My Rebuttal to the McGrews - Rewritten

I posted the first version of my rebuttal to Tim and Lydia McGrews' argument for the Resurrection last year, and it was more difficult to understand and more heavily mathematical than was necessary. This was unfortunate, for I believe that it is still the Internet's only rebuttal that engages the math head on. Many people have noted ways the argument is “obviously” invalid, and my first impression was exactly the same. But the “obviously” invalid step isn't shoved under the rug – the McGrews give specific reasons in defense of this step. In my opinion, it is not at all obvious what in particular is incorrect about their defense.

Although, there is a limit to how simple math can be made. The McGrews' argument uses Bayes factors, and so neither their argument nor my rebuttal can be understood without some knowledge of probability. This second try should be simple enough that if you understand Bayes' Theorem, you should be able to understand this post.

The McGrews' Main Point

Tim and Lydia McGrew have written a chapter in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology titled The argument from miracles: a cumulative case for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Their argument needs to be understood in the context of the standard argument for the Resurrection based on the disciples' testimony and death:

Claim 1: The disciples believed that they saw Jesus after rising from the dead, and they believed with enough sincerity to die for this belief.

Claim 2: Based on these beliefs, it is probable that Jesus rose from the dead.

This is not the McGrews' primary argument in the chapter. They are not making a full argument for the Resurrection. Their primary claim is not even a full defense of Claim 2, although it comes very close.

Let R be the Resurrection of Jesus, and let P, D, and W be the events that each of Paul, the disciples, and the women at the tomb claimed to have seen Jesus, and in many of these cases, died for this belief. The McGrews' primary claim is that P & D & W together provide a Bayes factor of 10^44 in support of R over ~R. Within this post, I am rebutting exactly one thing: their primary claim.

Edited to add: I need to be very specific about the sort of death it takes to qualify as D. What if the disciples died for their belief in a moralistic religion based on Jesus, but not the Resurrection in particular? What if Jewish leaders in general were rounded up and killed, and the disciples qualified as leaders? What if they didn't have the ability to recant? In this case, lying disciples dying for their faith is plausible. If these possibilities still count as D, then Claim 2 is weaker. If these don't count as D, then D is less likely and Claim 1 is weaker. I'm defining D to be the event that they died for their belief in the Resurrection in particular, and they had the ability to save their lives by recanting. I'm defining it this way to make the McGrews' argument stronger and show that their fundamental argument is wrong regardless of details like this.

The McGrews' Argument

There are 13 disciples in the argument (the twelve minus Judas plus Matthias plus James the brother of Jesus.) Under the hypothesis ~R, the probability that, say Matthias would persevere as a Christian is about 1000 times smaller than that probability that he would do the same under R. From this it follows that for each disciple and for Paul, we have a Bayes factor supporting R over ~R of 1000. They estimate the factor for W to be 100.

First, suppose these are independent. If so, the cumulative Bayes factor is found by multiplication, which gives 10^3 * 10^(3 * 13) * 10^2 = 10^44. This would be strong enough to overcome a prior probability on R as extraordinarily small as 10^-40, and make R 1000 times as likely as ~R. (Of course, they aren't independent, and this is what makes the argument “obviously” wrong.)

The fact that the events are not independent is recognized by the McGrews and responded to on pages 40-46. While dependence could lead to overestimating the factor, it could go the other way too. While it's possible that killing one martyr encourages the others, the more likely effect is that it scares off other people, who now realize that their life is in danger. So while the McGrews recognize that these aren't independent, their claim is that factoring in the dependence makes the Bayes factor even larger.

Rebuttals I'm Omitting

The bulk of the factor comes from the 10^39 factor for D, and so I will focus my rebuttal on that point and make no further mention of P or W.

One could argue that D is not true. This completely fails to rebut the McGrews' argument. They are defending Claim 2, and changing the subject to Claim 1 does not rebut Claim 2.

One could argue that the factor of 1000 used for each disciple is too large. Most rebuttals used against Claim 2 in the standard apologetic argument fall in this category. While these are important rebuttals, they are ineffective against the McGrews' version. Suppose the correct factor is 30 per disciple – then the Bayes factor for D is still over 10^19. Clearly, either the McGrews' argument is mostly correct, or there is a much bigger error somewhere else.

The primary reason the calculated value is so big is that they are multiplying the factors together. I will show why this is incorrect.

A Telekinetic Digression

I'm going to start with a related (and fictional) story that more cleanly illustrates the McGrews' mistake. As a digression from my digression, the reason mathematicians and economists often make up unrealistic and fictional scenarios is that they are instructive. Clearly reasoning through simplified examples is an essential prerequisite to reasoning through the more complicated and more realistic scenarios.

