Resurrection Denial: When the Collective Unconscious Conspires (Part 2)

In part one of this series we examined some of the earliest conspiracy theologies which came against the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus, those which have been the most unanimously dismissed by scholars (yet still have a strong influence at the popular level). Today we leave behind the melodramas of stolen bodies, swooning, and face-swapping and turn to some more subtle theories. These revolve around tricks of the mind, self-deceit, mass hysteria, and collusion at the subconscious level in order to bring about the largest religious fraud in history, the biggest cruel joke on humanity. Conscious deceit is inevitably recruited into these psychoanalytic theories as well, in order to account for the complexity of data that could otherwise be explained simply by the truth of the resurrection.

Hallucination Theory

Second century proto-Freudian writer Celsus included hallucination theory due to wishful thinking, self-delusion, and “wandering imagination” as part of his polemic against Christianity, mixed with Jesus doing Egyptian sorcery in order to impress people and create a multitude of beggars.¹ Though today’s naturalistic skeptics would proudly deny the superstitious claims of sorcery, thousands of years of discourse, the scientific revolution, and the psychiatric era haven’t brought much more sophistication to their theories or the sketchy motives they assign to Jesus and his disciples.

We’ll look at several aspects of hallucination theories as well as variations and combinations with other mental phenomena that have been proposed. If we take the descriptions of the resurrection appearances at face value (i.e. honest attempts to describe what happened, rather than legends or lies), then we need to account for appearances to Mary, a group of women, Cleopas and companion, Peter, Paul, James, the apostles several times and in various combinations, and over 500 at once. Jesus appeared over forty days in a large variety of contexts and settings, holding long conversations, being touched by his disciples at least three separate times, breaking bread for two, cooking food for a group, and eating and drinking with his disciples. Let’s investigate whether mental phenomena could account for all of these, saving legend theories for a future post.

Were the disciples psychologically primed to hallucinate?

Were the disciples dealing with grief, deprivation, predispositions, mental disorders, cognitive dissonance, expectation, or strong desires that caused them to hallucinate Jesus as the risen Lord? Did their subconscious minds simply trick them into seeing what they wanted to see, hearing what they wanted to hear, and not having to admit to a failed messiah? After all, hallucinations happen all the time for such reasons, so they’re certainly a more likely explanation than a resurrection from the dead, right?

At first glance, it’s possible that this could explain one or two of the appearances. However, since hallucinations tend to happen to those with certain psychological predispositions, and only in about 15% of the population, it’s highly unlikely that they would happen to 100% of the disciples regardless of temperament. It’s also unlikely that all of them were mentally ill, hypnagogic, on drugs, or experiencing bodily deprivation or sensory overload, some of the most common causal factors of altered states of consciousness.

However, several of our “subconscious conspiracy” theologists have proposed that the experiences of the disciples fit into the category of bereavement hallucinations, in which one’s deceased loved one is seen or heard due to grief or guilt. While this does seem to be a well-documented phenomenon, it’s a small minority, about seven percent, who actually have visual hallucinations of the deceased. Even then they tend to be brief rather than sustained or repeated, and they very rarely mistake the dead as having risen from the grave.

Already we’d have to question why several extraordinary outliers would have happened in combination: all eleven of the apostles experiencing something that statistically should have only happened to one of them, all of them having multi-sensory hallucinations which are even rarer, all mistaking it for a resurrection, and all experiencing this repeatedly over a set number of days, after which the appearances suddenly ceased. On top of this we have to add several appearances to individuals, pairs, and groups outside of the Eleven. Then we have James who might have been grieving as a brother, but was deadset against Jesus’ claims, and Paul who had been zealously persecuting the church rather than grieving. We’d also have to explain why such grief hallucinations didn’t happen with other messianic hopefuls who were put to death before and after Jesus.²

Leaving aside these concerns for the moment, let’s focus on Peter as a prototype and assume he was going through a complex combination of things: a theorist like Goulder might label this as guilt, grief, cognitive dissonance,³ and his proneness to visions, based on Mark 9:2-7 and Acts 10:9-16. Goulder has to assume here that Mark 9, the transfiguration, is a vision rather than a real experience, and that, though Peter clearly understands the experience in Acts 10 to be a vision, he for some reason mistakes all his other visions for real events.

Let’s allow it for now though, and add in voices such as Lüdemann and Allison who proclaim alongside Goulder that Peter’s experience parallels modern day examples of so-called hallucinations, such as seeing Jesus when in a crisis, seeing him after persecuting Christians and becoming suicidal, or having an out of body experience. I have no reason to assume these are hallucinations either, and thus they add nothing to their case for me, but let’s continue.

Lüdemann says that the original experience of a religious leader is contagious, and that the other disciples, inspired by Peter, deluded themselves into seeing Jesus so that they could experience forgiveness for deserting him. Ehrman says they were primed by the empty tomb (though in another theory he calls that a later legend). Spong says Peter gave them metaphorical language which they adopted to try to explain a mystical experience of God and love being all around them. Lüdemann grants that Paul had a separate primary experience, which we’ll examine later. He and others write off the appearances to the women as legendary in order to make this theory work, despite many skeptical scholars finding the stories of the women credible.

The contagion theory assumes that all were grieving and felt guilty, though some easily may have felt angry, betrayed, and deceived by this failed messiah for whom they had left everything. They had expected him to deliver them from Rome, become an earthly king, and bring lasting peace, things Jesus had seemingly dramatically failed them on. Peter did weep at denying him three times after his arrest just as Jesus had predicted, but he could have later felt vindicated or justified in having denied this charismatic trickster rather than going to his death for him.

Theorists of the contagion persuasion have used sightings of the Virgin Mary, Bigfoot, and UFOs as modern examples of delusion based in suggestion and anticipation. Again, while plenty of these may be misinterpretations of actual sense data, wishful thinking, or misremembering (sometimes guided by a therapist), the well-documented inexplicable occurrences undermine these dismissive parallels. I think there are explanations for these, whether from the spiritual realm or technologically implanted experience, both of which have evidence behind them. However, let’s allow it and turn to expectation as a possible catalyst for hallucination.

Could the excited anticipation of something miraculous have put the disciples in a state of mind that led to them hallucinating Jesus? Lüdemann claims that Jesus had prepared their minds to expect his resurrection, though this conflicts with both Jewish theology of the time and what we find in the Gospels. Some Jewish sects didn’t even believe in a resurrection, but for those who did, it was defined as what all people would partake in at the end of the world, whether to reward or punishment. “Even if it were possible, therefore, that the disciples under the influence of the empty tomb projected hallucinatory visions of Jesus, they would never have projected Him as literally risen from the dead. They would have had a vision of Jesus in glory in Abraham’s bosom. That is where, in Jewish belief, the souls of the righteous go to await the final resurrection. If the disciples were to have visions, then they would have seen Jesus there in glory. . . . Even finding the empty tomb, the disciples would have concluded only that Jesus had been “translated” or “taken up” directly to heaven.”⁴ Even under Hellenistic influence, they would likely only be primed for images of an immortal soul appearing without bodily form.

