Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave edited by Robert Price and Jeff Lowder is currently the most significant attempt to refute the Resurrection around. But it's not as imposing you may think, because a good chunk of it is old news -- including some we have done before -- and as a whole, the old news hasn't changed much or at all in the way of content.

Some may say that some of these replies are very short. Yes, they are -- because in a couple of cases, the arguments were so outrageous that no more was needed than a short response; but also in a couple of cases, I do agree that the arguments being answered were not good enough to defend. But some were short enough to just put here.

As of June 2009, also, I have elected to remove some of these critiques because I plan to include updated versions in my upcoming book Defending the Resurrection, which I plan to complete by the middle of 2010.

Introduction by Robert Price -- comments

Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence to Establish the Resurrection of Jesus?, Robert Greg Cavin -- this essay originally appeared in the academic periodical, Faith and Philosophy. Our reply is short enough to put here on this summary page.

Long before Empty Tomb had been conceived or at least largely heard of, Cavin was otherwise known well for a dissertation in which he proposed an idea (also used in a debate with William Lane Craig) that:

• Jesus had an identical twin who was separated from Jesus at birth, and does not see him again until the time of the crucifixion;
• when this twin realizes who Jesus is (a famous person), he concocts a messianic mission for Jesus, steals his body from the tomb, and
• pretends to be the resurrected Christ afterwards.

To be fair, though, Cavin is more reasonable -- by a hair -- in this essay. But not by much. Cavin's argument can be summed up with a few points:

1. It is claimed by apologists that Jesus came back to life in a supernatural, immortal body which never aged, could never be hurt, and could do all sorts of neat stuff.
2. But no one was able to try to test this proposition by throwing Jesus off a cliff, or making sure he didn't age after a few years, or setting him on fire, or dropping a nuke on him.
3. To use Cavin's own words: "Thus we have no evidence that Jesus didn't catch a bad cold in 43 C.E. or that he didn't cut himself on a rock one hundred years later. We have no evidence that he didn't succumb to gangrene or a blow to the head in 503 C.E. or that he wasn't shriveled with old age in the year 1200 C.E." Why, we can't even assume, if we grant that he was able to materialize in and out of rooms at will, that this meant he was otherwise resurrected as defined.
4. So, how do we know that Jesus was not raised from the dead by, say, "one of the Watchers of the pseudepigraphic book of Enoch" or a member of a group of "technologically advanced but unscrupulous aliens (e.g., the Talosians of Star Trek)" who then forced him to say or tricked him into thinking he was who he was. This can't be denied because it is "conceptually possible".

All of this one might think deserves an answer. And I have one:

1. "Robert Greg Cavin" is a malicious time travelling atheist from the year 2300 AD, named Gorby Glorp, who saw the final resurrection at hand and used his time machine to come here so he could evade it, and he used genetic technology to change himself into, and replace, the real "Robert Greg Cavin" at age 4, and being such a malicious person decided to compose this essay (and the "twin theory") as a way of trying to keep people from becoming Christians, because he decided he doesn't want to go to hell alone but take as many of those "d*** Christians" with him as he can.
2. Also, he's secretly married to, and lives with, Acharya S.

Why do I need to say more? It's "conceptually possible," after all.

The Resurrection As Initially Improbable, Michael Martin -- this essay is a compiliation of material from several articles in the journal Philo. My answer is short enough to put here.

From the beginning of analysis, I find Michael Martin's attempts to assess the probability of the Resurrection to be thoroughly misinformed. Admittedly, it is no surprise that someone who thought that Jesus' injunctions against "swearing" were prohibitions of profanity (! -- as Martin thought in his book The Case Against Christianity) would make a number of serious mistakes assessing the resurrection's probability where the factors involve social and contextual matters relevant to Biblical culture.

In any event, I find most or all of Martin's analysis to be misdirected, and so irrelevant to any argument I would make. To sum it up in points:

• Martin's assumption is that miracles are a "violation of the laws of nature" [46]. Yet this dichotomy, as I have said elsewhere, is an artificial, post-Enlightenment distinction. God resurrecting Jesus is no more a "violation" of nature's laws than one of us picking up a box is a "violation" of the law of gravity.

