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Texts>The Myth of the Resurrection
The Gospel Fairy Tale
It is not probable that one modern Christian out of one hundred thousand knows that centuries before the time of Christ the nations annually celebrated the death and resurrection of Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Mithra, and other gods. Tell it to your neighbor, and he will laugh. That is, he will say, the "science" of comparative religion. But I write these books in the hope that directly or indirectly, they will reach Christians. I am giving a full, serious, simple, and easily verified examination of the Christian creed in every aspect; and this aspect with which I now deal is one of the most important, and to me most fascinating, aspects. So I approach it on lines on which any believer may accompany me.
What will he say? Surely not, as the early Christians did, that the devil inspired the pre-Christian nations with these resurrection myths. That is, frankly, childish. We shall in the end search for, and probably find, the real roots of the myth in the early mind of the race. I take it that my religious reader will be puzzled. He ought to have known these things before. Why cannot his writers and preachers candidly face them? All that I ask him to do for the moment is to make, with me, a more careful examination than he has ever made before of the evidence for the resurrection in the New Testament.
There is a remarkable difference between the evidence for the virgin birth and that for the resurrection. I must here assume that the reader has seen Did Jesus Ever Live? (Little Blue Book No. 1084), in which I discuss the age and respective value, or lack of value, of the various writings of the New Testament. Paul comes first: then Mark (except the last part): and so on. Now the earlier parts know nothing whatever about a miraculous birth of Jesus, but they are quite certain of the resurrection. Unless we deny the genuineness of the whole of the Epistles, which is a desperate venture, Paul was absolutely convinced of the resurrection; and this proves that it was widely believed not many years after the death of Jesus. His insistence in the Epistles shows, of course, that it was disputed. The statement was a piece of folly" and a "stumbling block" to the converts from paganism; precisely because they saw resurrection-celebrations every year. But the belief existed, and Paul was sure of it, within a few years of the crucifixion.
Well, let us examine the story as it is told by the writers of the Gospels. Mark, the oldest Gospel, has the simplest account: that is to say, Mark as you read it in your American bible today. It is the easiest thing in the world to prove that these Gospels have received additions and interpolations. Turn to Matthew xxviii 19: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Not only had Jesus given his disciples exactly the opposite instructions (Matthew x 5-7), but he certainly never baptized, or ordered the baptism of, anybody; and he never taught any cut-and-dried Trinitarian doctrine of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It took the Church three centuries to settle these matters. Even orthodox theologians, in fact, admit that this ending has been flagrantly tacked on to the Gospel of Matthew in the fourth century.
Now the oldest manuscripts of Mark end at v 8 of ch. xvi. The rest of the last chapter is in an entirely different style, and it flatly contradicts what precedes. In v 7 an angel says to the women: "Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him, as he said unto you." According to the writer of the Gospel as it originally was, the three women told nobody, for they were afraid. So the new writer (v 9) makes Jesus appear in person to one of the women, and she goes to tell the "mourning and weeping" disciples. They refuse to believe; and a second apparition was heard of by them with the same refusal to believe. These clever men had, presumably, seen daily proof for two or three years that Jesus was God, and Mark says that he had foretold his resurrection to them; but they stubbornly refused to believe in his power to come to life again and they timorously thought that the whole business was ended! The entire passage from v 9 onward is preposterous.
But the earlier part is not much better. The three women went early on a Sunday morning to "anoint" the body of (God) with "spices." How you anoint a body with spices I do not know; or why they waited until two days after the burial. In Judea in April no one would dream of anointing a body two days dead; and Jewish laws permitted them to go after sunset on Saturday. Moreover, they are supposed to know that the tomb is closed with a stone which they cannot move, but they take no man with them, and they idly wonder (v 3) how they can get it done. Then they find "a young man" sitting inside (what one sits on in a tomb is not clear); and, of course, they cannot tell an angel when they see one-and even the word of an angel only frightens them; and we are asked to believe that three gossipy Jewish women-it would be a greater miracle than the resurrection-had these tremendous experiences, and were expressly ordered to tell them, yet went home and told nobody, even that the body of the Lord was missing!
