The post-resurrection appearances

Abstract

As a group, the post-resurrection appearances of Christ have been variously interpreted because the Gospels present different accounts with respect to number, location, and people involved. The difficulty is increased because Paul's experience on the road to Damascus is considered as one of these appearances. The post-resurrection appearances cannot be considered historical in that there is no way to prove that they occurred. However, to the people involved the post-resurrection appearances were real in the sense that they occurred at a definite point in time. The post-resurrection appearances can be considered visions.

The vision of the appearances of the Risen One stands side by side with the visionary experiences at the baptism and transfiguration of Jesus and provides a typical special case of the prophetic experiences of God .... In the first place, an examination of the real state of the New Testament shows that according to the judgment of the earliest Christian witnesses, the appearances of the Risen One are in no way to be identified with general theophanies, or with visions of angels and experiences of spiritual ecstasy in Old Testament prophecy. . .. Secondly, in the appearances we have to do not with a typical prophetic experience of the divine, but with a once-for-all experience which has no analogy either before or after. The spiritual visions of the prophets could be repeated any number of times before and during their ministries. The resurrection appearances have the character of strict once-for-allness, so that the apostles never afterwards expected nor experienced a similar event, even though visions occurred also in their later life.