Chris Weimer

What do you mean "Believer in Christ but not Christianity"? What does that imply?? Muslim???

Doug Shaver

Authors never do anything only once?

Amaleq13

Obviously so since that appears to be the case here but I was saying that Earl's explanation of the author's choice here would be strengthened if the author exhibited a tendency to do as he suggested.

Surely this isn't the only place in his story where the author might have indulged in such writing behavior, right? So why here and not elsewhere?

EarlDoherty

Yes, there might be a certain degree of contradiction, although those two somewhat conflicting ideas were approached separately, from two different directions, so that perhaps there is a bit of ‘finessing’ possible, although I’m not sure it’s all that worth the time being put into it. There is some distinction between Jews coming up in the first place with the Matthean alleged report about the permanent disappearance of Jesus’ body, i.e., that the disciples stole it, which is something I claimed would not be likely to happen since such a rationale would involve acknowledging that the tomb was empty (permanently)—between that, and a later situation arising out of the Matthean scene itself (his own invention) gaining some circulation, and some Jews being willing to seize on its “disciples stole the body” feature as a good response to such Christian claims. In the latter, they simply overlook the inconvenient necessity to acknowledge that the tomb was empty. Or they could choose to counter it, the Toledoth scenario being one means of dealing with that inconvenience: the tomb was only empty temporarily.

Also, we have to keep in mind one aspect to the distinction I’ve outlined which helps it: If we consider Matthew’s claim, which implies that Jews very soon came up with this spin (that the disciples stole the body), this would have been well before the Gospels and at a time when Christians (if we can judge by the early non-Gospel record) were not making a big deal out of the “empty tomb” at all (they weren’t even mentioning it!); thus, a Jewish spin that brought such a thing into focus would have been totally gratuitous (“imprudent”) on their part. Whereas at a later stage, when Matthew’s scenario, and Christian focus on an allegedly empty tomb, were in circulation, then Jews would have been much more willing to subscribe to and play up “the disciples stole the body” because the (permanently) empty tomb was already an allegedly established fact; they have to deal with it. In other words, it is in the post-Matthew/Gospel story period that Jews would have been quite willing to play up the stolen body idea and even seize on it universally. Now, I’m not saying they did so; as you know, this is in fact not the case, as we have no evidence in the Jewish record that Matthew’s claim is factual. Rather, I’m addressing here your own distinction about my theoretical “expectation” that such universality would be the case. (That was where the "tension" and contradiction allegedly resided.) Perhaps I would really have less grounds in expressing that theoretical expectation than I should, particularly as the only Jewish writing to even address the question does not accept the empty tomb. The Toledoth scene seems designed to reject it on any permanent basis.

I’m not sure this “finessing” will satisfy you, and anyway, it was a bit of a self-indulgent exercise in trying to see if I could come up with something which avoided your alleged contradiction. (I do think it has reduced it, at least.) Any further ‘counter-finessing’ on your part you’re welcome to, but I’m not going to spend any more time on it, since it is inconsequential. I’m not sure what you could expect to prove by it about the larger issue we have been discussing. This kind of micro-analysis does not really change the larger issue, which is where this all began: that there is no corroborating record for Matthew’s statement that this story has been widely circulated among Jews. And that includes in the Toledoth, which at one point you were incorrectly claiming does provide corroboration for Matthew. You may have caught me on a subtle contradiction, but you further rendered it microscopic by that distinction of yours I referred to: between something that could actually happen and something that one has an expectation of happening. But if you want to feel you’ve scored a point, that’s fine.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticizing you for exercising your critical faculties. I really wish that certain others here were capable of that kind of subtlety of thought and recognition in regard to another person’s arguments.

Again, these are layers of subtle speculation which could be pursued back and forth until the Second Coming (so to speak). I just don’t feel they’re productive enough to justify the time, or that they can really affect the overall basic issue to any conclusive degree.

