EGGO

Not much on the history of Jesus here, but anyway on another board, a member has just finished reading reading Jeffery Jay Lowder's essay: Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story and says the following:

I finally read [that] huge paper thingy writing piece [...] and your conclusion about the tomb......still flawed.
If you dont know, Jewish tombs traditionally had huge stones to roll in front of the openings. So you are saying Joseph, "dropped off," the bodies in the tomb, left it open, waited however long you say with the tomb open(any amount of time is unreasonable), and then came back to throw them in a pit? Wow, you yourself must posess great levels of faith to believe that. As science would conclude, there are still too many questions unanswered from that one, good hypothesis though.

Oh yes, please read Matthew 27:57-66.
And please actually read it.


It's late, and I actually ran 8.20 miles, so really I don't feel like thinking about this stuff currently, especially since I don't know much about it.

Sorry for having you guys do the dirty work, I'm really one for psychology and physics, not biblical history.

I would have him post it himself here, but the guy just keeps ignoring the invitation. :boohoo:

[edit] Oh carp...I thought I was in Biblical Criticism and History. See what happens when you have two windows up?

seebs

It's okay, I'm sure we can make a GRD discussion out of it.

Uhm.

Okay, maybe we can't. Help! Moderator!

livius drusus

To quote Jesus, it is finished.

Peter Kirby

Ecce homo.

Semper ubi sub ubi.

best,
Peter Kirby

Doctor X

Ego eimi!

Instructs Seed to pour Peter one of the single casks. . . .

--J.D.

Toto

It's not clear what your friend is saying. Jewish tombs had stones that closed them off, but they were typically used for more than one body, and people did enter them and remove bodies. (When land was scarce, after a year the bones would be placed in an ossuary to save space, as we know from the famous James Ossuary saga.) So Still's "temporary burial" hypothesis is completely plausible and takes no particular amount of faith to accept.

Of course, a number of propositions are even more plausible, in particular the proposition that: if Jesus existed and was crucified, he was probably not buried in a tomb, but in a common grave.

But anyone who thinks that reading the embellished fictional account in Matt 27:57-66 is an answer to your questions will probably not be interested in this.

And for the record, here is Peter Kirby's Historicity of the Empty Tomb.

SLD

I don't understand why we freethinkers have to explain the empty tomb. It didn't happen. It's a myth. It's a myth that has common elements with so many other ancient myths. The empty tomb story is just that, another empty tomb story. The entire Bible is suspect from the beginning. It was written decades after the alleged events, most likely after all the alleged eye witnesses were dead. The original ending in Mark, although it does have the empty tomb, ends right there without the risen Christ.

I'm skeptical that there was an historical Jesus - at least as portrayed in the Bible (although I will concede that the movement was likely based on a real character). Certainly there wasn't anybody going around changing water into wine at a wedding (that's Dionysus's trick), walking on water, raising his buddies from the dead, casting out demons, and offering his "body" and "blood" for washing away sins (another clear Mystery cult trick). Claims of risen Gods are a dime a dozen in the ancient world. Heck, claims of risen humans are too. The ancients wouldn't have thought much of a god who couldn't pull that trick out of his arse.

So why get into this debate about the empty tomb at all? You are playing into his hands by debating him on his own turf. There's no need to. Most likely there was no tomb; to the extent that there's an historical Jesus, his body was probably left to rot on the cross. I doubt if Pilate had serious misgivings about letting the Jews bury their dead before sundown on the Sabbath. The Romans routinely let them rot on the cross as a warning to all those who crossed them.

It is not you who needs to explain the empty tomb. It is them to explain the bizarre connections between Christianity and the Mystery Cults, the historical anamolies, the absence of any evidence outside the gospels for decades after the events described. Take no prisoners in this debate!!!

SLD

Doctor X

. . . or rotted-off the cross as was the actual Roman practice.

--J.D.

Toto

The reason to pay attention to this issue is that William Lain Craig has made it the centerpiece of his apologetics, his arguement as to why it is rational to believe the Christian version of history in the 1st century. He claims that if the tomb had not been empty, early skeptics would have laughed Christianity out of existence, and it would have died out on the spot.

Craig is a very effective and skilled debater, and wins debates or holds his own against selected opponents, so this argument has to be taken seriously - although it doesn't really take very much to demolish it - for one thing, the story about the empty tomb does not seem to predate the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, so it is highly unlikely that any early skeptic could have found the tomb or checked anything out.

Radcliffe Emerson

JD and SLD both summed up my replies. I found out from someone who attended 3 different Christian seminaries they are taught about the Romans leaving corpses up until they rotted, then throwing them to dogs to be eaten. They are generally taught that the resurrection story is a myth.

The Romans would never allow bodies to be taken down from the cross for any reason, ESPECIALLY from the Jews, who at the time were one of their main adversaries.

Personally though, I agree with SLD in particular. I believe Paul invented Jesus for his own means, and the gospels and other stories sprung up from that decades later.