Johnny Skeptic

Is there any historical evidence that the Jews said that the disciples stole the body? I do not believe that any such evidence exists. In order to claim that a body has been stolen, you first have to have good evidence where it was stolen from, in which case Christians would have to produce evidence that the Jews believed that the body had been placed in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. Now who exactly saw the body placed in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb? Well, er, uh.......

EarlDoherty

Thanks, Ben, for adding another witness to the guards/stolen-body spin, especially one that comes at the beginning of the period of identifiable Gospel dissemination, and for acknowledging that it is likely derived from Matthew (or rather, from Justin's "memoirs of the apostles"). But to evaluate your further remarks, I would have to ask how the Jews could be thought to have been admitting that it was they who had crucified Jesus. Rather, I think it is Justin himself who is slipping into the Christian 'spin' that it was the Jews who were responsible for the crucifixion, rather than the Romans. Why he also slipped into "we" instead of "you" is a matter for speculation. Perhaps it just made that spin more vivid in his mind.

Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

The incident of the guard itself, sure. But it hardly takes an historicist to suppose that the line about the Jewish charge is legitimate. I already gave you Price and Wells; are they die-hard historicists??

Not maybe. Certainly. When even fellow mythicists or HJ agnostics are taking the Jewish charge in Matthew seriously, yes, I think you owe the middle position a counterargument. You did not even give it a passing remark.

Ben does this along with good skeptical company.

The argument from silence... as usual. Your very objection points up the shortcoming of the argument from silence. I pointed out Tertullian and Justin as referring to the Jewish charge that the disciples stole the body. You have already opined that Tertullian is simply deriving it from Matthew, and I have (in a post that crossed with yours) even given contextual reasons to think that Tertullian might have done just that. Presumably you would say the same about Justin (otherwise your original statement about no such spin existing before Lucian and Celsus begins to look even shakier).

But think about that for a moment. Now we have two different Christian apologists deriving the Jewish charge of corpse-stealing from Matthew, but neither of them using the Matthean guard story as refutation of that charge! Why this silence on the refutation? Should we not expect these apologists to provide the very apology that Matthew has given them? Or does the argument from silence fail us in this case? IOW, if you are correct that the failure to bring up the charge indicates that the charge did not exist, then surely it is also, and even more so, the case that the failure to bring up the refutation of the charge indicates that the refutation did not exist; yet we know it did.

You write here as if you and Price disagree on the gardener in John. Has it somehow escaped your notice that the whole point of the article is to argue that John has no intention of countering some the gardener did it claim by the Jews? Price agrees with you. Price is arguing against the view that John is writing apologetically against a Jewish claim at this point:

If no apologetical intention is evident in John's garden tomb story, does any other purpose make itself known? Yes indeed. As Raymond E. Brown has pointed out, we should most likely view the detail of Mary mistaking the Risen Christ for the gardener as another instance of the gospels' tendency to make the post‑resurrection Jesus hard to recognize (Luke 24:15‑16; Markan appendix 16:12). This device prepares the way for a dramatic recognition scene just as the frequent element of the skepticism of the bystanders in pre‑resurrection miracle stories (Mark 4:38; 5:31, 40; 6:37; 8:4) prepares the way for the awed acclamation of the witnesses later (Mark 4:41; 5:42). The garden‑gardener scenario is simply a convenient circumstance in which to have Mary mistake Jesus for someone else who might plausibly be present on the scene.

You write that John is simply having Mary fail to recognize Jesus at first to give her eventual recognition emotional impact; Price argues that John is preparing the way for a dramatic recognition scene for Mary. You and Price agree! (And actually I think I do, too.) So in what way, exactly, has Price gotten carried away on this point, to use your words?

No, it is not. The charge is always to be evaluated separately from the excuse or the apology. The student who says that he did not do his homework because his grandmother died last night may well be lying about his grandmother but telling the truth about not having done his homework. Likewise, when Matthew says that the Jewish story about the disciples stealing the body is false because there was a guard at the tomb, he may well be inventing the guard at the tomb but telling the truth about the Jews making such an accusation.

There is no way around it, Earl. You are guilty here of the excluding the middle. That you do not recognize this says a lot more about your own sense of logic than it does about G. A. Wells, Robert M. Price, or Ben C. Smith.

Here you are starting on the route of actively excluding the middle that I pointed out (in good company, I reiterate). This is what you should have done all along. I will leave it to the reader to decide which option is more likely, Matthew refuting a real charge or Matthew proactively refuting an imagined charge.

Offhand, I do not know. But if Luke was writing for a readership that had not yet heard this Jewish accusation (remember that I doubt Matthew was necessarily speaking for the entire Roman world) there would have been no reason to bring it up.

You keep calling it my middle ground. Why are you still ignoring the fact that even skeptics have taken it seriously?

I want to go back to one of your comments:

I agree with you in that much. John is not like Matthew here. John is not refuting any prior Jewish charge; Matthew is. And yet another comment of yours:

Yes, I again agree that those are two very different things. Yet you would have us believe that Matthew, knowing he was writing an allegory, intentionally broke up that allegory with an editorial comment that suppresses the allegory for the literal truth (or untruth) that the Jews were circulating a story about the body of Jesus.

Your difficulty is transparent here. The most natural reading is that Matthew is answering a contemporary Jewish charge with an invented apology, your explanations and illogical conditional statements notwithstanding.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I do not think the Jews ever had any reason to deny that Jesus was crucified on Jewish accusations; they had every reason to be proud of having rid Israel of a charlatan. The rabbis certainly took full responsibility for his death in the Talmud. I see no reason for the Jews of century II not to take full responsibility, too.

I also think the Christian tendency to put the blame on the Jews was at least partially derived from the Christian tendency not to get the Romans riled up.

Ben.

aa5874

The 'stolen body' story makes no sense if Jesus was raised from the dead.

In order for the 'stolen body' story to make sense, Jesus could not be seen alive again, anywhere, that is, he could not be resurrected.

Now, in Matthew 28:12-15, And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,

Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole Him while we slept.

And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will persuade him and secure you.

So they took the money, and did as they were taught, and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

Jesus was never seen or heard from again in the Jewish region, the 'stolen body' story worked. Jesus was never resurrected and we have another dilemma, the 'stolen body' story was a lie.

Ben C Smith

We have Matthew 28.15, as well as (possibly) Justin and Tertullian.

Fortunately, nobody here is bound by your beliefs.

One may as well say that in order to claim that a body has disappeared at all one first has to have good evidence of where it disappeared from. But that is not the case. The medieval Toledoth Yeshu claims that Judas had removed the body from the tomb. Did the author(s) of the Toledoth have some special evidence of where Judas had removed the body from? No, of course not. Rather, the author(s) had read the gospels, and were working from them.

Ben.

Jayhawker Soule

That impresses me as more convenient than convincing. In any event, in a dialog where Trypho is made to serve as an exemplar of anti-Christian polemic, is it not interesting that none of the lines written for him have him challenging the historicity of Jesus?

Johnny Skeptic

Why do you consider Matthew 28:15 to be historical evidence? Please present your evidence regarding Justin and Tertullian.

What non-Biblical evidence do you have that Jesus was tried by Pontius Pilate, was found guilty, and was crucified?

Jayhawker Soule

Is it your view that no reasonable inferences can be drawn from Biblical texts?

Johnny Skeptic

Of course not. It depends upon the issue.

What is your opinion regarding my question?

Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead?