Unbelievable: Bart Ehrman vs. Justin Bass | Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? | Pastor Reacts

Bart Ehrman’s Challenge to the Resurrection and the Mormon Comparison

Peter, I would say Peter wrote 1st and 2nd Peter, and 2nd Peter, Jesus, I mean, Peter says that he saw.

He saw the transfiguration.

The transfiguration, exactly.

That's not the resurrection.

Okay.

Boop!

These were the men besides Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen Moroni. And yet here he is trying to say, well, you know, four against two is better. No, it's not! You have zero against Peter, James, and Paul, and Mary Magdalene.

I'm just giving you my reasoning that why Moroni's not convincing.

I understand, but I don't think you've listened to my case here.

Okay.

In one sense, I'm actually on Ehrman's side. We have veered way, way out into the weeds from the original topic.

But they're in a worldview that allows that.

They are too in a worldview.

No!

They're in an apocalyptic worldview that expects the resurrection. Okay, where was the Messiah?

Ehrman is playing games right now, and I suspect he knows he is, and he can get away with this because not a lot of people are aware of, again, this manipulative framing that he's doing. And there it is.

We have now discovered the reason why Ehrman will never say that Jesus rose from the dead. Doesn't matter what kind of evidence lines up for it. Resurrections do not happen. Period. End of story. The end.

It's a violation of the laws of physics. Welcome back to another Pastor Reacts. My name is Nate Sala. I'm the president of Wise Disciple, where we are helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be.

Before I jumped into this particular ministry, I was a pastor, and before that, I was a debate teacher. And so, if you put those things together, like peanut butter and jelly, you get this channel, apparently.

Well, today we're looking at a video that a lot of you suggested that I react to. It's a recent episode of Unbelievable with Justin Brierley. One of my favorite shows to just watch, you know, conversations-wise.

This one is Bart Ehrman versus Justin Bass, I think. The topic is, did Jesus of Nazareth rise from the dead? So, let's go.

Hello, and welcome to The Big Conversation from Premiere Unbelievable, brought to you in partnership with John Templeton Foundation. I'm your host, Justin Brierley. The Big Conversation is all about questions around science, philosophy, history, and culture with big thinkers across the belief spectrum.

So, little disclaimer at the outset. My issue with these kinds of debates has always been that, on Unbelievable, has always been that they're not really debates, though. They're discussions, you know.

I'm coming from a more formal debate background, so I'm used to looking at policy debates, Lincoln-Douglas, public forum debates. But that's just not what a lot of these kinds of discussions are. So, it's hard for somebody like me to just show up and start holding somebody accountable to a structure of debate that these two probably did not agree to in the first place.

It was probably understood that they're going to have a free-flowing discussion where two people largely disagree with each other, which, by the way, I think is actually way more valuable for those of us who want to think through issues and come to our own conclusions.

So, again, I love the Unbelievable show. I'm just trying to be transparent about my difficulties with doing a Debate Teacher Reacts to this. So, what I'm going to try to do is I'll talk about who's doing a better job challenging the other guy, and then I might step in with some of my own thoughts about the discussion, and that's probably the best I can do with something like this.

So, again, let's get into it.

Today we're discussing the central claim of Christian faith. Did Jesus of Nazareth rise from the dead? The rise of Christianity, of course, has shaped the modern world, but are its historical origins best explained by naturalistic means, or is the explanation the first followers gave, that Jesus had risen from the dead, still a plausible option for people today?

Well, Bart Ehrman is a well-known...

By the way, the topic is, did Jesus rise from the dead? Were the claims given by Jesus' apostles and his first followers plausible? The immediate question that I have is, what the heck is Bart Ehrman doing at the table then?

You know, Ehrman is a historian, and historians don't answer these kinds of questions according to Ehrman. He talks about this a lot. Historians, given their particular methodology to understand history, are not equipped to answer this question.

So, what is Ehrman doing there? So this is from Ehrman's book, How Jesus Became God. Take a look at this. As a historian, I do not think that we can show historically that Jesus was in fact raised from the dead.

To be clear, I'm not saying the opposite either, that historians can use the historical disciplines in order to demonstrate that Jesus was not raised from the dead. I argue that when it comes to miracles such as the resurrection, historical sciences simply are of no help in establishing exactly what happened.

