Alf

Blah, you are right. I don't know why my brain just had a mixup there.

Sorry about that.

Alf

Faldage

Forget Santa. How many eyewitnesses have seen Elvis since he died?

NZSkep

not to mention the huge numbers of peopl who not only have seen aliens, but been abducted and probed anally by them. They can't all be wrong can they?

or what about the hundreds of people who saw david copperfield make the statue of liberty dissapear or walk straight through the great wall of china?

alexjohnc3

This is my father's response to Alf, even though I told him I had gotten what Alf wrote from articles I looked up because I wasn't sure how'd he react if I told him I was on the "Internet Infidels Discussion Forum". Better safe then sorry. =P

There are records of the crucifixion. There are also birth and death records. The Romans were good at that.

This is an opinion. The writings of Josephus are well documented.

CS Lewis says that anyone who says that he is God in human form MUST either be telling the truth, or be nuts. No sane person would claim to be God if he was just mistaken.

Wrong! Jesus never says "I am God." However, there are at least 4 references in which he claims that "I and the Father are one."

In many recent manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of the original New Testament letters of Paul and others have been found to be unchanged from the original. We have had many translations from the original Greek and Aramaic to make the language more readable, but never to change the meaning.

Wrong conclusion, not based on facts, only conjecture.

The miracles of Jesus are well documented in the independent writings of the 4 gospel writers, many corroborated by interviews with his Mother and Mary Madeline.

The Jewish leaders wanted him dead, not stoned. They had to try twice to get it by Pilot. He approved the crucifixion only to get rid of the Jewish politicians.

No, it was Mary Magdalene who let the dejected apostles know that He had risen. It was only after Jesus appeared to the apostles after he had risen that they planned the creation of His church.

The Romans left Jesus on the cross. When Mary arranged a tomb for burial over the Sabbath, the Romans sent a guard so that his body would not be stolen. The Jewish leaders insisted on the Roman guard and convinced Pilot to send one.

Thomas was one of the original 12 apostles. He was not in the upper room when the two Marys told of the news of his rising from the dead.

So what?

The writer is strongly opinionated, but not too smart or he would have at least spell-checked his work. He does not cite any source for his claim of the intelligence of atheists or the lack of intelligence of believers.

Remember that it is very easy to render an opinion on an issue about which you know very little, but very difficult for the expert who knows enough to NOT render an opinion on a subject about which there remains some doubt.

Edit: My response, from just a few minutes ago:

Also:

Alf

You did a good job even though what you quote as if I wrote it wasn't exactly written by me - I didn't write those caps for example :-)

Yes, but no records has been found of crucifixtion of any Jesus, Yoshua etc. We know that people were crucified back in those days - it was a common roman way of punishing people before they died.

Well it is more than just an opinion. You will be hard pressed to find historians who claim that Josephus writings has NOT been tampered with.

That doesn't take into account the situation that he has been misrepresented. If someone ELSE claimed he was god, then that person could be nuts, mistaken or telling the truth. However, as the writers of the gospels are anonymous people it is hard to verify their sanity at this moment. Another thing is that it is also quite possible that the original gospel writers never made any such claim but that it has been added in later by later redactions of the gospels - these things are things we know did take place a lot in the early days of the church.

Wrong. We don't know he made such a claim. We know that the gospels claim he made such a claim. There are multiple sources for errors here:

1. The gospel writer could be msitaken.
2. The gospel writer never made the claim but some later copyist inserted the phrase in order to "prove" the trinity.
3. The person who told the gospel writer could make the claim but was mistaken. The gospel writers were not eyewitnesses and did not hear it from Jesus mouth' themselves, they heard it from second hand, third hand or fourth hand sources - as Luke says "as it has been handed down to us".
4. Of course, in all the situations above where I say they could be mistaken one also have the options that they are loonie or telling the truth.

However, given that there are so many in between Jesus' mouth and us reading it in the gospels, the chance of someone somewhere having mistaken or redacted the gospels to fit with theological dogma is overwhelming.

From what I understand the greek language that was used by many of those letters leave a lot of room for interpretation. Which is why there are so many VERSIONS of the bible floating around today.

Yes, I know you have the catholic bible which is different from the protestant bible and then you have the fact that the old testament of both are very different from the jewish holy books and of course also very different from the islamic version of the old testament but in addition to this you also have lots of different versions within a denomination. You have KJV, you have the NASV and NASB etc etc etc.

