We might read the Gospels and think the case for Jesus having risen from the dead is not bad. But the fact remains that we are not in the best position to draw that conclusion. There are clues in the New Testament itself that the evidence is not good. It can happen that works look convincing to future generations that don’t know what the generation that produced them knew.
There are four resurrection narratives in the New Testament, and they have contradictions among themselves. They have differences. Differences are regarded as not being the same as contradictions. But that does not change the fact that what looks like mere differences is, in fact, contradiction. It depends on what the writer meant in his own head.
The accounts call for harmonisation if you assume that the authors intended that, or that God wrote those books and that the story is coherent.
One harmonisation needed is for how Jesus said he would rise after three days and yet he only rose on the third day. Believers take the "after three days" loosely, which is very neat. They say the author did not mean it strictly. Matthew says people were raised from the dead when Jesus died. The resurrected people in Matthew came out to visit people after Jesus rose. But even the New Testament only guesses when Jesus rose. It gives no evidence that he really rose on Sunday morning. It is merely assumed. Thus, you have Jesus predicting the future as a sign when there are problems with the fulfilment.
Those who harmonise the resurrection narratives firstly assume the angels appeared and Jesus appeared later. They do not try to get the information to fit and leave it at that. No — their harmonisation has a goal: to get you to think the texts vindicate a resurrection. But you can harmonise without vindicating a resurrection. By default, if you harmonise texts, you have no right to insist that your scheme is the right one. There is more than one way to skin a cat.
For example, if Matthew's account of Jesus appearing in Galilee and then telling the apostles to proclaim the gospel has problems, you can say it was a heavenly vision where Jesus appears in the sky and ascends. The problem with Matthew is that he does not pick better stories, and his post-resurrection narrative is more interested in refuting the allegation that the disciples stole Jesus' body than he is in Jesus appearing. You can say he picked that story because it was a good one for ending the gospel with. Matthew, in any case, leaves us with absolutely no evidence that the apostles verified that the risen Jesus had a body of any kind. A missing body proves nothing unless the person rises and you at least can touch him. They were the only authorised witnesses and the essentials. Neither does Mark — the earliest gospel — help with the risen body problem, for his resurrection stories have been added by forgers. It would be odd if God could raise the dead and allow the first attempt to make a record — and the first source to give the outline of the story of Jesus — to fail to look after the resurrection record.
Suppose the tomb was found empty — that Jesus’ body was not seen within it though it should have been. Suppose the Bible says all that. It still does not amount to the Bible saying, “The explanation is that Jesus rose,” but, “Perhaps the explanation is that Jesus rose.” It is not rational to read the Bible as saying, “God must have done it.” It is an attempt at rational interpretation, but it is not. All interpretations are an attempt at being rational. To say the scripture is saying God raised Jesus from the dead is just the interpreter's interpretation — not the Bible’s. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew and Luke make the fatal mistake of not saying if they mean a supernatural or natural resurrection. Scholars point out that the Christian doctrine of Jesus' resurrection means he was miraculously raised from the dead. But apart from the Gospel of John, that doctrine is not in the gospel. However, not a single gospel gives any evidence that, if the resurrection happened, it was down to God and not down to some renegade natural law or even a secret potion that restores life. Grave and prevalent irrationality arises from all that, for silliness gives rise to more silliness. And the pestilence has always corrupted Christendom. And it is plastered in dishonest thinking and half-truth.
Those who leave theology out of their examination of the evidence and say that from a historical standpoint the most you can say is that Jesus rose from the dead are wrong. The most you can say is that Jesus rose from apparent death. That is what you do for anybody who is dead and then is reported as alive. You do not explain how they did it. You don't need to.
PAUL ADMITS THE EVIDENCE IS UNSATISFACTORY!
St. Paul was the main founder of the early Christian Church and its real rock. He was the first Christian writer. He is the only person who wrote about his experience of apparitions of the risen Jesus. He is the person we must study if we wish to know the how and possibly why of these apparitions. Yet he let it slip that he wasn’t sure how real his visions were!
