The women at the tomb

Over the years, I've gone back and forth on whether I think the argument for the empty tomb from the fact that the gospels report that women were the first to discover the tomb empty is a good argument or not. The argument is that the authors of the gospels would not have included the story unless it really happened because the story would've been an embarrassment since women had no credibility among Jews, Greeks, or Romans in the first and second centuries. Today, I'm in favor of the argument, but I want to give you my thoughts on both sides of it.

The reason I sometimes don't think it's a good argument is because it's just a narrative. The gospels are not meant to serve as evidence of the empty tomb or the resurrection. The women are never offered as evidence for the empty tomb. So the fact that a first century audience wouldn't have put any confidence in the testimony of women doesn't strike me as being relevant. Why would it be embarrassing to say that women were the first to discover the empty tomb if it's just part of the story and is not being offered as evidence? The fact that women weren't to be trusted hardly seems like a good reason for the author to have left that part out since the author isn't asking the readers to believe in the empty tomb on the authority of those women.

The reason I sometimes think it is a good argument is because I can imagine an outsider in the first century reading the gospels and saying, "Now, wait a minute. You're saying this whole story of the empty tomb originated with women?" In their mind, if all the hysteria surrounding the empty tomb, which lead to belief in the resurrection, started because a bunch of silly women claimed to have found the tomb empty, then that discredits the whole story since women can't be trusted. The authors of the gospels would surely have anticipated this kind of reaction, in which case saying that women were the first to witness and report the empty tomb is kind of embarrassing. The fact that they reported it anyway serves as evidence that it actually happened. And since we in the modern world respect the testimony of women, that gives us good reason to think they actually did find the tomb empty.

Right now, I'm leaning in favor of that second argument, but just a few weeks ago, I was leaning toward the first argument. I guess it's still something I need to think through. Or maybe I should just throw up my hands and admit that I don't know whether it's a good argument or not. It surprises me sometimes how an argument can seem very persuasive to me at one time, then years later, it doesn't seem persuasive anymore. It really makes me doubt myself.

Let's suppose the story of the women finding an empty tomb is not historical. Where might it have originated? One possibility is that there were some women who dishonestly claimed to have found the tomb empty. If that were so, I would expect the first person they told to have wanted to check it out, so this is a no go for me.

Or maybe they mistakenly thought Jesus was buried in a tomb that they found empty. Would everybody else be likely to have mistakenly thought the same thing? If they were mistaken to think Jesus was buried in a tomb, it doesn't seem likely they would've honed in on a particular tomb, so I don't see how finding a random empty tomb would've made them think Jesus' tomb was empty. But even so, this seems like a mistake that would've easily been corrected for anybody who was actually curious about it.

Maybe Jesus was buried in a tomb, but they didn't know which one. Maybe they thought they did know, and they went to the wrong tomb. Again, this could've easily been corrected, especially if they knew who buried Jesus or whose tomb Jesus was buried in. They could just find out which tomb Jesus was buried in.

Another possibility is that Mark or some earlier person made it up. But why would they? What purpose does it serve? Maybe it's just to demonstrate the devotion they had to Jesus since they were going to the tomb to anoint his body. It doesn't seem like it would've been made up as a way of saying, "Look, we have all these witnesses to the empty tomb." If that were the purpose, it's more likely they would've had all the apostles find the tomb empty. Unless Mark has an ending that was lost, he didn't even say the apostles found the tomb empty, only the women. The same thing is true of Matthew. Only Luke and John have men visiting the empty tomb. In Luke, it was just Peter, and in John, it was just Peter and an unnamed disciple (presumably John).

Of course the fact that I can't come up with a good reason for the gospel authors to have included the story of the women finding the tomb empty doesn't mean there isn't one. But it does make me think it really happened. The historicity of it does a better job of explaining why it's in the gospels than anything else I can come up with.

An argument against transubstantiation

About 20 or more years ago, Stand to Reason used to have an open discussion forum. One time I had a semi-formal debate with a Catholic guy about transubstantiation. It was semi-formal in the sense that we didn't agree to any format or length restrictions, but we treated it like a debate, and we got an equal number of posts. There were also some other people who chimed in. Anyway, I printed out the discussion before STR deleted the forum, so thankfully I still have a copy of it. I'm just going to post my opening statement arguing against transubstantiation. All the terrible parts can be chalked up to the fact that I wrote this 20 or more years ago. All the good parts can be chalked up to me. :-) It's long, too, so I'm cutting out all the pleasantries and stuff.

I've been looking forward to Matt starting a thread about transubstantiation because I think it's a really interesting subject. The doctrine differs from consubstantiation in that while consubstantiation is the belief that Christ is present in, with, and under the bread and wine, transubstantiation is the belief that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine and literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus even though it retains the properties of bread and wine such as appearance, texture, and taste. I guess the best thing to compare it to would be petrified wood. Each molecule of wood is replaced one at a time with minerals until there is no wood left--only rock--but it still looks like wood. The interest thing about this doctrine is that if it is true, then every time the priest says his incantation over the Eucharist, a divine miracle takes place. Transubstantiation isn't just something that happens in the spiritual world; it happens in the physical world. There is a miraculous physical change from the constituents of bread and wine into the constituents of human flesh and blood.

It's my belief that there are no good reasons to believe that a divine miracle happens in the physical world when the priest consecrates the Eucharist.

