The Unapologetic Apologia

unapologeticapologia.com

There is no theory that can better explain why Christianity grew in followers, other than the Resurrection theory.

Introduction
In this writing, I will give my reasoning that strengthens my faith. In Peter’s letter to the scattered newly converted Christians in five Roman provinces, he says:”But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”.

I will be going over the main objections most skeptics have when the topic of the resurrection and Jesus’ appearances that followed are brought up. Side note, these are only surface level objections talking about objections and evidence for the resurrection. The scholarly opinions obviously go far beyond what I can explain with my limited expertise, but I will go briefly go over the theories and the rebuttals to the theories.

As a side note I will not be arguing with points from the position of a Christian. Or with the assumption that the rest of the New Testament is accurate in every detail, that is another topic that will only distract from the point. I will instead be arguing from facts that are agreed upon by a majority of New Testament scholars as well as historians. So with this established, it means that even if the rest of the New Testament is inaccurate, it cannot take away from these established facts about Jesus, his death and the resurrection claims.

The first is the conspiracy theory to explain the resurrection, the myth or legend theory, the hallucination theory. As a side tag along, I will also bring up the popular internet critic objection to the resurrection, The Argument from Silence Theory. In order of understandable the sake of time I will not talk about them. It’s bad enough I’m bringing up the Argument from Silence.
And that evidence is overwhelming from a historical lens about the resurrection claims. And that, if agreed, to be true, its hard to deny not only the existence of God, but Jesus being God incarnate.

Firstly, the job of a historian is supposed to come up with various hypotheses to explain the facts or interpretations of history through primary and secondary sources. The hypothesis that can best explain them is the result of what is most probable to have occurred. Meaning a high amount of reason is used to uncover the established facts of the history settled today. But due to technology advancements history is notoriously provisional. Meaning the evidence that was once seen as established can be unsettled over time depending on new archaeological findings better analytical processes and so forth. Hence the coming reasoning behind my faith.

The Reasons and Evidence that disprove common objections to the resurrection. Evidence that makes me think.

The Conspiracy Theory:

This theory is that the appearance of the resurrected Jesus are a lie. Made up for the religions own gain. This theory cannot a account for: The quality of the testimony of the disciples, The Empty Tomb, and Skeptics, like the Jews, Gentiles, converting.

There are some today that still believe that it was a conspiracy that grew Christianity to what it is today. Saying the claim that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the women, then the disciples, then to the group of 500, was conspiracy. That the early Christians simply lied to further their faith and sway in politics, or what reason that skeptics who use this choose.

Firstly how do we know that Jesus was alive at some point after his crucifixion? The exact same way we know many other things from history. We need witness and we need to know that we can trust the witnesses. Remember history as we know it, works in probabilities.

The Creed
The creed ties into much of the evidence I show here. Unfortunately for the cynical skeptics of Christianity, we have a surprising amount of witness accounts, and after Jesus’s appearances, the early Christians started preaching immediately. We have summaries of their early sermons, they made creeds that were easily memorized so they can be passed to others. This is verified because Scholars noticed that it has a mnemonic structure with parallelism with less than 50 words.
The creed was  written in 1 Corinthians 15 3-7, and by the time the letter containing this creed was sent to the Church in Corinth, Paul (the writer), in the letter says in that he’d already sent the creed to them. So this means it was older than the letter containing it.

The creedal statement Paul received from the original Apostles was this.
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”
Notice how there are the resurrection account, we have the large group appearance then the small group appearances accounts and also we have singular accounts. This list shows appearances to friends and foes. The twelve Apostles and Cephas (Peter) were close and friendly with Jesus during his 3 year ministry throughout Galilei and Judea. But Paul despised Jesus and the church and actively captured Christians sending them to prison or their deaths, which mean he was not wanting to see or believe Jesus was the Messiah. James the brother of Jesus didn’t believe his brother was the Messiah and with this mocked Jesus. Seeing him as a blasphemer to the Jewish faith. Yet they’re all listed in the creed was witnesses.

All of it being primary source material.

