Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§18.5 Et Resurrexit
interpretation put upon the resurrection appearances which is so striking, compared
with what was currently being envisaged in regard to exalted saints and
martyred heroes of the past. Appearances of Jesus which impacted on the witnesses
as resurrection appearances did not conform to any known or current paradigm.
221 Instead, they created their own.
(2) It also should be observed that 'resurrection' is indeed core belief from
the beginning. The 'resurrection of Jesus' is itself the beginning of belief in Jesus
as exalted, and not simply an elaboration of some other affirmation or prior belief.
My own focus remains, as throughout, on the impact on the disciples and eschews
any attempt to get behind that belief to some objectively conceived event.
But it remains the case that 'the resurrection of Jesus', the articulation in a formulation
in these terms, is the impact. It was by means of this language that they
'grasped' what had happened to Jesus, not just conceptualized their experience at
some remove; rather we would better say that this was how they conceptually experienced
what they experienced. 222
This has to be said in face of the temptation to treat 'the resurrection of Jesus'
as a secondary expression of some other impact, that is, as the way of giving
eschatological significance to what actually made the difference to the first
Christians. In recent decades the clearest exposition along these lines has been by
Willi Marxsen. He argues that 'the resurrection of Jesus' was simply a way of
saying that the significance of Jesus' teaching or mission could never die: 'the
purpose of Jesus is continued . . . Jesus' kerygma continues to be preached'; 223
'the cause of Jesus lives on beyond Good Friday'. 224 The basic problem here is
221. Cf. my Jesus and the Spirit 132; Craig, Assessing 410-18; Barclay, 'Resurrection'
25-26.
222. Cf. Alsup's conclusion that it was 'the OT anthropomorphic theophany stories'
which gave the Gospel appearance stories their form of expression (Post-Resurrection Appearance
Stories 265).
223. W. Marxsen, 'The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical and Theological Problem',
in C. F. D. Moule, ed., The Significance of the Message of the Resurrection for Faith in Jesus
Christ (London: SCM, 1968) 15-50 (here 38). Rowland gives hostages to this line of argument
when he distinguishes 'appearances of Jesus alive to the disciples' from the conclusion reached
subsequently, after reflection, 'that the resurrection of the dead must have occurred in the case
of Jesus' (Christian Origins 190).
224. Marxsen, Resurrection 78; 'faith after Easter (faith in the risen Jesus) was no different
in substance from the faith to which Jesus had already called men before Easter' (125-
26); similarly Lüdemann, Resurrection 182-83 (falling back on quotations from Herrmann);
despite earlier critique of such arguments (Beyond Resurrection 92-95), Wedderburn's own 'solution'
is ultimately along the same lines (153-69); his view is similar to Geering's (Resurrection
213-33). The view, which could be characterized as belief in Jesus past, should be distinguished
from Bultmann's belief in Christ present: 'To believe in the Christ present in the
kerygma is the meaning of the Easter faith' (the final sentence of 'The Primitive Christian
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