Johnny Skeptic

What evidence is there regarding where Jesus was buried? What do historical records say regarding who saw where Jesus was buried? Isn't who sees a body put in a tomb the most important issue?

stuart shepherd

THE EMPTY TOMB
Jesus was buried outside the city.
Hebrews 13:11-13(King James Version)
11For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.

12Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.

13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

John 19:41(King James Version)
41Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.

Sabbath keeping Jews were not anywhere near the tomb outside the city.
The Sabbath keeping Jews were at home.
Exodus 16:29(King James Version)
29See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.

The Gates to Jerusalem were closed.
Nehemiah 13:19(King James Version)
19And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the sabbath: and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on the sabbath day.

The guard on the tomb was not in place until the following night. The first night the tomb was unguarded.
Matthew 27:62-64(King James Version)
Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,

63Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.

64Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.

So the first night that Jesus was in the tomb,......
the tomb was outside the city of Jerusalem
the Jews were all in their homes for the Sabbath
the gates to the city were closed
the tomb was unguarded

In circumstances like these, any nefarious men could have opened the tomb, removed Jesus' body, and closed the tomb to hide that they had removed the corpse without any interference from anyone else.

stuart shepherd

Lugubert

No historical record of Jesus or burial etc. End of that story. AFAIK, there's not even in the Bible a clear mentioning of even one person having witnessed the entombment of the proposed body.

Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following:

Matthew 27:57-61 When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.

Mark 15:43-47 Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre. And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.

Luke 23:51-55 (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.

John 19:38-42 And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

According to the texts, four people saw the body of Jesus put in Joseph's tomb, Joseph, Nicodemus, who helped Joseph prepare the body, Mary, and the other Mary. Of course, those accounts are useless as historical evidence.

I don't know how that smiley got in there. I did not put it there, and I don't know how to remove it. I request that a modertor remove it.

noble savage

You might want to look at Mt. 27.61, Mk. 15.47, Lk. 23.55. And presumably Joseph of Arimathea, according to all the gospels, and Nicodemus, according to Jn. 19.39, saw where they were burying Jesus. Whether this is true or was passed down accurately to others is another matter.

stuart shepherd

In each of the gospels there is an account of the entombment of Jesus. They are all similar but have significant differences.
Here is Luke's account
Luke 23:50-55 (New American Standard Bible)
50And a man named Joseph, who was a member of the Council, a good and righteous man
51(he had not consented to their plan and action), a man from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who was waiting for the kingdom of God;

52this man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

53And he took it down and wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid Him in a tomb cut into the rock, where no one had ever lain.

54It was the preparation day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.

55Now the women who had come with Him out of Galilee followed, and saw the tomb and how His body was laid.

You may not believe the Bible, but there is a record of Jesus' burial.

""The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances.""
Simon Greenleaf

I don't believe this passage on the burial is historic but I'll leave it to you to prove it's not.

stuart shepherd

stuart shepherd

THE EMPTY TOMB

When trying to prove that Jesus was resurrected, Christians have always relied on the empty tomb as proof that Jesus was resurrected.

If a body were missing from a mortuary, would you assume that miraculously the dead body was resurrected and the deceased had gone on his way? I seriously doubt it.

My cousin, Kathy, moved to California, and wanted to move the body of my uncle from a cemetery in New Jersey to one in California close to where she was now residing. She went through a lot of legal haggling and eventually secured a court order to move the body. When they dug where the body was supposed to be, the coffin and body were missing. You may have read about this in your newspaper when my cousin sued. My family jokes about Uncle Ed being resurrected, and my Aunt Peggy claims she saw him in the stands while watching a football game on TV, but nobody seriously believes that he is walking around somewhere wearing the new suit he was buried in.



Yet this is the type of evidence that Christians present to prove that Jesus rose from the dead.

Don't you expect extraordinary evidence to prove extraordinary claims?

Or do you believe that Jesus and my uncle Ed are alive and hanging together at football games?

stuart shepherd

Johnny Skeptic

Do you believe the passage? If so, why?

Are you saying that there is no burden of proof on a man who originally makes a claim, and that there is a burden of disproof on people who do not believe him? If I claimed that I had a flying pig, would it be incumbent upon me to produce my pig, or incumbent upon you to reasonably prove that I did not have a flying pig?

Are you an inerrantist?

Minimalist

Well, I do....but then again, I'm a notorious skeptic.

:devil1:

Koyaanisqatsi

Let's take a closer look....

As many others before me have pointed out, this alone is highly suspicious. The whole point of crucifixion was to put the condemned on display (as they died over days of exposure and blood loss). There were far more simpler ways of killing Jesus, like cutting his head off, but "the Jews" at the passover festival inexplcably demand he be crucified and Pilate (even more inexplicably, if that's possible) acquiesces to their demand, even though he had just seconds prior publicly declared Jesus' innocence three times.

He goes to all that trouble so as to not provoke a Jewish riot (something he didn't fear in the slightest as his past history proved) and actually orders that a man he just publicly declared to be innocent nevertheless suffer the most final and most brutal form of capital punishment on the Roman books, only to then say that night to a petitioning Jew, "Sure, no problem. Take him." And this after he allegedly posts guards to ensure the very thing he just acquiesced to did not happen; that Jesus' body be taken down prematuraly by Jews so that they may later claim he resurrected. Highly doubtful all the way around.

Not to mention the fact that Pilate was the top Roman dog and would therefore not likely be the person to petition for the release of a body, let alone allowing it. Bribing the guards left behind on Golgotha to guard against anyone stealing his body would be the likely and simpler scenario and probably something that had happened several times in the past when other criminals had been so crucified.

But let's go with it for now...

Aka, a hundred pounds of medicinal balms and healing agents.

Ok, so, we have someone taken down off the crucifix after only a few hours of being crucified (and after he supposedly had been stabbed in the side of the stomach to prove death) taken down, wrapped in bandages containing a hundred pounds worth of medicinal ointment.

We all know the power of Aloe in particular; when I was a kid, anytime I had a cut, especially, my mom would snap off a bit of aloe and cover the wound with its viscous gell and voila! Healed fast and no scar.

So you've got someone with a lot of cuts and open wounds seemingly dead after only a few hours on the cross (which normally takes at least a day or two, I believe, to kill someone) being wrapped in heavily annointed bandages taken away to an uknown location.

I know I'm not the first to put this forward, but I guess anyone can see where this is going. Best case real world scenario is that the hundred pounds of medicinal bandaging and early removal from the cross heals Jesus' wounds after two or three days rest and miracle of miracles, he wasn't actually dead yet (just unconscious) and he "comes back to life."

And remember that Mark, the creator of the passion narrative that everyone else merely copied and augmented, does not end with the tomb being empty; there is a "young man" (not an "angel", but specifically a "young man") sitting in the tomb telling the Mary's that the guy they're looking for has "risen" and if you hurry, you might catch him buying a falaful down at "Schmule's Bagel and Lox" on the corner.

Nothing about "resurrection;" merely that he is "risen." Well, after a few days bandaged and healing from his wounds, what's so remarkable about that to any of us? To first century ignorant peasants (women, no less; no offense, but considering the time, not exactly the most educated of the bunch), pretty damn remarkable, but to anyone at all familiar with the healing properties of a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe...? Not so much.

:huh: