Paul Clark

JUST ONE EYEWITNESS

The New Testament contains just one first-hand eyewitness report of a post-crucifixion encounter with Jesus: Paul’s account of his experience on the road to Damascus. This, in English translation, is what he says about it: “he appeared to me”.[i]

That is the only eyewitness account we have, and it comes long after the ascension.

Conservative Christians often claim that Matthew’s and John’s gospels are eyewitness accounts, but this view is almost universally rejected in academia, as is the claim that Mark was written by a companion of Peter and Luke by a companion of Paul.[ii]

PAUL’S ACCOUNT

Paul’s account is in his first letter to the Corinthians, written about 25 years after the events it describes. He lists in order all the different appearances of Jesus:[iii]

1. To Peter
2. To the twelve disciples
3. To 500 followers
4. To James and all the apostles
5. To Paul himself.

Since Paul had met both Peter and James, he may be giving us a second-hand account of the other appearances. Unfortunately, once again he gives no details.

MATTHEW’S ACCOUNT

Written 50 or more years after the crucifixion, Matthew’s gospel presents a quite different picture. It says Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene and her female companions shortly after their encounter with an angel outside the empty tomb. They clasped his feet and worshipped him (cf. John’s account below), and he told them to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee.

The disciples duly went to a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus appeared and commissioned them to make disciples of all the nations.[iv]

LUKE AND ACTS

Chronologically, our next accounts of the resurrection come from the author of Luke and Acts. Most scholars date these works to shortly after Matthew’s gospel, but some date them up to 30 years later.

According to Luke, Jesus’ first appearance was on the day that the empty tomb was discovered. However, he didn’t appear to Mary Magdalene but to two other followers outside Jerusalem. They returned to the city where they learned that Jesus had also appeared to Peter.

Soon afterwards, he appeared to all the disciples, who gave him some broiled fish to eat. He commissioned them to spread his word to all the nations. Later, he went with them to the village of Bethany, where he proceeded to be taken up to heaven. Luke doesn’t explicitly say how long Jesus stayed with the disciples, but his account reads as if it was a matter of hours.[v]

However, in Acts, the same author states that Jesus actually spend 40 days with the disciples in Jerusalem.[vi] He later describes Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus – a light from heaven and a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” [vii]

Acts also tells us that not long afterwards, Jesus appeared to a follower in Damascus named Ananias and told him to go to Paul, and, much later, to Paul when he was in prison, urging him to have courage.[viii]

JOHN’S ACCOUNT

This was written around the turn of the first and second centuries. Once again, events are rather different.

Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene, just after the discovery of the empty tomb. He tells her not to touch him (cf. Matthew’s account above). That evening, he entered the Jerusalem house where the disciples were hiding, despite its doors being locked, and commissioned them to spread his word. Thomas wasn’t there on this occasion, but Jesus returned a week later so that Thomas would also believe.

Some time later, Jesus appeared to Peter and others who were fishing on Lake Galilee and shared breakfast with them. He made a prophecy about how Peter would die and said that his favourite disciple (supposedly John, the author of the gospel) would not die until he returned.[ix]

MARK’S ACCOUNT

The last account of the resurrection was probably added to Mark, the oldest gospel, early in the second century.[x] According to this, the first to see Jesus was Mary Magdalene. This was followed by appearances to two other followers outside Jerusalem and the 11 remaining disciples in Jerusalem while they were eating.[xi] This was quickly followed by Jesus being taken up into heaven.

A BIT OF A MESS

And so we see that the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ appearances to his disciples are something of a mess. We have five different versions written decades after the event, which are impossible to harmonise, however much apologists may try to do so.[xii]

According to Paul, Jesus first appeared to Peter. But three gospels insist that Mary Magdalene was first. Luke mentions her outside the empty tomb, but not her encounter with Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus instructs Mary Magdalene to tell the disciples to go to Galilee, where he will meet them. But in the other three gospels, he meets them in Jerusalem. In all the gospels, Jesus’ appearances seem to have been for a few hours at most, but in Acts (written by the same author as Luke!), he stays with them for 40 days.

How to explain these contradictions? EP Sanders suggests that pious fraud is not an explanation. He says that where Paul only provided a list, the authors of the gospels had to provide a narrative, and each of them went their own way with whatever oral and written sources were available to them.

But one thing is beyond dispute: Jesus’ remaining followers genuinely believed that he had reappeared after his death.[xiii] This belief requires an explanation.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY APPEAR?

Paul uses the Greek verb horao for all the appearances he lists. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) often uses the same verb to describe appearances of God or angels. The verb doesn’t mean these people “saw” Jesus, rather it means Jesus “appeared” to them or “showed himself”. Appearing can be done in different ways, as a vision or as a voice or simply as a presence.