I'm sure we all come to the table with our preconceived ideas. Bias is something we all have to deal with when exegeting the scriptures, and I don't claim to be an exception. I do, however, believe it would be easier to convince a protestant that transubstantiation is true than it would be to convince a Catholic that it's not. The reason for that is because of why protestants and Catholics believe what they do. Protestants believe that scripture is the only infallible rule of faith and that any doctrine or teacher ought to be tested in light of what has already been revealed. In Acts 17:11, the Bereans were commended for searching the scriptures to see if what Paul said was true, and he was foundational to the church. How much more should we test traditions and modern church leaders in light of what has already been revealed! So all one need do to convince a protestant of transubstantiation is reason from the scriptures with him and demonstrate that the scriptures really do teach transubstantiation. Catholics, however, don't believe in transubstantiation because the Bible says it. They believe it because the Catholic Church says the Bible says it. Their understanding of what various passages and themes in the Bible mean is based on the authority of the church to accurately translate it for them. So it's almost impossible to convince a Catholic that transubstantiation is a false doctrine by reasoning from the scriptures with them because for them, it's a matter of authority. In the Catholic's eyes, the protestant simply doesn't have that divinely inspired light to give an infallible interpretation of the scriptures. The protestant is wrong, not because his arguments fail, but because he contradicts what the Catholic Church says, and the Catholic Church is right because they are infallible. So the only way to convince a Catholic that any of his doctrines are wrong is not to reason with them from the scriptures, but to shake their faith in the infallibility of the Catholic Church. Since Catholics understand the scriptures in light of how the Catholic Church interprets them, Catholic apologetics consists of digging up reasons to confirm what they already believe. So it's much easier for Catholics to be guilty of eisegesis than it is for protestants. Of course, there's a downside to that for protestants. Since protestants attempt to exegete the scriptures, and since they are not perfect, denominationalism is inevitable. People are going to read the scriptures and interpret them in different ways--especially where there is ambiguity. Catholics maintain doctrinal unity because they have a central governing body who interprets the scriptures for all Catholics. Catholics are then spoon fed these interpretations. Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons maintain unity the same way. They have a governing body who claims exclusive divine authority to interpret the scriptures, and the members are spoon fed. Actually, the unity among Jehovah's Witnesses is much more impressive than it is among Catholics. You can go to a Kingdom Hall anywhere in the world, and they are all exactly the same (except for the language). Most of them are probably having the same lesson on any given Sunday, too. The downside for Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics, though, is that they have to come up with clever ways of changing their views without compromising their authority to correctly interpret the scriptures. Jehovah's Witnesses used to do it by making an analogy of a light getting brighter and brighter. They denied actually changing their views about anything and claimed that their understanding of it simply became more clear. Later, however, they had to start being more honest and apologize for changing their views. The Watchtower Society used to call itself a prophet and God's mouthpiece. In their apology for changing their views, they said they were not inspired prophets (as if there were such a thing as an uninspired prophet who wasn't a false prophet), and they attributed their failed dates to "false expectations" rather than false prophecies. I think Catholics have done a much better job of changing their views without looking like false prophets or something. The way they do it is by reinterpretation of earlier teachings. For example, in the council of Trent, there were lots and lots of anathemas and the Catholic Church taught that if you were not Catholic, you were not saved. They now teach that protestants and even Muslims can be saved. They didn't change that view by overturning Trent, but rather, they changed the view by reinterpreting Trent. Now they say that the anathemas of Trent do not actually mean that only Catholics will be saved. So now you've got interpretations of interpretations. The modern interpreters are interpreting the past interpreters who were interpreting the Bible so they can claim that they've always taught the same thing. It's a clever method for Catholics to use, but it undermines their argument for the need for an infallible interpreter. Ya see, having an infallible interpreter of the Bible doesn't help you if the interpreter himself is subject to interpretation. Who's going to interpret him? I am willing to believe in transubstantiation if Matt or anybody else can give me a convincing argument from the scriptures for it. Will Matt or anybody else be willing to stop believing in transubstantiation if I can give a convincing argument that it is not true? Will reason prevail in our effort to understand the scriptures or will the authority of the Catholic Church prevail? I look forward to you answer.

Transubstantiation causes a dilemma for Catholics. If it turns out to be true, then Catholics violate the scriptures by drinking blood. If it turns out not to be true, Catholics are guilty of idolatry because they worship inanimate objects.

The Old Testament command to abstain from eating blood (Leviticus 3:17) is repeated in the New Testament (Acts 15:29). The fact that Jesus is God does not nullify this command because (1) there is no disclaimer that says, "unless it's God's blood," and (2) Jesus came "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3). Jesus took on the nature of a servant, "being made in human likeness" (Philippians 2:7). He was incarnated in human flesh and was conceived in the womb of Mary, who was also human, and "as to his human nature [he] was a descendent of David," (Romans 1:3) who was also human. In his flesh, he shared a common ancestor with all humans. He was flesh as much as we are flesh, and his flesh came from the same place as ours did. If it is wrong to eat human flesh or drink human blood, then it is wrong to drink Christ's blood or to eat his flesh.

Because Catholics believe Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist, they actually do worship it. In 1378 of the Catechism, it says, "Worship of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord." Again in 1418, it says, "Because Christ himself is present in the sacrament of the alter, he is to be honored with the worship of adoration."

If transubstantiation is true, then Catholics are guilty of consuming blood. Or if it is not true, then Catholics are guilty of idolatry.

Belief in transubstantiation is counter intuitive. It's equivalent to claiming that your computer is a Christmas tree. It may look like a computer, smell like a computer, and taste like a computer, but it's really a Christmas tree. The Eucharist retains all of the physical properties of bread and wine. If you look at it under a microscope, you will find that it is still made of wheat and grapes. If the Eucharist really is Jesus, then it would be more accurate to say that Jesus turned into bread and wine than to say bread and wine turned into Jesus. If we don't define things by their properties, then how do we define them? If we start saying a computer is a plant that grows in the forest and has to be cut down and decorated, and a Christmas tree is something with a central processing unit, a keyboard, and a monitor, then words will cease to have any meaning. Bread by any other name is still bread because it has the properties of bread. Bread is something made of wheat, water, and other things. Wine is fermented grape juice. If they retain those properties, then they are still bread and wine. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck. To claim that flesh and blood can have all the properties of bread and wine, and none of the properties of flesh and blood is just counter intuitive.

The context for understanding the Lord's supper in 1 Corinthians 11 starts at verse 17 and ends with verse 34. The problem was that the Corinthians were treating the Lord's supper like a regular meal. Paul said, "It is not the Lord's supper you eat, for each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody" (vs. 20-21). Paul was using the Lord's supper to promote unity among the Corinthians. He starts off in verse 18 mentioning the divisions, then he explains what he means, then he quotes the oral tradition, then he warns them of the consequences of the way they have been conducting the Lord's supper. Then he closes in verse 33-34 by telling them to do the opposite of what he said they were doing in verse 21. That is the context with which we must understand verse 29. "For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself" (v. 29). In another post, Joe gave the correct meaning of the Greek word, but his definition was misleading because he gave an incomplete definition of it. Like most words, the Greek word used in this passage means different things in different contexts. In this context, it means to distinguish. Since the context is making a distinction between the Lord's supper and a regular meal, the context dictates the we understand "diakrinon the body of the Lord," to mean we should make a distinction between eating the Eucharist and eating a regular meal. To argue that recognizing the body of the Lord means realizing that the bread is literally Jesus' flesh begs the question. The question is not whether, "the bread is the body of Christ," for even protestants acknowledge that, because the Bible is explicit that the bread is his body, and the wine is his blood. The question is over whether or not we should take that literally. So taking "diakrinon the body of the Lord," to mean "realize that the bread is Jesus' body," still leaves us with the question of whether or not it is literally his body. The context has everything to do with making a distinction between the Lord's supper and a regular meal. It has to do with eating the Lord's supper with reverence and not in an unworthy manner. More specifically, it has to do with treating each other as equals during the Lord's supper.

