Traditional objections to the resurrection of Jesus are:
A) the apostles (Or someone else) were liars involved in a hoax.
B ) the body was stolen by some unknown third party
C) the apostles (and all other witnesses) were hallucinating.
Let’s take these one at a time.
The Liar Theory
10 of the twelve apostles are known to have died defending the faith, where a simple admission of lying would have ended the affair. Instead, each of these ten, some of them knowing what was coming, decided to allow themselves to be martyred rather than disclaim any tiny bit of their story, The stories of the deaths of the apostles are not all recounted in the Bible but in various other writings of historians of the time. That is, we know that they voluntarily martyred themselves. This behavior, defending a known lie to the death, is not sufficiently common in humans to be a defensible position. Maybe once or twice, and by accident, but knowingly and after a lengthy trial, it’s simply not credible to assert that they were all trying to pull a fast one. This is compounded by the fact that none of them had anything to otherwise gain from the perpetuation of their would-be lie which essentially was the claim that God loves all people. One can imagine, for instance, a myth surrounding the death of Elron Hubbard who's family and organization profits immensely their religious organization, but what is lacking here is motive and evidence. In short, the dieing testimony of each of the apostles was that Jesus was raised from the dead, and each of them claimed to be eyewitnesses of such. This written testimony by them is still admissible in court and with the corroborating evidence of ten witnesses, surely Jesus' resurrection could be established in a modern American Court were the matter tried (and many American judges and historical judges are themselves believers).
The Later Lie Theory
One version of the "lie" theory has it that Jesus' resurrection was fabricated at some later date (as was for instance the story of the Norse gods who's originary documents date from the 13th centory (the prose and poetic edda's) and are obviously fiction. In fact we have physical copies of parts of the New Testament dating to the time when being a Christian was illegal, countering any claim that Jesus was a late fabrication of the Romans. The ruling authorities of the time, Jews and Romans, could not, though they tried quite desperately, disprove the apostles claims, so much so that hundreds of thousands of early Christians between 50 and 200 ad (long before the establishment of the Catholic Church) we’re killed for their faith with the single condition being that they recant resulting finally in the conversion of the Emperor Constantine himself.
In short the vast conspiracy required to get millions of people including emperors, governors, and millions of regular roman and other citizens from all walks of life is obviously false.
The Stolen Body
B ) the theory that -someone else- stole the body has been floated, but it fails to account for the the sightings of Jesus after the incident which were also attested to by the same people who wrote about Jesus' resurrection. It also fails to account for the posting of the Roman guards who were questioned afterwards. Whoever would have stolen the body would have to either have overcome the members of a Roman legion without making any noise or causing the Romans to claim it was stolen (the tomb was in the city) and whoever he had with him at the time (like walking into a national guard base and stealing a tank except that the guards were on high alert).
If the Romans or Jewish leadership had stolen the body, to discredit the newly formed sect they easily could have produced it ending the issue on any day including any of the days on which Christians were told to recant at trial.
The hallucination theory
Jesus appeared first to Mary magdalen and Mary Jesus' mother, then the rest of his apostles, then to more than 500 people at his ascension. This kind of mass-hallucination simply is unknown. In the age of television we have magicians who seem to fool thousands of people, but they have television and are able to perform tricks that can later be edited, the witnesses to Jesus’ physical appearance (including cooking, eating, walking, talking, and even having someone physically examine his recent crucifixion wounds by touch) were all physically present for the event. If Jesus or -someone else- was pulling a fast one or they were all drugged for days, etc, it wouldn’t explain why everyone had the same experiences of him as a physical bodied man.
This last one is sometimes propagated alongside the “swoon” theory, or the theory that Jesus didn’t die on the cross but was merely in a coma or something. But this doesn’t account for the massive blood loss after the crucifixion, lack of sanitary conditions and medical care, and the efficiency of the Romans at killing someone when they wanted to. Again, an absurd proposition.
Yes, with the help of modern technology and some good television editing we could make it seem like someone died but hasn’t really, but not in the pre industrial world of the Romans and 1st century Jews.
Even today, stories of a convicted criminal coming back from the dead after, say, a lethal injection or electrocution are commonly explicable as technical errors, and easily corrected, and the Romans took a last stab at Christ on the cross with a spear in his belly to make sure he was dead.
In short, the proposition that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead is a more miraculous one than the idea that He simply did rise from the dead.
Lastly, given the rest of Jesus' miraculous life, this last miracle isn’t surprising. During his life he is known to have resurrected Lazarus, one of his friends, after having been dead for several days, a fact which was well known at the time, and is further attested both in the quran and other ancient and competing accounts. The point being that were Jesus some random person, the quran for instance or Josephus or any of the countless other historians of antiquity, would have had no reason to mention him. Instead he is the most important figure in history by any account, the ultimate cause of the fall of Rome, the reason for the invention of the printing press and the foundation of science itself as the promoter of the simple ideas of objective truth, love and faith in God.
Posts
