Why the Resurrection narratives cannot be eyewitness testimony with a challenge

[AchillesHeel]

Observation and thesis: The resurrection narratives are not reliable historical reports based on eyewitness testimony because they deviate too much from one another and grow in the telling in chronological order. This is not expected from reliable eyewitness testimony but is more expected from a legend developing over time. In order to show the resurrection narratives evolve like a legend developing, I'm going to compare the ways Jesus is said to have been "seen" or experienced after the Resurrection in each account according to the order in which most scholars place the compositions. Remember, these accounts are claimed to be from eyewitnesses who all experienced the same events so we would at least expect some sort of consistency.

Beginning with Paul (50s CE), who is our earliest and only verified firsthand account in the entire New Testament from someone who claims to have "seen" Jesus, he is also the only verified firsthand account we have from someone who claims to have personally met Peter and James - Gal. 1:18-19. Paul does not give any evidence of anything other than "visions" or "revelations" of Jesus. The Greek words ophthe (1 Cor 15:5-8), heoraka (1 Cor 9:1) and apokalupto (Gal. 1:16) do not necessarily imply the physical appearance of a person and so cannot be used as evidence for veridical experiences where an actual resurrected body was seen in physical reality. In Paul's account, it is unclear whether the "appearances" were believed to have happened before or after Jesus was believed to be in heaven, ultimately making the nature of these experiences ambiguous. Peter and James certainly would have told Paul about the empty tomb or the time they touched Jesus and watched him float to heaven. These "proofs" (Acts 1:3) would have certainly been helpful in convincing the doubting Corinthians in 1 Cor 15:12-20 and also help clarify the type of body the resurrected would have (v. 35). So these details are very conspicuous in their absence here.

Paul's order of appearances: Peter, the twelve, the 500, James, all the apostles, Paul. No location is mentioned.

Mark (70 CE) adds the discovery of the empty tomb but does not narrate any appearances so no help here really. He just claims Jesus will be "seen" in Galilee. This is very unexpected if the account really came from Peter's testimony. Why leave out the most important part especially, if Papias was correct, that "Mark made sure not to omit anything he heard"? Did Peter just forget to tell Mark this!? Anyways, there is no evidence a resurrection narrative existed at the time of composition of Mark's gospel circa 70 CE.

Mark's order of appearances: Not applicable. 

Matthew (80 CE) adds onto Mark's narrative, drops the remark that the "women told no one" from Mk
16:8 and instead, has Jesus suddenly appear to the women on their way to tell the disciples! It says they grabbed his feet which is not corroborated by any other account. Then, Jesus appeared to the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, another uncorroborated story, and says some even doubted it! (Mt. 28:17) So the earliest narrative doesn't even support the veracity of the event! Why would they doubt when they had already witnessed him the same night of the Resurrection according to Jn. 20:19? Well, under the development theory - John's story never took place! It's a later development, obviously, which perfectly explains both the lack of mention of any Jerusalem appearances in our earliest gospels plus the awkward "doubt" after already having seen Jesus alive!

Matthew's order of appearances: Two women (before reaching any disciples), then to the eleven disciples. The appearance to the women takes place after they leave the tomb in Jerusalem while the appearance to the disciples happens on a mountain in Galilee.

Luke (85 CE or later) - All of Luke's appearances happen in or around Jerusalem which somehow went unnoticed by the authors of Mark and Matthew. Jesus appears to two people on the Emmaus Road who don't recognize him at first. Jesus then suddenly vanishes from their sight. They return to tell the other disciples and a reference is made to the appearance to Peter (which may just come from 1 Cor 15:5 since it's not narrated). Jesus suddenly appears to the Eleven disciples (which would include Thomas). This time Jesus is "not a spirit" but a "flesh and bone" body that gets inspected, eats fish, then floats to heaven while all the disciples watch - conspicuously missing from all the earlier reports! Luke omits any appearance to the women and actually implies they *didn't* see Jesus. Acts 1:3 adds the otherwise unattested claim that Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days and says Jesus provided "many convincing proofs he was alive" which shows the stories were apologetically motivated. There is no evidence that Luke intended to convey Jesus ever appeared to anyone in Galilee. Moreover, Luke leaves no room for any Galilean appearance because he has Jesus tell the disciples to "stay in the city" of Jerusalem the same night of the resurrection - Lk. 24:49. It looks as though the Galilean appearance tradition has been erased by Luke which would be a deliberate alteration of the earlier tradition (since Luke was dependent upon Mark's gospel).

