Comment Thread for The Resurrection of Jesus - Apologiaphoenix vs Gary

[Adrift]

The evidence that the "empty tomb" is a later development in the legend of the Resurrection is that Paul never mentions it even once. If there were an empty tomb that every Christian knew had been guarded by Roman guards, don't you think that just as today, Christians would use this fact as the strongest evidence for the Resurrection? Yet Paul never mentions it.

Yes he does. 1 Corinthians 15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures,

[Abigail]

I believe that Abigail has hit the nail on the head: The Resurrection evidence was not good enough, unless, you WANTED to believe, or, you were uneducated and not familiar with the Hebrew Bible.

Gary, I think this is what rubs people up the wrong way where you are concerned. I made a general comment in response to what I felt had been a flippantness on Williams part. You have interpreted it the way you want and now present it as what I said about the resurrection. I didn't. If you feel the evidence is not good enough then that is a different matter, however I tend to agree with Nick that you never really gave a counter senario to the one he gave you in the actual debate.

[Sparko]

...and could it be said that there are those who look for any excuse to lend credit to the claims, despite claiming to be fair and open minded about it?

well I never said I was fair and open minded about it. :-) but if someone is going to try to prove the bible accounts false, picking such a thing as a vernacular phrase that can be easily explained has an air of desperation to me. At least go after something with some meat on it.

[William]

Gary, I think this is what rubs people up the wrong way where you are concerned. I made a general comment in response to what I felt had been a flippantness on Williams part. You have interpreted it the way you want and now present it as what I said about the resurrection. I didn't. If you feel the evidence is not good enough then that is a different matter, however I tend to agree with Nick that you never really gave a counter scenario to the one he gave you in the actual debate.

Not trying to speak for Gary, but it looked to me like, and I would say that the counter scenario is something like this:

1) Jesus did have a following of those who believed he'd be their messiah.
2) they we shocked when he died and didnt understand how they could have been wrong when they thought it was all so right.
3) a few possible variations:

a) Jesus was never buried and was left on the cross to rot. The body eventually just eroded and was eaten by birds.
b) jesus was buried in Joseph's tomb
c) Jesus was buried in a criminal's tomb
a1) Jesus Body was stolen by someone (either by the romans or Sanhedron to prevent the grave from becoming a holy sight or a martyr rallying point, or by disciples for other reasons). if there were really guards like Matthew says, there was still a block of unguarded time between burial and posting of guards.
b1) Jesus body was placed in one tomb, but they mistakenly thought it was at a different one
d) the empty tomb was a later fabrication
4) they kept trying to make sense of what happened and searched the scriptures, hoping to find something, and like seeing shapes in clouds, they began to make connections:
a) his could be a sacrifice... like the passover lamb... so that we dont have to die in a spiritual sense...
b) so, his kingdom was never of this earth like we thought, but a spiritual kingdom....
c) the parables were so confusing to all of them that they could essentially get whatever out of then that they liked, and as new unforeseen issues arose, they could just add rules based on intuitions and ideas that had to be the voice of god guiding them...
5) to poor people of that day who had no hope of rising out of their economic status or enslavement, it was nice to have hope of eternal life, comfort and mansions later, being on equal footing kings, etc.
6) people probably did thing they saw jesus, just as many think they've seen elvis, Tu Pac and like thousands have had a mass vision of the mother mary.
7) other people likely invented stories of seeing for either pride, glory, recognition or just because...
8) during times of trouble, the true believers still believed because they thought there'd be a pay off, and because they believed it, whether it was actually true or not.
9) mark wrote his gospel around 70 AD (if we believe the majority of the scholars), or someone who titled the gospel mark wrote it. Some events likely true, others likely embellished like historical fiction. later edited.
10) I think you all get the idea. natural explanations can cover all the bases.

This was written in haste, so if there is any hole, let me know and I am sure I can fill it without resorting to the supernatural or magical. For me, the most improbable natural event is more likely than an impossible supernatural event - and I don't think this counter scenario is improbable. improbable is walking across the grand canyon on a tight rope, this is not that.

[William]

well I never said I was fair and open minded about it. :-) but if someone is going to try to prove the bible accounts false, picking such a thing as a vernacular phrase that can be easily explained has an air of desperation to me. At least go after something with some meat on it.

if that were the only thing mentioned, sure.

