Interpreting the Accounts of Jesus' Resurrection Appearances

Well, it is that time of year again, and it is a good time to reflect on our understandings of the Resurrection. There are no easy or assured answers. But here are some of the many that Christians have offered. I hope my friends find them stimulating. If you have other views, I welcome you feedback and will be humbly in your debt. 

Interpreting the Accounts of Jesus' Resurrection Appearances 

Some General Observations 

The New Testament writings, especially the Gospels, abound in accounts of, and references to, the resurrection of Jesus. When all of the witnesses are examined, certain features stand out. 

1. There is no actual description of the resurrection itself in the canonical works of the New Testament. That remains for the non-canonical, and specifically Gnostic writings to provide in later generations, and then with fantastic details, as in the Gospel of Peter, where the cross follows Jesus from the tomb, and the risen Christ towers higher than the heavens (shades of Oral Roberts’ 400-foot Jesus!). The New Testament claims that the resurrection was an act of God, but it nowhere attempts to describe it. The God of revelation remains hidden, and there is reserve—precisely at the greatest unveiling of His power. 

2. The action is God’s. The resurrection was not a feat that Jesus Himself performed. Nowhere in the New Testament is it said that Jesus rolled the stone away, although many modern Christians seem to have a picture of Jesus resuscitating Himself, tidying up the tomb (cf. John 20:7), and making His way to God. As a matter of fact, the regular New Testament formulas are “God raised Jesus” or “Jesus was raised up by God.” Such expressions occur some thirty times. 1 Thessalonians 4:14 and perhaps John 10:17-18 are the only exceptions, and even there the overall emphasis is still on God’s action (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:10 and John 10:18, “from My Father”). The New Testament writers all see the resurrection to be in continuity with God’s previous mighty acts as the work of God alone. 

3. The Gospel writers describe Jesus’ resurrection appearances in short individual narratives, without any common framework. In the Passion story there was a common outline, that of Mark or Mark’s sources, however much each Gospel writer might add to it or vary it. With the resurrection there is a common message that Jesus has been raised, but for the most part each writer reports different resurrection appearances. There is no general framework into which these separate narratives can be set, as was the case with the incidents of the Passion. 

Probably this stems from the fact that the sufferings and death of Jesus had to be explained, and a common framework was necessary, whereas every apostle and every apostolic witness knew of the Risen Christ and took the resurrection as the starting point for what he said. To explain why Jesus died, a general outline of what had occurred was a necessity; but to declare that He lived again each witness chose those accounts about the empty tomb and the appearances that were most meaningful to the writer and to his intended audience. 

4. When we examine more closely the several resurrection accounts, however, there soon appear questions about detail, and problems of “what actually happened.” We simply take note of them at this point, but will examine them in detail below. 

One of the most notable problems is the matter of location. The original text of Mark, as we now have it, has no appearances, but anticipates one in Galilee (Mark 16:7). Matthew has the final appearance of the Risen Christ (along with the “Great Commission”) in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20). Luke places the final appearance in Jerusalem, with the farewell (and the “ascension”) at Bethany, near Jerusalem (Luke 24:36-53; Acts 1:1-12), with no room for any Galilean appearances. John, as if to do justice to both views, has appearances in Jerusalem (John 20) and concludes with a kind of epilogue that describes an appearance in Galilee (John 21). 

There is also the question of who went first to the empty tomb. Mark has three women: “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome” (Mark 16:1). Matthew has “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” (Matthew 28:1). Luke speaks of “the women who had come with Him from Galilee” (Luke 23:55) and identifies them as “Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women” (Luke 24:10). John says it was Mary Magdalene, apparently alone (John 20:1 ff.). 

There is also the question of who saw the Risen Christ first. Mark seems to imply that Peter would be first (Mark 16:7); and this is supported by Luke (24:34) and by Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:5, written some 10 to 15 years before Mark. Matthew suggests (Matthew 28:9-10) that all the women at the tomb were the first to see the Risen Christ, while John implies (John 20:14-18) that Mary Magdalene alone was the first. 

A lesser problem concerns the number of angelic messengers at the empty tomb. Mark speaks only of a “young man” (Mark 16:5), and Matthew of “an angel of the Lord” (Matthew 28:2). Luke speaks of “two men” (Luke 24:4) and John says there were “two angels in white.” (John 20:12). 

