Johnny Skeptic

The chief priests and the Pharisees would have known what Jesus' followers believed because spies frequently made reports to them regarding the activities of Jesus. In order for guards to have been an issue, some of Jesus' followers would had to have said that they believed that he would rise from the dead, not just that Jesus said that he would rise from the dead. Virtually everyone believed that Jesus would not rise from the dead, and that his claim that he would rise from the dead would be discredited. Even Peter and Mary Magdalene were not convinced by the empty tomb. In addition, Jesus criticized his followers because of their unbelief. If Jesus was virtually the only person who believed that he would rise from the dead, which apparently was the case, that would probably not have been enough to cause concern over posting guards at the tomb.

If guards had not been posted at the tomb, and it was found emtpy, it is doubtful that anyone could have gotten away with claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead, especially since Peter and Mary Magdalene were not convinced by the empty tomb, and since Jesus criticized his followers because of their unbelief.

So, it would have been unlikely that guards would have been posted at the tomb.

Even if dozens of Jesus' followers had publically stated that they believed that he would rise from the dead, the Gospels do not say or imply that that happened. That does not necessarily mean that it did not happen, but neither does it necessarily mean that it did happen.

Saramago

Bee recently flew into your bonnet about the tomb +/- guards, eh? Can't help but note that you've started multiple threads in BC&H on this topic in recent days:

5/23/10 (this one)

5/21/10 "Some concessions for the sake of argument"
http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...ht=guards+tomb

5/19/10 "Who else except for Jesus believed that he would rise from the dead?"
http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...ht=guards+tomb

5/19/10 "Some alternative theories about the Resurrection"
http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...ht=guards+tomb

5/18/10 "If Jesus made personal appearances, how could the empty tomb have been an issue?"
http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...ht=guards+tomb

5/14/10 "How much does the empty tomb story depend upon the presence of the guards?"
http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...ht=guards+tomb

5/12/10 "William Lane Craig - the guard at the tomb"
http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...ht=guards+tomb

Surely the thread called "There Were Guards At The Tomb Of Jesus", could have encompassed all of your thoughts about the guards at the tomb...even though it would mean going back to a 7/4/2009 thread & adding your thoughts on at the end.
http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...ht=guards+tomb

Parsimoniously yours,
Saramago

rcscwc

The gaurds were Roman legionnaires, and were not answerable to the priests. They were posted there by their superior officers lest the "body" should be stolen. They could not have slept on duty under pain of summary executions. They were professionals under iron discipline, not a rag tag bunch of amateur. Afterwards, all of them would run away, desertion would mean executions. One messenger only would have gone, that too his suprior officers, not to the priests. Going to priests could also result in executions.

So, they were THERE, and awake, not all deserted. Moreover, none saw the alleged resurrection.

Conclusion: The tomb was likely an empty one. The body intered there could have been removed by a secret passage.

Second, real Jesus was spared and another man executed. After all, there was no apostle present at the site. Guards were posted to cover up the switch.

LAST: Dead men do not come back. It is against the laws of nature.

Minimalist

The Roman Army (4 legions)was stationed in Syria. Pilate's command amounted to a few cohorts of auxilia and a couple of cavalry wings (ala). Pilate was an equestrian and not eligible to command the legions. His command would have totalled about 3,000 men and most would have been on garrison duty. In the event of serious trouble Pilate would have had to call on the governor of Syria for assistance.

This nonsense about 'guarding a tomb' is a later literary invention.

Johnny Skeptic

Biblical Criticism and History is not my forte. It is very complicated, and I am learning at my own pace.

How could the chief priests and the Pharisees have been concerned about the stolen body issue? Surely they must have known that if guards had not been posted at the tomb, and the body was found missing, almost no one would have believed that Jesus had risen from the dead.

rcscwc

Yeah. Pure BS.
Sample this.

According to The Gospel of Matthew, a group of Roman Soldiers, via a request by Jewish priests , had been assigned by the Roman governor to guard the tomb of the recently deceased Jesus.

One night, while on guard duty, the Jesus popped out, the soldiers got scared, deserted their post, ran back into the city, and reported to the Jewish priests & rabbis. Matthew then claims that these priests & rabbis made up an excuse for the soldiers to use, bribing the soldiers to claim that while they were SENSELESS like the dead, with their eyes closed, they saw the Christians come in and steal the body. Or so The Gospel of Matthew claims. (Matthew 28: 4, 11-15)

Add the crime of accepting the bribes from the priests. Charge sheet against the soldiers lengthens.

rcscwc

According to The Gospel of Matthew, a group of Roman Soldiers, via a request by Jewish priests , had been assigned by the Roman governor to guard the tomb of the recently deceased Jesus. One night, while on guard duty, the Jesus popped out, the soldiers got scared, deserted their post, ran back into the city, and reported to the Jewish priests & rabbis. Matthew then claims that these priests & rabbis made up an excuse for the soldiers to use, bribing the soldiers to claim that while they were SENSELESS like the dead, with their eyes closed, they saw the Christians come in and steal the body. Or so The Gospel of Matthew claims. (Matthew 28: 4, 11-15)

From famed Christian author Josh McDowell’s book Evidence That Demands A Verdict1 we learn the following from McDowell’s many and varied sources...

