A response to Gerald O'Collins

In this post, I will respond to the arguments Gerald O'Collins gives against the Hallucination hypothesis from the appendix of his book Believing in the Resurrection: The Meaning and Promise of the Risen Jesus. I have mentioned them before here. Unlike Habermas, O'Collins is actually familiar with the phenomenon of bereavement experiences, and so his critique is much more relevant.

O'Collins starts by summarising Dewi Rees' study of Bereavement experiences in senior widows and widowers:

Rees found that close to half (46.7%) reported contact with their beloved dead at various times during waking hours; dreams were not considered in the study.  The bereaved had “felt the presence of the deceased” (39.2%), “seen” them (14%), “heard” them (13.3%), “spoken” to them (11.6%), and, very occasionally, been “touched” by them (2.7%). Some of the widows and widowers interviewed reported having had more than one type of experience, and in 36.1% of all the cases these experiences of the beloved dead lasted for years.

Than, he pointed out two similarities between Bereavement experiences and the supposed Resurrection appearances of Jesus:

first, the grief experienced by both Rees’ bereaved persons and the disciples after the death and burial of Jesus... A second addition that I now make to the analogy proposed by Rees concerns the unexpected nature of the encounters with the risen Jesus

I agree with him that these are some fairly striking points of similarity. However, despite the shoe fitting finely, O'Collins argues that the parallels end here, and proposes eight areas of dissimilarity between these bereavement experiences and the Resurrection appearances of Jesus. I will review each of them below.

Area's of dissimilarity

 

The first area of dissimilarity is that Dewi Rees' bereavement study only considered Widows and Widowers: as far as we know, Mary and the disciples were not married to Jesus.

1) By naming “the disciples,” what I had in mind was, first of all, the fact that the Twelve and others, both women (e.g., Mary Magdalene) and men (e.g., Cleopas of Luke 24: 13-35), were disciples and not married partners of Jesus.

He also adds that the disciples made radical claims about Jesus, and that this somehow acts as an additional dissimilarity. This argument is weak, since it ignores the many stories of non widows having supposed encounters with the deceased. Besides, if these bereavement experiences are hallucinations, something which I will argue for in the future, than there is no reason to suppose they would be exclusive to widows. I can imagine widows and widowers being more likely to hallucinate their loved ones, but that's it. The second argument is equally poor:

2)  Jesus died a horrible and utterly shameful death on a public scaffold. In the eyes of his contemporaries, the crucifixion involved being cursed not only by human beings (the religious and political authorities responsible for his execution) but also by God... Rees reports no cases of anything like that among his 293 widows and widowers.

Well, we do live in the 21 century; not very many are cursed and publicly executed. Some of the widows Rees interviewed did have spouses that were killed by accidents, which I think suffice as "violent deaths". O'Collins, however, needs to prove his point, so he declares that only a perfect analogy will do. I think he forgot where the burden of proof lies.

3) A third, enormous difference emerges from the fact that, unlike the disciples of Jesus, none of Rees’s widows and widowers ever alleged that their beloved departed had been raised from the dead

Oh come on! Even Licona acknowledges that this is a poor argument (see the appendix of The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical approach). At any rate, there aren't very many people in the modern day that believe in corporeal resurrection, so the lack of modern day analogies shouldn't be surprising. At any rate, modern widows and widowers would probably say their spouse became a ghost or went to heaven, since those are the modern day expectations. The resurrection was an ancient expectation, even if it was supposed to occur at the end of the world.

4) A fourth reason for differentiating between the Easter experiences of the disciples and Rees’s widows and widowers emerges from the New Testament reports about appearances to groups, as well as to individuals

This argument is interesting, since he actually criticizes a lot of the Apparitional literature Allison uses to make his case.

