William Craig's Case for the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 27: More Appearances

THE MOST IMPORTANT HISTORICAL CLAIM IN CRAIG'S CASE

 Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus is based on three key historical claims. The most important of these historical claims is this one:

HC2: Beginning on the first day of the week following Jesus' crucifixion, various individuals and groups experienced on different occasions and under varying circumstances appearances of Jesus alive. 

Because this claim is crucial to the success of Craig's case, if Craig fails to show that (HC2) is a historical fact, then his case for the resurrection of Jesus will also fail.

In Part 25, I showed that the best piece of historical evidence presented by Craig is weak and dubious and thus fails to provide any significant support for (HC2).

In Part 26, I showed that another key piece of evidence, the alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter, is also weak and  defective evidence and thus fails to provide any significant evidence for (HC2).

In this current post, I will critically examine some more alleged appearances of the risen Jesus that Craig offers as evidence for (HC2).

THE ALLEGED APPEARANCE TO 500 BRETHREN

The third piece of evidence that Craig uses to support (HC2) is a alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to five hundred brethren (RF3, pages 378-379).  Once again, Craig makes a very honest admission:

...we have no mention whatsoever of this appearance elsewhere in the New Testament. (RF3, page 378)

However, I don't think Craig realizes how devastating this admission is to his use of this evidence to support (HC2).

First, it is very unlikely that the authors of the four Gospels were aware of this alleged appearance of the risen Jesus given that none of them chose to mention this astounding event.  Either the authors of the Gospels were completely unaware of this astounding event or else they had heard about this alleged event but had serious doubts about it being a real historical event. In either case, the silence of all four Gospels plus Acts (and the rest of the New Testament, other than 1 Corinthians) raises significant doubts about the historicity of this alleged appearance of the risen Jesus.

Second, it is not clear that the alleged appearance to five hundred brethren was part of the Christian creed or tradition that Paul was referencing.  

If this appearance was not part of the Christian tradition that Paul was referencing, then we cannot date this information to when Paul began preaching to the Corinthians, we can only date it as being as old as the writing of 1 Corinthians by Paul.  This still dates the information to earlier than the writing of the Gospels.  However, such an early date makes it even more puzzling why there is no mention of this event in any of the Gospels, nor in Acts.

Third, as with the alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter, we have no story describing this appearance to five hundred Christian believers, and we have no details about this alleged event:

We don't know when this appearance took place (a few days after the crucifixion? a few weeks after the crucifixion? a few months after the crucifixion? a few years after the crucifixion?)

We don't know where this appearance took place (Jerusalem? Samaria? Galilee? 

We don't know the weather and lighting conditions during this event

We don't know the social and psychological circumstances of the people who had this alleged experience

We don't know if anyone saw Jesus' face, or saw Jesus' body, or heard Jesus speak, or touched Jesus' body

We don't know how far away Jesus appeared to be from the people who allegedly had this experience (a few feet away? a few yards away? 50 yards away? 500 yards away? one mile up in the sky?)

We don't know how long this experience lasted (a few seconds? a few minutes? a few hours?)

We don't know if everyone in the crowd experienced this appearance of Jesus

We don't know if everyone in the crowd had the same experience of Jesus (did some see Jesus in the sky? did some see Jesus about 50 yards away? did some see Jesus just a few feet away?  Did some hear Jesus speaking but others did not?  did some see Jesus in and white robe while others saw Jesus in a red robe or some other clothing?

PLAN for Six Volumes of: Thinking Critically about the Resurrection of Jesus

 I am planning to publish six volumes of Thinking Critically about the Resurrection of Jesus:

DRAFT OUTLINE of Volume 3 of Thinking Critically about the Resurrection of Jesus

 Thinking Critically about the Resurrection of Jesus, 

Volume 3: The Failure of William Craig's Case

The Case Against the Swoon Theory by Kreeft and Tacelli - Part 2: The Winding Sheets and Entombment Objection

 WHERE WE ARE

In Part 1 of this series, I pointed out that an important part of the case for the resurrection of Jesus by the Christian philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA) is their attempt to refute the Swoon Theory.  Because they fail to refute the Swoon Theory, their case for the resurrection of Jesus also fails.

Four of their objections to the Swoon Theory are based on the Gospel of John:

In Part 1 of this series, I showed that Objection #2 and Objection #3 are both weak and defective objections. In this current post, I will critically examine Objection #4.

