Though there is near-unanimous agreement in New Testament scholarship that Paul and some of the disciples of Jesus claimed to see Christ risen from the dead, most critical commentators assert that the resurrection narratives found in the later Gospels are partially or wholly redactional in nature. Most frequently asserted is the view that such redactions are to combat that 2nd century beliefs of docetism, a common view among Gnostic Christians that asserted that Jesus did not in fact possess an incarnate body of flesh while on earth, but was instead a disembodied spirit only creating the illusion of being corporeal.
The following arguments presented will address this theory of legendary growth, specifically in reference to the Apologetic Redaction Hypothesis (ARH), which is defined as the model that the Gospel authors redacted the original primitive traditions of the resurrection and elaborated onto them motifs of physicality in order to respond to docetist heretics of their day.
Issues With Trajectory Hypotheses and Chronicle Legendary Accumulation
One of the primary observations with the ARH is that, when lining up each report of the resurrection chronologically, we observe an evolution and see that the later accounts appear to be far more remarkable and apologetically-minded than the earlier stories.
Hence, we observe Paul's earliest references in 1 Corinthians 15 and Galatians 1 referring the the resurrection appearances as visionary and numinous (cf. with Paul's vernacular describing his conversion in Acts 26:19), whereas the trajectory in stories found decades later tend to emphasize the corporal nature of Jesus's resurrection body. In Mark 16:1-8, our earliest Gospel scribed roughly 40 years after Jesus's death, there is no description of the resurrection body, only a narrative of an empty tomb and a foreboding of Jesus's post-mortem appearance to Peter in Galilee. Verses 9-20 are later additions tacked on in the 3rd century or later. Matthew 28 narrates resurrection appearances to the women and the twelve, but lacks any major indications that Jesus was raised bodily. Indeed, the twelve are still said to doubt even after this experience (Matt. 28:17).
Luke, following the other Gospels by decades, narrates two accounts of the resurrected Jesus, one on the road to Emmaus (Lk. 24:13-35) and one involving the twelve (Lk. 24:36-49), both of which occur on the night of Easter in Jerusalem and end with Jesus's ascension into heaven. Each of these involves a meal with the risen Jesus, and in the latter account Jesus invites His disciples to touch Him to relieve their doubts. The doubts raised in Matthew seem to be squashed by Luke. John 20 closes this story further by agreeing with Luke that Jesus invited the twelve to handle His wounds (Jn. 20:19-23), but adds the narrative of Thomas doubting and touching Jesus to be convinced (Jn. 20:24-29). The following chapter includes Jesus having a meal with the twelve on the shores of Galilee (Jn. 21:9-14). Those with a more critical eyeshot will lend these fantastic changes in the narrative to legendary accrual over time, with the story growing in elaboration.
A few critiques of this theory arise. Establishing a fixed date for any of the Gospels is a notoriously tricky endeavor, and even in concession that the canonical Gospels are significantly later than Paul, certainly much of their material contains tradition that goes back to earlier times. There are indications that much of the material in the Gospel resurrection traditions originate in tradition rather than redaction.
Evidence for the Primitive Nature of the Gospel Resurrection Narratives
For example, the statement found in Acts 10:41 that mentions the disciples who "ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead", is probably creedal and comes from a pre-Lukan lore. A number of scholars have noted Aramaic semitisms in many of the Acts creeds, which indicate an earlier tradition deriving from Palestine. [1] The sermon in Acts 10 may especially show signs of being the indicative of a Semitic origin [2]. Likewise, verse 41 mentions the apostles both eating and drinking with Jesus, a detail absent in both Luke 24:42-43 and John 21:13, which only state that Jesus ate with the twelve. This could act as evidence of a seperate tradition being used by Luke. [3] Luke 24:36-42 also contains non-Lukan vocabulary; Luke's use of flesh (σάρκα) in vs. 39 goes against the author's redactional tendency to remove σάρκα from the Markan versions of shared traditions. The only other times Luke uses σάρκα, he is referencing a passage from the Torah. Luke's tendency is therein to remove the term rather than redact it into the story, and only uses the word when he is quoting directly from source material.[4] All of this makes it probable that the story of Jesus eating with the twelve is not a literary creation on Luke's part but comes from an earlier source being used by him.