So again, I ask, what is Bart Ehrman doing here for this discussion then? The topic is, did Jesus rise from the dead? That means we need to see people take a position on this question, right? Or else, what's this discussion going to be?

My prediction is, because I've seen Ehrman do this before, you'll see him only go so far, and then he'll stop, and he'll draw a line in the sand. And the other guy, Justin Bass, is going to want to keep walking down the path towards an inference, and Ehrman is going to say, no, no, no, no, you can't say that, you can't do that.

A New Testament historian whose books include Misquoting Jesus, The Triumph of Christianity, and Heaven and Hell, A History of the Afterlife, Bart is an agnostic. He doesn't believe in the miraculous claims of the Bible, including the resurrection of Jesus, but he's always happy to discuss it with those who do.

One of those is Justin Bass, a New Testament scholar who's taught at various institutions, including in Jordan in the Middle East. Now, Justin is a Christian, and in his book, The Bedrock of Christianity, he argues there are a number of bedrock facts concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus agreed upon by the majority of New Testament scholars.

And today, he's going to be explaining why he believes the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the best explanation of both scripture and history.

Is anybody else weird like me, and right now you're seeing Robert Englund vs. Eric Bana? I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but Ehrman definitely resembles Robert Englund. Hmm, shenanigans.

So, Justin and Bart, welcome along to the show.

Thank you, blessed to be here.

I hope it won't be too confusing for you, Bart, having two Justins in front of you today.

I am feeling that I'm being ganged up on.

But it's okay, I can handle it. Bearded Justin and unbearded Justin, you can see the difference. Virtually all will accept that Peter believed Jesus appeared to him. James, the brother of Jesus, believed he appeared to him.

Paul obviously believed he appeared to him. And then we can bring in Mary Magdalene because I'm pretty sure Bart, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but believes Mary Magdalene also had that experience.

She's accounted for in all four Gospels, being the first to actually witness the risen Jesus. So those four would be kind of the bedrock eyewitnesses.

Well, why don't we stick with those specific ones and get your take on that, Bart. So to what degree do you agree that at least people claimed to have seen the risen Jesus?

Yeah, I think it's probably right. I mean, Paul certainly, Paul tells us that he did. The problem with these others, of course, is they don't tell us that. So we don't have, you know, Peter didn't leave his writings where he said, I saw Jesus.

James didn't leave his writings. We don't know who the 500 were.

Peter didn't say that he saw the risen Jesus. Does Ehrman mean that Peter didn't write it down? Like he didn't literally say that phrase in like 1 and 2 Peter? Which is true. I saw the risen Jesus, right?

We don't have those in the epistles. Okay, fair enough. But wait a sec. Peter does talk about the resurrection of Jesus in his first epistle though, right? Seems strange for Peter to do that knowing that Paul had been claiming that Peter saw the risen Jesus.

Knowing that Luke was saying that Peter saw the risen Jesus. Both of these men were contemporary to Peter. And now, Peter is saying that Jesus is resurrected in his own letter. I mean, you have an established church in the first century holding to Peter's profession of seeing the risen Jesus.

And Peter doesn't want to seem to correct any of these claims about him? I wonder why. Unless, maybe it really happened. Isn't that the simplest explanation?

Historians tend to do, of course, is to examine their sources of information. And the most important thing is to know what the sources are. To determine whether they are reliable or not. And to see what they say.

I think that Peter probably did say that he saw Jesus. And I think James probably did. I don't know about the 500. They come out of nowhere.

Well, then why did you make a point to say that the problem is Peter never said he saw the risen Jesus in his writings? You literally just said that a few seconds ago. Is that really a problem? Or do we have enough evidence to infer that Peter saw the risen Jesus?

Which is why you say that you think he did. In which case, that's not a problem, though. Right? See, this is what Ehrman does on a regular basis. He says, well, you know, here's a problem. You know, here's another problem.

Well, here's a huge problem over here. As a debater, this fits into the category of laying a framework. Okay? You know, so far so good. But you could make the argument that this is known as manipulative framing.

And what that means is when you use negative words like problem, you know, particularly when a true problem does not exist, you're simply describing the regular process of making an inference based on the historical evidence.

You seem to be manipulative there. You come across as being disingenuous. Imagine a homicide detective saying, well, you know, I have the suspect admitting he was at the crime scene when the victim was murdered.

