Fr. Roger J. Landry
The Anchor
Editorial
March 23, 2007
Arguments against the resurrection of Jesus, like James Cameron tried to advance in his Discovery Channel pseudo-documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, are nothing new. They started, in fact, Easter Sunday, when the Jewish leaders bribed the Roman Guards to say that Jesus’ disciples stole his body.
People on both sides of the question of the resurrection have always, at least implicitly, agreed on the stakes. If Jesus of Nazareth really did rise from the dead, if he kept his word that he would be the sign of Jonah, the new temple erected on the third day, then that would be the validation of who he said he was and all he said he was doing (Mt 12:39; Jn 2:19). If, on the other hand, he didn’t rise from the dead despite all his promises, then he was either a lunatic with a messiah complex or a bald-faced liar, no better than the worst religious charlatan. The consequences for us St. Paul summed up succinctly: “If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is in vain and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17).
Many Christians today can take the shocking nature of the resurrection for granted. They accept it as a truth of faith and really never question it. For that reason, when others question or attack the Christian faith in the resurrection, they have very little to respond. But the early Christians knew clearly what they were professing about the resurrection and why. They had to, because they were continually ridiculed for believing that a god could die or a man rise from the dead. The Romans deemed them insane, much like we today would view someone who claimed that Elvis is alive. For them, it could never be a question of “blind faith,” which they had and others did not. Their faith was reasonable, which was how they were able to withstand the taunts and even the torture. It was also how they were able to persuade even some of the greatest minds of their time to become one of them.
One of those early Christians, St. Peter, called Christians in every age to “be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). All Christians are called to be able to give a defense of our faith, to show our faith is reasonable and to be able to show that attacks against the truths of the faith are either false or do not prove what they think they prove. This is the art of apologetics.
Two weeks ago, we tried to show how the claims of James Cameron’s The Lost Tomb of Jesus did not prove what he thought they did. This week we would like to do more and present the case for Jesus’ resurrection.
As we know from modern court cases, there are two categories of information we need to weigh: the inherent coherence and credibility of the evidence or testimony on either side; and the credibility of the witnesses giving the testimony.
When we look at the most common argument against Jesus’ resurrection — that his body was stolen — the evidence given is very weak indeed. First, the Jewish authorities were on the lookout against this possibility, which was the reason why they asked Pilate for the guard in the first place. Next, they paid the soldiers to state that while they were sleeping the disciples came to steal the body, but there’s obviously no way they could know that if they were in fact asleep. Third, it would make no sense that if the disciples had stolen the body, they would have left his clothes in the empty tomb to bring Jesus naked through the streets of Jerusalem, especially since it was against the law to translate a dead body after burial.
The argument for the resurrection is based on the fact of the empty tomb and the credibility of the witnesses who testify that they saw the Risen Jesus. While the empty tomb is in itself not proof that Jesus rose from the dead, it is consistent with Jesus’ resurrection. Neither there nor anywhere else was Jesus’ corpse ever found. It would have been the easiest way for the Sanhedrin to quell the growth of Christianity to point to the body. It is of course possible that the Christians, like an ancient mob, could have permanently disposed of Jesus’ body, but that brings us to the second category of evidence, the credibility of those giving the testimony.
Mary Magdalene, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the ten apostles in the upper room on Easter Sunday, doubting Thomas the following week, the seven disciples fishing on the Sea of Galilee, 500 disciples most of whom were still alive when Paul wrote the Corinthians, James, and ultimately Paul all claimed to see the Risen Lord Jesus. Either they were all conspiring to lie and persevered even when threatened with death; or they were all hallucinating, claiming to see Jesus when all they were seeing was a figment of their imagination; or they were telling the truth.
It would make no sense for them to lie. Most of these witnesses had abandoned Jesus when he was merely seized; why would they preach him boldly after his death if they had known he had deceived them and others? They would have had nothing to gain — they traveled by Jesus’ instructions with no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, and no extra tunic — except derision and death. Even great Roman orators would have had difficulty selling others that a Nazarene carpenter was really God and had risen from the dead. Why would this group of blue collar men have tried to do so and sacrificed so much if they knew it was all a lie?
If they all saw a vision of Jesus, in and of itself this would have been quite a feat, especially since none of them were looking for one. When Mary Magdalene saw Jesus, she thought he was a gardener. The disciples on the road to Emmaus thought he was just an ignorant passerby. The apostles in the upper room thought he was a ghost. The disciples at the sea shore simply a short-order breakfast cook. Rather than see someone else and mistaking him for Jesus, they saw Jesus and mistook him for someone else. Thomas believed only when indisputable, tangible proof was given.
The early Christian witness to Christ’s resurrection at great personal cost led people of all classes in every nation to enter the Church. If this happened through the apostles’ being emboldened through seeing the Risen Lord and filled with the Holy Spirit, then the miraculous nature of the founding of the Church would be apparent. But if it happened based on a bunch of fishermen’s proclaiming a concocted tale of a liar’s resurrection, then, as St. Thomas Aquinas quipped, that would be even a greater miracle than the resurrection itself!