Doug Shaver

Why do you suppose I would think that? Please be specific. Tell me exactly what you think my reasoning would be in denying Pilate's existence.

Ben C Smith

Thought it meant that? Or wanted it to be the case so that Jesus would have been buried by friends, not enemies?

Historical facts are not denied just because the event in question was necessary to the plot. The plot also needed a Roman official to condemn Jesus to the cross (since crucifixion was an official Roman punishment), and Pilate fits the bill. Yet Pilate is historical.

No, you are confusing this passage with the one in the Life.

That is true of the passage in the Life, but that dealt with getting the victims down before they died; special case indeed. This passage deals with Jewish practice overall, and with getting the bodies down after death; not a special case.

I would like to see the primary evidence that criminals were not buried in tombs. (I read Carrier a long time ago, and do not remember what sources he used; nor do I remember where the essay is located.)

I also pointed out that the other two victims were probably still alive. Jesus appears to have died earlier than expected.

There is a dramatic necessity, sure. There is also a cultural and historical necessity; I think the Josephus quote indicates that somebody would have likely tried to get the corpse down from the cross. It seems a priori likely to me, IOW, that someone fulfilled the role of Joseph anyway.

As to whether he put the corpse in a rock tomb (note, not his own rock tomb in Mark), I await a link or primary text(s) to the effect that the criminal burial place could not be such a place.

Well, the list of such instances always seems shorter once it is vetted and shorn of its more presumptuous cases.

But yes, I do think events were sometimes invented to fulfill, echo, or otherwise accord with scripture.

Ben.

dongiovanni1976x

We have archaeological evidence of Pilate's existence. To compare Josephus to Alexander the Great is a gross exaggeration. For the same reason you questioned emperor Julian as a source is applied to the gospel writers. When we want to establish the identity of someone from antiquity we need independent sources. Since the argument can be made that the Gospels are not independent they sould be treated as one source (this can be contested of course but is a separate issue). Paul can be considered a separate source, so can Josephus. Tacitus mentions him, (though some question this passage) But above all we have an actual plaque with the inscription to back up Pilate's existence and place in history, So how many independent sources mention Joseph of Arimathea? The most plausible explanation seems to be that he is a literary device- nothing more.

Gamera

Read your post. You claimed that the NT is not an historical document, which must mean it is fictive, and therefore Joseph of Arimathea did not exist, having appeared in a fictive text. Yet Pilate also appears in the same text.

Applying your logic, Pilate didn't exist.

You need to take responsibility for your own blanket statements. The NT texts are in fact historical documents like many of the other documents of the time. Questioning their reliability is of course totally legitimate, but not on principle. There has to be a reason why you doubt their reliability, not simply your dislike for them.

Gamera

And why do you trust Josephus, a man with an axe to grind if there ever was one, assuming he even existed and wasn't a creation of Roman propaganda?

And how do you know Josephus existed?

Where is your evidence?

You'll find, if you look into it, that there is no more evidence for the historicity of Josephus than there is for Luke, Paul, or Socrates for that matter.

You see, you accept certain "facts" on faith, because they fit into your world view, while you reject others because they don't. But the textual evidence for Josephus is no better (and in fact inferior) to the evidence for Luke.

Gamera

You're making my point. An historically verified person appears in the text. So it's not a fictive text on its face. It doesn't purport to be a fictive text. If it did, it wouldn't incorporate historical personages.

So, while one is certainly entitled to doubt the reliability of the existence of Joseph, the ground cannot be that the text is fictive, and that was the argument I was rebutting.

The argument is belied by the very evidence you just provided.

Gullwind

Why can't a fictional text incorporate historical personages? Comic books and novels often include real people as part of their story. Does that make them historical texts?

Gamera

Well not according to Bultman, a higher critic if there ever was one. His textual and historical analysis concludes that Mark's account of the burial and empty tomb narrative lacks theological and apologetic embellishment and concludes that the pre-Markan account of the burial by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb wrapped in linen is not significantly embellished but, rather, a seemingly straightforward account of the burial of Jesus. His comparison with apocrypha shows that legendary elements accreted on this basic story, for theological ends, and he contrast this with the pre-Markan passion narrative and its apparent lack of any legendary material.

See, Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 2nd ed., trans. John Marsh (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1900), p. 274.

I'm not privileging Bultman. I'm just saying close textual criticism has led some scholars to the exact opposite conclusion you reach.

Gamera

Except that comic books and novels didn't exist as genres at the time. Or at least, a Greco-Roman novels of the time would not incorporate historical characters.

RUmike

My biggest objection, although Ben did address this, is that the bodies of the other two criminals are never mentioned. As Mahlon Smith writes, this presents a serious problem for historical reconstruction:

"...The gospels simply fail to account for the disposal of the corpses of those who were crucified with Jesus. This was not a problem that concerned either the evangelists or their audiences who were preoccupied by with the fate of Jesus' body alone. But it is a problem that any historical reconstruction of what happened to Jesus' corpse needs to take seriously. For if Jesus' body alone was allowed burial (which is all the gospels report), then one CANNOT consistently claim that potential desecration of the Passover or Sabbath was the reason for a Jewish aristocrat requesting and Pilate granting Jesus' burial. And without that general condition, the claim that Jesus was buried after his crucifixion is completely historically incredible."
- Mahlon H. Smith (Crosstalk)