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

[RhinestoneCowboy]

Your "spiritual resurrection" theory is arguing against the teeth of the evidence, and very few scholars find it persuasive. Most sources, including the earliest sources, are either referring incontrovertibly to a physical resurrection or are most naturally interpreted in that way.

spirits shall not be punished in the day of judgement nor shall they be raisedThe souls of the pious who have died will come to life,
and they will rejoice and be glad;
their spirits will not perish

Jubilees 23:30-31

"And at that time the Lord will heal His servants,
And they shall rise up and see great peace,
And drive out their adversaries.
And the righteous shall see and be thankful,
And rejoice with joy for ever and ever,
And shall see all their judgments and all their curses on their enemies.

And their bones shall rest in the earth,
And their spirits shall have much joy,
And they shall know that it is the Lord who executes judgment,
And shows mercy to hundreds and thousands and to all that love Him"

Daniel 12:2-3 is the earliest text that is unanimously agreed upon to refer to resurrection.

"According to the passage, at least some ("many") of the dead will be awakened to life, some to be rewarded, others to be punished, but the more precise meaning of this awakening remains ambiguous. Several commentators take the reference to the "dust of the earth" to indicate bodily resurrection - bodies that have turned to dust are brought back to life again. However, the Hebrew expression 'admit `āpār can also be rendered as the "land of dust," which is "surely Sheol," as George Nickelsburg has argued (dust is used as a synonym for Sheol in Job 17:16). But Sheol, according to Hebrew thinking, was the underworld abode of the bodiless shades of the dead; those who sleep in it are spirits without bodies. Understood this way, the Danielic passage says nothing about the resurrection of buried bodies: it is the spirits of the dead that are awakened and brought out of Sheol." Outi Lehtipuu, Debates Over the Resurrection of the Dead, pg. 33 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...page&q&f=false

"...Neither does he (Daniel) say that the resurrection will involve a body of flesh and blood. Daniel 12:2, which is usually taken to refer to "the dust of the earth," can actually be translated as "the land of dust," or Sheol. The idea then is that the wise, at least, are lifted up from Sheol to heaven." - John J. Collins, A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, pg. 347 https://books.google.com/books?id=ZI...page&q&f=false

Paul's idea of resurrection seems to be related to Daniel because they both express it in terms of astral immortality.

Daniel 12:3
"Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever."

1 Cor 15:40-42a
"There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead..."

Is Paul saying that the resurrected bodies will be made out of the same or similar stuff as stars?

Paul was a Pharisee, right? Well, let's see what Josephus has to say about their beliefs shall we?

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""It is their belief that souls have power to survive death, and under the earth there are rewards and punishments for those who have led lives of virtue or wickedness. Some receive eternal imprisonment, while others pass easily to live again." Josephus on the Pharisees (Ant. XVIII, 14)

You question Josephus' testimony, and then immediately cite it in support?

Each citation must be assessed on its own merits. Ehrman gives 10 good reasons to doubt the Josephus passage about crucifixion. I don't see any good reasons from you to doubt the account about criminal burial.

Actually, the fact that they've only found ONE buried crucified person could be evidence of the extreme rarity of the occurrence! In other words, it was the exception to the rule. Ouch. That backfired didn't it?

Finally, how would Jews treat the burial of a criminal by Gentiles (i.e. the Romans)?...
Thus we cannot discount the possibility of an honorable first burial of one crucified by the Romans."

No one is discounting the possibility. It's the probability that matters. Most of the sources are unanimous in that crucifixion victims were left up to rot, be eaten by birds, and forbidden burial.

I don't find your 'just so story' of development persuasive.

