The Son Rises: Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus

THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

We find the very first alternative explanation to Jesus’ resurrection in the pages of the New Testament itself: the conspiracy theory. In Matthew’s gospel we discover that the Jews used this theory to explain away the resurrection. The chief priests bribed the guards who were at Jesus’ tomb, instructing them: “You are to say ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ . . . And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day” (Matthew 28:13, 15). This rumor must have been fairly current among the Jews at that time, or Matthew would not have felt obligated to expose it. The conspiracy theory was thus the first alternative to the resurrection of Jesus and held basically that the resurrection was a hoax: the disciples stole the body and then lied about Jesus’ appearances to them afterwards.

The conspiracy theory was refuted by the early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea in his Demonstratio evangelica (314-18).1 Eusebius argues that it would be inconsistent to hold that the disciples were on one hand followers of Jesus with His high moral teaching and yet on the other hand such base liars as to invent all these miraculous stories about Jesus. It makes no sense to say that the men who learned and then taught the ethics of Jesus would themselves be deceivers.

Not only that, Eusebius continues, but it is inconceivable that such a conspiracy could ever be formed or hold together. Eusebius composes a wonderfully satirical speech, which he imagines to have been delivered when the disciples first joined together in this conspiracy.

“Let us band together,” the speaker proclaims, “to invent all the miracles and resurrection appearances which we never saw and let us carry the sham even to death! Why not die for nothing? Why dislike torture and whipping inflicted for no good reason? Let us go out to all nations and overthrow their institutions and denounce their gods! And even if we don’t convince anybody, at least we’ll have the satisfaction of drawing down on ourselves the punishment for our own deceit.”

Through this satire, Eusebius wants to show how ridiculous it is to imagine that the disciples invented the whole thing. But even if they had, he continues, the plot would never have held together. How could so many persons agree unanimously to lie about these things? Could such an enterprise engineered by liars ever endure? Eusebius points out that these men went to their deaths testifying to the truth of what they believed. It is unbelievable that they would suffer and die for nothing. And how could the testimonies of all these deceivers agree? The disciples gave up family, worldly pleasures, and money to go out into foreign lands to preach what they believed. They could not have been liars. Eusebius, himself a great historian, emphasizes that if we distrust these men, then we must distrust all writers of history and records. If we accept the testimony of secular historians, then we must by the same standard also accept the reliability of the disciples’ testimony to the resurrection.

The theory of conspiracy by the disciples surfaced again in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, being supported this time by the deists. The deists believed in God, but they denied that God ever acted in the world. He just sort of wound up the world like a clock, set it ticking, and let it go on its own. H. S. Reimarus (d. 1769) held that Jesus had tried to establish an earthly kingdom but failed and was executed. The disciples enjoyed the easy life of preaching the gospel, so they stole Jesus’ body and proclaimed that Jesus was a purely spiritual king with a future coming kingdom.2

The attacks of the deists brought forth a flood of books on the historical evidences for Jesus’ miracles and resurrection. That was one of the most fruitful periods in the history of Christian literature on evidences for the truth of the Christian faith. To name just one example, Nathaniel Lardner’s The Credibility of the Gospel History (1730-55), the result of a lifetime of research, consists of twelve volumes and is an impressive work by any standard. The Christian thinkers absolutely steamrollered the deists’ objections into the ground. After the eighteenth century, the conspiracy theory was laid permanently to rest and never again gained the consensus of scholarship. Let us summarize some of the main arguments used by the Christians in refuting this theory:

1. The obvious sincerity of the disciples is evident in their suffering and dying for what they believed. The Christian thinkers here picked up Eusebius’s argument. To charge the disciples with a cheap hoax flies in the face of their all too apparent sincerity. It is impossible to deny that the disciples honestly believed that Jesus had risen from the dead, in light of their life of suffering and their dying for this truth. Reimarus’s contention that the disciples made this up so they could continue their “easy life” of preaching is nothing but a poor joke.

