What Some Skeptics Believe Regarding the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 3
We continue to look at theories used by modern man to explain away the resurrection of Jesus. Today we will consider:
Theory 5: The body just disappeared
The body of Jesus was here, but now it is gone. I subtitle this the I Don't Know Theory. When I used to ask my children where some missing item was, they would respond, "I don't know." Bodies don't just disappear. Something had to happen to it. And remember, a disappearing body still doesn't explain why the early Christians unanimously believed that Jesus had risen from the dead. They believed in the resurrection because they saw Jesus in the flesh.
Theory 6: Mass hallucination
Perhaps the early Christians suffered some kind of mass psychosis that caused them to have visions or hallucinations that they mistook for the risen Christ. This is difficult to square with the facts as we know them and with the reality of human nature. Visions tend to be intensely personal events. Two people rarely have visions that are even remotely similar, much less identical. But Jesus appeared many times to many people over a 40-day period after his resurrection. At one point, he appeared to 500 people at once (see 1 Corinthians 15:5-7, which lists a number of post-resurrection appearances). It strains credulity to believe that 500 people would have the same vision at the same time. Plus, you still have the pesky question of the missing body. If his resurrection was a vision or a hoax, then what happened to the body? No skeptic has ever satisfactorily answered that question.
