Truth
Christianity Examined
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Saturday, July 29, 2000
The Provenance of the New Testament
Christians believe Jesus died and rose bodily from the grave because the New Testament says so and it can be relied on. It is amazing to skeptics that this should be so. If the Russians came forward with a 200 year old deed that said that the USA had been sold to the Russian Tsar would they believe that deed to be reliable? They would not, and they would take no notice of it even if it were, because they would say it is now irrelevant. Why are 2000 year old books any more reliable or relevant to the modern situation?
Christian apologists—like Dr Norman L Geisler, author, educator and Dean of Southern Evangelical Seminary, Charlotte, NC—will spend enormous lengths of time proving to their own satisfaction that the books of the New Testament have been faithfully copied over centuries. They cannot understand that, even if the New Testament was copied perfectly, it would not prove that its content was true.
Christians like to tell us there are over 5,300 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, most of which include the gospels. Of secular works from the ancient world, we have most copies of Homer’s Iliad—643. Many great classics are known only from a handful of manuscripts: nine or ten good copies of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, twenty copies of Livy’s Roman History, two copies of Tacitus’s Annals and eight copies of Thucydides’ History, according to F F Bruce, the Manchester biblical scholar.
It is hard to understand what this is supposed to show except that the bible has been held sacred for a long time whereas even Homer’s Iliad has not. Jews revered their books so much that they would not destroy them when they were worn out but put them in a sacred waste bin called a geniza. It should be fairly obvious that revered books will be held and treasured more than novels or schoolbooks. The Iliad and Caesar’s Gallic Wars were school books for teaching Greek and Latin.
Manuscripts of the New Testament are earlier, and the closer a manuscript is to the time of the original composition, the less chance it has of being corrupted. Most books from the ancient world survive as manuscripts copied at least 1,000 years after the original work. No book from the ancient world has such a small a time gap between composition and the earliest manuscript copies as the New Testament.
The argument is the same as the previous paragraph. People have been much more inclined to keep their bibles than other books. An additional important factor is that Christians made a point of destroying Pagan books, so it is hardly surprising that few of them survived, and those few only by chance.
Copied Accurately?
The New Testament is more accurately copied than other books. Christians claim the New Testament 99.5 to 99.9% accurately copied. Only 50 variants were of any significance, and not one affected an article of faith or a precept of duty. By comparison Homer’s Iliad was only 95% accurately copied. Christians therefore claim all the essential truths about the death and resurrection of Christ are accurately reported in the New Testament.
As soon as the church in the second century got concerned about what Christian writings should be canonical, they also became concerned to copy them correctly. They were after all supposed to be God’s word, so they had a motive for copying them accurately, unlike school textbooks. The real question is whether they were accurately copied before the second century. Since they have many internal signs of editing, they were obviously not considered so sacred that editors could not alter them. So, whether the alterations were accidental copyists’ errors or deliberate editorial changes, we know that the New Testanment works were not unaltered before the second centry.
Irrespective of how accurately the Christian books were supposedly copied, Christians have to prove that when the New Testament says that Jesus rose from the dead, it actually happened. The evidence they offer is a book that exists today in 5,000 manuscripts or fragments but that can be pieced together to give a good idea of the story. What, though, does it prove? That a man rose from the dead is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What is extraordinary about the fact that this story was written in a book, even if it was copied accurately.
True Reading?
Sir Frederick Kenyon has declared that the manuscript sources of the New Testament are so large that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in one or another of these ancient authorities.
The trouble with Kenyon’s meaningless claim is that no one knows what the true reading is, so even if some manuscript preserves it, who knows which it is? The proof of this is the many notes given in any comprehensive bible showing the alternative readings extant, including the omission of the last verses of Mark, no unimportant matter.
Besides abundant and accurate manuscripts, these texts affirm the death and resurrection of Christ is also historically reliable. The argument is not that they are inspired or inerrant, but only that, like other good works of antiquity, they are accurate. Again, the evidence for this is greater than that of any work from that period.
