The Resurrection: An Overview

 Most Biblical scholars believe Paul's epistles were written AD 50-60, Mark AD 65-80, Matthew AD 80-100, Luke AD 80-130 and John AD 90-120 (dates from here). This is, in my view, very important in understanding what might have happened.

Jesus' crucified?

I am not going to dispute the crucifixion; I find it perfectly reasonable. I find it hard to see how Christianity could start without it and no reason for anyone to invent it.

However, it is important to realise that Jesus was crucified for claiming to be the messiah (or perhaps for being proclaimed the messiah). The messiah was understood to be the new king who would lead the Jews to glory - and from the Roman perspective that meant someone who would lead the entire Jewish people into rebellion against the state.

Mark tells us clearly what his crime was:

Mark 15:26 The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the jews.

To be sure, the gospels do also put the blame on the Jews, and there is a definite trend towards shifting blame off the Romans and on to the Jews across the gospels. In Mark, the council meet and find Jesus guilty, but it is Pilate who condemns him to crucifixion. By the time we get to John, poor Pilate is just doing what he is forced to do.

John 19:6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”

But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”

We can be pretty sure that if Jesus was charged with blasphemy, he would have been executed by the Jews themselves because we read about just that happening to Stephen in Acts 7. The fact that Jesus was crucified makes it certain this was at the instigation of the Romans.

Indeed, even the meeting of the council in Mark looks like it has been made up and inserted into the narrative; why would they meet in the middle of the night, just before Passover? They had far better things to do, and could have just kept Jesus in prison during the festival. Whoever made it up had to insert it into the narrative between the last supper and the crucifixion where there really was not the time for it.

Joseph of Arimathea

Is it believable that the body was taken down? It is plausible; the Jews would have considered leaving it up there to be an affront and there does seem to be historical precedent. It is reasonable to suppose a member of the council would ask for the bodies of the dead to be taken down, especially around a religious festival.

The Bible claims Joseph of Arimathea was a secret Christian. Is that reasonable? Well, firstly it contradicts what is said elsewhere; Joseph was a member of the council and the whole council condemned Jesus:

Mark 14: 64 “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as worthy of death.

Mark does say of Joseph:

Mark 15:43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.

However, that reflects the Jewish belief of the time; they were all waiting for the kingdom of God. What this tell us is that Joseph was a pious Jew who took the laws seriously, and hence, as per Jewish law, he was prepared to ask Pilate for the body, which was probably not without its risks.

The gospels of Matthew and John do state that Joseph was a Christian... but not that he was a member of the council. So we seem to have two possibilities here; the first, according to Mark and Luke, Joseph was a member of the council, but not a Christian, and the second where he was not a member of the council, but was a Christian. Which is most likely to be true?

I think the first. Mark was written around AD 70, when people would still be alive who were actually there. This means that there was a lot more necessity for the author to get the story straight. If he said Joseph was a council member, and there were people around who know that was not the case, his account would be devalved and would not gain the traction that it did.

Furthermore, it is more reasonable to suppose that the authors of Matthew and John would pretend that Joseph was a Christian, rather than Mark and Luke pretending he was not. We might suppose Mark was trying to preserve the secret that Joseph was a Christian, but if so he fails pretty miserably if he then names the guy, and has him put the body in a tomb.

Where was Jesus buried?

Would the body get placed in a tomb?

This is highly unlikely. Jewish custom only required that the body get buried, not that it was buried honourably or in any special way. That is, there was a custom to bury the dead in tombs and treat the body a certain way, but there was a far stronger religious law saying that the body had to be buried. No Jew had any compulsion to ensure a stranger was buried in a certain way, only that the body was interred.

The text is in the Bible; it only says the body has to be buried.

Deuteronomy  21:22 If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, 23 you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

The member of the council had no need to do anything more than have the body tossed in a communal grave, and - if Joseph of Arimathea was not a Christian - no desire to do anything more than that.

