darstec

Holding as usual is pulling excuses out of his dorsal end. He has been called on this more than once as has Gastrich, Fake Pastor Dave and other Fundamental Inerrantists. While counting partial days and considering it a DAY was an established practice, there is no evidence this held true when mentioning a duration of both day and NIGHTS. NIGHTS have always been nights. That is further illustrated in the Genesis creation fable The total duration of a period of darkness (night) and a period of light (day) was stressed to reflect a 24 hour day. And using a Jerusalem Talmud which was composed sometime during the 5th through the 11th centuries CE is hardly authoritative as to how the Book of Jonah thought of the duration of a day plus a night. Most especially when many Christians misinterpret the passages. The Hebrew writers needed some way of distinguishing a 24 hour day than a partial day considered a day. Thus they used "a night and a day" or "a day and a night" or even "after three days".

See: http://www.bibarch.com/Perspectives/...rucifixion.htm

In Jonah we find the same words used for day and night: And again in Matthew: One only needs to look and see what Jews consider the day of Sabboth to determine what they think a day means. It starts at sundown (roughly 6:00 PM) on Friday NIGHT, continues through Saturday DAYTIME, and ends at sundown Saturday NIGHT.


Read the story of Jonah again. He was a sacrifice by the people to appease god in order to redeem the people. The parallels are very plain when compared with the better known sacrifice. Jonah's Psalm of Thanksgiving relates that Jonah thought he was brought to new life, grasped from the nether world (i.e. hell or a close approximation) . Again is another parallel between three days and three nights and death. Watch the emphasis on three days and three nights not just three days and nights. The Apostles Creed [κατελθοντα εις τα κατωτατα] and The Athanasian Creed both reflect the descent into hell {more aptly nether world} prior to the Resurection.

The Epistles of Peter reflect the same idea. And Paul's Letter to the Ephesians uses the same word for nether world: Neither Mark nor John mention any such thing. Perhaps Matthew was reminded of Jonah because of Mark's reference to casting lots for Jesus' robe as the ship's inhabitants cast lots to decide it was Jonah whom god was angry at. And it neatly ties into the three day/death theme as well. Luke of course copies Matthew with regards to the Jonah/Jonas sign but deletes any reference to the three days and three nights. Since Luke seems to have copied Matthew 16:1 which is an abreviated form without the three days and three nights reference, it could well be that Matthew 12:40 is a later Christian interpolation. John has Jesus mentioning the symbolism of the temple that would be destroyed and then raised on the third day, but of course this happened to no temple.

In essence, Matthew did not just abitrarily pick the Jonah verse. It encompasses a later them primarily to attack Gnosticism.

Toto

You're trying to use the report of a mythical event that didn't happen to show the existence of a historical Jesus? What am I missing?

darstec

To whom or to what are you replying?

Toto

The OP by TedM, obviously

Vorkosigan

Why would an instantaneous resurrection make more sense? Really, that is an entirely subjective judgment on your part. You can't locate the historicity of an event in your own subjectivity.

In any case the whole discussion is moot, as the dead do not rise, as Toto pointed out. There wasn't any resurrection.

Vorkosigan

mikem

The earliest NT reference to the third day is in 1 Corinthians 15:3 "...he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures"

This reference to a chronological sequence makes it look to me that Paul* believed that Jesus was a historical figure. He is also passing on what he has received, so this is an early piece of Jesus tradition that existed prior to anything being written down. My money is on the early followers of Jesus believing that he rose again and that the tomb was empty.

*Discounting the theory that Paul was a second century invention. If that's the case then the tradition he quotes may be an invention too.

TedM

Thanks for your comments on the 3 days and nights. Are we to conclude that 'Matthew' believed that Jesus WAS dead for 3 full nights before rising, so that the first day was actually the day AFTER he died? Just curious..

The Jonah story could have inspired the choice of 3 days if the whole thing was made up, but its absence in Mark and the 1 Cor 15 creed--or any of Paul's writings'--persuade me to consider that to be unlikely.


Sorry I was so unclear. I was trying to determine if there are some clues that the use of 3 days is problematic for the early believers in such a way as to provide clues for historicity. If the time period was not based on historical events, I was wondering if we should expect to see 'according to the scriptures' in 1 Cor 15, and the 36 hour period of the gospels:

If it was evolved/invented by people (Mark?) scouring the OT for prophecies about their anticipated Messiah, is it reasonable to conclude that they chose Hosea 6:2 to conclude how long he had been dead?

And/or if it was borrowed from other legends, is it reasonable to see the time period between dying and raising as found in the gospels, if they were simply inventions to fit an already-agreed upon 3-day scenario?

IF these things don't fit, I wonder if we might consider actual events followed by a scramble to find scriptural support as a better explanation for the creedization of the '3 days'?

Whether Jesus really rose or not is irrelevant to the question I'm looking at here. What is relevant is whether something actually happened with regard to a historical man Jesus to generate the belief in rising on the 3rd day, or whether the time period was one more invention put in an entirely invented historization of a savior-god whose 'life and death' really never occurred on earth.

Good point. And, it occurs to me that instantaneous may make sense spiritually, but not in terms of the body, because otherwise no one would know if he had really died!

ted

Diogenes the Cynic

You don't necesarily have to look to Jewish tradition. Sol Invictus died every year and was resurrected after three days. It was an allegory for the winter solstice. A lot of mythic motifs are rooted in primitive interpretations of normal celestial events.

EssEff

It's a matter of faith. There's no reason at all to believe that Jesus actually existed or actually rose from the dead other than a desire to believe it. Any good fiction writer aims for believability. Characters have to "ring true" and the setting has to be familiar to readers.

Scenario 1: Jesus actually existed, and his tomb was visited on the 3rd day in accordance with Jewish tradition. Since the tomb wasn't visited on the second day, we have no way of knowing whether he had not really been dead when he was taken from the cross. To believe that he was dead on the second day we have to accept the word of the writer that the tomb wasn't tampered with during the interim despite the lack of witness statements. i.e., people believe this yarn because they want to.

Scenario 2: Jesus was mythical, and the writer knew enough about Jewish tradition to have the tomb visited at the appropriate time. The writer's further proof of the miraculousness of this would be the ensuing scenes with the apostles, so there was no need to stress the connection to prophesy. Not to mention, Jesus had raised Lazarus, so of course he could raise himself. This is the cap-off to a series of impossible miracles performed by the protagonist. People believe the yarn because it has an internal consistency in its series of miracles. (and because they want to)

TedM

To help in this analysis, I have the following q's.:

1. Are we sure it was the tradition of the times to visit the tomb for the first time on the 3rd day?

2. Is the gospel timeline consistent with a visitation on the 3rd day(or normally would the visitation have occurred 1 day later)?

If the answer to both is yes, then invention is a reasonable hypothesis.

Not sure I believe this (3 day resurrection) preceded Christianity.


thanks,

ted