Though Jesus did prophesy several times about dying and rising again, the expectations of his apostles pointed stubbornly in the opposite direction, keeping their eyes focused on the hope of a worldly savior and their ears from hearing of his death. After his crucifixion, they were defeated, scared, and in hiding, having lost everything including the favor of both Jews and Romans. Mary and the women showed their lack of expectation by going to the tomb to anoint the body, taking it for granted that he would still be dead. When Jesus did reveal himself to them, they didn’t recognize him at first, and neither did the apostles or some of the other disciples (Luke 24:13-31, John 20:15, 21:4), further showing their lack of expectation of seeing him.

Our conspiracy theorizers might protest that their non-expectancy should be met with skepticism due to a seeming conflict with what’s reported in the Gospel of Matthew — the chief priests and Pharisees asked Pilate to seal the tomb because “we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first” (Matt. 27:63-64). These leaders who didn’t even follow Jesus had heard and remembered his prophecy about himself and thought that the disciples who lived and worked closely with him for three years would take it seriously as well.

However, if his disciples actually did expect him to rise, making them more likely to experience hallucinations of him, we still have several problems. Jesus not having actually risen when he said he would makes him a liar and the texts about their closed ears and unbelief would have had to be lies. To what end? If Jesus had lied, what could keep them so convinced through decades of ministry, in their sufferings and martyrdom? Would the Holy Spirit, the healings and miracles have been fabricated as well? Were enemy converts Paul and James in on the lies? Do the majority of the Scriptures need to be shredded in order to accommodate a certain interpretation of a single passage?

We can leave the text in tact by simply seeing a parallel here between other passages in which outsiders and unexpected people are able to see truths before those who should (e.g. the magi and shepherds who learn of Jesus’ birth, the prostitutes and tax collectors entering the kingdom before the religious elite, the high priest unknowingly prophesying “that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people” (John 11:50, 18:14)). We also see throughout both Old and New Testaments that it’s common for God’s people to be blinded, veiled, and deaf to what should be plain to them, and that one needs eyes opened by Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God’s wisdom to truly understand Scripture and prophecy.

But even if the disciples were deaf to Jesus’ words and not expecting him to rise, couldn’t they have experienced wish fulfillment based in emotional crisis and an intense desire for Jesus to be alive after all? Let’s take the cases of Peter and Paul, since they were the most prominent witnesses (and some theorists even claim they were the only ones who had primary experiences). If wish fulfillment can explain their sightings, perhaps it can trickle down to all the others as well.

Internet atheist Paulogia argues that Peter had given up his fishing business to follow Jesus and a resurrection hallucination would enable Peter to continue in ministry (the “easy life,” according to 18^th century skeptic H. S. Reimarus). However, Peter had gone back to his fishing even after seeing the risen Jesus. Jesus did confront him there, so maybe we could call this subsequent visit a trick of the mind to fulfill his wish to be called away from fishing and back to ministry. But their conversation on this occasion doesn’t much resemble a wish fulfillment: it grieved Peter, put much responsibility on his shoulders which he hadn’t seemed to be expecting, and also foretold of his death. Entering the ministry would also mean persecution and martyrdom (while the historical evidence of this is tenuous for some of the apostles, it is strong in Peter’s case). His upside down crucifixion would leave a legacy of shame to the nonbelieving community, his entire following would be based on a lie in support of a dead false prophet, and his relationship with the God of Israel would be null. If we’re in psychoanalysis land, shouldn’t we think that all of these repressed realities would have outweighed any initial seeming wish fulfillment?

As for Paul, Goulder explains his vision as due to a disillusionment with Judaism and the Mosaic law as bondage. This is a misinterpretation of his writings, one that Peter actually warned about (2 Pet. 3:15-17) but nevertheless is common in the antinomian church. Lüdemann compares Paul’s zealous persecution to fanatics who attack a group because they’re actually attracted to it,⁵ giving an example of closet homosexuals attacking open ones. In trying to get rid of a tension within himself, Paul was having a religious crisis, seeing the Jewish God as stern and punishing and the Christian God as loving and forgiving. This ignores the enormous theme of grace in the OT as well as stern punishment in the NT, Jesus’ pointing to YHWH as his Father many times, and Paul’s continuing love for the Old Testament and God the Father.

Going deeper into the unconscious, even without expectation or wish fulfillment, could hallucinations have been brought on by contexts such as nostalgic locations or times that brought reminiscent moods? Though these are possible, it seems extraordinary to explain every single occurrence over 40 days, as well as 100% of the apostles (plus 500 disciples and some enemies) being affected, with such a theory. Some of the locations where Jesus met them were in fact holy, but others were common: we have stories at the tomb, in the temple, in their homes, on a road to Emmaus which has no other mention in the Bible, by the sea, on a mountain, and on journeys from one location to another. As for timing, we might see a nostalgic atmosphere in the Pentecost gathering, but their hiding, fishing, or walking in the other contexts seems quite matter-of-fact. Some of them might have elements of their experiences with him: fishing might have brought memories for some of when they were first called, but by the time they’d been at it all night without a single catch, any nostalgia likely would have faded and been replaced with tired frustration.

Though our conspirologists tend to set their skeptometers⁶ to brain-melting levels, a healthy dose of skepticism is plenty biblical. While we, as highly enlightened modern minds, might use our distance from the events to write them off as visions or hallucinations, the disciples themselves showed skepticism of their own experiences at first. They may have in fact been even more skeptical than they otherwise would have been, questioning whether they’d been duped by a false messiah for the past three years.

On seeing the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene defaulted to a naturalistic explanation at first, just as any of us would: “they have taken away my LORD, and I know not where they have laid him” (John 20:13). Mary the mother of Jesus had skepticism for decades before her conversion; even after her experiences with the annunciation, virgin birth, and divinely sent shepherds, she simply “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She again “treasured up all these things” when finding Jesus in the temple and not understanding what he meant by being in his Father’s house (Luke 2:41-51).

