Did Jesus rise from the dead? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
This chapter is about the resurrection and it is written by Ed Atkinson. He and I had a few debates on the Unbelievable Facebook page when I was there. It was kind of reliving the past to go through this chapter. Let’s look at an early part right off.
First, let’s step back for a moment. How can we know, with even remote certainty, what happened 2,000 years ago? Let’s imagine the parallel idea from Derren Brown that Justin quoted, and expanded here with my imagination. In about 1940, in an African outpost under the control of the British Empire, a new sect emerged. It was claimed that their leader had come back from the dead after being killed in the War serving the Axis Powers. Furthermore, it seems that he had apparently appeared and even had meals with some of his followers before vanishing permanently. Unfortunately, we have no records from the time but there is an authentic letter by a follower who was close to the original witnesses. This letter, stamped 1965, briefly lists the leader’s appearances1. Then there is silence until the 1980s, at which point, religious tracts about the affair start to be published in London. These now describe a missing body as well as post-death appearances but there are large discrepancies in their description of the events. The first outsider to write about it that we know of was a specialist historian2 who was native to that country – he was born in the 1940s, left for London in 1980 and wrote about it in the 2000s but there is good reason to think his words have been corrupted by sect members. That story roughly matches what we have as source documents for the resurrection, but with a change of geographical setting and with the dates moved from 30AD to 1940.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
This might sound similar to some people, but it’s hardly an analogy seeing as we are talking about different types of cultures. The 1940’s is a post-Gutenberg time and the 40’s would have some basic abilities with cameras and even some video cameras. Nothing sophisticated, but certainly far different from the time of Jesus.
Jesus lived in an oral culture and what we get is within the first century, four biographies about His life, a historiography written as a continuation of one biography, and numerous epistles. We have far less for figures that we don’t really doubt at all and most ancient historians would be thrilled to have something like this.
Historians of the classical world don’t even make a tentative conclusion when the evidence is as weak as this. One example is the death of Nero’s mother Agrippina. There are surviving stories by respected Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius who wrote 60 to 70 years later, which is equivalent to the time gap between the resurrection and the last of the New Testament gospels, John. However, modern historians consider the circumstances of Agrippina’s death as largely unknown because the accounts contradict each other, are generally fantastical and display anti-Nero bias.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
Unfortunately, these historians are not named and we are talking about one incident in one person’s life as opposed to a whole account of the life. Our biographies of Alexander the Great come centuries later and they are based on accounts that we don’t have access too and yet, they are considered reliable. Again, most historians would love to have four biographies like this of any figure in the ancient world within at the most two generations. The dating of someone like John A.T. Robinson in Redating the New Testament has not been answered.
Atkinson goes on to write about Gary Habermas’s data for the minimal facts saying:
Meanwhile Gary’s website says “there is approximately a 3:1 ratio of works that fall into the category that we have dubbed the moderate conservative position, as compared to more skeptical treatments.” So 75% of scholars are conservative Christians and 25% are everyone else: non-conservative Christians, agnostics and unbelievers.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
I emailed Gary about this who referred to this as a bad reading of his work. There are non-conservative Christians who hold to the Empty Tomb and a strong view of the resurrection. There is also a confusion between moderate and conservative. With Habermas’s works being published on this book by book, we can expect there will be more coming. (I do have a copy of the first book and will start it after finishing the Larry Hurtado one I’m reading.)
Atkinson talks about the creed in 1 Cor. 15 and says
Paul is probably quoting a creed which implies that it should be dated well before the approximate 55AD date of this letter, but I don’t see why that means ‘the very inception of the church’ as Justin claims.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
Well, let’s see if there are any historians that disagree with this and think it goes back to a very early time.
Michael Goulder (Atheist NT Prof. at Birmingham) “…it goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.” [“The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in Gavin D’Costa, editor, Resurrection Reconsidered (Oxford, 1996), 48.]
Gerd Lüdemann (Atheist Prof of NT at Göttingen): “…the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus…not later than three years… the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in I Cor.15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE.” [The Resurrection of Jesus, trans. by Bowden (Fortress, 1994), 171-72.]
