AGAINST THE HISTORICAL PLAUSIBILITY OF THE EMPTY TOMB STORY AND THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF JESUS: A RESPONSE TO N.T.

WRIGHT*
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Vol. 3.2 pp. 171-186 DOI: 10.1177/1476869005058194 2005 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi http://JSHJ.sagepub.com

James G. Crossley
University of Shefeld Shefeld, UK

ABSTRACT Wrights recent book on the resurrection is the most important defence of the historical accuracy of the empty tomb and the bodily resurrection. However, his arguments do not stand up to close scrutiny. Sufcient attention is not paid to the importance of Jewish and pagan legendary traditions concerning great gures of the past. Unlike non-Christian traditions, the Gospel narratives are never treated with any decree of scepticism (not even Mt. 27.52-53) which is a dubious practice for a historian. The earliest evidence for the empty tomb has no genuine eyewitness support (in contrast to the resurrection appearances) and Mk 16.8 suggests that the story was not well known. The rst resurrection appearances are more likely to be visionary experiences interpreted as a bodily raised gure, which meant that the early accounts of Paul and Mark could assume an empty tomb even if historically this was not the case.

Key words: resurrection, N.T. Wright, empty tomb, visions, historical Jesus

There can be no doubt that N.T. Wrights latest instalment to his Christian Origins and the Question of God series is to be regarded as the major work on the resurrection by a conservative Christian scholar.1 There is much to commend in this book. Many will be persuaded that his representations of post-mortem beliefs in the Graeco-Roman world, Hebrew Bible, early Judaism and early Christianity are generally accurate. Wright has also dealt convincingly with some of the complex and unlikely tradition histories of supposedly alternative rst-century Christian beliefs in Jesus resurrection. The inevitable but is that I do not think he has shown the historical likelihood that there was an empty tomb
* A shortened version of this paper was delivered to the Jesus seminar of the British New Testament Conference (BNTC) on 3 September 2004 at the University of Edinburgh. I am grateful to the participants of the seminar for their comments and in particular my fellow review panellists, N.T. Wright and Larry Hurtado, and my co-chair David Bryan. 1. N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003).

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or that Jesus really was bodily raised from the dead. Through a discussion of his arguments it can be shown that the opposite is in fact the case.

The early Christians believed Jesus was the Messiah; and they believed this because of the resurrection2 Wright argues that (a) Christianity was thoroughly Messianic; (b) Jewish views of the Messiah did not envisage suffering and death; (c) the seemingly bizarre Christian claims about Jesus need to be explained and (d) this can only be explained if Jesus really was bodily raised from the dead. Let us assume that Wright is correct about Jesus mission and that people thought he was Messianic in some sense. How did the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah become accepted? Wright provides an exercise in historical imagination by giving two examples of why, without something spectacular happening, this could never happen, namely the failures of two would-be Messiahs: Simon bar Giora in the 6670 CE revolt and Simeon ben Kosiba/bar Kochbah during the 132135 CE revolt. Wright asks us to imagine the absurdity of the followers of these failed leaders then saying that their now dead leaders really were the Messiah: such followers may well have been regarded as utterly deluded. This has clear relevance for the Christian claim:
We are forced to postulate something which will account for the fact that a group of rst-century Jews, who had cherished messianic hopes and centred them on Jesus of Nazareth, claimed after his death that he really was the Messiah despite the crushing evidence to the contrary.3

As Wright says, the early Christians reply with one voice: we believe that Jesus was and is the Messiah because he was raised bodily from the dead.4 This takes us to the belief but, Wright argues, it is a belief that can only be explained if something like the empty tomb tradition was accurate and the bodily resurrection of Jesus really did take place.5 Wright has a point: the followers of these would-be Messiahs might well have been deluded to claim them Messiah after such spectacular defeat. But an exercise in historical imagination should not allow us to forget the historical peculiarities of a given situation. First, we should note that Simon bar Giora and bar Kochbah were military gures expecting military victories. Of course their deaths would be deemed as a failure. This was not the case for the historical Jesus. With the historical Jesus, as Wright correctly argues, we have someone
2. 3. 4. 5. Wright, Resurrection, p. 554. Wright, Resurrection, p. 562. Wright, Resurrection, p. 563. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 695, 710.