Luke's order of appearances: Two on the Emmaus Road, Peter, rest of the eleven disciples. All appearances happen in Jerusalem. Lk. 24:22-24 seems to exclude any appearance to the women. The women's report in Lk. 24:9-10 is missing any mention of seeing Jesus which contradicts Mt. 28:8-11 and Jn. 20:11-18.

John (90-110 CE) - the ascension has become tradition by the time John wrote (Jn. 3:13, 6:62, 20:17). Jesus appears to Mary outside the tomb who does not recognize him at first. Then Jesus, who can now teleport through locked doors, appears to the disciples minus Thomas. A week later we get the Doubting Thomas story where Jesus invites Thomas to poke his wounds. This story has the apologetic purpose that if you just "believe without seeing" you will be blessed. Lastly, there is another appearance by the Sea of Galilee in Jn. 21 in which Jesus appears to seven disciples. None of these stories are corroborated except for the initial appearance (which may draw upon Luke). It looks as though the final editor of John has tried to combine the disparate traditions of appearances.

John's order of appearances: Mary Magdalene (after telling Peter and the other disciple), the disciples minus Thomas (but Lk. 24:33 implies Thomas was there), the disciples again plus Thomas, then to seven disciples. In John 20 the appearances happen in Jerusalem and in John 21 they happen near the Sea of Galilee on a fishing trip.

Challenge: I submit this as a clear pattern of "development" that is better explained by the legendary growth hypothesis (LGH) as opposed to actual experienced events. Now the onus is on anyone who disagrees to explain why the story looks so "developed" while simultaneously maintaining its historical reliability. In order to achieve this, one must provide other reliable sources from people who experienced the same events but also exhibit the same amount of growth and disparity as the gospel resurrection narratives.

Until this challenge is met, the resurrection narratives should be regarded as legends because reliable eyewitness testimony does not have this degree of growth or inconsistency.

[TRANSPONDER]

Matthew, Luke and John all say the Eleven were present for the events described in their narratives.

There is no scripture that says all the Eleven were present for ALL the resurrection events in their narratives. Further it may well be the term "The Eleven" is used on occassion, as a title for representatives of the group, rather than an actual head count. (Rather like the press use the term "the Senate" or "The government ")

Careful now. You're running the risk of some of the Eleven not being eyewitnesses to the Resurrected Christ.

If someone wants to salvage the historicity of these narratives, they must answer the challenge at the end of the original post. So far, no one has even attempted to do so. This alone makes the special pleading obvious for all to see.

JW is right on the edge here. Sure the twelve could be taken as a generic term for the disciples, no matter how many there were. Which means that the eleven *as in Luke) means that of the twelve one was of course missing as Judas wouldn't be there.

But it means that Thomas wouldn't be present either which means that Luke refutes John.

End of original post? Let me have a look.

[AchillesHeel]

This post wasn't about the death narratives. It was about the post-mortem appearance narratives.

Also that is witnessed in different ways and the stories show that the people were not all the time in the same place, which explains if they has slightly different knowledge about the matters.

I agree; and would add that since the biblical narratives rarely place events being recorded chronologically in relation to other reports (and never ever put exact times ) it is difficult or even impossible to prove chronological conflicts or contradictions. Further since when a report is recorded (written) is not necessarily a reflection of when the event happened, the earliest written account does not necessarily mean the earliest report of the event.

Appealing to the chronological order as a defeater is both a red herring and a non-sequitur. The fact of the matter is we do not see this amount of discrepancy in reliable eyewitness accounts from people who all witnessed the same events. If you disagree, then provide some that are analogous.

[Goose]

Since this resurrection thread has been resurrected I will pick up where I left off...

In an attempt to counter argue against the reliability of the Gospels you were the one who first tacitly appealed to the reliability of Irenaeus to provide information on the composition of the Gospels.

Yet you appealed to Irenaeus to bolster your argument. Now you seem to be implying you don’t believe anything he said.

Like I said, you appealed to Irenaeus first.

The point is, you must think Irenaeus is reliable. After all, you appealed to him to bolster your counter argument. Now, when Irenaeus works against you, you seem to suggest he isn’t reliable.

