The Resurrection: Is There an Alternative?
Roger Forster
In this Easter article Roger looks at the evidence for the resurrection and investigates the ways in which people have set out disprove it. Is there an alternative?
Christianity stands or falls by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Did He irrevocably solve man's quest for some meaning beyond the grave? The Apostle Paul sees that the whole case for Christianity rests upon the resurrection of Jesus, and writing to the Corinthians, Paul says, 'If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, and your faith is also empty.' In other words, if the resurrection did not happen Christianity is a hoax, and believing in Jesus Christ is a terrible mistake, a delusion from which you ought to be saved. Throughout the centuries many people have gone to the evidence presented in the New Testament, and have tried to understand whether there is a good case for it or not, whether they can reasonably direct their whole lives in the direction of the evidence placed before them.
The skeptics
Some people have gone very sceptically. Two such men, Lord Lyttelton and Gilbert West, from Cambridge University set about writing, one to prove that the Apostle Paul was never really converted to Christianity, and the other that the resurrection never took place. Years later they met and admitted to one another that they had not yet written their books: when confronted with the evidence, they had become convinced that Jesus really was alive, and that Paul really had been converted to a living Christ.
In the nineteenth century, General Lou Wallace, a man who had spent his life in the American army, following a suggestion by Ingersol, the famous atheist, set about writing a popular book – Ben Hur – to disprove the hoax of Christianity. But at the same time his wife who was a Christian, realising that the book would damage the cause of Christianity, started praying. While he began writing not believing that Jesus rose from the grave, one night Lou Wallace accepted Jesus as his living Lord and Saviour, and continued his book, but now the other way round, commending the fact that Jesus really did rise from the dead. In the twentieth century, a journalist lawyer called Frank Morrison decided that he too would tackle the evidence to disprove the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He began to write a book, but came to the same conclusion as the others, and tells us in the preface of his now famous book, 'Who Moved the Stone?', that he began to write his book to disprove the resurrection, but now wanted to commend the fact that Jesus really was alive. Having looked at the evidence and sifted it thoroughly, he could come to no other reasonable conclusion.
Well, these men have gone sceptically to the evidence, and others like Matthew Arnold who were not renowned for their Christian faith, have said that it is the best attested fact of history. Perhaps that is saying too much. Cedman Clarke, K.C., man of law, said that prolonged study of the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus brings a conclusive verdict for its veracity. Lord Chief Justice Dowling, a judge, tells us that no intelligent jury could fail to return a verdict of TRUE to the evidence that Jesus really did beat death, and rose from the grave.
The alternatives
We will now look at six different possibilities as to what might have happened to Jesus’ body after crucifixion and burial, looking at whether the evidence is good or insufficient to make a decision about whether Jesus Christ is really alive today in the twenty-first century.
1. Stolen body
First of all, what about someone stealing the body? Couldn't robbers have come to the tomb and emptied it, or perhaps the disciples themselves took the body, and so the hoax began that perhaps Jesus had really risen.
Did the disciples take Jesus’ body? Matthew tells us the guards were paid to tell everybody that the disciples had come secretly at night and taken the body away. But is this really possible? Is it psychologically possible for instance, to stand up and preach to crowds telling them to love their neighbour, turn the cheek, go the second mile, and yet to base it all on a lie that they knew? Would it be possible emotionally or ethically for the disciples to preach a message of Christ's resurrection and give their own lives for it, when they knew that it just was not true at all? Surely one of them would have leaked the truth that it was really a hoax, but none of them ever went back on it. They lived and died preaching a gospel of good news, love, service and truth to the world, founded on the basis that Jesus really was risen from the grave.
Perhaps thieves came and took the body. Well, if they did, they chose the only tomb in Jerusalem that was being guarded by soldiers at the time, and perhaps the tomb of one of the poorest men that ever lived, for Jesus was not a rich man. Why go to such a tomb to loot that? When they had been there, if this was true, they left behind the most precious things that were there, the robes that Christ had been buried in and the spices, which must have amounted to a fair sum of money. That hardly seems possible either, and certainly not a very good story for the guards to admit to.
Perhaps the authorities took the body away - you know what these Galilean uprisings must be like over a festival time in Jerusalem. Anyone who could foment a revolt would have to be watched closely, and these disciples of Jesus, perhaps would start trouble in Jerusalem. The authorities would take the body away to quell any rioting that might begin. However, the authorities were caused many problems by the apostles, who denounced them for crucifying the Messiah, and claimed that He was now alive again. Surely the authorities could have stemmed the lies and uproar by producing the body, if they had taken it. But they never did that, they could not do it - they were the accused and had to admit they had no answer to the empty tomb.
