Andrew Loke on the Resurrection: A Skeptic's Review, by Eric Bess

Andrew T. E. Loke 2020, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach [New York: Routledge]

Despite the great fanfare for this book I observed in some quarters, this book didn't live up to its hype.

Loke's original contribution in this book is to condense all naturalistic alternatives to Jesus's supernatural resurrection to a few categories, then attempt to rebut them as viable explanations of our historical data, leaving the resurrection as the only alternative available. However, if his arguments against naturalistic explanations were poor, or if he couldn't cover all arguments one might offer for a given alternative (for example, by only refuting bad arguments) this would defeat the stated purpose of the book.

As it stands, I believe that's exactly the case. There's much I could say about this volume in terms of many individual arguments it makes that I perceive to be seriously wrong. But for the purpose of this review I'll focus on the following list of five criticisms: 1) Loke's book is extremely repetitive. 2) Loke is uncritically biased in ways that are patently obvious. 3) Loke misrepresents opposing scholarship. 4) Loke relies superficially on a book on rumor psychology when he should have looked more into the psychology of religion. 5) Loke thinks persecution solves almost any deficiency in his argumentation that results from his lack of evidence.

I will now elaborate on each of these points.

CRITICISM #1:

The book is too repetitive. There are many verbatim reproductions of many different statements throughout the book. Better organization and editing could have eliminated most of this. For example, the following statement is repeated essentially verbatim on pp. 50, 72, 180:

>>"Additionally, from their writings, it is evident that the earliest Christians were rational enough to debate (e.g. Gal. 2:11–21), to think about the evidence for their faith (e.g. 1 Cor. 15:6), to consider its consequences (1 Cor. 15:14–19)—such as having to face frequent dangers and martyrdom (1 Cor. 15:30–32)—and to persuade others to hold to their views."

There are too many examples of this kind of repetition to list.

CRITICISM #2:

Loke displays an uncritical partiality for his faith tradition. The way he characterizes ancient Christians in contrast to ancient pagans and Jews is quite obviously biased and relies on speculation rather than evidence. He paints the ancient Christians in a dignified light of critical reasoning and pure sincerity, while those dirty non-believers are simply unreasonable, scrambling tools of superstition with bad motivations and excuses. This perspective seems to be nothing more than repackaging from the biased, polemical caricatures of the Bible, chiefly in the Gospels and Acts.

For instance, Loke asks why ancient pagan and Jewish writers didn't really mention anything about the claims regarding the resurrection. But in answer he tries to insinuate that they "felt embarrassed about the claims concerning the resurrection of Jesus", or "thought they could not explain them away convincingly" (Loke, 9), or would "explain away their [i.e., the Christians'] experiences if they could" (Loke, 103; brackets mine). Alternatively, they "would have mocked and dismissed" Christian beliefs "without further consideration of the evidence" (Loke, 9).

As another example, when it comes to those who falsely thought John the Baptizer or one of the olden prophets had been resurrected, these people were given over to "superstition" (Loke, 20), had not "thoroughly researched" the claims (Loke, 20, 114), and were "gullible" (Loke, 49). Similarly, with respect to more modern religious claims often proposed to be analogous to claims about the resurrection, Loke finds it all too easy to assert that they're: "likely to be frauds, or sensationalized or careless reports of vague or unconvincing perceptions made by impulsive or excitable 'witnesses'" (Loke, 101).

On the other hand, the ancient Christians, especially in the romantic, Golden Age of the apostles, "valued history" (Loke, 13), were "concerned about truth" (Loke, 14, 127), and exhibited a characteristic "soberness of mind" (Loke, 160, 181). Further, the Gospels, according to Loke, "should be placed among the most, rather than the least, reliable of ancient biographies" (Loke, 14). Because of their intelligent audiences, the authors of the Gospels "would not have made up" certain details (Loke, 14), even though Loke himself notes M. David Litwa pointing out that ancient pagan authors of historical works, who also had intelligent audiences, fabricated claims all the time (Loke, 13). The pagans in Loke's biased view just gullibly accepted whatever they couldn't falsify or verify, including claims of divine miracles such as resurrections (Loke, 195). But what's telling is that when it suited his purpose, Loke argued previously that people in the ancient world as a rule didn't gullibly believe in miracles, especially resurrections (Loke, 49f., 85f., 103, 181f.). Ancient Christians were like the pagans only when Loke is trying to compare them to prominent ancient skeptics like Epicurus, Lucretius, and Lucian (Loke, 50)!

