rako
New member
Can you list here what you consider to be the strongest, most direct reasons to believe that the resurrection happened, along with the counterarguments to those reasons? Below are those that I've found.
- The Old Testament prophesied that in the mid-1st century AD, the Messianic Son of David would be killed and pierced - particularly his hands and feet, rejected by the people, and would resurrect bodily before four days (and with a strong inference that it would be on the third day). I think that premonitions are real, like in dreams, and so probably some people (prophets) have an ability to predict the future in a way that our scientific understanding currently does not explain well.
Counterargument: Just because something is stated in the Old Testament doesn't mean that it factually occurred. I don't believe that there was a real ark built by Noah that survived 40 days of the earth being covered in water and contained the pairs of the world's animals. How did the flightless birds get to New Zealand in a few thousand years' time?
Also, are there failed predictions in the Old Testament? Did Abraham get all the land promised to him in Genesis? Didn't God say Jacob would no longer be called Jacob, but then called him that anyway later? In Jer 34:4 God tells Zedekiah that he will die in peace and be buried with his fathers, but Jer 52:10-11 says that he died a violent death in a foreign land. The only explanation I can think of for these conflicts is that God gave one prophecy or promise, but then changed His mind, like if a good person became immoral or a bad one repented.
Another counterargument is that the prophecy could have appeared to occur, but not because of a miracle, but because people's expectations led it to. So the Jews could have been expecting a Messiah in the 1st century due to Daniel's prophecy, and this expectation led people like Jesus to see themselves as Messiahs, who then got killed by the Romans, who used crucifixion as a common method. Thus, the prophecy led to an apparent fulfillment.
- Believers feel an intense personal connection to Jesus. They feel God's presence and encouragement when they pray to Him. They can tell as an instinct that Christianity and this relationship is true.
Counterargument: People can feel certain or "know inside" that something is true, but it might not be. A person can feel that they will win the lottery or that they have a personal relationship with a celebrity, when in fact neither might be the case. People in other religions could pray to other religious figures like Buddha or the Hindu deities when in fact no such real connection between those believers and the figures exists.
- A version of the Lord / Liar / Lunatic Trilemma posed by C.S. Lewis. This trilemma says that Jesus and the apostles could not have been Lunatics, nor Liars, so their narratives of themselves most be honest and true.
It doesn't make sense that Jesus would go through with his Messianic mission if he were a deceiver and yet knew the Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah would be killed. If Jesus were a deceiver about his mission, divinity, Messiahship, and miracles (like some modern televangelists), he could pick followers who were dishonest too, and then they could falsely claim that Jesus was a miracle worker and son of God, the eternal "Word". They could do this to get a following, start a cult, get money, get dinner sponsors, and try to gain political power. But the Old Testament said that the Messiah would get rejected and killed. So if Jesus and his followers knew those prophecies, as the apostles and gospel writers showed, it does not make sense for Jesus as a deceptive glory-seeking leader to try to fulfill Messianic prophecies, which meant martyrdom.
Alternately, if Jesus were an honest person who was just confused about being a Messiah, having miraculous abilities, and long considered his expected martyrdom to be just God's will, then he would choose honest apostles who reflected his own morality. And if his apostles and their community were so honest and moral, it would not make sense for them to be dishonest in their preaching that Jesus rose in body and that they interacted with Jesus after his death as the Christian stories of the apostolic era (35-90 AD) show. Even if the apostles did not author or provide the stories in the books (like John's gospel), if the christian community of that time was based so much on honesty, their scriptures would generally be honest too about the main events (eg. resurrection).
Counterargument: If Jesus and the apostles were deceivers or major embellishers about the miracles, then they could have thought that perhaps God would not enforce the prophecies of the Messiah's martyrdom, because there were times in the Old Testament when some things were predicted and yet their course of events were changed (eg. in the book of Jonah). In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked for God to prevent the Crucifixion. Alternately, Jesus could have considered the predictions of the Messiah's martyrdom to be uncertain in meaning. It is not clear in Psalm 21-22 whom the prophecy is being made about, and if we interpret the person to be David, then we should note that David was not literally killed by his enemies. To give another example, Jesus interpreted the predicted return of Elijah in an allegorical or spiritual way, which He said was fulfilled in John the Baptist. Therefore, Jesus could have interpreted the predictions of the Messiah's death in an allegorical or spiritual way too. That is, he might think that he would suffer a kind of allegorical or spiritual death like David did, perhaps by having to escape his enemies and leaving Jerusalem and public life like David did.
The gospels like Luke 24 also claim that it was only once Jesus was killed that the disciples understood that the prophecies were about Jesus' death. So perhaps before He was killed their meaning was not clear to them, and they only applied those prophecies "retroactively".
- The apostles would not claim falsely that they saw Jesus bodily resurrected if they knew they faced persecution, flogging, and brutal death for their claims. Yet the apostles were killed for their beliefs. And if the apostles' stories of Jesus' appearances to them were honest, then the resurrection must be real and physical, not delusional or just allegorical, because of the clearly physical aspects of the appearances: eg. Jesus walking through walls, eating fish, having the apostles and the women at the tomb touch Him.
Counterargument: First, it isn't clear that the 10 apostles were all killed for their beliefs. Josephus says that James, Jesus' brother was, and the Bible says that another James and Peter were. The Talmud says that 5 disciples of Jesus were killed by the Sanhedrin, but it isn't clear that these were all the same ones who claimed to see Jesus risen.
Secondly, it isn't clear that they expected to be killed when they were preaching. Gamaliel told the Sanhedrin not to persecute the apostles, and the Bible says that the Sanhedrin left them alone at that point as a result. Peter would have been killed in Rome about 60-69 AD under Nero, perhaps as a result of Nero wrongly blaming Christians for Rome's fire (rather than as a heretic), so Peter might not have expected to be killed for his religion. Jesus' brother James was protected by the Romans and he (and probably the others mentioned in the Talmud) was killed when the Roman governor was away, so the new Roman governor deposed (removed from office) the Sanhedrin leader for James' death.