The truth is that the whole final narrative of Mark is a tissue of interpolations and contradictions. Joseph of Arimathea had already (xv 46) had the body properly prepared for burial. Even the officer in charge of the soldiers is made to say, at the cross: "Truly this man was the Son of God." A likely expression for a Roman officer; but the chief point is that with all these portents all the relatives and followers of Jesus are smitten with grief and confusion. They are supposed to know that the most sublime thing in history has happened under their eyes:
God in human shape has died and released mankind from the curse. Yet they weep copiously, and are "amazed," "afraid," and slink off into quiet corners to whisper to each other. It is a most clumsy fabrication. Obviously, some early life of Jesus, in which he was conceived merely as a good man, and was correspondingly mourned, has been crudely tampered with by these later resurrectionists; and, as the first interpolations were not strong enough, more were added. The Church, which the Catholic imagines as "guarding the deposit of revelation" was improving it every half century.
Matthew has another, and still later version, completely contradicting Mark. The tomb is here supposed to be sealed by the Jewish authorities, and a guard set over it. That is to say, the most learned of the Jews are supposed to think that Jesus had foretold his resurrection-while the disciples are uniformly represented as refusing to believe it when it did occur-and thinking that there might be a melodramatic attempt to steal the body and say that he was risen. Then there is a "great earthquake" (not other wise recorded), and even this is not enough to shift the stone, so an "angel of the Lord" (a pure spirit) comes down and puts his shoulder to it, and then sits on it (outside the tomb, not inside, as Mark says), presumably wiping his brow. And the angel's countenance is "like lightning," etc. Yet the ladies in Mark merely thought him a strange "young man," and took no notice of his orders; while Matthew makes them see a squad of hardy soldiers tremble before his glory.
In Matthew, moreover, the two women (who are three in Mark), instead of getting a fright and remaining miraculously dumb, run at once, with "great joy" to tell the disciples. Another touch is added by making Jesus appear to them on the way to Jerusalem; whereas Mark makes the first apparition to one woman only, and at a later date. Then these chocolate soldiers are supposed to go and tell the high priests about the strange business, and the priests bribe them to say that they all fell asleep on sentry duty. In Ch. xxvii (v 65) Pilate has refused a squad of Roman soldiers, and has told the priests to use their own police, which they did. In Ch. xxviii (v 14) the police have turned into Roman soldiers, responsible to "the Governor" (who has expressly refused to have anything to do with the matter); but they are quite willing, for a few dollars, to expose themselves to sentence of death (for sleeping on sentry duty-no priest could save a Roman soldier from sentence for that). But, of course, this is only "if it comes to the governor's ears" (v 14); and a trifle such as a resurrection from the dead, in a quiet city like Jerusalem, was not likely to reach his ears.
Then the disciples are told to go to a secret rendezvous on a mountain in Galilee if they wish to see the risen Lord. They do not believe a word of it, but they go, and they see him. A human body transfigured (now that it no longer lives an earthly life) by an indwelling divine spirit ought to be a wonderful spectacle. No: "some of them doubted." It must have been a very ordinary sight...I really cannot go on. It is too childish for words. Let us try Luke.
Luke (being a doctor, they say) provides the women- there are now "certain others with them"-with "ointments' as well as spices; though he has already made Joseph of Arimathea have the body properly prepared and interred. They do not see a shining angel sitting on the stone outside, smiling at a squad of terror-stricken soldiers (or policemen), as Matthew says, or "a young man" sitting inside, as Mark says. But "two men in shining garments" (strange how persistently Jewish women can't recognize angels) suddenly appear and tell them. They run home and remind the disciples that Jesus had really foretold that he would rise on the third day; a detail which everybody had forgotten. The disciples call this an "idle tale." They think, apparently, according to all the Gospels, that the Jesus they knew was not in the least likely to rise from the dead. It is a nightmare of mysteries-or contradictory inventions.
