Hi! There is a work praised in the prestigious journal “Nature” called “The Gospel of Afranius” [its text can be found for free in the refs in its Wikipedia article] that argues that the visions of the resurrected Jesus are best explained by a politically motivated impostor. I haven’t seen it discussed much (probably because it is a foreign work that’s only been available in English since late 2022), what are the people’s – and especially Dr. Erhman’s – thoughts about it? FWIW I presented it to several Reasonable Faith apologists, and their comments after reading it were very respectful (“advanced atheistic arguments”, “decent atheist apologist”, etc, and no attempt at showing that it’s false).
Ehrman argues that it isn’t uncommon for loved ones to sometimes experience a vision of the departed, especially when the death is unexpected or otherwise especially traumatic.
I don’t think a political imposter was part of his calculation.
As an aside, I had a professor who woke up one morning with a deceased loved one sitting on the edge of her bed. She knew he wasn’t really there. But it felt real in the moment.
The work in question argues extensively that while this is indeed the simpler assumption, there is better evidence for the more nontrivial one – that they, except Paul, saw someone in the flesh, explicitly presenting himself as the resurrected Jesus, especially since there was someone with an excellent motive to do so (also a highly nontrivial consideration). I believe this is new stuff! And its logic was praised in “Nature” and by the few “Reasonable Faith” apologists I presented it to; do you mind reading it – it’s available online for free – and telling me what you think? I want to also know the opinion of people of this forum! I’m the guy who released its English version, with the author’s endorsement – I worked on its translation/adaptation for free because to be honest I just find this work utterly fascinating!..
Paul’s report, the fact that they explicitly did not recognize him at the Lake of Gennesaret appearance, appearances to many witnesses at once, thinly veiled lack of certainty in his identity (contrasted with that in Paul’s visions, which were indeed religious visions), strong political motivations of those (non-democratic agents) who were the likely culprits, a long list of “small” (and big) details about the appearances that only make sense under this explanation, and how this squares uniquely nicely with the empty tomb bit (which is separate from the appearances)… a short summary will really not do it justice, though! 🙂
Right, we can’t be certain of these things. Here what Yeskov does to surmount this barrier (which he absolutely acknowledges) is 1) deliberately buying the arguments of religious apologists as to reliability, authorship, dating, etc, and then showing that *those* assumptions entail an explanation which simultaneously has a broader explanatory scope (again, according to the apologists’ own criteria; I’ve tested their reaction myself!) and happens to be utterly non-supernatural, if only mildly unusual (but not any more unusual than e.g. anything Putin is doing, or the incidents that were the pretexts for Soviet invasion in Finland and Nazi invasion in Poland). As to the historical background, political motivations, and the connection between those and Gospel and New Testament events (and how those connections are reflected), this is explained in detail, and the super-nutshell explanation is that it was politically prudent for the local Roman administration at the moment to strengthen this sect. 2) a point along the lines of: some things in the narratives, such as the non-recognition at the lake, are highly favored as historical by the embarrassment criterion – it’s plausibly way too inconvenient to be made up as a legend or rumor. But again, not much justice is done here, and I highly recommend reading the work firsthand!
I’ve only read the first few pages (and I do find it far more interesting, cogently argued, and well-written than I’d anticipated), but it seems to me his argument is this:
1) an apologist has argued the resurrection happened because alternative naturalistic explanations, taken one by one, all fail.
2) The author objects, you haven’t considered alternative explanations exhaustively: I am going to refute that argument by accepting your assumptions (including that Jesus and the Apostles were honest and not engaged in deliberate deception and that the gospels are generally reliable testimonies–he specifically likens them to the witness statements in an Agatha Christie novel–they might be mistaken, but those mistakes will be explained in the denouement), and construct a new, plausible, naturalistic account.
So far it has been an exercise in logic (even granting the apologists basic assumptions, can I construct another naturalistic explanation distinct from those he has ruled out, thus disproving his induction) *not* an attempt to show what actually happened; though perhaps by the end he will turn around and say, this scenario I’ve constructed as an exercise fits so well it seems like it is probably true, and not just a possibility that suffices to disprove the argument I set out to refute.
Yep, just as I said above in post 9 – in particular, even without the apologists’ assumptions, it has greater explanatory power for mass appearances, recorded in Paul’s list, which was written early on, and for things like the non-recognition at the lake, preferred as plausibly historical by the embarrassment criterion. Thank you and please keep reading on 🙂 As to how well it fits, two people with a degree in apologetics working as full-time apologists at Reasonable Faith (I can name names, Tim Bayless and Matt Bilyeu – also Blake Giunta, the director of Belief Map) are yet to find something in it to claim it’s wrong, despite having a very strong motivation and many weeks of time 🙂
I started to the read the article, but I’m afraid I completely lost interest as soon as I realized the author was trying to argue against Josh McDowell’s “Proofs of the Resurrection”, by proposing one argument that McDowell had not “refuted”. The problem with this approach, of course, is that McDowell failed to “refute” most of the resurrection alternatives he presented. Treating McDowell’s apologetic drivel, with all of it’s bogus assumptions, as something requiring one more “alternative”, is like giving us one more reason to believe the moon is not made of cheese.
Yeskov also notes that; the point is to argue *with the apologists on their terms*, i.e. to make them unable to object in principle, to undercut the faith on its own grounds (and it fulfills this mission – even at Reasonable Faith they just could not say anything!) – i.e. it’s a reach-out evangelical counterapologetic, the opposite of preaching to the choir, so to speak; and (in case you’re not interested in deconverting people or silencing annoying preachers – this work is a tested powerful weapon!) in the process it also comes up with a version that accounts for the data very well, even better than bereavement visions, in particular (see above – namely because of mass appearances and lack of recognition, even without the apologists’ assumptions).
And to repeat myself, this work is actually the reason there are no Russian-speaking apologists/”religious intelligentsia” or scholars like Mike Licona, Gary Habermas, W.L. Craig, and so forth. Ask any of these and like people’s opinion about this work (provided they actually read it)… and watch miracles happen 🙂
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert