Michael R. Licona. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010. See here to purchase the book.
Michael R. Licona has a Ph.D. from the University of Pretoria and has
taught at Houston Baptist Seminary. He is a New Testament scholar, and
he is also considered to be a Christian apologist, though (as we shall
see) his claims in this book are more modest than those of many
Christian apologists. Still, in The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, Licona defends the historicity of Jesus’ bodily resurrection.
One page 583, Licona defines the Resurrection Hypothesis that he
supports: “Following a supernatural event of an indeterminate nature and
cause, Jesus appeared to a number of people, in individual and group
settings and to friends and foes, in no less than an objective vision
and perhaps within ordinary vision in his bodily raised corpse.”
In Chapter 1, “Important Considerations on Historical Inquiry
Pertaining to the Truth in Ancient Texts,” Licona discusses questions of
historiography, which largely focus on the challenges to recovering and
accurately representing the past. Licona describes and appreciates
such challenges. The approach that he adopts is critical realism, so he
is critical of postmodern challenges to the historical enterprise and
maintains that historians can make tentative, plausible judgments about
what happened in history. Licona’s approach is also methodically
neutral, which means that it expects historical texts (i.e., sources
consulted to help reconstruct the past, such as primary sources) and
historians’ hypotheses to bear the “burden of proof” regarding their
claims and usefulness in the historical enterprise. Considerations in
this “burden of proof” include evidence, argumentation, plausibility,
explanatory scope, explanatory power, being less ad hoc, and
illumination (and these are Licona’s terms). At the end of the chapter,
Licona offers “confessions” about his own beliefs, biases, and
situation. Two parts of this that stood out was (1.) when Licona said
that “there have been times when I have been desirous of a nonspecific
form of theism” (page 139) (rather than a specifically Christian form, I
am assuming), and (2.) when Licona said that “should my research lead
me to the conclusion that Jesus did not rise from the dead I would be
dismissed from my position and my employment would be terminated.” I do
respect Licona’s honesty.
In Chapter 2, “The Historian and Miracles,” Licona argues against the
belief that miracles should be dismissed as a possibility when
historians are attempting to recover and convey the past. For Licona,
miracles that pass the muster of historical method should be accepted as
an explanation. Licona would apply this criteria to non-Christian
miracles, as well, but, overall, he believes that Jesus’ miracles and
resurrection pass the historical criteria in a way that non-Christian
miracles do not. Later in the book, Licona expresses some openness to
the Marian apparitions being supernatural, yet he refers to a view that
these are demonic.
Chapter 3 is about the “Historical Sources Pertaining to the
Resurrection of Jesus.” In this chapter, Licona evaluates historical
sources, both Christian and non-Christian, as to whether they are
helpful in enabling historians to draw conclusions about the historicity
of Jesus’ resurrection. Licona rates the canonical Gospels, Josephus’
references to Jesus, and Tacitus (to cite examples, as Licona considers
other sources as well) as “possible” in terms of their usefulness, but
he prefers Paul and the sources that Paul quotes because they are closer
to the time of Jesus, plus Paul “knew the major Jerusalem apostles”
(page 209).
Chapter 4 is about “The Historical Bedrock Pertaining to the Fate of
Jesus.” This historical bedrock includes three claims. The first claim
is that “Jesus died by crucifixion.” The second claim is that “Very
shortly after Jesus’ death, the disciples had experiences that led them
to believe that Jesus had been resurrected and had appeared to them.”
The third is that “Within a few years after Jesus’ death, Paul converted
after experiencing what he interpreted as a postresurrection appearance
of Jesus to him.” Licona states that these claims are accepted by a
large majority of biblical scholars, of different faith commitments
(including no religious commitments). Licona does the historical work
of supporting these claims, often by using the criteria that have
conventionally been employed in scholarly attempts to identify what is
historically accurate and what is historically inaccurate in the
biblical Gospels. Such criteria include the criterion of multiple
attestation (i.e., a detail is probably historical because it appears in
multiple sources), and the criterion of embarrassment (i.e., early
Christians would not invent something that would embarrass them, so an
embarrassing detail is likely historical). Licona evaluates other
claims, as well: did Jesus predict his resurrection, did Jesus perform
miracles, did Jesus’ brother James convert to Christianity after
doubting Jesus, and are the empty tomb stories in the Gospels
historically reliable? Licona believes that there are legitimate
reasons to answer “yes” to all of these questions, but he ultimately
excludes these from the historical bedrock, one reason being that they
are not broadly accepted within biblical scholarship, as least not to
the extent that the bedrock is.
