The Easter Experience and the Empty Tomb: The Oracle of Early Christian Hope

Haight and Borg on Resurrection:
Recently I was reading Roger Haight on the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in his book Jesus: Symbol of God, who holds a view of resurrection similar to that of Marcus Borg and other liberal scholars. There is not much that I disagree with them about, but this has become a bit of an issue for me. They do not affirm a the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus as an historical event, but my biggest issue with them is not their denial of this event which they may find intellectually impossible to affirm, but the fallacy of their arguments against it.

Marcus Borg reduces the event to a mystical resurrection where Jesus is removed from time and space and taken up into the life of God, and speaks vaguely of the appearances, refusing to admit any empirical qualities to them. Haight, in similar fashion, sets up a false binary opposition. Contrary to his own stated postmodern epistemology and the irreducibility of this event, he argues that if the event is to be meta-historical and transcendent, Jesus must be lifted up into the life of God apart from an empty tomb or empirical appearances. The event is meta-historical; therefore it is not historical. The event is transcendent; therefore it has no immanent qualities. Jesus could not have merely been the resuscitation of a corpuscular body; therefore his crucified body had no continuity with his resurrection. Now before moving into a more thorough deconstructive critique of this position, I want to lay out the importance of the resurrection as an historical event for Christian theology.

Wright and Paul on Resurrection:
N.T. Wright lays out the significance of the historical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in his book Surprised by Hope. Therein he argues that the early Christian hope, which recapitulates and transforms the Jewish eschatological hope, was rooted in the future resurrection of God's children. The guarantee of this future resurrection was predicated upon the historical resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus was vindicated by God, so will his message and his followers be at the end of the age. But if Jesus is not risen, God has abandoned him, his message has failed, and we are wasting our time (according to Paul). Jesus is said to be the first-fruits of those who are asleep. This means that there will be a fuller harvest at the end of the age. It is a form of poetic justice: all those who have been oppressed and abused like Jesus and the outcasts he ate with -- they will be vindicated and risen up in the end.

Now Wright argues that the risen Christ was not the same Christ with the same body: his disciples didn't even recognize him at first. Paul argues upon the ground of Christ's resurrection that we will receive a new body in the resurrection, a celestial body that we do not yet understand or see. Wright refers to this as "transformed physicality": there is a continuity with physical existence, empirically and tangibly, but also a transcendent and fuller dimension to this existence. Perhaps it could be said this way: the new body is not less empirical but more fully so. It more fully exists, just as the promise held out is the promise of a "new creation," a "new heaven and new earth" that will be more fully material and real, not less so. We wont be ghosts in the clouds. We will be more fully human.

Jesus would have been more fully human and a foretaste of what lies beyond the eschatological horizon of his early followers' hope. What else could have drawn them out of their despair? They felt that Jesus had been a failure, and those who heard him crying out on the cross knew that he may have felt like a failure too. When Jesus was killed, so was his message. The disciples fled in despair. What could have led them to believe he had risen and been vindicated? I would argue nothing less than something very real and traumatic, something like an empirically present Christ. It's hard to imagine that they simply began to believe this as they reflected on their vivid memories of Jesus as Haight seems to think.

Haight's Fallacy:
So back to Haight. His belief that the event cannot be both historical and meta-historical is fallacious: he himself argues that Jesus mediates the presence of God as a concrete symbol. Why can the resurrection not be a concrete and mediatory symbol? In other words, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as an historical event can be understood as a dialectical symbol mediating a meta-historical and transcendent reality: Jesus has been taken "up" into the life of God, vindicated and exalted over his oppressors, concretely manifested in his empirical resurrection. Again, if Jesus is the first-fruits of the new creation and the second Adam (Gk. anthropos=human, Heb. adam=human), he must be more human, not less. The Jews believed that we are not whole beings unless we have both a body and an internal life-force joined as a psychosomatic unity. Jesus has to be a holistic psychosomatic unity from the new creation to accurately/truthfully preview the ultimate eschatological outcome of God's redemptive activity in history.

Theological Consequences:
Without an historical resurrection, the central oracle of early Christian hope is lost. Christianity as a spiritual path does not get lost, nor the luminosity and wisdom of Jesus' teachings. But the particularity of the Christian hope gets lost. The message of Jesus has a lot of transformative power in itself, but the resurrection gives it teeth. Some are content losing the metaphysical singularity of the Christian message   truncated from its spiritual path; others would like to have a form of poetic justice laid out in front of the world's suffering as a guarantee to the poor and oppressed, a messianic structure of hope-against-hope offered as an historical pre-figure to a future interruption to the insane samsara of systemic injustice as well as an ultimatum laid out before the oppressive cultural forces as a challenge and a threat.