2. The disciples’ moral character proves that they were not liars. They were men of unquestioned moral uprightness and clearly sincere about what they said. They were also simple, ordinary people, not cunning deceivers. Moreover, they had absolutely nothing of worldly value to gain by preaching this doctrine—but they had a great deal to lose. So why should we not believe that they were telling the truth?

3. The idea of a conspiracy is ridiculous. It is just inconceivable that one of the disciples would suggest to his fellow disciples that they steal Jesus’ body and say that he had risen when he and they knew that to be false. How could he possibly rally his bewildered friends into such a project? And are we then to think they would all stand confidently before judges declaring the truth of this figment of their imaginations? Besides that, common experience shows that such conspiracies inevitably unravel; either someone breaks down or slips up or the affair is otherwise discovered by opponents, in this case the Jews. The disciples, even if had they wanted to, could never have pulled off a conspiracy of such unmanageable proportions.

4. The gospels were written soon after the events and in the same place where the events had happened. Thus it would have been almost impossible for them to be lies. The disciples preached the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies only a few weeks after Jesus was crucified. Under such circumstances, the disciples could never have preached the resurrection if it had not occurred.

5. The disciples could not have stolen the body from the tomb, had they wanted to. The Jews had set the guard around the tomb specifically to prevent theft of the corpse. The story that the disciples stole the body while the guard slept is ridiculous, for (a) how could the guards have known that it was the disciples who stole the body, if they had been sleeping? And (b) it is ludicrous to imagine the disciples’ breaking into the sealed tomb and carting away the body while the guards were peacefully sleeping at the very door. Thus, the theft hypothesis is hopelessly impossible.

6. The change in the disciples shows they had not invented the resurrection. After the crucifixion the disciples were confused, defeated, fearful, and burdened with sorrow. Suddenly they changed, becoming fearless preachers of Jesus’ resurrection. They suffered bravely and confidently for this fact. They went from the depths of despair to the boldest certainty. This incredible change in the disciples showed that they were not merely lying, but were absolutely convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead.

7. The disciples became convinced of the resurrection despite every skeptical doubt and every predisposition to the contrary. They had been reared in a religion (Judaism) that was vastly different from what they later preached. They had in particular no inkling whatsoever that the Jewish Messiah (the prophesied coming King of Israel) would die and rise from the dead. When the women found the empty tomb, the disciples did not believe them. When Jesus appeared to them, they thought they were seeing a ghost. They were not at all inclined to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, but were convinced almost in spite of themselves.

In summary, the deist who holds to this theory must believe (1) that twelve poor fishermen were able to change the world through a plot laid so deep that no one has ever been able to discern where the cheat lay, (2) that these men gave up the pursuit of happiness and ventured into poverty, torments, and persecutions for nothing, (3) that depressed and fearful men would have suddenly grown so brave as to break into the tomb and steal the body, and (4) that these imposters would furnish the world with the greatest system of morality that ever was.

The high point of the Christian response to the attacks of the deists came with William Paley’s A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794),3 a work so successful that it remained compulsory reading for any applicant to Cambridge University right up until the twentieth century. It is worthwhile to survey briefly Paley’s arguments, for not only do they deal a death blow to the deistical objections, but many of his arguments have force against modern objections to the resurrection as well.

Paley’s positive case for the Christian faith consists in his defense of two statements: (1) that the original witnesses of Christian miracles voluntarily passed their lives in labor and suffering for the truth of what they proclaimed and that they also for the same reason adopted a new way of life, and (2) that no similar case exists in history. In support of the first point, Paley argues that (a) Jesus and the disciples did what the statement says, and (b) they did it because of the miraculous story found in the gospels.

In support of subpoint (a), Paley first argues from the general nature of the case. We know that the Christian faith exists. Either it was founded by Jesus and the disciples or it was founded later by others, the first being silent. But it is unbelievable that it could have been founded by others, if Jesus and the disciples did and said nothing. If the disciples had not zealously followed up what Jesus had started, Christianity would have died at its birth. If this is correct, then the first disciples must have been involved in missionary activity. Such a life, Paley points out, is not without its own sort of enjoyment, but it is an enjoyment that springs only from a true sincerity. With the consciousness at bottom of hollowness and falsehood, the fatigue and strain would have become unbearable.

