FIREBLIND.COM

Update: 2008-05-14

Well, as you can tell, I haven’t gotten anywhere near finishing this. I’ve not been able to focus on this project. Hopefully I’ll get around to it someday soon.

Update: 2008-01-14

I keep getting spam comments on this page, so I’m going to disable comments here for a while.

Update: 2008-01-13

I’m finally getting around to finishing this thing. I’ll probably end up with a complete rewrite, but for now, I’m going to add to what I have and overhaul it later.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
About Me
About the Book
Chapter 1: The Medical Evidence: Was Jesus’ Death a Sham and His Resurrection a Hoax?
Chapter 2: The Evidence of the Missing Body: Was Jesus’ Body Really Absent from His Tomb?
Chapter 3: The Evidence of Appearances: Was Jesus Seen Alive After His Death on the Cross?

Introduction

Lee Strobel bugs me. Really bugs me. I don’t care if he’s 100% right in his books; he’s a dishonest scholar who relies not on the logic and facts he purports to, but rather on shoddy writing and poor academic standards. Below is my evolving response to his book The Case for Easter. I say “evolving” because stupid Wordpress doesn’t let me save a draft without publishing it. So…you get to read my unfinished and incorrect thoughts more or less as I write them. I suppose I could write this out somewhere else, but, you know…eh.

For those of you who haven’t read Strobel before, his gig is writing Christian apologetics from a sort of devil’s advocate position. As a former atheist, he supposedly understands the refutations and objections that non-believers have to Christianity and its events and history. Consequently, he interviews Christian experts and tries to throw “tough questions” at the interviewee. In doing so, the Christian expert heroically rebuffs the critics’ toughest challenges and carries the day for Christianity. The problem is, many of his challenges are ones that critics don’t actually make, and if they are, Strobel doesn’t actually make much of a defense (thus, they’re not the “toughest” objections). Furthermore, he seldom cites sources that his experts use, so you are just expected to assume that they’re being factually correct and take their word for it.

Unless Strobel is a complete dolt, I don’t think he really believes he is playing the devil’s advocate very strongly. He is in the business of selling bland apologetics to staunch believers, and doing a brisk one at that. His sales are consistently very high. So, I suppose then that I have to come to his defense a little: he is not writing books to really challenge atheists. Rather, he is writing heroic tales of brave Christian knights for those whom already believe in brave Christian knights. He is writing to house wives who have book clubs and who want to feel triumphant in their belief, as though they are conquering the infidels themselves via the valiant chariot of Strobel’s mighty pen. Thus, he need not hold himself to the academic standards real authors would; his audience doesn’t require it, and doesn’t expect it.

Believers reading this will think that I’m just being picky to be picky. In reality, that’s not correct. If the accounts of the resurrection are true, it is quite literally the single most important event in human history. If the accounts are false, Christianity is nothing but a sham. Everyone, believers included, owe it to themselves to tear the story apart to determine whether it’s true or not. If it still survives scrutiny, then by all means, be a believer. If it doesn’t, as I believe, than we owe it to ourselves to dispense with this superstition altogether.

About Me

In the interests of disclosure, I should tell you a little bit about myself. I have a BA in history as well as graduate studies in the field. I joined the MA program for personal enrichment, and dropped out with only a thesis to write. I am a trained historian, although my expertise is in the modern Middle East. I mention the trained historian bit simply so you understand that I do have a strong background in source work and interpretation of primary and secondary sources. I am not, however, even close to an expert on Biblical history or on the study of writings that comprise the Bible. I’m making my arguments primarily on logic and analysis, and will refer to outside experts where I do try and make historical arguments.

About the Book

The Case for Easter is a small work that is a very quick read. I have two of Strobel’s other books that are significantly thicker, though not much meatier per se (I must admit though, I’ve only read two of the three so far). In the ones I’ve read, the formula is more or less the same: state the objection to a belief, and then have an expert defend it. In this book, there are three objections to the events of Christ’s death that Strobel seeks to overcome:

1. “The Medical Evidence: Was Jesus’ Death a Sham and His Resurrection a Hoax?”
2. “The Evidence of the Missing Body: Was Jesus’ Body Really Absent From His Tomb?”
3. “The Evidence of the Appearance: Was Jesus Seen Alive After His Death on the Cross?”

