Alarm, for He is missing.

Zirconia

Hey, Someone's stolen the body! - He is missing indeed

Quis furatus fuerit corpus! - Ipse deest quidem

Fox_In_Socks

April Fools

RobbingBandit

He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy.

Dades

Uh, he went missing yesterday, no?

smokingman

Don't worry lads, I just had to go to the jacks for a second; back now though.

So what did I miss?

Just Like Heaven

Must be witchcraft. The Lord'll be pissed.

Zombrex

Zirconia wrote: »

Hey, Someone's stolen the body! - He is missing indeed

Quis furatus fuerit corpus! - Ipse deest quidem

Yeah but the eye witness accounts are shaky at best

Peregrinus

Zombrex wrote: »

Yeah but the eye witness accounts are shaky at best

Indeed. They're only women.

Pherekydes

Peregrinus wrote: »

Indeed. They're only women.

Some of the male ones are dodgy too. Read Matthew 9:9...

oldrnwisr

Peregrinus wrote: »

Indeed. They're only women.

Well, that and the fact that they're not actually eyewitness accounts what with them being written anonymously at least 40 years after the events they depict and all.

Peregrinus

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Well, that and the fact that they're not actually eyewitness accounts what with them being written anonymously at least 40 years after the events they depict and all.

Um.

We need to distinguish between the eyewitnesses named in the gospels - the women, Peter, etc - and the accounts of what they saw, and the gospel texts.

The gospel texts are obviously a later source (though "at least forty years after the events they depict" is I think possibly a contentious statement). But John and the synoptics are considered by historians to be distinct sources - the author of John never read the synoptics and vice versa - and since they both affirm the women finding the empty tomb it's not possible that either of them invented the story out of whole cloth; they are genuinely recording a pre-existing tradition. Besides, Paul, writing well before any of the gospels were composed, also records the resurrection tradition (though not the detail of the women finding the empty tomb). This tradition is, therefore, older than any of the texts which record it.

In short, the written accounts are not (and do not pretend to be) eyewitness accounts, but that doesn't mean that they are inventions, or that there were no eyewitness accounts. The parsimonious explanation of the gospel stories surrounding the resurrection are that they are, basically, correct; the women did visit the tomb and find it empty, and when they summoned the male disciples they, too, found it empty. Or, at a minimum, that the women and the male disciples were all saying this from very shortly after the death of Jesus.

(That doesn't prove the truth of the claimed resurrection, of course.)

lazygal

Hello! Is it me you're looking for?

oldrnwisr

Peregrinus wrote: »

Um.

We need to distinguish between the eyewitnesses named in the gospels - the women, Peter, etc - and the accounts of what they saw, and the gospel texts.

The gospel texts are obviously a later source (though "at least forty years after the events they depict" is I think possibly a contentious statement). But John and the synoptics are considered by historians to be distinct sources - the author of John never read the synoptics and vice versa - and since they both affirm the women finding the empty tomb it's not possible that either of them invented the story out of whole cloth; they are genuinely recording a pre-existing tradition. Besides, Paul, writing well before any of the gospels were composed, also records the resurrection tradition (though not the detail of the women finding the empty tomb). This tradition is, therefore, older than any of the texts which record it.

In short, the written accounts are not (and do not pretend to be) eyewitness accounts, but that doesn't mean that they are inventions, or that there were no eyewitness accounts. The parsimonious explanation of the gospel stories surrounding the resurrection are that they are, basically, correct; the women did visit the tomb and find it empty, and when they summoned the male disciples they, too, found it empty. Or, at a minimum, that the women and the male disciples were all saying this from very shortly after the death of Jesus.

(That doesn't prove the truth of the claimed resurrection, of course.)

OK, first of all, I don't consider the 40 years comment to be a contentious comment at all. Despite the traditional ordering of the gospels, modern biblical scholarship tells us that Mark is in fact the earliest gospel with a composition date of approximately 70CE.

Secondly, the comment that John never read the synoptics is a contentious one and AFAIK the only biblical scholar to hold to the complete independence theory is C.H. Dodd. The consensus view is that John and the synoptics used common sources and that while John may not have relied on the synoptics for the composition of his gospel, he was at least aware of them. This would explain, for example, why John corrects the date of the last supper found in the synoptics. In the synoptics, the last supper is depicted as taking place on Passover eve, making the supper the traditional Passover feast. This creates the problem of the Sanhedrin meeting to convict Jesus, something they would not have done during the festival. Now while John does not fix the other problems with the Sanhedrin's meeting in the gospels it does attempt to correct the problem by pushing it back by a day. Secondly, certain passages in John attempt make sense only when read in light of the synoptics, e.g. John 12:20-22 & Matthew 10:5.

Also, despite the general differences between John and the synoptics, the resurrection story in John 20 is remarkably similar. However, John includes passages not present in the earliest copies of Mark, indicating that he was aware of the synoptics but only of the later amended copies.

