Islam - Part 7: The Disciples Believed Yeshua Rose from the Dead

There is a virtual consensus among scholars who study Yeshua's resurrection that, subsequent to His death by crucifixion, His disciples really believed that He appeared to them risen from the dead.

Someone may say that they were hallucinating from grief, or that they were delusional.  Some will say, they're not even certain the Gospel accounts were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Or perhaps, they lied.

Using our minimal facts approach, there is no need to defend the position that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the four gospels while discussing Yeshua's resurrection. Instead, we are going to look at a number of ancient sources that will lead us to our conclusion regarding the beliefs of the disciples.

Yeshua's disciples claimed that Yeshua rose from the dead and appeared to them.  They were eye-witnesses.  This can be verified through nine independent sources that fall into three categories:

[1]  Paul's testimony about the disciples.
[2]  The early church's oral tradition.
[3]  The writings of the early Church.  Two of those writers were likely disciples of the eye-witnesses.

[1]  Paul provides very strong evidence for establishing the Resurrection claims of the original disciples.  He claimed that his own authority in the church was equal to that of the other apostles.  That authority was acknowledged by a number of the apostolic fathers soon after the completion of the New Testament.

Paul knew the disciples firsthand.  Including the big three:  Peter, James, and John.

Note that below... the disciples were afraid of him.  Why?  Because Paul was known to hate Christians and sought them out to be executed at one time.  More on this later.

[Act 9:26-30 LSB]  And when he [Paul] came to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. [27]  But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and recounted to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had talked to him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Yeshua. [28]  So he was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. [29]  And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews, but they were attempting to put him to death. [30]  But when the brothers learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus.

Also see Acts 15:1-35.

Other early Christian writers within one hundred years of Yeshua also seemed to hold that the disciples and Paul were colleagues, since they included Paul in the group called apostles.

Paul, having known the eyewitnesses, might having something important to tell us concerning the disciples.

First, Paul writes of the resurrection in his first letter to Corinth:

[1Co 15:1-11 LSB]  Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaimed as good news to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, [2]  by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I proclaimed to you as good news, unless you believed for nothing. [3]  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, [4]  and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, [5]  and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. [6]  After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. [7]  After that, He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, [8]  and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. [9]  For I am the least of the apostles, and not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. [10]  But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. [11]  Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Paul knew the disciples personally and reports that they claimed to have been eye-witnesses to the resurrection of Yeshua.  Not only them, but also himself, James, and "more than five hundred brothers at one time".  He then goes on to say, "most of whom remain until now".  Why is this important?  Because if Paul were lying, it would've been easy to investigate by questioning any, or all, of these 500+ eye witnesses.  It would've been easy discredit Paul and the disciples by anyone reading this letter.

Again, a naysayer is thinking... "I don't believe in the Bible and you're using it again."  This is an unreasonable response from one who is seeking the Truth.  Why?  Because we're not discussing the infallibility/inspiration of Scripture.  We're examining the letters as an ancient volume of literature containing twenty-seven books and letters.  This is no different than examining the history of Caesar through ancient literature.  Even the skeptical scholars who study the resurrection event readily accept this method.  Remember, the writings/letters were not even composed into the New Testament until much later.  These writings are just that... recorded, ancient, historical documents written in the first century.

Paul is a source independent of the disciples.

The ancients did not have our tools for recording and passing along information. People were'nt walking around with their iphones recording everything they saw on their cameras - those types of means were nonexistent and the individual copies that could be made by hand could not reach many, for few people knew how to read. 

So, they relied on oral tradition to teach others. Scholars identify several instances in which oral traditions have been copied into the writings that comprise the New Testament.  These include carefully constructed creeds, hymns, story summaries, and poetry.

These are significant, since the oral tradition had to exist prior to the New Testament writings in order for the New Testament authors to include them. This takes us back to some of the earliest teachings of the Christian church, teachings that predate the writing of the New Testament. 

[2]  Let's look at two types of oral tradition found in the New Testament that will support our point that the original disciples claimed that Yeshua rose from the dead and appeared to them.

Creeds were popular because they were easy to memorize and retain.  A good example is the Apostle's Creed.  It's an easy method to pass on important Christian doctrine.  The Apostle's Creed passes on several important doctrines in a format easily memorized.  Even passed on into songs (Third Day for example).

