Did the Disciples Misremember Jesus’ Resurrection? An Interview with Lenny Esposito and David Graieg

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1. Objections to the Resurrection
   1. Delayed composition of the resurrection accounts
      1. Gospel accounts record events some 30-50 years after they occurred

The Period Between Events and Writing

Book	Lower (Bernier)	Lower (Robinson)	Middle (Harnack)	Higher (Sturdy)
Matthew	45–59	50	70–75	130
Mark	42–45	45	65–73	80
Luke	59	60	80–95	110
John	60–70	65	80–110	140
Acts	62	62	80–95	130
Romans	winter of 56/57	57	56–57	50
1 Corinthians	early 56	55	56	50
2 Corinthians	late 56	56	56	50
Galatians	47–52	56	53	50
Ephesians	57–59	58	57–59	100
Philippians	57–59	58	57–59	50
Colossians	57–59	58	57–59	80
1 Thessalonians	50–52	50	48–49	40
2 Thessalonians	50–52	50–51	48–49	120
1 Timothy—if Pauline	63 or 64	55	n/a	n/a
1 Timothy—if pseudo	60–150	n/a	90–110	140
2 Timothy—if Pauline	64–68	58	n/a	n/a
2 Timothy—if pseudo	60–150	n/a	90–110	140
Titus—if Pauline	63 or 64	57	n/a	n/a
Titus—if pseudo	60–175	n/a	90–110	140
Philemon	57–59	58	57–62	50
Hebrews	50–70	67	81–96	110
James	prior to 62	47–48	70–90	130
1 Peter	60–69	65	81–96	110
2 Peter—if Petrine	60–69	61–62	n/a	n/a
2 Peter—if pseudo	60–125	n/a	110–120	150
1 John	60–100	60–65	80–110	140
2 John	60–100	60–65	80–110	140
3 John	prior to 100	60–65	80–110	140
Jude	prior to 96	61–62	100–130	130
Revelation	68–70	68	93–96	150

Bernier, Jonathan. Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition, 2022.

1. 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 earlier, but still 20 years.
2. Paul preached to the Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor 15:1; Acts 18:11) in about 49–52 CE.
3. On dating First Corinthians, see Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 29–32; who suggests either A.D. 54 or 55. Achtemeier, Green, and Thompson argue for A.D. 53–54 (Introducing the New Testament, 336). Brown argues for A.D. 56–57 (An Introduction to the New Testament, 512). Brookins argues for between A.D. 53–55 (“Corinthians, First Letter to The,” 170).
4. Paul may have received this creed (i.e., 1 Cor 15:3–5/7) in either 32/34 CE (cf. Acts 9:9–20, 26–29) or, more likely, 35/36/37 CE (cf. Gal 1:18).
5. Dunn concludes that “[t]his tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death” (Jesus Remembered, 855, italics original).
6. Lüdemann states that “all the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus” (The Resurrection of Jesus, 38).
7. Most of the Jesus Seminar maintains that “the components of the list […] were formed prior to Paul’s conversion, which is usually dated around 33 C.E.” (Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus, 454).
8. Allison mentions that “[i]t is even conceivable that the apostle first heard the formula or some part of it before he became a follower of Jesus, while debating Christian Jews” (The Resurrection of Jesus, 39), but Allison concludes, “[w]hatever the tradition-history of the formula behind 1 Cor. 15:3–8 and whatever the precise place and time of its origin, the main components take us back to Christian beginnings” (p. 40).
   1. Paul also recounts his vision of the resurrected Christ and relies upon this memory as part of his 1 Cor 15 evidence.
9. While Paul likely received the creed in the early 30s, he claims his experience of the risen Jesus (cf. 1 Cor 15:8) came prior by a revelation (cf. Gal 1:11–12, 15–17).
10. Of the connection between the two passages, Kim writes, “through the revelation of Christ on the Damascus Road Paul came to realize the truth of the Christian proclamation that the crucified Jesus is the risen and exalted Lord” (The Origin of Paul’s Gospel, 69). Of Galatians 1:12, Keener notes that “‘through a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (διʼ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, di’ apokalupseōs Iēsou Christou) in Gal. 1:12 could mean a revelation ‘from’ him or, more likely here, a revelation ‘about’ him. Here God is the direct source of the revelation (1:15) and Jesus is the content (1:16)” (Galatians, 73).
11. Acts 9:3–5, 22:6–11, and 26:12–15 provide an account of Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus.
12. A vision is a mental projection caused by God.
    1. Skeptic Charge: Problems with memory
       1. Memory vs Memorization
13. memory refers to the various ways in which a person’s past influences their ability to recall information or affects their behaviour.
    1. Eyewitness testimony considered some of the weakest evidence in a court of law.
    1. EXAMPLE:
       1. Robert Buckhout: “Eyewitness Identification: Effects of Suggestion and Bias in Identification from Photographs” (Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, Vol. 4, 1974. pp. 384–385)
14. Although certain pockets within the broad field of academic psychology

