Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Christ, Part 41.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonablefaith.org.

We are wrapping up our discussion of the post-mortem appearances of Jesus, and we are discussing what evidence

there is that these appearances were bodily and physical appearances.

And last time we looked at two indications from the Apostle Paul that the resurrection appearances were physical

and bodily. First, we saw that Paul's doctrine of the resurrection body is that the

resurrection body is indeed a physical body. And therefore, when he says that this entity appeared to people, that would mean that

they saw a physical, tangible body. Secondly, Paul and indeed all the New Testament make a

conceptual distinction between a resurrection appearance of Jesus and a vision of Jesus.

And the only way that I can make sense of this distinction is that the resurrection appearances were extra mental.

That is to say, they took place in the external world, whereas visions

of the exalted Jesus were purely intramental, even if caused by God, they were simply

in the mind of the beholder.

That would again imply that given that these are postmortem appearances of Jesus rather

than mere visions, that these were physical bodily appearances.

Now we want to turn to what evidence there exists in the Gospels that these appearances

are physical and bodily.

Again, two points I think should be made.

First, every resurrection appearance related in the Gospels is a physical, bodily appearance.

The unanimous testimony of the Gospels in this respect is really pretty impressive.

Think about it. If none of the original appearances were physical and bodily, then it's very strange that we should

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