Jesus Christ for Contemporary Life. Don Schweitzer
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Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 513. See also Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, 249–50.
47. Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:144.
48. Meyer, “Jesus’ Ministry and Self-Understanding,” 352.
49. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, 268.
50. Horsley, Jesus and Empire, 129.
51. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, 15
52. Meier, “Elijah-Like Prophet,” 70.
53. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, 240–41.
54. Meier, “Elijah-Like Prophet,” 68–69.
55. Ibid.
56. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 281.
57. Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 466–67.
2 Jesus’ Resurrection
The messianic expectations that Jesus aroused and the movement gathered about him were shattered by his death.1 But after a few days some of his followers and later others claimed he had been raised from the dead. The New Testament does not support any theory that this belief arose after his death as a matter of course in light of Jewish teachings current at that time about the resurrection of the righteous. By all accounts Jesus’ resurrection was experienced by his followers as a second interruption, as unexpected and difficult to assimilate in terms of their expectations as was his death. In light of Jesus’ resurrection, the hopes and beliefs about him, broken by his death, were reformulated into new understandings of him as the Christ. These reformulations were also stimulated by the belief that the risen Jesus had been exalted to a unique status in relation to God and by the experience of salvation, a new experience of the Holy Spirit, associated with faith in him. All this helped transform the movement Jesus had begun within Judaism into what eventually became another religion, sharing much with Judaism, but distinct in the belief that Jesus is the Christ.
The Belief in Resurrection in
Second Temple Judaism
Those who first claimed that Jesus was risen from the dead were Jews. They made use of Jewish beliefs in the resurrection to understand what they claimed to have experienced. The exact origins of these beliefs are difficult to discern. The notion of resurrection from the dead is found explicitly in Daniel 12:2 as an answer to the question of theodicy, presumably in relation to the sufferings of faithful Jews during the Maccabean Revolt.2 The belief expressed here that the dead would be resurrected at the end of time, “some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2), was part of the apocalyptic tradition within Second Temple Judaism, which formed the matrix of Jesus’ ministry and Christian faith.3 While explicit statements of belief in the resurrection are not common in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, the belief is not foreign to it. The notion of resurrection fits with the understandings of God’s righteousness, creative power, and faithfulness found therein, as a fulfillment of God’s justice and promises to Israel.4 It can be seen as an outgrowth of these themes.
The concept of resurrection was at hand then, during Jesus’ ministry and after his death. Jesus seems to have endorsed a belief in it.5 He may have looked forward to his own resurrection in some way. But the New Testament gives little evidence that Jesus’ resurrection as experienced by his disciples and others was expected to follow his death. Predictions that he would die and rise again, such as Mark 9:31, are generally seen to have been produced by the early church after Easter, rather than being statements made by Jesus during his ministry. Like Paul’s statement that Jesus had died and risen in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Cor 15:4), these were attempts to make sense of the scandal of his death on the cross and are expressions of faith that it was God who had raised him to new life. Descriptions of Jesus’ resurrection in the New Testament suggest that there was a dialectical relationship between predominantly Jewish notions of resurrection and the encounters that people had with Jesus after his death. These experiences were such that the early church used notions of resurrection to describe what had happened to Jesus, and in doing so, transformed these notions. What can be known historically about the events that gave rise to this?
What Can Be Known Historically about
Jesus’ Resurrection?
To begin with, Jesus’ resurrection is not described in the New Testament as a historical event on par with others, but as a uniquely transcendent event that began a new age of salvation. It is presented as an eschatological event impinging upon history in subsequent appearances of the risen Christ, the empty tomb, and the continuing witness of the early church. Here an event expected at the end of history happened to one person in the midst of it. The end of history, the destiny of creation, became partially present or was anticipated in the one person of Jesus, ahead of time as it were.6 The occurrence of Jesus’ resurrection is never portrayed in the New Testament. Instead it is presented as beyond the reach of human power and explanatory reason to describe. This has implications for what can be known about it. Technical or explanatory reason must be used to interpret the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and to assess and interpret the belief that he is risen. But explanatory reasoning cannot prove that Jesus’ resurrection occurred in the way that a historical event can be proven to have taken place. This is partly because of the fragmentary nature of the accounts of it and partly because of its transcendent nature. The New Testament traditions indicate that the risen Christ remains transcendent to those who believe in him.7 Attempting to prove the facticity of Jesus’ resurrection clashes with this by effectively trying to reduce the risen Jesus to an object that can be manipulated. Even the appearance accounts found in the Gospels of Luke and John, which stress the palpable nature of the body of the risen Jesus, also emphasize that he is not an object subject to human manipulation. One can bear witness to Jesus’ resurrection,8 but one cannot prove its occurrence.
Descriptions of Jesus’ resurrection in the New Testament can be categorized into a formula tradition of brief summary or kerygmatic statements, and a narrative tradition of more extended accounts of appearances of the risen Christ or of the empty tomb.9 The formula tradition includes brief summary statements like “God raised Jesus from the dead” (Rom 10:9), which may have been one of the earliest expressions of faith in Jesus’ resurrection.10 Such statements are also combined with others about Jesus’ death, as in Peter’s speech in Acts 2:23–24, and sometimes with statements about the risen Christ’s exalted state, as in Ephesians 1:20. This formula tradition includes the list of those to whom the risen Christ appeared that Paul gives