God’s Truth
The Resurrection
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Sunday, July 25, 1999
Would Not Have Cheated
Hillary and Tensing climbed Everest in 1953 and we accept it as historically true because they were honourable and experienced mountain climbers who could not have made a mistake and would not have cheated. We must similarly accept the gospel evidence, according to Phibber.
I am happy to dispute this because we do not worship Hillary and Tensing as gods. If we did then there would be people like me who would demand indisputable evidence. Hillary and Tensing did something which was difficult but, as they proved, was not supernatural. If their claim was they had climbed Everest and had been able to look down on heaven, we should be less inclined to believe them, and would require quite a lot of uncontrovertible evidence that it was true.
It is possible that Hillary and Tensing did not climb Everest, but most people freely accept the claim because it does not really matter. Thousands of people have done it since and someone had to do it for the first time. It might as well be them. But miilions of people believe that Jesus rose from the dead, a feat infinitely more difficult than climbing Everest, on flimsy evidence from two thousand years ago.
Our tutor says we have just as good word for believing the gospels as for believing Hillary and Tensing—the claims were made by honourable men. Why, Phibber asks us should Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul all deliberately lie? But one does not have to assume that they all deliberately lied—just the one of them who influenced the others.
Now Hillary and Tensing might not have climbed Everest but believed they had, as Phibber concedes, though discounts, because of their experience. But few people have experience of people rising from the dead. Those who thought they observed Jesus’s might have been in error. But our teacher says this goes “right against the facts” The apostles, Phibber tells us, admitted to being prejudiced against the idea of Jesus’s resurrection.
What he means, I don’t really know, but he seems to be making his own deduction from the reports of the risen Jesus. In each case, he argues, if the apostles were expecting Jesus to be resurrected they would have seen him when he appeared, but instead he was always mistaken for someone else. Mary Magdalene thought he was the gardener, not that the gardener was he. On the road to Emmaus he was mistaken for a stranger not the other way around.
Here is some curious reasoning from a scientist. Phibber, as always, assumes that the man seen in each case was indeed Jesus, and therefore that no mistake was made in the end. That fits in with Phibber’s conviction that the bible is infallibly true. He cannot bring himself to consider that Mary Magdalene mistook the gardener for Jesus and the disciples mistook a stranger for Jesus.
One can only conclude, if the apostles did not expect Jesus to be resurrected that he was singularly unimpressive in telling them that he would be. According to the gospels, Jesus repeatedly tells them, yet no one is expecting it when it happens. Did they all think he was deranged when he uttered these pronouncements?
Christians explain it by saying the apostles were as thick as a plank, to a man—or woman. This assertion itself says little inspiring about Jesus or, indeed, about God. If this is all God’s plan to save mankind, He could have picked anybody, but he picked a load of thickies who nearly spoil the plan.
Anyway, they were not, in general, liars, Phibber keeps arguing from the assumption that the gospels tell the truth. If you believe the bible then Phibber’s explanations add nothing. If you do not believe it, you get nowhere because the doctor apparently knows nothing about how the New Testament grew with time. For him it is there and it is true. You will recall that we began, he said, by making no assumptions!
Jesus’s Life
All of the “biographies” of Jesus were written after Paul had written his epistles. Paul tells us nothing about Jesus’s life, only his death. He tells us that Jesus died on the cross, rose again and made appearances. It is Paul who first says what the appearances were. No one writing a gospel afterwards could leave those appearances out. The greatest apostle of them all, the self-appointed apostle to the gentiles had already described them. Only Paul therefore needed to lie. His followers would then be faithfully reproducing what they took to be the truth. So when Dr Ernest Phibber tells us that many honest and “intelligent” men reported a very wonderful event he is being economical with the truth. Only one man need have been a liar and that was Paul.