The Locations of the Appearances 

We have noted above two traditions about the locations of the appearances of the Risen Christ. Mark 14:27-28 and 16:7; Matthew 26:31-32 and 28:7, 10, 16-20; John 20:10 and 21:1 ff. all suggest that Jesus appeared, or was expected to appear, in Galilee. On the other hand, Matthew 28:9-10; Luke 24; Acts 1; and John 20 all describe appearances in Jerusalem and its environs. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul does not state the locations of any of the appearances. The narratives in Acts 9, 22, and 26 place the appearance to Paul on the road to Damascus, north of Galilee, but in Luke’s view, Paul experienced only a vision. Paul would have disagreed (1 Corinthians 9:1-2; 15:8-11). 

What is the significance of these two traditions? The important thing for the early followers of Jesus was that Jesus, their Lord, was alive and known by the Church. He who had died was a present reality to them. The triumphant declaration of those earliest Christians was: “He is not dead, but has been raised!” Another way of saying this was, “The tomb is empty!” The empty tomb and the living Lord came to be associated with each other, and for many people, the empty tomb became the important evidence for the resurrection. The tomb was, of course, near Jerusalem. Therefore narrators who wished to emphasize the empty tomb described the appearances as taking place near Jerusalem. Since Jerusalem was the location of Jesus’ burial, it seemed logical that He should have appeared there. 

Why, then, do we have the promises to appear to the disciples in Galilee? One clue may be found in John 21:1-3. In this passages we find the disciples back in Galilee (the Sea of Tiberius is the Sea of Galilee). What were they doing there? Peter says, “I am going fishing.” Going fishing was not a holiday sport for Peter and the disciples; it was their business. They had been fishermen when Jesus called them to become “fishers” of people (note the striking parallel story in Luke 5:1-11, and also Matthew’s parable in 13:47-50). 

When Jesus was arrested we are told, “All of them deserted Him and fled” (Mark 14:50; Matthew 26:56b). Where would they go when their leader was arrested and executed? Would they not leave Jerusalem and go back to the place from which they came originally—Galilee? They may have felt they had been mistaken about Jesus. Their hopes had come to nothing. What should they do now? They went back to their old jobs, to their old lives. So Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” Similarly in the account of John 20:10 the disciples, seeing the empty tomb, and still assuming someone had stolen the body, “went back to their homes.” And where were their homes? Galilee! 

From this point of view, if the living Lord was to appear to the disciples after the crucifixion, He would have had to appear to them in Galilee, because that’s where they were! They would not wait around in Jerusalem for Jesus to be raised, for they had never understood or believed Jesus’ predictions of his death and resurrection. Nor would they have waited around in Jerusalem for the Roman soldiers to round them up as a group plotting the overthrow of Roman rule in Palestine. Narrators who reason this way suggest or state that Jesus appeared to His followers among the sights and sounds and activities of Galilee, where He first had called them. The tradition of appearances in Galilee assumes that the important thing was not the empty tomb, but the living Lord, present among the earliest Christians where they were. 

To Whom Did the Risen Christ First Appear? 

The major accounts of the resurrection give Peter special mention. The earliest account, that of Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, specifically states that the Risen Christ appeared “first to Cephas ( = Simon Peter), then to ‘the Twelve’” (1 Corinthians 15:5). And in the next earliest account, that of Mark, the “young man” at the empty tomb says, “Go, tell his disciples, and Peter,” thus singling him out for special attention. In Luke 24 two disciples, having seen the Risen Christ on the road to Emmaus, return to Jerusalem to report their experience. But before they can tell their story, the other disciples “steal their thunder” by announcing, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon (Peter)!” (Luke 24:34, even though Luke’s Gospel provides no narrative describing that appearance! 

