andrewcriddle

Could you give me the relevant verses in John for this please ?
I'm not sure exactly which ones you are referring to.

Thanks

Andrew Criddle

EarlDoherty

Ben, we are starting to talk in circles, and when you are reduced to taking overblown potshots at me for not following every link to find out what someone you quote might have thought beyond what you felt was necessary to quote from him, that’s when I know that time is being wasted, and I do have a life outside the IIDB.

So I am going to pick up here only on one issue in your post, and preface it with one other brief comment.

You, and too many others, have this obstinate and mistaken view that the argument from silence is never valid, never useful, always dismissible. Any logician will tell you otherwise, that in the right circumstances, used properly, it is as legitimate a tool of argumentation as any other. The claim that the argument from silence is simply and always a fool’s errand is nothing more than a cop-out by apologists who don’t want to admit and address the implications that can be drawn from it, and think they have an easy play that doesn’t require any effort on their part (and moreover exempts them from actually addressing the question). This is aided by the fact that too many others are prone to subscribe to the same dismissal and go along with it. The whole thing becomes a mantra, involving about as much real thought as goes into mantras.

Now, as to the Toledoth Yeshu. Your facile appeal to this writing shows that you don’t know as much about it as you should, if anything. First of all, it is far from clear exactly what the earliest version contained, how far back it goes, and who were the authors. In fact, it cannot even be spoken of as “a” book, since it is more a tradition of Jewish satirical response to Christianity with extremely obscure roots. As an organized work, all manuscripts come from the medieval period and were actually first published by Christians (leading to the contention that Christians had written it to foment hatred of the Jews). While the latter is very unlikely, only certain elements and themes that later became the complete Toledoth can be traced earlier, with much variation and uncertainty. Some of those themes can be found alluded to in Christian writers of the 2nd and later centuries, but nothing that could identify an actual “book” in ‘print’ and circulation, or even a source in an ur-collection common to the Toledoth. In the surviving manuscripts incorporating these traditions (and they run into the scores) there are great numbers of variants, including basic things like the circumstances of Jesus’ death and what happened to his body afterwards. There is no way to trace any of these elements back beyond the later Talmudic period, let alone say with any confidence that “the disciples stole Jesus’ body” was something in circulation in a circulating Toledoth during the 2nd or 3rd centuries. And since any identifiable storyline is so late, and since the work became a deliberate parody of the Gospels, we are quite justified in regarding any stolen body theme in what became the full Toledoth as something derived from Matthew.

But in any case, the whole argument is unfounded. For the Toledoth in any of its versions does not present us with a scenario of “the body of Jesus disappeared but this is to be explained by the fact that the disciples stole the body,” thus providing no support whatever to Matthew's supposed contention. I will quote that passage (chapter 7, verse 4 to 23) in the version given by Robert Price in his “The Pre-Nicene New Testament”, mostly drawing from Wagenseil’s text of 1681. It is closely harmonious with one of the versions quoted by Frank Zindler in his “The Jesus the Jews Never Knew” (which contains a very thorough study of the Toledoth, drawing on the modern experts on the subject, such as William Horbury).

The first thing that is obvious here is that the “caretaker of the garden” is almost certainly derived from the Gospel of John and has nothing to do with disciples stealing the body. The allusion to this gardener moving the body because he feared the latter might happen is an obvious echo of the Matthew idea, which has also been—tangentially—incorporated into the creation of this scene in the Toledoth. The point to be stressed here, however (and it is my main point, which you have not addressed), is that if Matthew were to be relied on and we were to really believe, or put some credence into, the idea that the Jews were really circulating as early as the first century such an accusation that the disciples stole the body, then that would be the dominant, if not exclusive theme we would find in the Jewish literature, and not only in the Toledoth; yet it is not to be found at all. That is a legitimate use of the argument from silence, based on very strong deductive reasoning.

The appearance of “Judas” instead of the gardener in a different version cannot be supported as early, much less original. In fact, it looks like a later doctoring, as the context fits best the Johannine garden/gardener scheme. Turning the gardener into Judas makes very little sense.

