Maybe It's All Conspiracy
Sep 02, 2008
Another way you might think of explaining Jesus’ death, resurrection, and the birth of the church is the "conspiracy theory." According to this theory, there were no appearances of the risen Jesus at all, whether hallucinatory or not; the disciples made it all up. This theory explains away the resurrection appearances as a fiction, and so again neatly solves the historical problem. In a nutshell, those in the ‘conspiracy’ camp try to explain away the evidence, but this theory cannot sufficiently give account to the facts we have. Why do I say that?
First, the disciples’ claim would have been easily disproved at the time, had it been false. All that would have needed to be done to silence them would have been to produce Jesus’ body. This, though, was not done. Paul called out over 500 hundred witnesses (I Cor. 15.6) with whom the sightings could have been verified or denied. There is no reason to call such a vast number of witnesses unless they really could testify affirmatively.
Second, it is again difficult to account for the testimony of those who had not followed Jesus prior to the resurrection on this theory. Why would those who rejected Jesus when he was alive buy into Christianity when he was dead? Many, like James (Jesus’ brother), rejected Jesus as the Messiah until after His death, which cannot be explained without something extraordinary occurring. There were many, crucified or defeated “Messiahs” in Jesus’ day; His death would have simply been another reason not to believe that He was the true Messiah. Therefore, something substantive must have happened after his death to make so many people change their view of Jesus. Simply telling a lie about the situation would not have reversed the basic beliefs of the hearers.
Third, the disciples’ commitment to the cause counts strongly against the idea that their claims were made up. Jesus’ followers faced great persecution for their claims about Jesus, yet, after his death, not one of them retracted those claims. People do sometimes invent lies, and people do sometimes die for lies, I cannot think of a single instance where multiple people, independent of one another, would die for a lie they invented. Before Jesus’ death this was not the case; Peter famously denied Jesus three times. Something transformed the early Christians into fervent witnesses to the resurrection. What could have done that other than a genuine resurrection?[1]
Fourth, as we will soon see, there was no basis for the disciples to make up the kind of story that now exists. They did not construct if from the Old Testament text, the O.T. idea of resurrection, or the current cultural milieu in which they lived. Thus, if they made it up, they did so in the most imaginary and least believable way. There are several other theories, but I’ll deal with each of them as I present the positive arguments for the actual historical occurrence of Jesus’ resurrection.
