Studies on the Origin of Divine and Resurrection Christology

By Andrew Ter Ern Loke

The origin and development of divine and resurrection Christologies are among the most important and controversial issues in the study of Christianity. One reason why there is a lack of consensus among scholars--even though they have access to the same historical material--is that different scholars analyze the material differently. Building upon his previous monographs The Origin of Divine Christology (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Routledge, 2020), Andrew Loke demonstrates the fallacies of reasoning in the analyses of the works of numerous scholars such as Bart Ehrman, Paula Fredriksen, David Litwa, Richard Carrier, Raphael Lataster, Daniel Kirk, Matthew Larsen, and Dale Allison. Loke defends his proposal that a sizeable group of earliest Christians perceived that Jesus claimed and showed himself to be truly divine and resurrected, and replies to objections to his previous works. He contributes to the discussion on ancient Jewish monotheism, exalted mediator figures, comparison with Greco-Roman literature, Jesus-mythicism, Markan Christology, the historical reliability of the New Testament, as well as the use of philosophical and theological categories and the use of psychological studies on parallel apparitions, cognitive dissonance, mass hysteria, pareidolia, and memory for the study of early Christology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Aug 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666743395

Andrew Ter Ern Loke

Andrew Loke is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Hong Kong Baptist University. He has published multiple books with world-leading academic publishers in peer-reviewed monograph series in the fields of theology, philosophy of religion, historical-critical New Testament studies, and science and religion. In addition, he has published numerous articles in leading international peer-reviewed journals such as Religious Studies (Cambridge University Press) and Journal of Theological Studies (Oxford University Press).

Book preview

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A summary of my arguments

1.1 Introduction

One of the most controversial questions in the history of religion is how the human Jewish preacher Jesus of Nazareth came to be regarded as truly divine

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and bodily resurrected.

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I have addressed this question and responded to the arguments of numerous scholars in two of my previous monographs The Origin of Divine Christology (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Routledge, 2020). These monographs contribute to the study of early Christology by using transdisciplinary tools involving historical-critical study of the New Testament, psychology, comparative religion, and analytic philosophy. They approach the origin and development of divine and resurrection Christologies as a phenomenon of history subject to the methods of historical inquiry, which involve a consideration of factors such as the religious, social, and cultural background of the earliest Christians; their understanding of sacred texts; their religious experiences; and their interactions with surrounding cultures and the challenges that they faced. They include an examination of the earliest Christian texts to discern the convictions of their authors concerning the divine status of Christ and how widely their convictions were held among the earliest Christian communities, as well as the construction of theories that attempt to make sense of the evidence.

The two monographs have received a number of favorable reviews. For example, the review published in Catholic Biblical Quarterly states:

I found The Origin of Divine Christology to be exemplary in bringing the reader up-to-date with the most recent evidence and objections in a systematic way. This is one of best contemporary treatments for professors and teachers to consult and study at length for the purposes of showing the reasonableness of belief in Jesus’ divinity.

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The Review of Biblical Literature comments that

Loke . . . defends his position . . . with a philosophical rigor and elegant simplicity not present in those with whom he dialogues nor typically found in New Testament scholarship more generally . . . Loke shows his mastery of the ancient primary sources as well as the debates in contemporary secondary literature . . . Loke’s work merits a wide readership. Those who still cling to an older religionsgeschichtliche Schule approach to the slow evolution of New Testament Christology may find they have a difficult task if they want to adequately counter this newer emphasis on its revolutionary development.

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Reviews in Religion and Theology notes that The Origin of Divine Christology

is valuable both as an exposition of the thesis that earliest high Christology ultimately derives from Jesus’ own claims, as well as a survey of, and critical introduction to, key works in this expanding field. While Loke’s many arguments in favor of a widespread and virtually uncontested high Christology might give the impression that his conclusions have been decided in advance, an impression is nonetheless not a rebuttal, and each of his claims should be assessed on their own terms. This book will be of particular interest to both biblical scholars and theologians working in Christology, theology proper, and Pauline, Synoptic, and Johannine theology. It will also serve as a reasonably accessible introduction for undergraduates seeking an overview of debates surrounding early Christian Christology.