Look seems oblivious to how pathetically one-sided these characterizations are, or perhaps he just doesn't care, because he's being a typical Christian apologist preaching to the choir.

CRITICISM #3:

Loke demonstrably misrepresents opposing scholarship he references. I couldn't tell whether this stemmed mostly from carelessness owing to overconfidence or just deliberate straw-manning. I'm inclined to think both. Loke's overconfidence is evident. After all, he assigns a minimum 99.4% (?!) probability to the resurrection's historicity (Loke, 186, 201) and considers it a "historical certainty" (Loke, 201, 203f.) that should redefine history (Loke, 205)! These conclusions strike me as completely absurd, to say the least. They're reflections of a common apologetic dogmatic chest-thumping intended to intimdate readers into capitulation. It's difficult to take seriously. Loke simply fails to advance arguments that even approximate this level of confidence.

However, there are times he couldn't have failed to grasp the point of the opposing scholarship he cites, leading me to believe his caricatures are, at least as often as not, deliberate.

For example, Loke claims the late Michael Goulder espouses a "mistaken identity" hypothesis for Jesus's resurrection appearances with Big Foot sightings as a parallel (Loke, 6, 112), but this is false. Michael Goulder references a study on Big Foot sightings in support of a hypothesis called "collective delusion" and doesn't make any reference at all to whether the delusion in question has anything to do with mistaken identities. In fact, Goulder proposes that this "collective delusion" followed upon the "conversion visions" of guys like Peter. Goulder wrote three similar essays arguing this point, so you can't miss it. None of them, including the one Loke cites, claim anything about a "mistaken identity" hypothesis (see Goulder 1994; 1996; 2000).

Another example is Richard Miller. Loke claims that Miller: "excluded the Gospels from ancient historiography by claiming that the Gospels’ authors did not weigh their sources" (Loke, 11). But this is a heavily curtailed version of what Miller says. Miller actually lists several different ways the Gospels fail to exhibit the characteristics of ancient historiography. Observe what he actually states, which is that the Gospels display:

>>"...no visible weighing of sources, no apology for the all-too-common occurrence of the supernatural, no endeavor to distinguish such accounts and conventions from analogous fictive narratives in classical literature (including frequent mimetic use of Homer, Euripides, and other canonized fictions of classical antiquity), no transparent sense of authorship (or even readership) or origin..." (Miller, 133)

Loke also misrepresents Miller's use of Justin Martyr. Loke tries to cite the same texts Miller himself cites in an attempt to show that Justin didn't understand the resurrection narratives as fiction (Loke, 15). But that's not what Miller argues. What Miller argues is that Justin's: "repositioning [of Greek and Roman fables vis a vis the gospels] reflects an underlying shift in the proposed modality of the Gospel narratives, moving along the continuum from fictive mythography toward historical fact" (Miller, 5; brackets mine).

As a final example (though more could be added), Loke argues against the hypothesis of cognitive dissonance advocated by Kris Komarnitsky (Loke, 145f., 150, 162) by saying it "ignores" both "persecution" and James and Paul (Loke, 150). But Komarnitsky doesn't ignore James and Paul at all, spending several pages exploring the texts about these two figures (Komarnitsky, 82-6). On "persecution", see item 5 below.

CRITICISM #4:

One of the staples of Loke's view is repeated appeal (Loke, 47, 108, 158f.) to a book on rumor psychology by Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia (see DiFonzo & Bordia) to support the veracity of the claims regarding Jesus's resurrection, especially in 1Cor 15.3-11. Loke tries to argue several factors make it "highly plausible" (Loke, 160) that Christians were reliably fact-checking the claims we find in this passage. These are: the importance of the information transmitted; the Corinthians being allegedly skeptical; Paul allegedly encouraging fact-checking of the tradition; and Paul's reputation being at stake. We can therefore view 1Cor 15.3-11 as being accurate at least to the extent that no unverified claims or nonexistent witnesses were included in the text (see Loke, 46-67).

However, DiFonzo and Bordia deal largely with rumors in business organizations. What they say about rumor accuracy appears to have only a superficial applicability to the setting, modes of information exchange, and beliefs of ancient Christianity. 

According to DiFonzo and Bordia:

>>"We define rumors as unverified and instrumentally relevant information statements in circulation that arise in contexts of ambiguity, danger, or potential threat and that function to help people make sense and manage risk" (DiFonzo & Bordia, 13).

