Were the Gospel Accounts Myth?

The challenges that the Apostles were deluded or lying are not very probable given the consistent accounts of the Apostles and their willingness to stick to it through hardship and death.  Because of this, another theory arose, which says that the Apostles never claimed to have encountered Jesus literally resurrected, but instead the symbolic words they intended were transformed over time into mythical accounts where miracles were "added."

Again, for such a theory to be considered credible, we need to look into what sort of evidence is available to prove such a thing.  Without proof, this is an opinion based on nothing but the assumption that miracles could not happen.

I've dealt with this a little in a past article, but the time has come to look at the matter in more depth.

The Basic Charge and what it needs to establish

The general assumption is that the Apostles did not teach what the Christian faith teaches today, but over time the Church became overly literal with things which were meant to be merely analogy or spiritual.

Supporters of this idea will argue that certain religions (Islam, Buddhism) have accounts which arose later which are alien to the actual teachings of the religious founders.  Islam, for example, teaches that the only miracle was the Koran.  Later stories of Mohammed flying to the Moon on a horse are considered additions.  They cannot be established as being around during the time of Mohammed, and only arose later.

From this, some argue that the accounts of miracles and the resurrection of Jesus were not original, but instead added later.

What this theory needs to establish is the existence of actual accounts sans miracles, claims of Jesus to be God and so on.  Since it is generally not disputed that the person of Jesus existed [generally, the dispute is over whether He was God, not whether He existed], for there to be a myth, there needs to be something for the myth to be based on.  We know of the life of Mohammed without miracles.  Do we also know of the life of Jesus apart from the miracles told about Him?

Biblical Criticism is a good tool, but it is only as effective as the one using it

Biblical criticism can be quite useful to understand the context of what was said and done.  However it is a tool, and if one uses a tool improperly, the results will be poor.  So if someone comes to the Bible with pre-conceived notions of what can and cannot be possible before looking at the texts, those pre-conceived notions will affect what the person using the tool will see.

I bring this up because some people invoke "Biblical Criticism" claiming they disprove the accounts of miracles, when in fact what we have are people who do not believe miracles can happen believing they can be added later.

Looking at some objections to the "Myth" theory

For those who want to argue that the accounts of Jesus we know of are in fact myth which was tacked on to what really happened, certain objections need to be met in order to establish this theory.

1) The accounts of the Gospels are not in the style of myth.  We have the events tied to real places and real times.  There are no anachronisms.  The people behave as First Century AD Jews, not as Third Century pagans or philosophers.  We see details that an eyewitness could have noticed but not necessarily understood (Jesus writing in the sand in John 8:6 for example).  We see references to witnesses.  The Feeding of the 5000 is often derided as sexist for the line "besides women and children" in Matthew 14:21.  Such a view shows a lack of understanding of the law of the times, where a woman or a child could not be a legal witness to a thing.  So Matthew 14:21 is saying in effect Thousands of people saw this, and 5000 of them were legal witnesses.

Actual apocryphal gospels show us what a mythical version of Jesus is like.  The child Jesus creating real birds out of clay, getting angry at a playmate and killing him, bringing another child back to life to say who really killed him when the child Jesus stood accused.  We see frivolous actions in these apocryphal gospels.  In contrast, the real gospels show miracles worked as confirming the authority He had to teach.  They had a very real purpose, done to meet real needs.

2) The time required for myth to develop from real events is longer than the time the accounts we have first appeared.  Those who deny that the accounts we have were original try to claim that the Gospels were written in the second century AD.  The problem is, accounts which reference the Gospels indicate they were written in the first century.  Legendary accounts of Buddha or Mohammed come from generations after Buddha and Mohammed died.  Accounts of miracles existed with Jesus in the first century when those who knew Jesus were still alive.

The Epistles of Paul were undeniably written within 30 years of the death of Jesus, and they are referenced by early Christian writers which confirm them from the first century.

We need to remember that while in modern times people challenge the accuracy of Scripture because "it is so old."  However, reading the Christian defense of the faith in the times of the Pagan Roman Empire shows they had to answer a different charge — that it couldn't be true because "it was so new."

