WHERE WE ARE
Here is Peter Kreeft's argument for his Objection #13 against the Hallucination Theory:
1. The Hallucination Theory explains only the alleged appearances of the risen Jesus.
2. The Hallucination Theory does not explain the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, or the inability of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to produce the corpse of Jesus.
3. The only theory that explains all these data (i.e. the alleged appearances of the risen Jesus, the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, and the inability of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to produce the corpse of Jesus) is the theory that Jesus actually physically rose from the dead.
Therefore:
A. The Hallucination Theory is FALSE.
In Part 40 of this series, I showed that this argument is INVALID, and that premise (1) is FALSE. Thus, Kreeft's argument for Objection #13 is UNSOUND and should be rejected. Therefore, Objection #13 FAILS, just like every single one of the previous dozen objections by Kreeft against the Hallucination Theory FAILED.
In Part 41 of this series, we saw that premise (2) assumes that "the empty tomb" and "the rolled-away stone" are FACTS. Thus, premise (2) assumes that the following historical claims are FACTS:
HC1: Jesus' body was buried in a stone tomb at the end of the day when he was crucified.
HC2: A large stone was rolled to block the entrance of the stone tomb where Jesus' body had just been placed.HC3: On Sunday morning, about 36 hours after Jesus' body was placed into a stone tomb, the large stone that was previously blocking the entrance of the tomb was discovered to be rolled away from the entrance of the tomb.HC4: On Sunday morning, about 36 hours after Jesus' body was placed into a stone tomb, the tomb was discovered to be empty (i.e. Jesus' body was no longer present in the tomb).HC5: In the days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were unable to produce the corpse of Jesus for public display.
The "empty tomb" is a FACT only if (HC1) and (HC4) are FACTS.
The "rolled-away stone" is a FACT only if (HC1), (HC2), and (HC3) are FACTS.
In Part 42 of this series, I showed that (HC1) and (HC4) are NOT FACTS, so premise (2) should be rejected, and thus Objection #13 FAILS, just like every single one of Kreeft's previous dozen objections against the Hallucination Theory has FAILED.
WHAT ABOUT (HC2)?
Premise (2) also assumes that (HC2) is a FACT:
HC2: A large stone was rolled to block the entrance of the stone tomb where Jesus' body had just been placed.
But (HC2) is clearly is NOT a FACT, because (HC1) is NOT a FACT. If we don't KNOW that Jesus was buried in a stone tomb, then we obviously don't KNOW that a large stone was rolled to block the entrance of the stone tomb "where Jesus' body had just been placed." We don't KNOW that Jesus was buried in a stone tomb. Thus, we also don't KNOW about there being a large stone closing off a stone tomb with Jesus inside the tomb. Therefore, (HC2) is NOT a FACT.
Since premise (2) assumes that (HC2) is a FACT, when (HC2) is NOT a FACT, we should reject premise (2), and thus Kreeft's argument for Objection #13 FAILS.
WHAT ABOUT (HC3)?
Premise (2) also assumes that (HC3) is a FACT:
HC3: On Sunday morning, about 36 hours after Jesus' body was placed into a stone tomb, the large stone that was previously blocking the entrance of the tomb was discovered to be rolled away from the entrance of the tomb.
But (HC3) is clearly is NOT a FACT, because (HC1) is NOT a FACT and because (HC2) is NOT a FACT. If we don't KNOW that Jesus was buried in a stone tomb, and we don't KNOW that a large stone was rolled to block the entrance of that tomb, then we obviously don't KNOW that a large stone was discovered to be rolled back from the entrance of the stone tomb where "Jesus' body was placed". We don't KNOW that Jesus was buried in a stone tomb. Thus, we also don't KNOW about there being a large stone rolled away from a stone tomb where Jesus' body had been placed. Therefore, (HC3) is NOT a FACT.
Furthermore, the evidence we have for (HC3) is the empty tomb stories in the Gospels. But we don't KNOW whether those stories are UNHISTORICAL LEGENDS or are historically reliable and true. Because the empty tomb stories might well be FICTION, and those stories are the basis for (HC3), we don't KNOW that (HC3) is true. Therefore, (HC3) is NOT a FACT.
Since premise (2) assumes that (HC3) is a FACT, when (HC3) is NOT a FACT, we should reject premise (2), and thus Kreeft's argument for Objection #13 FAILS.
WHAT ABOUT (HC5)?
Premise (2) also assumes that (HC5) is a FACT:
HC5: In the days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were unable to produce the corpse of Jesus for public display.
If Jesus' body had been left to rot on the cross, then the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem would still have been "unable to produce the corpse of Jesus for public display" because his body would have quickly decomposed and become disfigured by birds of prey. So, the body of Jesus would have quickly become unrecognizable, and thus useless for disproving the claim that Jesus had physically risen from the dead.
If Jesus' body had been taken down from the cross by Roman soldiers and placed into a shallow grave along with several executed criminals, then the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem would still have been "unable to produce the corpse of Jesus for public display" because his body would have quickly decomposed and become disfigured by hungry dogs, and also because it would be very difficult to figure out which body in the mass grave belonged to Jesus.
If someone did bury the body of Jesus in a stone tomb, they might not have wanted the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to know about this, because that might be viewed as giving aid and comfort to an enemy of those Jewish leaders. In this case, the existence and location of the tomb where Jesus was buried might well have been unknown to the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. So, if Jesus' body remained in the tomb for weeks or months after the crucifixion, the Jewish leaders would have been unable to produce the corpse of Jesus for public display because they would not know the location of the body.
