In this episode Trent shows why skeptics can’t easily dismiss a key part of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Is Luke’s Gospel Reliable? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4dCB0Bwskw
Were Betty & Barney Hill Abducted? – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfJuHmI2APM
Was the Resurrection a “Collective Delusion”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI6p7ihvjJA
Mary and Fátima: A Modest C-Inductive Argument for Catholicism: https://philpapers.org/rec/MCNMAF-3
McNabb’s on Capturing Christianity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5YKZHaYVPY
The Holy Fire? (Miracle, Jerusalem, Hagion Phos) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jinCx29LWV4
Transcription:
Trent:
Hallelujah. Christ is risen. Indeed, he has risen, and since it’s Easter, I’m posing a question about Christ’s resurrection. I’ve never seen skeptics adequately answer, but before I do that, I need to go over a key piece of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now one natural explanation for the disciples claim to have seen Jesus after his death are grief induced hallucinations. In these cases, a person misses a deceased loved one so much that they imagine the person has come back from the dead to visit them. Maybe the disciples had similar hallucinations of the risen Jesus. However, this explanation doesn’t work for a variety of reasons, including the fact that St. Paul saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, but he was not a grieving disciple. Studies on grief induced hallucinations show that true hallucinations are not common, and the Hazen Ldar 2016 study only found one case of grief induced hallucination involving a non-family member of the deceased, which is the case with the disciples.
Moreover, most of these cases involved only feeling the presence of a deceased person. Just 2% involved a tactile hallucination of touching the dead person, which would parallel the claims of having prolonged encounters with an embodied Jesus as described in Luke and John’s Gospels. Grief induced hallucinations also tend to persist for many years after death, but the claims that Jesus appeared to his disciples stop just a few weeks after his crucifixion. Moreover, we’d expect the apostles to hallucinate seeing Jesus risen in heaven, not seeing him risen on earth and Christ’s empty tomb showed they were not merely hallucinating. But one of the biggest problems with the hallucination theory is that the historical evidence shows groups of people claim to have seen Jesus after his death, not just single individuals. These include the 12 Apostles and even 500 other people as recorded in one Corinthians 15, but hallucinations are like dreams.
You can’t share them because they’re internal and subjective. The best explanation for groups of people claiming to have interacted with the risen Jesus at the same time is that all of those persons in those groups really saw the risen Jesus and this convinced them that Christ rose from the dead. However, if Christianity were the result of natural processes as critics allege, then we’d expect those processes to repeat themselves occasionally throughout history. We’d expect, for example, cases where a group of people claim to have seen a dead loved one return from the grave. So my question for skeptics of the resurrection is this. Can you show other examples of groups of people having a grief induced hallucination similar to the one you claim that the apostles had in 2015, Gary Habermas and Medical Dr. Joseph Bergen surveyed thousands of cases in the medical literature and could not find a single case of a group grief hallucination comparable to the group appearances described in the New Testament, one psychologist cited in their paper said following, I have surveyed the professional literature, peer reviewed journal articles and books written by psychologists, psychiatrists, and other relevant healthcare professionals during the past two decades and have yet to find a single documented case of a group hallucination that is an event for which more than one person purportedly shared in a visual or other sensory perception where there was clearly no external reference.
Even some critics of the resurrection admit that there are no other examples of group hallucinations like it’s proposed to have happened to the apostles. Chris Kuber Nitsky in his book, doubting Jesus’s resurrection, writes the following, if the group appearance traditions in one Corinthians 15 five through seven are the result of people simultaneously hallucinating Jesus, there is no comparable example anywhere in history that I’m aware of. Now some critics will deny there were any appearances to the 12 or 500 believers or any groups of people. They’ll say that Paul lied about these group appearances even though Paul’s willingness to be martyred showed his sincerity or that someone lied to Paul about these group appearances. Even though St. Paul had the ability to check the veracity of these events because he met the apostles and he knew which of the 500 were still alive to be questioned or they’ll say the group appearances were something really ambiguous like everyone seeing a light in the sky and not interactions with a corporal Jesus over 40 days as described in the gospel, especially in Luke’s gospel for a defense of the historical reliability of Luke in particular, see my dialogue with godless engineer linked in the description below in this episode.
I’m not defending the historicity of these instances where groups of people claim to have seen the risen Jesus. Instead, I’m asking the question, are there any other group hallucinations of a deceased person coming back to life that are comparable to what skeptics claim to have happened to these groups of apostles and other witnesses of Jesus? Here’s what happened when I asked Doug from Pine Creek and our debate on the resurrection about this question.
CLIP:
Can you cite any examples of groups of people having a grief in? I already said information, okay, but I probably could in the future if you give me time. Okay. Can you cite any studies of grief hallucination among non-family members where we’re primarily talking about people that are not spouses or children
Right now? No.
Can you cite an example or a study talking about one person’s grief hallucination causing another person to hallucinate the same person not seeing the person? No. Okay.
Trent:
Other critics have put forward alleged examples of true group hallucinations, but you’ll see that they are analogous to the resurrection accounts and so they don’t provide a natural explanation for the apostles group report of seeing the risen Jesus. For example, in Dale Allison’s book, the Resurrection of Jesus Apologetics polemic History, he writes, it is most often said in response that the first believers could not have hallucinated because too many people were involved and especially because one may ask whether simultaneous identical hallucinations are psychologically feasible. This however is inadequate rebuttal. The plurality of witnesses does not quench doubt. If counting heads were all that mattered, there would be no question that short, large headed bug-eyed aliens have kidnapped thousands of sleeping Americans. The stories are legion, but surely despite all the testimony there is room to debate what has been going on here. Atheist. Keith Parsons makes a similar argument in his debate with William Lane Craig,
CLIP:
The people who experienced these hallucinations almost always say yes, it seems so. Well consider Whitley Strieber, the one who wrote communion about who he was supposedly abducted by space aliens. Supposedly he was asleep in his farm in Vermont and the gray aliens came through the walls abducted him, took him aboard their spaceship and did terrible things to him. Okay, Whitley Reper says it was real. I saw him on the Johnny Carson show. Johnny Carson said, do you think he might’ve dreamed this? He said, no. It seemed absolutely real.
Trent:
However, nearly all alien abduction stories can be explained as culturally conditioned private hallucinations involving only one person or their outright hoaxes. People who report these encounters often receive positive attention and they’ve only become more widespread after science fiction tales about aliens became popular in the 1950s and television shows began to report on alleged abduction stories, and as I said, they almost always happen to individuals at night who awake from sleep. What probably happens is that the person experienced sleep paralysis a condition where your mind has woken, but you are unable to move your body. People in this condition often see things that aren’t real as can be seen in past depictions of sleep paralysis as a demon or old hag sitting on someone’s chest. And the New Testament authors knew the difference between seeing something went awake and dreaming as is evident in Matthew’s use of dream descriptions in his gospel.
And Acts 16, nine where Luke describes how a vision appeared to Paul in the night of a Macedonian man, which means a dream. But this language is not used to describe resurrection appearances, and most importantly, nearly all abduction stories involve one person hallucinating, which isn’t uncommon. The handful of cases where multiple people say they were abducted by aliens at the same time are also probably hoaxes or come from hypnotic suggestion. In 1973, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed aliens abducted them while they were fishing on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. But as noted in the anthology, the reliability of UFO witness testimony, Parker passed out when it happened and only remembered bits and pieces later, Hickson admits they were drinking so they may have fallen asleep or passed out and then awoke in a kind of sleep paralysis state. In 19 75, 5 people claimed to see Travis Walton abducted by aliens that appeared in a beam of light among trees in Eastern Arizona, but even those who believe in alien abductions reject this case as a hoax perpetrated by Walton to provide an excuse for why his work crew failed to meet the deadline for a contract they had to thin trees in a federal forest.
Walton also failed a lie detector test in 2008 on the television show, the moment of truth when he was asked if he was really abducted. Finally, in 1961, Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have been abducted by aliens while driving in rural New Hampshire. In fact, Travis Walton watched the TV movie based on the Hill’s abduction story two weeks before he claimed to be abducted, but most experts believe Betty and Barney Hill suffered from sleep deprivation and misinterpreted an aircraft warning beacon as a UFO. More importantly, the particular aspects of the alien encounter were recovered under hypnosis three years later, and they bear a striking similarity to an episode from the sci-fi series, the Outer Limits, which aired two weeks before their hypnosis session. For more on these fascinating cases, check out the links below to Jimmy Akins Mysterious World Podcast. Another example of mass hallucination that is offered are Bigfoot sightings.
