The resurrection of the Son of God

 

Was the resurrection of Jesus “unique”, as Christian apologists want to claim? The idea is that a unique belief requires a unique explanation – in other words, that the resurrection actually happened as stated. (Because humans, apparently, can never come up with unique beliefs on their own.) But *was* the resurrection a unique belief which requires an equally unique explanation? Phenomenologically, this doesn´t seem to be the case.

In Acts, when Peter escapes from prison, people assume they are seeing his ghost. This is surely interesting. How did they know it was specifically Peter´s ghost? Presumably, they expected ghosts to have the same facial and bodily features as the living man. They must also have expected them to be fully dressed! This isn´t particularly strange: still today, many experiences of ghosts take exactly this form. (I leave aside here whether the ghosts are somehow “real” or just hallucinations.) But what´s the phenomenological difference between seeing a ghost of this kind *and seeing the resurrected Jesus*? Even the claims that Mary Magdalene and the disciples sometimes didn´t recognize the resurrected Jesus as Jesus has parallels with ghostly experiences, where exactly this happens – until suddenly the deceased loved one *is* recognized…

But what about the physical aspects of the resurrection? Jesus ate fish, Thomas could feel his wounds, and so on. But the Bible clearly states that angels can take physical form and look *exactly like humans*. In Sodom, the angels were so handsomely gay that the local homosexual rape gangs took an inordinate interest in their physical prerogatives. The New Testament says that Christians sometimes have angels for dinner guests “unawares”. More notoriously, the Old Testament and the Book of Enoch tells the story of how fallen angels took physical bodies and mated with human females! Once again, the resurrection of Jesus doesn´t seem to be *phenomenologically* much different from the appearances of angels (who supposedly can materialize physical bodies at will).

So why is the resurrection said to be fundamentally different from other paranormal occurrences? This seems to be a *theological* position, not one based on the experiences themselves (which can be interpreted in some other way). Judaism was slowly but steadfastly evolving towards the notion that a Son of God will appear on Earth, be killed and then be vindicated. To Christians, these are strange prophecies about Jesus which the Jews themselves supposedly didn´t understand. A more reasonable take, surely, is that the people who produced the “prophecies” knew exactly what they were about. These notions were floating around in first century Palestine, just waiting for some sect to claim that their leader specifically was The One. And then it happened. It wasn´t “unique” at all, but the result of a centuries-long and very self-conscious religious evolution.

Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20.

[12] "Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
[13] He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
[14] He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
[15] the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
[16] We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
[17] Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
[18] for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
[19] Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
[20] Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected."