Review: Doubting Jesus' Resurrection

[Seasanctuary]

Next up in my sporadic series of apologetics and skeptical book reviews is Kris Komarnitsky's Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box?. This is a 2009 publication by Stone Arrow Books in Draper, Utah.

Black box? What black box? It makes better sense looking at the simple diagram on the cover. My fabulous ASCII rendition:

Jesus Crucified -> [ ? ] -> Resurrection Belief

I was already familiar with the term "black box" from a software engineering class, and I understand it is used in other types of engineering too. A black box is anything with observable input and output, but with inner workings blocked off from observation. The opposite would be a "white box" or a "clear box" with observable inner workings. Black boxes can taken negatively, as when citizens complain about closed legislative hearings. Or they can be taken positively, as when some piece of technology "just works" without the end user needing to understand or adjust the internals.

In this case, Komarnitsky is pointing out that Jesus' crucifixion and the subsequent rise of Christian resurrection belief are relatively unchallenged as historical facts. (Jesus Mythers and some Muslim beliefs about the crucifixion aside). But are the Christian claims of intermediary events — burial in a stone tomb, guards put around the tomb, miraculous resurrection, discovery of the same tomb empty three days later, and bodily sightings of Jesus — the only plausible "inner workings"? Might another sequence of events take the crucifixion input and yield the resurrection belief output? This book argues for one such sequence of events.

Let me take a quick break here. I realize some Christians will question the point of coming up with plausible alternatives if skeptics can't show that a particular alternative is a better explanation for Christians than the traditional explanation. I would agree that as an attack on Christian resurrection belief, this approach is pointless. But that's not the goal. Some apologists make strong claims that traditional Christian beliefs are the only plausible contents of the "black box." They imply that any reasonable person who accepts Jesus' crucifixion and the rise of resurrection belief as historical facts should conclude upon reflection that Jesus must have really risen from the dead. Komarnitsky's book is one answer to that overreaching apologetics claim.

I would suggest that any Christian be wary of apologists who seek to do away with the need for faith in the resurrection by implying reason is sufficient.

Ok, back to the book review! Those of you who follow historical arguments for the resurrection are probably fidgeting in your chairs wondering why the empty tomb wasn't listed as a historical fact. Christians tend to list it as a historical fact in support of the resurrection. Some non-Christian historians have also counted it as historical fact. The first thing Komarnitsky does is give two reasons to suspect the discovery of the empty tomb is legendary:

First, Paul's silence about the empty tomb in 1 Corinthians 15. Silence isn't always significant or telling, but the sheer amount of attention to proving the fact and nature of resurrection in this chapter makes the absence of any mention of a discovered empty tomb a very surprising omission. Since 1 Corinthians is widely considered one of the earliest New Testament documents, this is evidence leaning in favor of the empty tomb being a later addition to the gospel message.

Second, there is evidence from lower criticism that Mark originally ended on the strange note of the tomb-visiting women not telling anyone about what they saw. While there are certainly other textual and interpretational solutions to this quandary, one solution is that the women's silence explained why the empty tomb wasn't known about from the very beginning. Alternate endings to Mark and the apostles visiting the tomb in later Gospels would be a further stage when the late-arriving tomb story had become fully original in the minds of Christians.

In both cases, a difficulty in the earlier texts of the New Testament can be resolved by a delay between the earliest gospel message and the inclusion of the empty tomb story. Speaking for myself, I don't accept the empty tomb as historical simply because it would have been a helpful story to invent even if it didn't happen. I appreciated the point about Paul's silence. But while I found the speculation interesting about Mark's ending interesting, I found it a little too speculative to include in my personal list of "what probably actually happened." New manuscript evidence could easily change the situation dramatically.

If Joseph's tomb is legendary, what likely happened instead? Komarnitsky favors a ground burial by people not friendly to Jesus' followers, likely unobserved by Jesus' followers. An obscure burial. While some skeptics believe the body was simply left to rot on the cross as commonly occurred, Komarnitsky apparently has no big issue with Christian claims that Jesus was taken down. It wouldn't be unlikely for the Romans to allow this to appease Jewish burial sensibilities during peacetime and especially around Jewish holidays.

Even if Joseph's tomb is legendary, a Christian might still argue that it doesn't matter exactly how Jesus was buried if everyone knew he was dead and then met him alive days and weeks later. Komarnitsky's next chapter is one explanation for why people would think Jesus rose from the dead, even if he did not. The author's answer: cognitive dissonance reduction. The idea is that some of Jesus' followers were so invested in Jesus that they could not accept the harsh implication that his death was a failure, so they creatively rationalized until they found a way to understand his death as a necessary part of his victory. Komarnitsky gives two major examples of this sort of thing happening: the UFO cult detailed in Leon Festinger's book When Prophecy Fails & the case of the Jewish messianic hopeful, Sabbatai Sevi, who shockingly converted to Islam.

