Easter: Notes on Its Historicity

In honor of Easter, I am going to be posting a series of articles and excepts about the Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, and on its significance for us.
Here's the first, some brief notes about the historicity and materiality of the resurrection, i.e., that Jesus of Nazareth, truly a man like us all in every way but sin, actually returned to life after having become completely dead.  I'll start with an excerpt from Veselin Kesich's The First Day of the New Creation: The Resurrection and the Christian Faith, an excellent book that I read for class while in seminary.  Parts of it are hard, but most are fairly accessible.

The basic agreement among the evangelists in their accounts of what happened on the first Easter morning is more significant than certain discrepancies in those accounts.  All four evangelists bear witness to the empty tomb, either stating this explicitly or, like St Mark, clearly implying it.  The variations in the accounts actually testify to their authenticity and serve as an important indicator that the story of the empty tomb belongs to the most primitive gospel tradition.  It is highly unlikely that the empty tomb stories could be legendary embellishments of a later period in the life of the Church, for if the Church had fabricated them, we should expect the Christian community to have created a harmonious account.  The Church did not try to harmonize the accounts, but instead faithfully transmitted the traditions that were received, (Kesich, 71).

The question of whether a dead man could really rise from the dead is not a new one.  The Acts of the Apostles describes the rejection of his message of the ressurection of Jesus Christ (Acts 17:32).  Later, St. Paul writes his letters, he adamantly defends the resurrection as an actual, material event in 1 Corinithians, implying that the essential doctrine of Christianity was being called into question then as well.  In fact, St. Paul asserts that the event was not only material and historical, but publicly witnesses as well.  He writes:

Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

1 Corinthians 15:1-8

In the later New Testament writings, the generic terminology of the "exaltation" of Jesus is replaced with the more specific term "resurrection," also alerting to the likelihood that clarification of the authors' intent was felt to be important (Kesich, 81).

A great volume, monstrously long and detailed, is N. T. Wright's book The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3).  The book is really stupendous, but I warn you: at 740 pages it is the sort of text that most people will want to take a few pages at a time and just be content to let it take a year or two!

Whether a skeptic, ancient or modern, wants to reject the accounts of the resurrection out of hand as impossible within the framework of their materialist conception, there can be in any event no doubt about what the apostles intended.  They believed and taught from the very first day that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

A Few Pictures of Bavaria

My friend Trisha and I set out this morning to rent a car.  It took a while, but we finally set out by 2 p.m. from a rental car company to an enchanted destination that we had been planning to finish up with by 2 p.m.  We relaxed though, and decided to let Providence guide our adventure.  Along the way we had a few cool experiences. Driving on the autobahn with our manualtransmissionrentalcar (guys, back me up on this - it was awesome fun), we happened across a sign that said Autobahnkapelle. The word is a conglomerate of "auto-course" and "chapel." Trisha thought maybe it was a rest stop, because the obvious meaning was too weird. I shared her sentiments. Intrigued, we decided to stop. When we got there we saw that it was, in fact, a Catholic church in a countryvillage whose proximity to the autobahn prompted somebody in heavily (but now, unfortunately, not-so-practicing) Catholic Bavaria to build an off-ramp leading directly to it and then advertise its presence.

The off ramp led to a parking lot with this sign (it says "Mary-on-the-Road Church").  We followed the sign and arrived at this interesting piece of architecture, an honest attempt to be both modern and reverent, built in 1969.  Its architecturalinsides were more predictable than the people we met therein: a German woman who works with the local diocese, presumably at the parish, and three Senegalese - a man and two women.  They came in while Trisha and I were praying.  As I finished my prayers, they prepared to leave.  Suspecting the man of priestcraft, I approached and asked him in the language I heard him speak, "Excuse-moi, monsieur.  Est-ce que etez-vou un curé?"  ("Excuse me, sir?  Do you happen to be a priest?")  He told me that his name is Father Pierre, and so I asked him to give his blessing to Trisha and me.  He was happy to oblige.  Afterwards, we spent several moments speaking a few random words of French, German, and English to each other.  The German churchworker noted that we had in one little country chapel three whole continents.  It was a real blessing to meet a kind father and three wonderful sisters in our holy religion there, and so unexpectedly.  It was a Providential reminder that wherever we go, if we go with God, we go not alone.

