Johnny Skeptic

In Lee Strobel's 'The Case For Christ', William Lane Craig says that he does not use the story of the guards at the tomb as evidence because only Matthew mentions the story. Since only Paul mentions the 500 eyewitnesses, is Craig forced to discount the story in order to be consistent?

mdarus

When Craig says he does not "use" the story. This is not the same as saying he "discounts" the story. When it comes to the gospels, the appearance of a story in only one of the gospels is often met with suspicion (fair or not). A story gains strength in the gospels when it is repeated in another gospel. In the case of Paul, there is only one account. This illustrates that "discounting" a story because it appears in only one gospel is probably not a good approach. However, since Craig regularly deals with people who have poor hermeneutic habits, he is permitted to not "use" a story because he anticipates this type of attack.

Kosh

That hardly seems reasonable. If a story appeared in only Mark, Mathew, and Luke, then that means it really only appeared in Mark.

aa5874

Fiction repeated a thousand times is not equivalent to the truth. The Christian Bible is a flawed document, there is no extra-biblical confirmation of biblical texts. There are no original documents known to exist, everything in the Bible can be doubted for lack of evidence.

mdarus

If you start with the assumption that documents included in the Bible are fiction, then repetition has no relevance. If you think there may be even a shred of literary or historical basis, it suddenly starts to matter.

An ambiguous, general statement but I understand your position. The issues are described all over this web site (and others).

If you view the Bible not as a whole, but as a collection of documents (which is more fair and accurate), the individual documents can act as external sources for each other. Since there are few other contemporaneous documents on the same subject, this might be a good perspective.

Once we rely on only original documents for ancient literature or history prior to 1000 AD, we suddenly have very little to discuss. The materials used just have a hard time lasting that long. It is obvious that there were original documents (otherwise there would be nothing to copy). It is fair to discuss who actually originated the documents and how accurate we think the copies are.

Yes, everything can be doubted. I can doubt everything outside my immediate experience. I can even doubt my immediate experience. Just because something can be doubted, does not mean a reasonable person should doubt it.

Doug Shaver

There is a difference between not using a story and discounting it. Craig believes the story, but he knows he can't prove its authenticity to anyone who is even halfway knowledgeable about the New Testament and its origins. Here is what he really thinks: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...ocs/guard.html

Johnny Skeptic

I read the article. In typical fashion, Craig rambles around all over the place, arriving at "It seems best to leave it an open question. Ironically, the value of Matthew's story for the evidence for the resurrection has nothing to do with the guard at all or with his intention of refuting the allegation that the disciples had stolen the body. The conspiracy theory has been universally rejected on moral and psychological grounds, so that the guard story as such is really quite superfluous. 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. Thus the early opponents of the Christians themselves bear witness to the fact of the empty tomb."

Is Craig referring specifically to Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, and is he referring to opponents' arguments as told by the Gospels?

JEST2ASK

Hello I am totaly lost by your line of reasoning .... you seem to be stating that the reason G-Matt includes the story of the guards is in response to a denial by Jews regarding the resurrection ... I am curious if there is documentaion of the earliest apperance of this counter to the resurrection and when, where and who can it be traced. It seems strange that no later N.T. writtings echo G-Matt defense ... is it not more likely that (granted undocumented) arguements against the resurrection took many forms and were based on many sources (opponents)... and this conspiracy of the disciplies was a minor objection ... not deemed worthy of response by other N.T. writters ... ???

The actual existence of Joseph of Arimathea , existence of the tomb , ... the granting by Pilate of the removal of the body ... were any of these details questioned in early writtings ... or were those who disbelieved granting all the major details of the story ... yet still not accepting the resurrection ???


I think it odd that while Mark has J of A place a stone on the entrance Luke / John do not yet both have it rolled away ... (no real issue but just something that caught my attention ... one of those Hmmmm moments )

ETA were you just quoting Craig and not putting forward your own conclusion if so I apologize for wanting you to answer for someone else

Johnny Skeptic

Craig aside, my position is that since there was not sufficient evidence that Jesus was buried in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, almost no one would have bothered disscussing Joseph's tomb at all. If we discount what the Bible has to say about the tomb and the reaction to the empty tomb, what do we have left from extra-Biblical sources?

What about the 500 eyewitnessess? Surely there is not a good case for Christians to make regarding that story?

Doug Shaver

As I understand him, yes to both. Craig seems to assume that if Jesus' body was put into any tomb at all, it must have been Joseph's. He also clearly assumes that opponents did in fact raise the arguments that Matthew implies they raised. Craig does note, however, that it was only Matthew, not any of the other gospel writers, who alleges that anyone claimed the body was stolen. He also sort of admits, without actually conceding anything, that this is a problem for apologists.