This creed would have been around 51 AD. What’s important is that Paul would’ve received this creed from Peter and John long before this letter. Being that he spent three years after Jesus’s appearance to him on the road to Damascus, studying and traveling to gather testimonials from the people who were there to see the risen Jesus confirming what he say from them. Finally traveling to Peter to get what he researched confirmed officially from the original Apostles in Jerusalem. Scholars date this creed to within a few years after Jesus Crucifixion, some even earlier. Ulrich Wilckens says “The creed “Indubitably goes back to the oldest, phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.”
Michael Goulder says that,  “Paul ‘received” the tradition- that is, he was taught it at his conversion- perhaps two years after. Jesus’ death.”.

James D.G.Dunn claims, “This tradition, We can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.”.
Gerd Lüdemann: “The elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the t crucifixion of Jesus.”
Paul Barnett: “within two or three years of the First Easter.”. RichardI Burridge & Graham Gould: “from only a few years after Jesus’ death.” And finally Alexander Wedderburn who says the creed dates back to the “first half of the 30s.”

With this Creed made, the Apostles sent representatives with authoritative traditions that were eventually compiled in the gospels and other writings. We have writings and quotations from the following generation of the early church, -like Polycarp of Smyrna and Clement of Rome, and Ignatius of Antioch- that knew the Apostle. They continued to spread the message of the Apostles, especially the resurrection.

Dying To Lie
Even though we all are cynical when it comes to other people, one has to remember one thing when hearing this accusation. Liars make poor martyrs. Yes there are people who die for what they believe in all the time, Islam being a prime example for over 1400 years. But they do believe that Islams truth claims are true. Not one Ghazi commits to Jihad while KNOWING that what he is about to murder and die for, is false. On average people will not die for what they know to be a lie.

Now it’s possible 1, at best 3, but all of the disciples? Including Paul who hated the Church was originally a severe prosecutor of the Christians Dying for a lie. James, the brother of Jesus didn’t even believe that his brother was the Messiah (Savior). Why would they go through the stoning, the spitting, the threat of beatings, the threat of imprisonment, the threat of executions, the humiliation, the out casting in an honor/shame based society, and of course their eventual executions, for something they KNEW to be a lie? They wouldn’t and it means the early Christians truly believed what they saw to be a physical resurrected Jesus appearing to them.

So a conspiracy or lie amongst the disciples that Amen claiming to be the messiah resurrected after his death wouldn’t work. A dying and rising messiah WAS NOT a part of second temple Judaism, no one expected, or thought to be true that one could rise from the dead let alone the Jews thinking their Messiah would die. This fact is compounded with James the brother of Jesus, disbelief in his brothers claims to be the messiah. Why would someone who disbelieved in not only Jesus’s divinity but also disbelieved in the dead coming back to life, do this? Why would he then switch so drastically, to then proclaim his brother as the messiah, especially after mocking him prior (in John 7 1-9). What would make him switch so drastically to a faith that again, would -and did- get him out casted, persecuted and eventually executed?

Mike Licona scholar, says “[James and his brothers] would have regarded their dead brother as a heretic rather than rush to Jerusalem and be caught up in such group ecstasy… it seems more likely that Jesus’ execution as a criminal and a blasphemer would have supported their continued unbelief rather than their conversion…”.

But also the conspiracy theory doesn’t work because it’s recorded that the risen Jesus appeared to 500, a majority of both secular and non secular New Testament scholars agree that 500 indeed claim that they saw the resurrected Jesus. But also a conspiracy becomes more and more susceptible to exposure the more people you have, 500 would be next to impossible in terms of a secret conspiracy to make up the resurrection. Again the 12 disciples couldn’t even keep one of their own from betraying them, Judas Iscariot. Saying that his resurrection was a made up legend does not have legs to stand. All the historical evidence points to one outcome. This is not just a Christian claim atheistic. Scholars have interesting admissions to the claim of the resurrection.
Gerd Lüdemann: “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter- and the disciples had experiences after Jesus death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”
Bart Ehrman: “We can say with complete certainty that some of his disciples at some later time insisted that … he soon appeared to them, convincing them that he had been raised from the dead.” He also said “It is a historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution.
And finally Paula Fredriksen: “I know in their own terms what they saw was the raised Jesus…. I’m not saying that they really did see the raised Jesus. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what they saw. But I do know … as a historian that they must have seen something.”.

