A Naturalistic Explanation?

Second Edition

James Fodor

"If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you
are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in
Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in
Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."
- 1 Corinthians 15:17-19

"At every step one has to wrestle for truth; one has to
surrender for it almost everything to which the heart, to
which our love, our trust in life, cling otherwise. That
requires greatness of soul: the service of truth is the
hardest service."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- 1 Corinthians 15:17-19
"Involuta veritas in alto latet"
- Seneca

Preface to the Second Edition

Many Christian apologists claim that there exists no plausible naturalistic explanation for the resurrection
appearances of Jesus Christ, as well as associated events like the empty tomb and the conversion of Paul.
In this document, I outline and defend what I regard to be just such a plausible naturalistic explanation for
such events. In particular, the thesis I seek to defend is that my model for the resurrection appearances,
which I term the HBS model, is superior to the Christian explanation of divine intervention on two counts:
plausibility and explanatory scope.
The HBS model is more plausible than the Christian explanation, because it appeals exclusively to
psychological and sociological processes which are known to exist; that is, it requires no new hypotheses.
In contrast, the Christian explanation requires that God exists, and that God had a reason to resurrect
Jesus, propositions which are controversial. In addition, the HBS model has greater explanatory scope
because, in its broad outlines, it is also capable of explaining the many other miracles and anomalous
events detailed in Part Three. The Christian explanation, on the other hand, applies only to the particular
case of the resurrection of Jesus, and is incapable of providing any explanation for other miracle claims.
Thus, I argue that on the grounds of its greater plausibility and explanatory scope, the HBS model should
be preferred to the traditional Christian explanation. If this is true, it refutes the claim of Christian
apologists that the resurrection of Jesus provides compelling evidence for the truth of Christianity. It does
not, however, necessarily refute the truth of Christianity, only of the soundness of this particular
argument for the truth of Christianity.
This document consists of four parts. In Part One, I outline my model to explain the resurrection
appearances, which I call the HBS model. In Part Two I present what I call the 'micro-level' evidence in
support of the model, consisting of psychological and sociological evidence which I believe supports the
processes referred to in the HBS model. Part Three contains which I call the 'macro-level' evidence, which
consists of a selection of case studies of religious miracles and other anomalous events, that I believe are
roughly equally well attested to those of the resurrection appearances. Part Four briefly addresses some
ancillary matters, including the empty tomb and the conversion of Paul, and then presents some
responses to various criticisms of the HBS model.
I take it as obvious that, if in fact Jesus was not resurrected, Christians would wish to know this fact.
Conversely, at least speaking for myself, I know that if Jesus was in fact resurrected, then I would want to
know that fact. Thus, regardless of who is correct, it is evident that a sizeable fraction of humanity
currently exists in an epistemic state that they would prefer not to be in: that is, they hold mistaken
beliefs about the resurrection of Jesus. It is my view that the only way to address these profound
disagreements is by serious engagement with the evidence and arguments. Encouraging such
engagement is one of my major motivations in preparing this document.
That said, I am not under the illusion that this single document will convince anyone to change their
minds. Nonetheless, I would implore my readers to try their very best to rise above such motivated
reasoning, and make a earnest, sincere effort to seriously engage with my argument. Is this a plausible
explanation of the resurrection appearances? If not, then why not? Which part of the model in particular
do you take issue with, and why? What aspect of the evidence do you find lacking? What evidence, if any,
would convince you that my model was in fact viable? In my view, this matter is too important for us to
give it anything less than our calmest and most well-considered attention.

Changes to the Second Edition

a) Alterations to the structure and organisation of the document to make it easier to follow
b) A new section on 'methodology' where I explain in more depth the approach I am taking and the
meaning of terms like 'explanatory power' and 'simplicity'
c) A more detailed breakdown of the HBS model into specific modular claims
d) Slight changes to the structure of the model to reduce the total number of stages
e) Addition of some additional citations in section 2 regarding certain psychological processes
f) Expanded sections on 'ability to check claims' and 'earliest anti-Christian polemics', in which I
examine the response of the Jewish authorities in the early chapters of Acts in more depth
g) A few changes to the religious miracle claims, adding more material for some of the examples
h) Considerable expansion of the sections on spiritualists and UFOs with multiple witnesses
i) Inclusion of a lengthy new section responding to some of the relevant claims made by Mike
Licona in his book The Resurrection of Jesus
j) Inclusion of another lengthy new section responding to some other criticisms and rebuttals that
various people have raised with respect to the HBS model
I sincerely hope that this document will be helpful and uplifting to those who read it. Although I present
an argument, it is not intended to be polemical. I really do want to find out the truth, and I hope we can
help each other along this difficult journey.
James Fodor, April 2015

Section 1: A Model for the Appearances

1.1.

Introduction

In this section I outline my model for the resurrection appearances of Jesus of Nazareth to many of his
closest followers. Because of its focus on individual hallucination, socialised group religious experiences,
and biases of memory, perception, and cognition, I have chosen to name it the Hallucination, Biases, and
Socialization Model, which I shall henceforth refer to as the HBS model. Note that the primary purpose of
the HBS model is to explain the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, which I believe are the most
challenging to account for. The empty tomb and other additional issues are discussed briefly in the 'other
matters' section.
It is important to emphasise that the ordering of the stages of the model, and indeed their precise
demarcation one from another, is in large part artificial and is included mostly for expository convenience.
In practise, some or all of the seven stages would have occurred together in a complex interplay of
positive reinforcement, shaping and reshaping beliefs in a manner that became more consistent, more
explanatory, and more convincing to believers over time.
Readers should note that this model is only intended to provide a broad account of the general
psychological and sociological processes that led to the development and proliferation of the beliefs
which characterised the early Christian movement. The available historical evidence is insufficient to
construct detailed accounts of precisely who experienced what, when they experienced it, who they told,
and exactly how memories and interpretations were reshaped over time. Though such a detailed account
would be desirable, I think the evidence necessary to construct such an account is simply not available.
Nonetheless, I do believe that the HBS model is sufficient to provide a first-order explanation of the
essential processes and mechanisms by which many early Christians came to believe that they had seen
Jesus return from the dead.

1.2.

Methodology

A. Inference to the Best Explanation

The approach I adopt in this piece is what is often called 'inference to the best explanation', also
sometimes called 'abduction'. The idea is that given a certain body of facts and evidence, the theory
or model which best explains that set of facts and evidence is taken to be the most likely to be correct.
This type of inference is unavoidably comparative, in that one's judgements will depend upon what
alternative explanations are compared and the degree to which the 'best' of them stands out from
among the others. It is also unavoidably probabilistic, in that the existence of a good explanation does
not logically entail its truth, but rather is held to increase it with some probability, proportional to the
degree of superiority of that explanatory hypothesis over relevant alternatives. This approach, of
course, presupposes some non-arbitrary notion of what makes one hypothesis 'better' than others this is an issue I will return to shortly.
I am not attempting to invent my own standards or methodology here in order to make my claims
easier to defend. Rather, what I am trying to do is apply essentially the same approach that certain
Christian apologists apply in arguing that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation of a
certain set of historical facts. In particular, I am strongly influenced by Mike Licona's work The
Resurrection of Jesus. He summarises his approach as follows:

"For assessing hypotheses, we adopted methodical neutrality to assign the burden of proof to
the one who is making a proposition, be it affirmative or negative. Accordingly no hypothesis
may get the nod for being the best explanation unless its superiority to competing
hypotheses can be demonstrated We established the following five criteria for the best
explanation (listed in descending order of importance): (1) plausibility, (2-3) explanatory
scope, explanatory power, (4) less ad hoc and (5) illumination.
We constructed the following spectrum of historical certainty: certainly not historical, very
doubtful, quite doubtful, somewhat doubtful, indeterminate, somewhat certain (more
probable than not), quite certain, very certain (very probably true), certain. We may conclude
that a hypothesis is historical when we can place it on the spectrum of historical certainty
somewhere between a half step under quite certain or better. We proposed two criteria for
placing a hypothesis on the spectrum where historicity may be awarded: (1) it has to meet the
five criteria better than competing hypotheses and (2) it must outdistance competing
hypotheses by a significant margin. In our discussion of historians and miracle-claims, we
proposed two criteria for identifying a miracle: (1) the event is highly improbable given
natural causes alone and (2) the event occurs in a context charged with religious significance."
Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, p. 467-8
B. Assessing the Quality of Explanations
One place where I differ somewhat from Licona is in his criteria for judging the quality of explanations.
Licona lists five:
" 1. Explanatory scope. This criterion looks at the quantity of facts accounted for by a
hypothesis. The hypothesis that includes the most relevant data has the greatest explanatory
scope.
2. Explanatory power. This criterion looks at the quality of the explanation of the facts. The
hypothesis that explains the data with the least amount of effort, vagueness and ambiguity
has greater explanatory power. Said another way, the historian does not want to have to
push the facts in order make them fit his theory as though he were trying to push a round peg
through a square hole... Moreover, while a degree of vagueness or ambiguity is to be
expected given the fragmented data that have come down to us from the past, a strong
presence of these traits in a hypothesis will cause it to lack explanatory power, since it fails to
explain
3. Plausibility. The hypothesis must be implied to a greater degree and by a greater variety of
accepted truths (or background knowledge) than other hypotheses. In other words, this
criterion assesses whether other areas known with confidence suggest a certain
hypothesis. Therefore, it is appropriate to inquire whether certain components of a
hypothesis are supported in the literature of other disciplines
4. Less ad hoc. A hypothesis possesses an ad hoc component when it enlists nonevidenced
assumptions, that is, when it goes beyond what is already knownOne may sense this
occurring when a hypothesis makes a number of nonevidenced assumptions while another
hypothesis can explain the same data without appealing to additional nonevidenced
assumptions. This criterion has also been referred to as simplicity. It is important to note that
6

simplicity refers to fewer presuppositions rather than combined factors, since historical
events often result from multiple causes.
5. Illumination. Sometimes a hypothesis provides a possible solution to other problems
without confusing other areas held with confidence. In historical Jesus research, for example,
if a naturalistic explanation employing the social sciences turns out to be the best explanation
of the known facts pertaining to the resurrection of Jesus, it may shed light on other areas of
interest to historians of that period as well as on areas of research in other disciplines, such as
the extent to which psychological conditions may factor into the rapid recovery of a religious
movement after the death of its leader. On the other hand, if the data point to the historicity
of the resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection hypothesis may strengthen the likelihood of the
historicity of Jesus claims to divinity while minimizing confusion in areas about Jesus already
held with confidence"
Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, p. 109-11
While Licona bases his criteria upon how historians evaluate claims, I am more directly influence by
related work from epistemology and philosophy of science in how explanations are evaluated. I think
this is of more direct relevance, because the question of interest is not really whether the
resurrection of Jesus can be judged to have occurred by the methods used by historians, but rather
whether it can be judged to have occurred by any reliable methods of inference. That is, I think the
question is broader than history alone. That said, in practise I think the differences between my
criteria and Licona's are more stylistic than substantial. While Licona has five criteria, I have only two:
1.

Explanatory power: this refers to the quantity and diversity of separate facts, pieces of evidence,
or phenomena which can be explained by the hypothesis in question. By 'explained by', I mean
something like 'accounts for the causes of the facts, helping us to understand how they came to
be and be'. Ceteris paribus, an explanation which applies to a wide range of phenomena and can
account for a large number of facts and observations is to be preferred to one that can only
account for a narrower range of observations, and/or applies only to a more restricted range of
phenomena. I regard this is being equivalent to Licona's first and second criteria, as well as
elements of his fifth criteria. Indeed, I think there is little meaningful distinction between the
'quantity' of facts that are explained and the 'quality' with which they are explained. I doubt
these can meaningfully be assessed independently, and I see no reason to have two separate
criteria. I also differ with Licona in his concern about not 'pushing the facts in order to make them
fit' or 'pushing a round peg into a square hole'. I actually don't think this way of thinking is
especially helpful when evaluating competing explanations. Whether or not an explanation is
'stretching the facts' seems to me to be quite a subjective matter which, to the degree that it
might be relevant, is already accounted for in the criteria of simplicity. If it seems to us that a
hypothesis is 'stretching the facts', I think we should always be able to explain this more clearly in
terms of not accounting for certain phenomena or pieces of evidence, having a narrower scope
of application, or having a lower degree of simplicity. If we cannot parse the statement in these
terms, I do not think we have good reason to regard it as anything more than our subjective
reaction to the hypothesis.

2.

Simplicity: this refers to the number of antecedently unestablished new hypotheses that need to
be introduced in order for the proposed explanation to make sense or apply. Almost every
explanation will have at least some new hypotheses that it needs to introduce, though some will
7

require a great deal more than others. I regard this criterion as a combination of Licona's third
and fourth criteria, as I believe that 'plausible' and 'less ad hoc' are essentially two ways of
describing the same thing. I agree strongly with Licona when he says that "it is important to note
that simplicity refers to fewer presuppositions rather than combined factors, since historical
events often result from multiple causes". I think this is an absolutely vital point to understand:
the simplicity of an explanation is determined by the number (and prior probability, though that
can be hard to adjudicate) of antecedently unestablished (Licona uses the phrase 'nonevidenced') hypotheses that need to be introduced for the explanation to work. It is not
determined by how many 'parts' the explanation has, or how easy it is to understand, or how
long it takes to explain. An immensely long explanation with many parts and interacting
components, each of which is well evidenced, is 'simpler' than one which is very short and has
only a few components, but which relies on a single crucial non-established assumption.
C. Why the HBS Model is a 'Better Explanation'
In this document, I argue that my HBS model has both greater explanatory power and greater
simplicity than does the resurrection hypothesis. I wish to outline as clearly as I can what I mean by
this.
When I say that the HBS model has greater 'explanatory power' than the resurrection hypothesis, I
mean that it can account for a wider range of phenomena. It provides the mechanisms and causes
that can allow us to understand how and why a wide range of miraculous and supernatural claims
would have arisen. The resurrection hypothesis does not rule out other miracle claims, but nor does it
explain how or why they would occur. Maybe God would wish to appear to other people at other
times, but the point is the resurrection hypothesis says nothing about this. It does nothing to
illuminate or help us understand any other miracle claim not connected directly with Jesus. I am not
saying here that 'miracle claims in other religions cannot be explained within a Christian worldview'. I
am rather saying that 'miracle claims in other religions cannot be explained by the resurrection
hypothesis, but they can be so explained by the HBS model'. This is what I mean when I say the HBS
model has greater 'explanatory scope' than the resurrection hypothesis. The HBS model is general
and broad in scope, while the resurrection hypothesis is narrow and restricted in scope. Ceteris
paribus, explanations with broader scope are to be preferred.
When I say that the HBS model has greater 'simplicity' than the resurrection hypothesis, I mean that it
requires fewer antecedently unestablished hypotheses. Certainly the HBS model makes a lot of claims
and requires a lot of hypotheses to be made (as outlined in section 1.4), however my argument is that
all of these other than those directly related to the resurrection itself are all established to a
reasonable level of confidence by evidence from psychology, sociology, and other such disciplines. So,
for instance, I argue that claims 1.1 and 1.2 have been antecedently established by the psychological
literature independently of our investigation of the resurrection appearances. Obviously this is not
the case for claim 1.3, as that relates directly and specifically to the resurrection appearances. I
believe that it follows quite reasonably and plausibly from 1.1 and 1.2, but it is not a claim I regard as
being 'antecedently established'. Likewise claims 2.5, 3.5, 4.4, and 5.3 are specific to the resurrection,
so are not among the claims I regard as 'antecedently established', but which I think follow quite
plausibly from the claims that I do think are antecedently established. To be clear about what I mean
by 'antecedently established', I mean that regardless of whether one accepts the HBS model or not,
and regardless of whether one is a Christian or not, one should accept these claims as having been
sufficiently well demonstrated antecedently to our particular inquiry into the resurrection.
8

While the HBS model relies upon either claims which I regard as being antecedently established and
what I regard as plausible inferences from them, the resurrection hypothesis relies on one very
significant unestablished premise, that there exists an interventionist God who would potentially
desire to raise someone like Jesus from the dead. I am not saying that this premise is false is that it
could never be demonstrated - this is not a presumption of naturalism. I am merely saying that it
must be taken as true in order for the resurrection hypothesis to make any sense or provide any
explanation, and that antecedently to considering the resurrection appearances, the truth of this
premise has not been established - it is still a very controversial and disputed claim. Some of the
claims I describe as 'antecedently established' are disputed to varying degrees as well, but I argue
they are much better established and agreed upon within the relevant disciplines than is the
existence of an interventionist God. Thus, given that the HBS model relies on fewer antecedently
established premises than does the resurrection hypothesis, I regard it as possessing greater
simplicity.
To summarise, I am arguing that the HBS model possesses both greater explanatory power and
greater simplicity than does the resurrection hypothesis. As such, it should be regarded as a
significantly superior explanation to the resurrection hypothesis, to paraphrase Licona 'outpacing its
rivals' to a significant degree.
D. Objectives of the Argument
A final question is what we conclude on the basis of this argument. On possible conclusion is that
Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead - he was not resurrected. I will call this 'the strong conclusion'.
Perhaps surprisingly to some, I do not have any interest in advocating the strong conclusion, even
though some may see it as being implied by the HBS model. I will certainly say the HBS model is
evidence in favour of the strong conclusion, but I will not argue or defend the view that it provides
sufficient reason for adopting the strong conclusion, nor will I say that readers ought to believe that
the strong conclusion as true.
Instead, all I am really interested in establishing is what I will call the 'weak conclusion', namely that
the available evidence does not warrant or justify a confident inference that Jesus did indeed rise
from the dead. In other words, I am arguing that the relative explanatory power of the resurrection
hypothesis (compared to the naturalistic altnerative, namely the HBS model) is insufficient to
establish the probable truth of Christianity. This can be considered as in effect a rebuttal to the
apologetic argument that Christianity should be accepted because of the historical evidence for the
resurrection of Jesus. I don't think this argument is a sufficiently compelling one, because I think that
in fact the HBS model of the resurrection appearances is a better explanation than the resurrection
hypothesis. This is the extent of the weak conclusion. It says nothing directly about the truth of
Christianity or whether Jesus was in fact resurrected.
The weak conclusion leaves open the possibility that Jesus was actually resurrected, only that we
can't conclude this on the basis of inferences about the available historical evidence. Additional lines
of argument would therefore be needed to justify belief in the claim that Jesus was resurrected. Such
lines of argument are not considered here, but nor are they ruled out.

1.3.

Summary of the Argument

The model outlined below, taken together with the addition discussion in 'other matters', is intended to
provide a reasonably complete naturalistic explanation for all of the so-called 'minimal facts' cited by
some Christian apologists, such as Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. For the purpose of this document, I
9

accept the truth of all these facts. What I dispute is the interpretation of these facts provided by Christian
apologists - specifically, that the only adequate explanation for these facts is divine intervention by God. I
believe that a purely naturalistic explanation for these facts is not only plausible, but is in fact more
plausible and more explanatory than the Christian explanation.
A. The Minimal Facts
The minimal facts that I take as given for the purposes of my model are:
1. The death of Jesus by crucifixion
2. The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples
3. The rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire
I also discuss the conversion of Paul, the empty tomb, and the conversion of James, however I do not
include them as part of the 'minimal facts' per se, for the simple reason that the explanations I
provide for them are somewhat distinct from those I provide for the appearances (though there is
some non-trivial overlap). That is, the HBS model itself is designed to explain the resurrection
appearances and consequent rise of Christianity. I discuss the empty tomb and conversion of Paul and
James in a separate section. This is not to imply that they are totally distinct or independent events,
but merely an effort to focus the discussion on one issue at a time. I also regard the appearances as
far stronger evidence for the resurrection than either the empty tomb or the conversion of individual
people, and so I devote for much time to explaining them than the other matters.
My set of minimal facts mirror those provided by Licona, though they are not identical:
"Having examined these sources, we identified our historical bedrock:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Very shortly after Jesus death, the disciples had experiences that led
them to believe and proclaim that Jesus had been resurrected.
3. Within a few years after Jesus death, Paul converted after experiencing what he interpreted as
a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to him.
These three facts have strong supporting evidence and are regarded as historical by a nearly
unanimous consensus of modern scholars. This consensus also possesses a significant amount of
heterogeneity (scholars from different perspectives)", Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, p. 468

10

B. The Model in Brief

Individual Hallucinations: Certain followers of Jesus (most likely Peter and Mary) experienced
individual hallucinations of Jesus following his crucifixion. These hallucinations may have been
exacerbated by grief, emotional excitement, and/or the personality traits of those in question.
Group Religious Experiences: These followers then discussed their experiences with other
followers of Jesus, generating an expectancy that they might experience something similar. Partly
as a result of this expectancy, and also mediated by social reinforcement, strong emotions, and
environmental influences, the early disciples had several collective religious experiences of the
risen Jesus, the precise nature of which we cannot know for certain, but which may originally
have been different to the final accounts as they appear in the gospels.
Memory and Cognitive Biases: In the process of discussing these experiences among themselves
afterwards, the disciples' memories of what they experienced were reshaped through processes
of biased and reconstructive recall and social memory contagion, in the direction of increased
coherence between individual accounts, and also greater impressiveness of the experiences. In
the process, a 'standard version' of these experiences began to develop and spread throughout
early Christian communities. Cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, selective perception, the
illusory truth effect, and other similar biases, all interacting in the context of a close-knit
communal setting with strong social pressures for conformity, led to any possible inconsistencies,
disconfirming evidences, or doubters to be ignored, marginalised, or explained away.
Socialization and Marginalisation of Doubt: Public expressions of doubt, disagreement, and
skepticism were further muted as a result of the following factors: 1) few disbelievers cared
enough about Christianity to engage much with early Christians or disprove their claims, 2) most
of those exposed to these claims had neither the ability nor the opportunity to check details for
themselves, and 3) few were motivated to test the veracity of the claims as a result of general
psychological processes described above.
Identity Consolidation and Martyrdom: As the early Christian movement grew, the self-identify
of many of the apostles became inextricably bound up with their religious experiences and beliefs,
to such a degree that they became willing to die for these convictions.
C. Other Matters in Brief
Conversion of Paul: It is my view that there are plausible naturalistic accounts of the conversion
of Paul, the most common being some form of epileptic episode. More generally, I think the
psychological literature on religious conversion paints a sufficiently rich and complex picture of
motivations such that it is not necessary to appeal to a supernatural explanation to explain Paul's
conversion. Finally, I think that there are comparable historical cases of 'unlikely conversion
stories' to various religions, which supports my hypotheses that they can occur naturalistically.
The Empty Tomb: I believe that there are three plausible explanations for the empty tomb: 1)
reburial by Joseph of Arimathea, 2) tomb robbery, 3) removal by an unknown third party. I do not
consider apologetic objections such as the tomb guard or the grave clothes to be compelling.
The Rise of Christianity: In my view there is nothing especially remarkable about the rise of
Christianity in the Roman Empire. It offered many of the elements of belief and ritual that were
present in already extant popular cults, and had particular appeal to the increasingly
disempowered and alienated urban lower classes. I may include more detail about this matter in
future editions of this document if people think the addition would be sufficiently valuable.

