At the "Earnestly Contending" Apologietics conference at New Life Church in Smithfield, RI, this weekend, Professor Dr. Gary Habermas of Liberty University, an internationally known expert on the resurrection of Jesus, reported on a forthcoming work of Richard Bauckham, prolific New Testament scholar for many years at the University of St. Andrews. In it, Habermas explained, Bauckham builds on research by evangelical writer Larry Hurtado and atheist historian Gerd Ludemann, both of whom have argued that belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus must have emerged within two or three years of the death of Jesus (whether or not one believes it actually happened).
The argument goes like this. 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 contains, in credal form, a list of the eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. By including reference to Jesus' crucifixion and burial, Paul makes it clear he is talking about bodily resurrection. But verses 1-2 describe that this is information that Paul passed on just as he had received it, using verbs that were technical terms for the transmission of oral tradition. When would Paul have first learned this information? Almost certainly as one of the very fundamentals of the Christian faith taught him when he first became a follower of the Risen Jesus--perhaps by Ananias who instructed him while he was still temporarily blind, in Damascus, after the Risen Christ appeared to him en route.
But when one compiles the most probable dates of the relevant events, based on Paul's own information in Galatians 1-2, if Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30, the most likely date, then Paul's conversion must have come no more than two years later, in 32. (See any standard conservative New Testament introduction for how the dates are computed). But for Paul to have been given an already established creed including resurrection witnesses, known not just in Jerusalem but also in Damascus, some time must have already elapsed for this foundational information to have been crystallized in this form and become widely known in the various locations believers lived and become widely agreed on as the kind of information to be passed on to each new convert.
Ludemann, the atheist, says this means within one to two years from Jesus' death, it was widely agreed on that Christ had been bodily resurrected. Bauckham, according to Habermas, apparently moves that date back to within about one-half year's time, in order for the necessary time to elapse for this to become widely standardized by the time of Paul's conversion.
One may still choose to follow Ludemann's antisupernaturalism (we know resurrections can't happen) and thus opt for some version of the mass hallucination hypothesis. But the most common skeptical alternative in recent years, that the resurrection stories are just late myths in which beliefs about Jesus' cause living on became embodied in mythological garb, simply doesn't have the decades (or sometimes centuries) needed for it to have developed the way all other ancient myths did. At some point, one has to say that it takes more faith to believe in the alternatives to the historic, Christian conviction at this point than to believe orthodox tradition!
Thanks for a very helpful post. How important a factor in the spread of the gospel was the summarising of the message into the key points of 1 Corinthians 15.3-6? It seems to me that the apostles were able to transmit it very simply without losing the integrity of the message.
None of the early Christian creeds ever claim a flesh and blood resurrected Jesus was on Earth, as opposed to making guest appearances.
Nor can Paul find one single detail of eyewitness testimony to answer the question of what a resurrected body was like to write to Christian converts who had converted and still scoffed at the idea that their god would choose to raise corpses.
Paul tells them flat-out that Jesus became a spirit, using that well-known phrase that Habermas always quotes in his lectures on the resurrection.
My resurrection debate blog is open to all comers.
Paul of course does know that the flesh and blood body of Jesus is dead and buried.
First, Craig, thanks for these 3 update posts.
Steven: Alas, you misstate the point of what we should look for, I think. 1 Cor 15 does not mention merely flesh and blood because the spiritual body referred to is not a mere repeat of mortal flesh and blood. More importantly, the implication you make ignores the fact that in Judaism the kind of resurrection that was expected was a bodily one in most cases (Just read 2 Macc 7 and see how physical a dimension there was to this hope). So Paul did not need to detail what resurrection involved in terms of physicality because they knew. If you doubt this, just look at how physical the Sadducees who ask Jesus about resurrection see it. Jesus replies the resurrection body is like an angel (again pointing to a difference of which the Sadducees are ignorant, but with physicality involved).
BOCK
So Paul did not need to detail what resurrection involved in terms of physicality because they knew.
CARR
Why then does Paul major on what a resurrected body was like, when all these Christian converts already knew that?
Thanks for all three replies, gentlemen!
Anonymous, the biggest importance of such early testimony is that it refutes the commonly held notion that resurrection belief was a late, legendary development.
Darrell, glad to be of help.
Steven, reinforcing Darrell's comments, "flesh and blood" was a stock rabbinic idiom for "mere mortal." E.g., hundreds of rabbinic parables begin with the expression, "there was a king of flesh and blood" to indicate that the story is first of all about an earthly rather than heavenly king, or even a messianic one. "Spiritual body" translates soma pneumatikon, which as 1 Corinthians 2-3 shows, when contrasted with a "natural body" (soma psychikon) means "supernatural," or "Spirit-empowered," not non-physical.
For further detail, see N. T. Wright's massive demonstration in The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) that first-century Jews had no conception of resurrection except for physically embodied forms. Paul need not go into details because everyone would have understood what he was talking about.
If you are going to use Galatians to formulate the timeline, then why not also note that in Galatians Paul informs us that he was not taught the gospel by human agency. How does that square with the claim that Paul received the gospel as a fundamental of the faith from someone like Ananias?
Note Galatians chapter 1.
