But How Do You Explain the Empty Tomb?

Recently on CommonSenseAtheism, Luke had a post on the Resurrection which featured the following cartoon from JesusandMo.net:

This humorous cartoon, I think, makes an important point. Apologists often maintain that certain "minimal historical facts" cannot be explained apart from a literal resurrection. But, this begs the question because the "historical facts" are part of the story in which the resurrection is reported. As one commenter named Garen said on Luke's blog:

I’m often amazed how even skeptics accept the non-miraculous elements of the Gospels as unbiased history. It comes as a package. If you take the miracles out of the Gospel accounts, of course you will get miracle shaped holes.-- Garren October 18, 2010 at 11:17 am

Another commenter, ShaneSteinhauser, using biting sarcasm, explains how the apologists arguments work:

Luke, don’t you understand?

1. Anything that is reported by at least three ancient non-anonymous scources, and has enemy attestation is fact. This is true because random New Testament historian X says so, and he is not biased at all in anyway whatsoever.

2. The three gospels report the empty tomb. And we know that the gospel writers are not baised at all because they are Jesus’ disciples who died for their belief, and we know this because early church fathers say so and they are not biased either. Also we know that the gospels are totally reliable even though they were written at least 20 years after Jesus died. We know this because studies in africa have shown that Oral Transmission is extremely accurate. And obviously studies of african traditions have merit on middle eastern traditions.

3. The three gospels were written by Jesus’ followers and we know this because the early church fathers who are not biased at all said so.

4. The jews admit that there was an empty tomb and we know this because one of the gospels says so. And that is all we need for enemy attestation. No, we do not actually need a word from an actual jew of the time we just need a gospel saying that he said so. That is good enough.

So now that I have proven that there was an empty tomb how do you explain it Luke? Obviously since you don’t have a good explaination Jesus coming back from the grave wins by default. Also since nobody can explain what made that bumping noise in my closet last night it must be the boogeyman--ShaneSteinhauser October 18, 2010 at 2:21 pm

McCormick--DiSilvestro Debate: The Salem Witch Trials and the Resurrection of Jesus

Last week two philosophers in the Philosophy Department at California State University in Sacramento debated the resurrection of Jesus. Atheist Matt McCormick argued that the evidence for genuine witchcraft occuring in Salem, MA in the late 1600's is much stronger than the evidence that Jesus arose from the dead in the 1st century, yet virtually no one accepts the idea that there were real witches in Salem. Christian Russell DiSilvestro argued that the best explanation for the data about Jesus from the 1st century is that Jesus really rose from the dead. He acknowledged that real witchcraft could have happened in Salem because he believes in demons and the Bible teaches that witches are real (e.g., Saul's encounter with the Witch of Endor in1 Sam. 28). Thus, he has no issue believing that real supernatural acts took place in Salem.


Debate #1 from Philosophy Department, CSUS on Vimeo.

Does God Really Want Us to Believe in Miracles?

Two days ago, I posted the slides that Matt McCormick, Professor of Philosophy at California State University, used in his first debate with his colleague, Russell DiSilvestro. Those compared the evidence for witchcraft at Salem, Massachuetts in the 17th century with the evidence for Jesus being raised from the dead in the 1st century.

Yesterday, I posted the slides used in his second debate with DiSilvestro. These compare the reports of miracles at Lourdes with the reports of Jesus' resurrection.

Today, I post the slides used in the third debate with DiSilvestro. These show that if God really wanted us to believe in miracles, he could have provided much better evidence.I

Does god want us to believe miracles

If the above will not load for you, you can access it here.

Reports of Miracles at Lourdes and Reports of Jesus' Resurrection

Yesterday, I posted the slides that Matt McCormick, Professor of Philosophy at California State University, used in his first debate with his colleague, Russell DiSilvestro. Those compared the evidence for witchcraft at Salem, Massachuetts in the 17th century with the evidence for Jesus being raised from the dead in the 1st century.

Today, I post the slides used in his second debate with DiSilvestro. These compare the reports of miracles at Lourdes with the reports of Jesus' resurrection.

Miracles At Lourdes

If the above will not load for you, you can access it here.

Evidence for Witchcraft in Salem compared to Evidence for Jesus' Resurrection

Matt McCormick, Professor of Philosophy at California State University, has developed the following powerpoint slides to use in the debate he had this week with Russell DiSilvestro, a colleague of his in the Philosophy Department. I think they are excellent and I look forward to seeing the videotape of the debate.

The Resurrection And The Salem Witch Trials

If the above will not load for you, you can access it here.

Index to Posts on the Resurrection

1. The Burial of Jesus and the Empty Tomb (Part One, Part Two, Part Three)

2. The Jewish Concept of the Resurrection (Part One, Part Two)

3. The Visions of the Risen Jesus

3.1 The Origin of the Belief

3.2 Comparison between Visions in NT and Visions Today (Part One, Part Two, Part Three [Medjugorje], Part Four [Medjugorje]

3.3 Supernatural Explanations

3.4 Psychological Explanations

3.5 Neurophysiological Explanations (Part One, Part Two)

3.6 Arguments for Hallucination (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five)

3.7 Paul's Vision on Road to Damascus (Part One, Part Two)

4. Debating the Resurrection

4.1 The Impossibility of Proving the Resurrection

4.2 Would the Disciples Die for Something They Knew to be False?

4.3 What About the Eyewitnesses? (Part One, Part Two)

4.4 Matt McCormick's Debate

5. Miscellaneous

5.1 One Evangelical Sees the Problems with the Evidence for the Resurrection

5.2 Richard Carrier on the Resurrection

5.3 Newsweek Editor Writes on Resurrection

The Christian Delusion: Chapter Eleven--Why the Resurrection is Unbelievable

Chapter 11 in The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (ed. John W. Loftus) is by Richard Carrier. Richard has a Ph.D. in Ancient History from Columbia University, was editor-in-chief of the Secular Web for several years and is the author of a number of journal articles as well as the author of two books, Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism (2005) and Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn't Need A Miracle To Succeed (2009). He is also a major contributor to The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave (2005), Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth (2010), and of course The Christian Delusion. Richard served as an unofficial editor for TCD as well as contributing two chapters. His current research focuses on the modern philosophy of naturalism, the origins of Christianity, and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome. He has debated William Lane Craig, Mike Licona as well as other Christians and Muslims.

In chapter 11 of TCD, "Why The Resurrection is Unbelievable," Carrier attempts to apply the Outsider Test for Faith to the question of Jesus' resurrection. He argues that if one applies the same criteria in judging the historicity of the NT documents as one does in judging other ancient documents, then one will conclude that there is no more reason to believe the NT's miracle claims than the claims of other ancient documents.

He writes:

Fifty years after the Persian Wars ended in 479 B.C. Herodotus the Halicarnassian asked numerous eyewitnesses and their children about the things that happened in those years, and then wrote a book about it. Though he often shows a critical and skeptical mind, sometimes naming his sources or even questioning their reliability when he has suspicious or conflicting accounts, he nevertheless reports without a hint of doubt that the temple of Delphi magically defended itself with animated armaments, lightning bolts, and collapsing cliffs; the sacred olive tree of Athens, though burned by the Persians, grew a new shoot an arm’s length in a single day; a miraculous flood-tide wiped out an entire Persian contingent after they desecrated an image of Poseidon; a horse gave birth to a rabbit; and a whole town witnessed a mass resurrection of cooked fish! (pp. 291-92)

Carrier asks: Do you believe these things happened? Well, why not? Herodotus was an educated man, a critical historian, he consulted eyewitnesses, and he clearly saw nothing to doubt in these events (p. 292). He makes an excellent point. Herodotus is one of the best ancient historians and he is writing just 50 years after the events he reports. Yet, the fact is that virtually no one believes these events happened as described, including evangelical Christians. It is not just Herodotus either, as Carrier says in a footnote: Herodotus is just an example. Ancient and medieval literature was filled with incredible stories no one believes anymore. For examples, see Richard Carrier, Sense and Goodness without God, pp. 211-52 (p. 310).

Why don't we all just accept Herodotus' word that these things happened as he reported? Because we know from our experience and that of countless other people, especially after centuries of scientific research (p. 292) that these things are very unlikely. In addition, we also know people lie, even if for what they think is a good reason. They also exaggerate, tell tall tales, craft edifying myths and legends, and err in many ways. As a result, as we all well know, false stories are commonplace. But miracles, quite clearly, are not (p. 292).