While at a carnival, I found a traveling circus performer who claimed to be able to control the flipping of coins with his telekinetic powers. He wrote down a sequence of three heads or tails and gave me the piece of paper. Next, I took a coin out of my pocket, and I flipped the coins myself while he started very intently at the process. To my surprise, all three predictions were correct. What should I make of this?

First, I will use the incorrect argument employed by the McGrews:

I can't think of a plausible way the performer could have known the result in advance, and controlling a coin that I will provide and I will flip is very difficult. But a very plausible idea comes to mind: maybe this is just a probabilistic trick. The idea behind the trick is that while it totally flops 7 out of 8 times, 1 out of 8 audiences are dazzled. The performer hopes to earn sufficient tips from the hapless few who happen to see the trick work. Or maybe he has a hidden video camera, and sells the recordings of the trick working.

Before flipping any coins, I thought that the odds that this was a probabilistic trick relative to telekinesis were 1,000,000,000 : 1. Maybe this is the wrong number – I don't care. This example is about what to do with the numbers, not about which input numbers are correct. If telekinesis were being used, I would expect every flip to be called correctly. Each flip gives a Bayes factor of 2 supporting telekinesis over luck: this value is computed via P(correct prediction | telekinesis) / P(correct prediction | luck) = 1 / (1/2) = 2. Three flips give a Bayes factor of 8 in support of telekinesis. So now the odds are 125,000,000 : 1. I continue to accept the usual laws of physics.

But then I pressed the performer, and in violation of the usual practice of magicians, he agreed to perform the trick as many times as I wanted. To my skeptical shock and dismay, he called 150 coin flips in a row! The cumulative Bayes factor supporting telekinesis over luck is now 2^150. This is about 10^45, which means that odds of a probabilistic trick to telekinesis are now 1 : 10^36. Have you spotted the mathematical error? I hope not, for I haven't made it yet. So far, all of my statements have been completely true.

And so I conclude that it is highly probable that the performer has telekinetic powers. Now there's the mistake. Although it should be obvious that something is wrong with allowing every talented illusionist to convince you of the paranormal, it's far less obvious what in particular is wrong with the argument.

But to explain why the inference is a mistake, let me go back to the start and name the possibilities more explicitly:

A: There was no illusion and no magic. He got lucky.
B: There was an illusion, or some other scientific means of controlling the coins.
C: It was his telekinetic powers.

This time I will not bury possibility B. While I can't think of a plausible way for B to work, I can think of some implausible ones. Maybe his assistant will sneak a magnetized coin in my pocket and will be using a hidden electromagnet to make it land properly. Maybe the first toss will be probabilistic, and then he will find a way to swap the coin out after it's out of my pocket. Maybe he writes out eight predictions, and finds a way to swap the pieces of paper. However, I know that the trick is rarely this complicated, and that these wild guesses are very likely to be wrong. (Alternatively, B can be thought of as the possibility that it's an illusion using a mechanism that I can't think of.) I would guess that A is 100 times as likely as B. Before flipping any coins, I would expect the odds of A, B, and C to be about 1,000,000,000 : 10,000,000 : 1.

Just as before, each correct call gives a Bayes factor of 2 supporting C over A. However, the same factor supports B over A, which provides us with no information in helping us decide between B and C. After the first three coin flips, the odds of A, B, and C are now 125,000,000 : 10,000,000 : 1.

After ten coin flips, the odds of A, B, and C are 1,000,000 : 10,000,000 : 1. At this point, I'm pretty close to convinced that there is a trick, and that the trick isn't probabilistic. (Actually, the trick could be partially probabilistic, but most of what's going on is something else.) So at this point, I think it is likely that the performer will call my coin tosses indefinitely.

When he does so, the odds of A, B, and C end up at 10^-36 : 10,000,000 : 1. As I claimed, it's actually true that telekinesis is more likely than luck at this point. Telekinesis really is supported over random chance by a massive factor. However, a known (or unknown) mechanism is also supported over random chance by a similarly massive factor. The result of these two is that the known (or unknown) mechanism goes from implausible to a virtual certainty, while telekinesis only goes from very, very, very unlikely to very, very unlikely.

Here's the general set-up of the mistake. Start with three possibilities where the first is likely, the second is unlikely, and the third is astronomically unlikely. Next, show the second possibility to be unlikely, and ignore it beyond this point. Next, reveal evidence that absolutely buries any shred of reasonableness in the first possibility. If you continue to ignore the (initially) unlikely possibility, only the astronomically unlikely option remains.

The next question is how to measure the degree to which evidence for telekinesis has been provided. I'm not asking for a number. What do we measure to determine the strength of the evidence? The answer is the obvious one. The strength of the evidence is measured as the initial degree of certainty that a non-probabilistic solution is impossible. I don't know how to compute an actual number for the strength of this evidence. But I do know how not to: 2^(number of flips).