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who, in addition to being regarded by some as hugely important (perhaps messianic), quite probably predicted his death. John the Baptist had been killed and Jesus was engaged in vigorous intra-Jewish disputes, which echo other bloody intra-Jewish disputes.6 Jesus actions in the Temple (Mk 11.15-18) would fairly obviously mean death and almost certainly reect an event from the historical Jesus ministry.7 We also have independently attested traditions of Jesus predicting his suffering and death (Mk 10.35-45; Mk 14.24-25; Lk. 13.34-35/Mt. 23.37-39; Lk. 13.33; cf. 2 Chron. 24.20-21; Dan. 11.35; 2 Macc. 7.32-38; Mart. Isa. 5.1-14). If this does reect the historical Jesus words and deeds then Jesus death was not wholly unexpected. How were his beliefs and ideas going to be vindicated? One obvious place to look would be 2 Macc. 7 and the key themes of resurrection and martyrdom. In this context Jesus death almost requires vindication from among his followers and given the predictions of his death they would not be deemed mad by everyone for doing so, irrespective of whether he really was bodily raised. Wrights analogy with violent gures is not therefore a suitable one.

Interpreting a Vision But there is good evidence that the rst Christians did not invent the resurrection from scratch, namely the appearance tradition Paul has in 1 Cor. 15.5-8. Wright stresses that this can only be explained if the witnesses really did believe they had seen something. Wright also makes a case for Pauls vision of Jesus being one of a real human being, truly and bodily raised from the dead.8 This, it is claimed, all points towards the accuracy of the bodily resurrection being the only plausible solution:
The language of resurrection, and the specic modications within Jewish resurrection belief which we have seen in early Christianity, could only have occurredif the early Christians believed they had clear evidence, against all their own and everyone elses expectations, both of continuity between the Jesus who died and the Jesus who was now alive and of a transformation in his mode of embodiment. Appearances of this living Jesus would have provided such evidence. Nothing else would have done.9

6. See further e.g. J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (London: SPCK, 1990), pp. 61-86; M. Hengel and R. Deines, E.P. Sanders Common Judaism, Jesus, and the Pharisees, JTS 46 (1995), pp. 1-70; J.G. Crossley, The Date of Marks Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity (London: Continuum/T&T Clark, 2004), pp. 131-33 7. For discussion with bibliography see Crossley, Date, pp. 62-74. 8. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 375-98 (383). 9. Wright, Resurrection, p. 696.

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Wright again makes some important points. The appearances recorded in 1 Cor. 15.5-8 must be taken very seriously. Wright may well be correct in arguing that the appearances were thought to be of the bodily transformed Christ. This may indeed be the way Paul understood his vision and the other experiences. But does it actually correspond to the acceptability of the bodily resurrection in the sense of something more than a hallucination?10 Let us not forget that Paul is not said to touch Jesus and eat with him. This is not to say that Paul did not think he saw something. Many people from many different cultures experience visions, something not given proper attention in Wrights book, and genuinely believe what they saw was real. As Wright himself points out, that such seeings, even such meetings occur, and that people have known about them throughout recorded history, there should be no question.11 The use of visionary experiences, particularly those in the context of grief and guilt, has two well-known recent exponents of this long tradition in Gerd Ldemann and Michael Goulder.12 There are notable differences between their examples and the descriptions in the New Testament sources.13 Indeed, visionary experiences, Wright points out, meant precisely, as people in the ancient and modern worlds have discovered, that the person was dead, not that they were alive.14 But the differences should not be taken to mean that the use of crosscultural studies of visions is without merit. The differences pointed out by Wright do not undermine this. All these differences show are the cultural assumptions of modern grief and Hellenistic beliefs on the one hand,15 and the different cultural assumptions of the earliest Christians on the other. Perhaps the most basic and
10. When I use the term hallucination it is in the sense that it is a construct of the human mind without corresponding external reality and should not be taken to mean that the people I describe in this article are thought of as mad, insane or whatever. 11. Wright, Resurrection, p. 690. 12. G. Ldemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology (London: SCM Press, 1994); G. Ldemann, What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995); M. Goulder, Did Jesus of Nazareth Rise from the Dead?, in S. Barton and G. Stanton (eds.), Resurrection: Essays in Honour of Leslie Houlden (London: SPCK, 1994), pp. 58-68; M. Goulder, The Baseless Fabric of a Vision, in G. DCosta (ed.), Resurrection Reconsidered (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), pp. 48-61; M. Goulder, The Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions, in P. Copan and R.K. Tacelli (eds.), Jesus Resurrection: Fact or Figment: A Debate between William Lane Craig and Gerd Ldemann (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2000), pp. 86-103. 13. Goulder is quite open about the fact that his own parallels are not precise but that they are enough to show that such things do indeed happen. He rightly warns that just because we cannot provide the full details of such an experience two millennia ago does nothing to commend theological dogmatism (Jesus of Nazareth, p. 61). 14. Wright, Resurrection, p. 691. 15. When Wright deals with visions in the ancient world with reference to Crossan he is effectively dealing with Hellenistic beliefs. See Resurrection, pp. 689-92.