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Commenting on Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the review published in The Journal of Theological Studies states:

By the end of Andrew Loke’s excellent book, he concludes that the most rational viewpoint is that the original percipients saw Jesus himself. . . . Loke is to be commended for an accessible and systematic approach to the resurrection of Jesus that helps the reader understand the full range of available options in considering the epistemic warrants for believing in the foundational claim of the Christian faith.

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Unsurprisingly, a number of objections against the arguments presented in the monographs have also been raised in the literature. In the meantime, defenses of alternative theories have also been offered in the literature since the publication of my monographs.

In this chapter, I shall provide a summary of my arguments concerning the origin of divine Christology, followed by an assessment of some of those objections and alternative theories.

1.2 The main arguments in The Origin of Divine Christology and responses to some objections and alternative theories

1.2.1. A summary of six categories of theories and fourteen historical considerations

The earlier monograph The Origin of Divine Christology explains in detail that the various theories concerning the origin of divine Christology can be classified as follows:

(1) The Early Evolutionary Theories

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propose that divine Christology was not the view of the primitive Palestinian Christian community but was present by the mid-first century (as indicated by the Pauline epistles) as a result of pagan influence.

(2) The Later Evolutionary Theories

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propose that divine Christology arose later by the end of first century (as indicated by the Gospel of John) as a result of pagan influence.

(3) The Early Unfolding Theory

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proposes that divine Christology was not the view of the primitive Palestinian Christian community but was present by the mid-first century (as indicated by the Pauline epistles) as a result of trends within Second Temple Jewish monotheism.

(4) The Later Unfolding Theory

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proposes that divine Christology arose later by the end of first century (as indicated by the Gospel of John), as an extension of trends within Second Temple Jewish monotheism.

(5) The Explosion Theories propose that divine Christology was the view of the primitive Palestinian Christian community: either (5.1) it does not involve the earliest Christians’ perceiving Jesus claimed to be divine (e.g., the religious experience theory of Hurtado),

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or (5.2) it does.

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(6) Combination Theories combine elements of the above theories. For example, Ehrman’s Resurrection and Ascension Theory combines aspects of Evolutionary Theory and Later Unfolding Theory.

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In the rest of that monograph, I responded to the objection concerning the issue of bias in historical research highlighted by Martin Kähler, Albert Schweitzer et al.,

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engaged in detail with all the categories of hypotheses listed above, and demonstrated that there are essential features of each of the above categories of hypotheses such that, while the alternatives to (5.2) are unworkable, (5.2) is not. Specially, I argued that the earliest Christians regarded Jesus as truly divine, because they thought it was God’s demand, which was known through the following way: a sizeable group of earliest Christians perceived that Jesus claimed and showed himself to be truly divine, and they thought that God vindicated this claim by raising Jesus from the dead.

The Origin of Divine Christology establishes fourteen historical considerations on which its conclusion is based:¹⁵

(1) The conviction that Jesus was truly divine was present among the earliest Christians.

(2) This conviction was held by certain Jews who remained deeply committed to their monotheism with its strict Creator-creature divide.

(3) The worship of another figure (i.e., Jesus) alongside God the Father was probably the greatest change for these Christian Jews.

(4) Those who held this conviction included those traditionalist Jewish Christians who opposed Paul.

(5) The earliest Christians did not avoid disagreements with one another in matters of importance, and traces of such disagreements can be found in the earliest Christian documents.

(6) The conviction that Jesus was truly divine was widespread and persistent among the earliest Christian leaders from the very beginning. There is no trace of disagreement concerning this in the earliest Christian documents. On the contrary, there is evidence for thinking that Paul considered the Jerusalem saints to be fully Christian, assumed the authority of Jerusalem leaders, and proclaimed the same gospel concerning Jesus Christ; this evidence implies that Paul’s highest Christology was also the Christology of the Jerusalem Christians.

(7) Considering the strict Jewish monotheistic context of the earliest Christians, it is unlikely that the idea of worshiping a human figure whom some of them had followed closely for some time could have originated from them.