If the Bible is explicit that the bread is Jesus' body, and the wine is his blood, then it is also explicit that the bread is bread, and that the wine is wine. In 1 Corinthians 11:26, Paul writes, "For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Paul is saying the exact opposite of what the Catholic Church says. The doctrine of transubstantiation says that it is no longer bread; it's literally Jesus' flesh. But Paul says it is still bread, so it's obvious that Paul did not take Jesus literally when he said, "This is my body" (v.24). Even Jesus showed that he was not being literal about the bread and wine. In Matthew 26:27-29, it says, "Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom." If it literally changed from wine into blood, Jesus would not have called it the fruit of the vine. Clearly he meant it metaphorically. Furthermore, he says that it is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Are we to believe that Jesus actually poured out his blood and atoned for sins before ever going to the cross? Of course not! The broken bread was a symbol for his broken body to be eaten in remembrance of his sacrificial death (1 Cor 11:24-26). The last supper foreshadowed the actual death. In Matthew, Jesus predicts that he himself will drink it with his disciples in his Father's kingdom. Are we to believe that Jesus is going to drink his own blood? Surely not!

When Jesus said, "This is my body," and "this is my blood," he was sitting right there with them in the likeness of sinful flesh. He had not yet received his resurrection body. There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that a resurrection body can be in two places at once. The resurrection body is just as physical as the natural body, and physical objects are limited to being at once place at one time because if there was a physical object in two places at the same time, it would be two separate physical objects. Since Jesus was sitting there with his disciples, he could not have been speaking literally when he called the bread his body and the wine his blood.

If John 6 were to be taken as a prediction of Jesus instituting the Lord's supper, you would expect him to fulfill that prediction by instituting it, yet interestingly enough, in the gospel of John, Jesus does not institute the Lord's supper. John's silence on the Lord's supper begs for an explanation if we are to understand chapter 6 as having anything to do with it. The explanation is simple. John 6 has nothing to do with the Lord's supper, and therefore, it does not necessitate a narrative of the Lord's supper. If John 6 did have to do with the Lord's supper, then John would've given us a narrative of the Lord's supper in order to make sense out of John 6.

In John 6, Jesus was using a metaphor that wasn't that uncommon in the ancient world. The shock it evoked had more to do with the fact that it was being applied to a human being and was therefore misunderstood. The metaphor of eating things was more often used of teachings, words, sayings, etc. or simply ordeals. For example, when making an allusion to his passion, Jesus said, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about" (John 4:32), and when Peter tried to prevent his arrest, he said, "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" (John 18:11). To say that you were eating somebody's words meant that you were taking them into your thoughts, meditating on them, making them part of your life. We have a modern version of it ourselves. when people tell us what wonderful people we are we say we are, "eating it up." Likewise, the Bible tells us that "man doesn't live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" (Deut 8:3, Matt 4:4, Luke 4:4). Jeremiah is even more explicit about it. He says, "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty" (Jeremiah 15:16). It is appropriate that Jesus apply the metaphor to himself because John refers to Jesus as the Word of God (John 1:14, Rev 19:13). Instead of saying, "I will raise him from the dead," he says, "I am the resurrection" (John 11:25). It is appropriate, therefore, that instead of saying, "I can give you the bread of life," he says, "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35), and instead of saying, "eat my words," he says, "eat me" (John 6:51). In the context of John 6, to eat Jesus means to make him our teacher and our master. We are to be his slaves, and we are to live by every word he speaks. He asks us to have undivided loyalty to him because he is the revelation of the Father (John 14:9). To know Jesus is to know the Father (John 8:19). To believe in Jesus is to believe in the Father (John 12:44-45).

In John 6, Jesus starts off with a soft metaphor and beings to push it. First he says, "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life" (v. 27). This begins his "eat me" conversation. If we misunderstand Jesus in the beginning of it, we will misunderstand him at the end. If we understand him at the beginning, then we have a much better chance of understanding him at the end. Now let's think about this for a minute. Jesus contrasted the food he would give them with natural food. Natural food spoils, but the food Jesus gave them would endure to eternal life. If Jesus was talking about the Eucharist, we should expect that the bread, if not eaten, would endure forever. Is that the case? No, it's not. Jesus is using bread in chapter 6 in the same way that he uses water in chapter 4. He used the same kind of language with the Samaritan woman he met at the well. He said, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13). The girl's response makes it obvious that she misunderstood him because she thought that if Jesus gave her that water, she wouldn't have to keep going to that well to get water. Jesus didn't correct her, either. Instead, he changed the subject. It shouldn't surprise us, then, that he was also misunderstood when he started calling himself the bread of life that people should eat. Their response was the same as the woman at the well. They said, "From now on give us this bread" (v. 34). Notice the striking parallels between his bread of life conversation and his conversation with the woman at the well.

Woman: Whoever drinks the water will never thirst (John 4:14).
Others: Whoever comes to Jesus will never go hungry or thirst (John 6:35).

Woman: Give me this water (John 4:15).
Others: Give us this bread (John 6:34).

Woman: Water will give eternal life (John 4:14).
Others: Bread of God gives life to the world (John 6:33)

If this bread is metaphorical, how do we get it? Well in verse 29, it says, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." In the previous verses, Jesus was telling them to work for the bread the lasts forever, which is Jesus himself. So we acquire Jesus, and therefore eternal life, not by eating the eucharist, but by believing in Jesus. John 6 has nothing to do with the eucharist. It has to do with believing in Jesus for eternal life. Jesus reiterates that fact in verse 40 and then again in 47. If John 6 were talking about the Eucharist, then we should believe that our salvation is gained by eating the Eucharist (John 6:54), but it's not. It's gained by believing in Jesus. I just challenge anybody to read John chapter 6 carefully because if you do, you will see that it is about believing in Jesus for eternal life--not about eating the Eucharist for eternal life. The eating part is a metaphor. Jesus is the bread of life, but he's not literally a loaf of bread. Likewise, the bread of the Eucharist is the body of Christ, but it's not literally Jesus' flesh. Think about it. Transubstantiation claims that there is no bread, only Jesus' flesh. But in John 6, Jesus didn't say bread will turn into flesh. He said, "I am the bread." How can he be bread if the bread was turned to flesh? Even if taken literally, Jesus is saying the opposite of what the Catholic Church is saying in John 6. If Catholics want to continue calling the Eucharist bread after it has changed to the body of Christ, then they are just reversing the metaphor. Instead of literal bread and figurative body, they are saying it is literal body and figurative bread.