Belief in the resurrection is one thing; belief in post-resurrection appearances is another. Komarnitsky chalks this up to a combination of personal hallucinations, group ecstatic experiences of the "presence" of Jesus, and maybe a little pious misrepresentation to clearly establish the authority of the Twelve as group witnesses. A modern example of such pious misrepresentation is Martin Harris' later admission that he did not physically see the golden plates of the Book of Mormon even though he still claimed to have "seen" them.

Next, Komarnitsky examined the origin of the "on the third day in accordance with the scriptures" belief. It's worth noting that Christians also struggle a bit to justify the last part of that phrase, since the Jewish scriptures don't clearly lay it out. After going over some difficulties with the most common Christian approaches, he comes out in favor of an odd but interesting solution. Psalm 16:10 reads, "because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay." What? No "third day" there! True, but then Komarnitsky gives some evidence in a folk belief that decay occurred no later than the third day after death, when the face begins to noticeably distort and the odor kicks in. So the reasoning is that early Christians who seized on Ps 16:10 as applicable to Jesus would have understood the passage to mean Jesus was not dead for longer than three days. Putting the resurrection on the third day would minimize doubt Jesus was simply mistaken for dead while still fulfilling the "prophecy" that he would not decay.

So far this has been a review of book content, not style. I don't think the author will mind, considering what he writes in the final chapter about his motivations for writing the book. I may cover that in subsequent discussion in this thread. But for now I want to say I appreciate the style and organization of this book. Komarnitsky makes very minimal assumptions about the prior knowledge of readers. I bet anyone with sufficient interest in the topic could stay on track without much trouble. There are two stretches in the main text which become more involved, probably too involved for most readers. After a quick scan, I heeded the explicit warning that I may want to skip ahead to such-and-so section to continue with the main flow of the text. A digression on the grow rates of legends is also included an an appendix. Aside from these bits, I read the rest of the book in two sittings.

I also appreciated the note in the beginning letting readers know that the end notes would be purely biographical so I didn't feel the urge to go flipping around for more detail. On the other hand, the detail is there as soon as I care to visit the library.

My overall evaluation is an enthusiastic thumbs up. I'm usually disappointed by skeptical literature either because it makes points which overreach in embarrassing ways or because the author utterly fails to try including Christians in the target audience. Up until now, John Loftus' book and the various works of Bart Ehrman were the only major exceptions I had discovered, and therefore the only skeptical books still on my shelf after reading them. Doubting Jesus' Resurrection will be joining them on the shelf as something I wouldn't mind a Christian friend or family member picking up and reading.

[Soyeong]

]First, Paul's silence about the empty tomb in 1 Corinthians 15. Silence isn't always significant or telling, but the sheer amount of attention to proving the fact and nature of resurrection in this chapter makes the absence of any mention of a discovered empty tomb a very surprising omission. Since 1 Corinthians is widely considered one of the earliest New Testament documents, this is evidence leaning in favor of the empty tomb being a later addition to the gospel message.

It seems obvious to me that if Jesus was raised and appearing to people that he still wasn't in his tomb and that it was empty.

Second, there is evidence from lower criticism that Mark originally ended on the strange note of the tomb-visiting women not telling anyone about what they saw. While there are certainly other textual and interpretational solutions to this quandary, one solution is that the women's silence explained why the empty tomb wasn't known about from the very beginning. Alternate endings to Mark and the apostles visiting the tomb in later Gospels would be a further stage when the late-arriving tomb story had become fully original in the minds of Christians.

This seems little more than speculation.

If Joseph's tomb is legendary, what likely happened instead? Komarnitsky favors a ground burial by people not friendly to Jesus' followers, likely unobserved by Jesus' followers. An obscure burial. While some skeptics believe the body was simply left to rot on the cross as commonly occurred, Komarnitsky apparently has no big issue with Christian claims that Jesus was taken down. It wouldn't be unlikely for the Romans to allow this to appease Jewish burial sensibilities during peacetime and especially around Jewish holidays.

If this were the case, it seems to me that it would be easy to prove that Jesus had not been raised by digging up his body.