So how is it again that the dead sea scrolls are very close and unchanged through the translations? Yes, I don't dispute that certain paragraphs has been unchanged. After all Paul is the founder of the christian religion and his core theology is kept in place. Keep in mind though that Paul NEVER wrote about "Jesus" - he writes about "Christ". A small perhaps but significant distinction. Yes, I know that in many of these modern bible translations they tend to confuse this since Jesus is christ to all christians but it is worth keeping in mind. If you find any dead sea scroll that include the gospels as we read them today and find them unchanged, you would have a stronger point.

The jews were adamant about their view on God. God to them could not possibly be a human - any such claim would be considered blasphemy. Only the heathens believed that their god could assume human form - that was something that occurred in the Greek tales, for example in Homer's writings. It is not something that took place in jewish religion.

After all, why do you think that the jews has for the most part rejected the claims the christians has made?

For one they are not independent. We can see that Luke and Matthew has independently of each other copied large chunks of Mark. Thus, although Luke and Matthew are independent of each other and Mark is of course independent of both neither of them are independent of Mark.

Also, the gospel writers have an agenda. They want him to stand out by claiming "unlike all the others, this guy is genunie". If I were to show a magic trick to some gullible person who believed I really could do magic as a result, and he then called out to you to come and look at this guy he does a REAL magic trick, would you believe him? Of course, you know that magic tricks are just fake. Back in those days most people did not know that magic tricks was just fake, they believed it was real and guess what? The christians was exactly those gullible uneducated people who believed in such stuff. The early church was generally looked down upon by the educated elite of Rome exactly because it was for the most part uneducated gullible people that filled the ranks. It took some time before the church had some educated people among themselves. Even Paul - the founder and one of the leaders of the early church didn't exactly have much in the way of education even though he was probably comparatively much better than the average member.

Where are those interviews with Mary and Mary Magdalene? Care to point out those interviews to us?

That doesn't sound credible. If they wanted him tried for blasphemy as the christians claim, it would be a jewish trial and a jewish punishment - stoning. Anything else would simply not be acceptable according to jewish law. These laws were not only there for punishment etc they were - or so the jews believed - installed by Yahweh himself and so they should be followed. If stoning was the method, then stoning was what you were supposed to do - not crucifiction. Crucifiction is a roman form of punishment - not jewish.
This indicates that it was the romans who took him, arrested him, tried him and executed him and they couldn't care less about blasphemy charges. If they took him it was because they considered him a trouble maker not a blasphemist. Why would a roman care if some guy was blaspheming the jews?

Details - I don't argue about that it was Mary who let them know etc. However, I am not so sure that they planned the creation of the church at this time. As far as I know it was Paul who founded the church. Yes, I know it says that Peter did and it is possible that Peter did found a church but Paul denounced his authority - I believe the Acts tells about that. The church we have today is Paul's church, not Peter's church and certainly not Jesus' church.

Why would they send a guard? Why would the romans care if someone stole the body or not? They would have thrown the body to the dogs - that is what they usually did with people who were crucified.

I know this is the legend as we hear it today. The point is, what did REALLY happen? We don't know and we cannot know perhaps. What is certain is that the bible is not reliable as a historic document.

The point is that Thomas is used in this story to make a theological point. We don't know that the events described really took place and most likely they did not. Here is the situation of the gospel writer:

Hmm.. many people will not believe this story. However, I believe it is true. Now these people they saw what happened. What if one them doubt - I can use Thomas - if he did not hear the story and so he doubt that Jesus had risen, then he represent all those who doubt. They can identify with him. Now, Jesus can then tell him that blessed be those who do not see and yet believe. Now, THAT is a good argument and so those who doubt can be at ease in their hearts.

The point is, it is completely irrelevant if it really happened or not. The gospels is a theological document - not a historical document. The point was that they wanted to make theological points, they wanted to show what christianity is, what does it mean to be christian, how should a christian act or think in various situations in life. How can we help people become better christians.

These were the things that concerned the gospel writers. If the events really took place or not was of little or no concern to them.

How do we know this? Well we know this partly because the style of the writing. For example some writers put events in a different order than others. It wasn't important that it really happened there and then, what was important was the theological points to be learned from them. If it was one man or two men that Jesus met at a place is of less importance, what was important was what he said to them - the theological dogma.

