Jon123 said

Yes, 1 Corinthians 15:4 was written by Paul 20 years after Jesus’ death, but almost everyone, including Dr. Ehrman, identifies this verse as part of a pre-Pauline tradition: “This passage almost certainly contains a pre-Pauline confession, or creed, of some kind….It might go all the way back to the Aramaic-speaking followers of Jesus in Palestine during the early years after his death” (How Jesus Became God, pg. 139 and 140). So “he was buried [and] …he was raised on the third day” (1 Cor 15:4) appears to be part of the Christian repertoire within only a few year of Jesus’ death.

I thought I had seen Dr. Ehrman say somewhere that Peter had a hallucination of Jesus on the third day after Jesus’ death, and this led to the belief that Jesus was raised on the third day (i.e. literally on the third day), but this appears not to be in his book How Jesus Became God. There he says as you do that the first vision might not have come for a week or two, or even a month after Jesus’ death, and that the third day belief was initially understood theologically not historically (pg. 175). However, in an endnote for that same section he says, “I am not disputing that Paul and others thought that Jesus was raised on the third day” (endnote #2 for Chapter 5). So Dr. Ehrman seems to think that the third day was at some point literalized and understood to mean that Jesus was raised on the actual third day after his death (i.e. Sunday), and that this literalization occurred before the discovered empty tomb tradition came about (because Paul did not know about that, according to Dr. Ehrman).

However, even when I consider the scenario above, I am still having problems with Dr. Ehrman’s theory that Jesus was left on the cross. Let’s say the first vision came a week after Jesus’ death and the third day belief came about shortly after that and was just thought of theologically with no chronological meaning. Why then would Jesus’ followers assume that Jesus had been “buried” before he was raised instead of just assuming Jesus was raised right off the cross? Wouldn’t Jesus’ followers have known that the Romans would leave the body on the cross for more than a week (I am assuming here that that is what the Romans would have done)?

Two weeks before the first vision makes things a little easier to deal with, but still seems to suffer from the same problem as above because I would bet that the Romans left bodies on crosses even longer than two weeks.

If the first vision came a month or more after Jesus’ death, I can then see how Jesus’ followers might think he was buried before being raised, but then why would the theological third-day belief ever get literalized into an actual third day if everyone knew that there is no way the Romans would have buried Jesus within only two days after Jesus’ death?

So even in the best scenario just mentioned, Dr. Ehrman’s theory seems to require that Jesus’ followers were so ignorant of Roman crucifixion practices that they thought the Romans would have removed Jesus’ body from the cross and buried it after only 48 hours of being on the cross. Does anyone else here think this sounds far-fetched? And if the earliest Christians understood the third-day literally from the very beginning (i.e. Sunday), the problem becomes even more severe. Dr. Ehrman seems to acknowledge this possibility: “The idea that Jesus was raised on the third day is not necessarily a historical recollection of when the resurrection happened, but a theological claim of its significance (How Jesus Became God, pg. 140)  

The disciples may simply have inferred that he was buried, since he “appeared” to them. Believers will believe anything if it fits the purpose. The next step in this backward reasoning was to find causes for being buried,contrary to normal procedures, and early tradition came up with Joseph, Nicodemus and the sanctity of the festival. Some of this may be true but I doubt it. Both the temple leadership as well as Pilate would have preferred normal procedures carried out. A decent burial would have required an act of bribing from someone of high standing. The only possibilty is that the tradition about the female followers witnessing the death is true(quite likely), and that they observed the body was missing soon afterwards. But still a reliable reason for burial/removal is missing.

Jon123 said
Gavriel,

I agree with you that Joseph, Nicodemus, etc are all later legendary developments and that a reliable reason for burial/removal from the cross is missing if one follows Dr. Ehrman’s reconstruction of Jesus and the rise of the early Christian beliefs. But if one follows Dr. Ehrman’s reconstruction of Jesus and what happened (including Jesus being left on the cross), his theory also requires that Jesus’ followers were so ignorant of Roman crucifixion practices that they thought the Romans would have removed Jesus’ body from the cross and buried it after only 48 hours of being on the cross. He seems to gloss over this in his book (actually never mentioned as far as I can tell). This sounds too far-fetched to me, which leads me to think that Dr. Ehrman has taken a wrong turn somewhere. That is why I asked if anyone else here thinks it sounds far-fetched that Jesus’ followers were so ignorant of Roman crucifixion practices that they thought the Romans would have removed Jesus’ body from the cross and buried it after only 48 hours of being on the cross. What is your response to this question? Do you buy that this is possible?