(8) Even if it did, it is unlikely that other earliest Christians would have followed and maintained this idea, especially if they knew that Jesus himself did not have such an idea.

(9) Additionally, there would have been those among Jesus’ earliest disciples who would have defended Jesus’ own views against such falsification; in which case there would not have been widespread acknowledgment that he was truly divine.

(10) The idea that the human Jesus should be worshiped alongside God the Father while maintaining strict monotheism was a difficult idea to originate and maintain.

(11) It was a disadvantageous idea to originate.

(12) The earliest Christians were concerned to pass on the traditions of Jesus’ teachings, and they would have been interested in what the historical Jesus himself thought or would think about the worship of him.

(13) The view that, in order to know a person’s identity, it is important to know what he/she thinks about himself/herself and what he/she does, was present among the first-century Christians.

(14) The best historical explanation for a wide variety of peculiar beliefs and practices of the earliest Christians is that they were following Jesus.

A number of objections against some of the above considerations have been raised since the publication of the monograph. I shall respond to some of these objections in what follows (the other objections are addressed in the rest of the chapters).

1.2.2. Concerning ancient Jewish monotheism and early high Christology

Joshua Jipp’s review in the Bulletin for Biblical Research claims that I largely asserted, rather than argued for the correctness of my views and that I tend to assert what seems likely or may be possible and then spend the majority of his time defending his assertion from objections, and that my manner of arguing will only work for those already convinced.

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However, Jipp does not offer any argument to support the above claims except by saying that it is not as though scholars as diverse as William Horbury, Paula Fredriksen, Michael Peppard, and Crispin Fletcher-Louis ‘seemed to have missed’ the importance of the ‘conceptual distinction between Creator and creature’ (p. 56), it is that they do not agree with how Bauckham has strictly defined the relation.

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However, as he noted, I have already replied to their objections to Bauckham’s definition of the relation in chs. 2 and 3. So what is the problem?

More careful readers of The Origin of Divine Christology would note that (contrary to Jipp) I did not merely assert the correctness of my views. Rather, I responded to the objections by Horbury et al. and explained why (for example) 1 Cor 8:6 implies that Christ was regarded as truly divine by considering the textual evidence in Rom 11:36 and Isa 44:24, and why my work is proper historical research by establishing fourteen historical considerations and showing that alternative hypotheses do not fit these considerations as well as my proposal.

To illustrate the above point, consider Fredriksen’s more recent discussion concerning early high Christology and ancient Jewish monotheism.

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Frediksen notes that some scholars of early high Christology have emphasized the conceptual distinction between Creator and creature.

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God alone (so goes this argument) is uncreated; everything else (Jesus somehow excepted) is created by him.

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She replies that various Old Testament passages portray other gods (e.g., In the midst of the gods he gives judgment [Ps 81(82):2]), and claims that these gods and the universe "are just there. No idea of creation ex nihilo complicated the biblical stories—nor would it until long after Paul’s lifetime."

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She discusses the creation account in Genesis and writes:

Divine making was fundamentally a form of organizing. Pre-existent stuff was whipped into shape, ordered and sorted, with the heavy lifting timelessly subcontracted to divine intermediaries. In the first century, there were plenty of them. Several of them were Jewish. After his death, and after (some of) his followers’ experience of his resurrection, Jesus was interpreted to be such an intermediary too . . . he only had to be that deity’s lieutenant.

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Fredriksen has ignored the textual evidence in Rom 11:36 and Isa 44:24, which have been cited by Bauckham and myself. (Given that she ignores the textual evidence, it is no wonder that [as Jipp observes] she does not agree with how Bauckham has defined the creation-creature relation.) Rom 11:36 ("from him [God] and through [Greek dia] him and to him are all things) and Isa 44:24 (I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who by myself spread out the earth) imply that, contrary to Fredriksen, heaven and earth were not conceived to have been created by God and intermediaries who were lesser divine beings (deity’s lieutenants). Rather, God alone created (Isa 44:24)—monotheism" can thus be understood in this sense! All things were said to have come through (dia) God (Rom 11:36) whom Paul affirms is one (Rom 3:30), and Paul says elsewhere that all things came through (dia) Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 8:6). This implies that Christ was not a lesser divine being, but within the being of the one true God. This is consistent with the textual evidence of divine plurality within unity in the Old Testament.