[These are both fallacies by the way.  To reject an idea because it is old or because it is new has no bearing on whether it is true.]

The claims of the "myth added later" requires a two level structure:

1. The so-called "Historical" Jesus who lived and taught but did not, claim divinity, perform miracles or rise from the dead.
2. The so-called "Mythical" accounts we have in Scripture today.

The problem is, we have no evidence of the existence of the first layer.  Instead we have individuals who seek to remove the miracles, claims of divinity and resurrection and claim this was the "first layer."  All we do have are the accounts of Scripture which existed from the first century.

This presupposes "Miracles can't happen" however, which requires proof, and cannot merely be assumed to be true.

St. Augustine made an excellent point about this sort of objection, saying:

[A]t this time the words of one Helpidius, speaking and disputing face to face against the said Manichaeans, had begun to move me even at Carthage, in that he brought forth things from the Scriptures not easily withstood, to which their answer appeared to me feeble. And this answer they did not give forth publicly, but only to us in private,—when they said that the writings of the New Testament had been tampered with by I know not whom, who were desirous of ingrafting the Jewish law upon the Christian faith; but they themselves did not bring forward any uncorrupted copies. (Confessions.  Book V, Chapter XI Section 21. Emphasis added)

3) The Gospel Accounts do not omit details embarrassing to the Apostles or the Faith.  The first who saw the open tomb were not the Apostles, but women.  In first century Judea (and the Roman empire) women were not considered to be reliable witnesses and could not testify in a court of law.  A mythical account would doubtlessly be reluctant to open itself to such a charge as some could argue that the fact meant the account was not reliable.  Jesus rebuked Peter.  If the accounts we have were a myth, why was this not downplayed?  The Apostles were not triumphantly waiting for Jesus to rise again.  They were in hiding, thinking that Jesus had failed.  They ran away.  If the accounts of Scripture we have were "mythologized" then why do we see such failings so prominently displayed?

Because of this, we are faced with two choices.  if it is not a true account, it must be a lie… which brings us back to the problems of deception.  The Apostles specifically reject a mythic interpretation (2 Peter 1:16-19), insisting the accounts they have given are what they were eyewitnesses to:

^16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. ^17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” ^18 we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

If someone wants to claim that another wrote this in the name of Peter, but Peter did not teach this, we again have the problem of deception, because this account plainly says they were eyewitnesses.

The Significance of these Objections

The significance of these objections demonstrates problems with the theory of myth which assumes that the miraculous could not have been original, and is in fact a lack of belief that the seems to be the motivation for the theory to begin with.

The problem is, if mythical interpretation is to be considered as a credible theory, we need to explain how the so-called "myths" arose so quickly and so consistently across the Roman Empire, instead of being localized to one area and disputed in others.  Greek mythology, for example, has many different variants of the same story where central elements of the story vary widely depending on the story.  Athens, for example, tended to deny or downplay elements about Athena which other regions.  (See Robert Graves' The Greek Myths for examples of these sorts of discrepancies).

In comparison, the Gospels do not have these sorts of contradictions.  We do not see a case where one account says "Jesus did X" and another where it says "Jesus did NOT do X."  Instead we see one account saying "Jesus did X", a second saying "Jesus did X and Y" and a third not commenting on it at all.  These are not contradictions, but rather differences which can be explained by different people having different impressions of the same event.

We don't see one copy of a gospel found in one area of the Roman Empire saying one thing, and another copy found on the opposite side of the empire saying something contradictory.  With the exception of certain copyist errors and glosses, we find a consistency which is remarkable in an age with no instantaneous transfer as we have today.

This anticipates the so-called "Telephone Game" theory which claims that passing on information from one to another will lead to a distorted message.  How can such a theory account for the consistent records which we do have?

Conclusion: Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine

Again, as with the previous theories, we see a theory which is not a conclusion based on the gathering of evidence, but is instead the reading of evidence based on a conclusion already drawn of what must have happened to begin with.  Because miracles are assumed to be impossible, the reasoning is that there must be another explanation for the accounts.

