the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus and his appearance to the disciples is arguably
the central message of the new testament . one of the accounts of this is found in the
gospel of matthew chapter 28 where it says , in the bible : now the 11 disciples went to Galilee , to the
mountain to which Jesus had directed them . when they saw him they worshipped him but some doubted .
and Jesus came and said to them : 'all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me .
therefore go and make disciples of all nations , baptising them in the name of the father
and of the son and of the holy spirit , and teaching them to obey everything that i have commanded you .
and remember i am with you always to the end of the age' . now i want to share with you some
scholarly commentary on this passage by the author of this book "Jesus of Nazareth: An independent
historian's account of his life and teaching" by Maurice Casey , who's an interesting guy happens to
be not only a Professor of New Testament languages and literature at the University of Nottingham
in the United Kingdom , but he's one of a handful of scholars worldwide who are fluent in Aramaic (the language
that Jesus himself spoke) . and a lot of this book is taken up with his translation of some of these
Greek sayings in the new testament back into Aramaic , and he really discloses the fact that
a lot of these statements are quite different in Aramaic , they have a different meaning . but i'm
not going to go into that in this video . i want to share with you his comments
on the passage i've just read in matthew 28. now this book is written by a scholar for students of
the new testament , it's not meant really for a lay audience . so i'll try and unpack some of
what he says as i go along but please bear that in mind . so he writes on page 279 : Matthew concludes
(the passage we've just read) with one major resurrection appearance to the 11 in Galilee . apart
from an appearance to ensure that the women told the disciples where to go earlier in Matthew 28 ,
an untrue story because it contradicts the gospel of Mark , our oldest narrative source Matthew 28
is the earliest written narrative of a resurrection appearance . moreover unlike most
of the narratives of resurrection appearances , this one may be thought to agree up to a point
with one of the appearances recorded in a very old tradition passed on by the apostle Paul .
this begins its record of appearances . now he quotes 1 Corinthians 15. this
is a letter by Paul written in the early A.D 50s . Matthew is usually thought to be written
A.D 85 1995 so quite a bit later . so he's about to read an account in one Corinthians which
is our earliest account in the new testament or earliest mention of the resurrection appearances .
this begins its record of appearances , he appeared to Cephas
then to the 12 . 1 corinthians 15 5. he appeared to 'Cephas' which is another word for Peter
and then to the 12 (the 12 disciples) . the question as to how much truth is to be found in this story
is accordingly important ? this story refers to the story of Matthew . Tom wright comments : the
strongest mark of authenticity in this paragraph is the jarring note "but some doubted" in verse 17.
you may not even notice when i read that passage out in Matthew's gospel , it actually says that
some of the disciples doubted even after seeing the resurrected Jesus . this strange comment
(says Tom Wright) would not have occurred to someone telling the story as a pure fiction .
end quote . so Tom Wright who's been quoted here is saying that the very fact that Matthew included
this statement that some of the disciples doubted is an indicator of authenticity of the passage .
Maurice Casey then continues : this is true as far as it goes ,
it means that some of the 11 disciples were not convinced by an experience which others
interpreted as an experience of Jesus . it's very interesting isn't it ? so he's saying some thought
it was a resurrection appearance , some didn't . so not all of the disciples were convinced
that Jesus rose from the dead you would see . this is another piece of evidence that
we must view the early list of appearances in 1 corinthians 15 with a degree of Skepticism ,
because in Paul's account there is no mention of the disciples doubting what they had seen .
the sole appearance of which we have a
narrative account was not as straightforward as we might have believed from reading Paul's
list . Paul's list is straightforward we appear to so and so so and so and so and so . but in
Matthew's later version , it said that some of them doubted and that's missing from Paul's account .
secondly , this raises the question as to how many of the 11 disciples obeyed the ringing
commands of matthew 28 19 . the most important is : go therefore and make disciples of all nations . you
might remember Jesus said : go therefore into all the nations and making disciples and baptizing in
the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit . did the 11 disciples do this ? he says : no ,
only Peter is even known to have traveled in the Diaspora (that's outside of Israel into the jewish
communities around the Greco-Roman world ) and when Paul met the inner group of three : James , Cephas
and John in Jerusalem , they agreed that : we to the nations but they to the circumcision . that means
that even the inner group of three did not go and make disciples of all the nations , they stayed in
Jerusalem . moreover the rest of the eleven are unheard of thereafter . interesting . accordingly
whatever happened when Jesus appeared to the eleven in Galilee , it was not a clear speech to all
of them at once in which Jesus commanded them to carry out the gentile mission . Matthew has written
this into Jesus speech because it was of central importance to the churches when he wrote . now some
christians may complain or some people hearing this may think : hang on , don't we have letters
by Peter for example , one and two Peter . well , not really . two Peter (for example) is probably the
clearest example in the whole of the new testament of what's called "a pseudopigrapher" which is a
scholarly way of saying 'a forgery' pseudo means false as in you sued , you fake . epigrapher comes
from the word 'writing' means fake writing . virtually all new testament scholars in the world (and you
can look this up for yourself) have concluded that 2 peter is not by Peter , there is a forgery written
sometime in the 2nd century , we don't actually have anything by any of Jesus original disciples .