But aren't the gospels different? Aren't they clearly historical as many evangelical apologists would have us to believe? Carrier opines:

I see no relevant difference between the marvels in Herodotus and the many and varied tales of the resurrection of Jesus. Even the most fundamentalist of Christians don’t believe half of them. When the Gospel of Peter (yes, Peter) says a Roman centurion, a squad of his soldiers, and a gathering of Jewish elders all saw a gigantic walking cross hopping along behind Jesus as he exited his tomb, and then saw Jesus grow thousands of feet tall before their very eyes, there isn’t a Christian alive who believes this. And yet that was among the most popular Gospels in the Christian churches of the second century, purportedly written by someone who was alive at the time of the events it reports. So why don’t Christians believe Peter’s Gospel anymore? Well, for many of the same reasons we don’t believe the marvels of Herodotus. But why then believe any of the other Gospels, those according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? (p. 293).

He is right. If one were to treat the NT documents as one does the writings of Herodotus or the non-canonical gospels, the miracle claims of the NT would be dismissed as legends.

There is no good reason to treat these stories any differently than those we find in Herodotus, certainly not if these claims are to pass the OTF. Yet at least we know when and where he wrote, and know something of who he was and how he got his information, and that he was trying to report the facts as best he could find them out, and that he personally had no agenda here, no need for us to believe him, no great mission he was trying to accomplish by telling these tales. Not so for the Gospels. So when it comes to miracles, if we don’t believe Herodotus, we surely can’t believe the Gospels. That’s why I don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead: it simply isn’t a plausible event, and is not supported by any sources I trust. If this were any other religion, say the Heaven’s Gate cult or a growing sect of Victor Hugo worshippers, then that would be the end of it (p. 296).

What would it take in order to believe the miracle claims reported in the NT? It would take extraordinary evidence. Carrier writes:

Denying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is among the rhetoric now resorted to by those who genuinely expect superman to fly down from outer space and kill me. So I have to say something about this first. If I tell you I own a car, I usually won’t have to present very much evidence to prove it, because you’ve already observed mountains of evidence that people like me own cars. But if I say I own a nuclear missile, you have just as much evidence that “people like him own nuclear missiles” is not true. So I would need much more evidence to prove I owned one, to make up for all the evidence I don’t have from any supporting generalization. Just think to yourself what it would take for me to convince you I owned a nuclear missile, and you’ll see what I mean. In contrast, the odds of winning a lottery are very low, so you might think it would be an extraordinary claim for me to assert “I won a lottery.” But lotteries are routinely won. We’ve observed countless lotteries being won and have tons of evidence that people win lotteries. Therefore, the general claim “people like him win lotteries” is already confirmed, and so I wouldn’t need very much evidence to convince you that I won. So “I won a lottery” is not an extraordinary claim. But “I own a nuclear missile” clearly is.

Now suppose I told you “I own an interstellar spacecraft.” That would be an even more extraordinary claim—because there is no generalization supporting it at all. Not only do you have tons of very good evidence that “people like him own interstellar spacecraft” is not true, you also have no evidence this has ever been true for anyone—unlike nuclear missiles, which you know at least exist. Therefore, the burden of evidence I would have to bear here is truly enormous. Just think of what it would take for you to believe I really did have an interstellar spacecraft, and again you’ll see what I mean.

Once you realize the common sense of this, it’s obvious that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. To deny that’s true is simply irrational. But there is no more evidence supporting the generalization that “people like Jesus get resurrected from the dead” than there is for people owning starships. Therefore the claim that Jesus arose from the dead is an extraordinary claim, and thus requires extraordinary evidence—more evidence, even, than I would need to convince you I own an interstellar spacecraft. For you actually have evidence confirming the generalization that “there can be an interstellar spacecraft.” We could build one today with present technology. But we have no comparable evidence at all confirming the generalization that “there can be miraculous resurrections from the dead.” That doesn’t mean miracles must be impossible. It only means we have less evidence that miracles are possible than we have that interstellar spacecraft are possible. And that means the claim that Jesus rose from the dead is even more extraordinary than the claim that I own an interstellar spacecraft. Think again of the kind of evidence I would need to convince you I had such a vehicle. I should need more evidence than that to convince you Jesus rose from the dead. Just as would be required to convince you a whole village witnessed a pot of cooked fish rise from the dead, or anything else as incredible(pp. 298-99).

The simple fact is that we don't have extraordinary evidence or even strong evidence to believe the gospel accounts. None of the evidence is extraordinary enough to justify believing an extraordinary explanation. All the evidence we have is ordinary, and has ordinary explanations. In fact, those ordinary explanations actually explain the evidence better (p. 307). What we find in the NT and early Christian history can all be explained better by naturalistic causes. Carrier argues:

Only an ordinary explanation can easily explain why Jesus only appeared to die-hard believers, and then, much later, to only one of millions of outsiders across the entire planet. If God Himself were really appearing to people, and really was on a compassionate mission to reform and save the world, there is hardly any credible reason he would appear to only one persecutor rather than to all of them. . . . [He] could have visited Pilate, Herod, the Sanhedrin, the masses of Jerusalem, the Roman legions, even the Emperor and Senate of Rome. He could even have flown to America (as the Mormons actually believe he did), and even China, preaching in all the temples and courts of Asia. In fact, being God, he could have appeared to everyone on earth. He could visit me right now. Or you! And yet, instead, besides his already-fanatical followers, just one odd fellow ever saw him.

If Jesus was a god and really wanted to save the world, he would have appeared and delivered his Gospel personally to the whole world. He would not appear only to one small group of believers and one lone outsider, in one tiny place, just one time, two thousand years ago, and then give up. But if Christianity originated as a natural movement inspired by ordinary hallucinations (real or pretended), then we would expect it to arise in only one small group, in one small place and time, and especially where, as in antiquity, regular hallucinators were often respected as holy and their hallucinations believed to be divine communications. And that’s exactly when and where it began. The ordinary explanation thus predicts all we see, whereas the extraordinary explanation predicts things we don’t see at all (pp. 308-09).

Thus, as Carrier clearly demonstrates, when the OTF is applied to the story of the resurrection of Jesus, the only conclusion is that it is not historical. There is no more reason to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead than there is to believe the things Herodotus reported, the claim that Muhammad ascended to heaven on a winged-horse or that the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith golden tablets. These are all inventions of the fertile imaginations of men.

Dr. Matt McCormick Enters the Debate Ring

My friend, Dr. Matt McCormick, who is a professor of Philosophy at California State University Sacramento,debated Dr. Russell DiSilvestro, a colleague of his in the philosophy department at CSU. The debate on the resurrection happened on Tuesday (April 27, 2010) of last week. It was the first time for both men to formally debate the topic of the Resurrection of Jesus. I found it quite interesting and I really liked the approach that Matt toook.

Matt has one of the best atheist sites on the web. Its called, Atheism: Proving The Negative


The first part of the debate is below:

Some Evangelicals See the Problems Associated with the "Evidence" for the Resurrection

Many Christian apologists, such as William Craig, Gary Habermas, and Mike Licona, argue that the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is so strong that anyone who studies the evidence with an open mind will come to the conclusion that Jesus really did rise from the grave. Not all evangelicals agree with this assessment, however. One school in particular, the presuppositionalists, maintain that it is foolhardy for a believer to argue for the resurrection of Jesus based on the historical evidence. They maintain that the evidence, while good, will never convince an unbeliever because they will always interpret the evidence within a naturalistic worldview. What needs to happen, according to these Calvinistic apologists, is for the Holy Spirit to regenerate the heart of the unbeliever and thereby change his worldview. Thus, they believe that it is futile to use rational or historical arguments for the resurrection, rather, one needs to proclaim the fact of the resurrection using the Word of God as his authority.

One of the leading presuppositionalists was Greg Bahnsen (1948-1995). He wrote a paper in 1972 entitled, "The Impropriety of Evidentially Arguing for the Resurrection," (Synapse II [Westminster Seminary]).

Bahnsen states:

Evangelicals are often prone to generate inductive arguments for the veracity of Christianity based on the historical resurrection of Christ, and such arguments occupy central importance in this apologetic. It is felt that if a man would simply consider the "facts" presented and use his common reasoning sense he would be rationally compelled to believe the truth of scripture. In such a case the evidences for Christ's resurrection are foundational to apologetical witnessing, whereas their only proper place is confirmatory of the believer's presupposed faith. There is a certain impropriety about attempting to move an opponent from his own circle into the circle of Christian belief by appealing to evidence for the resurrection, and there are many reasons why the evidentialist's building a case for Christianity upon neutral ground with the unbeliever ought to be avoided.

