The Resurrection in Recent Scholarly Research

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At the very end of Martin Scorsese’s film version of Nikos Kazantzakis’s now famous novel. The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus returns to the Cross, from his out-of-body temptation sequence, to those last, agonizing moments of death. Then, suddenly, white flashes of light streak the screen, the image is lost—as if someone has just opened the camera and exposed the film within. The ending is suggestive, for it is clear that neither the film maker nor the tale-weaver had any desire to try to capture on film or to explicate in prose precisely what happened to Jesus between his death on the Cross and Easter morning. The point should not be lost on the theologian!

And yet, the course of New Testament scholarship and of Christian theology in general shows an overwhelming and repeated urge to return to this part of the Gospel story, to try to determine “what really happened.” The demon that drives such research is still articulated best by the apostle Paul:

“If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

The printed results of this research are astounding. The bibliography of Pheme Perkins’s monumental study, Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (1984),¹ itself some 504 pages long, lists no fewer than 500 articles and books bearing on this subject. In my own research devoted to scholarship on the resurrection within just the last ten years (1978–1988), I have identified at least 28 monographs (in English, French and German alone), 94 articles in periodicals and some 45 other articles in anthologies. So important is this area in New Testament research that the American Theological Library Association’s Religion Index and the quarterly New Testament Abstracts both devote special sections exclusively to publications dealing with this topic.

In what follows, I will try to distill the views on which some consensus has developed, as well as to identify other areas of related research where significant differences of opinion remain. In the process, I hope to give some impressions of trends in ongoing research.

Despite conservative and liberal differences over presuppositions in exegesis (more about this later), considerable agreement exists about which New Testament texts are basic for the study of Jesus’ resurrection. These fall into two categories: (1) the narratives that conclude each of the four canonical Gospels; and (2) the so-called 016kerygmatic (KER-ig-MAT-ik) formulas^a found in New Testament literature. The kerygmatic formulas include confessions of faith, hymns that advert to the resurrection, acclamations and Pauline testimonies.

The narratives (Mark 16:1–18; Matthew 28:1–20; Luke 24:1–53; John 20:1–21:25) function as important theological conclusions to the four Gospels. However, they contain differences that cannot be harmonized and display traces of apologetic and Christological reflection that point to later development. Some of the Gospel narratives focus on the discovery of the empty tomb; others recount appearances of the risen Christ. Generally speaking, scholars have concluded that the narratives were composed and developed later than the kerygmatic formulas.²

The kerygmatic formulas, in turn, consist of short statements of one, two or four clauses. Some affirm the resurrection event, using verbs specific to that event, verbs such as “anistem” (rise) or “egeiro” (raise up) that do not appear in the Gospel narratives. For example, Romans 4:24 refers to Jesus as “him that was raised from the dead” (see also 1 Thessalonians 4:14). Other kerygmatic formulas proclaim the exaltation experienced by Christ because of his victory over death, with no mention of resurrection. For example, Ephesians 4:10 speaks of Jesus as one who “ascended far above all the heavens.”

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Most scholars have concluded that the kerygmatic formulas are our earliest textual witnesses to the resurrection.

Both the narratives and the kerygmatic formulas can be subdivided, giving us four streams of tradition: The Gospel narratives can be subdivided into (1) the discovery of the empty tomb and (2) appearances of the risen Christ to the disciples. The kerygmatic formulas can be subdivided into (3) references to the resurrection and (4) exaltations that seem to assume the resurrection.

No easy synthesis or chronological ordering of these four types of traditional material is possible. Nevertheless, we can, in general, arrange various attestations of Jesus’ resurrection into a chronological arrangement as follows: (1) pre-Pauline, (2) Pauline, (3) Gospel testimonies and (4) post-Gospel testimonies.

Analytical Principles

Since the 19th century, responsible biblical scholarship has made use of historical-critical methods in examining New Testament texts on the resurrection.³ This reflects the fundamental aim of “exegesis” to “lead out” of a text the meaning intended by its first author for its first readers, giving due recognition to the text’s particular cultural and linguistic environment. Nevertheless, different faith understandings of biblical authority, as well as different historiographic principles, have led to highly varied conclusions. Let me illustrate this briefly, in terms of some of the fundamental principles of the historical-critical method:⁴