A "Joseph of Arimathea" literally "best disciple town" just pops up out of nowhere and offers to bury Jesus (even though, according to Mark, he was part of the council that just condemned him to death), goes out of his way to buy a "new" linen cloth (even though it was illegal to do so on a festival day), all the while conveniently fulfilling Isaiah 53:9 only to fall into obscurity and never be heard from again. Matthew omits the part about Joseph being a member of the council and turns him into a "disciple" of Jesus. Luke says "he had not consented to their plan and action." The already empty "rock hewn" tomb (not too shabby for the criminal messianic pretender Jesus) becomes a "new" tomb that Joseph himself had "hewed out of the rock" where "no one had ever been laid." John has Nicodemus bring 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes! Wow! What an increasingly honorable burial yet improbable story!

How was that?

It was only "unknown" because Eusebius didn't think the information was accurate.

So the location was still unknown then or is there evidence that Christians knew about it?

That the Romans picked two sites of Christian veneration to plonk down temples antithetical to their worship cannot have been a coincidence.

Wait, there's evidence of Christian veneration of Jesus' tomb prior to 326 CE? Where?

Dr. Betz (and Luedemann who depends on him) is a bit stuck in the past. These days, the dependence of early Christianity on Hellenism is shown to be rather unlikely. He's well into fringe territory here with the pagan copycat thesis.

What language was the NT written in again? Oh yeah, GREEK! Also, Paul was influenced by Stoic philosophy. Christianity started as a Jewish movement but as the Jews mostly rejected it, it then became largely gentile. Paul preaches to the gentiles and Mark, the earliest gospel, was most likely written in Rome for a gentile audience as is evidenced by his explanation of Jewish customs in Mk. 7:3-4 and Mk. 15:42 where he says that Preparation Day is "the day before the Sabbath." A Jewish audience would have no need of these clarifications. Sorry, I lost track. What were you saying about Christianity not being influenced by Hellenism again?

[RhinestoneCowboy]

Just a heads-up Kbertsche before you waste too much of your time, the spiritual body theory seems to be Rhinestone's hobbyhorse as demonstrated in this thread where he was caught plagiarizing Carrier, and dropping the same Google Book links to Outi Lehtipuu's Debates Over the Resurrection of the Dead any chance he can get.

Thanks for the link to that valuable collection of resources. No doubt, people will learn quite a bit from that or, at least, have to turn the cognitive dissonance dial way up.

When people ignore the arguments and evidence I present but instead resort to snide remarks, I'm forced to take that as a compliment.

[Kbertsche]

Just a heads-up Kbertsche before you waste too much of your time, the spiritual body theory seems to be Rhinestone's hobbyhorse as demonstrated in this thread where he was caught plagiarizing Carrier, and dropping the same Google Book links to Outi Lehtipuu's Debates Over the Resurrection of the Dead any chance he can get.

Thanks for the warning. I'm not interested in wasting time debating a Carrier clone.

[psstein]

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this material, but perhaps psstein can check the quotes from Raymond Brown.

I currently don't have access to Brown's The Death of the Messiah, but based on Brown's remarks in other articles involving the burial tradition, I would tend to believe they're accurate.

I wish I could participate more substantially in this discussion, but I'm in the middle of research for a paper I'm writing on the Synoptic Problem, which will (hopefully) get turned into an article or a book. As some of you may know, I'm defending the Farrer Hypothesis.

[psstein]

Just a heads-up Kbertsche before you waste too much of your time, the spiritual body theory seems to be Rhinestone's hobbyhorse as demonstrated in this thread where he was caught plagiarizing Carrier, and dropping the same Google Book links to Outi Lehtipuu's Debates Over the Resurrection of the Dead any chance he can get.

I have access to the full text through my university library. I'll try to go through it over the next few days and provide some comments on it.

[Gary]

You really need to work on your reading comprehension, Gary. A good start might be to loosen your evidential blinders filters enough to allow contrary evidence to your beliefs to at least brush your consciousness.

The fact that Eusebius was initially unsure of the location of the Empty Tomb is the best proof that early Christians did NOT maintain a chain of custody for the location of this alleged site...if they ever had.

[DesertBerean]

The fact that Eusebius was initially unsure of the location of the Empty Tomb is the best proof that early Christians did NOT maintain a chain of custody for the location of this alleged site...if they ever had.

From whence do you get that conclusion? Certainly not from the article.

