Intro to Apologetics Series: Objections to the Resurrection
I have
been feeling recently that I needed to get back to basics for apologetics, as
my original intent of this blog was to communicate what I have learned as I
studied apologetics. I don’t discount my more recent work, but I may have been
getting into a rut of writing opinion pieces about current events and politics.
I may still contribute a post or two in 2019, but my main goal for the next few
months is to write a series that looks at the topics that I think should be “basic
training” for up and coming apologists. The first question that I want to look
at are objections to the resurrection of Jesus, since that is the cornerstone
of our faith (1 Corinthians 15:14).
What I
mean by objections to the resurrection, are people who look at the scriptures
and think that there are glaring wholes in the gospels that exclude the idea of
the resurrection. This will be close to something that you may have seen from
the likes of J. Warner Wallace or Lee Strobel.
To get
started, there are those faiths or worldviews (I have Islam specifically in mind),
that claim that Jesus never resurrected because he never died. There are
numerous problems with this assertion, so I will try to briefly cover each. One
idea is “swoon” theory, that Jesus was scourged and put on the cross, but the
body they took down was merely unconscious, not dead. This idea is absurd once
you understand the history of crucifixion. The Romans that performed this abominable
execution, or any execution for that matter, made sure their charges were dead,
because the Romans themselves faced execution if they failed in their duties.
This swoon theory would basically mean that we have a beaten and brutalized
Jesus laid in the tomb. The tomb was sealed with a stone that took many men to
move into place. I highly doubt a man in Jesus’ state after being on the cross
would be able to stand, let alone move a stone like that. We also have to
consider the psychology that Jesus would inspire if he appeared to the 12 if he
barely survived his execution. None of this theory gives any serious reasons as
to why the disciples were elated to see Jesus again and went on to preach him
risen from death.
The second
main objection that I read about are the post-resurrection appearances of
Jesus. Many critics will claim that the disciples either had a doppelganger of
Jesus, or that they all had a shared hallucination. This one is dispensed with relatively
quickly. These are 12 people who spent 3 years with Jesus and had just seen him
killed and were very depressed at their outlook. I think their natural human
skepticism and lack of hope would have sniffed out a fake Jesus trying to take
advantage of them. To the shared hallucinations, this just does not happen. A
group of people exposed to a hallucinogenic substance will hallucinate, but
they will see different things, because we are playing with brain chemistry,
and individual brains are all wired slightly differently based on experience,
diet, previous individual trauma, individual mood, etc. It just does not
happen, and the fact that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all tell
the same story about the resurrected Jesus, and that they can reference at
least 500 people that Jesus appeared to post-Resurrection, seems to knock some
pretty big wholes in this theory.
Third,
there are those who will claim that Jesus did die, but He never resurrected,
but the disciples conspired to fabricate the story. I had the opportunity to
hear J. Warner Wallace discuss this idea, and how his police training taught
him the 3 main reasons as to why a conspiracy is planned. They are done for
power, money, or sex. If the disciples were gaining political power, filling
their bank accounts, or getting lucky, then it could be likely that they
conspired to lie about the Resurrection. However, as we have seen with the
investigation of Trump, all that is needed for a conspiracy to fail is for one of
the conspirators to turn and admit the truth. Let’s think about this, we have
disciples all over the Roman Empire preaching the gospel. They are being pursued
by the Jews and the Romans, and being driven from cities for their preaching,
so it doesn’t seem they are gaining power, rather they are being suppressed. We
see many cases of Christians pooling their resources to take care of the
disciples and each other, it doesn’t seem that they are making a whole lot of
money. We also have scripture of Paul choosing to remain single so they will be
free to pursue the great commission, so it doesn’t seem they were using their
position to satisfy base desires.
For the last comment, about a
conspiracy failing, let’s unpack this. We have the disciples being persecuted,
tortured, imprisoned, and killed. One would think that once this news got
around, that one of the disciples would give up the act in an effort to save
themselves. Instead, we see all of the original 12 disciples killed for their faith.
One last quick comment, if Jesus was indeed dead and he stayed dead, then all the
Romans or Jews would have to do would be to produce the body. If the disciples
were indeed lying and they stole the body to strengthen their conspiracy, then
all they would need is to point the authorities to the body in an effort to
save their lives if they were not willing to die for a lie.
With these 3 objections defeated,
and many more knocked down besides, we start to see a very strong case in
support of the gospels as history, that Jesus did indeed exist, and that his disciples
saw him risen from death and that those who saw the resurrected Jesus lived
radically different lives from before. I hope this has been helpful to some of
you, and I am more than willing to have a conversation with you about this or
other topics either here or on social media. God bless and have a good rest of
your day!
References
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