Tom Wright has argued that the details found in Matthew 28, Luke 24, and John 20 indicate an earlier date of circulation orally, even if such traditions were written down later. Notably, the final chapters of the Gospels all surprisingly lack extensive proof texting, which is in direct contrast to the authors' habits of explicitly quoting verses to draw back onto the life of Jesus. Mark gives us virtually no Scriptural allusion, and while Matthew may allude to certain certain Old Testament commissioning motifs [5], Matthew is strangely silent in citing any particular verse (which he was no stranger to all throughout the other parts of his gospel). Luke and John cite Jesus's fulfillment of "the Scriptures" (Lk. 24:45, Jn. 20:9), but we are given no elaboration as to which Scriptures they had in mind. These more broad allusions are more in line with the early creeds in the Pauline literature (1 Cor. 3-4) then the explicit referential nature of the later Gospel period.[6]
Wright also notes the Pauline epistles also express much more theological afterthought in connecting Christ's resurrection with the future resurrection of all believers; Jesus was resurrected as not just vindication of His status but likewise as the model by which other Christians will be raised in the end times. The Gospels do not emphasize this. Though John's Gospel does draw this connection of eternal life, it is not clear that the resurrection of Jesus is directly parallel the afterlife of the believer, rather than some disembodied state. The Synoptic Gospels are largely silent on these implications and focus only on the resurrection as vindication rather than explaining its eternal significance to all Christians. In fact, Jesus's brief description of the glorious nature of the resurrected body in passages like Matt. 13:43, "the righteous shall shine like the sun" (undoubtedly taking imagery from apocalyptic texts like Dan. 12:2) seems to contradict the more mundane descriptions of the resurrected Jesus in Matthew, Luke, and John. One would think that a later tradition would put more emphasis in Jesus as a precursor for the general resurrection.[7]
The Gospel Resurrection Narratives In Comparison to the Pauline Epistles
Yet, even if this is all neglected and we concede for the sake of argument that the Gospel's may be later than Paul, this does little to establish the credibility of such accounts. It is difficult to establish such myth-making without cherry picking. Here we suffer from a lack of properly established methodology. The Gospels are far more detailed in the nature of the experiences to the twelve, yet in many ways 1 Corinthians 15 is more theologically developed than the later Gospel traditions.
While the Synoptics are more detailed in the quality of the experiences, Paul purviews a greater emphasis on the quantity of the visions; with the exception of the Emmaus narrative in Lk. 24:13-35, the Gospels mostly focus on the appearances to the women and the disciples, only implying but not narrating the appearance to Peter. Paul's conversion is also narrated in the Book of Acts. Our earliest source on the other hand lists not only Peter, Paul, and the twelve disciples, but also mentions James and other apostles seeing Jesus. This is not mentioned or implied in any of the later Gospels, even in Acts where James is given a prominent role overseeing the Jerusalem Church. Most elaborate is 1 Corinthians 15:6's mention of a crowd of 500 witnesses who saw Jesus, an extraordinary claim that is left out of the Gospel narratives. One would think that such a fantastic claim would be found in later embellished sources, not our earliest source. Had the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 been found in a later source, perhaps recited by one of the characters in Acts, there is no doubt that many scholars would see this as evidence as the legend continuing to grow in elaboration.[8]
There are other ways in which the Epistles are more elaborate than the Gospels. Paul is far more descriptive of the nature of the resurrection body, describing it in analogies and establishing it as immortal in order to address concerns raised by Corinthian converts to Christianity. The Gospels only mention certain details of the resurrection body incidentally, and unlike Paul leave much of the ontology an open question. All of this is to illustrate that the later Gospel accounts can only be seen as more embellished in the absence of proper comparative methods. Depending on which criteria one uses, it could just as fairly be argued that our earlier sources are more elaborate and apologetic than our earlier texts. Thereby, any argument deriving from linear development of myth between earlier and later texts will be largely tentative.
