Did Investigative Converts Authenticate Christianity’s Claims?
Christian Claim:
There were numerous living eyewitnesses, approximately five hundred (1 Corinthians 15:6), who could have refuted Paul’s claims regarding the resurrection of Jesus. Early Christians had ample opportunity to verify and corroborate Paul’s assertions by consulting these witnesses.
Response:
Firstly, we cannot base any argument on hypothetical actions individuals might have taken. Instead, we must scrutinize the evidence of their actual actions. Notably, no evidence suggests that Christians conducted rigorous investigations or fact-checking in the first century.
Travel during that period was prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, and dangerous for most individuals. Only those already convinced of the trip’s worthiness would undertake it. Skeptics lacked the motivation to incur such risks and expenses, and we have no evidence suggesting they did so. Believers, having already accepted the tenets of their faith, had little reason to verify what they no longer doubted. Furthermore, no evidence indicates that Christians in the first century undertook such journeys to verify evidence before or after converting to Christianity.
Similarly, we lack evidence of any investigative correspondence being exchanged during Christianity’s first century. The absence of such letters, which one would expect in large numbers given the purportedly numerous converts conducting inquiries, is notable.
Moreover, there is no evidence that witnesses were subjected to critical interrogations.
Secondly, it is subjective to assume that converts of that era were critically skeptical; others might interpret their attitudes and behaviors differently.[1]
Regarding the supposed five hundred witnesses, Dr. Dale Allison makes several introspective remarks regarding this in his book, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History. His remarks are included below:
“THE APPEARANCE TO MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED
Regarding the appearance to more than five hundred in 1 Cor. 15:6, our knowledge is near nil. Who exactly were these people? Paul supplies neither names nor addresses. Were they all well-acquainted with Jesus of Nazareth?190 Did they know his face, his voice, his manner of speaking? Or were many or most of them only superficially familiar with him? If the latter, how much value would their testimony possess? Were they all men, or does “more than five hundred brothers” (ἐπάνω πεντακοσίοις ἀδελφοῖς) mean “more than five hundred brothers and sisters” (so the NSRV) or, perhaps, “more than five hundred men, not counting women and children” (cf. Mt. 15:21)? And who tallied the number, and how close is it—the rounded “five hundred” must be somebody’s guesstimate—to the literal truth?191 Is Paul’s appraisal that “most are still alive” any more accurate?192 And were any of the twelve among their number? If not, who gathered them? Even more importantly, how many of the five hundred believed in Jesus’ resurrection or were disposed to believe before the event? According to Peter Lampe, “the resurrection news reported by Peter and the twelve is the only reason conceivable for this gathering. Otherwise no motive existed for adherents of a criminal who had been crucified by the provincial administration to get involved in a mass gathering that was dangerous for them.”193 I concur and am strongly inclined to suppose that the episode took place at a gathering after Pentecost. This would explain both the large number and why the episode finds no place in the gospels, which report only what took place soon after the crucifixion.194
If the event occurred weeks, months, or years after Pentecost, how many weeks, months, or years later escapes us. Also beyond knowing is whether any in the crowd had doubts during or after the event (cf. Mt. 28:17), or what some percentage fell away, as almost certainly happened if hundreds were involved.195 Nor can we say how many of them Paul knew personally, or with how many—one? two? three?—he had conversed about their experience, or to what extent retrospective bias colored their recollections. The apostle’s knowledge of the event was in any case second hand. He was not among the five hundred.196
We are additionally ignorant as to where the encounter occurred—the most we can surmise, given the large number, is that it was outdoors—or whether it happened at dawn or dusk or in the middle of the day. Nor, above all, do we know precisely what took place. Did Jesus speak or, as with most Marian apparitions, did he simply appear?197 How did everyone in a crowd of five hundred get close enough to the central event to assure themselves of what was happening?198 Or should we envisage—this is my guess—something in the heavens, like the cross of light Constantine purportedly saw above the sun199—or maybe, to imagine the fantastic, an oversized apparition akin to the gigantic figure in Gos. Pet. 10:39? Additionally, how could anyone possibly know that everyone or even most saw and/or heard exactly the same thing?200 One more than doubts that anyone went about conducting critical interviews. Finally, what would despisers of Jesus have seen had they happened upon the crowd?
I ask these questions not out of cynical perversity but to highlight our ignorance. Too many write as though we know something about the appearance to the five hundred. We do not.
Perhaps the Corinthians knew more. Commentators and apologists have often remarked that Paul, with his aside that most of the five hundred yet live, implies that they could be interrogated.201 Yet was this more than a rhetorical possibility? Whereas the apostle was writing to people in Greece, the appearance to the five hundred must have occurred in Israel, where surely the majority of surviving witnesses still lived. We have no evidence that they traveled abroad giving their testimonies, nor that any Corinthians braved the Mediterranean waves to learn more. If, further, the Corinthians had known any of them, Paul could easily have written: “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, including your friends Faustinus and Vitus, although some have died.” He did not so write. Maybe, then, the Corinthians were almost as much in the dark as are we, unable to name or quiz any of those involved.202
Despite our oceanic ignorance, exegetes, abhorring a historical vacuum, have sought to fill in the blanks. Some have been confident that the appearance to the more than five hundred occurred in Galilee.203 Others, with no better reason, have thought of Jerusalem or its environs as the more likely locale.204 Some have surmised that the event involving more than five hundred (πεντακόσιοι) should be identified with Pentecost (πεντηκοστή), even though Acts 2 says nothing about Jesus appearing on that occasion.205 Others, including myself, are unconvinced.206 Some have found the appearance to the more than five hundred in Matthew’s final paragraph, sometimes on the dubious ground that those who doubt in 28:17 cannot have been the eleven, so the latter must have had company.207 Others rightly deem this implausible.208 And there are additional options.209
Despite all the exegetical ink, 1 Cor. 15:6 remains an enigma. It is little more than a tease, a tantalizing hint about something that, barring the discovery of a new source, will forever provoke questions without answers, or at least answers without robust support. It is important to emphasize this, because many Christians continue to appeal to the appearance to the five hundred as though it carries great apologetical weight. Yet we really know nothing about this ostensibly stupendous event. We have only a brief assertion, from someone who was not there, that it happened, and we cannot name a single individual who was involved. For all we know, someone warmed up the throng and raised its expectations, as did the old-time evangelists at revival meetings.210
…
For the critical historian, then, 1 Cor. 15:6 amounts to disappointingly little. Many who find it impressive would surely brush it aside were it a claim about Kali rather than Jesus, or were it found not in the Bible but in the Vedas. We know far more about the miracle of the sun at Fatima, when a throng of thousands purportedly saw a plunging sun zigzag to earth. But what really happened there remains unclear, at least to me. We also have decent documentation for an alleged appearance of Jesus to about two hundred people in a church in Oakland, California in 1959.214 Yet the evidence—which outshines Paul’s few words—leaves one guessing as to what actually transpired. It can be no different with the appearance to the five hundred. When the sources say little, we cannot say much.”
[1] In Dr. Richard Carrier’s book, Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False?, see his chapters on Would the Facts Be Checked? and Did the Earliest Christians Encourage Critical Inquiry?