I would prefer to see it as arguments that discourage a close reading of the text according to established paradigms and mindsets, because when the latter are adhered to, all sorts of justifications (or fallacies) can be raised to support desired orthodoxy; whereas my arguments are often designed to encourage stepping back and trying to turn the text upside down and see it with new eyes. It is this approach which I haven’t been able to make work toward Zeichman’s reaction to my views, and to my counter-arguments to his critique, on Q. To wit:

And yet, I thought I was making it clear that, while I can use three general designations for strata in Q, I was putting and arguing my own definitions on them. That is a very limited “invocation” of Kloppenborg.

While the last thing I am willing to do is get into another debate on Q vs. Goodacre, I do feel that the “so-called minor agreements” (which seem to be his major pillar for Lukan use of Matthew) are mountains made out of molehills. Such “agreements” exist only in our extant manuscripts, which come from a period of textual development so late they leave in the dark over a century of evolution, a century during which allusions and anomalies witnessed in Christian writings surviving from that time suggest the potential for a vast amount of change to the texts and to their fundamental character, all of it lying back below our visible horizon. Such changes could well reveal a quite different explanation for such “agreements”.

Robert Price has brought that home to me in spades in his recent book “The Pre-Nicene New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk)” which I am presently working my way through. It is nothing less than a new and comprehensive survey of the entire early Christian record, not only in the texts themselves but in the relationships between them and their evolution. It also offers the benefit of collecting all in one place the wealth of midrashic sources and dependencies for all parts of the Gospel stories, as well as profuse detail on the agenda-driven bases by which later evangelists made changes to the earlier Mark, (“with no concern for historical accuracy,” as I put it, which you call a “fairly gross exaggeration”). And by presenting both sides of an equal-time ground between ultra-radical and less radical positions (for example, on some Pauline authenticity versus an entire literary Pauline invention in the 2nd century, possibly by Marcion), we can consider indicators on both sides and try to decide for ourselves. Add to that the treat of Price’s inimitable style and humor which brings the texts alive in a way I’ve never encountered, and you’ve got a book everyone should read. (No, I’m not getting a cut of his royalties. And, of course, I got a free copy.)

Earl Doherty

spamandham

While it's true that these are both options, there are also intermediate options:

1a) Eusebius accurately tendered what had been handed down to him, but what had been handed to him was not historically accurate

1b) Eusebius made modifications to what had been handed down to him, and it was of unknown fidelity, but assumed to be mostly accurate

Might 1b be closer to the concensus position?

mountainman

YES. Mainstream opinion has always assumed some form of
your option 1b), which might be stated in various forms.
All mainstream (whether HJ or MJ) with few exceptions
would subscribe to this postulate.

As far as I can determine noone appears to have investigated
not just the possibility of option 2, but the logical implications that
are derived as a result of option 2 being historical.

The logical implication of fiction being put forward as history
is some form of major social and political controversy, and
the words of Arius --- in support of considering this implication ---
are capable of being interpetted as a denouncement of fiction.

that there was a time when he was not
that before he was born he was not
that he was made out of nothing existing
that God’s Son is from another subsistence or substance
that God’s Son is subject to alteration or change.

--- The Words of Arius c.325 CE
--- From the Nicaean "Oath" to Constantine

Thus it is my opinion that option 2 needs
to be examined by objective review.

Solo

This is classical misapprehension by Earl, who really wants to argue that if the literalist reading of the texts does not add up, MJ is the only expanation. There is no conceivable reason to take Matthew's claim (in 28:11-15) literally. It is a naive fable, which pretends to furnish proof of the guards lying about the disappearance of the body. The guards lied about the disciples stealing a corpse and the explanation (and proof) is in their accepting a bribe. I am reminded of Paul's impersonator 'warning' readers of 2 Thessalonians (2:2) of letters purporting to be from us. It's the sort of thing a second-year cadet at a police academy would be expected to clue in on right away - but evidently not biblical scholars.