Yes, the disciples may simply have inferred that Jesus was buried when he initially “appeared” to them, but there was really no reason for them to do this since they could have just as easily inferred that he was raised right off the cross if they knew the Romans would not yet have taken him down. In any case, when the the third day was literalized, it requires that Jesus’ followers were so ignorant of Roman crucifixion practices that they thought the Romans would have removed Jesus’ body from the cross and buried it after only 48 hours of being on the cross. Seems too far-fetched to me.   

I think the visions created the belief in being raised, which in turn most likely necessitated a burial and that the burial required a timing , and  the timing problem was solved with the number 3, which is a good religious number. Now, everybody knew the Roman procedures, but if God could raise Jesus, God could manage the burial problem as well. Later traditions provided such details. Smart, present-day people still believe in Genesis chapter 1 and 2 , even if you point out all the contradictions, and supplies a summing-up of the archeological and scientific counter- evidence.  Even more so secterian-minded, illiterate, lower-class Galilean fishermen.

Jon123 said
Gavriel,

Let me get this straight. In your view, “everybody knew the Roman procedures” (that bodies were left on the cross for much longer than three days), but raised on the third day was picked because three “is a good religious number”, and Jesus followers reconciled the contradiction between the two by imagining that God in some way got Jesus into the ground before being raised despite the Roman practice to not allow that. Is that what you think?

If so, I am just curious, why do you think, in the minds of Jesus’ followers, a raised Jesus “necessitated a burial”? Why wouldn’t Jesus’ followers just assume that Jesus was raised right off the cross given their contradiction between known crucifixion procedures and their attraction to the number three? Or, alternatively, if for whatever reason they felt that Jesus must have been buried before being raised, why not gravitate toward a number that aligned better with when the Romans normally removed bodies from crosses?   

It may be, in the mind of ancient Jews, that they thought that body and mind was a unity and not like modern Christian thinking in which the body is a temporary vehicle for the soul. To be raised, therefore, a heavily decomposed body, perhaps scattered by scavengers, would be an obstacle. 

jon123,

I assume that historically, his followers went into hiding quickly and that perhaps some female followers actually witnessed his death. Upon the news of his death within hours, they departed for Galilee, which politically would be a safe haven.

Then the visions arrived. Knowing nothing about the actual aftermath of the crucifixion, what would be the most reasonable guess? The first reasonable guess would be that the body was raised soon,  before it was torn apart by scavengers. So they would have a time span of a very few days to select from.  A quick burial would secure a relatively undamaged body. The only other alternative to the disciples is that Jesus somehow was lifted directly off the cross by God and made alive again in some way resembling Paul’ description of resurrected bodies. They would have to guess, and the burial option would have been the simple way out, the other one a flight of fantasy. After all they belonged to a branch of Judaism which believed in the future resurrection of buried bodies. Since Jesus was the first one resurrected, it would fall natural to think that it was from a buried state.

I do not feel quite comfortable about this deduction. It all depends on what we deem legendary in the gospel stories. Did some local followers later supply the disciples with more information? Did the female followers stay until they actually saw Jesus being lifted off the pole?  Did they actually see another corpse being removed? There could be dozens of reasons for the Romans to remove the corpse, in which case it would have been thrown into a heap of junk or into a hole. There are always exceptions to the rule. Something could have happened that made the burial option as stated above more likely in the eyes of the returning disciples.

Jon123 said
Gavriel,

You said, “Did the female followers stay until they actually saw Jesus being lifted off the pole?…There could be dozens of reasons for the Romans to remove the corpse, in which case it would have been thrown into a heap of junk or into a hole. There are always exceptions to the rule.”

Exactly, and that makes a lot more sense to me than Dr. Ehrman’s theory that Jesus was left on the cross. That was my main point. Jesus actually being removed from the cross and buried makes a lot more sense of the word “buried” in the early creed than Jesus being left on the cross for an extended time per normal Roman procedures as Dr. Ehrman proposes.