1. The principle of skepticism. According to this principle, the historian must exercise some skepticism when approaching ancient authors’ claims about particular events, unless corroborating evidence can be found to substantiate those 018claims. Such an attitude has produced rather radical historical skepticism about the resurrection on the part of many scholars, including Rudolf Bultmann, Norman Perrin and Willi Marxsen.⁵ Conservative scholars, on the other hand, have tended to be far less skeptical about the Easter texts; their optimism is undergirded by greater confidence in the veracity of the biblical writers or by belief in the corrective inspiration of the Holy Spirit working through biblical writers. See, for example, the works of Grant R. Osborne and George E. Ladd.⁶

2. The principle of correlation. The general understanding of historical causality assumes that each event has an antecedent—an empirical cause—and subsequent, empirically verifiable effects. Those subscribing to this principle of historiography must automatically rule out the supernatural as a causative agent. Thus, when the New Testament declares, as in Acts 2:23–24, “You crucified this Jesus … but God raised him up,” the conclusion must be drawn that something else happened than the direct intervention of the Divine to restore Jesus to life. Perhaps what arose was not the dead Jesus, but the faith of the disciples in the eschatological significance of this event (so Rudolf Bultmann, Gerhard Ebeling and Willi Marxsen).⁷ But, clearly, not all believing exegetes are willing to go so far (for example, Gerald O’Collins and Raymond E. Brown).⁸ Their world is not circumscribed by a system of closed laws and natural order whose miraculous interruption is impossible.⁹

3. The principle of analogy. According to this principle, any historical event, in order to be intelligible, must be fundamentally similar to, even if slightly different from, events experienced by the historian in her/his own time. In the case of the resurrection, since modem persons do not experience the revivification of the deceased,^b the notion of resurrection of a first-century Jew must remain unintelligible. Of course, in response to such a view, scholars such as Wolfhart Pannenburg have claimed that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is precisely the event without analogy. It is the unique event that shatters such positivistic historiography.¹⁰

Generally, New Testament scholars of the past decade have either rejected or tended to modify to some degree these “principles of modem historiography,” many finding them too deterministic in light of contemporary science. There are, however, notable exceptions.¹¹

Let us now look at the results of some recent research into the resurrection data in pre-Pauline testimonies, in Pauline testimonies, in Gospel testimonies and in post-Gospel testimonies.

Pre-Pauline Testimonies

Certain literary units in the New Testament appear to have received their distinctive forms prior to incorporation in written documents—such things as contessions of faith (for example, Romans 10:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:14; 1 Corinthians 15:3–5), acclamations or approbations (1 Corinthians 12:3, 16:22), and hymns (for example, Philippians 2:6–11; 1 Timothy 3:16b; 1 Peter 3:18–19). These passages reveal how reflection on Christ’s resurrection was an important focus in earliest Christian worship. These texts reflect a certitude about two things: (1) God raised Jesus from the dead; and (2) Christ as the risen Lord now lives in glory with God. Interestingly enough, they exhibit no inclination to offer any proof of the resurrection.¹²

Another set of pre-literary traditions about the resurrection is probably found imbedded in some basic themes in the “sermons” in the Acts of the Apostles (see 2:14–36, 3:12–26, 4:8–12, 5:29–32, 10:34–43, 13:16–41). Here we encounter, embroidered with Luke’s own additions, such themes as Jesus’ resurrection having enabled him to overcome death and enter eschatological life; the resurrection as God’s legitimation of Jesus’ life and work; the inauguration of a new era of life and possibility for Jesus himself and all others; and the institution of the Christ as the judge at the Eschaton (Ess-kuh-TAHN; Last Judgment).¹³

Pauline Testimonies

The apostle Paul offers the earliest account of the resurrection. His testimonies therefore have played a crucial and central role in scholarly discussion. The key text is 1 Corinthians 15 (see the sidebar to this article). Here we find an account of the earliest Easter tradition (verses 3–7), which many date to within three to five years of the event (or 33–35 A.D.).¹⁴ Paul next records his personal experience in encountering the risen Christ (verses 8–11), and then gives us a series of reflections on the connection of Jesus’ resurrection with that of the resurrection of dead believers (verses 12–34).

Despite his vigorous pronouncement in verse 14 “that if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain,” Paul seems not to have been overly pressed to defend the claim that Christians were making about Jesus’ resurrection. Rather, he is principally 019concerned with answering those gentiles who want to deny the possibility of resurrection of the dead generally.

Unlike other New Testament writers, Paul cites his personal meetings with the risen Jesus (for example, in 1 Corinthians 9:1, 15:8; Galatians 1:15–17). He does so, however, as a basis for his claims for apostolic authority and not to prove the resurrection’s occurrence.

