The Unapologetic Apologia

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.

Next: Pt.6