The Conspiracy Theory as a Persuasive Device

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TILL
Another posting discussed the way that persuasive devices are used by those
who want extraordinary claims to be believed.  A common persuasive device is
the "conspiracy theory," which is most commonly used to explain the absence
of evidence that one could reasonably expect would exist if an extraordinary
claim were really true.  Probably the best contemporary example that I could
cite would be the famous Roswell incident.  UFO buffs claim that an alien
spacecraft crashed at Roswell, NM, some 50 years ago.  The simplest way to
prove that this happened would be to produce the wreckage of the spacecraft
and the bodies of the aliens who were aboard it, but no such evidence has
ever been produced.  UFO believers have an explanation for the absence of
this evidence: the U. S. government has classified all of the evidence and
kept it from public viewing.  In other words, the U. S. government has
conspired to hide from the public that this incident actually happened.

Christian apologists will sometimes resort to the conspiracy theory to
explain the absence of any disinterested contemporary references to Jesus of
Nazareth or extraordinary events that should have caused secular records to
make some mention of them.  They argue, with no evidence to support it, that
the enemies of Christianity destroyed all such records in order to contain
the spread of Christianity.  In other words, the enemies of Christianity
conspired to destroy secular records that referred to Jesus of Nazareth, and
that is why no such records exist.  Some apologists have even used this
theory to explain why there are so many similarities in Christianity and
pagan religions, such as, the virgin birth of a savior-god and his
resurrection from the dead.  They actually argue that Satan arranged for
such beliefs as these to develop in paganism prior to Christianity so that
when the real thing came along, people would reject it as just another tale
of a virgin-born, resurrected savior.  In other words, Satan conspired to
arrange history so that the coming of the real savior would be less credible.

In recent weeks, we have been seeing OSM's resort to a variation of the
conspiracy theory in the matter of the Roman guard that was allegedly posted
at the tomb of Jesus.  The extraordinary claim of the gospel writers that
Jesus had actually risen from the dead certainly needed persuasive devices
to make it credible, and Matthew filled his crucifixion/resurrection part of
his gospel with such devices: (1) A Roman centurion seeing events that
happened at the time of Jesus's death allegedly said, "Truly this was the
son of God."  This was the familiar device of corroborating testimony from
hostile sources.  (2)  An earthquake allegedly opened the tombs of many
saints, who rose from the dead and went into the city where they appeared to
many witnesses.  This, of course, would be the device of eyewitness
testimony (which in this case turns out to be only uncorroborated hearsay).
(3) Witnesses allegedly saw the body being wrapped in linen cloth and placed
in a tomb.  (4)  A Roman guard was allegedly put at the tomb as a precaution
to keep the body of Jesus from being stolen from the tomb. (5)  Witnesses
allegedly saw the tomb opened and an angel telling them that Jesus had risen
from the dead.  (6) The guards were allegedly bribed to say that the
disciples of Jesus had come and taken the body of Jesus out of the tomb
while they slept.  At this point, Matthew turned to the device of accusing
the enemies of Jesus of conspiring to hide the truth from the general public.

There is no reason at all why #6 cannot be viewed as just a variation of the
conspiracy theory, which Matthew used for no other reason than to give some
semblance of credibility to an otherwise unbelievable tale.  In the
resurrection narratives, the gospel writers were saying, without actually
spelling it out, "You see, these things did happen, because people saw
them," but in Matthew's case, he provided the added device of the conspiracy
theory.  He was telling his readers, even the enemies of Jesus know that
these things happened, and to keep the public from knowing that Jesus had
risen from the dead, they conspired to hide the truth by bribing the Roman
guards to say that the disciples of Jesus stole the body while the guards
were sleeping.  There is no more reason to believe that the bribery of the
guards actually happened or even that a guard was placed at the tomb than
there is to believe that a Roman centurion actually said, "Truly this man
was the son of God." or that an earthquake opened the tombs of many saints
who were resurrected and seen by many people inside the city.  OSM likes to
talk about such and such having "the ring of truth."  Well, in my opinion,
this tale about the Roman guards and their bribery has the "ring" of just
another persuasive device that a writer used to try to give some semblance
of credibility to an unbelievable story.

OSM has said that if this tale about what the guards had said were not true,
then those who had lived at the time of the events would have said, "Hey, I
don't remember ever hearing anyone say anything about guards who claimed
that the body had been stolen," but I will be commenting on this is another
posting about attempts to prove the incredible on the grounds of what would
have or would not have happened if the claim were not true.

Just one more comment is in order concerning the tale that Matthew spun
about the Roman guards.  Besides the absurdity of thinking that Roman guards
would have sealed their fate by saying that they had gone to sleep on duty,
there is the matter of a serious flaw in what the guards were allegedly
bribed to say.  The chief priests and elders said to the guards, "Say that
his disciples came by night and stole him away WHILE WE SLEPT" (Matt.
28:13).  In concocting this persuasive device, Matthew showed little respect
for the intelligence of the general public, because anyone with any ability
at all to reason critically would wonder, "Well, if the guards were asleep,
how could they know what happened to the body?"  After seeing this flaw in
the tale the guards were telling, what would have kept people from thinking
that since guards who were asleep would not be able to know what had
happened to a body that had vanished, maybe Jesus, as his disciples were
claiming, had indeed risen from the dead while the guards, by their own
admission, were asleep.  Hence, Matthew was actually saying that the guards
had accepted a bribe to say something that would probably have resulted in
their death but would not in any way have proven that Jesus did not rise
from the dead as his disciples were claiming.  If OSM wants to see this as
some kind of wonderful evidence that the resurrection happened as claimed,
then all I can say is that there is no law against gullibility, but he
shouldn't assume that everyone else is as gullible as he is.







Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net

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