OBJECTION #4: WINDING SHEETS AND ENTOMBMENT

Here is what I take to be the core argument of Objection #4 (Winding Sheets & Entombment):

1b. On Friday evening, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, it was totally encased in winding sheets (that included 100-plus pounds of spices and a gummy substance).

2a. On Friday evening, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, it was placed into a stone tomb.

C. IF on Friday evening, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, Jesus’ body was totally encased in winding sheets (that included 100-plus pounds of spices and a gummy substance) and Jesus’ body was placed into a stone tomb, THEN even if Jesus had survived his crucifixion Jesus would have either quickly suffocated in his tomb or quickly died in his tomb as a result of the cold, damp air in his tomb when Jesus’ body was placed into his tomb on Friday evening.

THEREFORE:

D. IF Jesus had survived his crucifixion, THEN Jesus would have either quickly suffocated in his tomb or quickly died in his tomb as a result of the cold, damp air in his tomb when Jesus’ body was placed into his tomb on Friday evening.

This core argument is a logically VALID argument because it can be re-stated as a modus ponens inference by simply combining premise (1b) and premise (2a) into a single claim or premise. None of the three premises of this core argument is obviously true, so all three premises require support by further arguments.

THE SUB-ARGUMENT FOR THE KEY PREMISE (1b)

Because Kreeft and Tacelli provide an argument in support of the key premise (1b), we need to consider that argument:

3b. According to the Gospel of John (Jn 19:38-42), on Friday evening, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, it was totally encased in winding sheets (that included 100-plus pounds of spices and a gummy substance).

B. The Gospel of John provides a reliable and accurate account of the life of Jesus, including what happened to Jesus’ body after he was crucified.

THEREFORE:

1b. On Friday evening, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, it was totally encased in winding sheets (that included 100-plus pounds of spices and a gummy substance).

As I argued previously, the Gospel of John is not a reliable and accurate account of the life of Jesus, and we have also seen specific reasons to doubt the historical reliability of the descriptions of some events related to the crucifixion of Jesus in Chapter 19 of the Gospel of John.[1] Thus, premise (B) is false. Therefore, this sub-argument for (1b) is unsound and should be rejected. We may reasonably conclude that the key premise (1b) is dubious and might well be false.

Furthermore, the passage referenced in premise (3b) has some specific problems that cast significant doubt on the historical reliability of that particular passage: 

• No other Gospel mentions the involvement of Nicodemus in the burial of Jesus 
• No other Gospel ever mentions Nicodemus 
• No other Gospel indicates that a large quantity of spices was used to prepare the body of Jesus for burial 
• No other Gospel states that Jesus was crucified in a garden
• No other Gospel states that the tomb of Jesus was in a garden
• The other Gospels state that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Jesus’ body in a linen cloth (Mark 15:46, Matthew 27:59, Luke 23:53), while the Gospel of John has Jesus wrapped in strips of linen or linen wrappings (John 19:40 NIV or NRSV Updated Version)[2]
• Only in the Gospel of John is there no mention of women followers of Jesus being present at the burial
• Only in the Gospel of John is there no mention of Joseph closing the tomb entrance with a rock

Some women who followed Jesus allegedly watched Joseph prepare the body of Jesus for burial (Matthew 27:59-61), so if a large amount of myrrh and aloes were incorporated into the cloth wrapped around Jesus, the women would have known that was done and would not have purchased or planned to use more expensive spices to do further preparation of Jesus’ body, but that is what they did according to the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke (Mark 15:46-16:1, Luke 23:55-56).

Given the failure of the other three Gospels to corroborate key details of this passage in the Gospel of John, given the inconsistencies between this passage and the accounts of the other three Gospels, given the historical unreliability of the Gospel of John, and given other previously mentioned historical problems with the stories and details in Chapter 19 of the Gospel of John, we have good reason to doubt the historical claims made in the passage of the Gospel of John that is referenced in premise (3b). So, it is probably false that Nicodemus brought a large amount of spices to the tomb of Jesus. Therefore, the key premise (1b) is probably false.

Finally, premise (3b) is false because the passage referenced from the Gospel of John does NOT indicate that “100-plus pounds of spices and a gummy substance” were used in encasing the body of Jesus in winding sheets.

The “100-plus pounds” weight is based on a faulty translation of John 19:39.[3] The translation in the New International Version “about seventy-five pounds” is accurate (assuming that the Greek term “litras” means the same as the Roman Latin term “libras”):

He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.  (John 19:39, New International Version)

Therefore, premise (3b) is false. The relevant Gospel passage does not state that “100-plus pounds” of spices and a gummy substance were incorporated into the encasement of Jesus’ body with winding sheets.

