The following is a comment by Farrell Till to "OSM", a
Christian apologist--from the Yahoo errancyn discussion
group, May 3, 1999:
Another posting discussed the way that persuasive devices are
used by those who want extraordinary claims to be believed. A
common persuasive device is the "conspiracy theory," which is
used by those who want extraordinary claims to be believed. A
common persuasive device is the "conspiracy theory," which is
most commonly used to explain the absence of evidence that
one could reasonably expect would exist if an extraordinary claim
were really true. Probably the best contemporary example that
I could cite would be the famous Roswell incident. UFO buffs claim
that an alien spacecraft crashed at Roswell, NM, some 50 years
ago. The simplest way to prove that this happened would be to
produce the wreckage of the spacecraft and the bodies of the
aliens who were aboard it, but no such evidence has ever been
produced. UFO believers have an explanation for the absence
of this evidence: the U. S. government has classified all of the
evidence and kept it from public viewing. In other words, the
U. S. government has conspired to hide from the public that this
incident actually happened.
theory to explain the absence of any disinterested contemporary
references to Jesus of Nazareth or extraordinary events that
should have caused secular records to make some mention of
them. They argue, with no evidence to support it, that the
enemies of Christianity destroyed all such records in order to
contain the spread of Christianity. In other words, the enemies
of Christianity conspired to destroy secular records that referred
to Jesus of Nazareth, and that is why no such records exist.
Some apologists have even used this theory to explain why
there are so many similarities in Christianity and pagan religions,
such as, the virgin birth of a savior-god and his resurrection
from the dead. They actually argue that Satan arranged for
such beliefs as these to develop in paganism prior to Christianity
so that when the real thing came along, people would reject it
as just another tale of a virgin-born, resurrected savior. In other
words, Satan conspired to arrange history so that the coming of
the real savior would be less credible.
In recent weeks, we have been seeing OSM's resort to a variation
of the conspiracy theory in the matter of the Roman guard that
was allegedly posted at the tomb of Jesus. The extraordinary
claim of the gospel writers that Jesus had actually risen from the
dead certainly needed persuasive devices to make it credible, and
Matthew filled his crucifixion/resurrection part of his gospel with
such devices: (1) A Roman centurion seeing events that happened
at the time of Jesus's death allegedly said, "Truly this was the son
of God." This was the familiar device of corroborating testimony
from hostile sources. (2) An earthquake allegedly opened the
tombs of many saints, who rose from the dead and went into the
city where they appeared to many witnesses. This, of course,
would be the device of eyewitness testimony (which in this case
turns out to be only uncorroborated hearsay). (3) Witnesses
allegedly saw the body being wrapped in linen cloth and placed
in a tomb. (4) A Roman guard was allegedly put at the tomb as
a precaution to keep the body of Jesus from being stolen from
the tomb. (5) Witnesses allegedly saw the tomb opened and an
angel telling them that Jesus had risen from the dead. (6) The
guards were allegedly bribed to say that the disciples of Jesus
had come and taken the body of Jesus out of the tomb while
they slept. At this point, Matthew turned to the device of accusing
the enemies of Jesus of conspiring to hide the truth from the
general public.
There is no reason at all why #6 cannot be viewed as just a
variation of the conspiracy theory, which Matthew used for no
other reason than to give some semblance of credibility to an
otherwise unbelievable tale. In the resurrection narratives, the
gospel writers were saying, without actually spelling it out,
"You see, these things did happen, because people saw them,"
but in Matthew's case, he provided the added device of the
conspiracy theory. He was telling his readers, even the enemies
of Jesus know that these things happened, and to keep the
public from knowing that Jesus had risen from the dead, they
conspired to hide the truth by bribing the Roman guards to say
that the disciples of Jesus stole the body while the guards were
sleeping. There is no more reason to believe that the bribery
of the guards actually happened or even that a guard was
placed at the tomb than there is to believe that a Roman
centurion actually said, "Truly this man was the son of God,"
or that an earthquake opened the tombs of many saints who
were resurrected and seen by many people inside the city. OSM
likes to talk about such and such having "the ring of truth." Well,
in my opinion, this tale about the Roman guards and their bribery
has the "ring" of just another persuasive device that a writer
used to try to give some semblance of credibility to an
unbelievable story.
OSM has said that if this tale about what the guards had said
were not true, then those who had lived at the time of the events
would have said, "Hey, I don't remember ever hearing anyone
say anything about guards who claimed that the body had been
stolen," but I will be commenting on this is another posting about
attempts to prove the incredible on the grounds of what would
have or would not have happened if the claim were not true.
Just one more comment is in order concerning the tale that
Matthew spun about the Roman guards. Besides the absurdity
of thinking that Roman guards would have sealed their fate by
saying that they had gone to sleep on duty, there is the matter
of a serious flaw in what the guards were allegedly bribed to say.
The chief priests and elders said to the guards, "Say that his
disciples came by night and stole him away WHILE WE SLEPT"
(Matt.28:13). In concocting this persuasive device, Matthew
showed little respect for the intelligence of the general public,
because anyone with any ability at all to reason critically would
wonder, "Well, if the guards were asleep, how could they know
what happened to the body?" After seeing this flaw in the tale
the guards were telling, what would have kept people from
thinking that since guards who were asleep would not be able
to know what had happened to a body that had vanished, maybe
Jesus, as his disciples were claiming, had indeed risen from the
dead while the guards, by their own admission, were asleep.
Hence, Matthew was actually saying that the guards had accepted
a bribe to say something that would probably have resulted in
their death but would not in any way have proven that Jesus did
not rise from the dead as his disciples were claiming. If OSM
wants to see this as some kind of wonderful evidence that the
resurrection happened as claimed, then all I can say is that there
is no law against gullibility, but he shouldn't assume that everyone
else is as gullible as he is.
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