2. Wrong tomb
Secondly, some have suggested that the tomb was mistaken. You know, it was early in the morning and perhaps Mary’s eyes were filled with tears, and she came looking for a tomb, maybe it was a misty day. She didn't know Jerusalem very well, and ended up at the wrong tomb. Perhaps she talked with the gardener and misunderstood what he said - the tomb is over there - and thought he was saying Jesus isn't here, He is risen! She goes back and starts to spread the story. It is hard to see that the Jewish authorities would set a guard on the wrong tomb, or fail to produce the body afterwards to scotch the rumour now filling Jerusalem's streets - that Jesus had risen from the grave. But they didn’t do that. It was the right tomb, not only had the women watched the burial, but surely Joseph of Arimathea would have known where his own family tomb was.
Another twist has been put to this suggestion in a book by Schonfield, called 'The Passover Plot', where he suggests Christ was removed from the tomb on Saturday night by secret disciples like Joseph of Arimathea, and maybe the gardener, so that when the apostles came they found it empty and induced themselves to believe that He had really beaten death. Again this does not fit the facts. What motive did these men have to take the body and then keep quiet about it? They gained nothing from it. Joseph of Arimathea was known as a disciple - would he have kept quiet knowing that the Gospel, which he shared in preaching, was really a great deception on the people? It is hardly a convincing thesis.
3. Not really dead
Thirdly some, including Venturini in the eighteenth century, Moore and famously D.H. Lawrence, have suggested that Jesus was not really dead. If Jesus had only swooned on the cross and, having been put in a cool tomb, come round, could He have pushed that huge stone away, and then would His condition have convinced His disciples that He had beaten death, that He was the Prince of Life, that He had overcome the grave? This is hardly likely. The Romans were experts at killing people and even if the guards made a mistake and Jesus was still just alive, he would have died shortly after from his wounds and would never have been able to roll the stone away by himself.
Perhaps Jesus arranged with the Roman guards to be cut down early from the cross, and be resuscitated. It seems highly impractical and extremely risky - crucifixion was too public a thing, and surely the onlookers would not have been fooled. Any Roman soldier caught doing such a thing would have been executed. An even more basic question concerns Jesus’ motive: could the founder of so high a moral code really have agreed to a massive lie to propagate his views?
4. A substitute
Fourthly, some Muslims have suggested that God gave Jesus’ appearance to a substitute, causing people to believe that it was Jesus who was crucified, when instead he was hiding somewhere. Again, this requires a huge stretch of the imagination to understand why Jesus would take part in a deceit that so completely contradicted all that he had taught and that His disciples would go on to teach. It just does not make sense.
5. Hallucinations
Fifthly, some people have suggested the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus were just hallucinations; the disciples so desperately wanted him to be alive, that they collectively imagined it. This is perhaps the most plausible alternative explanation, but there are problems with it. The accounts make it clear that the disciples were not expecting anything to happen. They were not buoyed up by faith, expectancy or religious fervor. Rather, they were frightened, defeated, and thought it was all over. You do not go to a tomb with burial spices if you expect the occupant resurrected. The women's first thought on seeing the tomb open was not that Jesus had risen, but that the authorities had moved the body. What can have happened to transform these people? Did they all have the same hallucination - not only emotional and impressionable women, but also to hard-bitten tax collectors and fishermen. Not only individuals but many people at once – up to five hundred - claimed to have seen Him. Jesus appeared to crowds in Galilee, not only in the morning or night, but through the daytime too. They lasted for forty days, and then suddenly and corporately ended. Is such mass hallucination in any way credible?
6. Legends
Sixthly, others have said that the accounts are simply legend, concocted from a number of pre-existent myths and stories with resurrection motifs. Each account gives a different story, like a jumbled together collection of rumours. However, they bear all the hallmarks of independent accounts of actual events written close to the events themselves, and bear none of the usual indications of 'myth’. If I was writing a legend, I would not have shown the Lord Jesus first of all to a woman. Also I would have included what was said in the special interviews he had with Peter, the leading apostle, and James, his brother. Could you have resisted that if you were a legendmonger?
Again, if we look carefully into the whole story, we find there are corroborating evidences in the different accounts. John tells us that Mary went down to the tomb, but artlessly records Mary’s words when returning to report the empty tomb “We do not know where they have laid him", when the other gospels, but not John mention that other women went with Mary to the tomb (John 20:2). No, everything about these stories seems to suggest that they were not legends at all, but genuine eye-witness accounts.
Other questions
What about other problems with the story? Why do none of the apostles in Acts ever say that the tomb was empty? Probably, because most people would already have known that the tomb was empty, and they could even go and look at it for themselves.
Why does each account contain different and sometimes conflicting evidence? Well, as we have seen each account is a different eye-witness version of events, and rather than being contradictory, as Paul Marston and I have shown in our book Reason, Science and Faith, these differing accounts can be read together to give a comprehensive description of what happened. The accounts fit together perfectly.
The Old Testament prophesied that Jesus would rise again. Christ said that He was going to do it. The Church changed meeting on the Sabbath to the Sunday which was the day on which He rose again. The message of the early Church was the resurrection of Jesus, and today many people have discovered that He is really there. Why? Because He is God, and you cannot keep Him in the grave. |
Roger Forster, 26/03/2010 |
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