[Sparko]

Not trying to speak for Gary, but it looked to me like, and I would say that the counter scenario is something like this:

1) Jesus did have a following of those who believed he'd be their messiah.
2) they we shocked when he died and didnt understand how they could have been wrong when they thought it was all so right.
3) a few possible variations:

a) Jesus was never buried and was left on the cross to rot. The body eventually just eroded and was eaten by birds.
b) jesus was buried in Joseph's tomb
c) Jesus was buried in a criminal's tomb
a1) Jesus Body was stolen by someone (either by the romans or Sanhedron to prevent the grave from becoming a holy sight or a martyr rallying point, or by disciples for other reasons). if there were really guards like Matthew says, there was still a block of unguarded time between burial and posting of guards.
b1) Jesus body was placed in one tomb, but they mistakenly thought it was at a different one
d) the empty tomb was a later fabrication
4) they kept trying to make sense of what happened and searched the scriptures, hoping to find something, and like seeing shapes in clouds, they began to make connections:
a) his could be a sacrifice... like the passover lamb... so that we dont have to die in a spiritual sense...
b) so, his kingdom was never of this earth like we thought, but a spiritual kingdom....
c) the parables were so confusing to all of them that they could essentially get whatever out of then that they liked, and as new unforeseen issues arose, they could just add rules based on intuitions and ideas that had to be the voice of god guiding them...
5) to poor people of that day who had no hope of rising out of their economic status or enslavement, it was nice to have hope of eternal life, comfort and mansions later, being on equal footing kings, etc.
6) people probably did thing they saw jesus, just as many think they've seen elvis, Tu Pac and like thousands have had a mass vision of the mother mary.
7) other people likely invented stories of seeing for either pride, glory, recognition or just because...
8) during times of trouble, the true believers still believed because they thought there'd be a pay off, and because they believed it, whether it was actually true or not.
9) mark wrote his gospel around 70 AD (if we believe the majority of the scholars), or someone who titled the gospel mark wrote it. Some events likely true, others likely embellished like historical fiction. later edited.
10) I think you all get the idea. natural explanations can cover all the bases.

This was written in haste, so if there is any hole, let me know and I am sure I can fill it without resorting to the supernatural or magical. For me, the most improbable natural event is more likely than an impossible supernatural event - and I don't think this counter scenario is improbable. improbable is walking across the grand canyon on a tight rope, this is not that.

If the Jews had the body, then they would have produced it to stop the resurrection stories.


And you forgot:

11) Joseph of Arimathea was hopped up on drugs and forgot where he buried Jesus. (yes, we actually had someone suggest that once)

[Gary]

He was probably speaking Aramaic, and I do speak a foreign language (German) and I know that a lot of expressions that we use are also used in German, or their equivalent. Jesus was basically telling Saul, "you can't fight the tide" - Now when Acts was written it was written in Greek which means he would have either used the same expression (the jews used the same expression too) or he wrote down an equivalent one in Greek. It is a non-issue. That you seem to harp on it (another expression) shows me that you are looking for ANY excuse to dismiss the events as fictitious. Despite you claiming to be open minded about it.

Sie haben ein anderes, falsches dinge gesagt, mein Freund. Paul hat in Acts 26 sehr deutlich gesagt, dass Gott hat zu ihn in Hebraish gesprochen, nicht Aramaisch.

[William]

If the Jews had the body, then they would have produced it to stop the resurrection stories.


And you forgot:

11) Joseph of Arimathea was hopped up on drugs and forgot where he buried Jesus. (yes, we actually had someone suggest that once)

if the jews had the body, they may have produced it, if they kept it where they could produce it. But you're correct, there's a lot of possibilities. To me, they are all more likely than coming back to like and flying away.

what detective in a missing persons case or missing body case ever hypothesises that the body has flown into heaven? Or come back to life and gone anywhere?

To me, the coming back to life and flying away is only considered as a possibility, is because it's in a bible. had it been in any other book, or from any other story, it wouldnt be given a second thought.

I don't think the gospels are either complete fiction or complete truth, but a mixture of both. I find that a completely human origin of the bible makes the most sense.

[Sparko]

Sie haben ein anderes, falsches dinge gesagt, mein Freund. Paul hat in Acts 26 sehr deutlich gesagt, dass Gott hat zu ihn in Hebraish gesprochen, nicht Aramaisch.

