15: Hallucination

15

Hallucination

In the heyday of nineteenth-century German liberalism, the majority of influential skeptical scholars chose a single naturalistic hypothesis aimed at Jesus’s resurrection and defended it, usually throughout their careers. Heinrich Paulus chose the swoon or apparent death view, David Strauss championed the subjective vision thesis, and Wilhelm Bousset opted for what might be termed the legend or mythical approach. Theodor Keim embraced the nonnaturalistic objective vision alternative.

Several decades later, until past the halfway point of the twentieth century, the influence of Barth, Bultmann, and others led to what was later termed the “No Quest” for the historical Jesus that eschewed history coming to the aid of faith. One could even get the idea that those scholars who believed firmly in Jesus’s resurrection appeared to be somewhat reticent about stating this, especially in detail, perhaps due to the length of Barth’s and Bultmann’s shadows! Comparatively few major defenses of the resurrection appeared. Conversely, historical rejections of Jesus’s resurrection had likewise fallen on hard times. Very few skeptical specialists in relevant areas of study had clearly chosen just a single natural thesis rejecting the resurrection and championed that idea alone, as had been the case with so many of the nineteenth-century German liberals. In short, historical arguments either for or against the faith were not gaining much traction.

At the end of the century and the beginning of the next, there was a measurable upturn of interest in alternative approaches. And probably due to the quickly growing popularity of the Third Quest for the historical Jesus, studies of the past again have been on the move. But while strong defenses of Jesus’s resurrection have reappeared, many critics have tended to eschew alternative theses all together. Even fewer skeptics have been willing to choose just a single natural proposal and move forward with it, perhaps implying an unwillingness to chance having that view dismantled.

While many scholars reject miraculous events as a whole, these more general viewpoints are still not the same as defending specific alternative positions. Ehrman has emphasized, “I don’t subscribe to any of these alternative views.” But he notes that, though it was an “unlikely” option, even the notion that Jesus’s disciples stole Jesus’s deceased body and then lied about it was still superior to a miracu­lous event. Critical scholars are usually open to a host of potential responses in principle, often without choosing a particular option, almost as if to keep a “back door” ajar just in case it goes badly for their favorite options! Far fewer major researchers, comparatively speaking (and often the older ones), will stick with a single natural position.

What reasons may account for this seeming shift in recent critical scholarly approaches? Probably the chief reason for discarding these naturalistic theses is that each alternative is rather decisively answered by the data, with this becoming even more the case in the latest research. This has become increasingly evident in recent years. After viewing some of these challenges, New Testament theologian James D. G. Dunn concludes, “Alternative interpretations of the data fail to provide a more satisfactory explanation.” Philosopher Stephen Davis agrees that critics “are unable to come up with a coherent and plausible story that accounts for the evidence at hand. All of the alternative hypotheses with which I am familiar are historically weak; some are so weak that they collapse of their own weight once spelled out . . . the alternative theories that have been proposed are not only weaker but far weaker at explaining the available historical evidence.” Is this the case with all naturalistic theses, including hallucinations?

The Recent Limited Popularity of the Hallucination Hypothesis

In spite of this adjusted attitude regarding naturalistic theories on the part of critical scholars, including the overall shrinkage among influential researchers, hallucinations still appear to be the most popular natural option, at least speaking generally (in the sense of not always making this an assertion). Still, the numbers holding this view have decreased since the nineteenth century. Further, of those who now prefer hallucination explanations, only a few scholars have pursued this approach in much detail. A few of the attempts will be unpacked, while several other scholars who simply mention their preference or the mere possibility of the hallucination thesis will be mentioned briefly.

In a few recent volumes, Gerd Lüdemann has outlined a more detailed case quite reminiscent of nineteenth-century liberal attempts, holding that subjective visions can be applied to all the chief participants in the earliest church: the disciples, Paul, the 500 witnesses (1 Cor 15:6), and James the brother of Jesus. Lüdemann perhaps surprisingly concludes that it is clear from Paul’s language that the Greek verb ōphthē in 1 Cor 15:8 means that he was speaking of actual sight, of “his own active sensual perception” as well as that of the other apostles. So, Paul “must have expected the Corinthians to understand the term historically.” Lüdemann concludes that hallucinatory visions are required along with “auditory features” that produced a “stimulus,” “enthusiasm,” “religious intoxication,” and “ecstasy” for Peter. This spread to the other disciples by “an incomparable chain reaction.” Paul, the other apostles, the 500 witnesses, and James all similarly experienced these subjective visions. The appearances were collective, amounting to a “mass ecstasy.”

Although his approach is quite different at various points, Jack Kent also thinks that hallucinations explain the claims of the disciples, Paul, and James. Kent combines two naturalistic theories to explain the resurrection appearances of Jesus. The disciples and women experienced “normal, grief-related hallucinations.” Paul, on the other hand, experienced inward conflict and turbulence over participating in the death of Stephen and his persecution of Christians. As a result, he underwent a “conversion disorder,” a psychiatric malady that Kent thinks accounts for his con- version on the road to Damascus, including his stumbling and blindness. Unlike Lüdemann, however, Kent wishes to avoid the notion of collective hallucinations.

Closer to Kent, Michael Goulder applies a related explanation to the experiences of Peter, Paul, and some of the other apostles. Nonetheless, mixing hallucinations and conversion disorder, Goulder thinks that Peter and Paul experienced what he calls “conversion visions,” hallucinations of various sorts that are produced during times of great stress, guilt, and self-doubt. The result for these apostles, one of whom had denied his Lord and another who had persecuted Christians, was a new orientation to life—a transformation leading to “subsequent heroism and martyrdom.”

Another notion that has gotten some attention in the past few decades is that Jesus’s resurrection was somehow akin to, or perhaps just another species of, other sorts of widespread experiences where deceased individuals interacted with living persons, usually during dreams or otherwise soon after the individual’s death. The most commonly reported occurrences of this sort consist of interactions between spouses or visions of deceased loved ones that usually occur fairly soon after death.

Strangely enough, this option comes in several versions and is not even necessarily a naturalistic theory. Of the phenomena in this group, a wide-angle lens on these visions of deceased loved ones would indicate much variation. Some supporters argue that at least a fair number of these usually spousal experiences are probably real sightings, indicative of an afterlife. Others take the polar opposite position, denying that anything supernatural is going on at all and that all of these sightings are common hallucinations. Beginning our three examples below is another take from a medical researcher who did a hallmark study of these cases, apparently deciding that either of the first two views could potentially be correct, without trying to emphasize one view over the others.

Dewi Rees’s influential 1971 study of bereavement in widowed persons reported many crucial details pertaining to these personal experiences, including visionary experiences of their deceased spouses. In a later book, Rees unpacked the implications of his study, including the possible emotional and religious significance of these bereavement experiences. Some visions may provide spiritual benefit, namely consolation and assurance of Christian faith. For Rees, these postmortem visions can affirm the reality of an afterlife in general and, for some, even belief in Jesus’s resurrection.

Rees acknowledges differences between bereavement visions and the disciples’ resurrection encounters with Jesus but does not conclude that the latter are distinctly separate. Instead, he proposes that the disciples’ encounters with the resurrected Jesus are comparable and should not be excluded from the bereavement experience genre. Further, for Rees, beliefs in Jesus’s resurrection are undiminished as to whether or not Jesus appeared bodily. However, Rees does admit that bereavement experiences cannot account for the disciples’ simultaneous group encounters with the risen Jesus.

After the death of a loved one it is fairly common for family members (particularly spouses) and close friends to sense in some way the presence of the deceased. Not infrequently it is even claimed that the deceased individual was seen in some sense. Surprisingly, even folks who were not connected very closely to the deceased have claimed to have experienced these occurrences as well. The percentages can differ widely. Aleman and Larøi report that 36 percent of Swedish widows in one study “had experienced at least one type of hallucination,” while in another, almost 90 percent of Japanese widows experienced hallucinations of their deceased husbands. Results in two other studies tallied nearly half and nearly two-thirds of those surveyed.

Goulder and Kent both would be examples of scholars who entertained the idea of grief-induced visions as less than actual events. Their views above have already been mentioned, and it is clear that neither one thinks that any such experiences should be explained by the actual presence of the deceased individual.

John Dominic Crossan seems to have lined up in more than one place on these questions. In an earlier journal article, he states quite directly, “Resurrection is not post-mortem apparition.” Then in a later dialogue on the subject with N. T. Wright, Crossan either affirms this option or at least seems open to the idea. But if Crossan does indeed entertain this view, it is still clear that, like Goulder and Kent, his position does not affirm either Jesus’s actual resurrection appearances or a general afterlife. Yet neither does Crossan think that these experiences were hallucinations.

Stephen H. Smith also seems to support the idea of nonveridical grief events as the original experiences of Jesus’s disciples, though some key distinctions seem to be lacking. Other scholars mention grief visions or hallucinations without necessarily specifying whether or not they consider the possibility that they were actual occurrences.

We will examine psychologist Ken Vincent’s defense of a particular afterlife thesis in our discussion of objective vision theories. Vincent holds that Jesus is divine and remains alive today, having concluded that Jesus actually rose from the dead though in nonbodily fashion. Paul is the only eyewitness to a resurrection appearance whose testimony we have, though Paul also reports “verified second-hand reports of the resurrection” from his interviews with the other apostolic witnesses Peter and James the brother of Jesus.

For Vincent, Paul’s view should be favored—Jesus was resurrected and appeared in a spiritual body rather than a more substantial one, and this appearance to Paul should be considered an instance of “After Death Communication” (ADC), which is a form of postmortem communication common throughout world religions. Moreover, for Vincent “the most impressive aftereffect” of any mystical or religious encounter concerns “how they have changed people’s lives for the better.”

Another approach that was treated in an earlier chapter and dubbed the illumination theory should also be mentioned briefly. Several contemporary scholars prefer this strategy that, while it has a few similarities to the hallucination thesis, is not closely related. In general, the idea is that Peter was the first to have some sort of subjective experience or conviction that Jesus was alive. It may even have been a private hallucination or no more than a personal insight. This conviction was later communicated to Jesus’s other followers, who concluded that Jesus was risen, perhaps even being willing to adopt Peter’s experience and language as their own. Conveniently, these researchers hold that we cannot now speak about the historical nature of this incident, as it has been lost in the retelling. It is the faith of the early believers that is really of chief importance here, not the nature of the experiences. It is often remarked that these experiences were not hallucinations, but many of our critiques below will still apply to this thesis that has already been critiqued in depth in the earlier treatment.

A Critique of Hallucination and Similar Hypotheses

Before beginning this assessment, it must be remarked (if it were not already obvious) that there is an incredible amount of confusion on this topic, as stated in the critical remarks above. Much of this muddle is due to how the various aspects of these positions have been expressed by commentators, including inaccuracies, blurred lines, and mistaken concepts regarding various theses. Sometimes, the way a critical scholar’s views are stated appears contradictory. On more than one occasion similarities between illusions, delusions, and hallucinations are made apparent, but at other times not so much. There is much confusion regarding whether these claimed similarities with hallucinations really have much overlap. One huge problem has been that theological scholars explaining the details of their ideas often do so in ways that do not accord with psychological or psychiatric parameters. For example, conversion disorder has nothing to do with religious conversions and how they occur. Unfortunately, however, many scholars expressing their views have controlled how they thought the concepts worked without recourse to psychological or psychiatric research. We must thus address this confusion here; otherwise the angle of the critique might be missed, and engaging this critique of the resurrection might be a lost cause.

In this critique, many critical conceptions will have to be changed in order to be understood. Others may have to be ignored. But the central point concerns whether or not the critique hits its mark. If not, it will hopefully be obvious afterward why this was the case. It will probably be most helpful to differentiate between three sorts of psychological phenomena. These distinctions must be kept clearly in view, or it may be very difficult to make exact judgments.

Key Definitions

Hallucinations

Hallucinations are false perceptions of sights, sounds, touches, and smells for which there are no external referents—perhaps like observing something where there is essentially only “thin air.” One of the major works on the subject by André Aleman and Frank Larøi follows the definition by Anthony S. David, defining hallucination as “a sensory experience which occurs in the absence of corresponding external stimulation of the relevant sensory organ.” Al-Issa defines it as “sensory experience such as seeing persons or objects, hearing voices, and smelling odors in the absence of environmental stimuli.” If otherwise healthy, the hallucinating person often gives up the story when they more clearly perceive the lack of reality or evidence. An actual case here was a person who was taking prescription medicines who thought that there were rabbits inside their house, but these creatures were not present, and no one else observed them. But when the person was told the very first time that there were no rabbits there, they actually agreed and responded that they just must have been seeing things. It is often not so simple, but the point is that reality is the best antidote to misapprehension.

Illusions

Illusions are distorted perceptions of something that really is there but is misidentified. Aleman and Larøi define an illusion as “a misperception that is based on an existing stimulus.” Mark Cosgrove defines this illusory element as a “distorted perception that misrepresents external stimuli.” An example might be the presence of a winter coat perched on the back of a bedroom chair that is taken during the night to be an intruder in the room. While a coat and a chair are really present, these objects are obviously not a human person. Moreover, a big bear may actually be present nearby, but hopefully it will not be misrepresented through the trees as Bigfoot!

Delusions

Delusions can be a more serious matter because they may imply some species of sickness, including mental illness. These are untrue beliefs often held with great fervor in spite of factors that prove that the beliefs are definitely mistaken. A technical definition is a “false belief based on incorrect inference about reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.” Such an instance might be an individual who has undergone every possible medical test that turned out negatively, while the person remains adamant that they have a serious cancer, where only they know the exact location. This situation might be exacerbated if the individual insists that they absolutely know this to be the case because a malicious voice keeps whispering inside their head that this is true. This subcategory might be termed “somatic.”

Our topic in this chapter is chiefly hallucinations, though unfortunately the lines on the above phenomena are often blurred by critics and others. For some instances, some may use examples like group sightings of UFOs, several hunters seeing a large furry bear and misnaming it Bigfoot, or any of several Medjugorje (Bosnia and Herzegovina) Marian sightings where observers reported that they saw the sun spinning in the sky as being examples of group hallucinations. Yet, none of these is even a hallucination at all, let alone a group hallucination. Each is quite clearly an illusion, since what was actually seen in every instance were actual objects that were really present, such as various objects in the sky, a big furry creature, or a real sun. Distinctions such as these must be kept in mind constantly because they make huge differences in evaluation.