Also, since the passage states (at most) that Nicodemus brought about 75 pounds of spices to Jesus’ tomb, it is probably false that Nicodemus actually brought 100 pounds of spices to Jesus’ tomb. Therefore, we have another good reason to conclude that premise (1b) is probably false.

Since both premise (B) and premise (3b) in the sub-argument for the key premise (1b) are false, it is clear that this sub-argument is unsound and should be rejected. Thus, Kreeft and Tacelli have failed to provide us with a good reason to believe premise (1b). Therefore, the key premise (1b) is dubious and might well be false. That is a good reason to conclude that Objection #4 against the Swoon Theory fails.

But as I argued above, we also have good reasons to believe that the key premise (1b) is probably false. So, we clearly have a good reason for concluding that Objection #4 against the Swoon Theory fails.

THE SUB-ARGUMENT FOR THE KEY PREMISE (2A)

Premise (2a) is a key premise in the core argument for Objection #4 against the Swoon Theory. Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli provide a sub-argument in support of premise (2a), so we need to consider that argument:

4a. According to the Gospel of John (Jn 19:38-42), on Friday evening, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, it was placed into a stone tomb.

B. The Gospel of John provides a reliable and accurate account of the life of Jesus, including what happened to Jesus’ body after he was crucified.

THEREFORE:

2a. On Friday evening, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, it was placed into a stone tomb.

Premise (4a) appears to be true.

As I argued previously, the Gospel of John is not a reliable and accurate account of the life of Jesus, and we have also seen specific reasons to doubt the historical reliability of the descriptions of some events related to the crucifixion of Jesus in Chapter 19 of the Gospel of John.[1] Thus, premise (B) is false. Therefore, this sub-argument for (2a) is unsound and should be rejected. Kreeft and Tacelli have failed to provide us with a good reason to believe that the key premise (2a) is true.

EVIDENCE FOR PREMISE (2A) FROM THE OTHER GOSPELS

Although we should not take the referenced passage from Chapter 19 of the Gospel of John as sufficient evidence to establish the key premise (2a), the other three Gospels agree with the claim asserted by premise (2a). So, in order to evaluate premise (2a), we need to consider the evidence for (2a) from the other three Gospels.

The key premise (2a) might be true. All four of the canonical gospels agree on the point made by that premise. Nobody can prove that premise (2a) is false. However, as I have previously argued, the evidence from the Gospel of John is clearly insufficient for the purpose of showing that (2a) asserts a historical fact.

Furthermore, there are two key points that taken together show that (2a) does not assert a historical fact and that there is a significant chance that (2a) is false. l will argue that premise (2a) is dubious because:

• Whether (2a) is a historical fact comes down to the question of whether the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark is historically reliable.
• There are good reasons to believe that the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark is historically unreliable.

The key premise (2a) might be true. All four of the canonical gospels agree on the point made by that premise. Nobody can prove that premise (2a) is false. However, as I have previously argued, the evidence from the Gospel of John is clearly insufficient for the purpose of showing that (2a) asserts a historical fact.

For nearly two centuries, scholars who study the historical Jesus have ignored the Gospel of John because it is historically unreliable. I have previously outlined some of the key reasons for concluding that the Gospel of John is an unreliable account of the life, ministry, and crucifixion of Jesus.

Most of the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew come from the Gospel of Mark. So, if the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are historically unreliable, then so are most of the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. On the other hand, if the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are historically reliable, then the Gospel of Matthew also has historically reliable stories about Jesus, but little to offer beyond the stories we find in the Gospel of Mark.

There are some general considerations about the Gospel of Matthew that show there is a good chance that when the Gospel of Matthew adds or changes events or details in stories that it borrows from the Gospel of Mark, those revisions are historically unreliable. When the author of Matthew adds new stories about Jesus that do not come from the Gospel of Mark, those stories are usually historically dubious. For example, the Gospel of Matthew adds a Birth Story about Jesus which is historically dubious. I argue these points in a series of posts called “The Historical Unreliability of the Gospel of Matthew”.[4]

Furthermore, when the author of the Gospel of Matthew revises stories about Jesus that come from the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of Mark, those changes are usually driven by theological or dramatic or literary purposes rather than by historical evidence. The additions and changes that the author of the Gospel of Matthew makes to stories from the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of Mark are historically dubious. I also argue this point in a series of posts called “The Historical Unreliability of the Gospel of Matthew”.[4]

For the above reasons, a determination of whether premise (2a) is a historical fact cannot be based on the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. This determination must rest primarily on the Gospel of Mark and/or the Gospel of Luke.