One of the earliest and most important is quoted in Paul's first letter to the Corinthian church (c. A.D. 55). He wrote:

[1Cor 15:3-5]  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, [4]  and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, [5]  and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 

This was a creed that existed before Paul penned it.

​First, Paul's introductory comment, "I delivered to you . . . what I also received," denotes the imparting of oral tradition.  Paul is saying that he delivered to the Corinthian church information he received from others.

Second, since the first Christians were Jews, we would expect that the early creeds and hymns would appear in their primary spoken language, Aramaic. There are indications that verses 3–5 had an Aramaic origin, such as the four-fold use of the Greek term for "that" (hoti) common in Aramaic narration and the name, Cephas, which is Aramaic for Peter (see John 1:42). 

Third, the text's content is stylized and contains parallelism. In Greek, the first and third lines are longer, have the same construction, and contain the phrase "according to the Scriptures" at the end, followed by a short sentence beginning with "that." (a) "That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (b) and that he was buried (c) and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (d) and that he appeared to Cephas.

Fourth, non-Pauline terms indicate that he probably did not form the creed but got it elsewhere, as he states in verse.

Many critical scholars believe that he received it from Peter and James when he was visiting them in Jerusalem three years after his conversion.  If true, then Paul learned this creed with five years of the resurrection of Yeshua, and he learned it from the disciples himself. 

What does this mean?  It means we have source material that dates to within two decades of the resurrection and that Paul deemed the disciples as reliable.  This is something that antiquity historians drool over!

Sources that cannot be ignored are the Gospel accounts themselves.  No matter how skeptical the critic might be concerning the Gospels, it is well-accepted that all four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke/Acts, John) were written during the first century.  Each gospel attests to the resurrection of Yeshua, and Acts is the sequel to the third gospel, Luke. This means that four accounts were written within seventy years of Yeshua at the latest, reporting the disciples' claims that Yeshua rose from the dead.

[3]  The apostolic fathers are the church leaders who succeeded the apostles.  It is probable that some of these men had fellowshipped with the apostles and/or were instructed and appointed by them, and/or they were close to others who had known the apostles.  Therefore, there is a strong likelihood that their teachings can be traced back to the apostles/eye-witnesses themselves. The following apostolic fathers taught that the apostles were dramatically impacted by Yeshua's resurrection.

Clement, bishop of Rome (c. 30-100) - In his letter to the Corinthian church, Clement writes of the apostles, "Therefore, having received orders and certainty caused by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and believing in the Word of God, they went with the Holy Spirit's certainty, preaching the good news that the kingdom of God is about to come."

Irenaeus also reported information regarding Polycarp (c. 69–c. 155): "But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles."

Irenaeus also makes mention of Polycarp in a letter to Florinus which is now lost but fortunately preserved by the early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263–c. 339) as saying, "When I was still a boy I saw you in Lower Asia with Polycarp, when you had high status at the imperial court and wanted to gain his favor. I remember events from those days more clearly than those that happened recently . . . so that I can even picture the place where the blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, his comings and goings, his character, his personal appearance, his discourses to the crowds, and how he reported his discussions with John and others who had seen the Lord. He recalled their very words, what they reported about the Lord and his miracles and his teaching—things that Polycarp had heard directly from eyewitnesses of the Word of life and reported in full harmony with Scripture."

Polycarp was martyred in Smyrna (modern Izmir, Turkey) around the year 160 at the age of eighty-six.   Around 110, he wrote a letter to the Philippian church, speaking of the righteousness and endurance witnessed in the lives of several including "Paul himself and the other apostles." Of them he says, "For they did not love the present age, but him who died for our benefit and for our sake was raised by God."   In fact, Polycarp mentions the resurrection of Yeshua five times in his letter to the church in Philippi.

As with Clement, if Irenaeus and Tertullian are correct that Polycarp had been taught and appointed by apostles, his statements concerning Yeshua's resurrection can be linked to these apostles, since, as their central teaching, it makes the most sense that they would have wanted to preserve it above all other doctrines.

The nine sources in the three categories above point to multiple, very early, and eyewitness testimonies to the disciples' claims of witnessing the risen Yeshua.

Now, of course, the mere fact that the disciples claimed that they saw the risen Yeshua does not alone merit the conclusion that Yeshua actually rose from the dead, since anyone can make a claim. However, as we will see in a moment, the data reaches beyond the mere claim they made.