The problem with structuring his book this way is that it sets up the terms of the debate in favor of his side, since they already presuppose that the Bible is generally factually correct and that Christ actually did the things it says he did. The questions above are like asking “Is it true that blue unicorns play the harp?” Rather than give affirmative evidence for blue unicorns in the first place, you simply try and defend how they might be able to play the harp if they do exist. Overcoming the toughest objection to Easter would be proving that Christ actually existed in the first place, or that he even had the ministry that Christians think he did.

Moreover, Strobel is trying to use what is essentially forensic evidence to solve mysteries for which no contemporary sources exist, and for which the only real sources that do exist are apologetic ones rather than objective, historical sources (although, one might argue that if the gospels are true, they are historical).

I’ve decided to write on this book (amongst his others) for basically two reasons. First, there are very good responses to Strobel’s other works already. See, for example, Case Against Faith. I’ve not really seen much on this book. Second, I’m too busy to write on his other ones (*cough* lazy *cough) at the moment.

Chapter 1: The Medical Evidence: Was Jesus’ Death a Sham and His Resurrection a Hoax?

The point of this chapter is to refute the idea that Jesus somehow faked his death and actually survived the crucifixion, appearing to his disciples later as a never-been-dead person. Strobel tells us that this is called the “swoon theory”. Jesus didn’t really die, he swooned, tricked everyone, and then woke up later to quench his thirst for blood. Actually, that last part might not be in the Bible.

Strobel notes that this idea first appears in the Qur’an, and has continued to flourish ever since. Maybe it has for idiots, but this argument has no valid place in any argument against Christianity. It’s moot. We don’t really care if he died on the cross. I would bet that most people who were crucified did die. The Romans were a-holes, and were good at killing people. If Jesus was put on a cross, he probably was taken off of it dead. I see no point in arguing this. Essentially, Strobel has created a dishonest straw man argument to make his book look good to Christians.

A real argument that someone like me would make would be a) there are no contemporary sources (apologetic or otherwise) that give evidence of Christ actually existing, b) there are no contemporary sources (apologetic or otherwise) that give evidence that Christ was ever actually on the cross, or that c) there is no legitimate evidence to support his resurrection, even if he did die on the cross.

If Christ actually just swooned after everything the Bible says the Romans did to him, I owe the guy lunch at the very least. I can barely handle a needle, let alone actual torture. I suppose the reason someone might argue this is because they want to say that the gospels are at least partially historical (in the case of the Qur’an), so we need to account for the appearance of Christ later. Since he wasn’t actually a god, and since there are accounts of him after the crucifixion, he must have somehow faked his death and played tricks on his disciples later.

It’s more logical, however, to just say that the accounts of Christ after the resurrection were probably not true, even if we accept that the death story is. We know that people die, and we know that the Romans killed people. Why argue that the later appearances are historical? The only evidence for them is found in a very small handful of sources in the Bible, all of which are suspect because there are no non-apologetic sources to confirm them.

I was tempted to leave my treatment of this chapter at that and move on, but there are other problems with it that I think you should be made aware of. Consequently, I’ll work through it a little anyways.

The expert in this first chapter is a man named Alexander Metherell. Strobel describes him as a brilliant person with a long list of credentials (including a medical degree and a PhD in engineering). He is being interviewed here as essentially a medical forensics expert, as Strobel is trying to figure out whether Christ could have possibly survived the crucifixion given the physical accounts of his ordeals found in the gospels. I’m inclined to believe that Strobel is telling the truth about Metherell’s credentials, so there’s no point in trying to refute the authority. Note, however, that Strobel is often disengenuous about this, frequently interviewing people who are not actual authorities in the field for which he’s interviewing them. Again, see Case Against Faith for specific examples.

