A Response to "Resurrection Expert"

If you spend any time in the YouTube resurrection apologetics arena, you are likely to see an individual by the name of "Resurrection Expert" (henceforth 'RE'). This account is run by a skeptic who repeatedly copies and pastes a lengthy case against the resurrection to various comment forums, especially obscure Christian apologetics channels. While I don't think RE's case against the resurrection is particularly strong (though it engages with the evidence better than many YouTube skeptics), it is nonetheless prevalent, and deserving of a reply.

The comment is taken from this video. In what follows, I will quote portions of RE's comment and respond point-by-point. This isn't meant to be a complete response, and there will undoubtedly be good points that I omit, but I hope my comments are somewhat substantive. The first two sentences of RE's case are as follows:

The resurrection narratives grow in the telling which may indicate a legend that grew over time. Pay attention to how "experiencing" the Risen Jesus evolves in chronological order. 

Whenever someone makes a comment about the Gospels showing patterns of progressive exaggeration, it is paramount that we carefully read the relevant texts. It's trivially easy to cherry-pick details and create a façade of legendary development. For an example of this, see the second part of this post from Lydia McGrew.

Continuing:

Scholarly consensus dating places the documents as follows: Paul c. 50 CE - is the only firsthand report. He says the Risen Jesus "appeared" ὤφθη (1 Cor 15:5-8) and was experienced through "visions" and "revelations" - 2 Cor 12:1.

Paul's use of the Greek word ὤφθη ("ophthe") is unnecessarily controversial. All it should be taken to mean is that Jesus was "seen". Consider this passage from Philo: "For which reason it is said, not that the wise man saw (εἶδε) God but that God appeared (ὤφθη) to the wise man; for it was impossible for any one to comprehend by his own unassisted power the true living God, unless he himself displayed and revealed himself to him." (On Abraham 17:80). So it seems that ὤφθη refers to someone revealing himself of his own volition. A further analysis of this word might be the subject of a future post, but for now these comments will be adequate. 

RE quotes 2 Corinthians 12:1, alleging that this establishes the appearances as "visions and revelations": "Boasting is necessary, though it is not beneficial; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord." This verse isn't necessarily indicating that the appearances of the risen Jesus were some vague, spiritual reality. Paul uses the future tense which cautions against any comparison with the appearances that already happened, described in the 1 Corinthians 15:5-8.

The appearance to Paul was a vision/revelation from heaven - Gal. 1:12-16, Acts 26:19 (not a physical encounter with a revived corpse) and he makes no distinction between what he "saw" and what the others "saw" in 1 Cor 15:5-8 nor does he mention an intervening ascension between the appearances.

See here for a discussion of the physicality of the Damascus road experience. Paul uses the word ὤφθη to describe both his encounter with Jesus as well as the experiences of the other disciples. In Luke-Acts, however, we read that Paul's conversion experience was much more visionary than the robust, flesh-and-blood Jesus that appeared after his resurrection. Does this mean that the resurrection appearances were initially believed to be "spiritual", with the details being added in over time? Not necessarily. While it's certainly possible that Paul is saying that their experiences are the same as his, it's also possible that he's pushing his up to the level of theirs. Paul is trying to establish his apostolic credentials (see 1 Corinthians 9.1: "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?"). In addition to this, the broad lexical range of ὤφθη means that Paul's usage of the same word doesn't establish much.

But does Paul actually say his appearance is the same as the others? Scholars like Kirk MacGregor argue that Paul's use of the phrase "as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me" as a prefix to his resurrection encounter implies that Jesus appeared to Paul in a different way [1]. Though this can't be established with much confidence, it weakens the claim that Paul draws no distinction between the various resurrection appearances.

And finally, is it relevant that the ascension isn't mentioned in this creed? Not really. There's no reason to expect a condensed creed to contain everything pertaining to Jesus' resurrection. Unless RE can give us a reason to think Paul should have mentioned the ascension before adding his appearance to the creed, Paul's omission of it is irrelevant.

This shows that early Christians accepted claims of "visions" (experiences that don't necessarily have anything to do with reality) as "Resurrection appearances."

Not necessarily, but it's beside the point anyway. The creed in 1 Corinthians 15 can't tell us what kind of appearances the disciples claimed to have had (this is a problem with adopting a minimalist approach in defending the resurrection); for that, we need to turn to the Gospels.

Paul nowhere gives any evidence of the Risen Christ being experienced in a more "physical" way which means you have to necessarily read in the assumption that the appearances were physical, from a later source that Paul nowhere corroborates.

Paul nowhere says that the disciples touched Jesus, ate with Jesus, spoke with Jesus, or did anything of that sort, but he nowhere denies it either. This is a recurring problem in RE's apply: pointing out hypotheticals that are consistent with a certain datum but are nowhere evidenced by that datum. I think the Pauline corpus itself leaves it open as to whether the appearances of Jesus were like those recorded later in the Gospels. However, a case can be made that if Paul was a traveling companion of Luke (who does include physical details in his resurrection narrative), it's most likely that his understanding of the resurrection would be the same as Luke's. I do not intend to make that case here.