After Jesus’ death, his disciples went From town to town region to region preaching to gentiles (pagans) to worship a man who was just shamefully executed on a cross. Not only that but a man who was a Jewish carpenter, two things that were vehemently detested and looked down upon by the Romans.

Another thing that was preached by the Apostles to those who didn’t believe, the Gentiles, was physical resurrection. During that time , the pagan thought for the purpose of death was to escape The physical evils of the world. So the idea of a dead man coming to life would have previously been absurd to them and not something hoped for by the pagans. Adding on top of that, Christian’s preached a morality that was foreign to pagan thought of the day. No prostitution in the temples or having more than one woman. This to say the pagans wouldn’t have simply agreed to such terms or worshipped such a man without reason.

The Jews also thought this message to be foolish and embarrassing. A man claiming to be the messiah who is to free the Jewish people from the oppression of the Romans and overthrow them, a conqueror. But this supposed Messiah was executed in the most public and humiliated way by the people he was supposed to overthrow. To believe and have faith in this man, would be giving up on the Jewish belief of a conquering messiah and a restored Israel. A man whose family was not known nor was respected, from a region that was also looked down upon by the Jews)
I can go on, but the point is the odds of such a faith spreading as it did because of a conspiracy, are completely stacked against it. If you want to make up a conspiracy, you have to have something that’s appealing, the resurrection was not. So this was not something that the early Christians were fooled into believing or believing by faith alone. People of that time are believed to be of lesser intelligence by our current standards, but this is far from the case. So there had to be good evidence for such a claim.

The Myth/ Legend Theory coincides with the conspiracy theory and that the resurrection and the appearances were a myth similar to the myth of Jesus. That the claims were made up at a much later date (centuries later), and were not early or primary sources.
This, for sure is not a theory used by scholars, but appears mostly in memes and internet threads similar to the conspiracy theory.

Much of my answer for the conspiracy theory applies here. When talking about the appearances of the resurrected Jesus, one has to look at the factors at play. The main one, being the multiple early eye witness accounts that are reliable. Mark, Luke, John, and Matthew all record, the eyewitnesses in their accounts. The book of Acts also records this, the apostle pauses epistles. As well as Jewish historian Josephus (c.37AD-100AD). Scholars date these eyewitness accounts. No later than 40 years at most.

Another factor is the reliability of the eyewitness statements. It is said that eyewitness testimony becomes unreliable when the events explained happen quickly, or when a weapon is involved, the brain won’t have time to properly process the information to give a statement. I witness testimony becomes unreliable. When the person giving the statement is or was looking for what they want to find, a majority will fool themselves into thinking that they found Something. As well as being around strangers, according to research, memory can become hard to retain when around people unfamiliar.

But when using these two facts above to examine the eyewitness testimony’s reliability, none of these factors come into play. All the disciples and the 500 in the ministry all knew each other, and understood what they were witnessing, despite being unbelievable.

And Jesus’ appearance is could not have happened quickly and wouldn’t have been expected because in John 21 1-14, and Acts 10-41, Jesus’s resurrection was not anticipated or expected they were far too grief stricken. Matthew 16:21-23, Mark 8:31-32, Luke 24:10-11, Acts 1:6, John 20:9, John 20:24-29, all report embarrassingly, that the disciples had misread their scriptures and what Jesus had claimed. This context strengthen the idea that the disciples were not expecting a return in that way. So the myth/legend cannot explain the resurrection eyewitnesses.

“Well maybe they hallucinated the resurrected Jesus, weren’t they sad for his death, and they were in the desert hallucinations happen all the time in the movies.”
Well, The Hallucination Theory cannot account for: the Multiple group appearances of Jesus, skeptics converting (like you reading this), or multi-sensory hallucinations (Touch, sight, and auditory accounts Jesus are present in the writings). These are, some of many, crazy results that hallucinations do not cause and cannot account for.

The Hallucination Theory: This theory is that the followers hallucinated Jesus due their grief for him. The death of losing what they believed to be the one to save the Jewish people from their persecution by the Romans. This is a common belief again not amongst respected scholars.

Rebuttal:

Hallucinations in general occur typically when one is expecting it and or is emotionally excited about it. Like mirages in the desert or when people claim they find big foot or Aliens or the Locness Monster. The hallucination comes from their searching and desire to find what they are looking for.

