Was Jesus' Resurrection Fabricated? by Romans
Last week, we celebrated Jesus' Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Right here at this chat room, and many of us partook of a sunset Communion Service the night before. This week in our Discussion, we are going to focus on the New Testament's accounts of the Resurrection.
There has been a story that has floated around for about 2,000 years that takes the position that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ never happened.... that the whole thing was fabricated by Jesus' distraught disciples following His crucifixion. Tonight we are going to go through this position with a fine tooth comb and examine the merits of these suspicions. And we will do so in 16 points to verify whether the Resurrection was fabricated.
My main source for tonight's material is one of my favorite books, written by Frank Turek and Norman L. Geisler. The title is, “I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist.” I give these authors full credit for the main framework of what I am presenting in this Discussion. There are points and Scriptures that I have added, but the basic material is theirs.
I do recommend this book very highly, but I also must tell you that there are many portions of this book that are difficult to read. And by “difficult” I mean that some of the material in the beginning of the book is dedicated to debunking and refuting some elements of Theory of Evolution, and it can be a bit difficult to follow if you're unfamiliar with some of the claims and scientific terms of the Theory, and the so-called science that is used to support the Theory.
On page 231 the authors of “I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist” present a list to determine in the entirety of the New Testament is historically reliable. This is an important first step because it was these same witnesses who also contributed to the radical shift in worship away from what had been long-established.
There are seven basic points, here, in order to establish the reliability of the New Testament:
1.) Do we have early testimony? This would have a positive impact on accuracy, and tend to make the reader less concerned with embellishments that may have crept in over time;
2.) Do we have eyewitness testimony?
3.) Do we have multiple and independent testimony? We don't really want to hear a fantastic tale from only one person;
4.) Are these eyewitnesses trustworthy? This consideration is at least as important as the number of witnesses telling the story;
5.) Do we have corroborating evidence from other supporting or even neutral writers, and, in our case so many centuries later, from archaeology?
6.) Do we have the corroboration of opposing or “enemy” writers? If key elements of a claim are acknowledged by hostile sources, this can be considered valuable evidence; and
7.) Does the testimony include embarrassing events or details about the author or authors? If it does, we can generally look to those events or details as being true. The inclusion of details that would tend to make the author look bad or even ridiculous, is a good indication that the claim being made is a true one.
I am sure you are aware that there are many who doubt the Truth of the New Testament in general, and the Resurrection in particular. So tonight, we are going to approach their doubts from a very different perspective. We are, ourselves, going to perform the same brainstorming that the disciples would have had to if they fabricated the Resurrection, in order to see if the critics and doubters' claims hold any water.
I normally and routinely use the King James Version of Scripture in these Discussions, but tonight I will be using The Living Bible Translation. Something about, as I was comparing the two translations just seemed to fit better for tonight's topic.
Think of it! The One Whom they were sure was the Messiah, the Savior of Israel was plotted against by the religious hierarchy, arrested, tried with false witnesses, and crucified, and all in less than a 24-hour period. The disciples had to have been shaken to their very foundations. Everything they believed, and everything they believed in was completely and unexpectedly turned on its head, in spite of, what we see with 20/20 hindsight, the announcements to them from their Lord and Master Jesus, that everything that DID happen, was exactly what He repeatedly told them WOULD happen, but they never did quite get it.
Seven weeks transpired between the Resurrection, and the Day of Pentecost, when the disciples suddenly burst onto the scene making declarations of Jesus' being raised from the dead. So they had all the time they would have needed to concoct their stories, tie up the loose ends, dot all the “i”s, cross all the “t”s, and get the details of their claims strait before Peter preached his first Sermon.
Now, think about it.... really think about it... if we were the disciples, and we are going to fabricate a story that we were going to preach, that we had found the Messiah, and that we were part of His Inner Circle, and that He was the One Who was just crucified, but He had been resurrected, how would we paint ourselves in our fabrication? The story is all ours. We can go in any direction we choose to go... we can add any claim and any detail.
Would we not paint ourselves as being the most dedicated, the most faithful, the most humble followers of the Messiah that we are claiming to have found. Would we not invent details about our bravery, and our leader's unwavering loyalty to this Messiah, the leader whom Jesus hand-picked to lead us? Would we not also clearly convey the idea that even though Jesus was a controversial preacher Who confused many of His listeners, that we always understood the meanings of His parables and doctrines?
