So Bart is saying that the crucified stayed on crosses for days until fell apart and no one ever wrote otherwise, which is to add to doubts about the empty tomb story.
I am just reading Eisenman’s “James the brother of Jesus…” and he quotes Josephus Flavius writing (doesn’t say in which book):
“…the Jews would take so much care for the burial of men, that they even took down malefactors, condemned to crucifixion, and buried them before the setting of the sun.”
So how does it measure against what Bart is saying? Is Eisenman misquoting Flavius?
Thanks,
Andy
sssboa said
Sorry, looks like has been discussed before:** you do not have permission to see this link **
Boy howdy did we! I don’t have the will to search for it but we had a long argument about crucifixion and the possible fate of Jesus. The short version is that in the sources we have (which ain’t much) there was a clear association between crucifixion and body desecration. Those who claim Jesus was treated differently have the onus on them to demonstrate why the Romans would have treated him special. Of course his disciples thought he was special. In the face of the lack of definitive evidence it is not unreasonable to suppose that what actually happened is what normally happened. I think what drives resistance to the idea that Jesus was left on the cross and his body thrown into a shallow pit is mostly horror at the idea of it.
Well, not to start it all up again, all we have is a statement that the official policy was to let the body rot and then an anonymous, mass burial. But given the routine nature of such executions, no one should really need or expect specific documentation on how well that policy was followed in every case. Anyone who has ever dealt with official policy knows how frequently they are not adhered to. The two potentially special aspects for Jesus are first that he was not an especially important character, and it may not have been all that useful to adhere to the policy in his case. Second, he had a small group of people who were actually interested in what happened to the body, and may have been willing to carry out the act. Can I prove it? Of course not, but neither can anyone prove that the policy was rigidly adhered to in every case (which would be highly unusual). A third consideration is that the writers of the gospels likely also knew of how such matters were handled, and had no particular reason to invent a change of this sort that would likely be questioned. The story at the tomb makes for a certain degree of drama, but it is in no way essential for the story line. Might it have been made up? Sure, but it might also not have been made up. No answer can really be proven.
JAS said
Well, not to start it all up again, all we have is a statement that the official policy was to let the body rot and then an anonymous, mass burial. But given the routine nature of such executions, no one should really need or expect specific documentation on how well that policy was followed in every case. Anyone who has ever dealt with official policy knows how frequently they are not adhered to. The two potentially special aspects for Jesus are first that he was not an especially important character, and it may not have been all that useful to adhere to the policy in his case. Second, he had a small group of people who were actually interested in what happened to the body, and may have been willing to carry out the act. Can I prove it? Of course not, but neither can anyone prove that the policy was rigidly adhered to in every case (which would be highly unusual). A third consideration is that the writers of the gospels likely also knew of how such matters were handled, and had no particular reason to invent a change of this sort that would likely be questioned. The story at the tomb makes for a certain degree of drama, but it is in no way essential for the story line. Might it have been made up? Sure, but it might also not have been made up. No answer can really be proven.
No answer can be proven, but I find it unlikely the Romans deviated from the norm in Jesus’ case. Maybe I could see them being a little lax at a different time of year at a different place, but not during Passover in Jerusalem. I think it’s most probable that they made an example of Jesus and humiliated him the most they could to discourage future uprisings.
I’m not sure how anyone could get anything other than this from my statement but I will stipulate that we have no idea what happened to Jesus’ body. Only fundamentalists would disagree I think. Jesus’ fate would seem to be an excellent point on which to suspend judgement and let the ones with axes to grind fight it out.
Actually I have a pet hypothesis about the Empty Tomb. I suspect it was a literary conceit invented by Mark. Consider the ET as an aniconic (non-representational) image of the resurrection. You depict the resurrection not by clumsy post-mortem appearances (you leave that to lesser interpreters) but by depicting an empty tomb. Mark is the first gospel but he reflects a transitional, developing phase of Christian understanding. By having Jesus being made divine at his baptism he stands midway between the original conception of Jesus being made divine at the resurrection and Jesus being divine at birth. So in his conception of the resurrection he stands midway between the original view of the resurrection as an apotheosis and the view of the resurrection as some sort of resuscitation.
