I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (49 page)

And it’s not just the New Testament writers who do this—thousands of Jerusalem Jews, including Pharisee priests, convert to Christianity and join the New Testament writers in abandoning these treasured beliefs and practices. J. P. Moreland helps us understand the magnitude of these devout Jews giving up their established institutions virtually overnight:

[The Jewish people] believed that these institutions were entrusted to them by God. They believed that to abandon these institutions would be to risk their souls being damned to hell after death.

Now a rabbi named Jesus appears from a lower-class region. He teaches for three years, gathers a following of lower- and middle-class people, gets in trouble with the authorities, and gets crucified along with thirty thousand other Jewish men who are executed during this time period.

But five weeks after he’s crucified, over ten thousand Jews are following him and claiming that he is the initiator of a new religion. And get this: they’re willing to give up or alter all five of the social institutions that they have been taught since childhood have such importance both sociologically and theologically. . . . Something
very
big was going on.
⁹

How do you explain these monumental shifts if the New Testament writers were making up a story? How do you explain them if the Resurrection did not occur?

Second, not only do these new believers abandon their long-held beliefs and practices, they also adopt some new radical ones. These include:

Sunday, a work day, as the new day of worship

Baptism as a new sign that one was a partaker of the new covenant (as circumcision was a sign of the old covenant)

Communion as an act of remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice for their sins
¹⁰

Communion is especially inexplicable unless the Resurrection is true. Why would Jews make up a practice where they symbolically eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus?

Table 11.1 sums up the dramatic changes brought about by the Resurrection:

Finally, in addition to abandoning long-held sacred institutions and adopting new ones, the New Testament writers suffered persecution and death when they could have saved themselves by recanting. If they had made up the Resurrection story, they certainly would have said so when they were about to be crucified (Peter), stoned (James), or beheaded (Paul). But no one recanted—eleven out of the twelve were martyred for their faith (the only survivor was John, who was exiled to the Greek island of Patmos). Why would they die for a known lie?

Chuck Colson, former aide to President Nixon and founder of Prison Fellowship, went to prison over the Watergate scandal. Comparing his experience to that of the apostles, he writes,

Watergate involved a conspiracy to cover up, perpetuated by the closest aides to the President of the United States—the most powerful men in America, who were intensely loyal to their president. But one of them, John Dean, turned state’s evidence, that is, testified against Nixon, as he put it, “to save his own skin”—and he did so only two weeks after informing the president about what was really going on— two weeks! The real cover-up, the lie, could only be held together for two weeks, and then everybody else jumped ship in order to save themselves. Now, the fact is that all that those around the president were facing was embarrassment, maybe prison. Nobody’s life was at stake. But what about the disciples? Twelve powerless men, peasants really, were facing not just embarrassment or political disgrace, but beatings, stonings, execution. Every single one of the disciples insisted, to their dying breaths, that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead. Don’t you think that one of those apostles would have cracked before being beheaded or stoned? That one of them would have made a deal with the authorities? None did.
¹¹

Colson is right. The apostles surely would have cracked to save themselves. Peter had already denied Jesus three times before the Resurrection in order to “save his skin”! He surely would have denied him after the Resurrection if the story had turned out to be a hoax.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out the absurdity of those who doubt the historicity of the New Testament. In a remark biting with sarcasm against modern-day intellectuals, Scalia stated exactly what we’ve been saying regarding the motives of the New Testament writers. Namely, since the New Testament writers had nothing to gain and everything to lose, we ought to believe what they say about the Resurrection. Scalia declared, “It is not irrational to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses who had nothing to gain. . . . The [worldly] wise do not believe in the resurrection of the dead. So everything from Easter morning to the Ascension had to be made up by the groveling enthusiasts as part of their plan to get themselves martyred.”
¹²

Scalia and Colson are absolutely right. There’s no reason to doubt, and every reason to believe, the New Testament accounts. While many people will die for a lie that they think is truth, no sane person will die for what they
know
is a lie. The New Testament writers and the other apostles knew for sure that Jesus had resurrected, and they demonstrated that knowledge with their own blood. What more could eyewitnesses do to prove that they are telling the truth!

W
HAT
A
BOUT
M
USLIM
M
ARTYRS
?

“Hold on!” the skeptic may object. “We see people dying for their faith every day! Do you ever watch the news? There’s a suicide bomber nearly every week in the Middle East! Have you forgotten about 9/11 already? The hijackers were doing it for Allah! What does martyrdom prove? Does it prove Islam is true too?”

