Where There’s Blayze

Recently, I had the opportunity to ask Alex O’Conner a question at a show.

Here is how it went;

My question was not simply whether he believed the resurrection happened. I wanted to ask something slightly more fundamental:

Given the historical evidence we have for Jesus, and given the extraordinary rise of the Christian movement in the years following His death, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, what does Alex think actually happened?

I didn’t get the opportunity to respond to his answer on the night. Now that the video has been released, I wanted to take some time to respond to the points he raised.

I want to begin by saying that I don’t think Christians should be afraid of difficult questions about the resurrection. There are disputed sources, there are details we cannot establish with absolute certainty, and there are passages in the New Testament about which historians disagree.

But there is a difference between identifying difficulties with one explanation and providing a better explanation.

That distinction is important throughout this discussion.

Did the Resurrection Become More Mythological Over Time?

One of Alex’s arguments was that the resurrection accounts become increasingly detailed and supernatural as we move from Mark to Matthew, Luke and John.

He particularly pointed out that the earliest and best-attested manuscripts of Mark end at Mark 16:8 rather than including the later ending describing appearances of Jesus. That observation is correct.

But I don’t think it establishes that the resurrection itself was a later mythological development.

For a start, Mark already presents Jesus as a miracle-worker, an exorcist and the Son of God. Mark also has Jesus predicting both His death and His resurrection. The supernatural element is therefore not something that suddenly appears in Matthew, Luke and John.

More importantly, Mark is not our earliest surviving Christian source.

Paul’s letters predate the written Gospels. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes:

“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received…”

He then summarises the Christian message that Christ died, was buried, was raised on the third day, and appeared to Cephas, the Twelve, more than five hundred people, James and the apostles.

That matters because Paul doesn’t present this as a revelation that he invented himself. He explicitly says that he received this tradition and then passed it on.

There is considerable scholarly discussion about exactly how early this tradition is, but many scholars regard the material in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5 as a pre-Pauline tradition that predates Paul’s letter by some period of time. Some scholars have argued that it may go back remarkably close to the events themselves.

We should be careful here. We cannot prove that the tradition originated at a precise date, such as exactly five years after Jesus’ death. But we can say something much more defensibly:

Resurrection belief appears extremely early in Christianity.

It is therefore difficult to explain Christianity as a movement in which the resurrection gradually became a myth over many decades. The resurrection is already at the centre of Paul’s proclamation in the earliest Christian writings we possess.

And when we come to John’s Gospel, the existence of additional details does not necessarily indicate fabrication.

John presents plenty of material that makes the disciples look less than heroic. Peter denies Jesus. The disciples misunderstand Him. Thomas doubts.

That is not quite what we would expect if the sole purpose of the later Gospel were to create an increasingly impressive legend around the original witnesses.

John also explicitly says that he has not recorded everything Jesus did. His Gospel is selective by design.

So the mere fact that later accounts contain additional details doesn’t demonstrate that those details were invented. It may simply reflect different authors, different purposes and different traditions.

What About the Road to Emmaus and Doubting Thomas?

Alex also suggested that accounts such as the Road to Emmaus and Doubting Thomas may function more like theological stories than straightforward historical reports.

Now while I believe these accounts to be historically true, I think it is fair to say that this is at least possible.

Ancient historians and storytellers could certainly communicate theological ideas through narrative.

But even if we grant that possibility, it doesn’t resolve the wider historical question.

Paul does not describe his encounter with Jesus as though it were simply a metaphor.

He believed he had genuinely encountered the risen Christ.

Someone can certainly argue that Paul was mistaken. That is a possibility which deserves consideration. But it doesn’t seem adequate to explain Paul’s language as nothing more than theological symbolism.

And Paul’s experience is only one piece of the puzzle.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul refers to appearances to Cephas, the Twelve, James and others. He even refers to a group of more than five hundred people.

We don’t have independent testimony from all of those individuals, so we shouldn’t overstate what this proves. But it does demonstrate something historically important:

The earliest Christian claim was that people had actually experienced encounters with the risen Jesus.

That is very different from saying that, decades later, Christians invented resurrection stories because they wanted to make theological points.

Even if someone convinced me that one particular Gospel story contains substantial theological shaping, I would still be left with the much larger question of what caused the earliest Christians to become convinced that Jesus had risen.

What About the Martyrdom of the Apostles?

Alex also challenged Christian claims about the deaths of the apostles.

Here I think some caution is appropriate.

There are later Christian traditions about the deaths of various apostles, and some of those traditions come from apocryphal or otherwise late sources. We should not pretend that every detail of every martyrdom can be established with certainty.