But even if they are accurate in that they represent what was written down, how are we to know that what was written was correct? What if the writers were deliberately trying to fool potential converts? What if the story was the plot of a mystery play? Christians say it was true because the people who wrote the New Testament, particularly of the gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians were either eyewitnesses or contemporaries of eyewitnesses, but only the bible itself affirms this, and why should the authors have not been clever enough to make out that they were?
The Christian implication is that eyewitnesses cannot be mistaken but courts of law have shown repeatedly that they often are, and the same courts would not accept evidence from contemporaries even of eyewitnesses because hearsay evidence is still not acceptable except in some civil cases, and then it is not given much weight without additional evidence. We have no way of cross-examining these witnesses to find out whether they were lying or not. Christians have already honoured them with preternatural holiness so they think they could not have been, but that is begging the question.
Vivid?
Christians like to say that the claim of being written by contemporaries is supported by such as “the freshness, vividness, and accuracy” of the accounts, accuracy meaning that specific details fit the time—places such as Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem; people such as Pharisees, Sadduccees, Herodians; known people like king Herod, Pontius Pilate, and Caesar Augustus.
The fact that the gospel writers all say different things in crucial parts such as the discovery of the empty tomb is explained by their “different perspectives”, but supposedly they all present the same basic facts. The trouble is that the details of places and people cited tell us nothing except that the authors were setting the scene in their immediate past and in Palestine, and that is not in dispute. What is diputed is whether the story they tell is true. In the present day, there have been millions of fictional tales written for novels, films and TV, all of which could be true but are fiction. The gospel stories could not be true by any modern criteria.
Christians argue that archaeology has confirmed the basic historical accuracy of the gospel record, citing such as the writings of Sir William Ramsay, who converted from a skeptical view of the New Testament by his research in the near eastern world. He wrote:I began with a mind unfavorable to it. More recently I found myself often brought in contact with the book of Acts as an authority for topography, antiquites, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually born in upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth.
Ramsay decided Luke was a first-rate historian, with allegedly no errors in references to 32 countries, to 44 cities, and 9 islands. From this, Christians take Luke’s narration of Christ’s death and resurrection as authentic as well. Thus archaeology confirms the basic historicity of these documents on such as the resurrection and ascension.
Unfortunately, the fact that I can describe the world in which I live with considerable accuracy will not prove that I am the Queen Mother. Christians are happy to take a banal truth, that a clever man, alleged to have been a doctor, could write accurately about the world he lived in, is proof that Jesus was resurrected when he adds that such-and-such a man told me that a man he knew once rose from the dead. It is like saying, “Robert Fisher once told me the moon landing was a fake, and it must be true because he knows the rules of chess better than anyone.” In short, the fact that Luke was a great historian does not prove an impossible event, that he had personally not seen, happened.
Christians, still intrigued by the antiquity of their gospel fragments, say the manuscript evidence points to a first century date for the basic gospel material. The John Rylands papyri, being an early second century copy of portions of John found in Egypt, points to a first century origin of John in Asia. Likewise the Bodmer papyri from the end of the second century and the Chester Beatty papyri from only a half century later form crucial links in a manuscript chain that takes us right back to the threshold of the first century when the books were written.
There is no need to repeat that the first century provenance of the manuscripts means nothing unless they were contemporary with the events themselves, and otherwise well authenticated as recording the truth. There are few Christians who will not accept that the earliest gospel was written forty years after the events it purports to describe, easily long enough for mundane matters to be blown into mythical proportions, especially in those superstitious times.
Christians are fond of citing several Pagan authors in support of the gospel tradition.
Among them are Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Samaritan born Thallus, the letter of Mara Bar-Serapion, the Jewish Talmud. Many of the supposed citations have been discredited by scholars, especially that from Josephus. In many references, they were recounting what they had found that Christians believed. Others were not really by the authors but were being retold by later Christians. The letter of Bar-Serapion does not even speak of Jesus. The whole list is spurious, as any educated Christian knows, so it is related only to con the uneducated ones.
Honest Men?