After Mary and the women saw Jesus and even held his feet, the apostles didn’t believe them, accusing these respected co-disciples of telling “idle tales.” Two did go check the tomb for themselves, but even after knowing it was empty they didn’t believe the words of the two disciples who were walking in the country (Mark 16⁷). These weren’t gullible first-century hillbillies, ready to accept any story they heard; it took some extraordinary evidence to convince them, the type of empirical first-hand evidence that atheists covet for themselves today.

Finally they saw Jesus for themselves, but even then they wondered whether it was a ghost or spirit that they saw. Their skepticism prompted Jesus to prove he was flesh and bone by telling them “a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:39), showing his wounded hands and feet, and inviting them to touch him. When they still didn’t believe, he asked for food and ate it before their eyes. “It is interesting to note that during Jesus’ time, the Jews distinguished between a vision and an appearance of an angel precisely on this basis: if the food seen to be eaten by the angel was left undisturbed, then the angel was just a vision; but if the food had been consumed, then the angel had actually appeared.”⁸ It’s possible that this tradition is what Jesus drew on to prove his physicality. When Thomas showed up late, he also didn’t take the other disciples’ word for it, even though the number of testimonies was growing large. He said he wouldn’t believe unless he could see and touch Jesus’ wounds. Eight days later, all of them together again, Jesus honored this request.

We see that the disciples were fully able to doubt and question themselves and their master (something highly discouraged in many religions), and rather than concluding that they’d hallucinated or seen visions of a heavenly exaltation, they were convinced of a bodily resurrection. Besides the accounts we’re given in the Scriptures, John reports that “many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book” (John 20:30) and “there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25). Luke writes of “many infallible proofs” being given over the 40 days of appearances (Acts 1:3).

The apostles’ preaching didn’t start until Pentecost, allowing a long period of time between the first appearance and their proclamations of the risen Lord. Though our conspiracizers jump on this delay as suspicious, I’d suggest that it shows their soberness of mind. They waited and made sure these things were true (along with receiving the Spirit and a greater understanding of the Scriptures from Jesus) rather than going out in an excited frenzy to tell people about their wild visions. They had time to come to full conviction before drawing others into such a revolutionary religion and being willing to die for their own testimonies.⁹

Leaving my skepticism of the skeptics aside, let’s assume that the disciples were in fact grieving, expectant, prone to contagion or wish fulfillment, and had faulty skeptometers. Let’s turn now to investigate whether the resurrection experiences themselves could fit into what we know of hallucinations.

Temporality and multi-sensory problems

Hallucinations are generally brief and singular, as well as subjective, variable, and drawn from the subconscious of an individual. If they are ongoing, they tend to either fade away over time or accelerate to a crisis point. In contrast, the Scriptures tell of repeated occurrences over 40 days with stability and consistency, extended conversations and shared multi-sensory interactions. The bodily appearances suddenly cease after 40 days, when the apostles witness Jesus’ ascension to heaven. (We do see a handful of visionary experiences of him later, which are clearly differentiated from the pre-ascension appearances). If contagion and power of suggestion were at play, and if momentum had been gained in such events as the appearance to more than 500, wouldn’t some continue seeing or claiming to see Jesus? What other than the ascension could explain the abrupt ceasing? Why wouldn’t additional people start seeing him after Pentecost, stirred up by the apostles’ preaching and tongues, and thousands of conversions?

The multi-sensory nature of the resurrection experiences is further evidence against them being hallucinations, which generally involve only one sense at a time (most often auditory). The same would go for similar non-physical theories such as spiritual resurrection and veridical visions of the dead.¹⁰ The disciples experienced Jesus with the full range of their senses – sight, sound, touch, the smell and taste of the food he cooked for them, and the intellectual lucidity of theological, prophetic, and pastoral conversations. The more senses involved, the more these become empirical observations, as valid as the world which we access and gain knowledge about through our five senes, rather than a flimsy illusion.

While it would be extraordinary for such a vivid hallucination to happen even once, especially to an entire group of people, this claim becomes even more extraordinary when it’s multiplied by every single appearance recounted in the Bible, plus those only hinted at. And since such a claim doesn’t seem to have extraordinary evidence to back it up (where’s that videotape, document from Pilate, and DNA that those atheists are always waiting on before accepting theists’ claims?), the serious skeptic might have to backtrack a bit. Pieces of hallucination theory combine with legend and lie theories to explain what’s written; Paul and the Gospel writers fabricate all kinds of details to flesh out their boring routine single-sense mind trips. Then they invent the rest of the entire New Testament and Old Testament, plus apocryphal writings and Targums (insert time machine theory here), to fit like a snug puzzle around the resurrection, every single piece pointing in astounding ways to this phenomenon which never happened. Then they pretend to be tortured and killed for their lies, making sure that others (including enemies) document it, all as an ingenious marketing technique to create a worldwide cult full of masochists. Let’s see Edward Bernays beat that one.

A few thoughts on James and Paul

James, along with his mother and brothers, had thought Jesus crazy and even tried to trick him into giving himself up to death during the Feast of Tabernacles. He apparently still hadn’t been a believer at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, as Jesus placed his mother into the care of the Beloved Disciple from the cross. Though they all may have been grieving for their family member, it seems that, without something extraordinary intervening, they would have seen his death as confirmation of the correctness of their unbelief in his claims. How would they end up in the Pentecost event and evangelistic roles, with James even becoming a pillar of the church alongside Peter? Would a grief hallucination have been enough to bring about such drastic conversions? It’s possible the other brothers may have all seen him during the mass event, or they may have only heard about James and Mary’s unique experiences, with something about their stories being convincing enough to override all of their former resistance to Jesus. Hallucinations generally don’t change lives or leave people convinced of their veracity¹¹ even in the face of death, and the martyrdom of James is the best attested in history alongside that of Peter.¹²

As for Paul, some have tried to read the modern DSM (psychological diagnostics manual) back into the first century and diagnose him with a temporal lobe epileptic seizure, messiah complex, conversion disorder,¹³ guilt complex, or a crisis of faith to account for his mystical experience. There are arguments against each of these, but for the sake of brevity (I know, too late), I’ll just say that none can explain the contextual details, his deep and radical conversion, his continued affirmation of the God of Judaism, the empty tomb, or the appearances to the others.

Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus does hold some mystery, though, as he includes it in 1 Cor. 15 with the resurrection appearances, saying Jesus last appeared to him. Yet this one didn’t happen within the 40 days before the ascension and it seemed to be more of an appearance out of heaven. Lüdemann uses this text to reduce the apostles’ experiences to more visionary ones like Paul’s. However, Paul’s intent is obviously in the opposite direction; he’s showing that his is as valid as their physical experiences even though it’s different and later, that he too is a witness of the resurrection and an apostle. His marking it as the last of the appearances in this category also differentiates it from later visions of Jesus including several of his own.¹⁴

Some say Paul’s letters actually recount an earlier and more accurate spiritual resurrection idea as brought about by visions, while later development of the idea of bodily resurrection shows up in the Gospels. The main problems with this will be addressed in the next part of this series. But for now, Paul’s experience actually has some shared auditory and visual elements, and thus is more likely from an objective source than from his own mind. This is different from visions of Jesus such as Stephen’s, which wasn’t shared by those around him.