Summarized briefly, hallucinations are false perceptions about what is not present at all in the real world, and which are often not maintained vociferously when the evidence is pointed out. The mistake is often acknowledged fairly quickly. Illusions are distorted interpretations of something that is really present, but not in that manner. Delusions are false beliefs that are held virtually no matter what is shown to the person, who may even get highly agitated when others attempt to talk them out of their convictions.

While hallucination theses can vary among critics, sometimes revealing several key differences, there tend to be more similarities among these positions. We will begin by evaluating a crucially important side issue: the possibility of group hallucinations, followed by a few other specific idiosyncrasies of this view. Then the central hypothesis will be weighed as a whole.

Collective Hallucinations

One of the central issues in this entire discussion of Jesus’s resurrection appearances concerns whether a group of people can witness the same hallucination together. Virtually all psychologists and psychiatrists question or dispute the reality of such occurrences, as pointed out below. A very rare attempt suggesting that collective hallu­cinations are at least potentially possible, without any application whatsoever to Jesus’s resurrection, is made by Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones. They point to phenomena such as claimed sightings of the Virgin Mary and other accompanying reports from groups of people. In cases like these, “expectation” and “emotional excitement” are “a prerequisite for collective hallucinations.” In such groups we see the “emotional contagion that so often takes place in crowds moved by strong emotions.”

But favoring the possibility of collective hallucinations is highly problematic on any scenario and on several grounds. (1) To begin, the chief examples of “collective hallucinations” provided by Zusne and Jones (plus many critics) were group reli­gious experiences such as Marian apparitions. However, since these occasions are purportedly theological, by their very nature they simply beg the question regarding whether such experiences could ever actually have occurred under natural conditions in the real world. If these events happened as described, and if they were even possibly miraculous in some sense, then almost assuredly they could not have been hallucinations as normally understood. In other words, what Zusne and Jones assume to be normal, naturalistic, subjective explanations in the first place could be miraculous! By so doing, they ruled out even the possibility of real religious occurrences in an a priori manner, before alternative possibilities were considered. Perhaps these events did occur naturalistically, but that does not follow without evidence. Assuming them to be natural occurrences as a starting point without showing that to be the case is unwarranted.

(2) A further clarification and critique needs to be made regarding the Marian apparitions in general and the comparison to illusions in particular. There is sometimes much confusion regarding the large crowds of spectators that come to Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina. For example, it is fairly common to hear comments that many people in the large groups actually “saw” Mary. But such claims on these occasions are made incorrectly. The people in attendance have often claimed to see signs in the heavens, such as the sun “dancing” in the sky. But there is a real sun located up in the sky and members of the crowd could view that object, so these are clearly illusions, not hallucinations. Moreover, a dancing sun is also a misperception because, for example, normal pedestrians in the town or elsewhere without interest in the situation apparently do not observe the sun behaving in such a manner! It is often remarked that such observations are due to the unhealthy practice of staring at a bright sun without appropriate eye protection, but that is not necessary, as Parsons remarks. Moreover, members of the crowd may watch the children who attest that Mary appeared to them but without viewing Mary for themselves, as mentioned below.

On other occasions elsewhere in the world, what is taken for an image of Mary has literally turned out to be a shadow on glass windows that does not look like a human being at all, let alone someone identifiable. Other instances could be “faces” in cloud photographs or even faces on oil leakages on cement (!) that remind a few folks of a person but are thought by virtually everyone who sees them to be unequivocally nothing of the sort. But whatever is thought about such examples, these are clearly instances of illusions. We know this because real objects were involved; actual, physical views of the sun, window glass, clouds, or even oil drippings on cement were incorrectly identified as something else. These are very far from mass hallucinations and are not technically in the same category, as pointed out above with the initial definitions.

As commented by Frank Larøi, the coauthor of one of the most highly accredited research volume on hallucinations, “in general, ‘true’ collective (mis)perceptions are more commonly illusions.” In this sense, these occasions could be collective without being hallucinations.

(3) It may be asked what difference it would make if particular data indicate group illusions rather than group hallucinations? The distinction is this: illusions are disproven by falsifying the reports. Thus, it is known that the sun is not spinning and dancing in the sky because both uninvolved people and telescopes prove this to be the case. Likewise, hunters know the grizzly bear is not Sasquatch as they get closer to it or examine the photographs.

(4) Further, claims regarding the collective hallucination thesis are somewhat or even largely unfalsifiable, at least in the specific sense of solving the overall issue, chiefly because even if the occasions turn out actually to be some other sort of illusory phenomena, hallucinations may still be maintained even after the criteria are properly identified, as with the telescope example above. On the one hand, an identification of a group hallucination could be applied to real, objective events with religious overtones, as we just saw with a real sun or children. On the other hand, purely natural group events also could simply be called group hallucinations too—like many persons reporting UFOs or other odd sightings. In both sets of circumstances, such identifications also could be very much mistaken. This sort of misapplication could potentially happen in both directions. Thus, either religious or secular sightings could be misidentified as group hallucinations, as Larøi mentions above, making this thesis quite haphazardly applied almost whenever and wherever. But crucial epistemic criteria seem to be missing in both.

(5) Even if it could be established that people in groups witnessed hallucinations, it is absolutely critical to note that it does not at all follow that these experiences were therefore collective, as in every person witnessing the exact same things. If, as most psychologists and psychiatrists assert, at least the vast majority of hallucinations are private, individual events, then how could groups share exactly the same subjective visual perception? Rather, it is much more likely that the phenomena in question are either illusions—perceptual misinterpretations of actual realities such as the spinning sun example above—or a collection of individual hallucinations. Many specialists have agreed on this as well.

(6) Moreover, perhaps the largest number of serious problems for utilizing the group hallucination explanation to account for Jesus’s group appearances results from comparing the requirements for these occurrences to the critically recognized portions of the New Testament accounts of Jesus’s postmortem sightings. It may be precisely at this interval that the explanatory power of this natural hypothesis is most severely challenged, since much of the accredited New Testament data not only differs from the psychological requirements but actually contradicts the necessary conditions for “collective hallucinations.” In other words, the necessary conditions are precisely what are not reported.

For instance, Zusne and Jones argue that “expectation” and “emotional excitement” are “prerequisites” before these group experiences will even occur. In fact, expectation “plays the coordinating role.” As observed above, even Lüdemann remarkably agrees with this sentiment, employing quite similar terms to describe Jesus’s appear- ances, brought about “unexpectedly” and described as “enthusiastic experience,” “mass ecstasy,” and “enthusiasm.” These emotions lead to “an incomparable chain reaction” that spawned what is described as “religious intoxication” and was “infectious,” and these emotional scenes were “passed on to others.”

But how many scholars would agree that these highly emotionally charged terms and descriptions truly applied to Jesus’s post-crucifixion disciples, thereby accounting for their experiences? Rather, this scenario contradicts the emotional state of the early witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection appearances, as recognized regularly even by critical scholars. Psychologically, the early believers were confronted face-to-face with the utter reality of the very recent and unexpected death of their best friend, who they had hoped would both rescue Israel as well as reward them. They had sacrificed much in the process as well. Then the horrific events unfolded in a whirlwind: the disciples’ own bewilderment at the fast-moving chaos; Jesus’s physical beatings, crucifixion, and seeming abandonment by his Father, along with their guilt in the situations. The normal human response would have been severe fear and anxiety, disillusionment, and depression, and that is precisely what we observe in the accounts, whether it be Peter’s denials (Mark 14:66–72), the absence of the disciples at the cross, or the disciples hiding in fear (John 20:19).

To suppose that these believers would exhibit “expectation,” “emotional excitement,” “enthusiasm,” and’ “intoxication” is simply far over the top of a normal psychological response especially in the face of these stark circumstances beginning just a day or so later. This would require of them responses that would scarcely be exhibited even at a normal funeral, let alone a death of this magnitude! That Zusne and Jones postulate that expectation “plays the coordinating role” in all this is most likely the least applicable to Jesus’s disciples, in that it would need to be present in order to get the entire process moving. Yet it was the characteristic that was probably lacking most in them. All indications are that Jesus’s disciples exhibited the very opposite emotions from these that Zusne and Jones assert are the necessary prerequisites for their thesis (though they were not at all considering Jesus’s situation).

Because of this powerful objection, Lüdemann and many other critical scholars going back to David Strauss in the mid-nineteenth century and before have suggested separating the disciples’ experiences from the crucifixion by several days, months, or perhaps even years. But what data support such moves? Even just a few days later would be too soon for such monumental emotional changes in Jesus’s followers. There are several other issues with such scenarios as well.

By comparison, the disciples’ experiences were totally unlike those in the Marian cases above where pilgrims frequently traveled long distances, hoping dearly and even expecting to witness wonderful events, gathering exuberantly with anticipation. These would seem to be very meager grounds of comparison with any of the emotions belonging to Jesus’s disciples after his death.

(7) Separate studies of both the relevant psychological and medical literature going back even decades have revealed no clear data indicating that group hallucinations have ever actually occurred or at least been observed. Individual hallucinations of course happen, as do illusions and delusions—the latter even in more than one person. But Aleman and Larøi note “the general supposition” made by a number of theorists that “hallucinations are private events.” Group hallucinations have not been observed or confirmed in the relevant literature. This by itself does not make them impossible events, but given the huge collections of relevant scientific literature in these areas, this is almost an overwhelming critique by itself.

(8) Possibly the two best critiques of group hallucinations are the previous point that such occurrences have highly questionable empirical status either medically or psychologically along with this present assessment. The absence or rarity of these group events is noticeably an exceptionally difficult issue for critics, judging from the ways they attempt to respond and often even back off the issue when challenged. However, easily the majority of all the claimed New Testament appearances of Jesus were to groups. Of these, the best attested were the ones arguably to the twelve disciples, “all the apostles” (1 Cor 15:7), the 500 individuals at once, the group of women, the appearance on the Galilean mountain, and Paul’s sighting along with his companions. Amazingly, even Crossan and the Jesus Seminar note two instances where separate lists of multiple, independent sources record these occurrences, as noted just below.

So here is the additional knockout criticism: Even if there had been some exceptionally rare realities like mass hallucinations in the world, several group events of that nature were proclaimed in the earliest and strongest Christian sources. Therefore, the chief issue according to the data is that to deal a blow to these appearances, it would not be enough to mount arguments against a single group sighting of the risen Jesus. Even though group hallucinations have arguably never happened in the past, these group events reportedly reoccurred frequently after Jesus’s death.

Under such circumstances, what could the critic report? They could hardly report this: “The only time that multiple mass hallucinations have likely ever happened in history in the presence of just one individual over a brief time span, they were witnessed by the followers of Jesus, perhaps the most unique person who ever lived, including critically accepted healings, likely predictions of the events, and probably the most acclaimed ethical teachings ever. And in his case, the events happened repeatedly!” In other words, if the true nature of the naturalistic claim here regarding these proposed group hallucinations were emphasized, this situation might more accurately be named something like this: “This hypothesis might be termed the natural group hallucination, natural group hallucination, natural group hallucination, and so on view.” The chief point here is that if group hallucinations are at least very rare events, then several examples in the life of Jesus alone might appear to be miraculous in themselves!

Many other crucial problems also plague the application of hallucinations to Jesus’s resurrection appearances, including a few more considerations with a bearing on group hallucinations. Several more of these issues are pursued directly below. Zusne and Jones never apply their approach to Jesus’s resurrection. Moreover, they even rather astonishingly end their examination of this subject with the admission that group hallucinations have a “dubious status” because it is not possible to ascertain whether these individuals were actually even hallucinating in the first place! This is truly an amazing concession for a treatment that largely places the proverbial icing on the hallucination cake, almost causing one to wonder why they conducted this discussion in the first place!

Having critiqued group hallucinations in some detail, we will now move on to additional critiques of hallucinations in general. Then we will turn to a couple of specific conditions that are often linked with hallucinations but are not directly related.

Additional Problems for Hallucinations

Many other issues remain regarding the various types of hallucination hypotheses. (1) Even multiple individual hallucinations are questionable because they are generally far more rare than is commonly thought to be the case. Unless they are somehow induced, including by abnormal methods, they do not just occur anytime at all without cause, not to mention that some personalities are much less prone to experiencing them. So the sheer rarity of “hallucinations” among those individuals involved in each of the New Testament reports might be expected to yield a far smaller number of individual hallucinations than is often assumed or stated to be the case, where it is sometimes acted as if anyone can have one on the spot.

(2) Further, hallucinations of the extended sort as required by the New Testament and other reports (i.e., ones that involved multiple senses such as sight, hearing, and touch) are even rarer phenomena. Of course, as with other aspects being raised in this section, certain aspects in these accounts could be denied by critics if there are good reasons for doing so, but the overall point is that these considerations make the appearance narratives more difficult to explain. That these multisensory cases were reported on several occasions as occurring regularly during Jesus’s appearances militates further against Jesus’s disciples being the recipients.

(3) According to the early texts, the wide variety of times and places when Jesus appeared, along with the differing mindsets and underlying personalities of the witnesses, are all simply huge obstacles. This retort is thought by some to be the best response to hallucinations. Men and women, hard-headed and soft-hearted alike, of different ages, all believing that they truly had seen Jesus, as far as is known from the data, both indoors and outdoors, in light and in darkness, by itself provides a virtually insurmountable barrier. These various details significantly complicate the cases of private hallucinations, let alone the much tougher cases of group appearances. Further, it must be kept in mind here that group appearances are much more commonly reported in the accredited historical literature. Thus, the odds that every person, each with his or her quite different characteristics and idiosyncrasies, would be in precisely the proper frame of mind to experience a hallucination, even individually, decreases exponentially. Many commentators take these aspects for granted, as if hallucinations can just “pop up” virtually anywhere, in almost any circumstance, with almost anyone.