Robert Funk (Non-Christian scholar, founder of the Jesus Seminar): “…The conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead had already taken root by the time Paul was converted about 33 C.E. On the assumption that Jesus died about 30 C.E., the time for development was thus two or three years at most.” [Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus, 466.]
The answer is no. Because there is no refutation of this claim—other than “maybe possibly it originated later,” which is the logical fallacy of possibiliter ergo probabiliter (“it’s possible, therefore it’s probable,” see Proving History, index). In fact the evidence for this creed dating to the very origin of the religion is amply strong; and there is no reasonable basis for claiming otherwise.”- Atheist apologist Richard Carrier. https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/11069?fbclid=IwAR117qqt7FpRYjhse2w4Gf3R7foF26MVFPfJeMIoEP4FtP0hnNM-WayuXAY
None of these are Christians. James Dunn even says it comes within a few months of the Easter event.
When Atkinson gets to his explanation of the appearances, it’s to no surprise, hallucinations.
I will nail my colours to the mast and use the scientific term ‘hallucination’ for a vivid vision of Jesus. The first thing to say is that hallucinations are common: about 15% percent of the global population experiences them. They are more likely to occur with increasing age, which seems not to apply here, but they are also associated with factors such as stress, grief, trauma and anguish which do. The two most frequent types of hallucination are of a recently deceased loved one (usually a spouse after a long marriage) and of a respected religious figure.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
Except hallucinations like this don’t lead to the belief that the person is alive. They more lead to the belief that the person is dead. Besides this, it’s usually shortly after that unless a person is in an advanced state of dementia, they know they had a hallucination. We knew my great aunt was in such a state when she kept insisting she had four cats that she saw when she only had one.
Research by resurrection proponents such as N T Wright has shown that first century Jews, like the disciples, generally had a physical understanding of resurrection, and so a ghostly vision is probably not sufficient. But hallucinations are not mere ghostly visions. The American Psychiatric Association’s well-known manual, “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”, describes hallucinations as ‘a sensory perception that has the compelling sense of reality of a true perception but that occurs without external stimulation’. (Note that sensory perception includes all of the senses, not just vision.) And here is a quote from ‘Tara’, a contributor to the discussions on the Unbelievable? show’s website, she wrote after the October 2015 episode on the resurrection: “I’ve had two new patients just this week that have told me about their ‘visiting’ spouses. By the way, no one yet has talked about them as appearing ghostly ……. and I’ve heard dozens of accounts. Instead, they describe them as seeming very lifelike, as if the spouse is there in complete physicality.”14
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
But did Tara talk about anyone going to dig up the coffin and see the dead person was no longer there? No one is doubting hallucinations happen. What is being doubted is that they are capable of explaining the data.
Hallucinations are only individual experiences and group hallucinations with the same content are not reported in the scientific literature. But the key,1 Corinthians 15 creed mentions at least one group experience and the passage it sits within has two more group experiences, one of which is an appearance to more than 500 people. Even if the appearance to the Twelve means one by one, it is seriously implausible that they each had a hallucination of Jesus. This is the reason Justin gives for completely dismissing hallucinations as an explanation. To me the best explanation is that the first individual experiences of ‘the risen Jesus’ would prime the others. I use ‘priming’ here partly because it is a jargon term from psychology, where it refers to how our behaviour or judgements can be changed by subtle stimuli including the behaviour of others.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
Except Atkinson has it backwards. The first data we have here is the largest number of appearances and yet when we get to the Gospels, the number of people seeing Jesus doesn’t get larger, but rather it gets smaller. If the “legend” was being built over time, why would it be this way?
There are many potential examples in recent history, such as appearances of the Virgin Mary to crowds of believers. Once the expectation is set up that Mary will appear, then the slightest stimulus will be interpreted as an appearance and reported as such to others. That is just human nature.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
But here, Atkinson can be arguing what he wants to demonstrate. Let’s take a Marian apparition. It is up to Atkinson to demonstrate absolutely nothing was seen. Can he do that? Even a Protestant like myself could say something was seen. Perhaps it was a demon even. That still would be something that would be seen. I can’t speak for any one vision. I would have to see them on a case-by-case basis.
Of course, no skeptical account would be complete without those two favorite words that skeptics love to use.
