Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus: The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Problem

[dcsmart]

(Originally published in Sewanee Theological Review 41.2, 1998. Reproduced by permission of the author.)


N.T. Wright

Prologue
The Question of Jesus’ resurrection lies at the heart of the Christian faith. There is no form of early Christianity known to us that does not affirm that after Jesus’ shameful death God raised him to life again. That affirmation is, in particular, the constant response of earlier Christianity to one of the four key questions about Jesus that must be raised by all serious historians of the first century. I have elsewhere addressed the first three such questions, namely what was Jesus’ relation to Judaism? What were his aims? Why did he die?1 The fourth question is this: Granted the foregoing, why did Christianity arise and take the shape it did? To this question, virtually all early Christians known to us give the same answer, “He was raised from the dead.” The historian must therefore investigate what they meant by this and what can be said by way of historical comment.
Text

FULL ARTICLE
http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Historical_Problem.htm

[ComtesseDeSpair]

1. I haven't read the article but...

how can you even seriously talk about the question of the resurrection in "historical terms," when there is no real evidence that there ever WAS a Jesus Christ (just unsubstantiated stories told decades after his supposed death), and there is ABUNDANT evidence that the Jesus myth is simply a retelling of earlier myths such as Mithras and Dionysus?

[Occam Bandage]

2. Probably because an ahistorical Jesus makes little sense.

There are significant, significant discrepancies between the Jesus myth and both the Mithras and Dionysus myths; about the only similarities are that Mithras ascended to the heavens (he did not die, and the claims of virgin birth on Christmas are modern fabrications not part of classical Mithraism), and that Dionysus's followers engaged in ritual mystic cannibalism. Moreover, neither had a significant presence in the Holy Land.

The question I would ask is: why? In an age of itinerant preachers on near every street corner, of cults rising and dissolving by the hundreds, and of social upheaval as an expansive empire was approaching its zenith, why deny that there existed a charismatic itinerant preacher named Joshua who engaged in faith healing, complained about the government, and then got executed for his troubles? Even if the miracles were artistic license and the resurrection mystic nonsense, I don't understand why people would hypothesize that a bunch of Jews decided that, rather than talk about any of the number of actual revolutionaries walking around calling for revolution and getting nailed to crosses, or any of the actual self-proclaimed religious teachers calling for a new social order, they'd make one out of whole cloth.

[ZombieHorde]

15. I just made a point already made by someone else, sorry OB.

(it was about Roman records if you are curious)

[Why Syzygy]

3. Are there any sources that predate the 1800's

to support the assertion that those myths were so closely related? The evidence seems to indicate that the commonalities were first "discovered" in occultism writings from the 19th century.

If you, or anyone, has evidence that it wasn't the other way around, the myths were later shaped to fit the Christ, you can pocket a quick $200.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRaxf4ZC0e8
http://zeitgeistchallenge.com/


Some critics have labeled the claims of The Jesus Mysteries far-fetched and based on insufficient research. For example, David Allan Dodson, a reviewer for CNN, found the book to be interesting, he stated that "while the authors discuss many examples of elements of Osiris/Dionysus in the Jesus story, they virtually ignore the more direct ties to Jewish tradition and prophecy. This oversight undermines the credibility of many of their arguments, and could have the tendency to mislead the novice reader in this subject". (CNN.com, "Review: Jesus -- man or myth?", September 21, 2000). However, while Dodson wasn't fully convinced by the authors that Jesus was completely fictional, he did end his review with the following supportive remarks: "The Jesus Mysteries left this reviewer more convinced than ever that the life of Jesus as we know it is filled with mythological, political, and even polemical elements. Freke and Gandy succeed in bringing some important points about Christianity to the public in a readable, compelling book. Perhaps their willingness to state 'the unthinkable thought' will lead to more objective thinking about religion and tolerance. If so, The Jesus Mysteries is a worthy effort indeed".