However, if the assumption is wrong, the conclusions will doubtlessly be in error as well.  As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, "Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine" (“Small error in the beginning; large [error] will be in the end”).

The way to avoid this is to eliminate preconceived notions and actually study Scripture and Christian teaching to see what was said, and look examine the reliability of the sources without deciding in advance that whatever does not fit our views must have been "added later."

Were the Gospel Accounts Myth?

The challenges that the Apostles were deluded or lying are not very probable given the consistent accounts of the Apostles and their willingness to stick to it through hardship and death.  Because of this, another theory arose, which says that the Apostles never claimed to have encountered Jesus literally resurrected, but instead the symbolic words they intended were transformed over time into mythical accounts where miracles were "added."

Again, for such a theory to be considered credible, we need to look into what sort of evidence is available to prove such a thing.  Without proof, this is an opinion based on nothing but the assumption that miracles could not happen.

I've dealt with this a little in a past article, but the time has come to look at the matter in more depth.

The Basic Charge and what it needs to establish

The general assumption is that the Apostles did not teach what the Christian faith teaches today, but over time the Church became overly literal with things which were meant to be merely analogy or spiritual.

Supporters of this idea will argue that certain religions (Islam, Buddhism) have accounts which arose later which are alien to the actual teachings of the religious founders.  Islam, for example, teaches that the only miracle was the Koran.  Later stories of Mohammed flying to the Moon on a horse are considered additions.  They cannot be established as being around during the time of Mohammed, and only arose later.

From this, some argue that the accounts of miracles and the resurrection of Jesus were not original, but instead added later.

What this theory needs to establish is the existence of actual accounts sans miracles, claims of Jesus to be God and so on.  Since it is generally not disputed that the person of Jesus existed [generally, the dispute is over whether He was God, not whether He existed], for there to be a myth, there needs to be something for the myth to be based on.  We know of the life of Mohammed without miracles.  Do we also know of the life of Jesus apart from the miracles told about Him?

Biblical Criticism is a good tool, but it is only as effective as the one using it

Biblical criticism can be quite useful to understand the context of what was said and done.  However it is a tool, and if one uses a tool improperly, the results will be poor.  So if someone comes to the Bible with pre-conceived notions of what can and cannot be possible before looking at the texts, those pre-conceived notions will affect what the person using the tool will see.

I bring this up because some people invoke "Biblical Criticism" claiming they disprove the accounts of miracles, when in fact what we have are people who do not believe miracles can happen believing they can be added later.

Looking at some objections to the "Myth" theory

For those who want to argue that the accounts of Jesus we know of are in fact myth which was tacked on to what really happened, certain objections need to be met in order to establish this theory.

1) The accounts of the Gospels are not in the style of myth.  We have the events tied to real places and real times.  There are no anachronisms.  The people behave as First Century AD Jews, not as Third Century pagans or philosophers.  We see details that an eyewitness could have noticed but not necessarily understood (Jesus writing in the sand in John 8:6 for example).  We see references to witnesses.  The Feeding of the 5000 is often derided as sexist for the line "besides women and children" in Matthew 14:21.  Such a view shows a lack of understanding of the law of the times, where a woman or a child could not be a legal witness to a thing.  So Matthew 14:21 is saying in effect Thousands of people saw this, and 5000 of them were legal witnesses.

Actual apocryphal gospels show us what a mythical version of Jesus is like.  The child Jesus creating real birds out of clay, getting angry at a playmate and killing him, bringing another child back to life to say who really killed him when the child Jesus stood accused.  We see frivolous actions in these apocryphal gospels.  In contrast, the real gospels show miracles worked as confirming the authority He had to teach.  They had a very real purpose, done to meet real needs.

2) The time required for myth to develop from real events is longer than the time the accounts we have first appeared.  Those who deny that the accounts we have were original try to claim that the Gospels were written in the second century AD.  The problem is, accounts which reference the Gospels indicate they were written in the first century.  Legendary accounts of Buddha or Mohammed come from generations after Buddha and Mohammed died.  Accounts of miracles existed with Jesus in the first century when those who knew Jesus were still alive.

