Amaleq13

1. It is an inherently unlikely disposition given Jesus' social status. The more likely fate was a common grave.

2. It is unlikely from the internal evidence of the absence of an empty tomb tradition in Paul.

3. That he obtained a tomb despite his social standing is unlikely because Joseph of A appears to be a fictional creation serving only to provide a tomb (ie deus ex machina).

A secret disciple who was also a wealthy member of the Sanhedrin but served no other purpose than to provide a tomb?

Please.

But don't let this tangent distract you from your failure to support the notion that there were guards at the tomb.

manwithdream

renassault,

I agree with you that the Jewish leaders (scribes and Pharisees) would not have been impressed even if J had shown himself to them because they would have considered it to be magic or an evil miracle by a false prophet like Deut.13:2-6 describes.

The tomb events took place outside the city's walls on a holiday, so very few people would have seen what happened. That's why I think this story is an unfair proof. How would people then know who to believe (assuming the story actually existed right away.)

Kenneth Greifer

Amaleq13

When even the disciples didn't expect it, why should anyone?

Who said it did? Straw man.

When three of four authors appear to be ignorant of what should have been understood as a very important plot point, the rational response is to doubt the single claimant.

Baalazel

So the Roman guards who stood watch under penalty of death just wandered away when a group of women showed up? Had they not noticed that the stone had been rolled away?

It really seems to me that this was just the time to have Roman guards standing watch under penalty of death actually standing watch.

But no, when one of the evidences of the resurrection becomes untenable let's just pretend something else happened even if that something else is even less tenable. When will you people put an end to this maddness?

Now there's convincing argument if I ever heard one. And to think I felt bad for all the times I was sure you were insane.

Nevertheless the fact remains that Christians can't offer a living Jesus as proof of his resurrection. The often claimed and long awaited Second Coming only reinforces the failure. The non-sense of the stories of the resurrection in the Gospels highlight the failure.

If Jesus is alive why is he not here, on Earth, where he could be doing some good? How long does it take to build condos for the faithful?

Baal

renassault

The emphasis the Gospel of Matthew puts on it, and not on the much more vigorous argument of Jesus' miracles simply being an invention by Christians points towards a date not long after 70, nor 60, when the memory would have still been fresh. From the way he says this, it may not be a pressing issue, but an answer the people have if the issue is raised at all. To be brought up as a strawman would be very odd, because what you yourself point out, would have been done by the Jews, and Matthew would have reflected this. Thus, he obviously reflected a real situation where there were such answers.


As is evidenced by the text, when the guards came and reported the angels opening the tomb to the priests, they bribed them and told them to lie. So apparently, not much would have happened except the usual shameful silence the Pharisees came to when Jesus answered one of their accusations through Scripture or logical disputation.

The empty tomb happened close to the time of Matthew being written. The above reasoning is what I'm using to show it. You don't always have external sources for everything.

So? What were their interests in what they regarded, by both of their admissions, as superstitions?

How have you shown that the people who believed the stories about Christ lived after the Fall of the Temple. What about Paul's narrative in 1 Corinthians 10-11, which was written c.55, or 1 Corinthians 15.3ff. ?

It was Joseph of Arimathea's grave, and Joseph was apparently not poor.

Paul and the other Hellenistic-oriented letters are not especially concerned with episodes of the earthly life of Jesus. Of the epistles/letters, only Hebrews comes somewhat closer. For proof they didn't use the empty tomb, but the appearances to the Apostles and others (1 Cor.15.3ff.).

To name many people who don't really serve much in the narrative, amongst these are Jesus' mother. Does this mean he had no historical mother? The fact is, Jesus had hundreds of followers, and to name them all would be rather pointless, and Joseph of Arimathea is named for this because this makes him stand out, and nothing else did. Thus his only participation being to serve as the source of the tomb does not imply fiction. Think about it, hundreds of disciples who are not in any way very important to mention, until one of them is the source of Jesus' tomb; this would indeed be the only occasion to mention without making the story have a pointless naming of disciples who simply follow Jesus.

