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he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me.

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
And why didn't the gospel writers include anything about the appearance to James - the brother of Jesus? I would have loved to hear about that. And the appearance to 500? Why was that omitted from the gospels?

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Re James--at a guess, it's for confidentiality issues. Remember that the brothers of Jesus were set against him and his ministry during his lifetime. I don't know just when James had his turnaround, but this might have been it--was almost certainly really, really close to his conversion, if not. Which probably meant some private discussions between Jesus and James, of the sort most of us don't have outside of confession. It seems decent of the NT writers to give this one (and the first appearance to Peter) the go-by.
 

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Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :
 
Welcome to Kerygmania, Waw consecutivum. I see you've already checked in on the Welcome thread in All Saints, so I'll just wish you good sailing with us.

Mamacita, Keryg Host
 

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Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :
 
Welcome indeed, and a good long post to boot! I take your general point about there being no need for everyone to mention everything. But the resurrection is an exceptional case, surely? In the world of religious myth, size does matter. Five thousand fed. Umpteen gallons of water turned into wine. And one extra appearance was enough to make the final redactor of the fourth gospel add an extra chapter to include it.


The silence of the "more than 500" - even if that's a slight exaggeration - is unbelievable. While Paul was alive, OK, I understand it. He didn't want rival gospels written did he? But he did preach Christ crucified - and risen - to the exclusion of all else.

But once the gospels were out, why not the more, the merrier? Were they just forgotten about? Or was their testimony, perhaps, too uneven. Three people seeing the same event can give accounts that appear conflicting, though all of them are telling the truth as they know it.

But 500? Too many inconsistencies? Or maybe too many of them saw too much - that is, they saw what they saw, not what the apostles were preaching, exactly? It didn't take the church long to start crucifying its own members- the ones who failed to toe the current theocratic line. Oo-er, I've gone all morbid. Again. Must be the weather.

[ 02. June 2014, 10:38: Message edited by: pimple ]
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Huh?

Why WOULDN'T Paul/John/Mark/etc. want extra gospels written? Every missionary I know wants all the help they can get with getting the word out. And it's not like the NT writers were getting paid royalties, is it? Stop thinking in the sales model and switch over to the "we got this freaking huge job to do" model. More help is always wanted.

As for numbers--no, bigger isn't always better. Keep in mind that those watching Jesus' ministry were used to crowds. 500 isn't going to cut it as an abso-freakin-lutely amazing number, gotta publicize it, when you're used to five thousand men plus families at a time at your miracles. I think this appearance gets mentioned because it's one of the largest post-Resurrection gatherings (though still comparatively small) and dispels the idea that Jesus only ever appeared to a handful of people at a time. Apart from that, the number isn't so astonishing.

Now the timing thing. The idea that someone sat on 500 witnesses at once, for years, to prevent subversive reports being made is simply absurd. (Oh dear, my imagery is going to pot.) Nevertheless, supposing someone had that kind of media control, or even wanted it...

You can't say "wait till the Gospels are all written" because by then most of those witnesses would be dead, regardless of when you think the Gospels were written. In fact, it seems that the aging and dying off of the eyewitness generation was a major consideration that pushed the evangelists to do their work. You want to leave a written record, just in case the world DOES go on past your own lifespan.

I think there's a much simpler explanation for why we don't have a written record of what was said and done at this particular appearance. Consider the 500 witnesses for a moment. Whoever they were, I'm guessing that a fair proportion were illiterate. Take them out of the potential writer pool.

Now drop out everybody who hasn't got easy access to the materials and time for writing (we're talking papyrus or skin here, plus ink etc., in other words, money. This isn't a matter of popping down to your local public library to borrow the computer and printer for an hour.). So scratch the poor. (Dang, there goes a LARGE chunk of the baby Christian church!)

Now drop out everybody who has no interest or talent for writing, or who simply can't be bothered. Oh dear, the pool has probably shrunk to 5 or 6 people by now! If we're lucky. In reality, more like 1 or 2.

Now take that tiny group and drop out those who say, "Oh, Matthew/Mark/Luke/John have already covered the things well enough, why rehash it? And I don't know enough about the rest of Jesus' career to make a full Gospel anyway. I'll just tell the grandchildren by the fireside, it's a great story..."

Presto. All gone.
 

