Jesus' own teachings as the basis of the resurrection belief

Rudolf Pesch is an interesting biblical scholar, holding views very similiar to my own. He believes that the unique idea of a premature resurrection, as well as a dying and rising messiah, can be based on jesus' own teaching. You can read more about him and his work here.

Was Jesus the only dying and rising Messiah?

Here's a fascinating article which mentions that the idea of a dying and rising messiah may have existed before Jesus. Interestingly enough, in is written by Gary Habermas.

Christmas and the Virgin Birth

I apologise for being late, but merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays to you all! This year, I got to enjoy spending Christmas eve in a Pentecostal church watching a (rather bad) Nativity play. While I was watching it, I was thinking about the Virgin Birth- a topic I hadn't really put much thought into. I mean, it is one of the most Theologically important parts of the bible, yet it appears in only two Gospels. Plus, to make matters worse, there are quite considerable discrepancies between the two accounts. Today, I was planning on doing a post on why I didn't believe in the Virgin birth. However, as I began typing, I started asking myself "why"?  I'll put it this way: even Robert Turkell doesn't think he can prove it. If you ask me, that's pretty good evidence against it's historicity.

Now, Skeptics and Religious Liberals have always used an array of arguments to undermine it's literal history. Likewise, Conservatives usually retaliate with some sort of "you can't say it didn't happen" shtick. In the end, neither side gets any closer to the truth of the matter. Want to see what I mean- here is an example.

A popular argument against the virgin birth is that it only appears in two of the Gospels. Conservatives argue that, because each of the stories were intended for a specific audience, blah blah blah. If you want to see an example of a Conservative answer, you can find one from JP Holding here. Now, I can understand certain miracles not being mentioned for this reason, but not one as significant Virgin Birth! By this logic, should we be surprised that the Resurrection was included, considering that everyone already knew about it? Furthermore, I don't think it really explains why Paul never mentioned it, even when he was evangelising. I am no Pauline scholar- but I am highly skeptical of anyone who puts politics before evidence of the miraculous. After all, the Gospels do include a particular story of women finding a particular empty tomb, remember?

As we can see, they are arguing that the Virgin birth possibly happened, not probably. They will say that, because so much of the Gospels are reliable, we ought to believe the parts in which there is little evidence, even when we'd expect more. But this is clearly pulling the cart before the horse! These stories should indicate the exact opposite- that we should be less trusting of our source, because they are willing to include things so obviously false! Anyways, at the end of Holdings essay, he makes an interesting and revealing remark.

"Objections against the validity of the virgin birth are based mostly on preconcieved notions - in the main, that the miraculous is impossible. There is no reason, other than pre-conceived notions, to reject it as historical; and to be fair, no reason other than own's own perceptions to accept it as such. It simply depends on our starting point.
-JPH"

The reason I point this out isn't because of his spelling error (the "E" goes after the "I" in Preconceived). No, I point this out to show the reader what this is really about- that we atheists don't believe in miracles. It's never about whether or not their is sufficient evidence- it's just about having a philosophical prejudice against them. Now, I'll be the first person to admit that the Resurrection is usually denied due to philosophical prejudice. However, I hardly see how this relates to miracles like the zombies of Matt 27, of which there is no confirmatory evidence for. This just seems to me to be philosophical prejudice against Naturalism.

Resurrection Sundays: Night of the living saints

There is one argument against the historicity of the empty tomb that I have always found extremely persuasive. I call it the argument from Matthew 27:52-53. That's right, the passage that got Licona sacked; The passage in which many zombies raise from their graves and terrorize Jerusalem. Now, the idea behind this argument is simple: since stories like this made it into the Gospels, we should be skeptical of other stories in the Gospels too- particularly the stories of the empty tomb being discovered, especially since stories of empty tombs being discovered weren't uncommon in the ancient world.

Now, most reasonable Christians will admit that Matthew 27: 52-53 was an invention of the early church. Even the most conservative Christians will commonly admit that this passage is "tricky". NT Wright, for instance, admits it in his tome on the subject:

"Some stories are so odd that they may just have happened. This may be one of them, but in historical terms there is no way of finding out"

So, as a heads up to people who think that this event actually happened, keep in mind NT Wright can't even affirm it with any confidence. Now, although most learned Christians will agree with me on the historicity of this passage, some have always been impervious to new ideas. One of these people is Jason Engwer from the infamous Triablogue. He has written several posts such as this one arguing not only in favor of the historicity of Matthew 27: 2-53, but against skeptics using it as evidence against the empty tomb.

