I plan on addressing some of the claims in this video in 5 minute increments. Would like to hear feedback from other users on the forum.
1. At 1:42 IP says "it's widely agreed that Jesus was buried in a nearby tomb. We have multiple attestation from early sources."
Actually, Paul does not mention a "tomb" at all in his firsthand material and the Markan empty tomb narrative was copied by the authors of Matthew and Luke (2 source hypothesis, synoptic problem). John's gospel was written so late that it's more probable he knew of the Markan narrative and adapted it to fit his story as well. This is argued by Louis A. Ruprecht in This Tragic Gospel, Crossan in The Passion in Mark (pgs. 138-145) and Adela Yarbro Collins http://austingrad.edu/images/SBL/Collins.pdf
Some scholars such as CK Barret, Frans Neirynck, Gilbert Van Belle argue for the possibility of a more direct literary dependence of the gospel of John on some or all of the synoptic gospels.
So in the end, there is no confirmed independent testimony of the empty tomb but rather the evidence points to Matthew and Luke copying, while John had knowledge of the Markan narrative which cannot be demonstrated to come before the year 70.
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2. At 1:53 IP cites Josephus Jewish War 4.317 as evidence for burying crucifixion victims but there are numerous problems with this in regards to Jesus as Bart Ehrman explains - http://www.reasonablefaith.org/forum...#msg1275426509
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3. At 1:57 IP states that Jewish law demanded that even foreigners and criminals had to be buried. But Jewish law is irrelevant here because Jesus was executed by the Romans under Pilate, not the Jews. The evidence we have for Pilate is that he did not care about respecting Jewish law or their sensitivities - Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.1-2; Philo Embassy to Gaius 302, Luke 13:1. In fact, Pilate was eventually removed from Judea for not keeping good relations with the Jews.
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4. At 2:02 IP cites the one archaeological instance of a crucifixion victim being buried but doesn't the fact that the remains of only one person being recovered confirm the ancient sources saying that victims were denied a proper burial? All the contemporary sources which describe crucifixion seem to imply that the victim was left hanging to serve as food for scavenging animals.
- - An ancient inscription found on the tombstone of a man who was murdered by his slave in the city of Caria tells us that the murderer was “hung . . . alive for the wild beasts and birds of prey.”
- - The Roman author Horace says in one of his letters that a slave was claiming to have done nothing wrong, to which his master replied, “You shall not therefore feed the carrion crows on the cross” (Epistle 1.16.46–48).
- - The Roman satirist Juvenal speaks of “the vulture [that] hurries from the dead cattle and dogs and corpses, to “to bring some of the carrion to her offspring” (Satires 14.77–78).
- - The most famous interpreter of dreams from the ancient world, a Greek Sigmund Freud named Artemidorus, writes that it is auspicious for a poor man in particular to have a dream about being crucified, since “a crucified man is raised high and his substance is sufficient to keep many birds” (Dream Book 2.53).
- - And there is a bit of gallows humor in the Satyricon of Petronius, a one-time advisor to the emperor Nero, about a crucified victim being left for days on the cross (chaps. 11–12).
- - The Greek historian of the first century BCE Diodorus Siculus speaks of a war between Philip of Macedonia (the father of Alexander the Great) in which he lost twenty men to the enemy, the Locrians. When Philip asked for their bodies in order to bury them, the Locrians refused, indicating that “it was the general law that temple-robbers should be cast forth without burial” (Library of History 16.25.2).
- - From around 100 CE, the Greek author Dio Chrysostom indicates that in Athens, anyone who suffered “at the hands of the state for a crime” was “denied burial, so that in the future there may be no trace of a wicked man” (Discourses 31.85).
- - Among the Romans, we learn that after a battle fought by Octavian (the later Caesar Augustus, emperor when Jesus was born), one of his captives begged for a burial, to which Octavian replied, “The birds will soon settle that question” (Suetonius, Augustus 13).
- - And we are told by the Roman historian Tacitus of a man who committed suicide to avoid being executed by the state, since anyone who was legally condemned and executed “forfeited his estate and was debarred from burial” (Annals 6.29h).
Archaeologist Jodi Magness in What Did Jesus’ Tomb Look Like? pg. 48 argues:
“There is no evidence that the Sanhedrin or the Roman authorities paid for and maintained rock-hewn tombs for executed criminals from impoverished families. Instead, these unfortunates would have have been buried in individual trench graves or pits.”
Jews buried criminals in entirely different locations as attested by the Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:5:
"And they did not bury them in the graves of their fathers, but two burying places were arranged for the Court (Beth Dīn), one for (those) stoned and (those) burned, and one for (those) beheaded and (those) strangled."