Strobel begins his interview with Metherell by asking him to paint a picture of the crucifixion. He starts by describing Christ’s tribulations in the Garden of Gethsemane. Here, the book of Luke tells us, Christ was so stressed about the coming events that he began to literally sweat blood. Despite the fact that this was probably uncomfortable at the very least, Metherell continues by saying that this would have made Christ’s skin much more sensitive to the Roman flogging that would follow the next day.

Most likely the bloody sweat is a reference to hematidrosis. This condition has been observed in people so overwhelmed by stress that small parts of their circulatory system break down and the blood mixes with the stress sweat. Either Jesus was incredibly stressed and this did happen (i.e. an observer actually witnessed this), or the author of Luke had an understanding of hematidrosis and when it occurred (i.e. made up the fact that it happened to Jesus and inserted it into the account).

Here’s what I love about this: according to Bart Ehrman, an expert on the New Testament, the two verses that describe the bloody sweat were probably added to the text by an unknown scribe at a later date.[1] If this is the case–and Ehrman notes that there is debate on the matter–the first piece of evidence that Metherell uses to demonstrate Christ’s physical suffering is a falsified one!

Beyond Ehrman, certain versions of the Bible, including my Scofield NKJ, note that this verse (Luke 22:44) might not have been in the original text. Strobel doesn’t mention the controversy, however. How much do you want to bet that this same footnote is in Strobel’s Bible?

Granted, whether this account is true or not does not make the entire story false, but since it’s a case of Strobel’s shoddy and/or mis-leading scholarship, I wanted to point it out.

Annoying, outright lie, or intentionally misleading item #1

In the next part of this chapter, sub-titled “The Agony of the Cross”, Strobel says this:

As distasteful as the description of the flogging was, I knew that even more repugnant testimony was yet to come. That’s because historians are unanimous that Jesus survived the beating that day and went on to the cross which is where the real issue lies. [Emphasis added]

With all due respect, this is just a ridiculous thing to say. There are a number of historians who are unsure whether Jesus is even a real historical figure. Given that we have absolutely zero contemporary accounts of the crucifixion, it is entirely 100% possible that it is all made up to begin with.

This is just Strobel being dishonest again, and trying to appeal to an imaginary consensus that doesn’t exist to fool the reader.

As we continue in the text, we come across this quote from Metherell:

If they wanted to speed up death—and with the Sabbath and Passover coming, the Jewish leaders certainly wanted to get this over before sundown—the Romans would use the steel shaft of a short Roman spear to shatter the victim’s lower leg bones.

Here, he’s referring to the time line we find in the book of John, which says “It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.” [source] This is not a problem with Strobel, but I wanted to point out that Mark has the crucifixion happening the day after Passover starts:

12 On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”

13 So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14 Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”

16 The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

17 When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.” [source]

That night they go to Gethsemane where Christ is arrested. The next day he is crucified.

Again, small problems like this don’t necessarily imply that the whole story is false, but the more conflicts we have between sources, the more likely it is that the story is legendary rather than factual.

I bring this up because Metherell notes that Roman soldiers did not need to break Christ’s legs to speed up death, as he was dead before this became necessary. He then says “this fulfilled another Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah, which is that his bones would remain unbroken”.

In my reading, I frequently hear fulfilled prophecy used as a validation for the gospels. Of course, this is nonsense. It’s easy to fulfill prophecy in hindsight. Suppose that you’re the author of the book of John, writing down your gospel account. You know the Jewish testament well, and you’re also trying to write a book that will help convert Jews. How easy is it to write in a little prophecy fulfillment? The satisfaction of Old Testament prophecy in the Christ legend is not legitimate evidence to the authenticity of the legend itself. It’s far too easy to fake.

My next point of annoyance comes from this passage, in which Metherell is responding to Strobel’s question of why Jesus would have gone through the crucifixion.

“Frankly, I don’t think a typical person could have done it,” he finally replied. “Bue Jesus knew what was coming, and he was willing to go through it, because this was the only way he could redeem us—by serving as our substitute and paying the death penalty that we deserve because of our rebellion against God. That was his whole mission in coming to earth.”

