A Statistical Analysis of the Hallucination Hypothesis Used to Explain the Resurrection of Christ
Given the centrality of the resurrection to the Christian faith, the post-crucifixion appearances of Jesus to his disciples continue to be a central topic in historical inquiry regarding the origins of the Christian faith. While a number of hypotheses have been proposed for these post-crucifixion ap...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2025-04-01
|
| Series: | Religions |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/4/519 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Given the centrality of the resurrection to the Christian faith, the post-crucifixion appearances of Jesus to his disciples continue to be a central topic in historical inquiry regarding the origins of the Christian faith. While a number of hypotheses have been proposed for these post-crucifixion appearances, a leading naturalistic explanation suggests that these appearances are best explained by grief-induced bereavement hallucinations. Although scholars acknowledge that such hallucinations are somewhat unlikely, prior works have not provided a quantitative analysis of the hallucination hypothesis, so the question remains: Just how improbable is the hallucination hypothesis? This paper presents a statistical analysis to address this question for some of the hallucination scenarios proposed by scholars to show that the probabilities are extremely low, even given mitigating circumstances. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |