Gary & Rhinestone's Thread on Burial and Resurrection of Christ

[RhinestoneCowboy]

also note the unintended irony of you relying on, e.g., the Mishnah, which is rather later than the gospels you disparage for being late.

I was wondering about the Mishnah. 3rd century, isn't it?

The written attestation of Jewish law need not coincide with its origin. Most scholars accept that the Mishnah preserves older tradition. I certainly see no reason to doubt that here.

[Raphael]

What proof that you have that this local tradition had been accurately preserved since the third decade of the first century until three hundred years later, other than Eusebius claim? Just because there was a tomb under the temple doesn't mean it was Jesus tomb, does it?

You claimed that the resurrection was false because until the fourth century Christians could even be bothered to remember where the tomb was.

The very existence of the tradition means that your premise was as false as your conclusion. And by the 4th century meant that the tomb was inside the new walls built by Hadrian which is why they didn't believe the local tradition at first because the Gospels say it was outside the walls. As we now know the site is outside the pre 135.A.D walls.

Was the tradition correct maybe, maybe not. The fact that there was a tomb found where the tradition said it was, and it is outside the pre 135A.D. walls gives it a fairly high probability of being correct.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

No one is arguing that Jesus was a typical case.

And no one is arguing that he would be given a "proper burial" by "the Jews" or that he was given "his own 'new' and 'empty' tomb." The general argument is that a particular Jew (or rather Jews, as Nicodemus was also involved), who happened to be a follower of Jesus and was in a position of some authority, prepared the body for burial and laid it in his unfinished tomb. The line you quote from Jodi Magness, which I notice has proliferated on anti-apologetics sites, is similarly arguing against a position no one is taking. Tilt at windmills much?

I'm sorry. Laid it in "his" unfinished tomb? The tomb wasn't "empty"? What does the Mishnah, Tosefta and Josephus have to say about Jewish criminal burial? Does it make sense for their to be an empty criminal's tomb (without other bodies in it) conveniently located just for Jesus? Sorry, but the fact that the gospels contradict what we know about Roman crucifixion practices and Jewish criminal burial makes the story extremely dubious. Two improbabilities don't make a probable case.

According to Mark, they "all" condemned Jesus to death. So we're supposed to believe that a well respected member of the Council - Joseph of Arimathea (he's not called a disciple until Matthew), who just demanded that Pilate have Jesus killed, would concern himself with the body of a man condemned and executed as a criminal messianic pretender - aka the King of the Jews?

"If the corpse of Jesus had really been removed by his enemies, the tradition would have grown like this. Jesus was laid in a common grave, like anyone who had been executed. Soon people found this intolerable, but knew that none of his followers had shown him, or could have shown him, the least service of love. A stranger did, and preserved his body from the ultimate shame. Now this could not have been an insignificant stranger, but had to be someone who could dare to go to the court authorities; he had to be a counsellor. The name was to be found in the Gospel tradition, like any other name, and gradually - this last phase is reflected in the Gospels themselves - the pious stranger became a secret...or even an open...disciple of Jesus (Matthew 27:57), someone who did not approve of the counsel and action of the Sanhedrin (Luke 23:50-51)...someone who was a friend not only of Jesus but also of Pilate (Gospel of Peter 3). So the story of Joseph of Arimathea is not completely impossible to invent." Hans Grass, Ostergeschehen und Osterberichte, pg. 180.

[rakovsky]

I'll consider reading your Orthodox scholar's article but I would rather read something in a respected archeology journal on this topic.

Is there an Eastern Orthodox Scholar you are referring to? Which article? Any good?

[Gary]

You claimed that the resurrection was false because until the fourth century Christians could even be bothered to remember where the tomb was.

The very existence of the tradition means that your premise was as false as your conclusion. And by the 4th century meant that the tomb was inside the new walls built by Hadrian which is why they didn't believe the local tradition at first because the Gospels say it was outside the walls. As we now know the site is outside the pre 135.A.D walls.

Was the tradition correct maybe, maybe not. The fact that there was a tomb found where the tradition said it was, and it is outside the pre 135A.D. walls gives it a fairly high probability of being correct.

Well, I tell you what, since you and I are both nonbody's, I suggest we find out what the majority of experts say on this question: What is the probability that the tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the very tomb in which Jesus was buried?

And I have NEVER stated that the Resurrection is "false". I have stated it is highly improbable.

[rakovsky]

Yes, never mind Catholic and Orthodox scholars who wouldn't dare state that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a fourth century fraud!

Are there any who say this?
I don't know of any, but I would not be amazed, just curious.

[DesertBerean]

Is there an Eastern Orthodox Scholar you are referring to? Which article? Any good?

He is mistakenly referring to an article written by a Baptist.

ETA: yeah, he links to it in his post below.

[Gary]

Is there an Eastern Orthodox Scholar you are referring to? Which article? Any good?

The author isn't Orthodox, he is Baptist. He makes many assumptions, so no, I wouldn't say it is good. Interesting, yes.

https://israelpalestineguide.files.w...tives-pics.pdf

[psstein]

When you use "redact" you are simply saying "made up".