Why, Phibber asks, should any of them lie when their reward for so doing was only imprisonment, torture and death? My answer is that many men of all ages have risked these punishments for fame and wealth. Paul however risked little of this, preaching as he was in the Roman Empire. Like cult leaders today, he reveled in the admiration and the praise of his converts. They gave him large amounts of money, allowing him to travel widely and possibly enabling him to buy Roman citizenship, though the money was intended for the Poor Ones of Jerusalem. As a Roman citizen, he had little risk of excessive punishment or death. Tradition has it that he was crucified at Rome, but that could have been a figment of the later church—all the main evangelists were supposed to have been murdered—but most first lived to ripe ages so it is unlikely. Anyway, there is little reason to believe that the resurrection was real. Only one man needed to depend upon the gullibility of his followers for it to be accepted.
Christianity was born, Phibber says, in a most unfavourable environment yet it succeeded. Having told us earlier that Jews as well as gentiles disliked it, he now tells us that “quite a few” Jews and gentiles did accept it and apparently accepted it so fervently that they “changed the face of the world”. This latter is a God’s Truth quotation from Acts 17:6 where the expression is really they that “have turned the world upside down”—because there had been a riot.
The object of this introductory discussion is to contrast Judaism with Christianity. Phibber says orthodox Jews regarded the Christian claim that there was only one god “blasphemous nonsense” because Jesus sat at the right hand of God. Yet the expression itself comes from Jewish messianic writings. Psalms 110 was quoted by our Phibber in his arguments discussed above. The expression in fact occurs numerous times in the psalms. Why then should the Jews object to it? Not because it is blasphemous, it is not.
The Christians were not claiming that their version of the messiah sat at God’s right hand. They claimed that Jesus himself was a god. Jews have only one Almighty God only—though many lesser gods. Christians now believe in a trinity of almighty gods—three gods in one—and hosts of lesser gods, saints and ghosts. Christians have one God, but he is three!—and the same set of lesser gods as the Jews. The Muslims, who also have the same lesser gods, thought the Christians had two main gods and a main goddess—namely God, Jesus and the Queen of Heaven. Whichever way you look at it Christianity is not truly monotheistic though they claim it is. But that’s God’s Truth.
Human Sacrifice
Our tutor then tells us that the Jews were disgusted that the Christians “had the audacity to say that Jesus Christ” was a “human sacrifice for sins”. Not surprisingly, any decent human being would respond. The Jews introduced animal sacrifice as a substitute for the human sacrifice that had preceded it in ancient times as the scriptures make clear in the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22:12-13). The Persian sages returning from “exile” had codified it all in Temple practices, but it nevertheless was an advance upon human sacrifice. The Christians however wanted one final human sacrifice, it seems. The whole idea is barbaric and anyone who cannot see it as such must be a barbarian. No wonder the Jews were disgusted.
Dr Ernest Phibber goes on to tell us that the Christians admitted gentiles, dropped the sabbath, worshipped God on a Sunday instead and allowed people to eat whatever food they liked. And despite these objections a fair sprinkling of Jews, including quite a number of priests did join the early church. For an analytically brained scientist, this is a remarkable load of nonsense. Not that Christians did not eventually do all the things listed but that despite them “a fair sprinkling” of Jews and “quite a number of priests” joined the early Church.
What is true to say is that the early church consisted entirely of Jews. Then, gentiles who were not ethnic Jews but previously associate members of the Jewish religion called “godfearers” were allowed to join. For anyone who knows anything about Christianity this is common knowledge. Furthermore, these Jews who were the first Christians accepted all the precepts of the Jewish religion including the Laws of Moses which included the food taboos. The priests who joined (Acts 6:7) were not joining a new religion as far as they were concerned. The Christians converted by Peter at Pentecost offered sacrifice in the Temple (Acts 2:46) as Phibber must know as a bible “scholar”. God’s Truth seems to be that Christianity came into being small but perfectly formed, but that is utter nonsense by the evidence of the bible itself.
When Christianity began it was a minor variant of Judaism which differed only in the belief that Jesus was the messiah. There were no barriers to any Jew joining the sect and the only barrier to a gentile joining was the same as that against a gentile becoming a Jew—circumcision. Only a charlatan could pretend that all this is not true. But that’s God’s Truth. So what to our ignorant professor is an “extraordinary” event, Jewish priests forgoing the laws of Moses to join a new religion, is not at all extraordinary.