I’m not saying this reading was the intention of Mark. We have no access to the author’s intentions. But if you read it that way it explains the abrupt ending at 16:8. The book ends with the reaction to the empty tomb. Fear. One of Mark’s favorite themes.
Perhaps I should give an example of what I mean. Many years ago, my aunt worked at a Mister Donut. To make donuts, they have a machine that kneads the dough. It often gets a bit clogged and the dough needs to be freed to begin moving again. The official policy is that before doing this act of freeing the dough, the machine MUST be turned off. This instruction is given in training, in the employee handbook and with a big sign over the machine. The reality is that almost no one, once they have been working there for a bit, actually turns it off first because it takes more time. This is the common practice even after someone lost a thumb for taking the short cut.
If anyone asks the a manager what the policy is, the reply with be that the machine MUST be turned off. If the manager asks the employees how they deal with the situation, they will all say that they turn off the machine, even though most of them most of the time do not do so. (And most of the managers probably know that the policy is mostly ignored, but look the other way as long as no one gets hurt, including the machine.) Everyone knows the policy, and that failing to adhere to the policy can result in disciplinary action beyond the risk of losing a digit or two. There is, of course, no written record of the many, many violations of the policy, other than the relatively rare occasions when an employee might get caught in the machine and the situation gets too much attention to ignore. (I only know about the problem because my aunt was working there when that person lost the thumb, and she told the story at home, in the private confines of her family.)
A historian, far in the future — if there is a future and there are historians in it — looking back on this time at the Mister Donut will see the overwhelming evidence and make the only and obvious conclusion that to free the dough, one first had to (or at least always did) turn off the machine . . . but that historian would be quite, quite wrong.
I know of plenty of similar situations, and if you think about it, I bet most of us do.
Stephen said
I’m not sure how anyone could get anything other than this from my statement but I will stipulate that we have no idea what happened to Jesus’ body. Only fundamentalists would disagree I think. Jesus’ fate would seem to be an excellent point on which to suspend judgement and let the ones with axes to grind fight it out.Actually I have a pet hypothesis about the Empty Tomb. I suspect it was a literary conceit invented by Mark. Consider the ET as an aniconic (non-representational) image of the resurrection. You depict the resurrection not by clumsy post-mortem appearances (you leave that to lesser interpreters) but by depicting an empty tomb. Mark is the first gospel but he reflects a transitional, developing phase of Christian understanding. By having Jesus being made divine at his baptism he stands midway between the original conception of Jesus being made divine at the resurrection and Jesus being divine at birth. So in his conception of the resurrection he stands midway between the original view of the resurrection as an apotheosis and the view of the resurrection as some sort of resuscitation.
I’m not saying this reading was the intention of Mark. We have no access to the author’s intentions. But if you read it that way it explains the abrupt ending at 16:8. The book ends with the reaction to the empty tomb. Fear. One of Mark’s favorite themes.
That’s very interesting. Do you think the reason the author of Mark also chose to have Jesus be made divine at his baptism was because him being baptized by John was a well-known story and/or to support the miracle stories? Paul doesn’t talk about Jesus’ miracles so it wasn’t necessary for him to say he was divine during his lifetime, but for the author of Mark it would have been a must to convince people.
JAS I appreciate your point and intend to reply but I have to think about it some first. So please don’t think I’m ignoring you when I go ahead and respond to cstu.
Do you think the reason the author of Mark also chose to have Jesus be made divine at his baptism was because him being baptized by John was a well-known story and/or to support the miracle stories? Paul doesn’t talk about Jesus’ miracles so it wasn’t necessary for him to say he was divine during his lifetime, but for the author of Mark it would have been a must to convince people.
I don’t know if Mark inherited the tradition or invented it honestly. Matthew and Luke are certainly willing to change Mark for their purposes and John is willing to change the day Jesus was crucified on to make a theological point! We can’t simply assume Mark wasn’t willing to modify his tradition as well. What we can say is that Mark made literary use of it in his gospel. For example, compare the splitting of the sky in Jesus’ vision at his baptism and the splitting of the Temple curtain at his death. I’m given to understand that the Temple curtain would have been covered with solar and astronomical imagery. Mark seems to be pointing out an equivalence. Just as Jesus was adopted by god at his baptism, the believer is adopted by god at Jesus’ crucifixion. And notice Mark does this without so much as a smidgeon of explication. He trusts the reader will absorb the significance of the imagery.