The fact that Jesus said, "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35), is no more literal than when he said, "I am the light" (John 9:5), or "I am the vine" (John 15:5). Neither one of those is in the context of a parable, so Hal's analogy still works. Saying, "This is my body," is no different than saying, "I am the vine," because in both cases, Jesus is saying what one thing is, the other is. What the bread is, the body is, and what the vine is, Jesus is. The fact that Jesus called himself the true bread and the true drink does not help Matt's case because Jesus also called himself the true vine (John 15:1). All parables contain metaphors, but not all metaphors are parables, so Matt's argument that Jesus is not telling a parable in John 6 doesn't help his case either.

The fact that Jesus didn't correct doesn't help Matt's case either because he didn't correct the woman at the well either. As a matter of fact, Jesus made a point out of cloaking his teachings in parables and metaphors. He admitted that, "I have been speaking figuratively" (John 16:25). He did this because he didn't intend for everybody to understand him. He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. . .This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand" (Matthew 13:13). It continues with an explanation of why they don't understand. It says, "For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them" (v. 15). By not explaining the metaphor to everybody, Jesus was weeding out those who were not devoted to him wholeheartedly. Only those who confessed, "You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6:68-69), remained loyal to Jesus. God will continue using the same methods of weeding out the loyal from the fickle. In 2 Thessalonians we find that some will be deceived by counterfeit signs and wonders. It says, "They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness" (2 Thessalonians 1:10-12).

Jesus never says anything remotely like, "I mean this literally," in John 6. He repeats himself, which is hardly cause for believing either way, but he never says that he was speaking literally. Instead, he says, "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life" (John 6:63). If anything, Jesus was admitting to speaking figuratively.

Since the web site Joe gave was way too long to respond to, I'll just respond to what he posts. Joe says that the Eucharist held extreme significance for the early church, which I don't dispute at all. But the debate isn't over how important the Eucharist was. The debate is over transubstantiation. Joe also argues that the preservation of scripture would not have occurred had it not been for the Catholic and Orthodox churches. I don't dispute that either, but I don't see what bearing that has on whether or not the Catholic Church has correctly interpreted those scriptures throughout its history. If I had a book written in Chinese, and it was the only copy of it in the world, that wouldn't mean I understood what was written in it.

We hardly know anything at all about Clement of Rome except that he was the Bishop of Rome around 100 CE. Scholars speculate that he may have known Paul because Paul mentioned a Clement in Philippians 4:3 as one of Paul's fellow workers. We have no way to know whether or not it's the same Clement, but it's possible. Philippians was written around 55-56 CE. If Clement was 20 when Paul wrote that letter, he would've been 64 at the turn of the century. 1 Clement, which was written to the Corinthians, is the only authentic letter we have from him, and it was written around 95-100 CE, which is pretty early relatively speaking. 2 Clement was not written by Clement, as practically all scholars agree. Clement of Rome never said anything about the Eucharist, so I don't know why Joe envoked him as an authority on it.

The first quote Joe gave from Augustine merely says the the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. To use this as an argument for transubstantiation begs the question because the issue is whether or not such terminology ought to be taken literally or figuratively.

I don't see how the second quote is even relevant. The third quote might be used in support of the Mass, but I don't see how it supports transubstantiation.

In the third quote, Augustine seems to refute Joe. Augustine says the sacrament is a sign for the invisible sacrifice, and that the daily sacrifice of the church is the sign for Jesus offering himself as the sacrifice. Augustine is making a direct allusion to Hebrews 9:11-14 where it says Jesus offered himself in the Most Holy Place once for all. I don't see what it has to do with transubstantiation.

Not all of the early church leaders believed in transubstantiation. Clement of Alexandria wrote that, "Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when he said, 'Eat my flesh and drink my blood,' describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith." (c. 195)

Tertullian didn't appear to take John 6 as a reference to transubstantiation. He wrote, "They thought his discourse was harsh and intolerable, for they thought that he had really and literally directed them to eat his flesh. . .His word is spirit and life. So he likewise called his flesh by the same description. Since the word has become flesh, we should desire him in order that we may have life. We should devour him with the ear and feed on him with our understanding. We should digest him by faith." (c. 210)

Lactantius wrote, "The bread signifies his body. For he himself is the food and the life of all who believe in the flesh that he bore." (c. 304-313).

Studying the writings of the early church is useful for finding out what people believed, but they were not infallible, and they diverge quite a bit on a lot of issues. I meant to discuss early church fathers a little more, but I've been writing this post for a long time, and I'm kind of tired now.

For further reading:

"Catholic vs. protestant interpretation of John 6"
"Transubstantiation"

What does it mean to act freely?

A person on the internet argued that we don't have free will since our choices are determined by our desires, we don't choose our desires, and we couldn't have done otherwise. In my response, I avoided terms like "libertarianism" and "compatibilism," but that's what I was talking about. I basically gave a short defense of the compatibilist notion of free will against the libertarian notion of free will. Here's what I said:

If it's true that our desires determine our choices, then isn't it the case that we could have done otherwise if we had wanted to? Does the ability to do otherwise have to be categorical, or can't it be qualified?

It seems to me that if my actions arise out of my own desires, then I am doing exactly what I want to be doing, and if I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing (as opposed to being forced or determined to act contrary to my desires), then I am acting freely.

Consider the alternative. Imagine that my every desire is to choose X, but somehow, spontaneously, I end up choosing not-X. It seems to me that if my choice of not-X isn't preceded by my desire, then I couldn't have done it on purpose. And if I didn't do it on purpose, then it was not in my control. And that means I was forced, by this spontaneous event, to act contrary to my desire. Why call that freedom at all? It seems to me that's a denial of freedom.

So we can only be free to the degree that we control our own actions, and we can only control our own actions to the degree that our actions are determined by our antecedent desires. That means we are most free when our actions are determined by our desires.

That's free will in the most meaningful and useful sense because it leaves us in control of our own actions, and it leaves room for moral culpability. It also keeps the world from being random and chaotic.

