Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist -- Chapter 24 - Dan
Barker
Leave No Stone Unturned
An Easter Challenge For Christians
I HAVE AN EASTER challenge for
Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am
not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians
tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine
was born.
Believers should eagerly take up this challenge, since without the
resurrection, there is no Christianity. Paul wrote, "And if Christ be not
risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we
are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he
raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not." (I
Corinthians 15:14-15)
The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of the
four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew
28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul's tiny
version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in
a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate
accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the
resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who
said what, when; and where these things happened.
Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is
permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend
to present a perfect picture--it only needs to give at least one plausible
account of all of the facts. Additional explanation of the narrative may be
set apart in parentheses. The important condition to the challenge,
however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted. Fair enough?
I have tried this challenge myself. I failed. An Assembly of God minister
whom I was debating a couple of years ago on a Florida radio show loudly
proclaimed over the air that he would send me the narrative in a few days. I
am still waiting. After my debate at the University of Wisconsin, "Jesus of
Nazareth: Messiah or Myth," a Lutheran graduate student told me he accepted
the challenge and would be contacting me in about a week. I have never heard
from him. Both of these people, and others, agreed that the request was
reasonable and crucial. Maybe they are slow readers.
Many bible stories are given only once or twice, and are therefore hard to
confirm. The author of Matthew, for example, was the only one to mention that
at the crucifixion dead people emerged from the graves of Jerusalem, walking
around showing themselves to everyone--an amazing event that could hardly
escape the notice of the other Gospel writers, or any other historians of the
period. But though the silence of others might weaken the likelihood of a
story, it does not disprove it. Disconfirmation comes with contradictions.
Thomas Paine tackled this matter two hundred years ago in The Age of
Reason, stumbling across dozens of New Testament discrepancies:
"I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted," he
wrote, "first, that the agreement of all the parts of a story does not prove
that story to be true, because the parts may agree and the whole may be
false; secondly, that the disagreement of the parts of a story
proves the whole cannot be true."
Since Easter is told
by five different writers, it gives one of the best chances to confirm or
disconfirm the account. Christians should welcome the opportunity.
One of the first problems I found is in Matthew 28:2, after two women
arrived at the tomb: "And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel
of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the
door, and sat upon it." (Let's ignore the fact that no other writer mentioned
this "great earthquake.") This story says that the stone was rolled away after
the women arrived, in their presence.
Yet Mark's Gospel says it happened before the women arrived: "And
they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the
sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for
it was very great."
Luke writes: "And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre."
John agrees. No earthquake, no rolling stone. It is a three-to-one vote:
Matthew loses. (Or else the other three are wrong.) The event cannot have
happened both before and after they arrived.
Some bible defenders assert that Matthew 28:2 was intended to be understood
in the past perfect, showing what had happened before the women arrived. But
the entire passage is in the aorist (past) tense, and it reads, in context,
like a simple chronological account. Matthew 28:2 begins, "And, behold," not
"For, behold." If this verse can be so easily shuffled around, then what is to
keep us from putting the flood before the ark, or the crucifixion before the
nativity?
Another glaring problem is the fact that in Matthew the first
post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to the disciples happened on a mountain
in Galilee (not in Jerusalem, as most Christians believe), as predicted by the
angel sitting on the newly moved rock: "And go quickly, and tell his disciples
that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee;
there shall ye see him." This must have been of supreme importance, since this
was the message of God via the angel(s) at the tomb. Jesus had even
predicted this himself sixty hours earlier, during the Last Supper (Matthew
26:32).
After receiving this angelic message, "Then the eleven disciples went away
into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they
saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted." (Matthew 28:16-17) Reading
this at face value, and in context, it is clear that Matthew intends this to
have been the first appearance. Otherwise, if Jesus had been seen
before this time, why did some doubt?