The first reason why appeal to evidences is wrong, according to Bahnsen, is that it sets the mind of man above the Word of God in terms of what is the ultimate authority. He explains:

The Christian does not look at the evidence impartially, standing on neutral ground with the unbeliever, waiting to see if the evidence warrants trust in God's truthfulness or not. Rather, he begins by submitting to the truth of God, preferring to view every man as a liar if he contradicts God's word (cf. Rom. 3:4). No one can demand proof from God, and the servant of the Lord should never give in to any such demand (and obviously, neither should he suggest that such a demand be made by the unbeliever). The apostles were certainly not afraid of evidence; yet we notice that they never argued on the basis of it. They preached the resurrection without feeling any need to prove it to the skeptics; they unashamedly appealed to it as fact. They explained the meaning of the resurrection, its significance, its fulfillment of prophecy, its centrality in theology, its redemptive power, its promise and assuring function - but they did not attempt to prove it by appealing to the "facts" which any "rational man" could use as satisfying scholarly requirements of credibility. By trying to build up a proof of the resurrection from unbiased grounds the Christian allows his witness to be absorbed into a pagan framework and reduces the antithesis between himself and the skeptic to a matter of a few particulars.

Secondly, Bahnsen points out that the study of history is based on uniformity. In other words, the historian assumes that the past was like the present. The same laws of cause and effect were in place then as they are now. He writes:

We note immediately that an inductive (historical) argument rests for its validity on the premise of uniformity (past and present) in nature; this makes possible a consideration of an analogy of circumstance. Yet the very point which the evidentialist is trying to prove is that of miracle, i.e. discontinuity. So he is enmeshed in using a principle of continuity to establish the truth of discontinuity! When the evidentialist seeks to exhibit that the resurrection very probably occurred as a unique truth-attesting sign he is divided against himself .

What Bahnsen is saying is that when a historian looks at history, he is looking to discover what "most likely" or "most probably" happened. The fact that a miracle is, by its very definition, an improbable event makes it contradictory for a historian to argue that a miracle probably happened(Bart Ehrman does a good job of making this point in his debate with Mike Licona: Can Historians Prove Jesus Rose From The Dead?).

Bahnsen continues:

Next, we observe that probability is statistically predicated of a series in which an event reoccurs on a regular basis; that is, general probability might be proven for a reoccurring event, but the resurrection of Christ is a one-time event. Can probability be predicated of a particular occurrence? Not normally.

The third point that Bahnsen makes against the use of evidence in apologetics is that, at best, all evidentialism can do is establish that the resurrection is a plausible theory not a definite reality. This point, according to Bahnsen undermines the certainty of the resurrection which one can have by presupposing the truth of the Scripture. He explains:

Finally, once the evidentialist has failed to maintain that Christianity is the only adequate basis for a meaningful interpretation of historical facts and not simply a working hypothesis which is "as plausible" as the next with respect to isolated facts, and once he has lowered his sights by appealing to the probability of scripture's truth, then he has left the door open for the skeptic's escape to considerations of possibility. If Christ only probably arose, then it is possible that the evidence adduced has a completely different interpretation; even if certain facts seem to point to the probable resurrection of Jesus, it is admitted that other evidence points to the disconfirmation of the gospel records! But this is not the Christian position, for according to it there is no possibility that Christ did not arise; this is a foundational, incorrigible fact as revealed in God's authoritative word .

Fourth, Bahnsen maintains that the historical evidence for the resurrection is dependent upon human testimony which everyone agrees is fallible. If human testimony can be wrong, then the testimony about the resurrection of Jesus could be wrong. He states:

Under cross-examination most of the considerations brought forth by evidentialists can be dismissed as overstated, gratuitous, or inconclusive. There is little if any basis for holding to a resurrection as probably taking place in the past and arguing that the witnesses are probably reliable is a completely different matter. It is also unsuitable for the intended aim of the argument, for the very place that the witnesses could be mistaken, deceptive, or distorted might be the very event under question!

Bahnsen's final point is that even the evidentialist succeeded in proving that the resurrection happened, it would not prove the early Christian's interpretation of the event was accurate. Just as with the death of Jesus, unless a divine revelation is given explaining its meaning, the event has no theological significance. One could have witnessed the death of Jesus and his resurrection but without a word from God telling him what all of this means, the witness is no better off. He may put a completely erroneous meaning to the events. Again Bahnsen elaborates:

the evidentialist may prove the historical resurrection of Christ, but he proves that it is simply an isolated and uninterpreted "freak" event in a contingent universe. He is still stranded on the far side of Lessing's ditch (i.e. the skeptic can grant that Christ arose and then simply ask what that odd, ancient fact has to do with his own present life and experience). The fact that Christ rose from the dead does not prove anything within the neutral framework of an evidentialist's argument. Christ's resurrection does not entail his deity, just as our future resurrection does not entail our divinity! . . . The evidentialist may prove the resurrection of Jesus, but until he proves every other point of Christianity, then resurrection is an isolated, irrelevant, "brute" fact which is no aid to our apologetical efforts. Only within the system of Christian logic does the resurrection of Christ have meaning and implication; and that system of logical entailment and premises can only be used on a presuppositional basis - you do not argue into it. In terms of the evidentialist's approach to the unbeliever, that skeptic can accept the resurrection without flinching, for the resurrection is simply a random fact until a Christian foundation has been placed under it.

I agree with most of Bahnsen's criticisms of attempting to prove the resurrection from historical evidence. He is to be commended for recognizing that ultimately a belief in the resurrection of Jesus comes down to faith. Faith that the Bible is a divine revelation and faith that Jesus is living.

Did Paul Hallucinate on the Road to Damascus?--Part Two

In yesterday's post, I summarized some of the latest research on hallucinations as presented by Andre Aleman and Frank Laroi in Hallucinations: The Science of Idiosyncratic Perception (American Psychological Association, 2008). Today, I would like to compare what the book of Acts says about Paul's experience on the road to Damascus to see if a case can be made that Paul may have experienced an hallucination.

Hallucination is defined by Campbell's Psychiatric Dictionary (2004) as a false perception characterized by externalization and a continued belief that the experience is a perception of something outside the self rather than an internal thought or image (p. 312). An illusion is a misinterpretation of some external stimuli. As Aleman and Laroi point out, the line of demarcation between an hallucination and an illusion is not always clear. Often an illusion will lead to an hallucination.

The three accounts of Paul's experience in Acts (9, 22, 26) all say that he saw a bright light in the sky, brighter than the sun, and then he heard a voice. It is conceivable that Paul saw something that was really there in the external world and then heard a voice which was not external but internal. The fact that the accounts all say that his companions also saw the light but did not hear (or understand) the voice would lend credence to this position. What might Paul have seen? Of course it's pure speculation but we know that a super solar flare can increase the brightness of the sun. Referring to a solar flare that took place in 1859, an article on the NASA website says: one super-flare produced enough light to rival the brightness of the sun itself. How large and intense would such a super-flare have to be to be visible by the naked eye? I am not sure but there are reports of phenomena in ancient history that are believed to be solar flares. A less dramatic scenario would be a perceived increase in the brightness of the sun due to the movement of clouds. Sometimes when the sun "peaks out" from behind clouds the sensation is that the sun has become much brighter.

Whatever it was that Paul saw, why would he misinterpret it as an appearance of the resurrected Jesus? The Jewish concept of a resurrected person was of a bright, shining being. Daniel 12:2-3 says:

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever (see also Wisdom of Solomon 3:7-9).

All three accounts say that Paul fell to the ground after seeing the bright light. This has led some to conclude that Paul may have had temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

In old Ireland, epilepsy was known as 'Saint Paul's disease'. The name points to the centuries-old assumption that the apostle suffered from epilepsy.

Saul's sudden fall, the fact that he first lay motionless on the ground but was then able to get up unaided, led people very early on to suspect that this dramatic incident might have been caused by a grand mal seizure. In more recent times, this opinion has found support from the fact that sight impediment-including temporary blindness lasting from several hours to several days-has been observed as being a symptom or result of an epileptic seizure and has been mentioned in many case reports(German Epilepsy Museum).

An important article in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry (1987,50:659-664) by D. Landsborough entitled, "St. Paul and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy," compares Paul's experience to clinical research regarding TLE. The similarities are stunning.

Some attacks began with a flash of light seen in both eyes, followed by a psychic state in which the predominant force was one of intense religious experience, of resounding elation in which he would feel compelled to proclaim the glories of God.

Paul also mentions other experiences besides the Damascus road event. For example, in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, he recounts:

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know-God knows. And I know that this man-whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows-was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.