The Epistles of Paul were undeniably written within 30 years of the death of Jesus, and they are referenced by early Christian writers which confirm them from the first century.

We need to remember that while in modern times people challenge the accuracy of Scripture because "it is so old."  However, reading the Christian defense of the faith in the times of the Pagan Roman Empire shows they had to answer a different charge — that it couldn't be true because "it was so new."

[These are both fallacies by the way.  To reject an idea because it is old or because it is new has no bearing on whether it is true.]

The claims of the "myth added later" requires a two level structure:

1. The so-called "Historical" Jesus who lived and taught but did not, claim divinity, perform miracles or rise from the dead.
2. The so-called "Mythical" accounts we have in Scripture today.

The problem is, we have no evidence of the existence of the first layer.  Instead we have individuals who seek to remove the miracles, claims of divinity and resurrection and claim this was the "first layer."  All we do have are the accounts of Scripture which existed from the first century.

This presupposes "Miracles can't happen" however, which requires proof, and cannot merely be assumed to be true.

St. Augustine made an excellent point about this sort of objection, saying:

[A]t this time the words of one Helpidius, speaking and disputing face to face against the said Manichaeans, had begun to move me even at Carthage, in that he brought forth things from the Scriptures not easily withstood, to which their answer appeared to me feeble. And this answer they did not give forth publicly, but only to us in private,—when they said that the writings of the New Testament had been tampered with by I know not whom, who were desirous of ingrafting the Jewish law upon the Christian faith; but they themselves did not bring forward any uncorrupted copies. (Confessions.  Book V, Chapter XI Section 21. Emphasis added)

3) The Gospel Accounts do not omit details embarrassing to the Apostles or the Faith.  The first who saw the open tomb were not the Apostles, but women.  In first century Judea (and the Roman empire) women were not considered to be reliable witnesses and could not testify in a court of law.  A mythical account would doubtlessly be reluctant to open itself to such a charge as some could argue that the fact meant the account was not reliable.  Jesus rebuked Peter.  If the accounts we have were a myth, why was this not downplayed?  The Apostles were not triumphantly waiting for Jesus to rise again.  They were in hiding, thinking that Jesus had failed.  They ran away.  If the accounts of Scripture we have were "mythologized" then why do we see such failings so prominently displayed?

Because of this, we are faced with two choices.  if it is not a true account, it must be a lie… which brings us back to the problems of deception.  The Apostles specifically reject a mythic interpretation (2 Peter 1:16-19), insisting the accounts they have given are what they were eyewitnesses to:

^16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. ^17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” ^18 we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

If someone wants to claim that another wrote this in the name of Peter, but Peter did not teach this, we again have the problem of deception, because this account plainly says they were eyewitnesses.

The Significance of these Objections

The significance of these objections demonstrates problems with the theory of myth which assumes that the miraculous could not have been original, and is in fact a lack of belief that the seems to be the motivation for the theory to begin with.

The problem is, if mythical interpretation is to be considered as a credible theory, we need to explain how the so-called "myths" arose so quickly and so consistently across the Roman Empire, instead of being localized to one area and disputed in others.  Greek mythology, for example, has many different variants of the same story where central elements of the story vary widely depending on the story.  Athens, for example, tended to deny or downplay elements about Athena which other regions.  (See Robert Graves' The Greek Myths for examples of these sorts of discrepancies).

In comparison, the Gospels do not have these sorts of contradictions.  We do not see a case where one account says "Jesus did X" and another where it says "Jesus did NOT do X."  Instead we see one account saying "Jesus did X", a second saying "Jesus did X and Y" and a third not commenting on it at all.  These are not contradictions, but rather differences which can be explained by different people having different impressions of the same event.

We don't see one copy of a gospel found in one area of the Roman Empire saying one thing, and another copy found on the opposite side of the empire saying something contradictory.  With the exception of certain copyist errors and glosses, we find a consistency which is remarkable in an age with no instantaneous transfer as we have today.

