The Resurrection and the Paranormal

One thing that has surprised me about my recent research on the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus is how quickly and deeply it has merged into more general debates about the paranormal, parapsychology, and psychical research. I already knew that Gary Habermas had an interest in near death experiences (NDEs), and somewhere (I Read More…

Dale Allison and the Post-Resurrection Appearances

I’m still reading Dale C. Allison’s Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and its Interpreters. In his search for reports of experiences that are in some way analogous to the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, Allison draws heavily from the literature of parapsychology and the investigation of psychic phenomena. In a somewhat apologetic footnote (p. 297), Read More…

First Thoughts on Dale Allison

I’ve been reading Dale C. Allison’s Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and its Interpreters. It’s an odd and fascinating book. Only the second half of it is directly about the resurrection; the first half is comprised of other essays related to the historical Jesus, though they’re interesting in varying degrees in their own right. Read More…