Yesterday, in “Was the Tomb Empty? Yes, it is a fact” we started with scientist and professor Alice Roberts reminding us that “dead people – don’t come back to life.”
And of course this is true—generally.
But we do need to deal with the sticky fact that the tomb of Jesus was empty.
If the tomb was empty, maybe it is because something else happened. Something beside Jesus actually being raised from the dead.
So let’s look six explanations, and offer some responses.
Six Explanations
Explanation #1: Disciples Stole the Body
This was mentioned yesterday. The high priests were worried the disciples might pull something so they asked Pilate to station Roman soldiers at the tomb.
Now, Roman soldiers were professional killers who knew how to guard something. And they were severely punished for not doing what they were ordered to do (notice how the high priests said they would cover for the soldier, but they knew punishment would be coming (Matt. 28:14)).
Are we to believe that the disciples of Jesus, who just a day before totally scattered before imperial power, later rallied and defeated the Roman soldiers?
That would take a lot of faith!
Fact: The disciples didn’t over power Roman guards to steal the body.
Explanation #2: Jesus didn’t really die.
This explanation says that Jesus was mostly dead. But means, “slightly alive” (thank you The Princess Bride).
But did I mention that Roman soldiers were professional killers, in the hand to hand, body on body, kind of way?
A Roman soldier knows the difference between a mostly dead person, and a dead person. And if they are supposed to kill someone, they know how to make that happen.
This explanation would take a lot of faith.
Fact: Jesus was all the way dead.
Explanation #3: Disciples Saw or Experienced a Ghost or Vision of Jesus in their grief.
This explanation (and the next two) suggests that the reason the disciples believed Jesus was alive is that they witnessed him alive—and therefore began preaching that the tomb was empty.
This account makes two assumptions.
1) The first assumption is that the disciples—and ancient people generally—didn’t know the difference between ghosts and real people.
But this trades on the idea that ancient people are stupid, not knowing the difference between reality and illusion.
Now certainly we, in the modern west, might draw the line between fact and fiction differently than the ancient world (and different from those outside the west).
But that doesn’t mean ancient people didn’t know the difference between a real person who they thought was dead and now see alive, and the experience of a ghost.
2) The second assumption is that the disciples—and ancient people generally—didn’t know that grieve is hard work and instead placed their grief and disappointment on ghost stories.
But this again trades on the idea we modern people are so much better than ancient people—as if ancient people didn’t know how to deal with the trauma of death except by fabricating illusions (consciously or unconsciously).
All this to say, if an ancient person encountered someone they saw die, they were perfectly able to understand that they encountered the “spirit”, the “angel” or the “ghost” of the departed one. These were perfectly clear and well established categories then (and now).
Fact: No one in the ancient world would, on seeing an apparition of a dead person, would think to say that “so-and-so” was resurrected from the dead.
Explanation #4: Jesus only appeared to people that believed in him.
This explanation is a variation on the above one. In their grief, the disciples saw Jesus because they really wanted to see him as not dead.
The problem is that Jesus appeared to “doubting” Thomas who had been given the chance to join the game, but refused. Only after his encounter with the Risen Jesus did he believe.
And Jesus appeared to Saul (who became Paul), a person who was trying to kill Jesus followers.
Fact: Jesus didn’t just appear to people primed to see what they wished to see.
Explanation #5: The Disciples had a collective hallucination.
The disciple were tricked into thinking that Jesus was raised from the dead because of a collective hallucination.
Thankfully, this explanation has died out (because of science).
Fact: Psychologists know there is no such thing as a collective hallucination—so to use this to explain (away) the empty tomb is really an act of faith.
Explanation #6: The biblical accounts are unreliable.
For many this is the “get out of jail free” card for evidence and realities they don’t like.
Two things to note about this explanation about the empty tomb (that it was just written into the text later)
First, most of what we know about world history, in all cultures, would be lost if we flippantly apply the “the Bible is biased” criteria to all history.
All historical documents are biased in some way. But they are still evidence and reliable up to a point.
Second, this view doesn’t really help because the empty tomb was preached, believed, and spread across the Roman world immediately after the death of Jesus.
This all happen a good 20-50 years BEFORE the Gospels in the Bible were written.
So the question of the why the primitive church preached and lived such a thing still needs to be answered or explained.
To Sum Up
The resurrection accounts ARE NOT accounts that people made up to consul themselves in their grief.
The ancient world knew about grief. They knew about how to talk about the spirit of someone living on through the memory of the community, or through the honor sung or written about them. The ancient world knew about ghosts and spirits.
But what people won’t do, and what the Christians did do, was claim that a departed loved one was raised from the dead.
To Believe Or Not to Believe
Of course at this point, it isn’t really a matter of faith versus reason. Sure it takes faith to believe the resurrection of Jesus happened. But it takes just as much faith to believe the explanations for why it didn’t happen.
As N. T. Wright says so clearly in Surprised by Hope:
In any other historical inquiry, the answer would be so obvious that it would hardly need saying. Here, of course, this obvious answer (“well, it actually happened”) is so shocking, so earth shattering, that we rightly pause before leaping into the unknown. And here indeed, as some skeptical friends have cheerfully pointed out to me, it is always possible for anyone to follow the argument so far and to say simply, “I don’t have a good explanation for what happened to cause the empty tomb and the appearances, but I choose to maintain my belief that dead people don’t rise and therefore conclude that something else must have happened, even though we can’t tell what it was.” That is fine; I respect that position; but I simply note that it is indeed a matter of choice. (63)
— This post is part of my new Grassroots Christianity project, which seeks to “grow the faith of everyday Christians.” Please get the FREE Grassroots Christian Manifesto here so you know miss future posts. —