hallq

In Lowder's critique of Craig, he argues that Craig has not established the historicity of the Markan story, but accepts the historicity of the empty tomb. In particular, he has an effective rebuttal to the claim that the silence of the women was meant to be a temporary silence. But if it was a permenant silence, the story makes no sense, as there would be no way for it to have gotten written down.

This, combine with the higher prior probability of a dishonarable burial, makes for a damning case against the historicity of the empty tomb, as far as I can tell. I'd like to try to understand Lowerder's view though. How does one really defend the thesis that Mark's story is wrong, but there really was an empty tomb?

Diogenes the Cynic

I think you're overthinking it. It seems to me that what Lowder thinks Mark is wrong about is that the women didn't tell anybody. Lowder's position would be that there was an empty tomb but that the women DID tell people about it (and mark was wrong to deny it).

Not that I agree with Lowder that there was an empty tomb.

Steven Avery

At the risk of sounding like the cynic here ... God resurrected the body of Jesus Christ (or at least in some way He made sure there was an empty tomb .. does Lowder try to have an empty tomb without a resurrection?) but failed to be sure the first post-resurrection details were right in the writings about the resurrection ?

Chris Weimer

After all, couldn't anyone write anything they wanted to? Is god exactly prone to magically disappearing false information? If he is, I wonder why there's still all the different Christian sects, Islam, Hinduism, etc... Why would god bother to ensure that someone wrote the correct information but not bother to preserve it or disallow false and misleading information? If God really would have wanted to make sure the details were right, he would have not only done it himself, but he would have preserved it as well. Where's the original manuscript? Oh wait, it doesn't exist.

And to the point, I'll have to let DtC answer your question. I'll just take you up on your presuppositions.

Steven Carr

God can't even stop Hurricane Katrina, and he is supposed to be able to control the wind, waves and sea.

How is he going to force people to write what he wants written?