DID THE DISCIPLES CONSPIRE TO LIE ABOUT THE RESURRECTION ?

Was this resurrection story a kind of conspiracy ? Could it be that these 11 men lied about this event because they wanted to start a new world religion, hoping for something to gain ?

Here are key ingredients to a successful conspiracy :

A small number of conspirators : A 2 person conspiracy is a lot better than a 5 person conspiracy because there is less people to rat on you later on.

A short conspiracy timespan : It is easier to hold a lie for a couple of days than for several months.

Excellent communications : You need to to be able to communicate with your partners and know what they are saying, in order to answer questions the same way. If your communications are limited, it can be a big problem.

Little or no pressure put on you.

How did the disciples pull this off ? This conspiracy theory is possible, but it is not reasonable. Here is why it is an impossible conspiracy :

The first problem is TIME : How long were they going to hold on to this lie ? A couple of days or weeks ? NO. They had to hold on for nearly 60 years ! The rest of their lives !

DISTANCE : Were they close to each other ? NO. The one in Italy was pretty far from Thomas in India, in a day when there were no cell phones, no internet, no way to communicate with anybody. Being far away from each other, how can one of them know if the others have not already given this up and recanted? Conspiracies break quickly when there is no communication.

PRESSURE: Were they pressured ? It was not just like : «Tell us the truth or you will go to jail ! », even though that is pressure enough. They were beaten, killed, beheaded, and so on. That was a lot of pressure.

We have problems with this conspiracy : it is too weak. History would have broken this lie easily. Instead we have 11 men who all suffered violent death (except for John, who died of old age) instead of recanting.

What about their MOTIVE to lie? What was in it for them ? There are only 3 motives behind any crime : financial greed, sexual or relationship lust, and pursuit of power.

There have been historic liars, who created religious stories because they had something to gain in one of these 3 areas : financial support from their followers, being able to marry several wives claiming God told them to do so, power with many followers or sometimes even armies !!

But the apostles were beaten to death, slain by the sword, crucified, shot by arrows, or beheaded. All died without financial success, the vast majority died alone, all were persecuted  because of what they said they believed.

For everyone of them, their last day was not a good day. So what possible motive could they have to create this huge lie ?

Even more than that, why would we have women as first reporters at the tomb ? (Matthew 28)

That is no problem today, but at that time, in that country, women could not even get into a court of law as a witness. If I am going to invent a story, I am going to use somebody who has influence and power in the community to whom I am trying to sell a lie, but not women. However that is exactly what happened. Why ? Because they were truly the first witnesses.

If it is not impossible that they lied, it is however not reasonable as it does not adequately explain the evidence : the disciples were transformed following their alleged resurrection observations.

Would you and I die for a lie ?

(To be followed by « Did the disciples hallucinate ? »)