The 500 of 1 Corinthians 15 and the Gospel of Nicodemus
I love receiving comments on my blog (as long as they are respectful). Sometimes I discover things that I had never heard about before. Here is an example, a reply to blog post I did on the five hundred witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.
Look up the 500 soldiers guarding Jesus’ tomb in the Gospel of Nicodemus, who saw Jesus and apparently converted according to the Gospel of Nicodemus. And then look back at 1 Cor 15 and how the story of the 500 is sandwiched in between appearances to Peter and then James, etc. probably a latter insertion based on an apocryphal tale. It even ends, ” to this day” which is something someone might add much later even than when Paul wrote his letter.
I’m sharing this because I want to demonstrate how I respond to such statements. What this person is claiming is that the verse: “After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.” (1 Corinthians 15:6, NIV) is based on a similar mention of five hundred in the Gospel of Nicodemus. This would require the Gospel of Nicodemus to be earlier than 1 Corinthians 15:6.
The Gospel of Nicodemus (also known as the Acts of Pilate) is dated to the fourth century AD. Although 1 Corinthians is dated to the mid-fifties AD, this would not be a problem if there was textual evidence that 1 Corinthians 15:6 was missing and only appeared after the fourth century.
Our earliest manuscript that contains 1 Corinthians 15:6 is Papyrus 46. This manuscript is dated between 175-225 AD. This manuscript includes 1 Corinthians 14:6 in it. This is a problem. The reference to the “five hundred” is appearing at least one hundred years before the Gospel of Nicodemus. Not only that, there is no textual evidence from other ancient manuscripts that 1 Corinthians 15:6 was ever missing or altered.
Does this mean there is no connection between 1 Corinthians 15:6 and the Gospel of Nicodemus. Not necessarily. It only means that any relationship, if there was one, would have to be the Gospel of Nicodemus borrowing from 1 Corinthians 15:6.
Thanks for your reply to my comment Stephen!
True, scholars date the Acts of Pilate as anywhere between 150-400 AD, per the website, Early Christian Writings http://www.earlychristianwritings.com
True also, the earliest manuscript we have that contains the 1 Cor. passage about Jesus having “appeared to over 500 brethren” is dated to around 175 AD and the passage is never missing nor altered in subsequent copies of 1 Cor. So yes, the story in the Gospel of Nicodemus was likely written after 1 Cor. Thanks for your research.
Though this doesn’t clear up why the story of the “over 500” promptly disappear from view throughout the rest of the NT and early Christian writings (aside from the mention in the Gospel of Nicodemus) and what that implies about the desire Christians had to “fill in the blanks” so to speak, even if it meant fabricating stories. But why would Christians stoop to fabricating stories?
Also, oddly enough, Paul states that Jesus “appeared” to “over 500 brethren at once” (1 Cor. 15:6), but that would have been to a far greater number of “brethren”than were said to have existed before Jesus’ physical body supposedly rose into the clouds. (Only 120 “brethren” are mentioned meeting together soon after the ascension — Acts 1:9, 14-15, 22). So by the Bible’s own admission, whoever or whatever may have “appeared” to “over 500 brethren” could not have been a physically resurrected Jesus, since Acts says that Jesus’ his body left the Earth before that many “brethren” existed.
Below is the portion from the Gospel of Nicodemus that I was speaking about. I agree in its written form it appeared later than 1 Cor. 15 and is most likely an imaginative expansion that a Christian fabricated to fill in the lack of information concerning the story of Jesus appearing to “over 500 brethren at once.” The Acts of Pilate and Gospel of Nicodemus together repeat the ending of the Gospel of Matthew, and also name some of the many “raised saints” (Matthew is the only Gospel that mentions such “raised saints”), and adds that these saints appeared to the religious leaders of Jerusalem who had crucified Jesus and then those leaders wrote up a paper attesting to the truth of Jesus’s resurrection, and Pilate himself also testified to Jesus’s miracles.
