Resurrection Denial and Assorted Conspiracy Theologies – Part One

Resurrection Denial and Assorted Conspiracy Theologies: Part One

With all the excitement these days about science denial and conspiracy theories, I thought I’d ride the coattails of a trend and call attention to resurrection denial and the conspiracy theologies that lurk beneath it. There are endless ways to deny the resurrection of Jesus, some more wild and obtuse than others. Humans have proposed alternative explanations of the evidence for millennia, and even when a particular conspiracy theology gets put to rest, it often resurrects (pardon the pun) centuries later to try again with a population blissfully unaware of the previous discourse.

Rather than your stereotypical conspiracy theorist who sits in a dark room piecing together data and being mocked by the world, this brand of conspiracy theologist often sits in honored places in religious and academic circles and is allowed disproportionately favorable coverage in the media. The widespread approval of the dubious hypothesizing of anti-resurrection theories should both alarm the mainstream mind and arouse the suspicions of the conspiratorial mind.

The Original Conspiracy Theology: “The Disciples Stole the Body”

As the first conspiratorial idea to rise in response to the resurrection, this version is generally given the straightforward title of “the conspiracy theory.” It’s mentioned in the Bible itself:

according to Matthew, the chief priests are worried enough about the disciples stealing the body that they have Pilate allow guards to keep watch and seal the tomb.¹ The tomb mysteriously becomes empty anyway, and the guards take money from the chief priests and elders to spread the story that the disciples stole the body while they slept. Matthew says that this conspiracy was still being taught among the Jews² to the day of his writing, a few decades later. It’s unlikely that this accusation was fabricated, since his audience would have known, or been in a position to fact check, what was being said in their own communities. Further weight is added by Justin Martyr’s claim (ca. 150AD) that the theory was still being pushed in his day, and Tertullian’s that the same was still making the rounds ca. 200 AD.³

Let’s suspend our disbelief and say that the disciples truly did steal the body, and then Matthew cleverly falsely accused the Jews of falsely accusing them. What would we now have to believe about history and the Scriptures?

First, if the disciples had actually stolen the body, they would have had to add transgression upon transgression – rebellion against God, theft, bearing false witness left and right, forgery of Scriptures, idolatry of a dead false messiah. Since they hadn’t expected his death and thus wouldn’t have prepared a plot beforehand, they would have been further breaking the commandments by spending their preparation day, the High Sabbath of Passover, and/or the weekly Sabbath conspiring together, scouting a place to hide the body where it would never be found, arranging and carrying out the details (and with such precision that their crime was never discovered). Apparently having abandoned all of the Torah at this point, they would also be defiling themselves by touching a corpse, unclean for seven days and in danger of being cut off from Israel if not undertaking purification. (They’d have to admit to touching a corpse, brining up questions about the details and context, to seek this purification.) Then they would write and inspire Scriptures which condemned their own actions even more severely than did the Old Testament.

They also would have been far more courageous than portrayed in the Gospels, leading us to wonder either what so drastically changed their characters, or whether they had made sure the Gospels fictitiously remembered them as defeated, confused, and cowardly just to cover their tracks. Besides having to face off with four or more Roman soldiers⁴ (or somehow drug them in order to put them to sleep), they likely would have been put to death for stealing a corpse.⁵ This is first of all evidence that they wouldn’t have been motivated to do it, and also evidence that they didn’t, since no source hints at them having endured and lost a court case and been sentenced to death for such an accusation. Instead, the records of the ways they died are completely in conflict with this theory.

Likewise, if it had actually happened, the Roman guards also would have been put to death for falling asleep while on watch, something which very likely would have made it into some of the enemy attestations extant today if it had happened. “Dr. George Currie, a student of Roman military discipline, wrote that fear of punishment ‘produced flawless attention to duty, especially in the night watches.'”⁶ Even if the story about their sleeping were true, how would the moving of the giant stone and the presence of multiple men it would have taken to move it not have awakened the guards? And why would the thieves bother to remove Jesus’ grave clothes which were adhered to him by myrrh, and then fold them, when every minute added to the likelihood of being caught? Or, if the guards somehow did stay asleep the whole time, how would they know to blame the theft on the disciples, the story the chief priests had them spread?⁷ The entire story is comedically absurd, a great example of how “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain” (1 Cor. 3:19-20).

