Gary & Rhinestone's Thread on Burial and Resurrection of Christ

[seer]

The body Paul was speaking of was not a physically revived corpse so that doesn't help you. Does Paul mention anything
about Jesus being "raised" to earth or does he only speak about Jesus being exalted to heaven - Rom. 8.34; 10.5-8; Eph. 1.19-23;
2.6-7; 4.7-10 Col. 3.1-4; Phil. 2.8-9; 1 Tim. 3.16?

I'm not sure what your point is, what does raised to earth mean? We know from the ascension that Christ resides in Heaven, not that he can't move between the two worlds.

You keep asserting the same thing over and over while ignoring the points I've made against this. If you disagree that's fine but don't just keep posting the same thing
as we're just arguing in a circle.

Starting in 1 Cor 15:35, Paul's audience asks “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?”
The question is asking "what type of physical bodies will the dead have?" Paul immediately responds "How foolish!"
which shows his disdain for them thinking that the resurrection will involve physically revived corpses. He then says "What you
sow does not come to life unless it dies" implying that the earthly body must die in order for the spiritual body
to be raised as he explains in the following verses. Therefore, Paul says physical resurrection is impossible, that is, the revivification
of the physical corpse will not happen.

That is daft. He is not showing disdain, he is explaining. And again, our new body is a glorified body. When the seed dies the plant that is raised still has the material that was in the seed. And becomes something more. AND AGAIN why does Paul say that the MORTAL is CLOTHED instead of done away with. That makes no sense if you are correct.

Oh so Paul's visions wasn't a "vision" then?

You have to assume that visions only can include non-corporal things.

Is Paul's "revelation" another experience Paul had other than his Damascus Road encounter? Have you discovered some other source?

Well yes, when Christ revealed the Gospel to Paul, that obviously happened in Arabia in the context of Galatians one. There is no evidence that this gospel information was given in Damascus in the book of Acts.

The verses don't explicitly say that. You're just reading it in. Paul says there are different types of bodies and that's sufficient enough for my argument.

That is pure nonsense, and you again avoided the questions:

who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.


For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality

What does it mean that our bodies are "transformed?" That our bodies are "redeemed." That the mortal is clothed with immortality?

[Juice]

The body Paul was speaking of was not a physically revived corpse so that doesn't help you.

No kidding. Pardon my interjection here but you are knocking down this same strawman over and over and over – seven times in your OP alone and in no less than ten subsequent posts so far in this thread. This low level night of the living dead mischaracterization isn’t the Orthodox Christian position. The orthodox position is that Jesus was raised bodily, yes. But not merely as a "revived corpse."

I would argue that Jesus' resurrected body was like what Paul tells us our resurrected bodies will be. That is, they will be transformed (Philippians 3:20-21, 1Cor 15:51-52) into a glorious, powerful, and incorruptible body capable of inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven (1 Corinthians 15:42ff). Our fleshly bodies are not exchanged but are rather changed. This lines up with what we see in Luke and John where the resurrected Jesus’ had the power to appear and disappear at will (Luke 24:31, 36) and apparently had the power to walk through walls (John 20:19).

[Gary]

The Empty Tomb is most likely not Historical

Even most Christian apologists agree that there are embellishments in the Resurrection Stories in the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament. In particular, Matthew's tale of dead saints coming out of their graves to roam the streets of Jerusalem on the day of the Resurrection. In addition, many Christian apologists agree with skeptics that Matthew's story of Roman guards guarding the tomb of Jesus is most likely an embellishment. Only the most ardent of Christian fundamentalists believe that these two Matthean tales are historical.

So what if there are other embellishments in the Resurrection Story? How can we know? Since it has been two thousand years since the death of Jesus, it is going to be extremely difficult to say for sure what happened and what did not, but's let look at the little evidence that does exist and make an educated guess as to the probability of this event in ancient history.

The most common argument used by conservative Christian apologists today for their belief in the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus is the Empty Tomb claim. But even if, for the sake of argument, skeptics accept the historicity of the Empty Tomb, the high probability that Matthew's Roman guards is an embellishment would leave the tomb unguarded for three days and two nights. Couldn't the body have been moved or stolen?

"Highly implausible!" cry conservative Christians. "No Jew would move a recently dead body. A miracle is more probable than an unheard of violation of Jewish Law and custom by a first century Jew."

