LRB: Did it happen on 9th of April?

by Frank Kermode
review of The Resurrection by Geza Vermes

In about 56 AD, St Paul writing to the Christians of Corinth, made his position very clear. Somebody had been suggesting that the dead cannot be resurrected, and this was his response: ‘If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain.’ The creeds still require the faithful to declare their belief that Jesus died, was buried, descended into hell, and on the third day rose again. Paul explains that the requirement is reasonable: provided the dead can rise, there can be no reason to suppose Jesus did not do so. In fact if he didn’t, ‘we are of all men most miserable.’ Like Paul, the creeds also insist on ‘the resurrection of the body’, though Paul had in mind not every body but those of the brethren who had died between the death of Jesus and the postponed but imminent day of judgment. As Geza Vermes remarks, he seems not to have given any thought to the very large numbers of dead between Adam and his own day.

Paul summons other arguments and witnesses against the incredulous. The Christ who rose on the third day was seen by Cephas (alias Peter) and ‘above’ five hundred others, some of them still alive; also by James, and indeed by ‘all the apostles’. Finally, by a special grace, he was seen by Paul himself, unworthy as he was to be counted an apostle, en route to Damascus.

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The story of Thomas, and perhaps the Emmaus episode, look particularly like interpretative interpolations. So, most obviously, does the posthumous appearance of Jesus at the Sea of Galilee in the spurious ending of John. Belated inventions of this sort are to be expected. One reason for them may have been the brevity of Mark, whose Resurrection narrative contains nothing very persuasive about the apparitions of Jesus, only the empty tomb, the mysterious young man, and the instructions ignored by the frightened women. Since Mark was their principal source, Matthew and Luke lacked guidance and information when he was silent. Moreover, not all testimony could be trusted. Women play a larger part in the action than one might expect, and Vermes more than once points out that women were in those days regarded as unreliable, even useless witnesses, especially by Luke.


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