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Compelling Evidence
by Dr. William Lane CraigRelated Reading: How can I know the Bible is true?
There are probably few events in the gospels for which the historical evidence is more compelling than for the resurrection of Jesus. Historical-critical studies during the second half of this century, increasingly freed from the lingering Deistical presuppositions that largely determined in advance the results of resurrection research during the previous 150 years, have reversed the current of scepticism concerning the historical resurrection, such that the trend among scholars in recent years has been acceptance of the historical credibility of Jesus's resurrection.
Nevertheless, there is still one aspect of the resurrection that a great number of scholars simply cannot bring themselves to embrace: that Jesus was raised from the dead physically. The physicalism of the gospels' portrayal of Jesus's resurrection body accounts, I think, more than any other single factor for critical skepticism concerning the historicity of the gospel narratives of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Undoubtedly the prime example of this is Hans Grass's classic Ostergeschehen and Osterberichte. {2} Inveighing against the 'massiven Realismus' of the gospel narratives, Grass brushes aside the appearance stories as thoroughly legendary and brings every critical argument he can summon against the empty tomb. Not that Grass would construe the resurrection, at least overtly, merely in terms of the survival of Jesus's soul; he affirms a bodily resurrection, but the body is 'spiritual' in nature, as by the apostle Paul, not physical. Because the relation between the old, physical body and the new, spiritual body is totaliter- aliter, the resurrection entails, not an emptying of the tomb, but the creation of a new body. Because the body is spiritual, the appearances of Christ were in the form of heavenly visions caused by God in the minds of those chosen to receive them.
It is difficult to exaggerate the extent of Grass's influence. Though few have been willing to join him in denying the empty tomb, since the evidence inclines in the opposite direction, one not infrequently finds statements that because the resurrection body does not depend upon the old body, we are not compelled to believe in the empty tomb. And it is everywhere asserted, even by those who staunchly defend the empty tomb, that the spiritual nature of the resurrection body precludes physical appearances such as are narrated in the gospels. John Alsup remarks that '. . . no other work has been so widely used or of such singular importance for the interpretation of the gospel accounts. . . as Grass'. . .' {3} But, Alsup protests, Grass's insistence that the heavenly vision type of appearance underlies the physical appearances of the gospels 'is predicated upon the impossibility of the material realism of that latter form as an acceptable answer to the "what happened" question. . . . Grass superimposes this criterion over the gospel appearance accounts and judges them by their conformity or divergence from it.'{4} As a result, '. . . the contemporary spectrum of research on the gospel resurrection appearances displays a proclivity to the last century (and Celsus of the second century) in large measure under the influence of Grass' approach. In a sense the gospel stories appear to be something of an embarrassment: their "realism" is offensive.'{5}
What legitimate basis can be given to such a viewpoint? Those who deny the physical resurrection body of Jesus have developed a line of reasoning that has become pretty much stock-in-trade:
The New Testament church does not agree about the nature of Christ's resurrected body. Material in Luke and John perhaps suggest this body to be corporeal in nature.43 Paul, on the other band, clearly argues that the body is a spiritual body. If any historical memory resides in the accounts of Paul's conversion in Acts, he must not have understood the appearance of Christ to have been a corporeal appearance. Most critics identify this conversion with the event referred to in I Cor. 15:8: 'Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.44 The arguments in verses 47-50 of this chapter for the identity between Christ's body and the spiritual body of the resurrection indicate that for the Apostle his Lord rose from the dead in a spiritual body. Most importantly, Paul has equated the appearance of Christ to him with the appearances to the other apostles. The resurrected Christ, as he was manifested to the church is thus a spiritual body . . . .
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43Luke 24.39-43; John 20.26-38. There are, of course, contradictory elements in the stories which imply the body is more than physical.
44. . .{6}
We can formulate this reasoning as follows:
1. Paul's information is at least prima facie
more reliable than the gospels.
a. For he stands in closer temporal and personal
proximity to the original events.
2. Paul's information, in contrast to the gospels,
indicates Jesus possessed a purely spiritual
resurrection body.
a. First Argument:
(1) Paul equated the appearance of Jesus to
him with the appearances of Jesus to the
disciples.
(2) The appearance of Jesus to Paul was a
non-physical appearance.
(3) Therefore, the appearances of Jesus to the
disciples were non-physical appearances.
b. Second Argument:
(1) Paul equated Jesus's resurrection body with
our future resurrection bodies.
(2) Our future resurrection bodies will be
spiritual bodies.
(3) Therefore, Jesus's resurrectionbody was a
spiritual body.
3. Therefore, Jesus possessed a purely spiritual
resurrection body.
In this way the gospel accounts of the physical resurrection may be dismissed as legendary.
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