Objections & Alternative Explanations
The Christian proclamation is not that Jesus merely lived on in the
memories of His followers, nor that His disciples found spiritual meaning
after a tragic death. It is that Jesus Christ truly died, was buried,
and on the third day was bodily raised from the dead. The tomb was empty
because He had risen, and His followers encountered the same Jesus who
had been crucified - now alive and glorified.
Alternative explanations deserve to be heard fairly, but they must also
be tested against the whole body of evidence. A theory that explains an
empty tomb but not the appearances is inadequate. A theory that explains
an individual visionary experience but not the empty tomb, group
appearances, James, Paul, and the very early resurrection proclamation
is likewise incomplete. The Christian claim is powerful precisely because
it brings these strands together.
The claim of this presentation:
Jesus really rose from the dead. The competing theories below are not
equally successful explanations of the evidence. Each leaves major facts
unexplained or requires assumptions less persuasive than the event the
earliest witnesses proclaimed: "He has risen."
The Disciples Stole the Body
Matthew records that the story of a stolen body was circulated from
the beginning: the guards were instructed to say that Jesus' disciples
came at night and stole Him away while they slept.
Matthew 28:11-15
Why it fails: Theft can explain only the absence of a
body. It cannot explain sincere appearances to individuals and groups,
the disciples' conviction that Jesus had conquered death, or Paul's
later encounter. Worse, the theory turns the apostles into conscious
conspirators preaching what they knew to be false. Whatever one thinks
about later traditions concerning the deaths of individual apostles,
the New Testament itself shows that resurrection preaching brought
opposition and suffering, not an obvious worldly reward. A knowingly
fabricated resurrection provides no convincing explanation for the
transformation of the movement.
Someone Else Removed the Body
Perhaps the body was moved by Joseph, the authorities, grave robbers,
or some unknown person. Mary Magdalene herself initially supposes that
someone has removed Jesus and asks where He has been placed.
John 20:13-15
Why it fails: A relocated body again explains at most
an empty tomb. It does nothing to account for the appearances. If the
authorities possessed the body, producing it would have been the
obvious answer to resurrection preaching. If Joseph or another friendly
party moved it, the earliest believers could have been corrected.
The proposal therefore requires an unexplained removal followed by a
separate explanation for the experiences that convinced the disciples
Jesus was alive.
Jesus Survived the Crucifixion
The "swoon theory" proposes that Jesus never actually died. He somehow
survived scourging and crucifixion, revived in the tomb, and later
appeared to His followers.
The sources present the opposite picture. Jesus is scourged, crucified,
and declared dead. Mark says Pilate specifically questioned the
centurion about Jesus' death before releasing the body. John records
the spear thrust into Jesus' side.
Mark 15:42-45
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John 19:31-37
Why it fails: The theory must suppose that Roman
executioners mistakenly released a living victim, that a terribly
wounded Jesus survived without medical treatment, escaped or was
removed from the tomb, and then convinced His followers not merely
that He had survived but that He had triumphed over death. A barely
surviving crucifixion victim would call for medical care, not worship
as the risen Lord. The swoon theory replaces one extraordinary event
with a chain of highly improbable ones.
The Women Went to the Wrong Tomb
Could grief and darkness have led the women to an empty tomb that was
not Jesus' tomb? The suggestion sounds simple, but the burial accounts
specifically say that women observed where Jesus was laid.
Mark 15:46-16:6
Why it fails: The mistake would have been easily
correctable. Joseph of Arimathea knew the tomb. Other witnesses to the
burial knew the location. And even a wrong tomb cannot produce
appearances of Jesus afterward. The theory explains neither the
sustained resurrection proclamation nor the encounters that generated it.
The Disciples Hallucinated or Experienced Grief Visions
This is a more serious proposal because it allows the disciples to be
sincere. Bereaved people can experience vivid perceptions of someone
who has died. Perhaps one or more followers had such experiences and
interpreted them as appearances of Jesus.
Why it fails as a complete explanation: A psychological
experience exists in the perceiver; it does not remove a body from a
tomb. The New Testament traditions also involve multiple people, groups,
differing places and circumstances, Thomas' initial refusal to believe,
and Paul's report of an appearance to more than five hundred at once.
