When Jesus rose from the dead, he did so in space and time. Concerning this, Josh McDowell claims that "the resurrection of Christ is an event in history wherein God acted in a definite time-space dimension"
The Bible declares that the same body placed in Jesus' tomb on Good Friday emerged from it on Easter Sunday" (p. 26). Furthermore, "the resurrection body is described as a material body" (Ibid.). According to this view, "flesh and bones" (Luke 24:39), the crucifixion scars (John 20:27), eating (Luke 24:42-43), and touching the risen Jesus (Matt. 28:9) are all understood as material phenomenon.
In the next chapter, I will consider the whole question of whether miracles are possible and, if so, what would constitute reasonable for them.
Material Resurrection
However, there is another group of Christians who claim that Jesus' resurrection body was - and had to be - a material body. According to leading inerrantist Norman L. Geisler, "The logic is clear: If Jesus rose bodily from the dead in the same body in which He died, and if this body was a physical, material body, then it follows that the resurrection body was a physical, material body" (p. 27). (Of course, the physical body might have been transformed in some way, but nevertheless, according to this view, it was still a physical body.) This view, it seems, is the belief held by virtually all of Christian apologists who are in dialogue with the skeptical community.
THE MATERIAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE RESURRECTION
In History (In Space and Time)
The Same Body
A Material Body
Dependence on the Empty Tomb
A fundamental concept for this understanding of the resurrection is that the resurrection occurred in history. That is to say, when Jesus rose from the dead, he did so in space and time. Concerning this, Josh McDowell claims that "the resurrection of Christ is an event in history wherein God acted in a definite time-space dimension" (1972, p. 185). Likewise, the theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg says, "Whether the resurrection of Jesus took place or not is a historical question, and the historical question at this point is inescapable. And so the question has to be decided on the level of historical argument" (quoted in McDowell 1972, p. 188). Or consider the words of Norman Geisler (p. 26), who said the resurrection "was a chronologically datable event in history. It was not a super-historical event beyond space and time. Rather, it was an empirical event in real history."
They also contend that Jesus' post-resurrection body was the same body as his pre-resurrection body, and therefore that it was a material body. Geisler writes, "the Bible declares that the same body placed in Jesus' tomb on Good Friday emerged from it on Easter Sunday" (p. 26). Furthermore, "the resurrection body is described as a material body" (Ibid.). According to this view, "flesh and bones" (Luke 24:39), the crucifixion scars (John 20:27), eating (Luke 24:42-43), and touching the risen Jesus (Matt. 28:9) are all understood as material phenomenon.
What about the empty tomb? Proponents of a material resurrection consider a historical empty tomb essential to their understanding of Easter. If the empty tomb story is historically reliable, they contend this is strong evidence for the truth of the resurrection; but if the empty tomb tradition is not trustworthy, this casts enormous doubt on their whole superstructure of belief.
Conclusion
My goal here has not been to take sides and say that one understanding of the resurrection is right and the other is wrong; rather, my purpose is simply to acknowledge that such differences exist. I think this is important to understand when talking about the resurrection debate between skeptics and Christians, so that we can place the debate in its proper perspective. As we shall see, the debate has almost exclusively assumed that the material view of the resurrection is a proper understanding of what the isses are, without even acknowledging the non-material position. But before we can examine the arguments advanced by both sides, we need also to consider one other crucial issue: the problem of miracles. In the next chapter, I will consider the whole question of whether miracles are possible and, if so, what would constitute reasonable for them.
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