Landsborough comments:

Paul's words "in the body or out of the body-that I do not know" suggest an aura of depersonalisation as described by Williams: the subject "may feel unsubstantial, not there, or dis-embodied. He may say he sees himself outside himself, with a disturbance of the relationship of himself to his environment ..." Paul also "heard sacred secrets which no lips can repeat" suggesting an intensely esoteric, rapturous state associated with an elaborate auditory sensation whose details cannot be recollected. Gowers writes "these psychological auras are often scarcely separable from the higher special sense warnings. The distinct idea of a sentence and perception of its sound may be almost identical in significance".

In the second paragraph of the extract from Paul's Corinthian letter he writes of his "wealth of visions". This might refer to the variety and richness of the one experience, but it seems more likely that he is writing
of a number of experiences similar to the one he has already described, experiences so delectable and ecstatic that he was prone to become over-elated and conceited ("puffed-up").

The fact that Paul apparently had many experiences which he understood as visions and revelations from God (2 Cor. 12:1) lends credence to the theory that he suffered from TLE. As Landsborough states:

The diagnosis of TLE in Paul's case is suggested on the basis of his recorded subjective experience of a single attack (vide supra). Were this an isolated event without recurrences it would be difficult to sustain the diagnosis. But Paul experienced other "visions". His historian Luke writes that in one vision he saw a Macedonian standing before him appealing to him to cross over from Troy to Macedonia to help (Acts 16:9); in another, Jesus speaks words of encouragement to him (Acts 18:9); in another, while praying in Jerusalem, he fell into a trance (Greek: ekstasia) and saw Jesus (Acts 22:17-21). In other writings Paul does not provide details of his "visions and revelations", but it is suggested that some were ictal in origin, and that the one detailed description he gives was not of an isolated event. Others were mental images of his spiritual convictions. Both kinds were of equal spiritual significance for Paul.

In addition, research shows that some people with TLE develop Geschwind syndrome. This is a characteristic personality syndrome consisting of symptoms such as circumstantiality (excessive verbal output), hypergraphia, altered sexuality (usually hyposexuality, meaning a decreased interest), and intensified mental life (deepened cognitive and emotional responses), hyper-religiosity and/or hyper-morality or moral ideas, that is present in some epilepsy patients. All of these symptoms would seem to be present in Paul.

Whether or not Paul had TLE, it is clear that he had the necessary emotional influences that could lead to hallucinations. Aleman and Laroi identify (1) stress, often related to the experience of traumatic events, (2)anxiety, which can be caused by cognitive dissonance, and (3)depression as triggers for hallucinations. Paul certainly was experiencing stress. He had been involved in the persecution and execution of Christians. Many scholars believe he participated in the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7) which could have produced the syndrome known as post-traumatic stress syndrome. He may have been anxious due to the cognitive dissonance created by his Pharisaic theology and what he was hearing and seeing in Christians. The reference in Acts 26 to it being hard "to kick against the goads" might relate to this internal conflict. The evidence is not as good for Paul being depressed but if he was experiencing stress and anxiety as it appears he was, then it would not be surprising for this to also create depression. The presence of these emotional stressors in Paul could be enough to explain why he heard voices which he interpreted as being from Jesus. As Aleman and Laroi show, it would be expected for Paul, based on the culture, to interpret an hallucination as divine revelation.

So, what happened to Paul on the Damascus Road? The fact is that the data in the NT on this experience is so limited, that it's impossible to make any definitive conclusion. It could have been an illusion which led to auditory hallucinations, it could have been a seizure caused by TLE, or it could have been some other phenomena. In any case, a supernatural encounter with a risen Jesus is not required to understand Paul's radical conversion.

Did Paul Hallucinate on the Road to Damascus?--Part One

In I Corinthians 15, Paul says that the risen Jesus appeared to him just like he had appeared to Peter, James, the Twelve and the 500. When did this experience happen and what was it like? It took place on the road to Damascus as Paul was on his way to persecute Christians. He had already been involved in the persecution and execution of Christians in Jerusalem. His experience on the Damascus road is recounted three times in the book of Acts.

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus (Acts 9:1-8, NIV).

And I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. "About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?'" 'Who are you, Lord?' I asked." 'I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,' he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. " 'What shall I do, Lord?' I asked. " 'Get up,' the Lord said, 'and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.' My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me (Acts 22:4-11).

On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' "Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?'" 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' the Lord replied. 'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' "So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven (Acts 26:10-19).

What happened to Paul? Did he hallucinate or did he really encounter the resurrected Jesus?

One of the most recent attempts to bring together all of the relevant research related to hallucinations is Hallucinations: The Science of Idiosyncratic Perception by Andre Aleman and Frank Laroi(American Psychological Association, 2008). They open their book by saying:

Hallucinations are an intriguing psychological phenomenon. A person perceives something: a sound, a voice, an image. However, there is no corresponding source in the outside world. . . . Hallucinations can occur in several medical conditions, including psychiatric disorders, but they can also arise because of the intake of a variety of substances, such as LSD or PCP. Further, hallucinations have also been reported in healthy people from the nonpatient population. The riddle of how hallucinations come about has puzzled clinicians, researchers, and laypeople alike (p. 3).

They provide a number of various definitions of hallucination from the literature including one by Campbell's Psychiatric Dictionary (2004): Hallucination is a false perception characterized by externalization and a continued belief that the experience is a perception of something outside the self rather than an internal thought or image (p. 312).

What is the difference between an illusion and an hallucination? An illusion is a misperception that is based on an existing stimulus, for example, misinterpreting a coat and hat on a coat rack for a man standing in the hall. In contrast, a hallucination is entirely based on internal representations with no corresponding stimulus coming through the senses (p. 18). On the surface, this seems a clear enough distinction. However, often the lines are blurred. The fact that in a large number of individuals hallucinations can be triggered by certain enviromental stimuli already makes this distinction problematic (p. 18). In other words, often some external stimuli will result in an hallucination. The stimuli is misinterpreted (an illusion) and then the brain creates images and sounds which are not really present in the external world (an hallucination).

Is this what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus? Did he see some phenomenon in the sky which he misinterpreted as the risen Jesus and then his brain created sounds that he understood as Jesus speaking to him? It is certainly possible. The latest research reveals the following points which may help us in evaluating Paul's experience.

1. "Normal" people have hallucinations.

Hallucinations occur in "normal" people. In other words, they are not just found in people with psychotic disorders or in substance abusers. They are much more common than one might think among the general population. In 1991, Tien sampled 18,572 people and found 10-15% reporting experiences which could be classified as an hallucination. In 2000, Ohayon studied 13,057 people from three different countries in Europe and found 38.7% reported having experienced an hallucination (pp. 62-63).

As Aleman and Laroi report,

Numerous studies have revealed that hallucinations may occur in a number of populations, including psychiatric patients, non-psychiatric patients, and even normal subjects. These findings question the diagnostic specificity of hallucinations and also challenge the idea that hallucinations are necessarily a sign of mental illness or pathology. Moreover, these findings provide evidence for the so-called "continuum hypothesis of hallucinations," that is, that both clinical and nonclinical hallucinations lie as points on a continuum and do not differ qualitatively from each other (p. 47).

Hallucinations experienced by "normal" people do not differ qualitatively from those induced by psychosis or drugs. Aleman and Laroi state:

Similarities in both clinical and nonclinical groups suggest that hallucinations may lie on a continuum with normal experiences. This line of reasoning, known as the "continuum hypothesis," argues that the main difference between pathological and normal groups is quantitative rather than qualitative (p. 80).

2. Auditory hallucinations are the most common form of hallucination.

Research shows that auditory hallucinations are more common than visual hallucinations. Often the percipient hears a voice commanding him to do something. Command hallucinations may be considered a particular subtype of auditory hallucinations in that the voice is experienced as commanding rather than commenting . . . . Studies have reported that they are relatively common in voice hearers, with between 33% and 74% reporting such activity (p. 37).

3. Emotional factors can lead to hallucinations.

Its not surprising that one's emotions can be a major factor in producing hallucinations. Studies have shown several key emotional issues present in people who experience hallucination.

a) Stress

A study by Gauntlett-Gilbert and Kuipers in 2003 revealed that stress was a major factor in the onset of an hallucination. 85% of their patients reported being under enormous stress prior to their experience. This study also showed that a majority (55%) interpreted their experience as a supernatural event. It also showed that at least with their patients, the hallucinations were not chronic or persistent. Often they stopped in two weeks or less but they nontheless had an impact on patients long after their offset. For example, more than half of the participants reported that visual hallucination affected their beliefs, and in 55% of the cases, the visual hallucination helped underpin a delusion (e.g., "It is Jesus telling me I must kill a man") (p. 39).

