Jesus’s resurrection was the disciples’ central teaching, and people usually take extra care with matters that are the closest to their hearts and that mean the most to them. This is what drove Paul to travel more than 100 miles to Jerusalem in order to investigate (historēsai) the nature of the gospel data with other key disciples on at least two occasions to make sure he was preaching the truth on this subject (Gal 1:18–19; 2:1–10).

Many . . . issues remain regarding the various types of hallucination hypotheses. (1) Even multiple individual hallucinations are questionable because they are generally far more rare than is commonly thought to be the case. Unless they are somehow induced, including by abnormal methods, they do not just occur anytime at all without cause, not to mention that some personalities are much less prone to experiencing them.

(2) Further, hallucinations of the extended sort as required by the New Testament and other reports (i.e., ones that involved multiple senses such as sight, hearing, and touch) are even rarer phenomena. . . . That these multisensory cases were reported on several occasions as occurring regularly during Jesus’s appearances militates further against Jesus’s disciples being the recipients.

. . . (4) Generally, hallucinations do not transform lives, even less so over a period of many years. Studies have argued that even with persons who hallucinate, it is quite frequently (or even usually) the case that they abandon or disavow such experiences once they realize that they “saw” things that did not happen or when others present around them state that they did not see the same thing. Jewish New Testament scholar Pinchas Lapide, though a non-Christian, still asserts, “In none of the cases where rabbinic literature speaks of such visions did it result in an essential change in the life of the resuscitated or of those who had experienced the visions.” Lapide adds, “Only the vision remains … but it did not have any noticeable consequences.” Not so with Jesus’s disciples—they were thoroughly changed.

Critics acknowledge freely that Jesus’s disciples were transformed even to the point of being quite willing to die for their faith. Additionally, no early texts report that any of them ever recanted. As far as we know, the disciples were faithful to the end of their lives, however each one ended. To suppose that this quality of conviction came about through false sensory perceptions without anyone rejecting it later seems highly problematic, as Lapide’s insights detail.

(5) Of course, if the appearances were hallucinations, then Jesus’s body should have been located safely and securely in its grave just outside the city of Jerusalem. But the hallucination theory is what we might label a “full tomb view” rather than an empty tomb position. Producing Jesus’s dead body from wherever it was buried would undoubtedly be a rather large disclaimer to the disciples’ efforts to preach that Jesus was raised.

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