Furthermore, the resurrection story in the original (insofar as we can be certain that any of the stories we have are originals) version of Mark bears notable similarities to the story of Daniel in Daniel 6 (which in turn is built on an Aesop fable).

Like I said previously, all we have are (at best) three accounts of the resurrection: Paul (who is not an eyewitness and doesn't provide details), Mark (whose text forms the basis of the account in Matthew and Luke) and John (even if we assume that John does not borrow his resurrection story from Mark). All of these accounts are written anonymously. All are far removed from the events they depict. All we have of these accounts are copies of copies of copies. As you say it doesn't prove the truth of the resurrection but quite a few apologists (WLC, Strobel, McDowell) seem to think it does.

For what it's worth, here's what I think happened.

Jesus was a revolutionary Jewish cult leader who was likely a real historical figure. He, despite his tendencies to manipulate people into vulnerable and submissive states, taught a moral code which was far more humane than the one he grew up in. He was tried by the Sanhedrin on charges of blasphemy (Mark 10:7) and sorcery (Luke 8) and was executed, although not by crucifixion. Jesus was stoned to death in accordance with biblical punishment (Leviticus 20) and his body hung on a tree (Deuteronomy 21, Galatians 3:13). Joseph of Aramathea, being a member of the Sanhedrin and someone who was obligated to fulfill the requirements of Mosaic law took Jesus' body and buried it in his own tomb (in accordance with Jewish law per John 19), not out of respect for Jesus but as a requirement of Deuteronomy 21:23. Once Shabbat was over, Joseph simply had the body removed, hence the empty tomb.
The earliest story about Jesus was solely concerned with his death and supposed resurrection. This is what Paul latches on to either through genuine faith or through a desire to gain notoriety. This is the only tradition that survives until the composition of Mark. Mark then decides to pad out what is a fairly mundane story with the creation of a hidden hero story centred on Jesus in the style of Homer. Matthew and Luke then borrow heavily from Mark changing only minor details (such as the correction by Matthew of Mark's glaring geographical error in Chapter 5) or altering the slant of the text (i.e. Matthew changing Mark's Pauline-inspired anti-Jewish sentiment to a pro-Jewish one, Matthew 5:19). And thus, as Douglas Adams would say, was the empire forged.

Ultimately, the story presented in the gospels is just that, a story. The idea that it offers us any kind of proof or evidence for the resurrection is, frankly, ludicrous. The accounts are, at best, hearsay and all of them fall foul of several of the rules for admissible evidence. They are articles of faith, representations of what Christians believe but they don't offer us anything towards knowing what actually happened.

Peregrinus

I wouldn’t disagree with a lot of what you have there, Oldernwiser. I’d just say two things.

First, although the majority scholarly view puts the composition all the gospels after AD 70, there’s a minority view which puts the earlier gospels well before that date. Regardless of whether you accept that view or not (and, FWIW, I’m not convinced by it) (not that I claim my view has any authority), if you’re going to wrap the whole thing up with a statement like “the gospels were composed at least N years after the events they describe”, I think your “at least” figure has to reflect the lower end of the range of scholarly opinions. Not to do that is tendentious, to put it no higher.

On the wider issue, your account of how the resurrection tradition developed doesn’t go into how and when the “empty tomb” accounts originated. They are obviously at least as old as the earliest gospel, but they could well be considerably older, and I suspect they are.

They don’t have the air of fabricated stories. If you were going to fabricate evidence for the resurrection, you’d fabricate an eye-witness to the actual event, and not merely to the subsequent empty tomb. (And in fact at least one of the apocryphal gospels does this.) You wouldn’t, I think, fabricate a story which was equally consistent –as you point out – with the body having been removed, the rock tomb never having been intended as more than a temporary expedient. The empty tomb stories are actually quite carefully limited in what they claim. They have the air of an account recorded by somebody who is scrupulous in recording all the detail but not embroidering what he has heard. Even Matthew, who likes the dramatic touch and gives us Temple veils rent in two and tombs opening wholesale at the time of the Crucifixion, take an entirely different tone when he approaches the evidence for the resurrection.

Furthermore, given the society and culture that you are trying to influence, if you were fabricating this story I don’t think you’d choose women as your witnesses. And that’s really what I was half-jokingly pointing to in my earlier post.

For those reasons, I think the parsimonious explanation of the “women finding the empty tomb” story attested in all the gospels is that it’s basically true. If I was minded to attack the historicity of the gospels I wouldn’t pick that; I’d pick the Christophanies.

Zombrex

Peregrinus wrote: »

Indeed. They're only women.

How very misogynist of you Peregrinus, you think the only issue with the eye witness accounts is the gender of the eye witnesses?

oldrnwisr

Peregrinus wrote: »

I wouldn’t disagree with a lot of what you have there, Oldernwiser. I’d just say two things.