In addition, Johns, Hemsley, and Kuipers (2002) found that a majority of non-psychiatric participants had experienced stress when their hallucinations first started and that stress was the most important factor in triggering hallucinations (pp. 66-67).

b) Anxiety

Another major emotional factor that seems to be present in many people who experience an hallucination is anxiety. This has been seen especially in those with posttraumatic stress disorder (p. 50). A traumatic experience, particularly, observing a violent death can be the stressor that leads to an hallucination.

Morrison et al. (1995) argued that the need to attribute intrusive thoughts to an external force is due to motivational factors. The presence of certain intrusive thoughts may lead to negative affect in the subject in the form of anxiety (Bentall, 1990) or congnitive dissonance (Morrison, et al., 1995). According to cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957), dissonance occurs when two cognitions contradict each other, resulting in an uncomfortable state from which an individual is motivated to escape. Morrison et al. argued that to reduce levels of negative affect, the subject chooses to externalize the intrusive thought, resulting in hallucinations (p. 147).

c) Depression

Severe depression is another factor especially in auditory hallucinations. A psychotically depressed person may hear voices that are mocking and humiliating and that criticize him or her for various failures, shortcomings, and sins (which may be real or imagined). A depressed person may be accused of various wrongdoings and might be further ordered by the voices to "make up" for these by performing acts of self-mutiliation or even suicide (pp. 49-50).

A number of studies indicate that emotional disorders (especially depression and anxiety) are associated with hallucinatory experiences in nonclinical participants (p. 65).

4. Auditory hallucinations are externalizations of inner speech.

As Aleman and Laroi write:

There is a certain consensus in the literature that auditory hallucinations occur when the individual misattributes inner speech to a source that is external or alien to the self. The term "inner speech" refers to the internal dialogue one uses to regulate one's own behavior. This may include commenting to oneself about what is happening or issuing instructions to oneself about what to do (p. 110).

Finally, neuroimaging studies have also shown that auditory hallucinations coincide with the activation of those areas in the brain responsible for the production and perception of speech, which in most people is located in the left hemisphere. Thus, the obserations from behavioral, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging studies all provide strong evidence that inner speech may occur simultaneously with auditory hallucinations and, therefore, that hallucinations relfect the individual's mistaken judgments about the source or location of their inner speech (pp. 111-12).

5. Culture and beliefs influence how one interprets the hallucination.

People will interpret their experience based on their culture and religious beliefs. A study done by Mitchell and Vierkant in 1989 compared hallucinations in patients admitted in the 1930's with those admitted in the 1980's in the same East Texas hospital. They found that the primary sources of the hallucinations in the 1930's were religious in nature (God, the Holy Ghost, spirits), whereas the primary sources of the hallucinations in the 1980's included not only God, devils, and demons but also doctor, scanner, television, and radio (p. 30). In the 30's people typically thought the voices they were hearing were from the spirit world whereas in the 80's they though the voices were coming from the television, radio, or scanner (as well as the spirit world).

More current research has confirmed this conclusion.

Furthermore, a cross-cultural study (Wahass & Kent, 1997) found that whereas patients from the United Kingdom were more likely to use biological and psychological approaches to explain the apparition of their hallucinations, patients from Saudi Arabia were more likely to evoke religious and superstitious causes (p. 31).

The suggestion that source monitoring judgments are influenced by the inherent plausibility of perceived events helps to explain the role of culture in shaping hallucinatory experiences. Bentall (2000) went on to explain that an individual who grows up to adulthood in a society that recognizes the existence of ghosts or that values spiritual experiences is more likely to attribute reality to the image of a deceased relative compared with a person who reaches maturity in a materialistic, scientifically oriented society (p. 120).

In the next post, we will examine the evidence that we have from Paul's life to see if he might have been a good candidate for an hallucination.

Psychological Factors Influencing Eyewitness Testimony--Part Two

In a prior post, I began a discussion the psychological factors influencing eyewitness testimony. The point of the discussion is to counter the claims of Christian apologists who argue that since the reports contained in the gospels were either directly from eyewitnesses (or from those who interviewed eyewitnesses) and that since some eyewitnesses would have been alive still when the gospels were written, then the accuracy of the gospels is guaranteed. To be clear, I am not arguing that eyewitness testimony is always wrong but I am arguing that eyewitness testimony is not always reliable as the apologists would lead one to believe.

The recent book by Richard Bauckham, Professor of NT Studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony makes a strong claim that the gospels should be seen as reliable due to the influence of the eyewitness testimony contained therein. An article by Judith Redman, ("How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses? Bauckham and the Eyewitnesses in the Light of Psychological Research"), appearing in the most recent issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature (Spring 2010: 177-97) challenges Bauckham's thesis.

To recap, she indicates that psychological studies show that: Remembering involves a three-stage process of acquisition (encoding), retention (storage), and retrieval. Changes in content can be introduced at all of these stages, and there are significant numbers of different factors that can cause these changes.

In the last post, I dealt with the first step, the acquisition or encoding process, today I want to look at the other two steps and then draw conclusions relative to the alleged eyewitness testimony in the gospels.

Redman writes:

Losses of, and changes in, memory come about in part through what happens during the passage of time. As time passes, details and even whole events may disappear from the memories of eyewitnesses. In addition, the way a witness thinks about an event over time can affect the way s/he recalls it. A witness's thoughts tend to bend in a direction that would be advantageous to her/his purposes

She continues:

. . . a significant amount of what affects memories during storage and retrieval is a function of the individual as part of a community. Eyewitnesses can be provided with information after the event (postevent information) from a variety of sources. This may reinforce their memories, but it may also alter them and even cause things that did not take place to become incorporated into a memory. Talking to other people who also witnessed the event may change how each individual recalls it, and people are not very accurate in their ability to remember whether it is something they experienced or something they were told about. There is also evidence that many people do not remember previously held attitudes or beliefs when they come to a new position. All these factors make postevent information a common source of alteration of eyewitness testimony, especially given the likelihood that the oral tradition about Jesus originated as groups of people touched by his ministry talked to each other about it.

In addition, most people, most of the time, are not concerned about preserving an accurate record of what happened in their past. Memories help people to make sense of the world and of themselves, and the stories they tell tend to focus on what happened to them and what that event meant to them. In fact, one purpose of reconstructing autobiographical information, as is done in eyewitness testimony, may be to construct and reconstruct the story we wish to be known because it justifies our being, our culture, our way of life. This is done at a subconscious rather than a conscious level--eyewitnesses do not consciously develop an account that fits how they wish to be known.

In light of these facts, even if the stories in the gospels originated with actual eyewitnesses and some of these eyewitnesses were alive when the gospels were written, it does not guarantee the accuracy of the gospels. Psychologists have clearly shown that there are too many variables along the way where the memories can be distorted. At this point, I can hear some apologists saying, "But wait a minute, you are forgetting about how accurately oral traditions were passed down in oral societies and especially among the Jews." Redman also addresses this issue.

Hence, the assumption that Bauckham makes about the accuracy of oral transmission needs to be nuanced in view of the kind of material that is found in the Gospels. In addition, Bauckham fails to take into consideration in his work that inaccuracies can, and almost inevitably will, arise in eyewitness testimony before it becomes valuable community tradition that is seen to be in need of preservation. If Scripture is to be believed, most of the people who witnessed Jesus' teaching, especially those close to him, were not skilled oral tradents but ordinary members of first-century society with varying abilities to remember and retell their experiences. Although they were doubtless accustomed to using memory rather than written notes to retain information, and thus their memories were likely to be more efficient than those of twenty-first-century literate people, they are unlikely to have had the training and experience required for the high levels of accuracy produced by the storytellers observed by Parry, Lord, and others.

What Redman points out is that 1) certain types of material, such as poetry, is more easily and accurately memorized verbatim than other types of material; 2) inaccuracies can creep in even before the material reaches the stage to be passed down as official oral tradition; and 3) individuals need to be trained in the art of memorizing and passing along oral tradition and there is no indication that any of Jesus' original disciples were.

If one insists that Jesus' disciples would have been skilled in the techniques used by followers of other rabbis' in collecting and passing along tradition, then, according to Redman, due to the differences among the gospels, one would have to conclude one of three things has happened: they were far less successful students than the trainee rabbis; the authors of the Gospels did not receive their material from one of these trained disciples; or it has been significantly changed by the author of the Gospel (redacted) to fit the theological purposes of the Gospel. The gospels just do not reflect the carefulness and precision seen in the oral traditions passed along by students of other Jewish rabbis.

Another factor to consider, which Redman does not address, is that eyewitness testimony is most valuable when 1) the eyewitnesses can be cross-examined by the other side; 2) the eyewitnesses can be isolated and allowed to give their testimony without collaborating with other witnesses; and 3) the underlying motivations or possible ulterior motives of the eyewitnesses can be discerned. All three of these are considered very important in our modern courts of law. None of these items is possible with regard to the alleged eyewitnesses of Jesus life and ministry.