In addition, there are no extant documents or other verifications which might support this theory. Considering how many early documents from Roman and Jewish historians mention Christianity in a negative light, it seems they would also have taken the opportunity to debunk the resurrection if they had access to even a hint of information about the corpse of Jesus being discovered or someone blowing the whistle on the plot. With the persecutions they suffered, the apostles would have had ample motivation to recant or confess. “One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would all have been lost. Follow that out.”⁸ And if either had happened, it would have been big news, with both Romans and Jews motivated to protect their prevailing religious and political structures. “If there had been a conspiracy, it would certainly have been unearthed by the disciples’ adversaries, who had both the interest and the power to expose any fraud.”⁹

Next, it simply doesn’t make sense for the disciples to make up a story about Jesus resurrecting. We see repeatedly in the Scriptures that their brains tuned to static every time he tried to prophesy to them concerning what was to happen to him.¹⁰ Like their Jewish brethren, they were expecting a Messiah who would conquer the kingdom, not be conquered by a shameful death. Even if the idea was to redeem this death by pretending he was made alive again, it didn’t conform to how Jews of the day understood the resurrection. It wouldn’t have made sense for the disciples to fake a resurrection in order to meet an expectation that wasn’t there. “If the disciples were deceivers, then why didn’t they pick a story that would fit with the theological consensus of their culture?—or any other culture for that matter? As Paul writes, ‘We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness’”¹¹

These simple fishermen and tax collectors would have had to be brilliant theologians to conspire together to come up with a story which reinterpreted millennia of theology and complex messianic prophecy, led to profound conversions in masses of people for millennia to follow, and impacted nations and every aspect of culture like no religion has ever done.¹² Despite their following someone that even nonbelievers tend to hold up as a good moral teacher, they would all have to have been evil geniuses in order to deliberately fabricate both undesigned coincidences and inconsistencies in the Gospels to make them seem like realistic eyewitness testimonies and to paint themselves as bumbling buffoons so that scholars 2,000 years later would find this “criterion of embarrassment” to make their case more convincing. “If they made up the story, they were the most creative, clever, intelligent fantasists in history, far surpassing Shakespeare, or Dante or Tolkien. Fisherman’s ‘fish stories’ are never that elaborate, that convincing, that life-changing, and that enduring. . . . They were simple, honest, common peasants, not cunning, conniving liars.”¹³

Beyond this, a stolen body can’t explain the conversions of James the brother of Jesus or Paul. James formerly thought his brother to be a loon, and Paul had been a zealous persecutor of the church until he was radically changed not through hearing anything from the apostles but through a vision of Jesus himself. Of course, these would simply become lies as well, along with all of the epistles from these faithful converts, in order to make the “disciples stole the body” theory work.

However, let’s assume for the moment that somehow there’s a logical explanation for all of the above. We have to ask, what would be the point of all this intricate conniving? The disciples didn’t gain any personal benefits, admiration, power, or money – even if they had, the hypocrisy of their seeking these while teaching the opposite likely would have deterred converts, led to cult-like characteristics, and found its way into enemy attestations about the movement. Even if there were some higher purpose rather than personal gain, why would faithful Jews suddenly decide that bearing false witness, a transgression of one of the Ten Commandments, was fine? Did they think it would somehow end Roman oppression? It certainly didn’t; rather, it led them and their followers to experience even greater suffering and persecution from both Romans and Jews, and even from within their own households.

