Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Resurrection of Christ, 1499, by Perugino . The flag as a symbol of victory over death belongs to this type of image ( Vatican Museums .)

The resurrection or resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation of Christians' faith. According to the preaching of the New Testament (NT), Jesus Christ , Son of God , was raised from the dead on the third day since his crucifixion and appeared to his disciples in bodily form.

The New Testament does not describe the process of the resurrection , but presupposes it as the sole act of God , observed and influenced by no human being ( Mk 16.6  EU ). It bears witness to the consequences of this act for some of the first disciples and other people who saw the risen Jesus according to a very early Easter witness list ( 1 Cor 15 : 5-8  EU ). The faith of early Christianity in the messianship of Jesus Christ and in the salvation of those who profess his name for eternal life is based on this testimony :

"[...] because if you confess with your mouth: Lord is Jesus - and believe in your heart: God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Christianity celebrates Jesus' resurrection every year at Easter , the most important Christian festival. The historicity of the resurrection of Jesus or the origin, content and meaning of the belief in the resurrection have been discussed controversially since modern times .

New Testament

All the writings of the New Testament come from early Christians who were convinced of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ and who regarded it as the cause and main content of their faith, which carries all other beliefs. Seventeen of the 27 NT scriptures mention Jesus' resurrection, almost all of the others assume it implicitly, including the presumed source of the Logia and the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas , which they do not explicitly mention. No NT witness described the process himself, no NT author claimed foreign, non-Christian witnesses for it. “Whoever saw the risen One was personally claimed”: That is why the early Christians could not portray Jesus' resurrection in a distant manner, but only accept it, confess, proclaim and retell it as a wonderful knowledge given by God.

New Testament research tries to shed light on the origins and development of these testimonies of faith. It assumes that witnesses of the first generation of Christians, some of whom still experienced and accompanied Jesus of Nazareth, coined and handed down 30 formulaic beliefs and confessions shortly after his death. Because Paul of Tarsus cited such beliefs from the Jerusalem early community in his surviving Pauline letters (originated from 50 AD) as an already established early Christian tradition. These sentences are considered to be the nucleus of the NT emergence.

Longer Easter stories at the end of the Gospels and the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles are considered to be a more recent, narrative development of these early beliefs. For their part, they are traced back to a first, written Passion report from the early church, which the author of the Gospel of Mark found, took up and expanded (around 70). The later evangelists took over the main features of this expanded report and modified or supplemented it.

Formula tradition

In the Pauline letters one finds one-part formulas with the Greek verb ἐγείρω (active "wake up", "set up", "let arise"; passive: "wake up", "stand up"):

• “God raised Jesus from the dead”: Rom 10,9  EU ; 1 Cor 6,14  EU ; 1 Cor 15.15  EU ; Eph 1.20  EU .
• “God who raised Jesus from the dead”: Rom 4:24  EU ; 2 Cor 4.14  EU ; Gal 1.1  EU ; Col 2.12  EU .

Here God is the subject who “defines himself” through his resurrection of the slain Jesus, so that the noun “the God” in Rom 8:11  EU can even be omitted. His dealings with Jesus appear as a unique exception to all other dead (exclusive).

Other variants define Christ through God's action in him:

• “Jesus, whom God raised from the dead”: 1 Thess 1,10  EU (is considered the oldest written resurrection note of the NT); Col 2.12  EU .
• “Christ was raised from the dead”: Rom 6,4.9  EU .
• “He who is raised [from the dead]”: Rom 7,4  EU ; Rom 8,34  EU .

In addition, there are multi-part formulas that use the Greek verb ἀνίστημι (transitive: "erect", "wake up"; intransitive: "stand up", "resurrect") and combine the resurrection statement with other statements:

• “He is risen, he is not here”: Mk 16.6  EU .
• “The Lord has truly risen and appeared to Simon ”: Lk 24.34  EU .
• “Jesus died and rose”: 1 Thess 4:14  EU ; 1 Cor 15.3f  EU ; 2 Cor 5.15  EU .
• "The Son of Man [...] must be killed and after three days rise": Mk 8.31  EU ; Mk 9.31  EU ; Mk 10.33f  EU . These are the “Passion Summaries” of the Gospels, in which the pre-Easter Jesus literally announces the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of Man . These variants relate Jesus' resurrection to his previous death, which connects him with all mortals (inclusive).

Both Greek verbs in the Septuagint translate the Hebrew-Aramaic קום for "stand up", which cannot be formed in the passive voice. Passive and active formulas appear in the oldest Pauline letters. According to Martin Karrer, the form “God awakened” drew the form “Jesus rose” immediately after itself and expresses the same thing: those who were passively awakened from death through God's power alone rose. Jacob Kremer and Otfried Hofius argued for the priority of “he stood up” .

With the graphic verbs “waking up” or “being resurrected” and “standing up”, the early Christians chose from the expressions available at the time for life after death precisely those that had a concrete reference to the whole, real deceased person on the one hand, to the Jewish apocalyptic hope for the future on the physical resurrection of the dead on the other hand. Her choice of words already contradicted other ideas of the time: In death an immortal soul leaves the body, the body becomes irrevocable; People would have temporarily resuscitated Jesus; he was born again as a different person; he lives on in his successors, who heroize him as a just martyr; he was not a mortal at all and therefore did not really die. In contrast, the early Christians understood the resurrection of this crucified and buried person as a real, holistic, unique, exceptional event carried out by God alone, through which his creative power had broken into the history of death and changed everything with its own driving force ( Phil 3.10  EU ) .

The original Christians took over the linguistic form of basic biblical statements about the saving creator and exodus of the God of Israel ( e.g. Ex 16.6  EU ; Dtn 8.14  EU ; Ps 115.15  EU ; Jer 16.14  EU ; Isa 45.7  EU and more often). They expressed that this God "in the continuation and surpassing of his creative activity in the world and his historical activity in Israel through his power to raise the dead unexpectedly and exceptionally acted on the crucified and dead Jesus" ( Hans Kessler ).

Original Christian creed and list of witnesses

1 Cor 15 : 1-8  EU is considered to be the most important resurrection testimony of the NT because of its age and weight. Because Paul, the only NT author whose identity is historically secured, introduces it as a saving foundation of faith that he proclaimed:

“1 I remind you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel that I preached to you. You accepted it; it is the ground you stand on.
2 Through this gospel you will be saved if you hold fast to the word I have spoken to you, unless you have thoughtlessly accepted the faith.
3 For above all I delivered to you what I also received: Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures,
4 and was buried.
He was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures,
5 and appeared to Cephas,
then to the twelve.
6 After that he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once;
most of them are still alive, some have died.
7 Then he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles.
8 At last he appeared to me, as it were to the freak. "

At least verses 3 to 4 are a quotation from the oldest early Christian creed , which Paul probably took over from the early church during his first visit to Jerusalem ( Gal 1.18–19  EU ). It was probably originally written in Aramaic in Jerusalem and was already fixed in writing with the list. It confesses substitute atonement, burial and resurrection of Jesus on the “third day” as “in accordance with the Scriptures”, that is, as divine stations in the biblical history of salvation that fulfill biblical promises . For the early Christians, these stations formed an inseparable and irreversible unit, which also determined the structure of the pre-Markan Passion and Easter reports.

With this, early Christians from the early church had linked a list of recipients of an apparition of Jesus in chronological order in the following verses 5 to 7. Each verse is introduced with the passive participle "he appeared / was seen by ..." ( Greek ὤφθη, ophtae ). The word here does not denote ordinary seeing, but a visionary revelation of earthly inaccessible truth ( revelation ) made possible only by God . The Septuagint often uses it for appearances of God ( Ex 16.10  EU ; Isa 33.10-11  EU ; Isa 35.2  EU ; Isa 66.18  EU ; Ps 838  EU ; Ps 101.17  EU and more often). The Jewish apocalyptic in particular narrates dream visions ("faces") in which the end-time events are anticipated. The angel's message in Mk 16.8  EU ("There you will see him ...") and Paul's own statements in Gal 1.12.16  EU and 1 Cor 9.1  EU (" Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? ”).

That kind of perception is not carried out. Everything focuses on its content: the previously crucified and buried, now resurrected Jesus. It is clear that real, sensual experiences are meant. Passive seeing was evidently a cognition and recognition that finally revealed his true, hitherto hidden identity to those who had known Jesus before his death and had partly accompanied him. It thus describes a personal encounter with Jesus Christ that has revolutionized the recipient's entire life up to now. For them he was now irrevocably the one who had unexpectedly been awakened by God to indestructible new life.

Paul and many of his addressees did not know the historical Jesus, so that in verse 6 he probably added the reference to still living witnesses of an apparition of Jesus who could be questioned. By placing himself as the last link in the list of witnesses in verse 8, he pointed out that the risen One himself had commissioned him, despite his past as a persecutor of Christians, just like the apostles of the early community to carry out a universal mission to the people. Thus, the oldest authentic writings of the NT are also the only ones who reported in first person form about an encounter with the risen One. In Galatians Paul years had previously stressed that he received his call to peoples apostles regardless of the early church and later visited this: That confirms the authenticity of his own encounter with the risen Jesus and at the same time their compliance with the earlier Jesus visions of the early Christians whose confession Paul then took over. He then dealt with the subject of the resurrection in a fundamental theological treatise ( 1 Cor 15: 12–58  EU ).

