people in the gospels and Acts-some individually, some in groups, sometimes indoors, sometimes outdoors, to softhearted people like John and skeptical people like Thomas," he began. At times they touched Jesus or ate with him, with the texts teaching that he was physically present. The appearances occurred over several weeks. And there are good reasons to trust these accounts-for example, they're lacking in many typical mythical tendencies." "Can you enumerate these appearances for me?" From memory, Habermas described them one at a time. Jesus appeared * to Mary Magdalene, in John 20:10-18; * to the other women, in Matthew 28:8-10; * to Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus, ul Luke 24:13-32; * to eleven disciples and others, in Luke 24:33-49; * to ten apostles and others, with Thomas absent, in John 20:1923; * to Thomas and the other apostles, in John 20:26-30; * to seven apostles, in John 21:1-14; * to the disciples, in Matthew 28:16-20. * And he was with the apostles at the Mount of Olives before his ascension, in Luke 24:50-52 and Acts 1:4-9. "It's particularly interesting," Habermas added, "that C. H. Dodd, the Cambridge University scholar, has carefully analyzed these appearances and concluded that several of them are based on especially early material, including Jesus' encounter with the women, in Matthew 28:8-10; his meeting with the eleven apostles, in which he gave them the Great Commission, in Matthew 28:16-20; and his meeting with the disciples, in John 20:19-23, in which he showed them his hands and side." Again, here was a wealth of sightings of Jesus. This was not merely a fleeting observance of a shadowy figure by one or two people. There were multiple appearances to numerous people, several of the appearances being confirmed in more than one gospel or by the I Corinthians 15 creed. "Is there any further corroboration?" I asked. "Look at Acts," replied Habermas, referring to the New Testament book that records the launch of the church. Not only are Jesus' appearances mentioned regularly, but details are provided, and the theme of the disciples being a witness of these things is found in almost every context. The key," Habermas said, "is that a number of the accounts in Acts 1-5, 10, and 13 also include some creeds that, like the one in 1 Corinthians 15, report some very early data concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus." With that Habermas picked up a book and read the conclusion of scholar John Drane. 'The earliest evidence we have for the resurrection almost certainly goes back to the time immediately after the resurrection event is alleged to have taken place. This is the evidence contained in the early sermons in the Acts of the Apostles ... there can be no doubt that in the first few chapters of Acts its author has preserved material from very early sources.'" Indeed, Acts is littered with references to Jesus' appearances. The apostle Peter was especially adamant about it. He says in Acts 2:32, "God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact." In Acts 3:15 he repeats, "You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this." He confirms to Cornelius in Acts 10:41 that he and others "ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead." Not to be outdone, Paul said in a speech recorded in Acts 13:31, "For many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people." Asserted Habermas, "The Resurrection was undoubtedly the central proclamation of the early church from the very beginning. The earliest Christians didn't just endorse Jesus' teachings; they were convinced they had seen him alive after his crucifixion. That's what changed their lives and started the church. Certainly, since this was their centermost conviction, they would have made absolutely sure that it was true." All of the gospel and Acts evidence - incident after incident, witness after witness, detail after detail, corroboration on top of corroboration-was extremely impressive. Although I tried, I couldn't think of any more thoroughly attested event in ancient history. However, there was another question that needed to be raised, this one concerning the gospel that most scholars believe was the first account of Jesus to be written.
