Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Steven Carr · 02-06-2002, 01:03 AM

Even if we take Craig's beliefs that J of A was given Jesus's body and an Empty Tomb was observed, there are thousands of natural explanations.

The NT records that people squabbled over who would be first in the Kingdom.

Joseph took Jesus's body , kept it, so that he would be the first to see the resurrected Jesus. After 3 days, when Jesus did not rise, Joseph naturally packed it all in, and kept it a secret that he had been so gullible and disposed of Jesus's body quietly.

This accounts for why he was never heard of again as a Christian.

Of course, if Jesus had been resurrected, Joseph would have remained a Christian and figured more prominently.

Meanwhile, the disciples go to the tomb, which is empty, of course.

This is just one explanation. There was also an earthquake. Earthquakes are good at burying bodies.

At the busiest festival of the year, a body disappears from what everyone agrees was only meant to be a temporary tomb anyway. Clearly only supernatural explanations can account for that!

Vorkosigan · 02-06-2002, 03:00 AM

There wasn't any Tomb, and it wasn't empty. It's an invention of Mark's or his sources'. This just topic came up on Crosstalk, where I usually lurk, and I just responded to one of the academics there asserting a hash of apologetic shit....

>a
>rich man's tomb. I don't think the "empty tomb" is a scam....or
>theologoumenon...or a Homeric novel. Something happened to make these
>people believe they saw a resurrected Jesus. The believable choices are
>limited. Either the Toma/Didymus/Twin references point to either a twin or
>brother with remarkable resemblance; some sort of mass hallucination/vision
>by distraught followers, or Jesus survived the crucifixion, perhaps again
by
>bribed Roman assistance.
>
>
>Or........he was raised from the dead.
>
>Jack

I disgree. The *believable* choices are vast.

The assumption that underpins arguments like the one Dr. Kilmon is making here is that human beings are rational actors when interacting within the framework of strongly-held identities. History shows repeatedly, however, that reality does not have a narrowly-rational effect on people who strongly hold to their identities, especially newly-adopted ones.

In other words, what apologetic strategies like this propose is a dichotomy that argues that, if Jesus had really been left to rot on the cross, then his followers would have looked at him, shrugged, and then gone home to get on with their lives. Obviously, we must conclude, something must have happened.

This is simplistic and grants too much empirical rationality to actors in such scenarios. In most cases, such actors are concerned not with rational adherence to the verdict of empirical reality, but with preservation of the
new movement/identity. Let's consider a few actual cases.

When Rebbe Schneerson, many whose followers believed him to have supernatural and prophetic powers, died in 1994, many expected the movement
that had formed around him to collapse. After all, many of his followers had openly proclaimed him the messiah who would shortly ascend to save the world, and considered him immortal. This would be the "rational" fork of an argument like Kilmon's.

However, when Schneerson died, instead of disappearing, the movement simply rewrote the story, making Schneerson the Messiah-who-will-be-Raised. The identity was more important than the reality. The Lubavitchers have split over the issue, but many still believe that he was the messiah and will return.

I am sure many listmembers are familiar with Shabbetai Tzvi, the would-be Jewish Messiah who was captured by the Ottoman Empire. He converted to Islam to save his life. Certainly, in the mythical rational world posited by arguments like Kilmon's, his followers must have abandoned him! Sadly, in the real world inhabited by people for whom identity is more important than reality, many of his followers converted to Islam. It took decades to suppress his movement.

In India Sai Baba, the Indian guru, continues to attract followers who believe he has supernatural powers, is omniscient, and omnipotent. This is
despite the fact that Sai has been caught on film performing parlor magic.

Similarly, on numerous occasions in colonial situations very much like that of first-century Palestine, magic was deployed against the bullets of the white man. Despite repeated and bloody empirical checks, in many cases followers never gave up their beliefs in the efficacy of such magic. The Xhosa revolt spurred by Mlanjeni's claim that magic twigs would stop bullets dragged on for three years (1850-1853). The maji-maji rebellion (magic water stops bullets) in E. Africa against the Germans went on for two years (1905-07). Magic water broke out again among the followers of Rembe in the same region in 1917-1919. In North America, the roughly contemporaneous Wovoka, the Paiute messiah, created the ghost dance, which led to the development of ghost shirts which would stop the white man's bullets. Same result as the other magic, but the revolt petered out much more rapidly, since many at Wounded Knee (1890) were wearing ghost shirts. I could give many similar examples. My favorite is Alice Lakawena, who led
a revolt in Uganda in 1987. She told her followers their rocks and sticks would explode like hand grenades, and magic ointment on their chests would protect them. They were mowed down, of course. Her personal bodyguard, however, carried AK-47s!

