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Is God Dead?
Paul lists those people to whom the risen Jesus is reported to have appeared in his first letter to the church at Corinth (1 Cor 15:5-8). Ehrman, by the way, dates the oral creed captured in this passage to within one or two years of the resurrection. This is significant in that Ehrman’s own rule of thumb in determining historical truth is that the sources that are closest to the original event are most likely correct.
Paul lists the appearances as 1) Cephas (Peter); 2) “The Twelve;” 3) “more than five hundred;” 4) “James;” 5) “all the apostles;” and 6) Paul. In total, Paul records six post-resurrection appearances. Interestingly, three of the listed appearances are to individuals, and three are to groups of people. So, we must look at hallucination claims occurring in group and individual settings.
Hallucinations are an interesting and much-studied phenomenon. The Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Guide defines hallucinations as “a perception without a stimulus.” More precisely, we can say that “hallucinations are private experiences occurring inside the mind of an individual ... they are mental events with no external reality.”
As such, hallucinations generally occur in a single sensory mode; that is, visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, kinesthetic, or gustatory. Multimodal hallucinations are possible but are considered extremely rare.
Research notes that females are more likely than males, and the old and the young are more likely to hallucinate than the middle-aged. Even so, and this is important, across all demographics, only 5.2 percent of the general population will experience at least one hallucination in their lifetime.
Even so, from a group hallucination perspective, one cannot share in the hallucination of another because they are generated from the individual’s own mind. This means that groups In the last few weeks, we have looked more closely at “swoon theories” that attempt to explain what happened to Jesus of Nazareth after His crucifixion. Specifically, we looked at the recent swoon theory offered by the critic David Mirsch.
Like all previous swoon-type theories, Mirsch’s theory fails to account for the minimal bedrock facts suggested by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona. These minimal bedrock facts pertain to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, which are 1) broadly evidenced and 2) acknowledged by a consensus of scholars, both believers and skeptics alike.
First, Mirsch’s theory fails to acknowledge that Jesus did, in fact, die by crucifixion. Further, given the extent of Jesus’s injuries, Mirsch fails to provide an adequate explanation of how a severely injured Jesus could have made multiple appearances to His disciples over forty days.
Finally, Mirsch fails to acknowledge that Paul had an experience that he interpreted to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. In conclusion, post haste, we set all swoon-type theories aside as invalid explanations for what happened to Jesus after the crucifixion.
With these fringe hypotheses set aside, the remaining naturalistic explanations are essentially limited to hallucination-type theories. In fact, resurrection critic Bart Ehrman says, “There are basically two options about what happened. Either Jesus really appeared to his disciples after the crucifixion, or they were seeing things.”
This seems to me to be true; there really are no other viable options that acknowledge the minimal bedrock facts regarding the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. Either Jesus really appeared, or they were seeing things.
In fact, hallucination theories have probably been the most popular alternative position over the last one hundred years. So, it is because of their popularity that I would like to look more closely at the plausibility of hallucination theories to help explain the facts.
cannot collectively hallucinate the same thing.
Resurrection scholar Michael Licona writes of what he learned about hallucinations from Navy SEAL’s experiences during Hell Week. It so happens that almost all of the SEAL candidates did have hallucinations during the grueling, around-the-clock training exercises. But here is the interesting part: none of the candidates had the same hallucination.
Licona writes, “Moreover when one candidate pointed out to others what he believed he was seeing, none of them saw what he did.” The explanation is simple enough: hallucinations are private experiences occurring inside the mind of the individual and cannot be shared.
It is not surprising, then, that clinical psychologist Gary Sibcy writes: “I have surveyed the professional literature ... during the past two decades and have yet to find a single documented case of group hallucination.”
Now, this is a significant statement when considering that of the post-resurrection appearances listed by Paul, fully half of the appearances are to groups numbering eleven or more. In fact, “simultaneous, identical, collective hallucinations are not found in peer-reviewed medical literature ... as such, the concept of collective hallucination is not part of current psychiatric understanding or accepted pathognomy.”
Consequently, there is significant warrant in stating that collective group hallucinations, as an explanation for the group appearances of Jesus, are indefensible. This means that the appearances to “The Twelve,” to “more than five hundred,” and to “all the apostles” (cf 1 Cor 15:5-8) simply could not have been due to hallucinations.
Join us again next week as we continue to look at hallucination theories to explain what happened to Jesus after He died. All of that and much more on our way to answering the ultimate 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].
