3. Licona's dichotomy between the event itself and the the explanation of that event shoots him in the foot. If one doesn't establish that Jesus is in a separate reference class from anyone else who there is a claimed resurrection for, it's hard to see how Licona's case doesn't fall victim to Humean arguments for a low prior probability.
"However, precisely because such encounters were reasonably well known (the apparently strong point of those who have recently tried to insist that this is what 'really happened' at Easter) they could not possibly, by themselves, have given rise to the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead. They are a thoroughly insufficient condition for the early Christian belief. The more 'normal' these 'visions' were, the less chance there is that anyone, no matter how cognitively dissonant they may have been feeling, would have said what nobody had ever said about such a dead person before, that they had been raised from the dead. Indeed, such visions meant precisely, as people in the ancient and modern worlds have discovered, that the person was dead, not that they were alive. Even if several such experiences had occurred, if the tomb was still occupied by the dead body they would have said to themselves, after the experiences had ceased, 'We have seen exceedingly strange visions, but he is still dead and buried. Our experiences were, after all, no different from the ones we have heard about in the old stories and poems.'" (N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of The Son of God, 690-91)
"Many commentators understand the list in I Cor 15:5-8 (of individuals and groups to whom the risen Christ appeared) to follow a chronological sequence (29). Within the context of this article, two points are important: the tense of the verb ophthe, and Paul's phrase of "last of all".
The aorist tense of "appeared" which Paul uses in I Cor 15:5-8 suggests events over and done with in the past and not repeated (30). As regards I Cor 15:8 and the appearances to Paul, C.F. Evans wonders whether Paul meant "last of all" to be a factual statement. Or is it an expression of Pauline egoism (31)? Evans does not answer his own questions but implies that the apostle holds that the appearance to him was in principle the last: "Paul envisages the whole series as coming to a close only with the appearance of the Lord to himself." (32)
Hans Conzelmann argues that the long list of witnesses, starting with 1 Cor 15:5 and ending at 1 Cor 15:8, is there to maintain the resurrection's "temporal distance from the present and thereby to rule out the [present] possibility of a direct appropriation of it." (33) Here Conzelmann seems to be saying that the witnesses, from Peter to Paul, directly appropriated the resurrection (directly encountered the risen Lord) in a way that was simply not possible for believers when Paul wrote I Corinthians.
Fuller is quite clear in holding that the appearance in Paul (I Cor 15:8) is in principle the last appearance of the risen Lord. He argues for two types of appearances (founding the eschatological community and inaugurating the Christian mission). He asserts that Paul not only knew of no other appearances during the past twenty years after his own, but also ruled out in principle any such appearances (34). Fuller sums up his points by saying: "The appearances occurred over a period of some three years or so, the last and definitive one being to that of Paul" (49). (35)
In commenting on I Cor 15:8 Jacob Kremer argues that the "of all" refers to all the Easter witnesses listed in I Cor 15:5-8, and not simply to "all the apostles" just mentioned in v 7. He further argues that even if "last of all" might in theory mean "least of all the apostles" (a sense of values), it reflects the "then" of vv 6-7 and clearly carries a temporal meaning (36).
Charles K. Barrett faces the same question and decides more emphatically for the temporal sense of "last of all." (37) Similar opinions are expressed by Grosheide ("Paul was the last to see the glorified Lord with his own eyes, in order that he might be a true apostle") (38), Morris ([Paul] "thinks of himself as the last in the line of those who have seen the Lord") (39), Wand (the "historical accuracy [of Paul's preaching] was guaranteed by a number of witnesses of whom Paul himself was the last") (40), and Rengstorf (41). Finally, Gordon Fee states that the appearance to Paul "was a unique and gracious gift that occurred after the time when such appearances were understood to have ceased" (42)
The conclusion seems well supported: Paul understood the risen Lord's appearance to him to be, both in fact and in principle, the last of a series. With his special case such experiences ended.
(30) Beda Rigaux (Dieu l'a ressuscite: Exegese et theologie biblique [Studii Biblici Franciscani Analecta 4; Gembloux: Duculot, 1973] 123) is one of the few authors to note the significance of the difference between the aorist tense of "he died," "he was buried," and "he appeared" (four times) and the perfect tense of "he has been raised" (I Cor 15:4). The perfect indicates the beginning but not the completion of an act. The aorist tense, however, locates an event in the sphere of past history, among things that happened, so as to be over and done with. Kessler similarly notes how the aorist tense of ophthe (I Cor 15:5,6,7,8) indicates a closed series of events (Sucht den Lebenden, 152). Grammars of NT Greek agree that in the first century A.D. the aorist indicative normally pointed to something that had simply come about, without being continued or repeated (Maximilian Zerwick, Biblical Greek [ed. Joseph Smith; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963] 77; Friedrich Blass and Albert Debrunner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek (ed. Robert Funk; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1961] 176). In our case, while the present impact of the resurrection itself continues (perfect tense), the appearances of the risen Christ, like the death and burial (all in the aorist) tense, are once-and-for-all events of the past that are not repeated.
(37) C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on The First Epistle to the Corinthians (HNTC; New York: Harper & Row, 1971) 334-44: "The last of the witnesses of the risen Christ was Paul himself. It is true that 'last of all' could be taken to mean 'least in importance', and would agree with verse 9; but at the end of a list punctuated by then…then…then, the other meaning of the word must be accepted." ("The Uniqueness of the Easter Appearances" CBQ 54. 1992, p. 295-297)
7. I simply don't like this dichotomy between historical explanations and other truths. The question of God's existence, and whether or not God would want to raise someone like Jesus is relevant to the question of the resurrection of Jesus. I don't care about what bounds a historian can or can't cross. This question is obviously interdisciplinary. Historians make clumsy statements about epistemology all the time. They have no problem borrowing from that field. Why not philosophy of religion? If the evidence strongly favors theism, and the idea of Jesus being in a more precise reference class than other historical figures to whom miracles are attributed, then any historical explanation's prior probability is affected by both of those things.
8. Robinson's view of Pauline influence on the Gospels is radical, and is worth challenging in light of Licona's own work on the historical reliability of the Gospels, but it isn't even touched! Likewise, her portrayal of a potential sharp disconnect between Paul's fundamental gospel and that of the Jerusalem apostles has fallen dramatically out of favor in recent years, but Licona doesn't even touch it.
9. Robinson's view on individual testimonial evidence seems to be radically skeptical, and yet Licona doesn't defend any rigorous view of the reliability of testimony. This happens far too often on the resurrection of Jesus. The general reliability of testimony, especially in an environment of critical examination of claims tied to honor status in society, and the founding of a new religion are very important considerations.