The claims in 1Cor 15.3-11 bear little resemblance to this idea of rumor, especially in the context of a modern business organization. Rumors also arise in situations when there is no clear authority (DiFonzo & Bordia, 17). The claims in 1Cor 15.3-11 wouldn't have been passed along in some kind of rumor chain, but by the charismatic religious authority of ancient Christian leaders. These are religious doctrines, not rumors. 

To better understand the ancient Christian transmission and reception of the claims in 1Cor 15.3-11, if one is going to utilize psychology at all, one should turn to studies of religious psychology, including the social psychology of new religious movements (NRMs).

Returning to the question of leadership, leaders of a NRM are characteristically skilled in persuasion, often playing upon the emotions (fear, guilt, etc.) of those being recruited into the movement (Argyle, 173f.). Figures like Paul certainly did quite regularly, as is evident, e.g., from the chapter in question (see 1Cor 15.12-34). Far from carefully investigated facts, the leadership of a NRM being authoritarian and dogmatically assertive about the beliefs of the group is actually attractive to new recruits (Argyle, 176). Paul very clearly states regarding his indoctrination of the Corinthian Christians: "so we preached, and so you believed" (1Cor 15.11). He said nothing about these Christians having collected and evaluated all of the facts.

More generally, such studies inform us that, typically, religious beliefs aren't quite like other beliefs; they aren't primarily cognitive, but involve very strong emotional and behavioral components supported by the social bonds in a religious group (Argyle, c. 6).

When Christians were recruited into the movement, evidence wouldn't have been high on their list of reasons for adopting the beliefs of the movement. Rather, religious beliefs are commonly verified by religious experiences (Argyle, 68), which increase happiness, bring a sense of closeness to the divine, and boost self-worth (Argyle, 56f.). Altered states of consciousness, for example, can open up individuals to the beliefs of a NRM. The altered states (which can be induced by meditation, prayer, music, drugs, etc.) are interpreted in the light of the group's beliefs. In other words, simply by association, the benefits of the experiences validate the beliefs of the group in which the experiences take place (Galanter, 63-76). It's certain the ancient Christians were having such experiences (see, e.g., 1Corinthians 12-14).

In addition to rhetorical skills and religious experiences, another one of the key factors associated with conversion to a different or new religion is getting to know and being accepted by members of a religious group (Argyle, 15). The attachment of converts to members of a religious group also facilitates acceptance of the group's ideology and has a positive effect on psychological well-being (Galanter, 55, 65, 81-91, 101-3).

In sum, the psychology of religious belief hardly corroborates the sort of fact-finding evidentialism Loke imagines was standard for the ancient Christians. Turning to a more pertinent area of psychology wouldn't have helped Loke's claims, which is perhaps why he avoided it and apparently cherry-picked from DiFonzo and Bordia instead. In illustration of this, I could devise all sorts of applications to ancient Christianity with results contrary to Loke's by utilizing insights in the book that Loke ignores. For example, Loke ignores that high-importance rumors generate even more rumors and predispose adding (DiFonzo & Bordia, 141); that "honesty may be sacrificed" in rumor transmission for the sake of "relationship-oriented goals" (DiFonzo & Bordia, 75); that rumors may originate or be spread as a propaganda tactic (DiFonzo & Bordia, 78f.); that rumors repeatedly heard tend to be believed (DiFonzo & Bordia, 101f.); and so forth. Loke also completely ignores the authors' discussion of urban legends. In fact, when it comes to the resurrection, there are better resemblances to what DiFonzo and Bordia define as urban legends, not least in that they are strange or interesting storytelling narratives about past events (on the differences between rumors and urban legends, see DiFonzo & Bordia, 18, 23-33).

But I'll move on.

Even if the Christians were interested in fact-finding, we would still need to know what standards of evidence they employed. As DiFonzo and Bordia also inform us, groups with low standards of evidence are uncritical with respect to even rumors (DiFonzo & Bordia, 14, 162-79). What Loke needs to show is that the standards of evidence Christians employed were reliable in ways we would recognize, and also that they applied these standards to the claims of the resurrection. The problem is, Loke fails to show any of this.

By contrast, Richard Carrier demonstrates that ancient Christian standards of evidence were pretty abysmal (see Carrier). While Loke is aware of Carrier's arguments (I can only assume he read the book, since he cites it), he does very little to address them. Loke's response is basically threefold: first, he claims 1Cor 15.6 provides the standard of evidence Christians employed, which was verifying the facts with eyewitnesses (Loke, 50-4, 83f., 87, 103f., 157, 162, 165); second, Christians could have joined a different cult, since converting to Christianity restricted religious expression and came with greater risks (Loke, 160); third, the ever-looming threat of persecution would have made the Christians fact-check really, really hard, and so we can simply imagine that they did this in a reliable way.