Consider also the Taipings, the religious movement led by the mad Hong Xiu-chuan, which led to a civil war in China that blew up into the second- bloodiest war in human history. When the last Taiping Generals surrendered or switched sides, despite the defeat of Hong, many who had betrayed Hong did not give up their conviction that he had performed miracles. It was too iimportant to their identity.

The alternative to the impoverished view of human nature suggested in Kilmon's dilemma above is to take a much more robust view of human responses to threats to in-group identity. Humans are not machines automatically adjusting their thinking to reality, like bacteria trophing toward food, but social primates for whom the in-group is *the most important reality.* It is so important that people will kill and die for it. Otherwise, how do we account for the deaths of 24 people who killed themselves to ride a UFO to a comet? Otherwise, how do we account for the scores of children killed in the US in the last 25 years, killed by parents who withheld medicine on religious grounds. They had made their children
into a stage upon which they could play out their in-group identity, an identity more important to them than their own offspring. I would bet anything that not a single one of those parents has given up their belief (read "identity") either.

Crossan is exactly right. Jesus' body rotted on the cross like that of most people executed by the Romans. In fact, given human nature, that is the most likely scenario, the best explanation for the emergence of a Resurrection doctrine. Resurrection doctrine emerged precisely *because*
his death was witnessed by members of the movement, and precisely *because* he rotted and didn't get up again. It's not very far from "He will return" to "He has returned," especially if those who "witness" the return will be rewarded with enhanced status in the new in-group identity.

One can easily imagine at the base of the cross, looking up at one very dead would-be messiah, were Jesus' bosom friends, whoever they were. And
what did they do? Like the Lubavitchers, and the followers of Tzvi, and the maji-maji warriers, and the followers of Hong, and a thousand other
groups confronted by reality, they shrugged, went home, and rewrote the script in order to rescue their new identity from a terrible blow. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful force for change, especially in religious doctrine.

Michael Turton
Dept of Applied Foreign Languages
Chaoyang University of Technology
Taichung, Taiwan

James Still · 02-06-2002, 05:43 AM

Fabulous essay Michael, thanks so much for sharing it with us. I think you're right on to point out that to the ancients identity took precedence over reason. Historians lament the fact that people have a tendency to judge the peoples of the past based on current value systems (e.g., the movement to condemn the Founding Fathers for holding slaves). You've argued quite effectively that some apologists have retrojected modern reliance upon reason into the past as well.

-DM- · 02-06-2002, 08:26 AM

To me, one of the most surprising facets of this is that the location of the tomb of this [alleged] wonder-working, risen savior, Son of God was apparently soon forgotten, yet in Acts 2:29 it is specifically stated by Peter with regard to David:

Quote:

Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

--Don--

-DM- · 02-06-2002, 08:38 AM

Another facet of this whole business about the empty tomb, one that I personally find very damaging to the credibility of the story, is that there are so many inconsistencies between what one biblical author and another tell us about the details surrounding the burial, the empty tomb, etc.

Selected inconsistencies follow:

---------
Exactly who buried the body?
---------
MT, MK, LK, JN: Joseph of Arimathea
AC: The enemies of Jesus, they that dwelled in Jerusalem and their rulers.

-----------
Was there or wasn't there a guard at the tomb?
-----------
MT: yes
MK, LK, JN: no mention of a guard
[In fact, there could not have been a guard insofar as the women visitors were concerned in MK & LK given that they were planning to anoint the body with spices.]

-----------
Exactly who were the first visitors to the tomb?
-----------
MT: Mary Magdalene & the other Mary (2)
MK: both of the above, plus Salome (3)
LK: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (5 or more)
JN: Mary Magdalene (1)

-----------
Exactly what time of day was it when the first visitor(s) arrived.
-----------
MT: toward dawn
MK: after sunrise
LK: early dawn
JN: still dark

-----------
Was there or wasn't there a stone still in place over the entrance to the tomb when the first visitor(s) arrived?
-----------
MT: still in place, rolled away later
MK, LK & JN: already rolled or taken away

-----------
Was there or wasn't there an earthquake?
-----------
MT: yes
MK: LK, JN, none mentioned

