Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? by William Lane Craig Read Free Book Online Page B

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    HALLUCINATION
HYPOTHESIS
    Back in 1835, in his book The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, the German biblical critic David Friedrich Strauss proposed that the resurrection appearances were merely hallucinations on the disciples’ part. The most prominent defender of the Hallucination Hypothesis today is the German New Testament critic Gerd Ludemann. How does it fare when assessed by our criteria?
    1. Explanatory scope: The Hallucination Hypothesis has inadequate explanatory scope. First, it says nothing to explain the empty tomb. Therefore, one must either deny the fact of the empty tomb (and, therefore, the burial as well) or else conjoin an independent hypothesis to the Hallucination Hypothesis to account for the empty tomb.

    Second, the Hallucination Hypothesis fails to explain the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection. Some scholars have made a great deal out of the alleged similarities between the post-mortem appearances of Jesus and visions of recently departed loved ones on the part of bereaved persons. But while such visions are certainly intriguing, the overriding lesson of such experiences is that the bereaved do not as a result of such visions—however real and tangible they may seem—conclude that their deceased loved one has come physically back to life. Rather, the bereaved believe that they have seen their deceased loved one in the afterlife. As N. T. Wright observes, for someone in the ancient world, visions of the deceased were not taken as evidence that the person is alive, but as evidence that he is dead!

    Moreover, in a Jewish context there are more appropriate interpretations of such experiences besides resurrection. Were the disciples to project visions of Jesus after his death, then—given Jewish beliefs about life after death—they would have seen Jesus in heaven or in Abraham’s bosom, where Jews believed the souls of the righteous dead went to abide until the final resurrection. Such visions would not have led, however, to belief in Jesus’ resurrection; at the most, it would have only led the disciples to say that Jesus had been assumed into heaven, not raised from the dead.

    In Jewish thinking, an assumption into heaven is not the same as a resurrection. Assumption is God’s taking someone bodily out of this world into heaven; for example, in the Old Testament stories of Enoch and Elijah, these men did not die but were taken directly into heaven by God. A dead person might also be assumed into heaven. In an extra-biblical Jewish writing called The Testament of Job (40), the story is told of two children killed in the collapse of a house. When the rescuers clear away the rubble, the bodies of the children are nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, their mother sees a vision of the two children glorified in heaven, where God has taken them up.
    In contrast to assumption into heaven, the Jewish conception of resurrection is God’s raising up of a dead person in the space-time universe. The person is not taken out of this world, but raised up in it. Assumption and resurrection are, therefore, distinct categories in Jewish thought.
    Given Jewish beliefs concerning assumption and resurrection, the discovery of the empty tomb and hallucinations of Jesus would at most have caused the disciples to think that Jesus had been assumed into glory, for this was consistent with their Jewish frame of thought. But they wouldn’t have come to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead, for this fundamentally contradicted Jewish beliefs about the resurrection of the dead. Thus, even given hallucinations, belief in Jesus’ resurrection remains unexplained.
    2. Explanatory power: Not only does the Hallucination Hypothesis say nothing to explain the empty tomb and the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection, but it also has weak explanatory power even when it comes to explaining the appearances. Let’s suppose that Peter experienced a guilt-induced