I was watching a video on YouTube some years ago where a Christian was debating Matt Dillahunty about evidence for the Resurrection. At one point, Dillahunty asked how eyewitness claims to the risen Savior are substantially different from witnesses claiming they’d supposedly seen Elvis Presley still alive. I’m not sure if this was a question Dillahunty had planned to ask or he spoke it entirely off the cuff but it seemed to catch the Christian off guard.
For my younger readers, let me give a little backstory about Elvis sightings. Elvis Presley was an American Icon who became enormously popular in the 1950s. He is sometimes credited as the inventor of “rock and roll” and has been referred to as “The King.” He died unexpectedly in 1977 at the young age of only 42, apparently from a life of excess and drug abuse.
After his death, conspiracy theories began to spread that he’d only faked his death and that he was still alive. Then people started coming forward, claiming they had seen Elvis in places like a mall or an airport. Tabloid magazines would even publish “photos” they alleged to be of Elvis. It was quite the spectacle.
Elvis would be 90 years old now. In the years since his death was made public, he never came forward to announce it was a hoax. None of his friends or family ever came forward and admitted it was a hoax. And the fact that some people have never even heard of some of the things I’m explaining now, demonstrates that the Elvis-faked-his-death conspiracy never really amounted to anything.
I guess Dillahunty brought up the Elvis sightings to make this point: what if, 200 years from now, people began to claim Elvis was still alive after he was pronounced dead? What if they produced the doctored photos and sketchy testimonies made in the 70s and 80s? His question was, how is the testimony of the witnesses to the Resurrection substantially different than that? Well, I’m going to explain how they’re different!
What is being claimed?
The first and most obvious difference between the two scenarios is what is being claimed. Jesus rose from the dead! He was dead. People saw Him die. Later, some of these same people saw Him alive again. It was a resurrection.
On the other hand, nobody has ever claimed Elvis rose from the dead. The entire conspiracy was that he had faked his death - that is he didn’t really die. I’ve heard of cases where people try to get insurance money or try to hide from justice by trying to convince others they had died. So what? Faking your own death lies within the realm of the plausible and even if someone does come forward with convincing evidence that Elvis didn’t die in 1977, it still has no bearing on whether or not Jesus rose from the dead!
A very public death
One of the things that made Elvis’ faked-death conspiracy plausible is that so few people had seen him dead. Toward the end of his life, Elvis was not only older, but he had gained a lot of weight. He was no longer the handsome icon people remembered from the 50s and 60s. Some people were shocked when they saw him in his last public concert before his death.
He was found dead in his own home by close friends and staff, so there wasn’t a large hospital staff treating him for some lingering death. After he died, his family decided to have a closed casket funeral, apparently not wanting his appearance to diminish his legacy. To my knowledge, no photos of Elvis dead were ever published. Thus, it was easy for people to claim he wasn’t dead.
Now, compare that to the death of Jesus. His death was intentionally made a spectacle. It was the practice of Rome to publicly punish criminals as a way to deter others who might have similar intentions. Jesus’ death was seen by His friends, His family, mobs of strangers, Roman authorities, and religious leaders. He was dead and everyone knew it.
To say Elvis was still alive after the news of his death is something that could still be possible. To say Jesus was alive after His very public execution would have required a miracle!
Who are the witnesses?
Elvis was a celebrity. He was adored by millions and was probably one of the most recognized people on earth at the time. But of all those millions of fans, how many of them really knew Elvis? Think about it. One sacrifice made for fame is privacy. The more popular someone becomes, the more he must hide himself lest he be mobbed by his own fans.
So how many fans ever talked with Elvis face to face? How many ever shared a meal with him? How many ever had him in their homes? Like any celebrity, Elvis probably had a very close circle of friends that really knew him. Everyone else had to admire him from a distance.
Remember too that Elvis was past his prime. He had not been in the spotlight for years. Many people who once admired him, only remembered the younger, thinner version of him from a decade or two earlier. They might not have recognized him at all if they bumped into him in his most recent visage.
In the case of Elvis sightings, none of his closest friends ever claimed he was still alive. What we have is a man claimed to be seen by people who really didn’t know him personally and certainly didn’t know him intimately. They might have known what he looked like from photos or TV appearances years earlier. Now they claimed to catch a fleeting glimpse of someone who they thought looked like him! That hardly sounds credible. For all I know, they may have spotted an Elvis-impersonator on his way to a performance!
Jesus, on the other hand, was seen alive by people who knew Him intimately. They had talked with Him, eaten with Him, and even had Him in their homes. They had seen Him die. Later, they saw Him alive again. Theirs weren’t glimpses of someone in a crowd that may have looked like Jesus. After His resurrection, they talked with Him, ate with Him, and had Him in their homes. There’s no chance they were mistaken about who He was.
Conclusion
In summary, I hopefully have made clear the qualitative difference between these two claims. It shouldn’t be hard to understand that the testimony given by someone who claimed to see a person he only knew from television in support of a conspiracy that theoretically was possible might make interesting conversation but it’s nothing more than that.
On the other hand, the zealous testimony of witnesses who knew Jesus when He was alive, who had also seen Him die, then later claimed they’d seen Him alive again is evidence of a miracle!
So there you go, Mr. Dillahunty. That’s how Jesus is not like Elvis!