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Concerning the various Old Testament passages that portray other gods (e.g., In the midst of the gods he gives judgment [Ps 82:2]), it is evident that biblical authors accepted the existence of vast numbers of spiritual beings (e.g., angels), and that these beings (as well as humans) can in some sense be called gods (e.g., Ps 82:6). The reason is that they share a number of similar characteristics as YHWH, such as the ability to have dominion, make moral choices, etc., and that they can act as representatives of YHWH. One crucial distinction, however, is that these spiritual beings and humans are creatures, whereas YHWH is the Creator.

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Fredriksen also fails to note that the Creator-creature divide is plainly stated (not only by scholars of early high Christology but) by Paul himself in Rom 1:18–25, which condemns idolators who worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.

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Concerning creatio ex nihilo, Fredriksen fails to note that, unlike other ancient cosmologies, the opening to Genesis does not affirm the eternity of preexisting matter and thus does not preclude the possibility of an earlier creatio ex nihilo event.

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The narrative that portrays God using preexistent material to create entities, such as letting the earth bring forth living creatures (Gen 1:24), does not imply that this material (e.g., the earth) had existed from eternity. On the contrary, the narrative is compatible with the idea that God had earlier created all matter from nothing prior to creating living creatures. Already in the pre-Christian Dead Sea Scrolls, we see an affirmation of God’s free creation of the world without recourse to preexisting matter.

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While the first-century Philo was not entirely consistent in his thinking about this topic, the basic tenets of creatio ex nihilo are already present in his writings (Legum Allegoriae iii; De Fuga et Inventione 46; De Vita Mosis ii.267).

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In the New Testament, Paul affirms that all things come from God (1 Cor 8:6; Rom 11:36) and not from God and another preexistent entity.

Fredriksen also objects that arguments for high Christology that weave together scriptural associations are implausible because the readers of Paul’s letters were (recently) ex-pagan gentiles and they would not have been able to decrypt (say) the delicate scriptural allusions that signal that Jesus was truly divine.

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In reply, Fredriksen fails to heed her own advice that "to do history, when we read Paul, means getting outside of his letters,"

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i.e., to consider the historical context and realistically think about how Paul communicated with his audiences. She fails to note the historical context that the letter of 1 Corinthians (for example) was written after Paul had visited Corinth, communicated with gentiles face to face, and preached the gospel to them. The contents of Paul’s gospel, which he explained in detail in Romans, include a presentation of his views concerning creation by the one God (Rom 1:18–25; 3:30) from whom and through whom are all things (11:36), a view that is rooted in Paul’s Jewish scriptural background (e.g., Isa 44:24). Given the above-mentioned historical context, the first readers of Paul’s letters would easily have been able to infer that, by affirming that all things came through Christ (1 Cor 8:6), Paul was affirming that Christ is within the divine being of the One God. Lacking such a historical context, some later readers would miss some of the scriptural allusions. This answers Fredriksen’s question, Why indeed did the Arian controversy even happen at all, if the radical identification of Jesus with God had already debuted back in the mid-first century?

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Fredriksen’s other arguments (e.g., her claim that Paul never says anything about sacrificing to Jesus)

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have been answered in The Origin of Divine Christology—a work that she has ignored—and her objection that the role of apocalyptic eschatology has been downplayed

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ignores the work of Wright, Witherington, Bock et al.

1.2.3. Concerning exalted mediator figures

Concerning consideration 3, Anthony Giambrone’s review in Revue biblique claims that it is regrettable that more progress is not made on the question of exalted mediator figures, which in many ways is the true kernel of the debate.