The problem is that those in whom Jesus appeared to were devastated and deeply humiliated by what they believed to be the Messiah being humiliated and executed in such a disgraceful way. But they did not expect such an event to occur. Especially because, there IS NOTHING in second temple Judaism that shows a dying (especially in such a humiliating way) and resurrecting Messiah. So this alone rules out hallucinations, but I will continue.

The gospels report that the disciples were in running for their lives (Matthew 26:31-35. 56: Mark 15:50: John 20:19). This follows the historical method, criteria or principal of embarrassment. They doubted the report of empty tomb which was embarrassingly (to the people at the time) found by women (Here in Luke 24:11 and John 20:24-28), which also follows the criteria of embarrassment. Then when the disciples first saw Jesus they were shocked and terrified, not initially filled with joy about his return. Which shows they were not expecting or excited prior to this event. Some still couldn’t believe like Thomas in John 20:24-29, who had to touch the wounds of Jesus to finally understand.

Hallucinations, especially individual and with in groups are not multi-sensory. The Early Christians reported in both the creed and in Acts (10:34-43) a bodily resurrected Jesus. As well as in 1 Corinthians 15, Mark 16: 1-8, Matthew 28, Luke 24, John 20-21. Luke 24 38-41 specifically records them touching Jesus. 

Group hallucinations are extremely rare, so it cannot explain why the group appearances were written in the creed. It would have to be a miracle in and of itself to cause one group hallucinations let alone several of that size. But, also a group hallucinations vary in details let alone key details.

If two people are high on DMT, and one sees Michael Jackson, the other is not going to ask Michael to sing a Billie Jean. The disciples all said they saw, heard, and spoke to Jesus and touched his wounds.
Well maybe they were lying?
If they were making it up or lying, then again refer back to the evidences against the Conspiracy and Mythic theory. It just does NOT work. So the question still remains unanswered. What would cause them to claim that they saw a man who was once dead alive again later?

Well how about The Argument from Silence Theory: is that if such an event actually happened, it would be mentioned in every historic text and because it hasn’t, it means it’s not true.
This theory is laughable and only make sense if the one using this argument doesn’t know how some of the same methods used for determining history apply here. OR they just don’t like what they perceive to be Christianity and will say anything to refute the evidence.
A quick rebuttal are these points.
•  Herod Archelaus slaughter of Jews in the temple, and the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius has no source -other than Josephus the Jewish historian born around 37AD. But it historically did happen based on the little evidence we have.
• There is no Carthaginian or contemporary sources of Hannibal Barca (the Carthaginian general) crossing his army on war elephants across the Alps into Rome. But it is a historical fact it occurred.
• There are no sources for Alexander the Great until 350 years after his death, and limited sources at that, despite him being a very recognizable figure in history who indeed existed.
• Marco Polo in his writings never mentions the Great Wall of China, despite there obviously being The Great Wall of China.
• Nero’s Scapegoating and Persecution of Christians After the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD comes almost entirely from one brief passage in Tacitus’ Annals written 115–117 AD. And yet guess what it happened.
• Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t mention the Emancipation Proclamation in his writings about the Civil War, and yet… well you probably get the picture by now.
Would these events also be grounds for immediate dismissal as never happened or didn’t exist? Well maybe it does, because there is still a large conglomerate online insist that Jesus is a mythical figure, despite all the evidence. I use a certain hostility towards ignorant dismissal of truth, because it’s this, that has lead us into the world in which we live. I said before and I’ll continue again, truth is irrelevant in our time. Feelings trump evidence and “I feel like” is the new “the truth is”.
Additional Facts:
The Tomb
The empty tomb is known even by those who know very little about Christianity. After the crucifixion Jesus’s disciples were allowed by the Romans to take the body and receive a proper Jewish burial. Something that is still done today for the Jews kidnapped by Islam.

By the good will of a wealthy Sanhedrin member, Joseph of Arimathea -who was one of the few members against the execution of Jesus during his trial- sold his own tomb to the disciples in order for them to bury Jesus properly according to Jewish customs. This fact also meets the principle of embarrassment, because the disciples had to use a tomb from someone apart of those who ordered Jesus’ execution.

