Cold-Case Christianity (Updated & Expanded Edition): A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

by J. Warner Wallace

2. The Roman guards faced death if they allowed a prisoner to survive crucifixion. Would they really be careless enough to r...

Jesus would need to control His blood loss from the beatings, crucifixion, and stabbing to survive, yet was pinned to the cross and unable to d...

Jesus displayed wounds following the resurrection but was never observed to behave as though He was wounded, even though He appeared only days afte...

Jesus disappeared from the historical record following His reported resurrection and ascension and was never sighted again (as one might expect if He recovered from His wounds and ...

THE DISCIPLES LIED ABOUT THE RESURRECTION

Some non-Christians claim the disciples stole the body from the grave and later fabricated the stories of Jesus’s resurrection appearances.

THE PRO...

it fails to account for the transformed lives of the apostles.

I am hesitant to embrace any theory requiring the conspiratorial effort of (1) large numbers of people who, (2) don’t have significant familial relationships, nor (3) sufficient means by which to communicate, and (4) must sustain the lie over an unreasonably long timespan, while (5) enduring unimaginable pressure.

other factors to consider when evaluating the claim that the disciples lied about the resurrection:

1. The Jewish authorities took many precautions to make sure the tomb was guarded and sealed, knowing the removal of the body would allow the disciples to claim Jesus had risen (see Matt. 27:62–66). 2. The people local to the event would have known it was a lie (remember Paul told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 there were still five hundred people who could testify to having seen Jesus alive after His resurrection). 3. The disciples lacked the motive to create such a lie (more on this in chapter 14). 4. The disciples’ transformation following the alleged resurrection is inconsistent with the claim the appearances were only a lie. How could their own lies transform them into courageous evangelists?

THE DISCIPLES WERE DELUSIONAL

Some skeptics believe the disciples, due to their intense grief and sorrow, only imagined seeing Jesus alive after His death on the cross. These critics claim the appearances were simply hallucinations resulting from wishful thinking.

THE PRO...

This

fails to account for the empty tomb or the diversity of the resur...

I rely on a cumulative approach to establish the truth.

It’s unlikely these diverse observations are all simply hallucinations.

It’s one thing to remember someone with fondness, another to imagine an elaborate and detailed history that never occurred.

there are other reasonable concerns when considering the explanation that the disciples hallucinated or imagined the resurrection:

1. While individuals hallucinate, there are no examples of large groups of people having the exact same hallucination. 2. While a short, momentary group hallucination may seem reasonable, long, sustained, and detailed hallucinations are unsupported historically and intuitively unreasonable. 3. The risen Christ was reportedly seen on more than one occasion by several different groups (and subsets of groups). It’s unreasonable these diverse sightings were additional group hallucinations of one nature or another. 4. Not all the disciples were inclined favorably toward such a hallucination. The disciples included people like Thomas, who was skeptical and did not expect Jesus to come back to life. 5. If the resurrection was simply a hallucination, what became of Jesus’s corpse? The absence of the body is unexplainable under this scenario.

THE DISCIPLES WERE FOOLED BY AN IMPOSTER

requires an additional set of conspirators (other than the apostles who were later fooled) to accomplish the task of stealing the body.

Accomplished con artists must (1) win the confidence of those they are trying to fool (hence the title “con” artist), and (2) know more about the subject of the deception than the person being deceived.

Victims are often fooled and swindled out of their money because they have little or no expertise in the area in which the con artist is operating. The perpetrator can use sophisticated language and make claims outside the victim’s expertise. The crook sounds legitimate, primarily because the victim doesn’t really know what truly is legitimate. When the targeted victim knows more about the subject than the person attempting the con, the odds are good the perpetrator will fail at his attempt to fool the victim.

the proposal that a sophisticated first-century con artist fooled the disciples seems unreasonable. There are many concerns with such a theory:

The impersonator would need to be familiar enough with Jesus’s mannerisms and statements to convince the disciples. The disciples knew the topic of the con better than anyone who might con them. 2. Many of the disciples were skeptical and displayed none of the necessary naïveté that would be required for the con artist to succeed. Thomas, for example, was openly skeptical from the beginning. 3. The impersonator would need to possess miraculous powers; the disciples reported the resurrected Jesus performed many miracles and “convincing proofs” (Acts 1:2–3). 4. Who would seek to start a world religious movement if not one of the hopeful disciples? This theory requires someone other than the disciples to impersonate Jesus. 5. This explanation also fails to account for the empty tomb or missing body of Jesus.

THE DISCIPLES WERE INFLUENCED BY LIMITED SPIRITUAL SIGHTINGS

More recently, some skeptics have offered the theory that one or two of the disciples had a vision of the risen Christ and then convinced the others these spiritual sightings were legitimate. They argue additional sightings simply came as a response to the intense influence of the first visions.

THE PRO...

This pr...

fails to explain the empty tomb and offers an explanation inconsistent wi...

It’s not unusual to have a persuasive witness influence the beliefs ...

While it’s possible for a persuasive witness to convince some of the other witnesses his or her version of events is the true story, I’ve never encountered a persuader who could convince everyone.

This theory also suffers from all the liabilities of the earlier claim that the disciples imagined the resurrected Christ.

There are many concerns related to the claim that a select number of persuaders convinced the disciples of resurrection:

1. The theory fails to account for the numerous, diverse, and separate group sightings of Jesus that are recorded in the Gospels. These sightings are described specifically with great detail. It’s not reasonable to believe all these disciples could provide such specified detail if they were simply repeating something they didn’t see for themselves. 2. As many as five hundred people were available to testify to their observations of the risen Christ (according to Paul in 1 Cor. 15:3–8). Could all these people have been influenced to imagine their own observations of Jesus? It’s not reasonable to believe someone could persuade all these disciples to proclaim something they didn’t truly see. 3. This explanation also fails to account for the empty tomb or the missing corpse.

THE DISCIPLES’ OBSERVATIONS WERE DISTORTED LATER

Some unbelievers claim the original observations of the disciples were amplified and distorted as the legend of Jesus grew over time. These skeptics believe Jesus may have been a wise teacher, but argue the resurrection is a legendary and historically late exaggeration.

THE PRO...

This expl...

fails to explain the early claims of the apostles related ...

Cold-case detectives investigate the possibility of “legendary” distortions more than ...

The reliability of the eyewitness accounts related to the resurrection, like the reliability of the cold-case eyewitnesses, must be confirmed by the early documentation of the first investigators.

the claim that the original story of Jesus was a late exaggeration is undermined by several concerns:

1. In the earliest accounts of the disciples’ activity after the crucifixion, they are seen citing the resurrection of Jesus as their primary piece of evidence that Jesus was God. From the earliest days of the Christian movement, eyewitnesses were making this claim. 2. The students of the disciples also recorded the resurrection was a key component of the disciples’ eyewitness testimony (more on this in chapter 13). 3. The earliest known Christian creed or oral record (as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15) includes the resurrection as a key c...

THE DISCIPLES WERE ACCURATELY REPORTING THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

Christians, of course, claim Jesus truly rose from the dead and the Gospels are accurate eyewitness accounts of this event.

THE PRO...

This explanation accounts for the empty tomb, the resurrection observations, and the tran...