Historian’s rigor strengthens Resurrection case

Whether it is the Easter Season, when we are celebrating it; Lent, when we are preparing for it; or Ordinary Time, when we are living it, the Resurrection is always directly relevant to our lives as Christians.

But for me, and many others, it is something more. 

The Resurrection is the reason I have kept my faith.

I was convinced early on by the apologetics reasons I learned years ago: The very character of the stories of Jesus’ resurrection reveal their truth. After all, the death of a movement’s founder means the end of the movement, never its beginning. 

Also: The stories contain inconsistencies — but that makes them seem authentic. If they were made up, an effort would be made to make the details match more exactly. And one of the most encouraging signs of the resurrection were the 500 people that Jesus appeared to at once, which Paul points out. 

Finally, though people often report seeing ghosts, a ghost can’t be touched, and ghosts don’t eat. Jesus can and does. These details kept my faith in the Resurrection going.

Today I believe in the Resurrection more than ever — but some of those details have been challenged. 

A great theologian at Benedictine College shared with me the book The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History by Dale C. Allison Jr., a self-described liberal Christian whose work is admired by scholars of all stripes because he is rigorous, honest, and open-minded.

He doesn’t come at his work with a bias against the supernatural or the unexplainable. Just the opposite. He shares stories from his own family about encounters with a deceased family member and a friend.

Allison has made the rounds of Evangelical Christian podcasts debating both skeptics and apologists about their understandings of the Resurrection, and his work has made me look more carefully at the Resurrection stories.

First, as a historian, he points out something that apologists often overlook: Jesus’ appearances are vastly different in character. 

Jesus is seen but not recognized by Mary Magdalene and the Emmaus disciples, while he is recognized immediately by the group of women who see him. He is seen by Stephen as a vision in the sky — and in his most momentous appearance, to Paul, he is only a light and a voice.

Allison wonders, isn’t it odd, that there are such different experiences of the risen Lord?

He also points out that the appearance to the 500 has none of the specificity that ancient writers employ to provide credibility: No location, no names, no time marker. This makes it hard for a historian to accept.

Allison is also good at reminding us how careful we are when encountering stories that aren’t part of our religion.

He points out that Parson Weems’ stories added legend to George Washington’s life within months of his death — and that Davy Crockett became legendary while still living. 

Then, he shares stories of movements, both contemporary and ancient, which outlived their founders. The Millerites and Jehovah’s Witnesses survived failed prophecies by their founders — and Allison cites messianic Jewish movements that lived on though their “messiah” founders died or, in one case, apostatized.

Significantly, Allison shares the stories of “bereavement visions,” where loved ones meet deceased friends and family.

The credible, well-attested descriptions Allison gives go far beyond ghost sightings. In case after case, people touch, hug, and speak to loved ones. In some cases more than one person sees the loved one and the same way at the same time. Sometimes, the deceased even say, “You may not touch me yet,” as Jesus did.

In one case an airline crew saw a previously deceased captain on board a flight. In more than one case, deceased loved ones use the occasions of these visits to share information that the recipient could not have known otherwise.  The one thing none of these people do that Jesus did, I noticed, is eat.

In the end, though, all of this only added to my faith in the Resurrection.

For one thing, Allison seems surprised by phenomena that Catholics take for granted. We are used to communication with the beloved dead, seeing saints, and of different people encountering Jesus in different ways — in the consecrated host, for instance.

For another, I can’t help but notice that there is only one example of all of these phenomena coinciding in one person. 

There is only one example of the same deceased person appearing and allowing some to touch him, holding others back, appearing both personally and in groups, giving new information to followers, and above all, whose movement not only outlives him, but grows year after year for millennia. 

That person is Jesus Christ — the one who said “I am the resurrection and the life” — and I hope to join him one day.