The Resurrection of Jesus—a hypothesis

I have long been fascinated by the Resurrection of Jesus, which is really the core tenet of the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear when he states “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 17-19).

Obviously, as an atheist, I do not believe that “God raised Jesus from the Dead” supernaturally, but there must be some basis for this belief that the disciples and apostles declared openly, sometimes at the risk of persecution. (I do not subscribe to the apologetic “The disciples would not die for a lie” as there is very little evidence that any disciple had the opportunity to recant their belief to avoid death, but I can accept that some faced persecution for this belief.)

Secular scholars of the New Testament have presented hypotheses to explain why the disciples were convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead, with some suggesting that one or more disciples experienced a “grief hallucination” that they believed was a veridical experience of a “living Jesus.” Bart Ehrman is one such scholar, and he subscribed to this view in his book How Jesus Became God.

I have, in the past, viewed this explanation as plausible, but it seemed to me that a hallucination, however vivid, would not be enough to cause the disciples to boldly claim a resurrection, especially as there seems to be a focus on the physicality of Jesus’ resurrection appearances in the Gospels. I began to research whether other explanations might have more “power” to motivate the disciples to claim a bodily resurrection.

Our only source of information on Jesus is found in the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), The Acts of the Apostles (thought to have been written by the author of Luke), and the Epistles of Paul. The Gospels are rather suspect sources, being written about 40 to 60 or more years after the crucifixion of Jesus, by anonymous non-eyewitnesses, probably outside Palestine, written in Greek (not Aramaic, which was probably the language of Jesus and his followers), and written by evangelists with an agenda to convert people to Christianity. In addition, we do not have originals of any of these documents, so we do not know what redaction, additions, or modification to the original text has happened from the time they were written until our first usable copies were available.

Despite these problems, I think there are snippets of information, in the Gospels, which on their own, don’t amount to much, but when taken as a whole, can support a naturalistic narrative that may explain how a physical resurrection came to be accepted by the early followers of Jesus.

There can be little doubt, that Jesus was an “apocalyptic prophet.” This means that Jesus thought the world was under the influence of evil forces (i.e., controlled by the devil), but that things would get to such a stage of suffering that God would intervene in the world and establish a Kingdom where those who had kept God’s laws would be rewarded, and those who sided with the devil would be punished. I think it is highly likely that Jesus thought God’s intervention would come soon (i.e., within the lifetime of Jesus and his disciples—Matthew 16:28 “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”). Since Jesus believed he was the Messiah, he thought that God would make him “King” to rule over this New Kingdom with his disciples as his “Ministers” to represent the twelve tribes of Israel.

This motivated Jesus’ thoughts and actions as can be seen by his decision to come to Jerusalem for the Passover, where he thought the final moments before the Apocalypse would play out. He hoped to convince the people to “Get right with God”, and thus be saved in the imminent apocalypse.

I suggest that Jesus’ preaching on the Apocalypse attracted the attention of a highly-placed individual (maybe a priest or Temple official) who was drawn to this message, and genuinely thought that Jesus was the “True Messiah.” This person (or persons) maybe became the archetype for “Joseph of Arimathea” and/or “Nicodemus” (in quotation marks to indicate that we do not really know who these people were or whether they were constructed) from the Gospels. Their names were probably unknown or kept secret. Since we will likely never know their names, I will use “Joseph” and “Nicodemus” as proxy names in this article.

It is probable that Jesus caused a disturbance in the Temple, as it is reported in all four Gospels (although the author of John has the incident at the start of Jesus’ ministry), maybe to foment an uprising against the Temple leaders. Another possibility is that Jesus hoped to be arrested, and to face a death penalty. Since he believed that he was the Messiah, he might have believed that God would be forced to intervene to prevent his death, and thus bring about the New Kingdom.

Whatever the reason, I think that Jesus was arrested by the Temple guards and held by them until the Temple leaders decided what to do with him.

The Temple leaders would have faced a dilemma. If they did nothing, the Roman rulers would think they were not keeping order in Jerusalem, and would maybe instigate military action against the populace and Temple leaders. However, if they turned Jesus over to the Roman authorities, it might cause deep resentment and anger among the Jewish population. They wanted very much to keep the status quo and keep in the good graces of the Romans, so they could continue their practices and income. I think, therefore, they decided to hand Jesus over to the Romans saying that he was inciting a rebellion among the people.

I do not believe that Jesus was betrayed by Judas, and I think this is confirmed by Paul’s letter (1 Corinthians 11:23): “…The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed,” where the word translated as “betrayed” is, in other places in Paul’s letters, translated as “handed over.” In addition, this would also align with Paul’s mention of “The Twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:5): “and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” This shows that he had no knowledge of Judas’ betrayal and subsequent suicide.