He wrote in Philippians that he didn’t know if it was best for him to die or to live. He was in a dilemma, he said. Both dying and living were equally appealing to him because if he died he would go to Jesus to be with him forever, and if he lived he would be able to serve his friends on earth and teach them the good news. He admitted that it is far better to die and go to Jesus. But he added, “But to remain in my body is more needful and essential for your sake” (Philippians 1:23). This doesn’t show much confidence in God. It shows even less in Jesus. Paul believed that nobody can die unless God wills it. God has to let them die. And if God needs a person to live, no power on earth will be able to destroy that person. Also, Paul talks as if he cannot be done without — which blasphemes the providence of God. If Paul were to die, then God could get somebody else to take his place. If Paul really couldn’t be done without, then the other apostles were useless — and so were their successors — and that is what he thought. And the Church fell into apostasy and away from divine protection when he died. If he was so sure that he was so essential, then it is no wonder he got martyred, if that happened. And he wasn’t a real martyr, for he was so sure he would be saved. One way Paul had confidence in God, and in another, he hadn’t. But if Paul was really sure of his visions, and if his Jesus had been a miracle-worker, there is no way he would have written the way he did. He speaks as a doubter, and doubters doubt things here and there — but not everything. If the gospel portrait of Jesus is true, it would have been impossible for Paul to have been like this.
Paul spends some time in 1 Corinthians trying to make rival or heretical apostles — who were having visions and experiences of the divine — look incapable. In 2 Corinthians 12:1, Paul says he knows a man who had mystical experiences fourteen years before. He says he doesn’t know if the man was in the body or out of it.
[This refers to the idea of the person being separable from the body, which you get in traditional Christianity. The soul is the real person, and the body only some accessory that it drags around.]
He says the man went to the third heaven and heard things that no man is allowed to mention, and of him he will boast. He then admits that he himself is this man and that God afflicted him for being proud of his experience. He says he can’t disclose what was revealed to him.
He did reveal the risen Jesus vision. Had he been so proud of it, he would not have needed to go into this mystical experience.
The fact that Paul decided not to say he was the man indicates that he never mentioned it to anybody.
[It is a concern in religious circles if persons are suddenly starting to talk about visions they never mentioned before. Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, said he met the Father and the Son in a vision — he said it years after the supposed event! It is wise to consider an apparition claim to be less than credible if the witness takes too long to speak. And what was there to hide anyway? Paul and Smith had no reason for silence. I wonder if scholars could make a case for saying the apostles only started detailing their supposed visions of Jesus years after?]
While denying he is boasting about it, he clearly is. A parallel lie: "I am not boasting that I was top of my class, but I was."
Then he admits to boasting. He says he boasts of this man (12:5), which is odd when he doesn’t tell us who he is. Later in the chapter, Paul changes his mind and admits to being the man (see verse 7). He added that he got a chastisement from God to keep him humble despite having so many revelations. That is a boast as well, for clearly he was implying the chastisement worked and he was great to thrive through it! Here he was tempting God to have another go! Doesn’t sound very believable or respectful of God.
What is there to boast about? He doesn’t tell us what happened or what was said. That is strange boasting. You boast to make others feel inferior — but you can’t do that if you won’t go into details. By now we can see that the man has to be himself after all, for there is no point in boasting about a stranger whose identity you won’t reveal. He even goes as far as to boast about nothing!
Perhaps Paul didn’t care what God did to him for boasting as long as he could rival or surpass the rival apostles. This shows an extreme bias. All he cares about is his point of view.
Paul then boasts in verse 11 that he is in no way inferior in miracles or otherwise to his rival apostles. He talks as if their visions and miracles are as impressive as his. Such a person cannot be trusted. He is like a person who has the same credentials as somebody else and is acting like the other persons are not as good as his. His letters should be thrown out of the New Testament. The saying he won’t boast and then doing it despite the threats of God indicate a duplicitous, if not disturbed, mind.