On the question of bereaved people experiencing (or not experiencing) as a group some beloved, deceased person, Allison (who knows and values Rees’ ground-breaking research)  has also taken issue with me. He claims that there are “many firsthand accounts of several people seeing at once the apparition of a person recently deceased.” But he cites no examples and gives no references. Notice that he does not say “bereaved people” having such an experience, and that is the issue. Is he thinking of parapsychology and alleged cases of the spirits of the deceased being brought back from the dead through mediums? But many scholars, including professional psychologists, find only pseudo-science in the works of parapsychologists. In fact, Allison himself observes: “reports of collective apparitions are…prominent in the literature of parapsychology but not in normal psychology.” That silence on the part of professional psychologists might have warned Allison not to introduce, as he does, repeated references to a number of long-discredited parapsychologists.

Allison himself is very forthright about the lack of rigor in many of his cases. As a matetr of fact, he clearly states that he is comparing "like with like" when he uses them, since the Gospels are also equally poor sources. I concede, however, that I don't quite know how to explain the group experiences in naturalistic terms. After all, I don't even know what goes back to the eyewitnesses! Our earliest source, 1 cor 15, gives us three group experiences: one to "the twelve", one to the "five hundred", and one to "all the apostles". By the time we reach the gospels, however, the appearance to"the twelve" is all that remains. How one explains this one naturally depends on how accurate you think the narrative is.

5) A fifth dissimilarity arises when we notice that around 40% of Rees’ widows and widowers continued to experience their deceased spouses for many years. But the appearances of the risen Jesus to individuals or groups took place over a limited period of time and did not continue for years.

How do we know what they would've made of later experiences? Apologists often argue that the initial experiences must of been qualitatively different from later ones, since the early church called them "appearances" instead of visions. However, this still doesn't tell us exactly how they were different? Perhaps the difference between appearances and visions had to do with whom had them, or when they occurred. How could one prove these suggestions wrong? Furthermore, according to Licona, word studies don't help either, as the greek word for "appearance" could mean many things. So, even if the disciples had later experiences, how would we know?

6) “one difference between the Easter experiences and those reported by the widowed…Widowed  people’s experiences of their dead spouses tend to occur weeks  or months after the person’s death; in contrast, Jesus appeared to his friends soon after the crucifixion.

Depends how you define "soon". A few weeks doesn't seem too long to me. At any rate, how do we even know when the disciples started having their experiences? The phrease "the third day" was an idiom that could refer to any short period of time, not just 3 literal days. Another issue is whether the experiences all happened within a short period of time. What if some occurred weeks or months later than others? After all, the creed Paul refers to in 1 Cor 15 includes the appearance to himself, which occurred years after Jesus was crucified. We just don't know how much time passed between appearances.

(7) Prior to Rees’ study, only 27.7 % of the bereaved who experienced their dead spouses had mentioned these experiences to others

This is really weak. Did O'Collins forget the stigma that is associated with hallucinating in the modern day?

8) In Easter Faith I pointed out an eighth difference: unlike the first followers of Jesus, “none of those whose bereavement experiences are reported by Rees dramatically changed their lifestyle and became missionaries proclaiming to the world their experience and what it implied.”

O'Collins got so desperate for another pot-shot that he re-used the seventh point. Again, in the modern day there is a stigma against having wierd experiences. In ancient times, no such stigma existed. The problem wasn't whether you saw something- it was how you interpreted it. This, if anything, was the problem the disciples would have had.

Well, there you have it. For what it's worth, I'm still offering a copy of the paper to anyone who wants it. Conact me here for it.

Mike Licona's doctoral dissertation

Well, the good part anyways. You can read it here.

A point by point rebuttal of Gary Habermas

I apologize for not posting anything for a while. As a special treat, I wrote a point by point rebuttal to Gary Habermas' essay "Explaining away Jesus' Resurrection: The Recent Revival of Hallucination Theories". The full essay can be found here. Since Habermas is frequently considered the world wide expert on the Resurrection, I figure he'll have the best arguments. The first batch of arguments specifically oppose the idea of group hallucinations.