Licona in this chapter extensively discusses Paul’s view of Jesus’
resurrection. For Licona, Paul believed that Jesus rose bodily from the
dead: that Jesus’ corpse was transformed into a glorious, albeit
physical, body. This is consistent with what the canonical Gospels
present, including the empty tomb. Licona argues against scholarly
ideas that draw a wedge between Paul and the Gospels, by saying that
Paul believed Jesus had a spiritual body rather than a physical body, or
by positing that the early Christians could say that Jesus rose while
acknowledging that Jesus’ corpse was still in the ground decaying.
Licona rejects the idea that the disciples saw a mere vision or
hallucination, for he thinks that they objectively saw the risen body of
Jesus. For Licona, this was the view of Paul and Paul’s sources
(including the creed in I Corinthians 15:3-7, which mentions
five-hundred witnesses to the risen Jesus), which have high historical
probability.
Chapter 5 is entitled “Weighing Hypothesis.” In this chapter, Licona
weighs scholarly attempts to account for the historical bedrock that he
described in Chapter 4. Licona looks at the work of Geza Vermes,
Michael Goulder, Gerd Ludemann, John Dominic Crossan, and Pieter F.
Craffert. In an appendix, Licona evaluates the work of Dale Allison.
Many of these scholars attempt to account for early Christian belief in
Jesus’ resurrection from a naturalistic perspective, without any
recourse to the supernatural. Some say, for instance, that the early
Christians saw hallucinations, and this is how they concluded that Jesus
rose from the dead. Licona rejects this explanation because he does
not believe in group hallucinations, since a hallucination can only be
in one person’s head. Licona also rejects these scholars’ models
because he thinks that they are lacking in evidence: for Licona, an
acceptable hypothesis cannot merely ask “What if?” and poke holes in the
Resurrection Hypothesis but must itself must have evidential support
and be able to account for and explain the data. Licona does not
completely fail these competing hypotheses, for he gives them a passing
grade in some areas and a failing grade in others. Still, he believes
that the Resurrection Hypothesis is the best explanation for the data
and early Christian belief in the resurrection.
In terms of positives, this book was thorough, overall, in weighing
different scholarly views. To his credit, Licona was not shackled by
Christian fundamentalism or a belief in biblical inerrancy, which is why
this book was so controversial. Although Licona is an apologist, he
said that one did not necessarily have to believe that the biblical God
was the one who raised Jesus from the dead to accept the historicity of
Jesus’ resurrection. Licona differs from Christian apologists who argue
that Jesus rose, then smuggle into that the conclusion that biblical
inerrancy is therefore true, or that the entire Christian worldview is
true. Licona also manifests some open-mindedness on there being a
belief in dying-and-rising gods prior to Jesus. Licona rejects the
notion that these influenced the development of Christianity, but he
still thinks that dying-and-rising gods is a topic for scholars to
explore further. Another asset is that there were occasions when Licona
offered a fresh interpretation of Scripture. Why does the Gospel of
Mark end by saying that the women did not tell anyone about Jesus’
resurrection, noting their fear? Licona interprets this in light of
Mark 1:44, in which Jesus instructs a leper he cleanses to say nothing
to anyone, but to go to the priest to perform the proper rituals. For
Licona, the women’s silence in Mark’s Gospel was temporary, and their
fear was reverent awe. Licona was also informative about ancient
historiography, acknowledging that it could embellish or exaggerate, or
contain contradictions.
I enjoy reading atheist biblical scholar Robert Price, and Price
argues that the creed in I Corinthians 15:3-7 was a later interpolation
and thus lacks historical value in supporting the historicity of Jesus’
resurrection. Licona does not directly refute this argument (though he
engages Price in the footnotes), but Licona did argue that there are
verbal indications in the remainder of I Corinthians 15 that Paul
adapted his vocabulary in response to the creed. That would weigh
against the creed being a later interpolation.