-----------
Was there or wasn't there an angel present? If so, how many?
-----------
MT: 1 angel who rolled back the stone and then *sat* on it
MK: 1 young man *sitting* inside the tomb
LK: men (2 or more) suddenly appear *standing* inside the tomb
JN: 2 angels *sitting* inside the tomb

-----------
What did the woman/women do immediately after finding (or being told) that the tomb (was) empty?
-----------
MT: ran to tell the disciples
MK: said nothing to anyone
LK: told the eleven & all the rest
JN: the disciples returned home, Mary remained outside weeping

-----------
Where was Jesus' first post-Resurrection appearance?
-----------
MT: fairly near the tomb
MK: [not specified other than to Mary Magdalene, which presumably would have been fairly near the tomb]
LK: in the vicinity of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem
JN: right at the tomb

-----------
Did Jesus allow anyone to touch him prior to his Ascension?
-----------
MT: he lets Mary Magdalene & the other Mary hold him by his feet
JN: on his first appearance to Mary, he forbids her to touch him because he has not yet ascended to his Father, yet he tells Thomas a week later to touch him even though he hasn't yet ascended

-----------
Did those who first learned this story believe or disbelieve?
-----------
MT: although some doubted, most believed because they followed the revealed instructions
MK & LK: the initial reaction was one of disbelief--all doubted

-----------
Exactly what was the order of post-Resurrection appearances?
-----------
MT: Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, the eleven
MK: Mary Magdalene, two others, the eleven
LK: two, Simon (Peter?), the eleven
JN: Mary Magdalene, the disciples without Thomas, the disciples with Thomas, then the eleven again
1CO: Cephas (Peter?), the twelve [really? one disciple was dead], 500+ brethren [120 in Acts], James, all the Apostles, Paul.)

... and there's more.

--Don--

[Edited to add the inconsistency mentioned subsequently by turtonm with regard to who buried the body. --Don--]

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Don Morgan ]

lpetrich · 02-06-2002, 08:48 AM

Michael Turton's scenario is a very reasonable one if one accepts the existence of a historical Jesus Christ.

However, the Jesus-myth hypothesis, <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.com" target="_blank">notably advocated by Earl Doherty</a>, says that JC had originally been a sort-of god, with a death and resurrection much like some pagan gods. Paul's Christ barely has a human history, but the Gospel writers expand in detail on that, including, of course, details of his resurrection.

This explains the total lack of interest in JC's (temporary) tomb -- it did not exist. And one might expect Paul to be interested in the places where his Lord and Savior had lived and died, but he showed no such interest. In fact, he shows little awareness of most of the content of the Gospels.

Toto · 02-06-2002, 11:30 AM

It appears that the Jesus Seminar thinks that Joseph was a fictional character created by Mark. Arimathea is a fictional town.

<a href="http://www.cygnus-study.com/writings/JosephofA.shtml" target="_blank">On the invention of Joseph of Arimathea</a>

It has also been opined that Joseph of Arimathea was based on Josephus.

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/burial.html#legend" target="_blank">Rejecting Pascal's Wager</a>

Quote:

If he did not exist, the next question would be where Mark got his story (and the name) from. There is a very likely candidate for this. As the Jewish scholar, Hugh Schonfield [8], pointed out, the story of Joseph of Arimathea in the gospels resembles very closely an episode from Josephus' Autobiography. In it, Josephus relates his own experience upon seeing his friends on the cross:

Once more when I was sent by Titus Caesar...to a village called Tekoa to prospect whether it was a suitable camp, and, on my return, saw many prisoners who had been crucified, and recognized three of my acquaintances among them, I was cut to the heart, and came and told Titus with tears what I have seen. He gave orders immediately that they should be taken down and receive the most careful treatment. Two of them died in the physician's hands, the third survived. [9]

One can immediately see that the above passage closely parallels the Markan account. First there were three victims of crucifixion that played a role in Josephus' story just like in the gospels where Jesus was crucified together with two robbers. Just as Josephus went to the Roman commander to beg for his friends' lives, Joseph of Arimathea went to the Roman governor to asked for Jesus' body. And just as Jesus was resurrected where the other two died, in Josephus' story one of his three acquaintances survived. [10]

The similarity in the names of the main protagonist is also considerable. In the same work, Josephus elucidated his distinguished ancestry. His grandfather, also named Joseph, begot Matthias his father in the tenth year of the reign of Archelaus (AD6). In the Greek text (the language Josephus wrote in) Joseph begot Matthias is rendered as Josepou Matthias. In Mark's gospel, Joseph of Arimathea is written in Greek as Joseph apo Arimathias, the similarity is curious. To quote Schonfield:

It is certainly curious that we have Josephus, himself a Josepou Matthias, begging the Roman commander for the bodies of three crucified friends, one of whom is brought back to life. [11]

This may be a stretch, but it is still much more probable than a resurrection from the dead.