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However, Giambrone fails to consider and respond to my argument

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that the acknowledgment of Christ as being on the Creator side of the Creator-creature divide in 1 Cor 8:6 (which, as explained in ch. 2, implies the same divine status as YHWH) and preexistent in the μορφῇ of God in Phil 2:6 surpasses exalted figures such as Adam, Moses, Enoch, etc. in Jewish texts. In those Jewish texts, exalted figures like Adam, Moses, Enoch, etc. were not acknowledged to be involved in the creation of all things, nor preexistent in the μορφῇ of God.

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Thus, those exalted mediator figures are disanalogous to the case of Jesus, and hence this objection to my central thesis fails. In this way, the true kernel of the debate is already settled; my conclusion stands.

Giambrone also makes several vacuous claims in his review. For example, concerning my discussion of the Gospel texts, he makes assertions about my lack of historical sensitivity without explaining in what way my argument is historically insensitive.³⁷ He claims that Loke’s claim is essentially a plaidoyer for historically accepting these texts more seriously at face value,³⁸ without noting that my argument is regardless of whether every detail of the depiction of the disciples’ experience of Jesus claiming to be truly divine in the Gospels is historical.

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Rather, my argument is based on the fourteen historical considerations that I established without requiring the acceptance of the Gospels at face value. Giambrone asserts that at other times Loke’s dogmatic formulae are dubious and unclear (e.g. Jesus is ‘within the being of YHWH’?),⁴⁰ without explaining in what way are these propositions dubious and unclear and without responding to my arguments and clarifications for these propositions in chs. 1 and 2. Giambrone asserts that Loke is content simply to insist upon and presume a very neat construction of Second Temple monotheism that many others find problematic,⁴¹ without explaining what exactly the problem is and without noting that I did not simply . . . insist but offered numerous arguments that Giambrone seems to have overlooked (see for example my argument concerning the acknowledgment of Christ as being on the Creator side of the Creator-creature divide noted above).

1.2.4. Concerning the widespread extent of early divine Christology

Concerning consideration 6, Blomberg writes, Loke then turns to the question of the extent of this early divine Christology. Recognizing it is an argument from silence.

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I would like to clarify that, on p. 108 of my book, I explain that I not only defend an argument from silence for widespread extent of earliest highest Christology, but I provide a positive argument as well. In particular, in the following pages I cite positive evidence that Paul considered the Jerusalem saints to be fully Christian, assumed the authority of Jerusalem leaders, shared the same faith, and proclaimed the same gospel concerning Jesus Christ. I offer a positive argument that these evidences imply that Paul’s highest Christology was also the Christology of the Jerusalem Christians led by members of the Twelve. I also argued in the following chapters that the conclusion that highest Christology was the widespread conviction among the earliest Christians is further confirmed by the evidence of highest Christology in other (non-Pauline) first-century Christian writings.

The review by William Lamb published in the Scottish Journal of Theology repeatedly misses the subtlety of my arguments. For example, regarding my use of argument from silence, Lamb complains that Loke is quick to alert readers to the occasions when a good number of his conversation partners appeal to such arguments, and yet the paradox is that Loke’s own argument rests on an argument from silence.

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However, Lamb fails to observe that on p. 107 I explained that an argument from silence is valid when there is good reason to think that the silence would have been broken if the conclusion were otherwise, and that I go on to explain the reasons why my argument from silence is valid and why those of my conversation partners are not valid. Lamb fails to consider the reasons I gave and instead jumps to the conclusion that [Loke] finds himself caught out by precisely the same criticism that he levels at some of his dialogue partners,

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which is not true given that I did explain (and Lamb fails to note) under what circumstances absence of evidence is evidence for absence and why my argument meets this condition, but my dialogue partners’ arguments do not.

Thus, Lamb’s statement that Loke acknowledges this weakness is a misrepresentation; nowhere in my book did I consider my argument from silence to be a weakness. On the contrary, I explained the reasons why the argument from silence is valid, while noting (for the benefit of those who, unlike myself, may fail to see that it is valid) that my conclusion is not entirely dependent on the argument from silence; on the contrary there is also positive evidence that implies that Paul’s highest Christology was also the Christology of the Jerusalem Christians (see ch. 5). Lamb fails to note the fourteen historical considerations that I summarized on pp. 200–202; that historical considerations numbered 7, 8, 10, 11 12, 13, and 14 do not involve argument from silence and are already sufficient to constitute a powerful cumulative case for my conclusion; and that given the context of these considerations the argument from silence is even more plausible (in a cumulative case, the arguments reinforce one another).

