Conspiracy Theories

By Martin Cheah

Recently I came across an article that the US Moon Landing in July 1969 was fake and the videos of it were created by the famous Stanley Kubrick (director of “20001-A Space Odyssey”).  There were many seemingly valid points brought up by the conspiracy theorists as to why the videos were actually taken in a film studio instead of on the moon itself.

To counter their arguments, someone wrote that for the videos to be fake, there would be a large number of people involved that needed to be kept quiet.  The list would include the US president, high ranking US government officials, the astronauts themselves, all the workers and engineers in NASA, Stanley Kubrick and the film and studio crew.

There is similarity between this conspiracy theory and the one that claims actually Jesus didn’t die on the cross.

One theory was that Jesus was given some drugs on the cross to fake his death and later to be revived by his disciples.  (Matthew 27:34). With a detachment of soldiers guarding the tomb, this is a very unlikely scenario.  How could the disciples get past the guards?

Another theory was that they don’t know which is the actual tomb of Jesus and so they mistook an empty tomb as that of Jesus’.

Matthew 27:62-66
⁶² The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. ⁶³ “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ ⁶⁴ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” ⁶⁵ “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” ⁶⁶ So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

Matthew 28:12-13
¹²And after the chief priests had met with the elders and formed a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money ¹³and instructed them: “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’

The fact that the Pharisees posted a guard at the tomb and later claimed that the disciples came and stole the body away clearly meant that the tomb of Jesus was well known at that time.  To quash any rumours that Jesus was alive, the Pharisees only needed to produce the body of Jesus which they could not.

Other theories include that it was not Jesus on the cross but someone else.

Certainly, the death and resurrection of Jesus is of prime importance for Christians because “… the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  (Mark 10:45)

And Apostle Paul puts it this way:

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”  (1 Corinthians 15:17)

So for the theories that Jesus did not die and later rose to life, we have to look at the changed lives of the disciples. At his death, they all fled for their lives. But when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples were greatly empowered and went out sharing the good news at the risk of beatings and eventually death for many of them.  Would anyone choose to die for a lie?

In Acts 5:38-39, Gamaliel, a teacher of the law warned the Sanhedrin:

³⁸ Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. ³⁹ But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

Approximately 2.38 billion people practice some form of Christianity globally. This means that about one-third of the world’s total population is Christian. This itself should be indicative that the conspiracy theories about Jesus’ death and resurrection are not sound.

Would you then like to consider the case for Christ instead of listening to conspiracy theories that are only suppositions?