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Have you heard of the substitution hypothesis interpretation of the…

3 years ago • May 6, 2023 • by ourCOG

Have you heard of the substitution hypothesis interpretation of the Lord’s resurrection? People said that the man crucified on the cross was the twin of Jesus, not Jesus Himself, which they said, was a mistaken identity. Then after Jesus’s twin died, then Jesus appeared to his disciples and claimed to them that He was raised again fron the dead, it means that for critics, Jesus is a con man who deceived many people in believing in Him that He is the long waited Messiah. Other critics suggest that this twin of Jesus was actually Thomas, the Didymus. And when you look at the Greek meaning of Didymus, it means the twin. They often claimed that there is a document dated to be approximately about 120-150 A.D. which says that this Didymus was one of the Lord’s brother, which is Judas (not Iscariot).

What do you think are the flaws of this substitution hypothesis of the Lord’s resurrection? And why do you think that the literal resurrection of the Lord is much a better approach than those naturalistic explanations?

P.S. i’m a christian

Categories: #ourCOG Tags: ,

Discussion

18 comments

  1. Bob White says:
    May 17, 2020 at 3:09 pm

    So show me where Jesus had a twin, and I will comment on this ridiculous assertion.

    Reply
  2. Treeswalking Nathan Chesher says:
    May 17, 2020 at 3:22 pm

    Only enmities of Christ would come up with this story. It would be impossible for Christ was born to a virgin. There are several twins mentioned in the Bible:Cain and Abel and also Joseph’s two sons ephraim and Manasseh and finally Esau and Jacob so God tells us that they are twins

    Reply
  3. Surah Weyer says:
    May 17, 2020 at 3:23 pm

    A glaring flaw for me is that the resurrection isn’t the only requirement of the Messiah. There are many many more. The propogators of this have to do ALOT more to disprove Jesus.

    Reply
  4. Paul Gray says:
    May 17, 2020 at 3:33 pm

    I have heard of many perversions of the gospel , what is significant to me is many of these twisted versions like the Jews claiming the Romans took the body are proofs that he existed and that his teachings shook the ancient world enough that His enemies sought any and every way to stop the unstoppable.

    Reply
  5. Hugo Garcia says:
    May 17, 2020 at 3:36 pm

    Read the scriptures. If it’s not in the scriptures, toss it.

    Reply
  6. Evangelist Chosen Avezi says:
    May 17, 2020 at 3:38 pm

    If it’s his twin brother who appeared, where did he get the scars left by the nails on his two hands and the spear on his side.

    Reply
  7. Myvanis Lombard says:
    May 17, 2020 at 3:42 pm

    Muslims hold to a similar view and it’s just a silly argument given all the impossibilities to fake it all.

    Reply
  8. Simon Yew says:
    May 17, 2020 at 3:48 pm

    Islam said Judas replaced Jesus on the cross. However that was a lie because another account from Chinese Astrology record corroborate with bible eyewitness account. So many people loves to make sense resurrection story to fit their own worldly view point. Just be careful because this is how Satan gives people the wrong idea and lead them to false doctrine. http://blog.truth-is-life.org/missions/china-vision/chinese-evidence-for-jesus/

    Reply
  9. Sheila Anne says:
    May 17, 2020 at 6:32 pm

    Where do they think up these things? ( the devil himself)

    Reply
  10. Ronald Mckinney says:
    May 18, 2020 at 12:02 am

    Why didn’t the wise men bring more gifts? Idiots

    Reply
  11. Dennis Demo says:
    May 18, 2020 at 7:09 am

    You said youre a christian. What kind of christian are you?

    Reply
  12. Josh Payne says:
    May 18, 2020 at 7:54 am

    It is amazing that some skeptics have to give such an ad hoc explanation for the evidence of the resurrection.
    There is only evidence that Jesus did not have a twin and further this theory would affirm all the traditional support for the resurrection such as the empty tomb, appearances, and conversation of the sceptical Paul/Saul and James and Jude the brothers of Jesus.

    William Lane Craig on Dr. Calvin’s twin theory (Defenders Season 2 Christology Episode 23)

    “Fourth would be the degree to which the hypothesis is what’s called “ad hoc.” You want a hypothesis which is less ad hoc. What does ad hoc mean? Literally, in Latin, it means “to this.” It means the degree to which the theory is concocted just to explain this. It is contrived – there is a sort of artificiality about it, such that you wouldn’t have good reason to believe it otherwise.7 So if the theory is ad hoc, it means that there really isn’t much independent reason to believe that it is true; instead, you have got to invent all kinds of new hypotheses just to explain this evidence that you don’t have any grounds to believe is true. Let me illustrate this with the Twin Theory. You remember that fellow I debated at the University of California, Irvine, who said that the best explanation for the resurrection was that Jesus of Nazareth had an unknown twin brother.8 Jesus really wasn’t born to Mary and Joseph – he and his twin brother were born to some other Jewish peasant lady, and some way or another he got switched with Mary and Joseph’s baby. So Mary and Joseph now thought that Jesus was their baby, when in fact he was the twin of somebody else born to some other Jewish woman. His brother grew up independently from him in some other town in Judea, and, just at the time of the crucifixion, his brother came back to Jerusalem, saw that Jesus was crucified, stole the body out of the tomb, and presented himself to the disciples, who then mistakenly thought Jesus was risen from the dead. Now that is a theory which is ad hoc in excelsis! We don’t have any reason to believe that Jesus had a twin brother; we don’t have any reason to believe that he was switched with some other baby; we don’t have any reason to believe this fellow came back to Jerusalem just at this time. It is so ad hoc and contrived that it fails to be the best explanation. During the Q&A that I had at this debate, one person in the audience got up and captured it nicely, this ad hoc-ness – he said, “Dr. Cavin [my opponent] there is only one thing that remains unexplained on your theory – who was piloting the helicopter at the time of the ascension?” Well, that was just one more ad hoc hypothesis that needed to be added to complete the theory.”

    https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2/s2-doctrine-of-christ/doctrine-of-christ-part-23/

    https://youtu.be/-QMmakQ4TSo

    Reply
  13. Jim Ring says:
    May 18, 2020 at 9:30 am

    I wish that there was an Eye-Roll button.

    Reply
  14. Ed Weems says:
    May 18, 2020 at 2:48 pm

    Yeah I’m not going to read the rest of that post.

    Reply
  15. Jefferson D. Thatcher says:
    May 18, 2020 at 8:05 pm

    Foolish

    Reply
  16. Slaven Radic says:
    May 19, 2020 at 5:48 am

    Simple explanations are usually the best. The “twin” scenario requires too much coordination with uncertain purposes

    Reply
  17. Slaven Radic says:
    May 19, 2020 at 5:53 am

    1 Peter 3:15 should be read and understood

    Reply
  18. Have you heard of the substitution hypothesis interpretation of the… #ourCOG – ourcog says:
    February 18, 2021 at 11:40 am

    […] Have you heard of the substitution hypothesis interpretation of the… […]

    Reply

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