According to some critics, Freke and Gandy make selective use of quotations (suppressing those that count against their thesis), use out of date scholarship, and are driven by a new age and anti-Christian agenda. The book has 63 pages of citations in the endnotes which constitutes a hefty 18% of the entire book.Australian Bishop Paul Burnett, a New Testament scholar who has authored several books in favor of a historical Jesus, argues that a good proportion of the citations in the 63 pages of end notes are out of date. "Like the Gnostics, Freke and Gandy have a mystical mindset and therefore oppose Christianity as grounded in history," he wrote. "They hate the idea that the incarnation of the Son of God and his resurrection could have been a matter of actual flesh and blood and time and place."<1>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jesus_Mysteries

[dcsmart]

4. with respect, maybe you should read the article

the jesus didn't exist argument is ridiculous. there is almost no legitimate historical scholar, either liberal or conservative,
that would argue that.

[ComtesseDeSpair]

6. Oh really?

Show me historical proof that Jesus existed - from a purely scientific source. Not just stories told by christians decades after the fact, but actual historical proof, like records from Romans of the time showing that this person existed.

[frogmarch]

8. There are no records of Jesus

having existed, even though the Romans were sticklers for keeping records. Furthermore, not one of the famous authors who lived during, or within a century after, Jesus is said to have lived mentioned anything about him in their writings.

The "historical proof" usually given for the existence of Jesus have been shown to be forgeries of accounts attributed to historians living around a century after Jesus allegedly lived, including Josephus, who was court historian for the emperor Vespasian, and Clement the Elder of Rome.

There is no evidence for Jesus having ever lived. None. Zero. Zilch.

[struggle4progress]

10. I am interested in this claim that the story, if true, should be supported by Roman documents

What detailed records do you think exist of occupied Jerusalem in the early imperial Roman period? Are there records of dispute resolutions by the Roman governor or lists of ordinary law-enforcement actions, such as crucifixions?

You claim Romans were sticklers for keeping records, but in fact the available record-keeping materials were quite expensive, and the convenient materials were also fragile enough that they would not be expected to survive without special careful safe-guarding

[frogmarch]

11. Systematic record-keeping,

primarily for taxation purposes, was a hallmark of the Roman Empire, and this area included Jerusalem. The Jerusalem area was the education and record-keeping hub for the Jews. Despite popular acceptance that the Romans, like the Jews, kept careful records, let's say the Romans didn't document crucifixions, at least not Jesus's. Surely Jewish historians and scribes would have taken note of the prophet/miracle worker/healer who, according to the gospels, attracted multitudes of people, causing a stir wherever he went. I'd think they'd have also made note of his death. Pliny the Elder made no mention of him either, or of the stunning eclipse that according to the Bible, occurred right after Jesus's crucifixion. Pliny would have found such an eclipse remarkable, Jesus notwithstanding. And then there was Philo Judaeus, who lived in the Jerusalem area during the time Jesus is said to have lived there. In all of Philo Judaeus's richly detailed accounts of Jewish events happening in the area, he didn't mention Jesus once. Not once. How could this be, with all the miracles attributed to Jesus, and the throngs of people following the him? Here's how: In reality, Jesus never existed.

[Occam Bandage]

13. Ah, but now you've conflated two arguments:

the first, being that Jesus existed, and the second, being that the Biblical accounts of miracles, crowds, and portents were all literally true. Would everyone have taken note of a dude who was performing miracles and getting thousands to follow him joyously? Sure, and they probably wouldn't have killed him, since nobody would be stupid enough to try to kill someone who was actually, literally performing feats of great magic before their eyes. I know I wouldn't. But we can set that aside, because that isn't the argument we're having.

The argument at hand revolves around the existence of a particular itinerant preacher who mostly kept to the poor, uneducated, sparsely-populated villages, preaching a radical, emotional form of Judaism that requires no formal study and places an emphasis on social justice, who then (perhaps picking up some steam and thinking he was really somebody) went to the big city, shot his mouth off to some big-shots, and then got himself killed unceremoniously--and whose death was only really noted by his small number of followers, who happened to attract a string of talented writers, thinkers, and speakers, leading to the Gospels and the eventual development of Christianity into a fully-formed religion.