Paul’s letters also contain kerygmatic formulas, which helped shape the resurrection tradition. Most of these are pre-Pauline (for example, in 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10; Romans 1:3f., 4:24–25, 8:34 and 10:9).¹⁵ In addition, he expressed Jesus’ exaltation in hymns he had inherited in the Church (for example, Philippians 2:6–11; Colossians 1:1–15).

Gospel Testimonies

It seems increasingly clear that the Gospel accounts are the end products of development from older, simple assertions of the fact of the resurrection. In the words of Giuseppe Ghiberti, “a piece of news has been turned into a story.”¹⁶ In Mark, the story ends with the surprise of certain women visitors (and, secondarily, some men visitors) to Jesus’ tomb, which they found empty. In Matthew, Luke, John and the so called longer ending of Mark (Mark 16:9–20), encounters With the risen Jesus are recorded, including those of a specially privileged group of disciples. John 21 focuses entirely on a single resurrection appearance to Peter. But outside the Gospels, no such experiences or appearances are narrated. At best, they are alluded to; for example, Acts 10:41 quotes Peter as speaking of those “of us who were chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead”; and Paul offers similar allusions in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8.

Let us look separately at the Gospels’ empty tomb traditions and at the appearances of the risen Christ. The women who came to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, early on Easter morning, found the tomb open and the body gone (Luke 24:22–23). (Mark and Matthew don’t seem to 020know that some of the disciples were also involved.) The angels encountered at the tomb provide an authoritative interpretation of the absence of the body. Only Luke refers explicitly to Jesus being alive (Luke 24:5, 23). The empty tomb story then ends with the women reporting back to the disciples on their experience.¹⁷ In considering this tradition, the appearance of the angels, which is beyond historical verification, is of less critical importance than the absence of the body of Jesus from the tomb. This is because the empty tomb, which is empirically verifiable, is clearly implied and intended, even when it is unmentioned.¹⁸

The Gospel narratives also tell us that the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples, as well as to some other individuals (the women, Mary Magdalene, the disciples at Emmaus). The time and place of these appearances varies. Some are on Easter Sunday itself (Luke 24 and John 20:19–23). Some are on an undefined date (Matthew 28 and John 21); John 20:26–29 speaks of “eight days later”; Acts 1:3 speaks of a period of “forty days.” As to place, Matthew and Mark 16:7 identify Galilee as the locale of Jesus’ appearances; Luke and John 20 pinpoint a Jerusalem setting for them. John 21 also tells of a meeting in Galilee. Such appearances reflect certain repeated motifs: Jesus’ self-revelation overcomes the lingering doubts of those he meets; his authoritative commissions to his disciples are basic to their further mission; and the promise of the sustaining power of the Divine and of the risen Christ undergirds the disciples for their future missions.¹⁹

The great variety in such accounts makes it difficult to separate later elaboration and editing from earlier tradition. It is most unlikely that these accounts can be reduced to a series of appearances with all else the result of theological elaboration. Nor can we jettison the locales of Galilee or Jerusalem from such traditions or the record of responses and attitudes of human beings who encounter the risen Christ. The extraordinary and exceptional nature of the events of these appearances must certainly have contributed to the variety of interpretations that have resulted from them.

The Problem of Q

Let me now try to explain, if I can, the problem of Q. “Q” is the name scholars have given to a hypothetical document that supposedly lies behind the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In short, both Matthew and Luke used Q as a source; that explains why Matthew and Luke share so many passages in common and enables us to draw the contours of Q. Q is believed to reflect a very early layer of tradition.

But an apparent anomaly exists in Q. As hypothetically reconstructed, it seems to be silent on the issues of Jesus’ death and resurrection. What explains this omission in Q? Was the resurrection belief itself, perhaps a tradition that postdates Q? Both Helmut Koester and Edward Schillebeeckx, two very distinguished commentators, argue that the omission of the resurrection in Q suggests that it was only one of several models adopted by the early Christians to give expression to the Easter experience—and probably not the earliest!²⁰ These scholars point out that in some very early types of kerygmata (ki-RIG-muh-TUH; plural of “kerygma,” ki-RIG-muh), Jesus’ death and resurrection remain 021unmentioned. This is true, for example, in proclamations of Jesus as Wisdom’s own messenger, or as Wisdom itself (Luke 11:49–51; Matthew 11:27; Philippians 2:6–11; John 1:1–16); in stories about Jesus as the divine miracle worker (Acts 2:22; 2 Corinthians 3:1, 5:12); and in affirmations about Jesus as the coming Lord of the future (1 Corinthians 15:51–52, 16:22; Luke 17:24; Revelations 22:20). In all these cases, one would expect to find at least an allusion to the resurrection, if not an explicit reference to it, but there is none.