This logic seems very odd to non-believers such as myself who view miracles as the least probable of all explanations for any event. But what if there was no Empty Tomb? And what if there was no tomb at all? What if Jesus' body was left for days on the cross to be picked apart by scavengers, and then, what was left of him was tossed into an unmarked common grave with the remains of other executed persons of that particular week or month? What would that do to the Christian argument for the historicity of the bodily resurrection of Jesus?

"But that isn't what happened! The majority of New Testament scholars believe that the story of Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus in his tomb is historical fact." protest Christians.

Christians make the claim that the Empty Tomb is historical fact based on a "study" by conservative Christian New Testament scholar Gary Habermas in which he claims that 75% of New Testament scholars believe in the historicity of the Empty Tomb. Many skeptics question the quality and accuracy of this study, but if we agree to accept it as fact, that still leaves a sizable minority of NT scholars who don't believe that the Empty Tomb is historical fact. Twenty-five percent in not a "fringe". And one must ask this question: "Based on what evidence do the seventy-five percent of NT scholars hold this belief? Did Habermas' study explore this question? Is it possible that since the majority of NT scholars are believing Christians that their belief in an Empty Tomb is based at least in part on faith---their devout desire for it to be true?

So it would be good to see the evidence for why the majority of NT scholars believe in the historicity of an Empty Tomb, and not accept it as historical fact simply because it is their opinion. Scholarly opinion alone is a form of weak evidence.

The popular Christian belief that four independent eyewitnesses (the Gospels) make this claim and therefore their testimony should be given the same weight of evidence as the testimony of four independent eyewitnesses to a traffic accident has been proven false by scholars. The majority of scholars do not believe that the four gospels are fully independent of each other nor that they were written by eyewitnesses.

And what if the majority opinion of scholars is wrong on the Empty Tomb? What if the story of an Empty Tomb was an embellishment of the author of the Gospel of Mark, a book written circa 70 AD when most eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus' death would have been old or dead? What if the author of Mark added the story of an Empty Tomb to the Jesus Story for the same reason that the author of Matthew added the stories of dead people roaming the streets of a major city and imaginary guards at the tomb of Jesus: Theology. Maybe these stories were never meant to be understood as literal, historical events.

"But it was Roman custom to give the body of persons crucified to the family so the Empty Tomb story is very probable," claim many Christians.

Really? Let's look at the evidence.

Christians like to quote Josephus and his account of General Titus ordering three of Josephus' Jewish friends to be taken down off of their crosses and cared for due to Josephus' tearful request as proof that it was Roman custom to give the bodies of executed persons to their families? Really?

Three cases do not a pattern of behavior or a custom make.

Christians also point to ONE ossuary of one rich Jew who shows signs of being crucified as an indication that Romans allowed some persons who were crucified to be given to their family and buried in the family plot. Are you kidding me??? Tens of thousands of Jews were crucified in the first century and Christians find ONE corpse with signs of crucifixion as the cause of death and claim that this proves that it was Roman custom to give the body of one crucified to his family. Give me a break, folks. Where are the bodies of all the other Jews who were crucified in Palestine? Answer: most probably, in unmarked holes in the ground!

One corpse in a family ossuary does not a pattern of behavior or custom make.

Then Christians use the writings of Philo as evidence for this alleged universal Roman custom of allowing the body of one crucified to be given to his family for burial. But let's see what Philo actually says in his own words (emphasis, mine):

Rulers who conduct their government as they should and do not pretend to honour but do really honour their benefactors make a practice of not punishing any condemned person until those notable celebrations in honour of the birthdays of the illustrious Augustan house are over… I have known cases when on the eve of a holiday of this kind, people who have been crucified have been taken down and their bodies delivered to their kinsfolk, because it was thought well to give them burial and allow them the ordinary rites. For it was meet that the dead also should have the advantage of some kind treatment upon the birthday of the emperor and also that the sanctity of the festival should be maintained.

Note that releasing the body of persons crucified to the family was an exception; only done for the birthday of the Emperor; the wording suggests it may have only been done for certain families (probably the aristocracy); and this discussion only applies to Alexandria, Egypt. We have no proof that this was a universal Roman custom, and in particular, no proof that this custom was observed in Palestine. Regardless, releasing the body to the family was a rare exception to the rule, not the rule.