You also said, “Did they [Jesus’ followers] actually see another corpse being removed?” I assume your point here is that maybe if Jesus’ followers saw another corpse being removed, then after they left, they might have assumed the same thing happened to Jesus. The main thing I would say here is that I think Dr. Ehrman does not allow for ANYONE being removed from the cross, so if you allow for another crucified victim being removed from the cross, then why not just say that Jesus was actually removed too? 

Lastly, you mentioned another possibility that actually defends Dr. Ehrman’s theory that Jesus was left on the cross. You propose that Jesus’ followers would have been motivated to imagine him buried so as to prevent body damage due to birds and other scavangers, and you propose that Jesus’ followers belonged to a branch of Judaism which believed in the future resurrection of BURIED bodies and so they would naturally think that Jesus must be buried first before being raised. On your second point here, I think the belief in future resurrection of persons always entailed their BURIED bodies simply because 99.999% of dead people had actually been buried, not because they MUST be buried before being resurrected. For example, surely the Jews knew people eaten by lions, fallen off a cliff and never found, drown and never found, etc., and yet they still believed that these people would be resurrected at the end times…right? So I don’t really buy this second motivation that you mention. As for your first motivation mentioned (Jesus’ followers would have been motivated to imagine him buried so as to prevent body damage due to scavangers), I have to admit that that is pretty creative (even though Jesus’ body was already pretty ripped up by nails and possibly a spear). Would this one thing be enough to overcome their knowledge that the Romans would leave Jesus’ body on the cross a lot longer than three days? I personally don’t think so. To avoid the bird pecking, they would need to imagine the Roman’s buried Jesus before Saturday morning (birds wake up early). So they would have had a choice, imagine the Romans allowed Jesus to be buried within only a few hours of his death (a giant contradiction to Roman practices according to Ehrman), or they could have imagined that Jesus was raised right off the cross Friday night. I think Jesus’ followers would have had an easier time imagining God acting with a miracle at night than the Romans letting him off the cross (assuming Ehrman is right that no way would the Romans have let Jesus’ body off the cross).

Do you still buy Dr. Ehrman’s theory that Jesus was left on the cross for an extended time? At every turn it does not work for me so far.    

I think it is most likely that the body was left on the cross. If an exception to the rules occurred, we lack a reason for it. Joseph of A. appearing out of thin air is clearly an apologetic invention meant to counter contemporary suspicions.

The backward reasoning trajectory: Visions – burial – empty grave – empty grave witnesses, work better than the alternative: visions – crucifixion – empty pole, assuming ressurrection directly from the cross.

Kazibwe Edris said

“how do apologists reconcile the verse in acts which says jesus’ enemies buried jesus?  “

Apologists can make any square perfectly round. But so can also critical scholars, once they have chosen their favorite solution. Many have suggested that the peculiar Acts tradition is the oldest one, reflecting the ealiest belief among the disciples. But then one has to guess why they believed this. I think it just was more convenient than assuming that he was resurrected from a completely disassembled state. To complete my argument above: if the disciples knew about the Roman practices, they also knew the Jewish practices of burying, even for criminals. They knew the arrest was a kind of Jewish-Roman joint-venture, so they may quite reasonably simply have assumed a Jewish minimum burial with some reason, but without proof, unless on accepts the story of the female followers having some core of truth.

Steefen,

if you do a search on the blog, you will find Ehrman’s walkthrough of this particular Josephus passage.

My own opinion is that one cannot rule out that Jewish authorities held it to be inappropriate to not bury Jesus, and further that since the process looks like a joint venture by Romans and the temple authorities, one cannot rule out that Pilate accepted a burial suggestion from their cooperating partner, since the prisoner was supplied to him without costly Roman efforts. After all, Pilate must have understood that the only threat from Jesus consisted in his possible abillity to create popular unrest during a festival. He probably regarded him as a crazy sectarian, not as a potential royal pretender with a guerilla army. The consent to bury Jesus would have been cheap to him, however cruel and insensitive he may have been, provided it would serve the purpose of coming through  the festival with a minimum of unrest.