On to the Resurrection

With the telekinetic coin flipper in mind, most of what needs to be done to refute the McGrews' argument is to label the relevant events. As would be expected, the flaw starts with the independence assumption. Although, I hasten to add that it's not really an assumption. What I really mean is that the flaw is in their justification for why this assumption doesn't mess up the calculation.

If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, the disciples' behavior would certainly influence each other. It's possible that circumstances would cause their behavior to be negatively correlated. It's also possible that circumstances would cause their behavior to be positively correlated. I suppose the McGrews and I agree so far.

I will divide the possibilities as:

A: Jesus didn't rise from the dead, and the disciples' reactions were close to uncorrelated or negatively correlated.
B: Jesus didn't rise from the dead, and the disciples' reactions were strongly positively correlated.

The McGrews go on to argue that A is much more likely than B. I don't know if I agree, although their argument does not work either way. They write: “If their belief that Christ was raised from the dead was false, either they had good reasons to believe it or they did not. The analogy of their belief to the subjective enthusiasm of religious zealots assumes that they did not. But their actual actions would be highly improbable under this condition.” Well, how improbable is it? Is it one in 100? One in a billion? We will see that justifying a Bayes factor of 10^39 for D requires justifying a similarly astronomical improbability of B. The McGrews do not attempt to quantify “highly improbable.”

I'll go with one in a billion as the probability that the disciples' behavior was strongly correlated. This includes the naturalistic explanations that have been suggested, and it includes the explanations that we haven't thought of. The McGrews hypothetically suggested prior odds of R as 1 in 10^40. I'm leaving out W & P, and so I will already include their factors of 100 and 1000 by thinking through the implications of the prior odds of R being 1 in 10^35. I have no reason to think any of these numbers are reasonable – my topic is what should be done with the input numbers, not what the input numbers are.

From here, the argument proceeds in much the same way as the telekinesis argument. The odds of A, B, and R start at about 10^9 : 1 : 10^-26.

The death of the first disciple is a 1 in 1000 surprise to both A and B, while R saw it coming. This changes the odds to about 10^9 : 1 : 10^-23. Note that the odds of the Resurrection went up by a thousand due to the first disciple – this much of the McGrews' argument is true.

But the death of the second disciple is very different, and the odds start acting like they did with telekinesis. Hypothesis A is shocked by the second death, B isn't all that surprised, and R knew it was coming. If the disciples are bound to act the same way and disciple 1 willingly died, then disciple 2 was reasonably likely to willingly die too. The effect is that the ratios P(A)/P(B) and P(A)/P(R) are drastically reduced, while P(B)/P(R) does not change much. (How much it changes depends on the precise meaning of “strongly positively correlated.”) Suppose that under B, after the first death the probability that the second disciple will die is about 1/2. Just as before, R is supported over A by a Bayes factor of 1000. However, R is supported over B by a Bayes factor of only P(second martyrdom | R & first martyrdom) / P(second martyrdom | B & first martydom) = 1 / (1/2) = 2.

After two disciples, the odds of A, B, and R are about 2*10^6 : 1 : 2*10^-23. (The math: Because R is supported by a factors of 1000 and 2 over A and B respectively, this means B is supported by a factor of 500 over A. Thus, I divided the number for A by 500, left the number for B the same, and multiplied the number for C by 2.)

The final odds of A, B, and R will be about 4*10^-24 : 1 : 4*10^-20. The Resurrection is as it started – drastically implausible. (The math: the last eleven disciples give a factor of 2^11 = 2*10^3 supporting R over B, and a factor of 500^11 = 5*10^29 supporting B over A.) It is true that R ends up more plausible than A. This fact is also completely irrelevant.

The final question is what to measure to determine the degree to which the Resurrection has been supported. The first relevant number is the odds that the first disciple would die for his faith. The second relevant number is the odds that their choices were strongly positively correlated. The third relevant number is just how strong this correlation would be.

We have returned full circle. These are the same questions that must be answered to assess the strength of the standard argument for the Resurrection based on the disciples' testimony and death. I have not shown the standard argument to be invalid, as that was not my goal. What I have shown is this the McGrews' Bayes factor of 10^3 * 10^(3 * 13) * 10^2 = 10^44 is of absolutely no use in evaluating the argument for the Resurrection.

The Second Problem

There is a second problem with the McGrews' use of math in the argument, which is essentially the first problem in a different context. Until now, I've considered the question “If D is mathematically certain, how does this affect the probability of R?” Except this really isn't relevant, except as a means to finding the answer to the correct hypothetical: “If conservative Christians are correct, and the most reasonable explanation of the data is D, how does this affect the probability of R?” Quantifying “most reasonable” will put an upper limit on the Bayes factor supporting R.

Suppose that the data is overwhelming, and the odds of D are 10^9 : 1. Suppose further, that the McGrews are correct and D supports R over ~R by a factor of 10^39. As before, suppose the prior odds against R are 10^35 to 1.