Therefore, what is one to make of Bauckam's thesis and of the claims of Christian apologists? I will let Redman answer:

Bauckham appears to take the position that if an eyewitness is deemed trustworthy, we should trust (that is, accept as accurate) his or her testimony in its entirety. This is at odds with psychological research, which shows that, although trustworthy witnesses would have no desire to deceive their audience, their particular interests, experiences, and personalities would result in testimonies that were more likely to be accurate at some points than at others. This is especially the case when we are presented with information from someone who is known to have a vested interest in or bias toward a particular position or outcome.If it is the only information we can access, we must rely on it, but we should certainly not trust it to the point where we accept it uncritically. We should still question those aspects of the testimonies of trustworthy witnesses that strike us as unusual. They are reliable in that they tell us what they believe to be true. This does not necessarily make it true.

In contrast, psychological research into eyewitness testimony makes it clear that Bauckham's work in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses does not provide strong evidence for the historical accuracy of the content of the Gospels. Although it is clear that transmission of stories in oral cultures is remarkably accurate once a community decides that something should be preserved and skilled oral tradents are entrusted with the task of preserving it, many of the inaccuracies in eyewitness memory come into being within hours, days, or weeks of the event being witnessed. Furthermore, these eyewitness accounts come from within a faith community formed around the subject of the stories, which adds a particular source of bias not present in other histories of the time.

Psychological Factors Influencing Eyewitness Testimony--Part One

I have done a couple of prior posts on eyewitness testimony (here and here). Christian apologists make a big point of saying the gospels are reliable and trustworthy historical records because there would have been eyewitnesses still around to counter any errors or misrepresentations in the documents. The most recent treatment of this subject from a conservative, evangelical viewpoint is Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (2006) by Richard Bauckham, Professor of New Testament studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Bauckham maintains that the gospels are reliable history because the accounts contained in them are either from eyewitness testimonies or very close to eyewitness testimonies. While there has been considerable debate in the scholarly community as to whether the gospels really do record eyewitness testimonies (e.g., an entire issue of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus , Volume 6, Number 2, 2008 ), the point of a new article by Judith Redman is that even if the gospels do record eyewitness testimony, that is no guarantee of their accuracy ("How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses? Bauckham and the Eyewitnesses in the Light of Psychological Research,", Journal of Biblical Literature [Spring 2010]: 177-97).

Redman says that eyewitness memory is typically called autobiographical memory in the psychological literature. She writes:

Autobiographical memory has three major components: verbal narrative, imagery, and emotions. Autobiographical memories are often recalled as stories told to others. The images associated with them lead to the specific, concrete details that make them seem more accurate and believable, while the emotions associated with them can have profound effects on how effectively people can retrieve autobiographical memories. Remembering involves a three-stage process of acquisition (encoding), retention (storage), and retrieval. Changes in content can be introduced at all of these stages, and there are significant numbers of different factors that can cause these changes.

First, Redman deals with aspects of memory acquisition or encoding. This is how the eyewitness experiences the initial event and there are at least five variables that impact his or her ability to perceive the event accurately.

1. Expectations. What witnesses expect to see or hear can affect the way they perceive an event. Expectations can be shaped by culture, stereotypes, past experience, or personal prejudice. . . .

2. Type of fact. People tend to find it more difficult to remember things that they need to estimate such as height, weight, distance, numbers of people in large groups, and duration of activities or events. . . .

3. Event significance and detail salience or prominence. In order to remember something, a person needs to attend to it, and, since it is impossible for an individual to attend to all the stimuli in his or her environment at any given time, s/he selects those things to which s/he will attend, often unconsciously. . . .

4. The personality and interests of the witness. Both of these factors affect how significant and salient particular events and the details of those events are to a particular eyewitness. All people are better at remembering some things than others, but the strengths and weaknesses vary from person to person. . . . The personalities and interests of eyewitnesses will determine what each finds interesting, surprising, potentially important, and therefore more memorable . . . . Material pleasing to the witness is likely to be elaborated on while displeasing material is likely to be distorted . . . . Events that are very surprising and have a high level of importance or emotional arousal give rise to "flashbulb memories" that are especially vivid and appear to be frozen in time, as though in a photograph. People may have flashbulb memories of where they were and what they were doing when they heard about public events like 9/11 or the first moon landing, as well as similarly significant but more private events like the birth of a baby or the tragic death of a loved one. Eyewitnesses to Jesus' miracles and to his postresurrection appearances would be expected to have formed flashbulb memories of these events. Flashbulb memories are often considered to be exceptionally accurate, yet research indicates that, like other memories, they deteriorate over time and are not always as accurate as the person remembering thinks they are. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that flashbulb memories actually develop over the first week after the event, taking into consideration what is learned from discussion with others.

5. Observational point of view and perceptual adequacy, or how well the observer can see and hear what is happening.

All of the above 5 points are important in understanding the potential problems with eyewitness testimony and how inaccuracies can develop but #4 if of particular significance. Many apologists would maintain that the resurrection appearances would have been so unique and unexpected that the disciples would have retained vivid and precise memories of the events for their entire lives. But as Redman indicates, studies have shown that even these "flashbulb memories" can be unreliable in the details.

An important study which demonstrates this fact is by Charles Weaver III and Kevin Krug, "Consolidation-like Effects in Flashbulb Memories: Evidence from September 11, 2001," American Journal of Psychology 117 (2004): 517-30. They had 400 students at Baylor University fill out questionnaires on their recollection of the events of 9/11 at five different times: 1) within the first 48 hours; 2) after 1 week; 3) after 1 month; 4) after 3 months; 4) and after one year. They concluded:

Flashbulb memories are influenced by the consolidation that takes place during the first week or so after the flashbulb event. . . . Flashbulb memories are subject to the same laws as other episodic memories. Like Winningham et al. (2000), we assume that memories are not fully formed initially but take time to consolidate. During this consolidation processes, memories are especially malleable. Information can be added to the memories . . . . Even more likely, details can be lost. . . . as specific details are forgotten, they might be replaced with schema-consistent details. This would be exacerbated by the frequent telling and retelling of these memories (pp. 525-26).

Another such event was the Challenger disaster of 1986. Robert Burton describes a study that was done relative to how people remembered this event.

Within one day of the space shuttle Challenger explosion, Ulric Niesser, a psychologist studying "flashbulb" memories, asked his class of 106 students to write down exactly how they'd heard about the explosion, where they were, what they'd been doing, and how they felt. Two and half years later they were again interviewed. Twenty-five percent of the students' subsequent accounts were strikingly different than their original journal entries. More than half the people had lesser degrees of error, and less than ten percent had all the details correct (Prior to seeing their journals, most students presumed that their memories were correct).

Most of us reluctantly admit that memory changes over time. . . . So, seeing that your journal entries were different than your recollection a couple of years later shouldn't be surprising. What startled me about the Challenger study were the students' responses when confronted with their conflicting accounts. Many expressed a high level of confidence that their false recollections were correct, despite being confronted with their own handwritten journals. The most unnerving was one student's comment, "That's my handwriting, but that's not what happened" (On Being Certain, pp. 10-11).

These studies show that how one recalls an event, even a momentous event from the past, can change dramatically from the initial appraisal of the experience. In addition, as Redman pointed out, flashbulb memories actually develop over the first week after the event, taking into consideration what is learned from discussion with others . People talk about momentous events with other people who also experienced them. Descriptions from others influence how one remembers the event himself. Sometimes these other details get incorporated into one's own memory of the event and subsequently one believes that he saw the same details too.

I will continue this discussion in the next post.

Further Thoughts on Medjugorje and the Resurrection of Jesus

In the comment section of my last post on the apparitions at Medjugorje and the ramifications for NT claims of Resurrection, a gentleman by the name of Scott offered some objections. Below is my response.

Scott,

Thanks for your comments. No, I don't find them offensive at all. I appreciate your tone and your thoroughness. I invite intelligent dialogue. Believe it or not, I don't claim infallibility for my positions. They are subject to change, if I am convinced that I need to.

You say:

1) It is my understanding that the common rabbinical teachings of that time did not teach to expect a resurrected Messiah simply because they didn't expect a crucified one. They were anticipating an earthly king to assume the throne of David and restore the majesty of God's nation. Jesus routinely chides the Pharisees and Sadducees for misinterpreting Moses, the prophets and the Psalms regarding this concept.

