I recently heard an atheist equate the apostles’ and followers’ testimonies of seeing Jesus after He rose from the dead as similar to Elvis appearances.
There’s a problem with this, though.
How many people are willing to be killed for their belief that they saw Elvis?
After Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have stories of early Christian suffering in the New Testament. James the apostle was killed for his faith very soon after Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 12:1-2). Peter and other apostles were flogged for their beliefs (Acts 5:40). During Jesus’ ministry, He warns His followers that people will hurt them because of their faith (see Matthew 10:17-38, Matthew 24:4-14, John 15:18-27, John 13:12-17). Before Jesus ascends to Heaven, He tells Peter he will be killed for his faith (John 21:18-19).
We also have historical accounts about how early followers died. (See a list of primary sources at the end of this blog.)
Lee Strobel makes a great point in a clip from a sermon on The Case for Easter. Just because people are willing to die for something does not mean they are right. Suicide bombers, for example, aren’t right to kill people just because they are willing to die.
But here’s the big difference between this example and the early apostles: Suicide bombers are basing their information on what they have heard or read. The early apostles were willing to die for something they claimed they saw happen! This was not a case of reading or hearing misinformation. This was a case of being witnesses to the greatest miracle of all time! They certainly weren’t dying in ignorance!
So why would anyone die for a hoax—especially since the hoax was based on the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and so they would one day be raised from the dead, too! Why would anyone want to die hopelessly for a belief they knew was a lie and certainly would be of no benefit to them or anyone else once they were dead?
Furthermore, the apostles were not the only people who claimed to see Jesus after He was resurrected. Paul, a man who suffered terribly for his faith (2 Corinthians 11:24-29) was so confident in this fact that he refers doubters to the more than 500 people who saw Jesus after He died (1 Corinthians 15:6)!
It is a well-documented fact that the early Christians were persecuted (I wondered if it was–see Primary sources as evidence for persecution).
So in order to claim a hoax, someone would have to claim that the apostles and early followers “hoaxed” people into believing in the resurrected Christ and then did not—somehow, someway—themselves die. But this goes against history.
And anyway, what would the early followers have to gain from this? They were not getting power and status or wealth from their claims—just the opposite! They were losing power and status in society and becoming poor! The apostles (not including Paul, since he had not been converted yet) were flogged (Acts 5:40) and Paul endured many tribulations (2 Corinthians 11:24-29).
Second of all, if you were part of a movement of thousands of new believers with at the hub 500+ people who claimed they saw the resurrected Jesus . . . and all around you Christians were being thrown in jail, ostracized, suffering, and killed . . . but none of the 500+ people who claimed they saw Jesus were a part of this persecution . . . what would you think about that?
And furthermore, in order for none of the 500+ people who claimed they saw Jesus to have been persecuted along with the other believers, they would have had to renounce their faith. And, in spite of this, the early Christians would have had to be willing to continue their faith.
Is this a reasonable argument? I think not. (For more information, see Dr. William Lane Craig’s book Reasonable Faith or his website reasonablefaith.org.) So was the apostles’ and early followers’ testimony a hoax? No way.
Someone may say, Well, what if the persecution of all the early Christians was made up? But you would have to believe this in spite of the primary sources (see list at the end of the blog), not including the primary sources within the New Testament.
So there is no way 500+ people were lying and there was some kind of amazing conspiracy, based simply on the terrible persecution the early church suffered. People don’t pretend to see something and then stand by it when they have to suffer and die for it.
So there could only be one of two possible reasons for their willingness to die that I can come up with:
1. 500+ people hallucinated the resurrection.
2. 500+ people saw Jesus raised from the dead.
If you believe it was a hallucination, what a hallucination it must have been: multiple occasions, widespread, and willing to die for! And somehow, when everyone was hallucinating, they all came to the conclusion that they were seeing an alive person, rather than a ghost.
To show how strange this would be, suppose I hallucinated that I saw my dad (who died several years ago). If I saw my dad, my belief would not be that he had been resurrected and was here with me, even though I believe in resurrection. Why wouldn’t I think he’d been resurrected? I believe the resurrection will come at the end of time. So actually, did the Jews (who believed in resurrection–some didn’t believe it at all), the ethnic group all the apostles came from.