After reading it, I was amazed. It seemed to me that most of his "arguments" were geared towards how the event in question was merely possible- not probable. The only positive argument he used was that, apparently, a few other hostorical sources may be alluding to this event (Ignatius, Letter To The Magnesians, 9; Quadratus, in Eusebius, Church History, 4:3). I am not familiar with any of these sources, so I will have to look into them in the future. Anyways, other than that, the rest are just mere possibility arguments.

For example, he argues that the resurrected saints may have not been recognised when they entered Jerusalem. Perhaps they looked just like regular people, as opposed to decaying zombies. Perhaps they had clothes on, as opposed to being naked. Perhaps they entered Jerusalem in small numbers, in order to remain inconspicuous. If we grant the inerranist this much, it seems very possible that, if this event occurred, only one known Gospel would record it. But a possibility is not the same as a probablity.

Jason's strategy, as well as the strategy of every conservative inneranist, is to prove that their position is just possible. Creationists will argue that the age of the earth might be wrong, since the age of the earth has "changed" as technology as progressed. Yet they give us little, if any evidence that we should favor their hypothesis over a better, simpler one.

So Jason, I concede that it's possible that the saints entered Jerusalem undetected. Hell, they could've been invisible and microscopic for all I know. But that doesn't mean they probably were. For one thing, the story only appears in one Gospel. Also, it is accompanied by claims of a great earthquake and eclipse, both of which there is even less evidence for. Arguing that the early Christians understood the Gospels as literal history is just pulling the buggy before the horse, for these passages should, if anything, challenge that assertion.

So, my readers shouldn't be surprised that I think this event never happened. How could I? Now, I acknowledge that it could've happened. After all, the zombie saints could have been microscopic or even disguised as regular Jewish peasants. They even could have disappeared milliseconds after they entered Jerusalem to avoid being seen. I can't prove that they didn't- but it's not my job to, either. This event never happened- and only the most fringe level conservative apologists would say otherwise.

Resurrection Sundays: The historicity of 1 Corinthians 15

A little while ago, I promised to do a post on 1 Cor 15. Well- that promise has come true! However- before I do so, I would like to justify myself on the lack of attention I've given to the empty tomb. You see... I just find it hard to care about it. I mean sure, 75% of scholars think it's historical- but so what. In a field filled with very conservative Christians (Like that one I make fun of here regularly), 25% is a fairly impressive number. Plus, even if the empty tomb were most certainly historical- that still doesn't prove that God raised Jesus from the dead. There are theories on how the body could of been moved or stolen. Anyways, I'll blog about the empty tomb on another Sunday. For now, I will discuss the historicity of 1 Cor 15.

For those that don't know, 1 Cor 15 is our earliest historical source that documents the Resurrection appearances of Jesus. However- most skeptics are rather uncomfortable with the fact that of all six appearances Jesus made, three include more than one witness. Most NT scholars take them pretty much at face value. I, however, have recently become very skeptical. My skepticism of the creed, however, did not occur when I started researching this passage; on the contrary- I found out that the passage could be as early as a few years after the event! No- my skepticism of the creed actually started to develop a week ago, when I started to research the Paranormal.

The first thing I noticed when doing my research was that most people who believe in "entities" (ghosts, angels, etc) relied on the testimony of witness'. They would spend most of their effort writing down witness reports, in order to validate their claims. However- most skeptics, like the members of CSICOP, have a far better approach- they investigate the origin and development of the belief. See, unlike in biblical studies, psychology plays a major role in investigating supernatural "appearances"- and if there is one thing psychology has proven- it's that humans are lousy witness'.

For one thing, we almost always interpret our evidence in accordance to our worldview. For example, if one already believe in ghosts, than a cold spot will be interpreted as evidence for a ghost. Also, in accordance with the above point, we also tend to alter the evidence we have in our heads to match the phenomena we are trying to prove. For example, Person A may see something fly in front of a window very quickly. Later on, when they recall that moment- they may recall it as an angel instead of, say, a bird. Perhaps they do this because they are long time angel believers- that are looking for evidence to prove their already held belief.

