Some skeptics of Jesus’ resurrection compare the disciples’ claim to have seen the risen Jesus to the claim that one has seen “Bigfoot.” In an interview with Christian author Stephen Meyer, Joe Rogan dismissed ancient reports of Jesus’ resurrection by saying there are also “reports” of Bigfoot sightings. The late New Testament scholar Michael Goulder wrote an article for the book Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment? where he references dozens of Bigfoot sightings reported in South Dakota in late August 1977. He claims these are cases of “collective delusion” and this may be a natural explanation for the disciples claiming to have seen the risen Jesus.
One could say that it’s reasonable to believe in both Bigfoot and Jesus, so there’s no problem here. But regardless of how you feel about Bigfoot, Christians should point out that the presumption against Bigfoot sightings does not apply to claims about Jesus.
If Bigfoot really existed as part of the natural ecosystem, we’d expect to find more evidence like Bigfoot corpses or droppings. Since we don’t find those things, we have good reason to doubt alleged Bigfoot sightings. Doubt about Bigfoot sightings comes from a lack of evidence in the ecosystem that should exist if Bigfoot existed, but since Jesus isn’t an unknown natural creature that lives in the woods, we can’t just make a one-to-one comparison between alleged Bigfoot sightings and alleged sightings of the risen Jesus.
Also, differences in the witnesses show why sightings of Jesus after his crucifixion are not like sightings of Bigfoot.
People are more likely to say they saw Bigfoot, because they are psychologically primed to see him. Bigfoot was a big deal ever since the release of the 1967 Patterson-Gimli film that claimed to be a recording of him. This made seeing Bigfoot a cultural expectation and there were positive incentives for claiming to have seen Bigfoot. In the 1970’s several B-movies about Bigfoot were released including one which aired in South Dakota the summer before the outbreak of sightings. In addition, people who claimed to see Bigfoot were given positive attention. James Stewart’s academic study of the outbreak (“Sasquatch Sightings in South Dakota: An Analysis of an Episode of Collective Delusion,”), which Goulder bases his argument against Jesus on, says “Seeing Bigfoot became a way of gaining prestige and living in the limelight, at least temporarily.”
However, those elements aren’t present for the witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection. When the disciples preached that they saw the risen Jesus, the book of Acts says they received things like painful whippings. And the disciples were not primed to think Jesus would rise from the dead; the Gospels show that the disciples did not understand Jesus’ predictions and they lost hope and were scattered after his crucifixion. Further, critical scholars agree that the Jews did not have a cultural expectation of a messiah who would die and then rise again from the dead. The resurrection surprised the disciples, as is evident in their initial dismissal of the women’s testimony about the empty tomb (Luke 24:11).
Furthermore, Bigfoot sightings can be explained as instances of misidentification whereas the disciples would not have believed Jesus rose from the dead based on the same evidence. In many cases people might have seen shadows in the woods, an animal like a bear standing upright, other humans looking for bigfoot, or hoaxers. In fact, decades after the name “Bigfoot” was coined by California loggers in 1958, the family of one of those loggers revealed that he had large wooden feet that could be used create tracks that tricked his co-workers.
Finally, St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and the Gospels describe Jesus appearing not just to individuals, but to groups of people like the twelve. A group might misidentify a real thing as something else, but they aren’t going to all hallucinate seeing the same thing that isn’t there. A case comparable to the resurrection would have to involve people who claimed to see and touch Bigfoot together as a group for an extended period of time, and then a persecutor of Bigfoot fans converting to belief in the creature after encountering him.
We don’t have that kind of evidence for Bigfoot, but we do have it for Jesus Christ.
If you want to learn more, I discuss similar objections to the resurrection on this episode of my podcast.