So the evidence indicates that the bodies of most persons crucified by the Romans were not given to the family for a decent burial. Here is what usually happened to the bodies of persons crucified:

Horace, a Roman author, describes a slave protesting to his master that he had done nothing wrong, to which his master responded, “You shall not therefore feed the carrion crows on the cross” (Epistle 1.16.46-48). Juvenal, a Roman satirist, commenting on crucifixion said this, “The vulture hurries from the dead cattle and dogs and corpses, to bring some of the carrion to her offspring” (Satires 14.77-78). Artemidorus, the famous Greek interpreter of dreams, said this in describing crucifixion, “a crucified man is raised high and his substance is sufficient to keep many birds” (Dream Book 2.53). Satyricon of Petronius, a one-time advisor to the emperor Nero, spoke about a crucified victim being left for days on the cross (chs. 11-12).

So the Roman custom was to leave the crucified dead body up on the cross for days, allowing carrion to pick apart the corpse, for every passerby to witness as a vivid reminder not to mess with Roman authority, NOT to quickly hand over the body to the family on the same day the crucifixion took place.

So now we come to Pontius Pilate. The Gospels paint Pilate as a man of conscious, or worse, a timid man who feared the wrath of Jewish mobs. But let's look at the historical record:

When Pilate first assumed office in Palestine, he ordered symbols of the Emperor to be put up in Jerusalem, the Jewish holy city. The Jews howled. Did Pilate back down? Yes, but only after the Emperor ordered him to do so. (Antiquities of the Jews, 18.3.1). In another situation, Pilate wanted to build an aqueduct. To pay for it, he raided the Temple treasury. The Jews gathered in the tens of thousands to protest. Did Pilate back down? No, he had undercover Roman soldiers infiltrate the crowds and club many of them to death. (Antiquities 18.3.2) Pilate was not conscientious, nor was he timid and afraid of Jewish mobs. He was a ruthless, brutal man. This is how Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Pilate, described him after Pilate was forced out of office by the Emperor:

“his venality, his violence, his thefts, his assaults, his abusive behavior, his frequent executions of untried prisoners, and his endless savage ferocity.” (Embassy to Gaius 302)

So is it possible that the Sanhedrin caught Pilate on a good day and were able to persuade him to give them the body of the crucified Jesus, the self-proclaimed "King of the Jews" (The crime for which the Romans executed him. Even most Christian scholars agree on that point)? Sure! Anything is possible! It is even possible that a last minute order arrived from the Emperor ordering Pilate to leave Jesus alone...and this document is lost to history. And many other scenarios are possible. But what is the likelihood that the brutal Pilate would release the crucified body of someone convicted of treason against Caesar to his family...uh, er...the Sanhedrin...even if he, Pilate, was in a good mood that day? The evidence suggests, not likely.

Christians like to quote a sixth century document which allegedly summarizes first century crucifixion practices as proof that this is a strong possibility:

The bodies of those who are condemned to death should not be refused their relatives; and the Divine Augustus, in the Tenth Book of his Life said that this rule had been observed. At present the bodies of those who have been punished are only buried when this has been requested and permission granted; and sometimes it is not permitted, especially where persons have been convicted of high treason. Even the bodies of those who have been sentenced to be burned can be claimed, in order that their bones and ashes, after having been collected, may be buried. (Digest 48.24.1)

Do you notice one very important phrase in this sixth century document?

"sometimes it is not permitted, especially where persons have been convicted of high treason."

This statement clearly says that the bodies of persons who had been crucified due to being convicted of high treason were usually NOT given to their relatives! Get that everyone? The bodies of persons crucified for high treason were usually not given to their families!

Jesus was crucified for high treason. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the brutal Pilate would give his body to his family, or anyone else, even if he were having a good day...because Jesus was guilty of treason against Caesar!

So dear Reader. Ask yourself this question. Which is more probable: The brutal Pilate gave the body of a man executed for high treason against Caesar to Joseph of Arimathea for a decent burial, or, the author of the gospel of Mark invented this story and decades later, the other three gospel authors simply added their own embellishments to Mark's fictional story of an Empty Tomb? Remember, Paul says not one word about an empty tomb. The first time we hear about an empty tomb is in the Gospel of Mark, written many years after Peter and Paul's deaths and possibly the deaths of all the Apostles.

[Cow Poke]

Gary, is this your original work? And, if so, is this, also?

[RhinestoneCowboy]

I'm not sure what your point is, what does raised to earth mean?

Risen physically from an empty tomb, walks around, eats fish, and lets the disciples touch his physical body. Where is that view found in Paul?

We know from the ascension that Christ resides in Heaven, not that he can't move between the two worlds.

And where is the physical bodily ascension (after 40 days on earth) mentioned in Paul, Mark, or Matthew? That view is nowhere found in the earliest sources but rather Paul's resurrection seems to involve a simultaneous exaltation to heaven - Rom. 8.34; 10.5-8; Eph. 1.19-23; 2.6-7; 4.7-10 Col. 3.1-4; Phil. 2.8-9; 1 Tim. 3.16 - without mentioning a Resurrected Jesus on earth.

"The important point is that, in the primitive preaching, resurrection and exaltation belong together as two sides of one coin and that it implies a geographical transfer from earth to heaven (hence it is possible to say that in the primitive kerygma resurrection is 'resurrection to heaven')". - Arie Zwiep, The Ascension of the Messiah in Lukan Christology, pg. 127

"the general conviction in the earliest Christian preaching is that, as of the day of his resurrection, Jesus was in heaven, seated at the right hand of God. Resurrection and exaltation were regarded as two sides of one coin…" - ibid, pg. 130
https://books.google.com/books?id=QI...page&q&f=false

That is daft. He is not showing disdain, he is explaining. And again, our new body is a glorified body. When the seed dies the plant that is raised still has the material that was in the seed. And becomes something more. AND AGAIN why does Paul say that the MORTAL is CLOTHED instead of done away with.

1. You keep separating/isolating passages from their immediate and surrounding context.

2. 1 Cor 15:53 does not say "body." The last time a "body" is mentioned is verse 44.

3. Paul says immediately before this that "perishability cannot receive imperishability " 1 Cor 15:50 What is mortal is perishable. Flesh and blood are perishable and will not enter the Kingdom of God.

4. 1 Cor. 15:54 says "death is swallowed up in victory" and in 2 Cor. 5:4 he says "what is mortal shall be swallowed up by life." In both verses Paul uses the verb katapinô, from kata-, a prefix which denotes complete thoroughness, and -pinô, "to drink," meaning to "to gulp down, swallow completely, devour, destory" http://lexiconcordance.com/greek/2666.html. This means Paul imagined the thing "swallowed" will disappear, it will be destroyed.

5. 1 Cor 15:51-52 Paul says Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. The "last trumpet" signifies the end of the world. He's not talking about Jesus' resurrection body anymore. He's talking about when all mortal things will be destroyed.

That makes no sense if you are correct.

What makes no sense is if Jesus' actual physical body was literally walking around on earth and was touched, why does Paul only say the
Risen Jesus was experienced through visions and revelations? He obviously had a different idea of resurrection than the later gospel authors.

You have to assume that visions only can include non-corporal things.

No, all I have to assume is that visions are not as "physical" as a real life encounter that involved touching of a fully revivified corpse.
They're not the same thing and the progression of the story points in the direction of legendary accretion.

Well yes, when Christ revealed the Gospel to Paul, that obviously happened in Arabia in the context of Galatians one.

Where does Paul say that Jesus was "revealed" to him in Arabia. He implies his revelation happened before he went into Arabia - Gal. 1:17.
It then says he "later returned to Damascus", indicating that's where his revelation took place.

There is no evidence that this gospel information was given in Damascus in the book of Acts.

Well what other source have you discovered that explains where Paul gets his information from Jesus? New Testament scholars would love to know! The only other place I know of is 2 Cor 12:1 which, coincidentally, happens to be a vision as well. Gosh, this Paul guy sure had a lot of "visions" didn't he?

What does it mean that our bodies are "transformed?" That our bodies are "redeemed." That the mortal is clothed with immortality?

You've avoided numerous points of mine in our past conversations and now this point has been utterly refuted above in numbers 1-5.

• Edited by a Moderator •

In Romans 8:11 Paul does not say "our mortal bodies will be raised" He doesn't even connect "mortal bodies" with resurrection at all in 8:23

Moderated By: DesertBerean

RhinestoneCowboy, You were warned to include attribution. This is a repeat of http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...l=1#post318708.

***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publicly complain or whine, please take it to the Padded Room unless told otherwise.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

No kidding. Pardon my interjection here but you are knocking down this same strawman over and over and over – seven times in your OP alone and in no less than ten subsequent posts so far in this thread. This low level night of the living dead mischaracterization isn’t the Orthodox Christian position. The orthodox position is that Jesus was raised bodily, yes. But not merely as a "revived corpse."