11

1.4.

The Model in Detail

A. Individual Hallucinations
Claim 1.1: Hallucinations are not necessarily a mark of psychopathology, and are relatively
common in the general population, especially for individuals suffering from grief or loss.
Claim 1.2: Individuals involved in new religious movements are more prone to hallucinations and
'magical thinking' than the average population.
Claim 1.3: Given 1.1 and 1.2, it is plausible that some followers of Jesus, like Peter and Mary,
experienced individual hallucinations of Jesus following his death.
B. Group Religious Experiences
Claim 2.1: Expectations can shape our perception of events to a significant degree, altering how
we perceive an experience.
Claim 2.2: Humans are subject to a wide range of perceptual failings and biases, which can often
lead people to report false or inaccurate perceptions which do not correspond to objective
external events.
Claim 2.3: Group experiences of very unusual and inexplicable events (including purported
paranormal or supernatural events) can be elicited in the certain social environments through
mechanisms such as suggestibility, collective reinforcement, high emotional saliency, and social
expectation and conformity.
Claim 2.4: Numerous supernatural and paranormal experiences have been reported by groups of
people in circumstances matching those described in 2.3.
Claim 2.5: Given 1.3 and 2.1-2.4, it is plausible that the disciples and other groups of followers of
Jesus had collective experiences of Jesus appearing or speaking to them (probably not in precisely
the way reported in the gospels)
C. Memory and Cognitive Biases
Claim 3.1: False memories are common and relatively easy to form, despite the subject feeling
highly confident about the accuracy and reliability of the memory.
Claim 3.2: Discussion of an event between people often leads to alteration of the memories such
that they are in greater conformity, with subjects unable to distinguish between their own
original memories and the memories of those with whom they interacted. Memory is a
reconstructive rather than a recollective process, with memories changing each time they are
recalled.
Claim 3.3: In many cases eyewitness testimony is not particularly reliable, being susceptible to
many biases and confounding factors.
Claim 3.4: People are in general very bad at evaluating evidence and arguments carefully, as they
are subject to a wide range of cognitive biases.
Claim 3.5: Given 3.1-3.5, it is plausible that the participants in these early group experiences of
Jesus gradually had their memories altered over time, and as a result the accounts of the
experiences became both more consistent and more impressive, even without any deliberate
deception. These memories of the experiences were considered persuasive and not subject to
rigorous critical evaluation.
D. Socialization and Marginalisation of Doubt
Claim 4.1: Many people, especially in new religious movements, are easily capable of continuing
to tenaciously hold to beliefs in spite of the presence of overwhelming contradictory evidence.
12

Claim 4.2: We have very few records of early anti-Christian writers of any sort, likely because
either very few existed, and/or their writings did not survive.
Claim 4.3: It would have been immensely expensive and impractical for nearly all of those hearing
Paul's teachings in Greece and Asia Minor to have visited Jerusalem to check the veracity of any of
the facts Paul was asserting
Claim 4.4: Given 4.1-4.3, it is not reasonable to assert that early Christianity could have only
survived if the evidence was on its side. Skeptics either lacked the interest to engage with
Christian claims, or if they did their records have not survived. Most believers would have lacked
the means to verify any of the claims themselves, and even if strong counterevidence was
available, many would have continued to believe anyway.

E. Identity Consolidation and Martyrdom

Claim 5.1: Religious beliefs can become inextricably bound up in someone's personal identity such
that issues of truth and evidence cease to be solely factual matters and instead become matters
of utmost life-defining importance for them.
Claim 5.2: Martyrdom is found across many religions and ideological movements, and can be
explained in part with reference to psychological processes.
Claim 5.3: Given 5.1 and 5.2, the fact that some early Christians may have been willing to die for
their belief in the Resurrection of Jesus does not constitute much evidence in favour of the truth
of this belief, only that they firmly believed it.
F. Summary and Conclusions
Claim 6.1: The plausibility of the HBS model is significantly strengthened by the numerous other
documented cases of groups reporting to have experienced miraculous or paranormal events,
which can be explained with reference to the same underlying psychological and social processes
outlined here.
Claim 6.2: Given the foregoing, it is plausible that the disciples and other early followers of Jesus
came to honestly belief that they had seen the risen Jesus and told this story to others, even
though Jesus did not in fact rise from the dead.
Claim 6.3: Given that the HBS model is able to account, in broad terms, for a wide variety of
miraculous and paranormal claims, while the resurrection hypothesis can only account for a single
claim, the HBS model has wider explanatory scope than the resurrection hypothesis.
Claim 6.4: The HBS model relies upon psychological and sociological processes which are
documented and whose existence is relatively uncontroversial, while the resurrection hypothesis
depends upon the existence of God and his desire to intervene in human affairs, both of which
are considerably controversial. Since the HBS model depends upon fewer new and controversial
assumptions, it is simpler than the resurrection model.
Claim 6.5: Since it is both simpler and has wider explanatory scope than the resurrection
hypothesis, the HBS model is a better explanation for the resurrection appearances of Jesus, and
so should be preferred over it.

13

Section 2: The Micro Evidence

2.1.

Introduction

The purpose of this section is to outline what I call the 'micro-level' evidence in support of the HBS model.
By 'micro-level', I mean evidence which refers to specific psychological processes, biases of thought and
perception, observed patterns of social interaction, and documented sociological phenomena, which
taken together provide support for the specific causal and mechanistic claims made in the HBS model.
Needless to say, there do not exist, and likely will never exist, studies that examine the particular
psychological predispositions of first-century Galilean fishermen, or which are able to replicate the
development of Resurrection appearance stories in a laboratory environment. Nonetheless, it is my view
that the extant evidence in the psychological literature is sufficient to establish the that types of
processes incorporated into the HBS model, such as various cognitive biases and memory contagion
effects, are real, and that the manner in which they tend to operate is consistent with how I have used
them in the HBS model.
The study extracts given in this section should be read in concert with the outline of the HBS model as
presented in Part One, with the subsection numbers here corresponding directly to those in Part One for
ease of reference. The purpose of the research extracts is to illustrate the plausibility of the claim that I
make in the corresponding subsection of the HBS model in Part One. In order to avoid being criticised for
misinterpreting the studies, I have in most cases included a direct quotation (generally from the abstract),
which I believe lends credence to the claims made in the HBS model.
Naturally, the correspondence between the topic of each study and the relevant claim from the model is
never perfect, however I think it would be unreasonable to demand such a direct mapping between
theory and evidence in topics such as this. What matters is whether the claims made in the HBS model
about particular psychological and sociological processes (e.g. memory biases, hallucinations, etc) are
plausible given the general evidence that we have available on these matters.
Readers may, in particular instances, question the inclusion of specific studies or the exclusion of others,
however I believe that my case is not sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of any particular subset of
studies. I believe that my claims in the HBS model are supported by the broad patterns and overall
findings of the literature, and that is what I intend to convey with the selection of evidence in this section.

2.2.

Individual Hallucinations

A. Claim 1.1: Frequency of Hallucinations

a) 'Hallucinations are perceptual phenomena involved in many fields of pathology. Although
clinically widely explored, studies in the general population of these phenomena are scant. This
issue was investigated using representative samples of the non-institutionalized general
population of the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy aged 15 years or over (N=13 057) Overall,
38.7% of the sample reported hallucinatory experiences (19.6% less than once in a month; 6.4%
monthly; 2.7% once a week; and 2.4% more than once a week). These hallucinations occurred, (1)
At sleep onset (hypnagogic hallucinations 24.8%) and/or upon awakening (hypnopompic
hallucinations 6.6%), without relationship to a specific pathology in more than half of the cases;
frightening hallucinations were more often the expression of sleep or mental disorders such as
narcolepsy, OSAS or anxiety disorders. (2) During the daytime and reported by 27% of the sample:
visual (prevalence of 3.2%) and auditory (0.6%) hallucinations were strongly related to a psychotic
14

b)

c)

d)

e)

pathology (respective OR of 6.6 and 5.1 with a conservative estimate of the lifetime prevalence of
psychotic disorders in this sample of 0.5%); and to anxiety (respective OR of 5.0 and 9.1). Haptic
hallucinations were reported by 3.1% with current use of drugs as the highest risk factor (OR=9.8)',
"Prevalence of hallucinations and their pathological associations in the general population",
Psychiatry Research, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178100002274
'Although there is no comprehensive model that explains the occurrence of auditory
hallucinations, current accounts emphasize the importance of cognitive factors, in particular,
the misattribution of internal cognitive events to external sources. This misattribution may be
due to deficits in cognitive functioning or to biases in normal functioning. With respect to the
latter explanation, it appears that the predisposition to hallucinate is not an all or nothing affair
but one based on a continuum of probability. This mirrors research on psychoticism, which
shows that psychosis is not separate from normality but is merely an extreme along a continuum
of normalityabnormality. According to Claridge, psychotic characteristics are not the prerogative
of the classically psychotic patient, rather there is a continuity of behaviour blending into a
spectrum of illness. Not surprisingly, therefore, studies of normal populations have found that
between 10 and 37% of people report having experienced auditory hallucinations', "Affective
reactions to auditory hallucinations in psychotic, evangelical and control groups", British Journal
of Clinical Psychology, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/014466501163850/abstract
'An inquiry into the psychopathology and the clinical significance of grief hallucinations is
presented and two cases with severe grief hallucinations are described. Unlike many cases in the
literature, the two female patients were young (aged 43 and 45, respectively) and both suffered
from the loss of a daughter. The heterogeneous concept of grief hallucinations is described and
discussed, focusing particularly on the difficulties of reaching a differentiation between
hallucination and pseudohallucination. Basic theses of the article are: (1) Contrary to a widely
held view, grief hallucinations can display all the characteristics of true hallucinations. (2) The
concept of grief hallucinations probably comprises a heterogeneous group of disturbances of
perception and of thought processes. They can be experienced as comforting but can also cause
considerable distress' , "Grief Hallucinations: True or Pseudo? Serious or Not?", Psychopathology,
http://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/67067
'While auditory hallucinations (AH) are prototypic psychotic symptoms whose clinical presence
is often equated with a psychotic disorder, they are commonly found among those without
mental illness as well as those with nonpsychotic disorders not typically associated with
hallucinations in DSM-IV. This incongruity presents a significant challenge for clinical work and
efforts to revise the next iteration of the DSM. Auditory hallucinations found among normal
people suggest that either AH are not as pathologic as they are typically taken to be, or that lessthan-hallucinatory experiences are routinely mischaracterized as AH. Such hallucinations in the
context of conversion disorder, trauma, sensory deprivation, and certain cultural settings
strengthen an association between AH and psychopathology but suggest limited diagnostic
specificity and relevance. It may be useful to think of AH like coughscommon experiences that
are often, but not always, symptoms of pathology associated with a larger illness', "Hallucinations
in Nonpsychotic Disorders", Harvard Review of Psychiatry,
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10673220903523706
'Ratings of grief reactions, post-bereavement hallucinations and illusions and quality of life were
made during the first year after the death of a spouse among 14 men and 36 women in their early
seventies. In both sexes, the reactions were generally moderate or mild and characterized by
loneliness, low mood, fatigue, anxiety and cognitive dysfunctioning. Feeling lonely was the most
15

f)

persistent problem during the year. Post-bereavement hallucinations or illusions were very
frequent and considered helpful. Half of the subjects felt the presence of the deceased
(illusions); about one third reported seeing, hearing and talking to the deceased (hallucinations).
Former marital harmony was found to make a person more prone to loneliness, crying and
hallucinations or illusions. The quality of life was significantly lower among the bereaved than
among married people and those who never married, but equalled that found among divorcees',
"Bereavement among elderly people: grief reactions, post-bereavement hallucinations and
quality of life", Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1993.tb03332.x/abstract
'The literature on hallucinatory experiences of hostage victims is reviewed. The phenomenology is
examined in 30 case studies involving 31 persons, including ex-prisoners of war and victims of
rape, kidnapping, terrorism, robbery, and "UFO abductions." The victims were subjected to
conditions of isolation, visual deprivation, restraint on physical movement, physical abuse, and
the threat of death. For eight victims, these conditions were sufficient to produce a progression of
visual hallucinations from simple geometric images to complex memory images coupled with
dissociation. The other 23 victims, subjected to similar conditions but without isolation and lifethreatening stress, resulting from the threat of death, did not experience hallucinations. The
hostage hallucinations are compared to those resulting from sensory deprivation, near fatal
accidents, and other states of isolation and stress. A common mechanism of action based on
entoptic phenomena and CNS excitation and arousal is suggested', "Hostage hallucinations. Visual
imagery induced by isolation and life-threatening stress", Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6716091

B. Claim 1.2: Hallucinations and Personality

a) 'As predicted, individuals from the New Religious Movements scored significantly higher than
the control groups on all the delusional measures apart from levels of distress. They did not
show as much florid symptomatology as the psychotic patients, but could not be differentiated
from the deluded group on the number of delusional items endorsed on the Peters et al.
delusions Inventory, or on levels of conviction. However, they were significantly less distressed
and preoccupied by their experiences. No differences were found between the two control
groups on any of the delusional measures, suggesting that religious beliefs per se do not account
for the NRMs members scores', "Delusional ideation in religious and psychotic populations",
British Journal of Clinical Psychology, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10212739
b) 'Alien contact experiencers were found to show higher levels of dissociativity, absorption,
paranormal belief, paranormal experience, self-reported psychic ability, fantasy proneness,
tendency to hallucinate, and self-reported incidence of sleep paralysis', "Psychological aspects
of the alien contact experience", Cortex, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18635162
c) Subjects claiming memory of having been abducted by aliens found to be more prone to false
recall and recognition than controls who claimed no such memories, "Memory distortion in
people reporting abduction by aliens", Journal of Abnormal Psychology,
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2002-17277-005
d) 'Evaluated the fantasy-prone (FP) personality by selecting subjects who ranged along the
continuum of fantasy proneness and administering measures designed to assess hypnotic
susceptibility, absorption, vividness of mental imagery, responses to waking suggestion, creativity,
and social desirablity. 62 undergraduates, based on their scores on an inventory of childhood
memories and imaginings, were divided into 3 groups: 23 FP, 22 medium-FP, and 17 non-FP Ss. Ss
completed the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic SusceptibilityForm A, an absorption scale, the
16

e)

f)

g)

Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, an art scale, a vividness of imagery scale, and a creative
imagination scale. Results show strong support for J. R. Hilgard's (1970, 1979) construct of
imaginative involvement and S. C. Wilson and T. X. Barber's (1983) contention that FP persons
can be distinguished from others in terms of fantasy and related cognitive processes. FP
subjects outscored subjects in both comparison groups on all of the measures of fantasy,
imagination, and creativity, with social desirability used as a covariate. Low-FP Ss were no less
creative or less responsive to hypnosis than their medium-FP counterparts', "The fantasy-prone
person: Hypnosis, imagination, and creativity", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/51/2/404/
'In the current experiment, 44 undergraduate students were asked to listen to white noise and
instructed to press a button when they believed hearing a recording of Bing Crosby's White
Christmas without this record actually being presented. Fourteen participants (32%) pressed the
button at least once. These participants had higher scores on fantasy proneness and the
LaunaySlade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) compared to participants without hallucinatory reports',
"Another White Christmas: fantasy proneness and reports of hallucinatory experiences in
undergraduate students", Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005791601000295
'Psychopathological interpretations of individuals who claim contacts with extraterrestrials typify
the few psychiatric evaluations of such behavior. Biographical analyses of 152 subjects who
reported temporary abductions or persistent contacts with UFO occupants show that these
subjects are remarkably devoid of a history of mental illness. However, in 132 cases, one or
more major characteristics were found of the fantasy-prone personality (FPP). Although they
appear to function as normal, healthy adults, FPPs experience rich fantasy lives and score
dramatically higher (relative to control groups) on such characteristics as hypnotic susceptibility,
psychic ability, healing, out-of-body experiences, automatic writing, religious visions, and
apparitional experiences. In the present study, UFO "abductees" and "contactees" exhibit a
pattern of symptomatology similar to that of FPPs. Thus, clinicians should consider testing UFO
abductees or contactees for fantasy proneness in cases in which a particular psychopathological
diagnosis is not obvious', "UFO abductees and contactees: Psychopathology or fantasy
proneness?", Professional Psychology: Research and Practice,
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pro/22/3/215/
'Members of New Religious Movements (NRMs) scored higher on the Unusual Experiences
factor, which measures positive symptomatology, and the Schizotypal Personality
questionnaire, than the two control groups (non-religious and mainstream Christians). The
NRMs group scored significantly higher than the non-religious, but not the religious group, on the
factor of Introvertive Anhedonia, which measures negative symptomatology, suggesting that this
factor may be related to religion rather than NRMs per se. The NRMs did not score significantly
differently to the two religious controls on the factors of Cognitive Disorganisation, Impulsive
Nonconformity, Extraversion and the anxiety measure. The NRMs were more depressed than the
Christian, but not the non-religious group, and their mean score was well within the normal range.
There were, however, several significant correlations between depression, anxiety, and the
schizotypy measures', "The incidence of schizotypy in new religious movements", Personality and
Individual Differences, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886998002189

17

2.3.

