Abstract: Scientific research into after-death communication began at the end of the 19th century. During this early period, psychical researcher James Hyslop and theologian Rudolph Otto wrote about the resurrection of Jesus as a visionary / spiritual experience -- as opposed to a physical, "bodily" resurrection. More recently, liberal theologians and religious experience researchers have also favored this view. The purpose of this article is to: (a) underscore the fact that the resurrection of Jesus as an after-death communication is solidly based in the only first-hand account of Paul and the verified secondary accounts of Peter and James (I Cor 15:5-8) in the New Testament, and (b) demonstrate that, although a physical resurrection is implied by the Gospel writers because of the empty tomb, the appearance stories of Jesus are more in accord with the phenomenology of modern after-death communications by Jesus, other divine figures, and ordinary people.

Abstract: Jesus' resurrection appearances would in some sense comprise after-death messages. But this designation does not necessarily identify them as the sort of after-death communications (ADCs) that are well-known to readers of the Journal. More generally, to hold that the resurrection appearances were ADCs, at least as Ken Vincent has argued, seems to commit a logical fallacy, so that the form of the argument itself cannot sustain the weight of the conclusion. The most that the argument can indicate is that there are some similarities, not that they are necessarily the same class of events. More specifically, there are at least six crucial considerations that dispute Jesus' resurrection appearances being ADCs in the usual sense of these events.

Abstract: Gary Habermas has chosen to respond to my paper on the resurrection of Jesus as an after-death communication using theological arguments that try to prove the resurrection of Jesus was somehow a religious event unique in all human history. I counter his assertions with data from religious/spiritual experience research and, to a lesser extent, liberal Christian scholars. I restate my conclusion that Paul's first-hand and verified second-hand accounts of the resurrection in I Corinthians 15 are comparable with modern after-death communications; the difference between Jesus and others is not one of kind but of degree. Over the past 150 years, religious experience researchers have successfully applied the tools of science and begun to unlock the mysteries of how humans experience God and afterlife.