Review of Resurrection: Texts and Interpretation, Experience and Theology

(avg. read time: 11–21 mins.)

As I have indicated before, I am not planning on doing frequent book reviews for this Substack. But it should come as no surprise that one subject I would like to do reviews about is resurrection. The first such book I am reviewing today is the following:

Sandnes, Karl Olav, and Jan-Olav Henriksen. Resurrection: Texts and Interpretation, Experience and Theology. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2020.

I first came across this book during my dissertation research. I only consulted sections of it then, but my initial impression has only been confirmed after reading it in its entirety. There is much to commend this volume in its theological analysis, but it has enough problems that I have reservations in making a hearty recommendation of it.

Sandnes and Henriksen’s book presents the collaboration of a New Testament scholar (Sandnes) and a philosopher of religion (Henriksen) in pondering various issues related to the hermeneutics and theology of resurrection. In their words, “the chapters of this book aim at discussing how it is possible to speak meaningfully and coherently about the resurrection of Jesus, when relevant texts and present-day hermeneutics are considered. In short, how do we make sense of the claim about the resurrection of Jesus within Christian theology and practice?” (3; emphasis original). The way they summarize their overarching argument is as follows:

the resurrection is a part of Christian faith closely integrated with other theological aspects, related to both God as Creator and the redemptive ministry of Jesus. We argue that these elements are the most important of resurrection faith. Furthermore, we argue that there are good reasons for holding that the resurrection of Jesus as a historical event, while simultaneously also holding that it remains an open and, in many ways, indeterminate event—due to our lack of experiential access to it. (5)

That last point is indeed probably the most persistent emphasis throughout. They have a whole chapter dedicated to the fact that the NT nowhere actually narrates the resurrection event itself, in contrast to the Gospel of Peter. This fact is crucial to establishing their framework for talking about resurrection as an interpretative category, meaning “that it is based on an abductive inference from experiences of other elements than the resurrection itself [i.e., the empty tomb and the appearances]” (7). They thus eschew the question often posed in discussions about Jesus’s resurrection of what a camera would have seen if placed in Jesus’s tomb (4). Given that they think there are good reasons for holding that this event was historical—as they go on to illustrate at multiple points in the book—one might think that they could respond that, one way or another, a camera might have caught Jesus getting up from his supine position and his body disappearing (somehow), even if the camera would not, per se, record God raising Jesus or actually explain why this event happened. That would be where the abductive inference comes in. This issue with clarity illustrates what I regard as Sandnes and Henriksen’s most significant problem, which I will return to below.

But before we get to that, it would do to flesh out the approach and arguments of this book more fully. Sandnes and Henriksen begin with laying out their theoretical presuppositions, which includes what it means to describe something as an “experience” (as opposed to mere occurrences). This then leads to a discussion of “religious experience,” which they prefer to talk about in terms of “experiences with or by religion” (10). That is, there are experiences in human life that are more likely to be interpreted in the framework of, or by means of, the semiotic resources that religious traditions offer for the interpretation of such” (10). They thus focus on the role of explanatory frameworks, hence their reference to abductive inferences, which they describe as operating on two levels:

it is displayed in how the biblical authors engage their interpretative resources in order to deal with the experiences of the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus, and it operates in the decisions that we, as contemporary interpreters of the reports (and their inherent abductive reasoning), make when we try to make sense of these reports. In both cases, decisions are made and operate against the backdrop of the interpreter’s background beliefs (as these are expressed in their interpretative frameworks). (15)

Such is the only reasoning that is really possible here, as opposed to deduction (necessary inferences from generic premises to conclusions about singular entities) or induction (strong or weak inferences from singular cases to generic statements based on known experiences thus far). By contrast, abduction functions as explanation. As C. S. Peirce, the name most associated with abduction, notes, abduction can occur in two contexts: discovery (the generation of explanations) and justification (the inference to the best explanation; 18). It is the logical means by which new ideas are produced and new knowledge is attained beyond what can be determined inductively. As they explain further:

Induction and abduction both aim at extending our present knowledge beyond observation but do so in different respects. Whereas induction infers something about the future course of events as they may be without our intervention, ‘abductions serve the goal of inferring something about the unobserved causes or explanatory reasons of the observed events.’

