1 Cor 15 3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephasa and then to the Twelve. 6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8And last of all He appeared to me
Bart has the following criticisms:
These days, among other things, I point 0ut something I hadnât thought about in most of the years of my existence, that there was almost certainly no Christian group (meaning: a group of people who believed Jesus was raised from the dead) of that size in Paulâs day anywhere in the world!
He knew lots of other Christians who either were Christians before he was or who knew Christians who were Christians before he was. Or who were later Christians who had heard stories that were allegedly told by Christians who were Christians before he was.
My sense is that any of these sources could have been his sources of information, and there is no way to evaluate why one of these sources has a better claim to being the source from any other source.
My point is that this careful construction of the list suggests that it is not simply a chronological listing: it is a careful construction of a list of witnesses. This is not simply a historically-driven list, it is one driven by a literary/apologetic motive
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So where did Paul get his information from? Maybe Peter. Maybe James. Maybe other Christians. Maybe a combination of them all. I doubt if he âmade upâ the idea of â500 brothersâ at one time out of whole cloth. My sense is that rumors of these sorts of things circulate all the time â as with the appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary in modern times, as she is attested as appearing to 1000 people at once in some times and places. Do I think this is evidence that she really did appear to these people? No, not really. Same with Paul. There were stories about such appearances and he believed them.
I disagree with Barts last conclusion as Paul claims Christ appeared to him directly, however, given the lack of evidence from the other eyewitnesses to Pauls experience there, Bart does have a point to argueâŚ
- the other witnesses could not understand or see anything about the eventâŚit was just loud noise and bright light to them
- they didnât write down anything about Pauls experience that we know of