In short, it looks like Christians were asking questions (or having questions thrown at them) as to who the “over 500 brethren” were, especially since no details were provided in 1 Cor nor anywhere else in the NT. Nor were any details provided concerning what happened to the “many raised saints” in the Gospel of Matthew. Nor are any details about the raised saints found elsewhere in the NT. A final question that Christians pondered (or that was thrown at them) was why did Jesus appear only to “brethren” after his resurrection, and again, why did only brethren (and a limited number at that) get to see Jesus rise bodily into heaven?
Well, the Gospel of Nicodemus and Acts of Pilate finally answered those knotty questions! Here is the passage from the Gospel of Nicodemus (thanks to a link provided at Early Christian Writings) that depicts the “five hundred” soldiers who allegedly guarded Jesus’s tomb testifying to Jesus’s resurrection as if they were the “500 brethren” to whom Jesus appeared in 1 Cor 15:
Pilate therefore, upon this, gave them FIVE HUNDRED soldiers, who also sat round the sepulchre so as to guard it… And upon this there came up ONE OF THE SOLDIERS guarding the tomb, and HE SAID IN THE SYNAGOGUE: LEARN THAT JESUS IS RISEN. The Jews say: How? And he said: First there was an earthquake; then an angel of the Lord, clothed with lightning, came from heaven, and rolled the stone from the tomb, and sat upon it. And from fear of him, all of us soldiers became as dead… The Jews said: As the God of Israel liveth, we do not believe a word you say. THE SOLDIERS SAY: JESUS DID SO GREAT WONDERS, and you believed not, and are you going to believe us? … AND THE SOLDIERS SAY: GO YOU TOO INTO GALILEE, AND YOU WILL FIND JESUS, as the angel said to the women… And a few days after there came from Galilee to Jerusalem three men. One of them was a priest, by name Phinees; the second a Levite, by name Aggai; and the third A SOLDIER, by name Adas. THESE CAME TO THE CHIEF PRIESTS, AND SAID TO THEM AND TO THE PEOPLE: JESUS, WHOM YOU CRUCIFIED, WE HAVE SEEN IN GALILEE WITH HIS ELEVEN DISCIPLES UPON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, teaching them, and saying, Go into all the world, and proclaim the good news; and whosoever will believe and be baptized shall be saved; but whosoever will not believe shall be condemned. And having thus spoken, he [Jesus] went up into heaven. And BOTH WE AND MANY OTHERS OF THE FIVE HUNDRED [SOLDIERS] BESIDES WERE LOOKING ON.
Chapters 12-15 of the Gospel of Nicodemus
I exchanged letters with resurrection apologist Gary Habermas years ago, and raised some “knotty questions” according to a Christian apologist who read my final letter to Habermas: http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2016/04/eyewitness-reports-of-jesuss.html
And I have continued to discover further questions to pursue since then:
Christianity raises as many intellectual and historical questions as it claims to answer, if not more… http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2015/06/christianity-raises-as-many.html
Hi Stephen,
Here is a point to consider: How reliable is eyewitness testimony from people involved in an apocalyptic (the End is Near) religious movement?
The 1917 “Miracle of the Sun” in Fátima, Portugal, was widely viewed as a divine validation of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions to three shepherd children. On October 13, 1917, roughly 70,000 people gathered to witness the promised sign, witnessing the sun spin, change colors, and appear to fall toward Earth, confirming the children’s message of repentance and prayer.
Question: 70,000 (SEVENTY THOUSAND) people, all in one place and at the same time, claim they saw the sun spin, change colors, and fall toward earth. The sun fell toward earth! According to the logic of Protestant (evangelical) Christian apologists, if that many eyewitnesses, at one time and place, say it happened, it has to be true. So why don’t Protestant Christians believe this eyewitness claim?
Protestants: “It was nothing more than mass (Catholic) hysteria!”
Skeptics: Couldn’t the same be true for the alleged first century appearances of Mary’s son, Jesus?