Genesis 1-11 as Ancient Macrohistory

Scholars have differed on the nature of Genesis 1-11 as long as the sciences have been around. For some, it is historicized myth; for others, it is mythicized history. Still others choose one of two extremes: a linear, didactic, strictly literal historical account or a purely fictional myth stripped of any power, inspiration, or spiritual truth. The first extreme deprives the narrative of its obvious symbolic and literary elements. These elements are important for understanding early Jewish theology and anthropology. They also give cause to compare the Genesis narrative to other ancient creation and flood narratives that came beforehand, illuminating what kind of countercultural statements the Genesis narrative made in contrast. The problem with the latter extreme is that it typically motivates people to dismiss the Genesis narrative as too primitive, barbaric, outdated, and irrelevant.

Unfortunately, American Christians have usually failed at wrestling with this text graciously due to the extreme social pressures laid on seminarians and pastors to interpret it completely literally and non-symbolically. In places like Europe, living in the tension is expected. This is the best and most honest place to be.

I would argue that Genesis 1-11 is best understood as an ancient form of macrohistory. Macrohistorians look back and trace the general trajectory of human history in evolutionary terms and attempt to make meaning out of it, typically offering a prediction of the future. This is what I see in Gen 1-11: an early project in sociology, a history of human development. Here’s an overview of this “macrohistory”:

(1) Eden (hunter/gatherers & agriculturalists); (2) Exile (nomadic herders); (3) Flood (city-dwellers); (4) Babel (empire-builders). This follows the general trajectory of what anthropologists know about ancient history (and pre-history). From a normative, human point of view, this is a progress, an ascent. Each stage maps an increase in knowledge, advancement, and complexity. However, from a countercultural point of view, or a Jewish perspective, this was actually a descent.

According to the Genesis 1-11 narrative, sin began with the will to power and knowledge. This led to disobedience. Once in exile (nomads), the hunter (Abel) and the gatherer (Cain) raise evil to the next level: murder. Once the land is populated with city-dwellers, there is widespread violence and abuse (flood account). The final level is oppression and empire (Babel). Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, YHWH becomes most angry with oppressors. The major Jewish statement is this: YHWH, unlike the other gods, has complete control over the created order but made it good and values it. He also values man who he made in his own image. This is not the case with the pagan gods. Also, man is not portrayed as gaining progress in his will to power and knowledge, but rather he is seen as becoming increasingly violent and evil. The New Testament provides a rescue plan for the creation: the advent of the Kingdom of God on earth. Otherwise, the created order will continually spiral downwards as in the Gen 1-11 narrative because of man’s evil. This is how I believe Gen 1-11 is meant to be understood, if we want to be honest and biblical. It is greater than mere myth and greater than literal, historical account.

Modern Utopianism and the Unholy Trinity

Surrounding the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, there was a movement toward rationalism, reductionism, and a more mechanical view of the universe. With the growth of human knowledge came many good things such as overthrown superstition, new medicines and cures, higher and more effective levels of transportation, better living conditions, etc. However, with the rise of human knowledge and progress came the rise of human pride and over-confidence coupled with a higher rate of intellectual progress than of moral and ethical progress. In other words, knowledge was enthroned and ethics did not prevail at the same speed.

Around the same time as increasing scientific progress, a more utopian vision arose. The way I choose to summarize the vision is through three tenets in a new trinity for a new religion: science, technology, and education. The major, secular thinkers of this time sought cures through science, convenience through technology, and morality through education. This was how they sought to build a perfect world. They understood nature as mishap and in need of perfection, which they believed they could do with their increasing knowledge of science. Nature was a machine, and machines can be fixed. They believed that if people had more knowledge, they would naturally be good and moral citizens, contributing to this utopian vision. Of course, this vision never achieved its end; in fact, nature is now even more screwed up as evidenced by environmental degradation, our convenient communities of high technology that are losing sustainability and turning into impossibilities, and people who have more questions than answers. After scientific “laws” and “order” were established in a post-Newtonian context, turning our view of nature into clockwork and machinery, the laws began to collapse at smaller levels in Einstein’s new theories in physics.