[JonathanL]

The fact that Eusebius was initially unsure of the location of the Empty Tomb is the best proof that early Christians did NOT maintain a chain of custody for the location of this alleged site...if they ever had.

That's the best? Well in that case I might just start believing that the Holy Sepulchre really is the genuine tomb of Jesus, if the case for the opposing viewpoint is that weak...

[Gary]

That's the best? Well in that case I might just start believing that the Holy Sepulchre really is the genuine tomb of Jesus, if the case for the opposing viewpoint is that weak...

Ok, let's get into the article.

First off, the author, Murphy, states in his article that the Bishop of Jerusalem and his boss, Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea, were in competition with each other. The Bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, wanted more prestige for his city. He felt that his city deserved a magnificent church to commemorate the important events in the life of Christ which (allegedly) had occurred there. Here is what Murphy says:

Jerusalem had to have an imposing shrine commemorating these key salvific events. The site dictated by the tradition of the Jerusalem church, however, lay beneath the Capitoline Temple.5" page 57

So it was the "tradition" of the Jerusalem church that the Empty Tomb lie beneath the pagan temple. As any Protestant knows, catholic/orthodox "tradition" is frequently NOT the equivalent of "historically accurate". But let's see what else Murphy says:

"Macarius profited by the accessibility of the emperor at Nicaea and his obvious pleasure6 that the assembly was moving steadily in the de- sired direction to petition Constantine for the construction of a church commemorating the death and resurrection of Christ.7 It would be the triumphant affirmation that Jerusalem was no longer inferior to Caesarea. The request would have struck a chord in Constantine. He had postponed a visit to the East in order to organize the council of Nicaea,8 and it has been plausibly suggested that he was motivated to go there at least in part by a desire to see the places of the gospels." p. 57

Now note that it is not me (Gary the evil agnostic) that is claiming that Marcarius had ulterior motives for finding the Empty Tomb, it is the Christian scholar writing this article! Bishop Marcarius desperately wanted to put Jerusalem on the "Christian map". He only need a great church to do that...the site of the Empty Tomb would give him that great church!

So let's see just how dutiful and unbiased the Bishop of Jerusalem was in making sure that Emperor Constantine was excavating the correct site:


"Naturally Macarius kept in favour by sending Constantine progress reports, which the emperor evoked in passing in a letter to the bishop, in which he mentions that The most likely time for the True Cross to be discovered was during the clearing of the ground and the digging of the foundations for the Holy Sepulchre.23" p.59

So Macarius was regularly sending Constantine updates that included all kinds of DAILY wonders! Wow! I can just see magical rays of light shooting out of the earth as each shovel full of dirt was removed! Come on, folks. This guy Marcarius had an agenda. The Empty Tomb was going to be found at the bottom of this dig if he had to jump in the hole in the middle of the night and reconstruct it with his own hands!! And look! They found the wood from the very cross of Jesus...buried in dirt for three hundred years and it was still intact! Holy Magic Wood, Batman!

"As regards the authenticity of the Holy Sepulchre, this brings us to the nub of the problem. Serious questions have to be asked of the two personalities with whom we have been concerned. Clearly Macarius would have been willing to identify as belonging to Christ anything re- motely resembling a tomb that he found at the bottom of his trench. The question for him, therefore, is: how could he have been so confident of the traditional site identification of his community?

Eusebius, on the other hand, had been trained as a historian, and was constitutionally sceptical regarding relics and holy places.27 In principle he would have accorded little confidence to the Jerusalem tradition. Thus the question for him is: what convinced him, rather against his will, that the cave brought to light by Macarius was in fact the tomb in which Christ had been laid? In order to answer these questions, responses to a further series of questions must be found. Did first century Christians in Jerusalem know exactly where Jesus died and was buried? Did they have an interest in passing that knowledge on to subsequent generations? Were there any factors that intensified this interest? Were there any impediments to that transmission, e.g. breaks in the history of the community? pp.60-61

So it is very clear in this statement that Eusebius did not expect to find anything at the bottom of Marcarius' excavation. Why?? IF the "Jerusalem tradition" of the location of the Empty Tomb had been known throughout Christendom for the previous almost 300 years, in particular known in Palestine, why on earth would Eusebius, the Bishop of Palestine, doubt that tradition??