There is an extensive compilation of relevant quotes from various points of view <a href="http://www.mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/tomb.html" target="_blank">here.</a>

[ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]

Earl · 02-06-2002, 11:48 AM

Howdy all. I'll try to beat Nomad to the punch this time and put up the link to our much earlier long debate on the empty tomb. My guess is that Nomad confuses the quantity of Secweblurker's one-liner dismissal-type points in that debate with some sort of devastating refutation of my arguments against Jesus' burial. I'm quite proud of my presentations in that earlier debate. Numerous issues were raised, including Pilate's character, Sejanus, Joseph of Arimathea, Josephus, Raymond Brown, Crossan, Jewish burial practices, Mark's reasons for fabricating the burial, and who has the burden of proof.

The bulk of our debate is on page 3 at
<a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000195&p=3" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000195&p=3</a>

The thread is called "Jesus Christ: Worth Burying in a Tomb?" See also page 2 of that thread.

[ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: Earl ]

Vorkosigan · 02-07-2002, 06:14 AM

I remember that thread, Earl, it was wonderful.

Nomad did raise one excellent criticism of my little essay, which was that he had just demonstrated that the Romans did not ordinarily violate local customs if they could help it, and probably would not have left Jesus to rot on the cross. The point is peripheral to my argument, but he seems correct. I have not yet read responses from other members, including the original poster, who is a PhD NT type.

It's funny, but the XTALK moderators disallowed my first two responses to the idea. Too blunt, I think. It appears that PhD academics can post apologetic crap if couched in jargon, but straightforward assessment of history is a no-no. The moderator said they wanted to make sure I actually knew something about the field....

And to think pimply-faced 15 year olds post that "why would the disciples have died for something that never happened?" argument here all the time. And get properly slapped down for it, too. Do I sound as annoyed as I was? It was a bit like watching the Berlin Philharmonic do Mahler's 2nd on TV, and then have a cable glitch suddenly switch you to a bunch of 12 year olds on the local access channel doing a piano recital.....

I think I'll deconstruct some more posts to XTALK here, just for fun. It's a blast watching all those earnest, well-educated, incredibly bright people flounder around in the mists of "It seems reasonable..." and "The consensus is...." dancing around the intractable problem of not having any methodology that can reliably distinguish fiction and fact in the NT. "But Earl Doherty's wrong. We know it." "OK folks, move along now, there's nothing but consensus here....."

Don, you left out one interesting minor contradiction. In Acts 13:29 it says Jesus was buried by his enemies, but in Luke, supposedly by the same writer, we get the Joseph of Arimathea story. Which is correct? Or maybe the writer of Acts is just adopting a persona....

This explains the total lack of interest in JC's (temporary) tomb -- it did not exist. And one might expect Paul to be interested in the places where his Lord and Savior had lived and died, but he showed no such interest.

I think these arguments are extremely powerful, but they work in either case because the Resurrection remains an invention. However, I think that the Jesus myth is based on some real person whose story is now almost completely lost. To me the Resurrection claim is strong psychosocial evidence that in fact Jesus (or whoever) did die and his death and non-rising were witnessed by early members of the cult. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any Resurrection story to cover up that fact. The rest of Earl's case I pretty much agree with, though.

On a personal note, I was in Kenya in 1987 when the Army picked up Lawawena at the border. The case made quite a stir, which is why it hangs in the memory.

Michael

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]

Koyaanisqatsi · 02-07-2002, 07:45 AM

My three cents (inflation in the Bush Regime): I think the most damning evidence against the myth is, of course, the Bible.

We have the first author, Paul, making no reference to the whole trial or crucifixion (Jesus was slewn, then hung on a tree); then the next author in chronological order (leaving out Thomas, of course), Mark, fills in the "details" by telling us that Jesus wasn't killed then hung on a tree, he was "set up" by the Jews, found not guilty repeatedly and yet, inexplicably crucified by the Romans.

His body is placed in a tomb (and not buried in the earth as Jesus had allegedly prophesied), and then what do you know? The tomb was not empty! There was a man in it.

Not an angel or an apostle or anyone remotely identified as being "of god" or "by god" or anything along those lines, but just a man sitting there.

