gavriel said 

I think the basic, earliest accounts are those of visions and burial, as attested by Paul.    

When does Paul attest to visions?

gavriel said 

The gospels present developments on these probable “facts”, all with clear theological bias, for which reason we should doubt them. The Markan empty grave is initially an attempt to prove the resurrection event, a clear spin doctor story arising at a time when the communities became increasingly involved in polemic with Jewish traditionalists.  

Now I feel like we are going in circles, and having different conversations.

Yes, I understand that your hypothesis is that the resurrection is essentially derived 100% from visions, and the empty tomb story is propaganda with no historical basis at all.  However, as I’ve said, this view has all kinds of problems.  I honestly don’t think you’re prepared to tackle the arguments against your hypothesis on the empty tomb.  Suffice it to say, if the entire story was created to meet a theological purpose, it sure is odd that this was the story that was invented from whole cloth.

gavriel said 

Now, I may have been a bit unclear concerning embarrassment, but my point was that the later writers correctly tended to feel embarrassed about the intrinsic impossibility of the Markan composition/tradition (it is unclear whether John knew Mark) and therefor modified it.   

EXACTLY!  Your argument rests on the conclusion that later writers found Mark’s account to be embarrassing.  If you are correct about that, then it cuts heavily in favor of authenticity — as an author creating a fictional account would hardly go out of his way to create material which embarrassed his community or weakened his position in arguments.

gavriel said 

If we accept these later traditions as unhistorical modifications, then we are left with the original improbability of the Markan tradition, for which reason I discard it as unhistorical and apologetic. 

I will reiterate my point here ….. using this methodology DESTROYS history.  You cannot do history if every improbable or biased account is to be summarily discarded.  Rather, such improbable-sounding and biased accounts need to be subjected to a broader set of analysis.

gavriel said 

The women and the sealing stone: It is from every angle highly improbable that somebody gets up before sunrise to buy spices (where?) . . .    

Mark does not say this.  Mark says that the women bough spies “[w]hen the Sabbath was over,” i.e., on Saturday after sunset (7pm).  This is hardly some improbably time — particularly for an observant Jew — to make a purchase of spices.

gavriel said 

. . . without a clear plan for access to the grave.   Poor people don’t waste their money. 

This kind of hypersketicism makes it very difficult to have any kind of conversation. 

First off, there is absolutely no reason to think that, if the women somehow couldn’t use the spices on Jesus’s body on Sunday morning, they wouldn’t figure out a way to access the tomb later, and apply the spices then. 

Secondly, we have absolutely no way of knowing from the text of Mark what the financial positions of these women were, and how buying spices might affect their finances.  Not only are these arguments unsupported, I’d actually call them counterintuitive: if Jesus was truly an important person in the lives of these women, there is absolutely nothing odd about them wanting to purchase spice to anoint his body — even if they weren’t sure they’d get access to the body.

Indeed, if Mark was trying to invent a reason for the women to visit the tomb, he did not need to invent an anointment story.  Mark didn’t even need to invent a story that involved accessing the body.  It was a very common custom for loved ones to visit the tomb of the recently deceased in order to weep.  If Mark was looking to invent a story, he simply could have invented a story where the women arrive at a tomb for the purpose of weeping from the outside, but find the stone rolled away.

Likewise, there is no need to invent Joseph of Arimathea or his family’s rock-cut tomb either.  Jerusalem is littered with rock-cut tombs.  Nearly 1,000 dating back to the First Century have been excavated.  Anyone with knowledge of First Century Jerusalem — as the author of Mark surely did — would know how extensive these tombs were.  A fictional writer doesn’t need to invent a member of the Sanhedrin in order to find a burial place for Jesus.

gavriel said 

If there really was a need for completing the burial rituals, it would have been carried out differently, as a joint task between sympathizers that could feel safe.  

I don’t understand this argument.  Beyond unsupported speculation, it again doesn’t follow from available facts.  Mark does present this as a joint task, among three women.  And yet, there is no reason to believe it needed to be a joint task at all.

* * *

Again, this kind of approach, where you go back and nitpick every aspect of a story that doesn’t “sound right” to you, is NOT the way to do history; indeed, it destroys history.

gavriel said
Vergari,

The embarassment criterion only works if the original/earliest tradition is contextually credible, which it is not.