However, the Gospel of Luke has problems similar to that of the Gospel of Matthew. Like the Gospel of Matthew, there are general considerations that show there is a good chance that what the author of the Gospel of Luke adds to or revises in stories about Jesus that come from the Gospel of Mark are historically unreliable changes. The Gospel of Luke has a Birth Story, and like the Gospel of Matthew, the Birth Story is historically dubious. The Gospel of Luke also adds stories about alleged appearances of the risen Jesus in Jerusalem on the first Easter Sunday, but those stories are probably all fictional.

Furthermore, like the Gospel of Matthew, when the author of the Gospel of Luke borrows a story about Jesus from the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of Mark and adds or changes an event or detail in that story, the change is usually historically dubious. I argue these points in a series of posts called “The Historical Unreliability of the Gospel of Luke”.[5]

For these reasons, the Gospel of Luke has little to offer in terms of historically reliable stories about Jesus, beyond the information we already have from the Gospel of Mark. Thus, a determination of whether premise (2a) is a historical fact cannot be based on stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. And since we have previously eliminated the Gospel of Matthew for similar reasons, premise (2a) must be evaluated primarily on the basis of the contents of the Gospel of Mark.

There are good reasons to believe that the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark is historically unreliable.  Here are four good reasons to doubt the historical reliability of the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark:

• First, there are some general considerations that provide a good reason for doubting the historical reliability of the Gospel of Mark.
• A second good reason for doubting the historical reliability of the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark is that the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of Mark is a historically unreliable account of the arrest, trials, and crucifixion of Jesus.
• A third good reason for doubting the historical reliability of the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark is based on the specific content of that story.
• A fourth good reason for doubting the historical reliability of the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark is that the empty tomb story in the Gospel of Mark is historically dubious.

I argue for these points in a series of posts called “The Historical Unreliability of the Passion Narrative in Mark”.[6]

Assuming that I have shown (above and in my referenced articles) the following two claims, I have shown that premise (2a) is dubious:

• Whether (2a) is a historical fact comes down to the question of whether the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark is historically reliable.
• There are good reasons to believe that the Burial Story in the Gospel of Mark is historically unreliable.

The argument for (2a) given by Kreeft and Tacelli fails because it rests on a false premise, premise (B). A likely reply to this objection is that instead of basing premise (2a) on evidence from the Gospel of John, premise (2a) could be supported by evidence from the other three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

If my arguments supporting the above two bullet points are successful, then the attempt to base premise (2a) on evidence from the other three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) also fails to show that (2a) is true, and we would thus have good reason to conclude that premise (2a) is dubious and might well be false.

EVALUATION OF PREMISE (C)

Premise (C) asserts a conditional claim. It has this form:

IF P, THEN Q.

Another way of stating a conditional claim is to say that the antecedent logically implies the consequent:

P IMPLIES Q.

So, we can restate premise (C) like this:

The statement,

“On Friday evening, after Jesus’ body was removed from the cross, Jesus’ body was totally encased in winding sheets (that included 100-plus pounds of spices and a gummy substance) and Jesus’ body was placed into a stone tomb,”

logically implies this statement:

“Even if Jesus had survived his crucifixion, Jesus would have either quickly suffocated in his tomb or quickly died in his tomb as a result of the cold damp air in his tomb when Jesus’ body was placed into his tomb on Friday evening.”

However, there are clear counterexamples that show that the first statement does not logically imply the second statement. Therefore, the conditional claim made by premise (C) is false, so the core argument of Objection #4 is unsound and fails to refute the Swoon Theory.

The first statement says nothing about the air in the tomb being cold or damp. Therefore, the first statement could be true even if the air in the tomb was warm and dry. But if the air in the tomb was warm and dry, then obviously Jesus would not be quickly killed off “as a result of the cold damp air in his tomb”.

Furthermore, no evidence has been provided for the assumption that the air in the tomb was cold and damp. So, that assumption is dubious and might well be false.

There are other assumptions being made here that also are not implied by the first statement. Wrapping Jesus’ body with winding sheets that “included 100-plus pounds of spices and a gummy substance” would not cause Jesus to suffocate unless:

• The winding sheets were tightly wrapped around Jesus’ head
• The winding sheets around Jesus’ head covered his mouth and nose
• There were multiple layers of winding sheets around Jesus’ head
• There were many pounds of spices and gummy substance included in the layers of winding sheets wrapped around Jesus’ head

If some or all of these assumptions are false, then Jesus probably would not have suffocated as a result of his body being “encased in winding sheets (including 100-plus pounds of spices and a gummy substance)”.

