As everyone will be well aware, there are many opponents of the Christian faith today, who deny that Jesus rose from the dead.
Some of these people argue that the first Christians genuinely believed that Jesus’ resurrection happened but were mistaken. Others argue that the story of Jesus’ resurrection began as a lie.
In what follows, I want to say something about this second idea, that the resurrection story began as a lie. As we will see, this idea is extremely implausible and should be ruled out. It just doesn’t make sense.
Many early Christians claimed to have seen the risen Jesus
The first thing we need to understand clearly is that many of the first Christians claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead.
They include the early Christian leader called Paul, who wrote quite a lot of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul stated:
‘3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that, he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 And last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he appeared also to me.’
So Paul is claiming here that Jesus appeared to him and to many others of the first Christians after he rose from the dead. And it is worth noting that there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins, whether or not they are Christians themselves, that Paul himself genuinely wrote this.
There is no good reason for doubting that Paul would have been quite well informed about which other Christians claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus.
We know that Paul knew a number of the others he refers to in his list in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8.
In
verses 5 and 7, he says that the risen Jesus appeared to Cephas (i.e., Peter)
and James (i.e., James the brother of Jesus, as scholars widely agree). In
Galatians
There is plenty of other evidence too which makes it highly likely that Paul knew others among the apostles he refers to in v. 7.
To cut a long story short, scholars agree that Paul knew at least several of the people he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and that he probably knew many of them.
There are good reasons for thinking, then, that in this passage Paul is accurately giving a list of early Christians who claimed they had seen the risen Jesus.
Unsurprisingly, there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins that many of the first Christians claimed they had seen Jesus risen from the dead.
The suffering of early Christians who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus
The next thing we need to understand clearly is that many of the first Christians suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians, and that this certainly included some of those who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead.
Paul himself was one of these people. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 he lists the sufferings he experienced because he was a Christian:
‘23 . . . [I have been] in far more labours, in far more imprisonments, beaten countless times, often in danger of death. 24 Five times from the Jews I have received the thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I have been beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, I have spent a night and a day in the sea. 26 I have been on many journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from bandits, dangers from my own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brothers, 27 in toil and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and nakedness. 28 Apart from such external things, I have daily troubling concerns about all the churches.’
Again, it is worth noting that there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins, whether or not they are Christians themselves, that Paul himself genuinely wrote this and that he is being honest about what he experienced.
There is wide agreement also that Peter, James and the other apostles, who are on Paul’s list of people who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians. And there is also wide agreement that some non-apostles who made this claim suffered in this way too.
People
don’t go on suffering for something they invented as a lie
So we have seen that many early Christians claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. And we have also seen that some of those who made this claim suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians.
The crucial point here is that people simply don’t spend years suffering badly for something they have invented as a lie. It just wouldn’t be worth it.
If someone claimed that they saw Jesus risen from the dead, when in fact they knew that they hadn’t, one beating or one spell in prison would be enough for them to abandon this claim. Either they would admit they had invented it, or they would just keep quiet and go and do something else with their life. They wouldn’t keep saying that Jesus rose, bringing more and more suffering on themself. So the fact that they did keep saying this must have been because they believed it.
The idea that Jesus’ disciples stole his body from the tomb and invented the resurrection appearances is therefore not a reasonable one. Instead, we should have no hesitation in saying that the early Christians genuinely believed that Jesus rose from the dead.
The resurrection story did not begin as a deception by Jesus
Occasionally people suggest that Jesus might actually have survived his crucifixion, and that this could explain the origin of the story of his resurrection. Under this theory, it would be Jesus himself who plotted a big deception.
This idea should be totally rejected, however.
First, it is extremely unlikely that someone sentenced to death by the Romans would have survived.
Second, even if, for the sake of argument, we were to suppose that Jesus survived crucifixion, we would have to assume that in his badly injured condition he then hatched a plot to deceive his followers by pretending to rise from the dead, a plot he succeeded in implementing! This is impossibly implausible.
Summing up
In short, although there are many who claim that the story of Jesus’ resurrection is based on a lie, this simply doesn’t make sense of the evidence.
The idea that so many of the first Christians suffered so much for something they knew was a lie should be ruled out. And the idea that Jesus survived his crucifixion and then managed to trick his followers into believing that he had risen from the dead is just as implausible.
See also:
A Very Strong Piece of Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus
The Resurrection of Jesus and Probability
Two Things about Atheism That Everyone Should Consider
Are the Old
Testament and New Testament Portraits of God Contradictory?
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.