Earlier in Luke 24, in the empty tomb narrative, there is a notice (Luke 24:12) that Peter entered the tomb after the report of the women. And the narrative of the John 20 that gives special importance to “the disciple whom Jesus (especially) loved” still does not deny that Peter was the first to enter the empty tomb (John 20:2-8) even though the “beloved disciple” was the first to believe. In John 21:7 Peter is first to jump out of the boat to greet the Risen Christ and in John 21:15-27 Peter is given special prominence as the one who would feed/tend Jesus’ sheep/flock. Such a charge to Peter may be an echo of the tradition in Luke 22:32. There Jesus tells Peter that He has prayed Peter’s faith may not fail and “when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 

Thus, most of the resurrection narratives suggest that Peter is at the very center of the disciples’ encounter with the Risen Christ. It is Peter, who, on the occasion of Pentecost, is said to have preached the first Christian sermon (Acts 2:1 ff.). At the heart of the early Christian community that believed their Lord to be alive stood Simon Peter. Perhaps it was Peter’s role as the central witness to the resurrection as much as his confession of Jesus as the Christ that elicited Jesus’ response, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church” (Matthew 16:16-18). Or perhaps that is what the confession really means, for many New Testament interpreters understand the confession as a post-resurrection event read back into the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry. 

Given the prominence of Peter, especially in connection with the narratives of the resurrection, the natural question is, “Why do we not have an actual narrative describing the appearance to Peter?” The probable explanation is that no such narrative ever existed, or, at least, none was available to any of the Gospel writers. All they had was the notice in a list like that of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 that Peter was the first to see the Risen Lord. Perhaps, in light of Peter’s earlier denials of Jesus at His trial, the reconciliation was either too painful or too embarrassing for early Christians to relate. 

Perhaps Peter, like Paul, was reluctant to describe the experience in detail for fear he might be misinterpreted as boasting about it. Some interpreters have suggested seriously that the closest thing to such an account may the so-called “Quo Vadis” legend regarding Peter’s flight from Rome during Nero’s persecution in 64 CE. The suggestion has been made that originally this was a tale of Peter’s flight from Jerusalem following the crucifixion, and that it was somewhat similar to the experience of Paul on the Damascus road as described in the Book of Acts. 

But if Peter is the prominent person in the Galilee traditions, then his counterpart in the Jerusalem/empty tomb tradition is Mary Magdalene. She is the one common element of all the stories about the empty tomb. The story itself seems to have grown in the course of the re-telling, with details of the persons present and events added at each stage. In the earliest form of the story probably only Mary Magdalene was there, as in John 20:1. It is likely that she had a vision of a messenger (an “angel”) from God in the form of a “young man,” who announced to her the significance of her discovery of the empty tomb. Only later was the story embellished to include other women and more than one angel and a gardener, and the presence of some male disciples, the guard at the tomb, an earthquake, and an appearance of the Risen Lord. (Note Luke’s comment in 24:22 that the women saw only “a vision of angels”). 

Perhaps when the disciples came back to Jerusalem from Galilee, following their own experiences of the Risen Lord, they welcomed Mary’s report as being wholly in keeping with what they themselves had already come to believe as a result of the appearances. Mark, either having at hand no appearance narratives, or choosing not to use them, told only the empty tomb story, reinforcing it by simply alluding to the common knowledge of appearances in Galilee. Then the original story of the empty tomb grew in the re-telling. Thus, it may be that the disciples received Mary’s story, not as the origin or cause of their Easter faith (the appearances served that function) but as a vehicle for proclaiming the Easter faith they had already come to hold as a result of the appearances. 

The Thoughts and Feelings of Jesus’ Followers 

Mark 16:3, 8: The women were wondering who would roll away the stone. They had expected the tomb to be undisturbed. When the “young man” tells them Jesus is alive, they tremble with astonishment. Although he tells them to notify Jesus’ disciples, they are afraid, and tell no one. 

Matthew 28:1-10: The women experience both fear and joy. 

Matthew 28:16-20: The disciples fell down and worshipped, but “some doubted.” 

Luke 24:13-35: “We had hoped . . . ” means, “We hope no longer. We are confused. We don’t understand how an executed criminal could deliver Israel.” 

Luke 24:36-53: Frightened and startled, with questions in their hearts, the disciples “disbelieved for joy.” 

John 20:1-10: The women thought someone had stolen the body and put it somewhere else. Even after seeing the empty tomb they did not believe He had been raised. 

John 21:1-23: “I’m going fishing” probably means, “I’m through. I give up.” 

What do these descriptions of the disciples’ thoughts and feelings suggest to us? Do they suggest a group of people confidently sitting out the three days until their Lord would return as He had promised? Or do they suggest a group of people who had given up their hope in Jesus and lived in despair until they were surprised by something they did not anticipate? 

