The Nature of the Appearances

• The gospels wrote of a appearances of a physical tangible Jesus.
• Yet this could not explain the doubts of his resurrection that must have been so strong that it could not completely be erased from the tradition.
• Paul's own words concerning the resurrection, he was after all the only direct witness to it in the New Testament and four decades earlier than the gospel accounts, showed that the resurrection appearances were a lot less tangible than what the gospels make it.

Luke 24:36-42 While they were still talking about this, Jesus stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while still they did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

John 20:24-28 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

But the presence of skepticism must have been so strongly imbedded in the traditional material the evangelists were drawing from that none of them could entirely ignore it. We must keep in mind that the gospel are nowhere near first hand accounts of the incidents. If anything, the last previous chapters of this book should convince the rational reader that the "gospel truth" cannot be accepted blindly. With that being the case, had the resurrection appearances been of less tangible and less lasting forms the existence of doubts can easily be explained. For one of the disciples could claimed that he had a fleeting glance of Jesus, while the rest not seeing anything would have doubted.

Paul's Visions of the Resurrection

Acts 22:6-11 (Also Acts 9:3ff; 26:12) "While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' I answered, 'Who are you, Lord?' Then he said to me, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.' Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. I asked, 'What am I to do, Lord?' The Lord said to me, 'Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told everything that has been assigned to you to do.' Since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, those who were with me took my hand and led me to Damascus."

I Corinthians 9:1 Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?

This word does not necessarily imply the actual appearance of a person, but may only indicate an unusual phenomena...the use of the word ofti in enumerating other visions in the Pauline lists...excludes such details as prolonged conversations, meals and resumption of ordinary life, on which the gospels dwell. [1]

It is interesting to note that Paul makes no distinction between his own vision of Jesus and those apparitions to Peter and the others. Where the gospels show Jesus as physically and inconvertibly present to the apostles, able to eat drink and be touched, Paul, who was writing much earlier, shows the events as entirely similar to his own violent vision, which he compares to an abnormal childbirth. The apparitions to Peter and James and the rest were probably visions like Paul's on the road to Damascus, rather than physical manifestations of the risen Lord. Paul does not suggest that they were any different. [3]

Keeping in mind our dictum about extraordinary claims and the considerations above, it is inherently more likely that the actual resurrection experience of the first apostles were of a visionary and hallucinatory nature, akin to that of Paul's. The resurrection appearances of Jesus as described in the gospels are pure myths.

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References

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