When I first began investigating the Resurrection, I encountered a troubling comment in the margin of my Bible: "The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20." In other words, most scholars believe that the gospel of Mark ends at 16:8, with the women discovering the tomb empty but without Jesus having appeared alive to anyone at all. That seemed perplexing. "Doesn't it bother you that the earliest gospel doesn't even report any post-Resurrection appearances?" I asked Habermas. On the contrary, he didn't seemed disturbed at all. "I don't have a problem with that whatsoever," he said. "Sure, it would be nice if he had included a list of appearances, but here are some things for you to think about: Even if Mark does end there, which not everyone believes, you still have him reporting that the tomb is empty, and a young man proclaiming, 'He is risen!' and telling the women that there will be appearances. So you have, first, a proclamation that the Resurrection has occurred, and second, a prediction that appearances will follow. You can close your favorite novel and say, 'I can't believe the author's not telling me the next episode,' but you can't close the book and say, 'The writer doesn't believe in the next episode.' Mark definitely does. He obviously believed the Resurrection had taken place. He ends with the women being told that Jesus will appear in Galilee, and then others later confirm that he did." According to church tradition, Mark was a companion of the eyewitness Peter. "Isn't it odd," I asked, "that Mark wouldn't mention that Jesus appeared to Peter, if he really had?" "Mark doesn't mention any appearances, so it wouldn't be peculiar that Peter isn't listed," he said. "However, note that Mark does single out Peter. Mark 16:7 says, 'But go, tell his disciples and Peter, He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you' This agrees with 1 Corinthians 15:5, which confirms that Jesus did appear to Peter, and Luke 24:34, another early creed, which says, It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon,' or Peter. So what Mark predicts about Peter is reported to have been fulfilled, in two early and very reliable creeds of the church-as well as by Peter himself in Acts."
Without question, the amount of testimony and corroboration of Jesus' post-Resurrection appearances is staggering. To put it into perspective, if you were to call each one of the witnesses to a court of law to be cross-examined for just fifteen minutes each, and you went around the clock without a break, it would take you from breakfast on Monday until dinner on Friday to hear them all. After listening to 129 straight hours of eyewitness testimony, who could possibly walk away unconvinced? Having been a legal affairs journalist who has covered scores of trials, both criminal and civil, I had to agree with the assessment of Sir Edward Clarke, a British High Court judge who conducted a thorough legal analysis of the first Easter Day: "To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. As a lawyer I accept the gospel evidence unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts that they were able to substantiate." However, could there be any plausible alternatives that could explain away these encounters with the risen Jesus? Could these accounts be legendary in nature? Or might the witnesses have experiienced hallucinations? I decided to raise those issues with Habermas to get his response. Possibility 1: The Appearances Are Legendary If it's true that the gospel of Mark originally ended before any appearances were reported, it could be argued that there's evolutionary development in the gospels: Mark records no appearances, Matthew has some, Luke has more, and John has the most. "Doesn't that demonstrate that the appearances are merely legends that grew up over time?" I asked. "For a lot of reasons, no, it doesn't," Habermas assured me. "First, not everybody believes Mark is the earliest gospel. There are scholars, admittedly in the minority, who believe Matthew was written first. Second, even if I accept your thesis as true, it only proves that legends grew up over time-it can't explain away the original belief that Jesus was risen from the dead. Something happened that prompted the apostles to make the Resurrection the central proclamation of the earliest church. Legend can't explain those initial eyewitness accounts. In other words, legend can tell you how a story got bigger; it can't tell you how it originated when the participants are both eyewitnesses and reported the events early. Third, you're forgetting that the I Corinthians 15 creed predates any of the gospels, and it makes huge claims about the appearances. In fact, the claim involving the biggest number-that he was seen alive by five hundred people at once-goes back to this earliest source! That creates problems for the legendary- development theory. The best reasons for rejecting the legend theory come from the early creedal accounts in 1 Corinthians 15 and Acts, both of which predate the gospel material. And fourth, what about the empty tomb? If the Resurrection were merely a legend, the tomb would be filled. However, it was empty on Easter Morning. That demands an additional hypothesis."
Possibility 2: The Appearances Were Hallucinations Maybe the witnesses were sincere in believing they saw Jesus. Perhaps they accurately recorded what took place. But could they have been seeing a hallucination that convinced them they were encountering Jesus when they really weren't? Habermas smiled at the question. "Do you know Gary Collins?" he asked. That question took me off guard. Sure, I replied, I know him. "I was in his office just recently to interview him for this same book," I said. "Do you believe he's qualified as a psychologist?" Habermas asked. "Yes," I answered warily, since! I could tell he was setting me up for something. "A doctorate, a prof;essor for twenty years, the author of dozens of books on psychological issues, president of a national association of psychologists- yeah,, sure, I'd consider him qualified." Habermas, handed me a piece (of paper. "I asked Gary about the possibility that these were hallucinations, and this is his professional opinion," he told me. I looked at the document. Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren't something which can be seen by a group of people. Neither is it possible that one person could somehow induce an hallucination in somebody else. Since an hallucination exists only in this subjective, personal sense, it is obvious