As a result of such unforeseen failures, there has been a new attitude arising in critique of modernity, recognizing its victories while pointing out its failures – a posture scholars classify as “post-modern.” However, there are some who appear to still carry on the modern myth – what today could be called GTE, or a Grand Theory of Everything. The biggest proponents of this view call themselves the New Atheists – scientists who continue to believe that salvation will come through science and that religion is useless and destructive. Many post-moderns find themselves caught on the outside of everything, disillusioned at humanity’s over-confidence in answers and final, systematic explanations of everything. They are incredulous of the belief that all truth in every area, whether scientific, metaphysical, ethical, or whatever, can be summed up in a simple and elegant equation.

In the cross of Christ I see an event that stands in subversive contradiction to the religious, political, and social orders of its day. It is an event with no easy answers, with a man – both human and divine – who cries out that his God has forsaken him. Within this picture we find solidarity in the brokenness, disillusionment, doubt, and paradox experienced. We also find resurrection. Resurrection that follows a messiah who loved and forgave unto death, even forgiving those who were murdering him while the words left his mouth. In a world of disillusionment and doubt, where answers are scarce and intellect has bypassed ethic, I stake my hope on the giving of oneself to others. I may not have the empirical proof in my hands that this is the answer, but I have found glimpses of good and hope in those who love one another. It is my conviction that love could heal this world if people would commit to it. I know that people don’t want to, and this is why I look to a messiah who grants the power to do so. I don’t believe that the salvation of our lived reality exists in a utopian vision based on science, intellect, or easy answers, but in a revolution of transformative love.

The Kingdom of God Movement: From the Elite to the Outcast and Foreigner

In Palestine during Jesus' day, the temple had become corrupted by the ruling elite (scribes, priests, pharisees) and they were oppressing the rest of the Jews (peasants, outcasts) and collaborating with Rome for their own wealth. Jesus, having grown up as a stone mason (not carpenter - wrong definition of Greek word within the historical context) with his father Joseph building Herod's city, approaches the temple in Mark 11 to condemn the ruling elite and the temple system they had created.

Jesus starts to overturn the money tables which are being used to the gain of the priests on Passover, and then he quotes his famous line. The first part says "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations". This is found in Isaiah 56 when God is calling the outcasts of Israel and the foreigner into his house. This is emphasized in 56:6-7 when God says that foreigners will be included if they serve him and 56:8 when it says that He gathers the outcasts of Israel. The ruling elite were keeping this from happening with their greed and legalism. Jesus then accuses them of making it into a den of bandits. The background to this is found in Jeremiah 7:1-15 when the priests murder, steal, and harm the Israelites and then take refuge in the temple for security. Jeremiah then condemns them. This is what the elite were doing, and Jesus is prophesying their condemnation.

In Mark 11:12-14, Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit in season to never bear fruit again. This is before the temple incident, so it is like he is prophesying of the temple system's condemnation. After the temple incident, the fig tree is withered to the roots. Jesus then says that if you have enough faith, you can say to this mountain, "Be taken up and thrown into the sea", and it will be done. When he said "this mountain", he was probably referring to the mount that the temple stood upon. This was all prophetic of the destruction of the temple system and condemnation of the ruling elite.

After this Jesus tells the parable of the tenants. The workers of a vineyard do not do their job, and when the owner sends his son, they kill him. The vineyard is of course taken away from the people who work it. The vineyard is the kingdom of God, the workers are the ruling elite (priests, scribes, pharisees), the owner is Jesus' Father, and the son is of course Jesus. This is prophetic of the kingdom of God being taken away from the elite, because they are not keeping it and bearing fruit, which means loving and serving their neighbors equally - which is what Jesus' teachings are many times about.
He teaches these things to the outcasts of Israel (tax collectors, prostitutes, etc) because the kingdom will be given to them. The idea of the vineyard is taken from Isaiah 5, where Israel is described as a vineyard, and because it doesn't bear fruit, God plans to destroy it. These passages provide the context and basis of John 15. This I will discuss in an upcoming blog. It also helps explain Romans 11.

Matthew 11 says that until now the kingdom suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 12 says that Jesus will bring justice to the Gentiles, which means inclusion in the kingdom as prophesied in Isaiah. Matthew 22 tells the parable of the wedding feast, where the elite are not allowed into the feast because they do not wear the proper garments, which refers to putting on Jesus' righteousness, so instead the outcasts are invited.
Luke 13:28-30 and Matthew 8:11-12 says that many will come from the east and west and north and south and recline at the table in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It says that the sons of the kingdom will be casted out where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The people from the east and west are the foreigners and outcasts, and the sons of the kingdom are the elite.

As Matthew 5:3 says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.