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To claim the disciples wrote in a non-historical genre is to claim the disciples did not literally mean that Jesus rose from the dead, but rather invented a fable about his rising and assigned him divine attributes. They did this in order to honour him and communicate his message. The Aesop fable is one such example, who used animals which talked that he never intended for us to believe. He used his literary style in order to communicate points about various character traits in a creative manner.

The sceptic may state something like this:

Accounts of dying and rising gods are prevalent throughout the Greco-Roman world. The authors of that time never intended for their readers to believe that someone really rose from the dead but were simply honouring the heroes of the stories by ascribing traits of divinity to them. Therefore, when we read the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, we must recognise that the disciples never intended for their readers to believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead, either. This seems even more obvious to one considers the parabolic rhetoric frequently employed by Jesus. Most, if not all, of his parables include a fictitious story. If we focused on whether the story in the parable was an actual historical event, we would miss the message Jesus was trying to tell us. Jesus’ resurrection is, likewise, a fictitious account that was never intended to be regarded as historical. To focus on whether it was a real event is to miss the message that the disciples were attempting to communicate; that Jesus was a great man who changed the world and that his teachings will live on forever

It may seem plausible at first, but it is plagued with serious problems.

1. It cannot account for the empty tomb, 

Especially since this can be accounted for by multiple arguments, even from texts outside of the New Testament. To make this work you need to add in another theory like body-snatching, but we cover that later, as that’s a weak theory also. Combining theories tends to create more problems than solutions (level of Ad Hoc, probability, and the problems those theories bring with them)

2. A fable or story would not have convinced Paul that Jesus rose from the dead. 

This man was killing Christians, he would most likely see Jesus as a poor attempt to imitate Jewish fables. Paul was an educated, well viewed Jewish man. Identifiable fables and stories wouldn’t persuade such a man out of a life’s work. Being a well respected Jew, such apostasy would make him fear for his soul.

3. The same applies to James, a pious Jew we know even after becoming a Christian was well respecting and knowledgeable of Jewish law (Hegesippus refers to his character). 

Being moved by a story to jeopardise his soul is not in the Jewish nature, never mind believing his brother was God, I mean, as a brother myself It’s hard to get anything across to siblings never mind this claim!

4. If educated people knew about non-historical genre then they would’ve known about historical.

The existence of non-historical genre does not prove they used it. That’s like saying everything this new report writes are fables because he also writes kids books in his spare time about flying elephants. To make such a claim you need to prove it.

5. The New Testament documents have serious indicators that this was to be taken literally, not mythically. 

Peter & Paul both contrast King David’s decaying buried body. They say Jesus did not decay in the grave as David did, but rather he was raised up by God. I don’t think they could’ve been any clearer if they tried! They could’ve easily said “His body decayed but his spirit ascended to heaven” but they don’t say this. Paul and Peter talk about a physical resurrection.

Fictional stories have a ‘once upon a time’ style of writing, it’s hard to investigate the details. However we can see in the gospels there is no appeal to fiction but pure history giving an excess of details where possible. see for further confirmation see Luke 3:1

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip Tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias Tetrarch of Abilene— during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas

Luke 3:1

The gospels give us exact times, year of reign, governors, leaders of priesthoods. Here we have intrinsic details we can check against historical records and where possible have been proven accurate. Luke is recording an event for which he can even tell you when it happened because he cares about evidence. Many more details can be extracted and checked against history to see how embedded with history these events really were. 

6. Greco-Roman biography

In Richard Burridge’s book ‘What Are the Gospels‘ – He proposed that the gospels belonged to the genre/literary type of Greco-Roman biography. Prior to this, he was trying to disprove such a genre was associated with the gospels, but it turned out to be true! So in the genre-types of the time, it fits perfectly with biographical styles of the day. And of course a biography is relaying the truth of one’s life/lives like Plutarch’s lives biographies.

