Net2004

i'll use this line and claim that there was no point for matthew to mention that the deciples stole the body, because according to mat, the story was widely known, all the way up to his day. This indicates that the audience was already familiar with such a story so there was no need for mat to mention such a story.

Solo

I would answer question # 1 by saying that Matthew would have wieghed the risks of unwittingly polluting the minds of his potential converts unfamiliar with the rumour, with the risks of not responding to the hostile interpretation of the body "missing in (theological) action". I am inclined to believe that since the solution of the gospel outing the Jews' intrigues, was likely thought of as greatly reducing their effectiveness, the risks of non-response would have been seen as far greater then the risks of admitting that such nasty rumours still existed.

I am not sure what you mean by #2. Are you saying that the writer/editor of Matthew knew 'the resurrected body' was invented ? If you are saying that, I believe your are wrong, if not, I don't see the issue of the date markers except as I outlined them in my last post in the thread.

Here is my take on this: the idea of a bodily resurrection, is a classical Judaic concept. The "zombie show" in Matthew shows that the writer(s) truly believed that Jesus rose in the classical Danielic sense. But this is not (i am convinced ) what the earliest Jesus following believed. The church of James likely held that Jesus (Yeshu'a), the historical individual, ascended to God and was rehabilitated (probably in fulfilment of the vision in Zech. 3). He would be instrumental in his function of heavenly high priest in the coming Messiah's ushering God's kingdom on earth. Paul on the contrary believed (that God told him), that Jesus was resurrected in a bodily transformation into spirit such as he - Paul - and some of his fellow "saints" were experiencing in their OBE at the peak of ecstasies. Paul also believed that Jesus himself was the awaited Messiah whose function on earth was to be rejected and humiliated and die on the cross in atonement for the sin of Adam. Those who recognized this and had faith in Paul's schema would also be resurrected in a like fashion.

In the generation after James and Paul, the two large Jesus movements began to coalesce, and the process was probably accelerated by the new wave of Jews leaving Palestine after the first Jewish War. Mark was the first gospel and allegorized Jesus in the light of his time, in the clash of these two sharply divided views on Jesus. His gospel created an allegorical cipher of Paul's risen Christ operating on earth as a spiritual doppelganger of the idol of the Nazarenes. Peter and the other close disciples constantly misread the ideas of Paul's Jesus and his symbolic actions, and do not understand the Messianic purpose of his self-sacrifice. When Jesus is arrested they flee him and scatter. The word of his resurrection (of the Pauline type) does not reach them.

When the Jewish Nazarene believers - who had their own, different traditions, of Jesus - came in the contact with Pauline proto-Christianity, they probably realized they had very few options - the idea of a crucified messiah took hold and became a baseline for the emerging Christian orthodoxy. They could not compete on equal terms: gospel-wise, they could either publish or perish. Matthew was their answer. Matt's tactic was subtle. He would keep the mode of discourse Mark invented (thus strenghening the testimony) but correct him here and there and expand him, to make the story fit a new purpose. The end goal was to rehabilitate the disciples -to make them authentic witness to Jesus words and deeds, and the legitimate keepers of the tradition.
With respect to the resurrection, they the disciples do receive the rendezvous notice with resurrected Jesus, meet him in Galilee and receive their certificate of authority. Since Matthew asserts Jesus historical relationship with the disciples as superior to the knowledge of him through Spirit (reverse of Mark), the resurrection as Paul preached it won't do. Jesus must rise bodily, in the form he was known to his apostles when he was alive. That is the only way the apostolic tradition could claim access to the risen Lord !!! They knew him - Paul did not !

So, as you can see, in my scenario the story of the missing body arrives first allegorically, then it is translated by the Matthean tradition into an actual disappearance of a corpse. Once that is proclaimed as proof of resurrection and an act of God, it is countered by a naturalist claim that the body was stolen. That claim was then put away by a counterclaim that the guards at the tomb were paid to spread such a lie.


FWIW, I believe the guards' story is a later insert, much later than 90. One indication is the descriptor "among the Jews" (in 28:15). The rest of Matthew does not such support such overly general, external view of Jewishness. The only other use of Ιουδαῖοι in Matthew is in the phrase King of the Jews. The intent of the blood curse of 27:15 is not anti-Jewish; this is a classical situation of Jews blaming themselves for calamities as the result of their betraying their (covenant with) God.

Jiri

Jane H

Thanks again for the reply.


There are two different strands to my argument. One issue (your#2) is that, if the vanished body claim were late, the Jews wouldn't have bothered with a “They stole the body” approach, but rather would have gone with “Since you keep changing what you believe, why should anyone believe it?”. The only time for a “They stole the body” claim is at the beginning.

The scenario you outline follows AFAICS is pretty much the six step outline which I discussed. Your solution- a late interpolation- seems to me quite unsupported. Are there any heavyweight scholars who support this theory?