Group Hallucinations

(1) To begin, the chief examples of "collective hallucinations" provided by Zusne and Jones were group religious experiences such as Marion apparitions. But these citations simply beg the question regarding whether such experiences could possibly be objective, or even supernatural, at least in some sense. 

Why is it okay for Christians to assume that every miracle of every Religion comes from either the Christian God or Satan? Why not from Krishna or the demon king Ravana? This is a classic "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario.

(2) Further, the collective hallucination thesis is unfalsifiable. It could be applied to purely natural, group sightings, simply calling them group hallucinations, too. On this thesis, crucial epistemic criteria seem to be missing. How do we determine normal occurrences from group hallucinations?

Why do we have to be able to tell the difference? The burden is on him to show they aren't group hallucination, not me. At any rate, I assume we could tell whether or not a group shared the same hallucination by interviewing each person and asking them what they saw. The fact that all the witnesses are dead in Jesus' case is his problem, not mine.

(3) Even if it could be established that groups of people witnessed hallucinations, it is critical to note that it does not at all follow that these experiences were therefore collective. If, as most psychologists assert, hallucinations are private, individual events, then how could groups share exactly the same subjective visual perception? Rather, it is much more likely that the phenomena in question are either illusions--perceptual misinterpretations of actual realities -- or individual hallucinations.

As it happens, I also doubt that multiple people can share the exact same hallucination. For the first time, we're in agreement. I also agree that so called cases of group hallucinations are better explained as either individual ones or illusions. Sadly, Habermas never explains how this exactly counters the Hallucination thesis. If anything, it gives us skeptics more ammunition!

(4) For instance, Zusne and Jones argue that "expectation" and "emotional excitement" are "prerequisites" before such group experiences will occur. In fact, expectation "plays the coordinating role." But this scenario contradicts the emotional state of the early witnesses of Jesus' resurrection appearances. Even psychologically, the early believers were confronted face-to-face with the utter realism of the recent and unexpected death of their best friend, whom they had hoped would rescue Israel. As those recent events unfolded in a whirlwind of Jesus' physical beatings, crucifixion, and seeming abandonment, the normal response would be fear, disillusionment, and depression. To suppose that these believers would exhibit "expectation" and "emotional excitement" in the face of these stark circumstances would require of them responses that would scarcely be exhibited at a funeral! All indications are that Jesus' disciples would exhibition the very opposite emotions from what Zusne and Jones convey as the necessary requirement.

As Dale Allison has stated before, this only applies to the first Christophany. Surely Peter or Mary created some excitement and expectation after their initial experience. Furthermore, what if Jesus really did predict his death and resurrection? That would certainly create a lot of expectation.

By comparison, the disciples' experience is totally unlike those in the other cases above where pilgrims expressly traveled long distances, exuberantly gathering with the explicit desire to see something special. There would seem to be very meager grounds of comparison here with Jesus' disciples.

We don't know that. We don't know anything about the original Christophanies or the circumstances leading up to them. Even if we were to take the Gospels at face value, we'd still know nothing about the appearance to "the five hundred" or to "all the apostles". As I pointed out before, we don't even know whether Jesus made any pre-Easter predictions. There's meager grounds for comparison since there's nothing to compare!

Many other crucial problems also plague the thesis of group hallucinations, and we will pursue several more below. But for now we will repeat that Zusne and Jones never attempt to apply their approach to Jesus' resurrection. Rather, they even rather incredibly close their examination with the admission that group hallucinations have a "dubious status" because it is not possible to ascertain whether these individuals were actually even hallucinating!

Re-read my critique of #3. Habermas seriously has no clue where the burden of proof lies. Anyways, the second batch of arguments have to do with conversion disorder. These ones are a bit more persuasive.

Conversion disorder

(1) Initially, only Paul is known to have manifested any such symptoms, so Goulder's inclusion of the others is not factually grounded.

Not surprisingly, he is relying too much on the texts. How do we know what state of mind Peter or Paul was in? We don't, unless we rely on the gospels to give us an accurate psychological analysis. But can we really do this? After all, present expectations shape past memories- and the Gospels are filled with present expectations.

