Self-Mutation

One of the most common skeptics objections to the empty tomb of Jesus is that the disciples stole Jesus' body and moved it to fool people into thinking Jesus was resurrected.

There's a problem with this objection. For one, Matthew mentions that there were guards at the tomb. Pilate ordered these guards to go to the tomb to make sure the DISCIPLES DID NOT STEAL THE BODY. Since it was punishable BY DEATH for a Roman soldier to leave their post, the "disciples stole the body" theory flies right out the window.

Even if, for the sake of argument, the disciples were able to somehow distract the guards away from guarding the tomb, there is still the problem of the big stone placed in front of the entrance way.The stone weighed several tons and required many men to move it. How did the disciples have enough time to move the stone? Unless you argue the Roman guards were sleeping. But, if caught sleeping, this also could've meant death for the soldiers. When Pilate tells you to do something, you're damn well gonna do it.

Transient

How do you know that the story of the guards and stone are true?
If you say that for this exercise we are to accept them as true then why not just accept the whole thing as true - how can we say the author was correct in some things but not in others?
Maybe the whole thing is fiction?
How can you tell?

Toto

This subject was done to death in these threads:

Some help please regarding the "stolen body" argument

A goof by William Lane Craig

Switch89 Review of "The Empty Tomb"

lpetrich

I think that Richard Carrier has a very interesting hypothesis: that Jesus Christ's tomb is an allegory for him leaving his old body and his resurrection was him getting a nice new body.

But in this scenario, it was later misinterpreted as literal history, complete with speculations about body snatching.

This is much like Earl Doherty's theory that the Gospel of Mark had been an extended allegory that later got misinterpreted as literal history. Whatever is to be said for that, this may nicely explain the virgin-birth doctrine. Various gentlemen were metaphorically "sons of God" in the Old Testament, and the writers of some of the Gospels took that literally as meaning that Jesus Christ had God as his biological father.

mountainman

According to the Gospel of Peter Petronius the centurion with (100?) soldiers guarded the tomb. The Romans were onto it. It was important business. Schroedinger's Tomb. Quantum states for a monotheistic storyline. The tension mounts. We look into the tomb. What do we see? Is the top jesus cat inside the tomb dead or alive? OMG! Can we read further? Is this too much? Conjectures abound. Interpretations abound.

But it appears that the Schroedinger-Like top jesus cat walked out of the tomb, accompanied by a number of heavenly accomplices, including the cross that walks the walk and talks the talk. Eyewitnesses report that Jesus' head was stretched into the sky. Huge! Monstrous fiction. Whopper tale. But very amusing. Very popular. Banned under Constantine. Therefore it was buried, like the rest of the "Hidden Books of the New Testament".

Jane H

If one puts together the two halves of the story- that a guard was set against the disciples stealing the story, and the tale that despite this guard, they had succeeded in doing so, it raises some interesting questions about the role of the story within the early Christian community. Basically, what is it doing in an apologetic context at all?

Why suggest the problem of stealing Jesus body in the first place, only to solve a problem no-one had thought of? It suggests that there was already a story going around about the body having been stolen.

Indeed, if the empty tomb itself was a late legend, the rumours about body stealing wouldn't be spreading at all, and Christians wouldn't be inventing stories to answer accusations that didn't exist.

However the telling of the story makes good historical sense given the situation the early Christians faced, that they were being challenged on the grave robbing thing anyway. It's better to say where the already existing accusation came from, even if it risks putting it into the heads of people who hadn't previously thought of it.

In short, the story only has any point in a community where the empty tomb is a fixed point.

Solo

Evidently, someone wants it resurrected !

Jiri

aa5874

Well, it is your theory that flies right out of the window.

According to the author of gMatthew up to the time he was writing the Gospel people believed the disciples stole the body of Jesus.

Once Jesus was really dead and buried in the tomb that was guarded, and his body could not be found afterwards, then some person or persons removed the body.

It could not be, or highly unlikely, that it was the guards.

Now, you must agree that if Jesus did come back to life and was seen all over Jerusalem by the guards, the chief preists, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Pilate, Herod and the multitude of followers, that the stolen body story would NOT make any sense. The stolen body story was absolute stupid once people saw Jesus alive after he was buried.

But according to the author of gMatthew, "upto this day" people believed the disciples stole the body of Jesus.


Why is the saying commonly reported among the Jews?

NOBODY SAW JESUS' BODY AFTER HIS DEAD BODY VANISHED.

Solo

Yes ! Actually, the text itself says that plainly: (Mt 28:15) And this story (meaning the story of the disciples stealing the body, not, I pray you , the story of the bribing of the guards.) is still told among the Jews to this day.

In cognitive terms, the only time marker of importance is the dating of the assertion (#1) that Jesus' corpse was not where it was placed relative to the dating of the assertion (#2) spread by the Jews that the disciples stole it.

Irrespective of the verity of #1, if it was argued that the body was missing because of supernatural intervention, then #2 is best explained as a logically subsequent statement rebutting #1 on natural terms.


What do you mean by a fixed point ? There is the silly argument by the Christian apologists that the story of the missing body must be factually true because it has an alternative explanation. But the point is the traditional, presumably rabbinical, Jews, would be arguing the same way (i.e. the body was stolen) even if they could not independently verify the body was there in the first place. It's an effective rebuttal and therefore - for the Christian proselytes vying for converts with the Jews - the rationalist challenge had to be met head on and dealt with by an authoritative exposé of the nasty origins of the rumours.

Jiri

Baalazel

Where were the guards when the Magdalene arrived at the tomb on Sunday morning? If you place so much emphasis on there being guards at the tomb you must explain why they would be gone on the very morning Jesus was raised. Why were there no guards at the tomb on Sunday morning?

Baal