Christians will reassure us that the writers of the New Testament books on the resurrection like Luke, John, and Paul were known to be honest men. They not only expounded a high moral standard of honesty and integrity, but they lived by it and died for it. While some people have been known to die for what they believed to be right but was wrong, few people have been willing to die for what they know to be wrong. What is more, the other gospels, like Matthew and Mark with no direct claim of authorship, give the same basic message about Christ’s death and resurrection.
This is typically dishonest! No one knows whether these people were honest or not because nobody knows much about who they were other than what they tell us themselves, and dishonest men do not convince people by bragging about their dishonesty. Yet, if the books of the New Testament are to be believed, as the Christians want us to, then Paul says quite openly that he was a liar, and would lie for the good of his cause. That is sufficient to discount anything more he has to say.
As for dying, the careers of most of these people are again not known. Christians say Paul and Peter were killed by the Romans, but they would say that, would they not? Christians for hundreds of years have pretended that they were cruelly persecuted for a long time and all the leading figures of the earliest times died as martyrs. Few people who are not committed Christians believe a word of it, and even honest Christians know and confess these myths to be just that—myths. Even if some of them did die for what was false, it does not mean that they knew it. All of the disciples need not have been in on any deception that occurred, or indeed any of them. If Jesus was an Essene, as seems hardly disputable now, the Essenes could have removed his body, unbeknown to the disciples of Jesus.
The bible evidence is contradictory. Read the resurrection accounts in the four gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us Mary Magdalene went to the tomb the first day of the week, and while she was there she saw an angel, who had rolled the stone away. This angel announced that Jesus whom they were looking for was not there, that he had risen from the dead. Luke tells us he reminded them that while he was with them, he had said he would rise from the dead. They then remembered! John tells us that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, found that it was empty, ran to Peter and the other disciple, and said that they had stolen the Lord’s body, and she did not know where they had laid him. Where was the angel that had told her he has risen from the dead?
Jesus appeared to the apostles on the night of his resurrection (Jn 20). Thomas was not there, although in Luke’s account, he said that Jesus appeared to the eleven. Thomas insisted that he must see Jesus himself and touch the wounds with his own hands, otherwise he would not believe. Thomas knew the apostles personally, yet would not believe their story that Jesus had come back to life. He would not trust them! If Thomas knew them personally and did not consider their words satisfactory evidence, then why should we believe the second or third hand testimony of these people?
Christian Sophistry
The testimony of the early second century writers directly link the gospels with the eyewitnesses and contemporaries of the events. The Oracles of Papias (125-140) for example, make the significant affirmation that the apostle Matthew wrote the gospel of Matthew, that Mark the associate of Peter wrote the gospel of Mark shortly after the middle of the first century.
Once again we are reading Christian sophistry. Papias might have written what the Christians quote to us, but it does not come from him in the early part of the second century but from Eusebius, a man of highly doubtful honesty, writing in the fourth century. Christianity wanted to establish its credentials in the fourth century when it became “top religion” for the first time. Eusebius therefore had a clear motive for trying to establish a chain of provenance back to the apostles themselves. No honest man today would quote Papias without making the true source clear.
The immediate successors of the apostles beginning in the late first and early second century cite gospels and epistles as authentic including sections on the death and resurrection of Christ. In AD 95, Clement of Rome cited the gospels. Around AD 110 Ignatius quoted Luke 24:39, a crucial text on the resurrection of Christ. Polycarp, a disciple of John the apostle cites the synoptic gospels as authentic. The Epistle of Barnabas (135 AD) quotes Matthew. Papias (125 AD) speaks of Matthew, Mark, and John writing gospels saying three times that Mark made no errors.
Christians hang on to these straws of evidence that the gospels were known early in the second century, but the power of omission is much greater. If Ignatius knew Luke, then why did he not quote him to support Ignatius’s statement of the virgin birth. Clement mentions what seem to be sayings of Jesus, but collected in such a strange way that none of them are quotations from any known gospel. It is peculiarly tendentious for any Christian to cite these early second century authors in evidence of the continuity of a gospel tradition, because they much more effectively do the opposite from them having nothing indisputably from the gospels.