It is incredible because lack of cooperation between the parts involved: How could the women (presumably near the hiding place of the disciples) know that Joseph had not planned the completion of the rituals already? Or that they already had been performed?  It does not make sense to start the work and buy  expensive stuff  without a clear idea of who does what, and how to access and with clear knowledge about what has happened. As the cooperation between Joseph and the women is lacking, so also  the cooperation between the male disciples and the women. Are we to believe that the women leaves the group secretly without asking for help? Huge circular stones are found only in aristocratic graves, among the very wealthy.
  

In order to put together this argument of incredibility you are weaving together (i) misreadings of the text —

“How could the women (presumably near the hiding place of the disciples) know that Joseph had not planned the completion of the rituals already?”  ANSWER: Not that it really matters, but Mark actually tells us Mary and Mary watched Jesus being placed in the tomb by Joseph. 

— (ii) unsupported conjecture — “or that they already had been performed?” RESPONSE: There is nothing from the text or history to indicate anointing rituals were to be performed only once; “buy expensive stuff”; RESPONSE: We have nothing to indicate that anointing spices were expenses for these women — (iii) arguments from silence — “cooperation between Joseph and the women is lacking”; RESPONSE: the text is entirely silent as to whether there was communications with Joseph or if communications would have even been necessary — and (iv) prejudged notions — “Are we to believe that the women leaves the group secretly without asking for help?”

This is nitpicking on steroids.  You have basically gone through a text that you have predetermined to be fictional based on the content, and then cherry picked things that sound possibly suspicious once you apply hypersketicism.

Again, this approach destroys history.  Virtually no historical event from the past could survive this approach.  If this is the way to analyze ancient texts, then we should be shutting down history departments.

“Huge circular stones are found only in aristocratic graves, among the very wealthy.”

Mark doesn’t actually say that the stone was round, though he does use a Greek word that implies a “rolling” of the stone.  Since the majority of stones of that era were corked shaped, the real question is whether it could be understood to “roll” a cork-shaped stone.  Note that John doesn’t use the same verb, and instead refers to the stone being “removed.”  

Indeed, of all of these nitpicked issues, the only one that really requires serious thought is the “rolling” of the stone.

gavriel said
Vergari,

Also note that the Markan empty tomb story only works if you accept the supernatural element of an angel informing the women. Or else they would have investigated the whereabouts of the body in other locations or at least started some kind of further search, possibly approaching Joseph. Or simply returned to the group informing them that they could not find the proper grave/body. This makes most historians suspicious.  

I could not disagree more.  Mark’s account works fine with or without the angel.  Whether the women actually fled in fear and spoke to no one (perhaps they thought it was some Roman or Sanhedrin trick) or immediately told people that the body is missing is hardly all that important.  I am quite certain that, if the text read, the women immediately went to ask Joseph if he knew where the body was, you’d come up with a reason that didn’t make sense either.

gavriel said
Vergari,

Paul’s attest to the burial is sometime in the early fifties rendering a Greek formula that he has received from others. It is debated how much it has been modified from an original aramaic source and when he has received it. The essential “burial” tradition has been travelling for a while already.  

Okay.  But I believe the question I was when Paul attested to “visions.”  I don’t recall that in Paul’s text.

gavriel said
Vergari,

The empty tomb story is basically intended to “prove” the resurrection.   

You have said this a few times, and we have been going back and forth on this.  I understand that this is your hypothesis.  But you seem to using it interchangeably as evidence in support of your point as well.  In that sense, you are committing the genetically fallacy.  You cannot assess the truth of a claim merely based on its alleged origin.  Indeed, the way you have formulated this argument is circular reasoning, to wit: the story is fictional, because it was invented for a specific purpose.  Obviously, the assumption that it was invented cannot therefore be used to proof it was fictional (i.e., invented).

gavriel said
Vergari,

What is contextually impossible is a dignitary appearing out of thin air exactly at the right time, putting the body into an aristocratic grave.  

Wow.  You managed to misread the text, assert unsupported conjecture and advance arguments from silence — all in one sentence.  The “appearing out of thin air at exactly the right time” claim is based on an abject argument from silence, which is a red herring in any event.  Surely, if Joseph had been mentioned several times earlier in Mark’s text, that would not change your opinion on this issue at all.  Not to mention that silence about Joseph is entirely consistent with Mark’s writing style; he does not mention characters in his story who are not active in the events he is describing. 