I have several problems with this line of thinking. First, this was not the only way Christ could redeem mankind. Given that god is all powerful, by definition there are literally an infinite number of other ways mankind could have been redeemed. For instance, god could have just said “mankind, you are redeemed”. Or, Christ could have just been executed without all the torture. Or, he could have made everyone pick up trash on the side of the highway. Jesus’ suffering really was quite unnecessary, and to say that his death was the only way to save us is not only plain dumb, it’s an outright contradiction of god’s supposed omnipotence.

Second, Christ didn’t technically serve as our substitute. The New Testament tells us that the penalty for rejection of god is not death itself, but hell. Death is merely the ending of this life before moving on to the next one, where the real suffering starts. While Jesus is said to have visited hell (or perhaps limbo) for three days, this hardly counts as a substitute for eternal damnation. Let’s see: three days, or eternity? Three days, or eternity? Hmm…which one is not an exact substitute for the other? If it was only Christ’s death that saved everyone, why isn’t my own death enough penance?

Finally, how do I deserve hell because of my rebellion against god? It’s because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion that mankind is supposedly cut off from god. When did I ever get to choose whether or not to eat from the forbidden tree?

Moving along, Strobel notes that crucifixion was so reviled by the Romans, that it was forbidden from use on their own citizens except in cases of high treason. It’s interesting that Pilate, who found no wrongdoing with Jesus, would choose the worst execution available for an innocent man. And, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, it would have been a violation of Jewish law for the Jews to impose crucifixion as a capital punishment. Moreover, it would be very unlikely that a Jewish execution would have taken place on either the eve of the sabbath (as in John), on the sabbath itself (as in Mark), or during Passover (again, as in Mark). [Source] These problems lend further credence to the legendary aspects of the story.

If I had to take a guess as a historian, I would think that the gospel authors were trying hard to tie the figurative Passover lamb (Jesus) to the literal Passover lamb in order to invoke Jewish prophecy, and in the process messed up their story a bit. If Christ did exist and was crucified, it’s entirely possible that he was not executed for the reasons the Bible provides (perhaps the Romans actually did feel him guilty of a high crime), or was executed at a different time of year (which would resolve the conflict over the trouble with doing so on or near the sabbath and Passover).

Strobel finishes up the chapter shortly after this quote from Metherell. I want to mention one more thing Strobel says before I wrap up my own review of this chapter:

Those who seek to explain away the resurrection of Jesus by claiming that he somehow escaped the clutches of death at Golgotha need to offer a more plausible theory that fits the facts.

I want to make it explicitly clear that Strobel is throwing up a red herring to distract from the fact that he makes no attempt to validate whether a person named Jesus of Nazareth ever existed, and if he did, whether he was crucified at all. We have no contemporary account of the crucifixion (writings on the crucifixion don’t appear for many years after other Christian writings do), we have no hostile primary sources attesting to even a single fact found in any of the gospels (not even biggies, like the Slaughter of the Innocents or dead people rising out of the ground), and even the gospels themselves might be copies of each other or of an earlier gospel. Consequently, it is highly questionable whether these so-called facts are even facts at all!

It’s ridiculous and insulting that Strobel even presents the swoon theory as a legitimate critique of Christianity, but it’s even more ridiculous to just presume that the gospels are true tales without providing any basis for such a belief. As far has historical documents go, the gospels are suspect at best. The only thing Strobel and Metherell might have done in this chapter is proved that the gospel writer(s) had a first-hand understanding of crucifixion, not that they had first-hand knowledge of the crucifixion of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. If we had even one (!) non-apologetic source to back up the passion story, we might possibly be able to call the gospels legitimate. However, there is absolutely nothing to back them up other than their own word that they’re the truth. Strobel is simply grasping at straws to make the crucifixion story seem like it has legitimate scholarship behind it.

More to come….

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Sources will be fleshed out a little later.

[1] Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, 139-144