This man is not questioned and no one stops to think or ask who this man is or what role he plays in, arguably, the most important event in human history, or what he did with the body, just that "he" is there and tells the "witnesses" where to go.

That nonsense alone betrays fraud.

Regardless, we still have no bodily resurrection, just that an unknown, unquestioned man is sitting in an open tomb where Jesus' body was supposed to be.

The next revision contradicts the prior, answering the obvious question with angels and messengers of god, making the myth more mystical as time goes by, until almost a century later the myth has evolved--finally--from a spiritual resurrection into a bodily resurrection.

So, like all myths, as it gets told and retold and written and rewritten, we go from Jesus, the extraordinary teacher being killed then hung on a tree to Jesus, the Christ "dying for our sins" with a requisite mystical, magical resurrection raising him bodily from the grave eighty to a hundred years after any alleged event.

Nothing mysterious or remarkable about it.

All anyone has to do is remember the days of playing "telephone" as children to see how aural traditions can so easily be distorted and aggrandized within five minutes, let alone eighty to a hundred years, especially when there is a clear and present biased agenda involved.

What's more remarkable to me is that cult members can't see the same thing and go to such elaborate measures to force the stories into their beliefs. The very existence of apologetics should be the first clue that it's all a sham.

As with politics, there is no need to "spin" or apologize for anything if it's the truth.

Ok, so it was four cents.

(edited for formatting - Koy)

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]

02-06-2002, 01:03 AM	#1
Steven Carr Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: England Posts: 5,629	Joseph of Arimathea and Empty Tomb Even if we take Craig's beliefs that J of A was given Jesus's body and an Empty Tomb was observed, there are thousands of natural explanations. The NT records that people squabbled over who would be first in the Kingdom. Joseph took Jesus's body , kept it, so that he would be the first to see the resurrected Jesus. After 3 days, when Jesus did not rise, Joseph naturally packed it all in, and kept it a secret that he had been so gullible and disposed of Jesus's body quietly. This accounts for why he was never heard of again as a Christian. Of course, if Jesus had been resurrected, Joseph would have remained a Christian and figured more prominently. Meanwhile, the disciples go to the tomb, which is empty, of course. This is just one explanation. There was also an earthquake. Earthquakes are good at burying bodies. At the busiest festival of the year, a body disappears from what everyone agrees was only meant to be a temporary tomb anyway. Clearly only supernatural explanations can account for that!

02-06-2002, 08:38 AM	#5
-DM- Honorary Member Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: West Coast Posts: 5,714	Another facet of this whole business about the empty tomb, one that I personally find very damaging to the credibility of the story, is that there are so many inconsistencies between what one biblical author and another tell us about the details surrounding the burial, the empty tomb, etc. Selected inconsistencies follow: --------- Exactly who buried the body? --------- MT, MK, LK, JN: Joseph of Arimathea AC: The enemies of Jesus, they that dwelled in Jerusalem and their rulers. ----------- Was there or wasn't there a guard at the tomb? ----------- MT: yes MK, LK, JN: no mention of a guard [In fact, there could not have been a guard insofar as the women visitors were concerned in MK & LK given that they were planning to anoint the body with spices.] ----------- Exactly who were the first visitors to the tomb? ----------- MT: Mary Magdalene & the other Mary (2) MK: both of the above, plus Salome (3) LK: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (5 or more) JN: Mary Magdalene (1) ----------- Exactly what time of day was it when the first visitor(s) arrived. ----------- MT: toward dawn MK: after sunrise LK: early dawn JN: still dark ----------- Was there or wasn't there a stone still in place over the entrance to the tomb when the first visitor(s) arrived? ----------- MT: still in place, rolled away later MK, LK & JN: already rolled or taken away ----------- Was there or wasn't there an earthquake? ----------- MT: yes MK: LK, JN, none mentioned ----------- Was there or wasn't there an angel present? If so, how many? ----------- MT: 1 angel who rolled back the stone and then sat on it MK: 1 young man sitting inside the tomb LK: men (2 or more) suddenly appear standing inside the tomb JN: 2 angels sitting inside the tomb ----------- What did the woman/women do immediately after finding (or being told) that the tomb (was) empty? ----------- MT: ran to tell the disciples MK: said nothing to anyone LK: told the eleven & all the rest JN: the disciples returned home, Mary remained outside weeping ----------- Where was Jesus' first post-Resurrection appearance? ----------- MT: fairly near the tomb MK: [not specified other than to Mary Magdalene, which presumably would have been fairly near the tomb] LK: in the vicinity of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem JN: right at the tomb ----------- Did Jesus allow anyone to touch him prior to his Ascension? ----------- MT: he lets Mary Magdalene & the other Mary hold him by his feet JN: on his first appearance to Mary, he forbids her to touch him because he has not yet ascended to his Father, yet he tells Thomas a week later to touch him even though he hasn't yet ascended ----------- Did those who first learned this story believe or disbelieve? ----------- MT: although some doubted, most believed because they followed the revealed instructions MK & LK: the initial reaction was one of disbelief--all doubted ----------- Exactly what was the order of post-Resurrection appearances? ----------- MT: Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, the eleven MK: Mary Magdalene, two others, the eleven LK: two, Simon (Peter?), the eleven JN: Mary Magdalene, the disciples without Thomas, the disciples with Thomas, then the eleven again 1CO: Cephas (Peter?), the twelve [really? one disciple was dead], 500+ brethren [120 in Acts], James, all the Apostles, Paul.) ... and there's more. --Don-- [Edited to add the inconsistency mentioned subsequently by turtonm with regard to who buried the body. --Don--] [ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Don Morgan ]</p>

