The Questioning Christian

Ghost stories – do they explain resurrection appearances?

Written by

D. C. Toedt III

in

Scientific American's on-line edition has an interesting article about grief hallucinations. The article doesn't try to suggest that Jesus' post-mortem appearances might have been such hallucinations, but it's not a big leap to get there. One of the comments, though, was interesting (waterbergs at 02:48 PM on 12/02/08):

One example: during the second world war my granny woke my father in the middle of the night convinced that another of her sons, Stanley, had just been fatally wounded and was calling to her for water.

My father was able to reassure her that her son, and his brother was thousands of miles from the war front convalescing in hospital after an earlier, non-life-threatening wound. However, granny, usually a very strong character, was inconsolable and convinced she had received a communication from her dying son.

In actual fact my uncle Stanley died that very night of a wound received at the battle of Knightsbridge. Unbeknown to his family he had recovered from his previous injury and returned to his unit, and died that night in a German field hospital of blood loss – and hence in great thirst.

Co-incidence? chance? Maybe, but it would be rash to discount the possibility that there is more that just the physical. Scientists (of whom I count myself one) only do themselves a disservice and appear arrogant if they dismiss such a possible scenario.

{Emphasis and extra paragraphing added, spelling errors corrected.]

(Related post: Resurrection Appearances: What Did the Disciples Really Experience?)

Comments

3 responses to “Ghost stories – do they explain resurrection appearances?”

  1. Dharmashaiva Avatar
    Dharmashaiva

    Interesting. But don’t you think our ancestors were able to distinguish such dreams (which were probably quite common, and probably still are) from a physical resurrection/revivification?

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  2. D. C. Toedt Avatar
    D. C. Toedt

    They probably were, Dharmashaiva, but we just don’t have enough first-hand information about what actually happened, back then in the earliest days of the church. Scholars think that, before the Gospel stories were first written down in approximately the form we have them today, they were passed along by word of mouth for decades — and somewhere along the line, they crossed the language barrier between Aramaic and Greek. The opportunities for distortion and outright falsification must have been legion.
    It’s one thing to accept that sure, the stories might be true. It’s another thing entirely to base an extraordinarily-consequential life decision on the supposed truth of the stories.

    Reply
  3. R Eric Sawyer Avatar
    R Eric Sawyer

    Plausible, but the narratives as we have them seem to be aware of that possibility, and intend to deny it. I speak of course of Thomas, and the invitation to put his fingers in the wounds of Jesus, and the appearances that include eating. Also, the first epistle of John seems to address a concern which was apparently abroad in the world that Jesus was not “in the flesh.”
    Of course, that does put the issue back to the reliability of the Biblical account, and were these things added to bolster a perceived weakness in the dawning “official” version.
    I think we agree that proof is not discernable either way from within the record. Christianity therefore remains a religion of revelation, with the question addressed to God “Are these things so?”
    BTW, “doubting” Thomas would be my first choice as patron saint.

    Reply

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