On the other hand, some other considerations call this hypothesis into question. For example, Q does seem to reflect knowledge of Jesus’ death in its mention that future prophets will be killed (Luke 11:50). Also, the author(s) of Q must have known of some type of vindication of Jesus in order to continue to emphasize his eschatological proclamation as the End-time divine messenger (Luke 7:34, 9:58). According to Q, Jesus spoke with the authority of the Son of Man (Luke 7:34; 9:58) who will return in the future to vindicate finally his word (Luke 11:30, 12:8–10, 40, 17:24–30).²¹ Some catalytic event, it would seem, lay behind all the alternative Easter models, including those suggested by Koester and Schillebeeckx, to give them meaning and to underscore the continuity of identity of the earthly Jesus with the exalted and glorified Christ. In my judgment, this was most probably the death-resurrection of Jesus. As William M. Thompson has recently put it, “great and profound experiences co-originate their own symbolism.””²²

Passion Predictions

What about the “Passion predictions” in the Gospels that speak of Jesus’ words about “rising again after three days” (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:34; Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19; Luke 19:22, 8:33)? Because the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry prior to Easter are written from the inevitable perspective after that experience a great many scholars have concluded that the “Passion predictions” are “vaticinia exeventu,” prophecies after the event. These scholars conclude that the Passion predictions are actually a later tradition and that they do not provide reliable insight into Jesus’ own expectations regarding his postmortem experience.

Certainly, unless he was a complete dolt, Jesus must have anticipated his arrest and death, but whether he had any “intimations of survival of death” is something no longer accessible to the modern reader. The Gospels give us the clear 042impression that, when Easter came, the disciples were totally unprepared for it and did not understand it. Accordingly, I would conclude that the “Passion predictions” in the Gospels cast no direct light on the historicity of the event itself.²³

Statements about the resurrection in other New Testament literature are all later and contain nothing original in the way of eyewitness testimony to the actual events of Easter. These statements are doctrinal and function primarily to confirm a fixed and unchallenged faith in Jesus’ resurrection. In works such as Revelation, Christian beliefs about what happened that first Easter have evolved into the Church’s Christological confession (see Revelations 1:18–19, 2:8).

All the New Testament testimony on the resurrection that we have reviewed—pre-Pauline, Pauline, Gospel narratives, Q and later New Testament writings—concur in proclaiming the new and unexpected nature of life that has resulted from Jesus’ resurrection. The event is proclaimed as the epicenter of a faith not yet elaborated, as the consequence of unexpected results following from Jesus’ death, and as the unveiling or revelation that explains other aspects of salvation.

The event itself, however, is not described, leading to the conclusion that no one directly observed what happened. Only the results that follow from the events are related. We see a kind of bewilderment and indecisiveness in the witnesses (see, for example, Luke 24:39 and John 20:17). Moreover, there is a newness in the life of the resurrected Jesus. There is continuity of identity (as the testing accounts by disciples in Luke and John are meant to indicate),²⁴ yet the risen Christ is no longer subject to death. His life leads to a state of glory in eternal closeness with the Father, something emphasized by the use of Psalm 110 to underscore the triumph of the risen Christ, now enthroned at the Father’s right hand, exercising new power.²⁵

The Witnesses’ Experiences

Recent research has emphasized the key role that women played in visiting the tomb, especially in the Gospels.²⁶ Peter too is a primary witness throughout the texts (1 Corinthians 15:5; Luke 24:34; Mark 16:7; John 20:1–10); this probably reflects the importance of the role he came to play in the Church. Emphasis on his presence may also be the result of a desire to add credibility to the reports about Jesus since, from a first-century Jewish juridical perspective, the testimony of a woman did not have the weight of that of a man. Nevertheless, women are the first witnesses, regardless of Peter. Mary Magdalene has the primary role among them (she is featured in five of the six Gospel resurrection narratives; in John 20 the evangelist so arranges the narrative as to give her center stage).²⁷ As Gerald O’Collins has put it: “Women enclose the paschal mystery…. To know this mystery we need to know it in a feminine way.”²⁸ The prominent place of women in the story of the witnesses underscores their being freed from the passivity put on them by a male-dominated culture and their courage to witness first.

Running throughout all the accounts of the witnesses’ experience are the themes of their difficulty in understanding the resurrection and of faith as a prerequisite for meeting and understanding the risen Christ.²⁹

Problems Arising from the Texts

Scholarship of the past decade has made it clear that the tradition about the empty tomb is less well-attested than the tradition of the appearances. Does the tradition reporting the empty tomb therefore represent a fabrication? Did the corpse really remain in the tomb?