Aramaic

[Gary]

Yes he does. 1 Corinthians 15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures,

There is no mention of an "empty tomb" in that passage.

If I were to write a letter to you and say, "My grandmother died, was buried, and three days later we found her mausoleum empty" that is quite different from saying, "My grandmother died, was buried, and three days later rose again". Maybe my grandmother wasn't buried in a mausoleum (tomb). Maybe she was buried in the dirt; a hole in the ground. The second statement in no way infers burial in a human constructed structure or hand-hewn cave.

You are making a major assumption, which I believe is the basis of much of the Christian belief system: You are assuming as historical fact that Jesus was buried in Aramathea's hand hewn tomb just because some anonymous first century authors say so.

What if this isn't what Paul believed happened? What if Christians during Paul's time believed that Jesus had been buried in an unmarked, common criminals' grave by the Romans, a grave the Romans would never have wanted to be known to the public as they would not want the rebellious Jews to have a grave they could visit in throngs as a shrine to the "King of the Jews". What if the belief in a "rose again Christ" was based on false sightings after his death? (False sightings and visions of deceased people happens even in our day).

Bottom line: You are assuming that when Paul said "buried" he meant in a hand-hewn cave (tomb), he may have been referring to a hole in the ground. You can say all day, "The majority of NT scholars say that there was an empty tomb" but we are talking about what PAUL said in his writings and Paul NEVER uses the term "empty tomb", the primary evidence that most Christian apologists today use to bolster their supernatural claim of the reanimation of the dead flesh of a first century Jewish prophet.

[Adrift]

To me, the coming back to life and flying away is only considered as a possibility, is because it's in a bible. had it been in any other book, or from any other story, it wouldnt be given a second thought.

You keep saying things like this, but I don't really understand why. If the same claims made in the Bible were made in another book that purports to be telling factual events, I would have no problem in considering the evidence for the claims they put forward, and I'd like to think that most honest open-minded people would do the same. And as I've said before, I don't reject outright any of the miraculous claims of other religions. Historically, neither has the church.

[Sparko]

The Jews didn't bury bodies in the ground at that time, Gary. This is why you need to study the time period and society instead of making assumptions based on your modern ideas. They would wrap the bodies and place them in tombs on shelves. Once the body decayed they would bury the bones in a box, or store them in the tomb, so it would be ready for future bodies.

[Sparko]

if that were the only thing mentioned, sure.

seems to be what Gary is harping on.

[Gary]

Gary, I think this is what rubs people up the wrong way where you are concerned. I made a general comment in response to what I felt had been a flippantness on Williams part. You have interpreted it the way you want and now present it as what I said about the resurrection. I didn't. If you feel the evidence is not good enough then that is a different matter, however I tend to agree with Nick that you never really gave a counter senario to the one he gave you in the actual debate.

Ok, here is one counter scenario which I believe explains all the evidence:

Jesus is crucified. His body is left to rot on the cross for days, as was the Roman custom, as a warning to other trouble-makers. After a few days, what was left of his body was tossed into an unmarked hole in the ground with the bodies of other executed criminals, as was the Roman custom. Jesus disciples were devastated. He had told them he was the Messiah. They had made plans, even telling family and friends, that they were going to rule on thrones with Jesus in the New Kingdom. But now he is dead. All their hopes and dreams are dashed to smithereens.

They return to Galilee to take up fishing again.

Then, several weeks or months or years later, a group of female disciples are walking down a road and see a man in the distance standing on a hill. He looks familiar. "It's JESUS!" they shout with joy. "He DID rise again!" But before they reach the man, he has disappeared behind the hill and can't be found. The women return to the Eleven and tell them that they have seen Jesus. They doubt at first, but soon the disciples and others, desperate to believe that there is still hope in Jesus' claims, are "seeing" Jesus...and the legend of the resurrected Jesus begins.

At the beginning what are the central "facts" of the story:

1. Jesus has been first seen alive after his death, by women disciples.
2. The women rushed back to tell the male disciples who at first did not believe...but so wanted to believe it was true.
3. The male disciples start "seeing" Jesus in false sightings and in visions.
4. The belief in the resurrected Jesus so changes the disciples and Jesus' family that they begin to boldly preach his resurrection as fact.

