Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE CLIMAX OF JESUS' MISSION §18.4
riences are enshrined, as with the earlier impact made by Jesus' teaching and actions,
in the traditions which have come down to us.
The 'third day' tradition is more problematic. For if it was initially formulated
in relation to the resurrection appearances, 166 that runs quite counter to the
strong tradition of resurrection appearances first in Galilee (Mark), or first at
least to the male disciples (Matthew). To reach Galilee from Jerusalem took far
longer than three days. Perhaps, then, it emerged from the memory of appearances
in and around Jerusalem on the evening of the first Sunday (Luke, John).
Or should we give more weight to the fact that it is the empty tomb tradition
which consistently includes in its core the time note, 'on the first day of the
week', whereas the Jerusalem appearance traditions simply take up from the stories
of the empty tomb, or speak of '(the evening of) the same day'? 167 The
empty tomb traditions also include proclamation of Jesus' resurrection, so the
conclusion, 'raised on the third day', could have been early drawn and become
part of the first confessional affirmation from the first.
In short, although the enduring forms of the resurrection appearance traditions
give minimal evidence of a core spine elaborated in the subsequent performances
still available to us, we can nevertheless speak of a core tradition evident
within and through the diversity of these traditions.
c. The Silences of the Tradition
But we have still to take account of what in many ways is the most striking and
astonishing feature of all — that is, the absence of accounts of appearances to Peter
and to James (brother of Jesus). On almost any reckoning, these must have
been regarded as the most significant of the appearances for the initial band of
disciples. Peter evidently soon began to function as the initial leader of the Jerusalem
church (Acts 3-5), to be succeeded by James (brother of Jesus) 168 when
Peter probably began to embark on a wider outreach. 169 The appearance to Peter
166. Hahn, Hoheitstitel 205-206 (Titles 180). But this common deduction is usually
predicated on the prior assumption that it was the appearances alone which gave rise to the conviction
that Jesus had been raised from the dead (e.g., Bultmann, Theology 1.45; Grass,
Ostergeschehen 184).
167. Bode deduces from the absence of a more explicit 'third day' motif in the empty
tomb traditions that they were formulated early, before the motif became influential (First
Easter Morning 124-26, 161-62); similarly Wilckens, Resurrection 10-11; Hengel, 'Begrabnis'
132-33 n. 51.
168. No one doubts that the James of 1 Cor. 15.7 is the James of Gal. 1.19 and 2.9, 12.
169. See particularly Gal. 2.7-9. Acts 12.1-17 suggests that Peter also had to leave Jerusalem
for his own safety. The subject is another to which we shall have to return in vol. 2.
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