Sep 23, 2026 · 1 hr 24 min · 13 segments
Is the resurrection of Jesus actually a historical fact or does the argument only work if you begin with Christian assumptions? In part two of our deep dive into the historical case for the…
who would which Christians would have stolen the body? And then what would happen? Well, it wouldn't have been the apostles or the disciples themselves.
Most of them came to a very bad end, right? People might lie, but they're typically not going to...
They'll die for a falsehood.
True believers will die as martyrs for a falsehood, but they're not going to allow themselves to be tortured for something they know is false.
That's not human nature.
That's not plausible.
so once again we're comparing the probability of a resurrection which is generally speaking people don't die for a lot which we're about to unpack all of that because it's it's not tenable but you go is there one person crazy enough to do it is probably more likely than the resurrection as an explanation but when he talks about you know you wouldn't be tortured for something that like you saw and like you're able to recant even if you grant all of the apostles were martyred you you have to Prove specifically that they were tortured or given the option to recant before then a sentence was imposed.
Because you could go, these people are lying, and then they just all got martyred for saying that.
And they would have said, and maybe they said at their execution, no, this was all a lie.
So technically martyrdom doesn't even encompass that.
Right.
I mean, do we want to wait to see what he says more, or should we just get into it now? No.
Okay, so, like, the idea that all of the apostles met bad ends is asserted, usually, but not really evidenced well.
There's a lot of apocryphal myths about that.
Catholics, growing up Catholic, I learned a lot of, like, oh, St. Andrew was crucified on a big sideways cross, and St. Peter was crucified upside down, and Thomas went to India, and I don't remember how he died, but something gruesome.
Something
Indian.
There's like stoning and boiling and burning and all sorts of horrible things, but all of them except John are supposedly murdered.
The thing is, all of those stories come from hundreds of years after the fact and are filled with fantastical elements that are very, very, very obviously mythical.
It's one of these apocryphal texts that is full of things that no Catholic or Protestant would take as canonical.
But for some reason, those facts are often lifted out as important.
Um, of the actual apostles that we know, A, we're real people and B, that we know what happened to them.
Um, we're pretty confident that, um, James, who is mentioned as the brother of Jesus, is he one of the Jameses in the 12? Unclear.
um james was martyred because josephus tells us that and that's a that's a sort of independent source cool we know that he also tells us that james was martyred because of like political persecution it had nothing to do with like if you if you accept our gods we'll let you live it was a no no we need to kill this guy as a way to like offload political responsibility so like you said it's not like recanting was an option so him dying for a lie is not exactly accurate he was killed because it was a politically convenient thing to kill him um
who would which Christians would have stolen the body? And then what would happen? Well, it wouldn't have been the apostles or the disciples themselves.
Most of them came to a very bad end, right? People might lie, but they're typically not going to...
They'll die for a falsehood.
True believers will die as martyrs for a falsehood, but they're not going to allow themselves to be tortured for something they know is false.
That's not human nature.
That's not plausible.
so once again we're comparing the probability of a resurrection which is generally speaking people don't die for a lot which we're about to unpack all of that because it's it's not tenable but you go is there one person crazy enough to do it is probably more likely than the resurrection as an explanation but when he talks about you know you wouldn't be tortured for something that like you saw and like you're able to recant even if you grant all of the apostles were martyred you you have to Prove specifically that they were tortured or given the option to recant before then a sentence was imposed.
Because you could go, these people are lying, and then they just all got martyred for saying that.
And they would have said, and maybe they said at their execution, no, this was all a lie.
So technically martyrdom doesn't even encompass that.
Right.
I mean, do we want to wait to see what he says more, or should we just get into it now? No.
Okay, so, like, the idea that all of the apostles met bad ends is asserted, usually, but not really evidenced well.
There's a lot of apocryphal myths about that.
Catholics, growing up Catholic, I learned a lot of, like, oh, St. Andrew was crucified on a big sideways cross, and St. Peter was crucified upside down, and Thomas went to India, and I don't remember how he died, but something gruesome.
Something
Indian.
There's like stoning and boiling and burning and all sorts of horrible things, but all of them except John are supposedly murdered.
The thing is, all of those stories come from hundreds of years after the fact and are filled with fantastical elements that are very, very, very obviously mythical.
It's one of these apocryphal texts that is full of things that no Catholic or Protestant would take as canonical.
But for some reason, those facts are often lifted out as important.
Um, of the actual apostles that we know, A, we're real people and B, that we know what happened to them.
Um, we're pretty confident that, um, James, who is mentioned as the brother of Jesus, is he one of the Jameses in the 12? Unclear.
um james was martyred because josephus tells us that and that's a that's a sort of independent source cool we know that he also tells us that james was martyred because of like political persecution it had nothing to do with like if you if you accept our gods we'll let you live it was a no no we need to kill this guy as a way to like offload political responsibility so like you said it's not like recanting was an option so him dying for a lie is not exactly accurate he was killed because it was a politically convenient thing to kill him um
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