The Martyrdom Argument

The Martyrdom Argument

A popular argument for the resurrection these days is one that has been popularized by Christian apologist and author, Josh McDowell. The argument goes something like this:

People will die for a lie if they think it's a lie but no one will die for something they knew to be false. If the resurrection happened, the disciples knew it! They wouldn't die for something that they knew to be a lie so we can only conclude that they died for something that they knew to be true!

There is a fatal flaw in this argument. It is based on a false dichotomy. It presumes, without proving, that the disciples were in an inescapable position to know whether the resurrection happened and that they couldn't have been mistaken. This results in a false dichotomy, with the only choices being a deliberate lie and honest truth. I ask about the possibility of delusion? This is the problem with this argument: it is sophistry. It creates a simplistic argument by ruling out the possibility of delusion on epistemic grounds rather than trying to refute the possibility of delusion on historical grounds. If we are to grant that the earliest Christians believed in an 1.) empty tomb, that 2.) Jesus had a risen body of flesh, and that 3.) God had indeed raised him from the dead, we are at best left with three possibilities: the truth, a deliberate lie, and sincere but powerful delusion.

I don't believe that the resurrection happened for two reasons. First of all, I believe that supernatural/miraculous claims (i.e. God raised Jesus from the dead) require supernatural/miraculous forms of evidence. I have no supernatural/miraculous evidence today or from history. I have never had an audio/visual experience from God, in which God appeared to me, face-to-face, telling me that his Son has risen from the dead. I have never had God reveal to me something in the form such a theophany and giving me some powerful, undeniable, irrefutable proof that I was not hallucinating (such as being under the influence of some environmental or chemical agent), or the victim of some kind of cruel yet convincing extraterrestrial prank or delusion or some sort. This might not be enough in itself to convince me but at least it would be a right step in the direction of meeting this standard of evidence. Neither do I have any supernatural/miraculous evidence from history itself. I have no first-century evidence from secular historians who were on the scene in ancient Palestine, following Jesus around, witnessing his miracles, interviewing people who supposedly saw these miracles, interviewing skeptics and critics who had either been won over as converts or tried explaining embarrassing details away. I know of no historical report or documentation in which a highly-educated, world-class, first-rank, widely-respected historian of the 1st-century Mediterranean who witnessed the crucifixion, dishonorable burial of Jesus, and the risen Jesus. I know of no such historian or group of them who saw Jesus themselves, confirmed that Jesus was dead, confirmed that he did not survive the burial, was not reburied elsewhere, or that the body was misplaced or stolen, who witnessed an empty tomb, witnessed angels and the women's interaction with angels, interviewed the women and angels, saw the risen Jesus and interviewed him, and trying to have Jesus help them to verify for themselves that they were not mistaken or deluded somehow, interviewing the disciples, asking them hard, critical questions to make sure that they were not mistaken or deluded, somehow, and being there to witness the ascending Jesus, the Holy Spirit alleging coming upon the disciples at Pentecost. This would be a step in the right direction towards providing supernatural/miraculous evidence from history.

But, this is not the evidence that we have. Instead of providing multiple attesting secular and Jewish sources from reputable historians on the scenes to witness these alleged miraculous events, Christians will offer the New Testament itself. They might appeal to its inerrancy as supernatural/miraculous evidence of its truth claims. This is the second reason I don't believe that the resurrection happened: I consider the resurrection narratives to be errant. I believe that the canonical synoptic gospels contradict the gospel of John when the synoptics have Mary Magdalene and her companions go the empty tomb, encounter angels, and return to the disciples, successfully delivering the message of the angels: that Jesus had risen from the dead. Yet in John, Mary Magdalene first encounters the tomb and without so much as entering it, runs and tells the disciple that the body has been taken and the women don't know where it is. Luke records that on the eve of the resurrection that Jesus appeared to eleven disciples but John says that only ten were present; unlike in Luke, doubting Thomas wasn't present in John. Matthew records the women arriving at the tomb, an earthquake happening, and angel descending and opening the stone for them, all after they arrive at the tomb. Other gospels (Mark and Luke) say that when the women arrive the stone had been removed already, and whatever women were present didn't encounter angels until after they had entered the tomb. I believe that Matthew and Mark tend to only present one angel as being at the tomb while Luke and John have more than one angel. Matthew and Mark, I believe, place the first appearance of Jesus to his disciples in Galilee while Luke and John have it in Jerusalem.