In any case, look at the scene. The body has not disappeared, it has simply been moved and then recovered, to be dragged around the streets of the city in public view. This is hardly in keeping with Matthew’s contention that the Jews came up with the story that “the disciples stole the body”, an admission on their part that the body remained missing. Your appeal to the Toledoth, no matter what its date, hardly supports Matthew’s contention, since it doesn’t even remotely agree with it. Your statement that, in regard to the Jews not being likely to admit by default that the tomb was empty, “they did exactly this in the Toledoth” is completely wrong and indicates that you do not know this work at all.

Your backtracking (with others here supporting you) that, well, Matthew may only be attesting to a counter-tradition that existed among Jews in his area, is simply a fallback position, the battle being lost on the wider field. You have no more evidence, or reason, to trust Matthew on this score, than on the larger score (other than your desire to rescue Matthew from being a complete liar, although I see him as simply a fiction writer). It amounts to nothing more than an unfounded rationalization. The point is, there is zero corroborating evidence for either the larger or smaller scale claim. (Besides, Matthew says that “this story has became widely spread among the Jews to this day,” which certainly sounds like a lot more than a local apologetic.)

And that was the essence of my contention. Everything else you argue around (including whether I “should” have addressed Matthew in my statement), is simply smoke. The exercise should not be whether you or anyone else can come up with some kind of feasible ‘out’, no matter how remote or unsupported by evidence.

Earl Doherty

Solo

John 8:41 - ...They said to him, "we were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God."

John 11:45-53 - As Schonfield pointed out, by its decision to put Jesus to death the Sanhedrin confirms it credited "no miracle" with respect to Lazarus. By implication, the complaint against him was sacrilegious tampering with tombs and sorcery. Jesus was condemned, and apprehended as "evildoer" (11:53->18:30).

Jiri

JoeWallack

JW:
Retreat! Run away, run away. That Rabbi is dynamite. A frontal assault is out of the question.

JW:
It could be about Jesus' history. "The Rabbis" could be very subtle and Christian pressure could have implicitly or explicitly prevented a clearer connection. Or:

1) It's not based on history but based on a subsequent Reaction to the Christian Bible.

2) The 43a story existed first, as history or fiction, and "Mark" used parts of it as a source.

You continue to evade the only significant question I have here for you, what do you think was the accusation of "The Jews" against Jesus? I've already explained why I think this is an important question. I'm beginning to fear that Jesus might actually return before you answer this question. I understand that you would prefer to be Offensive to Doherty rather than Defensive to the Christian Bible. Fortunately, I've come to prefer Lecture as my favored means of communication here.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_14

JW:
According to "Mark" "The Jews" accused Jesus of claiming to be the Messiah. Considering that the Sanhedrin was supposed to Identify the Messiah and that "Mark's" Jesus had just helped them do that (ironically, that was the only thing Jesus had to tell them) having the Sanhedrin conclude that Jesus was not the Messiah based only on the evidence that Jesus said he was, strikes me as...now what's that word...starts with an "I"...Solo, help me out here.

Keep in mind that "Mark's" Jesus' Passion is one Ironic story after another. Jesus' finally talks straight to his Disciples, that his Passion is what's important, but now they don't understand. "The Jews" plot to kill Jesus, but not during the Passover because of the public crowds, so they end up killing Jesus at the start of Passover in front of the public crowds. Jesus is Arrested as if he is leading a Rebellion, but he is The Peaceful One. Jesus is Convicted of not being the Messiah because he says he is the Messiah. Jesus is made fun of for not being able to Prophesy while Peter fulfills Jesus prophecy by Denying Jesus 3 times. Pilate releases a Bar Abbas, who was guilty of leading Rebellion and takes in his place a Bar Abbas who was innocent of leading a Rebellion (which Pilate does knowingly). A different Simon takes up Jesus' cross. Jesus refuses to drink on the cross because he came to serve and not be served. Jesus is buried by a member of the Sanhedrin that convicted him and not a Disciple. An Angel instructs Jesus' followers to tell everyone that Jesus was resurrected and they tell no one.

It looks to me that regarding the Jewish accusation against Jesus "Mark's" main objective was making it Ironic rather than Historical. This is why subsequent Christians like you who inherited "Marks" story tend to emphasize that "The Jews" made accusations against Jesus, rather than emphasizing the supposed specific accusations. Because the apparent earliest source, "Mark", doesn't give any logical accusations.