I perceive an increasing number of scholars concluding that even though Paul does not explicitly mention the empty tomb in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5, it is: probable that Paul has knowledge of that tradition and that it is pre-Pauline. Certainly, the stories of the empty tomb are intended, theologically, to identify the risen Christ with the crucified Jesus; and it is clear that Paul accepts this identification fully.³⁰

Moreover, the argument has never been successfully refuted as to why, if the body was still in the tomb, Jewish leaders did not produce it to disprove Christian claims. The balance of probability seems to be growing that the Jerusalem community in which the empty tomb tradition arose knew the tomb’s location and knew it to be empty!

Much recent research concerning the appearances of the risen Christ has been occupied with two questions: Why were the appearance stories composed? And what was the nature of the experience the witnesses had? At the beginning of this decade, Willi Marxsen and Ulrich Wilckens argued that the “appearance” stories were composed as “formulas of legitimation,” to give authority to those who were preaching the gospel. This explains the list of witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15 and in more detailed narratives. More recent scholarship, however, has pointed out that before any apologetic concern to legitimize the authority of the speaker came the need to assert the recognition of the One who appeared as the Christ as the basis for the kerygma, the Christological proclamation. This recognition is essential to the faith that results in proclamation; mission and preaching follow from this recognition.³¹

Regarding the nature of the witnesses’ experience, recent research has focused on the interpretation of the verb “opthe,” which occurs four times in 1 Corinthians 15:5–8 and is translated “appeared.” Marxsen, following the Bultmannian line of interpretation, argued that behind the earliest tradition about Easter (1 Corinthians 15:3–8) lay a single vision: that given to Peter to legitimize his mission. Likewise, the appearance in Paul’s vision legitimized his mission. However, according to this interpretation, these “appearances” were received in visions by a mind in a state transcending normal consciousness. They were not perceived by bodily senses in the empirical sense of “seeing.”

A study of the verb “opthe” (appear) as used in the Septuagint (the earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek), however, has shown that it refers to divine theophanies, such as that granted Abraham in Genesis 12:7. These theophanies were understood by readers of the Septuagint as involving real appearances given as gifts to the recipients, not as subjective, inward intuitions. Paul was such a reader, and his use of “opthe” in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 indicates that he understands the risen Christ’s appearances to be like those of the Divine experienced by the major figures in the Old Testament. Such “appearances” involve personal encounter, seeing, hearing and acceptance.³²

Nearly 15 years ago, Reginald Fuller offered a summary of a consensus that a number of major scholars (Brown, Fuller himself, Leon-Dufour, Pannenberg, O’Collins and others) seemed to have reached regarding the reliability of the resurrection traditions in the New Testament. With due allowance for slight variations by the different authors, Fuller summarized the consensus as follows:

“It is generally agreed that the starting point for any investigation of the Easter traditions lies not in the narratives at the ends of the Gospels, but in 1 Corinthians 15. This establishes the earliest tradition of the appearances. These appearances are to be interpreted not as encounters with a resuscitated Jesus prior to an ascension, but as eschatological disclosures ‘from heaven’ of an already Exalted 043One [like divine theophanies in the Old Testament]. The empty tomb was not part of the kerygma [proclamation] cited by Paul nor does Easter faith rest upon it [the empty tomb tradition], yet the empty tomb pericopes rest upon an ancient historical nucleus. Mary Magdalene, at least, found an empty grave. The resurrection itself, never witnessed narrated, was an eschatological event between God and Jesus (‘God raised Jesus from the dead’), not merely something that happened to the disciples. Jesus was translated at his resurrection into an entirely new mode of existence, to be sharply distinguished from the kind of resuscitations alleged [in various other places in the New Testament] of Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, or Lazarus.”

Research since Fuller’s summary would not change it significantly. A majority scholars now agree that every belief is inevitably connected with an element history. We simply cannot skip over New Testament claims about the resurrection as ahistorical or irrelevant to the quest for what really happened on the first Easter. At the same time, we must recognize that there are modes of truth other than the exclusively historical; and models other than historical can convey this Truth.

At the very end of Martin Scorsese’s film version of Nikos Kazantzakis’s now famous novel. The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus returns to the Cross, from his out-of-body temptation sequence, to those last, agonizing moments of death. Then, suddenly, white flashes of light streak the screen, the image is lost—as if someone has just opened the camera and exposed the film within. The ending is suggestive, for it is clear that neither the film maker nor the tale-weaver had any desire to try to capture on film or to explicate in prose precisely what happened to Jesus between his […]