Loading...OK, here’s another weird blog coincidence that happened 94 seconds ago. A few days ago I posted on the issue of why someone would invent a story of women finding the empty tomb (since women were “seen as unreliable”: if you invented a story, wouldn’t it be *men* who found it?). I got a lot of responses, including several that more or less openly mocked me for thinking the disciples made up the story of the resurrection. The typical line I got was something like “Yeah, right Ehrman: all those disciples died for a *lie*. Gee, you’re smart….”
So, OK, leaving smarts out of the equation, I thought today I would repost a post that I had done long ago that dealt with this question. Then I thought, Nah, don’t bother. Do something else.
But then I decided to look through old posts just for the heck of it and decided to look up the one that I had done on precisely this date, October 12, the first year of the blog, 2012. It was that very post, I kid you not.
OK, the fates have decided the matter. I have to repost it. I no longer have any say in the matter. Here it is.
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QUESTION:
Another very very popular evidence put forward for the resurrection is that “the disciples would not have died for what they knew was a lie, therefore it must have happened.” I hear this all the time. You have said that you think the disciples really believed they saw Jesus after he died so they were not lying. However, is there evidence (historical or literary) that they were killed because of their belief in Jesus’ resurrection?
RESPONSE:
Ah yes, if I had a fiver for every time I’ve heard this comment over the years, I could retire to a country home in Maine… Several other people have responded to this question on the blog by saying that we have lots of records of lots of people who have died for something that they knew, literally, not to be true. I am not in a position to argue that particular point. But I can say something about all the disciples dying for believing in the resurrection.
The way the argument (by Christian apologists) goes is this (I know this because I used to make the same argument myself when I was a Christian apologist!): all the apostles were martyred for their faith because they believed Jesus had been raised from the dead; you can see why someone might be willing to die for the truth, but no one would die for a lie, and therefore the disciples – all of them – clearly believed that Jesus was raised from the dead. And if they *all* believed it, then it almost certainly is true (since none of them thought otherwise, they must have all seen Jesus alive after his death).
The big problem with this argument is…
We have no evidence for the fates of the disciples. But we do know that by the end of the First Century hundreds of people had given up their homes, careers and family to go preaching the Gospel.
But there is an “empty tomb” in the Old Testament if you like.
One of the biggest lies ABOUT the Tanakh is there is no Messianic Redeemer who suffers and dies for His people. But I can think of three writers speaking of the Redeemer dying for his people and being resurrected. David and Isaiah write of this resurrected Redeemer being believed upon by the Gentiles, and Zechariah speaks of the Jews as mourning when they see their Messianic king is the lowly man whom they crucified.
At a Jewish Shabbat (‘shubbers’ in Australia) a Jew held up his book of Isaiah and asked for a chapter for him to read. I suggested chapter 53. He told me that chapter was not in his book – so it’s a sensitive issue to some.
Actually, I don’t think we know that. Where are you getting that idea about hundreds of people abandoning their possessions to preach the gospel?
These disciple martyrdom stories were terribly creative in their means of execution and one was gorier than the next. Was part of the motivation for these stories a bit of entertainment and claiming your local “church” was established by a particular disciple? Later centuries saw cathedral building, the display of saints remains and a bit of a pilgrim/ tourist industry, right?
They certainly are written in an interesting way! I don’t know if entertainment was part of the motive or not….
I have a very well reasoned, extensive argument (that is too long for a blog comment) that the death of Elvis Presley was witnessed by many many more people, documented much more extensively, and completely irrefutable because his body is actually in a place in the ground that you can go see. Accounts of his still being alive are far more numerous than any eyewitness accounts of any other figure from antiquity, Jesus included. And yet no rational, sane person actually thinks Elvis Presley is still alive.
Heretic.
HAHAH! I forgot I was talking to someone in North Carolina! 😀
🙂
Glen Miller is still only missing.
That’s a very good argument regarding that followers of Jesus did not die as martyrs because they saw the resurrected Jesus. But, we are told that huge numbers of the early church did die at the hands of the Romans…or. is that also not true? Question: if it is true that huge numbers of early Christians were martyred for their faith, why do you think they accepted death rather than just keep quiet and live a long peaceful life? My question is not meant to be a challenge but rather, I just don’t know! I’d like to know what you think.
Nope, not true. You might want to read the book by Candida Moss, The Myth of Christian Persecution.
Given what we know we know about ancient ways of thinking, if one of Jesus’ community had an especially vivid dream about Jesus sometime after his crucifixion would that have been accepted as a Resurrection appearance? Would such a dream have been given the same epistemic status as a waking “appearance” of Jesus?