What Paul says in Phillipians [sic] 2:8-9, Rom. 8:34, and the sequential tradition preserved in Eph. 1:20 is consistent with the belief that Jesus went straight to heaven after the resurrection leaving no room for any physical earthly appearances. If this was the earliest belief then it follows that all of the "appearances" were believed to have been of the Exalted Christ in heaven and not physical earthly interactions with a revived corpse.

All of the above verses are consistent with Jesus going straight to heaven but are not at all required by it. For example, Romans 8.34 says "Christ Jesus is He who died, but rather, was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us." There is no reason there can't be time in between the resurrection and the implied ascension. In fact, there is clearly time between the death and the resurrection as Paul elsewhere implies that Jesus was raised on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4). So yes, Paul could be saying that Jesus went straight to heaven after his resurrection, but there's no reason to think he is. Thus, the second part of the above text is irrelevant.

He had a chance to mention the empty tomb in 1 Cor 15 when it would have greatly helped his argument but doesn't.

As has been discussed on this blog before, the argument from silence is a weak form of historiography. Paul's omission of the empty tomb doesn't mean much.

RE now begins a comparison of the resurrection narratives in the Gospels. At this point, I will not attempt to argue with the provided dating, but it's worth noting that even fairly liberal scholars date them a bit earlier than is done here. RE begins:

Paul's order of appearances: Peter, the twelve, the 500, James, all the apostles, Paul. No location is mentioned.

Note that Paul, our earliest source, has the most appearances. This weakens the evidential force of the claim that there are more appearances in the later Gospels—belief in all these appearances is very early. This is also the only place where we have a mention of the appearance to the 500. It might be alluded to in Matthew's account, but the fact that no Gospel narrates this appearance is interesting.

Mark c. 70 CE - introduces the empty tomb but has no appearance report. Predicts Jesus will be "seen" in Galilee. The original ends at 16:8 where the women leave and tell no one. Mark's order of appearances: Not applicable.

Matthew c. 80 CE - has the women tell the disciples, contradicting Mark's ending, has some women grab Jesus' feet, then has an appearance in Galilee which "some doubt" - Mt. 28:17. Matthew also adds a descending angel, great earthquake, and a zombie apocalypse to spice things up. If these things actually happened then it's hard to believe the other gospel authors left them out, let alone any other contemporary source from the time period. Matthew's order of appearances: Two women, eleven disciples. The appearance to the women takes place near the tomb in Jerusalem while the appearance to the disciples happens on a mountain in Galilee.

There is no contradiction between Matthew and Mark. Mark could hardly have meant that the women told no one, otherwise there wouldn't be a story to write. Most likely, he meant that the women didn't go screaming through Jerusalem that Jesus was risen.

RE accuses Matthew of "spicing things up". Note that the great earthquake and "zombie apocalypse" (an inept, rhetorically-charged description unfitting for anyone engaged in serious scholarship) appear only in Matthew but are absent in Luke and John. This is an example of reverse legendary development. RE attempts to turn this into a point against the reliability of the Gospels, claiming "If these things actually happened then it's hard to believe the other gospel authors left them out, let alone any other contemporary source from the time period." Again, an argument from silence.

Luke 85-95 CE - has the women immediately tell the disciples, contradicting Mark. Jesus appears in Jerusalem, not Galilee, contradicting Matthew's depiction and Mark's prediction. He appears to two people on the Emmaus Road who don't recognize him at first. Jesus then vanishes and suddenly appears to the disciples. This time Jesus is "not a spirit" but a "flesh and bone" body that gets inspected, eats fish, then floats to heaven while all the disciples watch - conspicuously missing from all the earlier reports. Acts adds the otherwise unattested claim that Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days. Luke omits any appearance to the women. Luke's order of appearances: Two on the Emmaus Road, Peter, rest of the eleven disciples. All appearances happen in Jerusalem.

Again, no contradiction with the women telling the disciples. And there's no reason Jesus couldn't appear in both Jerusalem and Galilee. There are some other objections to the order of the appearances, especially regarding Jerusalem and Galilee, but as RE doesn't mention them I won't discuss them here. Furthermore, the argument that the Gospel authors used physical details to establish a bodily resurrection has been subject to criticism. [2]

John 90-110 CE - Jesus can now walk through walls and has the Doubting Thomas story where Jesus gets poked. Jesus is also basically God in this gospel which represents another astonishing development. John's order of appearances: Mary Magdalene, eleven disciples, the disciples again plus Thomas, then to seven disciples. In John 20 the appearances happen in Jerusalem and in John 21 they happen near the Sea of Galilee on a fishing trip. 