Therefore, there are good reasons to suppose that (1) many of the Gospel resurrection accounts contain early traditions that may pre-date Paul's writings and (2) comparing narratives purely chronologically is a poor methodology that requires cherry-picking details; the apparent "legendary development" goes both directions depending on what details one focuses on.
Issues With the Anti-Docetism Redaction Theory
Critical scholarship has long recognized that the "proof" passages found in Luke 24:36-49 and John 20:19-29 are meant by the authors to respond to the heretical doctrine of docetism, which emphasized the spiritual nature of Jesus and denied that He was in fact incarnate in a body of flesh. Docetists saw the material world as evil and, by association, determined the notion of God becoming a physical man to be demonic. They argued that Jesus was not a man but a phantom, merely putting on the appearance of faux flesh to create the illusion of embodiment. The New Testament authors seem to be combating this doctrine as Christianity became more prominent in the Gentile-dominated regions of the Roman Empire. Just as 1 John 1:1 and 4:2-3 emphasize the handling of Jesus's resurrected body to directly respond to such heresy, so also do the later Gospel authors add in details about Jesus not only being seen, but also being touched and even eating in order to prove that He is not a ghost.
New Testament scholar J.D. Atkins is perhaps the most prolific dissenter of the ARH model, writing a nearly 600 page tome arguing that the narratives found in Luke 24:36-49 and John 20:19-29.are unlikely to be redacted as anti-docetist apologetics. His argument is primarily empirical in comparing the Gospel texts with 2nd-4th century Patristic apologetic texts that explicitly respond to docetism (especially Irenaeus in Against Heresies and Ignatius's Letter to the Smyrnaeans). These later texts can be seen as our "control group", and as Atkins argues, when compared with these obviously apologetic works, the Gospels are missing key features shared by the vast majority of the texts share. Therefore, given the stark differences and absences from such expected features, the probability that the Gospel narratives are of this ilk is low. A brief summary of Atkins's main arguments from The Doubt of the Apostles, especially the 9th chapter, will be summarized below. [9]
The Gospel Lack Features of Anti-Docetic Literature
1. The Gospels lack much of the vocabulary found in anti-docetist apologetic texts, with very little overlap in word usage. In contrast, most of the texts of this kind in the centuries following Jesus frequently use these terms, as they were popular talking points for docetists. [10]
2. The "touch test" found in Luke 24:38-40 and John 20:20, 23-29 is not effective as a counter to docetist claims of Jesus being incorporeal. This is several reasons:
b) The passages where Jesus is explicitly said to be touched, Matt. 28:9-10 and Jn. 20:7, are incidental and do not contextually have in mind a response to docetism, as there is no objection to addressed nor doubts raised in either of those parts of the narrative. Therefore the touching motif may be part of the original tradition and not a purely fictional apologetic invention. [12]
c) Most notably, the touch test is explicitly stated to fail in Luke 24:40-41 " And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling..." In Luke, doubts only seem to be resolved after Jesus goes through the Scriptures and the disciples understand His role as Messiah. It is the Old Testament that proves to them the resurrection, not the physical demonstration (Lk. 24:44-48). Luke seems to tidy this up in Acts 1:3 where he states that the "many proofs" demonstrates the resurrection, perhaps to clarify the seemingly lack of convincing power such "proofs" seemed to have had. These proofs seem to have been the fulfillment of Scripture, emphasized by Luke, John, and Paul, rather than the realization that Jesus had a physical body. [13]