In response to Loke regarding the first point, he ignores almost everything Carrier wrote both about standards of evidence in antiquity (Carrier, c. 7) and the actual standards applied by Christians specifically as observed in ancient Christian documents (Carrier, cc. 13, 17). Further, contrary to Loke and many other Christian apologists, 1Cor 15.6 does not encourage consulting eyewitnesses. Loke fails to understand the rhetoric of the passage. Several points can be made:

(a) The resurrection of Jesus isn't in doubt in 1Cor 15.3-11, since it's something Paul acknowledges the Corinthians already believe (1Cor 15.1f., 11), a fact confirmed by Paul's argument that Jesus not being resurrected is a consequence of not believing in a future resurrection of Christians, which is what the Corinthians actually doubted (see 1Cor 15.12-19). There would thus be no need for Paul to encourage anyone to consult eyewitnesses for confirmation of Jesus's resurrection.

(b) Paul gives no details about how to consult the anonymous eyewitnesses mentioned in 1Cor 15.6 anyway. Loke notices this, but explains it away with the speculation that the details were already known because narratives were being told, and by saying the Christians were "mobile" and tightly "networked" (Loke, 51-3, 60, 128, 149f., 155f., 202). This is an ultimately vague and useless description of how Christians could have corroborated such a claim, but it somehow means to Loke's mind that we can simply imagine the details being reliably checked and then take for granted that they were. But if the Corinthians already had this information, why, on Loke's view, would they be skeptical of Jesus's resurrection in the first place, and why would Paul be encouraging them to check what they already knew?

(c) The placement of this alleged encouragement for eyewitness consultation would be off. Theoretically, anyone who was alive in the list, which would be anyone Paul didn't specify as having died, could be consulted. Paul wouldn't have waited until he mentioned the 500 to hint at consulting eyewitnesses. If that was the point, this should have been done either at the head of the list or at the end of it. Rather, Paul's parenthetical comment about the 500 points out not who was alive among the 500 to be consulted, but that some of the 500 have died. They've lost Christian brothers. Why would Paul mention this?

This brings us to the final key point:

(d) Throughout 1Cor 15.3-11, Paul is setting up for a rhetorical trap of reductiones ad absurdum beginning in v. 12. If there was no future resurrection of the dead, then Jesus hadn't been resurrected, as they believed, and if that unacceptable consequence went through, a slippery slope of other consequences followed. According to Hendrikus Boers, this preparation and rhetorical trapping is seen in several respects (on the following points, see Boers, 122-8):

The "unless you have believed in vain" (v. 2) anticipates v. 17: "your faith is vain". In other words, if Jesus had not been resurrected, then the Corinthians believed in Jesus's resurrection for no reason.

That Jesus "died for our sins" (v. 3) is extended in v. 17: "you are still in your sins". In other words, if Jesus had not been resurrected, the Corinthians were still in their sins, despite Jesus dying for their sins.

The "so we proclaimed" (v. 11) is drawn upon in vv. 14f.: "our proclamation is vain...we are found to be misrepresenting God". In other words, if Jesus had not been resurrected, the apostles were preaching that he was for no reason and misrepresenting God while they were at it.

However, there is an additional point (missed by Boers) that has bearing on Paul's comment in 1Cor 15.6. The implications of the fact that "some have died" (v. 6) would seem to be brought out, if Jesus had not been resurrected, in vv. 18f.: "Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied".

Paul mentions the death of some of the 500 brothers as part of a larger rhetorical trap to bring out one of several negative implications of denying a future resurrection of dead Christians, not to encourage eyewitness consultation. The usual explanation for Paul's parenthetical comment in 1Cor 15.6 seems to be quite wrong, and out with it goes any support for ancient Christian fact-checking culture.