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obvious point concerning cross-cultural visionary experiences is that the cultural assumptions of a given culture dictate the content of a vision: Bernadette of Lourdes saw the Virgin Mary, not Vishnu.16 In the context in which the earliest Christians were working certain assumptions would dictate any visions they had. In the case of the resurrection appearances they have the Jewish background of vindication through resurrection and the Jewish tradition of Jesus predicting his death and thus requiring vindication of his beliefs, as noted above.17 These very specic cultural assumptions could easily account for the earliest Christians believing Jesus was bodily raised and left an empty tomb. But some things are not so different. Jesus may well have been accompanied by a blinding light in Pauls vision according to Acts rather than someone being of light or the source of light, but the presence of bright light also echoes revelatory experiences from different cultures.18 Michael Goulder points to Susan Atkins (involved with the serial killer Charles Manson) who was converted in prison by a blinding white vision where the human form at the centre of the vision was recognized as Jesus and he spoke to her.19 Incidentally, this is not to privilege Acts over Paul, as Wright correctly warns us, but I use it because Paul himself gives no details. It remains possible that Acts could be supplementing Paul without contradicting Paul in the main thrust of the visionary experience. Acts may be a written up account with Lukes audience in mind,20 but given it is our most detailed account and written by an author who no doubt believed in the bodily resurrection as much as Wright it is telling that it lacks any evidence in favour of Jesus as a real live esh and blood gure who can be touched and who might want a shared meal, and it would hardly be out of place in a discussion of cross-cultural visionary experiences. Again, this is not, of course, to deny that what was seen was not thought of as real. But it does not follow from this that there had to be an empty tomb.

16. This is not properly appreciated by conservative scholars who continually assume that just because they have pointed out the differences between the resurrection appearances and analogous situations, and have knocked down some of the more careless uses of visionary experiences, they have disproved this theory, e.g. G. OCollins SJ, The Resurrection: The State of the Question, in S.T. Davis, D. Kendall and G. OCollins (eds.), The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 5-28 (10-13). All this does is to highlight the differences and does not show that the resurrection appearances were not originally visionary experiences. See also P.F. Carnleys response to OCollins, Response by Peter F. Carnley, in Davis, Kendall and OCollins, Resurrection, pp. 29-40. 17. And so there is no need to resort to pagan parallels for language used in vision, something which justly troubles Wright (Resurrection, p. 36). 18. Cf. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 390-92. 19. Goulder, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 58-59. 20. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 390-93.

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Wright tries to counter such claims. Visions, he notes, did not normally involve physical contact, let alone watching the recently departed person eating and drinking. People of the ancient world (not to mention the modern), knew the difference between visions and things that happen in the real world.21 But when Wright discusses touching and eating, he is neither dealing with the eyewitness traditions of 1 Corinthians 15 nor the account of Pauls call/conversion but rather in accounts of extremely dubious historical worth (I will come to these).22 Wrights claim that people know of the difference between visions and things in the real world may be misleading. If someone did see Jesus why could they not interpret this as a modied post-resurrection body? As this body was thought to be different and if it was not the sort of thing seen everyday, there is no reason why the cultural framework as outlined above could not have led to an interpretation of this odd sighting as a modied resurrected body. But Pauls vision, which I assume was similar to those of Peter, James and the others, hence they are collected together in 1 Cor. 15.5-8,23 was also the kind of thing which could be vulnerable to a non-bodily interpretation by some. Compare Mk 6.49 (But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost) which shows that it was not always too easy to distinguish between a real esh and blood human being and something that may be more typical of a vision. Indeed it is not impossible that one of the functions of the Gospel resurrection stories was to make it clear that Jesus was in fact more than just a ghost,24 or indeed a vision in the sense Wright rejects (e.g. Lk. 24.41-43; Jn 21.1-14; Acts 10.41).25
21. Wright, Resurrection, p. 690. 22. It would also be signicant that they do not occur in the earliest Gospel if it could be established that it really did end at 16.8. But even if Mark had a lost ending, as Wright argues (and, for what it is worth, I am open to such a suggestion), which contains stories of such practices it remains they are still found in the context of a narrative which suspiciously has the women not telling anyone that they had seen an empty tomb. This is an important indication of the secondary nature of the Markan account. 23. Cf. B. Lindars, The Resurrection and the Empty Tomb, in P. Avis (ed.), The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1993), pp. 116-35 (127). How W.P. Alston (Biblical Criticism and the Resurrection, in Davis, Kendall and OCollins [eds.], Resurrection, pp. 148-83) can claim that the argument that Pauls visionary experience was typical is Extremely speculative (p. 181, Alstons emphasis) and extremely weak (p. 160) as it appears on the same list as the others is beyond me. Maybe the others were different but given the absence of Peters vision in Galilee in the earliest Gospel account (and I would argue that this is very earlysee below) as we have it and the fact that we do have a record of Pauls experience makes it the best available evidence we have which deserves to be taken with some seriousness. 24. Cf. Goulder, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 64-65. 25. Wright (Resurrection, pp. 691-92) is surely correct to argue that these narratives were not inspired by hostility to some sort of Docetic motivation. All that is needed to inspire such

