Vision theory of Jesus' appearances
The vision theory or vision hypothesis is a term used to cover a range of theories that question the physical resurrection of Jesus, and suggest that sightings of a risen Jesus were visionary experiences, often classified as grief or bereavement visions. It was first formulated by David Friedrich Strauss in the 19th century, and has been proposed in several forms by critical contemporary scholarship, including Helmut Koester,[1] Géza Vermes,[2] and Larry Hurtado,[3] and members of the Jesus Seminar such as Gerd Lüdemann.[4]
Christian apologists, scholars, and theologians reject the theory, holding the resurrection to be an actual bodily phenomenon.[5][6][7][8]
Hypothesis[edit]
Subjective vision theory[edit]
Origen's response to the second century philosopher Celsus provides the earliest known literary record of a vision hypothesis; it was later popularized by 19th century theologian David Strauss.[9][10][11] David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874), in his Life of Jesus (1835), argued that the resurrection was not an objective historical fact, but a subjective "recollection" of Jesus, transfiguring the dead Jesus into an imaginary, or "mythical," risen Christ.[12] The appearance, or Christophany, of Jesus to Paul and others, was "internal and subjective."[13] Reflection on the Messianic hope, and Psalms 16:10,[14][note 1] led to an exaltated state of mind, in which "the risen Christ" was present "in a visionary manner," concluding that Jesus must have escaped the bondage of death.[13] Strauss' thesis was further developed by Ernest Renan (1863) and Albert Réville (1897).[15] These interpretations were later classed the "subjective vision hypothesis",[note 2] and is advocated today in secular and Liberal Christian scholarship.[16][17]
According to Ehrman, "the Christian view of the matter [is] that the visions were bona fide appearances of Jesus to his followers",[18] a view which is "forcefully stated in any number of publications."[18] Ehrman further notes that "Christian apologists sometimes claim that the most sensible historical explanation for these visions is that Jesus really appeared to the disciples."[19]
According to De Conick, the experiences of the risen Christ in the earliest written sources – the "primitive Church" creed of 1 Corinthians 15:3–5,[20] Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:8[21] and Galatians 1:16[22] – are ecstatic rapture events.[23]
Paula Fredriksen, an agnostic scholar, expressed strong support for the vision theory, saying that “I know in their own terms what they [the disciples] saw was the raised Jesus. That's what they say, and then all the historic evidence we have afterwards attest to their conviction that that's what they saw. (...) I don't know what they saw. But I do know that as a historian that they must have seen something.”[24]
Criticism[edit]
Several Christian scholars such as Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig and Michael Morrison have argued against the vision explanations for the textual accounts of a physical resurrection.[5][6][7] According to Habermas, most scholars on Christology are "moderate conservatives", who believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, either physically or spiritually.[48] While the vision theory has gained support among critical scholars since the last quarter of the 20th century,[49] "the vast majority of scholars" still reject the possibility of subjective visions or hallucinations as an explanation for the resurrection-experiences.[48][note 4] Habermas himself views these critical approaches as "efforts to dismiss the central event and doctrine of orthodox Christianity".[49]
According to British scholar N. T. Wright, visions of the dead were always associated with spirits and ghosts, and never with bodily resurrection. Thus, Wright argues, a mere vision of Jesus would never lead to the unprecedented belief that Jesus was a physically resurrected corpse; at most, he would be perceived as an exalted martyr standing at the right hand of God.[50] Wright argues, "precisely because such encounters [visions of the dead] were reasonably well known [...] they [the disciples] could not possibly, by themselves, have given rise to the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead [...] Indeed, such visions meant precisely, as people in the ancient and modern worlds have discovered, that the person was dead, not that they were alive."[51] Similarly, Wright calls the cognitive dissonance theory "widely discredited" and criticizes it on the basis that "nobody was expecting anyone, least of all a Messiah, to rise from the dead. A crucified Messiah was a failed Messiah. When Simon bar Kokhba was killed by the Romans in AD 135, nobody went around afterwards saying he really was the Messiah after all."[52]
Dale Allison has expressed similar criticisms, and has argued that visions alone would never lead to the belief in a bodily resurrection. He writes "If there was no reason to believe that his [Jesus's] solid body had returned to life, no one would have thought him, against expectation, resurrected from the dead. Certainly visions of or perceived encounters with a postmortem Jesus would not by themselves, have supplied such reason."[53]
While some scholars such as Ehrman have doubted the veracity of the number of witnesses, others such as C.H. Dodd have noted the antiquity of narratives concerning the postmortem appearances of Jesus, citing the sermons in Acts 10 which report that the risen Jesus ate and drank with the disciples which lack influence from Pauline theology or vocabulary and containing a high degree of semitism, lacking resemblance to the rest of Acts and Luke, indicating it comes from a much earlier tradition.[54] Similarly, the Pauline creed preserved in 1 Cor. 15 is most commonly dated to no more than five years after Jesus' death by Biblical scholars and contains numerous postmortem appearances of Jesus.[55][56][57] Likewise, in his evaluation of the vision theory, Allison notes that the number of witnesses raises "legitimate questions, and waving the magic wand of 'mass hysteria' will not make them vanish."[58] According to the historian A.N. Sherwin-White, “For these stories to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be unbelievable; more generations are needed… The span of two generations is too short to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical fact.”[59]
According to Wright, Paul "believed he had seen the risen Jesus in person, and [...] his understanding of who this Jesus was included the firm belief that he possessed a transformed but still physical body."[60] Similarly, James Ware notes that the verb for "raised" (εγειρω) used by Paul in 1 Cor. 15 is only ever used to describe one or another kind of action involving the raising up, rising up, or setting up of something or someone from a prone or seated position to an upright, standing position. And as paraphrased by Larry Hurtado, that the verb here refers to an ascension of Jesus, a transportation of him in some “spiritual” mode to heavenly glory, is ruled out.[61][web 3]
William Lane Craig holds that the resurrection appearances are far too diverse to be classified as hallucinations;[6][note 5] Craig and Lüdemann entered a written debate on the subject in 2000.[62] German Biblical scholar Martin Hengel notes that Lüdemann's theory transcends the limits of historical research, by providing an analysis which is not verifiable.[63][note 6] Craig argues that there is "not a single instance in the casebooks exhibiting the diversity involved in the postmortem appearances of Jesus.[64] Mike Licona similarly cites psychologist Dr. Gary Sibcy that visionary explanations for the resurrection lack sufficient scientific support.[65] Additionally, Licona and other scholars point out that the vision theory does not account for the conversions of followers such as James, the brother but also disbeliever of Jesus, and of Paul, a persecutor of the early Christians.[66][67][note 7]
In an early critique of the vision hypothesis, George Park Fisher notes that Jesus' followers had their hopes crushed by his crucifixion, and that this would not have been a "preparation of mind for such a delusion as the hallucination theory implies." He argues further that such a theory is "shut out by one remarkable peculiarity" that "they took place, as Paul's testimony shows, at intervals and in a different number."[68]