And I have several other witnesses claiming the suspect confessed to the crime. By the way, these witnesses are known associates of the suspect. And they told a lot of other people about the suspect's confession.

Suspect never denied it. But you know what the problem is? He never wrote down the words, I'm the killer, though. Is that really a problem?

In 1 Corinthians 15, there's no

Mary Magdalene?

Well, we don't have anything from her either, obviously.

But do you believe that she had any experience?

Yeah, I do. And I believe that in a lot of religious traditions, you get reports like that. And so my issue with this kind of bedrock thing is whether it's appropriate to consider these kinds of claims outside of other claims for other religious figures.

Do we treat them equally? Or do we provide a kind of a Do we say, well, it's more likely true because it's in the Bible and less likely true if it's in the Mormon tradition? Or if it's in the Muslim tradition?

Or if it's in ancient Greek and Roman mythology? Or not just mythology, ancient Greek and Roman history? And so do you give equal weight to everything? And if so, then how do you Why is it that you prefer these witnesses to the others?

So, that's an interesting move. Did you see what just happened? After begrudgingly agreeing that the eyewitness testimony of those four people, right? Peter, James, Paul, Mary, are probably legitimate.

You know, I mean, the experience of the risen Jesus probably is what happened to them. Now, Ehrman wants us to shift and consider the legitimacy of other miracle claims from different religions. The question for Bass is, why not just stick to the claims of the resurrection of Jesus in order to make an inference and answer the question of tonight's topic?

But you know what? This is actually an advantageous move on the part of Ehrman. Because what he wants to do is demonstrate that for the same reason that Christians dismiss Mormon claims and Muslim claims, etc. We should dismiss resurrection of Jesus claims.

So, Ehrman is doing well as an interlocutor. Alright? Let's see what happens next.

Great question. What is the evidence? So, my question would be, what is the evidence? You brought up Islam. You brought up Mormonism. Well, in Islam, this only supernatural really claim is to Muhammad.

That's one. You know, one eyewitness. And I agree with Deuteronomy. We shouldn't trust anything unless it's at least two or three witnesses. So, we have four that you agree with. You know, in Christianity, when it comes to Mormonism, again, Joseph Smith is the only person to say that Moroni appeared to him.

And he said Jesus and God the Father and a lot of other strange things.

So, I'm not sure just that he's...

But only one person. Only one eyewitness in both those cases. Both those religions you brought up. But I'd like to hear the evidence for the Greek and Roman.

Well, I don't know if you've studied Mormonism very much.

Oh, I've studied it a lot.

There are 11 eyewitnesses. And they all...

To the golden plates.

Yes.

So, we're going to compare golden plates to the resurrection of Jesus?

No, I'm just saying if you're a historian. And what you're doing is you're saying we're going to trust eyewitnesses.

Okay, I'm fine with them seeing golden plates. But what does that tell us?

Four of them say they saw Moroni give them to him. Four. Saw him. Who actually signed affidavits.

Half of them left the faith.

No, they didn't. They left Joseph Smith.

They abandoned Joseph Smith.

But when they abandoned Joseph Smith, they continued to say that they saw Moroni.

That's not true. You can look into this. And I encourage you to. Although, that's a rabbit trail. The problem here is... Well, see, now I'm sounding like Ehrman. The problem is LDS history is shoddy. Because they will only affirm certain things these witnesses said.

And then they will downplay or ignore other things. The four witnesses to Moroni were allegedly... Now, I had to look this up for reference. Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and Oliver Cowdery. The fourth witness was Joseph Smith himself.

The issue with these three witnesses to Moroni, apart from Joseph Smith, is they do change their testimony over time with regard to what they saw. And all three were excommunicated from the church and were tarnished in terms of their reputation by the LDS church and its leaders.

Joseph Smith called David Whitmer a dumb beast. Martin Harris was said by Mormons to have a lying, deceptive spirit. He was of his father the devil and that the wrath of God was on him. Why? Well, one of the things Martin Harris did was he recanted his testimony.

He said he never actually saw the plates, even though he originally said he did. Whitmer did the same thing. Said he never actually saw the plates. Changed his story a few times on that. And then these gentlemen went on to make other grand claims that could not be substantiated.

You see where this is going? If Ehrman wants to say, well, you know, let's look at other religious claims to miracles, then he's going to have to notice that there is a qualitative difference between the ethos of, say, Peter, Paul, and James because these men were tortured and died for their testimony, never recanting, never being excommunicated from the Christian church, never being denounced for having lying, deceptive spirits and being of their father the devil.