d) In John 20, it is sight that seems to form the belief in resurrection, not the touch test. John 20:20 emphasizes visual perception as the primary mechanism for belief, as Jesus "showed them his hands and his side" (no mention of actually touching Him); the disciples were then "glad when they saw the Lord." John 20:25 fairs a little better as a candidate for an apologetic, as Thomas states that physical demonstration is needed to believe. However, Jesus seems to counteract this in Jn. 20:29 by saying that it was not physical demonstration that convinced Thomas, but rather the mere post-mortem appearance to the disciple that converted him, "“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (cf. 1 Pet. 1:8). The quote emphasizes visual perception, not experience of a different modality. Later Church Fathers like Origen, in responding to the claim Jesus was a ghost, rewrote this passage to explicitly contradict this and instead argue that sight alone would not be enough to convince Thomas of resurrection. This implies that he saw and others like him the original text as deficient. [14]
3) The meal undergone in Lk. 24:41-43 is not persuasive as an anti-docetist response. Docetists such as Maricon and others did not deny that such an event took place, nor did they argue that such a passage was invented or interpolated. Instead, they accepted its historicity but asserted that Jesus only mimicked eating as an illusion, similar to passages of angels pretending to eat in Gen. 18 and Tobit 12:19. Furthermore, there were ancient ghost stories in Antiquity that affirmed that spirits could feast on flesh and blood, with meal offerings being set at grave sites. Therefore, eating as a motif would not be sufficient in demonstrating Jesus was not a disembodied phantom, and the lack of resistance from later docetists implies they did not see it as a defeater to their dogma. In fact, docetists saw the need for food as a sign of corruption of the body; later Christian apologists often omitted the post-resurrection meal to argue that the resurrection body is incorruptible and immortal to counter Gnostic criticisms. [15]
The Gospels Leave in Details That Could Be Used to Support Docetism
1) Matthew, Luke, and John, despite emphasizing Jesus's corporeal nature, still leave in extremely numinous elements that later Church Fathers left out when debating heretics. Most obvious is the fact that Jesus is "transphysical" after the resurrection and has the ability to appear and vanish at will. In Matthew 's final chapter Jesus is already gone from the tomb before the stone is rolled away (Matt. 28:2), and considering that sepulchers typically lack a back door, implies that He must have disappeared or become intangible. Jesus then seemingly appears out of nowhere to the women in Jerusalem (Matt. 28:9). In Luke Jesus is explicitly said to vanish and appear unexpectedly (Lk. 24:31, 36). John 20 mentions on two occasions (vs. 19, vs. 26) Jesus appearing in a locked room, implying that He either can materialize at will or that He can walk through walls. These would not be advantageous to include if the authors want to convince their audience that Jesus is not a ghost, as these abilities are undeniably more akin to a specter than an individual with a solid body. Nearly all anti-docetist texts in the following centuries left out these details and only focused on the "physical proofs". This establishes a precedent for Christians to leave out such defeaters for apologetic reasons. It is thus surprising that the Gospels still include these details in spite of this discomfort. [16]
2) In Luke 24:44, Jesus states to His disciples that, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” The phrase "while I was still with you" is quite ambiguous, and implies that Jesus was "with" the disciples in the past but is not currently with them in the same form. To the Gnostic, Jesus could mean "while I was with you in the body" (implying He is no longer in the body) or "while I was with you in life" (implying He is no longer alive and is a spirit). Though Luke may not have intended for this interpretation to abound, it is a fact that certain docetists read the text in this way. If Luke consciously left this phrase in his resurrection narrative, it is doubtful he did so to counter doecetist thought. [17] I will also add that the idea that Jesus was at one point with the disciples in the flesh, but now only stays with the Christian in the heart of the believer in a "spiritual" sense (cf. Matt. 28:20, Rom. 8:10, Gal. 2:20, 2 Cor. 13:5, Eph. 3:17, 1 Pet. 1:8), would have further docetist implications. Matthew's final roll call in Christ's commission in Matt. 28:20 ends with the phrase "I will be with you always until the end of the age", which is both reminiscent of Old Testament promises of Yahweh's faithfulness and a subtle implication that Christ will remain with the believer in a spiritual, but obviously not bodily, manner.