Mark agrees with Matthew's account of the angel's Galilee message, but
gives a different story about the first appearance. Luke and John give
different angel messages and then radically contradict Matthew. Luke shows the
first appearance on the road to Emmaus and then in a room in Jerusalem. John
says it happened later than evening in a room, minus Thomas. These angel
messages, locations, and travels during the day are impossible to reconcile.
Believers sometimes use the analogy of the five blind men examining an
elephant, all coming away with a different definition: tree trunk (leg), rope
(tail), hose (trunk), wall (side), and fabric (ear). People who use this
argument forget that each of the blind men was wrong: an elephant is
not a rope or a tree. You can put the five parts together to arrive at a
noncontradictory aggregate of the entire animal. This hasn't been done with
the resurrection.
Another analogy sometimes used by apologists is comparing the resurrection
contradictions to differing accounts given by witnesses of an auto accident.
If one witness said the vehicle was green and the other said it was blue, that
could be accounted for by different angles, lighting, perception, or
definitions of words. The important thing, they claim, is that they do agree
on the basic story--there was an accident, there was a resurrection.
I am not a fundamentalist inerrantist. I'm not demanding that the
evangelists must have been expert, infallible witnesses. (None of them claims
to have been at the tomb itself, anyway.) But what if one person said the auto
accident happened in Chicago and the other said it happened in Milwaukee? At
least one of these witnesses has serious problems with the truth.
Luke says the post-resurrection appearance happened in Jerusalem, but
Matthew says it happened in Galilee, sixty to one hundred miles away!
Could they all have traveled 150 miles that day, by foot, trudging up to
Galilee for the first appearance, then back to Jerusalem for the evening meal?
There is no mention of any horses, but twelve well-conditioned thoroughbreds
racing at breakneck speed, as the crow flies, would need about five hours for
the trip, without a rest. And during this madcap scenario, could Jesus have
found time for a leisurely stroll to Emmaus, accepting, "toward evening," an
invitation to dinner? Something is very wrong here.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Of course, none of these
contradictions prove that the resurrection did not happen, but they
do throw considerable doubt on the reliability of the supposed witnesses. Some
of them were wrong. Maybe they were all wrong.
This challenge could be harder. I could ask why reports of supernatural
beings, vanishing and materializing out of thin air, long-dead corpses coming
back to life, and people levitating should be given serious consideration at
all. Thomas Paine was one of the first to point out that outrageous claims
require outrageous proof.
Protestants and Catholics seem to have no trouble applying healthy
skepticism to the miracles of Islam, or to the "historical" visit between
Joseph Smith and the angel Moroni. Why should Christians treat their own
outrageous claims any differently? Why should someone who was not there be any
more eager to believe than doubting Thomas, who lived during that time, or the
other disciples who said that the women's news from the tomb "seemed to them
as idle tales, and they believed them not" (Luke 24:11)?
Paine also points out that everything in the bible is hearsay. For
example, the message at the tomb (if it happened at all) took this path, at
minimum, before it got to our eyes: God, angel(s), Mary, disciples, Gospel
writers, copyists, translators. (The Gospels are all anonymous and we have no
original versions.)
But first things first: Christians, either tell me exactly what happened on
Easter Sunday, or let's leave the Jesus myth buried next to Eastre (Ishtar,
Astarte), the pagan Goddess of Spring after whom your holiday was named.
Here are some of the discrepancies among the resurrection accounts:
What time did the women visit the tomb?
- Matthew: "as it began to dawn" (28:1)
- Mark: "very early in the morning . . . at the rising of the sun" (16:2,
KJV); "when the sun had risen" (NRSV); "just after sunrise" (NIV)
- Luke: "very early in the morning" (24:1, KJV) "at early dawn" (NRSV)
- John: "when it was yet dark" (20:1)
Who were the women?
- Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)
- Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1)
- Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women
(24:10)
- John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)
What was their purpose?
- Matthew: to see the tomb (28:1)
- Mark: had already seen the tomb (15:47), brought spices (16:1)
- Luke: had already seen the tomb (23:55), brought spices (24:1)
- John: the body had already been spiced before they arrived
(19:39,40)
Was the tomb open when they arrived?