Highly reputable contemporary scholars date the New Testament books within the lifetime of eyewitnesses and contemporaries of the events. Archaeologist, Nelson Glueck, wrote, “We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after AD 80.” The renowned paleographer, William F Albright declared that every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the 40s and 80s of the first century and very probably between 50 and 75.
Christians again get dishonest by quoting these men who have been thoroughly discredited themselves as nothing but apologists who have done untold harm to Palestinian archaeology by their attempts to force it into their preconceived pot, whether Christian or Jewish. Almost everything that Glueck and Albright wrote is looked upon with profound suspicion by modern archaeologists. Even so, the point has to be made yet again because Christians cannot seem to understand that however secure the provenance of the New Testament writings, it does not prove that what they say is true, any more than the fact that the Harry Potter books are true because they have been written in the lifetime of people living today.
Mythological Development
The known time lapse between the actual events and the time of composition of the first document is too short for mythological development. One expert, Julius Mueller, declared that it takes at least two generations for a myth to develop. Whereas there is only 20 years or so in the case of the New Testament. He also notes that myths do not develop when there are still contemporaries of the events to debunk them, such as there were at the time of the basic New Testament documents. Furthermore, the New Testament record shows no sign of mythological development, such as are present, say in the 2nd and 3rd century apocryphal gospels.
It is hard to know how any honest man can present such a mishmash of unfounded assertion as evidence. Julius Mueller might have a view, but his view is either demonstrably wrong or unclear depending on what he means by a generation. A generation can reasonably be anything from 15 to 45 years. a Jewish generation was 40 years, but conventionally it is now 25. So “two generations” can mean anything from 30 to 90 years with an average at about 50. That means that even on Mueller’s criterion, the myth of Jesus could have been formed in the minimum of forty years (not 20) that most people think passed before the gospels were written down.
And no one will consider the possibility that the story was dissimulated deliberately to suit the gentile bishops who were quite consciously, like Paul, trying to spread a new religion. But even then, the two generations is demonstrably wrong. It has been shown in modern times that myths can form in weeks if not days, though modern fast communications plainly have their role to play. Urban myths have certainly been formed and believed in short times.
The presence of contemporaries to contradict them may or may not have any effect on the formation of a myth. In this case, it is certain that the myths that arose were formulated precisely to answer the criticisms of Jews who had been dispersed from Palestine in the post-War diaspora. It is likely that one reason why gospels were written was to put together a reasonably coherent story to refute Jewish critics. The point, though is that the Jewish critics were already discredited for those who had taken to the new religion. They were disliked because they had just been fighting against Rome in a bloody war. The flocks of gentile believers were therefore much more inclined to believe the mendacious bishops than the Jews, who knew the truth, coming as refugees from Judaea. Finally, what basis is there for Christians to say that there is no sign of mythological development. Most non-Christians would say it has every sign of it. What is the Gerasene Demoniac if it is not a sign of mythological development?
Paul
Even radical critics of the New Testament acknowledge that the apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians about AD 56. But this is only 23 years after Jesus was crucified in AD 33. and well within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. Further, Paul indicates that his material is based on an even earlier creed which he received (1 Corinthians 15:1) that comes from within a few years of the events themselves. In this text, Paul affirmed that the majority of 500 witnesses were still alive when he wrote (implying that his readers could confirm for themselves if they wished).
The date of the crucifixion is assumed by Christians to have been 33 AD. If it were as late as this, then Paul was converted before Jesus was even crucified, not the story of the bible, and if it were true, would take the miraculous out of the appearances of Jesus to Paul. This is based on the chronology of Acts and the epistles, which say that Paul converted 17 years before the Jerusalem conference of 49 AD—in 32 AD, in other words.
Once again we come back to eyewitnesses, the centre of the Christian case. Christian apologists want to give the impression that everything happened in a small mid-west town where everyone knew everyone else. It actually happened over the whole of the east of the Roman empire, from Damascus to Rome, at a time when communications were dire by modern standards, even though they were excellent by the standards of previous ages. Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem and there he was supposed to have revivified. How are people being converted by Christian bishops in Rome supposed to contact these 500 people to verify the story the evangelical bishop is telling. The 500 people were false confirmation then and they are even more so now, when they have been dead themselves for nearly 2000 years.
