The theory of conspiracy by the disciples surfaced again in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, being supported this time by the deists. The deists believed in God, but they denied that God ever acted in the world. He just sort of wound up the world like a clock, set it ticking, and let it go on its own. H. S. Reimarus (d. 1769) held that Jesus had tried to establish an earthly kingdom but failed and was executed. The disciples enjoyed the easy life of preaching the gospel, so they stole Jesus’ body and proclaimed that Jesus was a purely spiritual king with a future coming kingdom.2
The attacks of the deists brought forth a flood of books on the historical evidences for Jesus’ miracles and resurrection. That was one of the most fruitful periods in the history of Christian literature on evidences for the truth of the Christian faith. To name just one example, Nathaniel Lardner’s The Credibility of the Gospel History (1730-55), the result of a lifetime of research, consists of twelve volumes and is an impressive work by any standard. The Christian thinkers absolutely steamrollered the deists’ objections into the ground. After the eighteenth century, the conspiracy theory was laid permanently to rest and never again gained the consensus of scholarship. Let us summarize some of the main arguments used by the Christians in refuting this theory:
1. The obvious sincerity of the disciples is evident in their suffering and dying for what they believed. The Christian thinkers here picked up Eusebius’s argument. To charge the disciples with a cheap hoax flies in the face of their all too apparent sincerity. It is impossible to deny that the disciples honestly believed that Jesus had risen from the dead, in light of their life of suffering and their dying for this truth. Reimarus’s contention that the disciples made this up so they could continue their “easy life” of preaching is nothing but a poor joke.
2. The disciples’ moral character proves that they were not liars. They were men of unquestioned moral uprightness and clearly sincere about what they said. They were also simple, ordinary people, not cunning deceivers. Moreover, they had absolutely nothing of worldly value to gain by preaching this doctrine—but they had a great deal to lose. So why should we not believe that they were telling the truth?
3. The idea of a conspiracy is ridiculous. It is just inconceivable that one of the disciples would suggest to his fellow disciples that they steal Jesus’ body and say that he had risen when he and they knew that to be false. How could he possibly rally his bewildered friends into such a project? And are we then to think they would all stand confidently before judges declaring the truth of this figment of their imaginations? Besides that, common experience shows that such conspiracies inevitably unravel; either someone breaks down or slips up or the affair is otherwise discovered by opponents, in this case the Jews. The disciples, even if had they wanted to, could never have pulled off a conspiracy of such unmanageable proportions.
4. The gospels were written soon after the events and in the same place where the events had happened. Thus it would have been almost impossible for them to be lies. The disciples preached the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies only a few weeks after Jesus was crucified. Under such circumstances, the disciples could never have preached the resurrection if it had not occurred.
5. The disciples could not have stolen the body from the tomb, had they wanted to. The Jews had set the guard around the tomb specifically to prevent theft of the corpse. The story that the disciples stole the body while the guard slept is ridiculous, for (a) how could the guards have known that it was the disciples who stole the body, if they had been sleeping? And (b) it is ludicrous to imagine the disciples’ breaking into the sealed tomb and carting away the body while the guards were peacefully sleeping at the very door. Thus, the theft hypothesis is hopelessly impossible.
6. The change in the disciples shows they had not invented the resurrection. After the crucifixion the disciples were confused, defeated, fearful, and burdened with sorrow. Suddenly they changed, becoming fearless preachers of Jesus’ resurrection. They suffered bravely and confidently for this fact. They went from the depths of despair to the boldest certainty. This incredible change in the disciples showed that they were not merely lying, but were absolutely convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead.
7. The disciples became convinced of the resurrection despite every skeptical doubt and every predisposition to the contrary. They had been reared in a religion (Judaism) that was vastly different from what they later preached. They had in particular no inkling whatsoever that the Jewish Messiah (the prophesied coming King of Israel) would die and rise from the dead. When the women found the empty tomb, the disciples did not believe them. When Jesus appeared to them, they thought they were seeing a ghost. They were not at all inclined to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, but were convinced almost in spite of themselves.
In summary, the deist who holds to this theory must believe (1) that twelve poor fishermen were able to change the world through a plot laid so deep that no one has ever been able to discern where the cheat lay, (2) that these men gave up the pursuit of happiness and ventured into poverty, torments, and persecutions for nothing, (3) that depressed and fearful men would have suddenly grown so brave as to break into the tomb and steal the body, and (4) that these imposters would furnish the world with the greatest system of morality that ever was.
The high point of the Christian response to the attacks of the deists came with William Paley’s A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794),3 a work so successful that it remained compulsory reading for any applicant to Cambridge University right up until the twentieth century. It is worthwhile to survey briefly Paley’s arguments, for not only do they deal a death blow to the deistical objections, but many of his arguments have force against modern objections to the resurrection as well.
Paley’s positive case for the Christian faith consists in his defense of two statements: (1) that the original witnesses of Christian miracles voluntarily passed their lives in labor and suffering for the truth of what they proclaimed and that they also for the same reason adopted a new way of life, and (2) that no similar case exists in history. In support of the first point, Paley argues that (a) Jesus and the disciples did what the statement says, and (b) they did it because of the miraculous story found in the gospels.
In support of subpoint (a), Paley first argues from the general nature of the case. We know that the Christian faith exists. Either it was founded by Jesus and the disciples or it was founded later by others, the first being silent. But it is unbelievable that it could have been founded by others, if Jesus and the disciples did and said nothing. If the disciples had not zealously followed up what Jesus had started, Christianity would have died at its birth. If this is correct, then the first disciples must have been involved in missionary activity. Such a life, Paley points out, is not without its own sort of enjoyment, but it is an enjoyment that springs only from a true sincerity. With the consciousness at bottom of hollowness and falsehood, the fatigue and strain would have become unbearable.