A: The disciple's died for their false belief in Jesus
B: The disciple's didn't die for a belief in Jesus
R: The disciple's died for their true belief in Jesus

The odds of A, B, and R start at 10^35 : 10^26 : 1. The McGrews' argument gives a factor of 10^39 supporting R over A and supporting B over A. However, the McGrews' argument does not give any information helping one choose between B and R. The odds of A, B, and R end up at 10^-4 : 10^26 : 1. R has been supported by 10^9, which is the number in the initial odds of D.

So even if the McGrews' argument gives a valid conclusion when taking D as a mathematical certainty, the way to measure to degree to which the Resurrection has been supported is to look at the chance of ~D. The factor 10^39 is again of no use in evaluating the strength of the argument for the Resurrection.

My Rebuttal to Tim and Lydia McGrew

***

This post has been completely re-written. The new version appears here.

***

Tim and Lydia McGrew have written a chapter in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology titled The argument from miracles: a cumulative case for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Understanding Bayes factors is an prerequisite to understanding the McGrews' argument and my rebuttal to it. Their article includes a description of what you need to know - this post does not.

The article covers a lot of ground, and I'm not responding to all of it. While you should read the article yourself, here's my brief description of the portion I'm responding to:

Scholars disagree as to the accuracy of the Gospels and New Testament. But what if we conclude them to be as accurate as any other historical document, not counting the times they refer to miraculous events? Which is to say, it's accurately reporting what Peter said, even if this isn't what Peter actually saw. This is still an interesting question even to people who disagree with the historical conclusions of conservative scholars.

If these assumptions can be used to make a solid case for the Resurrection, this means that the case against Christianity depends on the problems in the Gospels and Acts even as a mere historical documents. Reasons for discounting the Gospels as even history are within the last couple centuries. If the case against Christianity rests on this more recent scholarship, that means David Hume would have been a Christian if he had accurately evaluated the evidence available to him. (Talk about ultimately refuting Hume...) I guess one could technically hold this position and still not be a Christian. I have no problem saying that Hume would have been unjustified in believing in evolution if he had heard of the idea but not the evidence for it. But I don't hold that Hume should have believed in the Resurrection. To hold this position means I should be willing to argue against the Resurrection, even under the assumption of the Gospels' and Acts' historical reliability.

Moving on the argument itself, Paul, the disciples, and the women who went to his tomb all claimed to have seen Jesus. To what degree does this support the resurrection? Bayesian statistics give a language with which to communicate the answer. Let R be the Resurrection of Jesus, and P, D, and W be the events that each of Paul, the disciples, and the women claimed to have seen Jesus, and in many of these cases, died for this belief.

There are 13 disciples in the argument (the twelve minus Judas plus Matthias plus James the Just.) The events that they testified they had seen Jesus will be denoted D1-D13. For each of these and for Paul, the McGrews estimate that their Bayes factor supporting R is 1000. What this would mean was that the martyrdom of a specific disciple given R was fairly likely, while roughly a 1 in 1000 chance given ~R. They estimate the factor for W to be 100.

First suppose these are independent. If so, the cumulative Bayes factor is found by multiplication, which gives 10^3 * 10^(3 * 13) * 10^2 = 10^44. This would be strong enough to overcome even an extraordinarily small prior probability on R and make belief in R reasonable.

Of course, they aren't independent. This is recognized and responded to on pages 40-46. While dependence could lead to overestimating the factor, it could go the other way too. While it's possible that killing one martyr could encourage more, the more likely effect is that it scares off other people, who now realize that their life is in danger. So while the McGrews recognize that these aren't independent, the claim is that factoring in the dependence makes the case stronger.

Before beginning my response, I want to mention an alternative approach that I'm not taking: I could list contrary evidences C and argue that the Bayes factor of P & D & W & C is fairly small. Sure, it works. Stronger evidence to the contrary is a valid reason to not be persuaded. But here, the topic is the strength of the evidence P & D & W, and bringing up C's do not help answer this.

I will be responding to the claim from which the majority of the Bayes factor comes. I will be objecting to the factor of 10^39 for D by arguing that the dependence among D1-D13 means the Bayes factor has been overestimated horribly. (D1-D13 are similarly dependent on W. I'm leaving out W from here on because it complicates the notation without really adding anything. On the other hand, P could not be added.)

Without a doubt, I can imagine some likely circumstances (call them A), where once fixed, the D's are negatively correlated or correlated little enough that the odds against D & ~R are at least as bad as the independence assumption provides. But on the other hand, the disciples spent a lot of time together in the time leading up to their belief in the resurrection. So I can also imagine some plausible circumstances (call them B), where the D's are highly positively correlated and thus P(D1-D13 | ~R & B) is much, much larger than the independence assumption estimates. Actually, B need not even be plausible for my first point. It's enough for B to be highly implausible.