I don't see why it should matter that we don't choose our desires. The supposition that we'd have to choose our desires results in an infinite regress. Before I could do anything, I'd first have to have a desire. But before I could have that desire, I'd first have to choose it. But before I could choose it, I'd first have to want to. Before I could want to, I'd first have to decide to want to. Etc. etc.

There's one of two ways to avoid this infinite regress. You can either start with a choice that is not determined by any desire, or you can start with a desire that is not the result of your choice. We've already seen that if you have a "choice" that happens apart from any antecedent desire, then it's not really a choice at all since you couldn't have intended to do it. It was an accident that was random, and you had no control over it.

So the only alternative is that our choices originate in desires that we did not choose. That's the only way we can have any meaningful kind of freedom because it's the only way we can do anything on purpose.

For further reading on this subject, check out my series on "William Lane Craig against Calvinist," especially Part 3B and Part 4.

Christians and the Mosaic Law

There's one objection that gets raised to Christians all the time. It's the claim that Christians cherry pick from the Mosaic Law. Christians are inconsistent, for example, because they oppose homosexuality, but they're okay with wearing clothes made of two kinds of fabric.

This objection is based on theological ignorance about the relationship between Christianity, the Mosaic Law, and morality in general. While it is true that Christians affirm some aspects of the Mosaic law and do not practice other parts, they aren't being inconsistent. There is a principled reason for making a distinction between laws that should be kept and laws that don't need to be kept. This is my effort to explain what that principled reason is.

The Mosaic law was only given to the Hebrew people under the Mosaic covenant. It has never applied to anybody outside of that nation.

However, there are universal moral principles that have always applied to everybody, whether they were part of Israel or not. Some of those moral principles are codified in the Mosaic law.

So there are Mosaic laws we are obligated to keep, but it is not because they are in the Mosaic law. Rather, it's because they codify universal moral principles.

Christians are not under the Mosaic law, so they have no obligation to keep anything in the Mosaic law merely because it is in the Mosaic law. However, they do have an obligation to keep whatever universal moral principles there are, even if they are in the Mosaic law.

Even though the Mosaic law is not incumbent on Christians, it can serve as a moral guide to a certain degree since it captures universal moral principles. But not every law in the Mosaic law has an underlying universal moral principle. In the case of those laws, we don't have to keep them.

There are a few ways we can make the distinction between laws we should keep and laws we don't have to keep. One way is to look at the basis upon which God judges other nations. For example, we see God punishing other nations for things like violence and for their sexual practices, but he never punishes them for violating the Sabbath or for wearing the wrong clothes. So we know that the prohibitions against murder and adultery are universal moral principles and ought to be obeyed, but we can't say the same thing about wearing clothes with two kinds of fabric.

Another way we can tell is by looking at the moral standard of the New Testament. The New Testament writes to a broad Christian audience, including non-Jewish Christians who are not under the Mosaic covenant. So we can look at the moral proscriptions spelled out in the New Testament to tell what moral obligations Christians should have.

A third way is to give some weight to our own moral reasoning. God has written his moral law on our hearts, and through careful reflection, reasoning, conscience, and moral intuition, we can distinguish between right and wrong. This kind of moral awareness is open to everybody, whether they are Christians or not.

Christian Universalism

I had a debate on Christian Universalism one time. I argued against it, and my opponent argument for it. Here's my opening statement:

Thank you, rjohnson741, for the challenge and for shortening the character limit to 6000.

Definitions

Pro defines Christian universalism as "the belief that all mankind will be saved through Jesus Christ." But we need to also explain what it means to be saved. In general, to be saved is to be rescued. In Christianity, we are being rescued from the wrath of God. Notice the contrast Paul makes between wrath and salvation:

1 Thessalonians 5:9 "For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Again:

Romans 5:9 "Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him."

Once more:

1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 "…Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come."

People are under the wrath of God is because of their sins (Romans 1:18, Colossians 3:5-6). To save people from the wrath of God, Jesus died for their sins (1 Corinthians 15:3). His death provides forgiveness for sins (Matthew 26:28). Consequently, salvation comes by the forgiveness of sins (Luke 1:77).

The alternative to suffering the wrath of God is having eternal life (John 3:36), so to be saved is to have eternal life (Titus 3:5-7). A person who has eternal life will not come under the judgment of God (John 5:24).

From all this, it follows that a person who is saved will (1) have their sins forgiven, (2) be spared the wrath of God, (3) not come under the judgment of God, and (4) have eternal life. If there is any person for whom all four of these things are not true, then that person is not saved, and if there is any person who will not be saved, then Christian universalism is false.

Contra universalism

Christian universalism is false because there are some people whose sins will not be forgiven, who will suffer the wrath of God in judgement, and who will not have eternal life.

1. Not everybody will have their sins forgiven.

Matthew 12:31 "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven."

Pro could claim that nobody ever has or will commit this sin, but the context indicates that some already have.

2. Some people will suffer the wrath of God.

Colossians 3:5-6 "Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience."

1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 "…Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come."

And let's not forget the bowls of wrath poured out on mankind in Revelation 16. All of these passages say that wrath is coming. There will actually be people who suffer the wrath of God.

3. Some people will come under the judgment of God.

John 5:28-29 "Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment."

Matthew 11:22 "Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you."

2 Peter 3:7 "But by his word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."

These passages show that there will be a day of judgment in which some people will come under the judgment of God.

4. Not everybody will be raised to eternal life.

Daniel 12:2 "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but others to disgrace and everlasting contempt."

Matthew 25:46 "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Pro's argument for universal salvation

Pro's argument can be summarized like so:

1. God accomplishes all of his desires.
2. God desires the salvation of all people.
3. Therefore, God accomplishes the salvation of all people.

This argument commits the fallacy of equivocation because God's desires in the first premise does not have the same meaning as God's desires in the second premise. There is a difference between desiring to act and desiring a state of affairs, e.g., we might desire to punish our kids so they will learn good behavior, but wish we didn't have to.

And there are many examples in the Bible of God desiring things which he does not bring about. The most obvious example is morality. God has a desire for people to act morally (Proverbs 21:3), but every one of us acts immorally.

In Ezekiel 33:11, God says, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live." God has a desire that the wicked repent and live, but many don't, and the old testament is filled with examples of God killing the wicked.

So there are different senses in which God desires things. He has a moral will and a sovereign will. When we say that God accomplishes all his desires, we are speaking of God's sovereign will. But when we say that God desires that people turn from their wickedness and live, we are speaking of God's moral will.