"Mark" gives a perfectly good explanation for Jesus' conviction elsewhere:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_11

This probably would have been a capital offense meriting summary execution, perhaps immediately. That it's not mentioned at Jesus' supposed trial is comical. But there's that Irony of course, "The Jews" don't mention at the Trial what would be sufficient evidence for Jesus' execution and only mention evidence which should defend against execution.

"Mark" didn't intend history here. He used Irony to make Theological points. People shouldn't take as History that "The Jews" made false accusations which were reasponsible for Jesus' murder. Someone might get hurt as a result.



Joseph

TRIAL, n.
A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant, the prisoner, or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear this person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued in contumaciam the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy's legs, upsetting him, were arrested on a warrant, tried and punished. In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D'Addosio relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs, goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of Heidelberg University, directed that some of "the aquatic worms" be brought before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both present and absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three days on pain of incurring "the malediction of God." In the voluminous records of this cause celebre nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Ben C Smith

This is my preferred option.

This is also possible, though I imagine it would be pretty hard to demonstrate.

You are correct (though I have dropped several hints). I have no desire to debate it right now. Take that for what you will; I just do not have the time at the moment, I have to pick and choose what I will respond to, and this is not my first choice. Sorry.

I rarely (never?) defend the Christian bible as such. I defend what I believe to be the best way(s) of reading texts, all texts, regardless of the origination of those texts.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

Thanks For this.

John 8:41 may possibly involve an allegation that Jesus is illegitimate but if so it is very vague.

As to John 11:45-53 We have parallels in the synoptics eg Luke 11:14-20 where the Jewish authorities claim that Jesus works his miracles with the help of the Devil. However accusations of having Satanic assistance are not IMO really the same thing as accusations of working magic. (Meier in 'A Marginal Jew' vol 2 has a detailed discussion of this point) Jesus is never accused of magic/sorcery in the narrow sense in the canonical Gospels.

Andrew Criddle

Solo

Any idea to what or whom this slur would be referring to if not Jesus ? I may be wrong but I think John specifically avoided the "virgin birth" claim on account of it proving vulnerable to attack. (I believe the excursus of Nicodemus in 3:1-7 aims to deconstruct it theologically).

I think Lazarus looks like the esoteric strand of tradition and set of issues, which John inserted, believing he could manage them in ensemble as a theological thesis. The synoptic discussions of "Satanic assistance", and/or demonic possession, do not directly relate to Jesus performing magic/sorcery, rather to the nature of the "spirit" by which he, and his disciples, acquire "powers" (specifically) to cast out demons. By contrast, the complaint against Jesus for raising Lazarus seems specific and does not touch on the provenance of Jesus' skills. Even though the legal reasoning of the Sanhedrin is twisted in a bizzare, and patently naive, fashion in John's retelling the story, the gospeller could not, IMO, create enough smoke to obscure the nature of the problem. Lazarus death was not real; both he and Jesus engaged in an act considered nefarious magic by the council and both were condemned for it.

Jiri

Ben C Smith

This is what I wrote that (I think) you are calling a potshot:

And you are correct. That was unnecessary. Sorry.

Nevertheless, reading that article (or perhaps my own statement more carefully?) might have spared us this:

I had written that the Toledoth has a story similar to the Matthean charge, and I specified that the similarity consisted of Judas having stolen the body. Here are my exact words:

Now, (one of) the Toledoth account(s) has, according to Price, the following:

Then they buried the Fatherless [i.e., Jesus] in the place where he was stoned. And when midnight was come, the disciples came and seated themselves on the grave, and wept and lamented him. Now when Judas saw this, he took the body away and buried it in his garden under a brook. He diverted the water of the brook elsewhere; but when the body was laid in its bed, he brought its waters back again into their former channel.

Even the part of the text you quoted has this (emphasis mine):

In fact, a certain man had removed him from his grave and brought him into his garden, and he had divided the stream flowing into his garden and buried him in a pit he dug in the sand. Then he had restored the waters to their proper channel over the new grave.

....