The first statement above–the antecedent of premise (C)–says nothing about the winding sheets being wrapped tightly around Jesus’ head, nor about the winding sheets covering his mouth and nose, nor about there being multiple layers of winding sheets around Jesus’ head, nor about whether (or how much) spices and gummy substance was included in layers of winding sheets around Jesus’ head. 

Therefore, the first statement could be true even if some or all of the crucial assumptions about the wrapping of winding sheets around Jesus’ head were false. Thus, even if the first statement–the antecedent of premise (C)–was true, Jesus might well have been able to breathe and not suffocate in the tomb.

Furthermore, no evidence has been provided for the various assumptions above about the winding sheets being wrapped around the head of Jesus, so those assumptions are dubious and might well be false.

Finally, the relevant passage in the Gospel of John provides us with no details about the temperature of the air in Jesus’ tomb, nor about the dampness of the air in Jesus’ tomb, nor about how tightly the winding sheets were wrapped around Jesus’ head, nor about how many layers of winding sheets were wrapped around Jesus’ head, nor about whether the cloth covered Jesus mouth and nose, nor about whether (or how much) of the spices and the gummy substance was used in the wrappings around Jesus’ head. So, the Gospel of John does not provide information in support of any of the crucial assumptions that are required to show the key premise (C) to be true.

Because the antecedent of premise (C) says nothing about the temperature or dampness of the air in Jesus’ tomb and says nothing about how Jesus’ head was tightly wrapped with multiple layers of winding sheets, nor about how much spices and gummy substance was used in the layers of winding sheets around Jesus’ head, it is clear that the antecedent of premise (C) could be true and yet the consequent of premise (C) be false. Thus, the key premise (C) is false.

EVALUATION OF OBJECTION #4 (WINDING SHEETS & ENTOMBMENT)

The core argument for Objection #4 consists of three premises: (1b), (2a), and (C). I have shown that the key premise (1b) is probably false, and that the key premise (2a) is dubious. Those points give us good reason to reject the core argument for Objection #4.   

I have also shown that the key premise (C) in the core argument for this objection is false. That means the core argument is unsound, which by itself is sufficient reason to reject the core argument for Objection #4.

Because one key premise of the core argument is dubious, and one key premise of the core argument is probably false, and because one key premise of the core argument is false, it is clear that Objection #4 (Winding Sheets and Entombment) against the Swoon Theory fails.

It is no surprise that Kreeft and Tacelli provide zero evidence in support of any of these crucial historical assumptions:

• The air inside the tomb was cold when Jesus was placed in the tomb
• The air inside the tomb was damp when Jesus was placed in the tomb
• The winding sheets were tightly wrapped around Jesus’ head
• The winding sheets around Jesus’ head covered his mouth and nose
• There were multiple layers of winding sheets around Jesus’ head
• There were many pounds of spices and a gummy substance included in the layers of winding sheets wrapped around Jesus’ head

This is not a surprise, because their original statement of this objection in HCA said nothing about why Jesus being wrapped in winding sheets and placed into a stone tomb would have caused him to quickly die, if Jesus had survived the crucifixion.

I believe that Kreeft and Tacelli borrowed Objection #4 from Josh McDowell.[7] However, they abbreviated McDowell’s version of this objection and left out the crucial elements about why wrapping Jesus in winding sheets with lots of spices and gummy substance and placing him in a stone tomb would have caused Jesus to quickly die.

McDowell’s version of this objection points to the idea that the winding sheets and spices would have caused Jesus to quickly suffocate, and to the idea that the cold, damp air in the tomb would have caused Jesus to quickly die (presumably in conjunction with Jesus’ various wounds and loss of blood). 

McDowell, however, also provides zero evidence for any of the above crucial assumptions about the air in the tomb and about how Jesus’ head was wrapped, so his version of Objection #4 against the Swoon Theory clearly fails for the reasons I give in the above post, which show that premise (C) is false.

END NOTES

1. See my post "The Unreliability of the 4th Gospel - Part 12: Chapter 19":  https://tcaict.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-unreliability-of-4th-gospel-part-12.html 

2. The empty tomb story in the Gospel of Luke also mentions linen wrappings (in Luke 24:12); however, there is controversy over whether that verse was part of the original text of the Gospel of Luke. That wording might well have been added by a copyist who was familiar with the burial and empty tomb stories in the Gospel of John. 