For that argument, "the ruling elite in Jerusalem didn't consider him worth writing home about" isn't a very impressive one, given that many, many would-be cultleaders and self-proclaimed prophets were all over the empire. Nor for that matter, is "the Romans did not feel like engraving that month's mundane legal actions in stone and then preserving that granite slab in a crypt for future generations." It's hardly shocking that Jerusalem didn't stop everything to attend to one unexceptional radical cultist in particular. What would be mildly shocking, on the other hand, would be if out of all of those would-be cultleaders and self-proclaimed prophets infesting the Eastern Mediterranean, Jesus in particular was invented out of whole cloth. Since there's no reason to believe such a mundane (ultimately influential though he was) man didn't exist, why declare that he didn't?

[frogmarch]

14. Sure, Jesus as a rabble-rousing rabbi

could have existed. The Jesus figure could also be a composite of some of the "would-be cult leaders and self-proclaimed prophets" of the time. Regardless, Jesus the deity didn't exist, so what does it matter whether Jesus the man did? His existence wouldn't prove a thing. Even if concrete evidence were to be presented proving that Jesus the traveling preacher man really lived, I'd continue being an atheist.

[struggle4progress]

19. As counter-point, I note that in 1906 Albert Schweitzer, who had a permanent

appointment at the Theological College of Saint Thomas, published his Quest of the Historical Jesus, in which he reached the following conclusion:

The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence ... But the truth is, it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/schweitzer/chapter20.html

A few years later, he was providing free medical care in Gabon

[struggle4progress]

17. Wait, wait. One thing at a time. I'm not a biblical literalist, and simple investigations

into yes-no questions of the type Is such and such a Bible story true? usually don't interest me, because I typically don't learn anything from them. Although I am a Christian, I have no objection to strictly historical inquiries into the origins of Christianity -- but as far as I can tell, such inquiries tend shed little light on "Jesus of Nazareth," whether or not one thinks he existed or however else one thinks of him

But I merely want to inquire here into your "Romans kept meticulous records" argument. I don't know whether the Romans kept meticulous records or not -- but their typical record-keeping technology was either (1) expensive and fragile or (2) incredibly expensive. In the expensive and fragile category, place writing on primitive paper (such as papyrus) or on scraped animal skin (vellum/parchment); neither material survives long historical periods, except by very fortuitous conditions or a concerted effort to preserve documents. In the very expensive category, place methods such as chiseling into stone

Now, exactly what "meticulous records" (that you say the Romans kept) would one expect to contain evidence of the existence of this "Jesus of Nazareth"? If he existed (as a historical figure), he was by all accounts a poor peasant from the countryside in a Roman-occupied province that was giving the Romans a real headache: a few years later, in fact, the Romans became tired of the whole place and systematically destroyed the existing political and religious culture. In what (supposed) "meticulous Roman records" would you search for evidence of such a person? You mention Pliny the Elder, but he was about ten years old in 33 C.E. (a traditional date for the cruxifixion); as a ten-year old, I had access to TV and radio, but I have no idea who was put to death as a trouble-maker in any foreign country when I was ten. You mention Philo Judaeus but The only event that can be determined chronologically is his participation in the embassy which the Alexandrian Jews sent to the emperor Caligula at Rome for the purpose of asking protection .... in the year 40 C.E. -- and since the early history of Christianity reflects a schism in Judaism, it's not at all clear that the orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem would have been writing to their friends in Alexandria about some Jesus fellow who got himself executed as a troublemaker

There's nothing wrong with historical arguments -- but they should be made carefully and honestly

[frogmarch]

21. I have no firsthand knowledge of the Romans' record-keeping

in the 1st century, or of the quality of their document preservation, but the reasons often cited by Christian apologists for there being no documentation of Jesus's existence during his supposed lifetime make me think of the old "the dog ate my homework" excuse. The histories of the Roman rulers of the era, including Pilate as governor, survived, as did many records of businesses and of individual citizens, which noted various details about them and their families, including their political leanings. Archaeological evidence has been unearthed that proves the existence every person of any historical significance at all during this time. How odd then, that there's nothing about Jesus, the man who supposedly attracted multitudes and drew the attention of Roman authorities.