Even if Joseph's tomb is legendary, a Christian might still argue that it doesn't matter exactly how Jesus was buried if everyone knew he was dead and then met him alive days and weeks later. Komarnitsky's next chapter is one explanation for why people would think Jesus rose from the dead, even if he did not. The author's answer: cognitive dissonance reduction. The idea is that some of Jesus' followers were so invested in Jesus that they could not accept the harsh implication that his death was a failure, so they creatively rationalized until they found a way to understand his death as a necessary part of his victory. Komarnitsky gives two major examples of this sort of thing happening: the UFO cult detailed in Leon Festinger's book When Prophecy Fails & the case of the Jewish messianic hopeful, Sabbatai Sevi, who shockingly converted to Islam.

So are you saying they made up that Jesus taught these things would happen as well as their confusion about it?

Belief in the resurrection is one thing; belief in post-resurrection appearances is another. Komarnitsky chalks this up to a combination of personal hallucinations, group ecstatic experiences of the "presence" of Jesus, and maybe a little pious misrepresentation to clearly establish the authority of the Twelve as group witnesses. A modern example of such pious misrepresentation is Martin Harris' later admission that he did not physically see the golden plates of the Book of Mormon even though he still claimed to have "seen" them.

This is stretching it, compounding the speculative things that would have had to happen, all with no evidence supporting that this is the way it happened. If this were the case, I would have expected at least one disciple to recant as Martin Harris did rather than to face death over it.

[Jaecp]

If this were the case, it seems to me that it would be easy to prove that Jesus had not been raised by digging up his body.

This sounds reasonable on the surface, but once you realize that most people wouldn't have the resources to investigate this claim (the earliest christians were not wealthy), that there is no clear description of where this tomb actually is, that an empty tomb itself doesn't show that someone was ever in their in the first place, and that its only the earliest christians who could have checked this in the first place, as after a short period of time then most of the people who could have witnessed jesus in the first place would be dead, let alone people who would be able to identify his decayed corpse.

This is stretching it, compounding the speculative things that would have had to happen, all with no evidence supporting that this is the way it happened. If this were the case, I would have expected at least one disciple to recant as Martin Harris did rather than to face death over it.

Martin Harris lived at a later time, whose to say if these people didn't end up convincing themselves it was true? We knew less about how the world worked 1800 years prior. Plenty of religions have been started that both of us believe to be false.

[Soyeong]

This sounds reasonable on the surface, but once you realize that most people wouldn't have the resources to investigate this claim (the earliest christians were not wealthy), that there is no clear description of where this tomb actually is, that an empty tomb itself doesn't show that someone was ever in their in the first place, and that its only the earliest christians who could have checked this in the first place, as after a short period of time then most of the people who could have witnessed jesus in the first place would be dead, let alone people who would be able to identify his decayed corpse.

This would be more of a limitation on Christians who want to verify the tomb was empty that it would be on people who were interested in quickly nipping this in the bud.

Martin Harris lived at a later time, whose to say if these people didn't end up convincing themselves it was true? We knew less about how the world worked 1800 years prior. Plenty of religions have been started that both of us believe to be false.

...And whose to say Jesus wasn't an alien? We know even less about aliens.

[Jaecp]

This would be more of a limitation on Christians who want to verify the tomb was empty that it would be on people who were interested in quickly nipping this in the bud.

It applies to anyone. Who cared enough about christianity, just another religion in a polytheistic empire, to try to actively prove it wrong before the information would be unverifiable? Assuming it was verifiable in the first place, its not like they wrote down where the tomb was to go check it out..

...And whose to say Jesus wasn't an alien? We know even less about aliens.

Uhh, that doesn't follow. Also, its kinda weird.

[PsychGuy]

Who cared enough about christianity, just another religion in a polytheistic empire, to try to actively prove it wrong before the information would be unverifiable?

The Pharisees. And the Sadducees, who didn't believe resurrection was even possible.

[Seasanctuary]

It seems obvious to me that if Jesus was raised and appearing to people that he still wasn't in his tomb and that it was empty.

It sounds like you didn't quite get the proposed timeline:

1. Crucifixion.
2. Belief that Jesus was raised on the third day. (1 Cor here)
[...]
3. Belief that Jesus was buried in Joseph's tomb and that tomb was found empty. (Gospels here)

The author is questioning the idea that a tomb was involved in the earliest version of the oral gospel. It's entirely possible to believe Jesus came back from the dead without specifying exactly where his body was in the meanwhile.

If this were the case, it seems to me that it would be easy to prove that Jesus had not been raised by digging up his body.

Bodies begin to become unrecognizable in a matter of days in warm climates without special care. Don't remember if I mentioned it in the first post, but the author does not think Jesus declared he would rise from the dead before he was executed. (Neither do I, by the way). There would be no reason for the Jews to be concerned about proving the resurrection false before it would have been too late to present a clearly recognizable body.