3. For a more detailed discussion about the translation and interpretation of this verse, see my article “An Attempt to Rescue Objection #4 (Winding Sheets & Entombment) Against the Swoon Theory” on The Secular Frontier: https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/2025/05/an-attempt-to-rescue-objection-4-winding-sheets-entombment-against-the-swoon-theory/

4. See my post on “The Historical Unreliability of the Gospel of Matthew”: https://tcaict.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-historical-unreliability-of-matthew.html 

5. See my post on “The Historical Unreliability of the Gospel of Luke”: https://tcaict.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-historical-unreliability-of-gospel.html

6. See my post on “The Historical Unreliability of the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of Mark: https://tcaict.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-historical-unreliability-of-passion.html

7. The Resurrection Factor, by Josh McDowell (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life Publishers,1981), p. 98.

William Craig's Case for the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 26: The Alleged Appearance to Peter

 WHERE WE ARE

In Part 25 of this series, I showed that Craig's best and strongest evidence for the most important historical claim in his case fails to establish that the historical claim is a historical fact. 

Here is the most important historical claim in Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus:

 HC2: Beginning on the first day of the week following Jesus' crucifixion, various individuals and groups experienced on different occasions and under varying circumstances appearances of Jesus alive. 

What Craig calls "the best-attested resurrection appearance of Jesus" (RF3, p.378) is the alleged appearance of the risen Jesus described in Luke 24:36-42 and in John 20:19-20. However, the appearance story from the Gospel of John is of little historical significance because the Gospel of John provides a historically unreliable account of the ministry, trials, crucifixion, burial, and teachings of Jesus.

The story of this alleged appearance of the risen Jesus in Chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke is insufficient evidence to show that this alleged appearance actually occurred, because this story is contradicted by the Gospel of Mark and by the Gospel of Matthew.  

The evidence from Chapter 15 of I Corinthians also fails to establish this alleged appearance, because the claim about an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to his disciples found in I Corinthians is too vague to confirm the appearance story presented in the Gospel of Luke.

An honest and objective examination of the relevant historical evidence shows that the appearance story that Craig points us to in Chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke is probably a fictional story.

CRAIG'S THREE LINES OF EVIDENCE FOR (HC2)

Craig puts forward three lines of evidence in support of (HC2), the most important historical claim in his case:

1. Paul's list of eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection appearances [in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8]... (RF3, pages 378-380)

2. The Gospel accounts provide multiple, independent attestation of postmortem appearances of Jesus. (RF3, pages 380-381)

3. The resurrection appearances were physical, bodily appearances. (RF3, pages 382-384)

PAUL'S LIST OF EYEWITNESSES

We have already begun examination of Craig's first line of evidence for (HC2), the evidence from Paul's list of eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection appearances.

Here are the items Craig includes in that first line of evidence (RF3, pages 378-380):

a) Appearance to Peter.               
b) Appearance to the Twelve.
c) Appearance to five hundred brethren.
d) Appearance to James.
e) Appearance to "all the apostles."
f) Appearance to Saul of Tarsus.

Item (b) is what Craig calls "the best-attested resurrection appearance of Jesus" (RF3, p.378). But we have seen that this alleged appearance probably did not occur; the story about this appearance is probably a fictional story.

We still have to consider the five other alleged appearances of the risen Jesus. This other evidence is no better than the appearance to "the Twelve" that was discussed in Part 25. 

THE ALLEGED APPEARANCE TO PETER

In 1 Corinthians Chapter 15, Paul refers to a Christian tradition about alleged appearances of the risen Jesus. That tradition asserts that there was an appearance of the risen Jesus to his disciple Peter:

3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures 4 and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, emphasis added)

"Simon" was the original name of one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, whom Jesus nicknamed "Cephas":

41 He [Andrew] first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” ... 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called "Cephas" (which is translated Peter). (John 1:41-42, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)

In Aramaic, "cephas" means "rock" and in Greek, "petros" means "rock".  So, when Simon's nickname "Cephas" was translated from Aramaic to Greek, his nickname became "Peter". In Chapter 2 of Galations, Paul sometimes uses the name "Peter" and sometimes uses the name "Cephas" to refer to the disciple of Jesus who was originally named "Simon".