Perhaps the most important evidence to the reality of the resurrection is simply that “something happened” to bring about a drastic change in the disciples. We can be thankful that the record gives us glimpses of how little the disciples understood what was happening. They encountered something that changed their hope from past tense to future tense. They tell us that what they encountered was the Risen Lord, Whom they had never expected to see alive again. 

What the Body of the Risen Christ Was Like 

What does the record say about what it was that the disciples encountered when they “saw” the Risen Christ? In Luke 24:36-43 Jesus stands among the disciples and asks that they touch His hands and feet so that they will know He is not a spirit. He eats fish to prove that He is flesh and bones. In John 20:11-19 Jesus tells Mary not to cling to Him because He has not yet “ascended.” But later the same day He shows the disciples His wounds (apparently having “ascended” since seeing Mary), and a week later He asks Thomas to place his finger into the nail prints and side. 

On the other hand, Paul’s experience, as reported by Luke in Acts 9, 22, and 26, is of a light and a voice, and is described in Acts 26:19 as a “heavenly vision.” Paul himself, while using the terminology of heavenly revelations, distinguishes his own experiences from visionary ones (2 Corinthians 12:1 ff.) and in 1 Corinthians 9:1 and 15:5-11 and suggests that his own experience was the very same kind that Peter and the others had. Furthermore, in describing the resurrection body of Christians later in chapter 15 Paul speaks of a “spiritual body” because “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” One must assume that Paul got his concept of the resurrected body of Christians from his understanding of what he himself perceived when the Risen Christ appeared to him. 

In some of the Gospel accounts the Risen Christ seems to appear and disappear at will. The disciples in the Emmaus story (Luke 24) talk with Him, but do not recognize Him until he breaks bread (a reminiscence of the Last Supper?). As soon as they do recognize Him, He disappears. The disciples in Galilee (John 21) do not recognize Him until they have a miraculous catch of fish. The disciples on the mountain in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20) fall down to worship, but “some doubted.” Whatever it was that all of these disciples encountered, it was not so obvious and overpowering that all who saw it were compelled to recognize it as Jesus of Nazareth raised from death. It seems, in some ways, that Jesus’ resurrection body was indeed the same body that the disciples knew when He was alive; in other ways it was different. There is no consistent picture of the resurrection body. 

The more primitive traditions seem to infer that the appearances were revelations (visions?) out of Heaven of an already “ascended” and transformed Lord (1 Corinthians 15; Mark 16:1-8; Matthew 28:16-20). The later accounts, perhaps to counteract Gnostic and Docetic heretical tendencies in early Christianity, stress the physical aspects (eating, touching, etc.) to demonstrate that the Risen Lord’s body was the same as that belonging to the earthly Jesus of Nazareth. But even these later accounts retain aspects of the earlier, more spiritualized concept. It is these later, more materialized accounts also, that describe or infer a physical bodily “ascension,” as opposed to the more primitive idea that Jesus was both raised and transformed and elevated to Lordship at the right hand of God all in the same process. 

How Shall We Understand the Resurrection Today? 

Our review of the various resurrection themes in the New Testament should have made it clear that New Testament interpreters, including ourselves, are not dealing here with the kind of historical event that a person might see recorded on videotape in a television newscast. Although Paul does claim to be an eyewitness (but never actually describes that event!), apparently none of the four Gospel writers (and perhaps none of their sources) were eyewitnesses to the resurrection events described in the Gospels. Furthermore, the traditions of what happened grew in the oral retelling before they reached the Gospel writers. Still further, each of the Gospel writers had his own particular theological emphases and interpretations, and these influenced both what was told and how the stories were told. How, then, shall we understand and interpret the resurrection of Jesus, the central event of our Christian faith. Here are some possible ways: 

Physical Resurrection: Some people have come to believe that the literal molecules and atoms that were a part of the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth before His death were restored in the resurrection. This point of view would mean that Jesus walked, talked, and ate after the resurrection with the very same physical body He had used in His pre-resurrection life, i.e., the Risen Christ was in fact a resuscitated corpse. In such a view, at the “ascension,” it was this body that was lifted up into Heaven, where it was transformed and exalted to God’s right hand. In fact, those stories that imply this idea of the resurrection are the only ones that even suggest that there was an “ascension.” 