If we are going to invent a scenario that was going to completely upset the whole Society with News of our identification of the long-awaited Messiah, and then say He was crucified, and then say He came back from the dead, and then go on to introduce an absolutely revolutionary rearrangement of the long- established National Religion, having 1,500 years of an God-ordained procedure, and method of doing things, we are going to have to paint ourselves as heroes in this story... we are going to have to portray ourselves as the wisest ... the most anointed... the most insightful... and the most fearless followers before, during and after this Messiah's trial and crucifixion., would we not? And we would also paint ourselves as the first witnesses to discover that His tomb was empty because we would have been brave enough to go to the tomb, Roman Guard or no Roman Guard to make that discovery!
Well, let's look, first, at the four Gospel Accounts, and see if this is how Matthew, Mark, Luke and John presented themselves in their writings. How did the authors present themselves? The authors included embarrassing details about themselves that fabricators would never have included.
1.) They painted themselves as basic dim-wits in all four Gospel Accounts, especially along spiritual lines of understanding and perception:
Matthew 16:6-9: “Later, after they crossed to the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered they had forgotten to bring any bread. “Watch out!” Jesus warned them. “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread. Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, “You have so little faith! Why are you arguing with each other about having no bread? Don’t you understand even yet?”
Mark 9:30-32: "Leaving that region, they traveled through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know he was there, for he wanted to spend more time with his disciples and teach them. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead.” They didn’t understand what he was saying, however, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant.”
Luke 18:31-34 “Taking the twelve disciples aside, Jesus said, “Listen, we’re going up to Jerusalem, where all the predictions of the prophets concerning the Son of Man will come true. He will be handed over to the Romans, and he will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit upon. They will flog him with a whip and kill him, but on the third day he will rise again.” But they didn’t understand any of this. The significance of his words was hidden from them, and they failed to grasp what he was talking about.”
John 12:15-16 “Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:
“Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem. Look, your King is coming, riding on a donkey’s colt.”
His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy.”
2.) They had the chance to make themselves super-hero defenders of the Messiah of Israel. Instead, they didn't hesitate to portray themselves as being too sleepy to watch with Jesus on His last night on earth:
Mark 14:32-41: “They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, “Sit here while I go and pray.” He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then he returned and found the disciples asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Then Jesus left them again and prayed the same prayer as before. When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open. And they didn’t know what to say. When he returned to them the third time, he said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But no—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”
Now, this is important: It would be one thing to admit they went to sleep before He was arrested... even before He was on trial. But it would be absolutely unthinkable to invent that fact years later when they put pen to paper, and recounted the events in writing. But that is exactly what they did, which lends powerful credibility to their testimony. If they did not hesitate to admit something that put them in such a bad light. The rest of their claim, however hard to believe, is much easier under those circumstances to consider, and even accept.
3.) They are rebuked and opened by Jesus and each other for glaring mistakes.
In their Accounts, besides citing their lack of understanding, their Messiah openly rebukes them, at one point even calling their recognized leader “Satan”! In Mark 8:31-33 we read, “Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” Then , later, in their epistles, Paul challenges Peter openly in Galatians 2:11 : “But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong.”
4.) They painted themselves as egotistical during the Last Supper:
We read this amazing Account in Luke 22: 21-24 “After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you. “But here at this table, sitting among us as a friend, is the man who will betray me. For it has been determined that the Son of Man must die. But what sorrow awaits the one who betrays him.” The disciples began to ask each other which of them would ever do such a thing. Then they began to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest among them.”
5.) The they painted themselves as also being filled with self-doubt during the Last Supper:
Mark's account adds in Mark 14:19: “Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one?”
6.) They painted themselves as deserters:
We read in Mark 14:27: “On the way, Jesus told them, “All of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say, ‘God will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’
7.) They utterly failed to hide the flaws and human weaknesses of the recognized human leader of their Movement.
Their leader, if this were a fabrication would have been someone with outstanding spiritual qualities from beginning to end: Instead what do we find?
a.) In the beginning, how did Peter describe himself? In Luke 5:8, we read one of the first things Peter says to Jesus is: “When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.”
b.) During Jesus' ministry he is depicted as having wavering faith. Notice the Account when Jesus walked on the water in Matthew 14:25-31 “About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. In their fear, they cried out, “It’s a ghost!” But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here! Then Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.” “Yes, come,” Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?”
c.) And then at the end, while Jesus is on trial for His Life, Peter denies Jesus three times, even after being told he would do just that: We read in Mark 14: 29-30: "Peter said to him, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I never will.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny three times that you even know me.”
And deny Him he did, even calling curses down on himself just as the rooster's crowing interrupts Peter's third denial.
8.) They painted themselves as cowards:
Not only did they deny and abandon Jesus, after His crucifixion, the women who followed Jesus went unescorted to His tomb at dawn, that was being guarded by Romans soldiers. Where were the disciples? Even after hearing multiple reports of different women who reported they found the tomb empty, or had seen angels who reported Jesus was alive, or Mary's report that she had seen and spoken to Jesus, where were the disciples? John tells us in his account in John 20:19: “That Sunday evening, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.”