have come to appreciate that eyewitness memory is more reliable than

was once believed, the prevailing view, by far, is that eyewitness memory

is unreliable—a blanket assessment that increasingly pervades the legal

system. On the surface, this verdict seems unavoidable: Research convincingly

shows that memory is malleable, and eyewitness misidentifications

are known to have played a role in most of the DNA exonerations

of the innocent. However, we argue here that, like DNA evidence and

other kinds of scientifically validated forensic evidence, eyewitness memory

is reliable if it is not contaminated and if proper testing procedures

are used. This conclusion applies to eyewitness memory broadly conceived,

whether the test involves recognition (from a police lineup) or

recall (during a police interview). From this perspective, eyewitness

memory has been wrongfully convicted of mistakes that are better construed

as having been committed by other actors in the legal system, not

by the eyewitnesses themselves. Eyewitnesses typically provide reliable

evidence on an initial, uncontaminated memory test, and this is true

even for most of the wrongful convictions that were later reversed by

DNA evidence. (Wixted, Mickes, and Fisher, “Rethinking the Reliability of Eyewitness Memory,” (2018): 324.)

1. Bart Ehrman and Jesus Before the Gospels
2. Telephone game/ More like a web where your life depends on it.
3. Rodríguez, “Jesus Before the Gospels: A Serial Review (pt. 1–8).” accused of failing to engage current scholarship on the subject.
   1. Areas where memory plays a key role
      1. Sequence of the passion and resurrection events
4.  There have been various attempts at harmonizing all the accounts (John Wenham, Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Accounts in Conflict?, 2nd ed. (Baker, 1992), 76–125; Jake H. O’Connell, Jesus’ Resurrection and Apparitions: A Bayesian Analysis (Wipf & Stock, 2016), 166–177; Michael R. Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography (Oxford University Press, 2017), 171–81; Peter G. Bolt, “What Actually Happened on Resurrection Morning? A Clear and Simple Account,” Journal of Gospels and Acts Research 2 (2018): 86–100; Lydia McGrew, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices (DeWard, 2019), 545–92; McGrew, Testimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the Gospels (DeWard, 2023), 134–62; Allison, The Resurrection of Jesus, 43–44, 314–15, 327–28; Habermas, On the Resurrection, Vol. 2, 355–415.
5.  Around dawn various women came to the tomb (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:1–3; Luke 24:1, 10a; John 20:1) noticing one or two young men or angels move the stone from the tomb (Matt 28:2–4), the guards leave (Matt 28:2–4, 11–15). Mary Magdalene goes to tell Peter and another disciple (John 20:1b–2). The angels speak with the other women and then leave (Matt 28:5–8; Mark 16:4–8; Luke 24:2–12). Mary Magdalene returns to the tomb with Peter and John (John 20:3–10). Peter and John look and leave. Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9–11; John 20:11–18). Jesus appears to the other women (Matt 28:9–10). Jesus appears to Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus (Mark 16:12–13; Luke 24:13–33). Jesus appears to Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor 15:5). Jesus appears to the Ten apostles (i.e., minus Thomas) in Jerusalem (Luke 24:36–43; John 20:19–23). Jesus appears to the Eleven the next week (John 20:26–28). The apostles and others return to Galilee, after which Jesus appears to seven of them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (John 21). Jesus appears on the mountain to commission the apostles (Matt 28:16–20). Jesus appears to James (1 Cor 15:7). Jesus appears to all the apostles prior to his ascension (Mark 16:15–20; Luke 24:44–53; Acts 1:1–14; 1 Cor 15:7).
6. Even if such harmonizations failed, as long as there was a coherent core i.e., that Jesus died, was buried, and various people claimed he appeared to them), then at least these central facts are worthy of further historical investigation.
   1. Location of the empty tomb
7. “The tomb was described as a new tomb just outside the city, hewn out of the rock, single chambered, having a bench or trough on which to place the body, and sealed with a large stone (Matthew 27:57–60; Mark 15:42–46; 16:5; Luke 23:50–53; John 19:38–41; 20:11–12)” (Kennedy, 2022, Excavating the Evidence for Jesus, p254).
8. Archaeologically the Church of the Holy Sepulchre seems more likely that the Garden tomb.
   1. Appeal to eyewitnesses in 1 Cor 15:5-6.
9. 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.
10. Approaches to the resurrection
    1. Distinguish Philosophy of Memory vs Psychology of Memory
11. philosophical considerations of (1) forgetting [The decay theory {fades over time}, interference {displacement by other items}, and retrieval {mismatch}] and (2) the theories of remembering [1) empiricist theories, 2) epistemic theories, 3) causal theories, and 4) simulation theories.]
    1. How does the creedal aspect of 1 Cor 15 counter certain objections?
12. Ware calls in a confessional statement.
13. Basically 1 Cor 15 is early and represents the belief of the early Christian community. Also, indicates that belief in Jesus’ resurrection was a bodily, as in physical understanding.
14. Memory Theory
    1. Explain taxonomy of memory (reproductive vs reconstructive, etc.)
15. A passivist (preservationist or archival) view of memory argues that memory is analogous to a storehouse.
16. a constructivist (or generationist) approach views memory as active “as the combined influences of the world and the person’s own ideas and expectations.”95 Examples of the active nature of memory include the following: 1 Selection: Only certain incoming stimuli are selected for encoding. 2 Abstraction: The meaning of a message is abstracted from the syntactic and