I think we can assume that most of what his immediate disciples learned they got directly from Jesus since they were illiterate subsistence laborers. But Paul and the gospel writers were educated and were clearly bringing some baggage with them to the faith. Thanks to modern scholars like Peter Schafer and Alan Segal (and others) we’re starting to pick up on some of what that baggage might have been.
sssboa said
Sorry, looks like has been discussed before:
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Boy howdy did we! I don’t have the will to search for it but we had a long argument about crucifixion and the possible fate of Jesus. The short version is that in the sources we have (which ain’t much) there was a clear association between crucifixion and body desecration. Those who claim Jesus was treated differently have the onus on them to demonstrate why the Romans would have treated him special. Of course his disciples thought he was special. In the face of the lack of definitive evidence it is not unreasonable to suppose that what actually happened is what normally happened. I think what drives resistance to the idea that Jesus was left on the cross and his body thrown into a shallow pit is mostly horror at the idea of it.
The onus is on anyone making any positive historical claim. If you want to argue Jesus was buried you have to provide historical evidence. If you want to argue he would not be permitted a burial, you have to provide evidence that this was so uncommon it most likely did not happen. So how extensive is the evidence against burial? How many estimated crucifixions were there and how many do we actually know about the fate of the body? How many descriptions are outside of a war context/active rebellion and how many are within? How comprehensive in time and location is the evidence against burial? You already said the sources we have “ain’t much” and sawed off the branch you are sitting in. Sounds to me like we are falling victim to a faulty generalization fallacy. Or do the compelling examples you would cite stem from a time of war when a special example was definitely being made? Was a guy flipping tables in a Jewish temple an act of war against Rome? Maybe a judgment of non liquet is better. JC Cook wrote:
Romans were not concerned to leave descriptions of crucifixion. The texts that contain details are brief. They are even more sparing about descriptions of the ultimate fate of the corpses of those who had been crucified. The jurist Ulpian describes, in the early third century, in book nine of his Duties of the Proconsul, the legal situation he knows of that governs the disposal of executed bodies:The corpses of those who were sentenced to die are not to be withheld from their relatives: the divine Augustus writes in the tenth book of his autobiogra- phy that he had observed this rule. Today, however, the corpses of executed people are buried as if permission had been asked for and granted, with some exceptions, especially when the charge was high treason. Even the bodies of those condemned to be burned at the stake can be claimed, obviously so that bones and ashes can be collected and buried.
Not first century but is it completely irrelevant? He also writes:
. . . the Platonist critics of Christianity (Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, Julian, and Macarius’s anonymous pagan philosopher), while not accepting the resurrection of Christ, do not (according to the surviving evidence) reject the historicity of the burial. [New Testament Studies / Volume 57 / Issue 02 / April 2011, pp 193 – 213]
Not to mention, even if you could demonstrate that burial was very unlikely for most victims, it is just arguing from a generality to a specific case and committing the fallacy of division. You need more than that to definitely say the the burial of a specific individual did not occur when a text, which may or may not be trustworthy, says he was. “Its not unreasonable to suppose” is not a positive historical argument. That can be followed with a million statements. Jesus’s closest followers don’t seem to have been hunted down from the surviving record so was he actually considered a real threat?
In history, the onus is on everyone who makes any historical claim.
Is the ossuary of Jehohanan not evidence crucified individuals could be buried? I mean it it the only one so maybe its an exception to the rule or maybe the Romans had a fluid philosophy that varied from place to place throughout time.
Josephus also mentions it occurring but he is doing a bit of apologetics so we can’t just naively trust it. But as Mark Smith writes of Josephus’s statement:
This evidence is particularly illuminating when taken together with Deuteronomy, the Temple Scroll, the Gospel of John, and Philo. All concur that the executed, even the crucified, must be properly buried by sunset. Josephus and Philo further concur that Romans regularly honored this Jewish expectation. As we have seen, Josephus did not hesitate to describe the many victims of crucifixion before the walls of Jerusalem whose bodies were probably exposed on crosses. Here he seems to be drawing an important distinction between ordinary executions, and the extraordinary ones that took place in a context of war.
