3. From Miracle To Mission

Source: “When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation”, by Paula Fredriksen, 2018.

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The Podcast Dialogue

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This podcast explores how the early followers of Jesus transitioned from expecting an immediate, miraculous Kingdom of God following his death to understanding his resurrection as a sign of its impending arrival. It highlights the discrepancies in accounts of Jesus' appearances across different New Testament sources (Gospels, Acts, and Paul's letters) and examines how the community used scriptural interpretation to make sense of these unexpected events and the delay in the Kingdom's coming. Ultimately, this interpretive process led to the development of the belief in a two-stage messianic appearance, with Jesus' initial resurrection paving the way for his future, definitive return and the establishment of the Kingdom.

Surprising Facts About the Resurrection That Reshaped History

Introduction: Beyond the Easter Story

For billions of people, the story of Easter is one of the most familiar narratives in history: Jesus of Nazareth is crucified, and three days later, he rises from the dead. It is often presented as a single, unified event, witnessed and recorded with clarity by his followers. But if we peel back the layers of tradition and look directly at the earliest written sources, a far more complex, contradictory, and surprising picture emerges.

The foundational accounts of the resurrection are not in harmony. They disagree on who the witnesses were, where the events took place, and even on the very nature of Jesus's resurrected body. His death inflicted a grinding cognitive dissonance on his followers: If Jesus were dead, how could his prophecy of God's coming Kingdom be true? If the prophecy were true, how could he be dead? These discrepancies reveal a community grappling in real time with a baffling and world-altering experience. This post explores five of the most impactful and counter-intuitive takeaways from those earliest sources, revealing how a movement was forged not from certainty, but from confusion, crisis, and creative reinterpretation.

1. The Eyewitness Accounts Are All Dramatically Different

The five primary sources for the resurrection—the four Gospels and the letters of Paul—offer starkly conflicting details about the event. Rather than a single, shared memory, we find multiple, independent traditions that are often impossible to reconcile.

Who were the first witnesses? In Mark, a group of women (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome) are the first to learn of the resurrection, but they see no one and, in their fear, "said nothing to any one." Matthew has two women (Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary") see a radiant angel and then the risen Jesus himself. Luke describes a larger group of women finding the tomb empty, but the first post-resurrection vision is granted to Peter (offstage). John’s Gospel states Mary Magdalene went to the tomb alone and was the first to see the risen Jesus. Paul’s account, our earliest written source, lists Peter (Cephas) as the first witness, followed by "the twelve," with no mention of any women at all.