Orthodox
Christians take the position that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then
Christianity is false. To put it more graphically, unless the tomb of Jesus is
empty, Christianity is false. If we discovered the skeletal remains of Jesus,
that would disprove the Christian faith at one stroke.
However, some unbelievers
argue for a “spiritual resurrection.” They do that to discount postmortem
appearances of Jesus. They chalk these up to subjective visions or
hallucinations.
But there’s a catch. If you
use that argument, then even if you discovered the skeletal remains of Jesus in
Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, that wouldn’t falsify the Christianity faith. That
wouldn’t even falsify the resurrection of Christ. So that argument poses a
dilemma for the unbeliever.
Well, I guess that depends on what unbelievers mean when they say the resurrection appearances were subjective, visionary, or hallucinations. If they mean that the intention of the authors of the NT meant to convey that Jesus appeared to them in visions, hallucinations, etc., and that they didn't believe in a literal physical resurrection, then you're right that the bones of Jesus wouldn't disprove Christianity in that case since the correct Christian position is not that Jesus was raised physically from the dead.
ReplyDeleteBut if they claim the appearances were hallucinations in order to argue that the disciples were mistaken to think Jesus' resurrection was physical, then finding the bones of Jesus WOULD falsify Christianity since the correct Christian position is still that Jesus was raised physically from the dead.