Craig makes an honest admission about the alleged appearance of Jesus to Peter:

We have no story in the Gospel telling of Jesus' appearance to Peter. (RF3, page 378)

I appreciate Craig's honesty here, but I don't think he realizes how damaging this admission is to his argument. There is no story anywhere in the New Testament describing Jesus' appearance to Peter. As a result, we have very few details about this alleged event:

• We don't know when this alleged appearance took place
• We don't know if this happened during the day or at night
• We don't know what the conditions of light were (was it dark, or dim? in candle light? in the shade outside? in bright sunlight?)
• We don't know if Peter was around other people when this happened (one person? three people? six people?)
• We don't know where this alleged appearance took place (inside? outdoors? in Jerusalem? in Galilee? on the road headed back to Galilee?)
• We don't know how long this experience lasted (a few seconds? a few minutes? a few hours?)
• We don't know if Peter had been sleeping, fasting, crying in grief, had a fever, or was drinking wine when this experience happened
• We don't know if Peter saw Jesus' face, or saw Jesus' body, or heard Jesus speak, or touched Jesus' body
• We don't know if other people saw or heard another person near Peter when he had this experience
• We don't know how far away Jesus appeared to be to Peter (a couple of feet? a couple of yards? 50 yards? 500 yards? a mile up in the sky?)
• We don't know if Peter believed this experience was a dream or vision in his mind or that it was caused by the physical presence of an embodied person

In 1 Corinthians, the Christian tradition quoted by Paul merely states that, 

...he [Jesus] appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.(1 Corinthians 15:3-5, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, emphasis added)

There is no story of an appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter in Jerusalem in the Gospel of Mark (although Mark does imply that there was some sort of appearance of the risen Jesus to his disciples later in Galilee).  There is no story of an appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter in Jerusalem in the Gospel of Matthew (although there is an appearance of the risen Jesus to a gathering of Jesus' disciples in Galilee). 

There is no story of an appearance of the risen Jesus to just Peter in Jerusalem in the Gospel of John. There is a story in the Gospel of John about Jesus appearing to ten of "the Twelve"  disciples of Jesus ("the Twelve" minus Judas and Thomas), but as we have seen, the Gospel stories about appearances of the risen Jesus to his gathered disciples in Jerusalem are probably fictional.

There is no story of an appearance of the risen Jesus to just Peter in the Gospel of Luke.  However, there is a mention of an alleged appearance to Peter in the Gospel of Luke.  

According to the Gospel of Luke, two followers of Jesus who were not among "the Twelve" disciples met a stranger while they were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday.  After spending the afternoon with this stranger, they suddenly recognized the stranger as being Jesus, who then vanished.  

The two followers of Jesus then returned to Jerusalem and found "the eleven" (i.e., "the twelve" disciples minus Judas) gathered together:

33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road... (Luke 24:33-35, NRSV Updated Edition)

There is an unclear reference here.  In verse 35, it is clear that the pronoun "they" refers to the two followers of Jesus who had just returned from Emmaus, but in verse 34, it is unclear whether the pronoun "they" refers to "the eleven and their companions" or to the two followers of Jesus who had just returned from Emmaus. 

However, there is no previous indication that the two followers of Jesus were aware of an appearance of Jesus to Peter, and it makes no sense for them to inform "the eleven" disciples about such an appearance when Peter was already there, since he was one of "the eleven" remaining disciples.  So, we may infer that the gathered disciples informed the two followers of Jesus about the alleged appearance to Peter.

Based on this account in the Gospel of Luke, one might infer that an appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter had taken place in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday, sometime between dawn (about 6am) and that evening (around 6pm), before Jesus allegedly appeared to "the eleven" disciples that evening in Jerusalem.  However, we have previously determined that the stories about an alleged appearance of Jesus to his gathered disciples in Jerusalem on Sunday (about 48 hours after he was allegedly removed from the cross) are probably fictional stories.

If Chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke contains a fictional story about an appearance of the risen Jesus to his gathered disciples in Jerusalem on the first Easter Sunday, then that casts significant doubt on the historicity of the other story in Chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke about an appearance of the risen Jesus to two followers who walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus on that same Sunday. 

Also, the reference to the alleged appearance of Jesus to Peter is part of the story of the appearance of Jesus to "the eleven" gathered disciples in Jerusalem, so even if the story about the experience of the two followers of Jesus on the road to Emmaus was historical, the likely unhistoricity of the appearance to the gathered disciples in Jerusalem directly impacts the plausibility of the claim that the disciples had gathered in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday and discussed an alleged appearance of Jesus to Peter.

There are other good reasons to doubt the historicity of the story of the appearance of the risen Jesus to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. 