Furthermore, I do not believe that there was any Jewish trial of Jesus since the description of the trial does not align with the correct Jewish trial protocol. It must be realized that, by the time the Gospels were written. there was already some antagonism between Jews and Christians since the Jews refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. For this reason, Christians wanted to paint the Jewish leadership in a negative light. In addition, the Jewish council, in the Gospels, seemed to be pursuing Jesus for blasphemy, but asserted that one who is the Messiah is not blasphemous as it is not asserting divinity. Even if the Jewish council had found Jesus guilty of blasphemy, they would have sentenced Jesus to death by stoning, and would not have needed to hand him over to the Roman authorities for execution.

Similarly, I don’t believe there was much interrogation of Jesus by Pontius Pilate. Pilate was known as a ruthless Governor and would be quick to dispose of any rebel. Since Christians, at this time, were mostly Gentiles and thus more aligned with Greco-Roman culture, the Gospel writers seem to be white-washing Roman culpability in the crucifixion of Jesus, making it appear Pilate was reluctant to crucify Jesus. He only agreed to it at the insistence of the Jewish leadership.

I speculate that, when Joseph of Armithea (who believed Jesus to be the Messiah), learned of Jesus’ capture, and his being turned over to the Roman authorities, he needed to take decisive action to save Jesus’ life. I believe he devised a plan to administer a drug to Jesus while on the cross, which would give the appearance of death. He would then try to have the body removed as quickly as possible to give the best chance of survival. We know that some people had survived crucifixion as detailed in Josephus’ writings, where he saw three of his friends being crucified and begged for their release, whereupon two died but one survived. It is likely they were on their crosses a lot longer than Jesus, and yet still one survived.

I think the drug was administered when Jesus was given vinegar to drink (according to Matthew 27:48, Mark 15:36, and John 19:29) that was somehow doctored, since Jesus “died” very shortly after.

To me, this seems very plausible since normally victims of crucifixion can take many hours and even days to die, but Jesus apparently “died” after only three hours (Mark 15:44): “Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time.”

(Naturally, apologists want to insist that Jesus actually died on the cross in support of their Resurrection narrative, but I counter many of their arguments in my article “Did Jesus die by crucifixion.”)

I would assume that someone would be observing Jesus’ reaction to the drug, and would then report to “Joseph” so that Jesus’ body could be removed from the cross expeditiously.

After being removed from the cross, the Gospel account says that “Nicodemus” came with 100 pounds of aloe and myrrh (John 13:39): “Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.” As some have pointed out (for example, Rabbi Tovia Singer), there would be no need to apply such spices to conceal the smell from a decomposing body that would be involved in a funeral procession, since criminals were not allowed to have full burial rituals. It seems more likely that the herbs were used as a poultice to heal Jesus’ wounds.

I think Jesus was taken away to a safe house where his wounds could be treated, and after a short while, the effects of the drug would have worn off and Jesus would regain consciousness. Jesus would be taken aback to find himself still alive and would want to communicate with his disciples to let them know he was alive.

I do not believe there was any tomb involved (empty or otherwise), as I am convinced this was an invention of the author of Mark, and thus, I believe, all accounts of women and men visiting the tomb are totally fictitious (see my article here for details on this).

The disciples would have been informed that Jesus was alive, and they would have been taken, in secret, to visit him. In their minds, they would believe that God had resurrected Jesus, since they witnessed his “death” on the cross, and were now seeing him alive. They would certainly believe a miracle had occurred. Even Jesus, himself, would likewise be convinced that he had been raised from the dead, if he was not aware of the drugging.

It is my belief that, after a short while, Jesus succumbed to his injuries, and was quietly buried, and his disciples would have believed he was “taken up into heaven,” as he was no longer around. (There are several legends that have Jesus fully recovering from his wounds and traveling to various places including England and India. I do not think we can place much credence in these legends). I think “Joseph” and “Nicodemus”, who assisted in this rescue mission, would probably have left Jerusalem shortly after Jesus died, as they would no want to be arrested for assisting a criminal, and thus face severe punishment for their actions. This could well be why their names never appear in the Gospels or Acts after the burial accounts.

I wish to emphasize that this hypothesis is just speculative (has been discussed widely for many years, and I am just putting my own thoughts into this debate), but does seem to fit with many small details in the Gospels. These details seem to suggest possibilities that could better explain why the disciples were convinced that Jesus had physically resurrected. It would also explain why there are so many contradictions and inconsistencies in the Gospel resurrection narratives, since there was no definitive account, and each Gospel writer seemed free to come up with their own version of what transpired. Of course, they were not immune from embellishing earlier accounts.

Do you think this hypothesis is plausible or even likely?

[For this piece, thanks to Rodney Blackwell, (An “Only Sky” commentator) with whom I had very productive dialogues on this topic. He has conducted much detailed research into the origins of Christianity, and especially the origins of the Resurrection narrative.]

David Austin is a retired Englishman now living in Australia. He is a life-long atheist who moved from being more of an apatheist when he was a guest in a church and was harangued by the pastor. He felt he needed to understand the arguments concerned that he has now studied at great length. As a former Senior Electronics Engineer working mostly in Digital Technology (with a Bachelor of Technology degree), and working in computing for so long, logic is important to his work. He is passionate about church and state separation and is active in secular groups to try to reduce the negative influences of religion in society.