Storytelling tradition

The "narrative tradition" consists of coherent texts that elaborate on the events following Jesus' death and combine text units with one another to find his empty tomb and his apparitions:

• Mk 15.42–16.8: The story of the burial of Jesus and the discovery of his empty tomb by some women is probably the oldest narrative Easter text in the NT. He probably concluded a pre-Markinian Passion report, which carried out the formulaic pre-marked stations of the Passion of Jesus.
• The narrative units Mt 27.57–28.20 and Lk 23.50–24.53 take over and vary the story of the finding of the grave, connecting it with a collective vision of the Circle of Twelve and a universal mission of Jesus.
• Jn 19.38–21.25 offers its own version of the funerary and apparition tradition and extends it to include an encounter between Jesus, Simon Peter and six other disciples from the circle of twelve, unknown to the Synoptics .
• PetrEv 8,28-11,49 from the apocryphal Gospel of Peter is the only early Christian text that describes the process of the resurrection itself. Jesus' opponents, Jews and Romans, watch his burial and the sealing of his grave here; they witness his resurrection and a dialogue with God, whereupon he appears to them from the grave. Some text details (a grave guard, grave seal, cf. Mt 27,65-66  EU ; a centurion, cf. Mk 15,39  EU ) show that the author knew synoptic motifs, linked and varied them in his own way. Therefore, this text is considered a late apologetic legend, which indirectly confirms the separate origin of the tomb and apparition tradition.

The apparitions of Jesus

Christ from Emmaus, painting by Rembrandt

Narrative texts of appearances of the resurrected Jesus to some of his first followers can be found in:

• Mt 28: 9–10  EU : Jesus appears to two women at the grave and instructs themto sendthe disciples to Galilee . The women fall on their knees and take hold of his feet.
• Mt 28 : 16-20  EU : Jesus appears to the eleven (without Judas Iscariot ) in Galilee and instructs them to undertake a worldwide mission, baptism and teaching to keep his commandments . He promises them his presence until the end of the world.
• Lk 24 : 13–35  EU : Jesus appears to two disciples at Emmaus on the way to Galilee, explains to them the meaning of his suffering based on the Bible and eats with them. You only recognize him by breaking bread .
• Lk 24,36-49  EU : Jesus appears to all eleven apostles in Jerusalem , overcomes their unbelief by allowing himself to be touched, showing his wounds on his hands and feet and eating something, explains his passion with the Bible and instructs them on a worldwide mission.
• Joh 20.11–18  EU : Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene in a white robe in front of the empty tomb. He cannot be touched. (His words are known as “ noli me tangere ” from the Latin text and also denote the corresponding image motif.)
• Joh 20,19-23  EU : Jesus appears to the eleven disciples in Jerusalem, overcomes their unbelief by showing the wounds on his hands and side (stab of the spear), instructs them to plant churches, gives them the Holy Spirit and gives them the authority to remit sins .
• Joh 20,24–29  EU : Jesus appears to Thomas and allows him to touch him to overcome his unbelief.
• Joh 21,1–14  EU : Jesus appears to seven of the first called disciples at the Sea of ​​Galilee when they return from unsuccessful fishing, and celebrates a meal with them.
• According to Acts 1,1–11 EU , Jesus appeared several  times in Jerusalem in the forty days that followed his resurrection. He repeats and confirms the missionary mandate of the apostles before he finally leaves his disciples on ascension . Then the circle of twelve begins to publicly proclaim their resurrection. This is how the missionary history of the early Christians begins.
• Acts 9 : 1-9  EU is the only Jesus apparition after the ascension and the last of all Jesus apparitions. The text describes the conversion and calling of the persecutor Paul before Damascus , which he only mentions in his letters but does not describe in detail. This external report isrepeated and modifiedas a self-report in Acts 22.6–11  EU and Acts 26.12–18  EU .

The narrative apparitions confirm four apparitions of Jesus from the list of witnesses:

• that of Peter without carrying it out ( Lk 24.34  EU ; indirectly Mk 16.7  EU ),
• those of the eleven first called disciples ( Mt 28 : 16–20  EU ; Lk 24 : 36–49  EU ; Joh 20 : 19–23  EU ),
• before "all apostles" (executed in the form of the ascension),
• that of Paul ( Gal 1,12.15  EU ; Ac 9  EU ).

The meeting of Jesus with James and with the "500 Brothers" is not narrative and is not mentioned anywhere else. The apparitions of Jesus for the two Emmaus disciples, Maria Magdalena and the other women, Thomas and seven disciples, in turn, are missing from the list of witnesses. They are therefore considered to have probably only been composed by the evangelists Luke and John or a John editor.

Mk 16.9–20  EU lists the apparitions before Maria Magdalena, the two Emmaus disciples, the eleven, Thomas and the seven disciples: This is considered an attempt by a later editor to balance the early information on the list of witnesses with the later apparition texts by Luke and John .

The apparition texts do not make any statements about the figure of Jesus. Only when he acts and speaks does the recipient discover who he is. In Lk 24.39  EU and Joh 20.20.27  EU he allows himself to be touched physically in order to overcome their unbelief. This motive contradicts the view that he was only resurrected as a spirit without a body and that he had not really died before. In addition, there is the motif of the common meal, which recalls Jesus' last meal with the disciples before his death: Once again he gives them, who betrayed, abandoned and denied him a share in the forgiveness of sins. The Pauline vision emphasizes the motif of heavenly light in which the Son of Man exalted to God appears, which blinds the recipient and leads to the confession of one's own injustice. Self-revelation, forgiveness, knowledge of Christ and self-knowledge coincide in the apparition texts.

The empty grave

The three women at the tomb, with the angel, Albani Psalter , 12th century

Tales of the finding of the empty tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem can be found in:

• Mk 16: 1-8  EU : The grave is open; In it the women encounter an angel with the Easter message, which refers to Jesus' appearances in Galilee. The women flee and do not say anything to anyone out of fear.
• Mt 28 : 1-8  EU : An angel opens the grave in front of the women. He proclaims Jesus' resurrection and calls on the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee. The women return to Jerusalem “with fear and great joy” to report to the disciples. Jesus appears to them on the way and repeats the angel's message.
• Lk 24 : 1-12  EU : The grave is open; two angels proclaim the Easter message in Jesus' own words. The women pass them on, but the disciples do not believe them.
• Joh 20,1–10  EU : Only Mary Magdalene goes to the grave, finds it open, informs Peter and the favorite disciple . They race to the tomb and find it empty, with the handkerchiefs of Jesus in it.

According to the texts, the empty grave could be interpreted in different ways and did not evoke any belief in Jesus' resurrection, but initially aroused fear, perplexity, sadness and incomprehension ( Mk 16.8  EU ; Lk 24.4  EU ; Joh 20.2.9 .11.15  EU ). Only the apparitions of Jesus awakened faith and joy ( Joh 20.20  EU ), which also penetrated later variants of the tomb story ( Mt 28.8  EU ). The empty tomb subsequently confirmed the belief in the resurrection, which arose independently of it, for the early Christians.

Since the list of witnesses 1 Cor 15.5–8 EU does not contain  any women, no details of place or time and no empty grave, the oldest version of the tomb story, Mk 16.1–8  EU , but does not contain any men and no visions of Jesus, apparitions of Jesus and the history of the tomb apply as independently developed traditions that were later variably linked with one another.

According to the two-source theory, Mk 16.1–8  EU isconsidered the oldest version of the history of the tomb. It probably concluded the pre-Markan Passion account, which Mark included in his Gospel; then this did not yet contain any publication texts. The other evangelists have modified this text in order to connect the finding of the empty tomb with the apparitions of Jesus that they have come to know in their own way. The Matthew version makes the meeting of the disciples in Galilee plausible with a supplemented Jesus apparition before the women. The Luke version explains the founding of the early church in Jerusalem with the fact that the disciples learned of the empty tomb before they left for Galilee and returned to Jerusalem on the way to Jerusalem because of individual apparitions of Jesus. In the John version, the angel's message at the grave is omitted because the disciples stayed here in Jerusalem and check Mary's discovery for themselves before Jesus appears.

Many NT researchers already consider the oldest version of the tomb story to be a late legend, which contains hardly any historical memory and which was supposed to defend the belief in Jesus' resurrection afterwards. The main arguments for this are:

• The formula tradition and the Pauline letters ( 1 Cor 15.4  EU ) mention Jesus' burial, but not an empty grave.
• Belief in Jesus' resurrection could also have arisen without finding his empty tomb. For some Jews at that time believed, according to Mk 6.14  EU , that Jesus was John the Baptist , who was raised from the dead and buried by his disciples ( Mk 6.29  EU ). According to Mk 12: 18ff, Jesus himself believed . EU , the patriarchs have risen; however, their graves were venerated at that time.
• Only the Mark version mentions the subsequent anointing of the body of Jesus, which Joseph of Arimathea had already anointed, as the reason for the women's visit to the grave. This seems atypical of Jewish funeral customs; Buying ointments before daybreak seems implausible.
• The number and names of the women have been handed down inconsistently.
• Motifs such as the heavy stone and the silence of the women emphasize the miraculous character of the resurrection of Jesus, the occurrence of which is therefore already presumed narrative. The angel's message also presupposes the apparitions of Jesus in Galilee.
• The text contains features of an apocalyptic epiphany with a Deute angel and draws on angel motifs at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark and on Jesus' own announcement of his reappearance ( Mk 14.28  EU ). That speaks for the evangelist Mark as an author.