First, no other Gospel corroborates this story.  There are no appearances of the risen Jesus to anyone in the Gospel of Mark.  In the Gospel of Matthew, there is a story about a brief appearance of the risen Jesus to women who visited his tomb on Easter Sunday, but there are no stories about Jesus appearing to anyone else on that Sunday. 

Also, one of the two disciples who were walking to Emmaus was named "Cleopas" (Luke 24:18), but no other Gospel ever mentions a follower of Jesus named "Cleopas", nor is this person ever mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament. 

The Gospel of John has a story of an appearance of the risen Jesus to Mary Magdalene, who was visiting Jesus' tomb on Sunday morning, and it has an appearance of Jesus to ten of "the Twelve" disciples in Jerusalem on the first Easter, but it has no story about an appearance to two followers of Jesus who saw Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

Second, the story about Jesus' appearance to two of his followers who were on the road to Emmaus is a carefully and beautifully crafted story. It reads like a short fairy tale. It is full of drama, theological meaning, and metaphor. It fits too well with the themes and purposes of the Gospel of Luke. In short, it has the character of a fictional story.

Third, the specific relevant verse (Luke 24:34) appears to be based upon the early Christian tradition that Paul references in 1 Corinthians 15:5. Here is commentary by N.T. scholar R. Alan Culpepper on this passage in the Gospel of Luke:

By means of the device of having the eleven report the appearance to Simon Peter before the two tell of their experience, Luke preserves the tradition that the first appearance was to Peter (cf. Mark 16:7; I Cor 15:5). However, the NT contains no account of this appearance. ...The  report of the appearance to Peter also authorizes his role as the leader of the apostles early in Acts...[1]

Culpepper suggests here that the author of the Gospel of Luke has inserted the comment about "the eleven" talking about an earlier appearance of Jesus to Peter for a theological and/or ideological purpose: to promote the Christian tradition that the first appearance of the risen Jesus was experienced by Peter, and to promote acceptance of Peter's role as the leader of the apostles.  

If this is correct, then the author of the Gospel of Luke might well have had no actual historical information indicating that (a) there was a gathering of "the eleven" disciples in Jerusalem on the first Easter Sunday, or that (b) "the eleven" disciples who gathered in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday talked about an appearance of the risen Jesus earlier that day to Peter.  

If Luke 24:34 was inserted by the author of the Gospel of Luke for the purpose of promoting an existing Christian tradition about Peter being the first of "the eleven" disciples to experience an appearance of the risen Jesus, then this passage does not provide independent confirmation of the historical claim in Chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians that there was an appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter. 

Both passages would be based on a Christian tradition, rather than on an eyewitness account or even on a second-hand account of either (a) an appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter or of (b) a conversation among Jesus' disciples on the first Easter about an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter.

Based on the above considerations, we have good reason to doubt the historical reliability of Luke 24:34, and are thus left without any details about the alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter.  Apart from such details, we cannot have any confidence in this alleged appearance to Peter as historical evidence for the belief that a living and physically embodied Jesus appeared to Peter.  

Given the very skimpy information we have about this alleged appearance of Jesus, it might well be the case that Peter had a dream or a hallucination about Jesus in Galilee, two or three weeks after Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, and that this dream or hallucination was taken by Peter to be proof that God had raised Jesus from the dead. 

This would account for the existence of an early Christian tradition about an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter, and it would account for Peter becoming convinced that God had raised Jesus from the dead.

The skimpy and vague information we have about an alleged appearance of Jesus to Peter does NOT provide significant support for the most important historical claim in Craig's case:

 HC2: Beginning on the first day of the week following Jesus' crucifixion, various individuals and groups experienced on different occasions and under varying circumstances appearances of Jesus alive. 

Even assuming that Peter had some sort of experience that he took to be an appearance of the risen Jesus, we don't know when that experience occurred, so we don't know that it took place "on the first day of the week following Jesus' crucifixion."  We also don't know where that experience took place, and we don't know what the circumstances were when Peter had this experience, so we don't know whether this happened under circumstances that varied from other alleged appearances of the risen Jesus.

CONCLUSION

Like the alleged appearance of Jesus to his gathered disciples in Jerusalem on the first Easter Sunday (in Luke 24:36-42), the alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter FAILS to provide any significant support for (HC2), the most important historical claim in Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus.

END NOTES

1. R. Alan Culpepper, "The Gospel of Luke" in The New Interpreter's Bible, Volume IX (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), page 481.