Discuss the historicity of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ

So does Paul have a bodily resurrection of Jesus in mind in this passage? 15:1-11 cannot, on its own, tell us. But the rest of chapter 15 presents some strong suggestions of what he may have meant, as Paul links the resurrection of Christ with the future resurrection hope of Christian believers, for Christ is the “first fruits” of the dead. He addresses, albeit obliquely, the question of whether and how the dead will be bodily resurrected in the rest of the chapter. Here, discussion has centred on the phrases σῶμα ψυχικόν and σῶμα πνευματικόν as descriptions of the difference between the present body and the resurrection body. The nrsv unhelpfully translates σῶμα ψυχικόν as ‘physical body’, in opposition to σῶμα πνευματικόν ‘spiritual body’. This suggests the possibility of the resurrection state being noncorporeal, and therefore would support an argument that Paul did not hold to a bodily resurrection of Jesus either. However, this opposition cannot be what Paul has in mind, for not only does it sound more Gnostic than Pauline, but it is not mandated by the context. The contrast between ψυχικόν and πνευματικόν is part of a series of four contrasts: corruption and incorruption, dishonour and glory, and weakness and power. The contrast between the present body and the resurrection body is thus not seen in physical/non-physical terms, terms of its substance, but in terms of its qualities. For one thing, ψυχικόν literally means ‘soul-ish’, coming from the root ψυχη, and Paul cannot be suggesting our present bodies are made out of souls. Also, as Wright points out, the usage of πνευματικόν elsewhere within the same epistle never warrants a sense of immateriality. 3:1 is a good example of this – Paul cannot mean “I could not speak to you as immaterial people (πνευματικόν)” but must instead be talking about attitude or orientation. The contrast is, in Lane Craig’s words, between “man oriented toward human nature” and man “dominated by or oriented toward the Spirit”.

Thus, I do not feel it is possible to claim from 1 Corinthians 15 that Paul does not believe Jesus rose bodily from the dead. The linking of Christ’s resurrection and ours actually lends support to the claim that Paul did believe in a bodily resurrection when we consider his other letters, particularly the hope of “the redemption of our bodies” in Romans 8:23 and the reference to Christ’s “glorious body” in Philippians 3:21. There is, true, no explicit mention in Paul’s letters of the empty tomb, but the phrase in 1 Corinthians 15:4 “he was buried, he was raised” suggests it, to my mind at least.

By the same token, Paul does not suggest the resurrection to be a simple resuscitation either. Jesus did not just come back to life, only to die again, as did Lazarus, but assumed a body which was ‘changed’. Thiselton describes this appropriately with the idea of a raised body which is “not reduced in potential from the physical capacities which biblical traditions value, but enhanced above and beyond them in ways that both assimilate and transcend them.” This is the type of body Paul teaches Jesus to have been raised in, and with this in mind we can see that the accounts of the risen Jesus Christ in the gospels are not dissimilar to Paul, as some scholars have asserted, but seem to agree: Richard Swinburne summarises that in them Jesus is “not always recognised immediately” and “could appear and disappear at will” yet was “embodied in the normal way … although in that embodied state possessing extraordinary powers”. This being so, their value as historical sources on the resurrection is restored, or at the very least must be estimated as higher than late first century additions to the resurrection tradition.

A final problem with the idea that the evangelists’ accounts of the bodily resurrection of Christ are late additions to the Christian message is that switching from preaching a non-physical resurrection to preaching a physical one would make it harder, not easier, to win converts, especially in the Greek-speaking world where Christianity was expanding most rapidly. It is easy to see why Gnostic groups might change the message of a bodily resurrection to a purely spiritual interpretation, but hard to think of an explanation for why Christians would invent a bodily resurrection in that cultural milieu if one had not been preached from the start. I think it is beyond reasonable doubt that the earliest Christians believed Jesus Christ had risen bodily from the dead.