If when Jesus was crucified, an earthquake occurred, even if it wasn't one of such magnitude as to cause graves to open up and corpses to walk the streets, and didn't coincide with a solar eclipse, Pilate would have made sure the event was documented. Romans were very conscientious about recording such phenomena, mainly because their calendars changed with each new ruler, and an event like an earthquake or eclipse gave them a fixed time reference. According to the Bible, the post-crucifixion earthquake was a powerful one, accompanied by an untimely solar eclipse. Even if Pliny the boy didn't hear about the occurrence, or did but childishly brushed the news aside, later he'd have been interested in the astounding event and would have referred to it in his Naturalis Historia.

As for Philo Judeaus, while it's true that documentation of his comings and goings is sparse, he was a prolific writer, especially on the topics of philosophy and religion. He was a contemporary of Jesus, and on occasion a bit of a rabble rouser himself. If Jesus existed, Philo Judeaus would have noticed him, and would have at least mentioned him in his writings.

By the way, my arguments aren't always carefully presented, but they're never dishonest.

[struggle4progress]

22. (1) To say that the available evidence "proves the existence every person of any historical

significance" is tautological and content-free: history, by definition, consists of whatever can be reconstructed from the past with currently available evidence

(2) It is easy to see that the supposed darkness "from the sixth to the ninth hour" in the gospel crucifixion accounts cannot possibly refer to a solar eclipse. The traditional Hebrew months began immediately after the dark of the moon, and therefore Passover in mid-Nissan occurs with an approximately full moon. But the moon is always turns one and the same face towards Earth, and during a solar eclipse the dark side of the moon faces earth (obviously): so a solar eclipse never occurs near a full moon and hence never near Passover. So there is no probably need to search ancient texts, or even to perform elaborate astronomical calculations, to determine whether there was a solar eclipse near Passover in the early first century, since that could only have happened in association with a substantial perturbation of the moon's orbit (which would certainly have been noticed worldwide, since it would have had other significant effects, such as tidal changes). Since the gospels, in any case, do not directly mention a solar eclipse but merely a darkness, the observation that no solar eclipse could explain such darkness does not provide great insight into these texts and the historical problems they pose

(3) While I am not at all opposed to the view that Matthew's earthquake is ahistorical, your claim that one would find an account of it in Pilate's records, if it were historical, seems to me to be mere smoke-blowing: what records do you think actually remain from Pilate's governorship? In fact, it seems that so little is available, that even the exact title, that he held during his short stint in Judaea, was unknown until 1961:

Historical Notes: Pontius Pilate: a name set in stone
Ann Wroe
Saturday, 3 April 1999

UNTIL 1961, there was no concrete archaeological evidence that Pontius Pilate, the fifth governor of Judaea, ever existed. There were accounts of him, of course, not least the accounts in the Gospels. But the records of his administration had disappeared completely: no papyri, no rolls, no tablets, no (authentic) letters to Rome. The Roman ruins that remained in Israel seemed to have nothing to do with him. Even his aqueduct - a project that got him into plenty of trouble at the time - appeared to have crumbled away.

In the summer of 1961, however, Italian archaeologists found a piece of limestone, 82cm wide by 68cm high, in the ruins of a sports stadium in Caesarea, beside the sea. The stadium had not been there in Pilate's time; he had yelled at his gladiators in another place. But the stone bore his name, and much else besides.