This anticipates the so-called "Telephone Game" theory which claims that passing on information from one to another will lead to a distorted message.  How can such a theory account for the consistent records which we do have?

Conclusion: Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine

Again, as with the previous theories, we see a theory which is not a conclusion based on the gathering of evidence, but is instead the reading of evidence based on a conclusion already drawn of what must have happened to begin with.  Because miracles are assumed to be impossible, the reasoning is that there must be another explanation for the accounts.

However, if the assumption is wrong, the conclusions will doubtlessly be in error as well.  As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, "Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine" (“Small error in the beginning; large [error] will be in the end”).

The way to avoid this is to eliminate preconceived notions and actually study Scripture and Christian teaching to see what was said, and look examine the reliability of the sources without deciding in advance that whatever does not fit our views must have been "added later."

Jesus Died The Apostles Lied? A Look At Another Claim Against the Resurrection

Preliminary Note

This article is dealing with the claim the Apostles lied about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Those who think I am overlooking the concept the Apostles were deluded should see the article HERE where I discussed some issues.

Looking at the Claim that the Apostles Lied

A theory given by certain cynical individuals runs along these lines: Jesus died, and the Apostles deliberately claimed Jesus rose from the dead while knowing He did not.  These individuals will argue that because Miracles cannot happen and it is not probable that it was a delusion, it is most likely the work of a deliberate deception.

I find this theory interesting because many of those I have encountered who use it argue that the people of the Middle East in the First Century AD were so primitive that they believed some (hitherto unexplained) scientific phenomenon was a miracle.

Yet for this belief to have continued on for two thousand years, it's not enough to claim over a billion stupid people to explain this.  To continue fooling people (including individuals who are intelligent), the people who created such a deception would have to be quite brilliant in order to create something that people would die for or radically change their life for and never be detected as false.

So the question arises, if we are to consider the charge of deception: Were the apostles stupid and superstitious peasants?  Or were they evil masterminds who perpetuated a fraud which lasts until this very day?  They couldn't be both.

What The Resurrection Means.  What Apostle Means.

We need to be clear about what this allegation means.  Unlike certain wishy-washy Christians who try to reduce the Resurrection to some sort of "feeling" that Jesus' teachings would live on, the Christian belief is that Jesus was literally executed by the Romans and rose from the dead.

The Apostles were those who witnessed the risen Christ and testified they saw Him.

Therefore, when dealing with the idea that the Apostles lied, it means they did not see the risen Christ, yet claimed they did see Him.

I've dealt with Deluded Apostles already, so now we need to consider the option of them not being fools, but knaves who deliberately created a lie which led thousands of people to martyrdom.

Considering Some Objections To This Concept

If we are to give the "conspiracy to lie" theory any credibility, it needs to provide the evidence to back up what was asserted in its claim.  The basic idea is that the Apostles knew Jesus died, but said He rose again contrary to what they knew.  However, there are several problems such a theory needs to address.

Let's consider the following:

1) Cui bono?  (Who benefits?)  If the Apostles deliberately lied, what did they hope to gain from it?  We have no evidence that any of the Apostles recanted what they believed.  They were tortured and reviled for what they preached.  Nor do we have any evidence of the apostles receiving material gain.  They were not wealthy men who stayed at home while exhorting followers to provide their every need and luxury.  They travelled and died in areas all over the Roman Empire preaching this doctrine.  Such a devotion does not sound like a fraud.

I have run across some who have tried to say that yes, the apostles lied but dying for a lie was not unreasonable because "who know what religious fanatics are thinking?"  This is a contradiction in terms however.  If the apostles believed what they taught to the point it encouraged "fanaticism" in them, then clearly it was not a lie which they fabricated.  If it was a lie, it could not encourage religious fanaticism in the people who knew it was a lie.  If someone else, other than the apostles invented this lie, where are the objections from those who knew differently?