lexical features of the message. 3 Interpretation: Relevant prior knowledge is invoked.

• Note certain studies on memoryEbbinghaus and forgetting curves
• Publishing in 1885, Ebbinghaus found that the rate of forgetting for non-sense syllables over one month was roughly exponential and has been confirmed by other studies.
• Basically says that memory fades like a curve, (a) during the first five years, memory is fairly resistant to transience; (b) between 5–20 years, memory tends to be less reliable yet reasonably constant (e.g., whether it has been 6 to 19 years is not statistically significant); (c) between 20–50 years, memory is even less reliable and slowly declines further; d) 50+ generally not dealing with eyewitnesses
  • Memory distortion
• A memory distortion refers to an inaccuracy in memory.
• 1973 John Dean’s testimony concerning his conversations with Richard M. Nixon, then president of the United States of America. Remembers the tenor, not the gist, nor the details, and yet was basically accurate.
  • DRM Lists and False memories
• The Deese-Roediger-McDermott are the scholars whom this false memory research is named after. Basically if you present people “with lists of semantically associated words (e.g., bed, rest, awake). In subsequent free recall and recognition tests, participants often erroneously recall and recognize non-presented critical lures (e.g., sleep) as having been presented as part of the earlier lists.”
• So, the relevance is if the disciples were presented with say the idea of a failed messiah, an empty tomb, within first-century Jewish beliefs, could they have falsely remembered resurrection as part of that. The answer is likely no, just as no one remembers a hippo when talking about sleep, bed, rest. An individual resurrection was a foreign concept. Even granting the predictions.
  • Flashbulb memories
• Flashbulb memories “are memories for the circumstances in which one first learned of a very surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) event.” There are different opinions about this, like more things, some say people are more certain but not necessarily more accurate and some thing those closely involved do have more accurate memories of flashbulb events. Studies would include on sad things like Sep11th 2001, and so the mainstream view would be while most people claim to have a vivid memory of the event, it would really just be those in New York that do.
• The relevance being that if the disciples saw Jesus die and rise again, then it is very likely that would remember that.
  • Social and collective memories

Basically this is considering not just the individual aspects of memory but also the social or communal aspects. The pioneer of this work on collective memory Halbwachs in the 1920s likely combined the constructive nature of memory with social memory, and I think it is better not to conflate the two issues.

In some circles social memory is used to say, regardless of what happened this is how society remembers the event. A recent political example of this is with the Black Lives Matters movement and the death of George Floyd. I’m not American but as an outsider I could comment that there is a distinction in remembering exactly what happened concerning Floyd’s death and when it means for society. So, some scholars would want to say we can’t know what happened to events surrounding Jesus’ resurrection, all we can say is what it meant to the early Christians. My basically response to that is that the early Christian’s say that if Christ was not resurrected then it means nothing, and so we want to look at both. And to go back to 1 Cor 15 it says both that Christ died (it literally happened) and that it was “for our sins.” So, the historical memory of the event and it’s social meaning (or memory) can go together.

• Conclusion – why 1 Cor 15 can be taken as historically accurate.

1. Distance of the source (two decades with tradition going to within years of the event)

2. The bias of the witness (Saul/Paul a persecutor, who became convinced. Also, he is writing a letter than deals with a few church issues, not solely an apologetic on Jesus’ resurrection).

3. Multiple independent attestation (Paul received and passed on, Paul knew Peter, James, and the apostles).

4. Criterion of embarrassment (Saul was a persecutor, Paul wasn’t universally liked by all the Corinthians, some followed Apollos or the so called super apostles (2 Cor 11:5) compared to which Paul was an unskilled speaker)

5. Dissimilarity: it cannot be plausibly explained by contemporary factors

6. Unintentional signs of history (Erastus Inscription (First Century): In Romans 16:23, Paul, who is writing from Corinth, says Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings. An interesting reference to this man is likely found in an inscription in Corinth that reads, “Erastus, the commissioner of public works, laid this pavement at his own expense”).

7. Criterion of the impact of an event

8. Coherence with existing data

9. Marks of memory.