Group Religious Experiences

A. Claim 2.1: Expectation Effects on Outcomes

a) 'This study assessed the degree to which the contents of religious experiences agree with the
expectations and rated desirability of various experiential contents. The respondents were 178
people who reported having had religious experiences, 57 without such encounters comprised an
expectation group, and 112 persons who constituted a desirability rating group. Thirty-seven
elements reported by those who had religious experiences and five factor scales comprised the
test instrument. In sum, the data suggest that those who have religious experiences get what
they anticipate, and their expectations emphasize highly desirable components in such
experience', "The Content of Religious Experience: The Roles of Expectancy and Desirability",
International Journal for the Psychology of Religion,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327582ijpr0602_3
b) 'Each subject was told that he was expected to feel inhibited performing a singing task. The
expectancy was presented as based either on the subject's description of his personality, on the
past performance of others with interests similar to those of the subject, or on the past
performance of others with the same birth order position as the subject. Subjects then sang a
piece without accompaniment for a tape recorder, ostensibly providing data about the effects of
inhibition on the physical properties of the human voice. Subjects expected to be paid
proportionally to the duration of their singing. The expectancies based on self-descriptions and
on others with similar interests elicited faster singing, implying a willingness to sacrifice
financial rewards in order to end an embarrassing situation, than the singing of no expectancy
control group subjects, suggesting that these subjects actually did feel more inhibited than the
control subjects. The expectancy based on birth order did not produce singing durations that
differed significantly from the control group. The findings are interpreted as implying that persons
will come to feel the way they are expected to feel only if the expectancy is perceived as deriving
from some characteristic reflecting free choice and control', "Can the public expectation of
emotion cause that emotion", Journal of Personality,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1981.tb00845.x/abstract
c) 'The state called schizophrenia is frequently an end result of a self-fulfilling prophecy as a
consequence of such labels as "schizophrenia," "mental illness," and "insanity" being applied to
himself by an individual in deep emotional crisis', " Schizophrenia: A self-fulfilling, labelling
process", Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice,
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pst/5/4/240/
d) 'Two studies explored the extent to which prior affective expectations shape people's evaluations
of experiences and decisions about repeating those experiences. Study 1 found that students'
prior expectations about an upcoming vacation accounted for a significant portion of the variance
in their post-vacation evaluations, as did students' recall of specific experiences. In Study 2, both
prior expectations and actual experiences of watching a movie were manipulated in a 2 2 design.
People's affective expectations made more of a difference than the objective experience when
assessing people's willingness to participate in the study again. A reinterpretation hypothesis
that people discount or reweigh memories of expectation-inconsistent eventsaccounted for the
results of these studies better than a selective memory or initial effects hypothesis', " The Role of
Affective Expectations in Subjective Experience and Decision-Making", Social Cognition,
http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.1994.12.2.77
e) A general review article in the influence of expectation on perception, "The Generation of
Sensory Expectation by External Cues and its Effect on Sensory Perception and Hedonic Ratings: A
18

f)

g)

Review", Journal of Sensory Studies, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745459X.1996.tb00036.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

'Near-death experiences (NDEs) include a set of subjective experiences encountered by people
who were close to death or were faced with life-threatening situations. Reports have suggested
that the phenomenology of NDE might differ across cultures. This article is aimed at providing an
updated phenomenological perspective by comparing NDEs in a cross-cultural context. We
compared the various descriptions of NDEs from a phenomenological perspective. There were
similarities between particular cultures, which differed from typical western European
experiences. This article concludes that although there are common themes, there are also
reported differences in NDEs. The variability across cultures is most likely to be due to our
interpretation and verbalizing of such esoteric events through the filters of language, cultural
experiences, religion, education and their influence on our belief systems either shedding
influence as an individual variable or more often perhaps by their rich interplay between these
factors', "Phenomenology of Near-death Experiences: A Cross-cultural Perspective", Transcultural
Psychiatry, http://tps.sagepub.com/content/45/1/121.short
'The data also demonstrated a significant difference between the high versus low expectancy
subjects for both patient and healer groups, as well as a significant relationship between high
expectancy in patients and healer and the effectiveness of the spiritual healing encounter. The
results of the study therefore suggest that high healer and patient expectancy may be
important elements which can serve as both predictors as well as facilitators of the healing
process. The degree of bonding or communication between the healer and patient was
postulated as an important factor in this regard', "The Significance of Belief and Expectancy
Within the Spiritual Healing Encounter", Social Science and Medicine,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7667686

B. Claim 2.2: Perceptual Biases

a) 'With each eye fixation, we experience a richly detailed visual world. Yet recent work on visual
integration and change direction reveals that we are surprisingly unaware of the details of our
environment from one view to the next: we often do not detect large changes to objects and
scenes ('change blindness'). Furthermore, without attention, we may not even perceive objects
('inattentional blindness'). Taken together, these findings suggest that we perceive and
remember only those objects and details that receive focused attention', "Gorillas in our midst:
sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events", Perception,
http://www.drjoebio.com/uploads/1/8/1/3/1813500/gorrila_in_our_midst.pdf
b) 'We present the first cross-modal modification of visual perception which involves a
phenomenological change in the qualityas opposed to a small, gradual, or quantitative
changeof the percept of a non-ambiguous visual stimulus. We report a visual illusion which is
induced by sound: when a single flash of light is accompanied by multiple auditory beeps, the
single flash is perceived as multiple flashes. We present two experiments as well as several
observations which establish that this alteration of the visual percept is due to cross-modal
perceptual interactions as opposed to cognitive, attentional, or other origins. The results of the
second experiment also reveal that the temporal window of these audiovisual interactions is
approximately 100 ms', "Visual illusion induced by sound", Cognitive Brain Research,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926641002000691
c) 'When we look at our hands, we immediately know that they are part of our own body. This
feeling of ownership of our limbs is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness. We have studied
the neuronal counterparts of this experience. A perceptual illusion was used to manipulate
19

d)

feelings of ownership of a rubber hand presented in front of healthy subjects while brain
activity was measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging. The neural activity in the
premotor cortex reflected the feeling of ownership of the hand. This suggests that multisensory
integration in the premotor cortex provides a mechanism for bodily self-attribution', "That's My
Hand! Activity in Premotor Cortex Reflects Feeling of Ownership of a Limb", Science,
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/305/5685/875.short
'What are the natural constraints for the human body representation? Here I report a perceptual
illusion where healthy individuals experience having two right arms, with both sensing touches
applied to them. This effect reveals how visual and tactile signals from the body are integrated in
a probabilistic fashion, resulting in a single limb being represented at two locations at the same
time, giving rise to a perceptual duplication of this limb. This is an important observation because
it suggests that even the gross morphology that we experience of ourselves is a construct
resulting from dynamic and integrative processes in the perceptual systems', "How many arms
make a pair? Perceptual illusion of having an additional limb", Perception,
http://www.perceptionweb.com/perception/editorials/p6304.pdf

C. Claim 2.3: The Social Construction of Miracles

a) 'The depiction of characters who appear in a miraculous healing story. The study concludes with
an analysis of how the widespread circulation of miraculous healing stories sustains the practice
of praying for miraculous healing whilst also creating reality for a community', "'Your Faith Has
Made You Well': The Role Of Storytelling in the Experience of Miraculous Healing", Review Of
Religious Research, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3512058
b) 'This study defines spiritual experiences in terms of "psychism," or psychic intrusions in the
stream of consciousness that are perceived by the actor as not originating within the "self."
Intrusions interpreted as psychism are regarded by the actor as having the same facticity as
empirical experience and are regarded as "proof' of an esoteric belief system. Psychism
originated beliefs are therefore resistant to refutation or change, and support spiritual autonomy',
"The Social Effects of Psychism: Spiritual Experience and the Construction of Privatized Religion",
Sociology of Religion, http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/3/239.short
c) Study explicating how Christian Scientists use repeated denial to convince themselves that their
ailments are not real, "Christian Science Healing", Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, page
180, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1384135
d) 'Pentecostal miracles and healings have often been described and interpreted, but rarely
explained in their sociological workings. As former research implies, actual biomedical effects of
Pentecostal healings are possible (the so-called placebo effect), but quite limited. In Pentecostal
healing services, however, very impressive miracles and healings are routinely produced:
paralytics arise from wheelchairs, cancerous ulcers disappear, legs grow, cavities are mysteriously
lled, and the deaf suddenly hear. Drawing on a case study and qualitative interviews, this paper
offers a sociological, mechanism-based, explanatory scheme for the observed phenomena. It is
argued that a number of social techniques (e.g., suggestion, rhythm, music), context factors
(e.g., audience size and beliefs), and causal mechanisms (e.g., probability, latency, selection,
and editing effects) are combined in an ingenious way in order to produce miracles and
healings', "All Things Are Possible: Towards a Sociological Explanation of Pentecostal Miracles and
Healings", Sociology of Religion, http://www.unil.ch/webdav/site/issrc/shared/Healing_Final1.pdf
e) 'The communal creation of religious meaning is here examined in the context of an Irish Catholic
Charismatic prayer meeting. Through a micro-analysis of the spontaneous ritual language of
one such meeting, various discursive strategies are revealed which function to create for the
20

f)

g)

h)

participants an experience of divine/human communication. These include an explicit effort on

the part of speakers to construct a thematically consistent and coherent ritual event out of a
sequence of apparently spontaneous individual speech acts, as well as a marked use of
evidentials to attribute spiritual authorship and authority to personal speech acts. In contrast to
what has been suggested as the self-evident nature of ritual speech, the frequent use of
evidentials is related to the relatively recent emergence of the movement, its ideology, and its
emphasis on the personal narrative as the central form of religious discourse', "Evidentiality in
ritual discourse: The social construction of religious meaning", Language in Society,
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=4177184
'This paper is based on interviews with 160 persons who were participants in spiritual healing
groups in Baltimore between 1981 and 1983. Survey data are used to describe how participants in
spiritual healing groups presented their health problems, and how and if these problems were
resolved or 'healed' over a six-month period. The majority of respondents claimed some degree
of healing, associated mainly with symptom alleviation rather than cure. A process of health
problem redefinition occurred among some respondents, that provided better 'fit' with
outcome descriptions of healing than original problem formulations. Redefined health
problems were often less serious, less medical, more chronic, and more 'emergent' than those
initially defined, and respondents who redefined problems were significantly more likely to
claim a healing experience. 'Psychologisation' of problems suggest that healing experiences can
be conceived as socially constructed events', "The redefinition of the situation: the social
construction of spiritual healing experiences", Sociology of Health and Illness,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11376371/abstract
'Hauntings and poltergeist-like episodes are argued to be products of contagious reactions to
ambiguous environmental or cognitive events. In particular, evidence suggests that the
subjective and objective effects reported by percipients are the function of independent,
nonparanoraml etiologies whose constitutions have been previously established and described.
According to this multivariate model, the labeling of ambiguous events as "abnormal" or
"paranormal" initiates the reactive process which is subsequently sustained by perceptual
contagion, i.e., flurries of paranormal observations due self-reinforcing attentional processes',
"Hauntings and poltergeist-like episodes as a confluence of conventional phenomena: a general
hypothesis", Perceptual and Motor Skills,
http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1996.83.3f.1307
Many people report unusual experiences merely from sitting in a room if they are told to expect
them beforehand. 'Participants were required to spend 50 min in a specially constructed chamber,
within which they were exposed to infrasound, complex EMFs, both or neither A considerable
proportion of the participants reported a number of anomalous sensations in response to a
fairly mild suggestion that in our white, round, featureless room they might feel some unusual
sensations. Such an explanation is in line with the observations of Houran and Lange (1996). They
asked two volunteers to keep a diary for 30 days of unusual events of the type that are
traditionally associated with hauntings and poltergeists in a residence with no prior history of
such activity. As expected, the instructions themselves were sufcient for the volunteers to note,
with increasing frequency, anomalous or unusual events presumably simply because the
volunteers were now primed to notice Although many participants reported anomalous
sensations of various kinds, the number reported was unrelated to experimental condition but
was related to TLS scores. The most parsimonious explanation for our ndings is in terms of
suggestibility', "The Haunt project: An attempt to build a haunted room by manipulating
21

i)

complex electromagnetic elds and infrasound", Cortex,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18635163
'Personality characteristics indicative of suggestibility consistently predicted the mystical and
somatosensory experiences in both religious and non-religious participants. These
characteristics included absorption to mind-altering experiences, the adoption of a new-age
lifestyle orientation, and signs of anomalous temporal lobe activity, which individually explained
approximately 1025% of the outcome variance Absorption is a trait referring to openness to
self-altering experiences and other indices of an altered state of consciousness. Besides
indicating suggestibility, e.g., to hypnotic induction, absorption has been linked to paranormal
and mystical experiences', "Sensed presence and mystical experiences are predicted by
suggestibility, not by the application of transcranial weak complex magnetic elds", Neuroscience
Letters, Sensed presence and mystical experiences are predicted by suggestibility,

2.4. Cognitive and Memory Biases

A. Claim 3.1: False Memories
a) 'Overall, 36% of respondents reported false memories of the alleged footage of the Bali
bombing.Participants reporting false memories were found to score significantly higher on
various subscales of the Anomalous Experiences Inventory', "The relationship between
susceptibility to false memories, dissociativity, and paranormal belief and experience",
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886906002224
b) 'This research investigated whether generating misinformation impairs memory for actual
information. After watching a videotaped robbery, some witnesses were interviewed about it, but
others did not rehearse the event details. One week later, the witnesses tried to remember the
robber's appearance In both experiments deceptive witnesses sometimes reported invented
details on the memory test, suggesting that they may have come to believe some fabrications',
"When a lie becomes the truth: The effects of selfgenerated misinformation on eyewitness
memory", Memory,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09658210244000072#.UxLV1oVlvC8
c) 'Granhag, Stromwall, and Billings (2003) found that 76% of participants came to remember
seeing non-existent film footage of the sinking of the passenger liner the Estonia Similarly, Ost,
Hogbin, and Granhag,(2005) found that 40% of participants recalled seeing non-existent CCTV
footage of an explosion in a Bali nightclub, and that the number of false reports increased or
decreased in line with confirmatory or disconfirmatory social influence exerted by the
confederate. Hence, memory conformity effects can occur for significant and emotional
autobiographical events', "Collaborative recall and collective memory: What happens when we
remember together?", Memory, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658210701811862
d) 'In the domain of autobiographical memories, Loftus and Bernstein (2005) claim that rich false
memories are usually created by increasing processing requirements (e.g., participants are
asked to imagine an event, to elaborate on some new information, etc). Elaborating the new
information (e.g., imagining it) increases the perceived level of familiarity of the event; in turn
this increased familiarity is erroneously attributed to childhood experience, rather than to the
recent elaboration. In a similar vein, a familiarity plus corroboration model proposes that false
memories are due to a surreptitiously enhanced feeling of familiarity of a specific item, which
triggers the search for corroborating (and false) memories. Although initially proposed in a
different context, this model can easily explain how rich false autobiographical memories are
22

created', "Hindsight Bias, the Misinformation Effect, and False Autobiographical Memories",
Social Cognition, http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.2007.25.1.203
e) Participants alter memory of stimuli after exposure to misleading information about the
responses of others, even when told these responses were bogus, "Shared Realities: Social
Influence and Stimulus Memory", Social Cognition,
http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.1996.14.2.113
f) 'After controlling for initial confidence, inaccurate memories were shown to be more easily
distorted than accurate memories', "Memory conformity affects inaccurate memories more than
accurate memories", Memory,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09658211.2012.654798#.UuIsCbR9JlY
g) 'Study 1 investigated the role of selective recall in precognitive dream experiences. Participants
read two diaries, one purporting to be a dream diary, and one purporting to be a diary of events
in the dreamers life. The events either confirmed or disconfirmed the reported dreams. As
predicted, a significantly greater number of confirmed than disconfirmed dream-event pairs
were recalled As predicted, paranormal belief and precognitive dream belief were found to
correlate significantly with ability to find correspondences between dreams and news event
pairs. Contrary to prediction, no relationship was found between belief and performance on the
neutral association task. Together, these studies illustrate the operation of mechanisms that,
when present in individuals having dreams and experiencing subsequent events, would tend to
lead to an increase in the number of experiences of a seeming coincidence between dreams and
events that can be interpreted as precognitive', "Psychological factors in precognitive dream
experiences: The role of paranormal belief, selective recall and propensity to find
correspondences", International Journal of Dream Research, http://journals.ub.uniheidelberg.de/index.php/IJoDR/article/view/11218
B. Claim 3.2: Memory Conformity
a) 'Participants were shown a crime video and then asked to discuss the video in groups, with some
receiving misinformation about the event from their discussion partners. After a one week delay
some participants were warned about possible misinformation before all participants provided
their own account of the event. Co-witness information was incorporated into participants
testimonies, and this effect was not reduced by warnings or source monitoring instructions,
suggesting memory change may have occurred', "Can a witness report hearsay evidence
unintentionally? The effects of discussion on eyewitness memory",
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1068316X.2010.510117
b) 'Sixty first-year Jagiellonian University students described two important autobiographical events
twice. In between the two recall sessions, participants from the experimental group viewed two
films. The first was a short televised account of the two events; the second was a corresponding
videotaped description of the personal experiences of a young woman. In addition, participants
were asked to imagine what she had been talking about. Most of the participants from the
experimental group incorporated elements of the woman's description into their own
subsequent accounts. In spite of this, they rated the vividness and the accuracy of their posttest memories as very high', "Distortion of autobiographical memories", Applied Cognitive
Psychology, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.847/abstract
c) 'When two people see the same event and discuss it, one persons memory report can influence
what the other person subsequently claims to remember. We refer to this as memory
conformity. in the present article, two factors underlying the memory conformity effect are
investigated. First, are there any characteristics of the dialogue that predict memory conformity?
23

d)

e)

f)

g)

h)

i)

j)

Second, is memory conformity differentially affected when information is encountered that omits,
adds to, or contradicts originally encoded items? Participants were tested in pairs. the two
members of each pair encoded slightly different versions of complex scenes and discussed them
prior to an individual free recall test. The discussions were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed.
Our most striking finding was that the witness initiating the discussion was most likely to
influence the other witnesss memory report', "Memory conformity: Disentangling the steps
toward influence during a discussion", Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,
http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2FBF03193873
'Siblings attempted to recall four childhood eventsthree true and one falsethree times
independently, and then discussed their memories with each other. Results showed that subjects
incorporated elements from each other's reports into their own; 24% also reported details
about the false event by the end of the individual phase, although false reports dropped
dramatically after the discussion phase. Our research shows discussion can influence both true
and false autobiographical memories', "Discussion affects memory for true and false childhood
events", Applied Cognitive Psychology,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.1219/abstract
'Three studies demonstrate that individuals often rely on a belief force equals credible source
heuristic to make source judgments, wherein they assume that statements they believe originate
from credible sources', "Evolving Informational Credentials: The (Mis)Attribution of Believable
Facts to Credible Sources", Pers Soc Psychol Bull,
http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/2/225
A great general review article, "Remembering in Conversations: The Social Sharing and
Reshaping of Memories", Annual Review of Psychology,
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100340
Overhearing the impressions of others about an event can change memories of the event,
"Remembering the impressions of others as our own: how post-experience decisions can distort
autobiographical memory", Applied Cognitive Psychology,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.1184/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage
=&userIsAuthenticated=false
On the effect of social conformity on memory: 'People incorporate erroneous interjections if they
believe these come from another person than from a computer. Further, not only does social
conformity lead people to accept the confederates recognition errors, it also produces genuine
memory impairments, as evidenced by poorer memory on a later individual task', "Collaborative
Memory: Cognitive Research and Theory", Perspectives on Psychological Science,
http://pps.sagepub.com/content/5/6/649.short
'Three studies investigated change-of-meaning processes following decisions to conform or
dissent. Study 1 demonstrated that conformity decisions relative to a group standard, but not
agreement decisions relative to a purely informational standard, caused changes in subject's
construal of a stimulus story. Studies 2 and 3 extended these findings to a real-world stimulus
story (an actual newspaper account of a police shooting incident) and showed that
postconformity change-of-meaning effects were maintained over a 1-week test period and in
fact increased over time for female subjects', "Change-of-meaning effects in conformity and
dissent: Observing construal processes over time", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/67/6/984/
'In their study, student participants tune their retelling of a witnessed incident to their audiences
evaluation of the suspects in the incident. It is found that participants own memories and
24

judgments regarding the incident are more biased toward their audience when they are more
(vs. less) motivated to create a shared view with a particular audience (a student with a similar
vs. dissimilar academic background)', "Social Influence on Memory", Social Psychology,
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/zsp/40/3/106/
C. Claim 3.3: Eyewitness Testimony
a) 'Numerous studies have shown that eyewitness testimony for pseudo-psychic demonstrations,
such as fake sances and fork bending, may be inaccurate and vulnerable to memory distortion.
Wiseman and Morris (1995), for example, have presented evidence suggesting that believers in
the paranormal had poorer memories for pseudo-psychic demonstrations (i.e., conjuring tricks)
than non-believers. Furthermore, the memory differences between believers and non-believers
were particularly marked for information that was crucial to explaining how a particular effect
had been achieved. For example, the fact that a key disappeared from view during a metalbending demonstration was critical because it was at this point that a straight key was switched
for a bent key. Believers also tended to rate demonstrations of such pseudo-psychic feats as more
paranormal than non-believers', "Memory Conformity and Paranormal Belief",
http://archived.parapsych.org/papers/56.pdf
b) 'Sixty-four psychologists were asked about their courtroom experiences and opinions on 30
eyewitness phenomena. By an agreement rate of at least 80%, there was a strong consensus that
the following phenomena are sufficiently reliable to present in court: the wording of questions,
lineup instructions, confidence malleability, mug-shot-induced bias, postevent information,
child witness suggestibility, attitudes and expectations, hypnotic suggestibility, alcoholic
intoxication, the cross-race bias, weapon focus, the accuracyconfidence correlation, the
forgetting curve, exposure time, presentation format, and unconscious transference. Results
also indicate that these experts set high standards before agreeing to testify. Despite limitations,
these results should help to shape expert testimony so that it more accurately represents
opinions in the scientific community', "On the "general acceptance" of eyewitness testimony
research: A new survey of the experts", American Psychologist,
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/56/5/405/
c) 'In contrast to laboratory free recall (which emphasizes detailed and accurate remembering),
conversational retellings depend upon the speakers goals, the audience, and the social context
more generally. Because memories are frequently retrieved in social contexts, retellings of events
are often incomplete or distorted, with consequences for later memory. Selective rehearsal
contributes to the memory effects, as does the schema activated during retelling. Retellings can
be linked to memory errors observed in domains such as eyewitness testimony and ashbulb
memories; in all of these situations, people retell events rather than engage in verbatim
remembering', "Retelling Is Not the Same as Recalling Implications for Memory", Current
Directions in Psychological Science, http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/16/1/16.abstract
d) 'On September 12, 2001, 54 Duke students recorded their memory of first hearing about the
terrorist attacks of September 11 and of a recent everyday event. They were tested again either 1,
6, or 32 weeks later. Consistency for the flashbulb and everyday memories did not differ, in both
cases declining over time. However, ratings of vividness, recollection, and belief in the accuracy of
memory declined only for everyday memories. Initial visceral emotion ratings correlated with
later belief in accuracy, but not consistency, for flashbulb memories. Initial visceral emotion
ratings predicted later posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Flashbulb memories are not
special in their accuracy, as previously claimed, but only in their perceived accuracy',
25

"Confidence, Not Consistency, Characterizes Flashbulb Memories" , Psychological Science,