I might think my father’s soul had come to me, but I wouldn’t believe he was resurrected unless I saw him and touched him over a long time period (and with witnesses would be a plus). Otherwise, I would think I’d either had a heavenly visit or I had hallucinated or dreamed.
I am not an expert in hallucinations, but I did run a high fever one time as a child and hallucinated a knight standing beside my bed. The hallucination was:
- Blurry
- Sight only
- Not something I believed when my fever was reduced
If I saw my dad, I would afterwards probably believe I had been dreaming or hallucinating. But if I saw my dad, and I could wrap my arms around him, and he took me to play mini-golf, and he came back another time when I was with my friends and talked with us, and he came another time when I was at church and everybody there saw him . . . I would change my opinion from a hallucination to a reality.
If the 500+ people who saw Jesus after He was resurrected were hallucinating . . . why didn’t they come to their senses later and recant? And if they were really crazy enough to hallucinate someone on multiple occasions and interact with that person . . . how in the world were they sane enough to write the four Gospels? How in the world were they believable enough to get such a huge following? And how in the world did Peter and Paul convince so many outside people they had healing powers? Was that all hallucination, too?
But this isn’t sounding like mere hallucination at all. This is sounding like schizophrenia.
Have you ever been around someone who is afflicted by schizophrenic? Did you find him/her to be believable for very long? Could you imagine him/her going out in public and gathering support by the thousands?
There’s no getting around it: to claim the witnesses to Jesus Christ’s resurrection resembles in any way people who claim Elvis sightings has no basis in truth and trivializes the testimony of the early Christians who were willing to leave everything, suffer, and even to die for their Savior and God.
Paul was so confident in the fact of Christ’s resurrection that when people questioned whether the dead would be raised back to life for judgment and eternal destiny, he guaranteed:
And if Christ has not risen, it follows that what we preach is a delusion, and that your faith also is a delusion.
(1 Corinthians 15:14, Weymouth NT)
And it was this same confidence that led Paul to say:
For this [gospel] I was appointed a herald, apostle, and teacher, and that is why I suffer these things. But I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.
(2 Timothy 1:11-12, HCSB)
Primary sources as evidence for persecution
(found at http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/persecution.php)
Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs
Cyprian, Letters 11.1; 24; 55.14; 67.1; 75.10; 77-80.
Cyprian, To Fortunatus.
Cyprian, To the Lapsed 8; 25; 27
Eusebius, Church History 2.10, 22-23, 25; 3.12, 17-19, 32-33, 36; 4.9, 12-17; 5.1-5, 21; 6.1-2, 4-5, 28, 39-42; 7.1-4, 10-13, 15, 30; 8.1-10.5.14.
Eusebius, Life of Constantine 1.27-32; 2.34, 53.
Eusebius, Martyrs of Palestine 3.1; 4-6; 8.1.5-13; 9.2-11.31
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.195-203.
Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 68.
Justin Martyr, 2 Apology 2.
Lactantius. On the Deaths of the Persecutors 6; 10-13; 15.6; 16.4; 48.2-12
Martydom of Polycarp.
H. Musurillo, editor & translator. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972. pp. lxxiii + 377.
Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom.
Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas.
Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96, 97.
Pseudo-Cyprian, Glory of Martyrdom.
Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars (Claudius 25, Nero 16, Domitian 15)
Tacitus, Annals 15.44.
Tertullian, Apology 1-5.
Tertullian, Crown 1.1
Tertullian, To The Heathen 1.6-7.
Tertullian, To the Martyrs.
Books for more information on the Resurrection
The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona
The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright
The Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf
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as a “kid’s story”. A coloring page. An opportunity to sell plush whales with little men inside.
he has, at times, been what I would call an Old MacDonald’s prayer tosser.
think it really worked, because I still have the very, very repetitive melody stuck in my head. (Think 80’s-workout-song-meets-commercial-jingle and you’ve come about as close as I can get you.)
had a time where you idolized someone, saw that person as your rescue, or looked up at them as a role model . . . only to have your adoration come crashing back down on your head?
gracestories 