But that doesn’t mean everything is therefore worthless.

We do however know that Josephus records the execution of James, the brother of Jesus.

In Antiquities 20, Josephus describes James as “the brother of Jesus who was called Christ” and says that he was condemned to death by stoning. The passage is widely regarded as authentic by Josephus scholars.

Josephus is therefore an important independent source for the existence of James and his execution.

And even if we set aside disputed traditions about the precise deaths of individual apostles, the broader historical question remains.

The earliest Christians were proclaiming that Jesus had risen from the dead.

They were willing to organise their lives around that proclamation.

They travelled, preached and endured opposition.

Paul, for example, went from being a persecutor of the early Christian movement to becoming one of its most important missionaries.

And Paul tells us that he personally met Cephas, or Peter, and James, the brother of Jesus.

That doesn’t prove the resurrection.

But it does give us a historical situation that needs explaining.

And Christian suffering itself is not merely a much later invention.

Tacitus, writing about Nero’s persecution of Christians, independently refers to Christians in Rome and identifies Christus as the figure who had been executed under Pontius Pilate.

The basic point remains:

The earliest Christian movement faced real opposition and suffering, and its central proclamation was that Jesus had risen.

That deserves an explanation.

What About the Guards at the Tomb?

Alex also questioned Matthew’s account of guards being placed at Jesus’ tomb.

His argument was essentially that Matthew introduces the guards in response to an accusation that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body, making the story look like a later apologetic invention.

There is certainly a possible apologetic function here.

But even if Matthew is responding to an objection, that does not demonstrate that the event he describes was fabricated.

An author responding to an objection can be responding to a genuine historical claim.

More importantly, the guard story is not carrying the entire case for the resurrection.

Even if I became convinced tomorrow that Matthew’s account of the guards was unreliable, that would not establish that Jesus was not resurrected.

It would simply mean that one particular piece of evidence was weaker than I had previously thought.

And that is an important distinction.

The resurrection case does not stand or fall on whether Matthew’s guards were present.

The Real Issue: What Is the Alternative Explanation?

This is where I think Alex’s answer struggled most.

My question was not simply:

“Can you give me reasons to doubt the resurrection?”

Of course he can.

There are objections to every historical reconstruction.

My question was:

“If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, what do you think happened instead?”

That is a different question.

Suppose we suggest that the body was stolen.

Okay.

Who stole it?

If the Romans took the body, why?

And if the authorities possessed Jesus’ body, why would they not simply produce it when Christians began proclaiming the resurrection?

Suppose the disciples stole it.

Then we have another problem.

The disciples would have known that the resurrection was a lie.

Why would they devote themselves to proclaiming something they knew was false?

Why would they travel, suffer and accept persecution for it?

Again, I don’t want to make claims stronger than the evidence permits. We cannot prove the exact fate of every apostle or say with certainty that every later martyrdom tradition is accurate.

But we don’t need to.

We have very early evidence that resurrection was the central message of Christianity.

We have Paul’s testimony that he received that message from earlier Christians.

We have his claim to have encountered Jesus himself.

And we have his personal contact with leading figures such as Peter and James.

So a historical explanation has to account for those facts.

Perhaps the disciples had visions.

Perhaps grief contributed to visionary experiences.

Perhaps there was some kind of mistaken belief about the tomb.

Perhaps traditions developed in important ways.

Perhaps several things happened together.

These are all hypotheses worth examining.

But simply listing possible alternatives isn’t enough.

The question is:

Which explanation best accounts for the evidence?

That’s how historical reasoning works.

It isn’t enough to say that a resurrection is extraordinary and therefore unlikely.

You have to compare the resurrection hypothesis with the alternatives and ask which one actually makes the best sense of the evidence.

Does Christianity’s Historical Success Prove It Is True?

Alex also pushed back against the idea that Christianity’s historical success demonstrates its truth.

On that point, I agree with him.

Christianity becoming a global religion does not, by itself, prove Christianity is true.

Islam became extraordinarily influential.

Other religions have produced civilisations, intellectual achievements and cultural movements.

Religious success is not a simple test of truth.

But that doesn’t mean the rise of Christianity is historically irrelevant.

The interesting question isn’t merely:

“Why did Christianity become successful?”

It is:

“Why did Christianity emerge around this particular claim?”

A crucified Jewish teacher was at the centre of a movement proclaiming that God had raised Him from the dead.

That claim wasn’t merely that Jesus’ memory lived on.

It was a claim about resurrection.

And that proclamation appears very early.

So Christianity’s eventual success doesn’t prove the resurrection, but the origin of the movement still requires an explanation.

