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Is God Dead?
We began last week by setting the foundation for our historical study of the resurrection of Jesus using Michael Licona’s “minimal facts” approach. When we look at the historical resurrection event, the agreed-upon bedrock facts pertaining to the fate of Jesus are these: 1. Jesus died by crucifixion. 2. Very shortly after Jesus’ death, the disciples had experiences that led them to believe and proclaim that Jesus had been resurrected and had appeared to them.
3. Within a few years after Jesus’ death, Paul converted after experiencing what he interpreted as a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to him.
In fact, the contemporary and prolific Bible scholar, Bart Ehrman grants all three of our bedrock facts as historical. An additional benefit of having established these three minimal bedrock facts is that several marginal theories are consequently disqualified.
These include the wrong tomb theory whereby the women went out on Sunday morning and found the wrong tomb empty; the Muslim substitution theory whereby Allah saved his servant Jesus, and sent a substitute to the Cross in his place; and the so-called swoon theory whereby Jesus and his accomplices faked his death, and Jesus was later resuscitated and made his post-resurrection appearances.
Going back as far as the late 18th century, several resurrection critics have forwarded. One of the first to put forth this “swoon” hypothesis was the unorthodox German biblical scholar, Karl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741-1792).
Bahrdt, in 1780, theorized that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were actually influential Essenes who helped orchestrate the hoax. According to Bahrdt, the centurion was bribed to not break Jesus’s bones at his supposed death and Joseph and Nicodemus removed the body to a tomb where they immediately began resuscitation measures.
Bahrdt states, “In the cave, the most strengthening nutriment was supplied to him since the humors of the body were in thoroughly healthy condition, his wounds healed rapidly, and by the third day he was able to walk, in spite of the fact that the wounds made by the nails were still open.”
Examples of closely related variations of the swoon hypothesis from the past centuries are far too numerous to document here, these are but a sampling to give some background as to the frequency and commonality of the claim. Many of the claims made by these critics are sharply disputed as inconsistent with modern medical knowledge and seem preposterous today.
Bible scholar George Hanson writes; “it is hard to believe that this [Swoon Theory] was the favorite explanation of eighteenth-century rationalism.” Meanwhile Josh Mc-Dowell states, “The evidence speaks so much to the contrary of this hypothesis that it is now obsolete.” However, this theory is far from obsolete and is currently being taught extensively in Muslim communities. For that reason, the investigation of swoon theories is still very much relevant to resurrection discourse and study.
One such modern-day proponent of the swoon theory is Muslim missionary, author, and Islamic apologist, Ahmed Deedat (1918-2005). Deedat, who debated McDowell in August 1981, maintains a large following and is immensely popular in the Middle East. His anti-Christian and Bible-critical works are still in print and are widely distributed in the Islamic community.
In the 2011 edition of his book, “Crucifixion or Cruci-Fiction?,” Deedat adamantly claims Jesus was not the incarnation of God as a man on earth. What followed, according to Deedat, was the case of a human prophet of God being wrongfully convicted by Pilate and was blessed by God in that the Romans botched his crucifixion.
Deeda states that the immobility, fatigue, and unnatural stance of Jesus on the cross slowed his circulation and that the soldier’s spear thrust was a “blood-letting” that was not fatal but, in fact, allowed Jesus to regain circulatory rhythm. The Romans mistook Jesus as dead and his body was turned over to the “secret disciples,” Joseph and Nicodemus who revived Jesus in the tomb.
It’s not just from the Muslim world that swoon theories come. In 2011, David Mirsch published his book, The Open Tomb: Why and How Jesus Faked His Death and Resurrection, as yet another advocate for the swoon theory. In his book, Mirsch lays out a theory predicated on the belief that Jesus was not the incarnation of God but was the literal son of Joseph Caiaphas, a sympathetic Jewish councilman and supporter of Jesus’s ministry.
Joseph, along with fellow conspirator and councilman Nicodemus, and Jesus himself wanted to dispatch the Romans and return the kingdom to Israel. To accomplish this, according to Mirsch, they co-conspired with the Essenes to revolt against Rome but needed a catalyst for the Essenes’ uprising. The crucifixion of Jesus was to be that catalyst.
Join us next week as we continue to look at David Mirsch’s swoon resurrection theory. It is important to consider because if Jesus of Nazareth actually lived and was crucified and died on a Roman cross, then that evidence should bring considerable clarity to the larger question: is God dead?
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Ty B. Kerley, DMin., is an ordained minister who teaches Christian apologetics, and relief preaches in Southern Oklahoma. Dr. Kerley and his wife Vicki are members of the Waurika church of Christ and live in Ardmore, OK. You can contact him at: [email protected].