As Harvard professor of law Simon Greenleaf put it after examining their witness based on court rules of evidence, “Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teachings of His disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments, and cruel deaths.”¹⁴

From all the available documentary evidence, the apostles, though they faced hunger, imprisonment, mockery, torture, and martyrdom, never admitted to being part of a multifaceted conspiracy involving the theft of a corpse. A whistleblower would have been a coveted source for an early writer trying to dispute the faith, such as Celsus or Lucian. But the apostles never denied that they genuinely saw the resurrected Christ. Note that, while many have faced martyrdom for an idea they believed to be true, the disciples were martyred for something they claimed to see with their own eyes and touch with their own hands. They would have known if it were a lie, and for what motive would they have held to a lie so strongly?¹⁵ “What advantage did the ‘conspirators’ derive from their ‘lie’? They were hated, scorned, persecuted, excommunicated, imprisoned, tortured, exiled, crucified, boiled alive, roasted, beheaded, disemboweled and fed to lions — hardly a catalog of perks!”¹⁶

Included among those killed was James who formerly denied his own brother and called him crazy¹⁷ — what could have changed his stance from mockery to elder of the church and martyr for the faith, other than witnessing the resurrection, just as Paul claims he did? It also includes Peter who had denied Christ out of fear even after boasting about how he wouldn’t, and Paul the former persecutor who became persecuted.¹⁸ What in the “stolen body conspiracy theory” could explain Peter’s change from coward to courageous and Paul’s conversion from seeing Christianity as blasphemous and evil to defending and being willing to die for it? Something happened to drastically change the characters and faith of these men and give them strength to suffer severe affliction and death. Meanwhile, Christianity spread like wildfire, even though people saw with their own eyes what it would cost them.¹⁹

A bodily theft and a web of lies can’t even come close to explaining all of this. Nevertheless, in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, deists who had either forgotten or been unaware of the suffering of the disciples, re-proposed this conspiracy theology, making bizarre claims such as that “the disciples enjoyed the easy life of preaching the gospel, so they stole Jesus’ body and proclaimed that Jesus was a purely spiritual king with a future coming kingdom.”²⁰

Body Double / Substitution / Twin Theory

In the seventh century, the theories got even wilder. The Quran and religion of Islam were birthed, along with a new and improved way of denying the resurrection. While they upheld the idea of Jesus as a prophet and messiah, he was no longer God’s son or God incarnate. Surprisingly, though they held a lower christology, they believed that God wouldn’t allow his anointed servant to be shamed through death by crucifixion. Thus, the Quran states that “in fact, they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them as if they did.”²¹ A standard interpretation has been that it was a body double on the cross, on whom Allah put Jesus’ face in order to deceive even his followers into believing it was him who died. Favored candidates for the body transplant are Simon of Cyrene (the man who helped Jesus carry the cross) or Judas, for the sake of comedic divine justice (though the Gospels report that Judas killed himself before Jesus’ trial).

According to the Quran, Allah both caused this deception and encouraged Jesus’ followers to believe and spread a lie. However, it also paints the Bible as inspired, preserved, and authoritative, and the Bible makes clear that Jesus was crucified and died.²² Corruption of the Bible is argued to support the body double theory, but the textual reliability surpasses any other from antiquity. The crucifixion of Jesus is affirmed by the vast majority of historians today, and while these scholars can’t disprove a miraculous body double on the cross, it’s likely that those who watched his death and burial would have been able to — the mother who raised him and some of his closest followers. His other disciples also saw him up close and touched him during his resurrection appearances, recognizing him both as Jesus and as still bearing his hand, feet, and side wounds.

I’m not aware of any evidence or documents earlier than the Quran that hints at anyone else being crucified in his place. It seems that a report of Simon having gone missing or Judas not having died as stated in the Gospels would have been very interesting to those who already suspected some type of trickery or magic, such as Celsus²³ or those behind Talmudic traditions. Of course, again, if it wasn’t actually Jesus who was crucified then we’re back to him and/or his disciples being liars, since Jesus either prophesied about his death or his disciples put those words on his lips in the Gospels.

Swoon Theory / Apparent Death Hypothesis

Another interpretation of the Quranic verse is that Jesus was hung on the cross but didn’t die, and miraculously recovered his health while lying in the tomb.²⁴ A fully naturalistic version of this theory was also promoted by German scholar Paulus in 1828 and was popular in 19^th century Deist circles after the “disciples stole the body” theory failed. But it failed too, and died out about a century ago, for the power of a few simple facts.

