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The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus:Compelling Evidence
by Dr. William Lane CraigNow it is my conviction that this reasoning cannot bear the weight placed upon it by those who would reject the physical resurrection. I shall not in this essay contest the first premise. But I wish to take sharp issue with the second. Neither of the two supporting arguments, it seems to me, is sound; on the contrary, they embody serious misconceptions.
With regard to the first supporting argument, concerning the appearance of Jesus to Paul, it seems to me that both premisses (1) and (2) are highly questionable. Taking the premisses in reverse order, what is the evidence for (2) The appearance of Jesus to Paul was a non-physical appearance? Usually appeal is made to the accounts of this incident in Acts, where, it is said, the appearance is to be understood as a visionary experience (Acts 9.1-19: 22.3-16 26.9-23). As a matter of fact, however, the appearance in Acts, while involving visionary elements, cannot without further ado be characterized as purely visionary, since in all three accounts it is accompanied by extra-mental phenomena, namely, the light and the voice, which were experienced by Paul's companions. Grass dismisses these as due to Luke's objectifying tendencies.{7} This is, however, very doubtful, since Luke does not want to objectify the post-ascension visions of Jesus; it is the pre-ascension appearances whose extra-mental reality Luke emphasizes. Had Luke had no tradition that included Paul's companions, then we should have another vision like Stephen's, lacking extra-mental phenomena. And secondly, if Luke had invented the extra-mental aspects of the appearance to Paul, we should have expected him to be more consistent and not to construct such discrepancies as that Paul's companions heard and did not hear the voice. These inconsistencies suggest that the extra-mental phenomena were part of Luke's various traditions.
Grass further maintains that Luke had before him a tradition of Paul's experience that could not be assimilated to the more physical appearances of Christ to the disciples and that therefore the tradition is reliable; the extra-mental aspects are the result of mythical or legendary influences.{8} But one could argue that precisely the opposite is true: that because the appearance to Paul is a post-ascension experience Luke is forced to construe it as a heavenly vision, since Jesus has physically ascended. Grass's anthropomorphic parallels from Greek mythology (Homer Illiad a 158; idem Odyssey p. v. 161; Apollonius Argonauts 4. 852) bear little resemblance to Paul's experience; a genealogical tie between them is most unlikely. Thus, no appeal to the Acts accounts of the appearance to Paul can legitimately be made as proof that that appearance was purely visionary in nature.
Paul himself gives us no firm clue as to the nature of Christ's appearance to him. But it is interesting to note that when Paul speaks of his 'visions and revelations of the Lord' (II Cor 12.1-7) he does not include Jesus's appearance to him. Paul and the early Christian community as a whole were familiar with religious visions and sharply differentiated between these and an appearance of the risen Lord. {9} But what was the difference?
Grass asserts that the only difference was in content: in an appearance the exalted Christ is seen.{10} But surely there must have been religious visions of the exalted Christ, too. Both Stephen's vision and the book of Revelation show that claims to visions of the exalted Christ which were not resurrection appearances were made in the church. Nor can it be said that the distinctive element in an appearance was the commissioning, for appearances were known which lacked this element (the Emmaus disciples, the 500 brethren). It seems to me that the most natural answer is that an appearance involved extra-mental phenomena, something's actually appearing, whereas a vision, even if caused by God, was purely in the mind. If this is correct, then Paul, in claiming for himself an appearance of
Christ as opposed to a vision of Christ, is asserting to have seen something, not merely in the mind, but actually 'out there' in the real world. For all we know from Paul, this appearance could conceivably have been as physical as those portrayed in the gospels; and it is not impossible that Luke then 'spiritualized' the appearance out of the necessity of his pre- and post-ascension scheme! At any rate, it would be futile to attempt to prove that either Acts or Paul supports a purely visionary appearance to the apostle on the Damascus road.
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