Hello and welcome to CF.
It is in the Bible and the fulfillment of a multitude of OT Scriptures. Case closed...........
OVER 500 EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS OF JESUS AFTER HIS DEATH
According to Paul Strand at
CBN News, there were over 500 reported eyewitness accounts that described seeing a living, breathing Christ after his death occurred (Strand par. 48). Eyewitness accounts were the very best evidence available at the time, as modern technology had not yet been invented. Non-believers often argue that these accounts were a result of a widespread hallucination, but modern psychology has essentially
dismissed this claim. Hallucinations cannot be identical, and many of the accounts described touching Jesus, though physical interaction is impossible during hallucinations (Perman, par. 26).
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What happened to the 500 witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15?
This week I taught Sunday School from this text:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.—1 Corinthians 15:3-9 (
ESV)
One of the members of the class commented that she'd heard an argument along the lines of "If there were over 500 witnesses to the resurrection, why don't we have any other record of them? Where are their letters or testamonies? Isn't it more likely that Paul just made them up?"
From a form criticism point of view, isn't it likely that this section is part of a creed and that the number 500 represents an arbitrarily large company of believers (or perhaps the size of the Jerusalem church when the creed was articulated), rather than an actual number of people who claim to have seen Jesus after his death?
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Post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus - Wikipedia
Background
Resurrection appearances.
Clockwise from bottom: Resurrection,
Noli me tangere,
Ascension,
Pentecost (Meister des
Schöppinger, c. 1449, Pfarrkirche,
Westfalen).
The resurrection of the flesh was a marginal belief in
Second Temple Judaism, i.e., Judaism of the time of Jesus.
[2] The idea of any resurrection at all first emerges clearly in the 2nd-century-BC
Book of Daniel, but as a belief in the resurrection of the soul alone.
[3] A few centuries later the Jewish historian Josephus, writing roughly in the same period as Paul and the authors of the gospels, says that the
Essenes believed the soul to be immortal, so that while the body would return to dust the soul would go to a place fitting its moral character, righteous or wicked.
[4] This, according to the gospels, was the stance of Jesus, who defended it in an exchange with the
Sadducees: "Those who are accounted worthy ... to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they ... are equal to the angels and are children of God..." (
Mark 12:24–25, Luke 20:34–36).
[5]
The
post-resurrection appearances of Jesus are the earthly appearances of
Jesus to his followers after his death and burial. Believers point to them as proof of his
resurrection and identity as
Messiah, seated in heaven on the right hand of God (the doctrine of the
Exaltation of Christ).
[1]
Call to missionary activity
According to
Helmut Koester, the stories of the resurrection were originally
epiphanies in which the disciples are called to a ministry by the risen Jesus, and at a secondary stage were interpreted as physical proof of the event. He contends that the more detailed accounts of the resurrection are also secondary and do not come from historically trustworthy sources, but instead belong to the genre of the narrative types.
[55]
According to
Gerd Lüdemann, Peter had a vision of Jesus, induced by his feelings of guilt of betraying Jesus. The vision elevated this feeling of guilt, and Peter experienced it as a real appearance of Jesus, raised from dead. He convinced the other disciples that the resurrection of Jesus signalled that the endtime was near and God's Kingdom was coming, when the dead who would rise again, as evidenced by Jesus. This revitalized the disciples, starting-off their new mission.
[web 1]
According to Biblical scholar
Géza Vermes, the resurrection is to be understood as a reviving of the self-confidence of the followers of Jesus, under the influence of the Spirit, "prompting them to resume their apostolic mission." They felt the presence of Jesus in their own actions, "rising again, today and tomorrow, in the hearts of the men who love him and feel he is near."
[56]