We know that God does not sovereignly desire the salvation of all people through the following reasoning:

4. Whatever God sovereignly desires, he accomplishes.
5. God does not accomplish the salvation of all people.
6. Therefore, God does not sovereignly desire the salvation of all people.

Pro agrees with 4. I have already demonstrated 5. 6 follows from 4 and 5. Since God's sovereign desire in premise 1 of Pro's argument is not the same as God's moral desire in premise 2 of his argument, Pro's argument commits the fallacy of equivocation, and his conclusion does not follow from his premises. So Pro has not demonstrated Christian unversalism.

Conclusion

As many of you already know, there are a plethora of other scriptures I could've used to undermine universal salvation. There are so many that it's not possible to bring them all up in this debate. If I have room in the next round, I'll bring up some more of them.

What is meant by the subjective/objective dichotomy in morality? (and other questions)

Somebody on a discussion forum asked some questions about Christian morality, and I responded. This happened several years ago, but I was just looking for an old post and stumbled on this and thought it might make a good blog post. So here you go.

As you pointed out, the phrase "objective morality" gets tossed around a lot without defining terms. So let me define this phrase first because it can be taken in at least two different ways.

First way:
Morality is what we take to be right and wrong. Objective morality would then be moral conclusions we came to without the influence of bias or prejudice, but rather that we came to through a fair and impartial look at the facts informing our circumstances.

Second way:
Morality is, in fact, what is actually right or wrong. Objective morality would then include moral obligation we would have whether we choose them or not, whether we believed in them or not, whether we approved of them or not, etc. In other words, the moral imperatives would be incumbent on us independently of human sentiment.

When theists use the phrase "objective morality," we are using it in that second sense, not in the first. Since moral obligations do not derive from any human thought or decision, they must come from some source outside of humanity. We believe it comes from God.

So we humans do not invent right and wrong; rather, we recognize right and wrong. Moreover, morality exists independently of the Bible. It is not merely because some imperative is in the Bible that it is therefore wrong as if the Bible made it wrong. Rather, it is wrong already because God forbids it, and the Bible merely records it because it is true. So the Bible recognizes that certain things are true or false, but it doesn't make them true or false.

After all, Adam, Eve, and Cain were punished for their immorality before the Bible was ever written. God punished the world with a flood for their immorality before Moses ever received the law on Mt. Sinai. And other nations who never received the Mosaic Law were still punished for their immorality.

But as far as specifics go, most moral imperatives have prima facie force. That is, they apply in most circumstances but are not without exception. To be objective is not necessarily to be absolute. For example, it's generally wrong to lie to people, but there are circumstances in which lying is the right thing to do. I went into more detail about that on my blog.

http://philochristos.blogspot.com/2006/04/difference-between-moral-objectivism.html

All it takes for objective morality to exist for there to be any action at all in any situation that it would either be wrong to do or wrong not to do regardless of what any human thought. And it's not hard to think of examples.

1. A man who beats his wife with a baseball bat just because she forgot to get Oreos while she was at the store is doing something that is morally wrong.

2. A single man who has sex with the wife of another man is doing something morally wrong.

3. A woman who slips a date rape drug in her dad's drink, then rapes him while he is incapacitated is doing something morally wrong.

Conversely, I have never heard any theist offer a rational explanation as to WHY it can only be objective, when emanating from a deity or a "holy text."

It's because morality consists of imperatives. Moral law is prescriptive. It imposes obligation. It tells people what they must and must not do. Imperatives can only come from persons. If all that existed in all of reality were non-sentient material objects, nothing would be right or wrong. The universe could be thoroughly described merely with "is" statements, but no "ought" statements. Imperatives can only come from one person imposing their will on another person.

People have instituted governments that make laws which are also prescriptive. But no human law can make something that is otherwise wrong become right or vice versa. Even laws can be just or unjust. For example, a law that required parents to sacrifice their firstborn child in a fire would be morally wrong. It would be wrong to make such a law, and it would even be wrong to obey such a law if it were passed. So the moral law has authority over every conceivable human law, and it is the basis upon which human laws can be judged either just or unjust.

So the authority behind the moral law must be personal, absolute, autonomous, and transcendent. No conceivable creature could have such authority, even if there were a superior alien species from another planet. Something like a god would be necessary to ground morality. The fact that the God conceived of by Jews, Christians, Muslims, and even deists is a person who is autonomous and transcendent and responsible for creating everything else that exists makes that sort of God a sufficient source of morality. It is hard to think of anything else that would suffice.

If a moray is "objective," it is static.

That is not true. What gives a moral imperatives their objectivity is that they come from a legitimate authority whether that authority requires the same thing all the time or whether the authority requires different things at different times.

Can any theist state, specifically, which morals are "universal and objective" that cannot be derived outside of the "holy texts?"

A moral does not need to be derived from holy texts before they can be universal and objective. As I said before, it isn't holy texts that make things right or wrong. Holy Texts can only record things. Any authority holy texts have is grounded in God. God would have that same authority whether the holy text existed or not.

In my view, God created us in such a way that we are able, through reflection on our experience, reason, and intuition, to discern between right and wrong. As the Bible puts it, God's law is written on our hearts. While the Bible can clarify things for us in many cases, for the most part, everybody knows right from wrong even if they're ignorant of the Bible.

Once an "objective moral" has been defined, what significance could the phrase "appropriate to the time" possibly have on the objectivity of a moray?

Some moral are stated in broad terms, then applied to specific circumstances. When the circumstances change, so does the appropriate action. On the surface, it may appear as if the moral obligation has changed since at one time, a person should do X, but at another time, they should do Y. But in reality, the reason they should do X at one time, and Y at another time, is because of some broader moral principle that hasn't changed at all.

For example, it might be appropriate to give a person medicine while they are sick, but once that person is no longer sick, it is no longer appropriate to give them medicine. So it isn't as if the moral law changed from "Give medicine" to "Withhold medicine." Rather, the general moral principle in both cases is "Take care of the person's health," and what changed over time was what the person needed to stay healthy.

So time and circumstances can affect the specific moral obligations we have in virtue of more general moral principles. That's where our "reason" comes into play. It isn't as if there's a moral code that specifies every possible situation you could be in. Rather, there are general moral principles we are instinctively aware of, and we have to use our reason to discover how they apply to specific circumstances, which change through time.

Who is the final arbiter of a disagreement between two (individual or groups of) humans regarding the "objective" moray within any holy text?