In addition to this- one may come to the false belief that other people near him also saw the entity. Although it sounds odd to say it- there are many paranormal cases in which many people will claim to see the same thing when they, in fact, did not see the same thing. This can be determined by interviewing the witness' individually, and seeing how similar their combined testimonies actually are. One example would be the "Timor revival", in which many miracles were reported, many of which including multiple witness'. However- when the witness' were interviewed independently, it became obvious that they had observed no such thing. Many other excellent examples can be found in Joe Nickell's book Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons and other alien beings.

So, my critique of 1 Cor 15 is that, even if it accurately preserves what the witness' claimed to have seen- it says little about what they actually saw. As mentioned earlier, multiple people have claimed to see the same thing, even though they did not. What makes the disciples any different than these cases is beyond me.

HT to Richard Carrier for the story of the Timor Revival

Resurrection Sundays: The Women as witnesses

Any critic of the empty tomb is probably aware of this argument. The way it goes is to first argue that women were considered to be sub-par when compared to men, at least in terms of testimony. The second point is to argue that, with this consideration in mind, the Gospel writers would have had no reason to make women discover Jesus' empty tomb first- unless women really did discover the empty tomb first. Now, most critics will not bother with the first part of the argument. As Licona would say, it is "part of our historical bedrock". The second point is the one that Critics attack.

One of the common skeptical responses to this argument is that the Women may have had a symbolic reason to have been included in the story. Anyone who has read David Straus (or Ehrman's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium) should be aware of his theory- that certain events of the New Testament are "true", even though they never happened. In other words, they were meant to be taken metaphorically, not literally. This makes a few of Jesus' miracles make sense, like the raising of Lazarus- which would undoubtedly appear in all four Gospels if it were historical. Proponents will say that the women were part of a "reversal of expectation" motif- in which the lowliest of the low found God- while the rich and even Jesus' own disciples were clueless and didn't get it. This view is certainly possible- although as you can see, it largely depends on whether you think the Gospels were intended to be literal history or not. I know that ancient biographies commonly included miracle claims- but anything further is beyond my expertise to comment on.

Another common response to this argument is that the inventor of the story had no choice but to make women discover the empty tomb, since they were the only ones left in Jerusalem. The Disciples all fled, remember? The counter argument to this, though, is that if someone were to have invented the story- they would have invented a male disciple whole cloth before they'd allow a woman to find the tomb. They could also have made Joseph of Amirathea find the empty tomb- at least in the later Gospels, where Joseph was elevated to the role of "secret disciple". Despite it's shortcomings, however, this argument can easily be combined with the above one to increase it's explanatory power.

A third scenario, proposed by the late scholar Michael Goulder, was that the story of women finding the empty tomb could've been invented by the early church to explain why the empty tomb wasn't previously known- because the women messed it up by running away and "telling nobody". This scenario has some force, since it at least tries to explain why the Gospel of Mark ends with the Women running away, telling no one "because they were afraid". However- there are many scholars who believe that the Gospel of Mark does, in fact, have an original ending- one that is missing, and will probably never be found again. Also, another argument against this hypothesis is that, had this account been made up, the real Mary and anyone who knew her would have spoken out. Sadly, I can't really comment on this since I don't know much about the politics of the early church. I do question, though, whether she could have reacted to the story. Mary probably died before Marks Gospel was completed (considering the very short lifespans of ancient Jews), and her family and friends could have been either totally unaware of the stories existence- or have been far too old or weak to speak out against it. Women were considered inferior to men, remember?

Although these three scenarios are the most popular ones, Maurice Casey came up with a new, more powerful scenario that may account for the Women discovering the empty tomb. Casey argues in his book that a vision of an empty tomb was what started the belief in Jesus' resurrection, not a real event. A vision from none other than Mary herself! This idea certainly sounds weird at first- but keep in mind that visionaries were quite common in Jesus' time, and that they were often Women. This alternative scenario certainly looks possible- but I have yet to see any scholars critically evaluate it in depth. If you want to know more, read the book, as well as this review of it here.

The argument for the empty tomb via the testimony of female disciples is defiantly the strongest argument in support of the empty tomb. If you must know, this argument is the reason I remain agnostic on the matter. With that said, I think that every other argument in support of the empty tomb is nowhere near as good as this one, and next week, I will explain why.