Moreover, there was probably difficulty and danger involved in spreading a new faith. The Jews would oppose it because the idea of Jesus’ being the Messiah was contrary to Jewish expectations and because the disciples could not avoid implicitly accusing the Jewish leadership of an unjust and cruel murder. The pagan religions would not be sympathetic to the Christian faith either, since Christians did not acknowledge the existence of any other god. So even if there were no widespread program of persecution, random outbursts of violence against Christians probably occurred.

Finally, the very nature of the case requires that these early gospel preachers must have experienced a great change in their lives. For now they were involved in preaching, prayer, religious meetings, and teaching new converts.

What one would expect from the general nature of the case is, in fact, precisely what history tells us actually happened. The Roman historian Tacitus relates the persecution by Nero about thirty years after Jesus’ death, when Christians were smeared with pitch and used as human torches to illuminate the night, while Nero rode about Rome in the costume of a charioteer, viewing the spectacle. The testimonies of the Roman authors Seutonius and Juvenal confirm that within thirty-one years after Jesus’ death, Christians were dying for their faith. From the writings of Pliny the Younger, Martial, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, it is clear that the believers voluntarily submitted to torture and death rather than renounce their faith. That suffering is often mentioned in Christian writings as well. For example, Jesus’ predictions that His followers would be persecuted were either real predictions come true or else were put back into His mouth because persecution had come about. Either way, it shows that Christians were suffering for their faith. In the book of Acts in the New Testament, the believers’ suffering is described soberly and without extravagance. The letters in the New Testament abound with references to persecution and with commands to hold fast. The early Christian writers, Clement, Hermas, Polycarp, and Ignatius mention the sufferings that the Christians were undergoing. They also bear witness that the Christian believers had adopted a new way of life.

As for subpoint (b), it is equally clear that those early Christians were suffering for a miraculous story. The gospel story is a story of miracles, and we have no other story than the one contained in the gospels. The early letters of Barnabas and Clement refer to Jesus’ miracles and resurrection. Polycarp mentions the resurrection of Jesus, and Irenaeus writes that as a young man he had heard Polycarp tell of Jesus’ miracles. Ignatius reports that people were still living who had been healed by Jesus. Justin Martyr refers to the miracles of Jesus. No trace of a nonmiraculous story exists. That an original nonmiraculous story should be completely lost and another miraculous story replace it goes beyond any known example of corruption of even oral tradition, not to speak of written historical transmission. The gospels themselves indicate that the story they were telling was not their own invention, but that it was already widely known and told.

Thus, it is clear that the miraculous story in the gospels was the story which the Christian believers had from the beginning. This means that the resurrection of Jesus was always a part of that story. Were we to stop here, says Paley, we would have a situation unparalleled in history: that during the reign of Tiberius Caesar certain persons began a new religious faith and that in so doing they voluntarily submitted to great dangers, suffering, and labor, all for a miraculous story that they proclaimed wherever they went, and that the resurrection of a dead man whom they had known well was an integral part of that story.

But we need not stop here, continues Paley. We should rather now ask, Were the gospels really written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? If even one gospel can be shown to be genuine, then that will be enough to ensure the truth of the story.

Paley suggests several considerations that all point to the authenticity of the gospels. The apostles, he argues, would eventually have needed to publish accurate accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry, in which case any false gospels would be discredited and the genuine gospels preserved. Also the agreement between the four gospels, even when common sources behind them are acknowledged, and between the gospels and the New Testament letters shows that the story is historically trustworthy. The Hebrew and Syriac expressions in the gospels are what we would expect from the authors usually assigned to the gospels. If it were so easy to produce works under false names, then we would have more forged writings attributed to Jesus Himself. There was widespread early agreement that the gospels were genuine writings of their commonly accepted authors. In fact, Paley remarks, there is no more reason to doubt that the gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John than there is to doubt that the works of secular authors like Philo or Josephus come from their authors. The only reason skeptics doubt the gospels’ authenticity is that it is a miraculous story, and skeptics simply refuse to accept miracles.