First Self goal by Math.
The guard numbered from ten to thirty men......they were not the kind of men to jeopardize their Roman necks by sleeping on their post...they were Roman soldiers, not mere Jewish temple guards...The soldiers had very strict discipline...the punishment for deserting one’s post was death...the fear of punishments produced faultless attention to duty, especially in the night watches.....one soldier who had fallen asleep on duty was executed by being hurled from the cliff of the Capitolium... (pp 218 – 224)

Second self goal
ROMAN soldiers, would have gone on their ROMAN training, by going to their ROMAN commanders, to seek ROMAN help to achieve a ROMAN solution to the problem. Roman soldiers would not have gone running to Jewish rabbis for help,

Third self goal
In fact, they would not have gone “running” AT ALL, to a Jewish rabbi or a Roman commander, as according to McDowell, “the punishment for deserting one’s post was DEATH”. These were soldiers, Roman soldiers, and if they had “run away” to ANYONE, they would have been put to death.

Guards
IF they had been asleep, they would never have admitted it, for to admit it would be certain death.
¨ IF they were executed (from admitting they were sleeping), then their bribe would have been useless to them.
¨ IF they were asleep, then they had their eyes closed. And IF they had their eyes closed, then they could not see. And IF they could not see, then they could not see the body being carried out. And IF they could not see the body being carried out, then they also could not see WHO was doing the carrying.
¨ IF they really DID see people stealing the body out of the tomb, then they had their eyes open. And IF their eyes were really open, they must have only been pretending to be asleep. And IF they were pretending to be asleep while watching all this going on, and did not stop it, then they were totally negligent in their guard duty, and would have been executed by their commanders.

Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following Scriptures from the NIV:

Matthew 27:62-64

"The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."

If the chief priests and the Pharisees actually said that, I assume that the following is essentially what would have happened:

Pilate:

"No, there is no need to have guards posted at the tomb. No one could get away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead. Your own spies have told you that none of Jesus' followers believe that he will rise from the dead. Not only that, but I have much more important things for my guards to do at this time."

As it supposedly turned out, Pilate's hypothetical opinion would have been correct since the emtpy tomb did not convince Peter and Mary Magdalene that Jesus had risen from the dead, and since Jesus criticized his disciples for their unbelief.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 13:10-14

"The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.'"

Even though the disciples were given "the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven," they still had unbelief. That is further evidence that no one could have gotten away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead.

Johnny Skeptic

Following are my undated arguments:

Consider the following Scriptures from the NIV:

Matthew 27:62-64

"The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."

If the chief priests and the Pharisees actually said that, I believe that the following subsequent scenario is plausible:

Pilate:

"No, there is no need to have guards posted at the tomb. No one could get away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead. Your own spies have told you that none of Jesus' followers believe that he will rise from the dead. Not only that, but I have much more important things for my guards to do at this time."

Regarding "not only that, but I have much more important things for my guards to do at this time," even granting for the sake of argument that Pilate was moderately concerned about Jesus' followers, and normally would have been willing to post guards at the tomb, if he believed that the guards were more needed elsewhere, that would have been sufficient reason for him to refuse to post guards at the tomb. I believe that that is an effective counter to the Christian argument that Pilate was at least moderately concerned with the followers of Jesus.

As it supposedly turned out, Pilate's hypothetical comment "no one could get away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead" was correct since the empty tomb did not convince Peter and Mary Magdalene that Jesus had risen from the dead, and since Jesus criticized his disciples for their unbelief.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 13:10-14

"The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.' In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.'"

Even though the disciples were given "the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven," they still had unbelief. That is further evidence that no one could have gotten away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead.

It is doubtful that Pilate would have paid much attention to the followers of Jesus even if he had been aware of them. The first century Christian church was very small and uninfluential. In "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that there were only 7,530 Christians in the entire world in 100 A.D. In Christian apologist James Holding's article "The Impossible Faith," Holding quotes well-known Christian Bible scholar N.T. Wright as saying "This subversive belief in Jesus' Lordship, over against that of Caesar, was held in the teeth of the fact that Caesar had demonstrated his superior power in the obvious way, by having Jesus crucified. But the truly extraordinary thing is that this belief was held by a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire."

It is not likely that Pilate would have been very concerned with "a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire." Based upon what Stark and Wright said, it would be reasonable to speculate that when Jesus died, he only had several hundred followers in Palestine.

Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t012.html

Without supposed appearances by Jesus, the resurrection message would not have had any support from the empty tomb. Even with supposed appearances by Jesus, since it is probable that guards would not have been posted at the tomb, at best, all that Jesus' appearances imply is that some burial place at an unknown location is empty.

Who says that the resurrection was maintained to any significant extent during the first century? In "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that there were only 7,530 Christians in the entire world in 100 A.D. In Christian apologist James Holding's article "The Impossible Faith," Holding quotes well-known Christian Bible scholar N.T. Wright as saying "This subversive belief in Jesus' Lordship, over against that of Caesar, was held in the teeth of the fact that Caesar had demonstrated his superior power in the obvious way, by having Jesus crucified. But the truly extraordinary thing is that this belief was held by a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire."

But if Jesus did not rise from the dead, there would not have been any need for a conflicting tradition.

The lack of any extant conflicting traditions does not necessarily mean that there weren't any. Where is any credible non-bibical confirmation that the Ten Plagues occured in Egypt? There isn't any.

Regarding "the consistent Jewish protests that the body had been removed," that argument is dependent upon guards being posted at the tomb. It is very unlikely that guards would have been posted at the tomb.

Those arguments are also dependent upon guards being posted at the tomb.

William Lane Craig knows how important the issue of the guards is. That is why he desperately tried to use the Gospel of Peter as a source.