Intro to Apologetics Series: Objections to the Resurrection


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

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

First post in 2 years, catching up on life, reflections on fatherhood

Thoughts on the Problem of Animal Suffering

Friendly Atheist "8 Kinds of Biblical Marriage” Response