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He was Raised and has Appeared: Evidence and Faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Geoffrey Turner
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What really happened on the first Easter had a wide range of ramifications. The resurrection of Jesus can be related to the Church’s mission, to past history, to one’s present faith, future expectations, personal justification and salvation. It is related to newness of life, the victory over death, the end of the law, and the defeat of sin. The difficulty in talking about the resurrection, then, for a Christian theologian is to give an adequate account of the extent of its meaning. Far too often in popular Catholic belief and theology (perhaps especially in Catholic theology) the resurrection has been thought of as a resuscitation of the flesh of Jesus Christ and as no more than an event which happened at a specific time and place in the past. Now, I am not going to argue that this was wrong in every respect, but it must be said that the great virtue of Hubert Richards’ book The First Easter: What Really Happened? is that he has brought the dimension of faith and newness of life to something which had often been thought of as a brutum factum of past history. Richards’ shift away from a traditional Catholic historicist understanding of the resurrection of Jesus is reflected by Fergus Kerr when he says, ‘The resurrection of Jesus thus cannot be reduced to, or even specially concentrated upon, his restoration to bodily life.’ It does, however, seem to me that the approach of Hubert Richards—and of Fergus Kerr, in so far as they agree—does leave us with problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 58 , Issue 683 , April 1977 , pp. 160 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 F. Kerr, ‘Easter and Exegesis’, New Blackfriars, March 1977, page 108

2 Richards, H., The First Easter: What Really Happened? London 1976Google Scholar, pages 50 and 59.

3 Barth, K., The Epistle to the Romans, London 1933Google Scholar.

4 M. Dummett, ‘Biblical Exegesis and the Resurrection’, New Blackfriars, March 1977 page 64.

5 Dodd, C.H., The apostolic Preaching and Its Development, London 1963Google Scholar.

6 Dibelius, M., Studies in the Acts of the apostles, London 1956, page 165fGoogle Scholar.

7 C.H.Dodd, Op. cit. page 20f. and page 27f.

8 Fergus Kerr has recently maintained in this journal that the Q material presents the belief of an early Christian community that believed in the exalted and glorified Jesus without needing to refer to his passion and resurrection appearances (November 1976, page 506ff.). It is generally agreed that Q comes from a Palestinian source, but if Dodd and Dibelius are correct in what they say about the speeches in Acts it is out of the question to suggest that a Palestinian Christian community which had any contact with Jerusalem could have been unaware of the tradition of Jesus's passion and resurrection. Fergus Kerr may prefer to side with more sceptical critics on the historical value of these speeches in Acts (such as Edward Schweitzer, ‘Zu den Reden der apostelgeschichte’, Theologische Zeitschrift, 1957, page 1ff. and Ulrich Wilckens, Die Missionsreden der apostelgeschichte: Form‐ und traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 5, 1961) but there remains the tradition of the resurrection used by Paul which he seems to have acquired in Jersualem (see below). Even though Q as we are now able to reconstruct it has no reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is really inconceivable that the early Church in Palestine could have preached Jesus as the exalted Son of Man without having been aware of his death (see 1 Cor 11.23ff. ‘For I received from the Lord what I delivered to you…. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.’) and resurrection (1 Cor 15.3ff. ‘For I delivered to you….what I also received, that Christ died…that he was buried, that he was raised…and that he appeared….’)

9 Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, London 1970, pages 298–303Google Scholar.

10 See Hennecke, E., New Testament Apocrypha, Vol 1, London 1963, page 185fGoogle Scholar.

11 D.Wendland, H., Die Briefer an die Korinther, Regensburg 1946Google Scholar

12 H.Richards, Op. cit. page 35

13 Ibid. page 125

14 Smith, R. Gregor, Secular Christianity, London 1966, page 103Google Scholar. Hubert Richards must be counted a follower of Gregor Smith when he says, ‘But what actually happened to the tomb of Jesus? Was it miraculously emptied, or is it possible that archaeologists will one day find the remains of Jesus still there? Scholars agree that the answer to this question would make no difference to the resurrection itself….’ (op. cit. page 109). It is obvious that Richards' use of ‘scholars’ is tendentious.

15 F. Kerr, ‘Easter and Exegesis’, page 111f.