Just as there were capitol punishment laws for guards who fell asleep on the job, “Roman law even laid the death penalty on any soldier who let a capital prisoner escape in any way, including bungling a crucifixion.”²⁵ Unsurprisingly, Mark reports that a centurion verified to Pilate that Jesus was dead. We also see here that Pilate was surprised at the swiftness of the death (about six hours), a detail which has been amplified above all others by the conspiracy theologists. Some crucifixions could take days, if one had the strength to continually lift himself up with his legs in order to keep breathing. However, Jesus went through much torture beforehand, and the synoptic Gospels imply that he was already too weak to even carry his cross to Golgotha alone.

First, according to Dr. Alexander Metherell, Jesus sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane can be explained medically as hematidrosis, caused by severe psychological distress. “What this did was set up the skin to be extremely fragile so that when Jesus was flogged by the Roman soldier the next day, his skin would be very, very sensitive.” ²⁶ He would have undergone the standard Roman scourging, with a whip containing iron balls and sharp bone fragments which bruised and tore up the skin and muscles of the entire backside, causing much blood loss²⁷ and sometimes even leaving part of the spine exposed. Third century historian Eusebius explained that “the sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.”²⁸ While the Jews set a limit at 40 lashes, the Romans (who performed his scourging) did not. This form of torture was dubbed the “half death” and Julius Caesar said, “it is more grievous to be scourged than to be put to death.”²⁹ The point was “to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death,”³⁰ and sometimes people died from the flogging alone.

In addition, Scripture reports that Jesus was slapped, beaten and hit in the head at separate trials before both Jewish and Roman leaders. Several different Greek words are used in these verses across the Gospel accounts, with meanings including scourging, excessive force, brutal treatment, beating with rods, and wounding. He was also manhandled, with clothing taken off and put on him multiple times, further aggravating his wounds. Later extrabiblical sources and enemy attestation also raise the possibility that Jesus experienced torture even beyond this before his execution.³¹

Finally, his wrists were nailed to the cross with long spikes, crushing the main nerves and causing excruciating pain (“excruciating” meaning “out of the cross,” a word invented to describe the indescribable). His feet were similarly nailed and the nerves crushed, yet he would have to push against this pain of both this and his ripped back against the wooden cross, in order to raise up enough to make it possible to exhale. In this process the nail would further tear through his foot until it wedged up against bone. His shoulders would have dislocated, his arms stretched several inches and his body in spasms. He was offered myrrh and vinegar to dull the pain, but refused, facing the fullness of it instead. “The abominableness of this torture was realized by Rome’s most famous orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who said, ‘Even the mere word, cross, must remain far not only from the lips of the citizens of Rome, but also from their thoughts, their eyes, their ears.’”³² I have to say, it surprises me that Pilate was surprised that Jesus died after six hours on the cross.

At times soldiers would break the legs of those hanging on the cross in order to speed up their deaths by asphyxiation (in Jerusalem when a Sabbath was approaching, this may have been a small concession to the Jews, as was the allowing of proper burial). According to John’s Gospel, the soldiers broke the legs of those on either side of Jesus, but didn’t bother with his because they saw that he was already dead, no longer pushing up with his legs to breathe. Even so, “one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water” (19:34).³³ Early church fathers attempted to understand the meaning of this, wondering if it held some mysterious symbolism, but modern science shows that John’s description clearly points to a rupture of lung and pericardium (releasing effusion that had built up through shock and rapid heartbeat) and the right side of the heart.³⁴ The Roman soldiers were well-trained in determining death, and the use of the spear for this is attested to by Roman author Quintilian (35-95AD). “No question remained concerning the status of the victim afterward.”³⁵

Still, let’s give an extreme benefit of the doubt and assume Jesus made it to the tomb alive. Here he was entirely and tightly wrapped up in cloth according to Jewish custom, so if he escaped alone he would have had to struggle free³⁶ and roll the one and a half to two ton stone away on its uphill track by himself in his half-dead state (and with stretched and dislocated arms) – a job that would take multiple men even in a fully alive state.³⁷ He would then have to contend with armed guards who would have no motivation to let him escape and lose their own heads, run to safety on badly wounded and torn feet, walk seven miles to Emmaus, and clear-headedly explain to two disciples how this was all prophesied in the Scriptures. Then, still apparently full of energy, he would walk all the way back to Jerusalem to appear to the apostles. This naturalistic explanation ironically creates several miracles in order to explain away the one miracle that the conspiracy theologists wish to deny.