This means that the gospels are perfect in describing what christanity is. However, it also means that they are hopeless in figuring out what really happened or put these things in a historical context. True, some times they try to put things in historical context. For example Luke mention that Jesus was born when a Augustus decreed a census for "the whole world". However, Luke was wrong. The first such census where "the whole world" (i.e. the roman empire) was involved was around 80 AD. Most likely Luke wrote his gospel around that time and just assumed that the census that took place in Judea around 6 AD was also a "world wide" census. It was not.

So, in the few places where they do try to put things in historical setting they often get it wrong.

Well, it does indicate that perhaps this story is not as simple and straight forward as a modern reader of the gospel might think. Some of the things are legends built into the story, it is a mix of perhaps factual events (some guy- possibly a cult member or cult leader - get crucified) and then this legend which states that a god like being is to be crucified and rise on the third day. Put these together and you get that this guy was god and he must have risen on the third day.

Thus, even if he never did rise from the dead and the guy who were crucified were thrown to the dogs, they would start to believe this. Of course, in that case they couldn't believe he was thrown to the dogs so up appears a story of how someone arranged a tomb for him to be buried in etc etc.

Probably true.

I believe I am smarter than average. I don't think I am the smartest though. There are many people here who are probably smarter than me.

I wonder how he figured out that I am "not too smart"? (It is a rhetoric question, the answer follows shortly).

Just because I am lazy doesn't mean I am not smart. I don't consider a forum such as this to be a place where you have to write perfect english at all times.

In any case, if he can write perfect norwegian I promise I will improve upon my english.

Finally the ad hominem is over. For one thing I did not claim that belivers lack intelligence.

I did claim that on average the atheists - at least in the circles that I frequent - tend to be peopel of higher education and they tend to score high on IQ tests.

You can also turn this the other way and find that people who are scientists for example are generally atheists. While the general population have very few atheists, the ratio of atheists among scientists is much higher.

True, there are many reasons for this. One is that the number of scientists are few and so you might have some fluctuation and it does not have to mean a trend. Another thing might be that scientists are often skeptical and so that tend to make many of them atheists.

It does not mean that believers are dumb and I never claimed that.

For example you can just check this forum. The typical fundie theist comes in and make an outrageous claim. Then one by one the atheists call him on his bluffs and show that his logic is faulty. This has happened so many times that I am getting tired to wade through them all. I am not saying that all atheists are rational. Sure, there are some odd theories from some atheists also - just today I encountered one. However, they are few and far between compared to the fundamentalists who produce volumes upon volumes of posts where it ends up with "I believe because I want to believe". Usually after first making "undeniable proof that God exist" and then ending up wityh the aforementioned post after his "undeniable proof" has proven to be "deniable".

I didn't provide sources because I took it as "commonly known". I believe there are several polls that can document this. I can probably dig up one if he really want one but I doubt he seroiusly dispute this.

My point in the above was that while if you study physics and you later make a statement concerning physics, we can take your statement as an "expert witness" or as an "authority". Simialrly, a theologian can also act as an authority on "the history of the bible" or "early church history" or even as authority on "what is accepted interpretation of a specific bible quote according to the religion that the theologian subscribe to". He might even act as an authority to other interpretations for other variants if has enough knowledge about those.

However, when it comes to the central questions of christianity "Is there a god?" or "Did Jesus really exist and do all the things the bible claim he did?" The theologian knows exactly as much as you and I or anyone else - exaclty zero. He takes it on faith and he believes it is true, but he does not and cannot possibly know for sure.

It is in this manner a theologian is very different from a physics professor.

1. Yes, that is what they claim. However, if it truly is the word of god, why are there so many errors in it? Didn't god know about these errors? Didn't he care? Is he unaware that many different people interpret these words differently and that people have been going to war and still going to war over interpretation of the bible. Protestants and catholics are still fighting each other in Northern Ireland and catholics and orthodox christians have been fighting each other in Yugoslavia.

So, if it is truly god's word, how come all those problems. Why is the bible so full of erros and contradictions?

2. Exactly, good point.

3. Again, exactly. Also there are other possible reasons. For example someone could have put it in there AFTER they have figured out that the trinity is something cool to believe in. He mentioned the dead sea scrolls with letters of Paul etc, but he didn't mention the gospels and it is the gospels where the claims he referred to is written. We do not know to what extent they have been modified since they were originally written down.

4. Exactly.

5. I also believe that some of the "false statements" was misunderstood.

The link http://spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbryan.htm doesn't work.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/cl/2000/002/6.36.html
Generally give you emotional reasons why god exist.

