With out a doubt, the most central, and at the same time, the most troubling event of the Christian faith is the resurrection. Central, because of its implications. Troubling, because of its miraculous nature.
There are plenty of theories around the resurrection. For those who deny, and are committed to a completely naturalistic worldview, there is no shortage of options to choose from. What I want to hopefully do over the next few post is discuss some of the alternate theories. I’m sure my conclusions won’t be definitive for any skeptics, but there is a loose framework we can use to determine which explanation of the resurrection is the most probable. Maybe it will challenge all of us, and help us think critically.
The Simplest, and The Best
There are much smarter dudes than I who have worked through this stuff before. A simple Google search will yield some great, and some not so great results. My hope is to simplify some of the better tools, and agruements, in order for them to be approachable by ordinary people like you and me.
That being said, the easiest way to sift through the various explanations of the resurrection is by using the framework “the simplest, and the best.”
By “simplest”, we mean the one with the least complexity. To use an outrageous example to help make the point, let’s pretend that there is a resurrection theory that involves time travel. This explanation would then be too complex, and not simple enough to explain the resurrection. To accept this theory you would have to explain time travel for the theory to work. So we can conclude, by this theory’s unnecessary complexity, that it is highly unlikely compared to the simpler theory that a miracle took place, and Jesus rose from the dead three days later.
By “best”, we mean the theory that makes the most sense of all of the evidence. So in our fictional time travel theory, it may make some sense of some of the evidence, “perhaps there was a time traveler that traveled back in time, and using future medical technology, revived and healed Jesus over the course of three days. ”
The problem is that theory only explains away the actual resurrection, not the miracles Jesus performed after his resurrection, or why he would continue to claim to be God, and claim that he was resurrected, or the appearance of angels at the tomb etc. The explanation is not “best” because it doesn’t account for the most evidence, and in our nonsense example, it actually makes more holes than it explains away.
So whatever theory you hold, ask “is it the simplest?”, does it make sense without getting too crazy in theory? And “is it the best?”, does it explain all the evidence that we do have?
You Must Have Faith
By saying that “you must have faith” I do not mean that unfair classification of the Christian understanding of “faith”. Faith is normally characterized as blind trust in something inspite of clear evidence to the contrary. That is not what faith, even Christian faith, is. Faith is simply “placing your trust in something”.
That’s it, if you are playing poker, no matter how good or bad your hand, you are “placing your trust” I.E. You “have faith” when you place your bet. You are either placing your faith because you see your cards and think that the odds are in your favor, or placing your faith in the bluff. Either way faith is involved.
Which is why I say that “you must have faith”. No matter what theory you accept, the one that affirms the resurrection, or one of the ones that deny it, you are exercising faith in one or the other. Faith is involved no matter what team you are playing for.
My tension with all of the alternate resurrection theories, is that when you begin to examine them, you end up finding out that they require more leaps of logic, and blind faith, then the actual biblical theory. The fact is most alternate theories require more faith than the actual theory.
Spoiler Alert
The theory we are going to examine is similar in plot to the Christopher Nolan film “The Prestige” starting Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. So if you have not seen the movie, and want to, you’ve been warned. There are plot spoilers ahead!
“The Prestige”‘s plot follows two competing magicians played by Bale, the other by Jackman. Following an accident involving Jackman’s wife resulting in her death, both magicians began to feud, sabotaging each other’s acts and constantly trying to out do the other, and getting revenge along the way. This culminates when Bale’s magician performs a trick with two doors on opposite ends of the stage. He throws a ball from one door to the other, and as he exits the door he simultaneously enters the opposite door and catches the ball he just tossed.
This drives Jackman’s magician character nuts. He can’t figure out how he did the trick, but he must one up him. This fuels Jackman to push the extremes of science, and sacrifice his humanity to perform an even more amazing version of Bale’s trick.