The episode was very typical of the Catholic Church, I think, and also very beautiful.  Before I rush on, I want to note that the chapel itself was actual nice.  Modern and goofy, to be sure, but with a very high ceiling and a very clearly marked tabernacle visible throughout the place.  Above the altar hung a cross cut into a circle so that the thing looked like a Sacred Host.  Unusual, all of it, but none of it disrespectful or sacrilegious.  Again, very much like our beautiful Church, dear reader: goofy, unusual, but really a valiant attempt to honor God, and not a failure at doing so.  And like the Catholic Church, the most important thing is what happened inside.

A bit further in our journey we passed a late Romanesque church under renovation.  A gardener working in the cemetery helped us to find our way in.  It was simple and sparse, but the white walls reflected the little windowlighting well.

Our trip reached its climax as we pushed into the Alps further and wound from village to village, smaller and smaller as we drove.  At one point we came across a sign with the silhouette of a cow.  As we wondered what that might be, we came across a small traffic jam - 6 cars, more than we had seen in twice as many miles, backed up - waiting for a line of cows to be herded up the road.  My picture didn't come out so well, so maybe I'll add Trisha's later.

We saw the castle in the distance and drove into the village-like tourist-souvenir center at the foot of the mountain upon which the castle sat.  What you see below was the reward of our perseverance through rain and 80 or so miles of adventure: Schloss Neuschwannstein ("New Stone-swan Castle").

It was cloudy most of the day, rainy frequently, and always chilly.  It made for very gothic photography of a photogenic region that responds dazzlingly to the weather.  We parked halfway up the mountain and hiked up.  We'd arrived too late for the tour, but enjoyed walking around the perimeter and courtyard of the 19th century schloss (an ornamentalcastle) seen above.  On the drive home we stopped at a gasthaus ("Guest House") for dinner - excellent Bavarian fare.  We got back to our hosts' home around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., dead tired and with some cool stories to share.

Our Father planned for us a much nicer adventure than we could have planned for ourselves.

And yes, I deliberately smooshed several nouns together, in honor of our Germanhosts.

Marked

Since 2001, there hasn't been a September 11th in which my eyes have stayed dry for very long.

Christians, we must pray and remind our countrymen that our enemies are not flesh and blood, but powers and principalities (Eph 6:12). Hate, whether its vengeance is fiery and passionate, or cold and calculating, can never be permitted to rule our hearts.

Also, Christians, we must remind them that we know neither the day nor the hour (Mk 13:32), and so must always be ready for death, who comes as a thief in the night (Mt 24:43; Lk 12:39).

Pius XII, Vindicated (Again)

If Pius XII was such a Nazi sympathizer, as has become popular "common knowledge", why were they trying to kill him? Click here for more.

The Dedication of St. John Lateran

OK, so most of you probably know that St. John Lateran isn't a person, but a place. It is the cathedral of the diocese of Rome, and its last name is in reference to its location: the Lateran hill. It was a government administration building and was given by the Emperor Constantine to Pope Sylvester I in AD 324. The church building is referred to as omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput, which means, "mother and head of all the churches of city and of the world."

Before 324, Christians had gathered for Mass and for community functions in rented facilities or in homes. Anything they had purchased collectively might be confiscated during periodic persecutions. This gift by the emperor marked the beginning of Christianity's stability and security in the world. The gift of the church building to the Church is important because it was the first time that a whole society, in the person of its ruler, gave tribute to the Church. The gift marks the beginning of the period known as Christendom, during which the unifying principle of the West was Jesus Christ and His Church. Christendom would undergo bumps and bruises, to be sure. Barbarian invasions, Viking raids, conquest by Muslims, heresies, conflict between Church and state would all scrape against the Church. For over a thousand years, though, Jesus Christ was the unifying principle, the center of gravity, of Europe. In the last few hundred years, the Nation-State has taken His place in peoples' hearts and minds throughout the West. Now, even more pathetically, it seems that political parties and sporting clubs have taken over.