So are you saying they made up that Jesus taught these things would happen as well as their confusion about it?

Yes, someone did by the time the Gospels were written.

This is stretching it, compounding the speculative things that would have had to happen, all with no evidence supporting that this is the way it happened. If this were the case, I would have expected at least one disciple to recant as Martin Harris did rather than to face death over it.

The book — and therefore this thread — are about two points of widely accepted history (crucifixion and the appearance of resurrection belief) and whether Christian claims are the only way to get from A to B.

It sounds like you're trying to add a point C: "the eleven all maintained they had physically met Jesus after his death, even when recanting would have spared their lives."

Unfortunately, that point C is not widely considered historical fact by secular historians. Pretty sure some Christians also dispute the historicity of the non-canonical stories of the eleven. Even if they hadn't died as steadfast martyrs with a real choice to survive by denying Jesus, it would make a good story to say they did.

[Jaecp]

The Pharisees. And the Sadducees, who didn't believe resurrection was even possible.

And the evidence they did this is available.... where?

[PsychGuy]

And the evidence they did this is available.... where?

You just asked who cared enough. If anyone did, it was certainly them. According to the Gospel narrative they cared enough about the potential for body theft to put guards at the tomb. Matt. 27:62-64. Of course they later fabricated the body theft theory to cover their tracks anyway. Matt. 28:11-15

Sidenote: I wonder how many modern day advocates of the body theft theory actually know that the Bible talks about it? Hm...

[Seasanctuary]

According to the Gospel narrative they cared enough about the potential for body theft to put guards at the tomb. Matt. 27:62-64. Of course they later fabricated the body theft theory to cover their tracks anyway. Matt. 28:11-15

Komarnitsky suggests this series of events:

1. Crucifixion.
2. Belief in resurrection on the third day.
3. Belief in an empty tomb.

4. Christians tell some Jews about the empty tomb and instead of questioning the tomb story, "unsophisticated" Jews took that part at face value and said Christians probably stole the body.
5. Element added that the tomb was guarded.

6. "Unsophisticated" Jewish response that the guards must have fallen asleep.
7. "Unsophisticated" Christian response that the guards were bribed to lie about falling asleep.

8. End results finds its way into the Gospel of Matthew (only) decades later.

[PsychGuy]

Komarnitsky suggests this series of events:

1. Crucifixion.
2. Belief in resurrection on the third day.
3. Belief in an empty tomb.

4. Christians tell some Jews about the empty tomb and instead of questioning the tomb story, "unsophisticated" Jews took that part at face value and said Christians probably stole the body.
5. Element added that the tomb was guarded.

6. "Unsophisticated" Jewish response that the guards must have fallen asleep.
7. "Unsophisticated" Christian response that the guards were bribed to lie about falling asleep.

8. End results finds its way into the Gospel of Matthew (only) decades later.

Interesting suggestion, but after Event 4 pretty speculative.

[Seasanctuary]

Speculation is fine. The goal isn't to prove this particular sequence of events happened, but to show at least one plausible alternative to the Christian version. This defeats the claim that the Christian version is the only plausible version.

[FreezBee]

The idea is that some of Jesus' followers were so invested in Jesus that they could not accept the harsh implication that his death was a failure, so they creatively rationalized until they found a way to understand his death as a necessary part of his victory. Komarnitsky gives two major examples of this sort of thing happening: the UFO cult detailed in Leon Festinger's book When Prophecy Fails & the case of the Jewish messianic hopeful, Sabbatai Sevi, who shockingly converted to Islam.

Very excellent review

But just a minor point: Komarnitsky may be guilty of implicit circular reasoning when When Prophecy Fails as evidence for, what happens, when prophecy fails, because Leon Festinger possibly (as in: he was accused of that) wrote the book with Christianity in mind. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong in the book, it's just that Festinger may have been too selective in choosing what to report.


- FreezBee

[PsychGuy]

Speculation is fine. The goal isn't to prove this particular sequence of events happened, but to show at least one plausible alternative to the Christian version. This defeats the claim that the Christian version is the only plausible version.

Possibility does not equal plausibility.

[Seasanctuary]

Possibility does not equal plausibility.

Well, it's plausible that the true details of historical events might be lost to history. It's plausible that a religious movement might creatively rationalize apparent failure as a success. It's plausible for people to affirm supernatural events which were really natural occurrences. It's plausible for a group's self history to be altered by bias.

What the author has done is link together a conjectural sequence of events and show how each step is something known to happen in other cases.