But besides all of this, even if Jesus somehow survived the torture and crucifixion, his frail and mangled appearance wouldn’t be inspiring of the idea of resurrection to his disciples. Even the unbeliever Strauss firmly stated that “it is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to His sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that He was a Conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of Life, an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry.”³⁸

He also wouldn’t have been mistaken for an angel or gardener or been in a state of mind to teach Scriptures and engage with his disciples for the next 40 days, let alone on his first day out of the tomb. If the disciples did somehow mistake him as resurrected, why did he fail to correct them, allowing them to spread an entire theology which wouldn’t even make sense in the Jewish context? If he lied to them and they were simply following his lie, we’re back yet again to the liar, lunatic or Lord dilemma.

If his apostles were in on it from the beginning and helped him escape the tomb, the plot would also have to involve the women, Nicodemus, and/or Joseph of Arimathea since they were fellow believers who knew the location of the body.³⁹ Even if all necessary parties were involved, how would they have moved the stone and carried him out without being thwarted by the guards (or waking them and then being thwarted, if they really did fall asleep)? Maybe we have to add the guards in as co-conspirators, and then we’re in the waters of an even more complicated plot which would also have to involve Pilate and/or the chief priests and Pharisees who appointed them.⁴⁰ Or the disciples would have had to convince the guards to join their side with an offer they couldn’t refuse even though it would cost their lives, and all in the short time between his burial and their theft.

However he may have made it out of the grave, Jesus would then have to go into hiding after pretending to be resurrected and claiming he would ascend to the Father. Anyone catching sight of him after this could have brought evidence against the fraud. We’d also have to dismiss Jesus’ transfiguration, walking through walls, vanishing in front of the eyes of Cleopas and his companion, and ascending on a cloud, as well as the heavenly visions of Stephen, Paul, and Peter, and the Pentecost experience as all having been faked by Jesus or fabricated by the disciples. On what evidence do we accuse Jesus and his disciples of being liars? And again, to what end? Is such unrighteousness justified in the name of starting a religion centered on righteousness?⁴¹

That Jesus truly died from his crucifixion is one of the most accepted facts of history in academic circles, even according to some atheists, agnostics, and other deniers of the resurrection. Atheist agnostic Bart Ehrman has called it “one of the most certain facts of history,”⁴² and non-Christian Gerd Lüdemann echoes that “Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.”⁴³ As the AMA journal article on the topic of his spear wound concluded, “interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.”⁴⁴

As George Hanson said, “it is hard to believe that [swoon theory] was the favourite explanation of eighteenth-century rationalism.”⁴⁵ But, though it’s thankfully dead in academia, Lee Strobel laments that “like an urban myth, the swoon theory continues to flourish. I hear it all the time in discussing the Resurrection with spiritual seekers.”⁴⁶ The idea that Jesus survived, got married, and had a bloodline has been popularized by books and films such such as Jesus the Man, The DaVinci Code, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The Passover Plot (1965) proposed a conspiracy in which Joseph drugged Jesus in order to get him off the cross and put him in the tomb alive. David Icke even introduced a swoon theory using those very irrefutable evidences of “my own feeling, and what I have channeled and seen.”⁴⁷ And as we’ve seen, swoon theory is also one of the acceptable positions of a major religion boasting more than one billion followers. Since variations of this theory still cling to life desperately today, it’s important to understand the arguments against it.

Each of the theories we’ve covered in part one begs the question of why our great moral teacher and his closest students would all in fact be deceivers. In the next sections, we’ll look at the possibility of them instead being deceived as well as their texts having been misunderstood and misinterpreted. We’ll examine more complex and modern theories such as hallucination, legend, Jesus mythicism, spiritual resurrection, aliens, and naturalistic fluke.

“If the dead are not raised “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32)

“This Jesus God raised up and of that we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32)

“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4)

Click here for a list of resources used in this series and for further study

Footnotes

1. Oddly enough, the mention of this paints the chief priests in a better light than Jesus’ own apostles, with the former having noted Jesus’ prophecy of rising after three days and the latter having let it go in one ear and out the other. (The chief priests were enemies of the Gospel at this point, though some may have later come to belief if they could be included in “the priests” mentioned in Acts 6:7.)