Phibber now leads us on to Paul, the apostle, concluding his glowing description by saying he “ended his days as a martyr of Christ”. Really! Where does he get that from? Not from the bible which does not mention Paul’s death. We have one of those curious omissions again. Paul was the practical founder of the Christian church yet the Christian holy books do not say how he died. All right, you would not expect Paul’s own works or the gospels which are devoted to the subject of Jesus to mention Paul’s death but why doesn’t Acts or any of the later epistles? And why also are the majority of the apostles appointed by Jesus ignored?
The mention of Paul being a martyr is a tradition of the church. Are we then to believe all the traditions of the church as well as all of its writings? When, like a description of Jesus in the gospels, something is missing that you would expect to be there you have a reason to be suspicious. Paul probably retired in a comfortable Roman villa as the end of Acts suggests:
He abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling and received all that went in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him.Acts 28:30-31
There is no indication here of persecutions and martyrdom, almost as if the author of Acts wanted to refute the idea, but it’s a much better story to make out that all the good men of the early church met unjust and cruel deaths.
The Apostle, Paul
Dr Ernest Phibber tells us how the apostle Paul became a Christian—it was because the risen Christ appeared to him after he had appeared to all the people he had previously appeared to. This is where the appearances make their own first chronological appearance in Christian scriptures. It must be true else how can we explain Paul’s conversion? Well no doubt there are more ways than one but the most likely reason is that Paul saw an opportunity.
Paul, according to Acts, was a Jew of the diaspora. He was therefore much more worldly than the Jews of Palestine. He had obviously hoped to ingratiate himself with the men of power and the Sadducees in Jerusalem thereby getting wealth and influence but he saw a better way. Become an evangelist.
It remains true today that evangelists and minority cult leaders can carve out a fortune in a relatively short time. Some of these people might be sincere but most prove to be totally cynical about their followers who give them vast sums of money to run businesses, TV stations and publishing houses, while themselves remaining poor or even poverty stricken. Paul was an early version of these. He collected money, urging his Greek churches like the one in Corinth to cough up. He confessed to being “all things to all men”—in short, an opportunist and a liar—while accusing the real apostles of themselves teaching a false gospel. Paul was the founder of God’s Truth.
Now Phibber comes to the question of the empty tomb. The best that the unbelievers could come up with was reported in Matthew. It was the obvious one that someone had stolen the corpse. Matthew answers this objection by saying that the priests and Pharisees purposely asked Pilate for a guard on the sepulchre to prevent Jesus’s followers from stealing the body. The guard reported the wonders they had seen but the priests bribed them to say the disciples had stolen the body, and so the Jews believe “until this day”. For Phibber, that disposes of that. Naturally it would, for a man whose critical faculties had atrophied to the extent of his. But any normal man would say that the body was indeed stolen by the disciples and that is precisely why the tomb was empty.
Only Matthew tells us that Pilate agreed to put troops on guard—the other three gospels say nothing about it. It is evident that skeptics were already pointing out that the corpse must have been stolen in the years preceding the gospel being set down by Matthew, many years after the event. Matthew decided to dispose of that objection in his gospel account so introduces the guards. Mark, writing earlier and more honestly, mentions no guards, Luke and John, writing later, probably saw that the invention of a guard solved nothing since people would see through it. So they opted for the earlier simpler version.
The story in Matthew is actually made more absurd by the introduction of the guards. The guards, matter of factly report what happened at the tomb to the priests and are bribed to stay quiet. Most of us would find it difficult to understand why the troops were not instantly converted. They were witnesses to a great earthquake, an angel descending from heaven to roll away the stone and sit upon it looking like lightning while announcing to the assembled throng that Jesus would meet the disciples in Galilee. But they were not converted. They simply reported all this to the priests and took a bribe to say the corpse was stolen. Credible, eh!