There is another possible factor to throw in the pot here: Cognitive Dissonance. It can be summarised: “A key tenet of cognitive dissonance theory is that those who have heavily invested in a position may, when confronted with disconfirming evidence, go to greater lengths to justify their position.”24. The study of cognitive dissonance began with Leon Festinger’s 1956 book, “When Prophecy Fails”25. Leon and fellow researchers heard of a cult led by a Chicago housewife. The cult believed that they had received messages from a planet named Clarion, and these messages revealed that the world would end in a great flood before dawn on December 21, 1954, and also that a UFO would rescue the group of true believers. Festinger and his colleagues joined the group. Then the appointed time came ……….. and …………. passed without incident. The cult members faced acute cognitive dissonance: had they been the victims of a hoax? Had they donated their worldly possessions in vain? Most members chose to believe something less dissonant in order to resolve their inner tension: they believed that the aliens had given Earth a second chance and that the group was now empowered to spread the word that Earth-spoiling must stop. The group dramatically, and immediately, increased their proselytising as a direct response to the failed prophecy.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
Well, I have read When Prophecy Fails, which is the account of this event. Unfortunately, it was hardly a valid study in some ways because the researchers actually actively interfered in the events. That is not to say the theory is not without any credibility, but this is not the best instance. Not only that, but normally when this happens, the group doesn’t grow beyond its number at the start. The exact opposite happened with Christianity.
As for Paul:
However, there is still the need to explain Paul’s experience. We can assume that there were many early opponents of Christianity, all of whom were exposed to the preaching, hope and fearlessness of the apostles. And people do convert. So it should not be a surprise that one of the opponents converted. Paul himself seemed to be prone to visions: he was later “caught up to the third heaven” in a visionary experience, so his conversion being prompted by a vision is not so remarkable. An alternative, more cynical take, is that both Paul and his ‘biographer’ in Acts, needed to emphasise his credentials as a leading apostle and being an eyewitness of the risen Christ was one key criterion.
Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.
But what could we assume this based on? How do we know there were many early opponents doing what Paul was doing? We have no record of them at all. If such was actively going on regularly, why would Pliny write years later unsure of what to do about these people instead of just following regular protocol?
As for a vision, why would Paul have this vision of Jesus? A guilt complex is not fitting in the ancient society of Jesus. Our idea of a guilty conscience would not be understood by the people of the time. Paul also had nothing to gain and everything to lose.
There is material on the empty tomb. Unfortunately, like Bart Ehrman’s work in How Jesus Became God, there is no interaction with scholars in the field on this. Ehrman doesn’t cite any scholars specializing in Jewish burial practices at the time. Neither does Atkinson. I will not play that game.
“Jesus came from a modest family that presumably could not afford a rock- cut tomb. Had Joseph not offered to accommodate Jesus’ body his tomb (according to the Gospel accounts) Jesus likely would have been disposed in the manner of the lower classes: in a pit grave or trench grave dug into the ground. When the Gospels tell us that Joseph of Arimathea offered Jesus a spot in his tomb, it is because Jesus’ family did not own a rock- cut tomb and there was no time to prepare a grave- that is there was no time to dig a grave, not hew a rock cut tomb(!)—before the Sabbath. It is not surprising that Joseph, who is described as a wealthy and perhaps even a member of the Sanhedrin, had a rock-cut family tomb. The Gospel accounts seem to describe Joseph placing Jesus’ body in one of the loculi in his family’s tomb. (Jodi Magness, Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus, pg 170)
“There is no need to assume that the Gospel accounts of Joseph of Arimathea offering Jesus a place in this family tomb are legendary or apologetic. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’s burial appear to be largely consistent with the archeological evidence” ( Magness, pg 171)
“When every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be that the opinions of the orthodox, the liberal sympathizer and the critical agnostic alike—and even perhaps of the disciples themselves—are simply interpretations of the one disconcerting fact: namely that the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation, not a body, but an empty tomb.”
-Geza Vermes Jesus the Jew 41
There is also the idea that Arimathea means best disciple town. The Greek word for disciple is mathetes, but that is as far as this idea goes. The idea has never really caught on with Greek scholars and Atkinson gives no sources for this claim.
In conclusion, I remain unconvinced by Atkinson.
Next time, we shall return to Sophie who continues her testimony.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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