The Resurrection of Jesus: Alternative Theories, part 1: Minor Issues

If by now the implication of the resurrection looks obvious, that's great. But whether or not you see it that way, I still have to, of course, deal with other explanations people can come up with. Please keep in mind that some of the titles for them below originate from me and so you might not find the name anywhere else.

The Social Welfare Theory: "...we have lots of instances in history of people dying for lies when they think it will serve the greater good." (1) My immediate question is, how does anyone know this? What did they do, question their corpses? I don't really trust when Bart Ehrman says things like this, which I will explain in more detail below, but it doesn't matter. 

I categorize this with an objection from Antony Flew, not from his two debates with Gary Habermas but when he commented on one which was just generally over the existence of any God. He brought up the "Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection" (Matt. 22:23, KJV)(2). 

So imagine if the Disciples were Sadducees, and didn't need to worry about their martyrdom because it all would come to nothing -- more specifically, it didn't only matter in that life but also in the life to come, because "eternal corruption" from Daniel 12:2 would be denied. 

I really find this as an ad hoc argument, because I think the Sadducees were a minority, although I'm not sure. Also, I would think that just because someone disbelieves in an afterlife, they wouldn't decide to lie about God. But I really didn't bother to check all that out because of this response. 

It is hard to imagine how the Disciples, beaten men, would decide to get off their duffs and start a new religion based on a false Messiah. Where's the motivation? And it makes no sense that this would be for the greater good: they would just be asking others to risk persecution. Why waste their momentary life?

So it is practically impossible for humans to do such a thing. That means, they would have to have been convinced before telling others to believe because they saw Him.

Furthermore, it is interesting that Paul practically answered this objection himself: "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost." (1 Cor. 15:12, 17-18) 

See, the Disciples wouldn't think that it's either Christ has been raised, or no one will ever be raised. Rather, them being convinced would have proven to them that the denial of resurrection was wrong, and passages like Daniel 12:2 were real. They either preach a true resurrected Messiah and will be raised in glory, or preach a blasphemous lie and will be raised to corruption. And the same is for all their followers. 

Also, this would only explain the Disciples experiences. The appearance to Mary happened before them, James wasn't in the Christian community and so would see their faith as something which would curse him, and Paul was a Pharisee, as he explicitly says. And the tomb is not emptied by someone's wishful thinking, although I guess they could steal the body so others could buy the lie. But that would just drive in the reality of their dead faith and ginormous reason for having no motivation.

The Wrong Person Theory: This comes in two forms: a conscious masquerader or the followers of Jesus mistaking someone else for Him by accident. 

Let's imagine that someone decided to steal Jesus's body, and then posed in front of Mary, the Disciples, and James. Well, for starters someone would have to have a motive. What's the point? Moreover, why would they impersonate a person crucified by the Romans and Jewish leaders? What if they get caught? What if God (or the gods) think poorly of you for trying to convince others that a crucified person ("a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles"; 1 Cor. 1:23) is their anointed one? Even if they only were disguised for a few hours, it would be rather unnerving. 

But they also would have to be able to persuade everyone they were Jesus. They would have to copy Jesus's mannerisms, speech, and appearance. James is his brother and the eleven Disciples were his closest followers, after all. And Mary was a dedicated follower. It's hard to imagine someone else being capable to even try to attempt this if they weren't a follower themself. And if they had believed in Jesus, why would they try to fool his people? Even if they were convinced (say, the tomb was empty because someone else stole it, so they think he rose from the dead and need to prove this to others), why don't they let Jesus handle it? 

As for someone else just unintentionally looking like Jesus to them, John Ankerberg, who hosted the last debate between Flew and Habermas, observed: "But surely they would have quickly recognized their error when conversing with the stranger or at least seeing him close up." (3) The idea that no one would have to really do much to fool them that they were Jesus doesn't work because it's not powerful enough. I will advance on that point in the next post. 

Finally, I once thought of a theory which says some Christian tried to fool Paul into thinking Jesus had been risen from the dead so he would stop persecuting them. But Paul surely wouldn't fall for someone walking up to him and being like, "Hi, I'm Jesus!" Paul would actually know this claim was bogus (he was convinced there was NO WAY a crucified man was vindicated by God), and so the person just committed suicide. No, for Paul there needs to be an undeniably supernatural experience, like the vision described in Acts 9:1-8, 22:6-11, and 26:12-18. He got knocked to the ground, off his horse, by Jesus, who also said powerful words to him. What did the Christians do to fake this? Get a projector and microphone, and trap Paul so it would work? 

Citations:

1. Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne: 2014), 165.

2. J.P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, Does God Exist? The Debate Between Theists and Atheists (Prometheus Books: 1993), 164.
3. Gary R. Habermas and Antony Flew, Resurrected? An Atheist and Theist in Dialogue, John F. Ankerberg edition (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, inc: 2005), 104.