Then a new version is drawn upon. Some Christian group which follows Peter in opposition to Paul makes him "run" to the tomb; though in the preceding verse he has pooh-poohed the "idle tale." He finds the shroud; and, unfortunately, he does not tell us what Jesus wore when he left this behind. Peter was alone; but the John group in the Church wouldn't have this, so in John (xx 3) Peter runs a race up the hill with John, and is beaten. In John also the details about the linen multiply; naturally, as it is an older Gospel, and the peculiar character of the Gospel narratives is that the farther a writer is removed from the events, the more he knows. Paul knows very little:
Mark a little more than Paul: Matthew and Luke (about the end of the century) still more: and John (well in the second century knows everything.
However, Luke, "the physician," makes Jesus, who now has no metabolism in his transfigured body, walk a few miles with two of the disciples; and so naturally that they never for a moment suspected his identity, though he proved at great length to them how Jesus was bound to die and rise again. He seems to have trodden the dust of the road with them for several hours. However, they go home in great excitement, when they at last realize that their casual acquaintance on the road is God, and they tell the others. And Jesus, who in the two earlier Gospels refuses to meet the disciples in Jerusalem, and appoints a melodramatic meeting-place in Galilee, now appears to them in the city. Although they had been so well prepared (as well as by three years of miracles) they were "terrified and affrighted." Even the marks of the nails on his hands and feet left them skeptical. The only thing that could convince them was, curiously enough, to see that he could eat fish and honey. Finally, in flat contra diction to the earlier Gospels, Jesus tells them not to leave Jerusalem, and they boldly invade the temple and sing the whole story at the top of their voices.
After this we need not linger over John. Another decade or two have added materially to the legend. Now we learn that Nicodemus and Joseph did anoint the body of Jesus; and very effectively, because they are said to have used about a hundredweight of myrrh and aloes (xix 39-40). So Mary Magdalene does not take spices. She is alone, moreover, and she sees no angel and no policemen. She runs home and tells Peter (and, of course, John), and they run a race; and they see no angels; and we are still told, for some mysterious reason, that they had no recollection whatever of Jesus saying that he would rise again. However, Mary goes back-still alone-and sees two angels; and even in face of this glorious vision she sobs and complains that somebody has stolen the body of Jesus. One would think that there were body-snatchers in ancient Judea.
We will suppose that the bright eyes of the retired sinner were dimmed with tears, for the next verse is too strong, even for Orientals: Jesus, the transfigured god man, appears to her, and she thinks that he is the gardener and that he stole the body! "Woman," he says harshly to his friend; but the next moment he whispers tenderly "Mary," and her eyes are opened. "Rabboni" ("My Rabbi"- just what Jesus had said nobody ought to be called), she cries, and apparently . . . anyhow, he has to say, "touch me not." So she tells the disciples, and John agrees with Luke against Mark and Matthew, that Jesus did appear to the disciples in Jerusalem, and that the melodramatic rendezvous on a mountain in Galilee is piffle.
In fact, Jesus appeared twice to them, John says; and, although he walked through a locked door, one of them, "doubting Thomas," wouldn't believe that he was God until he saw that there was a wound in his side. John does, it is true, then send them to Galilee. But it is funny. After Jesus has breathed the Holy Ghost on to them (xx 22), and given them such terrific powers as that of absolving from sin, they return to their humble profession of fisher men on the Sea of Tiberias! And they have to be convinced all over again-by the usual strange evidence of eating- and then, apparently, they go back to business once more.
My dear Christian friend, do you really expect me to take all this seriously? I am accustomed to a critical study of historical documents, and this . . . It is the most appalling jumble of contradictions, and the tale grows under our eyes in the course of the first century. It is as crude as anything in ancient mythology. There is not the slightest pretense of consistency in the various versions and successive additions to the original story. Let us turn to Paul, and see if we can ascertain what the original story was.