02-06-2002, 11:48 AM	#8
Earl Regular Member Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 390	Howdy all. I'll try to beat Nomad to the punch this time and put up the link to our much earlier long debate on the empty tomb. My guess is that Nomad confuses the quantity of Secweblurker's one-liner dismissal-type points in that debate with some sort of devastating refutation of my arguments against Jesus' burial. I'm quite proud of my presentations in that earlier debate. Numerous issues were raised, including Pilate's character, Sejanus, Joseph of Arimathea, Josephus, Raymond Brown, Crossan, Jewish burial practices, Mark's reasons for fabricating the burial, and who has the burden of proof. The bulk of our debate is on page 3 at <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000195&p=3" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000195&p=3</a> The thread is called "Jesus Christ: Worth Burying in a Tomb?" See also page 2 of that thread. [ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: Earl ]</p>

02-07-2002, 06:14 AM	#9
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	I remember that thread, Earl, it was wonderful. Nomad did raise one excellent criticism of my little essay, which was that he had just demonstrated that the Romans did not ordinarily violate local customs if they could help it, and probably would not have left Jesus to rot on the cross. The point is peripheral to my argument, but he seems correct. I have not yet read responses from other members, including the original poster, who is a PhD NT type. It's funny, but the XTALK moderators disallowed my first two responses to the idea. Too blunt, I think. It appears that PhD academics can post apologetic crap if couched in jargon, but straightforward assessment of history is a no-no. The moderator said they wanted to make sure I actually knew something about the field.... And to think pimply-faced 15 year olds post that "why would the disciples have died for something that never happened?" argument here all the time. And get properly slapped down for it, too. Do I sound as annoyed as I was? It was a bit like watching the Berlin Philharmonic do Mahler's 2nd on TV, and then have a cable glitch suddenly switch you to a bunch of 12 year olds on the local access channel doing a piano recital..... I think I'll deconstruct some more posts to XTALK here, just for fun. It's a blast watching all those earnest, well-educated, incredibly bright people flounder around in the mists of "It seems reasonable..." and "The consensus is...." dancing around the intractable problem of not having any methodology that can reliably distinguish fiction and fact in the NT. "But Earl Doherty's wrong. We know it." "OK folks, move along now, there's nothing but consensus here....." Don, you left out one interesting minor contradiction. In Acts 13:29 it says Jesus was buried by his enemies, but in Luke, supposedly by the same writer, we get the Joseph of Arimathea story. Which is correct? Or maybe the writer of Acts is just adopting a persona.... This explains the total lack of interest in JC's (temporary) tomb -- it did not exist. And one might expect Paul to be interested in the places where his Lord and Savior had lived and died, but he showed no such interest. I think these arguments are extremely powerful, but they work in either case because the Resurrection remains an invention. However, I think that the Jesus myth is based on some real person whose story is now almost completely lost. To me the Resurrection claim is strong psychosocial evidence that in fact Jesus (or whoever) did die and his death and non-rising were witnessed by early members of the cult. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any Resurrection story to cover up that fact. The rest of Earl's case I pretty much agree with, though. On a personal note, I was in Kenya in 1987 when the Army picked up Lawawena at the border. The case made quite a stir, which is why it hangs in the memory. Michael [ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