2) The unanimity of the Apostles on the subject.  As I said above, the Apostles didn't just remain in one place.  They travelled widely in spreading the Gospel message.  Now in the days without immediate communication, they could have gone far and wide and questions asked by the people preached to would doubtlessly have gone beyond what the Apostles could anticipate for a fabrication they worked out on their own.  if they lied about Christ, one would expect a deviation of facts in the stories told as each Apostle had to improvise.

Instead we have a largely consistent agreement on the facts.  The different accounts have some variations, but only on small details and are consistent with individuals emphasizing what stuck most in their mind.  Scriptures remain very consistent across wide areas of the empire… we need to remember that before the days of the printing press, all copies were made by hand.  On occasion we see copyist errors, but no divergence on the message itself.

3) The Sincerity of the Apostles.  This is the flip side of #1 above.  We all know of those false religions where the founders gained materially from the religion they started.  Even in Christianity, we know of individuals who have abused their ministry for personal gain.  Did the founders of the religion do these things however?

However, the Apostles did not act for material gain.  They travelled, preached and eventually died because they believed what they taught was of vital importance for everyone.  Consider the words of Philippians 1:

^19 Yes, and I shall rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, ^20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. ^21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ^22 If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. ^23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. ^24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. ^25 Convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, ^26 so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

Disagree with Paul if you like, call him insane if you like, but this is a man who believes that to live is a mission to serve Christ and to die is to gain by being with Him forever.

5) The Body of Jesus would be a very permanent way to disprove the conspiracy.  If Jesus was still in the tomb, why was it not produced to prove them liars?  If it was no longer in the tomb, how did it leave the tomb?  Are we to believe a band of Jesus' followers who were in hiding snuck past armed guards and moved a large rock, stealing the body without a trace?  Would the Romans have tolerated such a lawbreaking on their watch.

Since the Apostles proclaimed the message of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, those who wanted to disprove Jesus would have been in a good position to do so.  Their adversaries would have been in position to root them out and disprove them by showing discrepancies from the witnesses who saw Christ.

The Lacking Piece of the Puzzle

The accusation that the apostles must have lied either requires being backed by evidence or else is based on a prior conviction that it could not have been true and therefore must have had another cause.

However evidence that the apostles lied is lacking, and the behavior of the apostles seems to indicate that they believed they had seen Jesus alive.  Considering the challenges against Christianity revolve around demanding physical proof for spiritual things, one would think it reasonable to insist on physical proof for assertions of a physical explanation.

Because evidence is lacking to prove any such point, it is not reasonable to claim that the apostles must have lied.  One is still free to believe it of course, but it must be recognized that such a belief is merely a personal opinion.

This is not the Argument from Silence fallacy.  Christians don't argue "You can't prove [A], therefore [B]."  They believe the witness of the Apostles was credible, while the claims against are not credible.  Anyone wishing to credibly argue otherwise needs to demonstrate why their own claims are believable and those of the Apostles are not.

However, instead of providing this credibility, the attacks I have seen all revolve around "it's impossible, so there must be another reason for it."  This assumes as proven however what needs to be proved (that it is impossible).  Neither I nor any other Christian are irrational for refusing to accept a claim which has no more basis than personal opinion that miracles are impossible.

"More Probable"?

Now, if one wishes to show misrepresentation, one must remember certain things must be demonstrated under law.  I find those guidelines useful to assess what needs to be proven with this claim:

1. What was said was a deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
2. An intentional, or fraudulent, misrepresentation occurs when a defendant knows that he or she is making a false statement of material fact.
3. the defendant intended for the plaintiff to rely on the false statement.
4. the plaintiff ordinarily needs to prove that he or she justifiably relied on the defendant’s statement
5. Finally, the plaintiff must show that he or she was injured as a result of the misrepresentation.

Since a lie is defined as an intentionally false statement, the charge of the lie is to say two things: that the statement made was false, AND that the false statement was made deliberately.

So, first of all someone who would accuse the apostles of misleading others needs to prove that what they said was a deliberate misrepresentation.  Second, that the apostles knew they were making such a statement.  Third, that the apostles intended those they preached to would rely on their claims.  Fourth, that the ones preached to were justified in relying on what the apostles said.  Finally that the believers were injured by the misrepresentation.

