In his book, The Resurrection...
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In his book, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003), on pages 324-329, N. T. Wright argues that one does violence to both Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 15:5-7 in trying to make them into the identical appearance of the resurrected Christ event. Wright prefers to suggest that the resurrected Christ made the appearance which Acts 1 reports. This same resurrected Christ also appears to more than 500 witnesses that Paul reports in this 1 Corinthians 15 text. It is well known in the gospels that Jesus appeared to his remaining disciples after his death (Matthew 28; Luke 24; John 21). However to point out that there were far more witnesses than the twelve and those in Acts 1 strengthens the argument for the resurrection. That is the Acts 1 group and 1 Corinthians 15 group both saw the resurrected Jesus as Christ. Since Peter is named as "Cephas," in 1 Corinthians 15, this also suggests an earlier New Testament tradition as well for Wright (not a redaction editing variant).
An illustration of Wright's point might be that Gary was seen as a weak and incompetent baseball player throughout the league. Why the team kept him is a mystery. Possibly they needed him to double as the scorekeeper and batboy. His teammates all said that they saw him hit a few home runs, but this was not persuasive. One day, Gary surprised the whole community and hit a series of home runs at the home team ballpark. Not many people in the league believed this story about the local "wimp," so once during an away game, Gary hit another set of home runs, which won the game for the team. Then Gary took a hiatus and decided to remain as scorekeeper and batboy. One could argue that possibly an editor of the scoring books "doctored up" Gary's batting record. But to have both a home crowd stadium and an away crowd stadium to bear witness to Gary's hitting streak -- strengthens the argument that Gary can be a good baseball hitter and player when the chips are down.
On Easter, canon scholars such as N. T. Wright remind us that our faith in new life based on the resurrected Christ is much stronger from a scholarly point of view than many would have us believe. This is part of the good news of this season.
An illustration of Wright's point might be that Gary was seen as a weak and incompetent baseball player throughout the league. Why the team kept him is a mystery. Possibly they needed him to double as the scorekeeper and batboy. His teammates all said that they saw him hit a few home runs, but this was not persuasive. One day, Gary surprised the whole community and hit a series of home runs at the home team ballpark. Not many people in the league believed this story about the local "wimp," so once during an away game, Gary hit another set of home runs, which won the game for the team. Then Gary took a hiatus and decided to remain as scorekeeper and batboy. One could argue that possibly an editor of the scoring books "doctored up" Gary's batting record. But to have both a home crowd stadium and an away crowd stadium to bear witness to Gary's hitting streak -- strengthens the argument that Gary can be a good baseball hitter and player when the chips are down.
On Easter, canon scholars such as N. T. Wright remind us that our faith in new life based on the resurrected Christ is much stronger from a scholarly point of view than many would have us believe. This is part of the good news of this season.