2. Of course, the apostles themselves were Jews as well. The use of the term “Jews” (ioudaios) in the New Testament is a complex subject in itself.

3. “Tertullian also notes that some were claiming that the gardener had reburied Jesus’ corpse in order to avoid having his lettuce trampled on by those coming to see where Jesus had been buried” (Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, p. 469). A 12^th century legendary version of Jewish anti-Christian propaganda has Judas admitting to stealing the body and hiding it in his garden, in response to the anger of “the queen.” Note that these stories assume the tomb was empty and try to explain this fact, rather than trying to argue that it wasn’t.

4. Some sources put this number much higher, though I will stick with a conservative estimate since the Gospels only seem to refer to “a guard,” for which four men was the regular number. John 19:23 also describes the guard at the cross as consisting of four men.

5. An archaeological discovery, the Nazareth Inscription, “orders capital punishment for anyone who steals a body from a tomb.” Dated to the time or Tiberius (14-37 AD) or Claudius (41-54), this imperial edict may have been just before the time of Jesus’ burial, or could have been a reaction to the stolen body rumor and thus further evidence of the empty tomb. The death penalty was also prescribed for breaking the Roman seal affixed to the tomb.

6. McDowell, “Evidence For the Resurrection.” Sources for the commonality of death penalty and fear of harsh punishment include Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 8:79, Justinian’s Digest 49.16, and the firsthand account of Polybius vol. 6: 37, 38). The Digest mention a punishment for sleeping on the job of being “hurled from the cliff of the Capitolium” and Polybius mentions running a gauntlet of cudgels as punishment for a failed night watch.

7. It’s starting to sound a bit like the stories regarding the guards who had charge over Jeffrey Epstein.

8. Pascal, Pensees, 310

9. Handbook of Christian Apologetics

10. Their lack of understanding was so great that Jesus even rebuked Satan for speaking through Peter when he refused to accept that the messiah would be put to death.

11. “Conspiracy Theory: ‘The Disciples Stole the Body’” by James M. Rochford, Evidence Unseen

12. See Person of Interest by J. Warner Wallace for a detailed look at Christianity’s impact on all aspects of culture in comparison to other religions.

13. Handbook of Christian Apologetics

14 Qtd. In McDowell, The New Evidence, p. 217

15. As Lee Strobel recounts having heard it put, “people will die for their religious beliefs if they sincerely believe they’re true, but people won’t die for their religious beliefs if they know their beliefs are false” (The Case for Christ, p. 228). In addition, a story of any apostle recanting his faith when facing martyrdom would likely have been recorded by enemies for obvious reasons, but also by Christians because it would have been a major point relating to a debate which we see in the early church regarding whether someone doing such a thing could still part of the church.

16. Handbook of Christian Apologetics – note: I don’t know whether every one of these types of deaths is strongly attested to in specific martyrdoms in historical evidence; however, several are, and deaths of the same caliber also are in general (including from enemy attestation), so I think the point stands. For more on the specifics, see The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus by Sean McDowell.

17. This is multiply and independently attested to in the Gospels, and “in ancient Judaism it was highly embarrassing for a rabbi’s family not to accept him. Therefore the gospel writers would have no motive for fabricating this skepticism if it weren’t true” (Moreland qtd. in Strobel, p. 229). James’ violent martyrdom is recounted by Jewish historian Josephus as well as Christian sources.

18. Peter and Paul’s sufferings and deaths under Nero are attested to by Eusebius, 1 Clement, and Polycarp who also includes “the rest of the apostles.” John also speaks of how Peter would be martyred and even if one took the liberal view of prophecy being faked after the fact, it would still be evidence that this event happened; otherwise they’d be inventing a false prophecy for no reason. Again, see The Fate of the Apostles for an in-depth and thoughtful evaluation of the evidence for the martyrdom of each apostle, or a short summary/intro video by Mike Winger, “How their martyrdom helps prove Jesus rose.”