(2) Simply a huge problem is that, from what we know about Paul and James in particular, there were no mitigating grounds to suppose such a disorder. We have no indication that there was the slightest inner conflict, doubt, or guilt concerning their previous rejection of Jesus' teachings. Critics agree that James was an unbeliever during Jesus' earthly ministry (John 7:5; cf. Mark 3:21). Paul's skepticism is even better known, since he persecuted early Christians (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13, 23). But we do not know of any guilt on Paul's part, for he considered his actions to have been both zealous and faultless (Phil. 3:4-6). In short, there is no indication of any desire for conversion by either of these men. To suppose otherwise is groundless. In short, these men are exceptionally poor candidates for this disorder.

This point is valid, but stretched too thin. Yes, James was probably an unbeliever during Jesus' ministry. Does this mean he converted due to a christophany of his brother? Perhaps, but until we find a reliable narrative of the event, we can only speculate. Perhaps he did feel guilty for rejecting his brother? Or maybe he was predisposed to hallucinate simply because Jesus was his brother and he loved him as such. Paul's experience occurred a year or more after the crucifixion, so I can't say much about it. It seems to me that, within a years time, anyone can go from skeptic to believer.

(3) Further, the psychological profile strongly opposes an application to any of these three apostles. Conversion disorder most frequently occurs to women (up to five times more often), adolescents and young adults, less-educated persons, those with low IQ's, low socioeconomic status, or combat personnel.  Not a single characteristic applies to Peter, Paul, or James.

If conversion disorder occurs five times more often in women than men, that means it STILL APPEARS IN MEN!!! What more needs to be said?

(4-5) Further, holding that victims of conversion disorder are strong candidates for both visual and auditory hallucinations is stretching the case a bit. These are uncommon characteristics. Not only are these apostles poor candidates for the disorder in the first place, but even apart from this malady, they were additionally not predisposed to experience hallucinations. And here we even have two separate critiques, due to very different sets of circumstances. There is no indication that either James or Paul, in particular, longed to see Jesus. Their unbelief is a poor basis for producing hallucinations! James the skeptic and Paul the persecutor are exceptionally tough obstacles for the hallucination thesis! Once again, to say otherwise is mere conjecture apart from historical data.

To repeat the point I made in #2, we don't know much about the psychological profile of James. Even if he were a skeptic, it doesn't follow he'd be less likely to hallucinate Jesus. After all, they were family, and family members are the ones who most often experience these bereavement experiences.

(6) Neither does this hypothesis account for what would otherwise be considered delusions of grandeur--in this case the apostles' belief that God had imparted to them a message for the entire world that others must accept. But it is unlikely that there are other delusions involved here, even occurring at precisely the same time, so the case is further weakened.

Christianity isn't the only religion to claim it has a divine message. As a matter of fact, I think the vast majority of supernatural religions make this claim. At any rate, people come to believe weird stuff all the time. Just read this list of people that claimed to be Jesus. You can't just say "this belief is weird, therefore, God did it"- there would be far too many strange, obscure cults to choose between. The last part of Habermas' essay deals with regular, good old fashioned individual hallucinations.

Individual Hallucinations

(1) Even individual hallucinations are questionable for any believers who felt despair at the unexpected death of Jesus just hours before. Their hopes and dreams had suddenly been dashed. Extreme grief, not exuberance, would be the normal response.

As I've pointed out before, the bereaved do occasionally have experiences of their deceased loved ones. Ludemann pointed this out in his book so, unless Habermas never read it, he has taken to ignoring it.

(2) The wide variety of times and places when Jesus appeared, along with the differing mindsets of the witnesses, is simply a huge obstacle. Men and women, hard-headed and soft-hearted alike, all believing that they saw Jesus, both indoors and outdoors, by itself provides an insurmountable barrier for hallucinations. The odds that each person would be in precisely the proper frame of mind to experience a hallucination, even individually, decrease exponentially.

