Revisiting the Empty Tomb: The Early History of Easter

Description

The Gospels disagree on what happened at the empty tomb, on who was there, and on what they saw or heard. The fact that our earliest written witness to the risen Christ, Paul, says nothing of the empty tomb has long provoked the question, what did early believers know about Easter, and when did they know it? Daniel A. Smith seeks to get behind the theological and apologetic concern to "prove" the resurrection and asks, where did the accounts of the early tomb come from, and what purpose did they originally serve? He shows that Paul is a valuable witness to the development of Easter traditions; that Q was already interested in connecting the disappearance of Jesus with his future role; that Mark was interested in the disappearance of Jesus, rather than in the empty tomb as such; and that both sources had interests different from the later Gospels. Chapters provide careful and insightful discussions of the earliest traditions about Jesus' disappearance; in a conclusion Smith draws significant implications for a theory of Christian origins. Preface vii Abbreviations ix Introduction: Not Here but Risen: Seeing and Not Seeing the Easter Jesus 1 Two Independent Traditions: The Disappearance and the Appearances of Jesus 2 Four Basic Reminiscences 8 1. When the Dead and/or Gone Appear to the Living 13 Apparitions of the Dead and/or Gone in Greco-Roman Literature 16 Apparitions of the Dead and/or Gone in Early Jewish and Christian Literature 20 The Appearances of (the Risen) Jesus and the Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Resurrection 22 2. Paul: “Last of All, He Appeared Also to Me” 27 Paul and the Resurrection Kerygma 29 The Resurrection of the Dead and the Finer Points of Greek Anthropology 35 Paul and the Empty Tomb 40 Paul and the Two Traditions 43 3. Empty Tombs and Missing Bodies in Antiquity 47 Assumption in the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient Near East, and Early Jewish Apocalypticism 49 Assumption in Greco-Roman Writings, Hellenistic Judaism, and Early Christianity 53 Interpreting Empty Tombs and Missing Bodies 60 4. The Sayings Gospel Q: “You Will Not See Me” 63 The Trouble with Q 66 Q and the Postmortem Vindication of Jesus 67 To the Origins of the Empty Tomb Tradition 76 How Different Is Assumption? How Different Is Q? 78 5. Mark: When the Bridegroom Is Taken Away 83 The Revelation of the Son of God 85 Seeing Mark 16:1-8 as the Conclusion of the Gospel 89 The Resurrection of the Son of Man 91 Assumption as Resurrection, and Resurrection as Assumption 97 6. Luke: “Why Do Doubts Arise in Your Hearts?” 99 How Luke Adapts the Empty Tomb Story 101 The Appearance to Simon (Peter) and His Visit to the Tomb 103 Are We Seeing a Pneuma? 106 Luke’s Apostolic Control of the Empty Tomb Story 112 Excursus: The Text of Luke 24 (Especially Luke 24:12) 115 7. Matthew: “And Behold, Jesus Met Them” 119 How Matthew Adapts the Empty Tomb Story 121 “And Behold, Jesus Met Them”: The Risen Jesus at the Tomb 126 “All Authority Is Given to Me”: The Risen Jesus as the Exalted Son of Man 132 8. John: “Where I Am Going, You Cannot Come” 137 How John Adapts the Empty Tomb Story 140 “I Have Seen the Lord”: Mary Magdalene’s Encounter with the Risen Jesus 144 Seeing Is Believing? The Resurrection of Jesus as the Eighth Sign 149 9. Rewriting the Empty Tomb: Early Christian Deployments and Developments 153 The Additions to Mark 16 155 Narrative Expansions of the Empty Tomb Story 158 The Empty Tomb Story and Early Christian Apologetic 164 Empty Tomb Motifs in Early Christian Hagiography 166 Visiting the Empty Tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 170 Uneasy Easter Stories 173 10. Revisiting the Empty Tomb: Why Beginnings Matter 177 Beginnings That Converge Narratively 179 Beginnings That Converge Theologically 182 Notes 185 Bibliography 235 Index of Selected Subjects 251 Index of Modern Authors 254 Index of Ancient Texts 257