This being so, what evidence can be adduced as to whether or not they were correct in believing this? Such a view of the resurrection event requires an empty tomb, and this is to my mind the strongest historical argument in support of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. If the resurrection narratives are not later inventions, but consistent with the teaching of Paul and the earliest Christians, then we must take their claim that the tomb was found empty on the Sunday after the crucifixion seriously. Not only that, but as Wolfhart Pannenberg points out, we must take into account the circumstantial evidence as well as the texts of the New Testament, and the fact of “primitive Christian preaching in Jerusalem. If … the report of the resurrection implied the tomb was empty, then it is hardly conceivable that the Christian message of the resurrection could have spread abroad in Jerusalem unless the presupposition of the empty tomb were tenable.” This is an assumption borne out by the apparent agreement of anti-Christian Jewish tradition on the empty tomb of Jesus recorded in the medieval Toledot Yeshu, which claims that a gardener moved the body and that the disciples were mistaken in proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection. The significance of this source, which reflects much earlier Jewish tradition, is that the enemies of Christianity attacked belief in the resurrection, but did not deny that the tomb of Jesus was empty. Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho attests to the same, with Trypho claiming the disciples stole the body. Luke records Peter as appealing to the empty tomb in his early preaching in Jerusalem, and since, as we have established, belief in a bodily resurrection was an early and key part of the Christian message, had any party been able to produce the body of Christ, the consequences would have surely left their mark on history, if not completely stopped Christianity in its tracks. We must, therefore, assume the tomb of Jesus Christ to have been empty, and the burden of proof lies upon the sceptic who wishes to prove otherwise.

Historians tackling this issue must offer an explanation for the phenomena of the empty tomb. Wright aptly speaks of the “historical challenge” of Jesus’ resurrection; it is not possible to ignore the question of what happened to the body. Lane Craig lists four explanations that have been offered for this: that the disciples stole the body; that Jesus was not dead and revived in the tomb; that the disciples went to the wrong tomb; or that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. To go through the first three options, we can see that they do not adequately explain the evidence we have.

The strongest argument against the disciples stealing the body must be a psychological one. We know from church historians, particularly Eusebius, that the majority of the disciples were actually martyred for their faith. This cannot fit with a conspiracy whereby they stole the body of Jesus and went on to proclaim him as bodily risen from the dead. Lane Craig writes of the “evident sincerity” of the disciples, which demonstrates that they were not “hypocritical hoaxers”.

Equally, the theory that Jesus did not die on the cross is implausible. All of the evangelists agree he was dead, and Mark records that Pilate himself made sure that Jesus was dead. What we know of the physiological effects of crucifixion must also surely belie the claim that someone could survive it, be placed in a tomb, and later revive. Finally, this would still leave the problem of what happened to Jesus after a revivification – presumably one would have to hold that he died eventually, while still having convinced the apostles that he had ascended alive to heaven, without this leaving a hint of it in history.

Finally, it is sometimes claimed that the women in the synoptic gospel narratives simply went to the wrong tomb. Wenham adduces evidence from several ancient sources to suggest that the site of the tomb was known and excavated in the fourth century, and is on or near the site of the modern Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The relevance of this is that, even given the implausible suggestion that neither the women, nor the disciples, nor anyone else in the first century discovered the initial error, it would eventually have been found out and Jesus’ body discovered. Such has not happened, and so we cannot hold that the women went to the wrong tomb, and that nobody knew the site of the burial to put them right.

I am convinced that the first three options are not tenable, that no other options remain, and that therefore the fourth option must be the truth; in Wright’s words, even if, “admitting it involves accepting a challenge at the level of worldview itself, the best historical explanation of all these phenomena is that Jesus was indeed bodily raised from the dead.” Taking the evidence from the New Testament writings as ordinary historical sources, what we know of the culture of the time, and the circumstantial evidence that would be familiar to any courtroom, I find the Christian claim of a bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ hard to deny, despite the obvious outrageousness of claiming someone who once was dead – very dead - has risen again. But this seems to be the only explanation which will fit, and so I must affirm with the historic teaching of the church, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

(2,735 words)

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Bibliography

Bruce, F.F., ‘Epistles to the Thessalonians’, in New Bible Dictionary (IVP, Leicester, 2nd Ed. 1982), 1192-1195.

Lane Craig, William, Reasonable Faith (Crossway, Wheaton, 1994).

Lüdemann, Gerd, The Resurrection of Jesus (SCM, London, 1994).

Marxsen, Willi, The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (SCM, London, 1970).

McGrath, Alister, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Blackwell, Oxford, 4th Edition, 2007).

Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Systematic Theology (English Translation, T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1991).

Swinburne, Richard, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (OUP, Oxford, 2003).

Thiselton, Anthony C., New International Greek Testament Commentary: The First Letter to the Corinthians (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2000).

Van Voorst, Robert E., Jesus Outside the New Testament (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2000).

Wenham, John, Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection stories in conflict? (Paternoster, Exeter, 1984).

Wright, N.T., The Resurrection of the Son of God (SPCK, London, 2003).

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