Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE CLIMAX OF JESUS' MISSION §18.5
ment of dependence on physical contact (John 20.17, 28-29) was an attempt at
some sort of compromise (cf. 6.62). In any case, both Luke and John simply reinforce
the earlier Christian conviction that post-Easter faith could be no other
than resurrection faith, belief that Jesus had been raised bodily from the tomb.
If then the talk of 'core' belief is appropriate, the core belief of the first
Christians was of Jesus' bodily resurrection. The different conceptualizations of
the resurrection body were not a modification of that belief. The belief was accompanied
or supplemented by equally firmly held beliefs in Jesus' vindication
or exaltation. But resurrection, resurrection of the embodied person Jesus, was
the heart of Easter faith and remained so.
c. What Kind of 'Seeing'?
If 'resurrection' and 'resurrection body' are problematic for conceptualization,
no less is the character of the 'seeing' of the resurrected Jesus. 210
(1) In the case of the sightings where the physicality of Jesus' presence is
either assumed or stressed, the implication is of a normal seeing, as one would
see a companion on the road or in the same room. Yet, at the same time, we have
noted the persistent theme that Jesus was not at first recognized, and that 'some
doubted' (above § 18.4b). There is also the reported phenomenon of a Jesus who
appeared (should we say 'materialized'?) in a locked room (John 20.19, 26) and
disappeared ('dematerialized'?) just as abruptly (Luke 24.31). Are these simply
story variations and embellishments? That is quite possible; they do not seem to
belong to the core tradition. But do they (also) signal a recognition/assumption/
instinct that Jesus' presence was not simply that of normal physical existence?
(2) The very early formulation, 'he appeared (ophthe)', indicates by its
passive form the assumption/impression that there was something to be seen. 211
They did not, as it were, create what they saw by their act of seeing. What they
210. My earlier discussion focused largely on this question — Jesus and the Spirit 104-
109, 123-28.
211. The passive is used in an active sense 'become visible, appear' (BDAG, horaö Id).
Pace the famous attempt by W. Michaelis, 'horaö", TDNT 5.355-61, to argue that öphthe indicated
'revelation', a 'perception' of 'non-visionary reality', see again my Jesus and the Spirit
104-109; Carnley, Structure 208-11, 223-30. If Alsup is justified in talking of an 'appearance
story Gattung', then it is important to note that the precedents (Genesis 18, Exodus 3, Judges 6
and 13, 1 Samuel 3, Tobit 5 and 12, and T. Abr.) involve a visual seeing, not a mental perception
(Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories 239-63); similarly Schräge, 1 Korinther 4.43-48.
Lüdemann rightly objects that the language cannot be taken merely as a legitimation formula
{pace U. Wilckens, above n. 152); that Paul had in mind an experience of 'seeing' is an inescapable
conclusion (Resurrection 50-53).
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