We get little help from Acts. The author repeats what he has said in Luke about apparitions, and he enlarges a little upon the ascension; which is not known to any other writer. Jesus, we are asked to believe, took his disciples (as usual) up a "mountain," and from there he rose physically in the air until he disappeared in a cloud. It is perfectly amazing to find people in the twentieth century who regard such statements as historical. It is just the myth of Hercules ascending to heaven in a cloud.
Paul's Epistles are the earliest documents; and they give us to understand that the followers of Jesus believed in his resurrection and his appearances to various friends at least a few years after his death. On any serious canon of evidence that is the only witness to the resurrection that we can be asked to consider. The Gospel stories are late, contradictory, and often absurd. Paul's Epistles were, of course, written long after the death of Jesus, but we must clearly put back his belief in the Resurrection to the time of his conversion. He was convinced by the followers of Jesus at Jerusalem that the prophet had risen from the dead and had been seen by Peter and by the whole eleven (somewhere he says twelve) apostles.
There are certain details in Paul which must be considered. The Epistles are very sparing in details-these had not yet been invented-but Acts puts into the mouth of Paul a speech made in the synagogue at Antioch. In this speech Paul plainly says that it was, as we should normally expect, the Jewish authorities who buried Jesus; and in that case his body would be put in the common pit for the burial of crucified criminals. Paul says (Acts xiii 27-29):
For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, be cause they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which were read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulcher.
This flatly denies all the picturesque details in the Gospels. If a companion of Paul wrote this, as all suppose, the first story of the resurrection was quite different from that in the Gospels. Paul was a Jew, and he knew Jewish law; which not a single Gospel writer seems to have done. There was no need whatever to wait until Sunday morning. The Sabbath prohibition of work ended at sunset. The whole Gospel story is a fiction that could only grow and find acceptance amongst foreigners.
Paul, on the other hand, is the only writer who makes Jesus appear to five hundred at a time. It is amusing to find Christian writers emphasizing this "large number" of witnesses to the resurrection. We have not a single witness to the resurrection. None of the women or men who are supposed to have gone to the tomb and seen Jesus has left us any testimony. A late writer forged a Gospel in the name of John. A still later writer forged in the name of Peter a Gospel with such fantastic details about the resurrection that even the early Christians, whose faith was great, rejected it. And evidently this story of an apparition to five hundred, which circulated early, was in the course of time considered too strong, and was abandoned.
In the end, therefore, we come down to the single statement of Paul that the Jewish authorities cast the body of Jesus into the pit, but some of his followers said that Jesus subsequently appeared to them, and so he must have risen from the dead. Some believed this, and others disbelieved. Paul's insistence implies that, and in one place (I Cor. xv 12) he says that some Christians do not believe in the resurrection of the dead. It was, however, generally believed, and it is useless now to ask how the belief arose. Clearly, according to the earliest versions, the apostles scattered when Jesus was arrested, and they returned to their work as fishermen. Later they said that they had seen the Lord"-such details as those about the women are far later in appearance-and they resumed preaching in his name. Is it a novel thing in religious history for enthusiasts to see visions? Quite the contrary. Down to our own time, in Spiritualism, it is the most common of experiences. Scores of Roman Catholic saints claim to have seen Jesus in the flesh; and the Protestant denies every word of it.
The belief in the resurrection is thus a quite normal event; especially as Jesus was held to be the Messiah, and the resurrection of the Messiah was held to have been predicted. But the elaborate story in the Gospels is not merely a myth. It is a fairy tale; and we clearly see the growth of it from 50 A.D. to 120 A.D. Whether or not the world-wide belief in the resurrection of gods disposed the followers of Jesus to believe in his resurrection, the growth of the story, as the decades went on, is plainly influenced by the other myths, and we will consider them more closely.