All of the above considerations are important, states Paley. But the strongest argument that the gospels are genuine writings of their authors is ancient testimony to that fact. Here Paley expounds an elaborate eleven-point argument:

1. The gospels and Acts are quoted as genuine by ancient writers, beginning with those from the time of the apostles themselves and continuing thereafter. This sort of proof is the strongest argument for the authenticity of a writing and is regularly used by ordinary historians to prove that a particular work came from a certain author. This method, when applied to the gospels and Acts, establishes without question their authenticity. For example, the Epistle of Barnabas quotes Matthew as Scripture, and Clement of Rome also quotes words of Jesus found in Matthew. The Shepherd of Hermas alludes to Matthew, Luke, and John. Ignatius, who was a church leader in Antioch about thirty-seven years after Christ’s death alludes to Matthew and John. His contemporary, Polycarp, who knew personally the disciple John and other eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry, refers to different New Testament works some forty times. Papias, who also knew John, specifically says Matthew and Mark wrote their gospels; the offhand way in which he makes this remark shows that it was a fact generally known. Justin Martyr about twenty years later frequently quotes the gospels; he does not specify which gospel he is quoting, which shows that the four gospels must have been the only ones in existence at that time. Irenaeus, who knew Polycarp, specifically names the four gospel writers. Paley traces this chain of ancient writers all the way to Eusebius in A.D. 315.

2. The books of the New Testament were always quoted as authoritative and as one of a kind. The ancient writers did not quote them as they would quote any ordinary piece of literature. These books were special and unique and possessed final authority on what they said. Paley provides quotations from Theophilus, the writer against Artemon, Hippolitus, Origen, and many others to prove the point.

3. The books of the New Testament were collected as one volume at a very early date. Today we divide the New Testament into the gospels (the story of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection) and the epistles (the letters written by the early apostles like Paul, Peter, and John). The ancient writers made a similar distinction, only they called it the Gospels and the Apostles. Ignatius mentions collections of New Testament books into the Gospels and the Apostles. According to Eusebius, Quadratus distributed the gospels to converts during his travels. Irenaeus and Melito refer to the collection of writings that we today call the New Testament. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian also refer to the division of Scripture into the Gospels and Apostles. This shows that the gospels were collected together by the early church.

4. These writings were given titles of respect. Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Irenaeus, and others refer to them as “scriptures,” “divine writings,” and so forth.

5. These writings were publically read and preached upon. Paley quotes Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian to prove the point.

6. Copies, commentaries, and harmonies of the gospels were written. Thousands upon thousands of copies of the New Testament books were laboriously made by hand. Many commentaries and other works on them were written by men such as Pantaenus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and so on. It is especially noteworthy that during the first three hundred years, no commentary was written on any book outside the New Testament, with the sole exception of Clement’s commentary on the so-called Revelation of Peter. Harmonies, or combinations of the four gospels into one, were also composed, for example, Tatian’s Diatessaron (c. A.D. 170).

7. The New Testament books were accepted by all heretical groups as well as by orthodox Christians. Examples of such heretics include Basilides, the Valentinians, the Carpocratians, and many others. Though they all denied some aspect of New Testament teaching, they nevertheless acknowledged the authenticity of the New Testament books themselves.

8. The gospels, Acts, thirteen letters of Paul, 1 John, and 1 Peter were recognized as authentic writings even by those who doubted the authenticity of certain other New Testament epistles. For example, Origen cites the book of Hebrews to support a particular point he is making. He notes that some persons might doubt the authority of Hebrews, but he says that the same point could be proved from the undisputed books of Scripture. He then quotes Matthew and Acts. According to Origen, the four gospels were received without doubt by the whole church of God under heaven. In the same way, Eusebius reports that although some doubted certain epistles, the four gospels were universally recognized as authentic.

9. The early enemies of Christianity recognized that the gospels contained the story on which the faith was founded. Celsus, for example, admits that the gospels were written by the apostles. Porphyry attacked the Christian faith as it is found in the gospels. The heretic Julian pursued the same procedure.