We have to make a distinction between moral ontology and moral epistemology. Ontologically, the final arbiter of any moral disagreement is God because it is God who determines what is right or wrong. But epistemologically, disagreements have to be settled on the merits of the arguments for and against both sides, and sometimes people never succeed in settling their differences. Catholics, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses have an organizational structure designed to interpret scripture on behalf of everyone else, and they also settle disagreements.

How do you determine what should and shouldn't be read literally?

People sometimes ask whether the Bible should be read literally, and I always answer that the question is based on a false premise--that the Bible is a monolithic book. I then go on to explain that the Bible contains lots of different genres, and each document should be read in light of its genre. That means some things are going to be literal and some aren't.

So then the question comes up: How do you determine what should and shouldn't be read literally? Somebody asked me that on an Ask a Calvinist thread on debate.org, and this was my response:

It's easier in some cases than in others. In a lot of cases, the text explicitly tells us. For example, in Revelation we are told that this or that vision represents something else. Jesus taught in parables, and parable is a commonly understood genre in which a story or scenario is meant to capture some deeper truth.

The rules for determining whether something in the Bible is literal or not are just the same as determining whether something outside the Bible is literal or not. In most cases, we recognize the genre of some piece of literature and interpret it according to its genre. We recognize that history and personal letters should be interpreted differently than apocalyptic or poetic literature. But we also recognize figures of speech. Figures of speech are funny because if you're not familiar with figures of speech that are common in some culture, then you can mistakenly take something literal that's not meant to be literal. That happens a lot with foreign exchange students. So knowing something about historical and cultural context helps with that.

Jesus was raised from the dead

I want to pick back up on what I said yesterday about how there'd be no reason to invent the idea that Jesus' death had a divine purpose (specifically to atone for sins) unless his followers had some reason to think he was the messiah in spite of having died. Believing that his death atoned for sins wouldn't, but itself, be any reason to think he was the messiah, so it wouldn't have been invented for that purpose. If it was invented at all, it would only have been invented as a way of redeeming the humiliation of the cross in light of the fact that Jesus really is the messiah.

But why think he was the messiah at all after he was killed? I mentioned briefly yesterday that the crucifixion should have convinced his followers that he wasn't the messiah, and they appear to have lost hope immediately after his death. I want to drive that point home, though, by looking at some unambiguous messianic prophecies.

First of all, let me give a little background information what is meant by "messiah." Messiah comes from the Hebrew word for "anointed" or "one who is anointed." Being anointed applied to three different kinds of people in the Old Testament. Primarily, it was used of kings (2 Samuel 2:4), but it was also used of priests (Exodus 30:30). Less frequently, it was used of prophets(1 King 19:16). Christ comes from the Greek word for "anointed," so christ and messiah both mean the same thing.

In the New Testament, Jesus is portrayed as being all three things--king (John 18:37), prophet (Matthew 21:11), and priest (Hebrews 3:1). But when he is called the Christ, this refers primarily to him being a king.

Or rather, I should say the king. After David was anointed king, God made a promise that his throne would be established forever (2 Samuel 7:16, 1 Kings 2:45). He also said that as long as David's descendants are obedient to God that David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel (1 Kings 2:4, 8:25).

But some of them weren't obedient, and as a result, David's dynasty came to an end near the beginning of the Babylonian exile. Still, Israel did not give up on God's promise. The prophets began to say that God would fulfill his promise by raising up a descendent of David who would sit on this throne and rule forever (Isaiah 9:7, Ezekiel 37:25, Jeremiah 33:14-22).

When the New Testament says that Jesus is the Christ, this is what they are referring to. They are saying that Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promise to always have a man on the throne of David. That's why Jesus is called the Christ, the son of David, etc. Even "son of God" was a messianic title, which I won't go into here, but read my post and the subsequent discussion in the comment section of "Response to a Jew with a view about Jesus" on that point.

Old Testament prophecies about the messiah can be identified in a couple of ways. One way is that they often refer explicitly to God's promise to always have a man on the throne of David, like in Jeremiah 33. They can also be identified by their use of messianic titles. Sometimes the messiah is called David, sometimes a son of David, or a descendent of David. Another common and obvious messianic title is "branch of David" or "righteous Branch" or "root of Jesse" or something along those lines. Jesse was David's father, by the way. These are all the unambiguous messianic prophecies. There are passages in the Old Testament that Christians attribute to Jesus but that Jews reject, like Isaiah 53. I'm not going to talk about those here. I'm just going to talk about the unambiguous messianic prophecies.

Some of these are chapter-length, so I'm not going to quote them in full. I'm just going to list them and summarize. This isn't an exhaustive list either, by the way.

Isaiah 11. Here, the messiah is portrayed as judging righteously, righting all wrongs, etc. It also says that his coming will be accompanied by ideal circumstances which are poetically described as the lion lying down with the lamb, etc. These poetic images appear to refer to worldwide peace. It says that all nations will defer to him as if he were a beacon. Then it goes on to say that his coming would be accompanied by gathering of all God's people who had been scattered throughout the nations. Judah and Israel will re-unite.

Jeremiah 23:1-8 says basically the same thing as Isaiah 11. It calls the messiah a righteous branch of David who will do justice and righteousness in the land. His coming is accompanied with the return from exile of all who had been scattered, and it says they will dwell securely.

Jeremiah 33:14-26 repeats the prophecy, tying it explicitly to God's promise that David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel. It also lumps that promise in with other promises God made to Israel and Judah, assuring the reader that God will never break his promises nor reject his people.

Ezekiel 34:11-31 says that God will judge between sheep (i.e. people), and he will gather all his flock who have been scattered so that they can dwell in safety with plenty to eat, and the other nations will no longer oppress them or prey on them. It says that "my servant David" will be their prince and their shepherd.

Ezekiel 37 is the vision of the valley of dry bones that all come to life. The interpretation of the vision is that the bones refer to the whole house of Israel and how God will open their graves and place them in their own land. The prophecy continues to explain how Judah and Israel will be reunited and how they will be gathered from all the nations in which they had been scattered. God will cleanse them of all sin, causing them to walk in his statutes. He will make an everlasting covenant of peace with them, and God will dwell with them forever. David will be their king and shepherd forever.

Even before Jesus started making overt claims about being the messiah, there are things he did that raised suspicions. Matthew reports that one of the first things out of Jesus' mouth when he started his ministry was, "Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17). Nearly all of Jesus' parables were about the kingdom of God. The fact that he named specifically twelve people to be apostles alludes to the reunion of the twelves tribes of Israel, which in turn alludes to the restoration of the whole house of Israel, part of what the prophets associated with the coming of the messiah. So people had reason to suspect Jesus was making a messianic claim even before he started being explicit about it.

