The Current Impasse in Scholarship on the Resurrection of Jesus: An Attempt to Clear the Undergrowth

Some time ago Simon Joseph[1] considered the impasse between evangelical and rationalist scholars concerning the nature of Jesus’s resurrection. Clearly this deadlock had been reached long before Joseph wrote about it, and so it remains. Is there any hope of a resolution? The key stumbling block is undoubtedly the presuppositional stance taken by each side. For the evangelical no proposed solution must be allowed to override the belief that the resurrection event was an act of God, whereas the various proposed rationalistic alternatives are generally based on the assumption that brain-dead individuals cannot be restored to life, and that Jesus, as one such individual, cannot be regarded as an exception. I shall begin the present paper by expanding a little on the causes of the current impasse before attempting to clarify the question of history and miracle. I shall then try to clear the undergrowth from the accumulation of rationalistic explanations for the resurrection, thereby enabling us to better see the wood for the trees. I shall suggest that a hypothesis based on bereavement visions is the most plausible rationalistic explanation, and that it has the advantage of not requiring a supernatural element.