Fast forward 20-25 years to Paul. All Paul says is that Jesus died, was buried, and rose on the third day. He then gives a list of witnesses, not in order, and not with any details. This is perfectly consistent with my counter-scenario. And, my counter-scenario is much, much more probable to be the explanation of the Resurrection belief than that an ancient middle eastern god reanimated a dead prophet in a never heard of before and never heard of since supernatural act.

Fast forward to circa 70 AD. We are now FORTY years after the crucifixion of Jesus. The average life span in first century Palestine has been estimated by experts to have been forty years. So how many of the witnesses would still be alive just calculating normal life span? Now take into account the persecution that Christians had faced in Palestine by Saul and the high priest. How many more eyewitnesses were killed prior to circa 70 AD? Then we have the Roman-Jewish wars in the mid 60's. How many more witnesses were killed during these wars? Then, in 70, the Romans destroy Jerusalem and kill tens of thousands of more people.

So when "Mark" writes his first gospel talking about an empty tomb, writing his gospel in Antioch or Rome as most scholars believe, NOT in Palestine, how soon does a copy of this gospel, containing claims of an empty tomb, make it to Palestine, where any possible surviving witness could refute the gospel's claims??

[Adrift]

There is no mention of an "empty tomb" in that passage.

Yes there is.

If I were to write a letter to you and say, "My grandmother died, was buried, and three days later we found her mausoleum empty" that is quite different from saying, "My grandmother died, was buried, and three days later rose again". Maybe my grandmother wasn't buried in a mausoleum (tomb). Maybe she was buried in the dirt; a hole in the ground. The second statement in no way infers burial in a human constructed structure or hand-hewn cave.

Regardless of how your grandmother was buried, if she rose three days later, her body would no longer be in the place it was when she was dead. The place she was buried would be empty.

You are making a major assumption, which I believe is the basis of much of the Christian belief system: You are assuming as historical fact that Jesus was buried in Aramathea's hand hewn tomb just because some anonymous first century authors say so.

But that simply isn't the case. Not only do we have the early attestation of the Gospels, but we also have the Babylonian Talmud's description of criminal burial, and we have archaeological evidence for how people were buried in Jerusalem. There are plenty of non-Christian scholars who accept that when Paul said that Jesus rose on the third day, what he meant was that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, and that the tomb he was placed in was thus empty. So it can't be that I believe this on the basis of the Christian belief system.

What if this isn't what Paul believed happened? What if Christians during Paul's time believed that Jesus had been buried in an unmarked, common criminals' grave by the Romans, a grave the Romans would never have wanted to be known to the public as they would not want the rebellious Jews to have a grave they could visit in throngs as a shrine to the "King of the Jews".

You can "what if" until pigs fly, but what does this have to do with whether or not Paul said that Jesus' tomb was empty? What we know is that criminals were typically placed in criminal tombs, one for decapitated and strangled criminals, and one for stoned or burned criminals. It was a known place prepared by the Sanhedrin. We know the place was common knowledge because when the flesh had rotted from the bones, the bones were gathered up by the family and brought to their family grave. If Jesus' was put into the common criminal grave instead of Arimathea's that wouldn't change the fact that Paul knew that he was buried and that he was risen, and thus the tomb had to be empty.

What if the belief in a "rose again Christ" was based on false sightings after his death? (False sightings and visions of deceased people happens even in our day).

Again, what does this "what if" have to do with whether or not Paul specified that the tomb was empty?

Bottom line: You are assuming that when Paul said "buried" he meant in a hand-hewn cave (tomb), he may have been referring to a hole in the ground. You can say all day, "The majority of NT scholars say that there was an empty tomb" but we are talking about what PAUL said in his writings and Paul NEVER uses the term "empty tomb", the primary evidence that most Christian apologists today use to bolster their supernatural claim of the reanimation of the dead flesh of a first century Jewish prophet.

We don't have to assume. We know. The Biblical, extra-Biblical, and archaeological evidence suggests that tombs were commonly used in Jerusalem. There's no good reason to reject this idea, or to assert that Paul meant anything other than an empty grave when Jesus was risen. The only people who say that Paul says otherwise are mythicists, who believe that Paul really meant that Jesus rose spiritually, but not physically, and you've already stated that you're not a mythicist. Carrier tried to make that argument in his debate with Mark Goodacre, and Goodacre could barely contain his bewilderment, because its the sort of goofy critique of Paul that only a mythicist would make as they disregard the reasonable reading of the text for one that's extremely eccentric.