Jesus' being able to walk through walls is actually surprising if John is trying to emphasize the physicality of the resurrection, as RE alleges, especially given the rise of gnostic teachings in the late first century asserting that Jesus did not have a physical body. Johannine Christology is more explicitly divine than Synoptic Christology, but the latter is on the same level as the former and they are not inconsistent. A good treatment of Markan Christology can be found in Michael Bird's book Jesus the Eternal Son.

As you can see, these reports are inconsistent with one another and represent growth that's better explained as legendary accretion rather than actual history. If these were actual historical reports that were based on eyewitness testimony then we would expect more consistency than we actually get. 

Minor inconsistencies are not surprising on eyewitness testimony. All of the major "inconsistencies" RE points out are merely where some Gospels record things that others don't. These, of course, are not inconsistencies, and are not surprising if the Gospels go back to eyewitness testimony, suggesting independence in the accounts.

None of the resurrection reports in the gospels even match Paul's appearance chronology in 1 Cor 15:5-8 

Which suggests that the Gospels weren't blindly copying from earlier sources.

and the later sources have amazing stories that are drastically different from and nowhere even mentioned in the earliest reports. 

The earlier sources have amazing stories that are drastically different from and nowhere even mentioned in the latest reports (e.g., the appearance to the 500, the guards at the tomb, the resurrection of the saints).

The story evolves from Paul's spiritual/mystical Christ all the way up to literally touching a resurrected corpse that flies to heaven! 

Notice what RE has done here: earlier in the comment he argued that Paul's Christology is consistent with a "spiritual/mystical Christ". Now he's arguing that Paul believed in a spiritual/mystical Christ. This is fallacious reasoning. We shouldn't assume that Paul's beliefs about the resurrection differed fundamentally from, say, Luke's, unless we have good reason to do so. RE has not met this burden of proof.

So upon critically examining the evidence we can see the clear linear development that Christianity started with spiritual visionary experiences and evolved to the ever-changing physical encounters in the gospels (which are not firsthand reports).

So upon critically examining RE's comment we can see the clear linear development that RE started with vague possibilities and evolved to the poorly-established assertions of legendary development in the Gospels (which are firsthand reports).

If apologists want to claim this data is consistent with reliable eyewitness testimony then they need to provide other examples about the same event from history that grow in fantastic detail like the gospels do, yet are still regarded to be reliable historical documents. I maintain that this cannot be done. If attempted, they will immediately realize any other historical documents that grow like the gospels do will be legends.

Most events from history are not documented as many times within the first century of their occurrence as the resurrection of Jesus, so comparisons will be hard to find. And claims of legendary development can be shown to be evidentially trivial. Allegedly, we have Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, with each one being more legendary than the one before it. The probability of this happening by chance is 1 in (5 x 4 x 3 x 2) or 1 in 120. But Paul gives us plenty of details that the other Gospels don't, and he's not narrating the resurrection appearances. Thus, his testimony can't be used to establish legendary development. So the odds of the Gospels falling into a pattern of legendary development by chance are 1 in (4 x 3 x 2) or 1 in 24. Mark ends his narrative without describing any resurrection appearances, even though these were clearly believed in at the time (1 Cor 15). Given how much shorter Mark's Gospel is than the others, it's clear he was trying to write a compressed account. We have no idea what details he would have recorded had he decided to narrate any appearances. So his silence on the encounters doesn't mean much either, meaning we're down to 1 in (3 x 2) or 1 in 6. Given that Matthew and Luke were composed at about the same time, and it's unlikely either used the other, there's not much plausibility to a claim of legendary development. This means the only two data points are Matthew/Luke and John, where John contains the more elaborate account. The odds of this happening by chance are 1 in 2, which doesn't provide much evidence for legendary development. [3]

Someone might object that this assumes the Gospels ostensibly record different stages of legendary development, whereas we should expect more consistency if no legendary development took place. Two responses are in order. First, there's no reason to expect more consistency between the accounts than we get. Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days in different places to different people. If we had independent accounts, there's no reason to expect anyone would choose to narrate the same appearances, let alone the same details in those appearances. Second, I have presented some reasons to think we don't have accounts in different stages of legendary development. If the Matthean resurrection of the saints appeared only in John, skeptics would certainly point to this as evidence of legendary development. Thus, the fact that it appears early and then drops out entirely is evidence against legendary development.

More could be said, but RE's case against the resurrection is on weak evidential ground. For more criticism of his arguments, I would recommend Steve Hays' takedowns here and here (RE is using an alias).

Notes and References 

[1] Kirk R. MacGregor, "1 Corinthians 15:3B-6A, 7 and the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49, no. 2 (June 2006):225-234.
I credit the discovery of this reference to an excellent article by Jonathan McLatchie on the 1 Corinthians 15 creedal tradition.

[2] See here: https://www.academia.edu/35705227/The_Doubt_of_the_Apostles_and_the_Resurrection_Faith_of_the_Early_Church_WUNT_II_495_T%C3%BCbingen_Mohr_Siebeck_2019_PREVIEW

[3] Credit again to Jonathan McLatchie for developing this line of argumentation.