I think the evidence that Rome would not have allowed Jesus to be buried is overstated. If the Tomb story is fake, and it very well may be, that needs to be established on other grounds.
Vinnie
W
cstu said
JAS said
Well, not to start it all up again, all we have is a statement that the official policy was to let the body rot and then an anonymous, mass burial. But given the routine nature of such executions, no one should really need or expect specific documentation on how well that policy was followed in every case. Anyone who has ever dealt with official policy knows how frequently they are not adhered to. The two potentially special aspects for Jesus are first that he was not an especially important character, and it may not have been all that useful to adhere to the policy in his case. Second, he had a small group of people who were actually interested in what happened to the body, and may have been willing to carry out the act. Can I prove it? Of course not, but neither can anyone prove that the policy was rigidly adhered to in every case (which would be highly unusual). A third consideration is that the writers of the gospels likely also knew of how such matters were handled, and had no particular reason to invent a change of this sort that would likely be questioned. The story at the tomb makes for a certain degree of drama, but it is in no way essential for the story line. Might it have been made up? Sure, but it might also not have been made up. No answer can really be proven.
No answer can be proven, but I find it unlikely the Romans deviated from the norm in Jesus’ case. Maybe I could see them being a little lax at a different time of year at a different place, but not during Passover in Jerusalem. I think it’s most probable that they made an example of Jesus and humiliated him the most they could to discourage future uprisings.
What uprising was Jesus guilty of?
Riding into Jerusalem with a small crowd? Overturning some tables in a busy temple? Being King of the Jews?
So the triumphal entry of Mark is based on historical events? The temple cleansing in Mark is based on historical events? The crucifixion by Pilate in Mark is historical? The sign above Jesus’s head from Mark is historical? All these are historical but the next event, the burial is not?
I’d love to see the methodology that distinguished between burial and temple cleansing on historical grounds. I’d hazard it is just sloppiness on the part of historians–including some very good ones: “we can’t think of another reason why he was crucified so it must be accurate” despite being singly attested and fitting in with the theology and post-70 composition of pro-Gentile Mark perfectly. The temple was already destroyed when that was first written. It is not passing any tests with flying colors unless GJohn is independent of the synoptics.
Vinnie
JAS wrote
I know of plenty of similar situations, and if you think about it, I bet most of us do.
I take your point. Anyone who participates in a task that requires a certain degree of expertise can list examples of discrepancies between the image we present and the actuality. However what mitigates against this as an explanation of Roman crucifixion practices is that the discrepancies you refer to only really can take place in a condition of privacy. When these discrepancies are revealed publicly it usually results in embarrassment and censure.
In contrast by its very nature Roman crucifixion was intended as a public event. It was inherently designed to send a message to Rome’s enemies. I have no doubt there must have been exceptions to normal Roman practice but only at the risk of undercutting the very purpose of the exercise. It seems reasonable to suppose that any exceptions would have taken place under unique and special circumstances. The responsibility of someone claiming that Jesus was properly buried is to show why the Romans would have treated Jesus specially. We know his disciples considered Jesus to be special, deserving of a special fate. But the problem as I see it is to show why the Romans would have treated Jesus differently than anyone else.
vinsapone123, I’m not making any historical claims. I’m critiquing Christian claims. The reason I’m hesitant to plunge into this subject is that a while back I had a loooooong argument with a former poster named godspell about Jesus’ burial. The short version is that I dug out and listed pagan sources that demonstrated a clear association between crucifixion and body desecration. It was part of the punishment. It seems to have been what normally happened. We have no idea what happened to Jesus’ body. We don’t have enough information. Christian claims are suspect because they have a vested interest in their conclusions and they stand in contrast to what appears to be normal Roman practice. All I’m saying.
It does not require privacy, merely obscurity. At this point, Jesus was indeed obscure and he was but one minor figure among thousands who met with a similar fate. It is precisely the condition for an official policy not being followed. (Who would have known other than perhaps one or two Romans directly involved, and the followers of Jesus? Surely no one was thinking at the time that it would end up as a resurrection story that would last for thousands of years.) The other factor to consider, which I did note previously, is that one exception may simply be that there was someone who wanted to bury Jesus, while many other obscure victims of crucifixion had no one who was willing or able to step forward for the task.