(4) Generally, hallucinations do not transform lives, even less so over a period of many years. Studies have argued that even with persons who hallucinate, it is quite frequently (or even usually) the case that they abandon or disavow such experiences once they realize that they “saw” things that did not happen or when others present around them state that they did not see the same thing. Jewish New Testament scholar Pinchas Lapide, though a non-Christian, still asserts, “In none of the cases where rabbinic literature speaks of such visions did it result in an essential change in the life of the resuscitated or of those who had experienced the visions.” Lapide adds, “Only the vision remains . . . but it did not have any noticeable consequences.” Not so with Jesus’s disciples—they were thoroughly changed.

Critics acknowledge freely that Jesus’s disciples were transformed even to the point of being quite willing to die for their faith. Additionally, no early texts report that any of them ever recanted. As far as we know, the disciples were faithful to the end of their lives, however each one ended. To suppose that this quality of conviction came about through false sensory perceptions without anyone rejecting it later seems highly problematic, as Lapide’s insights detail.

(5) Of course, if the appearances were hallucinations, then Jesus’s body should have been located safely and securely in its grave just outside the city of Jerusalem. But the hallucination theory is what we might label a “full tomb view” rather than an empty tomb position. Producing Jesus’s dead body from wherever it was buried would undoubtedly be a rather large disclaimer to the disciples’ efforts to preach that Jesus was raised. But hallucinations fail to even address this situation, so it is necessary that another naturalistic thesis be developed to explain the empty sepulcher. However, it is not in the critics’ best interests to have to come up with yet another unlikely thesis and then try to turn it into a likely one. It is no wonder that there are several scholars in recent years who seem to talk themselves out of the empty tomb belief, or who try to list comebacks that cancel the more than twenty major and minor arguments to which critics have agreed.

Still other issues impede the hallucination hypothesis. While these following reasons are perhaps not as weighty in this context, they must still be addressed. (6) Unquestionably, the experiences that were believed strongly to be resurrection appearances were reported by Jesus’s disciples at an exceptionally early date. Even critical researchers usually agree in placing them from just days after the crucifixion to at most five or six years afterward. Individual hallucinations could occur immediately, though they would have to overcome all the potential objections here. But this critique does answer the critical charge that the proclamation of the gospel message came too long afterward. This is especially the case when the time frame is compared to the religious documentation in other faiths. Perhaps the analogy helps here that, as in a chess match, moves are sometimes made to forestall another later move!

(7) Jesus’s resurrection was the disciples’ central teaching, and people usually take extra care with matters that are the closest to their hearts and that mean the most to them. This is what drove Paul to travel more than 100 miles to Jerusalem in order to investigate (historēsai) the nature of the gospel data with other key disciples on at least two occasions to make sure he was preaching the truth on this subject (Gal 1:18–19; 2:1–10). He found that the other apostles were also teaching the same message that he was about Jesus’s appearances to them (1 Cor 15:11). Are we to assume that, given all of Paul’s vigilant care, no one discovered that any of these experiences were subjective and ungrounded?

(8) What about the natural human tendency among at least some people to touch in order to confirm what they are witnessing? Assuming that at least a few disciples would have attempted to touch their best friend, who was supposedly standing just a few feet away, why wouldn’t someone have discovered, even once, that he was not physically there at all? This very human scenario is described in Luke 24:36–43 and other places in the Gospels (Matt 28:9; John 20:17, 24–29). Discovering that Jesus was a phantom would seemingly have ended the speculation in favor of hallucinations or worse!

(9) Why did the hallucinations stop after just forty days? Why didn’t these inward experiences continue to spread to other believers, just as other Christian experiences and expressions expanded, and just like other non-Christian phenomena at that time, as an initiation or badge of entry into the cultic beliefs?

(10) The resurrection of an individual contradicted general Jewish theology, which held to a corporate event at the end of time. That is why Paul wrote of the resurrection of the dead in the plural—the righteous dead are raised together (such as Rom 1:3–4). So Jesus’s individual resurrection did not fit normal Jewish expectations. Of course, new views certainly do emerge, but this is at least an additional roadblock.

(11) Of all the prophet, messiah, and “superhero” figures or stories of the past, why are Jesus’s resurrection appearance accounts so unique? Where are the additional historical examples? And where is the comparable evidence for these other reports?

There is no shortage of reasons that oppose the range of hallucination theses, some even strongly so. Further, some additional, equally weighty critiques of several look-alike hypotheses have also been treated in this study, such as what we have called the illumination and illusion options. Altogether, it is rather amazing that hallucination remains the most commonly chosen option, although these alternative ideas are generally supported in smaller numbers today.

Conversion Disorder

Perhaps misled by the term “conversion,” this illness is often thought to be related to religious changes of heart to different belief systems. But this phenomena is quite distinct from experiencing changes in one’s religious beliefs. “The term ‘conversion’ in psychiatric parlance is conceptually unrelated to religious ‘conversion.’” Rather, it refers to “disturbances of bodily function” due to distress, perhaps like an individual who suffers real paralysis when made to do something that they object to strenuously.

Of the different angles on hallucination in this chapter, this particular option is the outlier, because hallucinations are not normally connected with conversion disorder. As some critics suggest, Paul experienced a conversion disorder, a psychological condition characterized by physical symptoms like blindness or paralysis in the absence of specific neurological or medical causes. Such was brought about by his inner turbulence, conflict, doubt, and guilt. Goulder agrees with this claim about Paul, but adds that Peter and others, including perhaps James, were also suffering from the same problem. Hallucinations and illusions were mixed in here too.

Once again, we must align our hypotheses with the facts, and multiple problems oppose this interpretation of conversion disorder. (1) Initially, only Paul is known to have manifested any of these symptoms, so while Goulder’s and Kent’s inclusion of the other apostles is very convenient for their thesis, it fails to be grounded either factually or medically. Regardless, the likelihood that each of the other disciples would all just “happen” to have this malady is ridiculous.

Further, showing that Goulder does not understand this subject, he even defines conversion disorder as a personal transformation due to adopting a different religious mindset! But again, this malady is unrelated to religious conversion. There are just way too many examples here among these critics where almost magically accumulating apostles, additional symptoms, and utilizing faulty definitions all add to the overall mix that allows them to improperly extend this mixture and attempt to custom-fit the hypothesis to the biblical descriptions. These are clearly instances of abusing the data and committing a large case of overreach in the process.

(2) A huge problem for Goulder’s position is that, from what we know personally about Paul and James in particular, there were no mitigating grounds to suppose any conversion disorder. We have no evidence or indication that there was the slightest inner conflict, doubt, or guilt concerning their previous rejection of Jesus’s teachings, nor any present questionable states of mind in general. Critics generally agree that James was an unbeliever during Jesus’s earthly ministry (John 7:5; cf. Mark 3:21). Paul’s skepticism is even better known, since he admittedly persecuted early Christians (1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13, 23). But we do not know of any guilt on Paul’s part, for he considered his actions to have been both zealous and faultless (Phil 3:4–6). In short, there is no indication of any inner turmoil for either of these apostles. Nor are there any other factors that might contribute to conversion disorder. To suppose otherwise is groundless. In short, these men are exceptionally poor candidates for this problem.

But not to miss the chief point at hand, these responses are to answer critics who are heading down the wrong path. These improperly mentioned religious characteristics above are not the domain of conversion disorder cases.

(3) Further, in addition to Paul and James’s internal states of mind not showing similarities to patterns of conversion disorder, the psychological profile for this ailment strongly opposes its application to either of these apostles. Conversion disorder most frequently occurs to women (up to five times more often), adolescents, and young adults, as well as less-educated persons, those with low IQs, individuals of low socioeconomic status, or combat personnel.

(4) Conversion disorder does not generally take overly long to heal; Bergeron attests that “complete spontaneous resolution would be expected within a few days and nearly all cases resolve within 30 days.” This usual outcome hardly seems applicable to Paul or James in particular, both of whom experienced critically ascertained, lifelong conversions, both dying as martyrs for these convictions.

(5) Regarding other facets pertaining to the question of conversion disorder, these critical scholars often hold that these sufferers were strong candidates for both visual and auditory hallucinations. But this is exaggerating the case again, and by quite a bit since hallucinations are uncommon characteristics of this disorder. Not only have we commented that Paul and James were poor candidates for this illness in the first place, but even apart from this sickness, they were additionally not predisposed to experiencing hallucinations. These were two separate men here, in very different life circumstances, and hence we have two separate critiques of their likelihood for this condition. To extend our earlier critique, there is no indication that either James or Paul longed to see Jesus. In fact, when they had their chances, they refused the opportunities. Their previous unbelief was a poor basis for producing hallucinations due to any imagined desires to see the risen Jesus! Nor did their outlooks on life and faith contain indications that they wanted to believe in Jesus. As before, to say otherwise is mere conjecture apart from any historical data whatsoever.

(6) Concerning his conversion, James agreed with his family in concluding that Jesus had “gone out of his mind” (Mark 3:21 NRSV). Jesus’s mother and family members wanted to remove him from a ministry situation, but Jesus apparently did not go with them (3:31–35). Jesus’s own townspeople were offended at him as well (6:2–3). John remarks that Jesus’s family wanted him out of the area, adding that “not even his brothers believed in him” (John 7:5 NRSV). James does not seem at this point in his life to have had a pious reputation or any leadership position in Judaism. Responses to Jesus such as these account for why the majority of scholars hold that James the brother of Jesus was an unbeliever before Jesus’s resurrection.

(7) As Luke explains, Saul (Paul) seemed to be minding the coats of those who stoned Stephen to death (Acts 7:57–59), and he clearly approved of Stephen’s martyrdom (8:1). Then we are told that, “Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison” (8:3 NRSV). In Paul’s own words: “I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors” (Gal 1:13–14 NRSV). Paul also states that he was “a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Phil 3:5b–6 NRSV).

In the cases of James and Paul, some have claimed that these two men were forlorn, repentant, depressed, or no doubt many other things. To be sure, they were living in very different positions, probably sporting dissimilar states of mind. But the chief problem here is that all the actual evidence under consideration supports conclusions that head in different directions, including that their conversions to Christianity were most likely due to Jesus’s resurrection appearances to them that are mentioned in the pre-Pauline creedal statement of 1 Cor 15:7–8 (cf. 9:1 for Paul’s appearance too). Saul (Paul) apparently held a more respected position in Judaism, but most conclude that either man exhibited good reasons to consider them as longing for conversion—just the opposite. Further, once again, conversion disorder is not concerned with religious changes of mind.

(8) Nor does the conversion disorder hypothesis account for what might otherwise be considered as these two apostles’ delusions of grandeur—namely, their beliefs that God himself had imparted special revelation to them for the sake of enlightening the entire world and that others must embrace their message. But there appear to be no other apparent delusions involved here, occurring at precisely the same time, so the original conversion disorder case is further weakened. But are we to suppose that each of these two apostles had both of these psychological conditions?

In sum, charging that these apostles were victims of conversion disorder and accompanying hallucinations simply does not fit the facts on many key counts, neither historical nor medical. It is clearly an overreliance on a hypothesis apart from the data, hence their initial theses fail to be anchored in reality. From the outset, conversion disorder has nothing to do with religious changes of mind, in spite of some popular descriptions. Then to charge that each of the claimed contributing factors converged simultaneously and multiplied for several disciples at once, occurring to Paul and James the brother of Jesus along with many other apostles at roughly the same time, is over the top. There is no evidence for this misapplied category. Moreover, attaching the charge of any species of hallucinations to this concept at all is still very much out of place, since they basically are not symptoms of this malady, let alone the far more difficult charge of establishing mass hallucinations. As will be seen now, there remain still many other serious difficulties for hallucination theses.

Bereavement Hallucinations or Visions and Post-death Visions/After-Death Communications

Initially, there are some similarities between the resurrection appearances of Jesus and the post-death visions (PDVs) and spontaneous after-death communications (ADCs) mentioned various places in this volume. These reports concern claims of after-death data. The grief of the recipients may definitely play a role in these scenarios as well.

From the outset, it needs to be clear throughout this entire section that the object of critique here is not any opposition to the study or even the potential reality of evidenced PDVs. Thus, the critical remarks here are not aimed at reports of these sightings per se or the potential reality that those experiences may be backed with evidence. Some of these ADC claims may very well be hallucinations or other subjective experiences too. However, a good many appear to be genuine and well evidenced. This judgment is not generally opposed even by proponents. But examining this evidence is not the issue in this discussion.

The critique in this section, then, is predominantly on two specific and related points. Any evidenced resurrection appearances of Jesus would obviously qualify as postmortem phenomena, and Jesus’s appearances do present some similarities in common with PDVs. Yet there are many reasons to deny that these appearances were the same or a very similar species of events as PDVs, as argued by Ken Vincent in his essay “The Resurrection of Jesus as an After-Death Communication.” Rather, the argument in both the next chapter on this subject and in this section is that Jesus’s resurrection appearances were unique historical events. Further, any possible hallucinatory elements in some PDVs or ADCs do not at all relate to the reality of the evidenced cases or to the corroborated postmortem appearances of Jesus.

So what are some of these differences? Two items should be noted here. First, this subject overlaps somewhat and will also be treated in the following chapter on objective vision hypotheses as well. Thus, some of the information will be repeated as necessary in both places, though often with different angles of emphasis and sources. Some of the details will be different and more apropos to one place or the other. Also, the order of the responses to contrary arguments differs from the next treatment on objective visions.

A second note concerns the relation of this section to hallucinations, as per this chapter. On the positive side, there is now a fair amount of agreement between Jesus’s evidenced resurrection appearances and at least the corroborated PDVs in that they both point away from the subjective hallucination category due to this factual verification. But at the onset of the bereavement research, these experiences were commonly cast in terms of hallucinations. Moreover, some later commentators still took these “visions” in the original, subjective sense.

In this chapter more attention will be paid to the claim that at least some of these occurrences were evidenced in some way, since this argues against the charge that these phenomena are all hallucinations. Yet, it will be asserted on several grounds that they are still not exactly the same species of occurrences as Jesus’s appearances but may still produce other evidence for an afterlife.

(1) Typically, the argument for sameness or strong similarity between Jesus’s appearances and PDVs often progresses by comparing the similarities. But this move potentially commits more than one informal logical fallacy, depending on how the argument is construed. In short, similarities or compatibilities do not prove that two or more items must be the same, or even that they are quite closely related. This is particularly the case when major differences exist to offset at least some of these similarities, as is certainly the case here.