Thanks
Sure — someone hearing it would assume the person had seen jesus. Billions of people today believe Jesus was raised because someone else said that he was.
The “die-for-a-lie” argument seemed perfectly solid when I was a devout believer, but seems entirely flawed now that I am a skeptic. If this political season has taught us anything it is that people will believe and disseminate many unsubstantiated things if it supports their existing belief system! The sadder thing though is that too many people throughout history have been more eager to kill for their beliefs than to die for them.
Anyone who got “martyred” long afterward had imbibed deeply of the Kool Aide– true believers. Indoctrinated. In a world of their own. I know it isn’t nice to view Christianity as a cult, but there was clearly a lot of cultish behavior going on. And we all know what people in cults get up to. Plenty of recent examples. Heaven’s Gate? Would those people have committed suicide if they had not truly believed that they would be beamed up by aliens? Probably not. They truly believed! But they were dead wrong. And now they’re just dead. A lot like those Christian martyrs. Dead wrong and long dead.
Dr. Ehrman,
If it is not the martyrdoms, what led you to believe that the apostles were indeed sincere about their claims to have seen the risen Jesus?
Their clear conviction and passion and interest in converting others, and the sense from someone like Paul that he wasn’t lying about it. And there are LOTS of ways to get persecuted without being killed.
Dr. Bart Ehrman. Huge fan of your work. It’s molded my thinking
In many ways. (Not just in regards to the New Testament)
I’m actually from Colombia and live less than 10 miles from the volcano that you mentioned in your book on Suffering (In which thousands of innocent people were killed). I’ve been obsessed and puzzled, since I was very little, with the problem of suffering…because I see it here every day (Families with 5 or more children, that I know personally, going to bed hungry). (It’s one thing to see it on tv or to read it in a book..But when you’re actually here and a first hand witness, your heart breaks.)
Wanted to ask you something regarding Luke/acts and its author. In several blog posts you’ve mentioned that Luke most likely never knew Paul and probably didn’t have access to his letters.
Assuming this is true then, where does the author acquire so many details (even if they’re sometimes wrong) from Paul’s entire journeys? Did he just make them up based on stories he’d heard? Or was Paul a bit famous by the time “Luke” began writing?
Thank you for the work that you do. It’s absolutely monumental and necessary.
My sense is that “Luke” was in a community that revered Paul as a great missionary, and told stories about him; possibly it was a community that Paul himself founded, and he told stories about his travles that were still being told years later when Luke was old enough to make note of them.
Is the volcano still active? And are there any governmental support systems in Colombia to help the poor? Or International charities? Or hope for the future?
Yes, I see. It’s almost like some sort of early Paul fan-club.
Right now, the vocano is on Yellow alert. (Because of tremors) (It’s been like this for 10 years now) (Sometimes it spews out smoke and some ash.)
Search for “nevado del ruiz Manizales” on google pictures. I live somewhere in the middle there. Because of its topography though, the city I live in most likely will never be affected; however there are dozens of little towns in its way on the other side.
It’s a poor country, but the places that are susceptible, do have an alarm system today. Like most poor countries, the governing authorities are beyond corrupt.
The poor have gotten poorer because of this virus of course. No end in sight.
(How can god allow this, since most of the people suffering worldwide are always the poor anyways.) Like always, there’s no (divine) point to any of this.
Wanted to ask you something in regards to the New Testament. If you were forced to select 1 or 2 books that should not be in the New Testament…and the same for books that should be there (apocrypha) (For personal or theological reasons.)
Which would they be?
Thanks for the info. You’re in a rough situation — my best wishes and thoughts go to you and those around you. Are you from there?
If I had to take one out, it would probably be 1 Timothy — mainly because of the harm it’s done to women over the years (1 Tim 2:11-15). What to put in? Well, I have lots of favorites, from the Gospel of Peter to Infancy Thomas to the Acts of Thecla, and on and on. But none of them really had a shot…..
Professor
I asked you a similar question the other day in another vein, but why not add the Gospel of Thomas to the NT? Because too much of it is influenced by gnostic tendencies? Thanks.
There are debates today about whether Thomas should be considered Gnostic. The majority opinion is No. (I’m slowing startnig to accept it) But it wasn’t included simply because it was written too late, wasn’t widely used, and was suspected for being heretical.
I see and understand , I think what I’m asking is this…If you were a person living around the year 200 and were tasked with making a cannon….what should be there and what shouldn’t…from your unique perspective.
