The Resurrection of Jesus: Another Reason to Believe

I have just posted a response to my friend Nick's blog post concerning popular Christian apologetics.  (Click HERE)  On that blog Nick was talking about how he's coming to view most of these apologetic agendas fairly negatively.  I agree with him; well-meaning Christians are getting caught in the modern myth of providing "absolute proof" for historical events.  Instead of such apologetic schemes, Nick proposed that we accept that the resurrection of Jesus is the basis for all "proof" of the Gospel.  While I agree in part--again, see my comment--this whole discussion got me thinking that I ought to share publicly one of the reasons that I have come to be convinced that the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was an actual historical event.

Now--just so we're all on the same page here--the argument I want to here put forth is an argument concerning historical evidence, but it is not intended to be what popular Christian apologists like to call "proof."  I do not think that I can prove with 100% certainty any historical event--let alone the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus.  Proof is for the realm of science, which deals with repeatable events; not history, which necessarily deals with events that only occurred once.  (I cannot prove that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, because it is an unrepeatable historical event, though I haven't found anyone that doubts that he did.)  Nevertheless, there truly are some really good historical reasons to accept the resurrection, though accepting it might just cause you to rethink your definition of "history" and of what is historically plausible.  But, hey, that's what worldview-changing events like the resurrection do!

As a graduate student in the field of Biblical Studies, I have spent a significant amount of time studying ancient Judaism.  In so doing, I have found that the idea of "resurrection" is a relatively late development in ancient Jewish thought.  You will not hear much of any talk about resurrection in the Old Testament--except for one of the latest (perhaps the latest) books of the OT, Daniel (written around 150BCE).  Nevertheless, by the first century the idea of resurrection (in Greek, the word anastasis) was a well-known concept, and one that many Jews (perhaps the majority? it's difficult to tell) embraced.

Here's a funny thing about Jewish beliefs in resurrection, though: Although not all Jews believed in resurrection (see, for instance, the group known as the Sadducees in the New Testament), all Jews who did believe in resurrection believed that it was an end times event.  This is how Daniel describes it in Daniel 12:2-4, the only explicit (at least I think it's explicit, and so did 1st century Jews) reference to resurrection in the whole OT: "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.  Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.  But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge."  So, if you were among the Jews who believed in the resurrection of the dead in the 1st century, you likely either believed (1) at the end of time, God would raise the righteous dead up into new, bodily life fit for his everlasting kingdom, while the wicked would remain in Sheol (the underworld) or (2) at the end of time, God would raise all mankind to new, bodily life and then invite some into his everlasting kingdom and exclude others (this is the belief of the majority of the first Christians; see, for instance, 1 Corinthians 15).  In either case, the resurrection was only conceived of as an end times event that would occur to either all mankind, or at least all the righteous, at the end of time.

Let me add another funny fact about the belief in resurrection during the 1st century: The wider Greek-speaking world of the first century was well acquainted with this notion and they wanted nothing to do with it.  For instance, in the great Greek epic, the Iliad (composed long before the 1st century, but still popular during the 1st c.), one character says to another: "Bear up, and don't give way to angry grief; Nothing will come of sorrowing for your son, Nor will you raise him up (verb form of anastasis) before you die." (Iliad 24.539-51)  Or again, take the scene of the death of the great Greek hero and philosopher, Socrates, poetically recounted in Phaedo, written by his famous disciple Plato.  As Socrates is about to take the poison that he is mandated by the city's officials to take for his heretical teachings, he bravely looks at his disciples and says: "Offer up a chicken to Asclepius on my behalf."  Now what you've got to know is that Asclepius was the Greek god of healing.  Socrates is saying, "Death . . . getting out of this body . . . this is exactly what I've been longing for--having my soul released from my body is actually an act of divine healing!)  There is A TON of more Greek literature like this from all over the years (see N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God for a MASSIVE amount of literature), but I hope this is enough to paint the picture: The non-Jewish, Greek-speaking world of the time of Jesus and his disciples were well aware of what "resurrection" (anastasis)--getting a new body after death--was, and they wanted no part of it.  Death was release of the soul.  Why would you want to go back to a body after that great release?

( I mention only briefly that, funnily enough, I think many Christians today think more like these pagan Greeks--i.e. "I can't wait to die and go to heaven."--than they do like early Christians--i.e. "I can't wait for the resurrection of the body!" [again, see 1 Corinthians 15])


So here's the picture: The first-century world, both Jewish and non-Jewish, was well acquainted with the particular idea of "resurrection" (anastasis).  It was the specific idea that entailed getting a new body after death.  Many Jews believed that it was an end-times events that would happen to either all mankind or to all the righteous; non-Jews knew of it and thought it horrendous--why would you want a body back after your soul has been released from its captivity to the first body?


In the middle of this world, some first-century Jews began to claim that Jesus of Nazareth--one, particular person--had undergone resurrection (anastasis), even though the end of time had obviously not come.


This message simply would not have been possible to invent given their cultural milieu.  It is non-sense to both Jews and non-Jews.  Jews would have said, "You know the end hasn't come yet, right?" and Greeks would have said, "that's a quaint but pretty stupid idea that we want nothing to do with."  What would be the disciples' motivation for inventing this?

If the disciples had seen Jesus in a "spiritual" form, or if they had had a mental breakdown and hallucinated seeing him, they would not have used the word anastasis to describe this experience.  To say that one person had undergone anastasis before the end of the age just would not have made any sense.

For this, and other reasons, I am convinced that the best historical explanation of the events of Easter--and of the kind of language that the disciples used to describe these events--is that Jesus of Nazareth truly did experience the resurrection of the dead.


And if that's true . . . everything changes.