In a similar vein, the Old Testament has many instances of God appearing to other people in lots of different ways:

Abram heard God’s voice.

Jacob wrestled with God.

Moses saw an angel in a burning bush. Then after he approached, God spoke to him from within the bush.

Isaiah saw God seated on a throne with six-winged seraphim angels flying above him calling out his praises.

Jeremiah said God reached out and touched his mouth with his hand, literally putting words into his mouth.

Ezekiel saw an approaching thunderstorm which revealed four creatures each of which had four faces and four wings. Then, above them, he saw God.[xiv]

OTHER EXPERIENCES

Others outside the Bible have reported similar experiences:

The Prophet Mohamed was in a cave when he heard a voice coming from all directions, even from inside himself. Then he saw the Angel Gabriel, who began to reveal the verses of the Koran to him. Later, when Mohamed went outside, he looked up and saw Gabriel, who was so enormous that he filled the sky.[xv]

Joseph Smith saw flesh and bone visions of God and Jesus when he was just 14. Later he was visited by the Angel Moroni, who gave him the golden plates that were to be the source of the Book of Mormon.[xvi]

When Sun Myun Moon was a teenager, Jesus came to him while he was praying on top of a mountain and commanded him to complete the unfinished task of establishing God’s Kingdom of Heaven on earth.[xvii]

In other traditions, the idiom may be different:

Zoroaster emerged from ritual bathing in a river to find himself bathed in pure light with the words of God resounding in his head.[xviii]

Gautama Buddha found enlightenment after 49 days of continuous meditation. He experienced it as like awakening from a dream to find a new awareness of the true nature of the cosmos.[xix]

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh went into a garden at night, and through the luminosity of a maulshree tree, God caused him to experience the benediction of the universe.[xx]

These are the religious experiences of prophets and religious leaders, but history is littered with countless thousands of others, from Joan of Arc’s voices that told her to drive out the English to Emanuel Swedenborg’s vision of God advising him not to eat too much.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

I support the view that all these different religious experiences are basically the same thing. I am not accusing any of the genuinely historical characters listed above of making it up, though obviously there are religious charlatans who fake such things.

So, what do these different experiences mean? Are they all genuine insights into the divine, or only some of them? If only some of them, how can you distinguish between those that are real and those that are not? I suppose you could say, “My god is better than your god; the visions in my religion are genuine, and those in your religion aren’t.” There are plenty of people who think like this, but I don’t think it gets us anywhere.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

It is more fruitful to approach the question of these religious experiences via psychology and an examination of altered states of consciousness like trances and hallucinations. These things are a part of being human, just like sleep and dreaming. They aren’t evidence of cosmic forces any more than they are evidence of insanity or the use of narcotics; they’re simply things that happen to a surprisingly large number of people.[xxi]  

For example, one study of widows and widowers revealed that up to 14% have a visual hallucination of their dead spouse.[xxii] Almost as many will hear their voice, and nearly half will experience an awareness of their presence at some stage. Other research indicates that 20% of people have an out-of-body hallucination some time in their life, and these can have a purely physical explanation.[xxiii]

HALLUCINATIONS

A lot of research has been done into hallucinations. They happen when our ability to distinguish between internal and external stimuli breaks down (internal stimuli: thoughts, dreams, memory and imagination; external stimuli: sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations). Thus, for example, a widow, so used to seeing her husband or hearing his voice, can briefly fail to distinguish between a memory or a dream of him and the real thing.

Psychologists have also examined the related phenomenon of trances, which often lead to hallucinations. And how do you induce a trance? Music, chanting, dance, prayer, focused attention, meditation. These things are all part of the everyday practice of organised religion, so can it be a surprise that so many hallucinations happen during prayer and religious services?[xxiv]

MEDICAL CAUSES

There can be medical causes too. Aldous Huxley believed LSD was a short-cut to religious experience. A strong dose of ketamine will induce an out-of-body experience.[xxv] People who suffer from sleep paralysis can be unable to distinguish between dreams and reality.[xxvi] And we know there is a correlation between temporal lobe epilepsy and religious hallucination.[xxvii]

PETER

Let us return to our earliest account of the resurrection: Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. This says the first person Jesus appeared to was Peter. Here was a man in a profound state of crisis. His leader, who he believed to be God’s Messiah, had just been arrested and killed in the most horrendous and shameful manner imaginable. And remember how low Peter had stooped to save himself: he had denied that he had anything to do with Jesus, allegedly not once but three times.

How susceptible would Peter have been to religious hallucination, particularly if he had responded to his crisis with fasting and prayer?[xxviii] After he reported his experience of the risen Christ, some other followers of Jesus might have gone on to have their own hallucinatory experiences. [xxix] In some cases, these may have been visions, in other cases voices or a general awareness of Jesus still being with them. Still others may have felt compelled to make similar claims without actually having the experiences.