For a historical core the following are given:

• The statement of faith "Jesus was raised from the dead" means, both biblically and with Paul, a complete transformation of the mortal body.
• The empty tomb was consistently found on the day after the Sabbath , which according to Jewish counts was the third dawning day since Jesus' death. This corresponds to 1 Cor 15.4  EU .
• Mk 16.1–8  EU is inextricably linked in literarytermswith Jesus' burial ( Mk 15.42–47  EU ). Both texts belong to the pre-Markin Passion account and carry out the original creed ( 1 Cor 15 : 3–5  EU : “died, buried and raised on the third day”) narrative. In addition, the silence and flight of the women confirm Jesus' announcement of unbelief ( Mk 14.27  EU ) and the flight of his male disciples ( Mk 15.40  EU ). Precisely because this unbelief was historically original, early Christian resurrection formulas do not mention the empty tomb and later tomb reports transformed this motif into the joy of resurrection in a longer process of tradition.
• According to all the Gospels, women who were among the first companions of Jesus from Galilee and were known by name to the early Christians found the grave. Testimony from women was of little or nothing in Judaism at the time. The early Christians passed on the testimony of women only because it was historical.
• The finding of the empty tomb was handed down independently of the apparitions of Jesus and was only connected to them later: It could therefore be an early independent tradition.
• The early Christians did not develop a grave cult, although this was strongly cultivated in Jerusalem at that time, especially for martyrs . This also explains Paul's silence about the empty tomb.
• They could not have proclaimed Jesus' resurrection in Jerusalem if there had been a full tomb of Jesus there.
• Jewish fraud allegations against the early Christians in and outside of the NT for their part presuppose that Jesus' tomb was actually empty.

Course of the Easter events

The Gospels represent the sequence of events up to Jesus' burial largely in consensus. Their Passion and Easter narratives are considered to be the narrative development of the early Christian creed ( 1 Cor 15 : 3–5  EU ) with its sequence "died - buried - resurrected (- appeared)" . The specific Gospel texts on the tomb of Jesus and his appearances contain many different, sometimes contradicting details. Therefore the presumed historical course is controversial until today; in some cases it is believed that it cannot be reconstructed.

According to the oldest Passion account (Mk 11-16), the sequence of events of which the Synoptics took over, Jesus died in Jerusalem during a Passover afternoon on the day before a Sabbath (Friday). Joseph of Arimathea took his body from the cross with the permission of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate , wrapped it in a sheet, placed it in a rock tomb in Jerusalem and closed it with a heavy stone. According to Mk 14.50  EU, the male disciples had already fled when Jesus was arrested the previous evening; some of them were on their way to Galilee according to Lk 24.13  EU , others stayed in Jerusalem according to Joh 20.2–3  EU . Only a few women from the circle of Jesus' followers from Galilee watched his crucifixion and burial. Some of these women, including at least Mary Magdalene ( Mk 16.1  EU ; Joh 20.1  EU ), went to the grave early in the morning on the day after the Sabbath to embalm Jesus' body ( Matt 28.1  EU : to look after the grave ).

Consensus in the NT is that this "third day" ( 1 Cor 15.4  EU ; counted from the day of Jesus 'death) was the date of Jesus' resurrection. The synoptics vary the continuation with legendary motifs of one or two angels who proclaim the message to the women in or in front of the grave that Jesus has been risen. In Mk and Mt they also announce the appearance of Jesus in Galilee. In Lk and Joh this reference is omitted, since Jesus appears here near and in Jerusalem. All Gospels therefore assume the post-Easter apparitions of Jesus and link them in various ways with the discovery of the empty tomb. All report of an apparition of Jesus to the assembled Elferkreis. According to Lk 24  EU and Joh 20  EU , the eleven saw Jesus on the same day of the news of the empty tomb in Jerusalem. Mt leaves the date open because of the Galilee locality. At least the apparitions of Jesus on the list of witnesses, especially those before Simon Peter and Paul, which are repeatedly attested to in the NT, are mostly considered to be credible (internal and / or external) experience. Since, according to 1 Cor 15: 6–7 EU , other witnesses saw the risen Christ, the early  church left the end of Easter indefinitely. According to 1 Cor 15.8  EU, Paul saw himself as the last apostle legitimized by an apparition of Jesus.

Multi-dimensionality of the Easter texts

An altar wing of the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald , the resurrection

The NT proclaims the resurrection of Jesus Christ in various inseparable contexts of meaning (according to Bertold Klappert "dimensions"), namely as:

1. a real event in history (historical),
2. God's self-definition (theological) through the revelation of the true identity of Jesus (christological),
3. Enactment of reconciliation ( soteriological ),
4. Opening of a new future for the world and humanity ( eschatological ),
5. Justification of Christian preaching and mission ( kerygmatic ),
6. Establishing the Christian faith and following Jesus ( anthropological ).

In the allocation and weighting of these aspects, the peculiarity of each theological concept on this topic can be determined more precisely.

The list of witnesses, the oldest apparition and grave stories can be assigned to the historical aspect. The early Christian creed formulas of the Pauline letters clarify the theological aspect, since they define God through his resurrection of Jesus: “In overcoming death, God's reality is revealed.” The sermons of the Acts of the Apostles bind all aspects together in that God's resurrection is the revelation of the Messiahship of Jesus Christ To proclaim the forgiveness of sins and the call to faith and repentance as the destination (scopus) of the biblical history of salvation . The soteriological aspect also includes statements that the death of the risen Christ as a reconciliation of God with the world ( John 3:16  EU ), his resurrection as the reason for the salvation of the Christian from the final judgment ( John 6:40  EU ), as a justification ( Rom 4 , 25  EU ) and proclaim deliverance from sin and death ( Rom 6 : 1–11  EU ). The eschatological aspect includes statements by Paul, according to which Jesus' resurrection confirms the biblical promises of the resurrection of all dead to the final judgment and a new immortal spiritual body ( 2 Cor 5  EU ) or necessarily presupposes it ( 1 Cor 15: 12-13  EU ). Col 1,18  EU interprets Jesus' resurrection as a decisive world-historical turn from eternal death to eternal life, in which the salvation and the future of all mortals and the cosmos are included. Rev 21 : 1-5  EU describes as an apocalyptic end-time vision that the parousia of the risen Christ fulfills the covenant of God with the people of Israel, his dwelling with the people, and at the same time finally overcomes death and suffering, as it is promised in Isa 25 : 8  EU .

The synoptic apparition texts illustrate that the risen One can overcome the unbelief of his followers through personal forgiveness in the common meal ( Lk 24  EU , Joh 21  EU ) and the promise of his spiritual presence and gift of the Holy Spirit ( Matt 28 : 16-20  EU ; John 20  EU ) overcomes. They also justify the Lord's Supper and baptism in the name of the triune God as sacraments instituted by the risen Christ himself ( Mt 28:19  EU ). This includes the commission to pass on the message of Jesus about the kingdom of God ( Mk 16.9ff.  EU ), the observance of his sending rules ( Mk 6.7-11  EU ) and the teaching of his Torah interpretation, among other things in the Sermon on the Mount Matt.5-7 ( Mt 20.20  EU : “Teach them to keep everything that I have commanded you”).

Church reception

Old church

In the early church , the resurrection of Christ was mainly celebrated in worship, less theoretically reflected. Statements by the Fathers of the Church on this subject have their “ seat in life ” mostly in liturgical practice . For example, they stated that the service takes place every Sunday because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. Or they calculated the period of Lent that ended with the Easter service . In doing so, they assume the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a self-evident fact and basis of faith. Because there was even a consensus on this in the early Church with Gnosis , the only occasion was lacking for theological reflection on this topic. Instead, the Church Fathers often interpreted the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the prelude to the resurrection of people to immortality ( e.g. in First Clement 24: 1), saw their meaning and goal in overcoming the fate of people through Christ. According to Ignatius of Antioch, man receives a share in his resurrection through the Eucharist, understood as "immortality medicine" or "antidote to death" . The general resurrection as the fruit and consequence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ formed the central theme of early church theology, which was broadly discussed by many church fathers.

In the seventh century, condemned the eleventh synod of Toledo in the Creed Adoptionism and uses the phrase that Christ is risen "on their own" from the dead.

Middle Ages and Reformation

In scholasticism , for which the satisfactory content of the Jesus event became the leitmotif (e.g. in the question of Anselm of Canterbury : “ Cur Deus homo ” ( Latin ) - “why did God become man?”), This was initially less Resurrection as death and the two natures teaching of Jesus Christ in theological interest. The resurrection was not explicitly discussed in great theological works such as the Sentences of Petrus Lombardus (1158). Thomas Aquinas added the topic a hundred years later in his own sentence commentary and in his main work “ Summa theologiae ” describes the “perfection of the resurrection for Jesus himself”, with which “the resurrection of all is already ushered in”, since Christ through it death robbed of his power, thus liberating believers from the fear of death and filling them with hope. In the medieval sermon, on the other hand, the resurrection was definitely a topic, but it often turned into speculative embellishments and frayed in subtle theological small questions. On the other hand, Martin Luther started again by understanding the cross and resurrection of Jesus as a unity and proclaiming them as a "salvation event" in their interrelation.

Current Church Positions

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger declared in 1982 that “all Christian theology, if it is to remain true to its origin, must be inwardly and first the theology of the Resurrection. It must be the theology of the resurrection before it is the theology of the justification of the sinner; it must be the theology of the resurrection before it is the theology of the metaphysical sonship of God. It can and must also be theology of the cross only as and in the resurrection theology. ”The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997/2003) describes the resurrection of Jesus Christ as both a historical and transcendent event and as a work of the Trinity : It was by the will of the Father ( Acts 2.24  EU ), through the divine power of Jesus Christ ( John 10.17-18  EU ) and the work of the Holy Spirit ( Rom 6.4  EU ).