The idea that there was a man named Joseph, who may have been a follower of Jesus (as Mark implies), and who witnessed (or was aware of) the crucifixion, is hardly some amazing aspect of the text.  Indeed, it would be expected.

The fact that Joseph is a “dignitary” (as we have repeatedly discussed now) actually cuts in favor of historicity, as his prominence would be viewed as an embarrassment.  There is no reason to create a sympathetic Sanhedrin for this story.

Finally, Mark never says, nor implies, that the grave was “aristocratic.”  As discussed, archaeologists have literally found hundreds of rock-cut tombs in and around Jerusalem dating to the First Century.  Your skepticism about this portion of the story would be like a person from the future expressing skepticism that humans from the 21st Century actually built multistory structures.

gavriel said
Vergari,

There has been some speculation on the possibility that Joseph officially was assigned the task of taking down the body according to an agreement, so that the dead bodies should not offend Jewish religious sensibilities during the holy moment of the festival. If so, the body was put into a criminal’s grave or just done away with. Later traditions then embellished it to strengthen theological dogma, raise Joseph’s Christian position and remove the shameful aspects. Could be.  

Here’s the problem with this claim from Ehrman, and I think he knows it’s a big problem, because he has been slowly backing away from it since 2014: we just don’t have anything from the Second Temple period to indicate that executed criminals were thrown into mass criminal graves.  Dr. Ehrman’s arguments rests essentially from stringing together some writings about crucifixions throughout the Roman Empire over a 600 or so year period.  The problem is that Ehrman is arguing from the general, rather than from the specific, and really shoehorns discussions of mass crucifixions (typically following failed revolts) into an alleged crucifixion of three criminals.

I fear that Dr. Ehrman, on this issue, is employing the same type of reasoning which probably allowed him to be just as devout as an Evangelical earlier in his life, to wit: confirmation bias, or interpreting all evidence to support the preexisting theory, while dismissing countervailing evidence.  I say this because the evidence against Dr. Ehrman’s theory is rather overwhelming, and he’s struggled to explain it away.

First, the Roman Digesta, which recounts Roman law and practice, stated:

The bodies of those who are condemned to death should not be refused their relatives[.]  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. * * * The bodies of persons who have been punished should be given to whoever requests them for the purpose of burial.

Moreover, Septimius Vegetus, Pliny the Younger, and Livy all discuss mercy being shown to the family of a crucified person.  For example, Livy writes that clemency was “sometimes occasioned by a holiday,” including “a local non-Roman holiday,” or by “political expediency” (75-76).  

Philo (Embassy to Gaius 300) and Josephus (Against Apion 2.73) both tell us that Romans tended to respect the normal conditions of respect for Jewish law.  Indeed, Josephus flat out tells us “Jews are so careful about burial rites that even malefactors who have been sentenced to crucifixion are taken down and buried before sunset” (Jewish War, 4.317).

Finally, we have direct archaeological evidence from a First Century bone box of a crucified victim who was buried by traditional Jewish rites.

I realize that Dr. Ehrman has his arguments on each of these points, but he increasingly sounds almost like a fundamentalist defending creationism.  The evidence points overwhelming against his theory.

Vergari, in response to your first point:

Even if the women saw Joseph placing the body into the tomb, and followed him into the grave during the act( highly unlikely), noticing that he did not complete the burial rituals, they could not know what he had planned to do after the Sabbath. They would have had to cooperate in some way. There are even more incredibility here, according to ch 15, Joseph has time to buy fine linen, presumably by means of servants, but mysteriously omit spices and/or ointment. I may be wrong, but I think a sealed-off grave never was re-opened for a second application of ointment/spices. You can read for yourself how the other gospel writers tried to fix this dilemma: Luke changes the purchase of spices from a difficult hour into a preparation of spices on Friday afternoon (how could they find time for this before the sabbath), Matthew omits it entirely, the women just wants to attend the grave, which supernaturally opens, and John have the rituals performed by the dignitaries initially with a Mary who is just mourning.

