beallen041

I ask this question everywhere I go lately it seems. Are there any non-Biblical accounts from antiquity of a resurrection that any scholar anywhere thinks likely to be based on a real event?

davidstarlingm

I find any arguments for non-historicity based on silence to be extremely dubious.

Did Cleopatra VII have a mother?

Yes.

Do we have any historical record whatsoever confirming who her mother was (her father's wife Cleopatra V likely died in 58, a decade before she was born)?

No.

Hence, Cleopatra must not have had a mother.

James Brown

"Having a mother" is not typically seen as an unusual or supernatural event.

If it was said that Cleopatra VII's mother was a jackal, then the lack of mention of that in the historical record would be an argument against it.

Minimalist

I would expect Pliny the Elder to mention it in Naturalis Historia because it is full of nutty tales and somebody coming back from the DEAD would qualify. Alas, Pliny...nor Philo...seems to know nothing about it.

Could it simply be that GJohn is just made up shit?

Toto

The argument from silence can be very strong if silence would not be expected.

Vorkosigan

Are you making some sly reference to Cleopatra to Christ? Here's the google link to that one and of course, his previous one, Jesus, Last of the Pharoahs is referenced therein.

http://tinyurl.com/69yfrfx

aa5874

If no-one mentioned in the historical records that Cleopatra VII's mother was a jackal how would we know it was said she was a jackal?

James Brown

Fair question. I suppose a better phrase would be 'records of that era.' If a legend arose centuries after the fact that she called a jackal 'momma,' then the lack of historical records contemporary to Cleo mentioning that would argue against the legend.

The Catholic doctrine of Immaculate Conception would be a real-world example of this. It wasn't formally defined by the Catholic Church until 1854, and yet the lack of any historical records contemporary to Mary mentioning this makes it suspect.

On the other hand, while St. Peter is described in the NT as having a mother-in-law, there's no mention of his mother. But I don't know anyone arguing that that must mean that St. Peter was not naturally born.

davidstarlingm

There are two questions to be answered here. First, if the resurrection of Lazarus had really happened, would Pliny have heard about it? Second, if Pliny had heard about it, would he have thought it likely enough to report on it?

The Romans had two dominant views of the dead: the Stoic view ("I was not, I was, I am not, I do not care") and the "shade" view (that the dead exist in the underworld as ghosts). The idea of a physical resurrection was completely foreign to them; it is unlikely that the story of a man coming back from the dead would be given enough credence to be repeated, and even if Pliny had heard this account anecdotally it is unlikely that he would have thought it to be reliable. Naturalis Historia has some pretty nutty stuff, but it's the sort of stuff that Pliny believed was normal and everyday. An anecdotal report of something as unbelievable as a resurrection (especially coming from a novel cult in far-away Judea) would have had no place in his work.

Hah! No, certainly not; I've never heard of this. I looked at it -- pretty imaginative.

I think we're on the same page. Silence alone is not an argument; we have to be able to show that this silence is somehow anomalous. If Cleopatra had claimed to be the daughter of a jackal during her lifetime, the myriad of sources (both pro and con) about her would almost certainly have mentioned this claim. On the other hand, Peter's mother would not necessarily have been a person of interest to any of the historians whose writings have survived to the present, so there is nothing strange about her absence from the record.

For any argument for non-historicity based on silence, two conditions must be met: first, would any of the historians whose writings are extant have had access to the information, and second, would those historians definitely have thought the account notable enough to include?

Solo

It's a strong argument for grossly exaggerated rumours of death.

The interesting thing about the story of Lazarus, is that John 11 was evidenly overwriting an older script which had a completely different meaning.

It was a story of a 'Jesus' baptist ritually burying an adept, and then arriving a day late to extract him, only to discover that the man's family actually believed that the man expired in the tomb under the magic cast on him. When the baptist returns he finds a large group of mourners in the man's house and plans to extract Lazarus from the baptismal tomb without their presence. However, the plan fails as one of the sisters is followed by the family and friends to the tomb where the baptist is forced - willy, nilly - to revive the dead man in public. Some of the onlookers believed that the baptist really brought the dead man back, but others were incensed and reported witchcraft and a descecration of a burial ground to the authorities.

John simply wrote Jesus' self-revelation on top of this story, not even bothering to edit out the dissimarities.

Jiri