19. The enemy attestation of Tacitus shows that things were especially bad 30-40 years after Jesus’ death for those Christians who lived under Nero – they were falsely accused of causing the Great Fire which destroyed much of Rome (64 AD) and were “covered with the skins of wild animals and torn to death by dogs; or they were crucified and when the day ended they were burned as torches [Roman punishment for arson]. Nero provided his gardens for the spectacle and gave a show in his circus, mixing with the people in charioteer’s clothing, or standing on his racing chariot” (qtd. In Van Voorst, p. 42). Though Tacitus saw Christians as abominable, he thought this punishment over the top, even for Rome.

Pliny the Younger, a Roman senator and lawyer writing in the early 2^nd century, also sheds light on the trials of Christians from the perspective of the prosecution. He questions the emperor about whether to execute Christians simply for bearing the name and reports how he gives them the chance to renounce Christ and worship the Roman gods and emperor, asking three times with warnings of punishment. He says those who don’t “repent” of the faith should be punished simply for their “stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy” (qtd. in Van Voorst, p. 25). Pliny also mentions his own torture of two deaconess slaves and conclusion that Christians were foolish and superstitious but harmless, leading him to pause all trials and seek the emperor’s counsel. The emperor responds with an affirmation to execute Christians unless they recant and offer prayers to the Roman gods, a policy that informed the Roman response to Christians until at least the 3^rd century.

Even without such a violent fate to face, Jewish converts would be struggling to wrap their heads around some major changes in the understanding and practice of some of the central parts of the law which had kept their identity as a people alive over hundreds of years of capture and dispersion (sacrifice, righteousness through the law, Sabbath, monotheism, the messianic expectation, and relationship to Gentiles). All this while dealing with division in families, accusations of idolatry and blasphemy, tension and expulsion from synagogues, and a move from within a tolerated “foreign cult” in the eyes of Rome to an illicit one. The growth of the church under such circumstances is “an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation [the resurrection of Jesus] offered by the Church itself” (Prof. Moule qtd. inThe Son Rises, p. 109).

20. Craig, The Son Rises, 24

21. Quran: Arabic English Translation by Talal Itani, 4:157

22. I’m gleaning much of this information from David Wood’s debates with Islamic apologist Shabir Ally and others as well as the writing and testimony of former devout Muslim Nabeel Qureshi.

23. This second century critic of Christianity argued that Jesus’ miracles and the resurrection itself could have been Egyptian magic, worked through the power of demons. He compared it to works done by “jugglers” in the marketplace. Origen (mid 3^rd cen.) responded that, unlike the jugglers who were full of sin, Jesus did his works not for show but in order to bring people to repent of sin and to fear God.

24. One idea put forth in support of this is the use of the prophetic Sign of Jonah to indicate that Jesus would be alive in the grave for three days before emerging. David Wood and Mike Licona have responded to a popular Muslim apologist on the topic with the fact that there is Jewish tradition and language in the verses to imply that Jonah actually did die. Either way, it involves metaphors of death and rising again which could reasonably point to the actual death and resurrection of Jesus, in line with how many typologies, Jewish remez (hint) interpretations of texts, and messianic prophecies work.

25. Handbook of Christian Apologetics

26. Explained in an interview with Strobel, p. 178

27. Hypovolemic shock from this blood loss would cause fainting or collapse and thirst, which provides explanation for the need for Simon to help carry his cross as well as his statement “I thirst.”

28. Strobel, p. 178

29. Quoted in David Wood vs. John Loftus resurrection debate

30. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, p. 109

31. For instance, some verses of the Talmud (esp. b. Sanhedrin 43a) say that Jesus was hung before Passover but also accuses him of being a magician who would be stoned as such. The accuracy of these writings and their sources is questionable, though it’s possible they preserve some early information on his alleged crimes and death. The Toledoth Yeshu (medieval Jewish counter-gospels which mix much legend, error, and variations with some historical details) accuse him of doing magic with the letters of God’s name and say he was stoned while on the cross. Stoning would have been the Mishnaic punishment for a sorcerer, and hanging preceded by stoning for a blasphemer or idolator, according to m. Sanhedrin vi.4. “In ancient practice as prescribed by Jewish law, the criminal would be stoned first to induce death, and then his body would be hung in public exposure until the end of the day” (Van Voorst, p. 119).