So when he heard this report, that all Israel was mourning and that the wicked were claiming “he has ascended into heaven,” then the caretaker said, “This is a day for Israel to rejoice and be glad, then; for as it happens, I stole him away because of the insurgents, to prevent their absconding with the body, for then we should never hear the end of it.”

The text has exactly what I claimed it has. I had the text open before me as I made the claim.

But I think I know what caused part of the confusion on the Toledoth. I misread your statement:

I missed that word independent. I did not mean to (nor would I try to) use the Toledoth as independent support for the Jewish charge in Matthew. It is simply too late a text for that. So when you write…:

...I of course agree. In fact, I am inclined to regard even most if not all of the Talmudic references as dependent in some measure on the gospel records.

I brought up the Toledoth principally because later in your post you asked whether the Jews would ever relate a story that entailed an empty tomb. Here are your exact words:

Does not the Toledoth account put the objection to rest? It is not that the story is so early it affirms Matthew; rather, it is that it shows that circulating a story that contains an empty tomb is not a strike against Jewish origin.

Who is the you in this assertion? I agree that the argument from silence can be valid and useful. This is a straw man if it is aimed at me. Just because I attack one argument from silence, or a tendency to overuse the argument from silence, does not mean I am against it in principle.

Yes, of course. This was never at issue.

Why would it be the dominant theme? I cannot address this point. I do not know what the point is. You evidently have a strong expectation of something that I do not share.

In fact, this expectation of yours, that the stolen body motif would be the dominant theme if it surfaced at all, seems in tension with your assertion that the stolen body motif is a weak defense:

So, on the one hand, you regard the stolen body defense as weak; on the other hand, you think that once it surfaced it would inevitably spread like wildfire for the next four or five centuries. I should think that, if the story is not a very strong apologetic, it would not necessarily catch on across the span of centuries.

If there is any consistency in your views on this matter, I would appreciate it if you could point it out to me.

I agree, of course.

From the Toledoth:

She asked them, “After you executed him, then what did you do with him?” They reply to her, “We have buried him.”

At once they mounted a search for him in the grave but they did not find him. She asked them, “If you buried him in this grave, where is he now?” At this the sages were perplexed and had no answer for her.

The body, my friend, has disappeared.

Are you trying to deny that the Toledoth even depends on Matthew??

I agree with Price here:

Judas offers, "It was I who took the Fatherless from his grave. For I feared lest his disciples should steal him away [= Matthew 27:64], and I have hidden him in my garden and led a water brook over the place."

....

Surprisingly, it seems that the anti¬ Christian polemical tradition has unconsciously melded the harmonized Judas stories of Matthew and Acts with John's gardener, because Acts says Judas "bought a field with the reward of his wickedness" (1:18). Judas' "Field of Blood" was readily confused with the garden burial place of Jesus since the latter had for centuries been understood by Jewish polemicists as a vegetable garden or cultivated field. Thus Jesus comes to be buried in the garden of Judas!

You simply could not be more mistaken. In the Toledoth the tomb is indeed empty, and the (Jewish) explanation given is that somebody took the body.

The battle was never waged on a wider field. It is customary to take statements of vastness with a grain of salt as to exactly how vast the matter in question really was. There has been no backtracking; nobody claimed that Matthew was speaking for the entire Roman world, despite his hyperbole. When Paul claims to have evangelized entire regions, I also take his hyperbole in stride; but that does not mean that he never evangelized in those regions at all.

Ben.

EarlDoherty

I’m simply going to go the heart of the matter here, rather than engage in this see-saw business over what I meant vs. what you meant.

In the Toledoth, the tomb is only temporarily empty, a brief element of the storyline. Surely you can understand that a Jewish spin, as allegedly referred to in Matthew, that the tomb was empty because the disciples stole the body, is hardly going to be based on such a temporary situation. The Matthew scenario is that the Jews, over time, accepted that the tomb was permanently empty and came up with the rationale that “the disciples stole the body” to explain this. If they had a tradition like the Toledoth, this is the very negation of an “admission by default that the tomb was (permanently) empty.” It is simply not the same thing. The “disappearing” body has to be a permanently disappearing body, otherwise the Matthean ‘explanation’ would have no application. Turning it around, the temporary disappearance of the body in the Toledoth would bear no relation to the Mathean scenario.