And, if witnesses are important, whatever happened to the saints who walked free from their graves? They should have been the most astonishing witnesses, so why did they never come forward? What of the soldiers who had to be bribed not to tell anyone that they had witnessed the miracle of a man coming back to life with their own eyes? These soldiers are the best witnesses of the resurrection in the gospels but they were so unimpressed that they preferred to accept a bribe not to say anything—an utterly unbelievable proposition if this was such a world changing miracle. It shows that there was no miracle—it proves it! If there were any such miracle, it would have been impossible for these soldiers to have kept quiet, so there was no miracles. Perhaps there were no soldiers. So, the gospel writers were lying in saying there were.
Christians will take as proof that Jesus was resurrected the fact that he said he would be. In Matthew 17, he said the son of man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him and the third day he will be raised.
Yet they forget that the disciples, men who are taken to be noble and honourable and sensible, afterwards, never noticed that he had said this, or they only realised when they were reminded of it later! Did he say these words to himself, or very quietly, or was he just saying that everyone had to die before they could enter God’s kingsom, or were they really made up forty years later when the story was being written?
Jesus’s Injuries
They add that the nature and extent of Jesus’s injuries indicate that he must have died, and add further that he had no sleep the night before he was crucified, he was beaten several times and whipped, he collapsed on the way to his crucifixion carrying his cross. This in itself, to say nothing of the crucifixion to follow, was totally exhausting and life-draining.
And indeed might account for the reason why a man who had hung for only six hours looked dead. Crucifixions were designed to give a slow and agonising death. It was an exemplary punishment meant to deter revolution and rebellion among slaves. Victims were supposed to die over four or five days not just six hours. The point here is that Christians have to have a dead man for him to be resurrected. It would not do for a man merely to be revived. It is unlikely that Jesus only hung for six hours. He probably hung for three days and was dead, but no one now knows, and it is far from impossible that, if he hung only for six hours and had passed out, then he might have been revived with no miracle involved. Christians will ignore all this and tell us in their know-all way that the nature of the crucifixion assures death:
Jesus was on the cross from 9am until just before sunset, he bled from wounded hands and feet as well as from thorns that pierced his head. There would be a tremendous loss of blood from doing this for more than six hours. What is more, crucifixion demands that the victim constantly pull himself up in order to breathe (thus inflicting excruciating pain from the nails). Doing this all day would kill anyone even if they were in good health.
This description is true but death by crucifixion was not instantaneous. It took a long time, but Jesus seems to have died quickly—by mid-afternoon, because Joseph had enough time before sunset, in this variant of the myth, to embalm the body, no quick task.
Christians add that the piercing of Jesus’s side with a spear from which came blood and water is proof of His death. For if he had not already died, this fatal spear wound to the heart by trained executioners would have certainly finished the job.
Naturally, that is why the story has been added—Christians from the earliest times were faced with the obvious refutation that Jesus was not dead, especially after such a short time hanging. Even if soldiers were obliged to do this before a victim was taken down, Matthew’s gospel has already established that Roman soldiers were not above bribery. Joseph of Arimathea was supposed to have been wealthy, and he supplied a garden, a tomb and a lot of expensive embalming herbs, so presumably he could afford to bribe a soldier.
Jesus affirmed the very moment of His death on the cross when he declared, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.” And John said he then died, “He gave up His spirit.” Indeed Jesus’s death cry was heard by those who stood by.
We are, of course, back to begging the question in all this, because we have to believe John’s gospel to accept this as evidence. In any case, Jesus is not forced to have died when he uttered this—he might have just passed out. And, this is one of those cases where the gospels do not agree on what Jesus said on the cross, so why should we believe any of it?
The Roman soldiers accustomed to crucifixion and death pronounced Jesus dead. It was a common practice to break the legs of victims so they could no longer lift themselves and breathe. But since these professional executioners were so convinced that Jesus was actually dead, they even deemed this unnecessary in Jesus’s case.
