What does Steve Believe?
Jordan's depiction of my views are a mess and I am surprised that my position was so unclear to him. Nevertheless, unlike Christians I do not set great store on believing things, or even having to have beliefs about things. Indeed, I think faith is immoral [ref] and my ideas are rather working hypothesis, subject to revision if the evidence warrants it. Meanwhile it causes me no angst if I have insufficient information for certainty. Rather I seek to find out what I can about a whole variety of subjects. I have formed some opinions though in the course of my studies and thinking about Christianity. My personal working hypothesis about the resurrection is not hidden, un-stated or unknown to me and I will re-state it in a moment. I don't really know why my personal opinion really matters though, other than Jordan looking for an opinion to attack. If so attack away. If I am convinced by Jordan, or any Christian, then I will change my opinion - I can do no otherwise than believe the things that convince me! However, in general I think it is more interesting to see all the evidence we are aware of and mull it over, rather than dwell on one person's current ideas (i.e. mine), whereas by contrast I am interested in Jordan's case because of my asymmetry of conversion investigations. I don't expect my personal ideas about the historical Jesus to be identical in 10 years time to what they are now, unless I completely loose interest tomorrow! Currently the more I read, the more it appears was invented.
Jordan writes: "How about Steve presenting his thoughts in his words? Perhaps I missed something; if so, may Steve enlighten us."
He certainly has missed something. I have already stated in part 1:
"the empty tomb was a story painted using the understanding of those many decades removed from the real events. The resurrection stories were invented and grew out of a quite different spiritual experience than the dramatic portrayal of orthodoxy." In addition to this, I wrote about the plausibility of some disciples having visions clearly giving my current opinion. Nevertheless, just incase it is still unclear, to recap, personally I think that there probably was a historical Jesus although quite different than the various Jesuses of faith, who was probably crucified and then probably thrown in a common grave. A few of his grieving followers may have had hallucinations, just as nearly half of bereaved people do today [1] and as has been reported in other religions - in Christianity this explicitly including Paul and Stephen. What the exact nature of early Christian beliefs was is debatable, and the arguments in favour of a spiritual awakening that later developed into the theology of a physical resurrection seem compelling to me. From my research this is also a view amongst many of the scholars I cite. It is not true that the scholars I discuss all believe the tomb became empty or that there even was a tomb. According to Mark 6:14 and Matthew 16:14, some people of the time thought that after an ignoble death that stopped his mission, John the Baptist was raised again. Such things were expected and I am unaware of any evidence that the Roman authorities cared so much for the resurrected John the Baptist cult that they showed the crowds his head on a plate. The early Christians were also not united in their belief about the resurrection. As Lüdemann points out [2], the evidence from the Gnostic sources is that those who defended physical resurrection were simply condemned, the gospel physical post resurrection stories being later faith developments, with many apparent "proofs" (eating fish, touching wounds) invented as rationalizations once the belief of the secondary stage of the resurrection traditions had grown up. And these physical resurrection stories were written by the Gospel authors in increasingly dramatic fashion to counter such perceived gnostic heresies as a spiritual, not physically risen, Christ.To recap, my current view is that there probably was an itinerant charismatic preacher who got into trouble with the Romans and was killed. A few of his followers could have felt his presence or even imagined that they saw him, as is common in cases of bereavement [1], and even more so under traumatic circumstances. Contrary to Jordan's skepticism about him, David Jenkins (the former Bishop of Durham) is a renowned biblical scholar, and with him I take nothing in the New Testament as reliable. Jordan and his friend John place reliance on the New Testament and use it to argue their case, with John Richards writing: "Spong dismisses the resurrection by quoting Acts 13:29 to say that Jesus' body was dumped (p. 231). Spong ignores the tomb reference in the same verse." However, I now take a more critical view to the bible and notice that when gospel accounts show signs of legendary development and conflict with historians of the period (e.g. Matthew's account of multiple resurrections, the massacre of the innocents) then something is up and religious texts are not to be so uncritically trusted. C.S. Lewis claimed that because the disciples on the road to Emmaus failed to recognise Jesus, they could not have been hallucinating - such unquestioned acceptance of the historicity of the gospels! If we were to use the contents of the bible as uncritically as that, then we would have accepted an account of physical resurrection at face value. To avoid special pleading we would also have to accept that Christians are pagans who will go to hell for their blasphemous beliefs - uncritically accepting the Koran at face value in the same way [ref]. Instead we have to dig deeper. By the time "Luke" was writing we should expect mention of a sepulchre, what is suspicious though is the mention that Jesus' enemies, not Joseph of Arimathea, put him there! As Lüdemann discussed, we have reason to believe that the mention of the Jews who condemned Jesus, rather than Joseph of Arimathea, as being those who buried him indicates that there was a strong alternative tradition which Luke took over or had to deal with in some way. We should also remember that Acts is not a reliable source. For instance, the proofs of Jesus "powers and wonders" in Peter's description (2:22) and other speeches in Acts are derived from the Greek Old Testament (often where it deviates from the Hebrew) and so were concocted in a Hellenistic community, not spoken persuasively to the Jews in Jerusalem as Acts would have us believe [3]. As it says in the encyclopędia Britannica [ref ], Acts presents a picture of Paul that differs from his own description of himself in many of his letters, both factually and theologically. Something is up with Acts!