Hard for me to say, since I’m not a Christian, and forming the canon is more a theological activity than a historical one. From my point of view, I would prefer books that are historically oriented and that value the kinds of ethical values I do. The problem is that since the vast majority of the literature produced before 200 has been lost, I don’t know what the options might have been!
Jesus was never crucified.
If people have been able to understand only the end of the Gospel of John, they should have known that Jesus was not betrayed to a factual crucifixion, but only to a figurative one.
The beloved disciple (who is the twin of Judas) and Judas (who is also beloved) know very well that Jesus was not betrayed by Judas and not crucified and not resurrected.
John 21:20 “Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on His breast at the supper, and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?”
I can think of many more counterarguments to “They wouldn’t die for a lie”.
As an example: Let’s say that one apostle really did lie and really was martyred. Maybe they fell out of faith but stuck around in the Jesus movement because that was where all their friends was and what their livelihood depended on. Maybe they intentionally lied for personal gain, fabricating stories about seeing the resurrected Jesus or whatever. (What power do you get by being part of the early church? Cult leaders have all kind of ways to exploit there followers.) This is less likely then the “sincere hypothesis” you lay out, but still possible. So one of these lying apostles are going around in Rome, recruiting people and telling grand stories about how Jesus is greater than the emperor. Then they get arrested by the Romans for treason. Does anyone really think it would have helped if the apostle had then recanted? “Sorry sir centurion, but all I said was a lie. No need for crucifixion, please let me go free instead?” Probably not. They would have ended up “martyred” anyway. As they say: when you play the game of power, you win or you die.
Thank you, Dr Ehrman! Why do apologists deploy so many misleading and outright deceitful arguments in support of their beliefs? Not only is there little to no evidence that the disciples died as martyrs, but despite what Paul, the Gospels and Acts say, I’m not convinced we know exactly how many of Jesus’s disciples actually believed they saw him post crucifixion, much less whether he appeared to 500 people en masse. I think its much more likely that one or two disciples and Paul had “experiences” and then shared them with others who either believed these accounts and passed them along as fact or who, not wanting to seem unworthy or unfaithful, claimed that they had similar experiences. As you know, the testimonies of witnesses to an event who have heard the experiences of other witnesses to the same event can be tainted quite easily.
They do it because they are often open to being persuaded and so don’t think through the arguments critically, and use them on others because they are so very eager to convert them as well.
I think that the fact that we have so many churches built in Jesus name around the world testifies to a resurrected and living Jesus. Other great people came teaching much wisdom and where put to death and that was the end of it with not even a suggestion of a resurrection. An example is Socrates-we don’t build churches to Socrates.
Another example is Paul who happily persecuted Christians until he met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus and his life and teaching took a 180 degree turn. Ken
Do you think the fact there are so many Mosques in the world shows that Islam is true?
Mr. Bart Ehrman, I am not a church goer and not believing virgin birth, Trinity, heaven & hell, soul & spirit but I strongly believe the death and resurrection of Jesus. In religious perspective, Two things Jesus opposed in his life time. Torah and Temple of Jerusalem. So Jews thought that he is against YAWH. In political perspective, he opposed Roman’s ruling. Finally, Religious and political peoples joined together against Jesus. Jesus’s disciples were small group and not strong enough to oppose Religious and political leaders. Even though Jesus spoke about YAWH, Jewish religious leaders throwed Jesus away from their religion. Because, Jewish religion’s foundation is their scripture and temple.
Same thing happening today, if you oppose the scripture and nicean creed, Christian leaders throwed you away from Christianity.
Mr. Bart, you are doing great job for God. Your writings are bringing peoples like me to very close to reality. We can’t find God in any book. but Christian are searching god in bible. You also failed to find God in bible. Paul also failed to find God in scripture. Jhon Baptist preached sàme thing to Jews. He never preached Torah. You are doing God’s work without knowing that.
Hi Bart. What do you make of I Corinthians 15 v6 that Christ appeared to more than 500 of his followers at one time?
I think if that really had happened the Gospel writers would have known about it and mentioned it. I’d love to know what Paul was referring to though! As to whether “group visions” are possible, I think the answer is absolutely yes. Much larger groups than that have visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in modern times — well documented instances — and I don’t believe for a second she actually showed up for them….
Great article! I recall many of my christian friends believe Jesus’s resurrection only based on this assertion in spite of knowing the differences in the resurrection narratives in NT – “why would they lie if it really didn’t happen”?
