Jayhawker Soule

The critique argues, in part:It is unclear to me how one determines what "would rarely ever be done" by an angel, or, for that matter, the differential angelic effort of one technique over another. Nevertheless, the image of an angel, wings outstretched, moving some slab by flopping it end over end seems a bit incongruous.

Ted Hoffman

Heh, heh, you are right!
But maybe there was a burial. That was later surrounded by myth no?

mike_decock

I think the round tomb blocking stone casts a shadow of doubt on an actual burial. If the author was really describing a rolling stone which wasn't widely used for about 40 years, it puts the event closer to the realm of purely mythical rather than historical.

Lets say I write a story today in which the hero died in a car crash in 1960. In the story, I describe the car as being one of those electric cars which didn't exist back then. Electric cars didn't become publicly available for another 40 years. My story would be classified as pure fantasy, no?

How long in the future would it have to be before my story appeared credible? 100 years? 200 years? 300 years? How long would it take before 1960 and 2000 had been lumped together as a single "era"?

-Mike...

Vinnie

Why? Who said the closing was in the pre-Gospel tradition about the burial?

Mark wrote about 70 ad. Rolling stones or boulders were not used until about 110 ad?

Just thought I would add that Matthew seems to make the connection (notice the bold):

57As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. 58Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. 59Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

I don't think anyone can explain why it would be unlikely that the evangelists would accord what they deemed "a proper burial" for their king. It could be argued that for non-eyewitnesses who never saw where Jesus was buried or knew where, were not going to attribute a common burial to him.

John 19:39b Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.

That many spices seems entirely unreasonable and scholars have sought to explain it away. It is very large and it seems questionable how they could find so much on short notice. But its not large in comparison to the amount of spices at royal burials. As Brown notes, "Five hundred servants were required to carry the spices (pl. of aroma) at the burial of Herod the Great (Josephus, War 1.33.9; #673; Ant. 17.8.3, #199). Later rabbinic sources (TalBaba 'Aboda Zara 11a: Semahot ['Ebel Rabbati'] 8.6 [47a]) speak of seventy or eighty minas being burned at the death (ca. AD 50?) of Rabban Gamaliel the Elder, who "was worth more than a hundred uselesss kings." The biblical background is Jer 34:5 where the Lord promised the soon-to-be exiled King Zedekiah that "as spices were burned for your fathers, the former kings before you, so shall spices be burned for you." [p.The isea that Jesus was accorded a burial fit for a king would correspond well to the solemn proclamation that on the cross he was truly "the King of the Jews" (John 19:19-20

I read somewhere that Kloner actually accepts the burial as well just not with a round stone? Anyone have the article? I plan on purchasing it, probably this weekend. I checked it out, that issue of BAR will be about $7 after shipping and handling charges.

Vinnie

mike_decock

You missed the point of the parallel I was drawing about a modern vehicle being used in a story set forty years in the past.

Let's say it is 70 ad. I know that rolling stones were not used until recently, yet the burial story you are telling me (which supposedly happened 40 years ago) includes such a stone. It would not make the story credible if a recent invention was included in a story set in the past.

My point is that if Mark was completed in 70 ad, it would not have had much credibility because of the inclusion of a modern tradition. That means that Mark was either written or modified later than 70 ad. The inclusion of a modern tradition would only be credible to a later audience that wasn't aware that rolling stones weren't used during that era.

-Mike...

Kosh

Bad analogy. There were a few electric cars produced in the 20s or 30s. He could have just been an old car buff.

Vinnie

My point is that to say that Mark's version of the burial is not entirely accurate and may even have fallen victim to anacronism and historical errors does not mean Jesus was not buried.

Let me remind you of your words: "I think the round tomb blocking stone casts a shadow of doubt on an actual burial."

I share Brown's view that a burial of Jesus is historically certain. Mark having a rolling stone does not change this fact.

Vinnie

mike_decock

All analogies are flawed. I just wanted to point out that 40 years is a long time when you're thinking of 40 years "ago". When you talking about 2000 vs. 2040 years ago it seems like an insignificant difference.

-Mike...

mike_decock

Ah, I see what you're getting at.

Being a skeptic by nature, If I find discrepancies in a text claimed to be "inerrant", I tend to reject the entire text as lacking credibility. That's just my personal opinion and why I qualified my statement with "I think the round..."


-Mike..

Vinnie

That, sometimes, is a problem with revisionism. When talking about the burial on p. 270 of Rabbi Jesus Bruce Chilton wrote the following: "Revisionism can be productive. But it can also become more intent on explaining away traditional beliefs than on coming to grips with the evidence at hand, and I think this is a case in point..."

That also is bad practice as you yourself note that is is "claimed" to be "inerrant". Forget inerrancy. Treat Mark as a historical document. Treat it as a hostile witness.

Vinnie