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Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
Sorry. I just find that hard to believe. I'm not saying that the 500 appearance didn't happen - just that I have yet to see a credible explanation on why we don't have any hint of an account of it. The best I can come up with is that there were plenty of accounts of resurrection appearances doing the rounds (in verbal tradition) in the early church. So when the gospel writers did their thing, they didn't see a need to put in EVERY appearance - just the ones that were of significance to their purpose. Possibly, they assumed that the other accounts would continue to be transmitted by verbal tradition. Over time, as it turned out, the non-gospel stories got forgotten. This might be especially so if the story was simply "Jesus appeared to 500. He said 'Peace be with you.' Then he left again."

But I have to admit that this still seems very lame.

And no-one has yet suggested a reason why Paul omits perhaps the most important appearance of all - the first one to Mary and the women. Is this just because he was a misogynistic old bugger???

[ 03. June 2014, 00:40: Message edited by: Oscar the Grouch ]
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
God knows about the last. As for the first, that there were so many appearances they picked and chose--yeah, I can see that. After all, they had literary purposes in mind, they had limited space, etc.--this is one of at least three appearances that we don't have any description of, just the bare fact of who saw him. And several other appearances are extremely briefly described--I mean, I expect he did and said a whole lot more than just "peace be with you" and the little interaction with Thomas on that occasion. And how frustrating that we never get any description at all of that Bible study on the road to Emmaus.
 

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Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :
 
Amen to that.
 

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Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
And no-one has yet suggested a reason why Paul omits perhaps the most important appearance of all - the first one to Mary and the women. Is this just because he was a misogynistic old bugger???

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Until proven otherwise, that's the explanation I am going with! Ockham's razor in action!
 

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Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :
 
Wouldn't you know Lamb Chopped would squash my petty little conspiracy theory! Let's see what I can recycle from the chewed remains...

In a sense, LC, you've confirmed my observation that size matters. But there are any number of ways of crunching the digits. Five hundred isn't very big compared with five thousand? Maybe you're right (I've just been looking at the possible gates for the World Cup), But I find 500 pretty impressive - and perhaps more believable (5,000 at an impromptu picnic sounds a tad over-inflated).

Given Paul's vision of resurrected bodies as substantially changed entities, I could throw mass hysteria into the arena for the wolves to play with, but I prefer to use Occam and treat the problem as if it actually happened.

SO there's a big crowd - enough to fill a wee provincial amphitheatre, perhaps, and Jesus turns up. How long after the crucifixion? Were any of the aposteles with him? And crucially, where exactly?

Should we refrain from conjecture about insoluble questions? It seems that Jesus appeared to the faithful, not just any old crowd at the games, and when Paul wrote, some of them were already dead. Can't have been long after the crucifixion, since this appearance was before the Damascus Road event, and Paul knew Peter and traded arguments with him for some time.

Illiterate the majority may well have been. But all of them? Not likely. And one letter, greedily shared among many, would have augmented and authenticated a much vaster oral witness.
They weren't, presumably, deaf and dumb. So who needs a first century Daily Wail?

Were they not gobsmacked? Did they not regard themselves as specially honoured? Were they not proud, as well as overjoyed?

News travelled quite fast, even then, but we have no way of knowing whether the appearance to the 500 plus occurred before or after news of the crucifiction reached them - let alone that of the resurrection.

Do you see what I'm saying? It's entirely possible that news of the crucifixion alone could have been met with scepticism. "What nonsense are you talking? He was here yesterday. We all saw him, alive and well!"

This is not a suggestion that Jesus wasn't crucufied, or didn't die on the cross. I'm just trying to illustrate how a totally unacceptable version of the events could arise, based on a perfectly innocent eye-witness account. Something like that, multiplies 500 times, would be more than a wee fly in the ointment, don't you think?

I want the story to be true. And I will not be fobbed off with the sort of argument that suggests God put fossils in the rocks to test oure simple faith (not that this is your pitch LC - but where interesting possibilties are seen as unaskable questions, we get nowhere).
 

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Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :
 
Sorry to double-post but there's an almighty flaw in that, isn't there? Paul's talkling about "the saints" who were presumably converted by him, post resurrection.

But suppose they weren't? Suppose the appearance was to followers of Jesus, not converts of Paul?
Am I clutching at straws? Should I stop digging?
 

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