TALES GROW IN THE TELLING

Some 45 years after the crucifixion, the authors of Matthew and Luke would write the accounts of Christ’s appearances that we still have today. By now, the different stories of people’s religious experiences had been combined with the tale of the empty tomb. The variety of hallucinatory experiences had now become flesh-and-blood appearances of the resurrected Jesus.[xxx]

Can I prove that this interpretation of Jesus’ appearances is right?

No.

But if we ignore the “Jesus didn’t die on the cross” school of thought, we’re basically left with two competing explanations for the resurrection of Jesus. One is this kind of “rational-scientific” explanation, which sees his appearances as imperfectly recorded tales of the hallucinations experienced by some of his followers. The other explanation claims that it happened pretty much as it says in the Bible (though you have to choose which account you want to believe).

Apply Occam’s Razor: whenever you are confronted by two explanations for the same phenomenon, always go for the simplest one. Surely, the “rational-scientific” explanation is the simplest. And, therefore, the Biblical accounts most certainly don’t constitute extraordinary evidence that can support the extraordinary claim at the heart of mainstream Christianity: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Early Christian belief in the resurrection is an established historical fact. The resurrection itself is not.

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Click on these links to see my take on the empty tomb and the response of the disciples to Jesus’ death.

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[i] 1 Corinthians 15:8.

[ii] Barton, John: A History of the Bible, Penguin Random House, London 2020, pp. 189-209. For an overview of the authorship of the gospels, see https://www.bartehrman.com/who-wrote-the-gospels/ (accessed 20 July 2024).

[iii] 1 Corinthians 15:5-8.

[iv] Matthew 28:8-10 and 16-20.

[v] Luke 24:13-53.

[vi] Acts 1:1-11.

[vii] Acts 9:10-16.

[viii] Acts 22:17-21 and 23:11.

[ix] John 20:11-29, 21:1-23.

[x] Martin, Dale B. New Testament History and Literature (Kindle Edition), Yale University Press 2012, Loc 1586.

[xi] Mark 16:9-20.

[xii] See, for example https://www.letstalkscriptures.com/harmonising-the-resurrectionintroduction/ (accessed 21/07/2024).

[xiii] Sanders, EP: The Historical Figure of Jesus, Penguin Books, London, 1995, pp. 279-280.

[xiv] Abram: Genesis 15:1-21, Jacob: Genesis 32:24-28, Moses: Exodus 3:1-22. See also Isaiah 6:1-7, Jeremiah 1:6-9, Ezekiel 1:1-28.

[xv] Holland, Tom: In The Shadow Of The Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World (Kindle Edition). Hachette Digital, London 2012, Loc 288-318.

[xvi] Vogel, Dan: Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet. Signature Books, Salt Lake City 2004, p. 30.

[xvii] The Guardian, London 2 September 2012.

[xviii] Boyce, Mary: Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Routledge, London 1979, p. 19.

[xix] Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang: Introduction to Buddhism: An Explanation of the Buddhist Way of Life. Tharpa Publications, Ulverston 2007, pp. 8-9.

[xx] Mullan, Bob: Life as Laughter: Following Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.  Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1983, p. 12.

[xxi] See Ehrman: How Jesus Became God, : the exaltation of a Jewish preacher from Galilee (Kindle Edition), HarperOne 2014, Loc 2867-2881; Dennett, Daniel C: Consciousness Explained. Penguin Books, London 1993, pp. 3-16; Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Headline Book Publishing, London 1997, pp. 93-107, 144; Frankel, Joseph: Hallucinations are Everywhere. The Atlantic 2 October 2018.

[xxii] Rees, WD: The hallucinations of widowhood. British Medical Journal, 4, 37-41, 1971; Sagan The Demon-Haunted World, p. 99; Ehrman How Jesus Became God, Loc 2884-2925.

[xxiii] Gabbard, GO and Twemlow, AW: With the Eyes of the Mind: An Empirical Analysis of Out-of-Body States. Praeger Scientific, New York 1984.

[xxiv] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/252916/hallucination/46696/Hypnosis-and-trance-states (Accessed 23/08/2023).

[xxv] http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/advice/factfile_az/ketamine (Accessed 03/11/2013).

[xxvi] https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/sleep-paralysis-personal-odyssey-into-an-apparently-paranormal-experience/ (Accessed 17/08/2023).

[xxvii] Sagan: The Demon-Haunted World, p. 105.

[xxviii] Sheehan: The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity, Crucible, Wellingborough 1988,, pp. 103-9, 124-6; Ehrman: How Jesus Became God, Loc 2895.

[xxix]Bart Ehrman argues that possibly only three people did so: Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene. See Ehrman: How Jesus Became God, Loc. 2806-2856.

[xxx] Sheehan: The First Coming, pp. 135-146.