I agree with everything except the last sentence. I tend to think that the references to Jesus dying and rising are later redactions to the oral tradition and then the gospels. If Jesus had been as clear on his dying and rising as the gospels indicate, then the disciples would have been as "thick as a brick" not to have understood what has happening when he was crucified. If the gospels are accurate, they should have expected him to rise on the third day.

You are right that Second Temple Judaism did not expect or teach a dying Messiah. So the disciples were completely confused when Jesus died and scared that they might also be crucified. As they contemplated what happened, they began to think of Jesus as a martyr. There was a concept that the resurrection would be for the martyrs as a form of God's vindication. (Dan. 12; 2 Mac. 4). When Peter announced that he had seen the Lord alive, the disciples fit this report into their theological grid of a resurrected martyr. Now, why did Peter have a vision? I think his can truly be explained as a hallucination brought on by grief and guilt. After Peter told them of the appearance, the disciples mood changed to one of expectation.

You say:

2) Jesus' followers didn't even really get that He was the promised Messiah until after his ascension. That is clear from the questions they ask while he's with them, and from all of Jesus' rebukes to the disciples. It is also clear in the record of the 2 travelers on the Emmaus road. They were devastated by the death of Jesus; there is no reason to conclude that they would have been expecting to "see" a resurrected Jesus then or anytime afterward.

I don't accept the Emmaus road story as factual.

You say:

3) Before Jesus came on the scene contemporary resurrections weren't exactly common place. The Jews would have been familiar with the account of Elisha and the Shumanite woman's son but outside of that resurrection wasn't on their radar, especially not resurrections that they would witness. This is evident from Martha's response to Jesus over the death of her brother Lazarus. When Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again she says "Ya. I know. On the last day." She was thinking of the after-life not the now-life.

You are right, the Jewish expectation was that the resurrection took place on the last day. But when the disciples started to believe that Jesus was alive, they also started to believe that the last day had begun. Jesus had preached the end of the age from the beginning of his ministry until the last. He told them in Matt. 24:34 that it would come about in their generation. They began to think that the eschaton had begun and that any moment the Son of Man would come in the clouds and bring about the final resurrection and judgment. When the first theologian of Christianity, Paul wrote about this in 1 Cor. 15, he said that Jesus' resurrection was the first-fruits and that the believers would soon follow suit (1 Cor. 15:23-24). Paul expected Jesus to return any moment (1 Cor. 7:29-31; 15:51-52; 1 Thess. 4:15). As time passed and Jesus didn't return and people started to die, there was concern over whether these "dead in Christ" had missed out.

As time continued to go by and Jesus still had not returned, Paul began to think that the end would not come until he had taken the gospel all the way to Rome and the fullness of the Gentiles be brought in. At that point, Jesus would return and all of Israel would be saved (Rom. 11:25-26). After Paul was executed, the church had to rethink things again. Some came to the conclusion that Jesus meant that at least one of his disciples would be alive to see his return. This came to be associated with John (John 21:23). But then John died. This caused many to begin to really mock (2 Pet. 3). New explanations had to come into place. Interpretations of eschatology have since evolved in all kinds of directions--amillennialism, premillennialism, preterism (both full and partial), dispensationalism, postmillennialism, and so on (see "At Best Jesus was a Failed Apocalyptic Prophet," by John Loftus in The Christian Delusion; also see E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, and Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: millenarian prophet).

Concerning Medjugorje, I don't argue that every last detail is the same as the reported appearances of Jesus but I agree with Avalos that there are enough similarities to warrant a thorough comparison.

You say:

1. The Medjugorie apparitions proper of Mary are limited to just 6 visionaries. While others have reported seeing other mysterious things none of them have the same apparitions of Mary that those exclusive 6 have. In contrast Jesus appeared not to just a select few but to many different people: 2 Marys, the 11 disciples, the 2 on the road to Emmaus, a group of about 500 people and Saul/Paul.

2. The visions of Medjugorie are isolated; Mary appears and speaks only in Medjugorie. Whereas with Jesus, he appeared in many different places and under different circumstances: at the tomb site; on the shores of the Sea of Galilee; in the upper room; to a group of about 500 people; to the 2 on the road to Emmaus; and finally to Saul/Paul (who wasn't a believer) on his way to persecute Christians.

3. The Medjugorie apparitions are on a schedule. Some daily; some yearly. The sightings of the post-resurrection Jesus were neither predicted nor predictable on any timetable with one exception: when Jesus told both Marys to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee.

4. The Medjugorie sightings of Mary are visions only. At the very least Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Thomas touched the resurrected Jesus. And the 2 on the Emmaus road ate with Jesus post-resurrection.

But understand, I don't accept every detail in the NT as inerrant as you and Craig and Habermas do. I take into account the results of historical criticism which show that many of these stories were added and modified by redactors. I accept the notion that Peter and Paul saw the risen Jesus (or thought they did) but I am dubious about the other reports. As I pointed out in the posts, if one accepts the inerrancy of the NT, then, of course, one will conclude a supernatural event took place. That is why I say that the apologists are begging the question. What they need to do is to prove that historical criticism is wrong and that the NT really is inerrant and then they would have a strong case for the resurrection.

You say:

Finally I'd like to comment in general on this whole idea of attempting to discover and explain the supernatural using natural methods and means. By definition supernatural things are those that occur/exist above or outside of the natural. If you can explain/prove a "supernatural" event by naturalistic means then by definition it is not supernatural. The Venn diagram of things "Natural" just keeps including more of what was "Supernatural." This occurred to me while viewing one of the diagrams of one of your professor friends that you linked to in one of your recent posts (sorry I'm not finding it right now). But I can describe it. The picture was divided in half horizontally; on top were things that were so-called "supernatural" and on the bottom was the "natural." As I recall the goal was to move all things from the top to the bottom of the diagram through naturalistic explanations thus nullifying (at least in theory) the supernatural realm. As each thing in the upper half is explained by naturalistic means and methods it is no longer supernatural and now becomes subsumed by the sphere of what is natural. The fault with that should be obvious. If it can be explained naturally then of course by definition it is not supernatural and it never was. However this activity dis/proves nothing about the existence or non-existence of the supernatural. This approach does nothing to eliminate the concept of the supernatural or the fact that there really might be things in this universe that cannot be explained by naturalistic means no matter how hard we try. Isn't it possible?

I agree but what it does show is that much of what used to be thought only explainable through supernatural means is now explainable through natural means. Fewer and fewer things are on the top half. That doesn't prove the supernatural doesn't exist, but it does prove that man has often too quickly jumped to the conclusion of a supernatural explanation.

You say:

The other obvious fault in your position is the same one you lay at the feet of those who believe in the supernatural: presuppositionalism. I know you'd like to think that you are totally objective and unaffected by anything other than science, logic and reason.

I don't even claim to be objective much less totally objective. I don't think true objectivity exists. We are all subjects and whatever we see and experience is by definition subjective. An attempt can be made to move towards objectivity by involving more people (that's why juries have multiple people) and "comparing notes" and listening to objections to your views, and so on. We all have biases but if one realizes what one's biases are and tries to give a "fair shake" to other viewpoints, one can move towards the goal of objectiivity. That is why I am a firm believer in reading the "other side." If one only reads what one agrees with, one will never be challenged or be able to move towards the truth. That is why I read Craig, Habermas, Licona, and so on. I want to see the best arguments that evangelicalism has to offer.

And, I have not ruled out the supernatural a priori. I allow for the possibility that it might exist. I just have not seen sufficient evidence to believe at this point.

Scott, thanks again for your interaction.

One more point I would like to make about Medjugorje. Hector Avalos, in his book, The End of Biblical Studies (pp. 191-92) looks at the apparitions of Medjugorje in light of William Craig's criteria for a historical theory.

1. It has great explanatory scope. It explains why Mary's tomb has never been found, why people all over the world see postmortem appearances of Mary, and why faith in Marian apparitions came into being.

2. It has great explanatory power. It explains why Mary's body has never been found, why people repeatedly see Mary alive despite her earlier presumed death and burial (or disappearance).

3. It is plausible. Given the historical context of Mary's own unparalleled life and claims, the resurrection or continued existence of Mary serves as a direct confirmation of those radical claims.

4. It is not ad hoc or contrived. It requires only one additional hypothesis--that God exists. And even that need not be an additional hypothesis if you already believe in God's existence.

5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs. The hypothesis "God raised Mary from the dead or keeps her alive" does not in any way conflict with the accepted belief tht people don't rise naturally from the dead. The Marianist Christian accepts that belief wholeheartedly as he or she accepts the hypothesis that God raised Mary from the dead (or kept her from ever dying).