A & B are not two hypotheses that we should choose between purely based on which one has a higher prior probability. D changes the odds of A and B, and it will turn out that B is the hypothesis that matters, even if its prior probability is extremely remote. To show this I will suppose the odds in favor of A over B are a billion to one. Now condition on D1-D4. The odds against these four testimonies happening is a trillion to one under ~R & A, while vastly less under ~R & B. It is true that ~R & A started out only one billion times more likely than R & B. But once we conditioned on D1-D4, suddenly B is probably more likely than A. ("Probably" depends on the specifics of "highly positively correlated.") While A & B are not a dichotomy, setting up a more comprehensive list of possibilities won't change the idea – every Di shifts the odds enormously in favor of a stronger and stronger positive correlation.

Speaking of ~R without specifying which of A or B is true, we can see that D1-D13 are not even close to independent. Even if B is extremely unlikely, my argument still goes through. The event ~R & D1-D4 consists mostly of ~R & D1-D4 & B, and thus P(D5-D13 | ~R & D1-D4) is not even remotely close to the value reached by the independence assumption.

This make sense anecdotally as well. Suppose 13 soldiers/civilians/terrorists/we don't know what have been captured and are being interrogated, and these 13 are each capable of giving the desired answer. "Tell us where the whatever thing is, or we start killing you." A gun is pointed at the first person – there's a good chance he gives in. The first person is shot, and the gun is pointed at the second person. With the second person, it's not clear which factor is stronger – what we have learned of the group from the first death, or the intimidation factor. But if you start going down the line, and the first four die rather than sharing their secret, the interrogator's expectation that anyone will speak dwindles to a mere hope. The fact of the first four deaths is reason to think that these are not 13 random people, but a group of Navy Seals, thoroughly dedicated ideologues, or something else that makes this group so tough that they can stand up in the face of certain death, and this something else will cause the other 9 to be willing to die too. This "something else" includes both R and ~R & B.

So to compute how large of a Bayes factor D1-D13 produce, we can find an upper bound by computing P(B | ~R) x P(D1-D13 | ~R & B). The independence assumption gave a factor of 10^39, which is of no use whatsoever in computing this probability.

I would like to also hold a stronger position than simply that the factor is much less than 10^39. What could count as B, and more importantly, how probable is it?

***Edit 4/19/10*** The rest of this post is a terrible argument - I still stand by the first half.

First of all, I would like to defend a dismission of ancient historical arguments in defense of the supernatural that scarcely depends on even looking at the specifics. Even under the assumptions about the reliability of Acts, D1-D13 are not mathematical certainties – they are historical probabilities. When the highly probable is plugged into a mathematical equation that takes input in the form of certainties, the results are not necessarily reliable. What is the probability that believing in Peter's martyrdom is the best conclusion to reach based on the evidence available to us, and yet he didn't? One in a hundred? One in a million? If the odds of Peter's death given that the evidence supports it are a million to one in favor, Peter's death cannot produce a Bayes factor greater than a million – while this is actually larger than the thousand to one factor placed on a single Di, it combines differently with the rest of D. When D1-D13 are not taken to mean the events that the disciples actually died for their testimony, but rather to be that the historical record has come to support these conclusions, their positive correlation is exceptionally strong. The circumstances that would lead to made-up stories about Peter being believed, written down, repeated in the historical record, and mistakenly believed could easily lead to the same thing happening with the other 12, so the additional Bayes factor from D2-D13 is relatively small, giving a total factor of “a small factor” times one million – this is far, far out of the range of 10^39. The Bayes factor coming from historical evidence cannot exceed the odds against the evidence itself being false.

Returning to the position that the 13 disciples really did testify about their experiences, the first thing that needs to be brought up is the effect beliefs in an afterlife can have on one's behavior. For a Christian to die for their faith is gain – or at least, it is perceived as gain, which is all that matters here. It doesn't require any special level of devotion. It requires actually believing. To learn that God wants one to die soon is not merely a sacrifice that is well worth it. It's a non-sacrifice – it would be a good thing for the person who dies. This is even true in the relative paradise of middle-class America. How much more persuasive would this reasoning be in first century Palestine? So what would it take for people who believe in heaven and hell to give their lives for their beliefs? Only the same level of dedication that countless groups all manage to reach every single generation.

The intuition of Pascal's Wager is clear even without the math behind it. “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Circumstance forced the disciples to deny Jesus and risk hell or believe he was still alive. If the disciples thought there was any chance that Jesus rose from the dead and that living for it would influence the afterlife, they could convince themselves to give their lives for this chance out of faith that it was true. So what remains to explain is what could cause the disciples to consider the possibility of the Resurrection and think there was, say, a 5% chance it was true. That's not to say their beliefs only reached a 5% level – but that is to say the 5% level would be more than sufficient to not only explain their actions, but also to explain the rationality of their actions, given their level of belief. This greatly increases P(B | ~R), for what each of the disciples believed about the influence of being a faithful witness on eternal destiny is definitely not independent.

