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Series Code: GFF
Program Code: GFF000013S
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00:03 ♪ ♪ Subodh K. Pandit, M.D.
00:55 Welcome back again, this time Session Twelve. When we finished 01:01 Session Eleven we realized that something had to have occurred 01:04 to explain the presence of such a following that Jesus has today 01:10 in the world. It is the largest following. It cannot be 01:15 explained by what we saw in the last session, by such a horrible 01:20 start to a life, the shortest ministry and the worst ending. 01:24 There had to be something that occurred for us to explain it 01:29 and that is why this session starts off with saying what 01:33 happened after death? In Hinduism there is cremation, 01:38 mourning and scattering of the ashes over and into the river 01:42 Ganges or Ganga - the holy river - signifying a merger with the 01:46 eternal. And after that memorials and shrines are 01:50 erected and then what that individual has done is passed 01:54 over to another who then carries on the tradition and the 01:58 writings get more and more complicated, complex and the 02:01 ideas get expounded even better. In Buddhism, after he died for 02:08 some days those who were around him worshipped the relics, 02:12 whatever was left, with devotion and then divided those relics 02:17 into eight parts. They gave them to seven kings who would go back 02:22 to their own kingdoms and then those kings would go back and 02:28 take those relics and erect what is called stupa or memorial 02:33 mounds in their towns, in their kingdoms. And once Gautama 02:38 Buddha was gone other monks took over his job and ran the 02:43 monasteries that they set before In Islam, Muhammad died. The next 02:51 leader took over. His name was Abu Bakr who ruled or was the 02:56 Caliph for two years and then another took over, Umar, 03:00 followed by the third 'Uthman, and then the fourth, Ali. So 03:06 what we see here is once a leader, the founder, has gone 03:10 the others come in and take over and the movement continues with 03:14 the help of the next leader. In Judaism, the story is the same. 03:20 "After the death of Moses...it came to pass that the Lord spoke 03:26 to Joshua the son of Nun..." So Moses died, and somebody else 03:34 took over, Joshua took over. In each of these conditions it's 03:39 the same pattern. The person dies, they revere him, honor him 03:45 lay him to rest and then somebody else takes over. 03:48 When you come to the fifth, Christianity, to Jesus, look at 03:53 these words: "...I am with you always, even to the end of the 03:59 age." Nobody else is going to take over now. Wow! In fact he 04:04 says, "I am he who lives, [I] was dead, and behold I am alive 04:08 forever more...And I have the keys of Hades and of death" in 04:12 my hands. That is an amazing claim. Ah our first inclination 04:20 is to just dismiss it as a mythological story. Yes, if you 04:26 and I are rational thinkers, that's the way we'll think. 04:29 But remember we asked ourselves to be inquirers and an inquirer 04:35 will always look at other possibilities as well. So here 04:40 is how we're going to look at it. The meaning of resurrection 04:43 is philosophical, is religious, is Christian, doctrinal. But 04:53 whether it really took place is not at all religious. It's just 04:59 historical. Here we come to the sharp focus of the first 05:04 principle we mentioned when we started out by saying that we 05:08 are going to look at the story, the paralogous factors, not the 05:13 doctrines and philosophies. We are looking at the story on 05:18 which the doctrines are based. Thus if the story is credible, 05:22 the religious doctrines have a base and become believable. 05:25 So here's the question: Can the story of the resurrection of 05:30 Jesus be established to any reasonable degree as a real 05:35 physical event or is it only a fabricated myth? Here's what 05:41 Wolfhart Pannenberg from Germany said: "Whether the resurrection 05:45 of Jesus took place or not is a historical question." Now it is 05:50 not a religious belief question. It is a historical question. 05:54 "... and so the question has to be decided on the level of 05:58 historical argument." Not a belief, not a philosophy, but 06:05 look to see if it is historically a reliable story. 06:09 So why not just dismiss it? Why even look at it. Well there are 06:15 two reasons: Number one: as an inquirer we already saw that 06:20 this story is written in the best attested historical 06:25 piece of literature. 