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/14/5/455.short
e) Participants show greater inaccuracy reporting the effects of a violent film clip when asked to
focus on recalling their emotional reactions, and in the presence of fewer external retrieval ques,
"How Eyewitnesses Talk about Events: Implications for Memory",
http://psych.stanford.edu/~bt/memory/papers/marsh-tversky-hutson_eyewitness.pdf
f) 'In this case study, 14 witnesses of an armed robbery were interviewed after 3 months. Security
camera recordings were used to assess memory accuracy. Of all information that could be
remembered about 84% was correct. Although accurately recalled information had a higher
confidence level on average than inaccurately recalled information, the mean accuracy
confidence correlation was rather modest (0.38). These findings indicate that confidence is not
a reliable predictor of accuracy', "Eyewitness memory of a supermarket robbery: A case study of
accuracy and confidence after 3 months", Law and Human Behavior,
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/lhb/33/6/506/
g) An interesting discussion about the similarities between ritual satantic abuse claims and alien
abduction accounts, in particular (see pages 55-61) a discussion of how these episodes can have
very real psychological effects in spite of high implausibility and no physical evidence, "Satanist
abuse and alien abduction: A comparative analysis", British Journal of Social Work,
http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/1/43.abstract
D. Claim 3.4: Cognitive Biases
a) Illusory truth effect: the tendency to believe information to be correct because we are exposed
to it more times, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect
b) Confirmation bias: the tendency to seek out and believe information that confirms one's beliefs
or hypotheses, in preference to information that disconfirms one's beliefs,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
c) Selective perception: the tendency to not notice and more quickly forget stimuli that causes
emotional discomfort and contradicts prior beliefs. One classic example of this is the hostile
media effect, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_perception
d) Belief bias: the tendency to judge the strength of arguments based on the plausibility of their
conclusion rather than how strongly they support that conclusion,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_bias
e) Bias blind spot: the cognitive bias of failing to compensate for one's own cognitive biases,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot
f) Overconfidence effect: someone's subjective confidence in their judgments is reliably greater
than their objective accuracy, especially when confidence is relatively high. For example, in some
quizzes, people rate their answers as "99% certain" but are wrong 40% of the time,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect
g) Subjective validation: a person will consider a statement or another piece of information to be
correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. Closely related to the Forer effect,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_validation

2.5. Marginalisation of Doubt

A. Claim 4.1: Irrational Belief Persistence
a) 'Much of the literature on unconventional beliefs seems premised on the assumption that such
beliefs are highly vulnerable to everyday experience and therefore inherently fragile. There are,
26

however, a number of studies of religious movements strongly suggesting that this fragility
assumption is ill-founded. Zygmunt's (1970) research on Jehovah's Witnesses indicates that even
though the movement experienced a succession of prophetic failures between 1878 and 1925,
neither the belief system nor its following has dissolved Lofland's (1966) research on the
Unification Church during the early days of its operation in America suggests that its belief system
was even less assailable than the Witness world view. Lofland (1966: 195) reports that the
movement's belief system was "logically impossible to confront with disconfirming or negative
evidence" because it "was designed so that all experience, all counter-arguments, would only
produce confirmation." Our findings regarding the Nichiren Shoshu belief system indicates that
its formidable interpretive scheme is not highly vulnerable to contradiction and challenge. Not
only does it protect believers from negative evidence, but it defines virtually all events and
experiences as confirmation of the system. The foregoing observations indicate that some
unconventional belief systems are amazingly resilient and apparently invulnerable to
disconfirmation', "On the Presumed Fragility of Unconventional Beliefs", Journal for the Scientific
Study of Religion, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1385566
b) 'Almost everyone in the sociology of religion is familiar with the classic 1956 study by Festinger et
al. of how religious groups respond to the failure of their prophetic pronouncements. Far fewer
are aware of the many other studies of a similar nature completed over the last thirty years on an
array of other new religious movements. There are intriguing variations in the observations and
conclusions advanced by many of these studies, as well as some surprising commonalities. This
paper offers a systematic overview of these variations and commonalities with an eye to
developing a more comprehensive and critical perspective on this complex issue. An analysis is
provided of the adaptive strategies of groups faced with a failure of prophecy and the
conditions affecting the nature and relative success of these strategies. In the end, it is argued,
the discussion would benefit from a conceptual reorientation away from the specifics of the
theory of cognitive dissonance, as formulated by Festinger et al., to a broader focus on the
generic processes of dissonance management in various religious and social groups', "When
Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists: A Theoretical Overview", Nova Religio: The Journal of
Alternative and Emergent Religions, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/nr.1999.3.1.60
c) 'Many pseudoscientists seem to carefully avoid situations that would put them at a risk of
empirical refutation. For example, mediums and clairvoyants have all sorts of excuses for
refusing to participate in the type of controlled test that is bound to expose their lack of powers
all too clearly (Hines, 2003)', "How convenient! The epistemic rationale of self-validating belief
systems", Philosophical Psychology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2011.579420
d) 'An accomplice presented three common magician's tricks, which resembled "psychic"
performances, to six introductory psychology classes. In the two classes comprising the Psychic
condition, the instructors skeptically introduced the accomplice as an alleged psychic; in the Weak
Magic condition, as an amateur magician; in the Strong Magic condition, as an amateur magician
who would perform stunts which resembled psychic phenomena, but were really not. Belief was
assessed through free-form written response, in the form of feedback to the performer. These
instructional sets succeeded in manipulating proportion of occult belief. However, proportion of
occult belief was above 50% and far exceeding magic beliefs in each experimental condition,
even though, as indicated by a manipulation check, subjects in the Magic conditions heard and
understood the instructors' assertions that the accomplice was a magician who would be faking
a psychic performance', "Occult Belief: Seeing Is Believing", Journal for the Scientific Study of
Religion, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1386128
27

e) 'When people are motivated to cling to a belief, they do not feel comfortable with blithely
ignoring adverse evidence or simply shutting their ears to anyone who opposes their views.
Instead, they engage in more subtle forms of ad hoc reasoning, rationalization, and special
pleading to arrive at their desired conclusions and to justify their beliefs to others, e.g.,
reinterpreting the facts, weighing them against background knowledge, finding some reason to
discredit the source, etc. This practice allows them to uphold an illusion of objectivity concerning
the manner in which... inferences were derived, "How convenient! The epistemic rationale of
self-validating belief systems", Philosophical Psychology,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2011.579420
f) 'In two experiments, we tested the hypothesis derived from cognitive dissonance theory that
dissonance reduction attenuates dissonance-related negative affect. Using a belief
disconfirmation paradigm, we found that participants given an opportunity to reduce
dissonance through transcendence (Study 1) or through maintenance of their threatened
beliefs (Study 2) experienced less negative affect than did participants not given an opportunity
to reduce dissonance. These results contribute to two relatively neglected areas of research on
dissonance theory: the role of affect in the dissonance process and alternative modes of
dissonance reduction', "By Faith Alone: Religious Agitation and Cognitive Dissonance", Basic and
Applied Social Psychology, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15324834basp1901_2
g) 'A study is reported in which 50 adolescent female high school students were given a chance to
commit themselves publicly to a religious belief and were then faced with information which
seemed to disconfirm that belief. Consistent with dissonance interpretations of earlier field
studies, subjects who both expressed belief and accepted the veracity of the disconfirming
information subsequently expressed a significant increase in intensity of belief. This reaction
was not found among subjects who either had not expressed initial belief or had not accepted the
veracity of the disconfirming information', "Rational processing or rationalization? The effect of
disconfirming information on a stated religious belief", Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/32/1/176/
B. Claim 4.2. Earliest Anti-Christian Polemics
The following is a list briefly outlining the earliest anti-Christian writers and opponents that I could
uncover. The main point to make is how few of them there were, and none that I could find from the
first century.
a) The Roman authorities in the early decades had very little reason to persecute Christians. As far
as I know, there are no references to official persecutions until the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64.
Christians were mostly distrusted because they refused to sacrifice to the state gods or perform
the usual rituals, which was seen to be unpatriotic and potentially dangerous to political stability
and social harmony. There was little interest in responding to Christian beliefs per se. For more
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire#Overview
b) Jews in the Synagogues: Paul is recorded as debating and disputing with the Jews in synagogues
(see for example Acts 17:2-3, 18:4). Paul's missionary journeys, however, began over a decade
after the death of Jesus, and the Jews with whom he was debating were not present at the time
or place when the counter-evidence to Christian claims is alleged to have been easily accessible
(e.g. far too late to have produced a body by this time). Also, I interpret these passages about
reasoning in the synagogues to probably refer to discussion of the scriptures (i.e. what we call the
Old Testament), though admittedly it is not entirely clear.

28

c) Rabbi Tarfon: Apparently anti-Christian Rabbi who lived in the late 1st to early 2nd centuries,
though I don't think we have any of his writings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Tarfon#Ruling_on_christian_texts
d) Trypho: See also with reference to the above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_with_Trypho
e) Celsus: Second century Greek philosopher who wrote The True Word, the first known substantial
attack on Christianity, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsus
f) Porphyry: Third century anti-Christian philosopher:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyry_%28philosopher%29#Against_the_Christians_.28Adversus
_Christianos.29
g) Julian: It would be remiss of me not to include here a reference to Julian the Apostate,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_%28emperor%29
h) Early Jewish Authorities: It is sometimes claimed that the priests, scribes, and other Jewish
authorities made efforts to disprove Christian claims about the resurrection during the period in
Jerusalem immediately following the events in question, when original eyewitnesses were
present and the evidence was fresh. Had Jesus' body been present, or other clear disconfirming
evidence been available, it is argued that Christianity would not have been able to survive. The
only information we have about this period is contained in the first few chapters of Acts. I regard
this material with a grain of salt, as we only have the Christian version of events here, and at least
some reason to regard some of the events it narrates as dubious (for example, Acts 4:13-22
includes a private conversation between the Jewish council members after Peter and John were
asked to leave, where it is unclear how the author knows what was said).
I have excepted all the passages that seem to be potentially relevant below (from Acts 4-8),
bolding statements made by the Jewish authorities which express their views or responses to the
early Christian movement. My argument is that there is not a single indication in these passages
that the Jewish authorities made any effort to refute factual claims made by the early Christians
(e.g. that Jesus' body was not in the tomb or that many witnesses claimed to have seen him). All
they ever seem to do is arrest the apostles, get angry at them, and accuse them of blasphemy and
similar crimes. There is no hint of any interest in engaging factual claims or making rebuttals at all.
As such I regard assertions that the authorities were interested in doing this to be unfounded from the only detailed record of the time in question, we have no clear evidence that they were.
i.
Acts 4: 1-3, 7, 13-17: The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees
came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly
disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the
resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they
put them in jail until the next day They had Peter and John brought before them and
began to question them: By what power or what name did you do this? When they
saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men,
they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since
they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was
nothing they could say. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then
conferred together. What are we going to do with these men? they asked. Everyone
living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it.
But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them
to speak no longer to anyone in this name.

29

ii.

iii.

iv.

v.

Acts 5: 27-28, 33-40: The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the
Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. We gave you strict orders not to teach in
this name, he said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are
determined to make us guilty of this mans blood. Peter and the other apostles replied:
"We must obey God rather than human beings!" When they heard this, they were furious
and wanted to put them to death. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law,
who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men
be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: Men of Israel,
consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago Theudas appeared,
claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all
his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean
appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed,
and all his followers were scattered. Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave
these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.
But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves
fighting against God. His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had
them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them
go.
Acts 6: 8-14: Now Stephen, a man full of Gods grace and power, performed great
wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the
Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as
the provinces of Cilicia and Asiawho began to argue with Stephen. But they could not
stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke. Then they secretly
persuaded some men to say, We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words
against Moses and against God. So they stirred up the people and the elders and the
teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They
produced false witnesses, who testified, This fellow never stops speaking against this
holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth
will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.
Acts 7: 54: When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this (Stephen's speech), they were
furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to
heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he
said, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. At this
they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at
him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid
their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Acts 8: 1-3: On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem,
and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men
buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going
from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

C. Claim 4.3. Ability to Check Claims

a) The First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 15 of which contains Paul's famous creed concerning
the resurrection appearances, was written to the church in Corinth (a city in Greece), around
twenty years after the death of Jesus,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_to_the_Corinthians
30

b)

c)

d)

Travel time: By my calculations using this tool http://orbis.stanford.edu/v2/index.html, the

quickest trip from Corinth to Jerusalem would take 10 days (in summer), and cost about 300
denarii, which is something like ten months wages for an average labourer (based on 1 denarii per
day wage, see http://home.sprynet.com/~shpion/anprices.htm, see also
https://www.academia.edu/951090/Some_aspects_of_wage_payments_and_coinage).
Ease of checking: Given these difficulties of travel, as well as the passage of many years by the
time of the epistles, the only time and place when such 'checking' would actually been feasible for
the overwhelming majority of people (really everyone other than the rich) would have been much
earlier, during the first few years after the Crucifixion, in Jerusalem and its immediate
surroundings.
The 500 witnesses: In 1 Corinthians 15:6 Paul says that Jesus 'appeared to more than five
hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep'.
Some apologists argue that this large number of surviving witnesses could plausibly have been
consulted by skeptical hearers of the message, and discrepancies or inventions uncovered in this
way. I have significant problems with this claim.
i.
First, on what basis is this appearance regarded as historical? Our only evidence for it is
Paul's word that it happened, without any details or specifics. I see no reason at all to
regard it as part of an established 'historical bedrock'. If the resurrection hypothesis rests
to any significant extent on this fact, then I argue it rests on very flimsy ground indeed.
ii.
Second, if we suppose that a real event involving some five hundred people took place,
how does Paul know that they all saw Jesus, or the same manifestation of Jesus? Did he
interview every single one individually and separately? Did he even interview 10% of them?
I very much doubt it. At best what we have is a large group of people who had a collective
experience of seeing Jesus. We do not know how many people were present (numbers
like this can easily be invented from thin air, here's an interesting example about polar
bear populations: 'IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group says its global population estimate
was "a qualified guess"', http://polarbearscience.com/2014/05/30/iucn-polar-bearspecialist). We do not know how many of them saw anything at all. We do not know
whether those who did see something say the same thing, or whether each person saw
something different
iii.
Third, what is someone hearing of this event in Corinth some twenty years afterwards
supposed to have done if they wished to verify the claim? Pay large amounts of money in
search of unknown and unnamed persons? Did Paul keep a record of their addresses or
contact information? How would someone have contacted such people? Even if they
found them, how would they verify that they were actually at the event in question?
Would they even speak the same language? The actual ability to check any such claim
thus seems extremely tenuous, with the exception of those in close temporal and spatial
proximity to the original event, as I discuss above
iv.
Fourth, even if we do believe the event took place as described, all this demonstrates is
that a large number of people believed that they saw Jesus in some fashion ('some
fashion' because we have no details of what they saw). This is little different to the Marian
apparitions or reports of miraculous Buddha status, and other such miracles that I
document. It is perfectly consistent with the HBS model to say that large crowds of people
falsely came to believe (through the mechanisms I outline) that they saw Jesus in some
form, and then have reported this to others

31

2.6. Identity Consolidation

A. Claim 5.1: Identity and Religion
a) 'Conversion might be compared to the crystallizing role of the experience of significance
sometimes found at the onset of delusion formation, in the face of emotional disruption on a
much more severe and pathological level. Most respondents (71%) did recall that there was one
point at which their conviction to join coalesced After the initial conversion, life experiences
and activities gain meaning within the elaborated beliefs of the attribution set. For example, it
has been pointed out that for American faith-healing subjects, within their assumptive world
view their personality structure and magical beliefs are not abnormal, but rather are part of a
coping system that provides ego integration', "The Moonies: A Psychological Study of Conversion
and Membership in a Contemporary Religious Sect", Am J Psychiatry,
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=157192
b) 'The authors characterize religions as social groups and religiosity as the extent to which a person
identifies with a religion, subscribes to its ideology or worldview, and conforms to its normative
practices. They argue that religions have attributes that make them well suited to reduce feelings
of self-uncertainty. According to uncertainty-identity theory, people are motivated to reduce
feelings of uncertainty about or reflecting on self; and identification with groups, particularly
highly entitative groups, is a very effective way to reduce uncertainty. All groups provide belief
systems and normative prescriptions related to everyday life. However, religions also address
the nature of existence, invoking sacred entities and associated rituals and ceremonies. They
are entitative groups that provide a moral compass and rules for living that pervade a persons life,
making them particularly attractive in times of uncertainty. The authors document data
supporting their analysis and discuss conditions that transform religiosity into religious zealotry
and extremism', "Religion in the Face of Uncertainty: An Uncertainty-Identity Theory Account of
Religiousness", Personality and Social Psychology Review,
http://psr.sagepub.com/content/14/1/72.short
c) 'When Prophets Die contends that few nonconventional religious groups die as a result of their
founder's death. Actually, these new religions usually die because the public has failed to
respond to the founder's ideas or the founder has not organized his or her followers into a
strong group. If new religions are going to die, they will die in the first decade. In various degrees,
the next eleven essays defend such arguments. The movements selected as case studies are as
follows: the Shakers, the Amana Society, American Indian prophetic groups, the Latter-day Saints,
the Hutterites, the Theosophical Society, Christian Science, the Spirit Fruit Society, Rastafarianism
of Jamaica, Krishna Consciousness, Siddha Yoga, and the Unification Church. The specifics of the
succession crises differ from group to group. However, nearly all new religions experience turmoil
and defection after the founder dies', "When Prophets Die: The Postcharismatic Fate of New
Religious Movements by Timothy Miller, Review by: Richard Kyle", Church History,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3169013
d) 'Bounded choice is said to be the social-psychological state associated with charismatic
commitment in which an individuals sense of personal freedom has become fused with an
imperative of self-renunciation on behalf of an intensely valued group. The members of the
group become so enmeshed that in a sense they become the organization. Moreover, they
experience this enmeshment as a type of personal freedom and self-fulfillment, which,
however, is predicated on a decrease in personal autonomy, manifested in ever-increasing
self-renunciation. The duality of devotees liberating subjective sense of freedom set off against
the objective reality of domination and non-autonomy pervades Janja Lalichs book and, in her
32

view characterizes close-knit, charismatically led cults', "Bounded Choice: True Believers And
Charismatic Cults Review by: Janja Lalich", Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent
Religions, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/nr.2006.9.4.117
e) An interesting paper comparing fifteen religious leaders (including Jesus) from around the world,
and analysing similarities in their modes of operation as charismatic leaders, "Charisma and
Religious Leadership: An Historical Analysis", Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1385423
f) 'As a social identity anchored in a system of guiding beliefs and symbols, religion ought to serve a
uniquely powerful function in shaping psychological and social processes. Religious identification
offers a distinctive sacred worldview and eternal group membership, unmatched by
identification with other social groups. Thus, religiosity might be explained, at least partially, by
the marked cognitive and emotional value that religious group membership provides. The
uniqueness of a positive social group, grounded in a belief system that offers epistemological and
ontological certainty, lends religious identity a twofold advantage for the promotion of well-being.
However, that uniqueness may have equally negative impacts when religious identity itself is
threatened through intergroup conflict. Such consequences are illustrated by an examination of
identities ranging from religious fundamentalism to atheism. Consideration of religions dual
function as a social identity and a belief system may facilitate greater understanding of the
variability in its importance across individuals and groups', "Religiosity as Identity: Toward an
Understanding of Religion From a Social Identity Perspective", Personality and Social Psychology
Review, http://psr.sagepub.com/content/14/1/60.short
g) 'According to social identity theory, identity competition plays a central role in the inception and
escalation of intergroup conflict, even when economic and political factors also are at play.
Individual and group identity competition is considered a by-product of individuals' efforts to
satisfy basic human needs, including various psychological needs. Religions often serve these
psychological needs more comprehensively and potently than other repositories of cultural
meaning that contribute to the construction and maintenance of individual and group identities.
Religions frequently supply cosmologies, moral frameworks, institutions, rituals, traditions, and
other identity-supporting content that answers to individuals' needs for psychological stability in
the form of a predictable world, a sense of belonging, self-esteem, and even self-actualization.
The peculiar ability of religion to serve the human identity impulse thus may partially explain why
intergroup conflict so frequently occurs along religious fault lines', "Ours is the Way of God':
Religion, Identity, And Intergroup Conflict", Journal of Peace Research,
http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/36/5/553.short
h) This paper discusses how we should be cautious in too-readily presuming that people are drawn
to and become committed to a religious movement primarily because they agree with its
particular claims, as opposed to other benefits they perceive. ' The analyst should avoid the
oversimplification of drawing an isomorphic relationship between a sect's ideological or
organizational content on the one hand, and inferred traits of a putative group of people
receptive to such a doctrine on the other. How far can it be asserted, in a given case, that the
doctrine and practice of a sect are 'pull' factors, away from other alternatives? This question
must be examined from at least two angles. First, some individuals may find their needs best
addressed by one or another set of ideological symbols and/or organizational characteristics.
This leads to the question of what potential recruits' cognized alternatives are to a given
sect. Secondly, the appeal of a sect must be seen from the perspective of a recruit's
definition and "active construction" of sect aims, personnel, and methods that initially
33

attracted him/her... My Nueva Jerusaln data show a variety of mainly non-eschatological

interests to be involved in peasant recruitment to Nueva Jerusaln', "Rethinking religious
decision-making in peasant millenarianism: The case of Nueva Jerusaln", Journal of
Contemporary Religion, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537909708580807
B. Claim 5.2: Martyrdom
a) "Buddhist Self-Immolation in Medieval China", History of Religions,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1061959
b) "Self-immolation and martyrdom in Tibet", Mortality,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13576275.2014.894011#.U1okzVfuyaQ
c) "Theology and power in the Middle East: Palestinian martyrdom in a comparative perspective",
Journal of Political Ideologies,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569310500244289#.U1opw1fuyaQ
d) "The Reluctant Way: Self-Immolation in Vietnam", The Antioch Review,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4610829
e) 'By closely analysing Naxalite propaganda material, I explain the functionality of martyrdom in the
Maoist movement in India. I show that their concept of secular martyrdom is multifaceted, but
can be traced to a mix of several elements in classical Maoist doctrine (sacrifice, dialectics, and
critique). As such, the cult of the secular martyr serves both practical and ideological aims. My
analysis, tracing martyrdom to secular ideology, opens new possibilities for studying this type of
martyrdom, which has come under pressure in the wake of the 9/11 attacks', "Maoist Martyrs:
Remembering the Revolution and Its Heroes in Naxalite Propaganda", Terrorism and Political
Violence, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546551003729864#.U1oqH1fuyaQ
f) 'According to the ICT (International Campaign for Tibet) at least 90 Tibetan monks, nuns, and
non-monastic Tibetans have committed self immolation since 2009, 73 (81%) of which have
been proclaimed as deceased due to inflictions experienced as a result of the demonstrations',
"Inferno in the Land of Snows: A Holistic Investigation of Tibetan Self-Immolation Through a
Tibetan Perspective, http://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1448/
g) 'What political, economic, religious, and emotional factors are involved in a person's decision to
kill civilians and military personnel through the sacrifice of his or her own life? Data for this
research were secondary analyses of interviews with Islamic martyrs, as well as their leaders
speeches. This investigation into the cultural-psychological explanations for Islamic martyrdom
leads to a model explaining a person's decision to carry out the mission as resulting from a
combination of four factors: the historical-cultural context, group processes, immediate and
anticipated rewards, and mechanisms to eradicate possible doubts and guilt regarding this
decision', "A Cultural-Psychological Theory of Contemporary Islamic Martyrdom", Journal for the
Theory of Social Behaviour, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.14685914.2007.00347.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
h) 'Korean Christians also carried with them Confucian and Buddhist concepts concerning the
nature of virtue, asceticism, world-renunciation and self-sacrifice, and they subscribed to a set
of social values which saw kinship ties and posthumous reputation as paramount. In the area of
martyrdom these indigenous concepts and values complemented and reinforced those derived
from Catholicism', "The Pursuit of Martyrdom in the Catholic Church in Korea before 1866", The
Journal of Ecclesiastical History,
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3309676
i) 'This dissertation deals with the ideology of martyrdom of the Hebrew Chronicles which were
written in response to the persecutions of the Rhineland Jews during the First Crusade in 1096.
34