11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Yet in I Cor Paul says "Let me explain something I received by human agency" and he goes on to describe the gospel, the very thing he says he was not taught via human agency in Galatians 1.
Those committed to inerrancy will resolve this by saying that Paul isn't saying he got the gospel in I Cor 15. He's saying he got the cool way of formulating the gospel. OK. But notice that Craig does not see it this way in his initial reading. The text really doesn't imply this as we read it. Craig comes away from this text thinking that Paul was taught the fundamentals of the faith by human agency, apparently forgetting about Galatians 1. With no commitment to inerrancy, why not just conclude that these texts contradict one another?
Jon:
Sorry to be slow to reply. I just saw this one in a raft of comments we have received on recent posts.
Yes, In Galatians Paul makes rthe point he recievied the gospel direclty through an appearance from Jesus (se Acts 9). That does not at all contradict or preclude his passing on to the church the traditional roots of the same gospel as he does in 1 Cor 15, especially since they are one and the same. It is not a contradiction to have Paul come to the gospel through the Lord and yet have it affirmed to him in the teaching of the apostles which he also can and will appeal to. Paul's point in Galatians is that he knows what he is talking about- he got it direct from God, so his authoirty should not be in doubt. Paul's point in 1 Cor is that all the church teaches resurrection, so that teaching should not be in doubt. Different concerns lead to different arguments, but no contradiction. In pressing the texts too much against each other, you have precluded a clear likelihood. Note there is no appeal to inerrancy here, just working with the distinct settings of the texts.
CRAIG
Steven, reinforcing Darrell's comments, "flesh and blood" was a stock rabbinic idiom for "mere mortal."
CARR
Paul was not writing to Jews. He would have known what flesh and blood meant to his readers.
And clearly Paul saw no reason to revise his opinion that flesh and blood bodies were mortal bodies.
No wonder he regarded people as idiots for wondering how flesh and blood bodies could be reformed. If flesh and blood was reformed, it would still be mortal!
Paul trashes the idea that corpses are formed from the dust that corpses dissolve into.
'The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God....'
Earthly things like corpses cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
The Christian converts apparently believed that corpses had to be revived for resurrection. No wonder these Christian converts scoffed at the whole idea of resurrection!
Is this formal creed a translation, or was a formal Greek creed produced by Aramaic speakers?
Steven:
Paul is arguning for what was always argued for in Jewish resurrection, a transformation of the body into a spiritual form that was permanent. That is why we also get the illustrations of kinds of BODIES and the pictue of a seed to a plant from Paul in this text. The contrast of dust and heaven pictures origin. The first man and his physicality was made form stuff of the earth. The second will be made completely of matter supplied from and by heaven. That contrast is why Paul has the illustration he does about bodies and a physical nature of the resurrection. Remember that the model for Paul's take on resurrection is what happened to Jesus as a first fruits of resurrection. His appearances point tothe physicality included in resurrection.
dlb
Dr. Blomberg, thank you for the interesting and exciting summary of Bauckham.
Prof. Bock, always a pleasure reading your texts and comments. Here as well as in your own blog which I follow quite regularly. Thanks for your time at the dinner table few years back in Hungary in Lausanne Jewish evangelism conference. I've since graduated from Helsinki University and did my masters thesis in Biblical Studies on the Jewish resurrection belief during the intertestamental period.
This little "intro" brings me to my short comment to one aspect of Steven Carr's rejoinder.
CARR
Paul was not writing to Jews. He would have known what flesh and blood meant to his readers.
I think the question about Paul's audience is not as meaningful and persuasive as you make it.
As N.T. Wright points out, the idea of eschathological resurrection was after all thoroughly Jewish idea and as such involved corporeality, referring to something that happened to bodies "after life after death". Paul's audience - pagan as it was you pointed out - knew that Paul wrote to them as a Jew about something that was utterly Jewish. The concern for the audience, after all, did not stop Paul writing from thoroughly Jewish perspective to Corinthians about other things that would have been more meaningful to Paul as a Jew than perhaps to his supposedly pagan-background audience. See for example 1 Cor 10 where Paul talks about what happened to "OUR FATHERS" in the wilderness during exodus. Also, I think it is worth noting, that in 1 Cor 15:35-47 Paul is loosley writing against the background of Genesis when he speaks about earthly and heavenly bodies (plants, birds, fish, cattle, man). This reinforces the idea that Paul writes as a Jew about something thoroughly Jewish. As also his rabbinic idiom "flesh and blood" indicates to which Blomberg referred to.
It therefore seems to me that in 1 Cor 15 Paul's audience readily understood that he is writing to them about Jewish bodily resurrection and they therefore would not have confused it with their own pagan belief in the life after death with incorporeal astral bodies as you suggested.
Happy New Year to all.
Paul tells us in Galatians that he did not receive the gospel from other men. He got it by direct revelation from God. Why would that depend on any widespread agreement or crystallization?
"It is not a contradiction to have Paul come to the gospel through the Lord and yet have it affirmed to him in the teaching of the apostles which he also can and will appeal to."
Paul says "I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it." That seems inconsistent with the notion of appealing to the authority of the apostles. Doesn't it?
Post new comment