Furthermore, the Romans had good reason not to allow honourable burial. Jesus was a figurehead - someone who dared to stand against Rome. In their eyes they had to not just execute him, but humilate him too to persuade other trouble-makers not to rebel, and to stop him becoming a martyr the Jews could stand behind even in death.

The Bible claims the body was put in a tomb because that was expedient. Does that make sense? Why was the communal grave for the crucified not right next to the place where they were crucified?

Conversely, why was there a brand new tomb located so close to where they were crucified? Across the whole of Jerusalem and surrounding areas, this was the most ritually unclean site imaginable! It is literally the very last place anyone would want their new tomb.

It is worth noting a couple of points made by Josephus. Referring to the Idumeaens, a group of foreigners that Josephus considers impious and evil:

"They  actually went so far in their impiety as to cast out their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews are so careful about burial rites that even malefactors who have been sentenced to crucifixion are taken down and buried before sunset" (Jewish War, 4.317)

This certainly supports Jesus being buried, but does it imply honourable burial? I think not. But also he says:

"He that blasphemeth God, let him be stoned; and let him hang upon a tree all that day, and then let him be buried in an ignominious and obscure manner." (Antiquities, 4.8.6)

This is very clear that while burial is required for all, honourable burial is to be withheld in some situations. And according to the Gospels, Jesus was found guilty of blasphemy.

The Earliest Creed

The first text we have about the resurrection is a few verses in 1 Cor 15 which is generally understood to be a very early creed - some suggest it was around just a few years after the crucifixion, though it is not clear exactly how many verses are that old.

1 Cor 15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

The first half of verse 3 is clearly Paul's addition, as is verse 8. Whether verses 6 and 7 were original is debatable. But what we do see here is strong evidence that people believed Jesus was resurrected very early, and that the disciples believed they had seen him.

It says Jesus was buried, but nothing about a tomb. Given its brevity, I do not think we can conclude too much from it, but I do want to emphasise that this early creed fits with Jesus being buried in a communal grave.

So where did the idea that he was buried in a tomb come from? Quite simply, wishful thinking. Where did the Christians want their saviour to be buried? In a fancy tomb.

It is notable that the burial becomes steadily more fancy across the gospel accounts. This gets notched up to eleven in John, where Jesus is buried in a garden - right next to where the condemned are crucified apparently - and the body smothers in a king's ransom of spices.

John 19:39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.[e] 40 Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 

To me, the claims of a tomb were all later additions, invented because that is what the earliest Christians wanted to believe.

The Empty Tomb

But if the story was circulating that Jesus was buried in a tomb, where is that tomb? Where is the body? The next step in the development of the legend was the empty tomb.

Go back to that earliest creed.

1 Cor 15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 

Nothing about an empty tomb! The burial was important enough to get a mention, but not the empty tomb. Why not? Because it had yet to be invented when Paul was writing.

But the gospels...

The gospels all agree that there was an empty tomb - that is four eye witness accounts, right?

Well, no. The authors of Matthew and Luke clearly copied Mark. Between the three of them, we have just one witness. And the gospel of Mark was not written by an eye witness - Mark was not there at the time (if it was even Mark who wrote the gospel).

The Gospel of John does not copy Mark as Matthew and Luke do, but is also believed to be based on either Mark, or an earlier source they both drew on, the pre-Markan passion narrative. So we are down to one witness.

It gets worse, because Mark appears to have excuses built into it. The gospel originally ended at verse 8, and even some modern Bibles make this clear. Thus, the gospel ended:

Mark 16:5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

When Mark was writing there were people alive who might remember what happened back then. They might wonder why no one mentioned the empty tomb back then. Take a look at Acts; we can read about what the disciples were saying, and none of them mentioned the empty tomb. Why not? It had still to be invented.

Obviously Mark could not say that; he needed another device that neatly explained - there was an empty tomb, but the only people to witness were two women too scared to tell anyone about it!

Is it really plausible that the authors would just make stuff up? Absolutely! We see the author of Matthew change this very text in Mark completely.

Matthew 28:8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

Mark tells us the women told no one, Matthew, who copes some 95% of Mark almost word-for-word, has changed that entirely to the women [i]immediately[/i] telling people! The author could do that because by the time he was writing all the people who could say otherwise were dead.

