show_no_mercy

So I've been doing some research about early Christianity, and it's alleged in one of Paul's letters that he knew and was jealous of some of the other apostles because they had known Jesus "in the flesh". If this was the case, did he know about Jesus' empty tomb? If so, did he ever visit it?

I'm under the impression that crucifixion victims in Roman history didn't get their own tomb after crucifixion, that they just got thrown in a ditch and/or mass grave. If this is true, then there wouldn't have been an "empty tomb" to go visit in the first place according to the gospel narratives. Which makes sense and would be corroborated by Paul not having an empty tomb to reference because the gospels were written after Paul had been imprisoned and died.

bacht

The interpretation of this phrase, "in the flesh", or the similar references to a descendant of David, is a key point of controversy between Jesus mythicists and believers in a flesh-and-blood Jesus. Earl Doherty rejects the assertion of a real person who was crucified and buried. I'm not qualified to assess the Greek originals.

Doherty also points out that there is no hint of a Jesus "industry" before the Revolt, ie. no famous tourist sites in Judea or Galilee, no circulation of famous quotes or artifacts etc.

show_no_mercy

That's exactly what I'm getting at. Considering that, according to the gospel accounts, if Mary(s) was/were allowed to just walk up to the tomb unmolested then any good Christian would want to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Christ, and Paul would have certainly written or made a mention of it in his epistles if such a place actually existed.

I'm not quite a Jesus Myth proponent though, because Jesus could have just been thrown in a ditch with other criminals after crucifixion and forgotten about.

gstafleu

Do you know where Paul actually says that some people knew Jesus in the flesh?

Gerard Stafleu

Steven Carr

Paul never mentions any empty tomb.

Despite Christian converts scoffing at the very idea of their god choosing to raise a corpse, and despite Paul trying to describe what a resurrected body was like, he uses not one word of any alleged eyewitness detail about missing corpses, and demonstrations by Jesus of what a resurrected body was like.

Doug Shaver

No, it's not. Paul never says anything of that sort.

If there was an empty, we may reasonably suppose that he must have known about it. However, nothing in his writings reveals any such knowledge.

That is what usually happened. Apparently, there is evidence that exceptions were sometimes made.

Rick Sumner

Doherty backed right off of that in correspondence, at least in the case of pretty well everything save the tomb. It went from being "perhaps the single strongest argument" to "a piece in a bigger puzzle" awfully quickly when investigated.

The problem is that such veneration is unusual. Comparable figures didn't receive that treatment, so it's anachronistic to expect it for Jesus. For perhaps the best example, the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls engaged in no "industry" either. There are no artifacts venerated. No sites made sacrosanct. Nothing for their deified "Teacher of Righteousness".

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto

I don't recall Doherty backing off the observation that there was no Jesus industry. There was a lot of resistance to drawing the conclusion from it that there was no Jesus. I think he was just trying to meet his critics half way. Opinions may differ.

We don't actually know much about the authors of the DSS or who the Teacher of Righteousness was, and I don't want to get into a side discussion of whether Qumran was a pottery factory or a garrison or a commune. Perhaps the lack of veneration for the ToR is an indication that this person is as mythic as Jesus, or so long dead that he only existed in legends, or that the documents at Qumran did not originate there, or that the community rejected the actual deification of a man, or the various wars destroyed whatever was there. (The idea that the ToR was deified is not universal. Little is in this area.)

But I thought that memorializing graves was an expected practice in the culture of the time. Consider the tomb of Joseph, still a point of contention in middle eastern politics.

storytime

The story says that Joseph and Nickodemus went to Pilate and begged for the body of Jesus. Then quickly buried Jesus close to Jerusalem, because the Jewish sabbath was nigh. There's no mention of anyone digging up Jesus to place him in a tomb.

Would Rome have merely dumped bodies without proper burial? Seems the odor would have been unbearable, not to mention dogs dragging body parts through the streets, flesh parts rotting in fly infested corners everywhere. Disease from such a situation would have killed thousands.

Steven Carr

Is that because he didn't exist?