Paul of course we do have letters by him but he's not a person who ever met Jesus in the flesh . so
continuing : what then of baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and
the holy spirit in Matthew 28 19. is this what we find the eleven doing in the book of acts ?
book of acts of course is the earliest history of the early church we have .
No, (says Maurice Casey) distinctive christian baptism is first mentioned in acts 2 38 where
Peter urges people to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ . and people were baptized accordingly .
it turns out that none of them in the whole of acts , no one is baptized in the name of the father
and of the son and the holy spirit . Peter is the only one in the level to stay in the story
for any length of time as the gospel is spread to the gentiles and after a while he disappears too .
so this command allegedly made by Jesus in Matthew 28 is not evidenced in the
activity of the disciples at all , they didn't do it (which is peculiar to put it mildly) .
we must conclude that the second major instruction in Matthew's account of this appearance
was not clearly delivered by the risen Jesus . and i would say that's putting it mildly . by now
the nature of Matthew's account is beginning to become a little clearer . at first sight , it
appears to be the same appearance as was known to Paul's earlier tradition in 1 Corinthians .
on close examination however , the most important quality of these traditions is that they have
both been rewritten . we have seen this with the poor line tradition already (he discusses this
earlier in the chapter) nevertheless or nonetheless the fact that its list of appearances begins with
an appearance to Cephas is plausible . next it says that Jesus appeared to the twelve , it does not say :
at once as it does in the next appearance of over 500 brethren at once (which is in 1 corinthians 15.) .
Matthew however has clearly interpreted this or a similar tradition obvious interpreted this as a
single simultaneous appearance to the eleven disciples . those left of the twelve (obviously
Jesus Iscariot had left at that point) . moreover unlike the earlier Pauline tradition , Matthew
has placed this supposedly single appearance in galilee . the most important point is however :
the comment that "when Jesus appeared some doubted" that's Matthew 28 17 again . this is a point which
we would never have guessed if we had only to rely on the early tradition transmitted by Paul
and it must be true for two reasons (he says) : one , is that most of the eleven disciples do not turn up
in the early church at all . so what happened to Barnabas ? what happened to Andrew ?
i mean you think of the list of the thaddeus , what happened to these people ? we don't know .
that is why Matthew could not leave this point out . the second reason follows
ineluctably , this is not something which the early church would make up out of nothing ,
it must reflect the lack of faith in the resurrection by at least some of the 11 disciples .
what is even more devastating is that this is the point at which the whole
tradition of appearances of the risen Jesus begins to fall apart .
why do we not have accurate narrative accounts of genuine appearances of the risen Jesus ?
why are we not told what happened when Jesus appeared to Cephas over 500 brethren and then
James and all the apostles as narrated in 1 corinthians 15. Matthew has supplied us
with two points which enable us to understand this . first again , some doubted matthew 28 17 .
too much concentration on that would not make for the successful preaching of good news .
Matthew can have transmitted it only if it was desperately unforgettable . Secondly , the eleven did
not obey two major commands which Matthew has the risen Jesus give them in his rather short speech .
the only way of understanding this is that Matthew has rewritten the tradition of this appearance
which he received or has invented Jesus speech because the tradition did not tell him that Jesus
made a speech and perhaps did not tell him that he appeared to the eleven all at once , we must take
these two points together : first , some of the eleven did not believe in Jesus resurrection and did not
play any significant role in the early church as Jesus was supposed to have commanded . this is what
made some doubted unforgettable . Secondly , we do not have accurate accounts of genuine appearances
of the risen Jesus because these were not helpful enough for the needs of the early churches .
that is a strong argument against the genuineness of the resurrection narratives in the gospels . and
i'll end that there . i think professor Maurice Casey raises some very important
points here that most of the disciples who are listed in our earlier sources we know nothing
about what happened to them after Jesus was raised to heaven , they simply disappear from the pages of
history . we know from Matthew that some maybe many , what half of them ? we don't know what
some means , it could be half the disciples simply didn't believe that Jesus rose from the dead , even
after they were present at what other disciples thought was appearances of the risen Jesus .
so the disciples weren't agreed then , they weren't unanimous at all that Jesus rose from the dead
and appeared to people . this is a belief of some of them it seems , but primarily it's the belief of the
apostle Paul who i personally have no doubt had a vision , he even caused a division in acts on the
road to Damascus of a light which he understood to be the risen Jesus himself . and paul is the
main dynamo , the main power behind the gospel to the gentiles that converted so many people .
but he never knew Jesus , he never met him . Jesus ascended into heaven at least several years
before Paul even became a christian . so i think this is very interesting , i know it's quite heavy
but to give you a flavor of how scholars interact with the text and the piercing
intellectual insight i think that they bring to the subject . until next time