Emotional reasons can be all good and fine. I have emotional reasons why I love my wife and I am faithful to her. However, this works because my wife is there and I have rational reasons to back up the fact that she exist. I also have no rational reasons to believe she is cheating on me and so I also have rational reasons why I should be faithful to her. The emotional reasons just support the rational reasons.

The problem is if all you have is emotional reasons. It is also a problem that there are emotional reasons to believe in other gods. The muslim has just as many valid reasons to believe in his god as you do in yours, how then can you choose which one is the right one? It cannot be emotional reasons because they point both ways. What most christians end up with is that they give more weight for their own emotional reasons than they give to the muslim or they even dismiss the muslim's emotional reasons as non-sense and they do this just because.

Another glaring problem with the article is that it gravely misrepresent biology, evolution and science. Be alert whenever the theist uses the term "by chance". In 99 out of 100 cases have they misunderstood evolution or science.

Evolution doesn't claim that we are here as a result of chance. Chance play a part but it is not the only player in town. If chance were the only player, then none of us would be here and the universe would be a complete chaos.

You have several other factors - none of which are random and none of which involve chance. Nature itself is in many ways orderly in that things tend to show repeating patterns. If you drop a rock it falls down - ALWAYS - there is no chance involved. This implies some form of order. In biology you have survival of the fittest. If a species A is "better" than species B and they compete in a certain ecological environment, then chances are that species A will move on while species B will die out and go extinct. Thus, the pattern that emerges is all but random.

Secondly, the article misrepresents the big bang. There is some dubious appeal to authority using terms such as "respected scientist" - I wonder what a "disrespected scientist" look like? That is probably those who disagree with Jastrow.

Morality and ethics can be explained in terms of evolution. We evolved as a social animal and we live in groups, we also have a fairly complex brain so some form of morality must be present to prevent those groups from having so many internal conflicts that they become easy pray to their surroundings and die out. For example even a flock of wolves show some morality - they have rules for what is proper conduct among themselves. If a wolf break those rules he is kicked out of the group. Chimps are even closer to us and show a morality that is at times surprisingly similar to ours. So either God must have created wolves, lions, chimps etc in his own image along with man or morality is something we evolved without God's help.

Next he comes with CS Lewis point again and we have already debated that.

It is from christianity today but it might as well have been christanity several years back. They used arguments and lines of thoughts that was generally many years old.

The next link raises the old question "Why is there something rather than nothing?". Again, I would say this is the wrong question. We know there is something. Why should there be nothing? Is it at all possible to have "nothing"? Does it make sense?

It did to the ancient greek but then they didn't know much about physics. It also made sense to Thomas Aquinas but then he didn't know much aboout modern physics either.

Does it make sense to us? Not really. This "nothing" it presumes is not coherent. If you have "nothing" you don't have time and you dont' have space and you don't have a universe. This nothing cannot exist. If ANYTHING exist in the world we don't have "nothing". So, no, this nothing is not logically possible. We may therefore safely conclude that there never was this nothing and so we cannot conclude that there had to be a god that somehow magically transformed this state of "nothing" to a state of "something".

You also have another problem. The point is that God doesn't solve the dilemma at all. If you say that God can do anything that is logically possible and god thus created something from nothing, then it means it is logically possible that something can come out of nothing. If it is logically possible, then it is also logically possible that it can happen without god. Alternatively you can say it is NOT logically possible and god was necessary in order to make the impossible possible. However, if so, then god can do logically impossible things and then we are back to the old god who can create a being greater than himself and a god who can create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it and a god who can create square circles.

Theists usually avoid these problems by stating that god can only do what is logically possible and then we are back to the original problem.

http://everystudent.com/features/isthere.html
Also use the argument that "so many people believe there is a god so it must be true".

This is not right. Even if many people believe something it does not necessarily mean it is true. True, all people believe that 2 + 2 = 4 so it must be true. Yeah, we partly define it that way and it follows from axioms so we know it is true. The fact that "all people" believe it, is largely irrelevant.