3) As mentioned in Section C of Argument 2 in the previous section, the Gospels, especially Matthew and Luke, leave in the disciples doubting the earthly nature of the resurrection body. Matthew 28:17 is clear that many of the disciples still doubted despite seeing and worshiping the risen Jesus, with no clear attempt to address such doubts. If we were only to read Matthew, we would never know if all of the twelve stayed faithful. Luke 24:37-42 presents the disciples as believing Jesus to be a ghost, and maintains that they "were still disbelieving" the resurrection even after seeing His wounds and flesh (vs. 41). Jesus then eats in front of them and reads to them the Scriptures, at which their "minds were opened" to believe Jesus was prophesied as being risen from the dead. In John 20:24-29 Thomas is said to doubt the resurrection but declares Jesus to be God after undergoing a Christophany (Jn. 20:28). Though from the 2nd century onward apologists attempted to scrub such doubts and emphasize that physical demonstration convinced the twelve of the resurrection, the Gospel lingering of these "proofs" failure to convince are telling and probably derive from legitimate historical recollection. In contrast, a pro-docetic narrative would precisely emphasize continual doubt in the resurrection of the body. [18]
4) Despite the fact that Atkins does not spend much time on the argument, I would point out that Acts (authored by the same writer as The Gospel of Luke) predominantly presents Jesus as appearing in a more visionary and spiritual nature once He has ascended to heaven. Though the concept of Jesus's ascension into heaven at the right hand of God is found in Paul and the New Testament epistles (Rom. 8:34, Col. 3:1, Eph. 1:20 1 Pet. 3:22, Heb 1:3, 8:1, 10:12, 12:2) and implied in John 20:17, and in light of the fact that Matthew, Mark and John know of appearance traditions on earth in places like Galilee and Jerusalem (Ml. 16:7, Matt. 28:16, Jn. 21:1), Luke is the only author to explicitly distinguish between Jesus's earthly appearances (immediately succeeding the resurrection) and his heavenly ones (immediately succeeding the ascension). Assuming such a distinction is a product of Lukan creativity, one wonders why Luke would narrate appearances after the ascension if such Christophanies could be taken as potentially docetic in nature.
If Luke desired to alter the original "visionary" appearances to the disciples and replace them with more concrete and earthly visitations, why did He not do so with the later appearances? If Luke is concerned with adding physical details to combat docetism, why does he see no issue with leaving in the visionary nature of the Christophanies to Stephen (Acts. 7:55), Saul (Acts 9:3-7), Ananias (Acts 9:10-18), and Peter (Acts 10:9-16)? Luke could have done any number of possibilities: 1) only narrate pre-ascension appearances to cover up any potential of leaving ammunition for the Gnostic, 2) change the post-ascension appearances to also be bodily in nature, or 3) left all of the original traditions untouched as visions (in which case he would be unconcerned with docetism).
Options 1 and 3 are contradicted by the narratives in Luke-Acts. Options 2 has precedent; though Jesus is presented in a more disembodied and numinous nature following His ascension, Luke on multiple occasions narrates assumed heavenly figures as appearing in bodily form. Moses and Elijah, the Old Testament patriarchs traditionally believed to have been assumed into heaven, appear alongside Jesus in a glorified state (Lk. 9:30). Yet despite their glorified bodies the apostles still act as if the patriarchs can rest in a man-made shelter (Lk. 9:33). Acts 12:6-11 has an angel of light descend from heaven to free Peter from prison, and though he originally believed this to be a vision (Acts 12:9, cf. Lk. 24:23), the angel's interactions are clearly veridical and solid as to break through chains and open gates (Acts 12:7-11).
This establishes the Luke still has a tendency to attribute heavenly beings with physicality when they appear to mortals. We do not, however, see Luke follow through with this principle regarding the post-ascension Christophanies. The inclusion of both bodily and visionary appearances in Luke-Acts indicates that Luke is not solely interested in the apologetics of the bodily nature of the resurrection body; an anti-docetist apologetic would likely not include any resembling the post-ascension visions.
Comparing Hypotheses
To summarize the arguments listed above, it is helpful to parallel the Gospel resurrection narratives to later texts that are indisputably anti-docetic in nature. Under the ARH, one would expect very similar tactics shared between the texts as they relate to responding to docetists, whereas the failure of such parallels to align would serve to, in all probability, falsify the ARH.