A unique grave was not necessary for crucified people, since crucifixion was not an official Jewish penalty.
The Tosefta 9:8-9 states that criminals may not be buried in their ancestral burying grounds but have to be placed in those of the court. This is justified by a quoting of the Psalm of David: "Do not gather my soul with the sinners" (26:9). In b. Sanhedrin 47a - "a wicked man may not be buried beside a righteous one."
Josephus comments on the end of a biblical thief, ‘And after being immediately put to death, he was given at night the dishonorable burial proper to the condemned’ (Jos. Ant. V, 44). Somewhat similarly, he says of anyone who has been stoned to death for blaspheming God, ‘let him be hung during the day, and let him be buried dishonorably and secretly’ (Jos. Ant. IV, 202).
Judging from all this historical evidence we should infer that Jesus was most likely buried in a grave that was reserved for criminals if he was even buried at all. It's highly unlikely that he was given his own "new" and "empty" tomb where "no one had ever been laid" like the later gospels describe.
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5. At 2:19 IP says that "only a few skeptical scholars from the Jesus seminar deny that Jesus was buried in a tomb" but this relies on a now discredited appeal to Gary Habermas' "70-75% figure" which has numerous problems. https://evaluatingchristianity.wordp...-unpersuasive/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/.../4857#habermas
I'm curious as to how IP can honestly claim this without interviewing all the scholars that teach at secular universities in both the U.S. and Europe. From reading critical scholarship, it's pretty evident that more than "just a few" scholars doubt the empty tomb.
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6. At 4:10 IP says that it is unanimous among scholars that certain followers claimed that Jesus had "appeared" to them - 1 Cor 15:3-8. The problem here is the word for "appeared" ὤφθη (Greek – ōphthē) may not necessarily imply the physical appearance of a person. The word is used throughout the Septuagint to describe spiritual visionary appearances and Paul does not give us any evidence that the word was to be used in a more physical sense. Paul only admits to having "visions" and "revelations" of the Lord - 2 Cor. 12:1. And that he received his teaching through a "revelation" - Gal. 1:11-16. We know from the Acts report that Paul's "heavenly vision" involved a bright light and a voice from heaven, not physically touching a formerly dead corpse that had returned to life. The "appearance" Paul refers to in 1 Cor 15:8 was this "heavenly vision" which he equates without distinction to the appearances the others experienced in 1 Cor 15:5-7. It's this vision that he uses in order to claim apostleship in 1 Cor 9:1, arguing that he saw the exact same thing the other apostles did. Nowhere in Paul's letters does he refer to an empty tomb, the Risen Jesus being composed of flesh and blood, Jesus eating and spending 40 days on earth providing "many proofs", or witnesses that saw him float to heaven. All the evidence from the earliest sources indicates that these were spiritual encounters not physical ones.
Being "Raised from the dead" took more than one form in 1st century Judaism. There were souls or spirits that could "be raised" or "come back to life" - 1 Enoch 22:13b, 1 Enoch 103:4, Jubilees 23:30-31. Daniel 12:2 can be rendered as "land of dust" which would imply souls being awoken or raised out of Sheol. https://books.google.com/books?id=ZI...page&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=z-...page&q&f=false
In Mark 12:25, Jesus says "When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven" - which seems to imply that we will have some sort of angelic genderless body in heaven. Josephus, when he speaks of the Pharisees (Paul was a Pharisee), says they "believe the soul has the power to survive death" (Ant. XVIII, 14) and makes no mention of the body. In another record (Jewish War 3. 374), he says "their souls are pure and obedient, and obtain a most holy place in heaven, from whence, in the revolution of ages, they are again sent into pure bodies." And in even another record (Jewish War 2.162), he says "the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies.” Both passages seem to imply that the Pharisees believed that they get a new "body" in heaven.
So it's clear from the ambiguous references to resurrection that being "raised from the dead" only meant being brought back to life "in some sense." There were many different ways this could take place in Judaism. Considering the diversity of the sources, being "raised from the dead" need not entail that a body literally left an empty grave behind.
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7. At 4:40 IP cites multiple attestation of people seeing Jesus including Paul and the gospels but only Paul's testimony is firsthand and he makes it clear that what he saw was a vision or had a spiritual experience. Most scholars date Mark c. 70 and he doesn't even narrate any of the resurrection appearances in the earliest manuscripts. Why would he leave the most important part of the story out? Matthew dates to c. 80, Luke 85-90, and John 90-110. All of which are too late to have been written within the lifetime of the original followers of Jesus.
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