Visions and Voices: Jesus’ Resurrection and a New Socio-Scientific Epistemology

• Main Authors: Mr N Shoko, Prof S.J. Nortjé-Meyer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Africajournals 2020-07-01
• Series: Pharos Journal of Theology
• Subjects: resurrection; altered/alternate states of consciousness (asc); out of body experience (obe) near-death experience (nde) post-resurrection visions
• Online Access: https://www.pharosjot.com/uploads/7/1/6/3/7163688/article_23_vol_101__2020__uj.pdf

This article appraises current resurrection research methodology in South African New Testament scholarship while suggesting a new epistemology for understanding resurrection appearances. In this paper I critique the traditional/confessional and historical-critical methodologies to expose inherent flaws within them. I then propose that the only type of epistemology that considers the fundamental cultural differences between the western 21st century and ancient Mediterranean where the resurrection visions are concerned is the social-scientific historiography. Notwithstanding the value of social-scientific methodology in general, I contend that there are at least two orientations within the social-scientific epistemologies, one of which is crucial to the understanding of resurrection visions reported by the early church and discourses that they claimed to have had with the resurrected Jesus. My conclusion is that the social-scientific version, which utilizes fieldwork in general and participant observation in particular as envisioned by John Pilch, is the most useful tool in understanding post-resurrection visions. Otherwise, with the current socio-scientific method, resurrection visions and discourses of the post-mortem Jesus remain an alien other, even where ethnocentrism is actively guarded against.