Bodily resurrection is differentiated from other experiences or ideas throughout the Scriptures, such as dreams, visions, ghosts/spirits, angels or demons, dreams of angels, visions of angels, the transfiguration, the ascension, imagery of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Spirit, God speaking through theophanies, trances, or prophets, visions of living people, and partial visions given to separate people to form a whole. Several apostles have an entire range of these experiences and label them differently, showing that they don’t just assume any experience to be a physical one.

The conundrum of group hallucinations

Independent and multiple attestations throughout the Scriptures give us more than a handful of group experiences of the resurrection to contend with. Unless each of these passages is rejected as legend, the shared hallucination issue is a major hurdle for the skeptics. Hallucinations are generally private events, happening within the mind of an individual without any external objective stimulus. Psychologists Aleman and Larøi include nothing on group hallucinations in their noted book Hallucinations: The Science of Idiosyncratic Perception because they found very little documentation in over a century of research. Likewise, psychologist Gary A. Sibcy wrote, “I have surveyed the professional literature (peer-reviewed journal articles and books) written by psychologists, psychiatrists, and other relevant healthcare professionals during the past two decades and have yet to find a single documented case of a group hallucination, that is, an event for which more than one person purportedly shared in a visual or other sensory perception where there was clearly no external referent.”¹⁵

I include this information from scholars though I take them with a grain of salt myself, since researchers have been known to say similar things about miracles or the efficacy of prayer (these issues come with a set of both similar and dissimilar problems when it comes to empirical study). Lack of documented events is not equal to lack of events. I’ve heard plenty of stories from trusted people who have claimed to have shared hallucinations, past life experiences, and astral projections, all with elements that aren’t easily explained away. Likewise, though I often see apologists argue that group hallucinations are as impossible as group dreaming, I’m aware of research and testimonies concerning group lucid dreaming.

You could dismiss all of the above as false claims or misperceptions, and maybe some of them are, but I think it would be careless to deny them all out of hand, even though I’m undermining the apologetics argument here. I will say, however, that every instance I’m aware of is connected to drug use or occult practice, something I’m fairly certain we can rule out for Torah-observant disciples of Jesus.

Whether eyes are rolling at my subjective observations or not, let’s allow that group hallucinations might happen on rare occasions. Many of our problems from above will increase. For instance, the rarity of multi-sensory experiences now becomes multiplied by several people at once not only seeing and hearing the same thing, but interacting in real time with synchronous accuracy. “The hallucinations would have to be not only parallel but also integrated. According to the gospels, the risen Jesus interacted with his disciples in numerous ways including eating food they gave him (Luke 24:41- 43) and cooking fish for them (John 21:1-14). In such contexts, the disciples were interacting not only with Jesus but with one another, physically and verbally. The suggestion that their parallel polymodal hallucinations were seamlessly integrated is simply a non-starter, an event so improbable in natural terms that it would itself very nearly demand a supernatural explanation.”¹⁶

Given that only 15 percent of the general population experiences even an individual, single-sense hallucination, the idea that 100 percent of the apostles experienced the same hallucination at the same time is quite unconvincing. Then we’d have to multiply the infinitesimal odds by at least eight separate occurrences (Scripture hints at more) to various combinations of people, all with different temperaments and in different contexts and locations. Each person involved would hallucinate not only the sight and sound of Jesus, but also sense data such as touching him, the smell of fish cooking and the taste of it, clear and memorable conversations . . . As with swoon theory, hallucination theory is starting to seem like an appeal to the miraculous.¹⁷ As Craig says, “apart from the assumption of naturalism, there’s no reason to prefer [hallucination] theory, because it doesn’t have better explanatory scope, power, plausibility, being less ad hoc, than, say, the resurrection.”¹⁸

Let’s touch on the appearance to more than 500 brethren at once.¹⁹ Could this be compared to appearances of the Virgin Mary to hundreds or thousands of people at once? Many of these sightings involve the emotional excitement, suggestion, and expectation that accompany pilgrimages to mystical sites, which wouldn’t be relevant in the case of the apostles. Even those that don’t haven’t led to widespread and enduring questions of whether Mary was bodily resurrected. Some call them visions, delusions, or mass ecstasies, but I think it’s likely that there was an objective, external (but not physical) referent in these experiences.²⁰

Mass ecstasy has been proposed to explain the appearance to the 500, brought on by contagion and suggestion. Lüdemann has James’ conversion coming from being caught up in the excitement of this, though he also sees the description as a legendary embellishment of the smaller crowd at Pentecost, reasoning that an event happening to such a large number should have left more of a trace. However, a smaller crowd would be less likely to take the notice of Jesus’ brother(s), and Pentecost itself left a huge trace, leading 3,000 to conversion. Though we may not have a written testimony of each of those converts, their footprints seem visible in the undeniably explosive growth of the church.

The idea of mass ecstasy also brings up images of the golden calf worship during the exodus. It would likely have been looked upon with suspicion by Jews, who would associate it with pagan worship rather than the sobriety called for in, and a distinguishing feature of, the worship of YHWH. This is especially true if the worship revolved around someone they would see as a mere man, and thus be idolatry, and again bedfellows with paganism. Jesus’ family already thought he was out of his mind when a crowd gathered around him when he was alive. Wouldn’t another crowd gathering in mass ecstasy centering around post-mortem visions of him prove them right in their minds rather than seduce them to participate? It would also of course look like necromancy if people were seeing and hearing from a dead man. They might be more likely to stone the crowd than join in.

Adding to the complexity of hallucination theory, it implies that we’d also need to take a large amount of the rest of the New Testament as hallucination, not to mention the Old (unless we appeal to legend theories to fill in the gaps). The transfiguration would have to be a group hallucination shared with Jesus, James, and John. All of the miracles, interactions with angels, and experiences of the Holy Spirit, along with the enduring real-life effects of each of these, would all have to be hallucinations, with many of them shared as well.²¹ Everyone must have hallucinated the darkened sky and earthquake at the crucifixion,²² leading Roman soldiers who were present to proclaim, “truly this was the son of God.”

