HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS - THE DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO SHOW THAT HALLUCINATIONS PLAYED NO ROLE IN STARTING OF THE RISEN JESUS MYTH
Jesus died by crucifixion according to the New Testament. Women saw him at the tomb a few days later alive. Then he appeared to the apostles and some close friends. Then he went back to Heaven. Nobody saw the body coming to life. Nobody really knows what happened to it. Without hard evidence, an illusion or hallucination or personality disorder may have had a lot to do with the visions.
The Handbook of Christian Apologetics argues against the hallucination possibility in chapter eight.
The authors make their view of what hallucinations can and cannot do in such a way that they can make it look like hallucinations are not an explanation for the resurrection visions. They use a straw-man approach in relation to answering the suggestion that the appearances were hallucinations.
Not a single quotation from reputable psychiatric experts appears in the text.
They deliberately ignore the fact that many psychiatrists
hold that hallucinations that cannot be explained by normal or earthly forces
and disorders happen. Psychiatrists only claim to deal with hallucinations
identified as such by the laws of this world. If somebody reports alien
abduction visions and lying and mental illness and fantasy and abnormality have
been excluded the psychiatrist will naturally assume that it is a hallucination
but outside the scope of medical science in its current state.
The book claims that mere visions of Jesus would prove nothing. What we need, it continues, is for Jesus to appear to be physically alive after his death. It says that it couldn’t have been a hallucination for the body was missing from the tomb – see pages 187-188. Page 180 says that resurrection is distinct from a vision for a vision can be caused by your own mind or by some supernatural power such as a demon and it remains “purely spiritual and subjective: it is in your psyche”. To eliminate the idea that the resurrection was a vision, it says that Jesus’ risen body was seen by several people in public at the one time and he was touched and he was able to eat.
A body missing from a tomb is not evidence that visions
of the person being alive are true. The loss of the body could trigger
hallucinations in the person's loved ones or could lead to one's imagination
going into overdrive.
What the argument amounts to is, the mystery of the empty
tomb proves the resurrection and the resurrection proves the empty tomb for
visions alone aren’t good enough. If visions alone aren’t enough how can we
depend on visions if they say that say the explanation for the empty tomb is
that Jesus was raised?
It says that there were too many witnesses to hallucinate. It says that 500+ saw Jesus and just takes Paul’s word for that. It even has the nerve to lie that Paul invited his readers to go and interview these people (page 187). The even more laughable part is that it says the witnesses were reliable though we know next to nothing about them! The gospels even say that the apostles had trouble believing in Jesus though they knew him best meaning that they were not reliable though they do not mean for us to see it like that. But it will be replied that they changed their minds.
Paul said that 500+ saw Jesus in his First Letter to the Corinthians where there
was a problem with the Church doubting the resurrection of Jesus and suffering
from deluded visionaries of its own. The gospels though written later
never mentioned this event and they were desperate for evidence and didn’t
mention the best evidence of the lot. Paul’s mention of it is too cursory for us
to take it seriously. After all it could have been a mistaken identity or
something or mass hysteria? Or maybe an early scribe made an alteration and the
number was actually smaller. That Paul didn’t give the Corinthians a proper
defence of the resurrection when they were reporting visions that contradicted
his gospel shows he hadn’t much choice. The evidence wasn’t very good and Paul
was insecure about it for he was reduced to arguing, “If Jesus didn’t rise then
the dead are lost and we are still in our sins and we are to be pitied above all
people”. He knew fine well what he was doing. His testimony
undermines the resurrection.
The book then tells the lie that Mary appeared to 70,000 at Fatima knowing full well that she did not for they only saw the miracle of the sun and not all of them did. It says that this matches the vision of the 500 and says that this however was a vision and not a physical resurrection. But the appearances of Jesus were not a resurrection either but only visions of a resurrected man like the three children of Fatima supposedly saw Mary as a resurrected woman. I don’t know why I bother attacking this shocking tissue of deviousness. The book says that five hundred separate visions of Elvis may be dismissed. But even the New Testament gives no real indication that all who saw Jesus saw the same thing at exactly the same time.
Then the handbook claims that unlike hallucinations which last for only a brief time Jesus hung around for forty days. But he may have only been seen for a few moments at a time over that period.
Then it is dishonestly argued that there had been a hallucination, the hallucination would not have been believed in if Jesus had been still in the tomb! But what about the early Christian doctrine that the resurrection body is made from the seed of the dead body? The dead body contributes something to the formation of this body – that is all. If a body was cremated and a tiny pinch of dust was used to form the resurrection body that would satisfy the situation for it to be a resurrection from the dead.
Even Jesus being in the tomb would not have stopped the
apostles believing in the resurrection. Once Jesus "appeared" to them they
wanted to believe it and people do believe what they want to believe at the end
of the day.