06:27 If it was mythological or legendary there would be no 06:31 problem in just tossing it aside but because it is in a 06:36 historical piece of literature we cannot toss it aside without 06:40 giving it a good reason. Even though it's unbelievable, yes we 06:47 recognize but we cannot throw it aside. Number two: It's a huge 06:52 claim. So it's so big that "it's either the greatest miracle or 06:56 the greatest delusion which history records." When you say 06:59 something that big the question of whether it is true or false. 07:04 If it is true, Wow! And if it is not true oh horrible. That's the 07:08 difference and that's why we're going to look at it. Now it 07:12 happened 2000 years ago. How can we check to see whether it was a 07:20 reliable story? I was wondering about it until I read these 07:24 words by Wilbur Smith. "Let it be simply said that we know more 07:30 about the details of the hours immediately before and the 07:33 actual death of Jesus...than we know about the death of any 07:36 other one man in all the ancient world...We know more about the 07:40 burial of the Lord Jesus than we know of the burial of any single 07:44 character in all of ancient history." Those are quite 07:48 stunning words. Kings, emperors, mighty military generals have 07:56 died. Jesus was kind of like a barefoot, itinerant preacher 08:01 from the backwaters of Galilee. How do we know more about his 08:05 death and burial than all the others put together. How do we 08:09 know more about him than the death of say Napoleon or Julius 08:14 Caesar or any of the Pharaohs? But that is what we find, a good 08:19 description of what happened at the death and what happened at 08:23 the burial. So it gave me confidence that I could probably 08:28 look at the story and if the author is in question we might 08:33 be able to pick out the points and decide whether this is 08:39 really reliable, has a good base or very suspect. And here we 08:44 follow Aristotle's dictum who said: The benefit of the doubt 08:48 is to be given to the document itself, not arrogated by the 08:51 critic to himself. Because the critics were not there. If the 08:57 author was probably there and we saw that in the New Testament 09:01 the authors were right there, they were eyewitnesses. 09:04 So we cannot really dismiss this story without giving it a good 09:08 chance. So John W. Montgomery also expounded on this and he 09:14 said: "One must listen to the claims of the document under 09:17 analysis, and not assume fraud or error unless the author 09:20 disqualifies himself by contradictions or known factual 09:23 inaccuracies." So here is what we are faced with. If the story 09:29 is unbelievable which it really is to a rational thinker then 09:35 what could the correct story be because something happened. 09:39 And the reason it is unbelievable because it strains 09:45 our rational thinking, it's strains our sense of reasoning. 09:49 So suppose we put another story. We should not strain our sense 09:52 of reasoning again otherwise we would have jumped from the pan 09:57 into the fire again. So we must look for a good explanation if 10:02 we want to toss this story aside Philosopher David Hume's 10:07 criteria: 10:09 Now he was a secular philosopher in other words, he didn't really 10:11 believe in miracles. So this is what he said: A miracle may be 10:15 believed only if we find that the arguments [and] explanations 10:18 produced, to show that it is not true are more unbelievable than 10:23 the [story] itself. In other words, disproving the miracle 10:28 would require an explanation even more unbelievable than the 10:32 miracle itself! OR, any alternate story proposed is 10:37 even more [unbelievable]." A greater miracle. So with that 10:40 let's look at what they have proposed as alternatives. 10:44 There are many, it can be boiled down to about two. Number one: 10:49 He did not die - he only fainted It's called a swoon theory. 10:54 There was so much of blood loss and blood pressure came down 10:56 and he fainted. The people thought he was dead and they 10:59 put him into the tomb and he rose up from there because he 11:02 was not dead. The swoon theory. Number two is the theft theory. 11:08 He did die but he did not rise. The disciples or whoever came 11:12 and stole the body. Let's look at these two propositions. 11:19 First, he did not die. That means that he only swooned. 