“As he showed them real hands and a real side, he really ate with his disciples; really walked with Cleophas; conversed with men with a real tongue; really reclined at supper; with real hands took bread, blessed and broke it, and was offering it to them. ..Do not put the power of the Lord on the level with the tricks of magicians, so that he may appear to have been what he was not, and may be thought to have eaten without teeth, walked without feet, broken bread without hands, spoken without a tongue, and showed a side which had no ribs.” (St Jerome, from a letter to Pammachius against John of Jerusalem 34, 5th century)
In a few weeks, they went from a broken group of disappointed men and women, hiding behind locked doors in an upper room, to fervent evangelists, ready to proclaim their faith out loud in the synagogue and the marketplace, and to die for it if they needed to do so.
To me, this seems strong evidence that they believed they had witnessed everything that Jerome talks about above. Their belief in the resurrection makes sense of the survival of Christianity past its early start as a persecuted minority favoured by the lowest classes. Does this ‘prove’ the resurrection? No, of course not. You are free to believe with the disciples or not to believe. Does it explain the reason for the resurrection? No, again. For that, we look to the Church, and 2000 years of meditation from devout, thoughtful, and intelligent men and women.
Joyful Papist 
Well the oldest layer, which survives in Matt, is simply a promise to appear on a mountain in Galilee. Luke transparently modified the tradition by restricting the action to Jerusalem. Given that, his narrative proofs of ‘bodily resurrection’ (which do not correspond to the utterly separate incidents claimed by John) would seem to be rather more likely to be his own invention.
This stuff about “recollection” is only plausible if you fail to read all four accounts together and in reference to each other. — A ‘synoptic’ reading makes the deliberate modifications obvious.
The example par excellence of this is of course the rather comical problem with the infancy narrative. Luke has Jesus publically presented in the temple and rhapsodised as the Messiah within a kilometre of Herod, who, according to Matt, is desperate to find the hidden location of the promised Messiah.
🙂
A situation which is easily understood when you remember that Matt is thinking of the new Moses, and Luke is thinking of the new David. Both narratives are intricate reworking of Old Testament traditions, but plainly impossible to combine as history. — The Moses / David difference explains the divergence in setting (Mountain or Jerusalem?) in their respective Easter narratives as well
I appear to have been unsuccessful as an Agent Provocateur.
Perhaps I should go over to Rorate Caeli and advocate increased use of giant Jesus puppets during Mass. That oughta work
😉
Much willingness, but no time. I plan to debate, but will take a bob each way – both agreeing with your facts and disputing your conclusions. Later. (I hope not too much later.)
Well Jerry, you impressed Toad, who is a biblical (among other things) ignoramus.
Who whenever he reads the words, “Seeing is believing,” is put in mind of the philosopher G. E. Moore talking at Oxford and pointing and saying, “I’m as sure of this fact as I am of that window over there,” only to be told it was a trompe l’oeil one, cunningly painted on the wall.
Doubtless it was painted as a trap for unwary naïve realists
Dr Johnson had a way with those sceptical of experiental learning. If Toad Googles ‘I refute it thus’ his ignorance will be lifted.
It is seldom wise, or mannerly, to presume the ignorance of others, Jessica.
Particularly regarding such an often-chronicled example.
If you see what I mean.
Which I doubt.
You may be “ignorant” of the fact that Johnson had a cat called Hodge.
On the other hand, you may not.
So I will not venture to speculate.
Setting aside the fact that it’s a bit insulting to suggest someone Google something like that… .(an English King once burnt cakes… Google it!!) , Dr J. didn’t refute anything, which may well have been the original point of the whole tongue in cheek anecdote
True enough, Jerry.
Attempting to refute Berkeleyian Empiricism by kicking a stone is about as profitable as trying to refute it by pretending to kick an imaginary stone. Or so I think.
Jerry (GOING OFF TOPIC), just read this on Rorate Caeli. Toad, being well informed on things pertaining to the Spanish speaking world might clarify whether the sentiments expressed here have cross the line from “conservative Catholic” to “apologists for fascism”??
Alas, while it is possible to reach moral judgments on specific acts of that period, it is impossible to simplify what happened, and even less to misappropriate words such as “genocide”, as some human rights organizations have insisted in doing regarding the problems of that period. In sum, the Argentine military government was bloody because the terrorist threat and attacks of Communist and Liberation-theology-inspired organizations in Argentina in the 1970s, particularly in the 1973-1976 “democratic period”, were more violent than almost anything ever seen in the Americas – and that is saying something. One only has to remember the martyrdom of many conservative Catholics who spoke up at that time. Right in the middle of this upheaval, a Church that had once been deeply traditional but was now battered by the winds of Vatican II and the Medellín Conference was apparently falling apart. Very few managed to keep their calm, and that certainly seems to have been the case of the Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in 1973-1979, Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, though not the case of many of his colleagues in the Society of Jesus, who still criticize him for never having “criticized or opposed the government” (see). He did not, and that is actually to his great merit.
Well, we’d have to ask ourselves how violent the liberation theology movement was. Murderers for Christ? I don’t think so.
It is a sad reflection on the Church that for many years (in the recent past at least) it has been inextricably linked with fascism in several countries.
No disputing that.
And here in Spain they are paying the price for it.
And will do so for some considerable time, I suspect.
Probably forever.
Whether that is merited or not I couldn’t say.