After rejecting the resurrection hypothesis for these two reasons, I will now discuss the next option: a deliberate lie. I don't think that this is necessarily impossible but I do grant that this is probably unlikely. I believe that this is not impossible, though. My reason for thinking so is that the New Testament was written in an honor-shame society. They didn't general have that big of a concern for precision writing nor were they absolutely obsessed with always being honest no matter what. In such a society, there was such thing as an honorable lie. I believe that it's certainly possible (yet very unlikely, historically speaking) that the resurrection might have been the result of an honorable lie. If the in-group’s collective honor was at stake or if they believed that it was more honorable to die for something they considered a lie, I can see the possibility that they might have died for a deliberate lie as long as they conceived the lie to be an honorable one. I regard this as unlikely because I don't see any reason why being martyred for a deliberate lie would be more honorable than confessing that their mission was based on deceit.

After rejecting the possibility of deliberately deception as being historically unlikely, I come to the possibility I regard as being the most likely: sincere delusion. Here is where I see Christian apologists having a major inconsistency in their apologetics. Apologists of yesteryear like McDowell, C.S. Lewis, and the apologists of today, like William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and Mike Licona, set about arguing against the historical probability of any kind of delusion or hallucination theory. But if they had confidence in this argument of McDowell's, one would wonder why they would be trying to raise up the possibility of delusion, only to knock it down again? The very fact that they waste ink on theories of delusion and hallucination only betrays whatever confidence they might have or had in this martyrdom argument of McDowell whether they realize it or not. Even McDowell doesn't seem to realize this as he assembles a rebuttal of the hallucination theory in his tome Evidence That Demands a Verdict and then argues for this martyrdom argument in his book He Walked Among Us. The problem with their rebuttals of the hallucination theory is that they are destroying the wrong target. Their rebuttals, which persist even to this day, have been invalidated not only by examples from history but also from the findings of cultural and psychological anthropology. These findings and insights have been applied to the New Testament and as a result, a field of New Testament studies has arisen in the past decades, New Testament sociological criticism, which the Context Group has been at the forefront of.

What this criticism has revealed is that there is a world of difference between the culture that produced the New Testament text and our culture. The ancient culture of the 1st century Mediterranean is what anthropologists call an honor-shame society while cultures such as American, Britain, and Australia are what anthropologists might call a pride-guilt society. In honor-shame societies there occur visions. These visions involve altered-states-of-consciousness and come in two types: group visions and individual visions. Two Context Group scholars, Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh have written two excellent books applying these anthropological insights to the gospels, their Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels and their Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John. They note that visions involving these altered-states-of-consciousness happen frequently, can definitely involve groups of people at the same time, and are considered normal in both antiquity and modern honor-shame societies. Although a rigorous, historical theory of Christian origins, based on such visions, to my knowledge has yet to be fully worked out, such visions do, in my opinion, form the basis of a sincere and honest delusion among the earliest Christians.

I do believe, however, that Christian apologists like Craig, Habermas, Licona have successfully refuted hallucination theories in their works but I am convinced that these works have been outdated and I believe that they are to be shamed for not applying and carefully studying New Testament sociological criticism and incorporating it into their writings. Even if many apologists have written their works before sociological criticism had arisen as a discipline of New Testament studies, wouldn't they be endowed with the responsibility of carefully studying antiquity and modern day societies to ensure that any such visionary experiences do not occur at all? If I was a Christian apologist, I would be consulting with cultural anthropologists and try to be as careful as I could, trying to figure out if such visionary experiences, such as those involving altered-states-of-consciousness could and do occur. Even if such data was unknown back then, I don't think it would excuse apologists from conducting such anthropological studies decades ago to see if they could rule out such a possibility which has become since, well studied and well known in these past few decades among anthropologists.

In fact, I would submit that hallucinations are rare, highly individualistic occurrences here pride-guilt societies such as America, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. Visions (and the resulting visionary experiences) are frequent, highly collectivistic occurrences in honor-shame societies and can involve both single people and groups of people at the same time. The difference between a hallucination and a vision, seen from a sociological perspective, becomes evident, in my perspective. Christian apologists would have a greater and more effective case against the possibility of delusion if Christianity had its origins here in America or another pride-guilt culture, where hallucinations are, indeed, rare, individualistic occurrences. But Christianity originated in the Mediterranean, in a 1st century honor-shame, collectivistic society where such visionary experiences are frequent and common. This, I submit, best explains the origins of Christianity.

I should have to add though, that I believe that all visionary experiences are naturally-caused and are not in need of any supernatural or miraculous explanation. I should also hasten to point out that I don't believe a full-fledged general theory of Christian origins has been fully worked out from the basics of sociological criticism of the New Testament, which I hope to work out in graduate school. But I do believe that delusion is the best explanation and the likeliest explanation of the facts that we have so far. My purpose in writing here, however, is not to propose such a detailed theory, but to answer the argument. To expose the illogical nature of the argument as well as conduct a brief analysis of the possible options is what I believe is necessary to answer this argument of Christian apologists.