Hindsight is Nearsighted, Not 20/20, Pt. 2

(continued from last entry)

The second point is as simple.  I’ve heard all kinds of claims about who Jesus was and who He was not.  I’m not going to take on the enormity of Christology right now, but I want to take one of the claims made about Jesus and point out a few things to you.  Regarding the resurrection…

First, all anyone would have needed to have done to prove the rumors false about the resurrection was produce a body.  That’s all.  It would have been as simple as that.  Produce a body, and BOOM! no more resurrection.  Don’t believe the authorities of the time didn’t try, either.   The Sanhedrin tried to cover up what happened.  There would be no need to cover it up unless there was something to cover up.  So they kill Jesus.  His followers start claiming he’s been risen from the dead. All they would have had to do, theoretically, was go down to the tomb Joseph of Arimithea owned, move away the Roman Legionaires who were given charge to guard it, move the enormous stone that would have covered the crypt, walk in, and produce a body.  That didn’t happen, so it begs the question…why not?

Some have said that Jesus wasn’t really dead, that he just ‘swooned,’ which has been given the title “swoon theory.”  I’m not going to deal with this theory, because it’s ludicrous.  It assumes that the Roman death squads didn’t know a dead person when they saw it. It assumes that Jesus could have moved the huge stone himself and then, after having done so, walked past the guards who sat there.  It assumes that the Gospel accounts have no true facts in them at all.  In short, the theory is ridiculous, and I’m not too logical to say so.   Others have said that his followers stole his body and took it somewhere.  This one, at least, assumes people are in fact, real people.  But it doesn’t explain why his followers would craft a theology around someone they knew wasn’t really resurrected–a theology they knew could and probably would cost them their lives.  It also assumes that these followers somehow coerced the Roman guards to just let them take the body, and then, later, when the excrement hit the whirling blades, further coerced the guards to lie about what happened, risking their own lives for protecting these misguided zealots who wanted their Jesus.  (Roman guards who failed assignments through dereliction of duty often faced the death penalty.)  Again, doesn’t seem likely to me.  There are other theories, but you’re getting the point.  The resurrection story doesn’t make sense any other way than it’s told, unless you want to start assuming that people aren’t people, that the laws of biology suspend themselves, and that first century Jews had no logical problem with creating a lie they would die for, knowing full well it was a lie.  I’m not prepared to assume those things.

There’s more.  In the gospel accounts, the first people to find Jesus after the resurrection were women.  This isn’t surprising, because at that time, the women were the ones who did the burial things–embalming, etc. But it is surprising if the story was made up, that they kept that part of the story in.  The reason?  At that time in world history, women’s testimony was not valid in court.  People literally believed that women couldn’t be trusted.  If you heard a story from a convicted fraud (who presumably no one trusts) about the nature of the world and God, would you just believe them?  I’m not saying that women aren’t trustworthy. I’m only saying that it’s what the people of that time believed, true or not (and I think we can say not pretty assuredly).  It would have been an mark against the credibility of the early church to have the discovery made by women. 

More than 300 people claimed to have seen Jesus in physical form after he was crucified. Knowing that this claim would cost them their lives, why would they make it unless it was backed by the weight of the truth? We’re talking multiple attestations, by different people, at different times, in different locations.  If something happened now, and 300 different people saw it, in at least 5 different places, times, etc, wouldn’t you just assume what they are saying is the truth?  I’m just saying.

Let me wrap this up by saying this.  People talk about hindsight being 20/20.  I don’t think that’s right at all.  We assume we’re so much smarter now about some things, when really, we’re only looking to our own interests, through our own lenses.  The gospel accounts have withstood the tests of time. Even under our own critical lenses, the Bible is an amazing work, regardless of where you stand on its truth claims.  But sometimes, we need to think more logically about why the people of that time would make the claims they did.  Some of them are outlandish and ridiculous, if you really believe that they knew the ‘truth’ of the situation and yet continued on the course that would take them to the arenas to be torn apart by lions, or to the upside down crosses of Peter or Paul.  It’s simply not logical. 

Please people, if you’re going to start critiquing the Bible, consider this stuff.  I’ve heard so many critiques of the Bible that don’t address this most basic, logical principal.  You’re entitled to your opinion, but an opinion not grounded in fact isn’t an opinion, it’s carefully crafted ignorance.  How’s your opinion about the Bible?

Expect an entry about Biblical criticism soon.  Up next, something else about the opinion that the Bible is, ‘just a book of stories.’  Stay tuned.