In celebrating today's solemn feast, we pay tribute to Rome, the head church of the Church, to whom ultimate responsibility is given for governance of the Church and evangelization of the world, who nurtured the Roman Rite celebrated by more than half of Christians worldwide, who provided thousands of martyrs to water the seedbed of faith with blood. As we enter darker times, in which leaders in Europe and America seek to disavow our Christian past so as to shrug off the duties of Christian morality, we can expect to run into the same difficulties that our forebears encountered. We can expect to have church buildings and property confiscated following trumped-up or fraudulent accusations, as happened during Roman days. We shall only be able to endure these things if we nurture ourselves with the love of God and through sincere piety and charity, through commitment to justice and striving for peace. We must, as our times grow darker, bind ourselves tighter to each other and tighter to our head, Jesus Christ, and to His Vicar on earth, the Holy Father.

The Historicity of Jesus of Nazareth

My dear reader, lol,

Some of you may have noted that my last post had a comment attached to it, posted by one "Mark." What is intriguing is that the comment was about Jesus, whereas my post was about nearly getting hit by a car because I run at night in black shorts across parkways. Nonetheless, I am not one to let a challenge go unanswered. The post reads as follows:

"Jesus, if he ever existed, was a man, a human being. I have yet to see evidence sufficient to compel me to believe that he was or is a god. Where would you say the evidence is that compels you to believe that he was a god?"

In my reply, I addressed a preliminary issue in brief, and promised a fuller response. On a friend's blog I noticed the same commentator posted the same comment. In the event that he actually is hoping for a response, I plan to begin delivering one. Classes start on Monday, so I will be busier than ever. I took my undergraduate degree in Classical History, so I feel somewhat prepared to answer it, and will do my best.

First, I would like to distinguish between facticity and historicity. Facticity speaks to the reality of a person, place, thing, or event. I put on my socks this morning. That event is real and has facticity. It is a fact, disputed or not. It hasn't got historicity, however, even though it happened in the past, because it wasn't recorded, isn't part of the historical record, and in a generation or so, my socks and I will both have been forgotten from the human mind. Historicity refers to a recorded-ness of a fact. The great bulk of things that actually happen (have facticity) leave no historical record, and so haven't got historicity. On the other hand, a thing might be recorded falsely, and such things haven't got authentic historicity either, they aren't part of factual history, but rather are forgeries or mistaken memories of some sort. Is the distinction clear? It's important because of how the historical methods work.

History cannot, and does not aim at, trying to prove things as science does. It cannot provide the same kind of certainty, but can still provide reasonable certainty of another sort. When a thing is determined to have historicity, to be historical, that implies its facticity, since it cannot have historicity without facticity. To determine a thing's historicity, one must find it in the historical record, demonstrate that the record hasn't been tampered with, and that the record is reasonably, reliably accurate. Having accomplished these tasks, an historian will have shown a disputed event actually to have happened.

The first question question to be addressed from my earnest commentator's post is the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. If He didn't really exist, then their is no point trying to lay out my reasons for believing that He was/is God-in-Flesh. On the other hand, if His existence can be shown to be historical, then it follows that He, in all probability, at least existed - from which point we can begin to discuss His possible divinity.

Two ancient Roman historians mention Jesus of Nazareth: Tacitus, who lived from AD 55-117
and Suetonius, who lived from 70-160. Both of these men were youths during the time of the Apostles. Additionally, Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived from about AD 37 to about AD 100, also gives Jesus some press time. None of these writers was Christian, and while none were contemporaries of Jesus, they were all shortly after his time (born between 6 BC and AD 0, and died/resurrected about AD 27-33). Notably, they all take his existence for granted, and place his followers in the context of broader events in the Roman Empire that are otherwise noted by ancient historians. A few modern historians have argued that Christian monks, while copying the documents, inserted references to Jesus (particularly into Josephus' accounts). Their only evidence is speculation however, that the monks would have been upset by Josephus' failure to mention him. Moreover, those same historians have admitted that they see no reason to suspect tampering elsewhere in those same texts. If their theory is correct it would be odd, because there are other places in the historical records where a crafty monk might have inserted such references very naturally. The consensus among modern historians is that Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius are reasonably accurate; that archaeological finds have never ruled out their reports. It's a good thing, too, because these cats provide most of what we know about the ancient world, outside of archaeological remains.

A reasonable person might deny the divinity of Jesus, but he has no reason to deny his reliable presence in the historical record; which is to say there is no reason to doubt that, in some shape or form, Jesus of Nazareth actually existed.

About His divinity more will follow soon.