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Yet Wright also claims that visions were well known and so they could not possibly, by themselves, have given rise to the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead. They are a thoroughly insufcient condition for the early Christian belief. In fact, Wright claims, the more normal these visions were, the less chance there is that anyonewould have said what nobody had ever said about such a dead person before, that they had been raised from the dead.26 It may also be that Wright suffers from engaging too much with John Dominic Crossan and visions in Hellenistic literature here. Presumably the majority of people would go the whole of their lives without experiencing a vision. But even if they were normal it is the cultural assumptions and content which make the difference. It is simply not the case that they are an insufcient condition for the belief. Once seen and interpreted as a bodily raised gure there is no reason why they could not have proven convincing for the earliest Christians. After all, it would strongly imply that Jesus message had been vindicated. Wright anticipates the argument that Paul may have come to his belief in Jesus resurrection on the basis of a visionary appearance but claims things are not so straightforward. Unless we are to discount entirely the witness of Acts it must be assumed that the empty tomb and the insistence that Jesus body had not rotted was of crucial importance for the earliest Christians whom Paul was persecuting. That it was not a normal vision is echoed throughout the resurrection accounts: There seems to be a constant sense that appearances by themselves have to be backed up with evidence that what was seen was a substantial body such as must have left an empty tomb behind it.27 But what Wright has shown is that the traditions of an empty tomb and appearances are very early. At the risk of over-emphasis, if my reasoning is followed it is perfectly possible to have sightings interpreted as a bodily raised Jesus without having to resort to the empty tomb and bodily resurrection being a historical fact. But does not the crucial 1 Cor. 15.4 (and that he was buried and that he was raised [e0gh&gertai] on the third day) assume an empty tomb as Wright persuasively argues?28 As it turns out this in fact provides evidence in favour of there being no genuine eyewitness knowledge of the empty tomb, particularly when compared with the Markan resurrection narrative. Mark 16.8 famously says that the women at the tomb told no one out of fear. Is it not possible that this indicates that the empty tomb story, known only to unreliable witnesses if we take our earliest narrative source, was not in fact properly established and had no genuine eyewitness support? This would be particularly telling if Mark is dated

stories is to posit concern that Jesus appearance might not have been interpreted as a bodily raised gure. 26. Wright, Resurrection, p. 690. 27. Wright, Resurrection, p. 692. 28. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 317-22.

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as early as I have recently argued (late 30searly 40s),29 or at least if Mk 16.1-8 were to be established as an early tradition, as such a revealing verse as 16.8 might imply. Now compare the evidence from Paul. Paul may indeed assume that there was an empty tomb in 1 Cor. 15.4 but this is a general handed-on tradition for which he gives no eyewitness support. It is therefore hugely signicant that when Paul does give eyewitness support for appearances of Jesus in the immediately following 1 Cor. 15.5-8, which includes his own, they are, as noted above, presumably similar to the one Paul experienced on the road to Damascus, that is, no indication of eating, drinking or touching. This provides important support for my argument that a vision could be interpreted in a bodily sense with the assumption of an empty tomb, yet at the same time the empty tomb itself being historically inaccurate.

Inventing Stories Wright takes issue with some of the extreme redaction-critical approaches although without denying continuing relevance of the Gospel traditions. He continues by arguing that the historians disciplined imagination must be brought into play. If it is supposed that stories are in some way or other based on actual reminiscence of actual events, it is easy to see how they could come to be used in this extended sense. In the case of the resurrection, if the evangelists had started off with a lesson, theological, moral or practical, which they wanted to teach, and had attempted to develop historicized Jesus-stories to serve as allegories of such lessons, they would not have come up with the kind of stories we have here. In fact, this would be impossible.30 Wright does not claim that these arguments alone point to the historical accuracy of the Gospel accounts; they are designed to show the strong probability that the Gospel Easter stories go back to a genuinely early oral tradition. Yet if Wright is correct then they clearly do have an effect on judging the historicity of the Gospel traditions. As Wright says, his argument strongly supports the idea that they were not assimilated either to each other or to developed New Testament theology, and the inconsistencies should not be allowed to stand in the way of taking them seriously as historical sources.31 Moreover, Wright argues more generally that for such beliefs to have existed they would require the bodily resurrection to be true.32 It seems that Wright has underestimated creative storytelling in early Judaism. People could in fact create stories grounded in lives of gures who may have
29. 30. 31. 32. Crossley, Date. Wright, Resurrection, p. 599. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 612-13. Cf. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 685-718.