Some general thoughts on psychological hypotheses

While the NT authors had a whole range of vocabulary for describing supernatural experiences, our modern vocabulary for such events tends to revolve around psychoanalytical ideas. From this perspective, we not only are forced to start diagnosing people left and right, but also have to use a whole range of pathologies and complex stories to cover each separate and unique event. In order to force psychological theories to have any chance of explaining the entire New Testament, we need a combination of grief, guilt, suppressed attraction, hallucination, vision, mass ecstasy, groupthink, brain disorders, psychological complexes, ulterior motives, delusions, wishful thinking and needs fulfillment, and/or false memories. It is fascinating that there are so many phenomena like these with superficial similarities to the resurrection experiences, and yet the latter are utterly unique.

Lüdemann turns to depth psychologies such as the Jungian idea of projection of archetypes from the collective unconscious due to guilt complexes, along with the development of false memories. However, Carl Jung is far from “settled science” and is rightfully highly disputed to this day. Ironically, Jung himself, who was deeply involved in the occult and had theories inspired by his “spirit guide,” Philemon, finally had to admit the supernatural world was real after struggling through his career to define everything as merely psychological manifestations. He is quoted as saying “Professor [James] Hyslop … admitted that … metapsychic phenomena could be explained better by the hypothesis of spirits than by … the unconscious. And here, on the basis of my own experience, I am bound to concede he is right.”²³ Likewise, “Freud’s own nagging occult beliefs persisted in spite of his attempted psychological explanations and his scathing ridicule of the religious fantasies held by others. According to Carl Jung, in Freud’s later years he finally ‘recognized the seriousness of parapsychology and acknowledged the factuality of “occult” phenomena.’ Before his death, Freud declared that if he had it to do over again, he would devote his life ‘to psychical research.’”²⁴ Carl Rogers was also no stranger to spiritism and the occult.

Though I have a (notoriously useless) degree in psychology, I find psychoanalysis, especially of ancient figures, highly suspect. Some research into diagnosing even of modern patients finds it highly problematic in multiple ways. It’s also a convenient way to dismiss and pathologize people, and it’s reductionistic to try to explain away religious phenomena through lenses of psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology, or other -ologies. Why not explain Christianity through the true Logos from which that suffix comes? Ancient peoples (and modern “primitive” cultures) are easily shrugged off as superstitious, but to play the psychology card myself for a minute, what if they were actually able to see more phenomena than we’re able to perceive or admit to, simply because the modern West disallows belief in supernatural realms? Scripture itself could also respond with its own psychological diagnoses for such thinking: suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, seeking after teachers who will tickle ears, being led into strange doctrines by our own lusts, receiving strong delusion rather than a love of the truth, and so on.

I’m wary of the psychological and medical community’s quickness to write off phenomena as not corresponding to anything in objective reality. The “all in your head” mentality is not only ignorant and harmful, but is also a form of circular reasoning in which the supernatural can never be accepted because there is seen to be no evidence, because all evidence presented is automatically categorized as psychological phenomena. Reducing supernatural experiences to mental phenomena is just as silly as reducing mental phenomena to neurobiological processes. I think the Western church needs to stop bowing down to materialist culture on this issue, be unafraid to be called stupid,²⁵ and embrace a supernatural worldview, without which the Bible doesn’t even make a shred of sense.

The persistence of unbelief

Some unbelievers, when asked what would count as evidence of the resurrection in their minds, mention an appearance of the risen Jesus to Pilate. However, even if we had documentation of such an event, I doubt they would actually find it convincing, since Pilate (and his wife) are painted as rather sympathetic to Jesus in the Gospels and I don’t think it would be a huge surprise if he was converted (I don’t know that we can even prove that he didn’t see the risen Jesus or become a convert at some point anyway). In fact, the conversions of James (and his brothers) and Paul seem to be much stronger evidence, as the former scoffed at and tried to have their own brother killed and the latter zealously persecuted and wholeheartedly approved of the killing of his followers, if not killing them himself. In comparison, Pilate was practically a Christian!

Likewise, some say they would need to see the testimony of someone who saw the risen Jesus and yet did not become a follower of him, because his followers are biased. To my knowledge, there is none. This may be an argument from silence, but it’s possible that every single person who witnessed the resurrection did convert. If so, couldn’t this be because the experience was so convincing that even the most skeptical couldn’t find another explanation for it? Ehrman says we want reports that are disinterested, though I don’t know how anyone could witness a resurrection and remain disinterested. If someone saw and couldn’t explain it away, but rejected Jesus anyway, this might simply be indicative of how strong their own bias against him was (or against the implications of submitting to his authority). In fact, they’d be in the company of modern scholars who admit that something was really seen, but we can’t know what it was. It may also be a parallel to the Israelites who witnessed the miracles of the Exodus and yet hardened their hearts.

Celsus also wondered why Jesus didn’t show himself to all his enemies and all people. Origen in his response ventured that there is a mystery in whom he appeared to that is beyond even the minds of long-term Christians. “He did not appear in like fashion to all those who saw Him, but according to their several ability to receive Him, will be clear to those who notice why, at the time when He was about to be transfigured on the high mountain, He did not admit all His apostles (to this sight), but only Peter, and James, and John, because they alone were capable of beholding His glory on that occasion . . .”²⁶ It may have had to do with the mysteries of the kingdom that he needed to teach the disciples during the 40 days (in order to send them to teach all peoples). The Holy Spirit would accompany them just as today. The problem of divine hiddenness seems to be at play here, something I’m studying and hope to write about eventually.

The wrong tomb theory

Even if one or a combination of the hallucination and psychological theories we’ve considered had plausibility, they still can’t account for the empty tomb, and thus would need to be combined with another theory. We’ve already covered the problems with the ideas of the disciples stealing the body or Jesus swooning and exiting the tomb alive. Another possibility is the wrong tomb theory.

Kirsopp Lake (1872-1946), who developed the modern wrong tomb theory, said the women were probably watching from afar, and couldn’t tell one rock tomb from another in the growing darkness. Oddly, Lüdemann and Ehrman both assert that the Gospel of Mark says the women watched “from afar,” though I checked every version I have access to, along with all the other Gospel accounts, and couldn’t find any hint of such terminology. Mark (which tends to be the main Gospel relied upon by many of these theorists, with the assumption that it’s the earliest and most accurate) says that they saw, viewed, or beheld where he was laid. The other synoptics say the women sat opposite the tomb, observed the tomb, and saw how his body was laid, which implies being close enough to see inside the tomb.