I would argue that Jesus' resurrected body was like what Paul tells us our resurrected bodies will be. That is, they will be transformed (Philippians 3:20-21, 1Cor 15:51-52) into a glorious, powerful, and incorruptible body capable of inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven (1 Corinthians 15:42ff). Our fleshly bodies are not exchanged but are rather changed. This lines up with what we see in Luke and John where the resurrected Jesus’ had the power to appear and disappear at will (Luke 24:31, 36) and apparently had the power to walk through walls (John 20:19).

Unfortunately, the discrepancies and inconsistencies between the accounts still point towards legendary accretion. The risen body of Christ in Luke and John is physically touched. It physically ascends to heaven while the disciples watch. Paul's "visions" and "revelations" give no indication of this earthly Jesus but instead are consistent with the Risen Jesus only being experienced spiritually from heaven. Hence why Paul's letters are full of exaltation Christology instead of a resurrected Jesus that was on earth before he ascended to heaven.

Luke 24:39 says "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost/spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

Paul says "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." He means literal "flesh and blood" there as it makes perfect sense in the context. He also says Jesus is a spirit in 1 Cor 15:45.

This flat out contradicts Luke's representation of the Risen Christ.

[Boxing Pythagoras]

I am an outspoken atheist, and a consummate skeptic. While I remain agnostic on the historicity of the Empty Tomb pericopes, I certainly find it plausible that the narratives which we have might find their origin in an actual, historical discovery of an empty tomb.

In fact, it seems to me that a spreading tale of women discovering Jesus of Nazareth's tomb to be empty would have been precisely the sort of catalyst we would expect to jumpstart a grieving community's belief that its teacher had been raised from the dead.

We don't even have to look too far back in history to find analogous sorts of legends accruing about religious leaders. On January 27th, 1986, the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, died. Now, while you and I realize that everyone is destined to die, someday, the idea that LRH might expire like a normal person was complete anathema to true believers in Scientology. So, when the CoS issued a statement that LRH had "causitively dropped his body" because he had exhausted all the research which could be done in the physical realm, Scientologists believed it wholeheartedly. To this day, even though the coroner's reports are freely available on the Internet, there are still Scientologists who believe that LRH is spiritually alive and that his body remains preserved and strong, awaiting his return so that he might spread his newest discoveries from the spiritual realm to the CoS.

In my mind, if some women really did go to a tomb expecting to find Jesus' corpse, but found nothing there instead, this would be some rather powerful fuel awaiting just a small spark. For example, two guys walking to Emmaus, meeting a cryptic stranger, and later thinking, "That must have been Jesus!"

[RhinestoneCowboy]

Yes, Google "9 arguments against the empty tomb"

The empty tomb was a later legend.

[seanD]

Saying there were "differences" in the appearances is question begging that there were in fact, differences. You still have yet to demonstrate that they were different so your argument hasn't even gotten off the ground yet.

Here's the answer again, the part you omitted...

Okay, here's my logic: Paul wasn't specific about the details of the appearances because they WERE in fact different. Paul being specific about the differences just would have added an unwanted necessity of explanation as to why his experience would have no more or less disqualified him as an apostle from the others that Paul wanted to avoid. That Paul's experience came many years after Jesus' crucifixion and burial was bad enough, as he points out ("as to one untimely born"), so he didn't need to further complicate it by having to explain why his experience should be equal or better. The fact he communicated with the risen Lord at some point was all he needed for the occasion to establish his authority as an apostle on the subject. Moreover, the void of Paul's glorified resurrected body theology he's espousing to the Greeks in the exact same context is filled if we assume he was referring to a material body resurrection the others saw, contrary to what Paul saw near Damascus which was just a light and a voice with no body.

[Adrift]

I am an outspoken atheist, and a consummate skeptic. While I remain agnostic on the historicity of the Empty Tomb pericopes, I certainly find it plausible that the narratives which we have might find their origin in an actual, historical discovery of an empty tomb.

In fact, it seems to me that a spreading tale of women discovering Jesus of Nazareth's tomb to be empty would have been precisely the sort of catalyst we would expect to jumpstart a grieving community's belief that its teacher had been raised from the dead.

We don't even have to look too far back in history to find analogous sorts of legends accruing about religious leaders. On January 27th, 1986, the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, died. Now, while you and I realize that everyone is destined to die, someday, the idea that LRH might expire like a normal person was complete anathema to true believers in Scientology. So, when the CoS issued a statement that LRH had "causitively dropped his body" because he had exhausted all the research which could be done in the physical realm, Scientologists believed it wholeheartedly. To this day, even though the coroner's reports are freely available on the Internet, there are still Scientologists who believe that LRH is spiritually alive and that his body remains preserved and strong, awaiting his return so that he might spread his newest discoveries from the spiritual realm to the CoS.