The Evangelical Church in Germany emphasizes the central importance of the resurrection of Jesus: It is described in the NT as a historical event and the initial spark of Christianity. It belongs to the core of the Christian faith for all Christian groups. Without it, neither the messiahship of Jesus nor the saving meaning of his death can be predicted. The terms resurrection and resurrection did not mean resurrection in the Bible, but a transformation into a new, immortal life. Whether one considers this transformation possible depends on whether one accepts reality beyond what can be empirically ascertained. A mere wishful thinking could not comfort anyone about the death of a loved one. The Easter faith did not come about through the empty grave, but through encounters with the risen Jesus. His resurrection took place without human observation. It is proclaimed as a miracle , as an incomprehensible but nevertheless accessible intervention of God.

Historical-critical discussion

In the modern age , a historical criticism of biblical texts emerged. The historical research on Jesus , beginning around 1750, questioned the factuality of the resurrection of Jesus for the first time. In 19th century Protestantism , rationalistic and psychological explanations of the Easter faith dominated at times.

On the other hand, dialectical theology after 1918 established the proper law of New Testament and ecclesiastical proclamation without answering historical questions. After 1945, Rudolf Bultmann's existential theology initially dominated . Their positions on the resurrection were later rejected or relativized by various conservative-evangelical as well as progressive-political contributions.

Many theologians, exegetes and historians trace the Easter testimony of the NT back to a real event in the slain Jesus, not just in his disciples, on the basis of a historical-critical analysis. According to Gary Habermas, around three quarters of around 1400 publications by European and North American authors on this topic since 1975 take this position. Many consider the empty grave to be a historical fact, for example because of the testimony of women, ascribe the list of witnesses ( 1 Cor 15 : 3–8  EU ) to be conclusive and consider statements about the resurrection of Jesus in the sermons of the Acts of the Apostles to be credible.

rationalism

In the Age of Enlightenment , various authors discussed the empty tomb of Jesus. This was considered the historical starting point for the Christian belief in the resurrection. This was explained rationalistically , i.e. without miracles and against the NT text statements, from an intentional or erroneous misinterpretation of the empty grave.

In his theory of deception, Hermann Samuel Reimarus considered the accusation of the Jews from Jerusalem in 1778 handed down in Mt 28: 11-15  EU to be historical: Said, "His disciples came at night and stole him while we were sleeping." Only through the theft of the body of Jesus had his Followers created the basis for being able to proclaim him, despite their disappointment that Jesus did not bring the hoped-for worldly Messiah kingdom, as the now risen Savior in Jerusalem who died for the sins of men. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe followed this fraud theory in an epigram . Against the fraud theory, however, speaks u. a. that the disciples would hardly have been prepared to risk or lose their lives for such a lie.

In the 19th century, however, Johann Friedrich Bahrdt (1779), Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus (1802), Karl Heinrich Georg Venturini (1802), Karl von Hase (1829), Friedrich Schleiermacher (1832) and others advocated the apparent death hypothesis that Jesus had survived the crucifixion, was only apparently dead when he was buried in a rock grave and later temporarily returned to life. Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider rejected this thesis in 1832 as not covered by the NT testimony. The journalist Franz Alt represented them again in 1989, as did authors of speculative Jesus theories such as Holger Kersten , Elmar Gruber and others.

In 1799, an anonymous essay author advocated the reburial thesis, which Heinrich Holtzmann 1906 and Joseph Klausner 1953 took up: Joseph von Arimathia had moved Jesus 'body to another grave without the disciples' knowledge, so that Mary of Magdala was right in mourning ( Joh 20,13  EU ) : "They have taken the Lord out of the grave, and we do not know where they put him."

Subjective vision hypothesis

Depiction of the Risen One by Albin Egger-Lienz , 1923/1924

Since around 1830 the interest in Jesus research shifted from the empty grave to the apparitions of Jesus, which were widely interpreted as an internal psychological process without external offense. This “subjective vision hypothesis” characterized the liberal theology of the 19th century.

David Friedrich Strauss argued for the first time in his Life of Jesus (1835/36): Jesus' apparitions were visionary inner experiences of the disciples, which they had far away from and independent of the empty grave. The Easter faith arose through these visions. In them, the disciples had processed Jesus 'death on the cross and overcame the failure of their faith in the Messiah by interpreting Jesus' death as a scriptural, divine event of salvation according to Isa 53  EU and Ps 22  EU and elevated him to God with a creative “pious enthusiasm”. Later, they would have designed their vision reports with mythical and apologetic motifs in order to present what was internally experienced as an external reality: for example, that Jesus as a divine being came and went through closed doors and ate and drank with the disciples. The story of the empty tomb is also a later legend with which the disciples wanted to confirm the reality of their visions towards the Jewish environment.

Carl Holsten carried out this thesis in 1868 for Paul's experience of conversion ( Acts 9 : 1–22  EU ). He assumed that Jesus had an actual claim to the Messiah, so that his death on the cross became a crisis of faith for the disciples.

William Wrede, on the other hand, stated in 1901 that Jesus did not appear as the Messiah, but was only worshiped as the messianic Son of God because of the Easter apparitions as in Rom. 1, 3–4  EU . This reversed the point of view: Now the belief in the resurrection was explained not as a consequence of the pre-Easter, but as the basis of the post-Easter faith in the Messiah of the disciples. It was once again open as to what gave the impetus to both.

Gerd Lüdemann has represented a variant of the subjective vision hypothesis since 1994: The story of the empty grave is a late apologetic legend. Only Peter and Paul had originally "appeared" to Jesus: This was a psychogenic process that was not brought about from outside. Jesus' sudden death blocked Peter's mourning process. In order to cope with his feelings of guilt towards the dead he betrayed, his vision was created. The persecutor Paul was unconsciously fascinated by Jesus, this had hit him at some point. All other visions of the disciples arose depending on the two first handed down visions and, like the vision of the 500 ( 1 Cor 15.6  EU ), can only be explained by mass suggestion .

Attempts to reconstruct the course of the event

The church historian Hans Freiherr von Campenhausen tried in 1952 to reconstruct the course of the Easter events. Some apparitions of Jesus in Galilee and the discovery of the tomb in Jerusalem are credibly attested in the NT; their sequence needs to be clarified. Although Mk 16.1–8  EU contains implausible and legendary features, some women would have probably actually found Jesus 'tomb empty on the second day after Jesus' death: Because 1 Cor 15.4  EU mentions the “third day”, which does not refer to the apparitions of Jesus Galilee that the disciples could not have reached in two days. Since they would hardly have fled to Galilee on the main festival day of Passover or on the following Sabbath, the news of the women would have reached the disciples in Jerusalem. Their silence, alleged in Mark 16.8  EU , is unlikely and could at best have been meant for a limited period; therefore the later evangelists would have corrected it. In the sense of the angel's message, which reflected his reflections, Peter had therefore expected Jesus to appear soon in their homeland of Galilee. He had convinced the other disciples to go home, where Jesus actually appeared to them. Campenhausen therefore accepted the historical priority of the news of the empty grave, interpreted it as the occasion for an orderly retreat of the disciples of Jesus and therefore also considered the visions of Peter and the disciples in Galilee to be historically credible.

Hans Graß represented the opposite sequence: only the unexpected appearances of Jesus could explain the Easter faith and the foundation of the early church. The story of the finding of the tomb is a later apologetic legend that was supposed to confirm Jesus' resurrection to Jerusalem addressees after the end of the apparitions of Jesus. It was dated to the day after the Sabbath because the conviction that had grown out of the scriptural evidence that Jesus rose on the “third day” had already been established. Jesus was probably buried as a criminal with the other executed Zealots in an unknown place.

Relation to the Jewish resurrection hope

Some of the Jews in Jesus' day believed in a bodily resurrection of the righteous or of all the dead for God's final judgment. This hope had been part of the biblical-apocalyptic end-time expectation for about 250 years. The NT shows that the Sadducees , for example, rejected this belief ( Mk 12.18-27  EU ), while the Pharisees represented it as did Jesus and the early Christians Acts 23.6  EU .

According to Ulrich Wilckens , the early Christians interpreted Jesus' appearances in this given horizon of expectation as a resurrection and thus as the reason, beginning and promise of the hoped-for end-time events. Completely new and not derived from Jewish apocalyptic, however, was their belief that God raised an individual, and also a crucified one, even before the general resurrection. This anticipation ( prolepse ) of the resurrection in a person is unique in Judaism; for the early Christians it finally confirmed the truth and the right of Jesus' message of the near kingdom of God . Bertold Klappert explained similarly: Paul understood Jesus' resurrection as an event of the past, but not as an isolated past, but as an incomplete event that included the future of all the dead and followed it.

Klaus Berger tried to prove this interpretation of the visual experiences of the disciples as historically possible: Jews at the time could have believed in a resurrection of individuals before the end of the world and the general resurrection of the dead. According to Mk 6.14  EU , Jesus was taken to be the “born again” John the Baptist even before his death ; also Revelation 11.11 to 12  EU talking about the resurrection of individual witnesses.

The Jewish theologian Pinchas Lapide considered the bodily resurrection of Jesus to be the decisive factor of the early Christian faith in the NT: Without this, the early Christians would not have been able to interpret Jesus' death on the cross as an atoning event of salvation, and Christianity would hardly have existed longer than 100 AD. That is why Lapide rejected existential interpretations of the resurrection by German theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann, Herbert Braun and Karl Rahner . At the same time, he did not see Jesus' resurrection as the justification for his messianship, so he held fast to the Jewish belief that the redemption of the world was inextricably linked with the appearance of the Messiah .

