Moltmann and the Resurrection

Yesterday I posted on the Resurrection as process. I'd like to add a bit more to that discussion. If you read through Moltmann's Jesus Christ for Today's World, which is a shortened version of his The Way of Jesus Christ (Fortress, 1990), you discover that Moltmann is less interested in the question of history and more in the impact of the resurrection.

Regarding the "factuals" he writes:

Jesus was crucified publicly and died publicly. But the only people to learn of his resurrection were the faithful women at his tomb in Jerusalem, and the disciples who had fled into Galilee. The disciples then returned to Jerusalem and proclaimed the crucified Jesus quite openly as Lord and redeemer of the world, whom Jesus raised from the dead. Those are the relatively well-attested historical facts. And they are astonishing enough. But at the same time, all that can actually be proved about them are the assurances of the women that at Jesus' empty tomb they heard an angelic message telling them of his resurrection, and the assertions of the disciples that they had seen appearances of Christ in Galilee.

Of course the question remains -- what is the nature of those appearances. Moltmann notes that after his death, many of Jesus' disciples, both men and women, experienced various manifestations of Jesus' presence with them.

In the earliest testimony to the resurrection we have, in the First Letter to the Corinthians, written in the year 55 or 56, Paul cites testimonies that Christ had appeared to Cephas, to the twelve, and then to five hundred brethren at once. At the end he adds himself. Paul's account is especially valuable because it is a personal record of what he himself experienced when Christ appeared to him. According to what he say says, Paul "saw " Jesus, the Lord (1 Cor. 9:1), but this "seeing" evidently took the form of an inward experience: "It pleased God through his grace to reveal his Son in me" (Gal. 1:15f).

It has been noted in comments to my previous post that Paul's account predates the Gospels by at least a decade or more. The question then is pretty simple: was Paul's experience of Jesus' presence the same as or different from the original appearances (what we might call pre-ascension appearances)? Moltman points out that in Paul's experience, he reports being "seized by Christ" (Phil. 3:12). So, whatever we're talking about it doesn't seem to be something sought out, but is unexpected. And whatever is true of the other appearances, they are also reported as being "unexpected."

Reference: Jurgen Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today's World, (Fortress, 1991), 73.