From what has been said so far, it should be clear that abduction is at work in different ways in the set-up of an explanation. Schurz classifies abductions along three different, although interdependent lines of reasoning:

1.     Along the kind of hypothesis that is abduced, i.e., that is produced as conjecture.

2.     Along the kind of evidence that the abduction intends to explain, and

3.     According to the beliefs or cognitive mechanisms that drive the abduction. (19)

This establishes the framework by which they focus on the interpretations of things and the interpretive frameworks—what they call “semiotic processes” that interpret something as a sign for something/someone else—used in the NT. They thus distinguish, again following Peirce’s understanding of semiotics, between Firstness (the thing or event in itself and as immediate), Secondness (what is by relation to the First as mediate, result, effect, relation, occurrence, and so on), and Thirdness (the mediator who brings things into relation and further interprets Secondness). In this context, the resurrection event itself is an example of Firstness, which we do not have direct access to, but only have mediated access through the Secondness of the claim of resurrection from the witnesses, the empty tomb, and the appearances of Jesus. But since resurrection is an abductive/interpretative category, it also depends on interpretative resources, knowledge, background beliefs, and experiences: “abduction depends on historical and contextual conditions, and cannot be seen as independent of these” (23).

With this framework established, Sandnes and Henriksen proceed to review the various kinds of explanations given for resurrection belief in NT scholarship, including tradition-critical considerations, psychological explanations (which see the resurrection as being about the disciples, not Jesus), those explanations that construe resurrection as metaphor, and the explanations derived from orthodox faith. This serves as something of a preliminary review, since they also consider these explanations in the course of addressing other subjects and they follow up with a much more extensive review of scholarship from the views of Rudolf Bultmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Peter Carnley, N. T. Wright, and Dale Allison. I will not be commenting directly on these portions, as I am more interested in how they interact with the biblical texts.

Their review of resurrection in the NT is by no means comprehensive, but they attempt to cover a broad scope. They first look at representatives of letters, narrative, and apocalypse in Romans, Acts, and Revelation. They then turn to 1 Corinthians 15 and Paul’s discourse on transformation in resurrection. They conclude this review with reflections on issues in the Gospel resurrection narratives. This selectivity cannot help but leave this analysis deficient. Their engagements with 1 Cor 15, except for the first few verses, are in piecemeal fashion, when what they really needed was looking at the whole sweep of Paul’s argument. But his other major discourse on resurrection in 2 Cor 4:13–5:10 is only briefly discussed and then only in terms of what they think it says about continuity and discontinuity of the resurrection body (I have addressed Paul’s teaching in this text elsewhere in a way that significantly disagrees with their views). And for all that they stress the importance of the context of statements of resurrection belief, they do not do much by way of reviewing the Gospels in their entirety to contextualize what each one narrates about Jesus’s resurrection.

But there is much good in this part of the book that should be given due recognition. They are keen to note Paul’s theocentric perspective on resurrection (which I have also stressed in my dissertation and briefly elsewhere). This, in turn, lays the groundwork for connecting resurrection and creation on multiple levels in Paul’s theology (especially in Rom 8) and elsewhere in texts such as Acts and Revelation (as well as John’s resurrection narrative). They also draw attention to the ethical/pragmatic dimensions of the resurrection, both in terms of the praxis it supports and of the effects it has (particularly in the day of corporate worship coming to be on Sunday and the transformative effects on the lives of Peter and Paul). It is also worth noting that they do highlight, though not to the depth that I think they should have, the significance of the continuity the resurrection creates with Jesus’s ministry so that what comes after Jesus’s resurrection is both a continuation of his teaching and a surplus of scope beyond what he had already taught and done. Finally, their section on women’s testimony in the ancient world is particularly illuminating for how it includes texts from before and after the NT, including texts from Origen’s Against Celsus and Macarius Magnes’s Apocritus that show how the women being witnesses of the empty tomb and appearances continued to be an objection the early Christians encountered.