Once beliefs in hell and heaven have taken hold of your mind, it is nearly impossible to escape. When trying to hold onto such a belief that is looking more and more false, and while struggling to escape the mind control of hell, your head plays tricks on you. A pencil isn't where I left it – did God move it as a sign? If yes, then that is a way to escape the torment of the cognitive dissonance, and without risking hell. If God didn't do it, and I say that God did it, what do I lose? After the disciples left their lives behind to follow a Messiah who died, they had nothing left to lose. I've been there – I know how it works. When you want to believe something badly enough, God does nothing at all and this is interpreted as a surprisingly detailed conversation. Upon retelling, a semi-metaphorical “God told me” can become literal. I don't believe these stories when it's a friend telling me in person, and I definitely don't believe these stories when they are written down and aged for nearly two thousand years. While Christians then and now usually have nothing to gain by directly lying, they have everything to gain by deceiving themselves. Pascal proves this – or at least Christians tend to accept his conclusion, which is all that matters here. Under ~R, the disciples' beliefs that they saw something and their deaths for these beliefs was little more than the disciples' failure to escape the mental prison that is the doctrine of hell. While the strength of these factors could have varied from disciple to disciple, how strong it is with each is decidedly not independent, and they all depend on what Jesus actually said, as well as content of the discussions among the disciples about what Jesus meant.

For the sake of contrast, consider something that requires much, much more sincerity than martyrdom: de-conversion. You can't really escape from the logic of Pascal's Wager as a defense of the rationality of trying to believe. You can only find yourself as unable to believe in your invisible friend are you are unable to believe that 2 + 2 = 5. It is far more difficult for a Christian to admit to themselves that it's all in their head than it is to give their life for Christ. My sincere disbelief proves as little as the sincere belief of martyrs, but it still means I can look at Christian martyrs or a passionate testimony and not be that impressed. For a Christian to give their life while believing God wants them to is a very little thing. To push through the “am I going to hell?” stage without relapsing into belief: now that's hard. And yet appeals to a supernatural experience are not needed to understand how it could happen.

With this is mind, a specific explanation of what happened to the disciples is not needed to be unpersuaded by their deaths, for they are not even the kind of outliers who make you scratch your head and wonder "How did they do it?" Or at least nothing beyond "they believed in heaven and hell."

The New Testament's Most Dramatic Miracle

According to Matthew 27:52-53, right after Jesus died, “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” I know poking fun at this story is like dissing Paris Hilton. It's just so easy that it's almost dishonorable. Almost.

Besides that fact that people are being raised from the dead, this is a very strange story. Why did they come out of the tombs after Jesus' resurrection? Did they find little scrolls in their coffins with messages like “Hey, I apologize if this sounds a bit contrived, but when Jesus yelled, I just felt like someone needed to rise from the dead. I don't actually want you seen in public until Sunday. I apologize for the inconvenience. Signed, Yahweh.”

While I don't understand the motivation behind the newly raised saints' behavior, I'm sure Jesus appreciated the way they didn't steal his thunder by showing up first. If they had rushed the whole process of, you know, trying out their legs again, exploring the countryside anew, telling people they aren't dead, they could have really screwed things up. Imagine what would have happened had they not hung out in their graves for three (meaning two) days. With so many resurrected people running around appearing to many people, by the time we get to Easter morning Jesus would appear to people and they'd be like “Yeah, you used to be dead and now you're not. We know. You aren't the first and if you ask me, I really don't think you'll be the last.” I can just imagine ten of the disciples insisting that Jesus is dead, while Thomas is like “Until I see his corpse with my own eyes, and smell his rotting flesh with my own nose, I will believe that he has been raised from the dead just like everyone else!”

It could have been especially bothersome if only one of the newly raised saints, call him Brian, didn't quite understand what was going on. Suppose Brian came into the Jerusalem on Good Friday. People would naturally conclude that he was the first. They might even assume that because he's first, he must have been the one responsible for all the other resurrections. In reply, someone might still claim that it was really Jesus who raised Brian. “Jesus? Jesus couldn't have done it. He was dead!” You got to admit, as far as the soundness of air-tight alibis go, this one is pretty near the top. Before you knew it, there would be a whole new sect of Judaism venerating the life of Brian and all because of a hapless resurrectees misunderstanding of what a newly raised corpse is supposed to do with oneself.

In a little closer to all seriousness, I'd bet Matthew wanted to write “and coming out of the tombs they entered the holy city.” But the more he thought about it, the more it took away from Jesus' Resurrection, so he just had to add some sort of qualifier to keep Jesus at the head of the story. These do not look like the words of someone accurately recording what actually happened. It can be astounding just how much easier it is to explain how it is that we have a story about a miraculous event than it is to explain the miraculous event itself.