In response to Loke regarding his second point, this is rather like saying that people today who join up with marginalized, stigmatized religions or "cults" (the pejorative label for NRMs) could have become Baptists, Muslims, or joined other more culturally acceptable mainstream religions or sects instead. It's simply not an indication that they checked up on the facts of the "cults" before joining. Further, restricted religious expression as well as frequent malignment in the polytheistic Greco-Roman world was also a factor for converts to Judaism, yet people still converted to it, and Christianity was far less restrictive than Judaism. This is a point made repeatedly by Carrier, but ignored by Loke (see Carrier, 51-3, 131, 136, 147f., 157f., 260, 267). Finally, exposure to a NRM is often the result of either social networking or happenstance (Dawson, 119, 121). This means Christian converts were joining up because recruiters were exploiting existing social networks, and converts knew people who were joining up (another point already made by Carrier, but totally ignored by Loke: see Carrier, 332, 432f.), or converts stumbled upon Christianity and were persuaded to join by what they encountered, while sufficient exposure to other cults (e.g., more secretive mystery cults) may not have been the case, even if they were aware of their existence. Having an equal general awareness of and exposure to different religious options and conducting a careful "risk assessment" prior to juggling and then choosing one of the religious alternatives isn't normally (despite exceptions) the way most people come to embrace a religion.

Regarding the third point on persecution, Loke ignores essentially everything Carrier wrote about the phenomenon of Christian 'persecution' as well (Carrier, c. 8). I'll have more to say about persecution under item 5 below.

CRITICISM #5:

Persecution is the wizard's staff Loke brandishes hoping that we shall not pass. Waving persecution as his main weapon of apologetic magic, Loke attempts to detain us in the foul, darkened caves of superstition. For Loke, the threat of persecution can be invoked to imagine the ancient Christians must have reliably fact-checked all of their claims to rule out any history-distorting influences. Because if Christians got anything wrong or didn't check their claims thoroughly, they risked death, torture, or being forced to recant their beliefs, and thus, to undermine the credibility of their religion. We can therefore always trust whatever the New Testament says even if we don't have, incidentally, any of the evidence we would normally like to have to establish the accuracy of ancient Christian claims.

Persecution is used to support or establish that: the claims of hundreds of people seeing Jesus in the NT all go back to hundreds of individual firsthand reports (Loke, 15, 47f., 50, 55); all the same hundreds of people really believed Jesus was resurrected (Loke, 70-7, 81, 87); all the same hundreds of people saw "something" that they really thought was Jesus resurrected, and it wasn't hallucinatory (Loke, 98, 101-8, 110, 164f.), a result of misidentification (Loke, 112f., 115f., 120, 165) or Jesus having "swooned" (Loke, 119). Loke can dismiss any analogies to the claims of the resurrection appearances, because they don't involve persecution (Loke, 101, 113, 163). The hypothesis that Jesus's followers experienced cognitive dissonance doesn't work, because of persecution (Loke, 150). Even completely unknown persons among Jesus's apparently many followers wouldn't have taken his body, because of persecution (Loke, 138). The gospel authors wouldn't even have embellished their narratives, because of persecution (Loke, 108).

These kinds of claims are characteristic of Loke's unbridled and outlandish speculation asserted confidently as fact. However, his heavy reliance on "persecution" shows how important it is for Christian apologetics generally. Without "persecution", much of the appeal of Christian apologetics on this topic is completely lost, which is why it's important for Christian apologists to emphasize it as much as possible. Yet, this is one of those topics where they seem to be the least reliable, since they depend heavily on poor arguments, falsehoods, imagination, speculation, and exaggeration to argue their case.

First, Loke's claims are just the wrong way to understand and describe human psychology in general, let alone a NRM. The threats of death and ostracization wouldn't magically turn anyone into a critical fact-checker. This is rather like arguing that QAnon and other Trump-supporting lunatics would have ensured their beliefs in 2020 election fraud were absolutely true to the satisfaction of any reasonable person before they did anything as idiotic and potentially suicidal as march on the Capitol Building to try to overturn the 2020 election results, believing the government of the most powerful nation to ever exist on the face of this planet was conspiring against their interests.

In reality, NRMs can and do form and thrive in the face of opposition, regardless of the facts. Persecution can even strengthen the cohesion of a religious group (Galanter, 28, 49, 51f., 221), especially if the group is successful at recruiting new members, which is also often taken to validate the group's ideology (Galanter, 103-5).

Second, Christian apologists like to pretend as if purely cognitive acceptance of the resurrection of Jesus is the only relevant or even the primary factor when it comes to the subject of "persecution" in ancient Christianity. But unfortunately this, in my view, seriously gets wrong what we know or can say about ancient Christianity as a movement and what we know or can say about the scope of and reasons for hostility towards the ancient Christians.