Despite my issues with their piecemeal approach to 1 Cor 15, their analysis of the tradition Paul discusses in the early verses of that chapter is one of the standout sections of the book. They do well to argue against the claim that Paul either did not know or did not care about if Jesus’s tomb was empty, since he does not mention it. They supplement the great articles of James P. Ware and John Granger Cook with observations about the functions of narrative tags that Paul’s summary is built around, particularly noting how the reference to “the third day” is tied with the empty tomb in the Gospels, not so much with his appearances. By this same token of the narrative substructure of Paul’s summary, they rightly note, against strictly metaphorical interpretations of Jesus’s resurrection, “a purely metaphorical or spiritual interpretation of this dictum is possible only if it is isolated from the sequence in which it appears in vv. 3–4, and also from the discussion of ‘what kind of body’ that follows in its wake” (97). And even though I disagree with their reading of 2 Cor 5, I think they are on point, following James Ware, on how to understand Paul’s notion of transformation in 1 Cor 15, and that the resurrection body is not there composed of Spirit.

Their laying out of the building materials for a NT theology of resurrection is mixed in quality, but generally helpful. One point that they do well to draw attention to here and elsewhere is that, despite claims from those like John Dominic Crossan, the Gospel narratives highlight the incredulity of the disciples, rather than their credulity, “The Easter narratives unanimously convey that the resurrection of Jesus ran contrary to their expectations. It was not a projection of their own belief; instead, they needed to learn Jesus anew” (163, emphases original). While I do not agree with their lack of confidence in the evidence for the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection—nor with their claims of contradiction per se in the stories, even if they do agree that there is a historical core in the resurrection traditions—I think the points they make here are important to note in relation to these matters:

The discrepancies are given and cannot be harmonized. It is, however, worth considering that testimonies usually come with differences and even contradictions. In itself, this is by no means indicative of historical unreliability. As we now have these narratives, they witness to a living tradition. The discrepancies may be seen not primarily as a historical problem, but as examples of the excess which is characteristic of the Easter message. Easter faith in the New Testament assumes some concepts and given frameworks, but the narratives demonstrate beyond any doubt the difficulties those involved had in coping with what happened to them. Faith in the resurrection of Jesus was in no way constituted by their concepts and pre-given interpretative frameworks; it rather comes like a response to their being overwhelmed. Thus, the whole enterprise of Easter is accompanied, not by confirmation of concepts or projections, but by surplus, change, and otherness. Watertight concepts and language regarding the resurrection of Jesus are not to be expected, as it represents a future hitherto unknown. (166; emphasis original)

Thus, the context of expectations for the abductive inferences is not their pre-existing expectations, but the story that transformed those expectations. As they say well:

The resurrection of Jesus comes with a binding, or it is hardbound, at home in a specific narrative that builds on historical circumstances that took place in the history of which all human circumstances that took place in the history of which all humans are part. It cannot be switched to any other narrative or deemed to be only a metaphor or independent from the narrative in which it is found. The resurrection of Jesus becomes what it means through the fact that it happened to him. His ministry is perpetuated through his resurrection…. Thus, the famous dictum that the gospels are passion stories with extended introductions (Martin Kähler) may be rephrased: The gospels are stories serving to identify who the risen Jesus is. (170; emphases original)

After the aforementioned review of scholarly views on Jesus’s resurrection, they close the book with some theological reflections on resurrection. This chapter illustrates well the significance of resurrection for Christology and what it means that an eschatological event has already taken place in the present world. Especially notable is a section on resurrection and disability. Their closing statement deserves to be quoted in full:

Jesus—as the first who bears a true, ultimate, and unsurpassable witness to God as life and community—is the first to take part in the community of the new creation and thus to realize it. The point of confessing the resurrection is not to look back to the events surrounding his death, but to recognize him as the one who is living—and who is manifesting the future of all creation. Resurrection implies a future in which God’s life, justice, and goodness rule. In the future of God, there is no competing economy which leads to exclusion and injustice. Resurrection to life is to be re-given a gift and is the fulfilling of God’s promise to the world. (282–83)