Answer: Because Macarius' Empty Tomb location tradition was obviously NOT widely accepted. For all we know it was just one of many embellishments that developed after Jesus' death and most of Christendom did NOT believe it...except for a few Christians in Jerusalem! So why did Eusebius eventually come to believe that the tomb at the bottom of Marcarius' dig was the true Empty Tomb?

For the answer, read the article yourself, or, ask me, and I'll share more of the article here on the thread.

[Juice]

Josephus doesn't mention Jesus' resurrection or the appearances. He does, however, offer a view of Pharisaic belief in resurrection therefore his testimony should be considered when evaluating the Pharisee Paul's claims. Did Josephus just make up this belief on the spot or is it more reasonable to assume he was talking about a traditional point of view that was ascribed to the Pharisees?

Classic case of Special Pleading

Same era doesn't matter. The Gospels literally come after Paul and are wildly inconsistent in their appearance reports. It is fallacious to assume that the later accounts must represent Paul's own view. Can you provide a valid reason for thinking the appearances in 1 Cor 15:5-8 were different without appealing to the later accounts?

anachronism is. Era absolutely does matter. Anachronism

No it doesn't. Read the sources about resurrection here pages 31-40. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...page&q&f=false

The word for "raised" egeirō is a non-sequitur due to the wide range of meaning that the word had in it's 1st century Hellenistic-Jewish context. Moreover, the Aramaic vorlage qum had an even wider range of meaning. Spirits and souls could be "raised" - 1 Enoch 22:13b, 1 Enoch 103:4, Jubilees 23:30-31, Daniel 12:2-3 may be referring to spirits being "raised" out of Sheol. If the word can mean "to arouse from the sleep of death, to recall the dead to life" well there are a number of different ways this was envisioned other than just the resuscitation of a physical corpse. The diversity of sources clearly attest to this.

Considering the diversity of the sources, being "raised from the dead" need not entail that a body literally left an empty grave behind. There was no necessary connection. Paul only says "Jesus was raised." It's important to understand the distinction and the plethora of meanings this could have had to a 1st century Hellenistic-Jewish audience. Even if a literal "raising" of the body was meant by Paul or the earlier composers of the creed, how do we know that they meant "raised to earth" as opposed to "raised to heaven?"

you

But staying strictly with Paul, we have no reason to believe in an earthly stage.
...
How about we just stick with Paul's firsthand material?

I agreed.
I then proceeded to provide a landslide of evidence and argument from just1Enoch 22:13 actually says spirits will not be raised.

nor shall they be raised1Enoch 103:4 says nothing about spirits being raised.




Jubilee 22:30-31"And at that time the Lord will heal His servants,
And they shall rise up and see great peace,
And drive out their adversaries.
And the righteous shall see and be thankful,
And rejoice with joy for ever and ever,
And shall see all their judgments and all their curses on their enemies.

And their bones shall rest in the earth,
And their spirits shall have much joy,
And they shall know that it is the Lord who executes judgment,
And shows mercy to hundreds and thousands and to all that love Him"

And Daniel 12:2-3 actually supports a physical resurrection from the dead. You have to work very hard and commit some blatant non-sequiturs to argue this refers to a spiritual resurrection.

Job 17:16 - Job 21:26

The reality is there was never a debate among the Jews as to whether the resurrection would be spiritual or physical. The debate was over whether or not there would be a resurrection at all. If there was going to be one, it was simply presupposed that it would be physical in nature.

I will only deal with Mark since Markan priority is assumed.

Matthew and Luke largely plagiarized Mark's gospel and it doesn't make sense for eyewitnesses to copy so much of someone else's account if they witnessed the events themselves.

Moreover, all of the accounts are written in third person and never claim to be written by eyewitnesses.