What is this "wide variety of times and places"? Last I checked, 1 Cor. 15 gives us a grand total of six christophanies, one of which occurs a year after the others. Furthermore, it includes an appearance to "five hundred brothers" and to "all the apostles" that are never elaborated on and vanish by the time the Gospels were written. If Habermas knows the insurmountable circumstances these visions occurred in, he should've included them.

(3) Generally, hallucinations do not transform lives. Studies have argued that even those who hallucinate often (or perhaps usually) disavow the experiences when others present have not seen the same thing. Critics acknowledge that Jesus' disciples were transformed even to the point of being quite willing to die for their faith. No early text reports that any of them ever recanted. To believe that this quality of conviction came about through false sensory perceptions without anyone rejecting it later is highly problematic.

We live in the modern day, remember? Visions are no longer culturally acceptable. Rees himself notes the apprehensiveness of his subjects to share their experiences due to a fear of being called crazy. Contrast this with ancient times, where visions where accepted and even encouraged. On a final note, we don't know whether the disciples stuck it out for life.

(4) Of course, if the appearances were hallucinations, then Jesus' body should have been located safely and securely in its grave just outside the city of Jerusalem! That body would undoubtedly be a rather large disclaimer to the disciples' efforts to preach that Jesus was raised! But hallucinations do not even address this, so another naturalistic thesis is required.

So what if another naturalistic explanation is needed? Why couldn't a rival Jewish sect or a necromancer steal the body? If not, than why couldn't the church make it up?

(5) Why did the hallucinations stop after 40 days? Why didn't they continue to spread to other believers, just as the others had? 

Probably because most bereavement experiences only last a set amount of time before disappearing. While it is true that about a third linger for several years, not all follow this pattern.

(6) The resurrection was the disciples' central teaching, and we usually take extra care with what is closest to our hearts. This is what drove Paul to check out the nature of the gospel data with other key disciples on at least two occasions, to make sure he was preaching the truth (Gal. 1:18-19; 2:1-10). He found that they were also speaking of Jesus' appearances to them (1 Cor. 15:11).

Yeah right, tell that to the Mormons who followed Joseph Smith unquestionably, never once asking to see the plates. This is Special pleading.

(7) What about the natural human tendency to touch? Would no one ever discover, even in a single instance, that their best friend, seemingly standing perhaps just a few feet away, was not really there?

Perhaps just a few feet away... what if Jesus was seen several yards away? We'd need reliable accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances before we can claim that all the disciples saw Jesus simultaneously "just a few feet away".

(8) The resurrection of an individual contradicted general Jewish theology, which held to a corporate event at the end of time. So Jesus' resurrection did not fit normal Jewish expectations.

Neither did Joseph Smith's plates of gold, or a myriad of other wacky religious claims. A persons deviation from the norm can hardly be counted as evidence for anything. However, even if we were to assume the disciples were too dense to invent anything new, it is still possible that Jesus' own teaching were the basis of their wacky belief. It all depends on whether or not you think Jesus really predicted his own death and resurrection. If this is the case, it would be a self fulfilling prophecy.

(9) Lastly, hallucinations of the extended sort required by this naturalistic theory are fairly rare phenomena, chiefly occurring in certain circumstances that militate against Jesus' disciples being the recipients.

What does "extended sort" mean? Is he suggesting that the Gospel accounts are accurate? If so, than how accurate? Accurate enough so determine the length of the experiences? What about the sporadic nature of 1 Cor. 15, as well as other Gospel accounts? Habermas will have to elaborate on what he means by "extended sort".

Well, those are Habermas' arguments against the Hallucination thesis. He has published many books and essays on the Resurrection, but none are as comprehensive as this essay (he references it in every one of his books I've read). If you got anything to add, send me a message!

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.