This is a great article that gives wake up calls about eyewitnesses like “need I point out that there are about a billion people today who believe it without being an eyewitness? Really…”
Thank you Dr. Ehrman, I enjoyed reading it.
Bart,
I too remember using this argument in my apologist days as well. It’s a powerful argument, if it were true!
People can die for their leader for any reason, good or bad. Look at the tragic death of the followers of Jim Jones, preacher and founder of the Peoples Temple; David Koresh, cult leader of the Branch Dravidians sect, and Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven’s Gate religious group. Nevertheless, one wonders how many people will come to believe in the story of Jesus if it happens today?
And would facts matter?
One of the most important proponents of this argument was Simon Greenleaf, who is significant because he was a Harvard law professor who wrote one of THE standard textbooks on evidence. In 1845 he published a book arguing that the evidence proves that Jesus was resurrected, and he based it largely on the evangelists dying for that belief, which they would only have done if they knew it to be true.
The irony is that, to make this argument, Greenleaf had to ignore the rules of evidence he had earlier laid down. Just for starters, we don’t have provenance – no one knows who actually wrote the gospels. People of other, conflicting, faiths also died for their beliefs; by Greenleaf’s ” logic,” that would make them also true. And so on.
As I recall, Paul is the only one who gives first-hand testimony of seeing the risen Jesus, and he had questionable motives for doing so: it gave him credibility toward claiming leadership in the church against Jesus’s disciples who had been with him in life. I believe that Greenleaf on Evidence would find that suspicious. (I didn’t actually read Greenleaf in law school, so I’m extrapolating here.)
Very interesting! Thanks,
Dr. Ehrman,
Some have said that the Messiah could not/wasn’t supposed to die for sins. If this is true, then what is Paul’s claim “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” based on?
His *interpretation* of Scripture that he devised after he was a Christian. (e.g. passages in Isaiah)
Regardless of whether the apostles were martyred, the logic of the claim is flawed. Believing something to be true doesn’t make it true. It also doesn’t make sense to say someone must be correct if they are willing to die for the belief. People die every day due to misguided beliefs. For example, getting run over by a train because they don’t want to wait 5 minutes and believe they are fast enough to make it. It isn’t surprising at all people would be willing to die because they think it will grant them eternal bliss, even in the absence of solid evidence (Pascal’s wager I suppose).
Have you read it? What do you think of Sean McDowell’s “Fate of the Apostles”?
Haven’t read it. But I’ve read every ancient piece of evidence about the matter, and if claims he knows what happened to them all, he is either basing it on later legends or modern hearsay (i.e., he read it somewhere without seeing if there was any truth to it), or he’s makin’ it up!
Would they have died for a lie? Non-Christians such as Muslims and Sikhs would put forward the same argument.
Your reply re 1 Corinthians 15 is really interesting. “I think if that really had happened the Gospel writers would have known about it and mentioned it”. I hadn’t thought of that. And yet Paul starts the chapter by saying “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received”. I think you explained this in “Did Jesus exist” as indicating that these were the key teachings that Paul probably received from Peter and James in Jerusalem. If so, isn’t this resurrection appearance more reliable than those that made there way into the gospels decades later? I wonder if this suggests that the earliest appearances were of a different, more vision like nature, than the ones recorded in the gospels.
I think it is well known that the resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of the faith that underpins Christianity. Historically, can we know that the revival really happened? I think NO. In ancient Judaism, until the end of the 3rd century BC. Neither conception existed among the generality of the Jewish people: neither the immortality of the soul, much less the resurrection of the body. My question for Dr. Ehrman is: What is your opinion on the comments of the Jewish author Geza Vermes, on Jesus, on his Judaism and his religion?
Vermes was a truly great scholar. We disagreed on things, but he was certainly a formidable authority.
hello prof. Ehrman
I am a Muslim and this is my first question after joining this nice blog.
From our belief, Jesus never died or put on the cross but he was raised up to heaven by God before they get to him and someone else was put to die on the cross instead. After the crucifixion Christians were divided on 3 groups I guess, the ones believing that he is the messiah and prophet of God, others that he is God then others that (I need to do my homework on that one).
I believe that the ones who were persecuted are the ones that were saying that Jesus was a prophet.
My question is: is there any evidence that the followers of Jesus were persecuted because of believing in Jesus is a man rather than what they say that they were persecuted for saying that he is God because I think it doesn’t make sense since that’s what Christians want the world to believe.
Logically and theologically Jesus was a man and never died and he is coming back before the end times to clarify the problem of trinity then die as a human being,
Thank you for your time.