The Chronicles describe how thousands of Jews died, some of whom were killed by the
crusaders, others killed each other or committed suicide rather than being forcibly bap-tized or
killed by the crusaders. This study analyzes how the chroniclers both develop previous Jewish
traditions on martyrdom, and add many new elements. Several of these novelties, such as for
instance the descriptions of the heavenly reward of the martyrs and the emphasis on the
innocence of the martyrs, have most likely been inspired by Christian ideas of martyrdom from
the immediate surroundings of the chroniclers. It is also possible to see an ideological
development between the earliest of the Chronicles, which was written shortly after the events,
and the latest, written approximately 50 years after the persecutions. The author of the latest
Chronicle has added many ideological interpolations, which stress the righteousness of the
martyrs, especially those who resorted to suicide or to killing fellow Jews', "God Wants It!: The
Ideology of Martyrdom of the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles and Its Jewish and Christian
Background", Religionshistoria, http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:162722
j) See also this interesting book comparing Pagan, Jewish, and Christian texts: "Martyrdom and
Noble Death: Selected Texts from Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Antiquity", By Friedrich
Avemarie, Jan Willem van Henten,
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=eOfWJB5XQLsC&dq=religious+martyrdom+&lr=&source=g
bs_navlinks_s
k) "White Cannibals, Black Martyrs: Fear, Depression, and Religious Faith as Causes of Suicide
Among New Slaves", The Journal of Negro History, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2717175
l) I'm unsure if this is really relevant but I thought I'd include it for interest, "Early Christian
martyrdom and the psychology of depression, suicide, and bodily mutilation", Psychotherapy:
Theory, Research, Practice, Training, http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pst/27/1/30/

35

Section 3: The Macro Evidence

3.1.

Introduction

In part two, I outlined the 'micro-level' psychological and sociological evidence which I believe supports
the HBS model for the resurrection appearances. In this section, I present what I call the 'macro-level'
evidence, consisting of a selection of historical case studies of examples of religious miracles, and also
some other miraculous or paranormal events, all of which have been witnessed by groups of people and
recorded fairly soon after the fact.
The purpose of this 'macro-evidence' is to complement the 'micro-evidence', by demonstrating that the
specific psychological and sociological processes I outlined are actually capable of causing groups of
people to confidently believe that they have experienced very unusual phenomena.
Put differently, the 'micro-level' evidence by itself only goes so far. It is also necessary to demonstrate
that these specific psychological processes, when combined and instantiated in the real world over
historical time, are actually capable of yielding the effects I claim that they are capable of producing:
namely, groups sincerely reporting to have witnessed miraculous events. If the resurrection accounts
were the only documented example of this having occurred in history, then my claim to be able to explain
it by psychological means would be rather strained, for the processes I describe should also operate at
times and places outside first century Roman Palestine. As it is, I believe that there are in fact a significant
number of historical analogues to the Christian resurrection appearances, and as such I do not believe
that the Christian stories are unique.
Here I have specifically excluded claims that were not obviously actual miracles (like vague spiritual
experiences), events for which there was only one witness (like many visions), and stories that were only
written down long after the event supposedly happened (like the Buddha's many miracles). I also
deliberately avoided including miracle claims occurring in the mainstream Protestant tradition, as
Christian apologists will generally accept such claims as further supporting their argument. I suspect they
may be more reticent to do likewise with Hindu and Mormon miracle claims.
I caution readers from too easily dismissing some of these examples on the basis of the sometimes limited
documentation or scholarly work available about them in English. It is my view that Christian miracle
claims often seem more compelling to western eyes in large part because there is simply so much more
work available about them, such that it is much easier to find out details, build narratives, answer
objections, etc. This barrier of language and scholarly focus should, in my view, always be borne in mind
when comparing these cases.

36

3.2.

Best Attested Claims

This table contains, in no particular order, what I consider to be some of the best examples of miracle
claims, in terms of number of witnesses present and time until recorded. I strongly advise against relying
too heavily on this table alone. My selection of the best-attested claims is subjective, and others may well
find other examples more compelling or interesting than those presented in the table.
Case

Number of
Witnesses
At least 14

Time until Written

Three Witnesses
to Book of
Mormon

Within a year (1st

edition of BoM
1830)

Splitting of the
Moon

At least 6

Maybe, vague but

suggestive

Our Lady of
Zeitoun

Thousands

About 20 years via

Quran, about 200
years via Hadith
Days (see
newspapers)

Chaitanya
Mahaprabhu

Many
(public
events)
Several

Several decades

Many
(public
events)
Many
(public
events)

Contemporary

Arguable (many
different miracle
claims)
Seem to be given
the context
Resurrection claims
seem to be

Within years

Most probably
(especially raising
the dead claim)

Many
(public
event)
Several

About a century,
maybe less

Mecca rotated,
seems clear if
taken literally
Seems to be from
his account

Resurrection of
Jesus

Eliezer ben
Hurcanus
Sathya Sai Baba

Simon Kimbangu

Guru Nanak

Bruce T. Grindal

Various Buddhist
Monks (see
Daoxuan,
Xuanzang, Fu
Liang)

Variable

About 20 years (1st

Cor)

Several decades

About 5 days (till

he wrote up his
field notes)
Decades to
centuries

Clearly
Supernatural?
Probably (some
scholars argue for
visionary
interpretation)
Probably (though
possibly visionary)

Probably (could be
visionary)

Variable

Hostile Witness?
Maybe (James?,
Paul?)

No (though all three

witnesses left church
later without
denying event)
No

Yes (many Muslim

and some Jewish
witnesses)
Unknown

Yes (the Rabbi he

was arguing with)
Unknown

Possible (he was

persecuted by the
Belgian authorities,
so they at least took
him seriously)
Yes (mostly Muslim
witnesses)
Arguable (he was at
least to a degree, as
a skeptical outsider)
Unknown (not a
single case but
included because of
many impressive and
early records)

37

3.3.

Religious Miracle Claims

A. Catholic Miracles
1. Miracle of Lanciano (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Lanciano): Eucharistic miracle in
which the bread is said to have turned into real flesh, and the wine into real blood. These flesh
and blood relics are still held at the church. The main issue seems to be in determining when the
document describing the event was written. Many sources quote from the document, but none
say when it is dated to. (See http://www.michaeljournal.org/eucharist3.htm,
http://patcollinscm.webs.com/featuredarticle.htm).
2. Our Lady of Ftima (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Assiut): Reports of Marian
apparitions in Egypt in 2000. See this website http://www.zeitun-eg.org/assiut.htm.
3. Our Lady of Assiut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_F%C3%A1tima): Appearances of
the Virgin Mary in Portugal in 1917. This sequence of appearances includes the famous Miracle of
the Sun.
4. Our Lady of Zeitoun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitoun_apparitions): Marian apparition
reported in Cairo for several years in the late 1960s. Tens of thousands of people reported seeing
the apparitions, including many Muslims and non-Christians. There is plenty of documentation on
this, see for example this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMEWxRB-1dc.
5. Edith Stein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Stein): early 20th century Catholic nun, and now a
saint, who is credited with the miraculous healing of American girl Teresa Benedicta McCarthy in
1987. "Her outlook hopeless, family and friends began praying at her bedside to the little girl's
namesake, Sister Teresia Benedicta, for her recovery."
(http://www.enterprisenews.com/lifestyle/faith/x12616548/Brockton-native-talks-aboutmiracles-after-surviving-overdose-when-she-was-2-on-20-20). See also this news report
(http://abcnews.go.com/2020/miracle-benedicta-mccarthy-survived-tylenol-overdose-prayersister/story?id=10251732).
6. Joseph of Cupertino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_of_Cupertino): A 17th century Italian
friar said to have been 'prone to miraculous levitation'. I can't determine when the first records of
this date to, but definitely within a century of his death, and probably much earlier than that. See
as additional sources http://www.deeptrancenow.com/levitating_saint.htm,
http://www.miraclesofthesaints.com/2010/10/levitation-and-ecstatic-flights-in.html
7. Our Lady of Medjugorje (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Medjugorje): a group of six
people have been reporting visions of Mary since 1981. A paper discussing the phenomenon
(there have been several, including an official catholic investigation) can be found here: "The
apparitions of the Virgin Mary of Medjugorje: the convergence of Croatian nationalism and her
apparitions", Zlatko Skrbi, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1354-5078.2005.00213.x
8. Thomas Becket (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket): 12th century English saint
accredited with a number of post-mortem miracles, including healings and exorcisms (see
http://www.ourladynewsouthgate.org.uk/weekly-column/thomas-becket-his-miracles-and-relics
and http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GL-vol2-thomasbecket.asp).. William of
Canterbury wrote about these miracles in the decade or so following Becket's death.
9. William of Newburgh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Newburgh): 12th century
historian who recorded a number of miracles and wondrous occurrences, including the green
children of Woolpit (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_children_of_Woolpit), and cases of
people rising from the dead and terrorising the village (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_revenant#William_of_Newburgh). It seems these events
were contemporary.
38

10. Saint Cuthbert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuthbert): A 7th century English monk said to have
performed many miracles (see http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-cuthbert.asp and
http://www.durhamworldheritagesite.com/history/st-cuthbert for more). Not exactly sure about
sources, but Bede wrote about him in the early 8th century, within a few decades of his death.
11. St Guinefort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort): A medieval dog whose grave was
long venerated as having healing powers. (See more here http://whatremainsnow.com/saintguinefort/).
B. Non-Mainstream Christian Groups
12. Mary Baker Eddy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Baker_Eddy): see big list of healings here,
written by Eddy herself, http://christianscience.com/read-online/science-andhealth/%28chapter%29/chapter-xviii-fruitage
13. Simon Kimbangu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Kimbangu): 20th century African religious
leader who claimed to be a special envoy of Christ, and attributed many miracles, including
healings and raising the dead. See for example
http://www.dacb.org/stories/demrepcongo/kimbangu4_simon.html ,
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/his/Kimgangu.html (Lebone Lumbu, 2005). See here
(http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=Simon+Kimbangu) for earliest sources - unfortunately
most of the oldest stuff is in French. See also Britannica source for raising of the dead
(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/317913/Simon-Kimbangu).
14. George Fox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fox): Founder of the Quakers. His journal
contains stories of many miracles he wrought. See
http://www.hallvworthington.com/George_Fox_Selections/foxmiracles.html. See also
http://books.google.com.au/books/about/George_Fox_s_Book_of_Miracles.html?id=bHOj5KH1lQC.
15. Oral Roberts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Roberts): renowned 20th century faith healer. He
also claims to have raised the dead (http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/27/us/oral-roberts-tellsconference-he-has-raised-people-from-the-dead.html). Here's a book where he outlines some of
his greatest miracles (http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-greatest-miracles-myministry/dp/B0006CLACY). There's plenty on the internet about him and his claims.
16. Ann Lee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Lee): leader of the Shakers, an 18th century Christian
denomination. There is some discussion of these in this book (Mother Ann Lee: Morning Star of
the Shakers, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Gvn4Mm0RQa0C&dq). She is particularly
renowned for her healing powers, see for instance http://www.sacredtexts.com/utopia/csus/csus14.htm.
17. Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_witnesses): said
that an angel appeared to them and showed them the Gold Plates that Joseph Smith translated.
Written down in the 1st edition of the Book of Mormon within a year or so of the event.
18. Convulsionnaires of Saint-Mdard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convulsionnaires_of_SaintM%C3%A9dard): an interesting 18th century case in France involving hundreds of people reporting
healings, convulsions, and other strange events when visiting the grave of a recently deceased
heretical Deacon called Franois de Pris. We have many accounts from the time, though a lot of
material seems to be in French.

39

C. Muhammed
19. The Quran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Quran): considered by almost all
Muslims as the central miracle of the prophet. Muhammed died in 632, and the canonical version
of the Quran was compiled by the order of Caliph Uthman around 655.
20. Splitting of the moon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_of_the_moon): witnessed and
reported in Hadith by at least three of the prophet's companions. See sources here
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Witnessing_the_Moon_Splitting_Miracle
21. Other miracles (http://ssdpol.tripod.com/mujizas_of_muhammad_pbuh.htm): many attributed
to Muhammed, mostly in the Hadith, written at least a century or two after the life of the prophet.
On the other hand, Hadith do require a traceable history of how the saying or event was passed
down. There is dispute among western scholars (and even Islamic scholars) as to how reliable this
process was.
D. Sufi Mystics
22. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirza_Ghulam_Ahmad): made many
prophecies, which believers consider to be evidence of his prophethood. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecies_of_Mirza_Ghulam_Ahmad. There is also a claim in his
book Haqiqat ul Wahi that he raised his son from the dead (discussed here
http://ahmediorg.yuku.com/topic/3408#.UpBCHuLpy5k), but almost all the relevant info is in
urdu). Relevant quote: "His son Mubarak Ahmad pronounced dead and a woman informed Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad who was busy nearby in prayer. The woman told him to stop praying for his son
as he had died. MGA said, Then I went to the boy and placed my hand on his body and
concentrate towards Allah. The boy started breathing again only after two or three minutes later
and I could start feeling his pulse as well and that boy became alive."
23. Early Sufi mystics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadhkirat_al-Awliya): many 8th and 9th century
Sufi mystics are credited with various miracles. Our main source for these is the work written by
Persian poet Attar around 1200 called Tazkirat al-Awliya. An english translation of this work is
available here, along with a description of Attar's sources
(http://rbedrosian.com/Folklore/Arberry_Muslim_Saints_Mystics.pdf). It seems that Attar's
sources were mostly earlier writers from the 10th and 11th centuries, a century or two after the
lives of the saints concerned - though the text does mention that Attar seems to have had access
to the writing of some of the original saints themselves. See Miracles of the Sufi Saints in the Book
of Miracles for more information on these miracles
24. Mansur Al-Hallaj (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansur_Al-Hallaj): credited with various miracles,
in particular producing food in miracles quantities. Hard to figure out exactly what sources are
available here. See "The Passion of Al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam", page 59
25. Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul-Qadir_Gilani): a very popular saint with
many miracles attributed to him, however it is not clear how well documented these are (many
may just be folktales, see pages 61 and 27 of "Textual Sources for the Study of Islam",
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Ox4NAQAAIAAJ)
E. Hindu Religious Figures
26. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaitanya_Mahaprabhu): 15th century
Indian saint with many miracles attributed to them (some described here
http://www.dlshq.org/saints/gauranga.htm). There are multiple biographies of him written within
a few decades of his death (two main ones are by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaitanya_Bhagavata and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaitanya_Charitamrita). More sources here
40

27.

28.
29.

30.

31.

32.

http://veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/parampara2.htm#22. Example: "At Puri a miracle

happened. During the car festival, the car of Jagannath did not move. All the pilgrims tried their
combined strength. It proved futile. The gigantic elephants of the Raja of Puri also failed to move
the car. All were in a stage of suspense and dilemma. Gauranga came just then. He pushed the car
by his head and the car moved at once."
Ramalinga Swamigal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramalinga_Swamigal): A 19th century Tamil
saint credited with many miracles (see http://www.vallalar.org/English/VORG000000009B), in
particular his alleged miraculous disappearance from inside a locked room, 'Ramalinga then shut
himself up in his room in the Sidhivalagam hut. Later that night as the devotees outside the room
were chanting suddenly a flash of violet light emanated from Ramalingams room, signaling the
merger of Ramalinga into all the bodies of his creation. For when the room was eventually
opened, it was found to be empty. Ramalinga had disappeared without a trace',
http://agathiyarvanam.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/ramalinga-adigal-arutprakasa-vallalar.html.
Mata Amritanandamayi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mata_Amritanandamayi): contemporary
Indian guru said to have healing powers. Plenty of info on wikipedia.
Sathya Sai Baba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba): twentieth century Indian guru
credited with a very large number of miracles by his followers, including levitation, bilocation,
healing, and resurrection of the dead. As an example: 'on the morning of the third day the body
was more than ever like a corpse - dark, cold, quite stiff and beginning to smell. Other people who
came to see and sympathise told Mrs. Radhakrishna that she should have the corpse removed
from the ashram. But she replied, "Not unless Swami orders it"... The minutes dragged by - an
hour passed but Swami Baba did not come. Then, when they were beginning to despair entirely,
the door opened and there stood Baba in His red robe, copious hair, and shining smile. It was
then about half past two in the afternoon of the third day... Gently, Baba asked the tearful
women and sorrowful Mr. Hemchand to leave the room. As they left, He closed the door behind
them. They do not know - no man knows - what happened in that room where there were only
Swami and the dead man. But after a few minutes Baba opened the door and beckoned the
waiting ones in. There, on the bed, Radhakrishna was looking up at them and smiling!',
http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/pages/devotees_experiences/Resurrection_Radhakrishna.htm.
See also http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba#Miracles, http://www.indianskeptic.org/html/is_v01/1-3-4.htm, http://www.saibaba.ws/miracles/manofmiracles.htm.
Ayya Vaikundar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayya_Vaikundar): Indian 19th century religious
figure credited with various miracles. One specific source for these claims can be found here
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayyavazhi_in_reports_by_Christian_missionaries#1838). See also
Religion and Subaltern Agency: A Case-study of Ayy Vai.
Raghavendra Swami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghavendra_Swami): 17th century Indian
saint credited with many miracles during and after his life. There is even an interesting story of a
19th century British officer called Sir Thomas Munroe who allegedly had a vision of the guru while
visiting his tomb (see http://www.gururaghavendra1.org/miracragh.htm). Some more (I think
mostly modern) listed here http://miracles.gururaghavendra.org/). At least some of the miracle
claims from during his lifetime come from a biography written by his nephew called Raghavendra
Vijaya (see http://iskcontimes.com/Sri_Raghavendra_Tirtha).
Shirdi Sai Baba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_Baba_of_Shirdi): A 19th century Indian saint
said to have performed many miracles, including healings, exorcisms, levitation, and bilocations.
We seem to have a number of contemporary or near-contemporary sources, including Ganesh
Srikrishna Khaparde. See here for more on his miracles (http://www.saibabaofshirdi.net/).
41