9.) The authors carefully distinguished their words from Jesus' words.
If you are inventing a Messiah, a Resurrection, and a drastic departure from a major established religion, what would be an easy way to resolve doctrinal disputes? The easiest way for the disciples to solve theological disputes that arose among the new believers was to simply fabricate more quotes from the One you've identified as the Messiah. Yet Paul who wrote 13 of the New Testament's 27 Books, quotes Jesus rarely, and always specifically states when a doctrine or position is his own: Notice in 1 Corinthians 7:10-12: Paul is giving advice regarding marriage “But for those who are married, I have a command that comes not from me, but from the Lord...” Then he prefaces his next advice with these words, “Now, I will speak to the rest of you, though I do not have a direct command from the Lord.”
10.) The authors included embarrassing details and difficult sayings of Jesus.
a.) In their Accounts, Jesus is reported to be considered out-of-His-mind by His own mother and brothers! Notice in Mark 3:20-21: “One time Jesus entered a house, and the crowds began to gather again. Soon he and his disciples couldn’t even find time to eat. When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said.”
Verse 31: “Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him. They stood outside and sent word for him to come out and talk with them.” They apparently thought that He had gone off the deep end.
b.) His own family doubted and seemingly mocked the idea of Jesus' Messiahship: In John 7:2-5 we read, "But soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters (or Tabernacles), and Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, where your followers can see your miracles! You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!” For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.”
c.) They admitted in their writing that His ministry was a great source of debate and controversy among the people: we read in John 7:12: "Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.”
d.) The Gospel writers also dutifully record some of the unflattering and defamatory comments made about Jesus during His ministry: He is called “a drunkard,” a “glutton,” “illegitimate,” “a friend of sinners and tax collectors,” “a deceiver,” “demon-possessed,” and a “ madman.” They record that He ate in the house of tax collectors, spoke with a Samaritan woman, allowed a prostitute to wipe his feet with her hair, and acknowledge that Scripture itself identifies “anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God's curse.” This is hardly the kind of material pretenders and fabricators would include in their Accounts if they were trying to be the fishers of men their Messiah appointed them to be!
e.) They report that the One they have identified as the Messiah, offended most of His followers with the “hard sayings” that came out of His mouth: “ In John 6:51-52 we read that Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Verses 61-64 tell us, "Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” Then finally in verse 66, we read: "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”
11.) The authors included events regarding Jesus' Ministry and Resurrection that the authors would not have invented.
a.) The Sanhedrin was the Jewish Council of Rulers who conspired to provide false witnesses to testify against Jesus and have turn Him over to the Roman Governor to be crucified. Yet, John not only includes a favorable meeting with a Member of that Council in the 3rd chapter of his Gospel Account, (namely Joseph of Arimithea, ) but this same individual is depicted as stepping forward after the crucifixion to beg the body from Pilate (while the disciples are off cowering somewhere), and he goes so far as to provide the tomb in which Jesus was buried! If we were going to invent this whole scenario, it would be both pointless and senseless to include such positive details of the same ruling Council that, at the time these Accounts were written, was doing everything in their power to have imprisoned or killed as many of your followers as they they could get their hands on!!
b.) Luke also records that many priests had become converts to Christianity. If this were not so, this certainly would have been easy to verify. And, if it were not true, then Luke's credibility would have been completely trashed for including this unfounded detail in his Gospel Account.
c.) All four Gospel writers report that it was women who were the first witnesses to the Resurrection. Why do you suppose this was an unusual thing to include in the narrative? Because in that culture, a woman's testimony was considered so unreliable that it could not even be used in a Court of Law! And yet, not only do we have women bravely going to the tomb to anoint the body despite the presence of members of the Roman Guard (some say dozens of soldiers) being there, the first woman to actually see the Risen Christ is earlier identified as someone who had been demon-possessed.
Notice in Luke 8:1-2: "Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons;”
Now just stop and think about this: If you were a lawyer trying to prove a case, would your Star Witness be someone whom you also tell the Jury had been possessed with seven demons? OK – demon possession is something that is readily acceptable as a diagnosis. The skeptical public thinks of it more in terms of a movie plot than actual event. So we'll modify it just a tad: If you were a lawyer trying to prove a case, would your Star Witness be someone whom you also tell the Jury had just been released from an insane asylum? Think! That would have the same impact on your court case, as the disciples naming Mary Magdalene as one of the first witnesses of the Resurrection!! IF this whole thing was fabricated as so many charge that it was, what sane males in that culture would name women, that included a former demoniac, as the first witnesses of Jesus' empty tomb, when they could have made it themselves, the brave male disciples, or just Peter and John, or made up ANYONE ELSE to be that witness? It makes no sense whatsoever... unless it were true, and they were mere reporting what actually happened!