(2) If Jesus’s post-crucifixion appearances and the PDVs both have probable evidence in their favor, then this double situation of good data for each view is helpful in the sense that they both are able to share corroborated views, including the conviction that the afterlife is a reality. On this combined supernatural (while not necessarily miraculous) perspective, each of the positions could further share some similar worldview perspectives. From the angle of Christian theology, for example, there could be many similarities regarding Jesus. But there are some major differences too, such as that PDVs are generally disembodied. Still, both could presumably agree on the demise of naturalism.

(3) An enormous issue in opposition to the argument that Jesus’s appearances were the same (or a closely similar) phenomena to PDVs of a bereavement nature is the presence of almost two dozen strong primary and secondary critical arguments that favor Jesus’s burial tomb being empty after Jesus’s death. While other rival suggestions are of course possible, it has already been argued at length in volume 1 and elsewhere that these alternative hypotheses do not line up well with the established data available, as indicated by the majority of critical scholars who reject the viability of these alternatives. This would be a vast difference from the disembodied theses. For example, recipients who report PDVs do not think that their loved one’s graves have been vacated, which argues for different, unique qualities in Jesus’s case when assessing the comparative data.

(4) N. T. Wright among others has raised another intriguing critique of the differences on these positions. When a loved one witnesses what they think is a brief PDV of a loved one or friend, often a spouse, such an occurrence is certainly capable of producing comfort and often does so. In spite of that, what the vision does not do is cause the recipient to conclude that their loved one or friend is still alive somewhere in this world. As Wright asserts, even witnessing an after-death vision “doesn’t mean they’re alive again—it means they’re dead. That’s the point. . . . Uncle Joe ain’t coming back again. That’s how those things function.” The major distinction is that while both persons may presently be alive, the PDV individual is elsewhere. This contrasts the New Testament, which states that Jesus remained bodily with his followers, even for a relatively brief time. This is a massively distinct difference from typical reports of PDVs.

So, while the living individuals may certainly be consoled in some respects, such as in realizing that their loved one apparently is still alive in heaven or elsewhere, the body of the deceased remains dead and the realization is firm that the individual will not return to this world. Therefore, whatever these visions may mean, they are neither harbingers that inspired Jesus’s resurrection nor grist for those who take this position and hypothesize that the resurrection appearances are simply the same as PDVs. Wright concludes pointedly, “That’s precisely what [a grief vision] isn’t.”

(5) Moreover, according to at least a half dozen critical arguments, Jesus quite often predicted both his death and his resurrection (see Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34; 14:27–28; Matt 12:38–40; cf. 16:1–4). These forecasts are found throughout the early literature; are established by multiple independent sources; fulfill several of the recognized critical historical tests of embarrassment, dissimilarity, and contextual plausibility; and lack Old Testament parallels or theological elaboration, all of which are well-recognized research methods in the scholarly community. Such positive indications appear to overwhelm the few opposing considerations.

Such predictions by Jesus would indicate more than his mere ability to make good guesses or to read the tea leaves regarding current politics and ascertain that he had a good chance to be martyred for his beliefs. If that were it, what intelligent individual in their right mind would forecast a unique event like a resurrection, which had never before been witnessed? Such bold and repeated pronouncements would more likely indicate that Jesus was well aware of his imminent death plus his resurrection and exaltation along with the role that he would play in God’s kingdom and planned salvation.

Then what might it mean if these wild prognostications really happened just as they were forecast? This knowledge would further differentiate Jesus’s foresight from those who experienced the PDVs or ADVs due to Jesus’s knowledge of what awaited him in his fate, including his appearances. These teachings indicated Jesus’s knowledge of and participation in a specific plan. Persons who experienced PDVs do not project such previous knowledge, let alone that God would raise them from the dead.

(6) Critical theologian Theodor Keim argued influentially during the reign of German liberalism in the late nineteenth century that the New Testament is careful to differentiate Jesus’s resurrection appearances from disembodied visions. But these visions were well known in the ancient world too, and if all these afterlife occurrences were considered roughly the same or similar, then there is all the more reason not to distinguish or differentiate the resurrection appearances from other visions. But the appearances were nonetheless viewed separately and uniquely. Oddly enough, even though he made this distinction, Keim still held to disembodied appearances! As Allison points out, something other than postmortem visions must be going on here, especially when these visions were not expressed in terms of resurrections.

(7) The majority of critical scholars today appear to hold that, at least according to the earliest New Testament witnesses themselves, including Paul, Jesus’s resurrection appearances were believed to be bodily events. Those who take this recent view include a number of skeptical thinkers. Thus, in spite of rejecting personally all supernatural events like miracles, and both Jesus’s resurrection appearances and PDVs alike, a number of researchers still agree that the view taught by the New Testament authors, including the apostle Paul, was Jesus’s bodily resurrection appearances. Other scholars have provided among the very best defenses of bodily resurrection views. Wright is well known for hundreds of pages defending this concept, including describing the resurrection body as “immortal physicality,” “transphysical,” and “transphysicality.” This once again is a direct difference from the majority of PDVs, which are disembodied.

(8) An absolutely major contrast between Jesus’s resurrection appearances and the PDVs is the extraordinary diversity of Jesus’s many accredited resurrection appearance accounts. To my knowledge, no comparable combination of ADCs or PDVs regarding a single historical person who died, followed by various disembodied ­postmortem reports over a comparable length of time, even approaches the diversity of these appearance accounts of Jesus. No matter what category these postmortem events are placed in, these details make these Jesus sightings look rather unique as well.

In order to arrive at anything even remotely close to this early list of resurrection appearances that is so respected by contemporary critical scholars, one would have to string together a lengthy series of similar ADCs involving a single person over a relatively brief time. The resurrection reports of Jesus encompass highly attested appearances to both individuals and groups (including over 500 persons at one time), to believers and also to at least a couple of major skeptics, to both males and females, to people who were standing, walking, and talking, both indoors and outdoors in both the daytime as well as the evening. The emphasis on group sightings, especially of more than a couple persons at a time, is particularly noteworthy.

Though holding views closer to those of Vincent, Perry made the similar point to the one immediately above that in terms of the sheer number of witnesses, appearances, and various other details, not even the best PDV cases approach the inclusive list of Jesus’s resurrection appearances. Perry added in a detailed discussion that, if the Gospel data are also included, both the length of time involved in the appearances as well as the extent of the conversations serve as supplementary indicators of the distinctiveness of Jesus’s appearances. As he affirmed, “It remains true that the overall scale of the Resurrection appearances is far greater than that of modern cases.”

Though Allison was likewise very impressed with the PDV cases while conducting a very lengthy evaluation of ADCs, he agreed with Perry regarding the strength and diversity of the resurrection appearance traditions. His comparisons in his later resurrection study were remarkable, attesting that “if there is a good, substantial parallel to the entire series, I have yet to run across it.”

As mentioned earlier, the additional pointers to the unique resurrection events need to be kept in mind for supplementary assessment. As O’Collins and Siniscalchi among others have noted, there are far more differences than similarities between Jesus’s resurrection appearances and bereavement visions. These distinctions between these general accounts are absolutely crucial because they produce other areas of opposition that further drive a wedge between the concepts and against the idea that Jesus’s resurrection appearances and PDVs are either the same or quite similar sorts of events.

(9) Besides Paul’s personal statements pertaining to his own resurrection appearance of Jesus in 1 Cor 9:1 and 15:8, many recent scholars have also regarded seriously at least some of the various core elements that Luke includes in his three accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9:1–9; 22:6–11; and 26:12–18, in spite of the textual questions that might also be researched. However Luke’s descriptions are taken, then, they include a few essentials that seem foreign to at least most of the PDVs, like an extremely bright light from heaven seen by all those persons who were present in Paul’s group on their trip to Damascus and caused everyone to fall to the ground. It is noteworthy too, that none of these observers were Christians. This occurrence seems unlike at least the general species of PDV.

Siniscalchi makes another important observation here. The appearance to Paul is postascension, and the same author (Luke) records both the quite bodily appearances of Jesus to his disciples (Luke 24:36–43; Acts 1:1–11) as well as the three episodes involving Paul. Thus, Luke is unaware of any problems between the earlier bodily sightings and the appearance to Paul and his companions that involved the blinding light. Nor does Luke have a problem with the emptiness of Jesus’s tomb with regard to Paul’s appearance. In fact, Luke also includes the early sermon summary in Acts 13:29–31 and attributes it to Paul. So, it ought not be argued that the appearance to Paul is less than bodily. Further, it may be added that Paul’s large number of teachings on the subject (such as Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 15:12; Phil 3:11, 21 among other texts) hold strictly to the bodily views as well, providing added backup that Paul’s appearance was hardly less than bodily, as many scholars also recognize.

Crossan and Reed note in addressing this same subject that Paul’s primary sources need to be preferred over Luke’s secondary ones. When this is done, the bottom line is this: “To take seriously Paul’s claim to have seen the risen Jesus, we suggest that his inaugural vision was of Jesus’s body simultaneously wounded and glorified.” In this process, they bracketed Luke’s “blinded-by-light sequence” in favor of Paul’s vision in which he “both sees and hears Jesus as the resurrected Christ, the risen Lord.”

Taken as a whole, the various elements of the critically accredited sightings of Jesus after his crucifixion are time and again quite different in many major respects from the details of regular PDVs. As mentioned, it also must be considered that a number of events in Jesus’s life before the resurrection were quite remarkably unique as well, which is amazing considering that we are dealing with a far briefer time range in terms of the years involved and an exceptionally miniscule number of cases when compared to ADCs. These more exceptional factors in Jesus’s life include his very distinctive theological and ethical teachings, predictions of his death and resurrection, and critically recognized texts that record his healings and exorcisms alongside a multiply evidenced empty tomb and corroborated bodily appearances (including the amount, rarity, and the variety of the sightings themselves). The combination of factors particularly with the empty tomb and appearances is unique. Plus it is often overlooked that each underlying historical fact on which the appearances are based has been recognized and attested by the vast majority of critical researchers today, a number of whom personally disbelieve the resurrection of Jesus.

Scholarly Views Regarding Hallucinations

In spite of the critical scholarly attestation, the very frequent and quite shrill verbiage that often comes from nonscholarly critics still abounds, too often filling the comments on conservative blogs and book reviews, questioning Jesus’s very existence, and brandishing a rule: always reject any evidence presented, no matter what it is, and demand even more evidence, no matter how much has already been given. The additional rule is often to ask more questions than anyone will take time to answer. The most prominent impression seems to indicate that these inquiries emanate largely from those who are simply willing to hear only what they prefer and do not have the sort of scholarly ammunition that they require to counteract the early New Testament data. The anger and vehemence that often flows so freely from this crowd in many of these sessions can sometimes sound alarming. Surprisingly, even critical scholars have admitted that this anger exists!

If this is largely how nonscholarly critics react, how do scholarly critics like Ehrman respond to the data that they know and almost always recognize? For starters, the ensuing conversations are usually much more civil. Across the scholarly spectrum, many of the reasons given in this chapter help to explain why hallucination theses are generally rejected by scholarly researchers. This last point is crucial too: while academics are humans with their own views, their comments no doubt can carry weight, usually because of the reasons and arguments that stand behind these stances.

Regarding the topic in this chapter, Jesus Seminar cofounder John Dominic Crossan stated regarding one of Jesus’s appearances, “Now it’s not a vision; it’s not a hallucination . . . not in a hallucination.” Fellow Jesus Seminar cofounder Marcus Borg attested of the experience of Paul and his companions on the way to Damascus: “I do not put them in the category of hallucinations.” Speaking again of the appearance to Paul in another discussion, Borg commented: “I think visions can be true. . . . I never put them in the same category as hallucinations.” John A. T. Robinson likewise holds that it “seems certain” that hallucinations cannot account for all of the appearance data, especially that of Paul.

In a written dialogue, skeptical Cambridge University philosophical theologian Don Cupitt commented on the issue in this chapter. Cupitt asserted, “Of course religious experiences can be shared, but then there are plenty of hallucinations.” For Cupitt, “collective visions of Mary” occurred in the present century. His Cambridge University New Testament colleague C. F. D. Moule then responded: “As for collective hallucinations, the ones you cite seem to me negligible, in extent, persistence, and consequences, as compared with the Easter belief, and scarcely serious parallels to the genesis of the Christian church.”

An amazing aspect of resurrection and other Christian studies is the number of non-Christian Jewish scholars who are at least open to, or who even compliment, the New Testament text in sundry ways, such as with various historical aspects (Jesus’s healing miracles, claims to divinity, and so on). New Testament Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide famously wrote a book arguing that Jesus actually was raised from the dead. Mishkin lists at least three other well-known Jewish thinkers (the agnostic Oxford University historian Geza Vermes, Claude Montefiore, and the early Joseph Klausner, though he appeared to change his view later in life) who at least allowed the resurrection visions as actual though private ­occurrences. Jewish historian Alan Segal is very difficult to decipher on this matter due to his back and forth comments that seem to conflict at times and the difficulty of deciphering the difference between Paul’s views and those of Segal himself. But Segal seems to fit comfortably in this category of Paul having had a real, spiritual, mystical experience.

Like these three positions mentioned by Mishkin, Lapide even argues, “Most Jewish scholars consider this . . . possibility as the most likely one,” and amazingly seems to think that the most popular Jewish scholarly position is similar to the “true” bereavement options that we discussed above, where the deceased individuals really do appear especially to their loved ones! Yet Lapide does not take this last position for Jesus’s appearances personally, since he thinks that what Jesus’s disciples saw was different from the bereavement cases. In terms of our topic in this chapter, Lapide affirms, “No vision or hallucination is sufficient to explain such a revolutionary transformation.”

Another New Testament scholar, Ben Witherington, states the following: “The pattern of appearances to various people at various times in differing places—sometimes to individuals, sometimes to groups, and at least once to someone who had never been a believer (Paul)—makes clear that these events cannot be categorized as mass hallucinations or the dreams of the deluded or even mere subjective visions.”

Philosopher Stephen Davis affirms why the majority scholarly view rejects hallu­cinations: “The very idea of a group hallucination or vision is at best deeply problematical.” Davis considers Jesus’s appearances to have been bodily. One of “several obvious reasons” why the hallucination is highly dubious is that the texts relate that, “on at least three occasions, the resurrected Jesus was not immediately recognized” and some expressed doubts. Davis’s point seems to be that, among other characteristics, these are not likely when any hallucinations already would have been conjured up inside their own minds, so why would there be a lack of recognition and doubt afterward? Further, “many different people saw the risen Jesus, in different places and in different circumstances.”

In addressing David Strauss’s famous hallucination thesis along with the history of other such subjective efforts, eminent German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg concluded: “These explanations have failed to date.” Pannenberg explains that this verdict follows due to two chief lines of argument: “positive points of contact for the application of the psychiatric concept of vision are lacking,” plus the additional fact that “serious difficulties that argue against this are present in the tradition.”

Of course, scholars can be found occupying all sides of the issues here, and headcounts, impressive quotations, or other statements will not resolve this question once and for all. However, it is at least worthwhile to note that among the views of such distinguished scholars on all sides, a sizeable number of the majority who reject hallucinations are skeptics or even unbelievers who likewise reject the resurrection of Jesus itself and sometimes even jettison belief in the supernatural world as a whole. In other words, this critical group may embrace hallucinations if they thought it was a superior view, but they fail to take this path. At the same time, while some pro-resurrection scholars have pondered seriously the hallucination thesis, it is certainly questionable how many pro-hallucination scholars include resurrection believers among those whose views they also study.

A Brief Encapsulation of the Hallucinations Critique

We have viewed three dozen considerations in this chapter that critique several types of hallucination theses from a variety of angles. In a nutshell, arguably the hardest-hitting combination from these blends integrates five features. Group hallucinations may well be nonexistent, particularly with regard to the absence of medical and psychological recognition. But even if they do exist rarely, the majority of Jesus’s resurrection appearances were described as group events, sometimes accompanied by exceptional corroboration. That such rare occasions could occur fairly often after Jesus’s crucifixion creates an amazing combination that leads to the conclusion that this repetition alone confirms the reality of Jesus’s actual appearances instead of subjective visions.

Adding to these features are the medical views above that only 2 to 3 percent of individuals are affected by hallucinations and that multimodal cases involving sight, touch, and hearing together may be even more rare. These data severely complicate the issues as well, militating against all of these aspects coming together at once. Even individual hallucinations are fairly rare. Combined with the wide varieties of personalities, men and women, headstrong and sensitive, of different ages, indoors and outdoors, in the daytime and nighttime, it all adds another layer of attestation. Together, these five considerations provide virtually an insurmountable hurdle against the multiple occurrences of hallucinations having caused Jesus’s resurrection appearances.

Conclusion

While the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed great numbers of hallucination theorists, there are far fewer specialist scholars holding such naturalistic hypotheses today. Hallucination and related subjective hypothe­ses may again be the most popular options but in smaller numbers overall. In other words, both the alternative theses as a whole and the hallucination views in particular are supported by dwindling numbers of researchers.

Further, very few specialist critical scholars today, especially among the younger researchers, seem to be willing to choose just a single natural theory and champion that view alone, as has been the more common approach since the early nineteenth-century explosion of alternative positions. It seems clear especially in terms of the newer data emerging in recent decades that to place all of one’s eggs in a single basket in that manner can be a very risky business for skeptical researchers. The main path today seems to be for critics to champion any or all of these theses without choosing a favorite, because they are supposedly each better than the resurrection. But there is apparently an underlying reason for this maneuver: it seems that scholars seldom trust a single thesis to the exclusion of all the others. It is one of the wary critic’s secrets to which many others may even be unaware.

Ehrman even warns about this: “Historians who do not believe that Jesus was raised from the dead should not feel compelled to come up with an alternative explanation for why the tomb was empty. Apologists typically have a field day with such explanations.” Ehrman then goes on to explain, “I don’t subscribe to any of these alternative views.” He then points out that “any of these views is more plausible” than a resurrection. This certainly seems like a loss of confidence in any particular view covering the necessary territory.

But we have argued in this chapter that these strategies regarding hallucinations have still failed to explain the known, critically ascertained data on several fronts. Three dozen total reasons were applied to these alternative theses. We have concluded here that subjective visions in their various forms fall short in their attempts to provide an adequate alternative to the New Testament proclamation. Clinical psychologist Gary Collins summarizes a few of the problematic issues: “Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly are not something which can be seen by a group of people. . . . Since an hallucination exists only in this subjective, personal sense, it is obvious that others cannot witness it.” In fact, the problems with this thesis are so serious that, in order to hold this view, Collins even thinks that these critical scholars “would have to go against much of the current psychiatric and psychological data about the nature of hallucinations.” Many commentators, both believers and unbelievers alike, seem to think that the notion of group hallucinations does not fare well versus our best psychological understanding on this point. This is a simply huge problem for the critics.

But Collins is stating more than that here by pointing out that these naturalistic options are at odds with most of our current scientific knowledge on this entire subject. In other words, he thinks that it should be concluded that applying hallucinations and similar subjective theses to Jesus’s resurrection appearances is severely mistaken across both the disciplines of psychiatry and psychology, and at more than one point. These approaches oppose our entire spectrum of scientific knowledge on these subjects. This is an enormous issue for these views.

Yet, in spite of the comparatively rare percentages of even individual hallucination experiencers, and its nonexistence in group settings as far as is known from research studies, hallucination supporters have written and lectured for almost two centuries as if these occurrences are frequent occasions for individuals. Entire groups of observers are included in the incidents without effort. Further, hallucinations are quite frequently misidentified when illusions and delusions are actually in view, only to be touted and claimed afterward as group occurrences as well with regard to the resurrection appearances.

Recent New Testament studies have trended toward ascertaining greater amounts of historical information, especially regarding the life of Jesus. The evidence comes chiefly from very early creedal traditions that are often dated to the 30s plus the application of historical criteria to the texts. In these and other ways, numerous amounts of positive information have been used in support of particular events and teachings during these times, even by critical scholars themselves. Hallucinations are still suggested, but developed positions here are not as common as in the past.

Along with the relative rarity of even detailed individual hallucinations, other realities also need to be factored in here. The differing amounts of likelihood for various personalities, gender, age, and other fluctuations need to be considered as well as multiple hallucinatory modalities. These data are absolutely necessary in order to explain the accredited source data that instead support the occurrence of Jesus’s resurrection appearances, which must all be considered carefully and explained adequately.

But the experimental information on hallucinations was nearly unknown during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, as mentioned earlier, when hallucinations occur the situation has often been corrected by those present by various careful and accurate interventions, by pointing out the incongruities involved from better vantage points, and so on. Even so, critical scholars including David Strauss, Gerd Lüdemann, Ernest Renan, John Shelby Spong, Michael Goulder, and other subjective theorists often seem to have relied on various incorrect definitions, such as the differences between hallucinations, illusions, delusions, and other similarly subjective theses to explain the data. Individual traits unrelated to the psychological profiles could cause problems. But neither the conditions nor the applications always worked in these manners. These experiences could be proclaimed to be a fit even when the science was heading in other directions.

But we are addressing the possibility of hallucinations to both individuals and groups. The former class has a number of difficulties of its own and the latter is apparently impossible or nearly so. Radical transformations are generally also outside the normal scope of hallucinations. As far as is known, no disciples ever recanted, and it is generally admitted even by critical scholars that these same disciples were at least willing to give their lives for this gospel message, often standing in the line of fire on multiple occasions throughout their lives. These are difficult matches for any of these subjective theses. In short, the overall evidence that we possess simply points in all the wrong directions for hallucinations to obtain, as Gary Collins mentioned above, especially given the many different circumstances for which we have data. This is why the scholars have largely rejected the class of subjective theses. This is the conclusion here as well. The refutations of the hallucination theses are just overpowering.

Notes

One exception was Wolfhart Pannenberg. Though he had only written comparatively short treatments of the resurrection as part of his other volumes, such as in his celebrated text Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), he was still acclaimed the new champion of resurrection studies, especially among conservative scholars.

Gary R. Habermas, “The Late Twentieth-Century Resurgence of Naturalistic Responses to Jesus’ Resurrection,” Trinity Journal 22 (2001): 179–96.

These volumes included Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983); Gerald O’Collins, Jesus Risen (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1988); William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1989); Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993); Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003). Most noteworthy among these publications were especially N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003); and Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 2010).

Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 165.

Rather humorously, Ehrman points out how apologists (perhaps himself in his Christian days?) “have a field day” in their responses when critics pick particular natural theories, such as retorting that Jesus “would have looked like death warmed over” when the swoon thesis was proposed (164)! Only he knows if these memories lie behind his not willing to choose a specific naturalistic comeback.

More recently, as this study was being written, Gerd Lüdemann (subjective vision theory) and John Shelby Spong (what has been termed in this volume the illumination thesis) both passed away, leaving two fewer examples of those embracing single alternatives.

James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Louisville: Westminster, 1985), 76.

Stephen T. Davis, “Is Belief in the Resurrection Rational? A Response to Michael Martin,” Philo 2 (1999): 57–58.

One of the more prominent examples where hallucinations have been developed in more detail than normal would include Richard Carrier’s research in “The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb,” in The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005), 184–88, 193–95. After his exposition, Carrier freely introduces specific evidenced claims of contemporary Jesus sightings that he hardly even attempts to refute (187–88). Later, Carrier turns a discussion of possible group appearances of Jesus into a melting-pot concoction of concepts that virtually encourages playing a shell game among the possibilities (194–95, 387), only to end up even admitting that these experiences are still individual hallucinations rather than group sightings (195, 387), thereby conceding the chief point! Also, Carrier thinks that hallucinations are the best possibility of the naturalistic theses (184), only to give that award later to the legend theory (370), seeming to have forgotten his earlier preference in the same book, nicely illustrating the principle raised above of recent scholars not wishing to stick with a single alternative thesis! And if that is not enough, Carrier also challenges the empty tomb scenario in terms of Jesus’s body being moved or stolen by others, even by his own disciples, though he does not think that these possibilities are as strong as the other options (see his chapter 9, “The Plausibility of Theft,” 349–68, esp. 349, 364 and chap. 10, “The Burial of Jesus in Light of Jewish Law,” 369–92, particularly 369, 385, 387). Carrier also supposes that there were multiple modalities in the sightings of Jesus, which he thinks were hallucinations (190), which is also troublesome in light of the scientific hallucination data, as we will see below.

Ehrman discusses more details in How Jesus Became God, such as hallucinations in general (186–204), mentioning the possibility of group appearances (138–40, 202), Marian apparitions (191, 198–99), and bereavement hallucinations (195–97, 203–4). In each category, one may get the opinion that the topics are being glossed over without hard looks and specific data. Examples would include the claims that “the Blessed Virgin Mary has appeared to hundreds or thousands of people at once, even though we have modern, verified eyewitness testimony that she has” (202). Having done some specific study on this thesis myself, I will leave the matter at Ehrman’s comments being highly questionable. One very crucial inquiry concerns who was claiming to see Mary in the best known of these situations: the thousands of people who may have been present, or just the few children? Further, did the children all report seeing the exact same phenomena? Many, I’m sure, would love to see the sources that reveal either these “verified eyewitnesses” or the refutations so that the data may really be examined carefully! Another instance is Ehrman’s dismissing the group appearances in 1 Cor 15:3–7, especially in verses 3–5 (137–43), which will also be discussed below. His ideas about grief hallucinations will also be critiqued in detail below. And it is truly interesting, in fact quite odd, when Ehrman states, “I am not going to take a stand on this issue of whether Jesus really appeared to people” or whether it was really “visions” or “hallucinations” of some sort (186–87, cf. 149, 203–4). Further, Ehrman will not “subscribe to any of these alternative views” because any one is possible (165), just like our statement above that this is a very common trend today, almost like scholars need a fallback plan as assurance. Another potential question is that, for Ehrman, history can neither prove nor disprove that Jesus was raised from the dead (132). These are honest admissions on his part but are very revealing nonetheless, and no doubt will raise some eyebrows! For example, if he thinks there is hard testimony that Mary appeared to many, then why is he not a Christian (perhaps a Roman Catholic)? After all, it is a belief held by Christians.

Keith Parsons, in his chapter, “Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli on the Hallucination Theory” (433–52), in Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder, The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005), challenges many of the thirteen apologetic arguments against hallucinations that are presented by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994), 186–88. Parsons summarizes Kreeft and Tacelli’s negative argument against hallucinations (435), with most of his comments being quite straightforward, sometimes addressing apologetic oversteps. Most of his challenges will be dealt with in due course throughout this chapter.

But for now, Parsons states quite boldly that “mass hallucinations . . . are extremely well-documented phenomena” (436). Really? If so, then how does this statement correspond to the apparent lack of even a single such reference to mass hallucinations being discovered in the medical and psychological literature over the past few decades (see below)? To make matters worse, Parsons follows this statement by presenting a number of empirical claims taken from recent news phenomena, but too frequently failing to supply sources for the key claims made (436–37). He responds by citing cases of Marian apparitions under the category of “mass delusions” (436), accompanied by references to the “spinning and dancing” of the sun, and still more examples of “collective delusions” of “weeping icons and moving statues” (436–37).

In terms of a quick response to some items that are likewise discussed later in detail, one wonders why UFO reports (434) and especially “collective delusions” are inserted several times here by Parsons, instead of the collective hallucination cases that he just promised? Moreover, the items that he freely calls delusions seem more probably to be illusions. It is crucial that accurate distinctions be made between group illusions, delusions, and hallucinations, which are distinguished below. It is difficult to tell for sure here, but the notions seem to be confused. Parsons claims the mass hallucinations are “extremely well-documented phenomena” without presenting any documented cases cited from the research literature. Then he interjects delusions into his discussion precisely at this point, instead of the claimed “well-documented phenomena” that he thinks favor mass hallucinations (436–37). Or perhaps Parsons realizes that the claim he just made of there being major evidence that favors mass hallucinations is simply not available, necessitating some irrelevant “packing” with different species of occurrences—UFO reports and especially delusions—the latter of which often emanate from diseased minds. Further, is the forty days and nights of Noah’s flood really a sort of Old Testament motif for Jesus’s forty days of appearances on earth (441)? Was this a serious comment? See Parsons, “Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli,” esp. 435–49. I will comment on most of the other areas on the coming pages.