33. Anandamayi Ma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandamayi_Ma): 20th century Indian saint

credited with many healings and other miracles. Plenty of info about her online. See also 'Mother
of Bliss: Anandamayi Ma (1896-1982)' by Lisa Lassell, page 117
34. Bhagawan Nityananda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagawan_Nityananda: 20th century Indian
guru credited with miraculous and occult-like powers. Hard to fine that much info on him, but see
here http://www.nityanandatradition.org/nityananda/about.html. More examples here
http://hildacharlton.com/nityananda.html.
F. Buddhist Religious Figures
35. Various Buddhist Monks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A0oxu%C4%81n): as discussed by
6th century Chinese buddhist author Daoxuan in his work Continued Biographies of Eminent
Monks (see http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/befeo_03361519_1998_num_85_1_3835, also "Images, Miracles, and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions",
chapter 7). At least some of these tales seem to have been based on biographical accounts
written by the disciples of the monk in question, though the exact origin of many stories is unclear.
36. Talking Buddha statues: there are a number of reports about this over the internet. See this video
for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyydMtOYg74. Whether or not any unusual
activity is actually evident in videos like this is open to question, but the main point is that it
certainly seems like those in the crowd think that something special is happening. Here's a story
from a newspaper article that talks about 'more than 100 members' seeing the statues moving
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/buddha-statues-in-malaysia-seen-moving-andemitting-light-54007.html.
37. Bodhidharma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharma): A buddhist monk said to have
appeared three years after his death. Story is: "Three years after Bodhidharma's death,
Ambassador Song Yun of northern Wei is said to have seen him walking while holding a shoe at
the Pamir Heights. Song Yun asked Bodhidharma where he was going, to which Bodhidharma
replied "I am going home". When asked why he was holding his shoe, Bodhidharma answered
"You will know when you reach Shaolin monastery. Don't mention that you saw me or you will
meet with disaster". After arriving at the palace, Song Yun told the emperor that he met
Bodhidharma on the way. The emperor said Bodhidharma was already dead and buried, and had
Song Yun arrested for lying. At the Shaolin Temple, the monks informed them that Bodhidharma
was dead and had been buried in a hill behind the temple. The grave was exhumed and was found
to contain a single shoe." The original source for this is The Spirit of Zen by Alan Watts, but I can't
get access to an online copy of this. We do have two contemporary biographers of Bodhidharma,
though I don't know if they reported this incident, or if it is a later development. See wikipedia for
more on sources.
38. Ram Bahadur Bomjon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon): a contemporary
Buddhist monk said to have gone for months/many days (sources differ) without eating or
drinking, and to remain perfectly for long periods of time for many days on end, despite changes
in light, temperature, etc. The claims themselves are disputed, but there is no doubt that many
believe them. Heaps of sources on this can be found via google (e.g.
http://bensmatrix.info/2013/07/10/ram-bahadur-bomjan-buddha-boy-is-now-a-man-yet-still-amarvel/).
39. Xuanzang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanzang): not a miracle worker himself, but as a 7th
century Buddhist monk he wrote a classic text called 'Great Tang Records on the Western
Regions', part of which contains his extensive descriptions of the miraculous powers of various
religious images. See Images, Miracles and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions, chapter 2. It is
42

interesting to note that this source discusses how Xuanzang's geography has held up very well,
while some of the other claims he makes (e.g. 1000 foot tall Buddha statues and icons with
special powers) are treated with much greater skepticism.
40. Fu Liang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Liang): another recorder of miracles from the late 4th
century AD in China. He wrote a work called Guangshiyin yingyanji detailing many buddhist
miracles. At least some of these miracles seem to have been very recent events, see "Eye on
Religion Miracles in the Chinese Tradition", Chun-fang Yu,
http://pmr.uchicago.edu/sites/pmr.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/
41. Nihon Ryoiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Ry%C5%8Diki): An early 9th century
compilation of folktales and miraculous events from Japan. At least some of these events are
supposed to have occurred within a few decades of this book being written. See here for more
(http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/helene.htm).
G. Messiah Claimants and Rabbis
42. Theudas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theudas): "while Cuspius Fadus was procurator of Judea,
that a certain charlatan, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take
their effects with them, and follow him to the Jordan river; for he told them he was a prophet,
and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it.
Many were deluded by his words." (Josephus, writing about 50 years after the event). Also
mentioned in Acts.
43. Honi the Circle-Drawer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honi_ha-M%27agel): a 1st century Jewish
religious figure mentioned in both the Talmud and by Josephus, who narrates an account of his
supposed ability to pray for rain (see http://www.josephus.org/HoniTheCircleDrawer.htm)
44. Eleazar the Exorcist (http://pages.uoregon.edu/dfalk/courses/jesus/miracles.htm): A first century
Jewish exorcist described by Josephus. See also
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5942-exorcism.
45. Eliezer ben Hurcanus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_ben_Hurcanus): A late 1st century AD
Rabbi said to have performed a number of miracles in support of some doctrinal claim. These are
recorded in the older Talmud, which dates them to with a few decades of his life. See The
Pharisees: Preservers of Judaism, page 377. Search for phrase "'if the halacha agrees with me, let
it be proved from heaven".
46. Hanina ben Dosa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanina_ben_Dosa): Another first century AD
Jewish miracle worker. See also http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7207-hanina-bdosa. Many of these are recorded in the Mishnah, so would likely date to a matter of decades
after his life.
47. Sabbatai Zevi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatai_Zevi): A 17th century Rabii said to have
performed many miracles, including predicting the future. He was proclaimed by his followers as
the Messiah, and many miracles seemed to have been attributed to him during his lifetime (see
Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626-1676, by Gershom Gerhard Scholem, page 390). He still
has followers to this day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%B6nmeh.
48. Baal Shem Tov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal_Shem_Tov): 18th century mystical Rabbi
credited with a large number of miracles. Some more info here
(http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2010/05/mysteries-of-the-baal-shem-tov345.html). Seems to be hard to separate myth from history in some cases. Modern Jewish
scholars seem a bit at a loss of exactly what to make of all these claims.
49. Menachem Mendel Schneerson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Mendel_Schneerson):
20th century Jewish Rabbi accredited with many healings. For some reason the wiki page doesn't
43

talk about this, but there is plenty of documentation about it. See for example the book
"Wonders and Miracles: Stories of the Lubavitcher Rebbe" (http://www.amazon.com/WondersMiracles-Volume-Stories-Lubavitcher/dp/B008V61JEG). A documentary has also been made about
him called "A Glimpse Through the Veil: Eight First-Person Accounts of the Rebbes Miracles".
H. Greek and Roman Figures
50. Vespasian
(http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Vespasian*.html ):
"man of the people who was blind, and another who was lame, came to him together as he sat on
the tribunal, begging for the help for their disorders which Serapis had promised in a dream; for
the god declared that Vespasian would restore the eyes, if he would spit upon them, and give
strength to the leg, if he would deign to touch it with his heel. Though he had hardly any faith that
this could possibly succeed, and therefore shrank even from making the attempt, he was at last
prevailed upon by his friends and tried both things in public before a large crowd; and with
success." (Suetonius, writing about 40-50 years after Vespasian)
51. Healing Statues (http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl4/wl430.htm): "Fever patients may now
be cured either at Olympia by the statue of Polydamas the athlete, or in Thasos by that of
Theagenes." (Lucian, 2nd century. See also Maria Elena Gorrini, Healing Statues In The Greekand
Roman World, http://www.academia.edu/1231453/Healing_statues)
52. Asclepius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepius): enormous numbers of healing miracles
attributed to him. (See Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the
Testimonies. More references here http://www.theoi.com/Cult/AsklepiosCult.html)
53. Apollonius of Tyana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana): credited with many
miracles. We have many written accounts. An excellent outline of the evidence can be found here
http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/apollonius07.html. Our main source of information is
Apollonius' biographer Philostratus who wrote his Life of Apollonius of Tyana (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Apollonius_of_Tyana ) between 217 and 238 (about 100-150
years after the event). After 180 AD Lucian wrote a pamphlet where he attacked Alexander of
Abonoteichus, a student of one of Apollonius students, as a charlatan; and suggested that the
whole school was based on fraud. From this we can infer that Apollonius really had students and
that his school survived at least until Lucians time. More sources here
http://www.biblequery.org/History/Legends/ApolloniusOfTyana.htm. Maria Dzielska casts doubt
on the historicity of Philostratus' accounts in her work 'Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and History';
see http://www.history.snn.gr/apollonius.html.
54. Peregrinus Proteus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrinus_Proteus): a philosopher and holy
man said to have done miracles and attained a large following. Most of what we know of him
comes from the critical account of contemporary Lucian
(http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/peregrinus.htm), though he is also mentioned more
favourably by Aulus Gellius, another contemporary.
55. Alexander of Abonoteichus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_of_Abonuteichos): leader of
a 2nd century Roman cult. The main account we have of his alleged miracles comes from a highly
hostile source Lucian who wrote Alexander the False Prophet some ten years after the death of
Alexander in AD 170, http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/lucian_alexander.htm, in which he
outlines a number of Alexander's alleged miracles and how he duped people into believing that
he had magical powers. What is interesting is not so much the miracle claims, but how many
people believed him despite apparently quite compelling counter-evidence. Consider for instance
this report: 'he (Alexander) published an oracle at the height of the war in Germany, when the
44

late Emperor Marcus himself had at last come to grips with the Marcomanni and Quadi. The
oracle recommended that two lions be cast into the Danube alive, together with a quantity of
perfumes and magnificent offerings But when all this had been done as he had directed that
tremendous disaster befel our side, in which a matter of twenty thousand were wiped out at a
blow... To meet this issue, Alexander was flat enough to adduce the Delphian defence in the
matter of the oracle given to Croesus, that the God had indeed foretold victory, but had not
indicated whether it would go to the Romans or to the enemy'.
56. Simon Magus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magus): his miracles are described in several
apocryphal works written a century or more after his life, including Acts of Peter, PseudoClementines, and the Epistle of the Apostles. We have quite a number of independent sources for
his deeds and some of his miracles, most of them dating to the late second century
57. Clearchus of Soli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearchus_of_Soli): records an account of how he
was able to withdraw the soul from the body of a boy and replace it at will using a wand, in the
presence of Aristotole and other witnesses. The actual extant account is from Proclus (5th century
AD), but he cites as his source "On Sleep" by Clearchus himself, dating to the 3rd century BC. See
"Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds", page 171.
58. Herodotus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histories_%28Herodotus%29#Book_VIII_.28Urania.29):
writing about 40 years after the event, Herodotus narrates the supernatural saving of the city of
Delphi from Persian attack. See this except: "The barbarians had just reached in their advance the
chapel of Minerva Pronaia, when a storm of thunder burst suddenly over their heads- at the same
time two crags split off from Mount Parnassus, and rolled down upon them with a loud noise,
crushing vast numbers beneath their weight- while from the temple of Minerva there went up the
war-cry and the shout of victory. All these things together struck terror into the barbarians, who
forthwith turned and fled. The Delphians, seeing this, came down from their hiding-places, and
smote them with a great slaughter, from which such as escaped fled straight into Boeotia. These
men, on their return, declared (as I am told) that besides the marvels mentioned above, they
witnessed also other supernatural sights. Two armed warriors, they said, of a stature more than
human, pursued after their flying ranks, pressing them close and slaying them.",
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.8.viii.html
I. Other Figures
59. Mani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_%28prophet%29): New sources have been discovered
in the 20th century, such as this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Mani-Codex. More source
info here http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/mani-founder-manicheism. Miracles are
definitely attributed to him, but I can't tell if these are found in earlier accounts or only later
hagiographies.
60. Ruth Norman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_E._Norman): American 20th century religious
figure thought by her followers to have healing powers, including the ability to heal during
dreams. For more info see "When Prophecy Never Fails: Myth and Reality in a Flying-Saucer
Group". Also contains some interesting material here about how her followers rationalised her
failed prophecies.
61. Jain Temple Miracles: There are various contemporary reports about miracles occurring in Jain
temples, often relating to various status or religious icons. Some examples are
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRoKjEwsIlM (Miracle In Jain Temple, Kailash Nagar, Delhi)
and http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-water-miracle-at-jain-temple-in-gujarat-1051955.
Again, details are hard to pin down, but it seems clear that groups of people present strongly
believed they were witnessing miraculous events.
45

62. Du Guangting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Guangting): A recorder of miracles in support of

Daoism in his text Daojiao lingyan ji. See "Evidential Miracles in Support of Taoism: The Inversion
of a Buddhist Apologetic Tradition in Late Tang China", Franciscus Verellen,
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4528570. The test was written around 900, and many of
the miracles it relates seem to date to the 8th or 9th centuries.
63. Marylin Manson (http://www.manchestertimes.com/?p=14350): said to have levitated a bus, see
the book 'The Family' by Ed Sanders.
64. Guru Nanak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Nanak): the 15th century founder of Sikhism who
is credited with a large number of miracles. (See for example
http://www.dlshq.org/saints/gurunanak.htm#miracles,
http://sikhism.about.com/od/gurunana1/a/Nanak_the_Herdboy.htm, and
http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/72_Miracles_By_Baba_Ram_Rai.) We have quite a number
of sources for the Guru, some of them dating to the 16th century, comparable to the timespan of
the gospels (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janams%C4%81kh%C4%ABs and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Granth_Sahib). See 'Guru Nanaks Life and Legacy: An
Appraisal' by Gurinder Singh Mann for more on sources. One notable example is the miracle at
Mecca, recorded in the Varan Bhai Gurdas, which were written in the early 17th century, about a
century after the events they narrate (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varan_Bhai_Gurdas,
http://www.thesikhencyclopedia.com/scriptures/bhai-gurdas-and-the-early-sikh-literature/varanbhai-gurdas). The miracle is narrated: 'When Baba (Nanak) slept in the night spreading his legs
towards the alcove of mosque at Kaba, the qazi named Jivan kicked him and asked who was this
infidel enacting blasphemy. Why this sinner is sleeping his legs spread towards God, Khuda.
Catching hold of the legs he lynched (Baba Nanak) and lo and behold the miracle, the whole of
Mecca seemed to be revolving. All got surprised and they all bowed',
http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Guru_Nanak_in_Mecca#Pauri_32_.09_At_Mecca
65. Bruce T. Grindal (http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=Bruce+T.+Grindal=): A
respected academic anthropologist who wrote a scholarly account of his experience 'seeing' a
person raised from the dead in an African ritual. Note that he doesn't believe the event really
happened this way, but that is what he claims to have seen. His paper on the topic is called 'Into
the Heart of Sisala Experience: Witnessing Death Divination'. Also an interesting link
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_anthropology).

46

3.4.

Non-Religious Anomalous Events

A. Mass Hysteria and Psychogenic Illness

Some very interesting cases of what appear to be mass delusions or psychogenic illnesses. I believe
these cases lend general credence to my notion that through social reinforcement, cognitive biases,
expectation, and other such effects, large groups of people can come to believe very bizarre things in
spite of the absence of any genuine phenomenon.
a) Jerusalem Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_syndrome): various phenomena
often documented in pilgrams of different religions visiting the holy land
b) Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Windshield_Pitting_Epidemic): widespread observation of
previously unnoticed windshield holes, pits and dings on cars
c) Angels of Mons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons): an apocryphal tale of angels
seen at the trenches in World War One, very widely reported and believed but with no apparent
basis in any original report
d) N-rays (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray): a form of radiation whose existence was
independently confirmed by many scientists in the early 20th century, which was later found to
be totally non-existent, the findings purely due to experimenter artifacts
e) Devil's Footprints in Devon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Footprints): an incident in
1855 when many people reported to see hoof-shaped footprints they believed to be made by the
devil, found over a very wide area
f) The Mad Gasser of Mattoon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Gasser_of_Mattoon): alleged gas
attacks in Illinois in the 1940s which may have been a case of mass hysteria
g) Delusory beliefs of German air raids on Canada during the First World War: "Phantom German
Air Raids on Canada", Robert E. Bartholomew
h) Genital-Shrinking Epidemic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_panic): a widespread belief
among males that their genitals are shrinking due to some kind of disease; see also "GenitalShrinking Panic in Ghana: A Cultural Psychological Analysis", Glenn Adams,
http://cap.sagepub.com/content/13/1/83.abstract
i) Case at Melbourne Airport: Mystery illness at Melbourne Airport: toxic poisoning or mass
hysteria?", Robert E Bartholomew, https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2005/183/11/mysteryillness-melbourne-airport-toxic-poisoning-or-mass-hysteria
j) Possible cases of mass psychogenic illnesses at schools: "Epidemic Hysteria in Schools: an
international and historical overview", Robert E Bartholomew,
http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/153150051?q&versionId=166905691
k) "Kachigumi: A collective delusion among the Japanese and their descendants in Brazil", Kumasaka,
Y, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5478601
B. Rapid Legendary Developments
These are some examples of demonstrably false claims which emerged very rapidly after the events
they purport to relate to, and continue to be widely believed despite easily accessible evidence to
demonstrate their falsity. Doubtless there are many more such examples that could be included.
a) A man surfed to safety from the World Trade Centre during 9/11, developed very shortly after
the attacks (see http://www.snopes.com/rumors/survivor.asp)
b) Another example from 9/11, that of a dog supposed to have saved many people
(http://www.snopes.com/rumors/daisy.asp)
47

c) Myth about scientists in Russia drilling a hole to hell and hearing the screams of the damned
(http://www.snopes.com/religion/wellhell.asp)
d) Not actually a myth but I found this interesting (http://www.snopes.com/religion/bolt.asp)
e) People claiming that Noah's Ark has been discovered in Turkey
(http://www.snopes.com/religion/noahsark.asp)
C. Spiritualists
I only include a few examples here, as most Christians will I think be willing to dismiss them either as
frauds, or as invoking demonic powers. I include them more to illustrate how compelling such people
can be to those present at their seances or other events, many of whom were convinced they had
witnessed genuinely supernatural events.
a) Daniel Dunglas Home, a 19th century Scottish medium said to have the ability to levitate, speak
with the dead, and to produce paranormal sounds at will. Accused of being a fraud, he was
certainly persuasive to many (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home)
b) Edgar Cayce, an American mystic who was purported to possess a wide range of paranormal
abilities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Cayce)
c) Arthur Ford, an American psychic who was praised by Sir Conan Doyle
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ford)
d) Eusapia Palladino, an Italian spiritualist said to have the power to levitate tables and speak to the
dead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino)
e) The Fox Sisters, who perpetrated a hoax which when exposed discredited them personally, but
not the movement of spiritualism which they had championed
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_sisters)
f) Jane Roberts, an American medium who produced a large quantity of material allegedly
challenged from an entity called 'Seth' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roberts)
g) The Eddy Brothers, two 19th century American mediums who fooled many audiences using very
simple tricks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_Brothers)
D. UFOs with Multiple Witnesses
My purpose here is to give some examples of cases where multiple witnesses reported very unusual
events. Many of these incidents are fairly recent, and so generally the claims are reported very shortly
after the alleged instances occurred. Unbiased information can be difficult to come by given the
incredulous tendencies of many paranormal sites, however there are honest and competent people
who have investigated many of these events, and certainly they are not all hoaxes or cases of people
just making up a story (indeed I don't believe any of the following were hoaxes or deliberate lies). I
believe that the general psychological processes, memory biases, and so on that I outlined in section 2
can be applied to understand these incidents, thereby providing further support for the HBS model.
The resurrection hypothesis, by contrast, has no ability to explain these events.
a) The Allagash Abductions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allagash_Abductions): 'In August of 1976,
four men, brothers Jack and Jim Weiner, and their friends Chuck Rak and Charlie Foltz, went on a
camping trip for two weeks in the Allagash Wilderness in Maine. On the second night, Jim noticed
a strange bright object in the sky that appeared for about thirty seconds and then vanished. Two
days later on August 20, the men decided to go fishing when the bright object appeared again.
This time, the object shot out a bright light, which began following the men. The men began
paddling back to shore, and the next thing they remembered was being on shore, and the bright
light vanishing. The men thought it was strange that the fire that they had set minutes before
48

they went fishing had completely burnt out, suggesting that they had been gone for several
hours. The four men spent six more days in the wilderness, but never again saw the bright object.
The men told their families and friends about the strange sightings, but nobody believed them.
Then, in 1988, Jack and Jim began having strange nightmares about the four men sitting on a
bench naked, with great fears. Jim decided to contact UFO researcher Ray Fowler in order to help
with the strange nightmares. The four men decided to go under hypnosis and described in
frightening detail about how they were abducted and then probed by aliens back in 1976. They
each took polygraph examinations and passed. However, skeptics are not certain that their stories
are true, and that the strange nightmares and hypnosis were a result of watching movies and TV
shows about aliens. However, the four men are certain that what happened to them is real',
http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/The_Allagash_Abductions
b) Flatwoods Monster and UFO sighting, thought by Joe Nickel to have been caused by a meteor
crash and then an owl sighting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatwoods_monster): 'On September
12, 1952, two brothers, Edward and Fred May, and their friend Tommy Hyer witnessed a bright
object cross the sky Upon witnessing the object, the boys went to the home of the May
brothers' mother, Kathleen May, where they reported seeing a UFO crash land in the hills. From
there, Mrs. May accompanied by the three boys, local children Neil Nunley (14) and Ronnie
Shaver (10), and 17-year-old West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene 'Gene' Lemon, traveled to
the Fisher farm in an effort to locate whatever it was that the boys had seen... When the group
reached the top of a hill, they reportedly saw a large pulsating "ball of fire" about 50 feet (15 m)
to their right. They also detected a pungent mist that made their eyes and noses burn. Lemon
then noticed two small lights over to the left of the object, underneath a nearby oak tree and
directed his flashlight towards them, revealing the creature, which was reported to have emitted
a shrill hissing noise before gliding towards them, changing direction and then heading off
towards the red light. At this point the group fled in panicAfter the event, investigators obtained
a number of accounts from witnesses who claimed to have experienced a similar or related
phenomena. These accounts included the story of a mother and her 21 year-old-daughter, who
claimed to have encountered a creature with the same appearance and odor a week prior to the
September 12 incident'
c) Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter, which may have been another meteor sighting
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiles-Whitted_UFO_encounter): 'In the early morning hours of July
24, 1948, Clarence Chiles, chief pilot, and John Whitted, co-pilot, were flying an Eastern Airlines
Douglas DC-3 passenger plane near Montgomery, at about 5,000 feet altitude Chiles "saw a dull
red glow above and ahead of the aircraft." He told Whitted "Look, here comes a new Army jet
job." The object closed on their DC-3 in a matter of seconds, and both men later said they saw the
object fly past the right side of their plane at a high rate of speed before it pulled "up with a
tremendous burst of flame out of its rear and zoomed up into the clouds." They observed the
object for a total of 10 to 15 seconds. Chiles and Whitted stated that the object "looked like a
wingless aircraft...it seemed to have two rows of windows through which glowed a very bright
light, as brilliant as a magnesium flare." Both pilots claimed the object was 100 feet long and 2530 feet in diameter, torpedo-or-cigar shaped, "similar to a B-29 fuselage", with flames coming out
of its tail. Only one of the plane's passengers, C.L. McKelvie, saw anything unusual. He reported
seeing a "bright streak of light" that flashed by his window'
d) Mystery airships of the 1880s and 1890s, some of which may have been genuine early airships
but many of the sightings remaining unexplained (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship):
'A class of unidentified flying objects best known from a series of newspaper reports originating in
49