Below, I compare two texts: Luke 24:36-42 and the third chapter Ignatius's Epsitle to the Smyrnaeans, the latter of which was probably scribed in the early 2nd century. Though Ignatias is almost certainly paraphrasing Luke's accounts, the redactions he makes are clear. Ignatias removes the sudden appearance of Jesus, emphasizes that Jesus is not embodied, explicitly states that Jesus was touched, clearly argues that the witnesses immediately believed upon said touching, and is unambiguous that Jesus's meal with the twelve proved He was risen in the flesh.References
[1] For scholars who are considerate that some of the sermons in Acts could be earlier Palestinian tradition, see Dodd, Charles Harold. The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments. Hodder & Stoughton, 1944; Wilcox, Max. The Semitisms of Acts. (Oxford: Clarendon Press) 1966, pg. 79-80, 164-165; and Lüdemann, Gerd. Early Christianity According to the Traditions in Acts: A Commentary. Translated by John Bowden. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press) 1989, pg. 47-49, 112-115. John Alsup in The Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories of the Gospel Tradition: A History-of-Tradition Analysis. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2007, states on page 67 that the early nature of some of these creeds in a "widely held thesis" among commentators.
[2] Dodd in Apostolic Preaching observes on pg. 35-36 that "The Greek of [Acts 10:] 35-38 is notoriously rough and ungrammatical, and indeed scarcely translatable, though the general meaning is clear. This is strange in so excellent a Greek writer as the author of Acts...[it] has [been] shown that if the text in its more difficult form...be translated word for word into Aramaic, it becomes both grammatical and perspicuous. The case, therefore, for regarding the passage as a translation is strong." In reconstructing an Aramaic original, he includes in this kergyma vs. 41 that mentions the twelve dining with the risen Jesus. Dodd's translation is as follows: "God raised Him up on the third day, and permitted Him to be manifest, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen beforehand by God, namely to us, who ate and drank with Him after I arose from the dead."
[3] Atkins, J. D. The Doubt of the Apostles and the Resurrection Faith of the Early Church: the Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories of the Gospels in Ancient Reception and Modern Debate. Vol. 495. Mohr Siebeck, 2019. On pg. 89 he argues that Ignatias in Sym. 3.3 may be conflating Acts 10:41 in his commentary to Luke 24:36-43. Gerald O'Collins in "Did Jesus Eat the Fish (Luke 24: 42-43)?." Gregorianum (1988): 65-76, argues that the post-resurrection meal originated in a primitive tradition involving a group appearance to the twelve that evolved over three stages, but finds the realism of Jesus literally eating to be a Lukan embellishment.
[4] Atkins, Doubt of the Apostles, pg. 386. The Lukan redactions removing "flesh", σάρξ ,from Mark are as follows: Mark 10:8 (2x; cf. Luke 16:18); 13:20 (cf. Luke 17:22–37; 21:20–24); 14:38 (cf. Luke 22:39–46). Besides Lk. 24:39, Luke-Acts's other uses of σάρξ occur when citing Scripture (Luke 3:6; Acts 2:17; 2:26, 31).
[5] Matthew 28:16-20 may be alluding to Mosaic parallels and the commissioning of Joshua to conquest, see Sparks, Kenton L. "Gospel as Conquest: Mosaic Typology in Matthew 28: 16-20." The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 68, no. 4 (2006): 651-663. Even still, such allusions seem to be more primitive than Matthew's typical proof-texting used almost ubiquitously throughout the rest of his Gospel.
[6] Wright, N.T.. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Vol. 3. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press) 2003, pg. 599-608.
[7] Ibid, pg. 599-608
[8] The elaborate nature of 1 Cor. 15:3-8 in comparison with the Gospel traditions is pointed out in Wood, David. "Did the Resurrection Accounts Grow Over Time? A Response to Dan Barker's 'Did Jesus Rise From the Dead?;" in James Patrick Holding, Defending the Resurrection. Xulon Press, 2010, pg. 81-95.