They were normally persecuted not for saying he was a man or that he was God; they were persecuted because they worshiped him and *refused* to worship the gods of teh Roman empire. That was seen as a dangerous position and politically and socially unacceptable.
Dr Ehrman,
I haven’t been paying attention to the blog in a while but peaked in to see what’s new. I’d like to point out that you’re missing the argument among people like myself. People die all the time for believing something someone else told them. Example; Muslim extremists. That’s not the same as actually being the first to witness the event and die for it. You are either told about the resurrection or you’ve personally witnessed it. Those are two different reasons to die. People that know they made up the story wouldn’t want to be martyred for it. They’d fess up.
I don’t think we know who personally “witnessed the resurrection.” In fact, in our sources, no one does. They see Jesus *afterward* (they don’t see him get resurrected). And I do indeed think they really believed they saw him. Or at least two or three people did. And the others believed that these people did. But that doesn’t mean they really did see him. Lots of people see the Blessed Virgin Mary all the time — it’s extremely well documented, and it completely changes some people’s lives, and they go to the graves believing it. But I personally don’t believe they did.
“My view is that both of them did indeed die in Rome, possibly under Nero” have you written something on this? what reason other than clement is there to think this? this is something ive heard asserted by even non Christian historians many times, I’m unsure why they are so sure and how peter would have gotten there or what he would have done considering he probably didn’t know Latin or Greek
There are hints that Peter and Paul had both died in the NT (e.g., John 21:18 for Peter; Acts 12:37-38) for Paul. Paul did say he was heading for Rome in his latest letters. 1 Clement in 96 knows about their deaths. So in this case it seems to me the tradition of their martyrdom makes good sense. But I”m not completely committed to the view.
It is not uncommon in history for charismatic anti-establishment leaders to die but for their followers to be unable to accept their death. Not just Elvis. Elijah. Shabbetai Tzvi. Menachem Schneerson (the Lubavitcher rabbi). Maybe you should tone it down, Dr. Ehrman; you otherwise risk being added to this list someday!
So my wife tells me. She’d prefer an unlisted address….
Another point. All messianic movements go through three stages: 1. Expectant messianism–“the Messiah is coming momentarily.” 2. When he doesn’t show up: Immanent messianism–“He’s been delayed but he’ll be here soon.” 3. When he still doesn’t show up: channeled messianism–“He hasn’t come because we’re not ready for him; we have to build an institution, a church, to prepare for his coming.”
If you see a messianic movement that isn’t going through these three stages, consider joining it. 🙂
Shame does a lot of damage when it comes to convincing people to embrace something they can’t really prove. Christianity has it’s market share of Shame and uses it well. Why are people willing to die? Because for most of them, the alternative is to live with the shame poured over them for not being willing to die. And what is sad is the most of them don’t see it as shame. They are told that God will abandon them unless they are willing to give everything up. So they sell themselves to a system that promises them rewards beyond this life. I can’t help but see that as shame. Shame is a worse companion to live with then misguided passion. Example… 9-11… The story has it that a handful of passionate people were told they would have rewards if they took airplanes and pointed them into American landmarks and annihilated people in the process. They were willing to die. Just a thought: Isn’t it better to find a good way to live in this world instead of dying for what is promised after?
As far as I’m concerned, it is WAY better. I don’t think this is a dress rehearsal….
I’ve worked with the very poor in 3rd world country x 20 years. These people understand nothing in terms of logic. Idea that a= b, b=c, ergo a=c, is COMPLETELY foreign to anybody here, except the few educated in States.
Stateside apologists say God revealed his Word to poor, because the poor had no need to distort the truth. The concept of reality is totally NON OPERATVE in ANY area of country. In nearby village people gave money to person claijing to be Jesus. They praised God for healing a broken arm yhat XRAY, day before, showed unbroken.
Yes, I thoroughly believe that people would die for something they knew was not true. Further corroborated by U.S.reaction to COVID-19.
I am not surprised that the apostles saw Jesus alive after his death. Simon, James and John saw a rehearsal of the resurrection on Mt. Tabor.
Hi, Bart. I had a Christian explain that the Jews and Romans failed to stop the spread of Christianity and therefore started rumors about how the Apostles were martyred to cast doubt on the original stories.
Do you know where he would’ve gotten this from, and what are your opinions about this claim? Thanks!
It’s completely made up. The stories about apostles being martyred are not found in any Roman or Jewish text, and appeared while Christianity was still far less than 1% of the population of the Roman world. No one was thining it would take over the world in the second century.