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The (only) first-hand testimony
When did the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead first emerge? The answer to this question is surprising. Surprising, because extraordinary claims about people regarded as famous usually take some time, even generations, to arise. But in the case of Jesus the belief that he had been raised from the dead emerged very soon after his death – indeed, as we shall see, within days of that death, according to the earliest testimonies. But we begin with what is in fact the only first-hand account.
This, the most striking personal testimony, is given by Paul. Paul, or as he was formerly known, Saul, had not been a disciple of Jesus. Indeed, he first appears in the story of Christianity’s beginnings as a persecutor of the early Christians. According to the account of Christianity’s beginnings in the Book of Acts,1 as a zealous Pharisee, Saul had been evidently outraged by the claims that Jesus had been raised from the dead. So enraged, indeed, that he had tried to wipe out the belief. He first appears in the story of the first Christian martyr, Stephen, with the terse statement that ‘Saul approved of their killing of him’ (Acts 8.1). But it gets worse. ‘Breathing threats and murder against the disciples’ of Jesus, he had gone to the high priest in Jerusalem and been authorized to go to the synagogues of Damascus to arrest the followers of Jesus he found there (9.1–2).
It was on the road to Damascus, however, that he had, according to Luke, the author of Acts, encountered Jesus.
Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’
(Acts 9.3–5)
The story is vivid and dramatic. And one might be forgiven for wondering whether Luke had dramatized it, or indeed over-dramatized it.
Fortunately we have Paul’s own account of the event. In one of history’s most striking self-testimonies, Paul gives us what we might call the inner heart of the episode told so dramatically by Luke.
I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in/to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles . . .
(Galatians 1.13–16)
Paul’s intention in this passage was evidently to contrast his pre-conversion zeal with his commitment to take the good news of Jesus beyond Israel, to ‘proclaim him among the Gentiles’. But the sharpness of the contrast between his earlier zeal and his commitment to preach Christ is as striking as Luke’s account in Acts 9. The slight confusion as to whether Paul’s Greek should be translated as ‘reveal his Son in me’ or ‘reveal his Son to me’ may itself be some confirmation of an overwhelming episode in Paul’s life.
It is notable that in providing the history of Christianity’s beginnings (in the Acts of the Apostles) Luke recounts the story of Paul’s conversion no fewer than three times.2 It is understandable, of course, in that Paul was such an important Christian evangelist. Indeed, it was Paul’s taking the good news (gospel)3 of Jesus Christ well beyond Jewish circles, to the wider Gentile world, which ensured that Christianity would become an international religion and not just a form of Judaism. But the emphasis on Paul’s conversion in Acts is nonetheless striking.
Prominent is the mention of light: ‘a light from heaven’ (9.3); ‘a great light from heaven’ (22.6); ‘I could not see because of the brightness of that light’ (22.11); ‘a light from heaven, brighter than the sun’ (26.13). Paul himself presumably reflects on an experience of such intensity when he writes to the Corinthians: ‘It is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness”, who has shone in our hearts to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4.6).
More important, of course, was the fact that Paul believed that he had been encountered by Jesus, a Jesus risen from the dead, on the road to Damascus. In the Acts accounts the claim is made ever more intense. In Acts 9 it is Ananias who comes to minister to Saul, blinded by the brightness of the light, who says, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me’ (Acts 9.17). In the Acts 22 account, presented as Paul’s self-testimony, it is again Ananias who attests, ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his voice’ (22.14). And most fully, in the third account, Paul himself attests (the risen) Jesus as commissioning him: ‘for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you as a servant and witness of what you have seen’ (26.16). To which Paul adds: ‘I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision’ (26.19).
This emphasis Paul himself also underscores in his own self-testimony. In writing to the Corinthian church he underlines his authority in advising and rebuking the Corinthian believers. ‘Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?’ (1 Corinthians 9.1).
There can be no doubt, then, that Saul, the persecutor of the first Christians, dramatically turned round 180 degrees, and became one of early Christianity’s most effective missionaries and teachers. No doubt either that Paul himself attributed this astounding volte-face to what happened on his way to Damascus. Equally no doubt that Paul himself believed that he had encountered Jesus in that event. And that it was this encounter with the risen Jesus which had transformed him from a zealous opponent of the early movement into its most effective advocate that the good news of Jesus was for Gentiles as well as Jews.
Was Paul mistaken? That is certainly possible. But Paul was probably the sharpest mind among the earliest believers – a well-trained Pharisee4 for a start. His focus on Christ, the repeated use of phrases like ‘in Christ’ and ‘with Christ’, all make sense in the light of his own memory of his conversion as an encounter with Jesus, risen from the dead. And suggestions that he had had a fit, or something similar, on the Damascus road make little sense when we recall how effectively he responded thereafter to the many complex challenges which he encountered in the churches he established.5
But let us look at the other evidence ...
