Jesus taught that because God connects all things and is the God of the living, figures like Moses—who has not yet resurrected—can still be approached as “alive” in God’s presence. If that was a common way of thinking, is it possible that the earliest experiences of Jesus’ apparitions were first understood in that same sense, and only later came to be interpreted as, “Oh, he has literally risen three days after dying”?
In such a framework, Moses and Elijah appearing at the Transfiguration provides a precedent for the living–in–God category. Though Jesus was alive then, it doesn't exclude his being the same. Though not resurrected yet, the event connected to the resurrected trio.
Here are the main textual data points scholars use when considering whether early experiences of the risen Jesus might first have been understood as he is alive with God before being interpreted as he has been raised:
1. Paul’s Language in 1 Corinthians 15
Paul gives the earliest written account of resurrection belief (ca. 50s CE), and his vocabulary blurs the line between visions and resurrection appearances.
a. “He appeared…” (ὤφθη / ōphthē)
1 Cor 15:5–8 uses the same verb often used for prophetic visions of heavenly beings in the Septuagint:
• Appearing of God: e.g., Exod 6:3 (LXX)
• Appearing of angels: e.g., Judg 13:3 (LXX)
This shows that, linguistically, Paul describes Jesus’ postmortem appearances using a term already used for visionary theophanies, not for encounters with recently revived humans. (That doesn’t mean Paul denied bodily resurrection—only that the term itself does not distinguish.)
b. Paul’s own experience is placed on the same level
Paul explicitly includes his vision of Jesus (long after the crucifixion) in the same list as the others:
“Lastly, he appeared to me also.”
(1 Cor 15:8)
Paul did not know Jesus in life, yet his visionary experience is treated as the same category of “appearance” as those of Cephas and the Twelve.
This makes it at least textually plausible that early experiences were originally understood in a visionary or heavenly sense.
2. Visionary Christ Experiences in Early Christian Tradition
Several New Testament texts portray encounters with the risen Jesus in explicitly heavenly or glorified form, not as a resuscitated man.
a. Revelation 1:12–18
John encounters a glorified heavenly Jesus with:
• blazing eyes
• a voice like rushing waters
• a face like the sun
There is no hint of an empty tomb or a recently dead body returned; it is a heavenly epiphany, similar to divine visions in Daniel.
b. Acts 7:55–56 (Stephen’s vision)
Stephen sees:
“Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”
This is again a heavenly visionary setting, not an earthly bodily encounter.
These show that the early Christian movement already had a framework in which Jesus could be experienced as alive in God’s presence without reference to a tomb or a recent bodily event.
3. The Earliest Gospel Ending (Mark 16:1–8)
The oldest recoverable form of Mark ends with:
• the empty tomb,
• the women told Jesus “is raised,”
• but no appearances of Jesus.
This demonstrates that the empty-tomb story and appearance stories circulated independently and may have had different origins and interpretive layers.
4. Jewish Background: “Alive in God” Without Resurrection
Second Temple Judaism contains precedents for individuals being “alive with God” without final resurrection:
a. Moses and Elijah (e.g., Mark 9:2–8 / Transfiguration)
They appear as living, conscious figures in God’s glory.
b. 1 Enoch & Testament literature
Righteous dead are stored or preserved with God (e.g., 1 Enoch 22).
c. Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–3
“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God…
They are at peace.”
This is postmortem vindication without bodily resurrection, a category very much alive in Second Temple Judaism.
Such texts show that “alive with God” was a recognized category, and early Christians had conceptual room to understand Jesus’ presence in that way before formulating a bodily resurrection claim.
Bottom Line
There is no text that explicitly states the interpretations developed in that order.
But there is textual evidence that:
• The earliest resurrection appearances were described using vocabulary typical of visions of heavenly beings (1 Cor 15).
• Paul’s own visionary encounter was treated as the same kind of “appearance” as the earliest ones.
• Some early Christian texts feature heavenly visions of Jesus rather than bodily encounters.
• Jewish tradition already had a category of the righteous being alive-with-God before resurrection.
Jesus testifies that he would rise from the dead, and in the Gospels he appears to his followers afterward. But he never frames it in a philosophical way like, “See, this proves my resurrection.” Instead, the emphasis is on the fact of his being alive and what that means theologically—that his life is now with God, which is what ultimately matters.
From that perspective, the timing (“when”) is secondary; what matters is the reality of his continued life in God’s presence, not the apologetic argument.
All of this makes it plausible, at the textual level, that the earliest experiences of Jesus could have been understood first as encounters with the living heavenly Jesus, with the interpretation of a literal historical resurrection solidifying later.