Points 3, 4 and 5 rely on points one and two being established as true.  So, to claim a lie, the statemtn that Jesus rose from the dead needs to be shown to be a deliberate misrepresentation, and the Apostles need to be shown as knowing the statement was false.

Unless those points are proven, the claim that the Apostles lied is a merely a statement with no basis in fact.

Jesus Died The Apostles Lied? A Look At Another Claim Against the Resurrection

Preliminary Note

This article is dealing with the claim the Apostles lied about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Those who think I am overlooking the concept the Apostles were deluded should see the article HERE where I discussed some issues.

Looking at the Claim that the Apostles Lied

A theory given by certain cynical individuals runs along these lines: Jesus died, and the Apostles deliberately claimed Jesus rose from the dead while knowing He did not.  These individuals will argue that because Miracles cannot happen and it is not probable that it was a delusion, it is most likely the work of a deliberate deception.

I find this theory interesting because many of those I have encountered who use it argue that the people of the Middle East in the First Century AD were so primitive that they believed some (hitherto unexplained) scientific phenomenon was a miracle.

Yet for this belief to have continued on for two thousand years, it's not enough to claim over a billion stupid people to explain this.  To continue fooling people (including individuals who are intelligent), the people who created such a deception would have to be quite brilliant in order to create something that people would die for or radically change their life for and never be detected as false.

So the question arises, if we are to consider the charge of deception: Were the apostles stupid and superstitious peasants?  Or were they evil masterminds who perpetuated a fraud which lasts until this very day?  They couldn't be both.

What The Resurrection Means.  What Apostle Means.

We need to be clear about what this allegation means.  Unlike certain wishy-washy Christians who try to reduce the Resurrection to some sort of "feeling" that Jesus' teachings would live on, the Christian belief is that Jesus was literally executed by the Romans and rose from the dead.

The Apostles were those who witnessed the risen Christ and testified they saw Him.

Therefore, when dealing with the idea that the Apostles lied, it means they did not see the risen Christ, yet claimed they did see Him.

I've dealt with Deluded Apostles already, so now we need to consider the option of them not being fools, but knaves who deliberately created a lie which led thousands of people to martyrdom.

Considering Some Objections To This Concept

If we are to give the "conspiracy to lie" theory any credibility, it needs to provide the evidence to back up what was asserted in its claim.  The basic idea is that the Apostles knew Jesus died, but said He rose again contrary to what they knew.  However, there are several problems such a theory needs to address.

Let's consider the following:

1) Cui bono?  (Who benefits?)  If the Apostles deliberately lied, what did they hope to gain from it?  We have no evidence that any of the Apostles recanted what they believed.  They were tortured and reviled for what they preached.  Nor do we have any evidence of the apostles receiving material gain.  They were not wealthy men who stayed at home while exhorting followers to provide their every need and luxury.  They travelled and died in areas all over the Roman Empire preaching this doctrine.  Such a devotion does not sound like a fraud.

I have run across some who have tried to say that yes, the apostles lied but dying for a lie was not unreasonable because "who know what religious fanatics are thinking?"  This is a contradiction in terms however.  If the apostles believed what they taught to the point it encouraged "fanaticism" in them, then clearly it was not a lie which they fabricated.  If it was a lie, it could not encourage religious fanaticism in the people who knew it was a lie.  If someone else, other than the apostles invented this lie, where are the objections from those who knew differently?

2) The unanimity of the Apostles on the subject.  As I said above, the Apostles didn't just remain in one place.  They travelled widely in spreading the Gospel message.  Now in the days without immediate communication, they could have gone far and wide and questions asked by the people preached to would doubtlessly have gone beyond what the Apostles could anticipate for a fabrication they worked out on their own.  if they lied about Christ, one would expect a deviation of facts in the stories told as each Apostle had to improvise.

