Verse 6
Then he appeared to about five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep.
No infidel can get rid of this testimony. The generation that witnessed this wonder could not deny it; and the subsequent objections of unbelievers are refuted by the simple fact of their total ignorance of what took place, except as attested by the eyewitnesses. Many scholars, as Dummelow, identify this appearance to over five hundred as identical with "the mountain appearance in Galilee (Matthew 28:16ff)."[11] It could, however, have been another not reported in the Gospels, just as the appearance to James, given a moment later, is also not given in the Gospels.
The greater part remain ... This "is of the highest evidential value,"[12] because it was written by one who would rather have died than to tell a lie, and who could not possibly have been guilty of making a statement that could have been refuted by any enemy of the truth.
Some are fallen asleep ... Reference to death as a sleep originated with Jesus himself and was quickly adopted by Christians when speaking of the beloved dead. See my Commentary on John, p. 275.
[11] J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Holy Bible (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), p. 917.
[12] F. W. Farrar, op. cit., p. 484.
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