Gallic War so this shouldn't be a problem for the Gospels.

Most scholars think Mark, the earliest gospel, was written in Rome by a non-eyewitness for a gentile audience.

No kidding. No one argues Mark was written by an eyewitness.

Since the other authors Matthew and Luke copied Mark, we're already in gentile story land. Papias even admits that Mark was not an eyewitness so we already know that the bulk of Matthew and Luke is not eyewitness testimony right from the start.

Arguing against the weight of the external evidence.

The rest of this is copied verbatim because it sums up the rest nicely.

[Juice]

spirits shall not be punished in the day of judgement nor shall they be raisedThe souls of the pious who have died will come to life,
and they will rejoice and be glad;
their spirits will not perish

Jubilees 23:30-31

"And at that time the Lord will heal His servants,
And they shall rise up and see great peace,
And drive out their adversaries.
And the righteous shall see and be thankful,
And rejoice with joy for ever and ever,
And shall see all their judgments and all their curses on their enemies.

And their bones shall rest in the earth,
And their spirits shall have much joy,
And they shall know that it is the Lord who executes judgment,
And shows mercy to hundreds and thousands and to all that love Him"

Daniel 12:2-3 is the earliest text that is unanimously agreed upon to refer to resurrection.

"According to the passage, at least some ("many") of the dead will be awakened to life, some to be rewarded, others to be punished, but the more precise meaning of this awakening remains ambiguous. Several commentators take the reference to the "dust of the earth" to indicate bodily resurrection - bodies that have turned to dust are brought back to life again. However, the Hebrew expression 'admit `āpār can also be rendered as the "land of dust," which is "surely Sheol," as George Nickelsburg has argued (dust is used as a synonym for Sheol in Job 17:16). But Sheol, according to Hebrew thinking, was the underworld abode of the bodiless shades of the dead; those who sleep in it are spirits without bodies. Understood this way, the Danielic passage says nothing about the resurrection of buried bodies: it is the spirits of the dead that are awakened and brought out of Sheol." Outi Lehtipuu, Debates Over the Resurrection of the Dead, pg. 33 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...page&q&f=false

"...Neither does he (Daniel) say that the resurrection will involve a body of flesh and blood. Daniel 12:2, which is usually taken to refer to "the dust of the earth," can actually be translated as "the land of dust," or Sheol. The idea then is that the wise, at least, are lifted up from Sheol to heaven." - John J. Collins, A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, pg. 347 https://books.google.com/books?id=ZI...page&q&f=false

I've responded to this portion of Rhinestone's argument here if anyone happens to be interested.

[seer]

I've responded to this portion of Rhinestone's argument here if anyone happens to be interested.

We are all interested...

[Adrift]

He's citing brojangles from Reddit!?!? Wow. brojangles is a know-it-all, anti-Christian, Carrier apologist who routinely gets called out for overstating his case, holding to fringe positions, and out and out getting it wrong. I've had more than a couple run-ins with him myself. He's an obnoxious boor who never admits when he's got it wrong even when other skeptics step in to gently guide him back to mainstream scholarship. It's a shame he's a mod on the Academic Biblical subreddit. psstein has had a number of run-ins with him as well and can back me on this.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

Can anyone provide a valid reason for thinking the appearances in 1 Cor 15:5-8 were different without appealing to the later accounts or are we done here?

[RhinestoneCowboy]

He's citing brojangles from Reddit!?!? Wow. brojangles is a know-it-all, anti-Christian, Carrier apologist who routinely gets called out for overstating his case, holding to fringe positions, and out and out getting it wrong. I've had more than a couple run-ins with him myself. He's an obnoxious boor who never admits when he's got it wrong even when other skeptics step in to gently guide him back to mainstream scholarship. It's a shame he's a mod on the Academic Biblical subreddit. psstein has had a number of run-ins with him as well and can back me on this.

Wow! You always seem to complain about sources yet never add anything to the discussion. If brojangles is wrong then prove it and move on.