The Recent Literature upon the Resurrection of Christ

Abstract

No other doctrine of Christian theology has been regarded as more important than the doctrine that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. It has often been affirmed that upon this doctrine the church was founded; that it is the one great fact which binds together the life of Jesus in the flesh and his eternal life at the right hand of God; which confirms his teaching and his high claims; which gives to men the right to love and worship him with a supreme devotion, to believe in his continued ministration to his people, to anticipate his return to perfect and govern his kingdom in the earth, and to rest in the assurance of their own immortal life with him. It is not strange, therefore, that in the flux of modern thought many should turn their attention to this significant doctrine. It is, moreover, not only an important article of the Christian faith, but it is also one in the support and interpretation of which various lines of investigation are involved. It is, first of all, a historical question, which demands a careful examination of witnesses and testing of evidence; it has come to be, of late at least, a psychological question, demanding careful analysis of the state of mind of the early witnesses, the accumulation and comparison of other cases in which men and women have believed that they saw the forms and heard the voices of the departed. The hypotheses suggested by the experiments of psychical research have been thought by some to throw at least a dim and uncertain light upon this doctrine; and, further, the question whether there is a vital and necessary connection between a firm conviction of the bodily resurrection of Jesus and a confident and aggressive Christian faith has come to seem to some an open question, demanding careful and discriminating examination. It is not surprising, therefore, that the literature upon this subject should have much increased during the last fifteen or twenty years, nor that the methods of discussion and the conclusions reached by able and sincere men should differ widely. It is the purpose of this article to give some account of these recent discussions, without attempting to review or criticise in detail the individual books and monographs and the articles in various English and German periodicals which have been published in such large numbers.