Resurrection Sundays: An Overview of the Empty Tomb

It is believed by many historians that, on the very first Easter, a group of female disciples discovered that the tomb of Jesus was empty. Some atheists believe that this event, in conjunction with later visionary experiences and prior prophecies from Jesus himself, eventually led to the belief in Jesus' corporeal resurrection from the dead. However, there is a large and respectable minority of scholars holding the view that the empty tomb story is fictional- and that the Resurrection appearances alone caused the belief of the early disciples.

Just how large and respectable is this minority, you ask? Well, according to a study carried out by Gary Habermas, as many as a quarter of scholars think that the story of the empty tomb is fictional. Yeah- an entire quarter. That means that, unless a quarter of professional Jesus scholars are desperate non-believers- at least some Christians must hold this view. This consideration gives us at least some prima facie evidence that the arguments against the empty tomb must have at least some force. But what if most scholars are, in fact, non-believers? After all- Mike Licona says just that in his interview here. Well- wouldn't that be even better for Atheism's case?

Anyways, before I write any posts that actually examine the arguments, I just want to be upfront about my opinion on the empty tomb. For decades, Apologists have used this as an argument for the Resurrection. But to me this tactic seems like sleight of hand. For even if the body went missing- why must we infer a Resurrection? We have the traditional hypothesises, like the reburial theory or the stolen body theory. On top of this, we have other, less conventional explanations we can appeal to. For example, an earthquake could have caused the ground under Jesus' corpse to open up and swallow it! Atheists do not require one specific theory to serve as their official explanation- any number of possible scenarios will suffice. After all- the Bible only records theological interpretations of these events- not the underlying events themselves. Those are lost in history forever.

So that's about it. If you want to learn more about the empty tomb's historicity at a popular level, I would recommend James McGrath's Burial of Jesus: History and Faith and Kris Komarnitsky's Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box. At a more scholarly level, I would recommend the books of Michael Goulder, Gerd Ludemann, Maurice Casey and Dale Allison. And of course, if you haven't read it yet, also get a copy of  Dale Allison's 2008 Philosophia Christi essay, which responds to arguments from William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas.

Resurrection Sundays: The Twelve, The Five Hundred and the rest of the Disciples

I think it is fair to say this is the only area where the Christian has a significant advantage over the Atheist when it comes down to explaining away the resurrection. While hallucinations were common enough back in Jesus' day, collective visions were and still are rather rare. Many New Testament scholars remain agnostic about it, while others like Gary Habermas are militantly opposed to them as even being possibilities. Before I go any further in this post, I will briefly argue that group hallucinations are not only real- but more common than we'd suspect. Also, keep in mind that I am, for the sake of argument, assuming that the early church Creed found in 1 Cor 15 is 100% reliable. I will blog about that in the future.

The common argument against the "Group hallucination" hypothesis is that it is impossible for two people to share a hallucination, since hallucinations are projections of the mind; and obviously two people hallucinating the exact same thing is improbable, right? Well- I cringe when I hear apologists say this, since that isn't what the group hallucination hypothesis proposes at all! Actually, the best work on this phenomena states that the hallucinaters experience an "altered state of consciousness", or a type of trance. The trance alone does nothing- it's the hallucinaters that decide what they are seeing- and usually the dominant opinion is the one that comes out on top. They are also not as improbable as we'd think. Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh's great book, "Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels" quote this study:

"Erika Bourguignon, who compiled a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world, at various levels of technological complexity, and found that ninety percent of these societies evidence 'altered states of conciousness' Her conclusion: "Societies which do not utilize these states are historical exceptions which need to be explained, rather than the vast majority of societies that do not use these states" (cited by Pilch 1993)."

For more information, see here. Now, it's important to note that, although these experiences can feel "more real than reality" at some times, the Hallucinaters usually disregard the experience when they are over. However, if we add some pre-Easter prophecies and expectations, it makes sense out of why the disciples would not only believe their experience was genuine, but also re-interpret it the way they did. Lets not forget that the creed is silent on whether Jesus talked or did anything, so it seems likely to me that Jesus just appeared to his disciples and than vanished- just like a hallucination! Now, this fits the data that we have for the group appearance to the twelve, but the appearance to the five hundred seems a bit improbable. Plus, I don't even know where to begin with "the rest of the disciples". So lets consider the appearance to the 500 next.

