Loading...As I have indicated in earlier posts, some years ago now, New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan, one of the leading scholars today discussing the historical Jesus, made the argument that rather than being properly buried, Jesus’ body may have been eaten by scavenging dogs. You can see his discussion in his popular book, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. (Crossan does not believe that Jesus was physically raised from the dead; but he does consider himself to be a Christian.)
At the time I thought that it was an outrageous view, and that Jesus was almost certainly buried by Joseph of Arimathea immediately upon his death. In some of my posts I have raised some reasons for doubting the Joseph of Arimathea tradition. Recently I finally got around to doing some actual research on the question. It turns out that it was widely known and accepted in antiquity that to be crucified meant to be food for scavengers. This was part of the torture (while living) and humiliation (after death). The crucified person was unable to move hands or feet, obviously. I used to think how awful that might be not to be able to brush flies off one’s face. But that’s not the beginning of it. What can you do if a crow goes for your eye? Or for your bleeding wounds (from being flogged)? Not a damn thing.
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So, basically, Jesus likely never got a proper burial, and was either thrown into a body pile or was eaten by vultures or other animals?
Holy crap, no wonder his friends were grief stricken. That’s a friggin’ terrible way to die. I’ve got a lot of problems with Christianity, but I can’t help but sympathize with these ancient people who had to go through shit like this–and having a leader who you admired so much die in such a way makes the vision of the resurrection make a lot of sense, from a psychological perspective.
When you read Hengel, Lüdemann, Theißen, etc., I am curious whether you read the original or an English translation.
I read them in English whenever a translation is available! For this current book, virtually everything I need is in English. For hard scholarship — like my book on Forgery and Counterforgery [to be published in just about a month now!] — there is simply no way getting around reading German.
Will Forgery and Counterforgery be for the general audience? When is the publication date?
It’s written for scholars, but parts of it will be accessible for other readers. In a few of my posts on the blog I’ve talked about the book and given some previews, and a number of people have commented that they didn’t understand why I kept stressing that it was for scholars, when it seemed all right to them!
Related to the imagery of the first paragraph I have to recommend the movie “The Mill and The Cross” which is actually about the making of the Brughell the Elder painting “The Procession to Calvary.” It is incredibly beautifully shot and is a fascinating look into Flemish history, Christianity, a slice of art history and Spanish subjugation. Also it’s on Netflix streaming right now so it’s practically free. The scenes of “crucifixion” are rather graphic, including but not limited to the crows going for the eyeballs.
Ew!
Eh, Scavengers… It Happens..
So would it be right to say you think story of the empty tomb is completely unhistorical?
No, I would say that it is not a certain “fact” that Jesus was given a decent burial and that hte tomb must have been empty (as Christian apologists love to claim).
Why is it if there were so many crucifixions there is so little evidence of crucifixion found. I have only seen one example of where an archeologists found a nail through a heel bone. Why are there not thousands of skeletons found with evidence of crucifixions?
Mainly because the vast majority of crucifixion victims were not given decent burials. They’ve found a lot of nails used in crucifixions, though, and recently in England another skeletal remains.
Aren’t there any sources that tell us in some cases (ie before the evening or before sabbath) in both Jewish and some pagan traditions that bodies were removed? I think I heard that Philo makes such references.
Am I mistaken? Why don’t you mention those sources?
Josephus says it; I gave a long discussion to the question of whether he was right or not on the blog. Look up “Craig Evans” in a word search; he was the one I was debating on the issue.
If Jesus’ body was left on the cross to be consumed by scavengers (and I’m not arguing that it wasn’t), how could the claim that he’d been resurrected have any credibility and gain any traction? Conversely, the fact that the claim of his resurrection appears to have gained acceptance would suggest that there wasn’t obvious and blatant evidence to the contrary.
Put simply, how could anyone have believed that Jesus had been resurrected if and while his lifeless and scavenged corpse hung on the cross? (Clearly, however, they did so…?)
It’s because his followers had fled Jerusalem and had no way of knowing what happened to his body. If his boddy was left on for a few days or a week, and then deposited somewhere, that would have been about the time the disciples arrived back in Galilee; the stories of his resurrectoin started after that, when some of them said they saw him alive afterward. No one was paying attention to his body. The disciples weren’t even there for the crucifixion itself.
Dr. Ehrman,
I recently read that thieves usually weren’t crucified so this is just another error in the narrative. Do you know if this is true? Were thieves usually not crucified?
Sure, petty thieves, slaves who were thieves, etc. were crucified. The word used for thief in these passsages, though, LESTES, can also refer to someone engaged in guerilla warfare, so they may have been insurrectionists.