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Old 05-17-2010, 03:49 AM   #11
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Unless you regard the Gospel of Peter as independent here of Matthew, (which I don't), the guards at the tomb are not multiple attested.
Good, so do you agree with me that the empty tomb on its own is not a reasonable argument for Christians to use?
I think most Christians would agree that the empty tomb in isolation, ie without the appearances of the risen Christ to his followers, is not a sufficient basis for an argument for the resurrection.

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Old 05-18-2010, 08:35 AM   #12
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Edit: Deletion of duplicate post.
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Old 05-18-2010, 09:05 AM   #13
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Clearly, Christians had not been hammered for decades by charges of grave-robbing or else the first Novel would have to narrate 'the true story of what happened'.
That's a good point.
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Old 05-18-2010, 09:41 AM   #14
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Clearly, Christians had not been hammered for decades by charges of grave-robbing or else the first Novel would have to narrate 'the true story of what happened'.
That's a good point.
But, Justin Martyr did write about the charges of grave-robbing about 100 years later. It would appear Jesus believers were hammered in the 2nd century about "grave-robbing".

This is Justin Martyr in "Dialogue with Trypho" 108
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....as I said before you have sent chosen and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilæan deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven...
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Old 05-18-2010, 10:39 AM   #15
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I think most Christians would agree that the empty tomb in isolation, i.e., without the appearances of the risen Christ to his followers, is not a sufficient basis for an argument for the resurrection.
Even with appearances of the risen Jesus, if his identity could not have been reasonably proven without an empty tomb, how could his identity have been reasonably proven with an empty tomb?

Even with appearances of the risen Jesus, how could his followers have reasonably proven where he had been buried, and that the body had not been moved?
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Old 05-18-2010, 01:32 PM   #16
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Even with appearances of the risen Jesus, if his identity could not have been reasonably proven without an empty tomb, how could his identity have been reasonably proven with an empty tomb?

Even with appearances of the risen Jesus, how could his followers have reasonably proven where he had been buried, and that the body had not been moved?
I suspect that this is tending towards the position that the resurrection of Jesus is prima-facie so improbable that the sort of evidence we typically have for events in the Ancient World is insufficient to make it plausible.

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Old 05-18-2010, 01:34 PM   #17
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Default William Lane Craig - the best evidence in favor of the historicity of the guard

Consider the following:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...ocs/guard.html

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Originally Posted by William Lane Craig
But perhaps the strongest consideration in favor of the historicity of the guard is the history of polemic presupposed in this story. The Jewish slander that the disciples stole the body was probably the reaction to the Christian proclamation that Jesus was risen.......To counter this charge the Christians would need only point out that the guard at the tomb would have prevented such a theft and that they were immobilized with fear when the angel appeared.......If the existence of the guard were false, then the Jewish polemic would never have taken the course that it did. Rather the controversy would have stopped right there with the renunciation that any such guard had ever been set by the Jews.......Guard or no guard, no critic today believes that the disciples could have robbed the tomb and faked the resurrection. Rather the real value of Matthew's story is the incidental -- and for that reason all the more reliable -- information that Jewish polemic never denied that the tomb was empty, but instead tried to explain it away.
I am particularly interested in 1) "if the existence of the guard were false, then the Jewish polemic would never have taken the course that it did," and 2) "the Jewish polemic never denied that the tomb was empty, but instead tried to explain it away."

I would appreciate comments from readers regarding those two issues, and regarding anything else that readers are interested in regarding what Craig said.
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Old 05-18-2010, 01:46 PM   #18
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I think most Christians would agree that the empty tomb in isolation, i.e., without the appearances of the risen Christ to his followers, is not a sufficient basis for an argument for the resurrection.
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Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic
Even with appearances of the risen Jesus, if his identity could not have been reasonably proven without an empty tomb, how could his identity have been reasonably proven with an empty tomb?

Even with appearances of the risen Jesus, how could his followers have reasonably proven where he had been buried, and that the body had not been moved?
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Originally Posted by andrewcriddle
I suspect that this is tending towards the position that the resurrection of Jesus is prima-facie so improbable that the sort of evidence we typically have for events in the Ancient World is insufficient to make it plausible.
I do not understand what you mean. How does what you said answer my two questions? I will copy and paste this post to my thread at http://freeratio.org/newreply.php?do...te=1&p=6385693. The title is "If Jesus made personal appearances, how could the empty tomb have been an issue?" Please reply to this post in that thread.
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Old 05-19-2010, 08:54 AM   #19
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But, Justin Martyr did write about the charges of grave-robbing about 100 years later. It would appear Jesus believers were hammered in the 2nd century about "grave-robbing".
Steven Car's "good point" was that Mark would have been likely to contain a defense against grave robbery if it really were a point of contention from the very start of Christianity.

I don't think it was a point of contention until perhaps decades later after Christians added the empty tomb story to their preaching. (Paul never mentions it. Not even in 1 Corinthians 15 when he had tremendous cause to do so.)
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Old 05-21-2010, 07:42 AM   #20
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Consider the following:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...ocs/guard.html

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Originally Posted by William Lane Craig

Of the canonical gospels, only Matthew relates the intriguing story of the setting of a guard at the tomb of Jesus (Mt. 27. 62-66; 28. 4, 11-1 5). The story serves an apologetic purpose: the refutation of the allegation that the disciples had themselves stolen Jesus' body and thus faked his resurrection. Behind the story as Matthew tells it seems to lie a tradition history of Jewish and Christian polemic, a developing pattern of assertion and counter-assertion:

Christian: 'The Lord is risen!'
Jew: 'No, his disciples stole away his body.'
Christian: 'The guard at the tomb would have prevented any such theft.'
Jew: 'No, his disciples stole away his body while the guard slept.'
Christian: 'The chief priests bribed the guard to say this.'

Though Matthew alone of the four evangelists mentions the guard at the tomb,.......the gospel of Peter also relates the story of the guard at the tomb, and its account may well be independent of Matthew, since the verbal similarities are practically nil.

Matthew's account has been nearly universally rejected as an apologetic legend by the critics. The reasons for this judgment, however, are of very unequal worth. For example, the fact that the story is an apologetic answering the allegation that the disciples stole the body does not therefore mean that it is unhistorical. The best way to answer such a charge would not be by inventing fictions, but by narrating the true story of what happened.
Even if Jesus was buried in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, and guards were posted at the tomb, and it was found empty, without appearances by Jesus, the best case that anyone could have made would have been that Jesus spiritually rose from the dead and did not make any appearances. Thus, all of the accounts of the events at the tomb are irreleveant without appearances by Jesus.
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