Some of these rather brief mentions are made by Michael Martin, “Swinburne on the Resurrection,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 464–66; Dan Cohn-Sherbok, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish View,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 197; John Barclay, “The Resurrection in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 25–26; Michael Grant, Saint Paul: The Man (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1976), 108; M. Lloyd Davies and T. A. Lloyd Davies, “Resurrection or Resuscitation?,” Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London 25, no. 2 (1991): 168; Antony Flew, in Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, ed. Terry Miethe (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 50–59; John Hick, The Center of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 25. Although Peter Carnley thinks that Jesus’s resurrection actually occurred, he states that the subjective vision supposition is very difficult to disprove; see Carnley, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 64, 244–45, cf. 69–72, 79, 82.

Gerd Lüdemann’s best-known works that develop these ideas are The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); a more popular rendition was written in collaboration with Alf Özen, What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection, trans. John Bowden (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995). A more recent volume is Lüdemann’s The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2004).

Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 50, 37; Lüdemann with Özen, What Really Happened to Jesus, 103.

Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 106–7, 174–75.

Jack A. Kent, The Psychological Origins of the Resurrection Myth (London: Open Gate, 1999).

Kent, 6–11, 21, 33, 41, 47–61, 85–90. Few details will be mentioned here on the idea of conversion disorder, since it is treated in detail in our chapter on this subject.

Kent, 89–90.

Michael Goulder, “Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in D’Costa, Resurrection Reconsidered, 48–61. A briefer version of Goulder’s thesis was published as part of a debate with James D. G. Dunn in Resurrection, ed. G. N. Stanton and S. Barton (London: SPCK, 1994), 58–68.

Goulder, 48–52. Incidentally, Goulder argues that the disciples, especially regarding group appearances, experienced “collective delusions.” These are significantly different from subjective hallucinations in that they pertain to the misapprehension of actual, physical objects (52–55).

These experiences especially as discussed here have nothing to do with seances or other attempts to communicate with the dead but are experiences in the everyday world.

For a detailed discussion of the similarity to the resurrection appearances of Jesus, see the chapter in this volume on objective visions.

W. Dewi Rees, “The Hallucinations of Widowhood,” British Medical Journal 4 (1971): 37–41.

Dewi Rees, Pointers to Eternity (Talybont: Y Lolfa, 2010), 198.

Rees, 205.

Rees, 193–95.

Rees, 205. After a lengthy analysis, including parallels between apparitions of the dead and the resurrection appearances of Jesus, such as both phenomena being real after-death occurrences (269, 278–82, 299, 343), New Testament scholar Dale Allison still argues that there are also major differences too. Hence, these apparitions are not some natural hypothesis or phenomena that explains Jesus’s appearances; see Dale C. Allison Jr., Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (London: T&T Clark, 2005), esp. 283–85. His more recent study also reviews these subjects in Allison, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 221–22, 346, 356.

André Aleman and Frank Larøi, Hallucinations: The Science of Idiosyncratic Perception (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2008), 31.

Aleman and Larøi, 67, with the first one here being Rees’s study.

Goulder, “Baseless Fabric,” 48–52; Kent, Psychological Origins, 21. Maurice Casey’s thesis also seems to fit best into this category of trying to utilize subjective notions of bereavement apparitions or hallucinations in order to deny the veracity of any actual resurrection appearances of Jesus, at least with regard to the disciples. However, also like both Goulder and Kent, Casey seems to confuse some important aspects of the relevant ideas here, seemingly causing a would-be interpreter to feel yanked back and forth in an effort to follow his comments in Casey, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (London: T&T Clark, 2010), esp. 490–96.

John Dominic Crossan, “The Resurrection of Jesus in Its Jewish Context,” Neo­testamentica 37 (2003): 46. Yet this comment can be taken in more than one way.

John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright, “Dialogue: N. T. Wright and John Dominic Crossan,” in The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue, ed. Robert B. Stewart (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 35–38. As far as Crossan possibly taking more than one view on the issue of grief hallucinations, of course one’s views sometimes do change. But it is also the case that in live dialogues such as this one, commentators are often pressed into places where they would prefer not to go in more normal circumstances or that can more easily be misunderstood. Thus, the idea of Crossan taking different or perhaps conflicting views is not being pressed here.

Crossan, “Dialogue,” 33, also 38.

Stephen H. Smith, “‘Seeing Things’: ‘Best Explanations’ and the Resurrection of Jesus,” Heythrop Journal 61 (2020): 689–700. For his other articles see: “Assessing the Mode of Jesus’s Post-Resurrection Appearances: Does Parapsychology Help?,” Religion and Theology 26 (2019): 255–81; “He Appeared to Peter: Reconsidering the Hallucination Hypothesis,” Neotestamentica 53 (2019): 53–78; “The Post-Resurrection Appearances of Jesus as Bereavement Experiences: An Engagement with Gerald O’Collins,” Irish Theological Quarterly 85 (2020): 109–26; “Christic Visions and the Resurrection Appear­ances of Jesus: Comparisons, Contrasts and Conclusions,” Religion and Theology 28 (2021): 41–63.

Gerald O’Collins unpacks and then critiques John Hick’s view of bereavement visions as a potential explanation for Jesus’s resurrection in his essay “The Resurrection: The State of the Questions,” 10–13; and Peter F. Carnley retorts that perhaps O’Collins does not take Hick’s suggestions seriously enough in his “Response” essay to O’Collins (32, 37, 39–40), with both essays being included in The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Hick elsewhere takes a more naturalistic view of the resurrection appearances in terms of hallucinations; hence, his view is being considered in this category; see his Center of Christianity, particularly 24–26.

Ken R. Vincent, “Resurrection Appearances of Jesus as After-Death Communication,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 30 (2012): 137–39, 142, 147.

Vincent, 145–47. Other prominent researchers besides Vincent have also held that there are some strong similarities between Jesus’s resurrection appearances and postmortem experiences, such as at least some examples of both having actually occurred, but without necessarily being the same type of phenomena. Two distinguished examples are current Princeton Seminary New Testament theologian Dale Allison in his volume Resurrecting Jesus (particularly 278–83) as well as former Cambridge University professor Michael C. Perry, The Easter Enigma: An Essay on the Resurrection with Special Reference to the Data of Psychical Research (London: Faber & Faber, 1959), 31, 125, 157, 171, 175–89, 190–91, 218–28.

Similar views were held by Willi Marxsen, Jesus and Easter: Did God Raise the Historical Jesus from the Dead? (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 65–74; Marxsen, The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, trans. Margaret Kohl (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), esp. chaps. 3–5; Don Cupitt, Christ and the Hiddenness of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 143, 165–67; Thomas Sheehan, The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (New York: Random House, 1986), 95–118; John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 255–260; Spong, The Easter Moment (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), esp. 39–68.

Spong, Easter Moment, 196; Sheehan, First Coming, 262–63n38; cf. Marxsen, Jesus and Easter, 71–74.

Aleman and Larøi, Hallucinations, 15; other relevant definitions and restatements are found on 3, 18, 20, 23, cf. 118.

Ishan Al-Issa, “Hallucinations,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling, ed. David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999).

Aleman and Larøi, Hallucinations, 18.

Mark Cosgrove, “Illusion,” in Benner and Hill, Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling.

C. D. Campbell, “Delusion,” in Benner and Hill, Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling; cf. Aleman and Larøi, Hallucinations, 55.

Philip C. Kendall and Constance Hammen, Abnormal Psychology (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995), 296, where several other examples are also given. For further prominent distinctions here, see Benjamin J. Sadock and Virginia A. Sadock, Kaplan and Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences, Clinical Psychiatry (Philadelphia: Lipincott, 2003).

Michael Goulder mentions phenomena such as people observing statues of Mary that reportedly move, UFOs, and the resurrection appearances of Jesus all under the category of “Collective Delusions” in “Baseless Fabric,” 53. According to our definitions above, Goulder’s examples here are better termed “illusions” without implicating many of these participants as having mental illness. Here are some of the examples of confusion between these terms. But more seriously, though treating these phenomena as other than hallucinations, Goulder insists in this section on comparing these experiences to the 1 Cor 15:3–8 major creedal listing of appearances to the apostles, the 500 brethren, and Paul himself (52–53) while frequently employing terms such as “visionary experience” or “visions” (esp. 54). This clearly blurs the categories, no doubt causing readers to think that he is using these underlying concepts correctly to deal with hallucinations as well. These confusions are as misleading as they are unnecessary. This is also reminiscent of Parsons’s comments above where he switches back and forth between delusions and hallucinations, especially when illusions seem to be in view; see Parsons, “Hallucination Theory,” 436–37.

It is difficult to know for sure but are these sorts of category mix-ups the reason why Parsons reported, “Mass hallucinations . . . are extremely well-documented phenomena” (436)? Parsons is a friend and I have no desire to belittle or embarrass him, but if some of this is the root of the problem here, there are problems indeed.

As pointed out in Joseph W. Bergeron and Gary R. Habermas, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A Clinical Review of Psychiatric Hypotheses for the Biblical Story of Easter,” Irish Theological Quarterly 80, no. 2 (2015): 161. There can be many psychophysiologic or other causes of hallucinations, such as “structural injury to the brain, such as tumors, midbrain strokes, or localized dysfunction of brain structures” including lesions, progressive neurologic disease processes like dementia, biochemical derangement, or delirium of many differing species. “Hallucinations in delirium are often unpleasant: for example, seeing snakes crawling in the bed. Hallucinogenic drugs, as signified by their drug category name, are also associated with hallucinations. Mental illnesses, such as psychotic conditions like schizophrenia, can be associated with visual hallucinations. At times, symptoms of psychosis may even include thoughts and hallucinations with religious content. While auditory hallucinations are more common, visual hallucinations can occur and have a greater association with more severely affected patients.”

See also the brief discussion in Habermas and Licona, Case for the Resurrection, 104–5.

Some of the most helpful, authoritative, and recent studies on the subject of hallucinations are as follows: American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2022); Aleman and Larøi, Hallucinations; Frank Larøi, Tanya Marie Luhrmann, Vaughan Bell, William A. Christian Jr., Smita Deshpande, Charles Fernyhough, Janis Jenkins, and Angela Woods, “Culture and Hallucinations: Overview and Future Directions,” Schizophrenia Bulletin 40, no. 4 (2014): S213–S220; Harold G. Koenig, “Religion, Spirituality and Psychotic Disorders,” Revista de Psiquiatria Clínica 34 (2007): 40–48; R. P. Bentall, “The Illusion of Reality: A Review and Integration of Psychological Research on Hallucinations,” Psychological Bulletin 107 (1990): 82–95; Frank J. Prerost, Donald Sefcik, and Brian D. Smith, “Differential Diagnosis of Patients Presenting with Hallucinations,” Osteopathic Family Physician 6 (2014): 19–24; B. S. Kasper, E. M. Kasper, E. Pauli, and H. Stefan, “Phenomenology of Hallucinations, Illusions, and Delusions as Part of Seizure Semiology,” Epilepsy and Behavior 18 (2010): 13–23; W. Leslie Mackenzie, review of Review of Hallucinations and Illusions: A Study of the Fallacies of Perception, by Edmund Parish, Mind 7 (1898): 541–47; M. Manford and F. Andermann, “Complex Visual Hallucinations: Clinical and Neurobiological Insights,” Brain 121 (1998): 1819–40; Ryan C. Teeple, Jason P. Caplan, and Theodore A. Stern, “Visual Hallucinations: Differential Diagnosis and Treatment,” Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 11 (2009): 26–32; Diogo Telles-Correia, Ana Lúcia Moreira, and João S. Gonçalves, “Hallucinations and Related Concepts—Their Conceptual Background,” Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015): 1–9; A. Y. Tien, “Distribution of Hallucinations in the Population,” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 26 (1991): 287–92; T. X. Barber and D. S. Calverley, “An Experimental Study of ‘Hypnotic’ (Auditory and Visual) Hallucinations,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 63 (1964): 13–20; Gilles Fénelon, Soulas Thierry, Franck Zenasni, and Laurent Cleret de Langavant, “The Changing Face of Parkinson’s Disease-Associated Psychosis: A Cross-Sectional Study Based on the New NINDS-NIMH Criteria,” Movement Disorders 25 (2010): 763–66.

Again, the conversion disorder thesis as proposed by Kent and Goulder, among others, will be critiqued in part in this chapter, plus in further details elsewhere.

Leonard Zusne and Warren H. Jones, Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Extraordinary Phenomena of Behavior and Experience (Hillsdale, MI: Erlbaum, 1982), 135–36.

For a number of critical observations and responses to such phenomena, see Elliot Miller and Kenneth R. Samples, The Cult of the Virgin Mary: Catholic Mariology and the Apparitions of Mary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), especially chapters 11–14 and appendix A.

This entire species of maneuver has been regular naturalistic fare since before Hume and is virtually always taken for granted without argument. See the two detailed critique chapters on Hume and more recent kindred moves above, as well as a critique of another such effort: Gary R. Habermas, “A Recent Attempt to Disprove the Resurrection of Jesus and Supernatural Beliefs,” Journal of Theological Studies 69 (2018): 191–97.

Recall Ehrman’s comment that Mary was seen by “hundreds or thousands of people at once” in Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 202. But which cases are being described here—where did these occur? And what is the empirical data for or against these sightings? We are not told in this context.

Parsons mentions rather incredibly that a personal friend “set up a telescope with a solar filter” in the vicinity in order to show “to anyone that cared to look—that the sun was not spinning or dancing.” But “hundreds” in the vicinity still kept up their claims anyway. See Parsons, “Hallucination Theory,” esp. 435–49, quotation on 436–37.

Over the years, literally dozens of photographed examples like these situations have been sent to me. One location was reportedly visited by droves of observers. These pictures were then shown to many others who often remark that the photograph did not even appear to be a person at all! Thus, seldom was it agreed that they might be viewing Mary the mother of Jesus. The original photographers then actually agreed with these negative assessments. Of course, it might be true that some people could simply have agreed for other reasons, such as not to doubted or even teased. But those present did not tease them, and the matter was simply dropped and not brought up again as far as is known.