If stoning was at all combined with the rest of Jesus’ torture and crucifixion, it seems odd that none of the Gospels mentioned it. However, see “Crucifixion, State Terror, and Sexual Abuse” by David Tombs for an investigation on how Jesus might have suffered beyond the Gospel accounts. Also note that the accusations of him by pagans and Jews alike of doing sorcery does align with similar accusations from Jews in the NT and may lend support to him working what others saw as miracles from God. As Origen put it in his 3^rd century response to Celsus, “although he somehow granted that Jesus worked miracles, he thought to weaken the force of this by the charge of sorcery” (Against Celsus, p. 35).

32. McDowell, The New Evidence, p. 222

33. John follows up this statement by testifying that he was an eyewitness to this event, possibly to reinforce the authenticity of something he may have thought was a miraculous sign. While I believe there is good reason to believe that the Gospel of John is authentic, even if we allowed for it to have been put together by later students of John, they still would have been reporting on a tradition of him having witnessed this event. It’s also interesting that the other apostles fled and were not witnesses to the crucifixion, and none of the other Gospels which were written or sourced by them mention this detail.

34. See the 1986 analysis published by the American Medical Association and the work of Samuel Houghton, M.D.

35. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, p.112

36. Adding to the difficulty, “as far back as Chrysostom’s time [the fourth century AD] attention was called to the fact that the myrrh was a drug which adheres so closely to the body that the grave clothes would not easily be removed” (Hastings qtd. in McDowell, The New Evidence, p. 230).

37. Besides the weight of such stones attested to in non-Christian literature, an interesting textual variant might also have some credibility behind it: “A gloss in Cod. Bez. [a phrase written in parenthesis, within the text of Mark 16:4 as found in a (fourth) century manuscript (Codex Bezae in the Cambridge Library)] adds, ‘And when he was laid there, he (Joseph) put against the tomb a stone which twenty men could not roll away.’” Thorburn qtd. in McDowell, The New Evidence, p. 232

38. Quoted in multiple sources. Or as Dr. Metherell puts it, “It’s preposterous to think that if he had appeared to them in that awful state, his followers would have been prompted to start a worldwide movement based on the hope that someday they too would have a resurrection body like his” (qtd. in Strobel, p. 185).

39. Joseph didn’t seem to possess such bravery, as he was afraid to even be an open follower of Jesus among his fellow council members. Nicodemus may have been braver, as he was a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews but stood up for him to have a fair hearing and apparently was a convert. It’s also worth considering whether all or many of the disciples were in on it or only a few. If many, they must have all been convinced and motivated by some pretty powerful rhetoric (what would it be?), and the chances of a whistleblower in the crowd be higher. If only a few, how did they deceive the others? What could motivate them to keep such a secret from those they had been in intimate fellowship with during Jesus’ ministry?

40. And possibly Pilate’s superiors – he wouldn’t seem brave enough on his own, as he’d ordered the crucifixion against his better judgment due to fear of the people, chief priests, and Caesar.

41. Interestingly, Pliny the Younger notes that even those who had abandoned Christianity two to 20 years previous admitted to no guilt other than worshipping Jesus as God and taking “an oath not for any crime, but to keep from theft, robbery and adultery, not to break any promise, and not to withhold a deposit when reclaimed” (Pliny the Younger qtd. in Van Voorst, p. 25). From his own mouth, even when torturing practicing Christians he found no evidence of immorality. This makes the case more difficult for conspiracy theologists who would claim that the disciples would think it fine to steal or break other commandments.

42. Ehrman, The Historical Jesus: Lecture Transcript and Course Guidebook, p. 162

43. Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry, p. 50

44. Quoted in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, p.112

45Qtd. in The New Evidence, p. 263

46. Strobel, p. 176

47. At various other times he’s been convinced that he channeled Jesus, was himself Jesus, or that Jesus never existed. I can’t imagine how he even tries to reconcile all of these! This is what happens when your source is random spirits, visions, and that most rock-solid of sources: other people hearing things from the dead Carl Jung in a dream (see Chris White, “David Icke Debunked” video)