Because it is the only artefact we have - the only proof of him, and also the only object we can be sure he looked at and thought about - even the tiniest aspects of it have a huge importance ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/historical-notes-pontius-pilate-a-name-set-in-stone-1084786.html

... This short inscription also supplies an important historical detail: it informs us of the official title held by Pilate and the other Roman governors of Judea during this period: “Prefect of Judea,” not “Procurator,” as was assumed by modern historians based on the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus (c. 56 CE – c. 120 CE); Tacitus may have been influenced by his greater familiarity with later times and titles ...

http://cojs.org/cojswiki/Pontius_Pilate’s_Tiberium_Inscription,_26-36_CE

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. The issue is more narrowly defined than simple "historical terms"

There is no reason not to believe that there was a historical Yeheshua ben Yosef who was a teacher in one of the many Zealot groups of the day and who taught, in line with standard Zealot doctrines, that God was directly approachable as 'Abba and that the day of judgement and liberation was immediately at hand. That is not and never has been the issue.

What is at issue is whether the Greek Scriptures give an accurate history of the man, his teachings and the movement that grew out of it.

[BurtWorm]

24. Yes there is reason not to believe in the historical "Yeheshua ben Yosef, etc."

People before the last century didn't believe in that version of Jesus. That version of Jesus is a creation of the 20th Century Quest for Jesus scholars. Did people who had no access to that "scholarship" have no good reason not to believe in it?

[TechBear_Seattle]

28. People before the 15th century believed the earth was flat

Crimeny, there are many people today who still think the earth is flat. That doesn't mean it is.

My point is that the stories grew up around a real religious and political leader who lived near Jerusalem in the first century. That does not make the stories themselves true. That these stories have been held, unquestioningly, as totally and literally correct for more than 1200 years does not make them true, either.

[BurtWorm]

29. How do you know there was one real religious and political leader on whom the stories are based?

How do you really know that? If you can't trust that the stories are true, how can you possibly trust that there was a historic person on whom they're based?

[TechBear_Seattle]

30. Occam's Razor

"The simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct one."

The simplest explanation, in this case, is that there was a single person very likely named Joshua son of Joseph who became the focus of one of the politico-religious movements which were very, very common in and around Jerusalem in the early first century CE. As tended to happen to such leaders, he was executed. The lack of records specifically mentioning this person does not carry much weight, as such executions were almost routine at the time and would not have gotten much attention in and of itself.

The simplest explanation also says that followers would have added to his story after his death, pulling in stories associated with other great religious and political figures and adding "embellishments" to increase their leader's importance. Latter, people would compile this story and, either accidentally or deliberately, pull in other similar stories about different leaders to create a single comprehensive story. Still latter, people would embellish these stories even more so as to claim the authority of leadership and to further their own agenda. Eventually, one of these self-proclaimed leaders might establish a movement that outlasts him, much as Paul's movement outlasted him.

But again, that does not mean that the stories carried forward by that movement are accurate, nor does it mean that there never was a real person upon whom the stories are based.

[BurtWorm]

31. The simplest explanation for the source for an impossible life is myth.

Or composite history of several lives. Or a combination of the two. It stretches credulity to suppose there was one person on whom the impossible figure of Jesus was based.

[On the Road]

5. I Would Take Issue with This Statement:

This is an interesting article. NT Wright is both a good scholar and a good communicator.

I do have to take issue with his reasoning. It is far from clear that all early followers of Jesus believed he was raised from the dead and that this was a physical rather than spiritual event.

Almost all early Christian writing is from the Pauline point of view. Having written a popular book on Paul, Wright accepts the conventional wisdom that Paul did not so much represent Jesus' teaching, but created his own religion. He also (conventionally) fails to realize the full implications of that insight.

The only undisputed works in the New Testament outside the Pauline tradition are James and Jude (Revelation may be another). And what does James say regarding Jesus?

You have killed the righteous one. He does not resist you.

Think of what it says and does not say. That is what Wright and anyone equating Pauline Christology with the entire early Church deal with.

