THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS
A new historiographical approach.
By Michael Licona. IVP Academic. 278 pages. £24.99
ISBN 978 0 830 827 190
Does it really matter whether Jesus rose from the dead bodily, and that his grave is empty?
Can the tools used by secular historians (outside the community of biblical scholars) be utilised to establish a historical bedrock of evidence? The quest to answer these questions forms the heart of what could arguably be regarded as the most significant major volume on the resurrection of Jesus since N.T. Wright’s 2003 monograph.
In a number of ways, Licona manages to go further and deeper than Wright. For instance, Licona develops a surprisingly fresh and rigorous historiographical approach analysing data and interpretations from the eighth century BC up to the third century AD, not to mention the exhaustive dialogues with the likes of James D.G. Dunn, Bart Ehrman, N.T. Wright and more critical engagements with scholars like Geza Vermes.
Chapter one deals with historical method particularly in the context of how historians outside the community of biblical scholarship proceed in their investigations involving non-religious matters. This is done in order to establish Licona’s new historiographical approach for investigating the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection.
Chapter two deals with objections to the investigation of miracle-claims by the likes of David Hume. Licona regards such objections as ill-founded insofar as they prohibit the historical investigation of Jesus’s resurrection, but he concedes that the objections require us to ‘proceed with caution’ (pp.21,197).
In chapter three, Licona surveys canonical, non-canonical Christian literature (including the Gnostic Gospels of Thomas, Peter and Judas) and non-Christian sources, which include the likes of Tacitus, Suetonius and Celsus. These sources are rated to determine the earliest data pertaining to Jesus’s death and resurrection.
New Testament evidence
Chapter four will be valuable to those interested in the New Testament evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. I found the section, ‘What Did Paul Believe About Jesus’s Resurrection?’ (pp.400-439) particularly insightful. Paul does not contrast a material/ immaterial resurrection body here; he is also ‘not referring to the substance of the old and new bodies, but rather their mode of existence’. In the process, Licona reinforces and surpasses what the likes of Anthony Thiselton, N.T. Wright, Richard B. Hays, Robert Gundry, Craig Keener, etc. have become known for.
Another example is his treatment of the also contentious ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God’ in 1 Corinthians 15.50. In a carefully structured manner, Licona states that ‘flesh and blood’ does not equal the ‘physical body’, but serves as a ‘figure of speech’ for the mortal body with its current weaknesses (p.419), following its usage in rabbinic literature, Yohanan ben Zakkai and the Mishnah. Our ‘mortal bodies in their weak state’ will be transformed, not eternally annihilated, given e.g. Romans 8.11, 23; Philippians 3.21; 1 Corinthians 15.51-52 and 1 Thessalonians 4.16-17 (pp.418-421).
Different hypotheses
Chapter five applies the methodological considerations discussed in chapter one, weighing six critical hypotheses largely representative of critical scholarship at the beginning of the 21st century pertaining to the question of the resurrection of Jesus. These hypotheses are discussed by focussing on the way in which they are articulated by a group of representative scholars. The hypotheses and scholars are:
1) We do not know whether Jesus rose from the dead (Geza Vermes, pp.470-6).
2) Psychohistory and naturalistic explanations which include hallucinations and ‘communal delusions’ (Michael Goulder and Gerd Lüdemann, pp.479-518).
3) Resurrection interpreted metaphorically only — given that the idea of a literal understanding of resurrection as the revivification of Jesus’s corpse would have been repulsive to the earliest Christians in view of the following considerations: (i) psychological conditions; (ii) unique exegetical interpretations; (iii) competing reports in ‘often ignored’ early Christian teaching sources; (iv) and Paul’s mutation of the Jewish concept of the general resurrection (John Dominic Crossan, pp.519-556).
4) The disciples experienced an ‘altered state of consciousness’ which they believed were appearances of the risen Jesus (Pieter F. Craffert — building upon the work of Bruce J. Malina, pp.557-581).
5) Apparitions of the dead as a heuristic for understanding the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus (Dale Allision, pp.623-641).
Licona offers a well-balanced analysis of the above scholars’ hypotheses and also weighs them against the Resurrection Hypothesis (that is, that Jesus rose from the dead) in terms of C. Behan McCullagh’s prioritisation of the weightiest criteria: (1) plausibility, (2) explanatory scope and explanatory power, (3) less ad hoc, (4) illumination. What was the outcome? The Resurrection Hypothesis came out on top with it being the only hypothesis to fulfil all five criteria, with Craffert’s hypothesis coming last (pp.606-7).
Any criticism of the book? Really not much. Anything missing? Perhaps the contentious 1 Corinthians 5.5, 6.13 and also Luke 24.16. Any controversial interpretations? More conservative Christians might be disappointed to find that the believers who rise from their tombs in Matthew 27.52 are interpreted as ‘special effects’ and a ‘poetic device’ (pp.552-553). Apart from that though, this volume is probably the most exhaustive and consistently historical volume to date, arguing for the historicity of Jesus’s bodily resurrection and empty tomb. Even those who do not agree with Licona’s historical approach and his outcomes will have to engage with his work for many years to come.
Frederik Mulder, PhD Promovendis in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Lives in Cambridge, attends Eden Baptist Church, part-time researcher at Tyndale House.