No, I'm not. Redaction can involve clarifying material. For example, the Genesis Apocryphon redacts Genesis 15 when it clarifies that Abram gives a tithe to Melchizedek (that might be the other way around; I don't have a DSS translation in front of me). In the Hebrew, the text is ambiguous.

Redaction can also involve removing embarrassing material (when Jesus' family thinks he's insane in Mk. 6).

Redaction is much more complex than just making material up.

[psstein]

The written attestation of Jewish law need not coincide with its origin. Most scholars accept that the Mishnah preserves older tradition. I certainly see no reason to doubt that here.

Yes and no. You can't necessarily point at the Mishnah and say "this is what Second Temple Judaism was like." You have to sift the material carefully.

Geza Vermes' work was especially good at understanding how Rabbinic material interfaced with Second Commonwealth Judaism.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

"For given the significance of the tombs of saints at the time of Jesus it can be presupposed that had Jesus' tomb been known, the early Christians would have venerated it and traditions about it would have been preserved." - Gerd Luedemann, The Resurrection of Jesus, pg. 45

"This world of sacred tombs was a real element of the environment in which the earliest community lived. It is inconceivable that, living in this world, it could have allowed the tomb of Jesus to be forgotten. That is all the more the case since for it the one who had lain in the tomb was more than one of those just men, martyrs, and prophets." Joachim Jeremias, Heiligengraber in Jesu Umwelt, pg. 145.

"There was in this period an increasing Jewish veneration of the tombs of the martyrs and prophets." - Raymond Brown, Death of the Messiah, pg. 1280.

"During Jesus's time there was an extraordinary interest in the graves of Jewish martyrs and holy men and these were scrupulously cared for and honored." - William Lane Craig

"Of the many Jewish shrines of the Middle East, some of which are undoubtedly of very great antiquity, the most famous were traditionally the supposed tombs of the prophet Ezekiel at el-Kifl and of Ezra the Scribe at Kurna, both in Babylonia (modern Iraq)." - Nicholas de Lange

"Was (the Resurrection) that not in itself reason enough to note and remember and cherish the site, regardless of whether it contained Jesus' remains or not?" - Alexander Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, pg. 64

Matthew 23:29


Luke 11:47
"Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed."

"The fact that the tomb of Jesus was unknown and that at first people had no relics does not seem to have disturbed anyone for 300 years. On the other hand, one can detect from the tremendous power of the Turin shroud what would have happened had the tomb of Jesus with all its magic properties in fact been known. However, no one seems to have missed it. Of course people had the legends about the tomb, and the vanished Jesus could be identified without further ado with the heroes and god-men of the pagan past who had similarly vanished without a tomb. The tomb was only "rediscovered" when it was needed. That it was found under a temple of Venus as the "cave of salvation" in the year 326 CE, as Eusebius reports in his Life of Constantine (III, 25-30), could hardly be misunderstood in the politics of religion. The background was again a magical one, as is confirmed by the first representations of the tomb of Christ which appeared in art around 400 CE: they also appear on ampullae of pilgrims, which probably served apotropaic ends." - Hans Dieter Betz, Zum Problem der Auferstehung Jesu in Hellenismus und Urchristentum, Gesammelte Aufsatze 1, pg. 246.

Eusebius says the location of the tomb was previously unknown - "For, that the monument of his most holy Passion, so long ago buried beneath the ground, should have remained unknown for so long a series of years, until its reappearance to his servants now set free through the removal of him who was the common enemy of all, is a fact which truly surpasses all admiration." - Life of Constantine III, ch. 30.

So even if there was a pagan temple constructed on the actual site, we're supposed to believe that no early Christians preserved the tradition of where their Risen Lord was buried? They just failed to tell their descendants? And the location remained unknown for 300 years? Really?

And before anyone says "b-b-but they didn't venerate it because Jesus' body wasn't there", that's just a red herring. This was the only site in history where an actual resurrection by God happened. That's why it would have had significance. Moreover, this objection backfires as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre became venerated without Jesus' body. Obviously, his remains were not a requirement.

[DesertBerean]

I'm beginning to understand the problems of arguing from silence.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

I'm beginning to understand the problems of arguing from silence.

Do you understand the importance of them too?

Are you aware that arguments from silence can be valid under certain circumstances?

For instance, the Gospels say that the location of Jesus' tomb was known. However, there's no record of veneration or the actual location for about 300 years. That's a pretty strong argument from silence since we'd expect to see something. I mean it's supposedly the exact location where God raised Jesus from the dead. You'd think that might be significant to some of the followers of Jesus. The absence of any record is good evidence that there was no such tomb.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

Yes and no. You can't necessarily point at the Mishnah and say "this is what Second Temple Judaism was like." You have to sift the material carefully.

Geza Vermes' work was especially good at understanding how Rabbinic material interfaced with Second Commonwealth Judaism.

Likewise, we can't point to the gospels and say "look, see Jesus was buried in Joseph's own tomb." I'm familiar with Vermes, Neusner, Aus, and others. I'm not as ignorant as you make it seem and tend to have the same reaction every time you respond to me - "tell me something I don't know."

[Gary]

Will Nick, Stein, or Adrift please admit that scholarship (Magness) states that first century Jews in first century Palestine often moved recently dead bodies from one burial site to another and that such an action would not have violated Jewish law or custom?