I hope Jordan is not skim-reading my essays, since I read his in depth. In part 2 I discussed the common visionary nature of religious experience and concluded: [ref1 and ref2]
"It is my opinion that visions gave the first Christians belief in the resurrection. They were not defending what they "knew to be a lie" as their experiences led them to erroneously think that Jesus really was alive in some way. He had promised the kingdom and he would not fail them. These were credulous times and their behaviour less remarkable than the followers of Zevi, who could be seen to have apostatised and yet still his believers followed him. Nevertheless, the physical view of the resurrection appears to have been developed as it became more theologically necessary.... I have little doubt that the first Christians were sincere in their beliefs and were convinced that their visions and emotions meant something profound and real about God and Jesus. What I find very un-parsimonious however, is that they must have truly experienced a physically resurrected Jesus as portrayed in the gospels. I do not think that the behaviour of the followers of Shabbetai Zevi, the visionaries at Medjugorge, Fatima and countless modern Indian magic men, all of whom had/have enormous followings within an extremely short time (one day for the Medjugorge visionaries) and within the lifetime of the originators, should be dismissed and the Christian resurrection story accepted. In my final months as a Christian, my reading of the history of religions and the richness and variety of the psychology of religion eventually left me unable to see Christianity as supernatural without an enormous dose of special pleading." For more on this see Beyond Born Again Chapter 6: Guarding An Empty Tomb (Robert M. Price).Given that I have already said such things, Jordan's accusations that I dare not state my position is completely unfounded. I also think it is unlikely there was a tomb, as I have said before.
There is (in my current opinion) a minute kernel of fact in the NT and a great deal of theological development. What is more, as I stated in part 1, this is something I learnt from reading theology long before I had access to books such as these and "skepti-mania's La-La webland" (like this!)
Footnotes
- "...Of the 293 people interviewed 137 (46.7%) had post-bereavement hallucinations. These hallucinations lasted many years, and at the time of interview 106 (36.1%) people still had hallucinations. The proportions of hallucinated men and women were similar, with 33 (50%) men and 104 (45.8%) women having had hallucinations. The most common type of hallucination is the illusion of feeling the presence of the dead spouse (39.2%)... Auditory hallucinations (13.3%) are slightly less common than visual hallucinations (14.0%), and more than one person in ten has spoken to the dead spouse. The lease common hallucination is the feeling of having been touched by the dead spouse (2.7%)."
- Dr. W.D. Rees "The Hallucinations of Widowhood" British Medical Journal, October 1971, p. 38. Quoted by theologian Jack A. Kent in "The Psychological Origins of the Resurrection Myth" ISBN 1871871433.- Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment : A Debate Between William Lane Craig and Gerd Lüdemann ISBN: 0830815694. pp.54-55
- "The Jesus Myth" - Chapter 2ii - The resurrection. G.A. Wells ISBN 0812693922 p.143 and p.281 note 18.
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