Where Was Jesus Seen?

I think it certain that the disciples believed they had seen the risen Jesus. What is not obvious is what they saw, where they saw it and when.

The oldest gospel we have says:

Mark 16:5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

It is clear from this that the author believed the risen Jesus was first seen in Galilee, not Jerusalem - and perhaps only seen there. Galilee is about three days travel from Jerusalem so it is not possible for the disciples to have got there on the Easter Sunday - they must have seen Jesus at least three days after that, and possibly many more.

We have two accounts of Jesus being seen in Galilee, one in Matthew 28, the other in John 21. Generally I would tend to reject John as it was written so late, but two features of John 21 make it interesting. The first is that it makes no sense. 

John 21:2 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus[b]), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Why were they fishing, rather than preaching as Jesus commanded them - and as we know they did, given Christianity is here today? I suggest that this is an account of that actual original sighting. The disciples were fishing because after the crucifixion they returned to their old jobs. John 21 describes the moment that they first saw the risen Jesus, gave up being fisherman (again) and started to preach about it.

The other feature that makes it interesting is how it ties into the early creed and the non-canonical Gospel of Peter. In all three accounts, Peter is the first to see the risen Jesus, but the Gospel of Peter also has this happening whilst fishing in a boat. Unfortunately we only have a fragment, and the text ends at this vital point:

But I, Simon Peter, and my brother Andrew, having taken our nets, went off to the sea. And there was with us Levi of Alphaeus whom the Lord ...

I think it reasonably certain that the first sightings of the risen Jesus were believd to be in Galilee, and I think it likely this was while some of the disciples were out on a boat fishing.

This means that the risen Jesus was seen days, possibly months, after that first Easter Sunday. And yet the early creed states quite clearly Jesus was raised on the third day. How can that be reconciled? Very simply, in fact, because the creed tells us it was "according to the Scriptures". The early Christians knew Jesus was raised on the third day not because anyone say him that day, but because that is what the Old Testament said would happen.

Hosea 6:1 “Come, let us return to the Lord.

He has torn us to pieces

    but he will heal us;

he has injured us

    but he will bind up our wounds.

2 After two days he will revive us;

    on the third day he will restore us,

    that we may live in his presence.

What of all those accounts of Jesus walking around Jerusalem? They were made up later. It is clear the author of Mark was not aware of any such stories, and the author of Matthew has only the most brief of encounters in Jerusalem before going to Galilee. It is only the later gospels that indulge in the most fantastic embellishments

And they do so in part to respond to critics. Matthew invents the guard on the tomb to counter claims the body was stolen; Luke invents Jesus eating fish to counter claims it was just a ghost; John invents Jesus pierced by a spear to count the "swoon" theory, and also has Jesus carefully inspected by Thomas.

What did they see?

So what did the disciples actually see in Galilee? I do not think we have any way of knowing. John 21 might be our best indicator, but who knows how it got distorted between the event and its late inclusion in the gospel? None of the other works give us a clue. It is just possible the endings of Mark and Peter were deliberately removed because they deviated to far from what was later the orthodox view - but that is just speculation.

That said, there are some points to consider.

What did Paul see? He saw a bright light and heard a voice on the Road to Damascus. We do not know if this resembled what the disciples saw, but it might. The account in 1 Cor 15 gives no suggestion what he saw was any different to what the disciples saw, though that might be because he was trying to assert his own authority.

However, the Jews at that time expected the resurrected to appear as bright lights.

Daniel 2:2 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting [a]contempt. 3 [b]Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the [c]expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

This all fits with what we read in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul is talking about the resurrected body.

1 Corinthians 15:42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

What the Jews expected to see, and what Paul describes, is a spiritual body, a new body that replaced the old. It seems likely, then, that what the disciples saw on the Sea of Galilee, was a bright light that they understood to be Jesus.

Why reject the claims of a bodily resurrection? Because they appear later, in Luke and John, in the invented sightings in Jerusalem.