12.) The authors included more than 30 people who have been historically confirmed.
If the Gospel writers had fabricated the people or events that were included in their various Accounts, it would have been immediately exposed as fraud by their contemporaries. They could not have gotten away with fabrications about Pilate, Caiaphas, Festus, Felix and the whole bloodline of Herod. And the disciples knew this or they would have simply and conveniently omitted these names and events rather than risk being so easily exposed as fabricators. There are no records of any such accusations involving the historical participants whom they named. In fact, one skeptic attempting to expose the New Testament as not being an historical account, was so overwhelmed, especially by Luke strict attention to detailed and verifiable facts, that the skeptic became a believer!
13.) The authors writings include divergent details of the events they wrote about.
The authors had seven weeks between the Resurrection and Peter's first preaching on Pentecost to get their stories straight. And then they had an additional 30 or so years before these accounts were committed to writing. Surely in that space of time, if these Accounts were fabricated, it would have been a simple matter for them to put their heads together and produce a cohesive and homogenized Account, and put all their ducks in a row, eliminating any and all variations in the details or the story flow. But what do we have instead? Besides alleging fabrication, critics are also to point out, what they consider to be, contradictions from one account to the other! But these are neither contradictions nor embellishments: All we need do is harmonize the individual contributions of an account to see that they each serve to provide different details of the same events. If there are any contradictions here, it is the critics themselves who want their cake and eat it, too. Are the New Testament Accounts of Jesus' birth, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection fabricated? And if they are, why would the fabricators not also take special care to get their final draft into more of a “copy-cat” presentation? And of course, if they had done that, the critics would simply have changed their accusations from that of there being contradictions, to charges of collusion among the New Testament writers!
14.) The authors abandoned the rites and observances of Judaism, a religion with centuries of having been practiced.
What are some of the long-held beliefs and practices the disciples and apostles willingly abandoned by claiming that Jesus rose from the dead, and sent them forth to make believers of all nations?
They abandoned the exclusive relationship between God and The Jewish nation, the Law as delivered by Moses, circumcision being required for believers, the Sacrificial System, the Levitical Priesthood, the Sabbath, the Temple as the supreme place of worship, the Holy Days, the strict Kosher diet, believing in the Messiah as a Sacrificial Lamb preceding His expected coming as a Conquering Warrior to throw off Roman rule.
15.) The authors adopted an entirely new set of beliefs, some of which the Old Testament never prophesied.
There are no Old Testament Prophecies that foretold the coming of the Church Age. Yet, here were the preachers of that very age, which not only drastically altered traditional practices and beliefs, but included the welcoming in of Gentiles from all over the earth as equals: Gentiles as accepted fellow-worshipers... Gentiles as fellow-believers... Gentiles recognized as “Abraham's seed!...Gentiles as joint-heirs to inherit the Kingdom of God along side the Chosen People!
16.) And lastly. the authors maintained their beliefs under any and every kind of trial, opposition, and persecution, None of the arrests, beatings, whippings, death threats or actual executions that included crucifixion, ever succeeded in forcing so much as even a false confession of fabrication from any of the Apostles or disciples!
Paul sums up better than I ever could, the consequences of maintaining what some call a fabrication: We read in II Corinthians 11:21-28, we read: “But whatever they dare to boast about—I’m talking like a fool again—I dare to boast about it, too. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more! I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again. Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches.”
All this for a fabrication? All but one of the original Apostles who spread the Gospel died as a martyr. That was John, who lived because the execution attempt failed. So he was exiled to Patmos. So the accepted executions rather than deny the truth is unanimous among the Apostles. But am I to understand that they all went willingly to their deaths in order to perpetuate a fictitious account of a man Whom they misidentified as the Messiah, Who was crucified and remained dead? Name one other person, or group of people who have gone through all that the writers and believers of the New Testament went through KNOWING that it was all made up! Yes, there are martyr for other religions who also died for what they believed was true. But this is not about mere belief, this is about the prospect of all of the Apostles going to their deaths for fictitious claims that they helped to invent! There are none who have or would have died for a fabrication they knew to be false. And neither do they exist among the writers of the New Testament. They became martyrs who went willingly to their deaths, rather than deny the Truth about Jesus.
What we have in our hands when we read their writings recorded in the New Testament, are the true Accounts of the Life, Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There simply is no other reasonable or sane conclusion that can be drawn when you consider all of the facts, all of the details, all of the material, and all of the contributing factors.
This concludes this Evenings Discussion, Was Jesus Resurrection Fabricated?
Romans, delivered on April 12th, 2012
