Of course, all Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead. The claim is embedded in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed. Advocates for the resurrection go back as far as the earliest Christian writing (Paul). Today, however, it is nearly a commonplace to think that this article of faith means, and has always meant, that Jesus walked out of his tomb. In other words, Jesus’ corpse was restored to life and that it was in this form that Jesus appeared to various followers. But is this the earliest conception of Jesus’ resurrection?

As we said, Paul was the earliest believer to hand down writings that have survived to this day. (It is possible that Q, a theoretical construct introduced by scholars to account for the many verbatim similarities in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, may be as old. Q, unfortunately, has nothing to say on the subject.) In his surviving letters, Paul makes no mention of Jesus exiting the tomb although he does claim that Jesus rose from the dead (Rom. 1:4, 6:5; 1 Cor. 15:13, 21; Phil. 3:10, etc.).

Paul did not take it upon himself to describe Jesus’ resurrection in detail. But he wrote in general about the process while discussing with his students in Corinth what form the resurrection would take. He said that

With the resurrection of the dead … What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44 NET)

“Spiritual bodies” may sound to modern ears a contradiction in terms. But the ancients conceived spirit to be, like everything else, a form of matter though one so sublime as to be ungraspable (think misty, smoky, etc.). But Paul does draw the distinction between natural and spiritual.

In Greek, the language of Paul, the apostle distinguishes between the psychikos and pneumatikos forms of being. These terms may be translated roughly as soul-ish and spiritual bodies. Strong’s Greek Dictionary contrasts psychikos, that is, “sensitive [meaning sensual], i.e. animate, in distinction … from pneumatikos, which is the higher or renovated nature.” Pneumatikos is the “non-carnal (i.e. humanly), ethereal (as opposed to gross), or (daemoniacally) a spirit (concretely), or (divinely) supernatural, regenerate, religious” that is, spiritual. Whatever we make of Paul’s choice of words, he was insistent that the resurrection body was not a reanimated corpse – it was spiritual.

But don’t the Gospels report that the stone covering the entrance of Jesus’ tomb was rolled away (Matt. 28:2; Mark 16:4; Luke 24:2) and that Jesus walked out of it? Surprisingly, perhaps, the characterization of Jesus’ resurrection is not uniform either within or among the Gospels (it is never described). Mark, widely considered the earliest of the four canonical Gospels, simply indicates that a tomb, which was thought to have contained Jesus’ body, was found to be empty (although a “young man” was sitting there). The Gospel of John records that Jesus’ linen wrappings were lying in the tomb (20:5-7), indicating that Jesus’ soul-ish body had left it. Another account in John (20:14-18) has Jesus appear to Mary Magdelene; he then rebukes her for trying to cling to/hold on to/touch him “for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17). What does this mean? Is it because he is not touchable? Or is he in a holy state not to be defiled by human hands? Can she touch him later after he has ascended? Which view of the resurrection is being promoted here: as a psychikos or pneumatikos body?

The Gospel of Luke, partially based on the Gospel of Mark, increases the number of angelic men in the tomb by one and adds the story of Peter running to the tomb and viewing Jesus’ linen cloths to suggest that he has physically shed them. But only Luke has the tale of the two disciples who, on their way home to Emmaus from Jerusalem, encounter the risen Jesus without knowing who he is. Only when they get home and seem to be about to share a meal with Jesus (evidence of a soul-ish body?) he suddenly vanishes into thin air (evidence of a spiritual body). Which view of the resurrection is being promoted here?

More support for the spiritual nature of Jesus’ resurrected body is provided in Luke. Jesus suddenly appears in a room with his disciples leading them to think that he was a ghost (24:36-37). Yet Jesus claims to have “flesh and bones” (24:39); he proceeds to eat “a piece of broiled fish” (24:42-43) as if to prove that he occupies a soul-ish body. Why the schizophrenia over his corporeality?

The Gospel of John adds additional support in favor of Jesus rising as a soul-ish body. Later, after Mary has been rebuked for trying to touch him, Jesus proceeds to show himself to his male followers and demonstrates his crucifixion wounds, as he did in Luke. A week later, having missed this event, the disciple Thomas is met by Jesus and told to touch his wounds (20:27), something Mary could not do. This happens even though Jesus has just suddenly appeared in the locked room! What is going on here?

The New Testament Gospels are clearly not uniform in their presentation of Jesus’ resurrected nature. Some traditions imply that he rose in a spiritual body. Paul claims to have been a witness of the risen Jesus – but he says nothing about touching any wounds or eating with him. In three of the four Gospels, Jesus mysteriously appears and just as mysteriously vanishes. He resists being touched by Mary then offers himself to Thomas for that very purpose. In some accounts Jesus’ tomb is empty, even his grave clothes are folded up and left behind. And in one episode, he eats with his disciples.

What seems to have happened is that over time the claim to Jesus’ (spiritual) resurrection morphed into depictions of Jesus’ corporeal body physically exiting the tomb and doing corporeal things. The account by Paul appears to sum up the earlier notion of resurrection based on experiences claimed by a (surprising) number of his followers (Paul wrote that over 500 believers saw him! 1 Cor. 15:6). Perhaps because such claims were written off by unbelievers as being nothing more than a ghostly apparition, later stories insisted that Jesus physically left the tomb and then behaved as though he were human even if a glorified one.

In the ancient world, Jews were essentially alone in their belief in an end-time resurrection; not even all Jews subscribed to the idea. Non-Jews completely rejected the concept preferring belief in an immortal soul (which some Jews believed in as well). Paul believed in resurrection but did not think it necessary to envision a corporeal body coming out of the grave. It was enough for him to announce that Jesus was the first of many righteous people to be rewarded by God for their faith and courage, their obedience and love.