KrisK10

Resurrection defender Dr. William Craig addresses a detail in his discussion of Gerd Ludemann’s hallucination hypothesis that is quite confusing to me and I was wondering if anyone can shed any light on it.

William Craig says, “Lüdemann's claim that the resurrection appearances of Jesus were visionary events...fail[s] to render intelligible the New Testament distinction between an appearance and a vision of Jesus…. The New Testament consistently differentiates between a vision of Christ and a resurrection appearance of Christ. Paul was familiar with "visions and revelations of the Lord" (I Cor. 12.1). Yet Paul, like the rest of the New Testament, did not equate such visions of Christ with resurrection appearances. The appearances were to a limited circle of witnesses at the birth of the Christian movement and soon ceased…” (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...s/visions.html).

How does Craig square this with Acts 26:12-20 (quoted below), where Paul’s conversion experience is called both an “appearance” (ophthen, the same verb that is used in 1 Cor 15:5-7 to refer to first appearances of Jesus), and also a “vision” (optasia, the same word used in 2 Cor 12:1)?

Acts 26:12-20: With this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, 13when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. 14When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.” 15 I asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord answered, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared [ophthen, same word as in 1 Cor 15 list] to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear [ophthen, same word as in 1 Cor 15 list] to you [future appearances to come]. 17 I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” 19 After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision [optasia, same word as in 2 Cor 12:1], 20 but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.

Am I misunderstanding Craig’s remark? It seems absurd. Does anyone know of anyone who has corrected Craig on this remark? I’m probably missing something. Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

Kris

KrisK10

I should have also said that the above question is related to Paul's remark in 1 Cor 15:8: "Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me". Some (like Craig) take this to mean that Paul believed the appearances of Jesus came to an end with his own initiatory appearance, and that Paul considered his later visionary experiences (such as 2 Cor 12:1-4) to be of an entirely different nature. This in turn makes is very difficult to propose, as I want to (as well as Ludemann), that any appearances were hallucinations. As an alternative, it seems to me that Paul could have saw both his initiatory experience and that experience described in 2 Cor 12:1-4 as similar in nature, and that his statement in 1 Cor 15:8 -- "Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me" -- only indicates that he was the last person to get an appearance, not that his initiatory appearance was the last appearance period, i.e. Paul only intends that he is the last to be identified as one who Jesus appeared to, his comment does not intend to imply that he or any of the others didn't have the same or similar appearance experiences later.

Kris

Toto

Here are some preliminary points that might help:

1. Craig is a philosopher by training, and a paid apologist on the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ or one of its subsidiaries. He does debates where he relies on his verbal and personal skills, at universities, where his purpose is to demonstrate to students that they can be an intellectually respectable Christian. I don't think that he is considered a NT scholar, to the point where any serious NT scholar would feel the need to correct his arguments, any more that they feel the need to correct numerous bad arguments in the popular press. He does not do his own research on NT subjects.

2. I attended a debate between Craig and Luedeman in 2002, and wrote up extensive notes here. It is archived, and the format is a bit of a mess. Craig used the term "hallucination," in an attempt to make the theory sound improbable, but Luedeman preferred the term vision. Paul only uses the term vision.

The gospels include bodily appearances, but the gospels can be dismissed as fictional, whereas Paul's letters generally are taken to have some factual basis, at least in terms of his subjective experience. If Craig is trying to indicate that both the gospel appearances and Paul's visionary experiences have some underlying historical basis, he is just acting as an apologist.

schilling.klaus

The resurrection is to be understood as an allegory,
not as correct or mistaken history.
Only for Roman Catholic propagandist reasons,
the resurrection had to be in the flesh.
Tertullian still had to struggle to impose the resurrection
in the flesh, which proves that the canonical story was not
an accepted tradition,
but rather the Judaising invention of his time.

The passage in 1Cor is an Antimarcionite interpolation,
as shown by Dr. theol. H. Detering from Berlin a few years ago.

Klaus Schilling

KrisK10

Thanks Toto, I'm familiar with the slickness vs. non-slickness of the Craig/Ludemann debate. I believe Craig is actually a well respected scholar with credentials as good as anyone elses who argues this stuff, just with radically different views than the skeptic crowd. The topic I mention is a specific point in a written rebuttle that has stood on the web for some time. I was more interested if anyone (why not Ludemann?) had addressed that specific point in detail; seems like it would be easy to shoot down. Perhaps you have a good point though that I should go to Craig for more thorough information on why he concludes there was a difference between appearances and visions in the early church without resorting to the 40 day assension as historical (which would be absurd).

Kris

KrisK10

Klaus,

Thanks for the thoughts. I have not read Detering's case for 1 Cor 15:3-7 being an interpolation, but I have read such a case by Dr. Robert Price and I listen to the arguments of people who suggest this view. I find it pretty unconvincing (I acknowledge the possibility though). It seems to me that all the traditions expressed in 1 Cor 15:3-7 are more likely to have come about from a cognitive dissonance reduction phenomena, similar to the Sabbatai Sevi movement and the Millerites/Seventh day adventists.

Kris

Toto

Craig argues that the resurrection, a miraculous event that would violate the known laws of physics and biology, can be proven by some ancient, corrupted theological documents. This puts him outside the pale of respectable scholarship.

Luedemann does not really do debate. CCC was acting in bad faith IMHO by trying to pair Luedemann with Craig in a debate.

On a brief reading, I can't even figure out what Craig could be referring to.

A lot of Craig's points are easy to shoot down. His success as a debater is not based on the logic and soundness of his arguments.

~M~

Why's that?

~M~

Support this. It just seems interesting to me since Raymond E Brown has stated a few times that the miraculous need not be ruled out and you wouldn't dare touch his scholarship. Moreover, I think Craig has a good point in regards to the Bayesian mode of inference that he brought up with Ehrman and I could certainly defend him on those terms.

I take it that your claiming he has some poor logic. Perhaps you could accentuate some invalid arguments for me or something of that nature, hm?

Martian Astronomer

From what I remember, he's rather like that in his writings, as well. In Reasonable Faith, his strategy for showing that history "proves" the resurrection is pretty much the same as Josh McDowell's in Evidence that Demands a Verdict. He pretty much lays out bare assertions that the traditional authorship of the New Testament is correct, then states that it is completely reliable, then essentially says, "Well, since according to the (reliable) gospels all of the disciples believed that Jesus was alive, then obviously that's really the only thing that it could've been."

Frankly, I'm a bit confused as to why Craig's fans think that this kind of apologetic is so scholarly, or why they think that it'll convince anyone who doesn't already agree with them.