[struggle4progress]

9. The gospel of Mark is often regarded as the earliest, and it suffers

from the textual difficulty that the earliest commentators apparently did not have the current ending: their text terminated with the women fleeing in terror from the empty tomb. Considered as a record of early Christian belief, the early short text nevertheless announces the resurrection. Seeking earlier texts, one might look to the epistles. I am not competent to guess relative chronology; one is alleged at the link I supply below, indicating Thessalonians as the earliest epistle, but it already mentions resurrection.
To go further back, one might appeal to scholarly reconstructions of now-lost source documents, to make your case, but that is less certain as evidence: so what is readily available suggests that belief in the resurrection was present quite early

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

[On the Road]

16. Yes, I Understand That

but like most of the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark was written from the perspective of the Pauline church. Its dismissive attitude toward the family of Jesus in particular gives it away. So while Mark might indeed be the earliest gospel, I would expect it to reflect the version of Jesus' life that was told by Gentiles in Asia Minor, Rome, and elsewhere rather than the people Jesus was associated with.

That's going a little far afield, but the fact remains that NT Wright takes the material in the Gospels largely at face value rather than as partisan documents with an agenda.

[struggle4progress]

18. So my question is: What texts support your view that not all early Christians

believed in the resurrection? The canonical texts, and standard dating of the them, doesn't appear to support that view

[On the Road]

23. The Movement Headed by Jesus' Brother

survived into the 5th century and eventually became known as the Ebionites. Documents like The Gospel of the Ebionites are known only from fragments quoted by church fathers. However, from these secondary sources like Epiphanius and Eusebius we have a reasonably idea of what the Ebinotes believed.

From the Wikipedia article:

The majority of Church Fathers agree that the Ebionites rejected many of the central Christian views of Jesus such as the pre-existence, divinity, virgin birth, atoning death, and physical resurrection of Jesus.^1
1Klijn A.F.J.; Reinink, G.J. (1973). Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects. Brill. ISBN 9004037632.

[struggle4progress]

26. Epiphanius and Eusebius are fourth century, so their excerpts from now-lost

texts, for purposes of heresiology, are later rather than earlier texts. Eusebius, incidently, distinguishes two different groups he calls Ebionites, and criticizes both for observing Judaic law; to one group, he explicitly attributes belief in the resurrection

Eusebius--the Church History
http://books.google.com/books?id=KgpGs1wdle4C&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=Eusebius+ebionites&source=bl&ots=UWkvOaSGTJ&sig=8EHvmXWo_Jmz2AmTwu1jHS9JdJs&hl=en&ei=mRuTSYbEBZWn-gaCzbCJCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result

[On the Road]

27. Yes, There Seems to Have Been a Development Over Time

Some Ebionites may have adopted certain Pauline beliefs, especially as the Gentile church eclipsed the messianic Jews in the synagoges. That makes the textual record messier as time progresses.

I think of it like the evangelical church today. Evangelical doctrine has spread from its roots into traditions it's not really compatible with, such as the Roman Catholic church and Calivinist denominations. As a result, a lot of Congregationalists and Presbyterians have no idea that what they hear in church every week is heresy in the Calvinistic thinking of their denomination. And it's all happened with surprisingly little upheaval.

If there was a dieeference of opinion on the resurrection among this group, I think it's more likely that the resurrection is a later belief. It reflected the popular and politically ascendent part of the church. Also, organizations tend to diefy their leaders over time. It is almost never case that a religious organization decided to lower the status of its leading figures.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

12. How about the the biological problem of an alleged resurrection?

Seriously, if a foreign faith believed in a zombie that walked the earth after 3 days of death, I can guarantee that a lot of christians would be getting a lot of mileage out of how ridiculous that religion is.

[laconicsax]

20. You must remember that it wasn't just Jesus who came back to life.

Matthew 27:50-53

(50)Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. (51)And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; (52)And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, (53)And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

A whole bunch of people popped out of their graves and toured Jerusalem. A veritable zombie invasion yet no one living at the time thought it was worth writing about.

[ZombieHorde]

25. If Christians would have focused more on the zombie parts when I was a kid,

they may have had a better hold on me. I might even be a Christian today.