Articles
“Skeptics on the Resurrection”
Two weeks ago in our sermon series on Christian evidences, we established the Biblical significance of Christ’s resurrection and examined the historical evidence that supports it. We now want to conclude that series by listing the main competing theories skeptics put forward against the resurrection — the alternatives to the resurrection.
Theory #1: The disciples were either deceivers or deceived — Paul admits that the apostles would be liars if Christ had not been raised (1 Cor. 15:14-15). But if the apostles invented the lie, what was their motive? Usually people lie for some personal gain. Instead of gaining wealth, power, status or security, the apostles lost these things for believing in and preaching the resurrection. While many would die for a lie that they believed to be true, no one would die for what they knew to be false. There is no conceivable motive, nor is their any logical reason, to fabricate such a lie. Consider the prevailing beliefs of Jews at the time: first, they were waiting for a militant, victorious Messiah who would liberate them from their Gentile oppressors, not a peaceful, suffering Messiah who would die for the sins of the whole world; second, they were waiting for a general resurrection at the end of time, not an individual resurrection occurring in the middle of history. Despite telling them multiple times that he would be rejected, crucified and be raised on the third day, the apostles all fled from him after his arrest, believed his crucifixion to be an utter failure and did not believe the initial reports of the empty tomb and the resurrection. These facts make it highly unlikely that the apostles were simply deceived.
Theory #2: The postmortem appearances of Jesus were hallucinations — There are two main problems with this theory. First, hallucinations are usually individual experiences not group phenomena. There was a diversity of people at different times and different locations who witnessed the same person through multiple modes of perception: sight, hearing and touch. It stretches credulity that all these people could have experienced the same hallucination. Second, hallucinations usually come through intense wish fulfillment. However, after his arrest, the disciples had given up Jesus for dead. Disciples like James, the Lord’s brother who did not initially believe in him (Jn. 7:5), and Paul, who persecuted Christians (Acts 8:1-3), certainly were not “wishing” to see a resurrected Jesus. Yet, they both saw him risen from the dead (1 Cor. 15:7-8).
Theory #3: The corpse of Jesus was stolen from the tomb — This was the story propagated by the Jewish leaders at the time (Mt. 27:62-66; 28:11-15). However, the disciples lacked both the means and the motive for a corpse heist. The Gospel writers all describe the apostles as scared, scattered and in hiding. But according to this theory, we must believe that they somehow got up the courage to come out of hiding, sneak past the Roman guard posted at the tomb, roll away the stone, extricate the body, then betray their Lord’s teaching by spreading a blatant lie that invited the hostility of Jerusalem and the world to their own earthly hurt. Even if grave robbery could explain the empty tomb—and it cannot—it still does not account for all the resurrection appearances.
Theory #4: The differences between resurrection accounts invalidate them — Some claim the Gospel accounts of the resurrection do not harmonize because they do not report the exact same details. However, with a little careful reading we can see they compliment, not contradict, each other. Consider that all four Gospel accounts agree on the core facts: Jesus died, he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, early Sunday morning certain women went to the tomb and found it empty, they met an angel or angels, they either told or else discovered that Jesus had been raised, and that Jesus subsequently appeared to a number of people at differ times. Consider also, that genuine eyewitness accounts, while agreeing on the core facts, should differ in the details they report. Historians call this the “complexity of truth.” When multiple people witness the same event, their testimonies are bound to exhibit some differences that reflect their unique points of view. These differences actually serve to confirm their testimony as evidence of non-collusion. When people conspire to fabricate a story, their testimonies are suspiciously identical. Any differences between the resurrection accounts in the Gospels are not discrepancies or contradictions; they are variations in perspective that reflect independent eyewitness testimony, enhancing rather than undermining their trustworthiness.
For example, Matthew and Mark record that an angel spoke to the women at Jesus’ empty tomb (Mk. 16:1-8; Mt. 28:1-10). Luke and John record that two angels were present (Lk. 24:4; Jn. 20:12). Rather than contradicting Matthew and Mark, Luke and John supplement Matthew’s and Mark’s narrative. We don’t need to necessarily read Matthew and Mark as saying that one, and only one, angel was present at the tomb. For example, both the Greek historian Polybius and the Roman historian Livy describe Hannibal’s crossing the Alps during the Second Punic War. Their accounts greatly differ in detail and style and even appear to contradict each other at certain points, yet no historian questions whether Hannibal made the journey. Why then do people discount the resurrection when the differences between the Gospel accounts are far less egregious?
Conclusion — After all the evidence for the resurrection has been presented and all the alternative theories have been heard, we are essentially left with two options: a) one simple, cohesive, supernatural explanation, or b) multiple, complex, contradictory, supernatural explanations. Ockham’s Razor is a philosophical principle that states that the simplest explanation that accounts for all the facts is usually the best and that we should always avoid unnecessary assumptions when explaining something. For example, if you flip the light switch in your closet and the light doesn’t come on, do you assume (a) the light bulb has burned out or (b) that aliens invaded your house and sabotaged your wiring?
These are the very best alternative theories to the Biblical account of the resurrection — the body was stolen, Jesus swooned on cross and revived in the grave, the witnesses experienced mass hallucination, the women visited the wrong tomb, Christians borrowed the idea of the resurrection from pagan myths, the resurrection developed later as myth, etc. They all require multiple assumptions and all suffer major flaws. The only option that accounts for all the historical facts is the story presented in the New Testament. But because it is a supernatural explanation, many people dismiss it a priori.
The Greeks didn’t believe in a bodily resurrection at all. Most Jews believed in a bodily resurrection, but only on the last day. In the New Testament, the thing that Greeks thought impossible and Jews thought was reserved for the future, happened in the present. Our anti-supernatural, Enlightenment-based culture chafes at the concept of the resurrection. You’ve heard the evidence for it and read the alternatives to it. What do you think?