To summarize very briefly and generally some potential responses to the Marian phenomena in Medjugorje: (1) A barely concealed a priori rejection of supernatural possi­bilities is easily noticed. Why assume from the outset that it is all a natural mistake of some sort and without evidence to the contrary? (2) The heavenly sightings reported by the majority of observers are illusions, not hallucinations. There is a real sun in the sky that has been observed by eyewitnesses, but it has been shown not to be spinning and dancing during that time! (3) The adults basically watched the children rather than seeing Mary for themselves. (4) Reports mention the children even years later with different levels of mistaken or contradictory comments that have been checked out. (5) Reportedly, not even all of the children saw Mary every time, and the descriptions of her clothing and so on differ between them. (6) Questions have been raised about there being errors of one sort or another in what the children report Mary teaching. (7) Many have pointed out that these stories are all within the broader Christian camp, whatever one might think of Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy; cf. Allison, Resurrection of Jesus, 299–300. Sample questions such as these do not disprove the reports one way or the other, but conflicting data need to be researched.

This comes from Larøi’s personal correspondence with Habermas (July 29, 2019) and is used by permission. In Larøi’s and Aleman’s volume Hallucinations, other relevant and potentially helpful information can be found on 3, 14–15, 18, 20, 23, 31, 46–47, 55, 77, 83–84, 102, 118, 120. See 118 for their comment on hallucinations as private events.

Incidentally, this can be done, often quite simply, in hallucination cases as well, if there is someone present who recognizes the details of the situation and points out what is actually happening. I have been present and done this myself on more than one occasion.

Presumably in such circumstances, believers may still maintain that these events are miracles, while more skeptical persons could still resort to mass hallucinations, claiming that the believers are still imagining what they report. Strangely enough in these cases, both groups would be categorizing true illusions in their own ways.

Zusne and Jones repeatedly refer to collective hallucinations. Yet surprisingly, they conclude their treatment, conversely, by admitting that these persons may still be seeing actual phenomena. So the “final answer to these questions has not been obtained yet” (Anomalistic Psychology, 135–36)!

As has been pointed out at key intervals, the distinction must always be kept in mind that critical scholars often concede certain beliefs on behalf of New Testament authors, even if these contemporary researchers personally do not accept these positions.

Zusne and Jones, Anomalistic Psychology, 135. Jake O’Connell develops a thesis similar to Zusne and Jones in a few major ways, especially in terms of the required emotional and excited reactions of the recipients. But O’Connell at least asks if these concepts are similar to Jesus’s resurrection appearances, and he decides negatively—they do not explain these appearances. Very oddly, in spite of this positive application, O’Connell defines group hallucinations as two or more individuals together who are experiencing private hallucinations! See Jake O’Connell, “Jesus’ Resurrection and Collective Hallucinations,” Tyndale Bulletin 60 (2009): 69–105. For a critique of this notion, see Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 485n64.

Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 106–7, 174–75, at least for Peter.

As discussed at length in volume 1 under the category of the disciples’ despair, depression, and severe disappointment after Jesus’s crucifixion.

The rejoinder might be suggested that perhaps a few individual disciples hallucinated individually, thereby inducing excitement in the others, preparing them for even more hallucinations. In the first place, the initial hallucinations would more likely have been negative in character given the recent past events. From our critique, it is far more likely from the statistics alone that these secondary hallucinations would be individual in nature rather than collective. An additional multifaceted response could be fashioned. To begin, human nature being what it is given a variety of different personalities, a few disciples experiencing hallucinations would hardly get everyone in the entire group excited, given that it would have to overpower the reality of the horrible things that they had seen and heard firsthand, especially including changing all the other friends who had gathered around them at this time as well. In fact, such hallucinations, even if positive, may not even have significantly changed the forlornness of the very ones who experienced them. And again, a few may have required some empirical means such as touching (as suggested in John 20:24–29). Last, critiques 4–5 especially in the next section regarding the two cases of Paul and James still would be highly problematic for this view because of the former skepticism and later conversions of these two apostles, as would (to varying extents) the remainder of the critiques in the “Additional Problems” section below. This last group of problems alone would be quite troublesome for this rejoinder. On the existential depth of Friday and Saturday’s effects on the disciples’ suffering, see the personal, moving, and highly acclaimed account by Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).

Aleman and Larøi, Hallucinations, 118.

Bergeron and Habermas, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 157–72. See 161 for the details of two such research reports, one medical and the other psychological in nature. Licona cites a personal contact (an email dated 2009) from Aleman and Larøi that makes a helpful and relevant conversational comment to him, though of course without the experimental force of the comments above (Resurrection of Jesus, 484–85n64).

Even John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 435–36; and Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 454, 533, both list several independent sources that record group appearances of the risen Jesus.

These words are reworked and adapted from Gary R. Habermas, Philosophy of History, Miracles, and the Resurrection of Jesus, 3rd ed. (Sagamore Beach, MA: Academx, 2012), 21.

Zusne and Jones, Anomalistic Psychology, 136, cf. 134–35. For more regular assessments against group hallucinations, see Aleman and Larøi, Hallucinations, 118; Phillip H. Wiebe, Visions of Jesus: Direct Encounters from the New Testament to Today (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 210; J. P. Brady, “The Veridicality of Hypnotic, Visual Hallucinations,” in Origins and Mechanisms of Hallucinations, ed. Wolfram Keup (New York: Plenum, 1970), 181; Weston La Barre, “Anthropological Perspectives on Hallucinations and Hallucinogens,” in Hallucinations: Behavior, Experience and Theory, ed. R. K. Siegel and L. J. West (New York: Wiley & Sons, 1975), 9–10.

In his recent volume The Resurrection of Jesus, Dale Allison provides many examples of what might qualify as group hallucinations. He raises some worthwhile questions about cases of visions, appearances, and similar issues, asking how we can ascertain the differences between group and individual occasions (63, 230–35, 244, 340)? For example, in general cases some persons who were present clearly did not perceive what others saw, perhaps being talked into the experience later (76, 235, 340n27). Allison recognizes the existence of collective illusions (233, 340n27) and mass hysteria (14, 340) and seems to think that there is decent evidence for group hallucinations. However, he far too indiscriminately mixes Marian apparitions (14, 74n200, 76, 294–300), near-death experiences (86n280, 252), ghosts (356), and spectral armies in the clouds (340) without the sort of adequate differentiation that could make a significant difference in such discussions.

So, are group hallucinations and the like Allison’s natural thesis to explain Jesus’s resurrection and appearances? Certainly not (99, 101–2, 107, 222), for after all of this is said and done, Allison still clearly believes in Jesus’s resurrection appearances (3, 61–62, 146, 209–10), especially the appearance to the twelve disciples (61, 66), and he further acknowledges that no other religious case is as strong in terms of the data (esp. 346, also 344, 356). In fact, Allison opens this volume with this statement: “I believe that the disciples saw Jesus and that he saw them, and next Easter will find me in church” (3). Another affirmation from his earlier volume on this topic states similarly: “I think that the tomb was probably empty, although I am sure that the disciples saw Jesus after his death” (Resurrecting Jesus, 346). See also Licona’s exceptionally careful study of Allison’s work plus his interview with him on Jesus’s resurrection, concluding that Allison thinks that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his followers in Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 623–41. So whatever Allison thinks about the possibility of group hallucinations, he does not consider it to be incompatible with the arguments for Jesus’s appearances and still favors the overall strength of the resurrection argument.

A. Y. Tien places the “underlying vulnerability to hallucinations in the population” at only a 1 to 3 percent general incidence depending on multiple factors such as gender and especially age; see “Distributions of Hallucinations,” 292.

Aleman and Larøi, Hallucinations, 84.

Aleman and Larøi, 46.

For many details, see Wiebe, Visions of Jesus, 199–200, 207–11. To repeat an earlier point, many of the objections throughout this section also apply to what we have termed the illumination theory, treated earlier.

Aleman and Larøi do not address the question of Jesus’s resurrection but do mention this aspect of variance of factors; see Hallucinations, 84.

To repeat, in spite of rejecting Jesus’s resurrection appearances, Crossan (Historical Jesus, 435–36) and Funk and the Jesus Seminar (Acts of Jesus 454, 533) both list several independent sources that record group appearances of the risen Jesus. And Crossan rejects hallucinations and other natural theses regarding these occurrences as well. See Crossan, “Dialogue,” in Crossan and Wright, Resurrection of Jesus, 33–34, 38, and the appendix, “Bodily-Resurrection Faith” (177); Crossan, “Resurrection of Jesus,” esp. 47.

See the list of hallucination characteristics above, including S. J. Segal, “Imagery and Reality: Can They Be Distinguished?,” in Keup, Origins and Mechanisms of Hallucinations, 103–13. Zusne and Jones remark that even if hallucinations in groups have occurred somewhere, not everyone would have experienced these subjective experiences (Anomalistic Psychology, 135). This comment is somewhat similar to the interviews by Miller and Samples in Cult of the Virgin Mary, 157, 178.

Segal, “Imagery and Reality,” 103. I was also benefited greatly by an unpublished MA study of hallucinations by former Navy SEAL Shea Lambert, titled “Hallucinations and the Post Death Appearances of Jesus,” September 20, 2000. Unfortunately, to date, this study does not appear online.

Lapide, Resurrection of Jesus, 125.

See volume 1 of this study with a chapter plus other comments on this subject.

McDowell, Fate of the Apostles, 259, 261–65, cf. 243.

Even many of the more critical commentators stand in agreement on this point, which is very widely conceded. Interested readers may also consult the two detailed chapters on the early Gospel date in volume 1 as well as the other discussions on this topic throughout this study. Francis X. Durrwell states a common position today: “La formulation est, sans doubte, antérieure à la conversion de Paul” (Habermas translation: Speaking of 1 Cor 15:3–5: “The expression [or formulation] is, without doubt, prior to the conversion of Paul”). See Durrwell, La résurrection de Jésus: Mystère de salut (Paris: Cerf, 1976), 22. Additional critical scholars who date these apostolic experiences and their proclamations from the initial days to just a very few years after the crucifixion include the following: Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Acts of Jesus, 454, 533; Hans Grass, Ostergeschehen und Osterberichte, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), 96; Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 92–93, 131–32, 141, 144–45, 155–58, 170, 251, 254, 260–63; James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 854–57, 864–85; Dunn, Why Believe in Jesus’ Resurrection? (London: SPCK, 2016), 4. On the New Testament consensus regarding this exceptionally early date, see James Ware, “The Resurrection of Jesus in the Pre-Pauline Formula of 1 Cor 15.3–5,” New Testament Studies 60 (2014): 475–98; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 264–71, 308.

In the nineteenth-century German liberal heyday of the hallucination theorizing, Theodor Keim also made this point against David Strauss and the other subjective vision supporters. See Keim, Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, in ihrer Verhaltung mit dem Gesamtleben seines Volkes frei untersucht und ausführlich erzählt, 3 vols. (Zurich: Orell and Füssli, 1867–1872), 3:355–57.

Dunn, Evidence for Jesus, 71–72.

Two lengthy chapters on a variety of both nonhistorical and historical characters that arise in ancient mythological, legendary, and even historical accounts are evaluated in earlier chapters of this present volume. Cf. also Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions,” Religious Studies 25 (1989): 168–70.

These examples were distinct enough to treat in an earlier chapter in this volume.

Bergeron and Habermas, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 165.

Bergeron and Habermas, 164. Additional symptoms and characteristics will be unpacked in the critique.

It is nonetheless being considered in this context because a few critics seem rather unfamiliar with this juxtaposition and have combined conversion disorder with other hallu­cination issues, thereby almost forcing the specific issues to be treated here as opposed to potentially being “called out” with not responding to them, as if admitting that the confused view is hereby correct!

Goulder, “Baseless Fabric,” 48–55, 58–59.

Another very serious instance of Goulders’s overreach is when he brings hallucinations into his discussion of conversion disorder, and rather prominently so (“Baseless Fabric,” 49), as pointed out below.

Goulder, 54.

Again, while conversion disorder has nothing to do with religious conversion, we will see below that the states of mind just described for Paul and James definitely do not foreshadow any apparent desire for a religious conversion.

Harold Kaplan, Benjamin Sadock, and Jack Grebb, Synopsis of Psychiatry, 7th ed. (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1994), 621.

The quotation is from Bergeron and Habermas, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 166. For further confirmation, see especially Kaplan, Sadock, and Grebb, Synopsis of Psychiatry, 649–50.

Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus (Surrey: Ashgate, 2015), chaps. 5–6, 19.

Cf. Kaplan, Sadock, and Grebb, Synopsis of Psychiatry, 621–22. I am also indebted to clinical psychologist Gary Sibcy, PhD, for this last response.

As argued by John Painter, “Who Was James? Footprints as a Means of Identification,” 27–29, 57–62; and Richard Bauckham, “James and Jesus,” 106, with both essays in The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission, ed. Bruce Chilton and Jacob Neusner (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001). Painter and Bauckham are among the few scholars who disagree with the majority conclusion that these men were unbelievers before their resurrection appearance.

See especially the following chapter on objective visions for a detailed analysis.

As commented in the next chapter too, neither spontaneous PDVs nor ADCs as described here have anything to do with seances or the purposeful communication with dead individuals. The unplanned PDVs/ADCs generally concern the death of a loved one or friend, most often that of a widowed spouse, and are often quite unexpected. The PDV/ADC contrast above is due in that not all these occurrences are visual (PDVs). Some may involve familiar sights, sounds (as with nostalgic music), and so on that are reminiscent in some other ways of a deceased loved one.

To drive home this point more forcefully, several years ago I debated science scholar and atheist Michael Shermer, PhD, the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, at the April 13–14, 2012 Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. (The dialogue is available at www.greer-heard.com.) The topic for debate was “Is There Life after Death?” I argued for the reality of the afterlife, and three of my chief arguments were the resurrection of Jesus, very well-evidenced NDEs (see the first appendix in volume 1), and a few highly evidenced PDVs. The same year, I began my published debate with Ken Vincent (listed immediately below) by affirming the reality of the best-evidenced PDVs. So obviously in my view, certain examples of these visions, at least, are not to be taken lightly and neither are they the objects of any personal critique on my part. See Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Appearances of Jesus as After-Death Communication: Response to Ken Vincent,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 30 (2012): 151, 157. Glenn B. Siniscalchi also summarizes some impressive evidence for what we have been calling PDVs (192–94). Siniscalchi cautions that there is lack of both strong evidence here, as well as a clear track for the interpretive value of PDVs, though many published cases have appeared since his publication. See Siniscalchi, “On Comparing the Resurrection Appearances with Apparitions,” Pacifica 27 (2014): 184–205.