In an interview with the Christian author Steven Meyer, Joe Rogan dismissed ancient reports of Jesus’ resurrection by saying There are also reports of Bigfoot sightings for more on why Bigfoot sightings are mis identifications, not mass hallucinations. See, my previous episode was the resurrection of collective delusion linked in the description below. In that episode, I cover the analogies to Bigfoot sightings, Elvis sightings, the mobile leprechaun story of 2006, and studies involving people allegedly misremembering airplane crash footage that never existed. So none of those cases are analogous to the disciples claiming to have seen the risen Jesus, and we also have to distinguish mass hallucination or group hallucinations of something like Jesus appearing alive after death from something called mass hysteria. The latter happens when a phenomenon transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary through a population in society as a result of rumors and fear.
It also includes cases of seemingly infectious bizarre behavior like medieval dancing outbreaks or the 1962 Tanzania laughing epidemic, but none of these cases involve a group of people all seeing the same impossible thing like a dead man who came back to life. Now, there is one example that critics offer that comes very close, an example where a group of people claim to have seen someone returning from the afterlife, and that would be Marian Apparitions. Atheists often bring up these examples when debating Protestant Christians on the resurrection. For example, the atheistic biblical scholar, Hector Avalos says, Marian Apparitions form the closest parallel to the Jesus apparition stories. Marian apparitions have been reportedly witnessed simultaneously by millions of people, but most evangelical apologists do not see that as proof that Mary is alive or consider this exchange between Bart Erman and Protestant author Justin Bass.
CLIP:
Now, Mary appears regularly to people. It’s completely well documented. Thousands of people claim this happens, and I’m going to assume that since you’re not Catholic, you don’t think these appearances happened.
I’m open to the evidence and I do think some of the stories Mary is compelling. I think some of the stories is
Compelling. You think she does appear to people,
But I think what the issue
With no. Do you think she appears to people?
No, I don’t. I don’t know.
You just said the evidence was compelling.
Well, I said it’s something to look into. I’m saying it’s enough to look into
Why don’t you look into it. This would be very
Important. Well, I
Have looked into it. Okay,
But let me answer. I think it lacks the unexpectedness so it makes, and it normally happens in Catholic context.
No, no, this is completely wrong.
Trent:
I appreciate Justin’s point that the disciples were not expecting Jesus to rise from the dead, but Catholics don’t consider Marian apparitions to be as unexpected. However, that doesn’t explain all apparition cases. For example, last year, Travis Dumbs Day released an academic study of the Marian apparition in Une Egypt in 1968 where possibly millions of people, including non-Christians like Muslims, saw what appeared to be the Virgin Mary appearing above a Coptic Orthodox church in the city. Doms day’s argument is extremely compelling and Gavin Orland has said this about Zune.
CLIP:
I will say as a lay person, it really looks like something supernatural is going on as Zune. There are also secular individuals and secular groups that are saying There is no naturalistic explanation for this. We dunno how to explain this. And the fact is it’s really hard to say, where is this light coming from? For portions of time they cut off all the power to that part of the city, and so far as I can tell again, as a non-expert whose opinion isn’t worth too much on a question like this, it really looks like something supernatural is happening, or at least we should be really open to that until we find a better explanation.
Trent:
Another example that skeptics raise is the miracle of the sun that occurred at Fatima, which thousands of people claim to see and was described in newspaper accounts at the time. I was confronted by this argument in my debate on the resurrection with Doug from Pine Creek
CLIP:
As to mass hallucinations. Does Trent believe in the miracle of Fatima?
Yes, so this is the claim that the Virgin Mary appeared to a group of witnesses in Fatima Portico claiming that they saw the sun moving in the sky appearing to dance. I don’t believe the sun or earth changed their normal rotation, but I think it’s very possible that God caused an optical effect to occur to make it appear what normally you would not have naturally seen that they saw that I also think that we have, and what’s interesting here is we actually have better evidence for Fatima than for even the resurrection because we have contemporary newspaper reports describing the event right the day after that it purportedly happened of contemporary accounts. The quote of the day here in this livestream is that we have better evidence for Fatima than the resurrection. I can’t believe Trent said that in some respects.
Trent:
Yeah, notice I said apparitions like Fatima have more evidence than the resurrection. In some respects, I still believe the best evidence for Christianity is Christ’s resurrection from the dead, and it’s the one I typically appeal to in debates. That’s because Marian apparitions lack some of the evidence we have for the resurrection, such as a bodily resurrection before the end of the world being unexpected for Christ’s disciples and the disciple’s willingness to suffer martyrdom to show their sincerity. Also, we have evidence the postmortem appearances of Jesus involve more tactile encounters with the Lord than are often seen in Marian Apparitions. On the other hand, Marian apparitions do have more evidence than the resurrection in at least some respects. For example, some critics say that the gospel’s depictions of group appearances are just legends or that St. Paul’s references to the group appearances are too vague to be counted, but no skeptic doubts that large numbers of people at places like Sune or Fatima all thought that they saw the same miraculous event.
