Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 24:1-9

"Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words, And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest."

The women were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children. If Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and told his followers that he was going to rise from the dead too, it is very unlikely that all three of those women would have forgotten that Jesus said that he was going to rise from the dead.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Mark 16:1-3

"And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?"

So what we have here is that the very same women who forgot that Jesus said that he would rise from the dead even though he had raised Lazarus from the dead went to the tomb very early in the morning expecting to find someone to roll away a large stone from the door of the tomb even though (according to another Scripture) Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had seen a large stone put in front of the entrance to the tomb. It is improbable that those events occurred.

mountainman

Is this thread to include Helena, the Boss' mother?

John Kesler

The passage above actually comes from Luke 24. Another inconsisteny in the resurrection narrative (and there are many) is that according to Luke, the women, which included Mary Magdalene, only saw the two "men" (angels) at the tomb, a fact confirmed by Luke 24:22-23, with no mention that Mary Magdalene or any other woman had actually seen Jesus himself before reporting to the disciples, though this is what Matthew's account states (Matthew 28:8-10).

karlmarx

Mark 16:5-8 says:

"And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you. And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any [man]; for they were afraid."

"Amazed"? But this is not so amazing, after all. This Jesus is supposed to have raised the dead, it's not so amazing that he raise himself as well.

This is what gets me about stories with characters with magical powers. Once it is understood that a character is "magical", then the possibilities are endless, and nothing comes a surprise. It's the same case here: they knew Jesus had magical powers, why are they so "amazed" and "afraid" when he uses them? In fact, wouldn't they have been hopeful that he would use magic? If they knew Jesus had power over death, then NOTHING should have surprised them, and his crucifixion would not have been a cause for grief. In fact, the natural response would have been to shake one's head at the crazy Romans who thought they would be able to harm him.

Jane H

There are two issues raised here. The first one is the apparent inconsistencies. (I can’t see, JS, what yours would be. The women left home expecting to find a closed tomb and got a shock in both accounts. Are you thinking the accounts refer to two separate visits?). The solution to JK’s contradiction may be that Matthew 28:9 refers to a significantly later event than the immediate resurrection events. However this sort of problem isn’t of interest to me, as I‘m not a fundy.

Far more interesting are the historical issues raised by the question of why the disciples failed to react more calmly to Jesus death, given his warning, given the ‘magic’ that had occurred, and Lazarus own resurrection. To which I would say, “Exactly!”. In the mythical genre, the disciples simply wander round Jerusalem shaking their heads at the crazy Romans, as KM suggests. In the real world, they poo their pants at the thought they will be next on the cross.

From a long time on the other side of the resurrection, it’s easy to wonder why they panicked given Jesus predictions, but try to imagine how they felt BEFORE the resurrection. We know people panic in pressure situations when their leader dies (think about how William at Hastings felt he had to ride up and down the line to reassure his army he was alive). The disciples had expected a Messiah of some type, and Messiahs who get killed are not Messiahs, by definition. So he’d lied. Which meant when he died, whatever he had said, he wasn’t coming back. And that scared the disciples.

And, more crucially, his return had a significance that Lazarus return from the dead didn’t. Returns from the apparent dead happen normally these days- we’ve all seen the news stories- and I’m sure they happened then. But there was something about Jesus return from the dead that was completely different to Lazarus. Jesus return broke new ground, redefining understandings about resurrection, and creating an impetus that an injured man, crawling out of a grave, could ever have done.

Johnny Skeptic

No, I am not thinking about two separate visits. For a more detailed response, please visit my new thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthr...17#post5178917 at the GRD Forum that is titled 'Faith.'

I am not aware of any credible historical evidence regarding how the disciples reacted.

You will not be able to get away with that. John 11:39 says "Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days." I would sure like to see some comparable news stories. Even if people do rise from the dead today, that does not have anything to do with my arguments.

We also have news stories about Sasquatch, abductions by aliens, flying saucers, and the Loch Ness monster. How many of those stories do you believe?

And I am sure that they didn't. Today, millions of Christians disagree as to what constitutes a miracle healing. Why do you believe that is was any different back then?

On the contrary, it is probable that the God of the Bible does not exist. I refer you to my thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=235279 at the GRD Forum that is titled 'If a God exists, he is probably not the God of the Bible.'

Jane H

Johnny- thanks for your thoughts.

Having looked at your new thread, I’m still a little puzzled. Is the problem that the women were setting out on what was certain to be a waste of time unless a passing rugby team were around to open the tomb? Is it that, after the Lazarus incident they shouldn’t have been thinking about opening tombs and anointing non-existent bodies?

Even if the gospels are biased historical documents, they remain historical documents, to be read with the disciplines of historical analysis. Something like the denial by Peter, which occurs in all four gospels, is only too believable. We would expect the disciples to panic, and panic they did, in style. This is contrasted in e.g. Acts where they appear to be a lot braver, for ‘some reason’. The gospel accounts, critical of the early church leaders at that earlier point, but building them up later, follow a credible account of how humans actually react.

These

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1907339.ece

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,323416,00.html

are the sorts of return from the dead story I was referring to. And, as I said, I would imagine this sort of thing happened in C1. Probably it was more common in the C1, because there was less medical understanding of near death states, and less sophistication of analysing whether someone is dead.

The second thread you refer me to is rather lengthy, and appears to deal with a different set of questions to the one I am posing. Mine is the question of the difference between the Lazarus resurrection, and Jesus resurrection. The latter was no mere survival incident, by a frightened and badly damaged crucifixion victim; but it was a return of a sort that caused the disciples to rethink everything they believed and understood about death, religion and a man they had once known.

Amaleq13

While it is arguably believable that Peter denied Jesus rather than join him on a cross, the actual story in the text is certainly not believable to anyone without faith. Magical foreknowledge and use of a "three times" theme familiar from myths and fables is hardly credible as history.

An example of what appears to be medical malpractice and one of the utility of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation aren't very miraculous regardless of how some folks refer to them.

Steven Carr

The testimony of women was discounted in first-century thought, as we are constantly told.

Suppose I did know that women were regarded as not credible witnesses. How would I use such a prejudice to persuade my readers of what I wanted them to believe.

First I would have a women examine the evidence and come to a false conclusion – that the body had been taken by persons or persons unknown. The first-century reader would smile at the foolishness of a woman, always getting the wrong idea. No wonder women’s testimony was unreliable.


Then I would have some men examine the evidence that the woman looked at. Naturally, they would do a more thorough job than an unreliable woman, and they would not jump to such a false conclusion that somebody had taken the body.

Then I would have the woman’s unreliable testimony corrected by a man, or possibly by two angels, or even Jesus himself, who would explain why it was wrong for the woman to conclude that the body had been taken.

So starting from a belief that a woman’s testimony was unreliable, and that somebody would use that prejudice to discredit ‘false’ claims about the body being taken, we have pretty much got to John’s Gospel as a perfect example of how a false story would be written about an alleged resurrection.

Steven Carr

That is impossible for me.

I can't put myself in the position of a first-century Jew who has seen Moses (!!!) come back from the dead.

Nor have I been given the secret of the kingdom of God (Mark 4)

Not have I personally been given the power to raise the dead (Matthew 10)

All I can say is that if Moses returned from the dead, and talked to my leader that I had chosen to follow, I would have nearly as much faith as modern Christians who have seen none of these things.