I continue The Resurrection of the Son of God in Chapter 18, pp. 685-718. This begins Part 5, where Wright concludes his argument, with this chapter, on the historicity of the resurrection, and the next chapter, where he will address the meaning of ‘son of God.’
Wright argues the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the necessary and sufficient condition for the rise of early Christianity (p. 687). “A necessary condition is something that has to be the case for the conclusion to follow.” (p. 687) Water is a necessary condition for plant growth. But water is not a sufficient condition. Plants need other things besides water. “A sufficient condition is something that will certainly and without fail bring about the conclusion.” (p. 687) A long period without water is a sufficient condition to result in my death. But there are many other ways to die (from what I hear, a million in the west), thus, lack of water is not a necessary condition for my death.
Wright considers the empty tomb and the appearance stories to be highly probable. He does so with the following argument (pp. 686-7):
“Second-temple Judaism supplied the concept of resurrection,” but how it changed in the Christian belief was well outside what would have been “generated spontaneously from within its Jewish context.”
Both an empty tomb and appearances are required for Christianity. At empty tomb by itself would be a “puzzle;” appearances by itself would be hallucinations.
Both an empty tomb and appearances together do provide a “powerful reason for the emergence of the belief.”
Resurrection in second-temple Judaism would make it impossible for a modified belief to occur in which the tomb was not empty and the living Jesus had not appeared. Put differently, trying to make resurrection mean something like ‘spiritual only’ or ‘he lives on in our hearts’ is highly unlikely in second-Temple Judaism.
“Other explanations… for the emergence of the belief do not possess the same explanatory power.”
Thus, it is highly probable the tomb was empty and that Jesus was seen alive.
How does one explain these two items?
The above might seem a bit difficult to follow. It was for me. What has been helpful is to remember that Wright is seeking a historical explanation that is consistent with the historical data. Ideas are birthed from within a context, and certain ideas will only occur from certain contexts. For example, one can see how the Declaration of Independence was composed out of the time period of the 18th century in the West. It would be entirely foreign in the 5th century or in the East. The Declaration followed the ideas ‘swimming around’ in Western culture of the 18th century.
Likewise, when a historian looks at the first century, the questions become: what claims make sense coming out of this time period? How are words being used in this time and what would they mean coming from a second-Temple Jewish worldview? Wright has spent considerable amount of space throughout this book getting the reader ‘into’ the world of the first century. He is trying to get his readers to think and understand historically. What is plausible within that time period and culture?
We know, and so did ancient people, that dead people are… dead (p. 685). They don’t come back to life. This did not require modern science to demonstrate. The idea of the skeptics that the resurrection is impossible because dead people don’t rise again is obvious—the disciples knew this too. Either the impossible happened (!) or an alternate plausible explanation must be offered. Much of what the skeptics offer simply doesn’t fit within that context—it isn’t plausible. How do you get from second-Temple belief to a claim that a one-time resurrection event has occurred?
Now back to the seven-step argument above. Wright argues that we are on solid historical ground with the empty tomb and the appearance stories (p. 686). Within a second-Temple context, an empty tomb by itself could have generated a ‘stolen body’ explanation. Appearances by themselves could have generated hallucinations/visions as an explanation (step 2). We could note that Mary is upset because someone has taken the body (an empty tomb) and it is an appearance that resolves her question (Jn. 20:15-16; cf. Lk. 24:22-23). Thomas needs an appearance with personal contact (Jn. 20:25). Wright argues that the two together—empty tomb and appearances—become a sufficient condition (step 3; p. 692-3). The first 200 pages of the book (chapters 1-5) are an attempt to demonstrate step 4, that bodily resurrection only occurs within a Jewish context but would not mutate from within a second-Temple system unless one had actually occurred! Many false Messiahs had come and gone—both prior to and after Jesus—none of the followers claimed resurrection. Thus, the empty tomb and appearances are a necessary condition (p. 696).
Now for step 5, in which Wright addresses two competing theories—cognitive dissonance and a new experience of grace (pp. 697-706). The problem with the former is that the resurrection isn’t what the disciples expected. As I’ve noted elsewhere, the expectations of second-Temple Jews was for Messiah as conquering, knocking Rome out of the land, and establishing the new kingdom. A dead Messiah meant an unsuccessful one. Nowhere in their thinking was there an expectation that a one-time resurrection of one individual would demonstrate his Messiahship, and less, that suffering was his victory! The point, and this is where Wright continues to try to bring back his readers, is that we must go back to actual history. What is the cause of the idea? Invention? Or reality?
Likewise, the explanation of the new experience of grace is ahistorical. Like the previous one, it too finds some feeling that leads the disciples to gradually evolve into a resurrection belief. This might be plausible in a post-modern context. It does not in a second-Temple Jewish one. Experiencing a feeling of forgiveness does not make one claim that this Messiah was ‘resurrected.’
Wright then argues, on step 6, that the empty tomb and the appearances are the necessary condition for the rise of early Christianity (pp. 706-10). This is not, as he points out, at the level of a mathematical necessity. History is not deductive. It is inductive and abductive (best explanation). We are dealing with what is most probable, what explanation best fits the evidence before us, what is consistent with the historical data.
And here is the conclusion: the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the necessary and sufficient condition to explain the rise of Christianity. The disciples didn’t expect the resurrection. None of Jesus’ followers did (contra cognitive dissonance). They admitted they did not! The point was that this was entirely unexpected—something new (p. 712). It takes the rest of the New Testament to work out exactly what was missed and what the implications are now that the Messiah is truly raised! Christianity emerges from the first century because of this radical event! As Wright humorously observes with a nod to Saul of Tarsus, it might seem “blindingly obvious” (p. 710).
In the final chapter, Wright will discuss the meaning of the phrase ‘son of god,’ and what the early Christians meant by stating that the resurrection demonstrated this of Jesus.