02-07-2002, 07:45 AM	#10
Koyaanisqatsi Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Yes, I have dyslexia. Sue me. Posts: 6,508	My three cents (inflation in the Bush Regime): I think the most damning evidence against the myth is, of course, the Bible. We have the first author, Paul, making no reference to the whole trial or crucifixion (Jesus was slewn, then hung on a tree); then the next author in chronological order (leaving out Thomas, of course), Mark, fills in the "details" by telling us that Jesus wasn't killed then hung on a tree, he was "set up" by the Jews, found not guilty repeatedly and yet, inexplicably crucified by the Romans. His body is placed in a tomb (and not buried in the earth as Jesus had allegedly prophesied), and then what do you know? The tomb was not empty! There was a man in it. Not an angel or an apostle or anyone remotely identified as being "of god" or "by god" or anything along those lines, but just a man sitting there. This man is not questioned and no one stops to think or ask who this man is or what role he plays in, arguably, the most important event in human history, or what he did with the body, just that "he" is there and tells the "witnesses" where to go. That nonsense alone betrays fraud. Regardless, we still have no bodily resurrection, just that an unknown, unquestioned man is sitting in an open tomb where Jesus' body was supposed to be. The next revision contradicts the prior, answering the obvious question with angels and messengers of god, making the myth more mystical as time goes by, until almost a century later the myth has evolved--finally--from a spiritual resurrection into a bodily resurrection. So, like all myths, as it gets told and retold and written and rewritten, we go from Jesus, the extraordinary teacher being killed then hung on a tree to Jesus, the Christ "dying for our sins" with a requisite mystical, magical resurrection raising him bodily from the grave eighty to a hundred years after any alleged event. Nothing mysterious or remarkable about it. All anyone has to do is remember the days of playing "telephone" as children to see how aural traditions can so easily be distorted and aggrandized within five minutes, let alone eighty to a hundred years, especially when there is a clear and present biased agenda involved. What's more remarkable to me is that cult members can't see the same thing and go to such elaborate measures to force the stories into their beliefs. The very existence of apologetics should be the first clue that it's all a sham. As with politics, there is no need to "spin" or apologize for anything if it's the truth. Ok, so it was four cents. (edited for formatting - Koy) [ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

