Polaroids of the Resurrection

Thirty years ago, when the Internet was young and before there was a worldwide web, there was something called Usenet. It was a collection of discussion groups on any topic imaginable, from art to zoology. One newsgroup that I frequented was called talk.religion.christian and I recall posting an article – although I have been unable to find it to verify the content – called “Polaroids of the Resurrection.”

My post was my contribution to an on-going discussion as to whether the events of Easter Sunday morning were objective facts accessible to all disinterested observers. From what I can recall, my point was that when the NT reported an appearance of the risen Christ, the appearance was only to believers. My contention was that if you had a Polaroid camera on Easter Sunday morning, you would not have been able to take a photograph of a resurrected body.

Risen

I was thinking about this while watching the recent movie Risen (2016) starring Joseph Fiennes as the Roman tribune Clavius, a kind of fix-it guy for Pontius Pilate. In the film, Pilate orders Clavius to find the missing body of the recently crucified Yeshua (Cliff Curtis) to curtail any rumors on the part of the disciples that he has risen from the dead. Clavius eventually locates the cadre of disciples just as Yeshua happens to be making one of his appearances to the doubting Thomas. Stunned by seeing a very live version of the man he witnessed dead on the cross, Clavius quits his post and follows the disciples to Galilee to make sense of it all.

On the one hand, I give props to the creators of the film for taking a different approach to the Easter story. By following the story of a Roman solider instead of the disciples, it allows the filmmakers artistic license to find new angles in the story. Unfortunately, the story they tell isn’t very engaging and the latter half of the movie falls in familiar Bible movie territory, only with Clavius as the replacement for Judas among the disciples.

But what bothers me is the central premise that Clavius, an unbeliever, could have experienced the risen Christ and come to believe. Was the appearance of the resurrected Jesus an objective event accessible to all disinterested observers?

In the movie Risen, Joseph Fiennes stars at the Roman tribune Clavius who is tasked by Pontius Pilate with finding the missing body of Jesus.

Empty Tomb

The core of the Easter proclamation is told in the story of the empty tomb (Mk 16:1-8; Mt 28:1-8; Lk 24:1-12; Jn 20:1-13). There are no narratives of appearances of the risen Christ in the Gospel of Mark as the oldest manuscripts end with this story. After the Sabbath is over, Mary Magdalene and other women visit the tomb with spices to complete Jesus’ burial, only to find the stone rolled back. One or two men – or angels – inform the women that although they seek Jesus of Nazareth, “he is not here for he has risen.”

After this, the gospels do not agree as to whether the women did not tell anyone (Mark) or told the disciples and were not believed (Luke). Matthew recounts an appearance of the risen Christ in Galilee but Luke reports all the appearances occurred in the Jerusalem area. The original ending (Jn 20) of John’s gospel only reports appearances in Jerusalem, but the later appendix (Jn 21) tells of the miraculous catch of fish in Galilee. There’s not much in the way of agreement other than the original empty tomb narrative and subsequent appearances of the risen Christ. Unlike the passion narrative where arrest precedes trial and crucifixion follows sentencing, there is no internal sequencing to the resurrection narratives; after the finding of the risen tomb, the individual episodes are free to appear in any order.

Pauline Confession

But we also have a resurrection account coming from Paul (1 Cor 15:3-8). Paul wrote to the Corinthians about 56 CE, but he says this statement of faith is something that he received, so presumably it came to him in his early days as a Christian (mid to late 30’s?). The core of the statement is four-fold: “that Christ died…that he was buried…that he was raised…and that he appeared”: [1] to Cephas (Peter), [2] the Twelve, [3] more than 500 at one time, [4] to James (the brother of Jesus), [5] all the apostles, and [6] finally to Paul.

Paul believes that his experience of the risen Christ was every bit as valid as those appearances to Peter and the others. He spends several verses (1 Cor 15:35-49) trying to distinguish between the physical body we have now and the spiritual body that will have after death. Just as the seed is different from the plant, so is our physical body different from our resurrected body. There do not appear to be many points of contact between the physical and the spiritual body according to Paul.

Resurrected Body or Resuscitated Corpse?

The evangelists, who did not experience the risen Christ themselves as Paul did, tried to straddle the fence. On the one hand, they wanted to show that the raised Jesus wasn’t a ghost so they described him eating food or allowing himself to be touched. But, on the other hand, he was transformed from his previous earthly existence, so the disciples were slow to recognize him or he suddenly appeared inside a locked room.

The key point the NT writers are trying to make is that the risen Christ is not the same as someone brought back from the dead like Lazarus. According to John, Lazarus was brought back from the dead and resumed his former life. At some later time, he would have died again. Jesus, on the other hand, was transformed into a different plane of existence. His spiritual body resembled his former physical body, but it was not bound to physical laws and he would not die again. Such is what Paul and the evangelists are trying to tell us.

Getting back to my question from thirty years ago, could you have taken photographs of the resurrected Christ? I still don’t think so. From the NT evidence, it seems the risen Jesus only appeared to believers, or to people like James and Paul who became believers as a result of the experience. If the Roman tribune Clavius had stumbled upon the disciples experiencing the risen Lord, I don’t think he would have seen anything.

So does this mean that a resurrection appearance was a vision? One is tempted to think of a vision that each person experienced internally, but if the risen Lord appeared to more than 500 of the brethren at once, that would have been one heck of a mass hallucination. Maybe a resurrected body is one of those things you can only see with the eyes of faith.