Vinnie

I don't read Mark in a vacuum. That would be silly.

But I do not deny the possibility of Mark inventing the empty tomb, or someone before him. I tend to lack belief in the veracity of the story on the basis of a lack of tomb veneration.

Vinnie

jakejonesiv

That is a good point. But none of the holy sites in Jerusalem & the general area of Palestine date to the first century.

See Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins (or via: amazon.co.uk), By Joan E. Taylor, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993

Jake Jones IV

spamandham

That doesn't answer the question, so I'll answer it instead. If there was no apostolic tradition at the time of the writing of the Gospels, then presenting the apostles as basically unable to understand the true ways of god would reinforce the idea that Christianity, though second born, is the favored son nonetheless.

Vinnie

Yeah, then I am sure the apologist will mention 70 c.e.

But at any rate I am certain Jesus' initial followers though he rose from the dead and thought he appeared to them. That is all history can say on that matter. I simply don't have enough historical evidence to affirm the existence of the empty tomb so I would suspend judgment but I'd probably side with Crossan on the fate of the body...

spamandham

History, real critical history rather than fantasyland history, can not say even this much. Nothing is known of the origins of Christianity, all speculation aside.

All we have are texts written long after the origin, that either do not discuss the origin (Paul's letters) or depict it as an absurdly cartoonish magic adventure story in the form of an ancient pseudo-biography (the Gospels). There is no known legitimate critical approach which can extract information of origins from sources such as this.

jakejonesiv

That would be an admission that all extant sites are bogus.

No Robots

Just to be clear, Taylor does not dispute that the places mentioned in the NT existed in the time of Christ, but only inquires into the time of the start of their veneration as holy sites.

Vinnie

Real critical history tells us precisely that though I should qualify it with "some" of Jesus' initial followers.

rlogan

Paul says it originates from a vision.

bacht

Well, we really don't know how it all started. Maybe John the Baptist, maybe ex-Essenes, maybe Alexandrians or Syrians. We all know the official version, but once the gospels are set aside other possibilities appear.