I see this as a very different matter than, for example, the building of a Roman military camp, which likely would have followed a standard policy in most situations.
Is it possible that Jesus was dumped into a mass grave? Sure. Is it possible that Jesus was allowed to be removed for a private burial in a tomb? Of course. What is the one account we have that specifically addresses how the body of Jesus was handled? Why should we allow that specific tradition to be discarded in favor of a generic one that may or may not apply . . . other than a desire to dismiss the entire NT account?
I should have known. There is no escape. No matter how many times I articulated my position, spelled it out, poor confused godspell would come right back and accuse me of saying just the opposite of what I was actually saying. The Stoics encouraged us to embrace our fates. So let me try one more time.
We have no idea what happened to Jesus’ body. We don’t have enough information.
Christian claims are suspect because they have a vested interest in their conclusions and they stand in contrast to what appears to be normal Roman practice.
If YOU are going to claim that Jesus was treated special by the Romans then you have to demonstrate some compelling reason that they would do so. The fact that his disciples considered him special is not enough.
I am NOT making a claim. I am stating what I would regard as necessary to support a claim that Jesus was treated differently than most victims of crucifixion.
Now who wants to be next to accuse me of claiming that Jesus was left on the cross and the gore disposed of in a mass grave?
Now wait a minute, Stephen. You are saying that you are not claiming that Jesus was left on the cross and the body disposed of in a mass grave, but you are also saying that such would be the normal Roman practice and anyone claiming otherwise needs to provide “some compelling reason.” That is indeed a claim, denial notwithstanding, one that is approaching Steefen levels of inconsistency. I think that I have already provided a plausible case that the story of the tomb might be essentially accurate. (I am not going to get into the whole resurrection claim because that involves clearly supernatural elements and we cannot even agree on the earthly stuff.)
I suspect that no case that could reasonably be supplied would be compelling to you. I also suspect, based in part on many of your posts, that you accept a lot on reasons that are less compelling than what has already been supplied. There is, of course, a subjective element here, and clearly we are not going to resolve the question conclusively.
vinsapone123, I’m not making any historical claims. I’m critiquing Christian claims. The reason I’m hesitant to plunge into this subject is that a while back I had a loooooong argument with a former poster named godspell about Jesus’ burial. The short version is that I dug out and listed pagan sources that demonstrated a clear association between crucifixion and body desecration. It was part of the punishment. It seems to have been what normally happened. We have no idea what happened to Jesus’ body. We don’t have enough information. Christian claims are suspect because they have a vested interest in their conclusions and they stand in contrast to what appears to be normal Roman practice. All I’m saying.
And this “clear association” was universal and known to apply to 1st-century Palestinian Jews crucified just outside Jerusalem when not in the time of war? Despite the evidence of Philo, Josephus, Mark, Paul and Jesus’s earliest followers, John etc all to the contrary in this region and time? Not to mention the Roman exception and the buried body found with the spike still in it. There are always exceptions to rules and we know of them in relation to crucified criminals as well. Even if this was not common practice throughout parts of Rome, that lazy historical work doesn’t mean we get to make it total or universal.
Brown writes: “What the burial was done by Joseph from Arimathea is very probable, since a Christian fictional creation from nothing of a Jewish Sanhedrist who does what is right is almost inexplicable, granted the hostility in early Christian writings toward the Jewish authorities responsible for the death of Jesus. Moreover, the fixed designation of such a character as “from Arimathea,” a town very difficult to identify and reminiscent of no scriptural symbolism, makes a thesis of invention even more implausible. The very fact that the later Gospels had to ennoble Joseph and to increase the reverence of the burial given to Jesus shows that Christian instincts would not have freely shaped what I have posited for the basic account. While high probability is not certitude, there is nothing in the basic preGos-pel account of Jesus’ burial by Joseph that could not plausibly be deemed historical.”