Is the passage a later insert? It sure looks like one and clumsy sort at that. It more or less "knows" not only that the body is not in the tomb but that it makes rounds and socializes with its disciples. Without the "information neighbourhood" of 28:9-10 and 28:16-20 it makes no literary sense at all. So, while the disciples travel to Galilee to meet with the Marcan Jesus who by Matthew confirms the rendez-vous by a cameo pre-appearance, the authorities are made to scramble for a plausible explanation of the resurrection miracle. The thing to notice is the designation para ioudaiois in 28:15. This antagonistic tag, on the order of Johanine usage, is entirely without parallel in Matthew. The only other Matthean mention of "Jews" comes in the epithet "king of the Jews" (2:2, 27:29). In the most Jewish of all the gospels, the "among-the-Jews" phrasing sticks out like a sore thumb. Matthew portrays the opposition to Jesus as coming from scribes and Pharisees. He exhibits no anti-Jewish cnsciousness. "His blood be on us and our children" is a Jewish lament and (unlike John) an unconscious sin.

IIUC, Earl believes "the Jews" were happily obliging and played into the Christian hand by starting to spread rumours which the scripture prophecied were going be spread by them fraudulently. I am sure some people will believe that.

However, it looks like there was no "empty tomb" tradition before Mark created one to deal with the embarrassing issue of missing Jesus gravesite (likely dealt previously by pointing to Enoch's disappearance, cf. Heb 11:5). Mark had his own agenda, introducing a sprite into the post-crucifixion narrative, which intercepts the women who come to care for Jesus body, with an announcement they are wasting their time, that Jesus was risen and would only be seen in "Galilee".
As this bright scheme was elaborated little and Jesus was made to appear in the Christian books post-mortem "in flesh" and exhibiting bodily functions, a reaction set among non-believers, who belittled the literalist superstition and argued that the body was stolen by the disciples (which by extension made the "socialization" parts of the story seem like partying by necrophiliacs). This likely caused problems in proselythizing around Jewish communities. Hence, it is written in the canon that the Jews were lying about this from the start and unto this (liturgical) day.

Jiri

Ben C Smith

I may be mistaken, and Earl is welcome to correct me, but I do not think that is what he is arguing in this case at all. In this case he is trying to defuse a possible historicist reading of Matthew, not exactly present an affirmative case for mythicism. IOW, I think he realizes that, even if Matthew has completely made up everything, guard story and contemporary Jewish charge and all, that does not exactly further the mythicist case except inasmuch as it has taken away one possible historicist argument.

If this is aimed at Earl, then I think it is misguided. I believe he would agree with you here (as well as in much of the rest of what you wrote along these lines).

I do not think you have understood him here at all. And again he is welcome to correct me on this.

IIUC, Earl is arguing that the Jews never did what Matthew says they did, whether to play into Christian hands or to mount their own attack on Christian claims or whatever. He is saying, I believe, that such a Jewish charge is only likely to have surfaced later than Matthew, too late for Matthew to have picked up on it actually circulating amongst Jewish opponents. Therefore, since Matthew attests to it earlier than it would have logically surfaced, Matthew made it up wholesale, and the Jews themselves probably never made such a charge, since Matthew is our only source for it (Justin and Tertullian both deriving their information straight from Matthew).

Now, I disagree with his position, but hope I have represented it with reasonable accuracy.

Most of your criticisms, I think, would be better applied to my position, not his.

Ben.

Solo

That is precisely what I think he is doing. But he is arguing a hopeless case. The point I am trying to make is that he is so much eaten up by the literalist bug, he considers the Matthean account as "really referencing" something happening cca CE 30. Then, he takes that false assumption as ground for claiming since nothing happened in CE 30, the Jews would not have invented the story before Matthew did. Won't work, Ben.

I am sure he will, Ben.

I appreciate the offer, Ben.

But bottom line is, I find Earl's reasoning fallacious. It seeks to eliminate the overwhelming likelihood that Matthew sought to correct rumours reacting to the first "editions" of stories of Jesus functioning past the grave. In practical terms, looking at the structure of the story, the chance of "Matthew" seeking to preempt the charge of stealing the body is close to nil, ....at least until someone makes a decent case for it.


Jiri

Ben C Smith

Thanks for attempting a little finesse.

I believe you and I differ fundamentally on how much value to attach to the argument from silence in many if not most cases.

Hopefully all points scored are going toward a sober reading of the text. We play for charity, and the charity is historical inquiry.

I ordered it recently via ILL. I am looking forward to reading it.

Ben.