Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...ocs/tomb2.html

However, it is most embarrassing for Craig that in Lee Strobel's 'The Case For Christ,' Craig says that he never uses the story of the guards as evidence because it is only mentioned in Matthew. Is that not a bona fide contradiction? I may ask Dr. Robert Price to ask Craig about that.

If Jesus did not rise from the dead, obviously, no one would have claimed that the body of Jesus had been stolen.

What non-Christian historical evidence is that there was a "widespread Jewish allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus' body"?

Steven Carr

It is really hard to believe that early Christians would ever misrepresent what their opponents were saying......

http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/demons.htm

Christian polemic, of course, presupposes that Muhammad really did have a supernatural visitation.

They just ascribe it to demons.

So we have powerful proof from even the enemies of Islam that there really was a spiritual visitor to Muhammad.

Or perhaps Christian polemic isn't really a proof that Muhammad had supernatural visitations, but is simply polemic , designed to attack what others say as false.

Doug Shaver

There are plausible scenarios in which the claim might have arisen absent an actual resurrection. Apologists, of course, must deny their plausibility, but that is a separate issue.

None. Even among Christian sources, I think Matthew is the only one to claim there was such an allegation.

Johnny Skeptic

I agree, but what you said does not have anything to do with what I said. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, why would anyone have claimed that his body had been stolen except as the result of a lie, or an innocent but inaccurate revelation?

In Lee Stoebel's 'The Case For Christ,' after discussing the empty tomb at length, Craig basically ends up saying "but the empty tomb is not really a big deal since Jesus obviously rose from the dead no matter where he was buried?," in which case, why did Craig bother to discuss the empty tomb at all?

If God really wanted to convince everyone that Jesus rose from the dead, he would not have had any trouble at all doing that.