Also what is worth noting is that in Peter’s sermon as portrayed in Acts 10: 40–41, he claims that he and others “ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.” Luke seems to be intending to record historical events when in Luke 1: 1–3, he writes,

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. 

Luke 1:1-3

New Testament critical scholar Bart Ehrman comments,

There may indeed be fictional elements in the account, as we will see; but judging from the preface to volume one [i.e., Luke’s gospel], from the subject matter of the narrative (the spread of the Christian church), and from the main characters themselves (who are, after all, historical persons), we can more plausibly conclude that Luke meant to write a history of early Christianity, not a novel. Moreover, all of the ancient Christian authors who refer to the book appear to have understood it in this way.

Bart Ehrman, Textual Critic, Agnostic leaning toward atheism

G. Kitten, G. W. Bromiley and G. Friedrich state

The work of Luke cannot be evaluated properly if we group it with inferior contemporary literature that treats of heroes, thaumaturges and other popular characters. It is genuine history.

G. Kitten, G. W. Bromiley and G. Friedrich

Archaeologist Sir William Ramsay, from a different angle speaks of Luke’s credibility in terms of details, facts and discoveries verified through his record

Luke is a historian of the first rank; Not merely are his statements of facts trustworthy… this author should be placed along with the very greatest historians.

Sir William Ramsey, Archaeologist

Some scholars have noted that the appearance language in the New Testament is the language of sight (Luke 24: 34; Acts 10: 40–41; 13: 30–31; 1 Cor. 15: 5–8). The writers did not use metaphorical language, so they at least thought that God had acted literally upon them in the appearances of the risen Jesus. 

New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg states,

A careful reading of the patristic evidence suggests that indeed the vast majority of early Christians did believe that the type of information the Gospel writers communicated was historical fact, even as they recognized the more superficial parallels with the mythology of other worldviews.

Craig Blomberg, New Testament Scholar

Furthermore, although 2 Peter cannot be part of a “minimal facts” argument because many scholars question its authorship by Peter, it still provides early testimony that at least some Christians within one hundred years after Jesus were interpreting events such as Jesus’ transfiguration and resurrection as historical events.

7. The early church and critics understood this information as historical. 

The Jewish leaders accused the disciples of stealing the body & Celcus (AD 170) claims the disciples used magic/deception. Enemy responses show how they treat the event as historical and not treating it as fable.  

The second-century critic Celsus (c. 170), who wrote against Jesus’ resurrection, provides arguments against a literal and bodily resurrection. Origen notes Celsus’ reasoning says that if miracles or a resurrection were claimed by Christians, Celsus and others would view them as Egyptian trickery (Origen, Contra Celsum, 1.68). In 2.56, Origen responds to Celsus’ assertion that Jesus’ resurrection could have been a deception in which Jesus simply left the area for a while and then returned. In 2.59, Origen notes Celsus’ accusation that the first witness of the risen Jesus was a half-frantic woman and the others who claimed to have seen Jesus were engaged in a “system of deception.” Whatever else may be said of Celsus’ arguments, he obviously was answering the Christian claim that Jesus had a literal resurrection. 

There is no suggestion that there might have been nonhistorical genre of resurrection claims that were meant to honour Jesus by portraying him as risen from the dead or to symbolize the explosion of power in the church. Regarding the latter theory, without a historical resurrection of Jesus, there would have been nothing to account for the church’s explosion of power. The leader was dead, and his followers were in hiding. It was not the explosion of power in the church that led to the resurrection accounts. It was Jesus’ resurrection that led to the explosion of power.

Structured response

1. The genre doesn’t account for the facts with regards to the empty tomb
2. The genre doesn’t explain the historical recording and the reasons for Paul’s conversion 
3. The genre doesn’t explain the conversion of a Pious Jew James
4. Historical and non-historical genre were distinguishable 
5. The gospels have historical indicators 
6. The Resurrection narrative is told within Greco-Roman historical biography as proved by leading scholars in the field
7. Ancient critics didn’t even appeal to this argument, the resurrection was treated as historical claim from the start

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