Bayes Theorem and the Resurrection of Jesus

It seems like every few years somebody tries to make a Bayesian argument for the existence of God. Some of them argue for the divinity of Jesus, and some for other Philosophical arguments, like the argument from fine tuning. Richard Swinburne has made many of these arguments, and has now made a Bayesian argument for the Resurrection. So what, is he gonna prove that the odds the resurrection occurred are astonishingly high, like perhaps, Tim and Lydia's estimate of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1?

Now, as I have repeatedly said, I am not a philosopher by anyones standards. I can, however, check out his empirical claims, and see if they have merit. After all, a Bayesian argument is only as good as the facts plugged into it, right? For example, in the Mcgrew's essay, they attack the Hallucination hypothesis since there were too many to have occurred naturally. They also attack it because the hallucinations would have to have lasted for very long periods of time. The problem, however, is that this is only true of you accept that the details of the Gospel accounts are accurate, which they do. If you believe that the appearance stories are legendary, than all of a sudden these criticisms disappear. Furthermore, if you actually read the current information of bereavement hallucinations, you'd find that it is not at all improbable that, after Jesus' death, many people claimed to have seen him alive. I have argued this elsewhere, so I will not repeat myself.

So, I will have to pick up his book and see if he challenges naturalistic alternatives like the Mcgrew's do. From what little I've read on Amazon, the book mainly deals with Jesus' divinity, so I doubt there will be much of an attack against the hallucination hypothesis.

Skeptic magazine defends Hallucination Hypothesis

You can read the article here. I have to admit, I am somewhat envious of this guy for being able to defend the hallucination hypothesis from a psychiatric perspective. I am happy that he avoids speculative group hallucinations, and uses the empty tomb to strengthen his case. Furthermore, I am happy that he decimates the often poor criticism of Evangelicals like Craig and Habermas. The problem with them, as I've stated elsewhere, is that they rely on outdated scholarship that knew next to nothing about hallucinations. Now adays, we know that hallucinations occur commonly to normal, sane people experiencing bereavement.

The thing, however, that impressed me most was his proposal that the disciples may have believed in the physical resurrection theologically and not on the basis of evidence. In other words, the disciples could have believed that Jesus could be touched and seen by many people, without actually having been seen/touched by many people at once. As an example, lets just say that the disciples were all sleeping together. One of them gets up and hallucinates Jesus. Another wakes up and also hallucinates Jesus. When the rest wake up, he disappears. Only two of them see Jesus- yet, only two of them were in a position where they could see him. This could lead an ancient to conclude that, had they all been awake at the same time, they could have all seen Jesus. But it doesn't follow that, because they all could have seen Jesus, they all did. This is an important point which hasn't been properly critiqued, in my opinion anyways.

One thing that did irritate me, however, was the authors denial of William Lane Craig's favorite argument- that there was no precedent to individual resurrection in the ancient world. Although it is true that, according to the gospels, Jesus raised the dead- these were viewed as resuscitation's, not resurrections. The formerly dead would not stay alive forever; Resurrected people, however, would enjoy eternal life. I can't fault this essay too much for this inconvenience, however, since many evangelicals agree with me. Habermas himself admits that he puts little stock in the argument since, according to many, prophecies of a dying and rising messiah can, in fact, be found within the old testiment.

Despite the small flaw, this essay is a very impressive one. I hope that eventually, serious biblical scholars will take notice.

HT to John Loftus

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.

Gerald O'collins on Dale Allison, Part 2

I asked Gerald O'collins for a copy of his essay criticising Dale Allison, and much to my surprise he immediately sent me a copy. I have to admit, despite remaining totally unconvinced by his arguments, I was nonetheless very impressed by his level of scholarship. Now, I agree with him that ordinary Bereavement experiences are not enough to account for the resurrection belief- However, where we part ways is in how useful we think they are. I think there are enough parallels so that, combined with pre-easter prophecies and an empty tomb, the disciples would have concluded he was resurrected. O'Collin's, on the other hand, does not think there are enough parallels with these kinds of experiences.

