Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? (9 page)

Ancient Judaism had no place for the resurrection of an isolated individual, especially of the Messiah. Therefore, after Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, all the disciples could do was wait with longing for the general resurrection of the dead to be re-united their Master.

Left to their own devices, then, the disciples would not have come up with the idea that, contrary to Jewish beliefs, God had raised Jesus from the dead. This point undermines not only conspiracy theories, which imagine that the disciples
insincerely
proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection, but also any theory which suggests that, on the basis of pagan or Jewish influences, they
sincerely
came to believe in and preached his resurrection.

4.
Less contrived:
The Conspiracy Hypothesis—like all conspiracy theories of history—is contrived in supposing that what all the evidence seems to support is, in fact, mere appearance only, to be explained away by hypotheses for which there is no evidence. Specifically, it postulates motives and ideas and actions on the part of the earliest disciples for which we do not have a shred of evidence. It can become quite elaborately contrived, as hypotheses are multiplied to ward off objections to the theory; for example, positing massive collusion to account for the appearance to the five hundred brethren, or inventing reasons to explain the unexpected role of women in the empty tomb and appearance stories.

5.
Disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs:
The Conspiracy Hypothesis is disconfirmed by our general knowledge of conspiracies, for they tend to be unstable and to unravel over time. Moreover, the hypothesis is disconfirmed by widely accepted beliefs about the disciples’ sincerity, first century Jewish messianic expectations, and so on.

6.
Exceeds other hypotheses in fulfilling conditions 1—5:
Obviously this condition is not met, since there are hypotheses (such as the Hallucination Hypothesis), which don’t dismiss the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection as a blatant lie and therefore do a better job of meeting the criteria.

No scholar defends the Conspiracy Hypothesis today. The only place you read about such notions is in the popular, sensationalist press or on the Internet.

APPARENT DEATH
HYPOTHESIS

Biblical critics floated the Apparent Death Hypothesis early in the nineteenth century. They suggested that when Jesus was taken down from the cross, he wasn’t really dead, but merely unconscious. He revived in the tomb and somehow escaped to convince his disciples he had risen from the dead. Once more, let’s see how this hypothesis fares when assessed by our criteria for the best explanation:

1.
Explanatory scope:
The Apparent Death Hypothesis does provides explanations for the empty tomb, post-mortem appearances, and origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection and so has adequate explanatory scope. That’s a point in its favor.

2.
Explanatory power:
Here, the theory begins to break down. Some of the Apparent Death Hypotheses offered by critics were really versions of the old Conspiracy Hypothesis. Instead of stealing the body, the disciples (and sometimes Jesus himself!) were supposed to be part of a conspiracy to fake Jesus’ death on the cross. These versions of the theory therefore share all of the weaknesses of the Conspiracy Hypothesis.

A non-conspiratorial version of the theory was that Jesus happened to survive the crucifixion by sheer luck. This version of the hypothesis is also saddled with insurmountable problems; for example, how do you explain Jesus’ empty tomb, since a man sealed inside couldn’t move the massive stone lodged over the entrance? How do you explain Jesus’ resurrection appearances, since a half-dead man desperately in need of medical attention would hardly have led the disciples to believe that he was the Risen Lord and conqueror of Death? How do you explain the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection, since their seeing him again would lead them only to conclude that he had managed to cheat death, not that he was, contrary to Jewish thought (as well as their own eyes), gloriously risen from the dead?

3.
Plausibility:
The Apparent Death Hypothesis is terribly implausible. Roman executioners could be relied upon to make sure that their victims were dead! Since it’s difficult to discern the precise moment of death by crucifixion, Roman executioners sometimes ensured death by a spear thrust into the victim’s side. This is what happened Jesus’ case (John 19:34). Moreover, the scenario that the hypothesis imagines is virtually impossible, medically speaking.

The Jewish historian Josephus tells how, when three men he knew were crucified, he managed to have them taken down from their crosses. Despite the best medical attention, two of the three died anyway.
¹⁷
The extent of Jesus’ tortures was such that he could not plausibly have survived the crucifixion and entombment. And the idea that a man so critically wounded then went on to appear to the disciples on various occasions in both Jerusalem and Galilee is sheer fantasy.

4.
Less contrived:
The Apparent Death Hypothesis, especially in its conspiratorial versions, can become unbelievably contrived. We’re supposed to imagine secret societies conspiring to fake Jesus’ death, stealthily administered potions, conspiratorial alliances between Jesus’ disciples and members of the Sanhedrin, and so forth, all with not a scrap of evidence in support.

5.
Disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs:
The Apparent Death Hypothesis is massively disconfirmed by what biology and modern medicine tell us about the pathology of a person who has been scourged and crucified. The unanimous evidence that Jesus did not continue to live among his disciples after his crucifixion also dis-confirms it.

6.
Exceeds other hypotheses in fulfilling conditions 1—5:
The Apparent Death Hypothesis utterly fails this criterion. It has virtually no defenders among New Testament historians today.

DISPLACED BODY
HYPOTHESIS

One of the few modern Jewish attempts to explain the facts concerning Jesus’ fate was Joseph Klausner’s proposal in 1922 that Joseph of Arimathea placed Jesus’ body in his tomb only temporarily, because of the lateness of the hour and the proximity of his own family tomb to the place of Jesus’ crucifixion. Klausner goes on to say that Joseph moved the corpse later to the common graveyard reserved for criminals. Unaware that Jesus’ body had been displaced, the unwitting disciples, finding the tomb empty, inferred that Jesus was risen from the dead.