From what I’ve read on ancient Jewish tombs, this one seemed to have been a rare and identifiable one. Very few with like it have been discovered, though all from Jesus’ time. Only the very rich could afford the type of tombs described – an acrosolia or bench tomb with a stone that was rolled down a slope to cover the entry, located within a garden plot. The multiple women listed also increases the chance of someone correctly remembering the location, especially since they planned to return after the Sabbath to anoint the body. If they did get it wrong, why would the stone be rolled away before their eyes, as Matthew reports? Whose grave clothes did the disciples see? The only way to get around these details is, as some do, by simply tossing them out as invented.

If it was one option among several nearby, why wouldn’t the women, or the apostles at a later time, go check the other nearby tombs? Why wouldn’t they ask Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus, who had both been inside the tomb, for help? Besides the fact that the location was also known to the priests and Romans, it’s incredible that all the Jewish disciples would have lost track of where Jesus’ tomb was, since Jewish tradition included preserving and venerating the tombs of their prophets and martyrs. The disciples would have seen him as such, and were still expecting him to stay dead at this point, despite his having hinted at his resurrection. Lüdemann argues that the tomb wasn’t venerated because its location was unknown, but the lack of veneration of the tomb can also be seen as evidence that the tomb was empty (as it was the saint’s remains lying in the site that were seen to give it its value).

Lake takes the man in Mark saying “He is not here . . . see the place where they laid him” as referring to the next tomb over, with the women fleeing rather than checking, scared because they’d been caught. This ignores the fact that the man also says “he is risen.” This statement is found in all of the synoptics, as well as descriptions of the man (or men, in Luke) that paint him as far from ordinary, to say the least. Matthew also reports guards at the tomb who faint at the sight of the angelic man. Their presence of course wouldn’t make since if it was an unused tomb.

Lüdemann caims that women weren’t allowed to be close to tombs and considers the whole story of them seeing an empty tomb to be Christian propaganda. However, rabbinical sources speak of women anointing bodies (men could only anoint men, while women could anoint either gender according to a 3^rd century source), and could also be involved in funeral processions and mourning outside tombs. If it were in fact Christian propaganda, why wouldn’t a detailed version of the story appear in John, the latest Gospel, where skeptics tend to expect the most legendary development? It also seems odd to circulate false stories about women witnesses, when these women were all well-known and likely accessible for testimony in their communities, or even in Jerusalem during the feast gatherings.

The discovery of the empty tomb by women appears in all four Gospels, with variations of details that show evidence of independent eyewitness testimonies rather than fabrication. Multiple independent attestation adds to the case for historical reliability, as does the fact that such a story would have been counterproductive to their purposes, as women witnesses weren’t seen as credible in the ancient world. The other apostles didn’t even believe their story at first, Jews would see their testimonies as inadmissible, and Celsus mocked them as half-frantic and of worthless testimony. (He also portrayed the others as foolish and lowly, only motivated by making converts, so their testimonies may not have been well-respected in the Greco-Roman world either.)

Ehrman says Mark would invent the story of the women and empty tomb cuz goes with his literary agenda and showing that it’s outsiders who recognize him. Ah, well, case closed. No need to explain the other 40,000 problems such a theory brings up. I have an even better theory, though: the apostles denigrated themselves and made up stories about women witnesses, all so that they could trick scholars 2,000 years later into thinking it was a true account due to inconsistencies and the “criterion of embarrassment”!

Lüdemann, switching theories on himself, suggests that Joseph of Arimathea may have moved the body to another tomb before Sunday. But, in a seeming battle of who has too much time for imagining goofy theories, Ehrman says that Joseph of Arimathea was totally invented, another Markan literary device involving a secret follower among the enemy. It seems odd that the disciples and/or Gospel writers would make up a fictional character who is featured in all four Gospels with a name, nearby location, status of wealth, and even a place in the Jewish Sanhedrin “whose members were well known.”²⁷ It seems this would have been easily debunked if not true.

Was Nicodemus also a made up character? Or perhaps he and Joseph were both real people, but stories about them were fabricated in order to gain credibility by claiming witnesses among the Sanhedrin, Pharisees, and rulers of the Jews? Even if Nicodemus and Joseph were dead, it’s likely that their children or grandchildren would know whether the Gospel accounts of them burying Jesus were true, in a storytelling culture and with this being a highly significant event in their life.

Not to be outdone at the game of Imaginationland, Crossan, co-founder of the Jesus Seminar, suggests that there never even was a tomb to be found empty. Jesus’ body was left on the cross to be torn apart by birds and wild animals or buried in a shallow grave and eaten by dogs. “By Easter Sunday morning, those who cared did not know where it was, and those who knew did not care. Why should even the soldiers themselves remember the death and disposal of a nobody?”²⁸

As for the socio-political context on which the first idea is based, Rome was known to leave bodies on crosses during times of chaos when they felt the need to scare the population into submission, but otherwise they often allowed burial. Josephus speaks of how the Jews were apparently allowed this right, and that they would “take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun.”²⁹ Likewise, “among the Jews interment or burial of the body was the common practice, and to allow the body to decay above ground or be subject to destruction by vultures or dogs was the greatest of dishonors (1 Kings 14:10-14; 2 Kings 9:34-37). Anyone who discovered a corpse by the roadside was required to bury it (2 Sam. 21:10-14).”³⁰ We see that burial was important to Jews, even for criminals and strangers, and that Romans allowed it even for those they had crucified as criminals.

To accept a non-burial theory, we’d have to reject 1 Corinthians 15, the earliest written account of Jesus being buried, as well as all of the Gospel accounts of the burial. For this or the shallow grave theory, we’d also have to shred most of the New Testament (something the Jesus Seminar does in fact do) in order for anything about these ideas to make sense.

I’m not aware of any evidence of either of these version of events or any other burial story in ancient sources, even in the extant early writings that were hostile to Jesus and/or his followers. In fact, the main enemy attestation of the early centuries was that the disciples stole the body, showing that the correct tomb being found empty was assumed. Enemies could have instead spread the rumor that Jesus was still in the tomb, and probably could have proven and documented it if it were actually true. Any body being in the correct tomb would likely be convincing for most, or at least cast doubt on the resurrection stories. But it seems the right tomb really was empty.

We don’t find any wrong tomb theory until a source from several hundred years later, the anti-gospel Toledoth Yeshu. Even there, the gardener who is said to have moved the body to another grave did it to thwart the disciples from stealing it, seemingly drawing on the original Judean conspiracy theory. These stories also paint Jesus as a sorcerer and deceiver born of rape by a man disguised as Mary’s husband.³¹ He had a contest of miracles with Judas, gave four different aliases to the Sages, and was hung on a cabbage stalk because he’d forgotten to put a magic spell on it. His body was dragged by horse tail to Queen Helene with the message, “this is Yeshu who supposedly ascended to heaven.”³²

There are several different versions of the Toledoth Yeshu with variations on the details, but from what I’ve seen they tend to humorously re-contextualize or reinvent details of Christianity, mix them with Talmudic and dramatic legend, and place it all at the wrong date and under the wrong political and religious leaders. The Toledoth are also generally rejected by Jewish scholars as historically unreliable.

