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

[Truthseeker]

"Educated guess"? . . . Nah!

[Gary]

Gary, is this your original work? And, if so, is this, also?

Yes, it is original and yes they are the same. I wrote the article for TW and put a copy of it on my blog today.

Is that somehow a violation of TW rules?

[DesertBerean]

No, but please place a cite somewhere in the post so it is understood this is YOUR work, otherwise there will be confusion.

[psstein]

Yep (as I pointed out to him all the way back in January in the "Does Jesus's Prayer Show Christianity Is False?"), critical Jewish scholar Geza Vermes put it best when he said,

Source: Jesus the Jew by Geza Vermes

When every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be that the opinions of the orthodox, the liberal sympathizer, and the critical agnostic alike--and even perhaps of the disciples themselves--are simply interpretations of the one disconcerting fact: namely that the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation, not a body, but an empty tomb.

© Copyright Original Source

But Adrift, clearly Vermes is a crypto-conservative Christian.

The number of straw men and begged questions in Gary's diatribe is ridiculous. "Conservative Christians" don't believe the gospels are four separate, independent accounts. The early church certainly didn't hold to such a view. As usual, Gary ignores the other evidence usually adduced to suggest that Jesus' body was not left on the cross... but that's not a surprise to anybody.

The burial in Mark satisfies the criterion of embarrassment and seems to actually fit with our knowledge of Jewish burial practices.

[Gary]

I am an outspoken atheist, and a consummate skeptic. While I remain agnostic on the historicity of the Empty Tomb pericopes, I certainly find it plausible that the narratives which we have might find their origin in an actual, historical discovery of an empty tomb.

In fact, it seems to me that a spreading tale of women discovering Jesus of Nazareth's tomb to be empty would have been precisely the sort of catalyst we would expect to jumpstart a grieving community's belief that its teacher had been raised from the dead.

We don't even have to look too far back in history to find analogous sorts of legends accruing about religious leaders. On January 27th, 1986, the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, died. Now, while you and I realize that everyone is destined to die, someday, the idea that LRH might expire like a normal person was complete anathema to true believers in Scientology. So, when the CoS issued a statement that LRH had "causitively dropped his body" because he had exhausted all the research which could be done in the physical realm, Scientologists believed it wholeheartedly. To this day, even though the coroner's reports are freely available on the Internet, there are still Scientologists who believe that LRH is spiritually alive and that his body remains preserved and strong, awaiting his return so that he might spread his newest discoveries from the spiritual realm to the CoS.

In my mind, if some women really did go to a tomb expecting to find Jesus' corpse, but found nothing there instead, this would be some rather powerful fuel awaiting just a small spark. For example, two guys walking to Emmaus, meeting a cryptic stranger, and later thinking, "That must have been Jesus!"

Christians frequently bring up the issue of women finding the empty tomb as proof it is historical since the testimony of women was usually not accepted in the courts in first century Palestine. But think about this: Maybe that is exactly why the author of Mark invented this detail! If no one is going to demand that the women be brought forward to confirm the testimony because everyone knew that no one would believe the testimony of women anyway, the author was free to make up this story and get away with it! If he had used men, the men could have been brought before a court to testify as to the truthfulness of this claim.

And remember, Peter was dead when the Gospel of Mark was written so no one could interview him about his part in the Empty Tomb story. And that leaves the "beloved disciple"...whoever that was...

But wait...the original Gospel of Mark doesn't have any MEN seeing the resurrected Jesus!!! The author would not have had to prove anything since his sources were a bunch of...WOMEN!

[DesertBerean]

Somebody with a Mideast mentality of that era invents a detail about women witnesses hoping they wouldn't be called forward? Names being given and all???? Seriously???

Bwhahahahaaaaaahaaaahaaaa!

:

[One Bad Pig]

*Yawn* This again?

What is new that you haven't said here or here or here or here?

It's like you keep running away from prior refutations or something. I will keep linking to your old threads.

[Gary]

In response to a quick look at the conclusion of the original post ...

In many ways, from the perspective of the Romans, was crucified for the appeasement of the Jewish religious leaders. To this purpose, the Romans may have also felt it was sufficient to bring forth Jesus' death but didn't feel it was required to take all the actions related to crucifixion for rebellion, for example. I shall continue on this element of rebellion against the Roman Empire.

The circumstances were strongly against this situation being interpreted as rebellion by the Jews. In fact there is very little to even suggest that a mob of Jews were following Jesus in a political movement to overthrow the government. Attesting to the lack of political support behind Jesus, the Jewish leaders themselves had brought up the charges against Jesus. The Romans then could have readily seen the whole situation as just internal bickering among the Jews.

This is just a quick assessment from memory. But we get a glimpse into a situation that was not typical and does not promote the conclusion found in the original post.

Many, many assumptions in your statement.

I provided evidence that it was a rare exception for the Romans to give the body of a person executed by crucifixion to his family and even rarer still if he were crucified for high treason. I also provided evidence that Pilate could have cared less for Jewish religious sensitivities.

You, on the other hand. have only provided assumptions. Is it possible that Pilate did a favor for the Jews this once? Sure. But the evidence demonstrates this act would have been very unlikely.