Brown also writes: “This interpretation of Mark also makes sense of some other notices about the burial of Jesus that may represent ancient tradition. (With effort all the following are capable of being explained in another way, but their wording favors a burial of Jesus by Jews condemnatory of Jesus rather than by his disciples.) A sermon in Acts 13:27-29 reports: “Those who lived in Jerusalem and their rulers … requested Pilate to have him killed; and when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb.” John 19:31 tells us that the Jews asked Pilate that the legs of the crucified be broken and they be taken away. A variant reading at the end of John 19:38 continues the story: “So they came and took away his body.” Similarly in GPet 6:21 we read, ”And then they [the Jews] drew out the nails from the hands of the Lord and placed him on the earth.” Justin (Dialogue 97.1) phrases the burial thus: “For the Lord too remained on the tree almost until evening [hespera], and towards evening they buried him”-in a chapter where the context suggests that the “they” may be the Jewish opponents of Jesus rather than his disciples. The plural may be simply a generalization of the memory of Joseph who was one of “the Jews,” i.e., not a disciple of Jesus at this time but a pious Sanhedrist responsible for sentencing Jesus and acting in fidelity to the deuteronomic law of burying before sunset those hanged (crucified) on a tree. [Death of the Messiah V2 pg 1218]”
One does not need to accept all the details in the Gospels to see a historical core. Jewish leaders buried Jesus, and if they were real, the two criminals next to him in a common tomb. Joseph also does the bare minimum required in Mark. Wraps him and places the body in the tomb. No washing, no spices, no anointing etc. Mark has the woman anoint Jesus with perfume earlier for this reason. Aside from Mark’s portrayal of the tomb as kingly (huge with rolling stone — see Kloner), there is little in there that doesn’t strike one as historical and quite a bit unlikely to be created.
Denying the possibility of burial to Jesus when Paul reminds the Corinthians in the early 50s of the ancient tradition that he handed on to them stating precisely this. He explicitly states Jesus was buried in the ancient creed being used in 1 Cor 15:3-5. The “Christian” church behind parts of that pre-Pauline tradition had no issues with thinking Jesus was buried, Paul doesn’t seem to think it was unlikely that Jesus was buried and he certainly does not address or forestall any objects to the contrary from his Corinthian audience. This belief in the burial of Jesus goes back to 30s or 40s. Dale Allison tells us the verb bury
“would hardly be used of the unceremonious dumping of a criminal into an unmarked trench as dog food: that was not burial but its denial. Now whether or not 1 Cor 15:4 summarizes an early form of the story about Joseph of Arimathea, “it would be strange,” as Barnabas Lindars observed, “to include this detail in the statement if the burial of Jesus was in fact unknown.” [Resurrecting Jesus]
In fact, their shared belief is used as a starting point for Paul. The Corinthians don’t seem to be rejecting the resurrection of Jesus, but the resurrection of the dead meaning everyone else. Paul appeals to their belief in the resurrection of Jsus using a reductio ad absurdom argument (“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised . . . and your faith is in vain.”). So Paul relays an early Christian creed expressing the beliefs of some the earliest followers of Jesus in the Jerusalem church and it explicitly says he was buried.
You claim “Christian claims are suspect” but those who think Jesus was dumped in a shallow grave are not? So while some modern scholars living 2,000 years later find the burial of Jesus incredulous based on over interpreting some Roman sources, it appears that his closest followers in the 30s and 40s did not. While either group could be wrong, I at least hope this early belief fosters a sense of humility and helps sober up some overly confident scholarly certitude.
Vinnie
Sorry but I’m not getting into this again. I’ve done this already and it just went round and round. I invite the masochists among us to search out the thread and knock yourselves out. My partner was named godspell. Sorry but I can’t remember the actual name of the thread we were posting in. It has been a while. The exchange did include posts by me quoting a sample of pagan sources demonstrating an association between crucifixion and body desecration.
Undoubtedly there were exceptions. But just because there were other exceptions doesn’t mean Jesus was an exception! And of course just because the majority of victims of crucifixion were left to rot doesn’t prove Jesus was.
We don’t know what happened to Jesus’ body. This is a historical position. I’m perfectly happy to live with not knowing. If others aren’t that’s not my problem. I’m not interested in refuting arguments designed to bolster a previously held faith position.
Jeepers, when did Christianity become a matter of proofs and not a matter of faith? If you make spiritual transformation a matter of rational logical proofs you’ve ceded the whole argument to the rationalists and the skeptics. Look at it another way. As Tolkien pointed out, if you use the enemy’s ring you become the enemy.
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