Nicholas Thomas Wright first examined the understanding of the terms death and resurrection in antiquity, then in Second Temple Judaism , then in the early Christian accounts of the Gospels and non-Canonical texts. He traces the resurrection accounts of Matthew, Luke and John back to a common, very early oral tradition from different people. He considers this oral resurrection tradition to be older than the list of witnesses in 1 Cor 15.3–8  EU, especially because of the mention of women . Because reports of apparitions of the dead were not uncommon in antiquity, such experiences of the Jesus followers could not adequately explain their belief in the resurrection. Her belief in the resurrection could only arise in combination with the reports of the empty tomb. Only Jesus' actual resurrection could explain both traditions, since all other hypotheses failed: for example those of Leon Festinger and Edward Schillebeeckx .

Systematic-theological positions

This section is still missing the following important information:

Represents positions of German Protestant theologians only. Should be expanded both denominationally and internationally.

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Main types

According to Hans-Georg Geyer , in current systematic theology the question of the basic meaning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ takes precedence over the question of its facticity: only after it has been determined what its original meaning in the NT is, it can be meaningfully asked whether it actually happened be. Geyer distinguished three main types of this definition of content:

1. Jesus' resurrection relates directly to his death on the cross. Its meaning arises from the fact that Jesus' death on the cross is considered a central salvation event. After 1945, Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth were representative of this approach , apart from their other sharp differences.

2. It refers back to the preaching of the historical Jesus in his words and deeds and means their lasting relevance. This was represented by Willi Marxsen and Gerhard Ebeling, among others .

3. It refers back to the expectation of the general resurrection from the dead and the final judgment in Jewish apocalyptic and only reveals its peculiarity in this context. This was represented by Ulrich Wilckens and Wolfhart Pannenberg, among others .

Accordingly, the NT sentence “Jesus was raised from the dead”, which formally states a “perfect reality”, is understood differently: For Karl Barth, the sentence indicates a new, exclusive act of God without analogy, which cannot be historically demonstrated, but nonetheless is highly real. A theology that starts with the historical Jesus and disregards God's final judgment over his entire life and death is therefore impossible for him.

The other theologians named understand the sentence as a historical statement, the truth of which depends on historical examination. Some consider the alleged event to be historically impossible and see the sentence as a reflection of early Christians with outdated thinking conditions: for Bultmann on the meaning of the cross, for Marxsen on the meaning of the pre-Easter preaching of Jesus.

Others consider Jesus' resurrection to be historically possible and try to verify it from the apocalyptic horizon of expectations of the first Jesus followers. They consider a theology based on the historical Jesus to be possible: be it because they consider his preaching to be inherently true and of lasting relevance and see the belief in the resurrection only as a modified beginning of its spread (Marxsen), be it because they see his resurrection to be understood as a retroactive legitimation of this proclamation, which has canceled its refutation on the cross (Pannenberg).

Rudolf Bultmann

In his essay New Testament and Mythology (1941), Rudolf Bultmann undertook a “ demythologization ” of the NT: The mythical motifs of the early Christian message were linked to a past view of the world that had irrevocably overtaken modern natural science. Theology could not renew this view of the world and could not expect modern man to give up his understanding ( sacrificium intellectus ). Rather, it must uncover the real impetus of the early Christian message: the call to the individual to "believe", namely to a radically new understanding of his existence based on trust in an unavailable reality of love and grace that is not subject to impermanence. The NT itself calls for this existential interpretation, because it gives people the choice between "flesh" (a life subject to the visible, transitory, material, available) and "spirit" (the task of all security, one who understands himself from the unavailable future, inwardly free life).

Bultmann's pre-existence, incarnation, vicarious suffering, physical resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ were among the outdated mythical motifs of the NT. For him, however, this remained the irreversible salvation event: By revealing God's unavailable love, he calls people from their old into the new life and thus enables their decision for the new understanding of existence. Jesus' historical crucifixion is exaggerated in the NT as a cosmic judgment against all powers hostile to God. This mythical motif only expresses its current meaning for everyone: Jesus' cross has not passed, but contains final salvation over time, in which the individual can participate through the sacraments and the surrender of all perishable passions. Only in this current sense, which seizes one's own existence, not historically, Jesus died “for us”. This meaning of salvation cannot be seen in the historical cross. Precisely for this reason the crucified Jesus is also proclaimed in the NT as the risen one.

His resurrection is not a historical event, but a mythical "expression of the significance of the cross" of Jesus as God's liberating judgment over the world, which overcomes the power of death. So she forms an inseparable unit with this death. Since this death already enables real, proper, free life, it cannot be understood as a mere "attesting miracle". The return of a dead person to the unchanged world cannot be secured as an objective fact, is unbelievable as a mythical event, not even unusual at the time, and does not show that the power of death has been overcome. That is why Bultmann rejected the NT texts on the empty grave, list of witnesses ( 1 Cor 15.5–8  EU ) and physical demonstrations ( Lk 24.39–43  EU ) as apologetic legends. Like the salvific meaning of his cross, Jesus' resurrection cannot be secured, only believed: “Faith in the resurrection is nothing other than belief in the cross as a salvation event, in the cross as the cross of Christ.” Only the Easter faith of the first disciples is historically tangible. But this could not justify the resurrection belief today either. Only because Jesus' cross and resurrection are proclaimed together as God's word and commanded to believe, they opened up the decision for a new self-understanding to the listener. Thus this proclamation itself belongs to the eschatological salvation event. Therefore the historical question of the origin of the Easter texts is irrelevant for the faith.

This essay determined the theological-historical debate for decades since 1945. In the course of this, Bultmann affirmed against his critics: Christ was " risen into the kerygma ". He is present in it because his own message is passed on in it. The resurrection message proclaimed in the oral word of the church sermon puts the listener in front of a current, final decision about his self-image. Not who Jesus wanted to be and what he actually said and did is still important for faith, but that he came.

Willi Marxsen and Herbert Braun

Bultmann's approach was continued in a differentiated manner by his students. Willi Marxsen emphasized: No early Christian claims to have actually seen or experienced Jesus' resurrection; this is nowhere described. Also 1 Cor 15 : 1-8  EU does not list witnesses of the resurrection process, but of appearances of Jesus after his death. These presupposed some event on the dead person, but left this in the dark. The opinion of the early Christians that Jesus was "risen" is already a retrospective interpretation of their visual experiences with the ideas of the Jewish apocalyptic of that time. These are currently no longer comprehensible. At the same time, the early Christians interpreted Jesus' appearances as a mission to proclaim his message. This is the core of their message, which is still comprehensible today: “The cause of Jesus continues.” One cannot therefore speak of Jesus' “resurrection” in the kerygma, but of his living presence in the kerygma of his witnesses. In 1968 Marxsen also relativized the visual experiences of the early Christians and speculated: there are pictorial expressions for their coming to believe that should illustrate this inner insight as an external event.

Herbert Braun interpreted the early Christian belief in the resurrection as an "environmentally-related form of expression for the authority that Jesus gained over those people." In ancient times, a resurrection was often reported by natural gods, heroes, great philosophers and important rulers. This form of expression is no longer to be regarded as binding today, but the authority of Jesus meant by it can nevertheless become binding.

Karl Barth

The Reformed theologian Karl Barth developed his understanding of the resurrection of Jesus in his main work Kirchliche Dogmatik (Volume IV / 1, 1953, in it § 59, pp. 171–394: "The obedience of the Son of God"): It is a sole act of God without every human contribution, only comparable to creation. It is a new, completely unexpected act of God that is independent of the death on the cross and is strictly related to the latter: It not only reveals the meaning of the cross as a salvation event, which consists in the fact that the Son of God takes over the final judgment in our place and ours To blame. Rather, the resurrection of Jesus, as a new act that cannot be derived from the cross, cannot be expected, is the only thing that sets God's reconciliation with the world into force. Like Jesus' death on the cross, it really happened in space and time, but unlike all other events about Jesus without any human involvement. Therefore, it is in principle not comprehensible with the means of historical research, i.e. it is not accessible to verification and probability analysis. The knowledge that Jesus was truly and truly risen is impossible for people as such and can only be accepted in faith through God's own revelation . For Barth, Jesus' resurrection is the exemplary figure of this self-revelation of God, provided that only the risen One himself gave and could give himself to his disciples. For Barth there is no way of knowing what happened outside of faith.

With this, Barth explicitly contradicted Bultmann's axioms that the modern scientific worldview should be a precondition for theological statements, that everything that cannot be historically proven should be assigned to the realm of mythology and that the resurrection should only be understood as a subjective interpretation of Jesus' death on the cross. At the same time, he implicitly contradicted Wolfhart Pannenberg's later published attempt to verify the resurrection as a historical event and to interpret it only as a confirmation of the pre-Easter claim of Jesus, which the crucifixion called into question. Barth's decidedly revelatory theological position denies historical research the competence to determine the resurrection, but gives it the full right to examine the human evidence of it. Barth sees this as the “historical edge” of the resurrection: The empty tomb is by no means a secondary, dispensable legend, but a secondary confirmation of the reality of the resurrection. Their categorical non-provability is for Barth the other side of their revelatory character: Because only God alone could have raised Jesus, only God alone could verify this act and awaken faith in it.

In his doctrine of reconciliation, Barth stated in 1953: Because the resurrection of Jesus Christ sets God's final reconciliation with the world in effect and reveals Jesus' death on the cross, it also reveals the nature of human sin : to oust God from this world, to destroy God, To put oneself in God's place and assume the office of judge over life and death. By accepting the final judgment, the annihilation of eternal death, in Jesus Christ and revealing it to be finally overcome in Jesus' resurrection, he freed people from this total judicial office for reconciliation with others.

