Michael R.

Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historigraphical Approach (IVP

Academic, 2010). Reviewed by Jim West.

In part three our author offers a series of texts which he will consider in his historical
reconstruction. He begins with the canonical gospels, moves through Paul, some Church
Fathers, Jewish sources, Gnostic sources, and hypothetical sources (i.e., Q).

Since these sources are widely known to New Testament scholars and serious students of
the Bible, I’ll simply make a few observations before we move on to the fourth installment
of our little series.

First, Licona’s claim that ‘…neither claims of divine inspiration nor general
trustworthiness will play any part in our investigation’ (p. 208) doesn’t seem to be borne
out in his treatment of the sources. So, for example, he rates the canonical Gospels as
‘possible’ sources for a historical reconstruction of the resurrection. He rates Paul’s
testimony as ‘highly probable’ as a source which preserves apostolic testimony concerning
the resurrection. But when it comes to the putative ‘Q’ (which as we all know, contains
no reference at all to the death and resurrection of Jesus) Licona remarks

‘… to conclude that Q knew nothing of Jesus’ resurrection seems highly improbable.

Accordingly, Q does not provide us with any valuable information for our investigation at
hand and receives a rating of ‘unlikely’’ (p. 215).

Well as a matter of fact the absence of any resurrection account in Q may be telling after
all. But since it doesn’t align with the previously mentioned Pauline and canonical
Gospel evidence, it is deemed an ‘unlikely’ bit of the puzzle. Hence, it won’t be taken into
consideration. So exactly how hasn’t the notion of inspiration played into Licona’s
examination?

Furthermore, Josephus is deemed a ‘possible’ source (because of the Testimonium);

Tacitus is rated the same, but Suetonius and Mara bar Serapion are considered ‘not
useful’. And the Rabbinic material is deemed ‘unlikely’.

But when it comes to the Church Fathers 1 Clement gets a ‘possible plus’ rating (because
he may have known at least one of the Apostles in the flesh); Polycarp gets a ‘possible’
and the Letter of Barnabas a ‘possible minus’.

The Gospel of Thomas is treated quite extensively but still ends up with a rating of
‘unlikely in terms of providing useful data for our present investigation’ (p. 268). But is
that because it’s really a-historical or because it isn’t canonical? The Gospel of Peter fares
as badly.

But to his credit, Licona recognizes the secondary nature of the ‘Long’ ending of Mark
and dismisses it as a credible source.
At the end of the chapter Licona asks ‘What do these sources yield for our investigation
pertaining to the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus? We will discover the answer in
the next chapter’ (p. 276). And the next chapter is titled ‘The Historical Bedrock
Pertaining to the Fate of Jesus’.

Licona, I think, tries to be as fair as humanly possible but given his stated presuppositions
as a believer and given his preference for the canonical Gospels and other materials which
accord with them, it seems that his bias has really got the best of him. Q and Thomas
and other texts which don’t show any interest in the resurrection are summarily set aside.
If the data-set Licona adopts contains materials which describe the resurrection as
historical fact it’s fair to say that the outcome of his investigation can be easily predicted.

By the way, I have no problem with that. Presuppositionless exegesis is impossible (as
Bultmann showed us many years ago). If Licona has made up his mind beforehand and
only includes source materials which support his viewpoint, it’s fine with me. But it isn’t
history, it’s theology. And that’s exactly what the Gospels themselves are doing: not
history, theology.