the western United States and spreading east during 1896 and 1897 Reports of the alleged
crewmen and pilots usually described them as human looking, although sometimes the crew
claimed to be from Mars An article in the Albion Weekly News reported that two witnesses saw
an airship crash just inches from where they were standing. The airship suddenly disappeared,
with a man standing where the vessel had been. The airship pilot showed the men a small device
that supposedly enabled him to shrink the airship small enough to store the vessel in his pocket
An April 16, 1897 a story published by the Table Rock Argus claimed that a group of "anonymous
but reliable" witnesses had seen an airship sailing overhead. The craft had many passengers. The
witnesses claimed that among these passengers was a woman tied to a chair, a woman attending
her, and a man with a pistol guarding their apparent prisoner'
e) Utsuro-bune, a story about a woman who washed ashore in a strange ship in 19th century Japan
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utsuro-bune): 'On February 22 in 1803, local fishers of the Hitachi
province of Japan saw an ominous "ship" drifting in the waters. Curious, they towed the vessel
back to land, discovering that it was 3.30 metres high and 5.45 metres wideThe upper part had
several windows made of glass or crystal, covered with bars and clogged with some kind of tree
resin. The windows were completely transparent and the baffled fishermen looked inside. The
inner side of the Utsuro-bune was decorated with texts written in an unknown language... Then
the fishermen saw a beautiful young woman, possibly 18 or 20 years oldThe woman had red
hair and eyebrows, the hair elongated by artificial white extensions. The extensions could have
been made of white fur or thin, white-powdered textile streaks... The woman began speaking, but
no one understood her. She did not seem to understand the fishermen either, so no one could
ask her about her origin. Although the mysterious woman appeared friendly and courteous, she
acted oddly, for she always clutched a quadratic box made of pale material and around 0.6 m in
size. The woman did not allow anyone to touch the box, no matter how kindly or pressingly the
witnesses asked The fishermen reassembled the Utsuro-bune, placed the woman in it, and set it
to drift away into the ocean'
f) Kecksburg UFO incident, reports of an unknown strange object landing after what was probably a
meteor passed overhead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kecksburg_UFO_incident): 'On December
9, 1965, at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, A large, brilliant fireball was seen by thousands in at least six
U.S. states and Ontario, Canada. It streaked over the area, reportedly dropped hot metal debris
over Michigan and northern Ohio, starting some grass fires and caused sonic booms in the
Pittsburgh metropolitan area. It was generally assumed and reported by the press to be a meteor
after authorities discounted other proposed explanations such as a plane crash, errant missile test,
or reentering satellite debris. However, eyewitnesses in the small village of Kecksburg, about 30
miles southeast of Pittsburgh, claimed something crashed in the woods. A boy said he saw the
object land; his mother saw a wisp of blue smoke arising from the woods and alerted authorities.
Another reported feeling a vibration and "a thump" about the time the object reportedly landed.
Others from Kecksburg, including local volunteer fire department members, reported finding an
object in the shape of an acorn and about as large as a Volkswagen Beetle. Writing resembling
Egyptian hieroglyphics was also said to be in a band around the base of the object'
g) Westall UFO encounter, an unexplained UFO sighting from Melbourne
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westall_UFO): 'At approximately 11.00 am on 6 April 1966, a class
of students and a teacher from Westall High School were completing sport on the main oval when
an object, described as being a grey saucer-shaped craft with a slight purple hue and being about
twice the size of a family car, was alleged to have been seen. Witness descriptions were mixed:
Andrew Greenwood, a science teacher, told The Dandenong Journal at the time that he saw a
50

silvery-green disc. According to witnesses the object was descending and then crossed and
overflew the high school's south-west corner, going in a south-easterly direction, before
disappearing from sight as it descended behind a stand of trees and into a paddock at The Grange
in front of the Westall State School. After a short period (approximately 20 minutes) the object with witnesses now numbering over 200 - then climbed at speed and departed towards the
north-west. As the object gained altitude some accounts describe it as having been pursued from
the scene by five unidentified aircraft which circled the object'
h) Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 incident, in which three aircraft crew observed unusual unidentified
aircraft flying alongside (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_flight_1628_incident): 'On
November 17, 1986, the Japanese crew of a JAL Boeing 747 cargo freighter witnessed three
unidentified objects after sunset, while flying over eastern Alaska, USA... At least the first two of
the objects were observed by all three crew members: Captain Kenju Terauchi, an ex-fighter pilot
with more than 10,000 hours flight experience, in the cockpit's left-hand seat; co-pilot Takanori
Tamefuji in the right-hand seat; and flight engineer Yoshio Tsukuba the objects displayed what
Terauchi described as a disregard for inertia: "The thing was flying as if there was no such thing as
gravity. It sped up, then stopped, then flew at our speed, in our direction, so that to us it
[appeared to be] standing still. The next instant it changed course. ... In other words, the flying
object had overcome gravity"'
i) The Chicago O'Hare UFO Sighting, a mass sighting of a hovering metal disc at an international
airport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_O%27Hare_International_Airport_UFO_sighting): 'On
Tuesday November 7, 2006, federal authorities at Chicago O'Hare International Airport received a
report that a group of twelve airport employees were witnessing a metallic, saucer-shaped craft
hovering over Gate C-17. The object was first spotted by a ramp employee who was pushing back
United Airlines Flight 446, which was departing Chicago for Charlotte, North Carolina. The
employee apprised Flight 446's crew of the object above their aircraft. It is believed that both the
pilot and co-pilot also witnessed the object. Several independent witnesses outside of the airport
also saw the object. One described a "blatant" disc shaped craft hovering over the airport which
was "obviously not clouds." According to this witness, nearby observers gasped as the object shot
through the clouds at high velocity, leaving a clear blue hole in the cloud layer'
E. Sightings of the Dead
In preparing this document I attempted to find examples of persons who have been claimed to have
been seen after their deaths by multiple people. I found very few such examples that I could verify,
and some of them are included here. Only the Puhua case is anything remotely like the story of Jesus.
The others I included mainly for interest and completeness.
a) Zhenzhou Puhua, a 9th century Chinese monk who is claimed to have risen from the dead. I can't
determine exactly how well sourced these stories are, it seems to be controversial
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puhua#Death)
b) Jesse James, a 19th century American outlaw purported to have survived his murder
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_James#Rumors_of_survival)
c) Anna Anderson, a 20th century Polish woman who claimed to be Anastasia, attracting a number
of supporters, though as far as I can tell no one who actually knew the real Anastasia personally
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Anderson)
d) The Tichborne case, a very strange legal battle in late 19th century Britian concerning a man who
claimed to be the missing heir to the Tichborne bareonetcy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichborne_case)
51

Section 4: Other Matters

4.1.

The Conversion of Paul

A. The Psychology of Conversion

My purpose in this section is twofold: first, to present some evidence supporting the notion that there
are plausible naturalistic explanations for the conversion experience of Paul, some form of epileptic
episode being a common theme, though other neurological or psychological conditions are also
possible. Second, to provide a few references to the extensive literature on the psychology of
religious conversion, for the purpose of illustrating how complex and multifaceted this phenomenon
is, and also to show that, though we may never be able to articulate the precise causes or
psychological condition that caused Paul's experience, there are still many plausible, evidence-based
factors and potential reasons we can put forward to explain such conversions in general terms. The
scientific literature on this matter is sufficiently rich to preclude the need to appeal to a supernatural
explanation.
a) 'Temporal lobe epilepsy and certain personality disorders often result in experiences described
as religious. TLE research suggests a possible neurological basis for such experiences.
Immediately the question arises about the authenticity of these experiences as religious. An
experience is authentic if it furthers the authentic growth of the subject, regardless of what
triggered it. So pathology may occasion authentic religious experiences, even as history
exemplifies. For practical purposes, the further question about God in religious experience is
secondary. The exception, miraculous occurrences, should not be granted without sufficient
reason', "Neurology, psychology, and extraordinary religious experiences", Journal of Religion and
Health , http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00999898
b) 'Evidence is offered to suggest a neurological origin for Paul's ecstatic visions. Paul's physical
state at the time of his conversion is discussed and related to these ecstatic experiences. It is
postulated that both were manifestations of temporal lobe epilepsy', "St Paul and temporal lobe
epilepsy", J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry , http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/50/6/659.short
c) 'In the Bible, St. Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was struck blind by a light from heaven. Three days later his
vision was restored by a laying on of hands. The circumstances surrounding his blindness
represent an important episode in the history of religion. Numerous theories have been proposed
to account for this event which has been the subject of interest of theologians, philosophers,
artists, and physicians. A lightning strike could explain all of the features of this episode. The
proposal of a theory which correlates St. Paul's symptoms with contemporary scientific
knowledge makes his recovery of vision and conversion no less miraculous or religiously
significant since the theory demonstrates that, indeed, the event may have occurred exactly as
stated in the Bible', "Was Saint Paul struck blind and converted by lightning?", History of
Ophthalmology, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0039625794901619
d) 'Six cases of religious conversion experiences occurring in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy
are described. The conversion experiences of various mystics and saints, who were probably
epileptic, are reviewed. Some theological and psychiatric aspects of religion are discussed',
"Sudden Religious Conversions in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy", The British Journal of Psychiatry,
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/117/540/497.short
e) 'Two conversion "paradigms" have been described in the behavioural sciences of religion. The
"classic" paradigm portrays conversions as occurring during distress, as being sudden and intense,
and as highly self-transforming. According to James (1902), these are the conversions of the "sick
52

f)

soul". In contrast, the "contemporary" paradigm discards the study of pre-dispositional and
situational influences, and describes conversions as being more gradual, and less transforming of
the self In James' terminology, these are the conversions of the "healthy minded". The article
attempts to bridge the chasm between these paradigms by drawing on findings obtained from
studies of individual differences in attachment security in relation to religious change. More
specifically, it is argued that the conversion characteristics of the sick soul, described by the
classic paradigm, are true specifically for people with insecure attachment characteristics, and
those of the healthy minded, described by the contemporary paradigm, are true of people with
more secure attachment characteristics', "Attachment Theory and Religious Conversions", Review
of Religious Research
"Change of Heart: A Test of Some Widely Held Theories About Religious Conversion", American
Journal of Sociology, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2778148

B. Unexpected Conversions
Here I provide a list of some interesting or unusual cases of religious conversion. The point I am
attempting to make is that Paul's conversion from persecutor to apostle, whilst certainly unusual, is
by no means unique, and does not require a supernatural explanation. Or, more to the point, if a
supernatural explanation is invoked to explain Paul's experience, it would seem to follow that
supernatural explanations are also required for at least some of these other conversion stories listed
here, even though the conversions involve people joining different religions. My argument, therefore,
is that these cases demonstrate that it is possible for people to convert religion very unexpectedly,
despite all the psychological motivation to the contrary, without that religion actually being true, or
without the requirement for a supernatural experience or agent directing the outcome. These cases
could also be considered as relevant for explaining the conversion of James.
a) Michael Sudduth: Why did a Christian philosopher of religion convert to Hinduism?,
http://www.newappsblog.com/2012/07/why-did-a-christian-philosopher-of-religion-convert-tohinduism.html,
http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2012/01/michael-sudduthconverts-to-vaishnava-vedanta.html
b) Arnoud van Doorn: From anti-Islamic film-maker to hajj pilgrim,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/oct/23/arnoud-van-doorn-anti-islamicconvert-hajj
c) Lord George Gordon: Eighteenth Century British Politician who converted to Judaism,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_George_Gordon#Conversion_to_Judaism
d) Ashoka the Great: Indian military conqueror of the second century BC converts to Buddhism,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka_the_Great#Buddhist_conversion
e) Yvonne Ridley: British journalist hold captive by the Taliban and later converted to Islam,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Ridley
f) Julian the Apostate: Christian-educated Roman Emperor who reverted to Paganism,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_%28emperor. One could argue there may have been political
motivations, but it's not clear that his anti-Christian efforts were really politically advantageous,
and seem very unusual given his family background and the trend of all other emperors since
Constantine.
g) John F. Heidenreich: A minister who converted to Mormonism,
http://www.docbible.net/scripture/35-testimonies/54-a-minister-converted-to-the-lds-church

53

h) G. Vincent Runyon: Why I Left The Ministry And Became An Atheist,

http://infidels.org/library/historical/vincent_runyon/left_ministry.html#c6
i) Former Christian Priests and Missionaries who have Embraced Islam,
http://www.missionislam.com/comprel/former.htm
j) Glenn Beck: conversion of a prominent conservative Christian to Mormonism,
http://glennbeckmormon.com/conversion-story
k) Emanuel Swedenborg: Not exactly a conversion, but a strange case of a Swedish philosopher who,
in his fifties, began to experience dramatic religious visions and dreams, and thought he was
called by God to reform Christianity, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg
l) Cat Stevens: a rock musician who converted to Islam after experiencing a near drowning,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens#Religious_conversion

4.2.

The Empty Tomb

A. Introduction
I do not have a great deal to say about the empty tomb, as in my view the mere fact of a tomb being
empty proves very little about anything. Nonetheless, I thought it appropriate to include some of my
thoughts on how the empty tomb might be explained naturalistically, and to respond to some
common of such attempts raised by apologists.
I believe that there are three plausible explanations for the empty tomb: 1) reburial by Joseph of
Arimathea, 2) tomb robbery, 3) removal by an unknown third party. Of the three, I think reburial by
Joseph is probably the most likely and the most explanatory, but I am not very confident about this.
Nonetheless, I do not think any of these explanations are especially unlikely or problematic. It seems to
me that one would require quite strong evidence indeed before making the claim that mere absence
of a body from the tomb where it was thought to be constitutes evidence that the person in question
in fact rose from the dead.
B. Motivation for Moving the Body
Notwithstanding his fault, Richard Carrier makes what I consider to be a compelling case in his chapter
"The Burial of Jesus in Light of Jewish Law" in The Empty Tomb (see also here
http://infidels.org/kiosk/article/jewish-law-the-burial-of-jesus-and-the-third-day-125.html), that
Joseph of Arimathea placed the body of Jesus in his own family tomb on Friday afternoon/evening, as
he was pressed for time to take the body down and have it buried before the beginning of the Sabbath
(indeed, I think this quite a natural reading of John 19:42, "therefore because of the Jewish day of
preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there"). On Saturday evening following the
conclusion of the Sabbath, he moved Jesus' body to a permanent burial place, perhaps a mass burial
site for criminals. The women who found the empty tomb on Sunday morning were unaware of this
removal. Joseph's motivation for doing this, in my view, would have been fairly straightforward tombs in Jewish custom belonged to the family. Joseph offered to use his tomb for temporary storage
owing to the need to take the body down from the cross before the Sabbath, but after that he wanted
it removed from his family tomb. Some interesting background here:
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/burial357907.shtml.
C. Burial Site Would be Known
The claim is often made that, if Joseph of Arimathea had moved the body, then he would have told
people - either to counter claims that the body had been stolen by the disciples, or to counter claims
that Jesus had actually been resurrected (depending upon where his ultimate sympathies lay). I
54

question this assumption given that, in fact, we know almost nothing about Joseph of Arimathea. In
Mark 15 it says that he was "a prominent member of the Council, who himself was waiting for the
kingdom of God". Mathew 27 says the he "had also become a disciple of Jesus". John 19 describes him
as "a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews". Luke 23 provides the most detail, calling
him "a good and righteous man who, though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan
and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea".
This is very little information on which to speculate about Joseph's motives and personality. Is it not
possible that he later regretted his involvement, or wanted to distance himself from such a
controversial and radical movement as the early Christians? Perhaps he had a change of heart and lost
his faith following Jesus' death. Perhaps pressure was placed on him by his family, friends, the council,
or others, to keep quiet about the whole matter afterwards. Perhaps he did speak openly about it,
telling people that he had moved the body, but for whatever reason he was ignored, or his message
was not widely heard (see above about irrational belief persistence). Perhaps he shortly afterwards
died, moved away, or otherwise lost contact with the early Christian movement. How well did any of
the disciples actually know Joseph? Would they have had the means to contact him if they wished to?
All in all, there seem to be far too many unknowns, and far too many plausible alternatives, to jump to
the conclusion that Joseph of Arimathea would necessarily have made his actions widely known had he
moved Jesus' body. As such, I consider this to be a fairly weak argument in favour of a supernatural
resurrection.
D. The Tomb Guards
The argument against tomb robbery or other tampering with the body is often based on the assertion
that the tomb was guarded. My position on this issue is that I see no compelling reason to believe that
there were ever any tomb guards. Of the four gospels, only Matthew mentions there being any guards.
In the same passage in which they are mentioned (27:63-65), Matthew also provides details of a
private conversation between the chief priests and Pilate, conspiring to ensure that the Christians
could not steal Jesus' body and then claim a resurrection by placing a guard at the tomb. Given that
neither Matthew nor any of the other disciples would have been present at such a meeting, it is not
clear to me why any part of this particular tale should be taken seriously. Some scholars (possibly most,
I don't have data on the numbers) also think that the guard was an apologetic assertion (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_tomb#Resolving_differences).
E. The Grave Clothes
Some apologists argue that if Joseph of Arimathea had moved the body or if the body had been stolen,
in either case the grave clothes mentioned in Luke and John would not have been left behind, and
would certainly not have been neatly folded as described in John 20:17. The Luke passage (24:12)
simply says that John saw "the strips of linen (variously translated as 'linen cloths' or 'linen wrappings')
lying by themselves". The John passage (20:6-7) says that Peter saw "the linen wrappings (or 'cloths' or
'strips of linen') lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen
wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself". This latter passage about the face-cloth being "rolled up"
is particularly controversial. Other translations state that it was "folded up", "wrapped together", or
simply "still lying in its place" (see more discussion here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_20:7).
It seems that some apologists want to read these passages as saying that valuable linen, perhaps
covered in some of the spices mentioned in other versus, was left behind in the tomb, some of which
was carefully rolled or folded up in a pile. Certainly this seems quite inconsistent with either a reburial
by Joseph or with a tomb robbery. However, I read these passages as speaking of some remaining
55

strips of cloth, out of the many that would have been used to dress the body originally, being left
behind by whomever moved the body. I see no reason to interpret the John 20:7 passage as indicating
anything other than that some linen used to cover the face was found lying separately from the other
linen. I do not see this as being inconsistent with the fact that most of the linen, including most of the
valuable linen containing the spices, had been removed with the body, leaving just some residual strips.
I also do not think that it is warranted to read very much into the quite equivocal detail about whether
the face-cloth was folded or rolled up or not, since it is unclear how this passage should be understood,
and regardless it appears only in John's gospel, the latest of the four to be written. I see no reason why
this particular small detail, even if its exact meaning could be agreed upon, should be accorded such
high probability of being historical (even if most of the rest of the account is deemed to be).

4.3.