With this interpretation, Barth subsequently justified his draft for the Darmstädter Wort of 1947, which named the concrete historical complicity of Christians in Germany in the rise of National Socialism and the mission of the community to work on building a new constitutional state that is absolutely committed to internal and external peace . Barth affirmed the “economic materialism of Marxist teaching ”, which reminded Christians of “a forgotten important element of biblical truth [resurrection of the flesh!]” And the church “of the mission and promise of the community for the life and coexistence of people in this world should have admonished ":" to make the cause of the poor and disenfranchised according to the gospel of God's coming kingdom the cause of Christianity ". He called on the peoples of Europe to revolt on Good Friday 1958, which meant civil disobedience, prepared to take risks, against the inclusion of means of mass destruction in the state threat of violence. Unlike most churches, he already saw the production and installation of nuclear weapons , not just their use, as absolutely incompatible with the Christian creed and demanded that they publicly state this incompatibility. You would have to reject crusade ideologies on both sides in the Cold War , working practically and daily towards reconciliation of the peoples, overcoming destructive enemy images and military strategies. To the movement No other gospel organized by evangelicals , whose representatives demanded a confession of the physical resurrection of Jesus from German evangelical theologians, Barth replied in 1966: If you really believed in it yourself, you would have to today a confession against the Vietnam War in the USA and against the flare - up of anti-Semitism take off in West Germany.

Wolfhart Pannenberg

The Lutheran Wolfhart Pannenberg emphasized as early as 1959 against the Bultmann School: Historical science is the only way to obtain certainty about the basic statements of the Christian faith. Theological reason for this is that God reveals himself indirectly in history and as human history.

In 1964 he stated: "Resurrection" is a metaphor that represents an empirically imperceptible event based on the analogy of getting up from sleep. In Judaism, unlike in its ancient environment, the term does not mean a resuscitation of a mortal, but a new, definitive existence that is no longer subject to mortality and cannot be grasped like a physical process. It is only to be understood in the context of Jewish apocalyptic: this, together with the general resurrection of the dead, awaits the end of human history, which will first uncover its hidden meaning. Without this horizon of expectation, it cannot be justified that Jesus is the final revelation of God. Only in this context can the resurrection of an individual, Jesus, without analogies, be understood as an anticipation (prolepse) of the expected end of history and thus as a revelation of its meaning: “When Jesus is raised, then the end of the world has dawned.” The early Christians would have Jesus' resurrection therefore rightly understood as the beginning of the general resurrection from the dead.

In a further step, Pannenberg tried to prove the resurrection of Jesus as a historical event: The oldest reports of the apparitions of Jesus ( 1 Cor 15.3–8  EU ) and the finding of his empty tomb Mk 16.1–8  EU are recognizable originally as separate in the NT has been handed down and originated around the same time. At least the appearances of Jesus to Peter, James and Paul are credible because they are fixed in 1 Cor 15  EU as fixed formulas in the first five years after Jesus' death and, at the most, three years later by Paul during his first visit to Jerusalem, during which he spoke to Peter and James met, had been taken over. Therefore, influences on the history of religion on these Jewish witnesses are unlikely; they have passed on their own real experiences. In their apparitions they would have recognized the person Jesus of Nazareth in a completely different form. On the basis of their beliefs, they could only have interpreted this experience as his resurrection or resurrection. Their experiences had the character of unique, unrepeatable visions that were not visible to companions and bystanders.

Against the advocates of the subjective vision hypothesis, however, Pannenberg emphasized: Since the individual visions were spatially and temporally far apart, they were not psychogenic and could not be explained subjectively by a special disposition, states of excitement or an already existing Easter belief. Rather, this Easter belief can only be understood as a reaction to what was experienced in the visions. Since only real appearances of Jesus could explain the emergence of early Christianity, one must consider Jesus' resurrection as a historical event, even if it is not generally perceptible and can only be expressed in symbolic language.

This applies regardless of the assessment of the tradition of finding graves. Because the empty tomb was unimportant for Paul and his addressees, he did not mention it in his letters. In contrast, the early church could only proclaim the physical resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem if it could refer to his verifiably empty tomb. This confirms the early Jewish polemics handed down in the NT against the original Christians, which do not deny the empty grave, but only explain it differently. This argument applies despite the legendary features of Mark 16.1–8  EU . The core of this text is historical, because the name of the grave owner Joseph of Arimathia could not have been invented and the burial of Jesus was already part of the pre-Markin passion report.

However, von Campenhausen's thesis is unlikely that Jesus' male disciples had heard of the empty tomb before their return to Galilee, because they would then have stayed in Jerusalem and there expected the end of the world. Because of the first apparitions of Jesus, they returned to Jerusalem and learned about the empty tomb that the women had since found. So it had confirmed her previous encounter with Jesus. The independent emergence of the apparition and the grave tradition, which subsequently complemented each other, makes Jesus' resurrection as a historical event very likely.

art

• Resurrection of Christ (Raffael)

literature

overview

• Paul Hoffmann:  Resurrection II. Resurrection of Jesus Christ II / 1. New testament . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 4, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1979, ISBN 3-11-007714-0 , pp. 478-513.
• Reinhard Staats:  Resurrection II. Resurrection of Jesus Christ II / 2. Old church . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 4, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1979, ISBN 3-11-007714-0 , pp. 514-529.
• Hans Kessler: Resurrection of Christ II. History of theology . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 1 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, Sp. 1182-1190 .
• Walter Künneth :  Resurrection of Christ, II, Dogmatic . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 3. Edition. Volume 1, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1957, Sp. 700-701.

New Testament

• Gerd Theißen , Annette Merz : The historical Jesus. 4th edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 3-525-52198-7 , pp. 415-446: Jesus as resurrected.
• Stefan Alkier: The reality of the resurrection in, after and with the writings of the New Testament. A. Francke, 2009, ISBN 3-7720-8227-0 .
• Jürgen Becker: The resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the New Testament: Easter experience and understanding of Easter in early Christianity. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007
• Dale C. Allison: Resurrecting Jesus: the earliest Christian tradition and its interpreters. T&T Clark, 2005, ISBN 0-567-02900-X .
• Nicholas Thomas Wright: The Resurrection of the Son of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God. SPCK, London 2003, ISBN 0-8006-2679-6 .
• Martin Karrer : Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-525-51380-1 .
• Ulrich B. Müller: The Origin of Faith in the Resurrection of Jesus: Historical Aspects and Conditions. Catholic Biblical Work, 1998, ISBN 3-460-04721-6 .
• Karl M. Fischer: The Easter event. 2nd edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1997, ISBN 3-525-53567-8 .
• Paul Hoffmann (ed.): On the New Testament tradition of the resurrection of Jesus. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1988
• Rudolf Pesch, Anton Vögtle: How did the Easter faith come about? Patmos, 1982, ISBN 3-491-77563-9 .
• Hans Graß: Easter events and Easter reports. (1956) 4th edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1970
• Jakob Kremer : The Easter Message of the Four Gospels. Attempt to interpret the accounts of the empty tomb and the apparitions of the risen One. 3rd revised edition, Katholisches Bibelwerk, Stuttgart 1969
• Jakob Kremer: The oldest testimony to the resurrection of Christ. A biblical theological study on the meaning and meaning of 1 Cor 15: 1–11. 2nd revised edition, Katholisches Bibelwerk, Stuttgart 1967
• Philipp Seidensticker . The resurrection of Jesus in the message of the evangelists. Catholic Biblical Works, Stuttgart 1967
• Hans von Campenhausen: The course of the Easter events and the empty grave. Heidelberg 1966

History of religion

• Dag Øistein Endsjø : Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity. Palgrave Macmillan, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-230-61729-2 .
• Friedrich Avemarie, Hermann Lichtenberger (Ed.): Resurrection = Resurrection. The Fourth Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium, Resurrection, Transfiguration and Exaltation in Old Testament, Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-16-148273-5 .
• Gerhard Sellin: The dispute about the resurrection of the dead. A religious-historical and exegetical study of 1. Kor 15. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-525-53815-4 .

Systematics

• Jacob Thiessen: The Resurrection of Jesus in Controversy: Hermeneutic-exegetical and theological considerations. Lit Verlag, 2009, ISBN 3-643-80029-0 .
• Joseph Ratzinger: eschatology, death and eternal life. (1990) Pustet Verlag, Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7917-2070-8 .
• Richard Swinburne : The Resurrection of God Incarnate. Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-19-925746-9 .
• Hans Kessler: Don't look for the living among the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from a biblical, fundamental theological and systematic perspective. (1995) Extended new edition, Echter, Würzburg 2002
• Stephen T. Davis (Ed.): The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus. Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-826985-4 .
• Anton Vögtle: Biblical Easter faith. Background - interpretations - challenges. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1999.
• Tilman Schreiber: The Soteriological Significance of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in Current Systematic Theology. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1998.
• Georg Essen: Historical Reason and Resurrection of Jesus. Theology and history in the dispute over the concept of historical reality. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1995
• Stephen Barton, Graham Stanton (Eds.): Resurrection: Essays in Honor of Leslie Houlden. SPCK Publishing, 1994, ISBN 0-281-04775-8 .
• Frans Hinkelamert: The kingdom of life and the kingdom of death: life and death in the Christian message. In: the same: The ideological weapons of death. On the metaphysics of capitalism. Exodus Verlag, Münster 1985, p. 163ff
• Adriaan Geense: Resurrection and Revelation. About the place of the question about the resurrection of Jesus Christ in today's German Protestant theology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1971
• Bertold Klappert (Ed.): Discussion about the cross and resurrection. Controversy in theology and community. Aussaat Verlag, Wuppertal 1967, ISBN 3-7615-4661-0 .
• Fritz Viering (ed.): The meaning of the resurrection message for faith in Jesus Christ. Gütersloh 1966
• Karl Barth: Church Dogmatics Volume III / 2, § 47; Volume IV / 1, § 59. Zollikon, Zurich 1959

