lpetrich

Earl Doherty, in his latest reader feedback at his Jesus Puzzle site, makes some interesting points:

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is undated. Surely someone who considered that an important event might remember something like "it happened in the eighth year of Pontius Pilate's governorship". And this is despite Luke's giving a date for JC's birth.

Why wasn't JC's body left on the cross as a "lesson"? Doing so was typical Roman practice -- "see what happens when you rebel against us?"

ED also discusses some other oddities, like JC's mother Mary showing up for the crucifixion in John, but not in the other Gospels, and how those other Gospels stated that all the apostles fled, making them non-eyewitnesses to the crucifixion.

He also mentions how the story of the woman charged with adultery in John is likely an insertion into that Gospel.

As usual, he gets two main sorts of letters:

Praises for him and his rationality.

Fulminations that he will be sent to Hell.

I've never seen any in-between view, like huffing and puffing about how he creates a typical atheist straw-man view of Xianity and JC's career.

Or else someone arguing in a sober fashion that there is good reason to suppose that JC had been someone real.

Vicar Philip

I've often wondered what happened to Jesus' physical body after the resurrection. We read, of course, how he appeared to the disciples and showed off his battle wounds, but what became of his body?

Did it magically vanish and float up into the Heaven Zoo?

Did someone bury it in some unknown grave somewhere in the Holy Land?

Just curious.

aikido7

The crucifixion is not dated and the post-crucifixion accounts differ because the gospels are not to be read as 20th century hsitories or biographies.

In my un-omnipotent opinion, Jesus did exist, but soon after he died his followers began turning his words and deeds into mythology and parables. He was a charismatic nobody among other charismatic nobodies of the first-century who naturally arose to provide a religious/cultural alternative to the injustices and brutality of Roman rule and the perceived lapses in his own Jewish world.

By fluke and happenstance his story survived, but is still buried under layers of first-century meaning and theology. The best we can do is become informed and literate in biblical scholarship and offer our best guess as to what may have been "really" going on, who Jesus "may" have been and what he might have been doing.

(A possible reason Romans didn't date the execution of every criminal and rebel is because they had more effective ways of spending their imperial time)

diana

Granted, of course, what with all the crucifixions of criminals no one wanted to remember (necessarily), anyway. (And you might even argue that their disappearance without record was part of the punishment.)

But surely one of the followers of Jesus would have bothered to note it?

d

aikido7

What possible but plausible reasons might there be for the followers NOT to deliberately note the day of the crucifixion?

or

What possible but plausible reasons might there be for the followers to deliberately note the day of the crucifixion, yet this noting of the day in question did not survive in the existing textual evidence?

Amos

It was a mythical event and could have happened to anybody. It is just that the mythmakers chose the name of Jesus and Joseph.

Clarice O'C

Hello All,

If the Jesus story isn't completely fiction and a real live Jesus was really crucified the date probably wasn't recorded because Jesus was not that important and had not been created into a Superman yet. That happened later by the church.

Best,
Clarice

lugotorix

But other relatively minor rebels were executed either by the Romans or their client kings of Judea and their deaths were recorded, like the prophet Theudas or John the Baptist. It seems to me that if there were a messianic figure that people were calling "King of the Jews" in Roman-occupied Judea, some record of his execution should exist somewhere.

lugotorix

AJ113

It is well documented in the New Testament that Jesus ascended into Heaven. The belief is that he rose in body and ascended in body. That is why Christians say "He IS risen."

Clarice O'C

Hi lugotorix,

Maybe the record was lost or the NT writers made up the whole story.

Best,
Clarice