  While God's work may involve acts beyond our present (or practically possible) range of competence, the basic manipulation of matter and energy that the resurrection would have constituted is no more in violation of natural law than the picking up of a box. Miracles are merely God acting in nature as any person would.

  Thus Martin's argument against the probability of the resurrection, based on alleged "violations" of nature's laws, and any alleged confusion they may cause (to whom, we might ask, and to what extent proven valid?), fails.

• Martin refers briefly to his critique of the atonement; we found his analysis deficient some time ago, and it is now moreso since we have further developed our views of the atonement in light of agonistic social principles.
• Rather peculiar is Martin's point that "God could have become incarnated and have died for sinners on an indefinite number of other occassions" and thus there is "no a priori reason to suppose that he would have become incarnated and have died as Jesus in first-century Palestine. Indeed, given the innumerable alternatives at God's dispoal it would seem a priori unlikely that the incarnation and the resurrection would have taken place where and when they allegedly did." [49]

  Martin never explains why any of this is so. What particularly is "wrong" with the first century, or with Palestine, that makes these "unlikely" as a time or a locale? Has Martin performed some sort of "Turtledove Analysis" showing that God would more likely have chosen 16th century Bolivia for the incarnation and resurrection? Or 13th century BC Tierra del Fuego? Or 19th century India?

  Obviously one time and place had to be best; but barring any serious analysis of alternatives, Martin is merely offering smoke and mirrors.

  Let us assume that God determined every part of the universe, including all future events. The universe could have been any of an innumerable alternatives to what it actually is and will be. If every alternative had an a priori equal chance of existence, then the universe at Jesus Christ's time nearly had no chance of existence (each of an infinite number of possibilities has zero probability).

  Yet we do have an universe to live in and it is this present one. "Bafflegab!" would be a good rejoinder to Martin's argument. (Thanks to my tech guy, "Sylvester," for this last point.)

• Martin's comments on the purpose of the resurrection as being "redemption" [51] are misguided; but we shall say more of this in our reply to Drange.

Why Resurrect Jesus?, Theodore Drange -- I am removing this reply for presentation in my book Defending the Resurrection.

Apocryphal Apparitions: 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 as a Post-Pauline Interpolation, Robert M. Price -- yes, it's what we already refuted here

The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb, Richard Carrier -- I am removing these for presentation in Defending the Resurrection.

The Case Against the Empty Tomb, Peter Kirby II -- this has appeared on the Secular Web, though I have not answered it until now.

The Burial of Jesus in Light of Jewish Law, Richard Carrier -- because Glenn Miller previously answered an earlier version of this here I will give some time for Miller to take it up if he so desires, but will do a chapter in Defending the Resurrection either way.

Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig, Jeffery Jay Lowder II -- I find in this chapter nothing not found in Kirby's or in other materials in this book, so it will receive no specific reply

Taming the Tehom: The Sign of Jonah in Matthew, Evan Fales -- a version of this appeared in the Journal of Higher Criticism in 2001. Comments are short enough to put here.

2000 years from now, Evan Fales VII will use the same criteria as the present Evan Fales to decide that Abraham Lincoln never existed because he fits a mythic hero archaetype. In the same way, Fales' chapter claims that we ought to read the Gospels (and particularly for the essay, Matthew 12:39-40) as some sort of myth, not in terms of history.

Since Fales' argument is refuted by a few points reaffirming intent of historicity in Matthew, that's all we'll need to do.

• Generally, the technique and argument of Fales here falls under the analyses provided here and here
• Fales' attempt to take the Gospels out of the genre of ancient biography is a particular failure. His only arguments against the classification are not informed by the classic and definitive study of Burridge; he also points to bioi of Aesop, Pythagoras, and Apollonius [310], though it is not clear why he thinks these change anything.

  Perhaps Fales supposes that the presence of miraculous events renders these bioi into the myth category, but it is hardly clear that ie, Damis intended his reports to be taken as anything but credible history concerning the life of his hero.

  Fales' only other argument is a vague reference to variety within Judaism, which does not in any sense show that there was some otherwise unattested category-genre of "myth-biography".

• Likewise given less attention than needed is the understanding of Matt. 12:39-40 which we note here. Fales merely dismisses this understanding as "grasping at straws" (while apparently, wholesale invention of a genre of mythic bioi is not?) because, even though Jesus was indeed addressing scribes and Pharisees, Fales asks, "can one seriously suppose him to have relied on such arcane, obscure, and probably contentious halachic (legal) technicalities in this context?"