historicity

• Gerhard Pfohl: Historicity of the resurrection of Christ. A historical and legal fact check. VTR, Nuremberg 2004, ISBN 3-937965-09-2 .
• Heinzpeter Hempelmann : The Resurrection of Jesus Christ - a historical fact? Arguments for the Easter faith. 3rd, extended edition, Brockhaus, Wuppertal 2003, ISBN 3-417-29504-1 .
• Walter Simonis: Resurrection and Eternal Life? The Real Origin of the Easter Faith. Düsseldorf 2002, ISBN 3-491-70345-X .
• Hans-Joachim Eckstein , Michael Welker (ed.): The reality of the resurrection. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2002
• William Lane Craig : The Son Rises: Historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus , Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2001, ISBN 1-57910-464-9 .
• Josh McDowell : The fact of the resurrection. Christian literature distribution, Bielefeld 2001, ISBN 3-89397-712-0 , ( PDF download )
• Johannes Heinrich Schmid: The raising of Jesus from the grave. Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel, 2000
• Ulrich Wilckens: Hope against death. The reality of the resurrection of Jesus. 2nd edition, Neuhausen-Hänssler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-7751-2735-6 .
• Wolfhart Pannenberg : The Resurrection of Jesus - History and Theology. In: ZThK 91, 1994, pp. 318-328; BzSTh I, 1999, pp. 308-318
• Hugo Staudinger: The historical credibility of the Gospels. 7th edition, Brockhaus, Wuppertal / Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-417-29526-2 .
• William Lane Craig: Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection. Servant, Ann Arbor 1988, ISBN 0-89283-384-X
• Walter Künneth : Theology of the Resurrection. (1st edition 1933) 6th edition 1982
• Wolfhart Pannenberg: The historical problematic of the raising of Jesus. In: Fundamentals of Christology. Gütersloh 1964

Existential interpretation

• Willi Marxsen: Jesus and Easter. Did God Raise the Historical Jesus from the Dead? Nashville, 1990
• Willi Marxsen: The Jesus cause goes on. Gütersloh 1976
• Willi Marxsen: The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Gütersloh 1968
• Willi Marxsen: The resurrection of Jesus as a historical and as a theological problem. Gütersloh 1964
• Rudolf Bultmann: New Testament and Mythology. The problem of demythologizing the New Testament proclamation. In: Kerygma and Myth. Ed .: HW Bartsch, Hamburg 1960

Subjective vision theory

• Gerd Lüdemann: The resurrection of Jesus. History, experience, theology. 1994, Radius-Verlag, ISBN 3-87173-016-5 .
• Gerd Lüdemann: The raising of Jesus from the dead: origin and history of a self-deception. zu Klampen, Lüneburg 2002, ISBN 3-934920-20-9 .

Practical theology / religious education

• Eckhard Etzold: Good Friday, and what then? The mourning path of the disciples between faith and doubt. In: Thank God the Lord. Festschrift for Gerhard Heintze. Published by the Friends of the Braunschweig Church and Social History. Wuppertal 2002, ISBN 3-932735-73-0 , pp. 33-45.
• Werner Thiede: Resurrection of the Dead - Hope without Attractiveness? Basic structures of the Christian expectation of salvation and their misunderstood relevance to religious education. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1991

Web links

Commons : Resurrection of Jesus Christ  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Karl-Heinz Ohlig : Resurrection, what does that mean? Imprimatur, (I) 1/2005 ( memento of March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), (II) 2/2005 ( memento of April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), (III) 3/2005 ( memento of April 17 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Roman Catholic Church: Catechism of the Catholic Church. (1997), No. 638-658
• Norman L. Geisler, Till Farrell: The Geisler-Till Debate: Did Jesus of Nazareth Bodily Rise from the Dead? ( Memento of May 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) 1994 (English)
• Paul-Gerhard Klumbies: "Easter" as a profession of God and the change to the preaching of Christ (= ZNW 83 [1992], pp. 157–165; PDF; 115 kB)

