Block 8 - Jesus' Resurrection

You will find that most historical critical scholars will say either that Jesus did Not rise bodily from the dead (since miracles like this do not happen), or that there is no way of knowing, since all we have to go on is some reports (reputedly from his followers) that say they had seen him alive after his crucifixion. We have no information to work with other than the reports of those who believed they had seen him alive. Then the scholarly discussion turns to the credibility of these reports and the question of what exactly did these followers see? Did they see a vision? Did they see an actual physical (or some kind of tangible) body? Were they delusional? Was it a case of mistaken identity? Regardless of the options, the underlying supposition among historical critical scholars is that the resurrection of Jesus did Not happen the way the Gospels record the event, and most likely did Not happen at all.

These underlying suppositions are the reason that Borg approaches the story of the resurrection in Mark by calling it a parabolic narrative (Borg, page 283). What he means here is that the events most certainly did not transpire literally as reported in Mark, but the story rather reflects a spiritual transformation in the lives of Jesus' followers that can serve as a parable for others. This follows right in line with what Borg was saying earlier about much of the material in the Gospels being metaphorical narrative. Most historical critical scholars view Jesus' parables as "extended metaphors." So Borg simply expands on this definition to say that the concept of metaphor applies to much of the Gospel material, especially that which was created for the edification and instruction of Christians without any concern for historical veracity (page 281 top half).

The resurrection narrative has a positive religious meaning in Borg's mind, as long as people are not so naive as to read it literally. From Borg's point of view, the emphasis in interpretation should be on the power of Jesus to transform people's lives spiritually, not the question of what does this say about the divinity of Jesus or the question of where exactly are his physical remains right now (pages 287-288). Borg's position represents the viewpoint of someone who is a child of the enlightenment, but who also wishes to believe there is spiritual value in the Jesus story, even if it is not all literally historically true. The focus of such interpretation is on the spiritual/religious experiences of Jesus' followers then and how that can serve as a model and motivation for the kind of spiritual/religious experiences sought by Jesus' followers today.

Like Borg, Ehrman believes that the Gospel narratives of the events surrounding Jesus' resurrection are almost certainly historically false. Dead bodies do not get up and walk. And there is no way of proving that Jesus did get up and walk (even if it were true), since we are examining the question from our great historical distance from the actual event (pages 227-228). While Borg is still looking for something to believe in when reading the resurrection narratives, Ehrman is primarily interested in showing how utterly preposterous it is to believe such stories are historically true. Not surprisingly, he focuses on what he sees as discrepancies in the various accounts of Jesus' resurrection when comparing all four Gospels (see Ehrman, page 228.) Since the accounts have such significant differences (in Ehrman's opinion), even if one version were true, there is no way they could all be true, because they have the disciples going in different directions.

One thing Ehrman can take from the resurrection narratives is that (at least from the perspective of the Apostle Paul) Jesus' resurrection means that the end times have commenced (pages 232-233). The early Christians believed that all bodies would rise at the end time for a resurrection of the dead and a final judgment. Paul clearly takes Jesus' resurrection as an indication that the end time resurrection has begun and the conclusion of human history should be coming shortly (at least this is Ehrman's interpretation of Paul; Ehrman, page 233). But this does make some sense since the very possibility of a resurrection from the dead was only accepted by those who had an apocalyptic outlook on God, human history and the future.

Like most historical critical scholars, Ehrman does Not believe the disciples ever thought of Jesus as a Messiah or Son of God until after his resurrection appearances and the disciples were convinced he was alive, which lead the disciples to reassess their understanding of who Jesus was, and concluded that his resurrection was a vindication of his message and he must be someone unusually powerful in relation to God (more than a prophet) (Ehrman page 233). So it was only after the resurrection appearances that the disciples began to develop their ideas of the divine identity of Jesus, which probably never occurred to them before hand (at least this view is very popular among historical critical scholars). For Ehrman, Christianity begins with the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, because there is no way to verify historically that a resurrection actually took place (pages 230-231).

A NOTE on the ending of the Gospel of Mark. The oldest versions of the Gospel of Mark (that exist today) end with verse 16:8, "For they were afraid." Some modern scholars think this abrupt ending with no resurrection appearance indicates a sophisticated literary device on the part of the author of Mark's Gospel, to leave the ending hanging, implying that the reader must supply the ending her/himself. A more conservative interpretation of this phenomenon is that the original ending of the Gospel of Mark has been lost and the variety of endings that show up in later manuscripts demonstrate that in ancient times Christians believed the Gospel with out a resurrection appearance made no sense whatsoever, and so they brought in a resurrection story known to them from another source. Almost all historical critical scholars and even some conservative scholars believe the resurrection appearances that make up the various endings that were supplied as an ending to Mark in antiquity are probably all apocryphal and without historical foundation.