Still, while I hold this book to have more going for it than against it, there are several issues that keep me from giving it a hearty recommendation. While I have plenty of disagreements with how they read certain texts, I will not get into all of those now (though I will be happy to address any questions readers have about this point), and they are not ultimately what causes my reservations. The first, most fundamental, and most pervasive issue I find with this book is the avoidance of defining key terms that lead to the authors making distinctions where the readers might not see a need. This is most notable in the case of the key term “resurrection,” which Sandnes and Henriksen never define per se (they rely, rather, on characterizing it with such phrases as “saturated phenomenon”). For reference, I have defined “resurrection” as referring to a renewal of bodily life, particularly with an implied physical upward movement (hence the common expression of resurrection as “rising” from the dead), after a period of death. This is a basic working definition that can, of course, lead to multiple layers and further distinctions, such as between a temporary resurrection and an eschatological resurrection. I have gone over this distinction in my most recent article for Evangelical Quarterly, and I find it much more helpful than the distinction Sandnes and Henriksen make, in following the majority of scholarship, between “resurrection” and “resuscitation.” They use the latter term on several occasions to distinguish from resurrection (e.g., 185, 191, 216), but they never define either term. Indeed, when applied to the NT, this distinction gives the misleading impression that the terminological distinction derives from the Greek, but in fact the NT authors use the same terminology for referring to both “resuscitation” to “this life” and “resurrection” to everlasting life. The distinction also implies that the former category is not resurrection proper, again, without justification from the NT usage. By contrast, the distinction between temporary and eschatological resurrection maintains the terminological similarity while changing the modifiers and raises proper questions about what distinguishes these resurrections so that one is only temporary in result and the other is everlasting because of its eschatological quality.

This issue is all the more disappointing in light of how they make a point in stating their theoretical presuppositions that:

An observation, as a sign, does not itself contain any fully determined meaning, and moreover, the meaning it has (as a sign) can be quite different depending on its actual use and the context in which it is employed. This point is not very controversial. Usually, it is conventions that establish the meanings of words. We need to keep this in mind, as it means that everything that functions as a sign (and that would, in fact, mean most “things”) relies on conventions for its meaning or significance. It is against this backdrop that we can understand how unconventional language (metaphors) may also establish new meanings, as, e.g., in the notion of the resurrected crucified. (21; emphasis original)

It would help to have such a baseline of convention to relate their analysis to. But they do not attempt it. There is no review of OT texts and imagery. There is no review of Second Temple texts. There is no semantic analysis really, at least that is not dependent (in an all-too-limited fashion) on Ware and Cook. It may have also helped to distinguish, as Michael Licona and others do, for the sake of the historical aspect of their analysis, resurrection in the basic sense, as I have defined it above that can be accessible to historical exploration and explanation, from resurrection in a more theologically loaded sense, including the foundational statement of faith that God raised Jesus from the dead. This could then lead into a discussion of how history and theology need each other.

Second, related to this, they seem to have particular assumptions that they never lay out about distinguishing Jesus’s resurrection from what can be established historically, even as an inference to the best explanation. For example, when they incorporate ideas from Ingolf Dalferth, they say:

Thus, in his view, this confession is not primarily of a historical event, but about the act of God. This is in line with observations done throughout the presentation of the New Testament material; talks about resurrection, by its very nature, develop into talks about God. It is also not primarily an inference from historical events or facts, but the answer Christians have to an unsolvable experiential dilemma constituted by two contradicting experiences: that Jesus was dead, and that he appeared as being alive. (257)

It has traditionally been affirmed that Jesus’s resurrection was an historical event and the chief revelatory act of God. Why separate the two? At some level, the question of the historicity of the resurrection has been about whether or not God actually acted in this event, which depends on whether or not the event itself actually happened. In their regular denials that the resurrection can be firmly established as a historical fact, even as they affirm that there is a historical core to the resurrection traditions, it would help if they defined what they meant by “historical fact,” and if they could interact more extensively with the works of Michael Licona, Gary Habermas, and others, who they briefly reference, but do not significantly engage with. There is certainly more going on in Jesus’s resurrection than historical analysis can establish, and I myself have done extensive theological analysis of 1 Cor 15 in my dissertation, and of other texts otherwise. But that is no reason to treat historical analysis too dismissively, especially when their own historical analysis is relatively sparse.