Responses to Mike Licona

A. Licona on Philostratus
Regarding Apollonius of Tyana Licona says:
"If the resurrection of Jesus has good evidence for it, why should a single report of
postmortem appearances of Apollonius of Tyana made more than a century later be placed
on equal ground? Our only extant biography comes from Philostratus writing around AD 225,
one hundred and thirty years after the death of Apollonius."
I trust that Licona probably is willing to trust the gospel of John as a source for the life of Jesus. Most
scholars think it was written around AD 90-100, about 60-70 years after the death of Jesus. Certainly
60-70 years is shorter than 130 years. My question is on what basis Licona asserts that 60-70 years is a
short enough time to preserve trustworthy information but 130 is not? This seems to be an arbitrary
distinction. Perhaps one could argue that eyewitnesses were still alive at the time the Gospel of John
was composed, but while this is possible it is fairly unlikely that the author of John either was an
eyewitness himself, or that he had much direct access to eyewitness testimony of the events he
writes about (all of whom would have at least been octogenarians by this time). My point here is that,
while shorter time between event and writings of the event is doubtless to be preferred, there is no
clear reason why 60-70 years should serve as a cutoff, or why 130 years should be regarded as
categorically 'too long'. It is also interesting to note that on page 246, Licona describes a period of 150
years as 'reasonably short'.
"Philostratus informs us that his primary source for the life of Apollonius is Damis, whom
most scholars maintain was a fictional figure invented by Philostratus who also claims that
Damiss information ended prior to the death of Apollonius."
I do not have information on the proportion of scholars who regard Damis to be fictional, nor does
Licona cite any. Certainly some scholars argue he was fictional, just as some scholars argue that none
of the gospels were written by eyewitnesses. I do not have the data to make more confident
conclusions other than that scholars seem to disagree about whether the works of Damis really
existed.
"So he continues his biography by supplementing Damiss information with reports from
unnamed sources."
In the case of the gospels we have unknown authors claiming to cite known sources (the disciples). In
the case of Apollonius we have a known author claiming to cite unknown sources (Philostratus claims
56

to have spoken to people at the cities Apollonius visited, but is not too clear about identifying specific
sources). My question is on what basis would Licona assert that the one is preferable or more reliable
than the other. To me there seem to be advantages and problems with each.
"Belonging to this latter category are a number of reports of postmortem appearances of
Apollonius as a spirit being. Only one is described in detail, and it is not a resurrection.
Instead, an unnamed person at an unidentified time sees Apollonius in a dream."
I agree with this; Philostratus does not report a resurrection of Apollonius (at least that I can find). He
does however report some other interesting miracles, including claims of healing and casting out
demons. One that is unusually well attested is that of clairvoyance. I quote in full here:
"Although this deed (the murder of emperor Domitian) was done in Rome, Apollonius was a
spectator of it in Ephesus. For about midday he was delivering an address in the groves of the
colonnade, just at the moment when it all happened in the palace at Rome; and first he
dropped his voice, as if he were terrified, and then, though with less vigor than was usual with
him, he continued his exposition, like one who between his words caught glimpses of
something foreign to his subject, and at last he lapsed into silence, like one who has been
interrupted in his discourse. And with an awful glance at the ground, and stepping forward
three or four paces from his pulpit, he cried: "Smite the tyrant, smite him" - not like one who
derives from some looking glass a faint image of the truth, but as one who sees things with his
own eyes, and is taking part in a tragedy.
All Ephesus -for all Ephesus was at his lecture- was struck dumb with astonishment; but he,
pausing like those who are trying to see and wait until their doubts are ended, said: "Take
heart, gentlemen, for the tyrant has been slain this day; and why do I say today? Now it is, by
Athena, even now at the moment I uttered my words, and then lapsed into silence."
The inhabitants of Ephesus thought that this was a fit of madness on his part; and although
they were anxious that it should be true, yet they were anxious about the risk they ran in
giving ear to his words, whereupon he added: "I am not surprised at those who do not yet
accept my story, for not even all Rome as yet is cognizant of it. But behold, Rome begins to
know it: for the rumor runs this way and that, and thousands now are convinced of it; and
they begin to leap for joy, twice as many as before, and twice as many as they, and four times
as many, yea the whole of the populace there. And this news will travel hither also; and
although I would have you defer your sacrifices in honor thereof to the fitting season, when
you will receive this news, I shall proceed at once to pray to the gods for what I have seen."
They were still skeptical, when swift runners arrived with the good news, and bore testimony
to the sage's wisdom; for the tyrant's murder, and the day which brought the event to birth,
the hour of midday and the murderers to whom he addressed his exhortation, everything
agreed with the revelation which the gods had made to Apollonius in the midst of his
harangue", The Life of Apollonius, 8:27, http://www.livius.org/apark/apollonius/life/va_8_23.html#%A726
This same event is also reported in an Epitome of Cassius Dio's Roman History, written around the
same time as The Life of Apollonius:

57

"The matter of which I spoke, saying that it surprises me more than anything else, is this.
A certain Apollonius of Tyana on that very day and at that very hour when Domitian was
being murdered p359(as was afterwards accurately determined by events that happened in
both places) mounted a lofty rock at Ephesus (or possibly it was somewhere else) and having
called together the populace, uttered these words: "Good, Stephanus! Bravo, Stephanus!
Smite the bloodthirsty wretch! You have struck, you have wounded, you have slain." 2 This is
what actually happened, though one should doubt it ten thousand times over. Domitian had
lived forty-four years, ten months and twenty-six days, and had reigned fifteen years and five
days. His body was stolen away and was buried by his nurse Phyllis", Casius Dio, Roman
History: Epitome of Book LXVII, 18,
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/67*.html
B. Licona on Honi the Circle-Drawer
Regarding Honi the Circle-Drawer argues:
'Onias, also known as Honi the Circle-Drawer, is first mentioned in Josephus as one whose
prayers for rain were answered. However, the story is fairly tame: Now there was one,
whose name was Onias, a righteous man he was, and beloved of God, who, in a certain
drought, had prayed to God to put an end to the intense heat, and whose prayers God had
heard, and had sent them rain', Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, page 178
From my perspective, however, this is no more 'tame' than what Josephus says about Jesus (removing
the later Christian interpolations):
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a
teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both
among many Jews and many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the
principal men amongst us, condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did
not forsake him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day",
Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3, 3
Licona goes on to argue:
'Around three centuries after Josephus, the story is reported in the Jerusalem Talmud, with
many more details. Honi prays for rain. When it does not come, he draws a circle and stands
inside of it, promising not to leave his spot until it rained. When only a few drops came, Honi
said this is not what he had prayed for. Then it rained violently', Mike Licona, The Resurrection
of Jesus, page 178
I have not been able to verify this claim that the Talmud passage is considerably older than the
Josephus. As far as I can tell the longer version is contained in the Mishnah, which was written around
AD 200. Still over 250 years after the event, but not as long as Licona seems to claim. I will agree with
Licona, though, that the Jesus miracle claims are better attested than those of Honi, even if I think the
latter are not so weak as Licona seems to argue. I do think he dismisses them too readily on the basis
of unclear and insufficiently well established criteria.
C. Licona on Vespasian
Concerning the miracles reported to have been done by Vespasian Licona says:

58

'Three sources report two miracles performed by the Roman emperor Vespasian. Two of the
three sources wrote as close to the event as Mark was to Jesus. However, a plausible
naturalistic explanation is readily at hand', Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, page 179
This 'plausible naturalistic explanation' is contained in a footnote, where he quotes from Meier (1994):
'Suetonius and Tacitus seem to tell the whole story with a twinkle in their eye and smiles on
their lips, an attitude probably shared by Vespasian. The whole event looks like a 1st-century
equivalent of a photo opportunity staged by Vespasians P.R. team to give the new emperor
divine legitimacycourtesy of god Serapion, who supposedly commanded the two men to go
to Vespasian. Again, both in content and in form, we are far from the miracle traditions of
the Four Gospelsto say nothing of the overall pattern of Jesus ministry into which his
miracles fit', Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, page 179
I do not regard this as much of an explanation at all. We are told only that the authors did not believe
the miracle claims being made, and that they 'look like a photo opportunity'. That isn't a naturalistic
explanation at all; it is merely a dismissal. What actually happened? Was the entire story just invented?
Who invented it? Was it invented by Vespasian and then faithfully reported by all three sources, even
if they didn't believe it? This does not strike me as the sought of thing a hard-nosed historian like
Tacitus would be likely to do. I am not saying that no naturalistic explanation is possible, but I think
Licona dismisses this event far too readily.
D. Licona on UFOs and Bigfoot
Licona responds briefly to reports of paranormal sights of bigfoot and UFOs:
'Since people who claim to have seen Big Foot actually saw a physical being and large
footprints in the mud, they were neither experiencing delusions nor hallucinations. In many
cases, they were deceived. Delusions are beliefs held in the presence of strong disconfirming
evidence. Thus a communal delusion would have occurred if a group continued to believe
that Big Foot was real after learning they had been tricked. Weather balloons and hoaxes
have often been mistaken for UFOs. Again, the people involved saw something with their
ordinary sight and mistook it for something else. So Big Foot and UFO sightings are not of the
same nature as what Goulder is claiming pertaining to the disciples group experiences.
Accordingly experiences similar to Big Foot and UFO sightings are implausible as explanations
for the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus', Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, page 489
I regard this response as unsatisfactory. On what basis does Licona assert that people who claim to
have seen Big Food actually saw a physical being? Doubtless this is the case for some, but he does he
know that applies to all cases? This is simply an assertion with no justification whatever. Licona
implies that the case is similar for UFOs, that most/all UFO sightings are in fact misidentifications of
weather balloons and such. I agree that this explains a great many such reports, but can we say that it
explains all of them? Earlier Licona said that miracle claims need to be examined 'case by case', yet
here he is evidently dismissing large categories of paranormal claims on the basis of extremely
dubious presumptions.
Many UFO sightings are in fact misidentifications of the moon or other natural celestial objects. If
people can mistake the moon for a UFO, is it so implausible that the disciples could make a mistake
about seeing the risen Jesus? Obviously this comparison is of limited utility without a lot of further
work and analysis, and I do not wish to push it too far. All I am trying to establish here is that Licona is
59

dismissing UFO and other paranormal sightings on the basis of considerations which could also
plausible be applied to the resurrection accounts of Jesus, and has not provided a sufficiently clear
reason to accept one over the other. He devotes an entire 700 page book to one, and dismisses the
other in a mere paragraph, without providing any cogent reasons. I do not regard this as intellectually
responsible, especially given that elsewhere he says:
'Miracle reports should be examined on a case-by-case basis. If it turns out that there are
good reasons for holding to the historicity of the miracles of Jesus and that these are lacking
in Ehrmans examples, there is no reason why granting the historicity of Jesus miracles
requires historians to grant the historicity of others', Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus,
page 180
E. Licona on Marian Apparitions
Regarding reports of appearances of the virgin Mary to large groups of people Licona says:
'For myself, I am not prepared to adjudicate on the matter of Marian apparitions. Because I
am Protestant, I carry a theological bias against an appearance of Mary. However, I am not
predisposed to reject the reality of apparitions in general', Mike Licona, The Resurrection of
Jesus, page 490-1
It is unclear to me how this is any more justifiable than an atheist saying 'I do not know how to explain
the resurrection appearances of Jesus, however for philosophical reasons I do not believe in
supernatural or miraculous events'? I think Licona is being inconsistent here. Is the evidence for
Marian apparitions equal to or better than that for the resurrection of Jesus, or is it not? If not, then
on what basis? What criteria clearly and objectively distinguish the resurrection as being more
probable?
If the Marian apparitions are better attested, then it seems that the best explanation for them is the
truth of Catholicism (i.e. Mary really does appear to people). By the same logic Licona uses to argue
for the divinity of Jesus, Licona would thus be forced to conclude the truth of Catholicism. He cannot
simply ignore the question by saying he is 'not prepared to adjudicate', because then he is doing
precisely what he accuses atheists of doing, namely ignoring the evidence merely because of prior
philosophical/theological assumptions.

4.4.

Responses to Other Criticisms

A. Group Hallucinations Aren't Real

This is not intended so much as a rebuttal as merely a clarification. Mike Licona argues that:
'Since hallucinations are mental events with no external referent, one cannot share in the
hallucination of another. In this sense, hallucinations are similar to dreams. Accordingly I
could not awaken my wife in the middle of the night and tell her I am having a dream that I
am in Hawaii and then have her return to sleep and join me in my dream where we would
enjoy a free vacation. We may both return to sleep and experience dreams of being in Hawaii
in which the two of us are present. But it is highly unlikely that we will dream the same dream
and have the same conversations in both dreams.
Gary A. Sibcy is a licensed clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. in the subject and has a great
interest in whether hallucinations can be shared by groups. He writes, "I have surveyed the
professional literature (peer-reviewed journal articles and books) written by psychologists,
60

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 referent"', Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, page 484
I agree completely with Licona on this matter. There is no such thing as 'group hallucinations', at least
so far as modern psychology has been able to discern. As such, they are not included as a component
of the HBS model. I believe that the disciples had collective experiences of Jesus, but they were not
strictly speaking collective hallucinations. Each person experienced something different in their own
mind, as generated by expectancy and social pressures and the energy and excitement of the group
situation they were in. Their memories were then altered in the process of thinking over and retelling
stories of their experiences such that a coherent collective account came to be accepted. I believe
that I have documented these processes, and that they do not require a 'group hallucination'.
B. No one Dies for a Lie
It is sometimes claimed that the disciples of Jesus would not have allowed themselves to be severely
persecuted and in some cases killed unless they had been supremely confident in what they had seen,
heard, and touched in their experiences of Jesus. I completely agree. I believe that the disciples were
supremely convinced and they really believed that they had seen, heard, and in some cases touched
Jesus. As I document at length in section 2, however, I do not consider it necessary for Jesus actually
to have appeared in the flesh to the disciples in order for them to have formed such a sure and
confident belief. People belief all sorts of things with supreme confidence for all sorts of reasons,
even to the extreme of being willing to die for them (see also section 2.4-B on martyrdom).
C. Jews Could have Produced the Body
Sometimes it is claimed that if Jesus had not risen from the dead, the Jewish authorities could have
produced his body and this would have stopped the growth of Christianity in its tracks. I think this
claim is probably false, because it rests upon several premises I regard as very dubious.
a) Premise 1: The Jewish authorities were interesting in debating or disproving specific factual
claims made by the early Christians. I see no reason to believe that this was the case. The
Jewish authorities did not like the Christians making claims they regarded as blasphemous,
stirring up trouble among the people, or building up a rival religious power structure. Their
activities as recorded in Acts are consistent with these focuses: they persecute, they arrest,
they bring to trial, they criticise and forbid from teaching. They make no attempt to persuade
or present counter evidence. See further discussion in section 2.3-B.
b) Premise 2: The Jewish authorities knew where the body was. If, as I argued in section 4.2, the
body of Jesus was reburied in a mass grave, or possibly stolen by another third party or
misplaced in some other way, there is no reason why the Jewish authorities would have
known where it was. It is not at all clear why initially they would have cared what happened to
the body or have made any effort to keep tabs on it.
c) Premise 3: If the Jewish authorities had presented the body of Jesus publically in some way,
we would have a record of this fact. As I have pointed out in section 2.3-B, we have no records
at all about the early Christian movement from first century Jewish authorities whom the
Christians were dealing with. We have no critical reports at all, only a few accounts in Acts and
elsewhere about what Christians said was being done to them. If the authorities had
presented the body of Jesus, it seems very plausible to me that this is something Christians
would not have recorded. And since we don't have any other records, there is no reason to
61

suppose that we would have any written records of this occurrence at all. In other words, all
we know is that we don't have any record of the body being produced, which given the
paucity of data is really not very strong evidence that it did not occur.
d) Premise 4: If the Jewish authorities had presented the body of Jesus publically, the corpse
would have been recognised as Jesus by the disciples. Corpses decay quite quickly. Clear data
on exactly how quickly is a bit hard to come by, but some rough google searches seem to
indicate something like a matter of days or a couple of weeks at most before the corpse is
unrecognisable. Thus the Jewish authorities had a very short window in which a corpse could
be presented with any chance that the disciples would accept it as Jesus. It seems eminently
reasonable to me that, even had they wanted to produce the body and known where it could
be found, by the time it could be done it was too late to bother, or too late to make any
difference, as the corpse had decaying beyond clear and incontrovertible recognition.
e) Premise 5: If the disciples had recognised a corpse as that of Jesus, they would have given up
their claims, or at least been unable to persuade anyone else of their claims. As I outline in
section 2.3-A, I believe that there is sufficient psychological and historical evidence to
demonstrate fairly clearly that people are perfectly capable of believing things in spite of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As such, even if the followers of Jesus believed that
they corpse they saw was that of Jesus, I believe it is not at all implausible that they would
have found some way to rationalise this away, and the event was not recorded and eventually
dropped from the Christian narrative. As I say, however, I do not regard this as the most likely
outcome. What I regard most likely is that the Jewish authorities never bothered to find the
body or try to present it, until possibly it was too late for it to be recognised.
D. The Disciples were Skeptical
It is sometimes claimed that various passages in the New Testament (e.g. Luke 24:11) highlight that
many of the disciples were initially doubtful or skeptical about the claims that Jesus had appeared
from the dead, and that therefore it is inconsistent to argue that they had a strong expectation that
they would experience such appearances themselves. However, I do not regard such passages as very
reliable. There is a documented phenomenon which has been called 'avowel of prior skepticism',
which is often found in narrations of supernatural or paranormal experiences. Very often witnesses
will express prior doubt or skepticism before they experienced or saw something for themselves. This
appears to be a (conscious or unconscious) rhetorical strategy used to bolster one's credibility and to
avoid appearing gullible. For example:
a) 'This paper is concerned with particular avowals of belief, namely avowals of belief in the
paranormal that are accompanied by avowals of prior scepticism. These typically take the
form of an avowal of prior scepticism (e.g. I was a sceptic), often with a description of an
ostensibly paranormal event (e.g. but I met a psychic who told me things she could not have
known), accompanied by an avowal of subsequent belief (e.g. and I realized that the
paranormal exists after all). To anyone who has worked in parapsychology, such accounts are
extremely familiar, and countless examples can be found by a simple Google search. Indeed,
as James Alcock, a well-known psychologist within this area, pointed out years ago: Even
the strongest proponents of paranormal claims often preface their remarks by reference to
their initial scepticism about the reality of the phenomena. Nevertheless, while the ubiquity
of such avowals is well known, to date they have been regarded as insignificant. This paper
argues that they point up key theoretical and methodological problems in how we
understand paranormal belief, and suggest a greater need to examine the functional
62

aspects of expressions of belief ', "Paranormal Belief and the Avowal of Prior Scepticism",
Theory & Psychology, http://tap.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/17/5/681
b) 'The avowal of prior scepticism is a narrative device designed to enhance the credibility of the
narrator and the likelihood of attribution of the event to a paranormal cause (Wooffitt, 1992).
The technique works like this: a typical narrative account starts with the avowal of prior
scepticism ("at first I was sceptical"), followed by a description of an anomalous occurrence
(but a psychic told me things she could not have known), which in turn is followed by a
conversion (I realised that something out of the ordinary was occurring). This technique
highlights the strength of evidence that caused a change in the narrators attitude from initial
scepticism to belief. By highlighting the narrators reliance on evidence the account also
positions the narrator as a rational thinker', "An avowal of prior scepticism enhances the
credibility of an account of a paranormal event", Journal of Language and Social Psychology,
http://jls.sagepub.com/content/33/3/260.abstract
E. No Jewish Belief in a Single Resurrection
Certain biblical scholars, notably N.T. Wright, have argued that the Christian conception of
resurrection and its application to the Messiah are considerably new ideas not found in pre-existing
Jewish thought:
'There are no traditions about a Messiah being raised to life: most Jews of this period hoped
for resurrection, many Jews of this period hoped for a Messiah, but nobody put those two
hopes together until the early Christians did so', N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of
God, page 135
'The world of second-Temple Judaism supplied the concept of resurrection, but the
striking and consistent Christian mutations within Jewish resurrection belief rule out any
possibility that the belief could have generated spontaneously from within its Jewish
context. When we ask the early Christians themselves what had occasioned this belief, their
answers home in on two things: stories about Jesus tomb being empty, and stories
about him appearing to people, alive again. Neither the empty tomb by itself, however,
nor the appearances by themselves, could have generated the early Christian belief. The
empty tomb alone would be a puzzle and a tragedy. Sightings of an apparently alive Jesus, by
themselves, would have been classified as visions or hallucinations, which were well enough
known in the ancient world. However, an empty tomb and appearances of a living Jesus,
taken together, would have presented a powerful reason for the emergence of the belief',
N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, pages 437-8
I lack the expertise to analyse such claims in detail, so I am prepared to accept them on the basis of
expert testimony for the present. My argument, however, is precisely that the disciples did come to
believe that Christ had bodily appeared to them, and that the tomb quite plausibly was empty. Thus,
the two conditions Wright believes are necessary in order for a belief in the resurrection of Jesus to
develop (and for cooption and use of this particular Jewish term rather than other possible visionary
language) are satisfied in the HBS model. The fundamental question is whether the disciples could
have come to believe in bodily appearances (rather than merely spiritual visions or ghostly
apparitions or such) as a result of the psychological and sociological mechanisms that I describe.
I believe that it can. In particular, if tactile experiences are important (and they are really only
mentioned in John so it's unclear if they are), but if these were important, I think there is some
63

interesting research which indicates that sensory modalities are not so clearly separated one from
another as we tend to think, and that illusory tactile experiences can be induced by stimulation of
other sensory modalities in interesting and unpredictable ways. See for instance:
a) "Touch-induced visual illusion", NeuroReport,
http://journals.lww.com/neuroreport/Abstract/2005/07130/Touch_induced
b) "Now you feel it, now you dont: How robust is the phenomenon of illusory tactile
experience?", Perception, http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p6401
c) "Rubber Hands Feel the Touch of Light", Psychological Science,
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/2/152.short
Certainly I cannot demonstrate exactly how or why the disciples came to believe that the experiences
they had of Jesus were bodily appearances, but neither do I see any particular reason for why such
beliefs could not have developed, given all the psychological and social factors that I have cited
above. I think strong claims that such beliefs should 'would not' have formed are not warranted by
the evidence available.
Furthermore, I think at least certain stronger forms of this argument go too far, in that they seem to
preclude essentially any form of religious innovation or change. As New Testament scholar Larry
Hurtado writes:
'First, it is simplistic to regard religious experiences as only derivative from prior beliefs and
to fail to see that religious experiences can modify beliefs and/or generate new ones, in
some cases resulting in significant innovations. In an essay now regarded as a classic,
Anthony Wallace noted the frequency with which significant religious innovations stemmed
from such revelatory experiences. Several decades ago Rodney Stark made similar
observations about the capacity of certain revelational experiences to generate religious
innovations, even to contradict and challenge prevailing theological truths, noting that
such innovations can produce new theologies, eschatological prophecies, or commissions to
launch social reforms. In another essay Stark judged that people experience revelations
sufficiently profound to serve as the basis of new religions. In my own field, I point to the
judgement of the great Adolf Deissmann that reacting cults typically originate out of the
exceptionally moving religious experiences of exceptional people"', L. W. Hurtado,
"Revelatory Experiences and Religious Innovation in Earliest Christianity", The Expository
Times, http://ext.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/06/07/0014524613497150
Religious innovation, including development of new ideas and reconceptualising and rethinking old
ones, is common throughout history, and indeed I would argue forms a crucial part of the birth of
most new religions. For example, Joseph Smith claimed to have seen a vision of God and Jesus even
though he grew up in a Trinitarian environment, Muhammad claimed to receive revelation from the
one true god in a polytheistic environment (and though there was some degree of Jewish and
Christian presence, neither of these faiths had 'room' for a new prophet of God), while the Buddha
broke substantially with most of the orthodox tradition of Indian religious thought by rejecting the
authority of the Vedas.
In sum, I think that the question of why the disciples came to believe that Jesus had specifically been
resurrected is an interesting and relevant one, but I am unpersuaded by arguments that the
disposition of Jewish thought was such an overwhelming constraint against the development of this
idea such that it could not have developed unless Jesus actually had been resurrected.
64