10. Lists of authentic Scriptures were published, which always included the gospels and Acts. Citations from Origen, Athanasius, Cyril, and others prove the point.

11. The apocryphal books were never treated in the above manner. The apocryphal books were forgeries, which were written in the second century after Christ. They purported to be writings of the apostles and carried titles like the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, and so forth. It is a simple historical fact that during the first three hundred years, with one exception, no apocryphal gospel was ever even quoted by any known writer. In fact, there is no evidence that any forged gospel whatever existed in the first century, during which time the four gospels and Acts were written. The apocryphal gospels were never quoted, never read or preached upon in Christian assemblies, not collected into a volume, not included in the lists of authentic Scriptures, not appealed to by heretics, not noticed by Christianity’s enemies, not the subject of commentaries or harmonies, but were nearly universally rejected by Christian writers of that age.

Therefore, Paley concludes, the gospels must be the authentic writings of the apostles. Even if it were the case that the names of the gospel authors were wrong, it still cannot be denied in light of the above arguments that the gospels do contain the story that the original apostles told and for which they labored and suffered. Therefore, the story must be true. The only alternative would be that the apostles were all liars. But that has already been shown to be impossible in light of their sufferings and changed lives. That can only mean that the gospel story must be true.

Paley then turns to his proof of statement (2) that no similar case exists in history. I shall not summarize his argument here in such detail as I did his proof for statement (1). Paley lays down rules that can be used in assessing claims to miracles. He argues that in most cases, the evidence for a genuine miracle is not clear and that the supposed miracles are usually fakes or exaggerations, or are attributable to psychosomatic factors. In those cases where miracles cannot be explained, it still remains true that there is no evidence that the witnesses to those miracles have then voluntarily submitted to labor, danger, and suffering for the truth of the story that they told. Thus, the situation with the disciples and the gospel story of Jesus is without parallel in history.

In the second volume of his masterful work, Paley discusses confirmatory evidence for the truth of the Christian faith, such as fulfilled prophecy, the historical accuracy of the gospels, the excellence of Jesus’ moral character, and so on. The chapter that discusses the evidence for the resurrection deserves our attention.

He begins by observing that the whole of the New Testament testifies to the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. That leaves us with only two alternatives: the apostles were either deceivers or deceived. The first alternative, that the apostles were deceivers, has been to a large extent abandoned, Paley remarks, because of the obvious sincerity of the disciples, as well as their high moral character and the suffering they endured for the gospel.

The second alternative, that the disciples were deceived, implies that the belief in the resurrection is due to religious hysteria and hallucinations. But this alternative fails on several grounds: (1) Not just one person saw Jesus appear after His resurrection, but many. (2) Not just lone individuals saw Him, but groups of people. (3) They did not see Him only once, but many times. (4) They did not merely see Him, but touched Him, conversed with Him, and ate with Him. (5) Jesus’ body was not to be found. That is the decisive argument against the religious hallucination hypothesis. For it is impossible that Jesus’ followers could have believed that He was raised from the dead if the corpse were there before them in the tomb. It is equally impossible to suppose that the disciples could have stolen the body and perpetrated a fraud. Moreover, Christianity was founded in Jerusalem. That would have been impossible if Jesus’ body were still in the tomb. The Jews would have produced Jesus’ corpse as the shortest and completest answer to the whole story. Instead, all they could do was invent the lame excuse that the disciples had stolen the body. Thus, since the hypothesis of religious hallucinations is unable to explain the empty tomb, it ultimately collapses back into the conspiracy theory, which has already been seen to be ridiculous. Therefore, the historical resurrection of Jesus remains the best explanation of the facts.

The arguments of Paley and his predecessors buried the conspiracy theory forever. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that no modern biblical scholar would for a moment entertain the theory that the disciples conspired together to steal the corpse and then lie about the resurrection appearances. It is utterly out of the question. The fact that this issue is still batted back and forth at the popular level is sad testimony to the terrible lack of communication between the specialist and the man on the street. The theory has been dead for nearly two hundred years.