Concerning consideration 9, Lamb notes that I contrast it with the deification of Haile Selassie by members of the Rastafarian faith and the personality cult surrounding Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn. However, Lamb jumps to the conclusion that if anything, the fact that their respective followers appear to have adopted ideas about their identity which were at variance with their own teachings seems to challenge [Loke’s] own contention that early Christians would only have come to believe in his divinity if Jesus had sanctioned this himself.

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Lamb has misrepresented my contention, which is that the earliest Christian leaders would have come to a widespread agreement in his divinity only if Jesus had sanctioned this himself.

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Lamb fails to note my observation on pp. 205–8 that there has been widespread dis-agreement to the divinity of Selassie and Schneersohn by the leaders of their closest followers (even if a number of not-so-close followers divinized them). This is dis-analogous to the widespread agreement in the case of Jesus as demonstrated in ch. 5 of my book (there are other disanalogies, which I explained on pp. 205–8).

Lamb claims that Loke appears to attribute the diversity and range of New Testament Christology to one simple cause. And yet, if current trends in New Testament Christology have taught us anything, it is that early Christological reflection in the New Testament was not simple but complex.

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Lamb’s objection confounds the cause of Christology with the reflection of Christology. I agree that the reflection of Christology is complex (in part due to the complexity of the historical character of Jesus, which cannot be reduced to any single category, as I stated on p. 193), but there is nevertheless a widespread agreement on Christ’s divine status by the earliest Christian leaders which—based on the fourteen historical considerations—is best explained by Jesus. As the eminent Princeton historian of early Christianity and New Testament scholar Dale Allison observes:

No follower of Jesus, to our knowledge, ever called Paul divine or reckoned him a god. Christians did, however, say astounding things about Jesus, and that from the very beginning. The differing evaluations, I submit, had something to do with who those two people actually were. We should hold a funeral for the view that Jesus entertained no exalted thoughts about himself.

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Lamb objects that the Fourth Gospel appears to describe a number of disputes about Christology: was John seeking to promote a ‘naïve Docetism’ as Kasemann suggests or was his Christology anti-docetic (pace Schnelle)?

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Lamb fails to note that, regardless of whether John’s Christology is docetic or anti-docetic, there are reasons, which I explained on pp. 156–57, for thinking that John implies that Jesus affirmed a highest Christology (e.g., John 8:58 and 20:28–29), which is all that matters for my conclusion. In his insistence that I appear to be unwilling to listen to the persistent background noise of modern New Testament scholarship, Lamb appears to be unwilling to read my book carefully and to understand what is relevant to my conclusion.

Objecting to my conclusion that there are passages in the Gospels that portray members of the Twelve recognizing that Jesus was truly divine, Lamb claims that I almost completely ignored recent Markan scholarship.

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Lamb ignores the fact that I responded at length to the recent Markan scholarship by Peppard, Ehrman, et al. concerning the Christology of Mark in ch. 4 of my book, and explained why Mark 14:61–64 implies that Jesus affirmed a highest Christology on pp. 167–71. He also ignores my argument on p. 186 that this passage should be considered together with Jesus’ forgiveness of sins in Mark 2, which was also considered as blasphemous. Taking these details together, the consistent and fuller picture that the author of Mark is trying to convey is that of a Jesus who was accused of blasphemy because he was saying and doing things that imply a claim to be truly divine (Daniel Kirk’s objection that Jesus regarded blasphemy as a charge levelled against those who fail to recognize that the Spirit of God is at work in Jesus’ ministry

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does not deny this point nor the evidence for it; see further ch. 4 for my replies to Kirk and others).

Michael Bird hoped that I had written more on diversity of early christologizing, certainly by the end of the first century and in beginning of the early second century.