Now, if "all people" believe something that "all people" have reason to know, then you can use it as an argument. Not sure what such a statement would be but if you can think of one I can accept that you can use the argument there. However, the "God exist" isn't one of those. It is ultimately something that nobody can possibly know for sure and so just because 99 percent of a group claimed that it is true is no more reason to believe it than if only one of them claimed it was true. For example if you have a court trial and some newspaper made a poll and 99 percent of the town thought the guy is guilty, does that mean we can condemn him? What if the defense has some pretty good evidence that the general audience hasn't seen yet? The general population hasn't seen god, they believe in god because their parents believe in god (this is the most usual reason even though there are also other reasons). Further, the vast majority does not believe in the christian god. In fact you can pick any god you want and the majority do not believe in that god. Thus, the appeal to "the majoiry of the people" can also be turned the other way, we should NOT believe in the christian god because the majority of the population does not believe in that god. Of course, if we did that, we would make the same error but it shows that this argument goes both ways and is faulty either way.

Another argument is the complexity of the world. Well, this is again an old and tired argument. You cannot point to the world and say "Wow, it is so complex, there must have been a creator who designed it this way".

If you could then you must also say "wow, what a complex designer, he must have been designed and created by an even more complex creator and designer". No, they want nothing of that. Our creator just exist they say. So here is how the argument goes:

1. There are complex things in the world.
2. These complex things must have been created by a designer.
3. Thus there is a god.

However, we can continue...
4. This god is himself very complex.
5. Thus he must have been created by a designer.
6. That designer is himself very complex.
7. Thus, he must himself have been created by another designer.

Of course, what they want to say is that we replace 2 with:
2. Complex things either "just exist" or they have been created by a designer.
2.5: The complex things in the world is of the second type, they were created by a designer.
3. Thus there is a god.
3.5. God is of the other type and he "just exist".

The problem is that if you allow for complex things to "just exist" then you don't need to presume that there is a designer in the first place. The argument is self-defeating.

She also touches upon the "chance". See what I wrote above about "chance". Any theist who uses the phrase "The world cannot arise as a result of mere chance" or something to that effect generally misunderstand science completely. No scientist would ever claim that "mere chance" alone and by itself managed to fix the world to what it is today.

Again, the humankind's inner sense of right and wrong CAN be biologically explained. That the theist assert it cannot does not make that assertion true. She is flat out wrong.

Yes, ultimately they come with the bible as evidence for God. However, the theist must make up his mind. Either he want to allow the bible as "evidence for god". In which case he must allow ANY book as evidence for whatever the book claim or he can say "god exist and this gives the bible authority" in which case the bible is part of the conclusion and not part of the evidence and in which case he is still without any evidence in favor for his god.

Also, we don't know that Jesus claimed to be god. What we know is that the GOSPELS claim Jesus is god. This is not exactly the same thing. Again, we don't know that Jesus performed miracles. We know that the GOSPELS claimes that Jesus performed miracles. Also, it is important to know that many people were believed to perform miracles in those days, people were gullible and just because some guy claimed that some other guy did a miracle doesn't mean that he really did. The gospels are theological documents and not historical documents. Every word that the gospels say Jesus said is there fore theological reasons and not for historical reasons.

Oh well, I could go on but I think you get the idea. Most of these appear to just repeat the same arguments.

Good luck in your search.

Alf

Julian

Alf has done a credible job with this already but I felt that a slightly stronger (and shorter) reply could supplement his post.

BTW, alexjohnc3, I must say that for an 8th grader your language skills are quite excellent.
There are no contemporary records of any kind regarding Jesus, Roman or otherwise.
Josephus's section on Jesus, called the Testamonium Flavianum, is generally accepted as either a partial or a complete forgery.
False dichotomy.
1) He is truthful
2) He is nuts
3) He never said it
4) He said something else and was misunderstood
5) He never existed
6) ...

You see, there are many more options than those two. C.S. Lewis was fond of simpleminded arguments that are all demonstrably wrong or incomplete. Only believers find him convicing.
Jesus and god are the same in John 1:1
The entire NT was written in Greek, specifically κοινη (Koine meaning common) and there have been no NT deocuments found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The gospels were neither copntemporary nor independent. Ask your father to study up on what is called the synoptic problem.

What interviews? No such interviews exist.
Pilate was not in a position where he needed to accommodate the Jews. He was a harsh ruler. Check out Josephus.
For a fun experiment, read the post resurrection story in each of the gospels. You will note that it is completely different in all four gospels. Try and reconcilie them. Not possible.

Your dad seems to be repeating stuff he has heard rather than studying for himself.