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been deemed historical actors who really did live, breathe and die (e.g. Jub., Gen. Apoc., Jos. Asen., Midrashic and haggadic literature, etc.), yet such stories could hardly be said to give genuine historical insight as to what really happened millennia ago when Moses was supposed to receive the Law, when Abram went down to Egypt or when Joseph wed Aseneth (etc.), if indeed these events did happen. To give another particularly relevant example, the traditions surrounding the book of Esther are chaotic, going off in all kinds of directions and are frequently contradictory.33 These are not assimilated into one Jewish theology and the inconsistencies are not the reason they are assumed to be historically inaccurate. But historically inaccurate they are and it is hardly going too far to assume something similar was happening in the Gospel traditions, a point that should not have to be made. Moreover these Jewish stories continued to have a powerful emotive effect and needed to be defended in the light of different contexts. The story of Moses is a prime example. Josephus defends the origins of the exodus story in Apion while refuting the claims that the ancestors were Egyptians by race, the claims that the ancestors were expelled from Egypt for being disease ridden, including the claim that the origin of the word sabbath concerned groin disease after an Egyptian word sabbo (Apion 2.21-27), and refuting the various dates given by Gentile authors. For Josephus and his opponents it is not the issue of whether or not Moses existed or whether or not the exodus from Egypt really happened but rather it is the details that matter. Compare this with the story in Mt. 27.62-66 and 28.11-15 which, against Wright, is almost certainly secondary.34 Both Matthew and his opponents assume the tomb was indeed empty but differ on the key details. The correct ideology is what matters.
33. On this and early Christian knowledge of the Esther stories see R.D. Aus, Water into Wine and the Beheading of John the Baptist: Early Jewish-Christian Interpretation of Esther 1 in John 2.1-11 and Mark 6.17-29 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988); R.D. Aus, Barabbas and Esther and Other Studies in the Judaic Illumination of Earliest Christianity (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992); J.G. Crossley, History from the Margins: The Death of John the Baptist, in J.G. Crossley and C. Karner (eds.), Writing History, Constructing Religion (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming, 2005). 34. Wrights defence of the potential historicity of this passage (Resurrection, pp. 63640) is not strong. For example, he claims that knowledge of the empty tomb is presupposed by the story and thus by opponents of the earliest Christian movement. He also claims that if the empty tomb was a late legend it is unlikely people would have spread stories of body stealing and would not want to risk putting ideas into peoples heads. But this simply shows that the story and the Jewish opponents who still tell the story at the time of writing Matthews Gospel (Mt. 28.15) assumed an empty tomb. The fear of putting stories into peoples heads implying the given story must be very early is not convincing. For example, Josephus in Apion reports opposing views of Jewish origins in order to refute them. The major reasons why this story seems more likely to be secondary is because of suspicious verses such as Mt. 28.15 and the complete lack of such a view elsewhere in the synoptic tradition suggesting that this may have been a specic problem faced by Matthew and not the other evangelists.

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Wright points out that the Gospel writers believed the resurrection stories to be literally true and it is difcult to see the stories as allegories defending or promoting some church leader.35 He may well be correct in this but then a case could be made for people thinking that their haggadic-style traditions were also literally true, or better that the core of a story was taken to be functioning as if historically true, and were not allegories in favour of some contemporary authority. The expanded Jewish stories of, for example, Moses, Abraham, Joseph, Elijah and numerous rabbis are full of details which make it difcult to think of them as allegories for leaders of Jewish communities and in some cases it is not so easy to see why details were added other than to make great Jewish heroes greater. But in addition to this there was often a more explicit ideological function to storytelling. This clearly is the case in Jos. Asen., which is focused on the problem of association with idolatrous Gentiles, and this is clearly the case in b. B. Mes. 59b which shows that despite the spectacular miracles of R. Eliezer, such as uprooting carob trees cubits out of place and turning the ow of a stream, not to mention the support he gains from a bath qol, his halakah is not to be followed. These examples, which cannot be historically accurate, rewrite stories of gures in the past to justify a belief in the present. It follows that it is perfectly possible for the Gospel writers to do the same. As an important aside, it should be stressed that such Jewish examples of rewriting history cannot be dismissed as some kind of fun exercise concerning gures in the remote past in contrast to solemn writing about recent historical events of immense signicance for Christians, as sometimes underlies discussions of the resurrection and a point put to me in the oral version of this paper. Compare also the questions raised by Gerald OCollins:
what are we to make of the moral probity of Mark in creating such a ctional narrative (and one that touches on an utterly central theme in the original Christian proclamation) and of the gullibility of the early Christians (including Matthew and Luke) in believing and repeating his ction as if it were basically factual narrative?36

