Johnny Skeptic

Since I already have a similar thread at the Biblical Criticism and History forum, I request that moderators leave this thread at this forum, meaning at the GRD forum.

Consider the following:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...ocs/guard.html

An empty tomb is not of any value whatsoever unless you can reasonably prove whose body, if any body, was in a specific tomb in the first place. This makes the story of the guards useless because there is not credible evidence regarding where Jesus was buried. Craig simply trusts the Gospel accounts that Jesus was buried in Joseph of Arimathaea's tomb, but that is not acceptable historical evidence.

Consider this possibility: If Jesus was just human, died and was buried, he obviously did not rise from the dead. No stolen body stories were circulating because no one expected Jesus to rise from the dead. When stolen body stories finally began to appear decades later, no living person knew where the body had been buried. Even if someone had known where the body was buried, no one would have been able to prove that that is where Jesus was buried.

Craig has referred to the Gospels as "multiple, independent attestations." What does he mean by independent? How can he make such a claim? Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not claim to be eyewitnesses of any miracles. John was written too late to be of much value to Christians. The Gospels were written decades after the supposed facts. The Gospel writers rarely reveal who their sources were. It is well-known that Matthew and Luke borrowed a good dead from Mark. There is no way that Craig could have credible historical evidence regarding where the Gospel writers got their information from. Therefore, he cannot get away with claiming that the Gospels are "multiple, independent attestations."

Emil

His resurrection argument is a waste of time to intelligent readers. But that's okay from his perspective. His not targeting intelligent (or at least, people using their intelligence in that area) people; He is targeting Christians that already agree with him. No one will ever be rationally convinced by his resurrection argument.

TheRealityOfMan

It all seems to boil down to the C.S.Lewis false 'trichotomy' of that if it's not something else then we must deduce it happened according to the bible. Same goes with if a girl tells you she's found a magical land in the wardrobe, it is reasonable to assume there is one there provided she is not insane or an evil lier.

Meatros

Shoot, even a few weeks after the burial (if not several days) the body would have been unrecognizable.

I always wonder why the NT deals with things BEFORE the resurrection. I mean, IMO, who would remember that when you compare it to the significants of his post resurrection appearances? He spent, what, forty days on earth after the resurrection? Why do the gospels not cover that time period as significantly *If not more so* then before the resurrection?

The whole NT seems to be of a 'novel' quality, with the big finish being Jesus's resurrection as the 'end' of the book. That doesn't really make sense to me if this supposedly really happened though.

show_no_mercy

Well, they had to write something. Prior to the gospels, there was no tradition or information about Jesus' earthly life. So they modeled Jesus after the popular heroes and philosophers of the day - wandering sages who taught people (like Socrates) and healed people (like Asclepius) and always had run ins with the "establishment" who are jealous of them.

babelfish

For that matter, why did Jesus only spend a month or so on earth after his resurrection? It's very fishy. If he was still here on earth, visible to all, now that would be something.

Johnny Skeptic

All empty tomb arguments, including the story of the guards, are not valid because in order to make a credible empty tomb argument you have to start with sufficient evidence that the body was put in a specific place to start with. There is not any credible historical evidence that Jesus was put in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb.

Today, can you image a man filing a lawsuit, claiming that a body has been stolen, and refusing to disclose where the body is missing from? Of course not, but that is what William Lane Craig has essentially done since he has not provided any historical evidence that I am aware of that Jesus was buried in Joseph of Arimathaea's tomb.

dog-on

Craig also calls the gospels "independent" and "eyewitness" sources.

He is just a disingenuous debater and is simply preaching to his choir. As was stated earlier, his arguments carry no actual weight.

Anaximanchild

Why does this belong here, and not in BC&H? Do you plan on discussing anything other than biblical accuracy?

Martian Astronomer

Among the gospel writers, "Matthew" is notorious for changing the story to match up with the way he wants it to sound. The most obvious place I can think of is during the "triumphal entry" scene. Unlike all of the other gospel writers, Matthew says that Jesus rode on a both a donkey and a colt, so as to match up with Zechariah 9:9 -
If my memory serves, it was a fairly common practice in Hebrew to emphasize something by saying "and" and restating it. Most scholars say that Matthew didn't speak Hebrew, rather he used the Septuagint - It was in Greek, but it preserved this particular Hebrew idiom. In this instance, Matthew changed the story to have it line up with what he thought the prophecy said.

It's been speculated that the whole story of the virgin birth came about the same way - Isaiah 7:14 uses the word almah, which means "young woman," but the Septuagint translates this as "virgin." It's possible that "Matthew" (or others who Matthew relied on for theology) interpreted Isaiah 7:14 as being a messianic prophecy, and therefore wound up inventing the virgin birth story just to make Jesus' story line up with what they thought the prophecy said.

Of course, there's the whole "earthquake with zombies" thing at the time of Jesus death that nobody else, even the other gospel writers, seem to find worthy of mention. It doesn't do wonders for our confidence in "Matthew's" credibility.

Given that "Matthew" didn't seem to have a problem "inventing" convenient details, it's not that much of a stretch that he could would invent a story about Roman guards as a way to counter speculation that Jesus didn't actually rise from the dead.