6. It far outstrips any rival theories in meeting conditions 1 through 5. Down through history various rival explanations have been offered. Such hypotheses have been almost universally rejected by contemporary Marian scholarship. No naturalistic hypothesis has attracted a great number of Marian scholars.

If one were to apply Craig's criticisms of naturalistic explanations for the belief in the resurrection of Jesus against the naturalisitic explanations for the belief in Marian apparitions, one would have to conclude that the Marian apparitions are genuine. It is a double standard to accept one and not the other.

Apparitions at Medjugorje and Ramifications for NT Claims of Resurrection

In the comments section of yesterday's post a gentlemen who calls himself Pilgrim described some of his experiences at Medjugorje. He has visited the location 35 times in the last 10 years. I appreciate him sharing his thoughts. The phenomena happening at Medjugorje is fascinating and relevant to the discussion of the reported post-mortem appearances of Jesus in the NT.

Hector Avalos wrote the following to me in an email yesterday:

I argue that the Medjugorje apparitions are an excellent laboratory for testing claims about the Jesus stories. There you have all the elements that are usually used to argue for the historicity of Jesus:

1. Witnesses that have little social standing.

2. Claimed physical contact with a person otherwise regarded as dead.

3. Creation of "gospels" within a short span of time, as opposed to the claim that legends need long periods of time to form.

4. Disavowal of the witnesses by main authorities, and yet popular support growing enormously.

5. No recantations of the witnesses despite opposition and persecution.

6. The Medjugorje witnesses were subjected to more scientific tests than anything we have for the Jesus witnesses.

There are many others, too. In short, I don't think the that historical Jesus can be discussed again without thorough acquaintance with events such as those at Medjugorje.

I am not aware of any in-depth study of this phenomena by evangelical Christians. As Steve pointed out in the comment section, Craig and other apologists constantly say that people in NT times would have checked out the disciple's claim that Jesus was risen. Yet, I don't see Craig or any other apologist checking out these apparitions at Medjugorje. I wonder why not? Could it be that they just dismiss it as emotionalism fueled by superstition? Perhaps, that is what the people in NT times thought when they heard the disciples' claim and so they didn't bother to check it out either.

There have been studies of the phenomena at Medjugorje by others, however. A book published in 1987 by Rene Laurentin and Henri Joyeux, entitled: Scientific and Medical Studies on the Apparitions at Medjugorje . Joyeux, a medical doctor, was the Professor of Oncology in the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier, France at the time of the study. Laurentin, a priest, a Marian apologist and historian, synthesized the research and co-authored the book with Joyeux. I have not personally read the book but I have it on order. However, Hector Avalos, wrote an article in 1994 for Free Inquiry in which he examined the evidence presented by Joyeux and Laurentin. The article is entitled: Mary at Medjugorje: A Critical Inquiry .

Avalos writes:

Joyeux concluded that the visionaries had no mental illness of any sort. The apparitions are not sleep or dream or hallucination in
the medical or pathological sense of the word. This is scientifically excluded by the electro-encephalogram and by clinical observation. He also excludes "any element of deceit." Since Joyeux could not find any condition that he would label "pathological," he concludes, "We are dealing with a perception which is essentially objective both in its causality and in its scope." As to the cause of the youngsters' experience, he says, "The most obvious answer is that given by the visionaries who claim to meet the Virgin Mary, Mother of God." In sum, Laurentin and Joyeux conclude that there is no scientific or natural explanation available to account for the reports of the visionaries. More important, they conclude that the absence of any condition labeled as "pathological" is evidence that the reported experience of the visionaries is authentically supernatural.

So, the doctor and the priest conclude that the visionaries were (1) not mentally ill, (2) not hallucinating nor dreaming, and (3) not lying. Their conclusion was that the phenomena was indeed supernatural.

Avalos points out that studies have shown that hallucinations are not necessarily due to mental illness. There is a misconception that hallucinations are either caused by psychosis or by drugs. Instead, there is evidence that otherwise perfectly normal and sober people do experience hallucinations. An article in the Scientific American, Ghost Stories: Visits from the Deceased, cites a research study that concluded that 80% of elderly people experience hallucinations of their deceased spouse. A third of those studied heard their recently departed partner speak to them. One of the most thorough studies of hallucinations, Sensory Deception: A Scientific Analysis of Hallucination, written by Peter Slade and Richard Bentall, estimates that 7 to 14% of people have experienced an hallucination. In the article, Hallucinations, in the Encylopedia of Psychology (ed. R. J. Corsini), it is reported that anywhere from 1/8 to 2/3 of the normal population experience hallucinations.

Avalos asks:

Why do otherwise normal people come to believe that they are witnessing non-occurring entities and events? The Barber and Calverley experiment [Toward a Theory of "Hypnotic" Behavior] as well as a host of recent research, indicates that human acts of perception always involve interpretations and inferences that may be held in common by large groups of people. Raw visual and auditory data are combined with inferences about what was thought to be seen and heard. We often select out of the large raw input of visual and auditory data those that we regard as important and that confirm expectations, especially if they are desirable.

Many recent experiments show that the human mind is biologically wired to interpolate many expected images or portions thereof, even if such images are not objectively present. People often form mental images of all types of objects, real and unreal.

He continues:

Once a believer is convinced that an inference is valid, then the conclusion may be considered sufficiently certain to contradict or suppress raw visual data. Any further disconfirmation of their interpretation may be either ignored or disregarded in favor of the inference. This type of avoidance of disconfirming data among Marian devotees is clearly manifested in the oft-repeated dictum: "To those who believe, no proof is necessary; to those who doubt,
no proof is sufficient."

Avalos argues:

If, as in the Barber and Calverley experiments, an average of at least 33 percent of people with no obvious pathology can report clearly seeing or hearing events that are not occurring, then it would not be extraordinary to find 333 "normal" people in a parish of at least one thousand believers who could report seeing or hearing non-occurring events, especially when, as is the case with supposed Marian apparitions, the events in question are believed to be not only possible but desirable as well.

If, as in the Barber and Calverley experiment, at least 2.5 percent believe what they are seeing or hearing is actually present, then it would not be extraordinary to find at least twenty-five people in a parish of one thousand members who actually believe what they are seeing and hearing is present in real time and space.

Avalos believes that the social setting in which many of these visions takes place is very conducive to such claims. He writes: Imagine living in a subculture that constantly and repeatedly suggests to its members the desirability of experiencing a Marian apparition. Imagine living in a subculture where young people who have claimed to have seen Marian apparitions at Lourdes, Fatima, and other places also are beloved role models.

In addition, other cues within in the subculture can influence the nature of the visions. . . .it also provides detailed and coherent imagery of how the Virgin Mary ought to look and speak. According to P. and I. Rodgers, a picture of Mary supported by a cloud rising above Medjugorje has been present in the church of the visionaries since about 1971. Not surprisingly, the youngsters' description of the Virgin is quite consistent with the picture to which they were exposed for years.

So, it seems to me that we are justified in being skeptical of these visions. Many within the Catholic Church are themselves skeptical. Bishop Pavao Zanic, the former bishop for the diocese which includes Medjugorje, denies the validity of the visions. He even maintains that it is a conspiracy of the Franciscans. Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (the group that recommends individuals for sainthood, a requirement of which is to have worked miracles), as recently as January of this year expressed his strong doubts about the authenticity of the visions.

I do not question the sincerity of those who claim to have experienced miraculous phenomena in Medjugorge but I do question the reality of it. Pilgrim, the individual who commented on yesterday's post, says he saw the sun "spinning" in the sky on many occasions and on one occasion he saw it "dancing." He describes what he saw:

The sun seemed to descend towards me. In fact, I thought it about to crash to the earth. It then receded, and then moved to my right across the sky to a two o’clock position before returning to its starting point. From there it again started to descend towards me and once more receded. Its next move was to my left and a 10 o’clock position. When this happened I literally had to turn my head to follow its movement. Once more it moved back to its starting point before descending towards me. Finally, it settled back to its original position, pulsating and spinning. The whole event probably lasted between five and ten minutes

.
Once again, I do not doubt Pilgrim's sincerity but I do deny the objective reality of what he saw. If the sun had literally moved around in the sky in the fashion he describes, it would have caused enormous consequences on the earth. It would have been reported by every observatory in the world. It just could not have happened in any objective sense.

What are the ramifications of all of this for the claims in the NT that Jesus was seen alive after his death? I think we can conclude that at least some of those who claimed to see him probably did see something. What they saw, however, was not, in my opinion, objective reality. They were not crazy. They were not lying. They were not on drugs. They experienced a phenomena that was not unique to them or their time in history. Such visions have been reported almost since the invention of writing. We don't understand everything involved in this phenomena but I don't believe there is any need to conclude they are supernatural.