The Anointed Ministry of Bishop Raymond Allan Johnson



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Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story (2000)

Richard Carrier

4. Addenda

4b. "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?"

The claim is often made that Jesus must have been God--or else he was a liar or a lunatic; and since both can be dismissed on the evidence, as he was the greatest moral teacher and behaved like a sane man, therefore he was God. Josh McDowell devotes his seventh chapter to this argument (in both editions). Though this does not bear directly on the resurrection, it does relate indirectly and so I briefly address it here. First, this argument has already been criticised by others: see Lord, Liar or Lunatic? by James Still, The Trilemma-- Lord, Liar Or Lunatic? by Jim Perry, and A False Trilemma by Robert Price.

My own observations are these: First, there is a fourth possibility that this "trilemma" fails to consider--simply being mistaken. The real choices are, "lord, liar, lunatic, or fallible human."  Second, it is questionable whether Jesus was so great a moral teacher, as moral teachers go.  See my essay on Musonius Rufus, for example, and our section on the Character of Jesus.  It is also questionable that Jesus actually claimed to be God.  See, for instance, Thomas Sheehan's book The First Coming.  Moreover, Jesus' claims to be God even as represented in the Gospels are not very clear in their meaning, and it is neither certain what Jesus himself meant nor what his audience thought he meant, or recorded him as saying (see, for instance, questions raised by the Jesus Seminar).

However, even if we can wade through those difficulties (and I don't believe we can), the fact that such a claim was outrageous, unusual and unique would not prevent Jesus from being honestly mistaken about it.  Besides the fact that many kings claimed this very same thing without a blush in Jesus' day, the reasons for Jesus' own belief could have been perfectly convincing to him even if he was occasionally doubtful.  For instance, seeing the placebo effects of his charisma on the sick and "possessed," reading and interpreting signs and prophecies in a certain way, and being told by others he was almost divine in his teachings or actions, and treated by his followers as if he were divine, even if it was never outright said that he was God, it is easy to see how he could be misled in that day and time into a seemingly rational belief that he was God made manifest as an ordinary human for a particular purpose.

This is all the more so since we know for a fact that many individuals were claiming to be, or were proclaimed to be, messiahs of one form or another in Jesus' day (Josephus recounts several), and everyone in Judaea was looking for just this sort of thing: God made manifest to liberate Israel--physically or spiritually.[1]  The Danielic prophecy was likely on everyone's mind, and Josephus and Seuetonius report that the Jews were expecting a messiah to appear in these very decades.  Thus, heightened expectation, eager seeking by the troubled masses, and widespread superstition (cf. Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire) would all make the situation ripe for a case of mistaken identity.  It would also have made it hard for anyone to doubt him--so long as his divinity remained proven by his successful preaching, his bold behavior, his high-minded message, and his healings and exorcisms, who could question it?  Even a skeptic could not have presented any evidence against it, since demands for proof were met with warnings that God is not to be tested (e.g. cf. Luke 4:12, 11:29, etc.), the time is not yet right, he was on Earth for a different purpose (to be abused and rejected as the prophets predicted, and to suffer and die as a sin-sacrifice on behalf of mankind as the prophets foretold) and so on (cf. Mark 6:4-5)--which would not have to be tricks, but could be sincerely-believed 'wisdom'.  We see some examples of doubters in the Gospels.  What could they do?  Nothing.

Finally, the issue of insanity is not as, for example, someone like C.S. Lewis represents it.  It is quite possible to be delusional or even psychotic and otherwise behave with perfectly rationality, even exhibit the creativity and insight of a genius.  That it does not follow that delusional people are "mentally unstable" is well known: a delusional person, with or without a schizotypal personality, can behave very rationally and ordinary in every other respect apart from their mistaken beliefs or experiences: as Claridge McCreery writes in "A Study of Hallucination in Normal Subjects" (Personality and Individual Differences 2:5; November, 1996; pp. 739-747), many a psychotic has been found to be "a relatively well-adjusted person who is functional despite, and in some cases even because of, his or her anomalous perceptual experiences" (see also my discussion of hallucination elsewhere).

It is also all too easy for devout believers to overlook or misinterpret even disturbing signs, if there still happened to be any, and thus such details could easily have failed to be recorded, or been given a different spin (of the latter, Jesus' treatment of the fig tree, and his conversation with the Devil in the desert, are just two possible examples).  But consider also that having such visions and voices do not require one to be insane: hypnogogic hallucinations are an ordinary occurrence for everyone (and it has been observed that visions in antiquity were most common in the early afternoon, the time all Mediterranean cultures enjoyed a post-meal siesta), and they become extremely likely after prolonged periods of fasting or sleep deprivation (such as going 40 days and 40 nights with little food or sleep in a mesmerizing desert landscape).

So is "Jesus really was God" the best explanation of the evidence?  Not even remotely.  We have six lines of doubt: we do not really know what he said; we do not really know what people at that time thought he said; we do not know whether Jesus was merely mistaken or deluded (which are problems faced by sane people as well as the insane);  we do not have an unbiased, unsuperstitious account of his behavior or thoughts; and we do not really know what he actually did, and indeed are not even clear exactly why he was executed or on what pretext.  To top it all off, none of his teachings or behaviors or "miracles" are at all suggestive of being acts of God (see my Review of In Defense of Miracles).  And this is before we even interject the very real possibilities that he was insane, or that he did lie, since there is no real, reliable evidence to refute these possibilities: psychotics can live otherwise normal, even inspired lives, and there are countless pious and well-meaning reasons for lying (for the greater good--Christianity could have been seen as good for Israel even if it was secretly untrue, as I discuss above about Paul).

To top it all off, consider a parallel: Alexander the Great thought he was the Son of God.  Was he a liar?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Even if he was, his intentions might have been good: to keep the peace in a newly subjugated empire, where the people expected their kings to be divine as an assurance that all was well.  Was he insane?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Even if he was, he accomplished great things nonetheless, such as only a man both rational and wise could have achieved.  But the possibility remains that he was genuinely mistaken.  For the Oracle at Siwah had proclaimed the story of his divine patrinomy, and his mother saw no reason to deny the honor to her son (and every reason to see the honor she would receive as a result).  He had certainly performed godlike deeds and may have truly believed only a son of a god could have been so successful so quickly.  For a man in his position, in his culture, this would not be a remarkable conclusion, but would make a great deal of sense, to him and others.  Jesus could have been in an essentially identical situation--after all, unlike all the Roman triumphators, no one records that Jesus had a man behind him constantly whispering in his ear, "Remember thou art mortal."

[1] Robert Turkel questions the use of the word "messiah" here. When I first wrote this I took the reasonable assumption that a religious leader of Jews claiming special eschatological powers granted by God is a messiah. My words even allow ambiguity by saying "of one form or another." It seems dubious to say that, for example, a man calling himself a Jewish "prophet," leading "multitudes," and claiming he would miraculously "fell the walls of Jerusalem" and take the city was not claiming to be a messiah (Jewish Antiquities, 20.167-70; Jewish War, 2.261-4), especially when such men claimed they would liberate Israel with God's support, the very thing only the messiah was predicted to do (Jewish War, 2.259). However, I will grant that Josephus does not call them "messiahs," only "imposters" and "prophets." The real point, of course, remains: Jews were ready to latch onto anyone claiming divine support as a messiah-like prophet, just like Jesus, and there were several such men.

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Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 by Richard C. Carrier. Copying is freely permitted, provided credit is given to the author and no material herein is sold for profit.



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