But you'll also have to notice that the ethos of the Mormon witnesses are not there. Once you press into the details of the religious claims of Joseph Smith and his compatriots to the religious claims of the apostles of Christ, there is no comparison.

And Ehrman knows this. He's a historian, right? That's his thing. So then, what is the point of bringing all this up? It seems to me you have two options. You're either ignorant and are making illegitimate comparisons or you know what you're doing and you're misleading folks on purpose.

To suggest historical Christian claims about Jesus and historical Mormon claims are on par with each other is to, at the very least, mislead people that are watching this video. And then you wonder, okay, is that unintentional or is that intentional?

At the very least, I will say this. Ehrman is doing a good job handling himself as an interlocutor against Justin Bass. I think that's pretty obvious.

You credit those.

That would only be three. But to abandon Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith is the foundational prophet.

It's four plus Joseph Smith. That's five. I'm just saying, are you being impartial?

No, it's three plus Joseph Smith is four.

Because these are biblical witnesses. In those cases, by the way, we actually have their testimony. And it's within a hundred years. So with the New Testament, you don't have Peter's testimony or James' testimony or the 500.

You've got Paul.

But what we have is good enough to convince you. For the New Testament, I would say.

That's a good point, though. What is all the fuss about, Ehrman, if you're already convinced? It seems like this is much ado about a huge nothing burger. Oh, well, you know, are they like Mormon religious claims?

You know, we have four plus one is five. Well, no, because the three Mormon eyewitness testimonies referenced are not credible. They undermine their own credibility over time. Peter, James, and Paul did not do that.

This cannot be compared as equal. So then, what's all the fuss about if you're already convinced that Peter and James and Paul saw the risen Jesus or had the experience of seeing the risen Jesus?

But that isn't proof that it happened.

Who else has Moroni appeared to other than those people in history?

We're talking about a particular event. Was Jesus raised from the dead and a particular event?

But other things can support another event, right? So if Jesus is appearing to people, for example, all throughout history, if we have...

That's a separate argument. So I think we have to take one argument at a time. If you just start piling on arguments, we have to consider each of those arguments in turn.

I'm just giving you my reasoning why Moroni is not convincing.

I understand, but I don't think you've listened to my case here.

So, in one sense, I'm actually on Ehrman's side. I don't know what ongoing sightings of Jesus is going to do to undermine the claims to have seen Moroni. But I'm not on Ehrman's side in a sense because I think he's manipulatively framing the discussion to make it more advantageous to his position.

So, in my mind, it's one thing to lay a framework with the strong contentions that you have in your arsenal. I've said that over and over again in debate teacher videos. But it's another thing to manipulatively frame a discussion in order to make your argument look stronger when it's not.

Judges notice these things, and it's not going to help you in the long run. And by the way, Christians are just as guilty of this as well. So we're not off the hook when our side does this too.

You are basing everything you said.

Not basing everything. We're starting with appearances. This isn't my only argument.

You said the bedrock is Paul. Because Paul gives us the information about Cephas and James.

Correct?

I said Paul is the bedrock in the sense that the vast majority of scholars agree when it comes to Paul. That's what I mean by bedrock.

How many ancient Christian writings do we have by somebody who says in those writings that he saw Jesus?

Directly? Paul.

How many do we have?

We have Peter. I would say Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter. And 2 Peter, Jesus, I mean, Peter says that he saw the Transfiguration.

That's not the Resurrection.

But John saw the risen Jesus.

Oops!

That's not good. That's not good, guys. The Resurrection is not the Transfiguration. You know what? But these things happen in the heat of the moment. Both sides. It's just your heart's going 100 miles an hour.

You know the cameras are rolling. If you're live, you're on stage, you see an audience. In the middle of a conversation, you reach for something that isn't quite what you were after. Right? So, Ehrman got him there.

So far, Ehrman is handling not only himself but Bass very well. In spite of the critique that I've already been giving Ehrman, I'd say he definitely has the upper hand in this exchange so far.

At least in Heaven, in Revelation.

Are you.

Counting that as a historical source?

Of seeing Jesus again. That would contribute to the argument. Again, that's the point. These things go back to support the original miraculous claim. You have nothing beyond those three witnesses with Moroni.