For a number of evidenced cases, see J. Steve Miller, Deathbed Experiences as Evidence for the Afterlife (Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek, 2021); see also J. Steve Miller, Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences?: The Surprising Presence of Jesus, Scarcity of Anti-Christian Elements, and Compatibility with Historic Christian Teachings, vol. 3 (Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek, 2023).

Cf. Siniscalchi on the directions where some of these various data might indicate; “Comparing the Resurrection Appearances,” 194.

As argued in my response to Vincent (Habermas, “Resurrection Appearances,” 149–58). In a nuanced treatment that makes a few strong thoughts, but after arguing primarily against Dale Allison’s defense of postmortem apparitions, Siniscalchi concludes similarly on the strength of the case for Jesus’s resurrection appearances (“Comparing the Resurrection Appearances,” 205).

Rees, noting the title of his 1971 medical journal article above: “Hallucinations of Widowhood.”

This is likewise why Joseph Bergeron and I include the interpretations of these bereavement events as hallucinations in our journal article “Resurrection of Jesus,” 157, 167–71. Two of the scholars treated there who take the bereavement visions as hallucinations are Lüdemann and Kent, plus Goulder.

Depending how the argument details, candidates for such informal fallacies might include hasty generalization (as in jumping to conclusions in situations where there is an insufficient amount of data to determine a particular outcome), or false cause (declaring something to be the cause, such as in situations where there are other options).

In one objection that is not heard often, even Ehrman dates the sermon summary in Acts 13:29–30 as being very early, referring to it as “pre-Lukan,” “pre-literary,” and very old (How Jesus Became God, 154–55, 226). Ehrman takes the minority view here that the Sanhedrin as a whole did the burying here (154–55). But why cannot Joseph of Arimathea be the exact member of the Sanhedrin who is in view here, as per Mark 15:43 and Luke 23:50? The chief point in this immediate context is still that Jesus was buried in a tomb (mnēmeion, Acts 13:29). It was from that location that Jesus emerged (v. 30), necessitating an empty tomb. Further, the majority view among critical scholars, as pointed out above, is that Mark relied on a passion narrative that probably both contained the empty tomb and may well have been dated in the 30s. Additionally, even many critical scholars think that the very early creedal statement in 1 Cor 15:4 either teaches or at least implies the empty tomb. Two of the keys to this consideration include the creedal text being taught in a very Jewish context that drew the ire of the Greeks, namely, as Paul explains, that of Jesus being raised literally “out from among the dead ones” (ek nekrōn, as in the similar Pauline ideas in both 1 Cor 15:12 and Phil 3:11, 21). This is quite a literal, bodily view, even crassly so, as Jesus emerges out from among those who were dead. Further, since Jesus’s burial is part of the creedal sequence of “died . . . buried . . . was raised . . . appeared” in 1 Cor 15:3–5, the strong implication here is that the body that went into the grave is also the body that came out and reappeared. Thus, these notions from this Acts 13:29–30 creed and Paul’s accompanying thought, from a very early date, seem also to teach an empty tomb.

The emphasis above on most scholars rejecting the alternative empty tomb hypotheses is also addressed in detail in the treatment in volume 1. For one relevant example here, even Perry, who takes a very positive angle on the question of PDVs, agrees that the historicity of the empty tomb is a major difference (Easter Enigma, 101–2).

Wright has made this point in more than one context. He makes it in the dialogue with Crossan mentioned above (“Dialogue,” chiefly 35–37, quotation on 35). See also Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 689–92.

Wright, “Dialogue,” 36.

Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 284–302. Cf. also Michael R. Licona, “Did Jesus Predict His Death and Vindication/Resurrection?,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 8 (2010): 47–66.

As in the case with Perry (see footnote 109), Dale Allison is another critical scholar who has studied extensively and is positive about the specifics of the PDV thesis, but also seems to accept Jesus’s predeath predictions as well (Resurrecting Jesus, 230; Resurrection of Jesus, 184–88, 198).

Keim, Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, 3:595. In the twentieth century, Raymond E. Brown among other scholars carried on this distinction as well; see Brown, The Gospel according to John, XIII–XXI (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 966.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 261, 321–26.

For an overview of this subject, see Gary R. Habermas, “Mapping the Recent Trend toward the Bodily Resurrection Appearances of Jesus in Light of Other Prominent Critical Positions,” in Stewart, Resurrection of Jesus, 78–92.

For examples of these see Habermas, “Mapping the Recent Trend,” 88–90. Examples of these researchers include John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, In Search of Paul: How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Empire. A New Vision of Paul’s Words and World (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 6–10, 296, 341–45; Crossan, “Dialogue,” 24–25; Crossan, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 46–56; Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus, 35, 177; Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: An Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 296; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 317; Allison, Resurrection of Jesus, 131–36, 224–25.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 32–552 (esp. xvii, 83, 321), plus the conclusion in 477–79; John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), esp. 1, 54, 591, 618; Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 400–440 in particular; Robert H. Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), esp. 159–83; Gundry, “The Essential Physicality of Jesus’ Resurrection according to the New Testament,” in Gundry, The Old Is Better: New Testament Essays in Support of Traditional Interpretations (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 171–87; also published in Joel B. Green and Max Turner, eds., Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).

Wright, “Dialogue,” 19.

Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 477, 606, 609.

Perry, Easter Enigma, 181–89, quotation on 188.

Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 228–69, 285.

Allison, 346, also 344, 356.

Gerald O’Collins produced his own list of some of the differences between the resurrection appearances of Jesus and regular bereavement apparitions. The latter usually concern widows, where those who died had virtually nothing in common with Jesus’s violent death, the bereavement apparitions sometimes continued for years afterward, and many of those who had these experiences kept them to themselves, while Jesus’s disciples were joyous with the opportunities to express their testimonies from the very beginning, and the bereavement cases usually occurred to individuals rather than to groups. Details can be found in Gerald O’Collins, “The Resurrection and Bereavement Experiences,” Irish Theological Quarterly 76 (2011): 224–37. This article was also reprinted later as an appendix entitled “Easter Appearances and Bereavement Experiences,” in O’Collins’s volume, Believing in the Resurrection: The Meaning and Promise of the Risen Jesus (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2012), 175–91; also Glenn B. Siniscalchi, “Maurice Casey on the Resurrection and Bereavement Experiences,” Irish Theological Quarterly 80 (2015): 24–25; additionally, personal correspondence between Habermas and Gerald O’Collins, January 31, 2014 and February 3, 2014.

O’Collins, “Resurrection and Bereavement Experiences,” 229; Siniscalchi, “Maurice Casey,” 24.

For just a few examples: James D. G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, vol. 2 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 346–53; Crossan and Reed, In Search of Paul, 4–10; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 236, 263–66; Marion L. Soards, The Speeches in Acts: Their Content, Context, and Concerns (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 111–14, 124–25; Gerd Lüdemann, Early Christianity according to the Traditions in Acts: A Commentary, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), particularly 106–16; Vincent, “Resurrection Appearances,” 138–39.

Siniscalchi, “Maurice Casey,” 26–27. Siniscalchi criticizes Casey for not addressing this aspect too (25).

Siniscalchi, 27–28; Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, particularly chaps. 5–8 (esp. 370–74, 398, 477–79); Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, esp. 400–437; Habermas and Licona, Case for the Resurrection, 155–57, 161–64; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, esp. 163–75; Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 236, 263–66; and even Crossan and Reed, In Search of Paul, 4–10; Ehrman, New Testament, 296; Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus, 35, 177; cf. Brown’s comment in his Gospel according to John, 966.

Crossan and Reed, In Search of Paul, 6, 8–10.

During a very kind and civil written debate on the resurrection of Jesus between New Testament professor Craig Blomberg and atheist professor emeritus Carl Stecher, the latter remarked that “unlike most ‘new atheists’ I am not generally hostile to religious beliefs, Christian or other.” The comment was definitely appreciated, but why did Stecher think that he needed to begin the dialogue with this initial comment about atheist hostility or anger? See Stecher and Blomberg, Resurrection: Faith or Fact? A Scholars’ Debate between a Skeptic and a Christian (Durham, NC: Pitchstone, 2019), 51. On the other point above concerning nonscholarly critics who often tend to be out of their fields, Ehrman is to be credited with a hard-hitting volume aimed largely at these Jesus mythicist popularizers who “are not taken seriously . . . to their chagrin” (Did Jesus Exist?, 20). Continuing, Ehrman notes, “Mythicists of this ilk should not be surprised that their views are not taken seriously by real scholars, that their books are not reviewed in scholarly journals” (21). He states concerning one of these authors: “I list a few of the howlers” (23). Then Ehrman states, “The mythicist view does not have a foothold, or even a toehold, among critical scholars of the Bible” (268 along with 146, 149–56, 194–96). True, Ehrman often makes statements that oppose the typical views of evangelicals and conservative Catholics (such as 46, 49, 70–71, 268–69, 313–16, 336), but he also adds concessions here often enough, frequently treating fairly his conservative opponents (like 74, 98, 101, 140–41, 145, 248–50, 290, among many more such examples).

Just a very few of the mostly skeptical researchers who have commented against hallucination hypotheses of various species include Grass, Ostergeschehen und Osterberichte, 96; E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 278–80; Raymond E. Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paulist, 1973), 90–92; Lapide, Resurrection of Jesus, 125–26; Ingo Broer, “‘Seid stets bereit, jedem Rede und Antwort zu stehen, der nach der Hoffnung fragt, die euch erfüllt’ (1 Petr 3,15): Das leere Grab und die Erscheinungen Jesu im Licte der historichen Kritik,” in “Der Herr ist wahrhaft auferstanden” (Lk 24,34): Biblische und systematische Beiträge zur Entstehung des Osterglaubens, ed. I. Broer and J. Werbick (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), particularly 55–56; John Dominic Crossan, “Dialogue,” in Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan, ed. Paul Copan (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 63; Marcus Borg, “The Truth of Easter,” in Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 132–33; A. J. M. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 96; Geza Vermes, The Resurrection (London: Penguin, 2008), 143–49; John Shelby Spong, The Easter Moment (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 96; Samuel Vollenweider, “Ostern—der denkwürdige Ausgang einer Krisenerfahrung,” Theologische Zeitschrift 49 (1993): 41–43.

Crossan, “Dialogue,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 66.

Borg in Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 132–33.

Borg, “The Irrelevancy of the Empty Tomb,” in Copan, Real Jesus, 123.

John A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 125, esp. in the context of 123–25.

Cupitt’s view on Jesus’s resurrection, treated here as the “Illumination Theory,” is addressed in detail in this study in the chapter titled “Illumination and Illusion Hypotheses.”

C. F. D. Moule, “The Resurrection: A Disagreement,” in Cupitt, Explorations in Theology (London: SCM, 1979), 6:40. Moule is a respondent to Cupitt in his book.

Moule, “Resurrection: A Disagreement,” 41. The point here is not the actual dialogue itself, but Moule being another prominent scholar who rejected hallucinations, especially collective ones, though Cupitt of course takes the opposite view.

David Mishkin notes these aspects throughout his volume, Jewish Scholarship on the Resurrection of Jesus (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2017). His last chapter, “Conclusions” ­(201–14) serves as a very helpful overview.

Lapide, Resurrection of Jesus, 92, 95–99, 125–29; cf. also the affirmative comments in theologian Carl Braaten’s “Introduction” to Lapide’s text, 15–16.

Mishkin, Jewish Scholarship, 138, 142, 168.

Alan F. Segal, Life after Death: A History of the Afterlife in the Religions of the West (New York: Doubleday, 2004), chaps. 10–11, esp. 389, 441–42, 446–56, 459–63. Perhaps the most puzzling comment is that Segal states that he agrees with Lüdemann that “the original experiences of the risen Christ must have been visionary appearances” (448), but in the context Segal seems to relate this agreement with Lüdemann to the experiences beginning on the initial Easter Sunday. How much further this agreement may extend is very difficult to say, especially when Segal closes his treatment by saying: “What actually happened at Easter is still an historical mystery as well as a mystery of faith” (477). Mishkin has some similarities to this interpretation of Segal’s position as well (Jewish Scholarship, esp. 68, 83–87, 202–9).

Lapide, Resurrection of Jesus, 124–25.

Ben Witherington III, L. William Countryman, Gail Ramshaw, and Mark I. Wegener, New Proclamation: Year B, 2003, Easter through Pentecost, ed. Harold W. Rast (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 5–6.

Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 179–80, quotation on 179. Davis’s view on the bodily nature of Jesus’s resurrection is made in a truly distinctive way in his chapter “‘Seeing’ the Risen Jesus,” in Davis, Kendall, and O’Collins, Resurrection, 126–47.

Davis, Risen Indeed, 183–84. The three Gospel passages that Davis cites for this nonrecognition and doubt are Matt 28:17; Luke 24:36ff.; and John 20:24–25.

Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, 96–97; additional critiques on 94. Pannenberg comments similarly in his Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2:354. Pannenberg thinks that the empty tomb is likewise a huge problem for hallucination theses; see Jesus: God and Man, 100; Systematic Theology, 2:359; Pannenberg, “The Historicity of the Resurrection and the Identity of Christ,” in The Intellectuals Speak Out about God, ed. Roy Abraham Varghese (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984), 257–64, particularly 260–62. See also Pannenberg, “Die Auferstehung Jesu: Historie und Theologie,” in Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche 91 (1994): 318–28; Pannenberg, Die Auferstehung Jesu und die Zukunft des Menschen (Munich: Minerva-Publikation, 1978).

Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 164–65.

Some of these refutations may apply to more than one occasion as well, because they can provide excellent responses to more than a single variety of hallucination challenge.

Gary Collins, PhD, letter to the author, February 21, 1977.

↑ Back to top