But true or not, I'm rather disappointed that these two little verses are all we get to hear about this amazing event. As Thomas Paine wrote:

“Had it been true, it would have filled up whole chapters of those books, and been the chosen theme and general chorus of all the writers; but instead of this, little and trivial things, and mere prattling conversations of, he said this, and he said that, are often tediously detailed, while this, most important of all, had it been true, is passed off in a slovenly manner by a single dash of the pen, and that by one writer only, and not so much as hinted at by the rest.

“It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the city, and what became of them afterward, and who it was that saw them – for he is not hardy enough to say he saw them himself; whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he-saints and she-saints; or whether they came full dressed, and where they got their dresses; whether they went to their former habitations, and reclaimed their wives, their husbands, and their property, and how they were received; whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their possessions, or brought actions of crim. con. against the rival interlopers; whether they remained on earth, and followed their former occupation of preaching or working; or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive, and buried themselves.

“Strange, indeed, that an army of saints should return to life, and nobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have anything to tell us! Had it been the prophets who (as we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, they must have had a great deal to say. They could have told us everything and we should have had posthumous prophecies, with notes and commentaries upon the first, a little better at least than we have now. Had it been Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Samuel and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained in all Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the time then present, everybody would have known them, and they would have out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. But, instead of this, these saints were made to pop up, like Jonah's gourd in the night, for no purpose at all but to wither in the morning.”

Even if you think that miracles happen all the time, this story still fails to maintain a shred of reasonableness. Left unexplained are why the risen saints waited until Sunday, why Matthew tells us so little about them, why no other Gospel writer mentions it, and why we have no secular record of them. It doesn't explain why Peter didn't point out one of the newly Resurrected saints on Pentecost or use the resurrections many of them had seen as evidence for the resurrection that they didn't see. I would have thought that he would have understood the audience appeal of a dead guy walking around.

But there is an extraordinarily simple theory that explains all of this. It didn't happen. Things like this should be taken into consideration when deciding if Matthew's more famous tale of a resurrection deserves to be taken seriously.

A Concession: Mark's Ending

The more you know the less you believe. Right? Well, not always... I now consider one of my past arguments to be incorrect. I don't see this as part of a trend, but regardless of who is right in the big picture, truth is better found when bad arguments are trimmed out.

In Which Resurrection Account?, I wrote: “In Mark, the women come to the tomb where a young man tells them Jesus is risen. They tell no one (Mark 16:8) – this detail clashes badly with all three other Gospel accounts.”

I do not know if I made an incorrect statement. But I made an incorrect argument and I see no way of fixing it.

Mark 16:8 “They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” While Mark 16:8 is the end of what we have of the authentic Mark, it is not where Mark originally ended. So the question is how much can be inferred of the real ending of Mark from “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

The way this could be consistent with the other Gospels is that the time period during which they told no one is unclear. Perhaps they cowered in fear for an hour and then told the disciples. This possibility leave inerrancy issues regarding what was done immediately after leaving the tomb, but I don't think this undermines the general truthfulness of the accounts, and that is what I was attempting to accomplish.

Perhaps this point could still be defended by someone else. But I no longer stand behind this argument.

Which Resurrection Account?

When someone tells me that they believe based on the testimonies of the Gospel writers, my question is “Which one? When they contradict, how do you decide what to believe?”

The apologetic rebuttal to Gospel contradictions is that is actually adds to the credibility of the stories, in that it shows that they didn't conspire together to lie. Honest testimonies from different perspectives will often contradict due to imperfections in observations and memory. While I agree with the argument in principle, the question simply becomes to determine what level of contradiction is present – a low level supports the stories' honesty, a high level discredits the stories' accuracy. For this reason, I will be disregarding the minor contradictions and focusing on the big ones.

One point that is import is that Mark 16:9-20 is not part of the original. Conservative theologians agree with this, otherwise I would feel the need to defend this claim.

The Empty Tomb:

In Mark, the women come to the tomb where a young man tells them Jesus is risen. They tell no one (Mark 16:8) – this detail clashes badly with all three other Gospel accounts. How did the disciples hear about the Resurrection? The testimony of the women is only relevant if we know what their story was.

(I have since backed away from this argument.)

In Matthew, the women come to the tomb and speak to an angel on the stone (28:5). Here, the women follow instructions and tell the disciples (28:11).

In Luke, the women report to the disciples (24:9 - note Peter in particular) that they have seen the Resurrected Jesus. This again clashes with Mark 16:8, but it gets far worse when we look at John.