The point made above about the possibility of bribery stands. Who could accept the testimony of low paid GIs or squaddies when a rich man is standing next to them with a heavy wallet. Or were these soldiers all saints as well just because they were there? If so, again, why did the bribed soldiers in Matthew’s gospel not get the same feeling of sainthood and become evangelists themselves?
Pilate double-checked to make sure Jesus was dead before he gave the corpse to Joseph.
Christians use another of their ploys, that different gospels, though in fact contradicting each other, are really adding different snippets of information. John had nothing to say about this confirmation by Pilate. Even if true, it comes within the gamut of the bribery hypothesis.
Medical Authority
Jesus was wrapped in 75 pounds of cloth and spices and placed in a sealed tomb for three days. If he was not dead by then, he would have died from lack of food, water, and medical treatment from three days in the tomb.
Jesus was not three days in the tomb. He was only 36 hours in the tomb at the most, and the 75 pounds of cloth and spices referred to could have been medicine and bandages, could it not? The story in John gives Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus enough time to treat his wounds before he entered the tomb. Indeed, they give enough time to whisk him off to be treated elsewhere, so there could be doubt that he even entered the tomb. The stories about finding the empty tomb are thoroughly inconsistent and show signs that different authors have tried to eliminate the possibility of error by adding little embellishments, but not consistently.
Christians are fond of quoting medical authorities as having examined the circumstance and nature of Christ’s death concluding that he did died on the cross. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Society, March 1986 concludes:
Clearly the weight of historical and medical evidence indicated that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted and supports the traditional view that the spear thrust between his right rib probably perforated not only the right lung but also his pericardium and heart and thereby insured his death. The interpretations based upon the assumptions that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.
That settles it for Christians who might have doubted a little—modern science is needed to remove the last doubts. But this is a travesty of medicine. Note that even so, the author says “probably”. So much for it settling the question. There is no need to say to anyone except Christians that “probably” is not certainty. There is no doubt that modern medical knowledge can explain to us what should have happened, if the stories were accurate, but that is the point—were they accurate?
Nevertheless, this medical evidence, for Christians is sufficient not only to prove that Jesus died but that he also rose! Modern medicine is more remarkable than even the doctors realised. Despite it, the Christian will appeal to his appearances, 12 of them, beginning three days after his death to over 500 people over a 40 day period of time during which Jesus was seen, heard with the natural senses. His tomb was visited, found empty, indeed no one ever found his dead body. Jesus dined with His disciples four times eating physical food himself. He was touched and offered Himself to be touched four times, including his challenge to Thomas to put his finger in his hand and to see the crucifixion wounds. When Thomas complied, he declared, “My Lord and my God.”
Who is the Saviour, Really?
Here is the proof they really believe, and here we have to part company with those who have lost their reason—not the preachers who know full well what they are doing and why, but the gullible flocks who listen to facts they would never accept in their own lifetime but believe it because it supposedly happened 2000 years ago. If they really think a supreme being would seek to save the whole of fallen mankind in such an incredible and uncertain way, then either God is a fool or they are. If they believe there is such a supreme being, they cannot believe him to be a fool. What then do they conclude? Long before Jesus came on the scene, accepting that he is historical, God told people to believe no prophet whose prophecies did not come true. He also told people:
I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour.
Was God lying when he said these things. If not, why do Christians ignore them? God tells those who want to believe his scriptures that there is no other saviour, then, according to Christians, he appears on earth as if he were an ordinary man telling everyone that there is another saviour. If God expected people to believe his first instruction, how can he blame people for not believing his second? Or vice versa.
It is no answer to say that Jesus was God, in his part of the Son. How was anyone to know this? What if he was the very type of fraudster that God was trying to warn people about? The truth is that no supreme being could go around giving totally contradictory instructions. And Jesus is proved to be the fraud on the scriptural criterion that his prophecy was false. The kingdom has not yet come, so far as anyone has been able to discern, even though it was prophesied within a lifetime. That makes Jesus a false prophet by God’s own criterion. John 21:22 says:
This thing then went out among the brethren that this disciple, John, would not die, yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die but if I will that you remain until I come.