[Meh Gerbil]

Christians frequently bring up the issue of women finding the empty tomb as proof it is historical since the testimony of women was usually not accepted in the courts in first century Palestine. But think about this: Maybe that is exactly why the author of Mark invented this detail! If no one is going to demand that the women be brought forward to confirm the testimony because everyone knew that no one would believe the testimony of women anyway, the author was free to make up this story and get away with it! If he had used men, the men could have been brought before a court to testify as to the truthfulness of this claim.

And remember, Peter was dead when the Gospel of Mark was written so no one could interview him about his part in the Empty Tomb story. And that leaves the "beloved disciple"...whoever that was...

But wait...the original Gospel of Mark doesn't have any MEN seeing the resurrected Jesus!!! The author would not have had to prove anything since his sources were a bunch of...WOMEN!

Nobody here denies that it is possible the whole resurrection was faked.
The problem is that describing the possibility doesn't make the possibility true.

Each Christian here has probably entertained the idea that the resurrection was faked at one point or another and decided to go with the Biblical account instead.
We already know the alternate theories and regurgitating them doesn't make them anymore believable.

[Cow Poke]

Yes, it is original and yes they are the same. I wrote the article for TW and put a copy of it on my blog today.

Is that somehow a violation of TW rules?

Calm yourself, I was just asking.

[Bill the Cat]

Yes, Google "9 arguments against the empty tomb"

Because Google is the proper way to actually do research...

[Gary]

Skeptics love to downplay that because that's probably the greatest, or at least one of the greatest, black eyes to the suggestion of an invented legend -- women heroically venturing to the tomb; male pillars of the church cowering behind locked doors. Yeah, they invented it that way lol.

If the Empty Tomb story is true; if it is historical; then the claim that women discovered it improves its believability due to the criteria of embarrassment: The author believed this claim to be fact and even though it would be tough to prove as fact because the testimony of women was not seen as reliable, he included this detail in the story anyway.

However, if the Empty Tomb story is a fictional invention, the claim that women found the tomb would be the perfect cover. The author had to have someone find an empty tomb for anyone to believe that an Empty Tomb existed, but he couldn't just invent anyone as the alleged eyewitnesses to this event because these men might be called to testify under oath and prove his story was an invention. So what did the author do: He cleverly invented characters who he could claim found an empty tomb...but whose testimony would not be considered credible in court and therefore no one would insist on interrogating the "eyewitnesses" for this story!

And if anyone asked why Paul nor Peter had ever preached about an empty tomb, the author could say, "Because the women ran away and told no one" which is exactly what the author of Mark said in the original Gospel of Mark!

[Meh Gerbil]

If the Empty Tomb story is true; if it is historical; then the claim that women discovered it improves its believability due to the criteria of embarrassment: The author believed this claim to be fact and even though it would be tough to prove as fact because the testimony of women was not seen as reliable, he included this detail in the story anyway.

However, if the Empty Tomb story is a fictional invention, the claim that women found the tomb would be the perfect cover. The author had to have someone find an empty tomb for anyone to believe that an Empty Tomb existed, but he couldn't just invent anyone as the alleged eyewitnesses to this event because these men might be called to testify under oath and prove his story was an invention. So what did the author do: He cleverly invented characters who he could claim found an empty tomb...but whose testimony would not be considered credible in court and therefore no one would insist on interrogating the "eyewitnesses" for this story!

And if anyone asked why Paul nor Peter had ever preached about an empty tomb, the author could say, "Because the women ran away and told no one" which is exactly what the author of Mark said in the original Gospel of Mark!

It's fine to throw that out there but you've no hope of proving any of it.
If you're looking to destroy Christianity you'll have to do quite a bit better than this mess.

[mikewhitney]

Many, many assumptions in your statement.

I provided evidence that it was a rare exception for the Romans to give the body of a person executed by crucifixion to his family and even rarer still if he were crucified for high treason. I also provided evidence that Pilate could have cared less for Jewish religious sensitivities.

You, on the other hand. have only provided assumptions. Is it possible that Pilate did a favor for the Jews this once? Sure. But the evidence demonstrates this act would have been very unlikely.

I noticed a weird proposal, a strawman in a sense, made in the original post.

So is it possible that the Sanhedrin caught Pilate on a good day and were able to persuade him to give them the body of the crucified Jesus, the self-proclaimed "King of the Jews"

The first thing weird about this is the idea that the Sanhedrin would be interested in having the body of Christ. I suppose you just added this as a hypothetical. It is interesting however that Matt 27:57-58 mentioned that a rich man man the request to Pilate. Are you saying that a rich man would not have anything sufficient to bribe Pilate with?

You speak of things being unlikely. But you assume conventional circumstances. Did anyone claim that the circumstances were typical here? In the other way of looking at things we could say that a resurrection isn't typical. Christians would also admit that resurrection is atypical -- not a daily event. Your proof would need to address the sense that the unlikely things could not have the exception described. If you have a separate account detailing the events of that day of the crucifixion, please enter the evidence of that account into the record. Otherwise you deal in generalities in attempt to speak against testimony recorded in the first century.

[Gary]

No, but please place a cite somewhere in the post so it is understood this is YOUR work, otherwise there will be confusion.

Since when do I have to cite myself as the author when I write a post?