Well, the appearance to the 500 is a notorious one since it is full of mysteries. For example, the 500 are nameless. William Lane Craig argues that because Paul says "although some of them have fallen asleep", that means he must've known at least some of them personally. I am surprised an otherwise smart man would say this. Maybe he did know someone involved, so what? That hardly means he knew them personally. And even if he did- Paul certainly doesn't share any of the details. We don't know any of the recipients names, we don't know where it happened, or even if they were drinking bad water or something. What little we do know seems to say the opposite! Now, if Paul knew some of them, why would he chose to mention that they had died, rather than name names? He could easily say that the appearance was to "Ralph and 499 other followers" or something like that. Perhaps he says this because the event happened a long time ago (AKA 10-12 years ago), so logically someone would have had to have died by than, considering that people in his day only lived until the ripe old age of 40!

But even if Paul did mention this information, we still have one big problem- it's not mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament! This is prime evangelising material, people! How a story this incredible could evade the quills of the New Testament authors are beyond me. Now, if we consider the "Group Hallucinations" explanation, we know that often, the visions are discredited afterwards. As a matter of fact, this argument is used by apologists like Habermas arguing against the "Group hallucination hypothesis". So with that in mind, it's easy to imagine a scenario in which a large amount of people had an experience that some members considered Jesus. these ones reported it, and the rest discredited it. Eventually the dissenters are heard, and the appearance is later removed from the creed, and thus from scripture (Maurice Casey makes this argument here).

The same can be said of the group appearance to "the rest of the disciples". It's just sad that we don't know how many people were involved. We know that very early Christianity was fairly small, so it couldn't have been that big an appearance (considering a supposed 500 followers already saw him). Still- the fact that they give no number almost seems to imply that it isn't impressive, or isn't even a group appearance at all. At least they added some details to the appearance to the 500, like that some of them died. I'll have to look into it in more detail later, but it seems like at worst it's another massive group appearance that can be explained away in the same manner as the appearance to the 500. Of course, it may not be- but just relying on the text alone doesn't help us much. I'll have to devote a post to this topic in the future.

Resurrection Sundays: How strong is the Hallucination hypothosis?

Now that we've briefly discussed the Hallucination hypothesis, it's time to apply it to the visions of Jesus. According to 1 Corinthians 15:

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 Than lastly, he appeared to me

So, according to the formula, Jesus made 6 appearances. 3 of these appearances where to groups of people. Also, if we accept the empty tomb as historical, it is possible that Mary had a vision of Jesus as well (William Lane Craig argues for that here). The argument that is put forth is usually that this appearance is multiply attested, and would have been omitted from the creed due to her being a woman. I agree, although I am still pretty agnostic about about the visions. For one thing- Our earliest resurrection narrative doesn't mention Mary witnessing the risen Jesus- she only observes the empty tomb. According to Mark: 

1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”  4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.  6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”  8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.[a]   

So as we can see, if Mary saw Jesus, the first gospel writer was silent about it. And this problem becomes even bigger if Markan priority is correct- since the later Gospel writers could have easily fabricated the appearance. Anyways, now to explain the appearances away. Now, if you recall my in my earlier post Mike Liconas demon haunted world, I argued that sometimes naturalistic explanations can make more sense than supernatural explanations. Well, with the Resurrection appearances, supernatural explanations do make a lot of sense. For one thing, we know what God's  motive would be for raising Jesus. However, that doesn't mean the hypothesis is perfect. For in this post I would like to specifically address one oddity about the resurrection appearances, and that is the strangely short nature of the appearances. If we alone follow the creedal formula in 1 Cor 15, it becomes apparent that the appearances are in someway disconnected. After all, why else would the formula treat vision as a separate event? If Jesus were to have actually stuck around for forty days, why wouldn't the creed mention it?


