In the first section, he debunks recent ideas of some critics about the authenticity of the Resurrection of Christ. Since these are scholarly notes, I wish to summarize them here for any future questions or criticism.
Dale Allison (2005) claims that the idea of the Empty tomb depends
on the burial story which is historically real. However, the Apostles
experienced the risen Christ as a mere subjective feeling of bereavement over
the dead Jesus. Resurrection has been swallowed up in psychology. Here Dale
Allison denies the Divine initiative of the Resurrection, e.g. the
Appearance of Christ to the Apostles and later to over 500 disciples at
same time.
Daniel Smith (2010): the Resurrection story is similar to
Greco-Roman myths of Heracles, Romelus…etc. But the Greco-Roman myths
refer to people who lived in a very distant past, unlike Jesus whose
Resurrection is reported within decades after his death. In Mark, it is hard to
find influence from Greco-Roman myths (Adela Yarbro Collins). Smith also ignores
the findings of Richard Bauckham that the period between Mark and other
Gospels was spanned by testimonies of eyewitnesses (Peter, Mary Magdalen, sons of Zebedee…).
Geza Vermes (2008) replicates the ideas of his friend Paul Winter
that Jesus rose only in the sense of being loved by his followers who “felt”
that he was still with them in spirit. Against this interpretation of the
Resurrection experience as a mere subjective feeling, O'Collins cites St.
Paul in 1 Cor. 15, an early Epistle, in which Paul says “I handed on to
you…what I in turn received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with
the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised…and that he
appeared to Cephas [Peter] then to the twelve…”.
O'Collins also notes that Vermes joins Bultmann in dismissing the 3 predictions of
Jesus about his own coming death and resurrection in Mark (8:31; 9:31;
10:33-34), but in fact, the 3
predictions in Mark do not specify killing by crucifixion. This supports the
widely held view today that the passion predictions in Mark are not free
inventions and contain a historical kernel that Jesus anticipated his death and
divine vindication through resurrection.
Philip Pullman (2010) fabricates a story from a legend created a century ago by Nicolas Notovitch (1894) and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1899 in Urdu) in which Jesus was taken alive from the cross (never died on the cross!), went to India and died there. Others claimed that he was taken alive from the cross and went to France where he fathered children by Mary Magdalen (Dan Brown in his book the D'Avinci Code, Elaine Pagels, and others...). Pullman now twists it to a case of deception in in the story of the empty tomb and the dialogue on the road to Emmaus. Pullman claims that Jesus had a twin called Christ! Through a mysterious demonic “stranger” Christ leads the guard to arrest Jesus on Thursday night. After Jesus died on the cross and was buried, the “stranger” organizes several men to remove Jesus’ body and persuades Christ (the twin) to return the next morning and play the part of the risen Jesus!! Mary Magdalen meets Christ thinking he is the risen Jesus. Christ then joins the disciples on the road to Emmaus and appears to them as Jesus. The rest of the disciples are now convinced too that Jesus rose from the dead! This is the Conspiracy Theory in a new form. It fails scrutiny too since he ignores the appearances of the risen Jesus in Galilee (Matt 28: 16-20; John 21; and implied by Mark 16: 7), the appearance to Peter (1 Cor 15:5; Luke 24: 34); the appearance to more than five-hundred disciples (1 Cor 15: 7) in addition to the appearance of the risen Jesus to Paul. Pullman's story is a fiction which hardly deserves serious scholars attention.
More exploration in the book by Gerald O'Collins will show us why everyone who is seriously looking for the truth must believe in Christ and his Resurrection as testified by the continuing tradition of the Church! To be continued...
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