[9] Most of the following is derived from pg. 379-408 of Atkins, Doubt of the Apostles.
[10] Ibid, pg. 385. He specifically points out that the words σῶμα, αἷμα, and ἀληθῶς and their cognates are absent in John 20:19–29 and Luke 24:36–49. He points out that "While the presence of these words is by no means proof of antidocetic intent, the absence of all four word groups is unknown in antidocetic accounts."
[11] Ibid, pg. 388-395. For example, Pseudo-Justin notes in De Resurrectione 2.14 that "there are some [ie docetists] who maintain that even Jesus himself appeared only as spiritual, and no longer in flesh, but presented the mere appearance of flesh." Merely showing off wounds would not be enough to dismantle a docetist's arguments, for they did not deny that Jesus at least appeared as if He had flesh.
[13] Ibid, pg. 394-395.
[14] Ibid, pg. 391-394. Origen in Contr, Cel. 2.61 argues that sight alone was not enough for Thomas to believe, “[Thomas] expressed his belief in the statement of the woman who said that she had seen Him, because he did not think it impossible that the soul of a dead man could be seen; but he did not yet consider the report to be true that He had been raised in a body, which was the antitype of the former. And therefore he did not merely say, ‘Unless I see, I will not believe;’ but he added, ‘Unless I put my hand into the print of the nails, and lay my hands upon His side, I will not believe.'” Origen is directly redacting Jesus's statement that Thomas believed because he saw the resurrection (Jn. 20:29)
[15] Ibid, pg. 400-407. Atkins also mentions on page 11 note 7 that Tertullian and the author of the Epistula Apostolorum omit the resurrection meal in order to argue that the resurrection body is incorruptible and has no need for food. O'Collins in "Did Jesus Eat" argues on page 69 that Luke may be trying to persuade Gentile readers of the resurrection, not Jews, "In the Jewish tradition eating would not necessarily indicate human bodiliness, whether risen or otherwise...Luke's Gentile readers would presumably hold that spirits and angels do not eat and hence be satisfied that eating the fish establishes the risen Jesus' real bodiliness." O'Collins presumption is not well-justified in my opinion; many Gentiles held that spirits could consume meals. For citations regarding the practice in Antiquity of offering food to the dead, see Riley, Gregory J. Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy. Fortress Press, 1995, pg. 46-47.
[16] Atkins, Doubt of the Apostles, pg. 380-383.
[17] Ibid, pg. 405-406.
[18] Ibid, pg. 395-399.
I enjoyed the post and agree with almost all of it.
ReplyDeleteOne point I do question is regarding doubt in Luke. I think Licona actually has a plausible interpretation. He argues that Luke wasn't portraying the disciples as doubting the appearance before them but was portraying their shock. I think the Greek indicates thinking two things at once, seeing that Christ is in front of you and thinking this can't be true.
Hardly a significant point though, even if you were to agree I dont think it undermines Atkins point which is that they wouldnt have included doubt at all if it was apologetic invention
Thanks Callum. I agree the doubt reference in Luke is a bit ambiguous. However its ambiguity is certainly less apologetic and forceful in comparison to many anti-docetist narratives of the 2nd century onward. That's the main premise of the argument, and one that we seem to agree still stands.
ReplyDeleteHey Caleb, I've been impressed with content of yours I've found online and on YouTube. In particular about the issue of minimal facts vs maximal data approach. I think I've also seen you say that maximal data still leaves the question open (though the case for the resurrection is still pretty good regardless).
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to see you lay out how you would defend the truth of Christianity, not necessarily covering every argument in depth but an overview of what evidence you think there is and how it fits together. Would you be interested in doing that?
Best
Callum,
ReplyDeleteI hope to do a series of posts relatively soon critiquing both the minimal and maximal data approach, while then offering my own approach by arguing for what I call the Recrudesce Approach to Resurrection Apologetics. http://thinkchristiantheism.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-recrudesce-argument-for-resurrection.html