Now, the Hallucination hypothesis is unique in that it actually fits in with this data rather well. As a matter of fact, if we were to just ignore the group appearances, it would fit like a glove! We have good reason to think that the "appearances" were short and simplistic in nature, which is what we'd expect if they Hallucinated. We also know that the disciples doubted their own visions, which is also what we'd expect if they  Hallucinated. Also, if one were to believe that Jesus actually predicted his own death and vindication, than that would give the disciples a great reason to assume that their visions were veridical. And finally, if he were to have predicted that he'd be bodily vindicated, in a quasi apocalyptic way, that would also explain why the disciples would later interpret their visions in a bodily manner. Plus, if we believe that Mary had the first vision of Jesus, that would only strengthen the Hallucination hypothesis. You see, while we have no information of use regarding Peter's psychiatric health, we do have some for Mary's- for according to Luke 8:2, Mary had seven demons pulled from her.

2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;

As we all know, James, brother of Jesus and Paul of Tarsus were skeptics. They did not believe that Jesus was divine- and therefore, wouldn't have hallucinated Jesus. Well, when it comes down to James, we really don't know how skeptical he was of Jesus- plus, we don't know how how antagonistic he was to the movement. However, even if we assumed, for the sake of argument, that James loathed Jesus and his cult, I think I might have a good explanation for why they had the vision. Influential scholar Gerd Ludemann contends that Paul was a secret Christian, who persecuted Christians due to a secret desire to join them. This seems silly to me, but I can see another avenue for this type of argumentation. What if, and this is purely speculation, these two men actually found the evidence for Christianity persuasive?


Many ex-Christians will talk about the intense stress that occurs when they started to doubt their faith. They will describe in detail how they desperately clinged onto whatever they could to maintain their beliefs. The same is true of people switching Religions to/from Christiany. Now, we have to keep in mind that James converted after the vision to Peter, the twelve and the 500. So now imagine being James, trying to figure out how they could proclaim these wonderful things. Imagine adding possible biblical prophecies, Jesus' pre-crucifixion predictions and even an empty tomb to the mix. Finally, lets add a wee bit of gilt over the harsh treatment of his brother and voila! I think it may very well solve this mystery, if not shed some light over it. And of course with Paul's case, we can add all these appearances plus the appearance to James and the rest of the disciples, for his vision came last.


Now, I am not claiming to have solved the case once and for all. Quite the contrary, I am not even certain if what I have produced is accurate. I certainly haven't done as much research on James or Paul as a real scholar. All I am trying to do is consider other possibilities; and by extension, make the case for skepticism just a bit stronger.

Mike Licona's demon haunted world

I know it's old news, but I want to comment on Mike Licona's interview with Luke Muelhauser. To anyone who hasn't watched the interview,  here is a link to it. To anyone who has watched it, watch it again. Watch it as many times as you need to until you get the joke in the title. Anyways, the reason I urge the viewer to watch this interview is not because of what it directly says- but because of what it indirectly says about the Resurrection and Christians in general. There is a specific point in the interview where Luke mentions the Hallucination hypothesis as a viable naturalistic explanation for the resurrection appearances. Mike Licona dismisses them instantly, as he believes that Hallucinations, as subjective projections, cannot explain away the visions to multiple people. Than, later in the interview, Luke mentions examples of events believed to be hallucinations, of which were experienced by multiple people, such as the Marian apparitions, and the dancing sun at Fatima. He presses Licona to explain them away in a reasonable manner. Than, it hits the fan for Licona, as he literally shoots his own foot in his answer.

So, what is his answer, you may ask? Well- he says that he doesn't know. He also states that, unlike a naturalist, he is open to supernatural explanations. Now this attitude seemed to really confuse me. I mean, I agree with the first part of his answer- I agree that we can be agnostic about these claims since we really don't know much about them. However, words cannot describe how much I disagree with him on his second point. Why does an event with an unknown cause have to be supernatural? How can you possibly make that judgement? And even if one is open to the supernatural, what would a supernatural hypothesis look like. Let's just say for arguments sake that our supernatural Hypothesis would be "God did it". Well, does that fit well with our evidence? For example, why would God cause sightings of the Virgin Mary if Protestant Christianity is the correct division (as Licona believes). Also, Why the hell would he make the sun dance around in the sky. Even if we further posit that we could never understand God's reason, it still seems to me like the explanation "gawdidit" is ad-hoc at best.

