passages in Acts about Paul's experience are in the context of Luke's two-volume work, in which he keeps referring to the physical nature of Jesus' resurrection (Luke 24:1-3, 24:39-43, Acts 1:3, 10:41) and how Paul's fellow apostles had physical experiences with the risen Jesus that qualified them as apostles (Acts 1:21-2, 10:40-1). In that context, when Luke refers to how Paul and/or his companions saw, heard, fell to the ground, were blinded, etc., it's absurd to conclude that the experience was subjective and/or non-physical.

It's also absurd to conclude that a body other than the body of Jesus that died was resurrected, as if he was merely given a new body of some type. What dies is what rises. The death is what brings about the need for resurrection in the first place. You could speak of receiving a new body as a resurrection, but that would be a less natural way of using such terminology. Anybody holding such a view would bear the burden of proof. Luke's gospel makes it clear that the dead body was the one that was raised, and it was seeing Jesus raised in that body that qualified individuals as apostles. Notice the emphasis on Jesus' crucifixion wounds, by showing his hands and feet, in Luke 24:39. Notice the continuity in Acts 1:21-2 and 10:37-41. The witnesses saw Jesus in the time leading up to his death and following it. The continuity of the body is suggested. And that continuity isn't just mentioned as a historical fact. Physically witnessing Jesus before and after his death was a requirement for Jesus' original disciples who became apostles. Paul isn't placed in that category, but he is portrayed, in Acts and elsewhere, as being an apostle with equal authority. Seeing Jesus in his physically resurrected state makes more sense of Paul's status as an apostle. People who saw visions of Jesus, like Stephen, have a lesser status than Paul.

Here's a post I wrote several years ago about the evidence for Paul's experience with the risen Christ.

When The Apostle John Died And Why It's Important

In a thread last week about whether the apostle John died as a martyr, the issue of the timing of his death came up. It's an important subject in many contexts, such as when the canon of scripture was closed and when Revelation was written, which in turn is significant in disputes over eschatology. The timing of John's death also has a lot of relevance to liberal and skeptical theories about alleged changes in Christian belief that supposedly occurred during the closing decades of the first century. If somebody like John was still alive and prominent in church affairs until the late first or early second century, that creates some major problems for many nontraditional views of early Christianity. Here are a few posts I've written on how long John lived and how influential he was in the closing years of his life:

Mary And John As Examples Of Sources Of Information On Jesus' Background
The Apostle John's Long Lifespan
When Was Revelation Written?
The Hitchcock/Hanegraaff Debate On The Date Of Revelation

Did The Apostle John Die As A Martyr?

It's common to refer to John as the only apostle who didn't die as a martyr. He probably was a martyr, though. See here. His martyrdom is affirmed by Matthew, Mark, and Papias, and it's referred to indirectly by The Martyrdom Of Polycarp and the second-century heretic Heracleon. Concerning Heracleon, see here.

I've written a series of posts on the death of the apostles.

Peter Is Always Listed First

…except when he isn't.

"Paul…Apollos…Cephas…Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:12)

"the rest of the apostles…the brothers of the Lord…Cephas" (1 Corinthians 9:5)

"James…Cephas…John" (Galatians 2:9)

Catholics often argue for the papacy by citing Peter's position at the beginning of lists of the disciples in the gospels and Acts (Matthew 10:1-4, Mark 3:13-9, Luke 6:12-6, Acts 1:13). But why cite those lists and not others, like the ones I've quoted above? And why think that Peter's position in the lists represents his rank in the church? During the times being addressed by the four passages in the gospels and Acts, there was no system of church government as we have in churches today. And two of the most prominent apostles, James and Paul, weren't apostles yet (at the time of three of the lists for James and at the time of all four for Paul). James was an apostle at the time of Acts 1, but the passage in question is addressing the earlier disciples of Jesus, not all of the apostles, which, once again, underscores the limited significance of the list. Why should we think that Peter's position in lists about the pre-Pentecost era reflect the jurisdictional rank of Peter and his alleged successors throughout church history?