In John, a highly upset Mary Magdalene tells Peter and John that Jesus' body has been stolen. This is not to be confused with Luke 24:9 when all the disciples were present and the news was incredibly good rather than upsetting. Peter and John find Jesus' tomb on their own (20:8). The Mary tells the rest of the disciples. Surely this time much line up with Luke 24:9. But in Luke, they don't believe her, so Peter leaves to check it out for himself (Luke 24:12). In John, Peter has already been to the tomb, because he saw the tomb before Mary sees Jesus (John 20:11). Therefore, either Luke 24:10-12 is fictional, or the classic Sunday School story of “they have taken away my Lord” never happened.

Location of Appearances:

In Matthew, both the angel (28:7) and Jesus (28:10) tell them to tell the disciple specifically to go to Galilee, just as in Mark 16:7. In Luke, the angels remind them that while Jesus was in Galilee, he told them he would be Resurrected (24:6-7). Now, if you're not paying close attention, you just missed like I missed it the first hundred times I heard the story. In Matthew and Mark, the young man/angel/Jesus tell the disciple to go to Galilee, while in Luke, Jesus told them something while he was in Galilee.

Remembering what was said exactly is not that big of a deal. (It's a good rebuttal to the reasons to believe the story as a decent part of the testimony is what was said, but it's not a reason to disbelieve.) The big deal is that Matthew, Luke, and John's Resurrection appearances need these words to be as they appear in each book. In Matthew, Jesus is seen in Galilee, which is fifty miles away from Jerusalem, while in Luke, Jesus is seen in and around Jerusalem.

So did Jesus tell the Marys to tell the disciples to go the Galilee? Notice how wrong one story must be. Matthew repeats the instructions twice and Mark once – if they're wrong, then the accounts of the “young man”, the sighting of an angel, and the sighting of Jesus contain only words that were not actually spoken. If Luke is wrong, then he changed the words of the risen Jesus to make his story flow.

The Story Grows:

The order of writing was Mark, Matthew, Luke, then John. In Mark, there are no Resurrection or angelic appearances, save for the passage which is known to have been added. In Matthew, there is one, in Luke there is three, and in John there are three with far more details.

The Role of Women:

Also, as time goes on, the role of women is demoted. Now, as apologist tell us, women's testimony was not considered to be reliable at this time. The reason apologists tell us this is that the best reason for the Gospel writers to have for including women if it was true. I agree to a point – the Gospel writers didn't make up the stories, but rather used stories that they were circulating. But the testimony of the women is the part of the Resurrection accounts that differ the most sharply, so it's hardly the place to look for strength.

Also, consider the evolution of the stories with time: In Mark, women's testimony is 100% of the evidence. In Matthew, this is thinned out a bit as men see Jesus as well. In Luke, Peter makes it to the tomb himself at the prodding of Mary. In John, Peter and John make it to the tomb before Mary finds out herself. Seen in the light of “women are talebearers,” the story is growing and shows evidence of changing.

Other Details:

Is it not odd that Mark only records Mary talking to a “young man?” A harmonization would require Mary to have spoken to both angels and Jesus himself, yet Mark only bothers to record her conversation with an angel while somehow failing to mention that it was an angel. This falls short of a contradiction, but also short of believable narratives.

Luke and Matthew end the story with Jesus speaking pretty much the same words (Act 1:8 & Matthew 28:18-20). The problem is that they are fifty miles apart. While it is true that Matthew's account does not absolutely end through Jesus' ascension, if we begin by reading the Gospels like any other historical document, the best explanation is that the story was changed. My guess is that first Matthew wrote his book, then Luke wrote his book. Next Luke read Matthew, or heard about the Matt. 28:18-20 story and wanted it in his books, so it gets added at the beginning of Luke's next book. But Luke already has Jesus in Jerusalem, so he changes the location. (Also, the story gets bigger when Jesus rises into heaven.) (Refuted by Claire)

Conclusion:

The contortions an apologist must go through to defend the Gospels' reliability are greater than what must be supposed to conclude that many or all of the alleged sightings of Jesus didn't ever occur, and the remainder were whatever it is that all other religions and cults are based on. Once one fully understands why they don't take seriously the miracle stories of any other religion, they will understand my hesitancy to believe the Bible's contradictory accounts of the extraordinary.

It is easier for me to make sense of how an explosive religion could start without the Resurrection than it was for me as a cessationist to make sense of sincere Pentecostals. There are options other than someone is tell the truth, telling a lie, or is insane. Sometimes people are just wrong.

If I place the ideas that the testimonies are/aren't reliable on a 50/50 level, the contradictions point to unreliability. This does not even employ an anti-supernatural bias and overlooks the fact that Christianity has the burden of proof, or at the very least, the burden of evidence.

Even the Biblical accounts give poor evidence for the Resurrection. If Christianity has a strong point, this should have been it. In my case, it was these arguments in particular that broke the camel's back. I became an evidentialist three years ago because I saw the flaws of presuppositionalism. But now I saw that many are presuppositionalists because they see the flaws in an evidential approach.

Now I was neither one.