The essential element of the story has to be that the body has disappeared. Permanently. That is, the essential element of your alleged Jewish spin—and the spin that Matthew in the concluding line of the pericope is supposedly alluding to—has to be that the body had disappeared for good, and this was the Jews’ counter-explanation for that Christian claim. This is the whole point to Matthew’s guards insertion; it can serve only to explain a permanent disappearance of the body. Therefore, the Jewish spin has to contain the admission that the body had disappeared for good. (There is no such admission in the Toledoth story, and thus it cannot make consistent sense in the context of Matthew’s scenario and his final statement.) This is precisely what I said the Jews were not liable to do: make such an admission that the body had disappeared for good. You said the Toledoth does just that. I pointed out that it does not; it’s only a temporary disappearance and since the body is immediately recovered, there is no need for the Toledoth scenario to come up with any such spin as “the disciples stole the body”—which in any case it does not, as I’ve pointed out. It’s the gardener who moved the body, with no intent at deception. The substitution of Judas for the gardener is an obvious bad fit with the context, and does not represent an original or hardly even an early version.

The Toledoth story cannot support your contention about Matthew’s guards insertion, because if the former were circulating before Matthew wrote, then Matthew’s guards rejoinder would have to be different. It would have to deal with the Jewish spin that the body only temporarily disappears and was recovered. Matthew’s story is not designed to do this; it gives no sign of such a Jewish rejoinder. Therefore, the Toledoth has to postdate Matthew. At best it’s a new spin. But it can do nothing to support the last line of Matthew’s scene being based on reality.

In fact, the Toledoth spin is undoubtedly a counter to the Matthean story. Price regards the Toledoth as likely a satire developing out of Jewish reactions to the Gospels, Matthew chiefly, making use of the latter in that satire, though as we’ve seen, John has a recognizable input as well in the ‘gardener’ aspect of the post-death events.

And there is a further point to be made. Mt. 28:15 says: “And this story has been widely spread among the Jews to this very day.” What story? What is this “stolen body” story according to Matthew’s own words? It is what the elders bribed the guards to say if the fact of the missing body came to light:

“His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.”

That latter phrase implies that Matthew does in fact have in mind the actual account of the posted guards when he uses the phrase “this story was widely spread,” and not just the bare fact that “the disciples stole the body.” But the guards story itself has been rejected as likely fiction. If he did not, then his text is certainly misleading, rendering it virtually useless as an indication of anything. And the story is further rendered ludicrous by any idea that the Roman guards could be bribed to say that “we were asleep.” What good is a bribe when to admit such a thing to Pilate would have led to their execution? The priests’ assurances that they will smooth things over with Pilate and “see that you do not suffer” is a piece of Matthean naivete, though it may show that he recognized the problem with his story. (It also speaks to the naivete of every Christian who ever held that the guards sequence was factual.)

You have admitted that the story of the posted guards and their reaction to the resurrection was likely an apologetic fictional device by Matthew to explain a Jewish claim that the explanation for the missing body is that the disciples stole it. In other words, Matthew made up a lie in order to explain the Jewish claim. Your (commendable) willingness to reject it seems to be on the basis that the story of the posted guards is not witnessed to anywhere else in the record. And yet, the same applies to Matthew’s final declaration that “this story became widely known.” It, too, is not witnessed to anywhere else in the record, including the Jewish (certainly not the Toledoth), so why shouldn’t the same standard apply here as well? If there is no corroboration, you are holding onto the veracity of the final comment on no basis at all, except your desire to rescue something from this whole fictional sequence. Treating the entire guards scene as fiction, part of a teaching allegory, casts Matthew in a much kinder light, in that one need see nothing as a “lie” but only elements of a storyline, none of which is intended to represent history.

Earl Doherty

Attonitus

As Brown states in The Death of the Messiah, the historicity defense of the guard at the tomb it is truly disappointing.

This fiction in Matthew -with mutual support in Peter's Gospel- it does not have a polemical purpose -explanation for a stolen body- but apologetical, simply it tries to show that "the power of God triumphs opposite to any human power".