As for the lack of mention of Jews, a comparison with the other synoptics is revealing. Other than “King of the Jews” (which Matthew has no less than four times), Mark has only two places (7:3, 15:6) and Luke has only two (7:3, 23:51 both different contexts). So it's rare, but present, which is how it is in Matthew (28:15, a different context). So unless you're suggesting the other synoptic “Jew” passages are interpolations as well, Matthew is following their infrequent usage; I see no reason to read anything into Matthew's single usage if we read nothing into their double. So there's no reason to suggest an interpolation. Which in turn means we still have an historical problem which is most readily solved by saying the early Christians believed the body had vanished.

Jane H

(Two posts for readability!)

Further points on your post:

Paul's letters, and Acts, tell us that there was regular contact between the Palestinian and Greek churches (Peter visiting Paul, Paul bringing aid to Jerusalem...) The often suggested idea that Paul could have fundamentally altered Christianity without Jerusalem noticing really needs to be left behind. Just note the fury he caused by suggesting that gentile converts need not follow the Torah.

The discussion, in every part of the NT, is about Jesus resurrection. Everyone it was about bodily existence, not spiritual; from the Jews who argued about it, to the Greeks who thought it a sick joke. Never at any stage is Jesus return discussed as allegory or talked about as non-physical.

Indeed it is very important to understand the change that went on. In C1 Judaism, resurrection was a controversial, fringe element. The hope for the future was vaguely thought about, and generally involved an earthly kingdom. Resurrection was, for those who believed in it, invariably something that happened to everyone at once in the new age.

Christianity made put it at the absolute centre of their beliefs, took up very different beliefs about the nature of the new age, and declared that the resurrection had happened to only one person in the middle of history. This was a massive rethinking, and one which presents a huge historical problem to those who say it didn't come from the early disciples experiencing a massive shock.

Baalazel

The emphasis above is mine.

None of the four accounts of the resurrection mention the return of the guards. You are wrong about this. The question is still "where were the quards on Sunday morning?"

Diogenes the Cynic

There is no particular evidence that the Jews DID have any kind of stolen body story in circulation at the time of Matthew's Gospel. There is no evidence that the Jews were even aware of a physical resurrection claim. Matthew was addressing an obvious objection that would occur to anybody and framing it as a "Jew" story for demagogic reasons.
Paul never says there was a physical resurrection. He only talks about Jesus making "appearances." He does not describe these appearances as physical, and does not make any distinction between how Jesus appeared to Peter, et al and how he appeared to Paul himself.

Furthermore, Paul actually says that physical resurrections are impossible and calls people "fools" for believing it could happen. he explicitly and angrily says that resurrections are only spiritual events -- that the physical body rots in the grave.

The first claim for Jesus making physical appearances to anybody is in Matthew.

Self-Mutation

Nope. Paul said "if christ be not risen, then our faith is in vain." This to me shows two things:

1. He believed Jesus rose from the dead.

2. He was telling the truth. I doubt he would be martyred for a lie HE HIMSELF MADE UP. It's not like someone told Paul a lie and he believed it. Paul would have to have made it up himself and died for it.

No sane person would EVER EVER EVER make up a lie and die for it.

Martian Astronomer

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but I really can't believe that you think that this is a good argument.

Let me count the problems:

1. The post that you were responding to is disputing what Paul meant by "raised from the dead." It could mean something other than you think it means. You ignore this.
2. Paul could have been wrong. He could have believed that Jesus was raised, and died believing it, but still been completely wrong.
3. You assume Paul was sane.
4. You assume that Paul went to his execution specifically for preaching the resurrection (not anything else like refusing to acknowledge the Roman gods or for stirring up trouble.) There are no records of Paul's trial or execution, and frankly, even if he did recant, we wouldn't know.

Seriously, why do people use this argument?

Diogenes the Cynic

1. Paul did not say the word "risen" meant a physical resurrection. He actually said just the opposite -- that resurrections were spiritual. Once again, he called people who believed in physical resurrection "fools."

2. What is your evidence that Paul was martyred for his beliefs?

3. I have not said that Paul was "lying." I think that probably believed every word he said. The problem is that he himself insists quite adamantly that he got all of his information from his own hallucinations and nowhere else.

4. Even if Paul was relaying information he got from other people (something he himself explicitly denies), that doesn't mean it was therefore the "truth." Paul had no means of independently verifying anything, so the fact that he personally believed it would be empirically meaningless.

aa5874

But some Christians claim that the Gods of other religions are man-made or not true Gods and it is known that there are martyrs in other religions, whose Gods are assumed to be false.

It is absolutely clear that it is believed by many that certain religions are false and yet many people die believing the false religions.

Just as some Christians believe others have died for lies, it is almost certain that other people believe the Jesus stories were lies.

Jim Jones and David Koresh died for lies, and in the Jesus stories, Jesus and some of his disciples suffered the same fate, except that the stories were all fiction.

It cannot be shown to be true that Jesus died for the sins of the world. There is no proof that Jesus even died, and in the NT, the guards and the women could not account for the body of Jesus.

Only if you believe the LIE that he resurrected.