angelo

That's the exact thing apologist use to explain the similarities.
The winner takes it all. The victor writes the history, not the vanquished.
Had Constantine adopted Apollonius and his followers instead of christianity, perhaps millions of people would be atheist already by now.

Amaleq13

In fairness to Steve, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the author of Luke intended his two suddenly appearing and shining men to be understood as angels. Even if he had not had the women later describe them as such, I would still be inclined toward that conclusion due to the sudden nature of their appearance and their shining garments.

Unlike Mark's young man in white, suddenly appearing out of nowhere in shining garments does suggest something supernatural about the men.

The fact that Mark mentions a similarly anonymous (albeit naked) young man during the arrest scene is yet more ammunition against Steve's baseless assumption about the young man in white in the tomb. The rather obvious possible connection between the naked, fleeing young man who followed Jesus and young man clothed in white who recalled Jesus' repeated instrucitons has been noted by several scholars, I believe.

sschlichter

yes, Matthew says one angel, the they was accidental.

Weren't you recently accusing all the Christians of being unable to read the gospels independantly without drawing from one another. The supernatural event is the resurrection - the men in the context of a visit to the supermarket would not be assumed as Angels. Young men wearing white in the accompaniment of the resurrection from the dead forces a closer look.



No, they are all wearing immaculately white robes. Matthew says their countenance is shining in the same way that Stephen when stoned in Acts had the countenance of an Angel.


first of all, their was nothing snide or derogatory about my remark. You, on the other hand felt the need to include the image of a televangelist somehow equating my argument with one who sells fake miracles. That strikes me as snide.

However, the only miracle I am interested in is the empty tomb next to the young man. I am not suggesting it is an Angel because it has to be. I am sugesting that the young man is supernatural because he is announcing the resurrection. If you read the young man to be a man, that is fine with me. It is unlikely that is the authors intent. Matthew and Luke both concur they are Angels, Luke also refers to the Angels as young men so their is a precedent for that. Mark is obviously saying the same thing because the young man is wearing white robes and announcing a resurrection.

~Steve

sschlichter

I will take any fairness I can get.

As far as Marks young men.

One young man...

(Mark 14:51) A young man was following him, wearing only a linen cloth. They tried to arrest him, (Mark 14:52) but he ran off naked, leaving his linen cloth behind.

The other young man...

(Mark 16:5) Then as they went into the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.
(Mark 16:6) But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised! He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him.
(Mark 16:7) But go, tell his disciples, even Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you."

What do you propose are the similarities and the meaning behind them?

Amaleq13

I'm proposing the obvious (ie the two anonymous young men closely associated with Jesus are the same guy).

Anonymous

Young

Male

Followed Jesus/Recalled Jesus' repeated central instruction/prediction = close association

Stripped naked/clothed in white = purity?

I don't know whether they really are supposed to be the same guy and I don't know what the varying descriptions of him meant to Mark or his audience, if they are the same figure, but I do know there is nothing supernatural about the description of him in the tomb.

thentian

I tend to agree, but I'm still puzzled as to why the women call them "vision of angels".

Another interesting thing is that gPeter uses the expression "a certain young man", which (to me at least) echoes another "certain young man" who ran with Peter to the sepulchre and arrived there before him. Is it the same story element in different versions?

Obvious to you perhaps, but you should know that atheists who don't take the position that it was all fabricated in the 2nd century, takes the position that it is a story that has developed over time, and (usually) that there was a "source" story prior to Mark.

angelo

Of course it's a story that developed over time. Corpses don't suddenly revive and walk out of their tombs.
If it was so, it would have been the single most spectacular miracle to have ever happened since the Big Bang, and would be written in each and every historical book of that period. All over the known world writers would make mention of it.
That apart from the gospels, there is not a whisper anywhere about such a stupendous event can only prove that it's a myth.

James Brown

Wow, I thought you had me on ignore, because you've ignored all my points for the past several days, even posts where I explicitly asked you to clarify your statements so that I could respond.

This sounds like begging the question. It was a real resurrection because it was accompanied by angels, and they really are angels because it involved a resurrection.

Now I think you are embellishing. Mark doesn't say "immaculate" and immaculate can have a non-supernatural meaning.

Oh, so it's possible for a Biblical character to have a shining face but not be an angel? And I'm curious if the author of Acts truly ever saw an angel to compare with Stephen. If someone says, "He looks like an angel," you take that as a data point about what a real angel looks like?

So then, if angels take on the appearance of men, and if men sometimes look like angels, on what basis do we conclude that Mark's young man is really an angel?

The toga party remark seemed a little off. Okay, I apologize.

The point of the image had nothing to do with fake miracles, although "Leap of Faith" is a wonderful cautionary tale of the gullibility of the faithful and the amazing resilience of their faith in the face of firm evidence of duplicity, but that's for another thread.

As has been explained before in this thread, there are other non-supernatural reasons why the tomb would be empty. Here's just one: Josephus has to quickly get Jesus into a temporary tomb before sundown on Friday, and early on Sunday morning he moves Jesus body to its final resting place. Mark's naked young man (having obtained new clothes--white in this case) arrives and sees the empty tomb. He remembers Jesus' teaching and concludes that he resurrected. He is sitting in the tomb to ponder this when Mary and the other women arrive. They're startled to see an open tomb and the young man sitting in it, and he tells them what he wrongly deduced--that Jesus is risen. The women exit the scene.

Remember, Mark's young man said, "He is risen." He didn't say, "I saw him rise from the dead." As far as we know, no one saw Jesus' eyes flutter open, nor saw him sit up and walk away. When I walk through a graveyard and see an open grave, the first thing that I conclude is NOT that a resurrection must have occurred, not even if some strange man tugs my sleeve and swears the corpse is walking around somewhere.

But this thread is not about the absurdity of a resurrection, but about contradictory elements in the stories. And you yourself have begun referring to Mark's single young man, which contradicts Luke's and John's pair of individuals.

Here's a question: if a long lost gospel were suddenly discovered that said it was three angels that announced the resurrection, would you then adjust your thinking to have three young men sitting in Mark's tomb with only one as spokesman? What about four angels, all sitting in an increasingly crowded tomb? What about a heavenly host to parallel Jesus' birth? Is there any number that would disqualify Mark as a reliable chronicler?

After all, that's what happened already, isn't it? Mark's gospel was first with his single young man. One or two decades later, Luke says it was two men (later identified as angels) and every apologist had to adjust his/her thinking. Suddenly Mark really meant two men/angels--he only wrote about the one because the second didn't actually say or do anything. Most apologists have been able to make this adjustment without even breathing hard.

So with that precedent, isn't it possible that Mark really meant three angels--provided another legitimate gospel said so? Or four?

On the other hand, if Mark's story can be retconned to turn one character into two--all thanks to the latecomer Luke' story--then why couldn't that character turn from a man to an angel for the same reason?

Amaleq13

I don't understand your confusion. According to Strong's, the word optasia means, in this context: a sight, a vision, an appearance presented to one whether asleep or awake. What other word would you expect?

andrewcriddle

Whether or not a claim is helpful to apologists is irrelevant to its truth and/or plausibility.

It is at least prima-facie plausible that an early 3rd century text with significant similarities to late 1st century texts has been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the earlier works.

Andrew Criddle