The high priests were not in the minds of the disciples. For all their fears, the disciples would have been up to something deceptive.

You implied it by saying that Matthew was the only source of the guards at the tomb as well as the dead saints rising after Christ's Resurrection.


But that doesn't necessitate it being untrue.

Jesus did many miracles for the Pharisees and other unrepentant Jews in Israel. His rejection at Chorazin and Bethsaida, despite miracles there, is evidence enough that he would not have been accepted ultimately, maybe for a short time but not for the rest of their lives, even if he came back to the dead, as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus says, the rich man's brothers would not believe even if a dead man came back to life if they don't follow Moses' commandments. It is true that there would be no proof for the Christians if Jesus didn't show himself to any of them, but they had enough proof from his ministry.

They would have most likely claimed it was the same sorcery that the medium used to bring back the spirit of Samuel, which was indeed a sin, so that Saul would ask him if he would win in battle, but with a twist in this case, so in all likelihood, they would have resorted to the usual, it was through the Devil, defense. So what would Christ do? Walk away and feel like he shouldn't have come at all? Probably why he never would have showed himself to them.

It probably wasn't Roman guards but Herodian soldiers/temple guards. I think Richard Carrier makes this point too. But what penalty of death threat would not be enough to make you run away from this? You would think you're receiving the death if you stay anyway and such a supernatural phenomena might be deemed as a much better excuse than staying and presumably dying. The guards apparently went and told the priests soon after this happened, and when the women arrived there at dawn the guards were there. The women did notice the stone was rolled away, they wondered who would roll it away before they noticed that as per the Gospels.

Which is scarier, a promise of impending death, or a death that you're about to receive? Certainly if they thought they were about to die by such an unprecedented event they would have ran away, and I don't even think we're dealing with Roman guards as Pilate had no interest in such things. In any case, one can only wonder how seriously this penalty of death was to be taken. In the Roman army, the severest punishment of disobeying an order was to select every 10th man out of a legion and have the previous 9 beat him to death. This was abolished in the army centuries before Christ, only brought back once during Spartacus' revolt by the general Crassus. So if such a severe punishment was abandoned, which evidently worked, it can only be wondered how its promise, which is unlikely to be executed so strictly as seeing the abolishment of such harsh measures hundreds of years before Christ, would be so effective.

Our failure to bring Jesus at will negates his existence? Well if that is an argument, then you sure have Christians beat. The nonsense of the Resurrection story has yet to be demonstrated. Whatever the purpose for not building condos for the faithful, as the priest that Lindbergh tried to teach flying said, God has the ability to do it, whether He will or won't no one can say, but He would know it. And the fact is, whatever the reason is, it's God's.

ApostateAbe

I actually don't think that it is a common skeptic's objection. The mainline scholars seem to believe that the tomb story was an invention of gospel writers in order to fit the messianic prophecy, "he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death," which would mean that Jesus was probably actually dumped into the fires of Gehennah and his ashes were left there, along with the other victims of crucifixion. That is the theory I accept. And the theory that is popular around here is that the whole narrative is myth, which means that neither Jesus nor his tomb ever existed. The point that Jesus' body couldn't have been stolen is exactly right, it is refuting a point made by hardly anyone, and the popular Christian apologists seem to spend a lot of time on it. But, yes, you are right, it is an absurd hypothesis.

Doug Shaver

Oh, that's a common skeptical objection, is it?

Then how come I've never found, in 10 years of posting on skeptic forums, a skeptic who actually believes that the disciples stole the body?

ElectEngr

I've said it before and I'll say it again We need to first establish what tomb we are talking about. The Eastern Orthodox/RCC Holy Sepulchre or the Protestant Garden Tomb.

Later,
ElectEngr

show_no_mercy

I wonder why Jesus didn't appear to Pilate? That would seem like a reasonable resurrection appearance considering that Pilate "washed his hands" of Jesus' supposed murder at the hands of the Jews.

Net2004

why didn't the priests accuse the guards of stealing the body? why did they swallow the guards claims?