Nothing.

Let me finish. You're saying that Paul gives us the evidence for himself. He saw Jesus. But none of the others. You think Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter. Okay. But that would be two. I'm saying that in the case of Moroni giving Joseph Smith the plates, we have four.

So, if the idea is that you trust eyewitnesses who swear to what they saw, and that we're doing this impartially. We're doing this impartially as historians. We're not trying to back up our faith. We're not trying to prove that we're right about something.

Historians don't do that. Historians try to figure out what happened in the past. And they evaluate their sources. So, what I'm saying is if you're going to take the sources that agree with you and you say that they're probably right not because they agree with you but because they're reliable sources.

Because you've got Paul and you've got Peter, say. Okay. Well, I've got four people for Moroni giving the plates. And these people are highly religious people who the religiosity was never questioned.

So, again, this is just not true. I mean, Ehrman, who earlier, I think, suggested or alluded to the fact that he knows LDS history, he told Bass, you know, you should look into it or something like that, right?

So, I mean, Ehrman presents himself as someone who knows what he's talking about as a historian. Okay. You can't sit here then and say that Ehrman is ignorant of the unraveling of the credibility of the other eyewitnesses to Moroni over time.

These were the men besides Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen Moroni. And yet here he is trying to say, well, you know, four against two is better. No, it's not. You have, in many scholars' opinions, zero against Peter, James, and Paul, and Mary Magdalene.

Those are the ones even Bart Ehrman accepts, by the way. So, once again, what is this weird math equation about if Ehrman already accepts Peter, James, and Paul, and Mary? If you've already accepted their testimonies, then let's move on to the abductive argument.

You know, what is the inference to the best explanation for these testimonies as well as the other facts of history for the establishment of the early church claims about Jesus' resurrection? Can we go there at some.

Point? I am not saying that I think that it happened. I don't think it happened. Yeah. For good reason. But on your— the way you're mounting an argument for Paul and Peter, I don't see how you can exclude the argument for.

Moroni. Well, let's hear from— Well, it's.

Credibility, right? The LDS witnesses have none, based on their behavior over time. Peter, James, and Paul's credibility remains intact based on their behavior over time.

So, essentially, Justin, is the question here, is there better evidence that the resurrection claims of these first followers of Jesus are better evidence than other claims from other religious traditions like Mormonism and so on, where they also claim to have been eyewitnesses to something miraculous?

Exactly. And what I was saying with when it comes to the four eyewitnesses, one of them is Joseph Smith.

No, no, no. There's four in addition to Joseph Smith who claim they saw him. So there's five.

No. You know what? Let's look this up. Okay, so this is from Church of Jesus—this is a Mormon website—churchofjesuschrist .org. Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. The first edition of the Book of Mormon featured two testimonials, one written by a group of three witnesses and another by a group of eight, to make eleven.

Three witnesses— Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris—declared an angel of God appeared to them and showed them the Book of Mormon plates and they heard the voice of the Lord pronounce that Joseph Smith's translation had been accomplished by the gift and power of God.

This experience took place in June 1829 near the home of Peter Whitmer Sr. in Fayette, New York. An additional eight witnesses, members of the Smith and Whitmer families, declared that Joseph Smith himself showed them the plates and allowed each to have the—okay, so now we're onto the plates.

So you have three witnesses who claim to have seen an angel plus Joseph Smith makes four, not five. You didn't realize this video was going to be heavy in math tonight, huh?

Okay, well, regardless, I guess I want to hear why you— if you do regard them as different in some.

Way to the Mormons. Because they're claiming a supernatural being named Moroni appeared to them, okay? And so who else then has this Moroni figure appeared to? Because there's been other people that have claimed supernatural things have happened.

But see, one of the things that I would say, well, who else has they appeared to? Right? And Moroni— who else has Moroni appeared to?

Again, I don't understand this line of argumentation. I think it's better to point out the credibility of the eyewitness testimony than it is to try to stack numbers of sightings against each other. And Ehrman is probably going to slap back on this.

So let's see what happens.

I just want you to agree. That's a separate argument.

Now.

I build a case with multiple arguments. It's not just one.

So when it comes to corroborative evidence of later witnesses, what about the Mother Mary? Now, Mary appears regularly to people. It's completely well documented. Thousands of people claim this happens.

And.

I'm going to assume that since you're not Catholic, you don't think these appearances happened.