Jesus' prediction to Peter about Peter's death could have been inserted into John 21 retroactively, as John 21 is a later editing of John's gospel.
Third, if they were martyred, it isn't clear that they had a chance to deny their Christianity to save themselves from martyrdom. If James told the Sanhedrin that he was a deceive all along, would they have let him go? it isn't clear? And if some of the apostles did at some point said that the stories were made up, it isn't clear that the 1st century Christians would have recorded such a lapse.
Fourth, even if the apostles were deceivers/major embellishers about the resurrection who had a high expectation of persecution and death for their preaching it need not stop them from preaching. The gnostic and heretical Christians of the 2nd century-3rd century would have faced the same risks of persecution as the gospel writers, yet that did not stop the heretics from making up fantastic stories of Jesus like the Gospel of Peter's "talking cross" or Marcion's rewriting of the gospels. Marcion lived in c. 85 – c. 160 AD and was not martyred, yet had a following and traveled across lands like Rome and Asia Minor.
There are other religious groups with fantastic miracle stories whose leaders faced severe persecution or martyrdom, like the Mormons and their claims about the witnesses to the golden tablets. The Buddhists of Tibet claim extreme miracles like levitation and resurrections, and the Tibetan Buddhists have been brutally persecuted (including killings) by the Chinese.
And the Pentecostals and Charismatics claim visions and other frequent miracles (like healings) that mainstream Christians are very skeptical about, yet the Charismatics go to third world countries to preach, even occasionally in dangerous situations where they get killed or otherwise abused.
- People pray to God asking if Jesus is for real and receive signs and miracles pointing to this. For example, some people see Jesus in the clouds. Or they are healed of an illness that was certain not to heal. Or there is an extreme coincidence like having a premonition of a car crash and then buckling up right before it happened.
Counterargument: They could be real coincidences, or they could be a placebo effect whereby the body heals itself because of faith in the healing, not because of a direct outside force. Or there could be another paranormal explanation, such as one where the person's own expectations somehow "will" the event to occur. People in other religions like Buddhism and Hinduism claim miracles, signs, and visions too that they consider confirmation of their beliefs like reincarnation.
- The Shroud of Turin I believe dates to the 5th century or earlier from Levant region, and it is said to depict Jesus and be created in some miraculous way, like a scorch. Scientists have a hard time debating and showing how it could naturally or artificially have been made.
Counterargument: Scholars still debate these things, so it's not proven to be a scientific anomaly. John's gospel said that Jesus was buried with a huge amount of aloes, yet such an amount of aloes doesn't appear to be present in the shroud.
- Christianity spread from being a tiny, persecuted, pacifistic religion around a shamefully killed leader to the world's largest religion.
Counterargument: the growth can be explained naturally as its teachings like morality, overcoming death, and salvation are extremely appealing. People can identify lovingly with the martyred leader and see him as a saving hero. That a religion spread to be the world's main one, even under adverse circumstances, does not make its factual claims about extreme miracles correct.
- The apostles went from being in hiding and scared when the Crucifixion happened to boldly preaching when the resurrection occurred. Their fear was only natural because their leader had just been brutally killed. James went from being a nonbeliever before the resurrection as the gospels record to a believer and leader of the Church afterwards as Paul and Acts record. An extreme event like the resurrection must have happened to change them and make them so bold and give them faith.
Counterargument: We are relying on the gospel stories themselves to say that this actually occurred in this way, but the stories could have been embellishing things. If the apostles were so scared in nature, then why did Peter cut the soldier's ear in Gethsemane and John was present in the Sanhedrin's trial and at the Crucifixion? Why did Peter and John run openly to the tomb and risk guards catching them? How could it be so dangerous to be associated with Jesus if the important figures of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea arranged the burial? Perhaps there is a more natural explanation they were hiding: Jesus told them to hide because he wanted them to be safe. Maybe they were afraid after the crucfixion, but not so afraid that they couldn't preach after a few days of recovering from the shock.
Likewise, maybe James was not at first a believer, but maybe he became a Christian because he was offered an important position or for another reason later on. If one of Joseph Smith's brothers was not a believer in Smith's Mormonism, but then joined his community after it became established, would it be a major proof of Mormonism? The Bible itself does not specify when exactly James became a believer. The Gospel of the Hebrews says: "James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the Lord's cup until he should see him risen from among them that sleep." Unless that is taken to mean that James was going to starve himself to death, this verse suggests that James was already a believer expecting Jesus to rise within a few days of the burial. In that case, it seems that it was not really Jesus' resurrection that turned James into a Christian.
- The Romans and Temple authorities posted guards to the tomb according to Matthew, but the tomb was found empty on Sunday. The apostles would not have taken the body because the guards would have been too strong and the apostles were scared in hiding. No one had a motive to take the body.
Counterargument: Matthew's account could be a major embellishment to make it sound like a proof for the resurrection. How do we know that guards were posted?
The apostles had a major motive to take the body - to make it look like a resurrection in order to continue their sect. They could have taken the body Friday night before the guards were posted on Saturday, or they could have overpowered, since Peter had already been brave enough to stab the officer in Gethsemane. Or they could have bribed the guards if the guards were sympathetic. Or they could have taken the body after the guards left on Sunday night and then made up the resurrection story as if it happened on Sunday morning. The guards could have contested the apostles if the apostles made up an alternate version, but neither side could "prove" which version was correct.
Theoretically, I suppose the apostles could have even taken the body if the guards fell asleep as the guards' story in Matthew says, but I think that version is unlikely.