After reading his essay, I only felt two of his arguments were convincing. The first one is that bereavement experiences tend to occur weeks after the persons death, not within days. The second argument is that 40% of bereavement experiences last for several years. To the first argument, I can only point out that, although many don't start this early, some do, such as Allison's own case (as recounted in Resurrecting Jesus). Furthermore, positing that the disciples had bereavement visions a few weeks (perhaps two) after the crucifixion just doesn't seem like a big stretch to me. For all we know, they could've have pushed the appearances back a little to make it seem more convincing.

The latter criticism of the two is a hard one to solve. I think, as Allison does, that a good explanation may be the fact that there was some expectation. Jesus declared that he would be resurrected. So, the disciples would have classified certain visions as resurrection appearances, and other ones as mere visions. O'Collins foresees this objection, but responds to it by appealing to the lack of Jesus visions in later material, such as the book of acts. Sorry, but I just don't feel like this criticism is particularly good. There may have been many postmortem visions of Jesus that simply were never recorded. I know it's an argument from silence, but it's still a strong possibility. Another possibility is that, as many scholars have suggested, the visions ending after "forty days", is allegorical, and really means "a long time".

I just want to conclude by saying that, although studying bereavement experiences in the modern world can be very useful, I am skeptical of how far they can really take us in terms of understanding the Resurrection. In the cases documented by Dewi Rees, only widows and widowers were interviewed. The disciples, as O'Collins rightly points out, are very different than widows and widowers. The disciples had not only a lot of grief, but a lot of messianic expectations and possibly even an empty tomb to account for. Furthermore, they lived in a different time with a different mindset. For example, Rees' study showed that the bereaved rarely ever talk about their experiences. However, in ancient times, these sorts of experiences were well understood; as a matter of fact, the gospel writers went thru great pains to emphasize that Jesus was not one!

So, despite himself, O'Collins is right- just for the wrong reason. We have no precedent for what the disciples went thru, so we shouldn't be surprised if their testimony seems a little bit different than what we see in these kinds of modern surveys. And as a final note, O'Collins reassured me that his criticism of Bereavement experiences was so far the only one done by a professional scholar. So, if you want a copy of O'Collins essay, just send me an email.

UPDATE

O'Collins didn't send me his essay from the Irish Theological quarterly, but his arguments from the appendex of his new book, Believing in the Resurrection: The Meaning and Promise of the Risen Jesus. Nonetheless, the document still contains all the arguments from his earlier essay, as well as some new ones.

Garald O'Collins on Dale Allison

Theologian Gerald O'Collins has very recently written a critique of Dale Allison's hypothesis that the visionary experiences of the disciples could be explained away as typical bereavement visions. In his paper, he claims that the similarities between bereavement visions/apparitions and the resurrection appearances are too few to be significant, and are therefore useless in explaining away the resurrection appearances. Misfortunatley, Gerald's essay is unavailable on the web (unless you pay a fee), so I cannot comment on it or it's arguments. If you know of any of his arguments, comment on this post immediatley!

Fortunately, Mike Licona's (Pg's 623-641) and JP Holding's (Pg's 317-318) books on the resurrection briefly mention a few of O'Collin's criticisms of Allisons theory. Misfortunatley, the issues they bring up are quite easy to rebut. For instance, in Holdings book, Jonathan Kendall asserts (Pg 318) that in order for the Apparition theory to be viable, the visions would have had to have stopped immediately after 40 days. This criticism is exceptionally weak when we look at cases in "Resurrecting Jesus"- especially in Allison's own case in which:

"Of the reports I received of apparitions of my late father, half came during the week immediately following his death, and all came during the following months; and nothing has happened since"

So, at least we know that in some cases, people have apparitional experiences within the first week of the persons death. Isn't that enough? As Allison suggests in his essay- The disciples could have easily interpreted early Apparitions as "appearances" and later ones as "visions from heaven". I see no reason why conservative Christians can't at least acknowldge this scenario as a possibility. Also, Licona states in his book that, according to O'Collins, Apparitional experiences would not be a good explaination since they never cause their recepients to start a new Religion (Pg 636). To this criticism I am shocked. Who's saying that visions alone changed the disciples lives? Let us not forget the empty tomb and pre-easter expectations, which I thick would certainly get them exited. I don't think I need more examples to prove my point.