James and Paul are especially troublesome for a simple grief theory:
James had not been presented as a believing disciple during Jesus'
ministry, and Paul was an active persecutor of the church. One can
propose different psychological explanations for each witness, but the
theory becomes increasingly dependent on a series of separate assumptions
while still leaving the empty tomb unexplained.
The Resurrection Story Grew as a Legend
Perhaps Jesus' followers initially had only a vague conviction that He
had been vindicated by God, and stories of an empty tomb and physical
appearances developed gradually over succeeding generations.
Why it fails: Resurrection proclamation is too early
for the central claim to be explained as a late legend. In
1 Corinthians 15 Paul reminds his readers of a tradition he had already
"received" and "delivered": Christ died, was buried, was raised on the
third day, and appeared to Cephas, the Twelve, the five hundred, James,
and the apostles. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians within the lifetime of the
first Christian generation and personally knew Peter and James. Later
narrative details may certainly have histories of transmission, but
the fundamental resurrection-and-appearance proclamation was present
near the beginning, not invented centuries afterward.
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
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Galatians 1:18-19
The Gospel Accounts Contradict One Another
The resurrection accounts are not identical. They name different women,
emphasize different angelic messengers, select different appearances,
and do not always narrate events in the same order. Those differences
should be acknowledged rather than concealed.
Why the objection does not overturn the testimony:
Different selection is not the same thing as contradiction. Saying that
Mary Magdalene went to the tomb does not say that she went alone; indeed
John's own wording has Mary say, "we do not know where they have laid him."
Describing one angel who speaks does not logically deny another angel's
presence. The writers agree on the essential sequence: Jesus died, was
buried, the tomb was found empty on the first day of the week, and His
followers encountered Him alive afterward. Their differences look far
less like four authors copying a single standardized script than like
distinct accounts concentrating on different portions of the same events.
John 20:1-2
Jesus Rose Only Spiritually
Another theory argues that the earliest Christians believed Jesus
survived death spiritually or was exalted to heaven, while belief in
bodily resurrection developed later.
That does not fit naturally with the Jewish meaning of resurrection
or with Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul certainly teaches a
transformed resurrection body - a "spiritual body" - but "spiritual"
does not mean non-bodily. His contrast is between the mortal body and
the transformed body made fit for the age to come. The Gospels make
the continuity even more explicit: the risen Jesus can be seen and
touched, bears the marks of crucifixion, and eats with His followers.
1 Corinthians 15:35-49
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Luke 24:36-43
Why it fails: A merely spiritual survival does not
explain why the earliest proclamation used resurrection language after
affirming Jesus' burial. The claim was not simply "Jesus' soul lives."
It was that the Jesus who died and was buried had been raised. The
transformed nature of His resurrection body does not make that
resurrection less bodily.
Do Several Naturalistic Theories Work Better Together?
Individual theories can be combined. One might deny the empty tomb,
explain Peter and Mary through grief experiences, treat Paul's encounter
as a vision, regard the five hundred as an exaggerated tradition, and
attribute the physical details of the Gospels to later development.
Such a reconstruction is possible to propose, but notice what has happened:
instead of one explanation accounting for the evidence, a different
explanation is required for nearly every part of it.
By contrast, the proclamation of the first Christians is remarkably
straightforward. Jesus truly died. He was buried. On the third day He
was raised. The tomb was empty because death had not held Him. He appeared
repeatedly to His followers, transformed skeptics such as James and an
enemy such as Paul, and commissioned witnesses who carried that message
into the world.
The Christian conclusion:
The Resurrection is not merely the explanation Christians prefer after
all natural possibilities have been exhausted. It is the event the
earliest witnesses themselves proclaimed. Taken together, the empty
tomb, the appearances, the early testimony, and the birth of the
resurrection-centered Christian movement provide a coherent and powerful
historical foundation for believing their proclamation: Jesus Christ
truly rose from the dead.
The question therefore moves naturally from Did Jesus rise? to
What does His resurrection mean? Continue with
The Significance of the Resurrection.