These criticisms need to be refuted. Retelling history or haggadic writings could be extremely serious for some Jews. The issue of table fellowship and association with idolatrous Gentiles as discussed in Jos. Asen. were issues of massive signicance in early Judaism.37 It hardly needs stating that issues of divine and earthly authority, as raised in the story of R. Eliezer, were of some importance for rabbis. These are serious issues for the Jews involved but no historian thinks these stories really happened, no historian should think the original audience were especially gullible, and no historian should criticize ancient authors of immorality on the general point of creating history. While it is true that much
35. 36. 37. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 587-682. OCollins, Resurrection, p. 16. See further, Crossley, Date, pp. 144-49.

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of the rewriting of history concerns distant gures, this alone does not prove that creative storytelling could not be done in the case of more recent historical gures. In fact historically inaccurate storytelling was done for fairly recent gures. Stories of rabbis are one example. Another notable parallel is the rapid emergence of miraculous and legendary traditions surrounding pagan gures, such as Alexander or Augustus, even within their own life times.38 It is regrettable that these points still need to be made. Indeed, it may seem blindingly obvious that people invent stories and the sifting of fact from ction or ction from fact has been one of the most notable features in the history of critical biblical scholarship. What this really boils down to is very basic, namely that the historical probability of a story must be taken on a case by case basis.39 But it is important to point out such creative storytelling traditions because when Wright discusses those arguments rejecting the historicity of the resurrection stories they are the complex, highly speculative and sometimes unnecessary tradition-histories of, for example, Ldemann, and are rightly dismissed.40 All we need to posit is a general practice of rewriting history which makes heroes greater and justies beliefs in the present in order to account for divergent resurrection traditions. It is not the case, of course, that Wright is unaware of storytelling tradition. For example, when discussing a dispute between the Roman Emperor and Gamaliel IIs daughter (b. Sanh. 90b91a), he can say it is no doubt ctitious.41 Most would agree. But this degree of suspicion is never applied to the story of the resurrection, an empty tomb, and all the strange accompanying stories, stories that for many people are much more unlikely than a rabbis daughter meeting an emperor. If we are to take stories on a case by case basis, why is it that pagan and Jewish texts can be deemed ctitious but Christian stories, including the obviously secondary Mt. 27.52-53,42 are not? If we are going to take Christianity seriously in its Jewish and pagan contexts then we must expect the Gospel writers to make up stories just as Jews and pagans did. Historically speaking it is extremely unlikely that the Christians behind the Gospel traditions were immune to this standard practice. The resurrection traditions themselves would suggest this. As we have seen, it is certainly not impossible that Mark has invented his empty tomb story to ex38. See M. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (London: SCM Press, 1985), pp. 11, 124-26. 39. This was one of the few points of agreement at the BNTC resurrection discussion. 40. Wright, Resurrection, e.g. pp. 19-21, 591. 41. Wright, Resurrection, p. 196. 42. On the refusal to judge this story secondary see Wright, Resurrection, pp. 632-36. E.g. p. 636: Some stories are so odd that they may just have happened. This may be one of them, but in historical terms there is no way of nding out. This should raise an obvious question: would the same degree of respect be given to spectacular stories in non-Christian religious traditions, or sightings of Elvis for that matter?

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plain what happened after Jesus was buried. After that, as we might expect from Jewish rewriting of history, anything can follow which can easily be seen as secondary with no grounding in what actually happened shortly after Jesus was buried. Surely some degree of suspicion is required when, after Marks statement that the women told no one, we nd Peter suddenly present at the empty tomb (Lk. 24.11-12; Jn 20.6-8) and the disciples suddenly being told what happened by the women (Mt. 28.8-9), just as we should be suspicious of a rabbis daughter in the presence of an emperor. Surely some degree of suspicion should be aimed at the historical accuracy of grounding the Gentile mission, something of great importance for the early Church, in the words of the bodily raised Jesus on a mountain (Mt. 28.16-20). Surely some degree of suspicion should be aimed at Luke, particularly in the context of the theology of LukeActs, virtually eliminating the possibility of Galilean appearances by having the two dazzling men replace the Markan promise of Jesus return to Galilee with what he said in Galilee (Lk. 24.6-7; cf. Mk 16.7) and having all resurrection appearances and the ascension all in the Jerusalem area (Lk. 24). Surely some degree of suspicion should be aimed at Thomass confession of high Johannine Christology (Jn 20.28). If Thomas really had said something as staggering as this it is highly unlikely that we would have to wait until Johns Gospel to hear of it. Matthew, Luke and John are surely more than just adapting primitive tradition for contemporary needs: these are monumental embellishments of the Markan tradition which ground some of the most important Christian beliefs in the resurrection.43 This all makes good sense in the tradition of Jewish storytelling and creative rewriting of history.