First, although the majority scholarly view puts the composition all the gospels after AD 70, there’s a minority view which puts the earlier gospels well before that date. Regardless of whether you accept that view or not (and, FWIW, I’m not convinced by it) (not that I claim my view has any authority), if you’re going to wrap the whole thing up with a statement like “the gospels were composed at least N years after the events they describe”, I think your “at least” figure has to reflect the lower end of the range of scholarly opinions. Not to do that is tendentious, to put it no higher.

On the wider issue, your account of how the resurrection tradition developed doesn’t go into how and when the “empty tomb” accounts originated. They are obviously at least as old as the earliest gospel, but they could well be considerably older, and I suspect they are.

They don’t have the air of fabricated stories. If you were going to fabricate evidence for the resurrection, you’d fabricate an eye-witness to the actual event, and not merely to the subsequent empty tomb. (And in fact at least one of the apocryphal gospels does this.) You wouldn’t, I think, fabricate a story which was equally consistent –as you point out – with the body having been removed, the rock tomb never having been intended as more than a temporary expedient. The empty tomb stories are actually quite carefully limited in what they claim. They have the air of an account recorded by somebody who is scrupulous in recording all the detail but not embroidering what he has heard. Even Matthew, who likes the dramatic touch and gives us Temple veils rent in two and tombs opening wholesale at the time of the Crucifixion, take an entirely different tone when he approaches the evidence for the resurrection.

Furthermore, given the society and culture that you are trying to influence, if you were fabricating this story I don’t think you’d choose women as your witnesses. And that’s really what I was half-jokingly pointing to in my earlier post.

For those reasons, I think the parsimonious explanation of the “women finding the empty tomb” story attested in all the gospels is that it’s basically true. If I was minded to attack the historicity of the gospels I wouldn’t pick that; I’d pick the Christophanies.

Hi Peregrinus, since I think that we're generally on the same page here, I'll make this brief.

First of all, there are a few reasons why I said at least x years when talking about the date for Mark. While I know that there is a minority scholarly view putting an earlier date on Mark's gospel, I don't find their arguments at all convincing.

Firstly, there is the traditional identification of the author as Mark, a companion of Peter. However, even were this the case, then external evidence would suggest that Mark's gospel should be dated no earlier than 65CE.

Secondly, there is the 7Q5 fragment which some scholars have used to suggest an even earlier composition for Mark of approximately 50CE. However, this analysis is now universally rejected and the Rylands P52 fragment of John's gospel is now considered the earliest extant record of a canonical gospel.

Finally, I find that the most plausible explanation for the destruction of the temple in Mark 13 to be postdiction and not prophecy, thus giving it a composition date or at least a finishing date closer to 70CE.

So for clarity I will say that Mark, the earliest gospel has a composition date of 65-70CE, with Matthew and Luke both falling into the period 70-85CE and finally John with a date of 90-100CE.

Now, as for the empty tomb narrative, I would agree that this story is at least as old as the earliest gospels and for my money, Mark 16:1-8 is probably one of the core Jesus stories (in addition to lists of sayings e.g. Q) that was propagated in the early years. There are just a couple of issues I have with it in the wider context of the NT.

Firstly, the empty tomb is not a feature of the earliest NT writings, Paul's epistles. Having said that, given that 1 Thessalonians was composed just a few years after the crucifixion there may not have been a need for Paul to explicitly recount the story.

Secondly, some of the pre-Gospel writings do not describe a physical resurrection but rather a spiritual one (1 Timothy 3:16, 1 Peter 3:18, 1 Corinthians 15:45) so the later addition of Mark 16:9-20 may be an attempt to reconcile this idea with the empty tomb stories.

Finally, I shouldn't really have to point this out but, in what way is the empty tomb evidence of anything. While an empty tomb is sort of a prerequisite for a resurrection story, it's not really evidence of anything in and of itself. In fact, it's an argument from silence, an attempt to draw positive inferences from a lack of evidence. Besides, as I posted already, the empty tomb is far better explained by a reburial of Jesus by Joseph of Aramathea once his religious obligations were fulfilled.

So, in summary, I think that, despite the inherent discrepancies of detail between the gospel accounts that the core story of Mark 16:1-8 is probably a faithful retelling of real events but that trying to turn that into a resurrection story is a bit of a stretch.

P.S. While the original passage in Mark does have the air of the preservation of an earlier tradition, the fact that it gets embellished with each later retelling (one young man becomes one angel becomes two men becomes two angels) suggests that the original story might have been a lot lighter on detail.

Zombrex

RobbingBandit wrote: »

He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy.

It always baffles me that Christians pay very little attention to the Biblical account that no one recognized the resurrected Jesus when they first meet him.

Imagine if someone came up to you and said Bob had died, he had resurrected, and then he came back to life as someone looking different.

Would you conclude that Bob had in fact died, come back to life and then shape shifted his appearance.

Or would you sensibly conclude that this new "Bob" is in fact a different person claiming to be Bob.

Boggles the mind that people believe this stuff. Boggles. The. Mind :pac:

Sarky

It's one of those mysterious ways, innit?