11:23 It's called the swoon theory. There are five points we're 11:26 going to look at one by one. Who made sure that he was dead? 11:30 Pilot did. Pilot was alive at that time. He was the governor 11:35 at that time. Look at the words: "Pilate marveled that he was 11:39 already dead." Now there's a ring of truth to this because he 11:44 marveled. Why would Pilot marvel The story is this. He was 11:50 crucified and then the friends and relatives of Jesus came to 11:53 Pilot and said please give us the body so that we can bury it. 11:56 Give him an honorable burial. And Pilot marveled that he was 12:01 already dead. Why would he marvel? Because crucifixion 12:05 takes days not hours. Some have stayed on for two or three days. 12:10 Some have been known to hang there for seven days before 12:13 dying. And here in six hours you say he's dead. So can you see 12:17 why Pilot would have marveled? And therefore what did he do? 12:20 "...summoning the centurion, he asked him if he had been dead 12:24 for some time. So when he found out from the centurion, he 12:29 granted the body to Joseph." So who made out that he was dead 12:32 for sure? Pilot. How did he make sure? He asked the centurion. 12:36 How did the centurion make sure? We have the story. When they 12:41 the soldiers, came to Jesus hung on the cross, they saw that 12:45 was motionless and appeared dead Now the friends and people of 12:53 Jesus wanted the body. Pilot wants to know whether he is dead 12:56 so they could give them the body and here the centurion looked at 12:59 the body, looks dead but how do you know he's dead? And he's not 13:03 going to bring down the body unless it's dead. So he does the 13:07 only think he could possibly think of; he called a soldier 13:10 with a spear and said, One thrust onto that body to make 13:13 sure that the body is dead. Those who have looked at it and 13:18 studied it say that if he didn't die of crucifixion, he would 13:21 have died of that spear thrust. That was what it was meant to do 13:25 kill. And the Roman soldiers were the most trained soldiers 13:29 in the world. They were trained to fight against enemies who 13:32 were also soldiers. How easy to kill a person who is motionless 13:36 and just hanging on the cross. One thrust. Now we know why the 13:40 spear was thrust, to make sure he was dead. That is number two. 13:45 Number three: John the writer who was a witness says: 13:49 "...one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and 13:53 immediately blood and water came out...he who has seen has 13:57 testified." What is the meaning of blood and water? Well, I'm a 14:05 physician so I was looking for a physiological explanation for 14:09 that. Have you heard of the expression brokenhearted 14:15 individual? Yeah. Are they happy or sad. They're sad. 14:19 Brokenhearted. Do you know where that came from? One of the ways 14:24 that expression came was from the experience that people had 14:29 in the good old days when they found that two people who were 14:33 say deeply in love, very close to each other, couldn't do 14:37 without one another and then they were forced to separate 14:41 They noted that sometimes one of the partners died without any 14:49 known cause. So people would wonder how come the person died. 14:53 They would do a post mortem and at post mortem they would find 14:58 that the heart muscle had ruptured. Grief! Pain. Sorrow 15:06 and stress could come to such a degree that the heart muscle 15:10 would just rupture. So it's possible that Jesus' heart 15:16 muscle ruptured. Now if the heart muscle ruptures where 15:20 would the blood go? It will collect in the sack called the 15:23 pericardial sack. The heart is surrounded by a sack. When that 15:28 happens the blood is now in the sack gushing out from the heart 15:32 It fills the sack so the pressure in the sack goes up and 15:35 presses down on the muscle and the muscle thence can't even 15:39 pump. So the heart stops and the patient dies. Now what happened 15:43 to the blood in the sack? It will mix with the pericardial 15:46 fluid and it will partially clot Partially clotted blood, the 15:52 clotted portion will come down to the bottom and leave the 15:56 upper part which is now called the serum without any of the red 16:01 blood cells, the white blood cells and the platelets. So it's 16:04 clear and it's called serum. So it will come down in two parts 16:09 the bottom red bottom blood, the one on top clear serum. 16:14 If the spear 16:16 had hit at the junction we would have two streams coming out. 16:21 But remember two things have to happen: The blood has to stop 16:26 flowing. That's number one. And it has to stop flowing for some 16:31 time. It doesn't happen very quickly in a minute or two. 16:34 So when you see two streams and John saw that. He didn't know 16:38 about serum so he used the word water. So when we look at that 16:43 today we can deduce two things: The blood had stopped flowing 16:48 and number two, it had stopped flowing for some time. You 16:53 remember exactly what Pilot asked of the centurion? Was he 16:58 dead for some time? So that's what we see in this third point. 