Further Specic Arguments Wright backs up his overall argument with four specic arguments which are said to point in the direction of historical accuracy or at least a very early tradition. First, there is surprisingly little embroidery from the biblical tradition in the resurrection narrative. This stands in stark contrast to the rest of the Gospel and even the burial narrative. This also stands in stark contrast to Paul and other Jewish writers. Why did the evangelists fail to do so here?44 This is an interesting point which does require some explanation. I will attempt a tentative explanation and I freely admit that it is speculative. John 20.8-9 provides a clue: Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb rst, also went in, and he saw and
43. For further discussion of the resurrection stories as vindication for Christian beliefs see M. Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991), pp. 103-105. 44. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 599-602.

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believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. John 20.8-9 involves the historically dubious beloved disciple and legitimizes faith prior to scriptural justications, something no doubt necessary for Gentiles with little knowledge of Jewish scriptures entering the Christian community and indeed for those struggling to nd exactly where the scriptures might mention Jesus bodily resurrection. This is not restricted to Johns Gospel. When Paul spoke to the pagan Athenians in Acts 17, where resurrection plays a crucial role in Christian identity (he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrectionActs 17.18), he mentions that God has xed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead (Acts 17.31). On hearing of the resurrection of the dead, some mock, others consider it, and some even became believers and certainly not because they had scriptural proof (Acts 17.32-34).45 Irrespective of historicity, the concern must have been present for Luke to include such a story. Here we have an excellent example of resurrection which is deemed a key aspect of Christian belief and one which is not proven by scripture because of Gentile ignorance. Compare this with the speeches in Acts aimed at Jews where we get the resurrection in the same context as scriptural proofs, for example all the prophets (Acts 10.40-43; cf. 3.2426), Moses and the prophets (26.21-23), David (2.22-36; cf. Ps. 16[15]), and the ancestors (Acts 13.30-33). It can be cautiously suggested then that a possible reason for the lack of scriptural reference in the resurrection narratives was that such knowledge was not a prerequisite for scripturally ignorant Gentile believers who only had to believe in this central aspect of early Christian belief. Secondly, Wright regards it strange that there is no mention of the future hope for the Christian, which runs contrary to the countless retellings of the Easter story in Christian traditions. Instead these stories provide vindication of Jesus and his claims.46 The lack of personal hope can in fact be countered by Wrights observation that the stories are a vindication of Jesus. He has died a shameful death in the narrative which would no doubt have been an obvious criticism of Jesus and so this needs to be countered in some way and Jesus resurrection was the way Christians did this. Thirdly, Jesus is portrayed in a strange way. If a Jewish Christian was going to reect on Jesus death, they would have turned to Dan. 12.2-3. But the Gospel stories do not. Jesus is portrayed as having a human body with some unusual properties.47 This unusual appearance of Jesus can be accounted for by the fact

45. Cf. Wright, Resurrection, p. 456: And in Acts 17, at the climax of the speech on the Areopagus, Paul explicitly takes on the whole of the Homeric and classical tradition we studied in chapter 2. 46. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 602-604. 47. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 604-607.

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that early Christians believed that Jesus was bodily resurrected and not that he shone like the stars of Daniel 12. As mentioned already, this seemingly unusual act does not mean the historical Jesus really was bodily raised from the dead. It simply highlights a belief the early Christians held. Fourthly, Wright points to an old favourite: the testimony of the women. No one would have inserted the role of the women after Paul for the reason that a womans testimony simply would not have been legally acceptable. So why bother inventing stories with women? And so it is argued that the stories must be historically reliable.48 This argument is not, however, as strong as is sometimes thought. What we should not forget is that women had been given a notably signicant role in Jesus ministry which may have made their testimony more acceptable for some. As Mark says at the crucixion: There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem (15.40-41). Clearly Mark has no problem giving a prominent narrative role to women in verses almost immediately prior to verses where the same women are at the tomb and feels no need to defend his decision.49 If he has no problem and feels no need to defend the importance of their presence at the crucixion then why would he have a problem with them at the resurrection? Moreover, and this point cannot be stressed enough, the man dressed in white, presumably an angel, may have provided all the authority Marks audience required. Encouraged by Wright, we should also engage in a little historical imagination concerning the role of the women.50 It is not implausible that after the historical Jesus arrest, no doubt as a political threat in Roman eyes, Jesus close male disciples scattered out of fear for their own lives: they knew perfectly well what Rome could do to followers of a rebellious leader. When a heavily guarded Jesus was escorted away as a bandit to be crucied as a bandit with other