No. Please re-read for context. The comment I responded to was:

The gospels were written in the lifetimes of the witnesses.

But if what Irenaeus says is true, then that claim is at least partially false regardless of the authorship claim. I don't need to assume Irenaeus is reliable.

You sure do if you want to establish the antecedent in the premise: what Irenaeus says is true. How do you propose to establish that what Irenaeus says is true without Irenaeus’ reliability?

All I need to do is show this person's claim contradicts what Irenaeus said.

But that doesn’t get you your consequent that Mae von H’s claim is at least partially false. And that’s the claim you are trying to disprove since it supports the reliability of the Gospels.

That Irenaeus depends upon Papias is one theory. However, Irenaeus makes no direct claim as to where he received his information on Gospel authorship.

Then why are you assuming what he says is reliable regarding authorship? If the only source we know about is Papias and he gives no other, then how exactly are we supposed to trace the origins of what he says prior to 180 CE?

Papias wasn’t necessarily his only source. I’ve argued Irenaeus’ comparative reliability on the grounds of 1) temporal proximity to the Gospels and 2) being connected to John and eyewitnesses through Polycarp.

If his source had been Papias why didn’t Irenaeus mention Papias as his source since he references Papias elsewhere (Against Heresies 5.33.4)?

If that passage shows knowledge of Papias' books, then it follows that Irenaeus was dependent on Papias.

Sure, for what he attributes to Papias. If you are arguing Irenaeus is therefore dependant on Papias for information he doesn’t attribute to Papias, that would be a blatant non-sequitur. As an aside, Irenaeus also said he was familiar with the teachings of Polycarp. So if your argument holds, then it holds both ways.

Plus, you can see from the wording that he follows "common elements" (your own words) from what Papias says.

This argument cuts both ways. You can also see from the wording that Irenaeus does not follow Papias. They have far less in common than they do in common. Of course we would expect there to be some things in common. Aside from a few pithy and memorable elements we would expect from independent traditions, they share very little. If Irenaeus did use Papias here he has done a remarkable job of disguising it.

Another option is that Irenaeus received his information from Polycarp who, according to Irenaeus, had met John and others who had seen the Lord (as recorded by Eusebius Church History 5.20.5-6). In any case, Irenaeus represents a source within roughly one hundred years of the last Gospel attesting to eyewitness sources behind the Gospels. He's a source which can be connected to John and eyewitnesses (John/eyewitnesses -> Polycarp -> Irenaeus). Comparatively speaking Irenaeus is good external evidence for authorship by these criteria.

Any option you give is crushed under the weight of the internal legendary growth throughout the sources. They simply cannot be based on eyewitness testimony per my challenge which you've yet to respond to. Internal evidence always trumps external and uncertain attestation.

Your internal evidence is itself uncertain and hinges on a number of debatable premeses (Paul's view of Jesus' resurrected body, chronology of the Gospels, Markan priority). It doesn’t seem you have much of a counter argument here and are essentially arguing in a circle, your argument is true therefore evidence against it is false.

What do you mean by “empirical observation of Matthew's additions to Mark's narrative”?

The addition to the end of Mark's gospel and removal of the "said nothing to anyone" comment, the addition of the virgin birth, the addition of a descending angel, earthquakes, tombs opening up and formerly dead people walking around the city, adding two donkeys to the Jerusalem entry scene, adding the part where Peter walked on water with Jesus, says "news spread all over Syria" not just Galilee as Mark says, sermon on the mount, Mt. 8:28 says Jesus restored TWO demon possessed men instead of one in Mark, Mt. 20:29-34 heals TWO blind men instead of just Bartimaeus from Mk. 10:46-52.

Are those enough examples to show the story has grown between Mark and Matthew?

I don’t see anything you’ve listed here that can’t be reasonably explained as simply a difference in reportage. That Mark pared the accounts down also explains this data.

Markan priority and the two-source hypothesis, though the prevailing view, is one of several competing theories.

The documents share verbatim Greek which is evidence of copying. I don't think it makes sense for Mark to be copying Matthew for reasons which I don't really feel necessary to get into. The "prevailing view" should suffice.