Is this another miracle. John is like the wandering Jew, plaintively wandering the earth waiting for his master to come? John must then have realized by now that Jesus is a false prophet.
Burden of Proof
Christians are also fond of telling skeptics they should prove that Jesus did not rise from the dead.
In doing this they are being totally ignorant or totally dishonest because these clever ministers who have studied their theology and philosophy and logic know that the burden of proof is upon the asserter, and that no one can prove or be expected to prove a negative. Logically, either Jesus rose from the dead or he did not. The burden of proof is on the ones who assert he did.
There is nothing remarkable about saying a man cannot rise from the dead. It does not require proof in a world where something like twelve billion people have died and have stayed dead. The ones who say that they have an instance where it was not true have the burden of proof. Unless they prove it satisfactorily, people inclined to believe such nonsense should not do. It is absurd to say to those who do not believe Christians that they have to prove it did not happen. We might as well ask the Christians to prove that Pontius Pilate did not rise from the dead. Billions of permanent deaths should be sufficient proof for Christians or non-believers.
Let us accept that the New Testament affirms that Jesus died and rose from the dead. The question is whether it affirms something that happened in history. It could affirm it honestly but be mistaken. It could affirm it though its authors knew it to be false. Again it is for the believer in the truth of this to prove it. Those who disbelieve it have merely to give a reasonable explanation of how it might have occurred, and it cannot be hard to find many explanations more reasonable than that a god deliberately got himself hung and then came back from the dead to prove it could be done.
Christians like to claim that a few discrepancies do not necessarily disprove the main message.
They will go on and say that such an approach would have us rejecting everything. They are trying a reductio ad absurdum but simply prove that they do not understand evidence. No one has to reject a novel, say, because it contains errors. It can still be entertaining despite them, and some might depend upon errors or untruths to make a plot. Nor do ancient history books have to be rejected because they contain some errors.
But here, Christians are asserting that some books they have prove that a man was returned from the dead. Accepting that it all happened long ago and the matter can no longer be settled by examination of the direct evidence we have to look at the proof offered us. If that proof contains errors, even minor ones, it detracts from the value of the evidence, and disposes us not to believe the main point. The gospels are valuable historical documents themselves and can be used to consider the nature of the world in first century Palestine, by comparing what they say with our other sources. The point about a man rising from the dead is that there are no other sources that are not mythical.
A Christian ploy is to turn the case upside down by pretending that it is like the case of the murder of President Kennedy. He says all conflicting testimony on details in a courtroom proves that no one can know the broad facts of what happened. There are so many conflicting stories about the circumstance of President Kennedy’s death, that there is no good evidence that he actually died.
In case any of you have fallen asleep, we are talking not about a man who is acknowledged to have died, although there is some discrepancy about the circumstances, but about a man who is supposed to have died and then come back to life! The conflicting testimony in the case of Kennedy is not material to the fact that he finished up dead and he did not come back to life. The conflicting testimony is about precisely how he died and that rather proves the point in respect of the Christian claim. Even something that happened so visibly and only forty years ago, has not yet been settled, and it concerns only a death, not a resurrection.
Bodily Resurrection
Christians tell us that there were no other people who believed in death and resurrection. None of the Pagan religions believed in a literal, physical, bodily resurrection like the New Testament teaches.
Well they had the idea of dying and rising, and that is what Christianity adopted. Virgin-born, miracle-working, crucified, resurrected, saviour-gods were popular long before Jesus of Nazareth. Many of the Pagan religions believed by people who lived centuries before Jesus had such gods—Krishna, Osiris, Dionysus, Tammuz. Even in the bible, in Ezekiel 8:14, the Jewish women standing before the gate of the temple were weeping over Tammuz. Tammuz died each spring when the women wailed over his death, and then a few days later, they celebrated his resurrection. It’s a Pagan fertility custom.