If Paul wanted to boast, then why that mystical experience and not his vision of the risen Jesus? It indicates that he was not impressed by it, or if he was, that he didn't expect anybody else to be.
Perhaps he didn't boast about his vision of Jesus because the rival apostles were reporting visions of Jesus too. They possibly said they were taught their heresies by those apparitions. He couldn’t prove they were lying and had to resort to tricks to fight their influence.
Seeing the risen Jesus is more important than any heavenly vision. Yet he boasted about an inferior experience and kept it quiet for fourteen years as if it was the only important experience he ever had. Why was his Jesus vision not considered important enough to be kept secret for years?
Paul clarified, though, that extraordinary mystical and spiritual experiences — even when he was caught up to Paradise — are not compelling evidence of divine favour or authenticity. In fact, he deliberately distances himself from using visions and revelations as validation. Instead, he says he will boast only in his weaknesses. Paul’s point is that true apostleship is shown through service and endurance, not through dazzling visions.
This raises a profound question about what really mattered to the early Church. Was it the fact that Jesus was supposedly seen alive again, or was it the spiritual meaning behind that belief — that humans can be saved, body and soul, by God? If it was the latter, then the resurrection appearances were not about spectacle or proof, but about conveying a deeper theological truth: that Jesus' mission was still about humble service, not triumphal display.
This interpretation does create a tension, of course. On the one hand, the New Testament declares that Jesus is exalted and seated at God’s right hand in glory. On the other, Paul’s writings suggest that what matters most is the principle that resurrection represents: not power or spectacle, but the promise of renewal and salvation. So when Paul calls the resurrection the cornerstone of the faith, he may be referring more to its symbolic and theological significance than to the historical details of who saw what and when.
The Jerusalem apostles accepted Paul as a minister of the gospel — and, naturally, that his apparitions were genuine. They accepted that unreliable person. What does that say about their own visions of the risen Jesus? Nothing good!
Perhaps some might say that since the “fourteen years before” event seems to be about the time Paul fell off his horse near Damascus, we could surmise that he had a near-death experience and saw the being of light and read all this Christian stuff into the experience. Perhaps that was the only vision he had of Jesus. The others might just have been visions revealed in dreams or in the imagination — both of which Christian mystics regard as possible vehicles for divine communication. Skeptics will say that the Damascus vision was caused by a blow to the head and was nothing more!
When the evidence for the basis of Christian faith — the resurrection appearances and the witness of the apostles — is so weak, then the gospel version of Jesus is unreliable.
APPENDIX:
THE HYPOTHETICAL
If a man is going up to paradise, to God, to get the most astounding revelations, that should be the most important thing that happened to him even if he denies it. Seeing Jesus risen on earth cannot compare to that. Surely Jesus was encountered in this paradise!
Paul's downgrading of that shows he is either unable to assess visions sensibly or lying.
Imagine Paul agreed that the experience mattered above all.
The resurrection appearances by implication were declared to be nothing.
It is possible that Paul had a mystical experience and from it worked out that Jesus died and rose again.
Perhaps at the time he thought the Old Testament predicted a dying and rising saviour - and took the experience to be confirmation of this.
Perhaps he saw an entity calling itself Jesus and concluded it was the risen Messiah though the vision never said so.
Perhaps the whole death and resurrection story was just an inference and was not revealed by a miracle from Heaven.
That means there is no sufficient evidence that Jesus died and rose - or that Paul saw him as a resurrected being.
Paul says elsewhere that he has seen Jesus the Lord. He never says Jesus actually said that. Perhaps the entity gave no justification for Paul's inference - it could be later theology that it did. Acts says Jesus did identify himself to Paul but that does not count for there is no reason to think that Paul even knew what was written about him.
That was Paul - he may be taken as a good sample of what was going in the early Church and the other witnesses.