Prevailing views change. The two source hypothesis has come under serious criticism in recent decades. That’s one of the problems with your over arching argument. It hinges on the assumption that Markan priority and the two source hypothesis are effectively proven true. They aren’t and they have competing theories that also explain the data.

The fact they didn’t argues strongly against your premise that the narratives “grow in the telling.”

Each document grows in various ways from what Paul and Mark, our earliest sources, say regarding how Jesus was experienced post-Resurrection. I never said Luke and John were dependent on what Matthew said and my original comparative analysis was regarding the Resurrection narratives. Matthew's zombie apocalypse is just icing on the cake that add weight to the idea that these authors were not interested in recording actual things that happened.

The salient point here is there is no clear and consistent progression of legendary growth. Something like a continual increasing of the number angels at the tomb from one Gospel to the next. Further, you aren’t addressing the elements of the story that were dropped (or regressed), even though we would expect them to grow if your argument holds water. In other words you aren’t addressing the evidence against your argument. For instance, John drops the darkening of the sun and tearing of the temple veil found in Luke.

But enough with the nonsense.

Nonsense? The historical record which argues against your contention is hardly nonsense. The fact you would refer to it as that speaks volumes. But I can understand why you are eager to waive it aside.

My challenge remains unaddressed so the gospel resurrection narrative still remain legends until proven otherwise.

Oh I see, so basically your argument is true until proven otherwise. That’s sounds dangerously close to an Argument from Ignorance fallacy.

You’ve yet to even establish the first premise of your argument, beginning with Paul. You say in the OP...

The Greek words ophthe (1 Cor 15:5-8), heoraka (1 Cor 9:1) and apokalupto (Gal. 1:16) do not necessarily imply the physical appearance of a person and so cannot be used as evidence for veridical experiences where an actual resurrected body was seen in physical reality. In Paul's account, it is unclear whether the "appearances" were believed to have happened before or after Jesus was believed to be in heaven, ultimately making the nature of these experiences ambiguous.

But merely arguing it’s ambiguous or that Paul didn't say what you think he should have said doesn’t by default establish that Paul understood Jesus’ resurrection as immaterial. And that’s what you need to establish in order to get your first premise off the ground. You have to argue immaterial resurrection (Paul) to material resurrection (Gospels) in order to show some kind of “growth” starting with Paul. If Paul held to a material, bodily resurrection of Jesus your entire argument begins to crumble.

[JehovahsWitness]

The fact of the matter is we do not see this amount of discrepancy in reliable eyewitness accounts from people who all witnessed the same events.

What evidence do you have they all witnessed the same events?

[Goose]

How is the right amount of deviation defined?

By comparing other reliable eyewitness accounts of the same event. They do not have the same amount of deviation as these obvious fictional stories.

But you haven't defined anything here. What do you mean by "comparing other reliable eyewitness accounts of the same event"? What other events from the New Testament era and region that you think are historical are attested to by numerous eyewitness accounts? Can you name one and the eyewitness sources that support it so we can do such a comparison?

[JehovahsWitness]

Matthew, Luke and John all say the Eleven were present for the events described in their narratives.

There is no scripture that says all the Eleven were present for ALL the resurrection events in their narratives. Further it may well be the term "The Eleven" is used on occassion, as a title for representatives of the group, rather than an actual head count. (Rather like the press use the term "the Senate" or "The government ")

Careful now. You're running the risk of some of the Eleven not being eyewitnesses to the Resurrected Christ.

Unless they all eleven (and eventual 12) witnessed the risen Christ but not necessarily under the same circumstances .

[1213]

This post wasn't about the death narratives. It was about the post-mortem appearance narratives.

Also that is witnessed in different ways and the stories show that the people were not all the time in the same place, which explains if they has slightly different knowledge about the matters.

Every member of the Eleven was said to witness the Galilean appearance in Matthew which is not mentioned in Mark, Luke or John.

Every member of the Eleven was said to witness the Jerusalem appearance and Ascension in Luke which is not mentioned in Mark, Matthew or John.

Every member of the Eleven was present for the Doubting Thomas story in John which is not mentioned in Mark, Matthew or Luke.

Ok, that something is not mentioned, does not necessary mean it didn't happen. it can be that the part is missing, or that the person who told the story, thought the other parts are more important.

[TRANSPONDER]

The fact of the matter is we do not see this amount of discrepancy in reliable eyewitness accounts from people who all witnessed the same events.