48. Wright, Resurrection, pp. 607-608. 49. OCollins detects the ongoing habit of some male writers of minimizing the testimony of the women and argues that by belittling the empty tomb tradition as a later elaboration, they devalue the witness of women; after all, women, and not men, were utterly central to the empty tomb tradition (Resurrection, p. 14). This may be one motivation among theologians and historians but it hardly proves that the testimony of the women is historically accurate! But it is reassuring to hear Christians taking the role of women seriously. Let us hope this is consistently developed in all aspects of exegesis and church thought and not just in defence of key Christian traditions. 50. I owe the following point to a discussion with Maurice Casey. Compare also R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd edn, 1968), pp. 284-85; Ldemann, Resurrection, pp. 110-12, 115, 118; Ldemann, What Really Happened, pp. 28, 30, 32.

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bandits, it is entirely plausible that all the male followers would not be seen anywhere near the crucixion. However, a group of supportive female followers standing afar watching Jesus crucixion is entirely plausible. If this were the case Mark was left with a group of women in his story of Jesus death and not a male disciple in sight. This could easily account for their presence at the empty tomb in Mark and why they had to be the rst witnesses. And it may again explain why the Markan account has included the man in white: to add weight to the witness. There are three supplementary arguments employed by Wright which should be mentioned. First, the early Christians regarded the rst day of the week as a particularly special day and, second, there is no evidence that anyone ever venerated Jesus tomb.51 But again these points just show how early the belief was, not that it is historical fact. If my alternative reconstruction is correct then these two points follow on from interpreting the earliest visions of Jesus as someone who was bodily raised and so was presumed to have left an empty tomb. Wright adds a third point: there was never a question of anyone performing a secondary burial for Jesus. It is claimed that there should have been but that this obvious point is often ignored in historical study.52 Joseph of Arimathea would have been expected to collect the bones and place them elsewhere. This would have been done at the same time as the church was proclaiming that he was raised from the dead. This would have happened when Paul was persecuting the rst Christians yet was confronted by Jesus and declared Jesus had been bodily raised from the dead.53 But this is not as strong an argument as rst appears. Even if the story of Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus goes back to a historical core,54 we simply have no genuine evidence as to the specics of the burial, where it was, and what happened to Joseph in the years immediately following. Moreover, if Joseph had gone to give Jesus a secondary burial and found his bones were not there, why is there no rst-century evidence of Joseph and those close to him (including the Sanhedrin) becoming Christians? And would the rst Christians not have used such an argument?

Conclusion I regard this conclusion as coming in the same sort of category, of historical probability so high as to be virtually certain, as the death of Augustus in AD 14

51. Wright, Resurrection, p. 707; cf. pp. 579-80. 52. Wright, Resurrection, p. 707. 53. Wright, Resurrection, p. 708. 54. For a recent discussion see e.g. W.J. Lyons, On the Life and Death of Joseph of Arimathea, JSHJ 2 (2004), pp. 29-53.

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or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.55 This eyebrow-raising claim concerning the empty tomb must be completely rejected. Yes, historically something happened shortly after Jesus death,56 but the evidence hardly demands anything as spectacularly dramatic as a bodily resurrection in the sense that it would be an unparalleled event in human history and would leave an empty tomb. The list of eyewitnesses in 1 Cor. 15.5-8 gives no evidence pointing in the direction of the bodily resurrection as an historical event, except in the sense of a visionary experience. The earliest empty tomb story we have (Mk 16.1-8) suspiciously makes it clear that the only witnesses to the empty tomb told no one (16.8). All the other Gospel narratives make good sense in the context of creative storytelling, including the grounding of present beliefs in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. I would suggest that these conclusions are much more historically probable than there being a bodily resurrection and empty tomb in the sense Wright claims.

55. Wright, Resurrection, p. 710. 56. Cf. W. Marxsen, The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical and Theological Problem, in C.F.D. Moule, The Signicance of the Message of the Resurrection Faith in Jesus Christ (London: SCM Press, 1968), pp. 15-50 (31); E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), pp. 276-80.