I'm open to the argument.

So instead of answering Bass's question about other sightings of Jesus, Ehrman decides to ask about sightings of Mary now. Again, by the way, Ehrman has the upper hand in this exchange. Bass should not follow him down these new paths of conversation.

He should just stick to early resurrection sightings and the inference to the best explanation for those sightings. That's what the conversation is supposed to be focused on.

I do think some of the stories about Mary is compelling. I think some of the stories is compelling.

You think she does appear to people. Do you think she appears to people?

No, I don't know.

You just said the evidence was compelling.

Well, I said it's something to look into. I'm saying it's enough to look into.

Why don't you look into it?

I have looked into it. But let me answer. I think it lacks the.

Unexpectedness.

Oh!

It normally happens in Catholic context.

No, this is completely wrong.

Let's let Justin finish his point.

It normally happens in Catholic context.

Okay.

So people who are already Catholic who expect, you know, they pray to Mary regularly. They expect saints. They expect this kind of thing. It's happened in only a handful of type of situations that have actually been confirmed by the church.

But I ask you, if Mary is actually appearing to people, would that support the resurrection or not support the resurrection?

No, I'm saying that you have better evidence. I will answer it by telling you that we have better evidence for Mary appearing to people, many groups of people in the modern period, than we have for Jesus appearing to people in the modern period.

By your criteria, that would mean that it's more likely that Mary is showing up. By your criteria. By my criteria, neither one happens.

Okay, but if Mary is appearing to people, does it more support the resurrection or not?

Yes, if Mary is showing up to people, then that would support the resurrection.

So your example to parallel, to kind of thwart the evidence for the resurrection, actually would support the resurrection.

No, no, no.

No.

Ehrman's argument is that based on Bass's criteria for assessing the validity of the resurrection claims, he must then accept claims to see Mary, which it appears he does not accept at the moment. So this is a bit of a nuanced argument.

My issue is we have veered way, way out into the weeds from the original topic and that's on Bass, just as much as Ehrman. So this discussion so far is a bit of a mess. But, you know, Ehrman has control.

He's handling himself extremely well as an interlocutor against Bass.

But that's true, right? You just admitted that. You said if Mary is appearing to people and you think there's a lot of evidence for it, I don't think so. I think it lacks the unexpectedness that the apostles, these people like Paul, Peter, Mary, were in no way expecting Jesus to appear to them.

In no way. So Catholics who expect that can have an expectation for this type of thing, it makes sense why it would happen. So the argument for the four that we talked about is stronger.

You're arguing three or four things at once. I don't think you've read the literature on Mary because in many, many instances...

Oh, I've read a lot of it, yeah.

Then you know full well that many times it's not expected. Because if you've read the literature.

No, of course it's expected. That's the point.

No, then you haven't read the literature. There are many testimonies of people who don't expect it and can't believe it.

But they know about Christianity, they know about people appearing to people, they know about the resurrection of Jesus. That's what I'm saying. They're in the Christian worldview. Where was the expectation for.

Jesus appearing to people?

You mean by people who knew him?

Yeah, what was the expectation?

Where's the expectation for Mary? They're not expecting her to show up, and she does.

But they're in a worldview that allows that.

They're in a worldview.

Where was the Messiah?

It's interesting to watch this because Ehrman is playing games right now and I suspect he knows he is and he can get away with this because not a lot of people are aware of again, this manipulative framing that he's doing.

For example, well, the Jews were apocalyptic and therefore you were totally expecting Jesus to rise again, right? Well, two things about that. First, they were not expecting Jesus to die in the first place.

Why? Because it was not expected for the Messiah to die. So you have to include in your calculations the likelihood that they abandoned the notion that Jesus was the Messiah the moment that he died on the cross, right?

Whoops, we followed just another false Messiah. Which, by the way, there were a lot of them floating around at the time. Second, apocalyptic Jews were expecting all the dead to rise again on the last day, hence the term apocalyptic.

On the last day, at the very end, when the judgment comes, all were expected to rise again. This explains Martha's response to Jesus when he said he would raise Lazarus from the dead. John 11, verse 23, Jesus said to Martha, your brother will rise again.

Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Martha wasn't a Sadducee. She believed in the resurrection at the very end. That was the expectation of resurrection for apocalyptic Jews, which explains, I think, part of Thomas' doubt, right?