02-06-2002, 03:00 AM	#2
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	There wasn't any Tomb, and it wasn't empty. It's an invention of Mark's or his sources'. This just topic came up on Crosstalk, where I usually lurk, and I just responded to one of the academics there asserting a hash of apologetic shit.... >a >rich man's tomb. I don't think the "empty tomb" is a scam....or >theologoumenon...or a Homeric novel. Something happened to make these >people believe they saw a resurrected Jesus. The believable choices are >limited. Either the Toma/Didymus/Twin references point to either a twin or >brother with remarkable resemblance; some sort of mass hallucination/vision >by distraught followers, or Jesus survived the crucifixion, perhaps again by >bribed Roman assistance. > > >Or........he was raised from the dead. > >Jack I disgree. The believable choices are vast. The assumption that underpins arguments like the one Dr. Kilmon is making here is that human beings are rational actors when interacting within the framework of strongly-held identities. History shows repeatedly, however, that reality does not have a narrowly-rational effect on people who strongly hold to their identities, especially newly-adopted ones. In other words, what apologetic strategies like this propose is a dichotomy that argues that, if Jesus had really been left to rot on the cross, then his followers would have looked at him, shrugged, and then gone home to get on with their lives. Obviously, we must conclude, something must have happened. This is simplistic and grants too much empirical rationality to actors in such scenarios. In most cases, such actors are concerned not with rational adherence to the verdict of empirical reality, but with preservation of the new movement/identity. Let's consider a few actual cases. When Rebbe Schneerson, many whose followers believed him to have supernatural and prophetic powers, died in 1994, many expected the movement that had formed around him to collapse. After all, many of his followers had openly proclaimed him the messiah who would shortly ascend to save the world, and considered him immortal. This would be the "rational" fork of an argument like Kilmon's. However, when Schneerson died, instead of disappearing, the movement simply rewrote the story, making Schneerson the Messiah-who-will-be-Raised. The identity was more important than the reality. The Lubavitchers have split over the issue, but many still believe that he was the messiah and will return. I am sure many listmembers are familiar with Shabbetai Tzvi, the would-be Jewish Messiah who was captured by the Ottoman Empire. He converted to Islam to save his life. Certainly, in the mythical rational world posited by arguments like Kilmon's, his followers must have abandoned him! Sadly, in the real world inhabited by people for whom identity is more important than reality, many of his followers converted to Islam. It took decades to suppress his movement. In India Sai Baba, the Indian guru, continues to attract followers who believe he has supernatural powers, is omniscient, and omnipotent. This is despite the fact that Sai has been caught on film performing parlor magic. Similarly, on numerous occasions in colonial situations very much like that of first-century Palestine, magic was deployed against the bullets of the white man. Despite repeated and bloody empirical checks, in many cases followers never gave up their beliefs in the efficacy of such magic. The Xhosa revolt spurred by Mlanjeni's claim that magic twigs would stop bullets dragged on for three years (1850-1853). The maji-maji rebellion (magic water stops bullets) in E. Africa against the Germans went on for two years (1905-07). Magic water broke out again among the followers of Rembe in the same region in 1917-1919. In North America, the roughly contemporaneous Wovoka, the Paiute messiah, created the ghost dance, which led to the development of ghost shirts which would stop the white man's bullets. Same result as the other magic, but the revolt petered out much more rapidly, since many at Wounded Knee (1890) were wearing ghost shirts. I could give many similar examples. My favorite is Alice Lakawena, who led a revolt in Uganda in 1987. She told her followers their rocks and sticks would explode like hand grenades, and magic ointment on their chests would protect them. They were mowed down, of course. Her personal bodyguard, however, carried AK-47s! Consider also the Taipings, the religious movement led by the mad Hong Xiu-chuan, which led to a civil war in China that blew up into the second- bloodiest war in human history. When the last Taiping Generals surrendered or switched sides, despite the defeat of Hong, many who had betrayed Hong did not give up their conviction that he had performed miracles. It was too iimportant to their identity. The alternative to the impoverished view of human nature suggested in Kilmon's dilemma above is to take a much more robust view of human responses to threats to in-group identity. Humans are not machines automatically adjusting their thinking to reality, like bacteria trophing toward food, but social primates for whom the in-group is the most important reality. It is so important that people will kill and die for it. Otherwise, how do we account for the deaths of 24 people who killed themselves to ride a UFO to a comet? Otherwise, how do we account for the scores of children killed in the US in the last 25 years, killed by parents who withheld medicine on religious grounds. They had made their children into a stage upon which they could play out their in-group identity, an identity more important to them than their own offspring. I would bet anything that not a single one of those parents has given up their belief (read "identity") either. Crossan is exactly right. Jesus' body rotted on the cross like that of most people executed by the Romans. In fact, given human nature, that is the most likely scenario, the best explanation for the emergence of a Resurrection doctrine. Resurrection doctrine emerged precisely because his death was witnessed by members of the movement, and precisely because he rotted and didn't get up again. It's not very far from "He will return" to "He has returned," especially if those who "witness" the return will be rewarded with enhanced status in the new in-group identity. One can easily imagine at the base of the cross, looking up at one very dead would-be messiah, were Jesus' bosom friends, whoever they were. And what did they do? Like the Lubavitchers, and the followers of Tzvi, and the maji-maji warriers, and the followers of Hong, and a thousand other groups confronted by reality, they shrugged, went home, and rewrote the script in order to rescue their new identity from a terrible blow. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful force for change, especially in religious doctrine. Michael Turton Dept of Applied Foreign Languages Chaoyang University of Technology Taichung, Taiwan

02-06-2002, 05:43 AM	#3
James Still Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Pacific Northwest (US) Posts: 527	Fabulous essay Michael, thanks so much for sharing it with us. I think you're right on to point out that to the ancients identity took precedence over reason. Historians lament the fact that people have a tendency to judge the peoples of the past based on current value systems (e.g., the movement to condemn the Founding Fathers for holding slaves). You've argued quite effectively that some apologists have retrojected modern reliance upon reason into the past as well.

02-06-2002, 08:48 AM	#6
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	Michael Turton's scenario is a very reasonable one if one accepts the existence of a historical Jesus Christ. However, the Jesus-myth hypothesis, <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.com" target="_blank">notably advocated by Earl Doherty</a>, says that JC had originally been a sort-of god, with a death and resurrection much like some pagan gods. Paul's Christ barely has a human history, but the Gospel writers expand in detail on that, including, of course, details of his resurrection. This explains the total lack of interest in JC's (temporary) tomb -- it did not exist. And one might expect Paul to be interested in the places where his Lord and Savior had lived and died, but he showed no such interest. In fact, he shows little awareness of most of the content of the Gospels.

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