Not at all. There are some similarities, but there’s one critical difference between the New Testament martyrs and those of today. One similarity shared by all martyrs is sincerity. Whether you’re talking about Christians, Muslims, kamikaze pilots, or suicidal cult followers, everyone agrees that martyrs sincerely believe in their cause. But the critical difference is that the New Testament Christian martyrs had more than sincerity—they had evidence that the Resurrection was true. Why? Because
the New Testament martyrs were eyewitnesses of the resurrected
Christ.
They knew the Resurrection was true and not a lie because they verified it with their own senses. They saw, touched, and ate with the risen Jesus on several occasions. And they had seen him do more than thirty miracles. In light of such strong empirical evidence, they needed very little faith to believe in the Resurrection. By commonsense observation standards, they had
proof
of it. So they willingly submitted themselves to persecution and death for what they had verified themselves.

This is unlike anything from Islam (or any other martyr-producing belief system). While the current martyrs for Islam are certainly sincere about Islam, they don’t have miraculous eyewitness proof that Islam is true. They are not eyewitnesses to anything miraculous.

In fact,
the contemporaries of Muhammad weren’t eyewitnesses to
anything miraculous either.
When Muhammad was challenged to perform miracles to confirm that he was from God, he never took the challenge (Sura 3:181-184; 4:153; 6:8-9; 17:88-96). Instead, he said he was just a man (17:93) and implied that the Qur’an authenticated him as a prophet (17:88). But there are no clearly defined miracles recorded in the Qur’an.
¹³
Miracles were only attributed to Muhammad by Muslims who lived 100–200 years after his death because Christians kept asking them for proof that Muhammad was a prophet. These miracle claims are not based on eyewitness testimony, and give every indication of being legendary. Several speak of trees moving or saluting Muhammad as he passed by. Mountains and wolves allegedly salute Muhammad as well. And other miracle stories seem to be variations of the miracles Jesus performed (e.g., turning water into milk, feeding a thousand by multiplying a small meal).

These miracle stories are found in the
Hadith,
a later collection of Muhammad’s saying and doings.

The most reliable author of the
Hadith,
Al Bukhari, and a majority of
Muslim
scholars admit that most of Muhammad’s alleged miracles are not authentic.
¹⁴
Since Muhammad himself never claimed to do miracles, and since these miracle stories arise from sources well after contemporaries of Muhammad had died, we see no reason to believe
any
of the miracles attributed to Muhammad.

If Muhammad wasn’t confirmed by miracles, then why did people follow him? They didn’t at first. He and his few followers were kicked out of Mecca in A.D. 622, twelve years after he apparently got his first revelation. (Since Mecca was a polytheistic city filled with tributes to other gods, Muhammad’s message of monotheism was not well received by the local merchants who made their living off of the commerce associated with polytheism.) It wasn’t until Muhammad led several successful military conquests between 622 and 630 that he began to attract a large following. His popularity was greatly increased when he led raids on Meccan caravans and divided the booty from those raids with followers. He also took numerous wives, which helped solidify his base of support. In other words, Muhammad’s popularity resulted from his lucrative military victories that he shared with his followers, his astute political dealings, and his personal charisma rather than from any miraculous confirmation.

The military aspect of Islam highlights another major difference between the origin of Christianity and the origin of Islam. Christianity began as a peaceful faith and was considered illegal for about the first 280 years of its existence (during which time it experienced its greatest growth). If you became a Christian in the Roman Empire before about 311, you might be killed for it.

By contrast, after a brief but unfruitful attempt to propagate his faith peacefully, Muhammad turned to military force to spread Islam. By 630, he had seized Mecca by force and had control of much of what is now the Saudi Arabian peninsula. Although Muhammad died in 632, his followers continued military campaigns in the name of Islam. By 638—only six years after Muhammad’s death—the Muslims had seized the Holy Land by force. In the first 100 years of Islam—in addition to taking Jerusalem—the Muslims twice attempted to take over Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey), and they successfully swept across northern Africa, across the Straits of Gibralter, and into Europe. Had it not been for Charles Martel, mayor of the city of Tours, France, all of Europe would probably be speaking Arabic today. Martel (which means “hammer”) drove the Muslims south out of Tours in 732, exactly 100 years after Muhammad’s death. (The Muslims eventually retreated back over the Straits, but northern Africa remains predominantly Muslim to this day.)