Cognitive acceptance of the resurrection of Jesus hardly defined ancient Christianity as a movement. The movement Jesus started existed before his death. In fact, through the efforts of Jesus and his closest followers, there was already a network of Palestinian villages involved in the movement speaking out against elite oppression and hoping for an eschatological civilization ruled by the messiah king where the injustices and sufferings of the present would be eliminated.

The movement had to maintain the integrity of its beliefs by including Jesus's resurrection in order to get around the inconvenience his death posed to those beliefs, but the logic of the movement's beliefs flowed to the resurrection, not from it. In other words, given the movement's devotion to Jesus's teachings and to Jesus as its messiah who would bring about the messianic kingdom, they had to circumvent his death in some way, and believing he was alive again and additionally translated to the sky as an immortal to return and finish the job soon was the most natural way to do so. Loke would oppose these assertions with the arguments of scholars such as Nicholas Wright, as well as with uncritical reliance on the supposed "embarrassing" depictions of Jesus's disciples in the Gospels, and of course with "persecution" (Loke, 84-7, 161). But in short, Wright's arguments are full of holes and inconsistent, and Loke's predictable reliance on the "criterion of embarrassment" (apparently indispensable to Christian apologists) betrays his credulity towards these texts. He misses, for example, how these motifs imitate the Hebrew Bible (e.g., see Matera). Further elaboration is necessary on the errors of Wright and these other issues, but I have to move on.

Regarding "persecution" in this context, Loke tries to argue Jesus's followers would have been too scared of suffering Jesus's fate to continue to follow him by rationalizing that he had been resurrected, but he's really just making this up. Loke doesn't know this, and what he fails to grasp is that the movement was already molded in and understood itself in the context of persecution prior to Jesus's death. According to the teachings of Jesus, they even expected it (Mk 6.4; Mk 8.34-8; Mk 10.30; Mt 5.11f.; Mt 10.38; Mt 16.24; Mt 11.12; Mt 14.5; Mt 23.29-37; Lk 13.31-4). Jesus also endorsed the prophet John, who was also executed. This is especially illustrative, because John's execution didn't stop anyone from claiming he had been resurrected (e.g., Mk 6.14), or keep anyone who believed this from being "superstitious" (Loke, 20), "gullible" (Loke, 49) tools who had not "thoroughly researched" their claims (Loke, 20, 114). So Loke can't argue this in the case of Jesus and the ancient Christians either.

Time prevents me from digging into this issue further, but those who would like to read more about why arguments from 'persecution' are awful can search the web to read the following articles:

--'March to Martyrdom (Down the Yellow Brick Road…)' - by Matthew Ferguson

--'Did the Apostles Die for a Lie?' - by Richard Carrier

--'More of the Same: Eric Bess Reviews Sean McDowell’s “The Fate of the Apostles”' -- by Eric Bess

On any points I left unelaborated, I would welcome any opportunity to go into detail about Loke's bad arguments. But for now I will wrap up this review.

REFERENCES:

--Argyle, Michael. 2000. Psychology and Religion: An Introduction.

--Boers, Hendrikus. 2006. 'The Meaning of Christ’s Resurrection in Paul', Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine, ed. J. H. Charlesworth, pp. 104-37.

--Carrier, Richard C. 2009. Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn't Need a Miracle to Succeed.

--Dawson, Lorne L. 2003. 'Who Joins New Religious Movements and Why: Twenty Years of Research and What Have We Learned?', Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader, ed. L. L. Dawson, pp. 116-30.

--DiFonzo, Nicholas; Bordia, Prashant. 2007. Rumor Psychology: Social and Organizational Approaches.

--Galanter, Marc. 1999. Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion.

--Goulder, Michael D. 1994, 'Did Jesus of Nazareth Rise from the Dead?', Resurrection: Essays in Honour of Leslie Houlden, eds. S. Barton & G. Stanton, pp. 58-68.

--Goulder, Michael D. 1996, 'The Baseless Fabric of a Vision', Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. G. D'Costa, pp. 48-61.

--Goulder, Michael D. 2000, 'The Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions', Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? A Debate Between William Lane Craig & Gerd Ludemann, eds. P. Copan & R. K. Tacelli, pp. 86-103.

--Komarnitsky, Kris. 2009. Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box?

--Matera, Frank J. 1989. 'The Incomprehension of the Disciples and Peter's Confession (Mark 6, 14-8, 30)', Biblica 70/2, pp. 153-72.

--Miller, Richard C. 2015. Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity.

Reviewed by Eric Bess.