With so many witnesses across the spectrum of believers, unbelievers, and enemies, it seems incredible that no one at all would know the location of the correct tomb or be able to produce the body if it had been moved. Romans likely would have been happy to parade the body though the streets to re-affirm their victory, thus stopping short the spread of Christianity. Likewise, the religious leaders would have had motivation to do so, in order to stop something they saw as an idolatrous and dangerous heresy.

You might argue, how would the body be recognizable as Jesus? Some assert that because the preaching didn’t start until Pentecost (50 days later), the body would already be unrecognizable. I’ll make their argument even stronger by saying he could have already been unrecognizable on the third day from all of the beatings he endured. It’s possible that Joseph and Nicodemus may have identified the body based on the amount of myrrh used on it or the cloths and the way they were wrapped. If they unwrapped the body, identification also might have been possible based on the type and extent of the injuries.³³

If a corpse was found in the tomb that somebody claimed to have moved him to, the disciples would have to explain why this wasn’t Jesus, and it seems that that account would have made it into the Gospels, to correct any narratives still going around among nonbelievers about Jesus’ body being found. It’s also reasonable to expect at least a hint of such information in early enemy attestation.

Someone stealing the body would also share many of the same issues as the original conspiracy theory,³⁴ with the added problem of finding a motive and explaining why the body wasn’t found or presented. Wouldn’t the coverup have been revealed, with or without a recognizable corpse, when the gravity of the political and religious situation related to it became clear? Or did these unknown pranksters die with a lie on their conscious, letting gullible people start an entire religion and be martyred for it? Could Rome herself have removed the body and hidden it in the catacombs, as popular writer Tom Robbins has fancied? Could Rome have had means and motive to invent Christianity, or even invent Jesus himself? We’ll examine this theory (with much weariness) in a future section.

Even if a combined hallucination and wrong tomb theory were viable, it still wouldn’t account for Jesus’ prophecies about himself, his miracles or those of his apostles, and many of the other details in the New Testament (or the Old, for that matter). Inevitably, legend theories have to arise to fill in the gaps, with the improbability of the metatheory multiplied with each additional subtheory. We have to call Jesus a liar or worse and/or accuse the disciples of putting words on his lips and works on his hands. They would have been colluding on this scheme, which doesn’t fit with data such as undesigned coincidences and the types of inconsistencies across their stories which line up more with patterns of multiple witness testimony than co-conspirators.

Even so, there is actually a strong movement to declare much of the New Testament to be fabricated, conveniently including these very accounts of the resurrection appearances which are so difficult to explain away otherwise. We’ll visit several variations of this, as well as the naturalistic presuppositions which necessitate them, in upcoming parts of this series.

“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:39-43)

“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11)

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1)

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

Footnotes

1. Celsus betrays his theological biases along with his misunderstanding of Christian doctrine in statements such as “It is unlikely that God would have fallen in love with [Mary], since she was neither wealthy nor of royal birth” (qtd. in Van Voorst, p. 67). This, though he claims to be well-versed in Jewish and Christian doctrine. Origen often pokes fun at him as “Celsus, who professes to know everything,” and Celsus even shows how far his wisdom surpasses that of God by asserting that Jesus should have just disappeared from the cross to prove his divinity (Against Celsus, p. 14, 52).
Origen responds to his accusations nearly 1800 years before modern scholars dig up the same theories and call them novel: “Even Plato says in his treatise on the Soul that shadowy phantoms of persons already dead have appeared to some around their sepulchres. Now the phantoms which exist about the soul of the dead are produced by some substance, and this substance is in the soul, which exists apart in a body said to be of splendid appearance. But Celsus, unwilling to admit any such view, will have it that some dreamed a waking dream, and, under the influence of a perverted imagination, formed to themselves such an image as they desired. Now it is not irrational to believe that a dream may take place while one is asleep; but to suppose a waking vision in the case of those who are not altogether out of their senses, and under the influence of delirium or hypochondria, is incredible” (Against Celsus, p. 50).

2. According to Mike Licona, no other Jewish group in the century preceding or following claimed their executed leader was risen from the dead and was really the messiah after all. And for a perspective from closer to the events in question:

“Theudas among the Jews before the birth of Christ, who gave himself out as some great one, after whose death his deluded followers were completely dispersed. And after him, in the days of the census, when Jesus appears to have been born, one Judas, a Galilean, gathered around him many of the Jewish people, saying he was a wise man, and a teacher of certain new doctrines. And when he also had paid the penalty of his rebellion, his doctrine was overturned, having taken hold of very few persons indeed, and these of the very humblest condition. And after the times of Jesus, Dositheus the Samaritan also wished to persuade the Samaritans that he was the Christ predicted by Moses; and he appears to have gained over some to his views. But it is not absurd, in quoting the extremely wise observation of that Gamaliel named in the book of Acts, to show how those persons above mentioned were strangers to the promise, being neither ‘sons of God’ nor ‘powers’ of God, whereas Christ Jesus was truly the Son of God. Now Gamaliel, in the passage referred to, said: ‘If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought’ (as also did the designs of those men already mentioned after their death); ‘but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow this doctrine, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.’ There was also Simon the Samaritan magician, who wished to draw away certain by his magical arts. And on that occasion he was successful; but now-a-days it is impossible to find, I suppose, thirty of his followers in the entire world, and probably I have even overstated the number” (Origen, Against Celsus, p. 22).

3. Licona points out that Goulder’s own theory could just as easily be claimed to be a way of attempting to resolve his own cognitive dissonance regarding the evidence for the resurrection.

4. Craig, The Son Rises, p. 110.

5. Wait a minute . . . all the atheists who devote their lives to trying to debunk the Bible must secretly just be attracted to Christianity! What say you, Lüdemann?

6. See David Wood, “Scooby Doo and the Silly Skeptic.”

7. Even if Mark 16:9-20 is not original, we have an account just before this, in the fully accepted part of Mark’s ending, of the tomb being empty and a white-robed man proclaiming “he is risen” and that he will be appearing to Peter and the disciples as he had said he would.

8. Craig, The Son Rises, p.103.

9. Peter’s ability to be skeptical is shown even after he’s sure of the resurrection; he questions the realness of an angel breaking him out of prison even though it had happened to him and his co-workers before. Even when he feels the strike on his side to awaken him, sees and hears the angel, gets up, has the chains fall off his hands, gets dressed, and follows the angel past the guards he assumes it’s a vision. Finally, once he finds himself outside of the gates of the prison, he is convinced the angel was real.

10. Archdeacon Michael Perry proposes the veridical vision of the dead theory, and has God annihilating the body so the disciples will be deceived by an empty tomb. (He adds in hallucination theory to account for Paul and the 500.) In veridical visions, someone hallucinates based on a telepathic message from a dying or dead person. It generally happens just once to an individual loved one who isn’t aware of the death, doesn’t involve physical interactions, and leaves no impact on the physical environment. It’s odd to me that someone would believe in Christianity and yet reject the resurrection for a completely different and much more impotent supernatural phenomenon. Maybe he hasn’t read 1 Cor. 15:12-34?

11. Psychiatrists Hinsie and Shatsky assert that normal people check themselves when having an extraordinary sense perception and can often find evidence through their other senses that it is an illusion. Research on Navy Seals, who had had wild hallucinations due to bodily deprivation, showed that they later knew they were hallucinations because they were fantastical and their friends didn’t see the same things. It seems the disciples had such self-skepticism as well, tested it, and came out convinced that they truly did see the risen Jesus.

12. “The sort of complex, repeated, integrated hallucination that would be required to explain even one disciple’s testimony and willingness to die for it would represent a serious mental illness. But the advocate of this theory must suppose that it simultaneously struck all of the disciples and left them with a lasting conviction that carried them through their lives and to defiant witness in the face of death” (“The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth”).

“This scared, frightened band of the apostles, which was just about to throw away everything in order to flee in despair to Galilee; when these peasants, shepherds, and fishermen, who betrayed and denied their master and then failed him miserably, suddenly could be changed overnight into a confident mission society, convinced of salvation and able to work with much more success after Easter than before Easter, then no vision or hallucination is sufficient to explain such a revolutionary transformation” (Jewish Rabbi Pinchas Lapide, qtd. In McDowell, New Evidence, p. 240).

13. Antony Flew famously backtracked on this one when rebutted by Gary Habermas – he also later became a theist due to the integrated complexity argument, though I’ve seen him previously argue that it’s only rational to see scientific arguments as evidence for God if you’re already a believer. His open-mindedness makes me wonder if he came to understand and accept the resurrection in those final minutes of brain activity at death.

14. After Damascus, Paul also saw Jesus when in a trance in the temple (Acts 22:17), Jesus “stood by him” in the barracks in Acts 23:11, and Paul was taken up to the third heaven, noting that he didn’t even know whether he was in or out of the body (2 Cor. 12).

15. Qtd. in “Hallucination Theory: ‘The disciples had hallucinations or visions of Jesus risen from the dead’” by James M. Rochford (italics his).

16. “The Argument from Miracles:A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.”

17. One of the definitions of miraculous in my dictionary is “highly improbable and extraordinary,” from the from Latin miraculum, ‘object of wonder.’

18. Craig, resurrection debate with Lüdemann.

19. It’s unclear to me whether the 500 were already disciples, or if at least some had formerly been unbelievers, becoming followers due to witnessing the resurrection. If the former, we have the same host of problems covered above. If the latter, their conversions add to the weight of evidence for the appearances being highly convincing for a large number of people.

20. See Queen of Rome Queen of Islam Queen of All by Tetlow, Oakland, & Myers for some important information to consider regarding appearances of Mary.

21. Similarly, what are we to make of descriptions such as armies in the sky found in both Josephus and Tacitus? These are both respected ancient historians, but are statements like this to be automatically dismissed because things like that simply don’t happen, according to us?

22. These events were apparently recounted by Roman historians Thallus and Phlegon as nonsensically involving a three-hour eclipse during a full moon. They may have been eyewitnesses themselves, but if not, they could have accused those who claimed to see such things as hallucinating. Side note: I still have no idea what to make of Matthew’s report of saints rising from the grave. If I ever study that one out I’ll report on my findings.

23. Jung qtd. In Hunt, Occult Invasion, p. 6 .

24. Ibid, p. 54.

25. Remember that the early church was dealing with far worse false accusations, such as orgies and cannibalism!

26. Origen, Against Celsus, p.51.

27. Craig, The Son Rises, p. 46.

28. Qtd. in Tim Chaffey, “The Body Was Moved.”

29. From the Wars of the Jews, qtd. In McDowell, The New Evidence, p. 226.

30. HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, p. 158.

31. Interestingly, much of the story is focused on discrediting the virgin birth, yet it has Jesus quoting Isaiah 7:14 and “other messianic texts,” which seems to take for granted that the virgin birth was seen as a messianic prophecy in the tradition leading up to the Toledoth(this is a point that was attacked in the early centuries of Christianity and is again in the world of liberal criticism, though we find plenty of solid answers going back at least to second-century apologists).

32. From the 1681 version of the medieval series of Toledot Yeshu, qtd. In Jesus outside the New Testament, p. 126.

33. Update: I’ve since come additional information on this point: “I talked to three coroners from Louisiana, Virginia, and California about whether a body would be recognizable after 50 days. All agreed that even in a humid climate, you’d still be able to recognize a body somewhat – at least in stature, the hair, and possibly the wounds” – Mike Licona qtd. In Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus (student ed.), p. 110.

34. Note: I’ve come across the full first-century Nazareth inscription mentioned in part one: “Ordinance of Caesar: It is my pleasure that graves and tombs—whoever has made them as a pious service for ancestors or children or members of their house—that these remain unmolested in perpetuity. But if any person lay information that another either has destroyed them, or has in any other way cast out the bodies which have been buried there, or with malicious deception has transferred them to other places, to the dishonor of those buried there or has removed the headstones or other stones, in such a case I command that a trial be instituted, protecting the pious services of mortals, just as if they were concerned with the gods. For beyond all else it shall be obligatory to honor those who have been buried. Let no one remove them for any reason. If anyone does so, however, it is my will that he shall suffer capital punishment on the charge of tomb robbery” (qtd. in Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, p. 382-83).
If this was in place prior to Jesus’ death, it would have been a strong deterrent for any would-be grave-robbers or body-movers, undermining Lüdemann’s theory about Joseph and the Toledoth’s ideas about any gardener. If after, it might have been instituted because of the drama around the empty tomb and an ongoing belief that Jesus’ body was stolen. Either way, it’s at least mild evidence for the empty tomb and against wrong tomb theory (unless the inscription appeared soon after the empty tomb was found, leaving the body-moving culprit too scared to come forward).