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Part 8 lie to legend Some skeptics, unconvinced, attribute the resurrection to a legend that would have started with one or more people lying or thinking they saw the risen Jesus. Over time, the legend would have expanded and received adornments as it grew. According to this theory, Jesus' resurrection is on a par with King Arthur's round table, little George Washington's inability to lie and the promise that Social Security will be dissolved when we no longer need it. There are, however, three major problems with this theory. 1. Legends rarely develop while several eyewitnesses are alive to refute them. A historian of ancient Rome and Greece, A. N. Sherwin-White, argued that news of the resurrection spread too soon and too quickly for it to be a legend. 2. Legends are developed by oral tradition and do not appear in contemporary historical documents that can be verified. Still, the Gospels were written within three decades of the resurrection. 3. The legend theory does not adequately justify the fact that the tomb is empty or the apostles' historically proven conviction that Jesus was alive.
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