- Matthew: No (28:2)
- Mark: Yes (16:4)
- Luke: Yes (24:2)
- John: Yes (20:1)
Who was at the tomb when they arrived?
- Matthew: One angel (28:2-7)
- Mark: One young man (16:5)
- Luke: Two men (24:4)
- John: Two angels (20:12)
Where were these messengers situated?
- Matthew: Angel sitting on the stone (28:2)
- Mark: Young man sitting inside, on the right (16:5)
- Luke: Two men standing inside (24:4)
- John: Two angels sitting on each end of the bed (20:12)
What did the messenger(s) say?
- Matthew: "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was
crucified. He is not here for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place
where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen
from the dead: and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye
see him: lo, I have told you." (28:5-7)
- Mark: "Be not afrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified:
he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go
your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into
Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you." (16:6-7)
- Luke: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is
risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying,
The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be
crucified, and the third day rise again." (24:5-7)
- John: "Woman, why weepest thou?" (20:13)
Did the women tell what happened?
- Matthew: Yes (28:8)
- Mark: No. "Neither said they any thing to any man." (16:8)
- Luke: Yes. "And they returned from the tomb and told all these things to
the eleven, and to all the rest." (24:9, 22-24)
- John: Yes (20:18)
When Mary returned from the tomb, did she know Jesus had been
resurrected?
- Matthew: Yes (28:7-8)
- Mark: Yes (16:10,11)
- Luke: Yes (24:6-9,23)
- John: No (20:2)
When did Mary first see Jesus?
- Matthew: Before she returned to the disciples (28:9)
- Mark: Before she returned to the disciples (16:9,10)
- John: After she returned to the disciples (20:2,14)
Could Jesus be touched after the resurrection?
- Matthew: Yes (28:9)
- John: No (20:17), Yes (20:27)
After the women, to whom did Jesus first appear?
- Matthew: Eleven disciples (28:16)
- Mark: Two disciples in the country, later to eleven (16:12,14)
- Luke: Two disciples in Emmaus, later to eleven (24:13,36)
- John: Ten disciples (Judas and Thomas were absent) (20:19, 24)
- Paul: First to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. (Twelve? Judas was
dead). (I Corinthians 15:5)
Where did Jesus first appear to the disciples?
- Matthew: On a mountain in Galilee (60-100 miles away) (28:16-17)
- Mark: To two in the country, to eleven "as they sat at meat"
(16:12,14)
- Luke: In Emmaus (about seven miles away) at evening, to the rest in a
room in Jerusalem later that night. (24:31, 36)
- John: In a room, at evening (20:19)
Did the disciples believe the two men?
- Mark: No (16:13)
- Luke: Yes (24:34--it is the group speaking here, not the
two)
What happened at the appearance?
- Matthew: Disciples worshipped, some doubted, "Go preach." (28:17-20)
- Mark: Jesus reprimanded them, said "Go preach" (16:14-19)
- Luke: Christ incognito, vanishing act, materialized out of thin air,
reprimand, supper (24:13-51)
- John: Passed through solid door, disciples happy, Jesus blesses them, no
reprimand (21:19-23)
Did Jesus stay on earth for a while?
- Mark: No (16:19) Compare 16:14 with John 20:19 to show that this was all
done on Sunday
- Luke: No (24:50-52) It all happened on Sunday
- John: Yes, at least eight days (20:26, 21:1-22)
- Acts: Yes, at least forty days (1:3)
Where did the ascension take place?
- Matthew: No ascension. Book ends on mountain in Galilee
- Mark: In or near Jerusalem, after supper (16:19)
- Luke: In Bethany, very close to Jerusalem, after supper (24:50-51)
- John: No ascension
- Paul: No ascension
- Acts: Ascended from Mount of Olives (1:9-12)
This first appeared in Freethought Today, March, 1990
© Copyright 1990 by Dan Barker. All Rights Reserved.