In my mind, if some women really did go to a tomb expecting to find Jesus' corpse, but found nothing there instead, this would be some rather powerful fuel awaiting just a small spark. For example, two guys walking to Emmaus, meeting a cryptic stranger, and later thinking, "That must have been Jesus!"

Yep (as I pointed out to him all the way back in January in the "Does Jesus's Prayer Show Christianity Is False?"), critical Jewish scholar Geza Vermes put it best when he said,

Source: Jesus the Jew by Geza Vermes

When every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be that the opinions of the orthodox, the liberal sympathizer, and the critical agnostic alike--and even perhaps of the disciples themselves--are simply interpretations of the one disconcerting fact: namely that the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation, not a body, but an empty tomb.

© Copyright Original Source

[seanD]

I am an outspoken atheist, and a consummate skeptic. While I remain agnostic on the historicity of the Empty Tomb pericopes, I certainly find it plausible that the narratives which we have might find their origin in an actual, historical discovery of an empty tomb.

In fact, it seems to me that a spreading tale of women discovering Jesus of Nazareth's tomb to be empty would have been precisely the sort of catalyst we would expect to jumpstart a grieving community's belief that its teacher had been raised from the dead.

We don't even have to look too far back in history to find analogous sorts of legends accruing about religious leaders. On January 27th, 1986, the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, died. Now, while you and I realize that everyone is destined to die, someday, the idea that LRH might expire like a normal person was complete anathema to true believers in Scientology. So, when the CoS issued a statement that LRH had "causitively dropped his body" because he had exhausted all the research which could be done in the physical realm, Scientologists believed it wholeheartedly. To this day, even though the coroner's reports are freely available on the Internet, there are still Scientologists who believe that LRH is spiritually alive and that his body remains preserved and strong, awaiting his return so that he might spread his newest discoveries from the spiritual realm to the CoS.

In my mind, if some women really did go to a tomb expecting to find Jesus' corpse, but found nothing there instead, this would be some rather powerful fuel awaiting just a small spark. For example, two guys walking to Emmaus, meeting a cryptic stranger, and later thinking, "That must have been Jesus!"

Sure, if it started in our western culture. Not a NE patriarchal culture. How well do you think a splinter cult of Islam would do in Saudi Arabia if they started a legend in a similar way?

[Adrift]

Sure, if it started in our western culture. Not a NE patriarchal culture. How well do you think a splinter cult of Islam would do in Saudi Arabia if they started a legend in a similar way?

That's a good point. Vermes of course was referring to modern historians accepting the criterion of embarrassment of women testifying in that cultural context.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

Here's the answer again, the part you omitted...

Yup, I saw that already. Where does Paul indicate the appearances were "different?"

And how does that evidence compare to the 4 arguments I gave which demonstrate
Paul equates the appearances?

And if you go back throughout this thread you'll notice that you've failed to respond to the majority of my arguments. You instead cherry pick one part while ignoring the rest of my points. Pot meet kettle.

[seanD]

That's a good point. Vermes of course was referring to modern historians accepting the criterion of embarrassment of women testifying in that cultural context.

Skeptics love to downplay that because that's probably the greatest, or at least one of the greatest, black eyes to the suggestion of an invented legend -- women heroically venturing to the tomb; male pillars of the church cowering behind locked doors. Yeah, they invented it that way lol.

[mikewhitney]

In response to a quick look at the conclusion of the original post ...

In many ways, from the perspective of the Romans, was crucified for the appeasement of the Jewish religious leaders. To this purpose, the Romans may have also felt it was sufficient to bring forth Jesus' death but didn't feel it was required to take all the actions related to crucifixion for rebellion, for example. I shall continue on this element of rebellion against the Roman Empire.

The circumstances were strongly against this situation being interpreted as rebellion by the Jews. In fact there is very little to even suggest that a mob of Jews were following Jesus in a political movement to overthrow the government. Attesting to the lack of political support behind Jesus, the Jewish leaders themselves had brought up the charges against Jesus. The Romans then could have readily seen the whole situation as just internal bickering among the Jews.

This is just a quick assessment from memory. But we get a glimpse into a situation that was not typical and does not promote the conclusion found in the original post.