With all of these things in mind, it should be no surprise that "Christ crucified" would be a "stumbling block to Jews" (1 Corinthians 1:23). In fact, one of the primary reasons Jews today reject Jesus as the messiah is because he was crucified without having fulfilled all of these promises.

Messianic expectation was high in Judea from 6 CE on into the first war with Rome that began in 66 CE. Before then, Judea wasn't ruled directly by Rome. It was ruled through satellite kings of the Hasmonean dynasty. King Herod ruled until his death in 4 BCE at which time his son, Archelaus, was made ethnarch of Judea. Archelaus was deposed in 6 CE at which time Judea was placed under direct Roman rule under prefects (or procurators). Pontius Pilate was one of them.

While Herod defended the right of the Jewish people to practice their religion freely while he was king, these rights were threatened under Roman rule, and there was constant tension between the Jewish people and the Roman occupiers. This tension eventually erupted in war in 66 CE.

During that time, several people rose up and made messianic or quasi-messianic claims about themselves. The most famous were made during the war itself. It should be perfectly understandable why Roman occupation would increase messianic hope and expectation. It's because the hope was that the coming of the messiah would free the Jewish people from Roman oppression. So when some would-be messiah came along, gathered followers, and got people's hopes up, those hopes were always dashed when that would-be messiah's movement ended in his death, which was always the case. Once the would-be messiah died, their followers scattered. Sometimes they'd go back to living their ordinary lives. Sometimes they'd find another messiah to follow. But nobody ever continued to think somebody was the messiah after they had been killed because their death proved that they were not the messiah.

The only exception is in the case of Jesus. But even in the case of Jesus, his followers initially scattered and lost hope in him. Their hope was restored when they saw him alive, or so they say.

The appearance traditions go back to that early oral tradition Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15:1ff. Paul says that after the resurrection, Jesus "appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also." Paul had actually met Peter, James (the brother of Jesus), and John in Jerusalem on a couple of occasions (Galatians 1:18-19, 2:1-10). He also ran into Peter once in Antioch (Galatians 2:11). Some scholars think his first trip to Jerusalem is where he received this oral tradition, including the appearances to Cephas (i.e. Peter), James, the twelves, and all the apostles. It's hard to say where he learned about the appearance to the 500 or how he knew how many of them were still living.

The fact that the appearances actually happened is pretty widely accepted among New Testament historians because of their early origin, how close these accounts are to the actual eye-witnesses (since Paul was personally acquainted with Peter, James, and possibly some of the other apostles), the fact that they are multiply attested, and the fact that it provides a powerful explanation for why Jesus' movement survived his death. In fact, it's nearly impossible to account for the survival of Christianity apart from these appearances.

E.P. Sanders said, "That Jesus' followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know" (The Historical Jesus, p. 280). And there's lots of speculation among scholars about what the nature of those experiences were. Some, like Sanders, just shrug their shoulders and say, "I dunno." Others, like Gerd Ludemann, say it must've been some kind of vision or hallucination. There are a handful of conservative scholars, like N.T. Wright, who think Jesus actually did appear to the apostles. Most scholars seem to agree that the appearances are the explanation for why Jesus' followers continued to believe in him in spite of his crucifixion.

If that's the case, though, then what kind of experiences must they have been? Were they individual experiences or did they happen in groups? Were they dreams, visions, or hallucinations, or was there a tangible Jesus before them who they could touch? I wrote a blog post called "The Hallucination Hypothesis" where I went into some detail about my thoughts on these subjects, so I won't go into the same detail here. But as a summary, I'll say that I don't think anything like a dream, vision, or hallucination is sufficient to explain why they thought Jesus was still alive. One of the most common defenses of the hallucination hypothesis is the fact that grief hallucinations are common when people die. But grief hallucinations don't explain why the apostles all came to believe Jesus had risen from the dead.

While grief hallucination may be common, they never lead to the belief that a loved one has risen from the dead. My grandmother had one and thought she experienced my grandfather's ghost. The gospels even report that their initial impression upon seeing Jesus was that he was a ghost (Luke 24:37). With that option available, and with people just dismissing hallucinations as "seeing things," it doesn't seem like a vision or hallucination would've lead to the belief that Jesus had risen from the dead.

But a real flesh and blood Jesus who they could touch and who could actually eat tangible food in front of them can explain belief in the resurrection. And that's what the gospels say happened. They all report skepticism in the beginning. First, there was skepticism when the women who visited the tomb said they saw Jesus. Then there was skepticism on the part of Thomas that the other apostles had seen Jesus. During the last appearance recorded in Matthew, it says that some were doubtful (Matthew 28:17). But what apparently persuaded them was that Jesus ate in front of them and they could touch him. And it's hard to think of anything short of that that would've convinced them that Jesus had risen from the dead and was the messiah in spite of him being crucified before ushering in the kingdom of God, establishing worldwide peace, and ending the Roman occupation.

In the case of James, the brother of Jesus, and Paul, the appearances explain their conversions. According to both John's gospel and Mark's gospel, James didn't believe in Jesus prior to the crucifixion (John 7:5, Mark 3:21). But then Paul records that Jesus appeared to James, and according to Acts, James was leading the church in Jerusalem. By his own account, Paul tried to destroy the Christian church but then he was converted as a result of Jesus appearing to him. These appearances had to have been of such a quality as to explain the conversions. Paul thought Jesus really did rise from the dead. He places such importance on it that he said, "if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised" (1 Corinthians 15:14-15). A mere vision or hallucination would not have convinced anybody that Jesus had risen from the dead, and it's an inadequate explanation for the conversation of James and Paul.

And you can just imagine what you would think if somebody you knew to be dead appeared in front of you. You might think you were going crazy, seeing things, or having a hallucination. You might think, like my grandmother, that it was a ghost. Or maybe you'd even think you were having a really lucid dream, but the last thing you'd think was that your dead loved one had risen from the dead. A mere vision or hallucination wouldn't lead you to believe that.

Besides having actually touched Jesus and eaten with him, I suppose the inference to the real resurrection of Jesus was heightened by the fact that his tomb was found empty, and something had to have happened to his body. I'm not going to go into that here, though. I will say that the real resurrection of Jesus explains in a powerful way why his movement--a messianic movement--survived his death. With that in mind, I'll end this post by saying: He is risen.

Happy Easter!

PS) This is my 600th post. Wahoo!