We don’t know how the witnesses saw their visions. Visions can be spiritual or
God can use the imagination to give visions. Maybe nobody saw anything and Satan
came along a month after Jesus died to change people’s memories so that they
thought the tomb was empty and that the body of Jesus in it was somebody else’s
or that Jesus appeared. We have no evidence that Satan didn’t do this so we have
no evidence for the resurrection. (We have evidence that Satan did do it for a
miracle of changing memories is an easier on than raising a man from the dead.
Miracles are so strange that if a simpler miracle can explain something it will
suffice and should be believed in, in preference to a more complicated one.)
Once you believe in miracles you cannot consistently believe that evidence has
any value. Christians lie that they believe in the testimony of the Bible to the
resurrection. They do not. What they believe in is the testimony that the
witnesses that they MAY have witnessed the appearance of a man who came back
from the dead. The testimony that John may be having an affair with Claire is
useless and so is this especially when people are called on to stake their
salvation on it, the most important thing possible.
The Handbook of Christian Apologetics says that the idea that the resurrection
visions of Jesus were hallucinations can be refuted by the fact that the
witnesses were reliable and qualified and honest.
We know nothing about the witnesses. Peter wasn’t honest when he unnecessarily
exposed himself to questions about Jesus and he replied swearing lies.
We have very little information about the witnesses. When Jesus cast out a demon
the Jews said that Jesus was using the Devil’s power. Jesus said that if Satan
was doing that then Satan was breaking up his own kingdom as if Satan who he
said was very powerful needed to possess loads of people to run a kingdom. Not
only was this a lie for Satan would be happy enough to tempt people to sin but
if possession is so necessary then clearly anybody could be possessed. Jesus was
asking us to accept people as witnesses when the Devil could be influencing
them. We must question the honesty of men who followed a man who defended
himself telling lies and by saying silly things.
Perhaps hallucinations can be ruled by the fact that nobody expected the
resurrection visions. The New Testament information is basic and lots of
stuff is left out. If you have an illusion then you can trigger others to
expect visions too.
The Handbook insists that the resurrection visions of Jesus were not
hallucinations for,
Hallucinations do not eat
Hallucinations cannot be touched
Unlike a hallucination, Jesus surprised his followers
Reason replies:
It could be argued that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians to persuade them that
Jesus rose from the dead for they were denying it that Jesus’s apparitions were
so short that he couldn’t even think about verifying them in detail.
Psychologists believe in veridical hallucinations which are different from the
kind of hallucinations these authors are banging on about. The apostles and
disciples could have had veridical hallucinations of Jesus which could explain
all the gospel data.
Sane people do have hallucinations especially when they have been bereaved.
Sometimes their imagination simply gets so strong they see and touch and speak
with the dead person. Mediums have loads of visions and are sane and yet we know
from the trickery they use at other times and from what the visions tell them
that no psychic force is at work. They touch the visions and see them eating.
It is said that you cannot have a conversation with a hallucination. There
was not a lot of conversation with the Jesus apparitions. Now, near Emmaus two
disciples walked with a man who they later decided was Jesus. That
proves nothing. The man vanished quickly but we are not told he was seen
dissolving into thin air. This may have been an assumption on their part. We do
not know if they were witnesses of the best calibre.
And you can have a conversation with an illusion. Mediums do that all the time.
It is claimed that the idea that the resurrection visions
of Jesus were hallucinations can be refuted by the fact that the Jews would have
produced the body to refute the hallucinations.
Christians turn their backs on the rules for a fair investigation when it comes
to the resurrection. They know that the apostles and the disciples didn’t
mention the resurrection to outsiders until beyond the time the body of Jesus
would have been identifiable. They do not tell us that Jesus would have been
unrecognisable by the third day in the tomb. Decay in that climate set in fast.
The Handbook says that idea that the resurrection visions
of Jesus were hallucinations can be refuted by the fact that a hallucination
wouldn’t explain the empty tomb of Jesus. A hallucination wouldn’t explain
the empty tomb of Jesus but are we expected to believe that just because the
tomb was empty that it meant that the appearances were not hallucinations?
The tomb being empty has nothing to do with the appearances being hallucinations
or otherwise.
The Handbook of Christian Apologetics says that idea that
the resurrection visions of Jesus were hallucinations can be refuted by the fact
that if the empty tomb was a lie, then why did the gospels have women who were
not regarded as reliable witnesses finding the tomb empty?
The gospels were written by Christians who had no problem with women being
witnesses and besides men backed up the women so even if the women were useless
witnesses in the eyes of the people the people had to accept them for men
supported the veracity of their testimony. The story of the women may have been
necessary because the gospellers couldn’t say the disciples went to the tomb and
found it empty for they were widely suspected of having stolen the body.
Jesus wasn’t the rising saviour somebody else could come to save us. He wasn’t interested in verifying the resurrection appearances or in saying too much about them out of shame. The risen Jesus was not asked to approve the New Testament account of the resurrection. The account is not about faith but ideology.