Julian

funinspace

Ask him to cite a reference to said documents since he thinks they exist (aka put the onus on him)

There is nothing in there from the NT. Ask him to cite a source if he thinks it exists. We have no original NT sources, only copies. I forget the age of the oldest copies of Paul's letters. The oldest near whole copies of the Gospels is from the end of the second century. This site provides a general background to what was in the caves. At best there is one fragment that some claim to be from Mark:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls

Overall, I would say there are too many differing subjects on the plate at the same time. Many of the claims being presented are based on the assumption that the canon is authoritative. Personally I would focus questions or lines of discussion around establishing the history of the canon first. My 2 cents...

Diogenes the Cynic

There are no records of the crucifixion. There are no birth or death records for Jesus. There are no contemporary records of Jesus' existence whatsoever.
The passage where Josephus refers to Jesus is believed by almost all scholars to be either partially or completely forged. Even if it's partly authentic, Josephus was still not a contemporary of Jesus. The alleged crucifixion happened before Josephus was born.
Lewis' proposition is called the "trilemma" in these kinds of debates. Like others have said, the trilemma falsely presents the issue as if there are only three choices ("liar, lunatic, or lord") when there are actually many other options than that. The main problem is that C.S. Lewis (and your father) are assuming that the gospels present an accurate record of what Jesus said. In FACT, we don't know that Jesus ever said anything like that. We only know that someone else SAYS he said that stuff. It might surprise you to know that most New Testament scholars believe that Jesus probably only said about about a quarter of what is attributed to him in the gospels. One of the things that scholars are most sure he DIDN'T really say is that he was God. Before the trilemma is considered at all, it first has to be proven that Jesus really said what the gospels claim he said. And even if that hurdle could be cleared (so far it never has been) then there are still several holes in Lewis' argument. Why does Jesus have to be good? Why can't a crazy person be "good?" Why can't a good person tell a lie.

Incidentally, the Gospel of John claims Jesus lied to his apostles at least once. Tell your father to read John 7:8-10.
See above. We don't know what Jesus said.

Also, in Aramaic idiom, saying "I and ____ are one" is a figurative way to say that you agree strongly with someone. Even if Jesus said that, how do we know he was not just using a figure of speech that was misundersood after it got translated to Greek?
There are no letters of Paul or anything from the New Testament at all in the Dead Sea Scrolls. All of the NT was written in Greek. There are no Aramaic manuscripts. There has also been a great deal of variation, altered meanings, tampering and error in many translations. The King James Version, for instance, is one of the most wretched.
The authors of the gospels were not witnesses and were not independent. There are no interviews with either Mary or with any other witness. I assume your father is referring to the intro of GLuke with that claim but he's wrong. It's common for apologists to assert that Lk 1:2 is a claim by the author to have spoken to witnesses but a quick check of the verse will tell you how specious that is. The author is claiming only to have studied what was written by others (like the authors of GMark and Q) before him. We also know that Luke wasn't written until at least the mid-90's CE, so the witnesses would have been dead, especially Jesus' mother.
Stoned IS dead. Stoning was a form of execution. Crucifixion was used only by the Romans and in Judea it was used only for acts of sedition or insurrection. If Jesus was crucified, it could only have been because they thought he had threatened or defied Roman authority.

What's really interesting about Mark's trial story (which is shot through with historical errors) is that Jesus is convicted of "blasphemy" for claiming to be the Messiah. Under Jewish law, claiming to be the Messiah is NOT blasphemy. It's not even illegal. Ironically, though, it was illegal under ROMAN law (because claiming to be the King of the Jews was a challenge to Roman authority).
The Romans did not allow crucified criminals to be handed over for burial. Denying a proper burial was part of the punishment. Handing over the body would have been tantamount to an admission that the victim was innocent. It pretty much never happened. The empty tomb story does not appear in Christian tradition until the Gospel of Mark. Paul knows nothing about it. Neither doing the sayings gospels of Thomas or Q. There was no traditional site for the tomb until the 4th century. Hard to believe that the site of the resurrection would not have been known or venerated until 300 years after the event. The simple truth is it never existed. If Jesus was crucified he was either left to rot on the cross or was buried in a common criminals grave whose location would have been unknown to his followers. The empty tomb story was invented 40 years later to serve the theological agenda of Mark.

John A. Broussard

Thank for the exegesis. I've never been much of a bible reader, but I've picked up pieces of it over the years. This is the best quick gathering together of material on the crucifixion myth and it's sequel that I've seen.

I've stored it for later use.

elitejeff123

Just so you know, although it isn't relavent or has anything to do with the OP, i'm a 7th grader, and I'm pretty literate in this forum... although I regret making the idiotic screen-name..