So, How does Licona avoid this problem? Easy- he uses a magicians trick called misdirection. He mentions a scary story about a demon that tried to strangle his friend because he was proclaiming the word of God. Now, how could a skeptic explain that away without recourse to a miracle, you may ask? Well, to be honest, I don't have a clue. It could be a hallucinatory experience, for all I know. After all, none of the Christian turned Muslims saw the event. A bigger issue to me, however, is how such a remarkable event could completely slip past the news. If that were to have happened, surely someone would have written about it. I mean, JP Moreland has no problem sharing his experience- why not this guy? Even if us hardheaded atheists were to ignore it, surely paranormal investigators would be all over it! Now, I am fully aware that this is an argument from silence- but honestly, this is a very damning silence that can't be ignored. All we have is the bear claim it happened by just one person- and that's really un-incredible evidence if you ask me.

Now, lets go back to the dancing sun and Marian apparitions; except this time, lets humour Licona and consider the demon hypothesis. Now, why would a demon want to fool people into seeing the blessed virgin Mary? Perhaps, as some Protestants like Ray Comfort believe (here), Catholics are so un-christian, they are comparable to Mormons- and likewise will not be saved. If that were the case, the Devil would be tricking believers into going to hell- kinda like how the Bible claims Satan will deceive many by "appearing as an angel of light". This explanation seems possible- although still I don't find it convincing at all. Considering that most Christians are Catholics, it seems silly to believe that God's plan would involve them being damned for all eternity alongside us atheists, wouldn't it? And yes, the Marian apparitions bring it's recipients closer to Catholicism, not Protestantism, so they never get that sacred "born again experience" so necessary for salvation (check this out for more). And last but not least, Demons have no reason to cause the sun to dance around in the sky supernaturally, as if that needs spelling out. So, it seems to me that an appeal to naturalistic explanations may be quite justifiable- and maybe even preferable in some circumstances to supernatural explanations like these ones

Dale Allison's article on the Resurrection

Published in the Journal Philosophia Christi three years ago, this article is very hard to come by- but totally worth it if you haven't read it yet. It is a written response to two articles also published in Philosophia Christi, one be Gary Habermas and one by William Lane Craig. It produces, in my opinion, the very best case for skepticism since the book "Resurrecting Jesus" (also written by Allison). If you haven't read it yet, get your hands on a copy and read it! You will thank yourself later. I can get you a copy of Allison's article if you email me at andy.scicluna@hotmail.com.

Resurrection Sundays: An Overview of the Hallucination Hypothesis

In order to get my new blog up and running, I decided to start a new Web series called "Resurrection Sundays". Every Sunday, I will explore a little piece of the evidence in support of the Resurrection and see if it really holds as much weight as Christians claim it does. Also, to all you Christians out there, I am NOT claiming that I'm debunking the Resurrection. I am merely seeing if alternative scenarios are at least possible.

The Hallucination Hypothesis is actually a very old hypothesis that has been around since the very beginning of Biblical studies. It posits that the post-mortem visions of Jesus could have been perfectly natural hallucinations. It was popularised by the great biblical scholar and theologian  David Strauss, and enjoyed a long life in academia until the latter half of the 20th century, when the secular alternatives to the resurrection began to be rejected. However, very recently these alternative theories have resurfaced and are once again being critically challenged.

Recent defenses of the Hallucination Theory can be found in the works of Gerd Ludemann and the late Michael Goulder. However, the best defense of the theory can be found in Dale Allison's book Resurrecting Jesus (2005). Although a Christian, Allison believes that the Resurrection appearances can be plausibly explained away as a part of a wider phenomena- apparitions of the dead. Whether they are veridical or not, this data seems to indicate that people can experience visions of the recently deceased, and that these visions often appear very physical in nature. Regardless of whether you find this theory persuasive, it is a must read for anyone interested in the Resurrection. Indeed, even famed apologist William Lane Craig admits in his review of Allison's book that:

"I’ve never seen a better presentation of the case for scepticism about Jesus’ resurrection than in Allison’s Resurrecting Jesus:  The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York:  T. & T. Clark, 2005). He’s far more persuasive than Crossan, Lüdemann, Goulder, and the rest who actually deny the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. "

So, if you are interested in the Hallucination Hypothesis, I would suggest reading Dale Allisons book Resurrecting Jesus. Than, I would suggest reading William Lane Craig's two reviews of the book here and here, as well as Gary Habermas' review here. Finally, try to get your hands on a copy of Dale Allisons own essay further defending his views called "The Resurrection of Jesus and rational apologetics". Email me if you if you want a copy of it here.