Third, perhaps for reasons of amplifying points about diversity of voices, differences in testimony, and variety in claims in light of the inaccessibility of the actual event of Jesus’s resurrection, Sandnes and Henriksen have a tendency to exaggerate differences or read them into where they do not belong. Indeed, this can affect even their analysis of a particular book as apparently presenting an inconsistent picture, as in what they say of Acts:

However, Luke is not consistent when it comes to the distinction between what in later Church tradition (the Apostolic Creed) has become two separate events. Acts 1:1–2 has a structure, logic and even terminology running in tandem with 1:21–22; the latter passage introduces the ascension and resurrection as synonymous. Furthermore, the recurrent contrast “you killed Jesus, but God raised him,” is in Acts 2:33; 3:13–15 and 7:51–56 turned into “you killed Jesus, but God exalted him.” Hence, in spite of the narrative distance created in Acts 1, Luke elsewhere considers the exaltation and glory of Jesus to develop from his being raised from the dead. The precise relationship between the two remains somewhat muddled. (65)

The two events are indeed crucially intertwined in Acts, but not muddled in the sense that they are talking about. Because they do not engage in an exegesis of Acts 1:21–22, they do not actually demonstrate how resurrection and ascension are presented as “synonymous” there. They are related, of course, but it is specifically as witnesses of his resurrection that the apostles have their function. The ascension is presented as an endpoint that complements the baptism by John, not as another way of referring to the resurrection. Contrary to what they imply, there is no point at which they are said to be witnesses of his exaltation without specific reference to his resurrection in Acts. All the “but God” statements in Acts are in reference to his resurrection (2:24; 10:40; 13:30; cf. 3:14–15). Stephen’s vision is of Jesus exalted, but not of the ascension, as such, since that already happened, and he is seeing the ongoing result of the ascension, which demonstrates Jesus’s vindication over those who falsely condemned him for blasphemy even as they are falsely condemning Stephen who testifies in his name. Their statement “you killed Jesus, but God exalted him” appears nowhere in Acts, even in rephrased form. This is but one example of the several times in which the agenda seems to be driving the textual analysis and leads to distortion.

A more minor problem that I should nevertheless mention—if for no other reason than my years of working at writing centers and my extensive experience in proofreading—are the many editing mishaps. This is not ultimately Sandnes and Henriksen’s fault, but that of the editor(s). There are many cases where the English grammar is incorrect, as well as multiple cases of over-repetition of footnotes (including of more general footnotes that refer to chapters or sections, but not more specific page numbers of non-e-books). Perhaps the most egregious case is this quote from p. 122, where notes were left for editing that were not taken out, “The crucified has been raised (e[set macrton over e]gerthe[set macrton over e]).” There is another case, no doubt owing to convention for these Norwegian authors, where Isaiah is abbreviated as “Jes” instead of “Isa,” as it is in the rest of the book (131). A final instance is this case of faulty detail that an editor should have caught: “in Luke 24, the first appearance takes place on the road to Damascus and only later in Jerusalem, but not adjacent to the empty tomb” (153; emphasis mine).

One must do more sifting with this book than others I would more readily recommend, but Sandnes and Henriksen’s Resurrection book is an overall valuable resource for thinking through what the NT says about resurrection, even when one might find grounds for disagreement. It is stimulating, theologically deep, interdisciplinary in scope, and generally helpful in thinking with the NT concerning resurrection, both of Jesus and in general. And in case the foregoing has not made this point clear, I would recommend this book for more scholarly engagement in studies of resurrection in the NT; it is written primarily for scholars and less so for audiences with non-scholarly interests.