*Spoiler Alert* Bale sneaks back stage to find out how Jackman’s trick is done, Jackman fakes his death and Bale is framed, put in jail and then executed. (This is a very abbreviated version, go watch the movie, it’s great!) Towards the end of the movie Bale’s character comes back and shoots and kills Jackman. But how did he do it? What is revealed is that Bale had pulled off the most brilliant long term trick ever. All this time, completely hidden from everyone, even his wife and child, Bale had a twin brother, and they would each take turns being the magician.
Twins!
This elaborate plot twist is eerily similar to one of the alternate versions of the resurrection account. More commonly called “The Twin Brother” theory, it asserts that Jesus had a secret twin brother who took his place after his death claiming to be the resurrected Christ.
Hopefully most of you will scoff at “The Prestige” theory, (my name for it is better than the “Twin Brother” theory) and plainly see it’s silliness. However some people, even if only a small amount, hold to this alternate version. Now whether or not they actually believe this theory, or only choose to believe it so that they don’t have to consider the truth claims of the bible, is another question.
Extra Faith
As opposed to comparing each theory against each other, let’s just discuss the “extra” things you have to believe in order to accept “The Prestige”.
You have to believe that Jesus had a twin brother that no one knew about, like his brothers, sisters and his mom, unless you say they were “in on it”, but we will get there later. You have to believe that Mary, a devout Jew, didn’t recognize her own son standing as imposter to her now dead son, or that she began to worship her own son as God knowing that he was an imposter. If she did believe that this was the crucified son, then she doesn’t seem to worried about his twin brother. Unless you believe the twin brother went about paying both roles, and no one ever wondered why he and his twin are never in the same place at the same time like Clark Kent and Superman, which is impossible because there were no phone booths for him to change in ancient Israel. Remember, there was no advantage to being a Christian in the early church. You would of only receive scorn and persecution for being a Christian. So then you also have to believe that Jesus’s brothers and sisters didn’t recognize him either, and also began to worship him as God like Jude, and James, the latter of which was thrown of the top of the temple for his belief.
You have to believe that any records or witness to this twin has been a tightly held secret for thousands of years. You have to believe that Joseph and Mary had conceived this plan from before the birth of the twins, raised the boys separate from any family or friends that may tell the secret, and as the boys grew up, convinced them to go along with the plan. Then you finally have to believe that siblings don’t rat each other our.
You Also Have a Few Things To Explain
If Jesus’s family was merely “in on it” why create this elaborate hoax that would cause them scorn, persecution and martyrdom? How did Jesus’s twin recreate the specific marks he bore from the crucifixion? Did he self inflict those wounds? It must be pretty difficult to punch a nail through your hands and feet by yourself, and then puncture your own side. If he did recreate the marks himself, how did he not cause himself serious injury? By the third day, he seems to be fine, walking around, and the wounds have already scarred over, was this special effects make up? Were the disciples in on it as well? So if they were, they all died horrible deaths for something they knew to be untrue? Plenty of people still opposed Jesus, why didn’t they just go get the twin brother’s body that was still in the tomb?
What’s with the elaborate spectacle at the tomb anyway? How did his co-conspirators get past the highly trained Roman guards and move the stone in front of the tomb? Keep in mind, the more people that are involved, the least likely the secret will be kept. Were the guards in on it too? Was Jesus twin brother a magician? This is “The Prestige” theory after all, did he pull a David Copperfield act and convince hundreds of witnesses that he actually flew up into heaven? Where did he go after that?
Did he really fool all of his friends, and loved ones into believing in him to the point of their deaths, and then just left them all as they all suffered? How did he pull off that awesome trick where he blindsided the apostle Paul, who saw him while his traveling companions couldn’t see him, but did hear his voice, the left him blinded for a few days, then healed him through a prophet, which convinced Paul to give up his life of power and privilege for suffering and eventually a beheading? The list goes on.
The Alternative
Conversely you only have to believe that there is a God to accept the biblical theory, and there are plenty of good arguments for his existence.
Grace&Peace
(If you’d like a more thorough and academic approach, I’d invite you to go check out http://www.str.org or http://www.reasonablefaith.org if you find this blog helpful please consider sharing with others.)
Theist the Bearded 