What evidence do you have they all witnessed the same events?

Because the credibility of their testimony (we are talking of witness accounts here) inspire credibility. The gospels do and do not.

e.g. The crucifixion surely happened. That is was a made up story using knowledge of other crucifixions is possible, but not the more probable explain it was clearly an embarrassment to the Christians (starting with Paul) that the Romans did it and he had to excuse it. It surely happened.

But the Nativities surely didn't even though Lukes relates to real events, as Josephus relates and Luke's gospel draws on that, but Luke didn't understand it as he thinks the Census applied to Galilee or that everyone was obliged to go to some ancestral city to register.

That's just one thing that makes no sense and shows the nativities were invented.

The resurrections are nearly as bad. Thus, while some testimony, or record of an original event can be taken as true, others cannot.

At most, the empty tomb, though even that is open to some doubt.

[AchillesHeel]

The fact of the matter is we do not see this amount of discrepancy in reliable eyewitness accounts from people who all witnessed the same events.

What evidence do you have they all witnessed the same events?

They all either witnessed the events themselves or knew those that did and had knowledge of them. If that's the case, why do they tell completely different stories that just happen to look like the story is being embellished over time?

Why would they use the moniker "the Eleven" to distinguish from "the Twelve" if it didn't literally mean 11 people? Why don't they use the phrase "some of the Eleven" witnessed these things or just cite the ones by name that did like in the Transfiguration and John 21 where only seven names are listed?

As far as I can tell, this "Twelve doesn't mean 12" and "Eleven doesn't mean 11" apologetic isn't actually supported by any internal evidence. Rather, it's an ad hoc rationalization concocted in order to explain the discrepancy between Paul citing the Twelve but the gospels only detailing appearances to the Eleven.

Unless they all eleven (and eventual 12) witnessed the risen Christ but not necessarily under the same circumstances.

Matthew 28 says the Eleven were there. Luke 24 says the Eleven were there. John 20 cites Thomas as "one of the Twelve" who wasn't there for the initial appearance, implying the 10 others were. Moreover, the appearance in Luke seems very similar to the initial appearance in John 20 which Luke says occurred to the "Eleven" which would have included Thomas. It's almost as if the author of John lifted this from Luke (they share verbatim Greek in the passion and resurrection narratives) so this causes another problem.

[TRANSPONDER]

The fact of the matter is we do not see this amount of discrepancy in reliable eyewitness accounts from people who all witnessed the same events.

What evidence do you have they all witnessed the same events?

They all either witnessed the events themselves or knew those that did and had knowledge of them. If that's the case, why do they tell completely different stories that just happen to look like the story is being embellished over time?

Why would they use the moniker "the Eleven" to distinguish from "the Twelve" if it didn't literally mean 11 people? Why don't they use the phrase "some of the Eleven" witnessed these things or just cite the ones by name that did like in the Transfiguration and John 21 where only seven names are listed?

As far as I can tell, this "Twelve doesn't mean 12" and "Eleven doesn't mean 11" apologetic isn't actually supported by any internal evidence. Rather, it's an ad hoc rationalization concocted in order to explain the discrepancy between Paul citing the Twelve but the gospels only detailing appearances to the Eleven.

Unless they all eleven (and eventual 12) witnessed the risen Christ but not necessarily under the same circumstances.

Matthew 24 says the Eleven were there. Luke 24 says the Eleven were there. John 20 cites Thomas as "one of the Twelve" who wasn't there for the initial appearance, implying the 10 others were. Moreover, the appearance in Luke seems very similar to the initial appearance in John 20 which Luke says occurred to the "Eleven" which would have included Thomas. It's almost as if the author of John lifted this from Luke (they share verbatim Greek in the passion and resurrection narratives) so this causes another problem.

Nobody is going to buy your excuse unless they want to - on Faith.

The 12 can be taken as a generic term, Ok but the eleven (in Luke) surely refers to all of them minus Judas. This means that Luke refutes John's tale of absent Thomas.

And, if we doubt Thomas, we may doubt Jesus at the tomb, while Matthew has Jesus appearing before the. In fact, we should doubt all the resurrection - stories and your attempts to excuse what is not credibly excusable will not wash and, if anything, will make the open minded doubt your credibility, not just Gospel credibility.