Applying the Same Standard

I also think there is a broader methodological issue here.

We should be sceptical when examining ancient history.

But our scepticism should be consistent.

We don’t normally demand the kind of documentary certainty from ancient figures that would be impossible for virtually all ancient history.

Much of what we know about ancient people comes from sources written after the events, sources with biases, and sources that sometimes disagree with one another.

That doesn’t mean we should accept everything those sources say.

It means we assess them.

We ask who wrote them, when they wrote them, what access they had to information, whether their claims fit what we know from other sources, whether they have possible motives for distortion, and how well different sources corroborate one another.

The question should not be:

“Can I find any reason to doubt this source?”

Almost always, the answer is yes.

The question should be:

“Given the evidence we have, what is the most reasonable historical conclusion?”

And that standard should be applied to Jesus just as it is to anyone else.

What About the Hallucinogen Theory?

Finally, Alex mentioned the possibility that the Last Supper may somehow have involved a hallucinogenic substance.

This was perhaps the strangest suggestion to me because of the evidential standard it requires.

The Gospel accounts place the meal in the context of Passover.

But where is the historical evidence that a hallucinogenic substance was involved?

I have not seen evidence establishing that.

And that matters because throughout this discussion the standard being applied to the resurrection is that extraordinary claims require sufficient evidence.

I agree.

But then that same standard has to apply to the alternative theories.

We cannot reject the resurrection because we believe the evidence is insufficient and then replace it with a hypothesis for which there is even less historical evidence.

It is perfectly legitimate to speculate about what might have happened.

But speculation should be labelled as speculation.

It should not be treated as though it has the same evidential foundation as the historical sources we’re actually evaluating.

So What Happened?

And this is where I ultimately come back to the question I asked Alex.

I am not claiming that every detail of every Gospel account is beyond dispute.

I’m not claiming that every later Christian tradition about the apostles is historically reliable.

I’m not claiming that the growth of Christianity proves the resurrection.

And I’m not claiming that every objection to the resurrection is easily answered.

While I still believe those things, what I am really saying is that there is a historical phenomenon that needs to be explained.

Jesus was crucified.

Very early after His death, His followers were proclaiming that God had raised Him from the dead.

Paul tells us that this resurrection tradition was something he had received from earlier Christians.

He personally claimed to have encountered the risen Jesus.

He personally met Peter and James.

The movement centred on this proclamation despite opposition and suffering.

And the Christian movement subsequently spread throughout the Roman world.

None of those facts, taken individually, proves that Jesus rose from the dead.

But taken together, they create a historical puzzle.

And that is the puzzle I wanted Alex to answer.

Because saying:

“The sources aren’t reliable”

isn’t really an alternative explanation.

Saying:

“Maybe the body was stolen”

isn’t really an alternative explanation until we establish who stole it, why they stole it, what happened to the body, and why the earliest Christians responded as they did.

Saying:

“Maybe they hallucinated”

doesn’t, by itself, explain why the resurrection proclamation emerged so early or account for the different people involved.

And saying:

“Maybe Christianity simply developed into this story over time”

has to reckon with the fact that resurrection belief is already present in the earliest Christian sources we possess.

So perhaps the resurrection didn’t happen.

That possibility should be taken seriously.

But if it didn’t happen, then I want to know what did.

What happened that explains why this particular group of first-century Jews became convinced that their crucified Messiah had risen from the dead?

That is, ultimately, still the question.

And until I am given a better explanation for the evidence, I don’t think the resurrection can simply be dismissed as an unsupported Christian assumption.

It remains, at the very least, a historical explanation that deserves to be seriously considered.

A Note on the Question

I think it is only fair to give a little context to the question I asked on the night.

I was the final question of the evening, and Alex had already been told that he needed to wrap things up. I honestly didn’t expect him to have much time to hear my question, let alone give it a detailed answer.

But Alex not only took the time to listen, he was incredibly respectful and gave me a far more thorough response than I had any right to expect given the circumstances.

I’m sure that, had there been more time, Alex would have been able to expand on his answer considerably. What I received was most likely the headline version of what would need to be a much deeper conversation. So this response isn’t intended to suggest that I think I’ve exhausted everything Alex would say on the subject. Rather, I’m responding to the points he was able to raise in the limited time available.

With all of that said, it really was a wonderful evening.

I would genuinely encourage anyone who has the opportunity to go and see Alex to get a ticket. He is a fascinating thinker, he engages respectfully with people who disagree with him, and I was very grateful to have the opportunity to ask him a question and hear his response.

Whatever conclusions you ultimately come to, I think conversations like that are worth having.