Does that not make the Christian pause and think? Does it not sound a bit like plagiarism? Did the central plot happen over an over again in history? If it did, why are gods like Osiris and Tammuz not part of Christianity as previous incarnations of God on earth? Justin Martyr was a second-century church father who wrote apologies to convince Pagans that Jesus Christ was the son of God, born of a virgin, and so on. In his first apology, Justin Martyr said:
By declaring the logos, the first begotten of God, our master Jesus Christ to be born of a virgin, without any human mixture, Christians say no more in this than Pagans say of those whom you style the sons of Jove.
Why should it be so fantastic that Jesus was born of a virgin or able to be resurrected from death when many sons of Jove were too, such as Adonis and Perseus. In other words, Jesus was just like the common-or-garden sons of god of that time. The idea of resurrection as a commonly held view is shown in the gospels themselves (Mt 14:1). Herod, who had already murdered John the Baptist, said he thought Jesus must have been John the Baptist risen from the dead. Whether Herod really said this is irrelevant but what is relevant is that the author shows that the belief in resurrection was commonplace then. Today we do not imagine that people can rise from the dead at all—unless we are talking about Christians.
As to the bodily part of it, it came from Judaism. The scrolls show that the Essenes expected the earth and heaven to unite so that resurrection happened when God’s will was done in earth as well as in heaven. Heaven was perfect and nothing corrupted, so a resurrected body would not decay once heaven and earth had joined. The fact that we are all still decaying proves it has not yet happened and suggests that Jesus was therefore not the first man to be resurrected into a perfect earth. He must have died and decayed like the rest of us in the past 2000 years and, if he did not, then how did a physical body get elevated into a spiritual heaven? In any case, Osiris was bodily resurrected in his myth because his sister had to piece together his body when it was cut into shreds by his enemy. His body was then revivified.
Miracles
Christians will not have the New Testament books rejected because they contain miracle stories, saying it begs the question of whether miracles are possible and otherwise is false because the resurrection was a miracle. The improbability of winning the lottery does not stop anyone believing it can happen, nor the rarity of a hole in one at golf.
Well, it begs a question that can only be put if it allows the impossible as one of the answers. Since a miracle is not merely an event like winning the lottery or scoring a hole in one—highly unlikely—but is an event that is impossible, it is typical Christian dishonesty to pretend it is simply an unlikely event. Walking on water is a miracle—it is impossible for any unequipped man to do. Winning the lottery might seem like a miracle but it is carefully worked out so that the operators win every week. People are quite right to reject anyone who claims to be able to do miracles. They are fakes. The resurrection therefore was a fake if someone had arranged for it to have seemed to have happened.
Christians have also claimed that the fact that an event has never occurred before, is not an argument against it happening once.
Something that has never happened before is an extremely improbable event indeed, and might justify being called a miracle if it happened. If it has never happened ever before, then there is good reason to think it never happens. But if the event is not a single event, but is really a complicated system of events as the dacay is that would accompany a body beaing dead for 30 hours or so, we are talking about a whole gamut of miracles, not just one. The point then becomes not merely is this simply an event that had never ever happened before Jesus did it, but can it happen at all?
The beginning of life might seem like a miracle, but no one knows whether it is or not. It might be inevitable given certain preconditions that cannot now happen on earth because the life that has formed has created conditions that stop it from happening again—while there is life on earth.
The question about the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus turns out to be lots of miracles to effect the dead man returning to walking and talking existence and another major miracle in that the resurrected man does not eventually die again. The multiple miracle of resurrection is followed by the multiple miracles of the cessation of aging and corruption. Christians claim that Jesus, 2000 years later is still living in the same fleshly cloak as he was resurrected into. No body of Jesus has ever been found, Christians earnestly tell us—neither has the body of Pontius Pilate—but if it were possible for a man to have recovered life from being dead for about 30 hours, we would not be deterred from thinking that the man would nonetheless die sometime.
So, the once in an eternity miracle that the Christians force us to consider cannot prove that eternal life is the reward of us all because it does not prove that eternal life is the reward of the one-in-an-eternity figure who experienced it. The Jews saw the world as changing into a perfect world for it to happen. Do any Jews think it has? The change they expected has not happened, so neither could the miracle.