Another fact is that as a Sanhedrin member, Josephs tomb was in a populated area of town that even on a regular day would have been busy. I bring this up because the tomb was found empty by the women on Passover. A day where hundreds of Jewish people travel to feast and celebrate. With this in mind, I get to my point.

The Pharisees, who plotted against Jesus to get him killed, after learning that the rumor being spread that the tomb was indeed empty. The Pharisees sought to snuff out the rumors by saying the disciple stole the body (Matthew 28:11-15). Unfortunately, this theory that the body was stolen still persists in the modern era.

Firstly, like I said, previously, nobody couldn’t have stole the body, because the tomb was on a populated area of town. It was also during Passover , which would’ve been even more populated and that much harder for the disciples to steal the body.

Secondly, who would’ve stolen it? The Romans wouldn’t have done it because they wouldn’t have cared, Pontius Pilate cared very little about the disputes that the Jews had amongst each other as long as they gave respect to the Roman authority, as well as paid their taxes to the Empire. The Jewish leaders the Pharisees wouldn’t have done it, they were the ones who plotted to have him executed. They also were the ones who plotted to spread the conspiracy that the disciples stole the body. What did the disciples do it? Well, again, like I said before, they couldn’t have done it. Due to the populated area , when the tomb was discovered empty by the women. But also , many of the disciples dispersed in fear that the Jewish leaders would have them executed as well. The early Christians were a minority amongst a minority.

On top of that , they would not have recorded and spread the rumor that they had stolen the body in Matthew 28:11-15. The gospel of Matthew was spread to teach Jew and Gentiles alike, so why would they bring up this rumor if not to disprove it? If It was true that they stole the body. They would not want to continue to spread that truth. This fact also goes against the idea that the early church was a cult. Like I said in other writings, cults need lead they’re followings away from critique rather than charge at it head on.

The Resurrection The surface level foundation of which is atop a millennia of prophecy, deep within the Christian faith.
This Theory has:
Explanatory Scope – It can explain all the facts.
Explanatory Power – it can explain all the facts with the least amount of effort.
Lumination – It offers insight into other areas of history. It’s the one theory that gives possible answers what would explain the claims of seeing a man who claimed to be God incarnate come back to life after a crucifixion -one of, if not, the worst and for sure ways to die. I have writings on the processes involved in such an execution and the history shows that it was not merely hanging someone of the cross.

The Conclusion:
Contrary to what most believe about Christians, it is not merely faith being the reason we believe. Though it may be blind faith to some in today’s time. I have no reason not to believe -that I wont go into here- that there are indeed large amounts of Christians who now have no reasons other than emotion that guide there belief. So it’s easy to see why most who do not believe come to the conclusion that those who choose to believe, are only going by a blind faith. But this was not so in the early stages of Christianity. After all it was a severely persecuted group and their reach was limited because of it. Yet the message spread dispite the odds against it. What was the message? And when you talk to learned Christians and scholars and theologians in todays time it becomes clear that with time the arguments only get harder to deny.

I will go further into how the making up of such a story would not account for the accounts of a resurrected Jesus and subsequently the spread of Christianity.

The story of God, incarnate, sacrificing himself for us sounds poetic to us now.  But to the ancient world that was deeply rooted in a culture of honor and shame, would be not only extremely embarrassing and disgusting but also terrifying.

The Roman orator and statesman Cicero gives the general sentiment towards Crucifixion saying: “The very word ‘cross’ (crux) should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. For it is not only the actual occurrence of these things [being crucified] but the very possibility, the very mention of them, that is unworthy of a Roman citizen and a free man.”

Walter Bauer said in his book Crucifixion, “The enemies of Christianity always referred to the disgracefulness of the death of Jesus with great emphasis and malicious pleasure. A god or son of god dving on a cross! That was enough to put paid to the new religion.”‘

So how did a religion -whose messiah savior was so brutally and disgustingly executed in such an embarrassing way- grow to be the largest religion? What drove this religion -that should have been dead from the moment Jesus son of a carpenter was murdered- to spread as it did? But most importantly, how do you account for the evidence I have shown, which is rudimentary compared to learned historians, theologians and apologists?