Single receipts

1. ^ Nicholas Thomas Wright : The Resurrection of the Son of God. 1992, p. 685.
2. ↑ Rom 10.9  EU
3. ↑ Jacob Thiessen: The Resurrection of Jesus in the Controversy: Hermeneutic-exegetical and theological considerations. 2009, p. 11, fn. 2.
4. ↑ Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Göttingen 1998, p. 25 f.
5. ↑ Friedrich Rehkopf: Greek-German dictionary for the New Testament. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 3-525-50118-8 , p. 36.
6. ↑ Friedrich Rehkopf: Greek-German dictionary for the New Testament. Göttingen 1992, p. 11.
7. ^ Jacob Kremer: Resurrection I. In the New Testament . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 1 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, Sp. 1178 .
8. ↑ Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Göttingen 1998, p. 24ff .; on the unclear traditional history Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus. A textbook. Göttingen ³ 2001, p. 422.
9. ^ Jacob Kremer: Auferstanden - auferweckt , Biblische Zeitschrift NF 23, 1979, p. 97f.
10. ^ Otfried Hofius: Paulusstudien , Volume 2, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2002, p. 202 ff.
11. ↑ Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Göttingen 1998, pp. 28-31.
12. ↑ Hans Kessler: Do not look for the living among the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from a biblical, fundamental theological and systematic perspective. Extended new edition, Würzburg 2002, pp. 110–115; similar to Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament , Göttingen 1988, p. 26f.
13. ↑ Jürgen Roloff: New Testament. 6th edition, Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1999, ISBN 3-7887-0516-7 , p. 254.
14. ↑ The active translation of ἐγήγερται ("He is resurrected on the third day") is represented by Jacob Kremer, Otfried Hofius and others, see Otfried Hofius: Paulusstudien , Volume 2, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2002, p. 203.
15. ↑ Wolfgang Schrage : The first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15.1-16.24): Evangelical-Catholic commentary on the New Testament, Volume 7/4. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001, ISBN 3-7887-1822-6 , p. 18; Jacob Thiessen: The Resurrection of Jesus in the Controversy , 2009, p. 89.
16. ↑ Bertold Klappert: On the question of the Semitic or Greek original text of IKor XV, 3—5 , NTSt 13, 1966/67, pp. 168–173.
17. ↑ Ulrich Wilckens: Resurrection. The biblical testimony of the resurrection historically examined and explained. 3rd edition, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1981, ISBN 3-579-03880-X , p. 48.
18. ↑ Herbert Stettberger: What the Bible tells me: Current exegetical and religious didactic highlights on selected Bible texts. Festschrift for Prof. Dr. Franz Laub. LIT Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8694-8 , p. 178.
19. ↑ Klaus Seybold: The dream in the Bible. In: Klaus Seybold: On the way to the Old Testament: Excursions into the biblical world. Lit Verlag, 2010, ISBN 3-643-80042-8 , p. 88 and p. 94, fn. 9 .
20. ↑ August Strobel: Kerygma and Apokalyptik. A religious-historical and theological contribution to the Christ question. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1967, ISBN 3-525-53540-6 , p. 182f.
21. ↑ Klaus Wengst: “Rejoice, you peoples, with God's people!”: Israel and the peoples as the theme of Paul - a walk through the letter to the Romans. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 3-17-019704-5 , p. 94.
22. ↑ Martin Hengel, Anna Maria Schwemer: Jesus and Judaism. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007, ISBN 3-16-149359-1 , p. 636.
23. ↑ Hubert Frankemölle: The Jewish New Testament and the Christian Faith: Basic Knowledge for the Judeo-Christian Dialogue. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 3-17-020870-5 , p. 151.
24. ↑ Ernst Fuchs: Collected essays. Volume 2: On the question of the historical Jesus. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1965, ISBN 3-16-107212-X , p. 25.
25. ↑ Martin Hengel, Anna Maria Schwemer: Jesus and Judaism. Tübingen 2007, p. 634.
26. ^ Andreas Lindemann: Paulus, Apostle and Teacher of the Church: Studies on Paul and on the early understanding of Paul. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-16-147189-X , p. 4.
27. ^ Moises Mayordomo: Does Paul argue logically ?: An analysis against the background of ancient logic. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-16-148793-1 , p. 100.
28. ↑ Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus , p. 524f.
29. ↑ Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Göttingen 1998, p. 44.
30. ^ Eduard Schweizer: The New Testament German (NTD), Volume 1: The Gospel according to Mark. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, p. 204; James DG Dunn: The Evidence for Jesus. Westminster Press, 1986, ISBN 0-664-24698-2 , p. 66.
31. ↑ Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus. Göttingen 2011, p. 436.
32. ↑ Ernst Haenchen: The way of Jesus. An explanation of the Gospel of Mark and the canonical parallels. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1968, ISBN 3-11-088190-X , p. 548 .
33. ^ Eve M. Becker: The Markus Gospel in the context of ancient historiography. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-16-148913-6 , p. 250 .
34. ↑ Martin Hengel: Jesus and the Gospels. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-16-149327-0 , pp. 36-38 .
35. ↑ Peter Stuhlmacher: Theology of the New Testament I , 2nd edition 1997, p. 176 f .; Ludger Schenke: proclamation of the resurrection and empty grave , Stuttgart 1969, p. 99 f.
36. ↑ Ulrich Wilckens: Resurrection. 3rd edition, Gütersloh 1981, pp. 18-30.
37. ↑ Jürgen Becker: The resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the New Testament. Tübingen 2007, p. 261 f. .
38. ↑ Bertold Klappert (Ed.): Discussion about the cross and rising. Controversy in theology and community. Wuppertal 1967, p. 40 ff.
39. ↑ Bertold Klappert (Ed.): Discussion about the cross and rising. Controversy in theology and community. Wuppertal 1967, p. 43, note 124.
40. ↑ Reinhard Staats:  Resurrection II / 2. Old church . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 4, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1979, ISBN 3-11-007714-0 , pp. 514-529. Hans Kessler: Resurrection of Christ II. History of theology . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 1 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, Sp. 1182-1185 . On the importance of the Eucharist after the Ephesians of Ignatius see. H. Graß:  Last Supper II. Dogma History . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 3. Edition. Volume 1, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1957, Sp. 22. Karlmann Beyschlag: Outline of the history of dogmas Volume I , Darmstadt 1988, pp. 99 and 101.
41. ↑ Heinrich Denzinger : Compendium of the creeds and church teaching decisions. Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum. Edited by Peter Hünermann , 44th edition, Freiburg 2014, p. 232.
42. ↑ Hans Kessler: Resurrection of Christ II. History of Theology . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 1 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, Sp. 1183-1184 .
43. ↑ Hans Kessler: Resurrection of Christ II. History of Theology . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 1 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, Sp. 1185 . Friedrich Wintzer:  Resurrection III. Practically theological . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 4, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1979, ISBN 3-11-007714-0 , pp. 529-530.
44. ^ Friedrich Wintzer:  Resurrection III. Practically theological . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 4, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1979, ISBN 3-11-007714-0 , pp. 529-530.
45. ^ Joseph Ratzinger: Theological doctrine of principles. Munich 1982, p. 193f. In: Secretariat of the German Bishops' Conference (ed.): The faith of the church. A theological reader based on texts by Joseph Ratzinger. Bonn 2011.
46. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 639 .
47. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 647 .
48. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 648ff .
49. ↑ EKD Faith ABC: Resurrection .
50. ↑ Hans Kessler: Do not look for the living among the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from a biblical, fundamental theological and systematic perspective . Patmos, Düsseldorf 1985, p. 22.
51. ^ Gary Habermas: Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying? Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3.2 (2005), pp. 135-153 online version .
52. ↑ Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus: A textbook. 4th edition, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-52198-4 , p. 417.
53. ↑ Hermann Samuel Reimarus (author), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (ed.): From the purpose of Jesus and his disciples: Another fragment of Wolfenbüttel's unnamed. Braunschweig 1778, section 36, p. 167 ff.
54. ^ Goethe's epigrams, Venice 1790. Zeno.org.
55. ^ Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus: Philological-critical and historical commentary on the New Testament 3: The three first Gospels, continuation and resolution. Bohn, Lübeck 1802, p. 803ff.
56. ↑ Carl Venturini: Natural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth, Volume 4 , 1802, P. 29ff.
57. ↑ Karl von Hase: Das Leben Jesu: a textbook initially for academic lectures. (1829) 5th edition, Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig 1865, p. 196.
58. ↑ Friedrich Schleiermacher: Friedrich Schleiermacher's entire works, Part 1, Issues 5–6 , Ulan Press, 2011, p. 484 ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
59. ↑ Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider: About the alleged apparent death of Jesus on the cross. Ullmann Studies 1832; Lecture at Paul Hoffmann: On the New Testament tradition of the resurrection of Jesus. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1988, p. 23f. and 456.
60. ↑ Franz Alt: Jesus - the first new man: Essay. Union, 1990, ISBN 3-372-00380-2 ; Der Spiegel, March 28, 1994: Faith: Can we still be Christians? .
61. ^ Roman Heiligenthal: The falsified Jesus: a criticism of modern images of Jesus. Primus, 1999, ISBN 3-89678-125-1 , p. 128.
62. ↑ Anonymous: Attempt on the resurrection of Jesus. In: Library for Criticism and Exegesis of the New Testament and Oldest Church History , Volume 2, 1799, pp. 537–551.
63. ↑ Heinrich Holtzmann: The empty grave and the current negotiations about the resurrection of Jesus, part 2. In: Theologische Rundschau, JCB Mohr, 1906, pp. 79-132.
64. ↑ Joseph Klausner: Jesus of Nazareth. The Jewish Publishing House, 3rd, expanded edition 1952, p. 496.
65. ^ David Friedrich Strauss: The life of Jesus edited for the German people. Second part. Popular edition in abbreviated form. Emil Strauss, 13th edition, Bonn 1904, pp. 645–663.
66. ↑ Carl Holsten: On the Gospel of Paul and Peter. Old and new. Stillersche Hofbuchhandlung, Berlin 1868, p. 111.
67. ^ William Wrede: The Messiah secret in the Gospels: at the same time a contribution to understanding the Gospel of Mark. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1901, p. 114.
68. ↑ Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus: A textbook. 4th edition, Göttingen 2011, p. 418f.
69. ↑ Gerd Lüdemann: The Resurrection of Jesus. History, experience, theology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1994, ISBN 3-525-53523-6 ; lectures with Gerd Theißen, Annette Merz: The historical Jesus: A textbook. 4th edition, Göttingen 2011, p. 422.
70. ^ Hans von Campenhausen: The course of the Easter events and the empty grave. (1952) 4th unchanged edition, Universitätsverlag Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1977, ISBN 3-533-01682-X , pp. 41-51.
71. ^ Hans Graß: Easter events and Easter reports. (1956) 3rd edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1964.
72. ↑ Ulrich Wilckens: Resurrection. The biblical testimony of the resurrection historically examined and explained. (1970) 3rd edition, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1981, ISBN 3-579-03880-X , pp. 55 and 128-131.
73. ↑ Bertold Klappert (Ed.): Discussion about the cross and rising. Controversy in theology and community. Wuppertal 1967, pp. 27-29.
74. ↑ Klaus Berger: The Resurrection of the Prophets and the Exaltation of the Son of Man. (1976) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1997, ISBN 3-525-53365-9 .
75. ↑ Pinchas Lapide: Resurrection: A Jewish Experience of Faith. (1983) Lit Verlag, 2010, ISBN 3-643-10840-0 , p. 77, p. 93 and last chapter.
76. ↑ Nicholas Thomas Wright: Jesus' Resurrection and Christian Origins , Gregorianum, 2002, 83/4, pp. 615–635.
77. ^ Nicholas Thomas Wright: General Issues on the Easter Stories. In: The Resurrection of the Son of God .
78. ^ Nicholas Thomas Wright: Easter and History. In: The Resurrection of the Son of God .
79. ↑ Hans-Georg Geyer: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In: Hans Theodor Goebel, Dietrich Korsch, Hartmut Ruddies , Jürgen Seim (eds.): Hans-Georg Geyer: Andenken. Theological essays. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, pp. 149-175.
80. ↑ Rudolf Bultmann: New Testament and Mythology. The problem of demythologizing the New Testament proclamation. (1941) 3rd unaltered edition, Christian Kaiser, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-459-01582-9 , pp. 44-51.
81. ↑ James M. Robinson: Kerygma and Historical Jesus. 2nd edition, Zwingli Verlag, Zurich 1967, p. 9; Konrad Hammann: Rudolf Bultmann: A biography. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 3-16-150204-3 , pp. 421-472.
82. ↑ Rudolf Bultmann: The relationship between the early Christian message of Christ and the historical Jesus. 4th edition, Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1965, p. 27.
83. ^ Willi Marxsen: The resurrection of Jesus as a historical and theological problem. (1964) 6th edition, Gütersloher Verlagshaus / Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh 1968, pp. 8-30.
84. ↑ Willi Marxsen: The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. (1968) New edition, Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh 1985, ISBN 3-579-04618-7 , p. 160.
85. ↑ Herbert Braun: Jesus. The man from Nazareth and his time. Kreuz Verlag, Stuttgart 1969, p. 154.
86. ↑ Bertold Klappert: Discussion about the cross and resurrection. Wuppertal 1967, pp. 127-144.
87. ↑ Helga Grebing et al. a. (Ed.): History of social ideas in Germany: Socialism - Catholic social teaching - Protestant social ethics. A manual. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2005, p. 1065 .
88. ↑ Bertold Klappert: The resurrection of Jesus and the revolt against the futile. Karl Barth's statements on war and mass destruction. In: Bertold Klappert: Reconciliation and Liberation. Try to understand Karl Barth contextually. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1994, ISBN 3-7887-1451-4 , pp. 252-284; especially from p. 270.
89. ^ Hermann Dembowski: Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Neukirchener Verlag, 1976, ISBN 3-7887-0475-6 , p. 42.
90. ↑ Wolfhart Pannenberg, Rolf Rendtorff, Trutz Rendtorff, Ulrich Wilckens (eds.): Revelation as a story. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1961, p. 107.
91. ↑ Wolfhart Pannenberg: Grundzüge der Christologie , § 3, Section IV: The historical problematic of the resurrection of Jesus , pp. 80-103; lectures with Gunther Wenz: Wolfhart Pannenberg's Systematic Theology. An introductory report. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, ISBN 3-525-56127-X , p. 182.
92. ↑ Wolfhart Pannenberg: Grundzüge der Christologie , § 3, Section IV: The historical problematic of the resurrection of Jesus , pp. 80-103; lectures at Bertold Klappert: Discussion about the cross and resurrection . Wuppertal 1967, pp. 237-249.