On a final note, in another essay  "Doubt and the resurrection of Jesus" (which can also be found here), the author claims that Gerald isn't the only person who has critically evaluated Allison's Apparition theory.

"There has been a concerted effort recently to show the similarities between postdeath apparition experiences and Jesus' resurrection appearances"

Misfortunatley, the snipit that I aquired had little information on exactly how much interest has gone into this, or how many scholars have actually listened to it. Considering the poor responses from Habermas and Craig, I doubt that these critiques of Allison have garnered much popularity. Still, a part of me wants to know what kind of critiques these are, and how serious they are to Allisons theory. After all, if I am wrong about the Resurrection, I would certainly like to know about it. So, once again, if any of my readers knows anything about this, I would be very grateful.

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: 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.

Is the Hallucination Hypothesis improbable?

Sorry for not posting much recently, my dear readers- um, reader. I have recently contracted some sort of nasty virus which makes me feel dizzy and think not-good. My brother got it a few days before me, and is already better- so I doubt it'll take much longer for myself. Anyways when I checked out my blog, I got this comment from Chris W:

"So, do you think we have to simply go down the list in 1 Cor 15 and explain each appearance? Or do you think there might have been an earlier historical core on which the list is based on--one with less fantastic group visions and no additions like 'according to the scriptures'? "

As soon as I read it, I hastily sent off a response, admitting that I don't know, and that I usually concede that the creed is accurate, for the sake of argument. For me, it's nice to have a  theory that accounts for all of the potential data- and hallucinatory experiences seem to do that. However, after thinking about it a bit- I realised that he has a point. This theory does seem kinda improbable.

Of course, I believe that no naturalistic theory for the resurrection has ever been "perfect"- that is, none have ever accounted for all of the available data at least as well as the "resurrection hypothesis". However, I don't think a naturalistic explanation needs to be exactly on par with a supernatural explanation for it to be considered, let alone favored over it. For one thing, if one is a naturalist, and finds it extremely difficult to fit God into the universe, the probability of the resurrection completely plummets, until anything is more probable than it. Also, if one has a religious experience incompatible with Christianity, they would also consider Jesus' resurrection to be very improbable.

Of course, I am not saying that we need to believe in space aliens or evil twins to remain skeptics- quite the contrary, I believe that some alternative explanations for the resurrection actually account for different pieces of information better than the resurrection hypothesis- for example, they explain the nature of the visions very well. They also explain away failed prophecies and the early disciples false scientific beliefs- but I'll save that for a later post.

All that I intend to do is show is that skeptical hypothesis aren't too implausible to believe. For one thing, apparitions are quite well known- and studied from a secular perspective (see here and here). However, I don't want to spoil too much since I plan to blog about them in the future. All that's important is that they happen more often than we'd think. We also know that visionary experiences (including group visions) were actually very common in Jesus' day- in fact, they were so common they were considered "normal". We also know that in many of these instances, the seers don't see the same thing, even though they initially think they do- which seems much more probable according to a naturalistic hypothesis than a supernatural one.

Just as a concluding thought- I want to discuss apologists that undermine the hallucination hypothesis. William Lane Craig, in spite of his ego, usually accepts that they are at least possible, stating that he feels that they are ad-hoc and improbable. Fair enough. Some other scholars, however, are much more antagonistic towards it. These scholars are most notably Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. For one thing, Habermas denies that they can even happen! Being a protestant, I wonder how he'd explain away the Marian Apparitions? Licona falls into this same trap as well. As a matter of fact, during his debate with Bart Ehrman, he once again claims ignorance as to how the Marian apparitions came to be, once again stating he hasn't seen the evidence! This is academic dishonesty, plain and simple.

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.