  Yes, one can, and Fales does not explain why one can not. The matter is neither obscure nor arcane, in terms of what an educated Jew would understand; contentious it may have been, but that is beside the point, since it would still assume values offered by two or more sides. The explanation also does cover "three nights," Fales notwithstanding; his bare dismissal is thus inadequate.

In place of a straightforward reading that respects the clear genre of Matthew, Fales offers an eisegetical tour de force in which Matt. 12:39-40 is a myth-form transmitting a message about order and chaos, which he also sees as interconnected with Matt. 26. It is odd that Fales rejects the above understanding as "arcane" while also requiring a dozen pages or more to explain why we ought to read Matt. 12:39-40 the way he does instead. Is Fales seriously arguing that our reading would be more "arcane" and "obscure" to Matthew's readers than his would be?

Little more needs to be said. Fales' familiarity with the relevant Biblical scholarship is dismal; his lack of knowledge of Burridge's study of the bioi genre (and his false claim that Talbert said that the Gospels were in the genre of myth (336); his acceptance of the "rulers of the age" in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 as heavenly beings (refuteed here; his acceptance of standard arguments about the trial of Jesus (refuted here) make it clear that Fales' level of familiarity with the literature is selective at best.

The Plausibility of Theft, Richard Carrier -- this appeared in the Journal of Higher Criticism in Fall 2001. Removed for my book Defending the Resurrection.

Financial Aspects of the Resurrection, J. Duncan M. Derrett -- originally appeared in The Journal of Higher Criticism, Spring 2003. Reply short enough to put here.

Derrett once wrote a book titled Anastasis in which he suggested that Jesus survived the crucifixion but was later dead, "and was creamted while the remains of Passover lambs were being burnt." The idea that Jesus had survived the crucifixion is one we have refuted before. It speaks for itself that Derrett's reply to criticism on such points is: "No matter how far-fecthed my story may be, my friends, it is nowhere near as far-fetched as a resurrection."

Derrett maintains this view as well in this chapter. Apart from that, his thesis amounts to an idea that Christianity emerged as a product to be sold in order to keep the Apostles in the money, as it were. In between some rather astonishing anti-Semitic turns of phrase (e.g., "the classic fetishes of Jewry" and some comments to the effect that Jews have a special gift for handling money!) Derrett appeals specifically to only one example of someone who allegedly died and came back to life, from Plutarch's Moralia 7. However, this is a story of a man who fell on his neck and resuscitated at his funeral three days later. Plutrach even says the man had no wound on him. This cannot be compared to a crucifixion.

Im terms of how that money was made, Derrett supposes that Joseph of Arimathea may have beem hoping that by having a holy man in his own tomb, he would thereafter have a commodity that "would be valuable as a magnet for speculators who auctioned scarce grave-plots" and also as a "place to work necromantic spells" or as a place for pilgrimage and also provide a trade in relics.

These ideas are countered by the simple fact that as one crucified, Jesus would no longer be regarded as a "holy man". After this Derrett once again offers a catch-all retort: "Money is a powerful motivator."

One may ask if there is any reply one can make to Derrett's thesis that he will not answer by either saying, "Money is a powerful motivator" or "Anything is more likely than a resurrection". In other words, Derrett has made his thesis falsifiable, so that if a resurrection actually did occur, we would never be able to argue for it -- and that makes his entire thesis epistemically of no worth.

By This Time He Stinketh: The Attempts of William Lane Craig to Exhume Jesus, Robert M. Price -- same we already refuted here

Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli on the Hallucination Theory, Keith Parsons -- some material taken from Parsons' prior work in Why I Am Not a Christian. Will reappear in Defending the Resurrection.

Swinburne on the Resurrection, Michael Martin -- this is an expansion of a book review that appeared in the periodical Religious Studies. We have a reply that includes comments from Dr. Swinburne plus my own reflections.

Reformed Epistemology and Biblical Hermeneutics, Evan Fales -- this appeared in the journal Philo in 2001. Because it is addressed to a position I do not hold, I will not be offering a reply.

-JPH