Instead we have a largely consistent agreement on the facts.  The different accounts have some variations, but only on small details and are consistent with individuals emphasizing what stuck most in their mind.  Scriptures remain very consistent across wide areas of the empire… we need to remember that before the days of the printing press, all copies were made by hand.  On occasion we see copyist errors, but no divergence on the message itself.

3) The Sincerity of the Apostles.  This is the flip side of #1 above.  We all know of those false religions where the founders gained materially from the religion they started.  Even in Christianity, we know of individuals who have abused their ministry for personal gain.  Did the founders of the religion do these things however?

However, the Apostles did not act for material gain.  They travelled, preached and eventually died because they believed what they taught was of vital importance for everyone.  Consider the words of Philippians 1:

^19 Yes, and I shall rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, ^20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. ^21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ^22 If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. ^23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. ^24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. ^25 Convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, ^26 so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

Disagree with Paul if you like, call him insane if you like, but this is a man who believes that to live is a mission to serve Christ and to die is to gain by being with Him forever.

5) The Body of Jesus would be a very permanent way to disprove the conspiracy.  If Jesus was still in the tomb, why was it not produced to prove them liars?  If it was no longer in the tomb, how did it leave the tomb?  Are we to believe a band of Jesus' followers who were in hiding snuck past armed guards and moved a large rock, stealing the body without a trace?  Would the Romans have tolerated such a lawbreaking on their watch.

Since the Apostles proclaimed the message of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, those who wanted to disprove Jesus would have been in a good position to do so.  Their adversaries would have been in position to root them out and disprove them by showing discrepancies from the witnesses who saw Christ.

The Lacking Piece of the Puzzle

The accusation that the apostles must have lied either requires being backed by evidence or else is based on a prior conviction that it could not have been true and therefore must have had another cause.

However evidence that the apostles lied is lacking, and the behavior of the apostles seems to indicate that they believed they had seen Jesus alive.  Considering the challenges against Christianity revolve around demanding physical proof for spiritual things, one would think it reasonable to insist on physical proof for assertions of a physical explanation.

Because evidence is lacking to prove any such point, it is not reasonable to claim that the apostles must have lied.  One is still free to believe it of course, but it must be recognized that such a belief is merely a personal opinion.

This is not the Argument from Silence fallacy.  Christians don't argue "You can't prove [A], therefore [B]."  They believe the witness of the Apostles was credible, while the claims against are not credible.  Anyone wishing to credibly argue otherwise needs to demonstrate why their own claims are believable and those of the Apostles are not.

However, instead of providing this credibility, the attacks I have seen all revolve around "it's impossible, so there must be another reason for it."  This assumes as proven however what needs to be proved (that it is impossible).  Neither I nor any other Christian are irrational for refusing to accept a claim which has no more basis than personal opinion that miracles are impossible.

"More Probable"?

Now, if one wishes to show misrepresentation, one must remember certain things must be demonstrated under law.  I find those guidelines useful to assess what needs to be proven with this claim:

1. What was said was a deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
2. An intentional, or fraudulent, misrepresentation occurs when a defendant knows that he or she is making a false statement of material fact.
3. the defendant intended for the plaintiff to rely on the false statement.
4. the plaintiff ordinarily needs to prove that he or she justifiably relied on the defendant’s statement
5. Finally, the plaintiff must show that he or she was injured as a result of the misrepresentation.

Since a lie is defined as an intentionally false statement, the charge of the lie is to say two things: that the statement made was false, AND that the false statement was made deliberately.

So, first of all someone who would accuse the apostles of misleading others needs to prove that what they said was a deliberate misrepresentation.  Second, that the apostles knew they were making such a statement.  Third, that the apostles intended those they preached to would rely on their claims.  Fourth, that the ones preached to were justified in relying on what the apostles said.  Finally that the believers were injured by the misrepresentation.

Points 3, 4 and 5 rely on points one and two being established as true.  So, to claim a lie, the statemtn that Jesus rose from the dead needs to be shown to be a deliberate misrepresentation, and the Apostles need to be shown as knowing the statement was false.

Unless those points are proven, the claim that the Apostles lied is a merely a statement with no basis in fact.