Furthermore, if someone did bury the body of Jesus in a stone tomb, and if Jesus' dead body remained in that stone tomb after his crucifixion, it still would have been the case that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were unable to produce the corpse of Jesus for public display IF the eleven disciples of Jesus did not start preaching the resurrection of Jesus around Jerusalem until several weeks after the crucifixion of Jesus:
...if...the Christian proclamation [of the resurrection of Jesus] began after forty days, in all likelihood not much was left of Jesus' body. At seventy or more degrees, decomposition will soon make a face unrecognizable and thwart the surest ways to identify a dead person (fingerprints, dental records, etc., were not available at that time. Therefore, no easy way existed for the Jewish opponents to confront the young Jesus movement with counterevidence.
(Gerd Ludemann, "Closing Response" in Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? edited by Paul Copan & Ronald Tacelli, p. 153)
The preaching of the eleven in Jerusalem might not have started as soon as claimed in the book of Acts. Their preaching about the resurrection of Jesus might well not have started for several months or even a year after the crucifixion of Jesus.
Even if the preaching of the resurrection began forty days after the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem might not have heard about this preaching for a week or two, and it might have taken a week or two for them to come to an agreement that they should make a serious effort to discourage the young Jesus movement. So, another three or four weeks could easily have passed after the preaching of the resurrection began before the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem determined that they should strongly oppose this new religious movement. That would mean that if the body of Jesus was still in a tomb or grave, it would have been there for over two months by the time the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem decided to strongly oppose the new religious movement.
Finally, it is important to note that (HC5) rests on another historical assumption:
HC6: In the days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem did NOT produce the corpse of Jesus for public display.
How do we KNOW that (HC6) is true? There is no record of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem producing the (alleged) corpse of Jesus for public display. But that does not PROVE that no such event took place. This is an argument from silence. Arguments from silence are, generally, weak arguments.
One might reasonably claim that (HC6) is probably true since we would expect some mention of this event by early Christian authors (e.g. in the Gospels or the letters of Paul). But then, at most, we could only claim that (HC5) is probably true, because (HC5) is based upon (HC6). So, since we don't KNOW (HC6) to be true, we also don't KNOW (HC5) to be true. Therefore, (HC5) is NOT a FACT.
Furthermore, the inference from (HC6) to (HC5) is NOT deductively VALID. It is an inductive inference and a weak one at that. In order to infer (HC5) from (HC6) we need to assume that the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem would quickly agree with each other that (a) the new Jesus movement must be strongly discouraged, and (b) a good way to discourage the movement would be to produce the dead body of Jesus in a public display. But it is dubious that both of those assumptions are true.
Ludemann makes a good point about this:
Given the religious enthusiasm of the early community [of the Jesus movement], I doubt whether it [presenting a public display of the corpse of Jesus] would have made any impact on them anyway. Let me simply refer you to Michael Goulder again for numerous examples of how religious enthusiasm works even today. Due to its nature it is simply not open to reason or to any objections from the nonreligious side.
(Gerd Ludemann in Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? p. 153)
I agree. Furthermore, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem might well also have agreed that evidence and arguments would likely FAIL to change the minds of devout followers of Jesus. The Romans certainly had no interest in trying to persuade the followers of Jesus that they were mistaken in their beliefs about Jesus. When the Romans wanted to discourage the Jesus movement, they would simply round up Christian leaders and imprison, torture, or kill them. The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem would be likely to adopt a similar strategy.
After all, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem had attempted to discourage the young Jesus movement by having Jesus executed. That is how leaders usually have attempted to discourage religious movements that they oppose. Using the threat of punishments like imprisonment, torture, and death seems a much more effective way to discourage a new movement than to try to convince or persuade religious believers that their religious beliefs are false. So, the assumption that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem would have quickly adopted a strategy of using evidence and arguments to oppose the new Jesus movement is DUBIOUS.
So, we do NOT KNOW that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem would have quickly come to an agreement to use evidence and arguments (such as producing a public display of the corpse of Jesus) in order to discourage the new Jesus movement that was proclaiming that Jesus had physically risen from the dead. Thus, the inference from (HC6) to (HC5) is questionable. It is a weak inference at best. Therefore, because (HC6) is NOT a FACT, and because the inference from (HC6) to (HC5) is a weak inductive inference, it is clear that (HC5) is also NOT a FACT.
But premise (2) assumes that (HC5) is a FACT, so we should reject premise (2), and that means that we should reject the argument for Objection #13. Therefore Objection #13 FAILS, just like every single other one of Kreeft's previous dozen objections against the Hallucination Theory has FAILED.
CONCLUSION
Premise (2) of Kreeft's argument for Objection #13 assumes that all of the following historical claims are FACTS:
HC1: Jesus' body was buried in a stone tomb at the end of the day when he was crucified.
HC2: A large stone was rolled to block the entrance of the stone tomb where Jesus' body had just been placed.
HC3: On Sunday morning, about 36 hours after Jesus' body was placed into a stone tomb, the large stone that was previously blocking the entrance of the tomb was discovered to be rolled away from the entrance of the tomb.HC4: On Sunday morning, about 36 hours after Jesus' body was placed into a stone tomb, the tomb was discovered to be empty (i.e. Jesus' body was no longer present in the tomb).HC5: In the days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were unable to produce the corpse of Jesus for public display.
I have shown that NONE of these five historical claims is a FACT. Thus, it is clear that we should reject premise (2), and that means we should reject the argument constituting Objection #13. Therefore, Objection #13 FAILS, just like every single one of Kreeft's previous dozen objections against the Hallucination Theory has FAILED.
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