In terms of negatives, there were topics that Licona should have
explored further. Licona mentions instances in the New Testament in
which resurrection bodies shine like the sun, but he failed to explain
how that can be reconciled with Jesus’ resurrection body being
physical. (On one occasion, he mentions II Baruch 21:33 and 30:2-5,
which posit a physical resurrection preceding a glorified, shining body,
but Licona was not addressing there the resurrection body of Jesus.)
Licona did well to offer an interpretation of I Corinthians 15:45, which
calls the risen Jesus a spirit, but (as far as I recall) Licona did not
address Paul’s reference to the different kinds of flesh in I
Corinthians 15:39-41; this is significant because it pertains to whether
Paul is saying Jesus had a different, spiritual kind of bodily
composition, which Licona (at least somewhat) disputes. Licona offers a
fairly effective argument that the soma pneumatikon of I Corinthians 15
was not an ethereal or spiritual body lacking physicality, as he looks
at the usage of the term in other ancient sources. While he cited the
sources, however, he failed to say what exactly those sources were
saying a soma pneumatikon is.
Licona in Chapter 3 is very critical in his acceptance of sources.
He appears to take off the table the canonical Gospels and Tacitus, for
instance. Later in the book, however, he appeals to these sources as
authorities when evaluating the historicity of the “historical bedrock,”
as he uses the multiple attestation criterion. On page 509, Licona
argues against John Dominic Crossan’s comparison of the five-hundred
witnesses to the risen Jesus in I Corinthians 15:3-7 to a (alleged) collective
delusion of St. George during the Crusades. Licona states that the
disciples’ condition differed from that of the Crusaders, for the
Crusaders were poised and ready to see such a delusion, whereas the
disciples “were already in hiding and could have walked away accepting
their losses, intent on finding another messiah or finding something
else to do with their lives.” How does Licona know that about the
disciples, though? Is he presuming the historicity of the Gospel
accounts?
Licona does offer defenses for the reliability of the Gospel
narratives on Jesus’ resurrection, even though he takes them off the
table as evidence, on some level. Many of his arguments will be
familiar to those who have read Christian apologetics (i.e., the Gospel
narratives are reliable because they present women as the first
witnesses to the empty tomb, and women’s testimony was considered
suspect in that day). Some were new to me: If the Gospels invented the
resurrection stories to portray Jesus’ resurrection as physical and to
counter docetism, why did they portray Jesus’ resurrected body vanishing
into thin air? They would be shooting themselves in the foot, if
refuting docetism were their agenda, right? That was an effective
argument, on Licona’s part. Where Licona left me scratching my head,
however, was when he was defending the Gospels by comparing them to
other ancient sources. The Gospels contradict themselves? So do
ancient sources that many historians accept as historical! The Gospels
are later than the time that they depict? So are other ancient sources,
yet historians deem them to be historically reliable. In these cases,
Licona should have explained why historians accept those ancient sources
as historically reliable, notwithstanding their weaknesses.
Licona also should have taken a moment to explain why the criteria of
authenticity can shed light on the past. Nowadays, the criteria are
becoming a bit outdated, or outmoded. Since Licona used them, he should
have explained their usefulness, perhaps in the chapter on
historiography.
Licona was also a little too hard on the competing hypotheses, in my
opinion. He dismissed some of them as lacking any evidence. Maybe they
are limited as full-fledged explanatory hypotheses, but they still have
valid insights. One view was that Paul deep down was struggling with
the law as a Pharisee and had a love hate-relationship with
Christianity, and that could account for his vision of Christ and his
conversion. Licona dismisses this as historical psycho-analyzing. But
did not Jesus tell Saul that Saul was kicking against the goads (Acts
26:14)? Does not Paul struggle with the law in Romans 7, and elsewhere
in his epistles? Why are these irrelevant in accounting for the
bedrock?
I received a complimentary copy of this book from IVP Academic. My review is honest!