Hypotheses for Christian Origins

In the last post we looked at what Michael Licona refers to as "historical bedrock" because of the certainty Biblical scholars and ancient historians assign to these events of history. The three bedrock facts are:¹

1. Jesus died by crucifixion
2. After Jesus' death, the disciples had experiences of Jesus that led them to believe and proclaim the Jesus had been resurrected and had appeared to them.
3. Paul converted to Christianity after an experience that he interpreted as an appearance of Jesus.

With those events in place, we must now turn to constructing hypotheses that can account for these facts. Before we dive in, it is important to understand how to judge competing historical claims.

Testing Historical Hypotheses

Historical data differs from other disciplines such as the hard sciences because the historian lacks direct access to the events in question. Therefore, when testing an historical hypothesis, we need to do so with respect to its coherence, logical consistency, and account for the evidence.

A common framework for testing historical hypotheses comes from CB McCullagh's book, Justifying Historical Descriptions where he lays out a number of criterion for adjudicating between competing hypotheses.

1. The hypothesis must have greater explanatory scope meaning that is able to account for more data than rival hypotheses.
2. The hypothesis must have greater explanatory power which makes the data more probable if the hypothesis is true in comparison to other hypotheses.
3. The hypothesis must be more plausible with respect to one's background knowledge than other hypotheses.
4. The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than rivals which means that it requires fewer, new beliefs to be introduced to explain it.
5. The hypothesis must exceed its rivals in the aforementioned criterion.

It is the case that there is a certain amount of subjectivity at play here as one adjudicates among hypotheses with respect to the above criterion, however understanding and identifying one's own personal biases and preconceptions in advance will help one better make sense of this method.

Potential Hypotheses

Despite the passage of nearly 2,000 years since the events surrounding Jesus' death, only a handful of hypotheses have been put forward and defended. Licona lists five denoted by the most prominent scholars who defend them,
lays out their arguments and offers a critique.² Here, of the hypotheses offered by Michael Goulder, Gerd Lüdemann, and JD Crossan - all three of which require some form of hallucinations in order to account for the evidence at hand - as well as the traditional resurrection narrative.

The Hallucination Hypothesis

The aforementioned scholars all support some version of what may be broadly termed a Hallucination Hypothesis (HH). In each of the cases, Peter, the apostles, James, Paul, and the 500 - essentially everyone listed in Paul's creedal statement of 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 - experienced some sort of hallucination whereby they saw Jesus. This vision caused them to believe in his resurrection from the dead which they then proclaimed to the ends of the earth.

In Goulder's version, Peter is racked by guilt from denying Jesus during his passion, then told the other disciples about it whereby they had a similar vision. Paul was secretly dissatisfied with Judaism and turned to Christianity. His Jewish belief in a bodily resurrection eventually overwhelmed the views of the other apostles and became dominant. The rest of the narrative is then the thing of legends.

Likewise Lüdemann sees Peter struggling with guilt which led to hallucinations which were then shared with the other apostles at the time who also experienced similar hallucinations. The appearance to the 500 was another shared hallucination or mass ecstasy which began with a few members of the crowd and quickly spread. Similarly, Paul was secretly attracted to Christianity and tired of Judaism, had a hallucination which resolved his cognitive dissonance and converted. Like in Goulder's view, Paul's belief in a bodily resurrection later came to dominate and legends developed around the tradition.

Crossan's hypothesis also relies on hallucinations, but sees Paul as the only one who had an actual vision which occurred to him during a trance. The apostles understood God's kingdom as living and active even after Jesus' death, he was still alive in some sense of the term, such as saying, "he is with us in spirit." This was read into the Jewish scriptures to be the case, then visions and other mass ecstasies occurred, but only after they had already committed themselves to the view. Paul, in actuality, held to a non-bodily, spiritual resurrection and he - along with the other disciples - would be offended to see such a foreign interpretation of their views today.

Evaluation

Because each of these hypotheses rely upon Pauline hallucinations and broader ecstasies, they can be evaluated in a similar manner.

1. Explanatory Scope

All three hypotheses account for the crucifixion of Jesus and do offer an explanation for the appearances to Paul and the other apostles.

2. Explanatory Power

By my estimation, each of the hypotheses suffers with respect to explanatory power. In each case Paul converts and moves from persecutor to persecuted because of a vision and secret attraction to the faith he was attacking. Moreover, these HH's require each of the converts to interpret a vision as a bodily resurrection. Goulder, Lüdemann, and Crossan each provide evidence from psychological case studies to support their version of the HH, however in none of these cases did anyone who experienced a vision then form the belief that their vision was veridical - they all knew it was a hallucination. It seems to be stretching credulity to imagine that Peter, Paul, and the rest of the disciples would have all interpreted such a vision as the resurrection of Jesus.

3. More Plausible with Respect to Background Knowledge

There is some daylight with respect to plausibility between the various hypotheses. When making his case, Crossan relies heavily on hypothetical sources which he claims pre-date Paul despite no evidence to support the claims. In the process, he must argue that the much later Gospel of Peter preserves the original narrative. This goes strongly against accepted knowledge.