Our guide tells us this is all beside the point—it does not address the “unassailable facts of history”. You get an uncomfortable feeling that our teacher is a man for whom truth is assertion. Say something strongly enough and loudly enough and it must be true. If my uncle Harold had said repeatedly before he died that he would rise from the dead as he lay in his coffin and would fly to the moon, everyone would think him mad. If I ran out of the house the morning after his wake shouting, “Uncle Harold is risen. He’s gone to the moon”, most people would think I was mad. If they found that the coffin was indeed empty they would, at first be shocked, then say, “Go on! You took his body somewhere. He didn’t really fly to the moon”. Such disbelief would be well founded because such things do not happen unless they have been arranged! By humans, not by God! As a Bishop of Durham rightly said, “God does not carry out conjuring tricks with bones”.
Wrong Tomb
Phibber considers some other theories and rapidly disposes of them too. One is that the neurotic Magdalene went to the wrong tomb, created a hue and cry when she found it empty and in the early morning light everyone got confused. Another is that the disciples imagined it all. Finally there is the theory that Jesus was not dead when he was taken from the cross, left the tomb alive and was able to appear to the disciples when he had recovered. Phibber disposes of the first two by suggesting that the Jews would find and produce the body to stop the disruptive rumour from spreading.
The third is impossible because Jesus was severely wounded, even if not dead, and could hardly be appearing all over the place. Frankly, here I agree with Phibber but his argument doesn’t really stand up. Any appearances could have been a long time after the crucifixion and Jesus could have had time to heal. This too would explain why no one readily recognised him. If someone has been considered dead for several months then shuffles alongside you as you walk to Emmaus, possibly you would not recognise him immediately. You would not be expecting to see a dead man and his suffering might have etched his features or turned his hair white. His wounds would have made him limp and might have paralysed his arms or hands. He might even have been deliberately disguised so that the authorities would not re-arrest him and, this time, make sure he was dead.
None of this is necessary however. Phibber does not consider the possibility that Jesus was not even crucified—Simon of Cyrene was instead. Jesus should have carried the cross as was usual for a felon about to be crucified. The gospel story was that Simon carried the cross for Jesus. Why did he do it? Why did the Romans allow it? When did Simon pass the cross back to Jesus? If he did not then it was Simon who was crucified. Did a Roman soldier accept a bribe to let Simon carry the cross and while Simon staggered down the Via Dolorosa with his burden Jesus slipped off into the crowds? At Golgotha, Simon turns round and says, “Jesus, here is your cross back. Jesus… Jesus?”
It is more likely, of course, that Simon had drawn the short straw in a lottery among those of Jesus’s disciples who were quite willing to die on their master’s behalf. Both Christians and Moslems since have shown a readiness to die for their cause, what was to stop it happening from the start. Jesus could then plainly appear to his disciples. Critics probably saw this possibility also and consequently the disciples were depicted putting hands into spear wounds and fingers into nail wounds to prove that the man on the cross was the same as the man appearing.
Another possibility is that Jesus died, but Thomas, said to be his twin, made the appearances. Once again the gospel writers had met this criticism. At first, in Luke, Thomas is not present with the followers when Jesus appears to them. How could he be if he were pretending to be Jesus? So Jesus appears again under similar circumstances but with Thomas present and able to stick his fingers into his brother’s wounds to verify who it is. The second appearance was necessary to answer the criticism of the first. You will note that in both cases the appearances were in secret because “doors were shut”.
Concluding this section, our guide relates how the apostles could not have been cheats because they were “frightened men” who forsook him and “fled” and lost faith in his messiahship. Quite how that follows I don’t know, but it is, in any case, God’s Truth because the fleeing that Dr Ernest Phibber cites is the fleeing from the garden when Jesus was arrested. They were therefore fleeing from the guards and the prospect of being nailed up themselves. This seems entirely natural, no Christian interpreter ever suggesting anywhere that Jesus required his apostles to surrender themselves to the same fate out of loyalty, so it can hardly be claimed as evidence that they forsook him.
The gospel citation (Luke 24:18-25) that they had lost faith in his messiahship might be true but the messiahship in question was that expected by Jews, a redeemer of Israel. That is hardly surprising since their redeemer seemed to have been comprehensively killed by the very enemy that he was supposed to have been redeeming Israel from—the Romans. In fact, this passage shows that the followers of Jesus believed him to have been a putative king of the Jews and not a human sacrifice for the sins of the world as the Christians later made him.
