I set out as a young man to refute Christianity. I
met some young Christians who challenged me to intellectually examine the
evidence for Christianity, and I agreed. I aimed to show them-and everyone-that
Christianity was nonsense. I thought it would be easy. I thought a careful
investigation of the facts would expose Christianity as a lie, and its
followers as dupes. But then a funny thing happened.
As I began investigating the claims of
Christianity, I kept running up against the evidence. Time after time, I was
surprised to discover the factual basis for the seemingly outlandish things
Christians believe. And one of the most convincing categories of evidence I
confronted was this: the resurrection accounts found in the Gospels are not the
stuff of fable, forgery, or fabrication. I had assumed that someone-or several
"someones"-had invented the stories of
Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead. But as I examined those accounts, I
had to face the fact that any sensible mythmaker would do things much differently
than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did in recording the news of the
resurrection.
As much as I hated to, I had to admit that if I
had been some first-century propagandist trying to fake the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, I would have done at least ten things differently:
1. I would wait a prudent period after the events before
"publishing" my account. Yet few historians dispute the fact that the
disciples of Jesus began preaching the news of his resurrection soon after the
event itself; in fact, Peter's Pentecost sermon (Acts 2) occurred within fifty
days of the resurrection. And textual research indicates that the written
accounts of the resurrection-especially the creedal statement of 1 Corinthians
15:3-8-are astoundingly early in origin (possibly within two years of the event!1). Such early origins argue against any notion
that the resurrection accounts are legendary.
2. I would "publish" my account far from the venue
where it supposedly happened. Dr. William Lane Craig writes, "One of the
most amazing facts about the early Christian belief in Jesus' resurrection was
that it originated in the very city where Jesus was crucified. The Christian
faith did not come to exist in some distant city, far from eyewitnesses who
knew of Jesus' death and burial. No, it came into being in the very city where
Jesus had been publicly crucified, under the very eyes of its enemies."2
3. I would select my "witnesses" very carefully. I
would avoid, as much as possible, using any names at all in my account, and I
would certainly avoid citing prominent personalities as witnesses. Yet at least
sixteen individuals are mentioned by name as witnesses in the various accounts,
and the mention of Joseph of Arimathea as the man who
buried Jesus would have been terribly dangerous if the Gospel accounts had been
faked or embellished. As a member of the Sanhedrin (a Jewish "supreme
court"), he would have been well known. J. P. Moreland writes, "No
one could have invented such a person who did not exist and say he was on the
Sanhedrin if such were not the case."3 His involvement in the
burial of Jesus could have been easily confirmed or refuted. Perhaps most
importantly, I would avoid citing disreputable witnesses, which makes
significant the record of Jesus' first appearances-to women-since in that time
and culture women were considered invalid witnesses in a court of law. If the accounts were fabrications, the "women would never have
been included in the story, at least, not as first witnesses."4
4. I would surround the event with impressive supernatural
displays and omens. As Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide writes, "We do not read in the first
testimonies [of the resurrection] of an apocalyptic spectacle, exorbitant
sensations, or of the transforming impact of a cosmic event. . . . According to
all New Testament reports, no human eye saw the resurrection itself, no human
being was present, and none of the disciples asserted to have apprehended, let
alone understood, its manner and nature. How easy it would have been for them
or their immediate successors to supplement this scandalous hole in the
concatenation of events by fanciful embellishments! But precisely because none
of the evangelists dared to 'improve upon' or embellish this unseen
resurrection, the total picture of the gospels also gains in
trustworthiness."5
5. I would painstakingly correlate my account with others I
knew, embellishing the legend only where I could be confident of not being
contradicted. Many critics have pointed out the befuddling differences and
apparent contradictions in the resurrection accounts. But these are actually
convincing evidences of their authenticity; they display an ingenuous lack of
collusion, agreeing and (apparently) diverging much as eyewitness accounts of
any event do.
6. I would portray myself (and any co-conspirators)
sympathetically, even heroically. Yet the Gospel writers present strikingly
unflattering portraits of Jesus' followers (such as Peter and Thomas) and their
often skeptical reactions (Mark 16:11, 13; Luke 24:11, 37; John 20:19, 25, 21:4).
Such portrayals are very unlike the popular myths and legends of that (or any)
time.
7. I would disguise the location of the tomb or spectacularly
destroy it in my account. If I were creating a resurrection legend, I would
keep the tomb's location a secret to prevent any chance that someone might
discover Jesus' body, or I would record in my account that the angels sealed it
or carried it off into heaven after the resurrection. Or I might have taken the
easiest course of all and simply made my fictional resurrection a
"spiritual" one, which would have made it impossible to refute even
if a body were eventually discovered. But, of course, the Gospel accounts
describe the owner of the tomb (Joseph of Arimathea)
and its location ("At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a
garden, and in the garden a new tomb," John 19:41), and identify Jesus'
resurrection as a bodily one (John 20:27).
8. I would try to squelch inquiry or investigation. I might
pronounce a curse on anyone attempting to substantiate my claims, or attach a
stigma to anyone so shallow as to require evidence. Yet note the frequent
appeal of Jesus' disciples, to the easily confirmed-or discredited-nature of
the evidence, as though inviting investigation (Acts 2:32, 3:15, 13:31; 1 Corinthians
15:3-6). This was done within a few years of the events themselves; if the tomb
were not empty or the resurrection appearances were fiction, the early
Christians' opponents could have conclusively debunked the new religion. As Dr.
Edwin Yamauchi says of the citation (in 1 Corinthians 15) of the resurrected
Christ appearing to more than 500 people, "What gives special authority to
the list [of witnesses] as historical evidence is the reference to most of the
five hundred brethren being still alive.
9. I would not preach a message of repentance in light of the
resurrection. No one in his right mind would have chosen to create a fictional
message that would invite opposition and persecution from both civil and
religious authorities of those days. How much easier and wiser it would have
been to preach a less controversial Gospel- concentrating on Jesus' teachings
about love, perhaps-thus saving myself and the adherents of my new religion a
lot of trouble.
10. I would stop short of dying for my lie.
Lee Strobel has written,
"People will die for their religious beliefs if they sincerely believe
they're true, but people won't die for their religious beliefs if they know
their beliefs are false. "While most people can
only have faith that their beliefs are true, the disciples were in a position
to know without a doubt whether or not Jesus had risen from the dead. They
claimed that they saw him, talked with him, and ate with him. If they weren't
absolutely certain, they wouldn't have allowed themselves to be tortured to
death for proclaiming that the resurrection had happened."7
These are not the only reasons I believe in the
truth of the Bible and the reality of the resurrection. But these were among
the "many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3, KJV) that I encountered in my
attempts to prove Christianity wrong, which eventually led me to the conclusion
that Jesus Christ was who he claimed to be and that he really did rise from the
dead. I could not resist the awesome love of God who sent his Son to die for me
and then raise again in order to adopt me into his
family. On December 19, 1959, I trusted the Risen Christ as my Savior and Lord,
and he radically changed my life. I've seen him do the same for countless
others, and I pray, if you haven't done so already,
you will let him do the same for you.