17:05 Number four is if he just fainted and was put into the 17:09 tomb, how did he get out of the tomb? Look at the questions that 17:14 come up now. Number one: How did he unwrap the grave clothes 17:18 which are actually strips. Number two: How did he find his 17:23 way to the door in the darkness of the tomb? Number three: How 17:28 How did he break the seal which was on the outside of the tomb 17:31 while he was on the inside? Number four: How did he roll 17:35 away the stone. In Arabic, it's called golel. Golel means a 17:41 a large stone and when you study the word and look at how they 17:44 used it, it would require anywhere from three to 15 people 17:49 to move it and here we're saying an individual who actually was 17:54 half an individual, how could he have moved that golel. His hands 17:59 were pierced and after a few hours the wound would be really 18:03 swollen and absolutely painful. How did he use his hands? Well 18:07 he could have used his shoulder maybe. But if he used his 18:09 shoulder then he would have to push with his feet. His feet 18:12 were also pierced. There's no way he could have pushed that 18:17 golel away from the door of the tomb. And even if he did was it 18:22 so well-greased and lubricated so that it didn't make a sound? 18:27 Think. It would have made a grating, crunching sound. So 18:33 none of the guards knew that? How do we explain? Just silent 18:38 activity. How would we explain also the fact that the guards 18:41 were right there? They all went to sleep and all derelict in 18:46 their duty at the same time? That seems preposterous, right? 18:50 All of them asleep exactly when he was coming out? And really 18:56 look at the condition of his body, pierced in the hands and 18:59 the feet, his back lashed and this seething mass of bloody 19:06 tissue there. His torso body thrust with a spear. How could 19:11 he have come out and escaped from the tomb. The most I think 19:16 we can imagine him doing was just crawl out. None of the 19:21 soldiers caught him? That's hard So number four: How did he get 19:28 out? We don't know. Number five: Multiple testimonials. Pilot was 19:32 convinced Jesus was dead. The centurion was convinced Jesus 19:35 was dead. Even his friends were convinced. How do we know? 19:39 They brought embalming material. Look, nobody embalms a body that 19:45 is alive. Why? Because embalming material is so toxic that it 19:50 will kill the body. So nobody brings embalming material to 19:55 embalm a body unless it is gone dead. So we have today no 20:00 reasonable grounds to dispute the question. Jesus most likely 20:05 was well and truly dead. How about the body stolen? Here are 20:11 then five points. The report that the soldiers gave was this. 20:16 "His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept." 20:20 Now one reading of that story will tell you it's false. Why? 20:24 Because you cannot be awake and asleep at the same time. If you 20:28 were asleep how do you know the disciples came and stole him? 20:31 Was one of your eyes open? No. When you say you were asleep you 20:37 cannot say the disciples took him. So the story is 20:41 inconsistent internally. Externally also the report is 20:44 inconsistent because the soldiers were armed, not the 20:49 disciples. So in both ways it's an inconsistent report. Number 20:53 two: The story says that there were some folded clothes inside 20:57 the tomb. Look, we are accusing these disciples of being thieves 21:04 They came and robbed the grave. A theft scene is not orderly. 21:10 It's always helter skelter. We don't go and steal and say well 21:15 before we take off with our booty let's fold some clothes. 21:18 Nobody does that. In other words thieves don't make good house 21:23 helpers. They don't fold clothes Number three: Remember what we 21:28 said about the person crucified? The Romans stripped them naked 21:33 to heap the maximum amount of shame on the body. The story 21:39 here says that the clothes were all inside the tomb, therefore, 21:42 the theory must be that the disciples took out a naked body. 21:46 Think of it. Why would they do that? If you or I were going to 21:52 steal something and if it's all nicely wrapped and packed for us 21:55 wouldn't you and I just pick it up and run both. Why sit there 21:58 unwrapping. There is no explanation that is possible for 22:03 unwrapping because the soldiers were right there a few yards 22:07 away. Why would you sit and unwrap? Just take it and go. 22:09 And also no follower of a Guru or a shishya in the east will 22:17 ever think of exposing the nakedness of his master. No sir! 22:22 That's a psychological hurdle we cannot cross. They could not 22:25 have done that. So the story actually loses its significance 22:29 right there; the credibility falls flat. No follower would 22:33 have done that. And number four: The same thing as Jesus coming 22:37 out from the tomb. How did the disciples enter into the tomb? 22:42 What was the method? No convincing, practical method of 22:47 entry by the disciples into the tomb has ever been described. 