Easter: The Conspiracy Theory
My GCSE in Catholic RE was divided into two modules. The first module consisted of a detailed study of Mark’s Gospel, and the second was titled more ominously, Catholic Social Teaching. This mostly involved a valiant attempt on behalf of the religious staff to initiate us into “understanding” why we were not permitted to do pretty much anything fun we could think of. Our most infamous essay title ever involved explaining why contraception was a form of abortion. Prolife as I am, I nevertheless find that a virtually impossible argument to make, bearing in mind that this was ten years ago when the Morning After Pill was not really a concept which anyone was familiar with. But one of the things we covered in this course was Catholic feast days, and this obviously entailed a fair bit of time spent studying the feast of Easter; the most important festival in the whole calendar of the Church. One worksheet we were given really stood out for me; it listed alternative theories to the hypothesis that Jesus had risen from the dead.
To some of you, this may sound a little dumb 
But to me, aged 16 and a half, it had never occurred for an instant that Jesus had *not* risen from the dead. As far as I was concerned, the fact that he had done so was as self evident as the idea that the world was round. It was a given, not something it was possible to argue against.
Today, depending on what kind of mood I am in, I may concede to you in an argument that God does not exist. And yet, even now I struggle with the concept that Jesus might not have risen. At the very least, for me it is something which needs a major amount of explaining away.
If it isn’t true, if say one of the disciples stole the body away and pretended Jesus had risen, that means the whole of Christianity is based not just on a foolish superstition but on an outright lie. And I ask myself, what did any of those disciples have to gain by lying? Bearing in mind that they all went on to die gruesome deaths for their faith, and bearing in mind that the gospels generally show them up to be great cowards during Jesus’ lifetime, would they really have been prepared to undergo such torture for the sake of something they knew wasn’t true? Where did their new found courage come from if not from the Holy Spirit? Would the Peter who denied Jesus three times before his death not have jumped up and confessed actually it was all a load of crap, rather than be nailed to a cross upside down?
Those are not my original thoughts, they are rather the thoughts on my GCSE worksheet, but they are thoughts which I still find worth thinking about. The fact that Christianity spread halfway round the globe does not mean Jesus rose from the dead, but if he did not it is a feat which somehow to me seems much more incredible. I struggle to see how anyone would have the motivation to convert people to a lie. Money is obviously a good motive, but back in those very early days I can’t see that money entered into it, not in the way it does for our modern day cults. So this afternoon I have worked from the basis that God does not exist and been doing a bit of internet googling to come up with a list of the most plausible ways to explain the nagging problem of the resurrection.
The Stolen Body Theory
This is the most common theory I have hit upon. The followers of Jesus removed the body from the tomb, successfully hid it somewhere and went round telling people Jesus had risen. Several of the gospels, I think, mention the fear of either the Jews or the Romans that this could happen, so it is not entirely implausible. On the other hand, most gospels report the tomb as being well guarded which would have complicated matters slightly. The disciples would have needed all the guards to fall asleep simultaneously, or else a great deal of money with which to bribe them. Neither scenario is impossible, but my point from above still stands; what did any of the disciples have to gain by stealing the body? Life would surely have been a lot simpler for them if they’d given Jesus up as a bad job and moved on. They had wives and jobs they could have gone back to. Admittedly, after the way they’d been gallivanting round Galilee for the past few years they may have had a bit of making up to do with the wives, but even so could enduring their wrath really be worse than a life on the run destined to end in a painful martyrdom? Perhaps it depends on the wife!
The disappearing body theory
This theory simply suggests that the body vanished, perhaps stolen by someone other than a follower of Jesus. I find this one a lot more plausible, because I can imagine that the disciples, when confronted with an empty tomb, might have managed to convince themselves that Jesus had risen and even had a few hysterical hallucinations where they were convinced they had seen him. That kind of thing would be like the Emperor’s New Clothes I think, where if one person said they could see him no one else would be brave enough to admit they could not. This hypothesis also gets over the barrier of why they spread Christianity; if they really believed in it themselves, it makes a lot more sense. The only question it leaves unanswered is who stole the body and why? I struggle to see whose interests it would be in to get rid of the corpse. Surely not in the interests of the authorities?
The Get Up And Walk Theory
More commonly called the Swoon Theory, this one asserts that Jesus wasn’t dead when he was taken from the cross, and later got up and walked off. I don’t think personally it’s an idea which should be taken very seriously. I mean, someone who had undergone crucifixion for several hours would surely be in a highly weakened state, and one of the gospels describes Jesus being speared in the side to ensure he is no longer alive. Other people point, however, to the fact that he was on the cross for a lot less time than was common for death by crucifixion. Plus, the gospels explicitly state that his legs were not broken, contrary to usual custom, and so had he suddenly come to in the tomb it is not impossible that he might have managed to stand up. But where on earth would he have gone to? What would he have done? Why did none of his friends ever hear from him again? I find this hypothesis a bit hard to swallow 
I have also come across some even weirder and wonderful theories which I’m not sure anyone could take seriously but which were quite fun to read 
* The Twin Theory - I think this one is rather cool. I’m getting a very amusing mental image of Mary trying to tell Joseph that she has immaculately conceived twins! But yeah, one suggestion is that Jesus had a secret twin who went round appearing to people after his death. Or in a possible variant, Jesus screws the twin over and gets him crucified whilst he himself lives happily ever after.
*The Drug Theory – Jesus used drugs to fake his own death, sending himself into a comatose state from which he later awakened in the tomb. Possible motives include a desire to convince to Jews he was the Messiah and thus seize political power, or an urge to conduct an affair with Mary Magdaline. Actually I just made that last bit up, but you have to admit she *was* the first person to the tomb so we only have her word for it that he wasn’t there 
Plus if you recall, when the disciples finally arrive they find all Jesus’ cloths neatly folded up in the corner. One might interpret that as a woman’s touch; how many men do you know who fold their clothes?
Hmmm. The long and the short of it is that I haven’t discovered an earth shatteringly convincing explanation which has destroyed all doubt in my mind and made me think with total certainty, “Aha, so that’s what happened!” In some ways, the explanation of Jesus rising from the dead appears to fit the facts much more adequately than any of the non-supernatural explanations. And yet I guess it depends how we define the facts. Pretty much all of the websites I have read, although for the most part written by atheists, have been composed with the assumption that all of the other details in the Bible are correct. In some ways, that seems a strange viewpoint from which to start. After all, if there was a massive fraud going on, the disciples would have taken great care in later years to ensure that everything which was written in the gospels stacked up and pointed towards a resurrection conclusion. So perhaps there weren’t really guards on the tomb or a stone rolled across it; perhaps those things don’t have to be explained away. I don’t know; the extent to which Biblical accounts of Jesus can be verified with reference to independent historical sources is completely unknown to me, never having had occasion to doubt that anything written in the Bible is true, and not something I intend to get into today.
I would like to hear what Dawkins has to say on the matter. In the meantime, it’s an interesting topic for speculation. Not least because of how mind blowing it is that potentially what started as a private lie between a small group of men two thousand years ago has irrevocably changed the course of world history forever. My mother always told me that lies can run away with you and I’ve managed a few shameful episodes of my own, but this would be something in a whole league of its own 
Tags: Easter, resurrection theories