This type of literal understanding is for some believers the only possible interpretation. It does present some difficulties when we attempt to reconcile some of the details surrounding the appearances and disappearances, passing through the walls of buildings to enter closed rooms, and the blinding-light appearance to Paul as described in Acts. This view is also difficult to reconcile with the concept of a “spiritual body,” as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, and implied elsewhere in his letters. 

Subjective Resurrection: A second alternative is to stress the response of Jesus’ followers. According to this view, in Jesus’ resurrection appearances He was not literally present at all. In this view, what the disciples “saw” and “heard” was an intense memory of a Person Whose life and teachings would always live in their hearts. Again, for some believers, this is the only explanation they are prepared to accept. The German scholar Rudolf Bultmann, who seems to have held such a view, said that the “resurrection” meant that Jesus had risen “into the proclamation [Greek: kerygma] of the early Church.” 

One might indeed take the position that the “event” that happened, and that has been called the “resurrection,” was only an event in the minds and hearts of Jesus’ earliest followers. Or, one might think of it as an hallucination, or as an act of wishful thinking. But there is little or no support for such a point of view in the records of the New Testament writers, who all with one accord testify that, whatever it was that those disciples might have wished or anticipated, what actually happened caught them totally by surprise. Almost all of the accounts of resurrection appearances show such surprise, and even sometimes embarrassment, that the disciples had failed to expect or understand Jesus’ hints or direct promises concerning such an event. 

Spiritual Body: This view is based on the traditional Jewish apocalyptic hope that was common in the first century CE, and on the ideas presented in 1 Corinthians 15 concerning the nature of the resurrection body of believers at the parousia (“[second] coming”) of Jesus. The assumption is that Paul’s concept is based on his understanding of his eyewitness experience of perceiving the Risen Christ. Paul asserted that his own experience was the same as that of the other disciples (1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:5-11). This view would suggest that none of the resurrection appearances were perceptions of a physical body. Yet they did in some sense constitute the Person of Jesus—a glorified and transformed body, such as Jews had traditionally believed the faithful could expect to receive at the End of the Present Age and the beginning of the Age to Come.. 

These appearances would not necessarily have been “visions.” But they may be considered to have been “revelations” from Heaven of the transformed and risen Jesus. In this view, the later stories of the appearances have been “materialized” by those who told them. This would have been done both to keep the readers from thinking of the resurrection as a completely subjective experience, and also to counteract tendencies among Christians who leaned toward Gnostic and Docetic beliefs that Jesus never was God in the flesh in the first place. 

Faith Event: This point of view, which is not necessarily opposed to the others, holds that we can never know precisely what actually happened in the resurrection, and that, in any case, just how it may have happened is not the most important thing. In this view we can never determine whether Jesus appeared physically, subjectively, or spiritually, but we can be sure that the resurrection actually occurred. Those who hold this view are content to live with the great mystery of the resurrection. They realize that it can be described only in symbolic fashion, because human language, even that of Paul the eyewitness, is inadequate to describe it. In support of this view that the resurrection occurred, though we know not how, those who hold this view marshal the following convictions: 

First, the disciples were changed persons after the resurrection. They had the unshakable conviction that in some way God made alive the Man Jesus Whom they had known and loved. They talked convincingly about what they had seen, and they demonstrated a sense of purpose that they had not shown before. The Church came into being to proclaim the decisive act of God in Jesus’ death and resurrection for the salvation of the world. This same Church produced the New Testament to tell the story of the wonderful things God had done for the world through Jesus Christ. Thus, while the New Testament does not explain the resurrection, those who hold this view would say that it is only the resurrection that can explain the existence of the New Testament. 

Second, the earliest Church, as we know it from the New Testament and from early Christian writers of the second and third centuries CE, always celebrated the Lord’s Supper as a joyful occasion, because they were convinced of the truth of the resurrection. Instead of being only a sad memorial meal, the Lord’s supper became, and remains, in most Christian denominations, a celebration of the living Presence of Jesus Christ. 

According to this view, the Christian Church itself stands as the most convincing and decisive testimony to the fact of the resurrection. Precisely how the resurrection occurred may remain an unresolved question. But that it did take place has been the bedrock of Christian faith, without which the existence and power of the Church would be inexplicable. 

Adapted by Rev. Michael J. Watts from Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives. Fortress Press, 1971, 1980; and from The Use of the Bible in Christian Education. New York: Seabury Press, 1968, pp. 33-44.