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For the past two or three days, I\u2019ve been spending a few evening minutes on Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach<\/em> (Routledge, 2020).\u00a0 The Singaporean Dr. Loke, an Associate Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, practiced medicine for a while before going back to school in the United States and then on to to earn a doctorate in philosophy and theology at King\u2019s College London.\u00a0 Thus far \u2014 I\u2019m just finishing the first chapter \u2014 I like his approach.\u00a0 He is admirably systematic and methodical.\u00a0 I\u2019ll offer two specimen examples here<\/span><\/p>\n The first is a long outline of reasoning on the question of the resurrection of Christ:<\/p>\n (1) Either (1.1) or (1.2) is true:\u00a0 Note that \u2018or\u2019 is taken in the exclusive sense in this syllogism as well as the next.<\/p>\n (1.1) There were no people in mid-first-century (AD 30\u201370) Palestine who claimed to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus (the New Testament accounts of such people are all legends: call this the legend hypothesis).<\/p>\n (1.2) There were people in mid-first-century Palestine who claimed to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus, in which case either (2.1) or (2.2) is true:<\/p>\n (2.1) All of them did not experience anything which they thought was the resurrected Jesus (no experience hypothesis).<\/p>\n (2.2) At least some (if not all) of them did experience something which they thought was the resurrected Jesus, in which case either (3.1) or (3.2) is true:<\/p>\n (3.1) All of these \u2018experiences of Jesus\u2019 were caused intramentally in the absence of appropriate sensory stimulus (call this the intramental hypothesis; examples include hallucinations, \u2018subjective vision,\u2019 \u2018stimulus,\u2019 \u2018religious intoxication,\u2019 \u2018enthusiasm,\u2019 and \u2018illumination\u2019).<\/p>\n (3.2) At least some (if not all) of these \u2018experiences of Jesus\u2019 were caused by an extramental entity, in which case either (4.1) or (4.2) is true:<\/p>\n (4.1) For all these experiences, the extramental entity was not Jesus (for example, they mistook another person for Jesus: mistaken identity hypothesis).<\/p>\n (4.2) For at least some (if not all) of these experiences, the extramental entity was Jesus, in which case either (5.1) or (5.2) is true:<\/p>\n (5.1) Jesus did not die on the cross (swoon\/ escape hypothesis: that is, either Jesus swooned on the cross, exited the tomb and showed himself to the disciples later [\u2018swoon\u2019], or Jesus had secretly escaped prior to the crucifixion, somebody else was crucified, and Jesus showed himself to the disciples later [\u2018escape\u2019]).<\/p>\n (5.2) Jesus died on the cross (i.e. the extramental entity they experienced was Jesus who rose from the dead), in which case (6) Jesus rose from the dead (resurrection).<\/p>\n Based on the aforementioned syllogism . . . we can know that essentially there are seven and only seven possible categories of explanations concerning the claims of Jesus\u2019 post-mortem appearances, viz. legends, no experience, intramental, mistaken identity, swoon, escape, and resurrection. It should be emphasized that there are essentially no other possibilities apart from the ones listed earlier (although various combinations of these possibilities are possible)<\/p>\n [B]y reducing the myriad of alternative theories that have been (in Ehrman\u2019s phrase) \u2018dreamed up\u2019 (or yet undreamed of) to essentially six, it will be demonstrated in the following chapters that, once certain considerations are established, all the alternatives and their combinations can reasonably be excluded.\u00a0 (pages 24-26)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n