22:51 The guards were stationed there for only one purpose written in 22:55 the record: Prevent theft. How did they allow that theft to 23:00 occur? There is no plausible explanation. 23:03 Number five: When we accuse a person of a crime and if we go 23:11 to a court of law the primary thrust of your case is that 23:18 there's a motive. Without the motive it's very hard to pin a 23:23 criminal activity. So what was the motive the disciples had? 23:28 The more you think about it the more you realize that they had 23:32 no motive. They did not know that Jesus was going to rise up 23:36 from the dead. If they had, they wouldn't have denied him or even 23:41 fled from him. And they did that when he was alive. Did they 23:45 become bold after he died? That's again a psychological 23:48 dispute there. We are doing it the wrong way. So there cannot 23:54 be a good story without a motive if it is theft that took place. 23:59 There was no way they could have thought ahead and said, Well 24:03 let's make up a story of his resurrection. Nope. No motive. 24:08 No crime. So here's what we find "Non-miraculous explanations of 24:14 of what happened at the empty tomb have to face a cruel choice 24:19 Either they have to rewrite the evidence to suit themselves or 24:22 they have to accept the fact that they are not consistent 24:26 with present evidence." In other words Corduan says this: If you 24:32 look at the story and the details of the story and if you 24:39 then try to make another theory than the actual resurrection 24:44 story then you will come to clash with the evidence that you 24:48 find in the writing. Or you make up a story that's even more 24:52 unbelievable than the story. Remember what Philosopher David 24:57 Hume said? A miracle may be believed only if we find that 25:03 the arguments and the explanations produced to show 25:06 that it is not true are even more unbelievable than the 25:10 miracle itself. Or in other words, disproving the miracle 25:14 would require an explanation even more unbelievable than the 25:19 miracle itself or any other alternative story proposed is 25:23 even more miraculous than the original one! So now when you 25:27 look at this both the swoon theory in which we say he just 25:33 fainted and then he came out from the tomb by himself as well 25:38 as the theft theory which says that the disciples came and 25:41 stole the body while the guards all slept; these two require 25:48 more miracles. In other words, a number, multiple miracles. 25:53 I hope you saw that, than the one miracle which is the 25:57 resurrection story. Therefore, if you and I want to be rational 26:02 reasonable thinkers who don't believe in miracles at all then 26:07 we would have to first disband or dismiss the swoon theory and 26:13 the theft theory because they are even more miraculous and 26:17 then come to decide about the resurrection story. Because 26:22 something did happen. We cannot explain the Christian church 26:30 from a point in which its founder was done to death as a 26:35 condemned criminal and publicly humiliated, put to utter shame 26:41 and found that in their own writings this person was hanged 26:47 was actually cursed of God. How will anybody follow him? So when 26:53 we look at the story, the swoon theory and the theft theory 26:57 really do not stand up to scrutiny. Now that's on the side 27:02 of those alternative stories. We have another question left 27:06 then. If the story is really true do we have evidence for 27:13 that? And that is what we are going to see next. So stay tuned 27:18 We will go to our final session to decide and look into that. 27:23 If you have enjoyed this presentation with Dr. Subodh 27:29 Pandit and wish to watch more of this unique 13 part series for 27:33 free online visit the website GodFactOrFiction.com. That's 27:39 GodFactOrFiction.com. If you would like to order this 27:43 fascinating series on DVD it is now available from White Horse 27:46 Media... 27:54 Dr. Subodh Pandit has written two eye-opening books entitled 27:58 Come Search With Me: Does God Really Exist? and Come Search 28:02 With Me: The Weight of Evidence which further explore the topics 28:06 of evolution, theism, atheism and religion. 28:10 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2021-09-13