The other two hypotheses rely upon mass ecstasy in order to account for the appearances. However, there are no recorded events of shared hallucinations.

4. Ad Hoc Hypotheses

Unfortunately, all three versions of HH flounder badly on this point. The hypotheses posit psychological conditions among Paul and the apostles without any evidence whatsoever. In fact, Paul offers evidence exactly contrary to any secret dissatisfaction with Judaism or attraction to Christianity. Paul was an avowed enemy of Christianity, what evidence is there for a secret attraction? Also, why believe that they were susceptible to hallucinations in the first place? All of this is offered without any evidence to support it.

Summary of Hallucination Hypotheses

The HH account for the evidence weakly at best. The crucifixion is a pre-requisite, however the appearances to the disciples, appearance and conversion of Paul are inadequately accounted for by hallucinations. When Christianity began - and for the next 300 years - it was a minority religion in the empire and was fiercely opposed in Jerusalem where it began. The difficult question that none of the HH accounts address is why did it start at all in Jerusalem? This was the place where Jesus lived, was tried, executed, and buried. The religious leaders of the city understood Christianity as a blasphemous perversion and sought to have it eliminated. If the Christians based their new religion on the resurrection of Jesus, yet everything was built on hallucinations, then Jesus' body was still in the tomb, easily exhumable for all to see.

The HH's are weak with respect to the historical bedrock of minimal facts we chose at the outset, but become additionally strained the more information we introduce regarding early Christianity. Licona sums up these attempts as being, "based entirely on numerous speculative conjectures," and I agree that they simply do not stand up under scrutiny.

The Resurrection Hypothesis

The traditional Christian belief states that after his death on the cross, Jesus was buried in a tomb, raised by God whereby he appeared to his disciples, ate with them, spoke with them, and appeared to others throughout Palestine. Paul, who was persecuting the followers of Jesus, was appeared to on his way to Damascus by Jesus and converted to become a Christian as a result. The disciples, Paul, and others who had seen Jesus resurrected formed the basis of the nascent movement and preached throughout the Roman empire and beyond that Jesus was Lord and had been resurrected.

1. Explanatory Scope

The hypothesis accounts for all the data, Jesus' crucifixion and the appearances to Paul and the disciples.

2. Explanatory Power

The hypothesis is more powerful than the aforementioned HH's in explaining the conversion and conviction of Paul and the disciples in their missionary activities. Experiencing a hallucination of a dead individual not going to lead one to believe that individual is actually alive. However, the resurrection narratives show something else, Jesus spoke with multiple people, ate with them, walked with them, offered to be touched to demonstrate his embodied state. This seems sufficient to generate the belief that he was alive.

3. More Plausible with Respect to Background Knowledge

The plausibility of the resurrection hypothesis is primarily based on one's worldview, be it naturalistic or does it have room for the supernatural. Common objections such as, "dead men don't rise" are understandable in a naturalistic worldview, however those who have a supernatural worldview have significantly less trouble with the hypothesis because it states that God raised Jesus from the dead, not that he was resurrected through some natural means. Being a worldview question at the heart, it is difficult to gauge as some would see it as eminently plausible while others would not. For that reason we can attempt to take a middle-ground position and say that it is somewhat plausible.

4. Ad Hoc Hypotheses

The only possible ad hoc element in the resurrection hypothesis is that it requires the existence of some supernatural being. Regardless, we must address the evidence at hand and compare the hypotheses. The resurrection hypothesis lacks ad hoc components whereas the previously examined HH's contain numerous ad hoc explanations which must be inserted to hold the idea together.

Summary of the Resurrection Hypothesis

The resurrection hypothesis exceeds the rivals put forth by Lüdemann, Goulder, and Crossan. It fits the data better, is less ad hoc, has more explanatory scope, and explanatory power. Potentially, it requires one additional belief: that God exists.

In addition to the HH's, there are a handful of other hypotheses that have been put forth over the years.³ However, utilizing the same criterion for historicity and historical hypothesis testing, these other hypotheses fail to measure up as well.⁴ I would encourage interested readers into diving deep into these topics and wrestling with authors such as Licona, NT Wright, Gary Habermas, and William Lane Craig regarding the resurrection. Examine the evidence at hand and see where it leads you.

1. Other authors expand this to include additional historical evidence such as the empty tomb, the conversion of James, the development of the Christian church, etc. For examples, see William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith and Gary Habermas' The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus.
2. The scholars listed are Geza Vermes, Michael Goulder, Gerd Lüdemann, JD Crossan, Pieter Craffert, and Licona defends the resurrection hypothesis. See The Resurrection of Jesus for more.
3. Additional categories of hypotheses: the conspiracy hypothesis where the disciples stole his body, misplaced body, apparent death, a spiritual resurrection, and that the disciples and women visited the wrong tomb.
4. William Lane Craig takes a similar approach and deals with these other hypotheses in Reasonable Faith.