In Marks gospel the overall literary idea is that the various human participants always misunderstand and/or forsake Jesus. Chapter sixteen is probably intended to follow that line: The women are told the “truth” by an angel and instructed to inform the others , but they forsake it in a last act of betrayal. The whole story is theological dogma materialized as history, just like the story of Jesus and Peter walking the water.

Your second point:

The women would not flee in terror, just finding the empty tomb, they would have continued searching, been puzzled, possibly approaching Joseph through intermediaries or investigations of sorts, or simply return disappointed. Cf. what I said about Marks overall tendency above. The historical value is equal to zero.

The women are depicted as female followers having joined the group from Galilee and on. Are they running back and forth a hiding place outside Jerusalem? Or a group on the road towards Galilee? How much time did they need to escape discreetly back and forth? We are well into the style of folk tales here.

Your third point:

This is complicated, because Paul has an elaborate discussion of what a risen person is, in the light of the coming age, and considers Jesus as the first man out in this respect. So if the 1.Corinth formula is Paul’s own statement, it would refer to visions of risen persons according to that. But Paul has probably inherited the formula, so we don’t know what  it originally meant.

Fourth:

Yes, that is my conclusion, not a premise. If I could be misunderstood in this way, I of course retract it. But in order to reach this conclusion, one needs a pretty thorough walk-through of the complete Christian literary corpus of the first and second century. It cannot be deduced from Mark 15&16 only. When relatively safe conclusions has been reached sifting a huge material, scholars tend to apply them to minor details in the sense that something “fits in to a general picture”.

Fifth:

If Joseph had been better integrated into the flow of the story, I would have looked at it differently. But that’s just a part of the argument. Another serious problem is that a member of the Sanhedrin , believing in afterlife, would have to be a Pharisee. Jesus didn’t like Pharisees, being white painted graves. Matthew realized this, and made him into a wealthy man. If so, he would have had to bribe Pilate. If he really was a Jewish official, he would have been the one responsible for officially completing a sort of deal with the Romans, not being an admirer, and probably not a member of the Sanhedrin. I do not think this is terribly far-fetched. Legendary embellishment is generally a well established fact to historians, and the early Christian literature is no exception.

Sixth & seventh:

You will have to respond to Ehrman’s counter-arguments, you can look them up in older postings. That would belong to another discussion.

Steve Clark said

Steve Clark said
Very interesting thread thanks to all for contributing. 

Heres what I think may have happened…

 

After Jesus execution, his small group of hardcore followers would have felt the full range of emotions one could expect from such an experience: extreme sadness and emotional trauma…anger. I think its very likely some among this group would have tried to retrieve his body if possible. 

They would have also been afraid for their own safety if caught…Jesus had just been executed by a Super Power. This led to some sort of quick, honorable, disposal of his remains.

Then weeks and months…dealing with the pain and anger…pondering how to process this. Getting over the shock. Gradually the oral stories being handed down became more and more verbose, more exciting. Restoring hope to a community that was at a crossroads.

Come up with a way forward quick, or Jesus will be forgotten by history. We can’t let that happen. We won’t let that happen.  

One other thing I thought to add to these thoughts – the concept of a dead body being raised was one everyone would have been familiar with. And of course we have the mass raising in Mathew mentioned nowhere else. Talk about an empty tomb tradition…Oy Vey !

  

Steve,

I think you should read some of the back and forth between gavriel, Stephen and me over the last 20 or so posts in this thread, because the hypothetical points you raise have been discussed quite a bit.

For example, and this is just one thing, Second Temple Jews did NOT believe in resurrection of individual people.  Their concept of resurrection was universal resurrection of all of God’s people at the end of times.  The idea of any individual resurrected person, and certain a resurrected messiah, would have made no sense in that milieu.

gavriel said

May be I’m wrong but Mk 15:46 “And he bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb”(RSV), indicates a grave in the style of the aristocrats.  

Archaeology has proven this claim demonstrably false.  We have discovered nearly a 1,000 First Century rock-cut tombs in and around Jerusalem.  And, Joseph didn’t need to be an aristocrat to afford a linen shroud.  Though we don’t have many, linen shrouds have been discovered in the conventional rock-cut tombs from the First Century.

gavriel said

Not with round sealing stones pre-70. They are very few, and belonged to the very rich.  

Can you quote me the text where there is a reference to sealing stone being round?