Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following from another thread:

Comments please.

DCHindley

Perhaps the progression goes like this:

1) Jesus is crucified. His body is disposed of in the usual way.

2) His disciples convince themselves this cannot be a horrible mistake on God's part (God just doesn't make mistakes), and they see visions in which Jesus seems so real. They reason that he has been resurrected.

3) Other Jews counter that Jesus could not have been resurrected alone. They fully expected a general resurrection.

4) Jesus' followers counter that his body is nowhere to be found, so is proof of his resurrection. By this time, knowledge of the location of Jesus' bones must have been lost (perhaps during the war of 66 CE).

5) Others counter that his disciples had carried away (stolen) the body. Under different circumstances, John the Baptist's disciples had carried away his body after he was executed by the Tetrarch Antipas. Using "stolen" suggests that these folks who objected thought Jesus followers were being deceitful.

6) Jesus followers counter that his body could not have been stolen, as the governor would surely have set guards over the tomb he was laid in. This assumes that Jesus had clearly predicted in advance that he would be resurrected after his death. This indicates that by the time this is asserted, the Jesus tradition had developed to the point where Jesus is envisioned as engaging in a grand plan of salvation for mankind. This becomes the default Christian position for ever more, amen.

DCH

aa5874

But, what you wrote is just all speculation.

Apologetic sources of antiquity have already written their stories.

Jesus was betrayed and arrested and his disciples ran away.

Peter after following Jesus from a distant eventually denied three times that he ever knew Jesus and denied that he was ever with him.

Now, later in the day Jesus was crucified, died and was buried by Joseph. When the visitors came to the tomb on the third day, the body is missing.

If Jesus was HUMAN, HE DID NOT RESURRECT.

There is no need to speculate.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to aa5874: I already know what many skeptics' positions are. For purposes of this thread, I would like some explanations from Christians about the opening post, or from skeptics who have some idea about how Christians might reply to the opening post.

The title of this thread is "If Jesus made personal appearances, how could the empty tomb have been an issue?" That assumes for the sake of argument that Jesus made personal appearances. I know that you do not like to do that, and it is fine for you to argue against the historical Jesus, but if all that skeptics ever did was claim that Jesus did not exist, and/or that no God exists, it would be very difficult to have discussions with Christians about many issues. There are lots of other threads for you to argue against the historical Jesus. My intention in this thread is to assume for the sake of argument that Jesus made personal appearances.

I think that you have made a lot of good arguments about various issues in some other threads, but the historical Jesus is not an issue in this thread.

DCHindley

In the business I am in (I am a kind of auditor, working with payroll records and reports for insurance billing purposes), we all the time have to "back into" the numbers and assumptions the policyholder used to create their wage reports to the insurer. So, I start with the policyholder's finished report telling me what they think the reportable payroll should be (this is used to calculate the insurance premium).

I compare this to what the premium should be, by using source documents (payroll reports, quarterly tax filings, W2s, etc), and see if there is a difference. If so, we can almost always figure out ("back into") what they were thinking, and if they made any mistakes (the rules in our state are fairly simple, but people get confused over officer/owner wage caps, other wage caps that sometimes apply, and proper classification of some employee wages, etc). We don't have any interest in "getting them," just figure it out. If its some error, we explain it, if they overreported or underreported, we send them a check or a bill. When it don't add up in any way shape or form, usually heavily in the risk's favor, we know we have intent to defraud.

Well, we can do something similar with historical sources. I prefer to look at them as apologies, meant to "explain" things that are causing doubt in others. I suppose it is a variation of the criterion of embarrassment. If A+B is asserted, it is because some sub-element of elements A or B are called into question.

A. Jesus' tomb was empty (A-uncontested-fact), because he was resurrected (A-explanation).

B. Jesus' body wasn't simply stolen (B-counterclaim in opposition to A-expl), because there were guards at the tomb (B-counterclaim-explanation).

It doesn't matter whether these claims are factual or not, just that they came together as they did. From these discombobulated elements, compared to other information we have about historical events and language use of the times, we can make some reasonable assumptions about the circumstances that caused these elements to arise. It's not rocket science ...

DCH

Johnny Skeptic

The following is from another thread:

andrewcriddle

Hi Johnny

I thought my point (right or wrong) was clear enough.

One can obviously argue that even if there is good evidence for both a/ an early tradition of the Empty Tomb and b/ Early and widespread claims by Jesus' followers to have encountered the Risen Christ, this still does not establish that Christ really rose from the dead.

However it is not clear that it is profitable to continue the discussion, because it is unlikely that further evidence (even if accepted) would actually change things. If the evidence required for one to accept a position is very high then the available evidence is likely to be insufficient.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

The title of this thread is "If Jesus made personal appearances, how could the empty tomb have been an issue?" The words "have been" mean how could it have been an issue back then? Back then, if John Smith believed that he had seen the risen Jesus, how could the empty tomb have been an issue for John?

Today, why should the empty tomb be an issue for anyone regarding whether or not they should accept Christianity?

How can William Lane Craig be right about the guards? The followers of Jesus were a very small, uninfluential group. Since they did not believe that Jesus would rise from the dead, they would not have gone around boasting that he would rise from the dead. Since virtually no one else would have paid any attention to a very small, uninfluential group of religious fanatics even if they had known about them, the posting of guards at the tomb would have been very unlikely.

Regarding "widespread claims by Jesus' followers to have encountered the Risen Christ," that does not have anything to do with whether or not there was a commotion about the body being stolen or moved. The commotion about the body being stolen or moved is pre-Resurrection. Jesus' followers encountering the Risen Christ is post-Resurrection. What non-biblical evidence is there that there was any commotion at all back then about the body being stolen or moved before Jesus rose from the dead?

Toto

IMHO - William Lane Craig has wrung every ouce of value out of that argument in debate, and will probably move on to something else soon.

Johnny Skeptic

He will not move on to something else if he keeps insisting that the guards are historical.