It cannot be doubted because we have contemporary reports and even photographs of these events, something we don’t have for Christ Resurrection Atheist Richard Dawkins says of Fatima, it is not easy to explain how 70,000 people could share the same hallucination. Last month, Gavin Orland commented on the evidential value of Marian Apparitions and I agree with much of what he said in his video A real fast at this point, a lot of people would say in a video, here’s the word from our sponsor, but I love that our supporters are so generous. We don’t need sponsorships. We can just focus on sharing and defending the Catholic faith. And if you want to help us to keep doing that, please hit the subscribe button and support us@trenthornpodcast.com, where for as little as $5 a month, you get access to bonus content and you make all of this possible without any sponsorships.
And now back to the episode. As I’ve already noted, I don’t consider these apparitions to be the best evidence for the Christian faith, however, I would say they have enough evidence to justify a supernatural cause as being the most likely explanation and many non-Catholics agree with that assessment. In a debate on Mario of Father Dwight Longnecker, Protestant apologist, David Guen wrote, the evidence is quite strong that something supernatural was going on in Fatima Elliot Miller and Kenneth Samples wrote in their Protestant study of Maryology that quote, any odd effort to provide a satisfying explanation for the phenomenon known as Marian Apparitions will prove to be a complex and difficult task. I freely admit that I may not be able to account for everything connected to these unusual occurrences in his dissertation on the resurrection. Mike Lacona writes for myself, I am not prepared to adjudicate on the matter of Marian Apparitions because I’m Protestant, I carry a theological bias against an appearance of Mary.
However, I am not predisposed to reject the reality of apparitions in general. I also understand Gavin’s criticism in his video on apparitions that we have to look at each one individually and not rush to the conclusion that such an apparition is Eccles determinative or shows which Christian denomination has the fullness of God’s revelation. In the case of Zeto, this happened at a Coptic Orthodox church and there was no message from the apparition, so at most we could see it as a confirmation of Christianity in general. Gavin also says that we shouldn’t be absolute in our interpretation of apparitions, and I agree with them. For example, some Protestants say All Marian apparitions must be demonic because Saint Lee apparitions are impossible. They even say this was the case when Saul used a medium to conjure the dead Prophet Samuel as recorded in one Samuel 28, but they can’t all be demonic.
Deuteronomy 34 records Moses’ death, but Moses appear to the disciples with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Gavin disagrees with the idea that they are all demonic, and he even says that most Protestant commentaries believe that one Samuel 28 was really describing Samuel talking to Saul, not a demonic impersonator. However, some apparitions could be demonic in nature. At the very least we know not all of them are genuine, even if they involve something without a natural explanation. In 2009, the Bishop of Cleveland rejected the claims of apparitions and revelations at Holy Love ministries saying that because of their theological content, they were not supernatural in origin and that the site where they happen cannot call itself Catholic. Priests can’t celebrate sacraments there and the faithful may not gather at the site. I’m not saying this alleged apparition was demonic. The report even said it wasn’t supernatural in origin.
At the very least, it was not supernatural in being a genuine revelation from God. I’m just saying the church recognizes some of these claims of apparitions can’t be proven and they even have theological evidence against them. So demonic influence is plausible in some alleged Marian apparitions and in other cases the church is just agnostic on whether the event was supernatural. But it does recognize the good spiritual fruit that is present from the event as happened with the 2024 declaration on a mego, a demonic or supernaturally evil cause would also explain alleged encounters with angels or supernatural beings claiming to represent God found in other religions. This includes the claim of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism and his two companions who say they saw an angel with golden plates. Another example that Dale Allison gives from that same time period in 1842 would be a religious group called the Shakers.
Allison writes, attached to the Shaker’s sacred role in book are the names of eight people who testified that quote, we saw the Holy angel standing upon the housetop holding the role and book, which scarcely settles the issue. These cases raise what I call the problem of competing miracle claims. If you believe in your religion because of miracle, then why don’t you believe in a competing religion that is also backed by a miracle? A religious person has two options to resolve this problem. First, they could accept these competing claims are genuine miracles, but deny that they are theologically incompatible with their worldview. They aren’t competing, they’re complimentary. For example, God might providentially save someone in India from a flood in a way that seems miraculous or at least that looks like a God is involved and it’s not a freak occurrence. The person who is saved might pray to a Hindu deity for help and mistakenly thin... Read more on Catholic.com