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I discuss these different christologizings in greater detail in my other book A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation, and angelomorphic Christology in The Origin of Divine Christology, sect. 3.3. As I argued there and in ch. 5 of Origin, this diversity of early christologizing does not affect my contention that there was widespread agreement among the earliest Christian leaders concerning the divine status of Christ.

I agree with Bird that not everything the early church believed about Jesus necessarily had to be authorized by the historical Jesus himself (Bird mentions believing that Jesus is the prince/leader [Acts 3:15; 5:31; Heb 2:10; 12:2] as examples). Nevertheless, based on the fourteen historical considerations established in my book, I have argued that the widespread agreement among the earliest Christian leaders that Jesus was on the Creator side of the Creator-creature divide is one such thing that requires authorization by the historical Jesus. I state:

It can be argued that Jesus did claim to be truly divine pre-resurrection, but this was not widely accepted by his disciples until after the resurrection appearances. This is understandable, for given their Jewish monotheistic faith, it would have been much harder for them to believe that a flesh-and-blood figure was also truly divine than to believe that he was (say) a human Messiah.

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The understanding of the role the resurrection appearances play in the origin of divine Christology is missed by Ken Akagi, who asks, Loke argues that early Christians believed that Jesus revealed God’s will. Therefore, they believed Jesus to be divine since they understood Jesus’ teaching to reflect Jesus’ view of his own divinity, and they understood worshiping Jesus as divine to be following God’s will. This raises the question of why the earliest Christians had this regard for Jesus’ teaching.

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The answer is (as I go on to say) that the resurrection appearances . . . were the final pieces of evidences which caused them to believe that God had vindicated Jesus’ ‘pre-resurrection’ claims through the miraculous resurrection.

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To elaborate, bodily resurrection (especially of the better type; see below) was perceived by ancient Jews (including the earliest Christian leaders) as something only God can accomplish, and since the earliest Christian leaders believed that Jesus resurrected in this way, they concluded that this was something accomplished by God as a vindication of Jesus’ teaching.

1.3 The main arguments in Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and responses to some objections and alternative theories

1.3.1. A summary of the different theories and fourteen historical considerations

Concerning the latter claim, my second monograph Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ notes that various theories concerning the origin of resurrection Christology have been proposed by historical critical scholars throughout the centuries. Indeed, historical critical scholars who are interested in the study of early Christology cannot afford to ignore what the eminent Princeton historical-critical scholar Dale Allison calls the prize puzzle of New Testament research.

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As a first step towards solving this puzzle, I demonstrate that all the theories concerning the claims of Jesus’ postmortem appearances can be essentially reduced to a few known ones, as follows:

(1) Either (1.1) or (1.2) is true:

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(1.1) There were no people in mid-first-century (AD 30–70) Palestine who claimed to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus (the New Testament accounts of such people are all legends: call this the Legend Hypothesis).

(1.2) There were people in mid-first-century Palestine who claimed to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus, in which case either (2.1) or (2.2) is true:

(2.1) All of them did not experience anything which they thought was the resurrected Jesus (No Experience Hypothesis).

(2.2) At least some (if not all) of them did experience something which they thought was the resurrected Jesus, in which case either (3.1) or (3.2) is true:

(3.1) All of these experiences of Jesus were caused intramentally in the absence of appropriate

sensory stimulus (call this the Intramental Hypothesis; examples include hallucinations, subjective vision, stimulus, religious intoxication, enthusiasm, and illumination).

(3.2) At least some (if not all) of these experiences of Jesus were caused by an extramental entity, in which case either (4.1) or (4.2) is true:

(4.1) For all these experiences, the extramental entity was not the body of

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Jesus (for example, they mistook another person for Jesus: Mistaken Identity Hypothesis).

(4.2) For at least some (if not all) of these experiences, the extramental entity was the body of Jesus, in which case either (5.1) or (5.2) is true:

(5.1) Jesus did not die on the cross (Swoon/Escape Hypothesis: that is, either Jesus swooned on the cross, exited the tomb and showed himself to the disciples later [swoon],