Loading...I have finished my posts on the passage of the so-called “bloody sweat” in Luke 22:43-44. I devoted some considerable time to this text (for a second time on the blog) because I wanted to use it to set up a discussion in response to a question that a reader asked (that I started answering a very long time ago. June 30 in fact….) about what motivated me to write my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Now, after setting the stage for about two months, I’m able to answer the question. About time, you might think….
But first, in response to my recent posts, I received this interesting query from a reader, not about the textual tradition of the New Testament but about early Christian understandings of Christ. Here’s the question.
QUESTION:
Have any Christians suggested that Jesus was fully God (from all eternity); but *because* he was God, and was *omnipotent*, he could choose to incarnate as a human and – for a planned period of time – *forget* that he was God and experience everything a normal human would? And then, retain the memory of it when he reverted to his true identity? I don’t believe that happened. But as I see it, it’s the only way around this conundrum: How can a Being be considered all-powerful if there are *things he can’t do*? Such as, have a real, first-person experience of suffering?
RESPONSE:
This is a very interesting and important question. And as it turns out, the answer is rather involved, because there are a number of issues involved. But I’ll take on just the main issue. In fact, I can be brief. The answer is
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Thanks for the great response!
BTW, I’d been thinking about a nasty way I’ve read some atheists have tried to flummox believers. Saying, “You claim your God is all-powerful. OK, tell me this. Can God create…*a boulder so massive that God can’t move it*?”
Yes he can. And then he’d move it. 🙂
have there been christians who had believed that god took his powers of and handed them to another and made another immortal?
His powers? No. Immortality? Yes.
Lol…
God subsists and acts in a manner that befits His grandeur and majesty and is consistant with His unique and perfect names and attributes accordingly. Example, God cannot create another uncreated being… that fact doesnt limit or diminish God’s power in any way….
Follow-up thoughts: One might pose the question, “Can God create a situation He cannot subsequently influence?”
Or a simple, “Can God experience surprise?”
The response might be that He can, by temporarily disabling His powers. And that would satisfy some questioners.
But what if someone words the question differently, and asks, “Can God do (whatever it was) *without temporarily disabling His powers*?” They’ve once again come up with something He can’t do!
So while I’m not the type to go around challenging theists, I don’t think there’s any way a Being can be truly omnipotent.
It depends what is meant by “omnipotence”. Contemporary Philosophy of Religion usually defines omnipotence as being able to do what is *logically* possible. Thus God cannot create square triangles or the like. The argument is that logically contradictory notions (such as “square triangle”) are empty of real meaning: logic is a property of *language* not some law of nature. Thus asking God to create a “square triangle” is the same as asking God to create “xjwodqod”. God cannot do either, but not because he lacks power but because the thing to be created is empty of meaning.
There’s no way to know what an infinite being could do. For a finite being, I think this is the most pointless of all questions to ask. We can’t know what God can do, what God can be, what God wants, or if God even exists, and as Scotus Erigenus said many centuries ago, it would be better to say God does not exist–God transcends being and non-being.
My answer to whether God could create something God could not destroy is “Why would God do that?” These questions, I think, conceive of God as if he/she/it was an individual person, with a defined identity, and how could an infinitely powerful all-knowing entity existing across all time and dimension possibly be that?
The one thing I know for sure is that we’ll never stop asking these questions, pointless as they are, and therefore God as a concept will never cease to exist in human thought. And we’ll go right on exclaiming “JESUS CHRIST!” when we’re surprised, or agitated.
Matthew 24:36 certainly plays a big part in this Kenotic Christology, but I have always wondered if the Jesus who proclaimed that “no man knows” the time of the apocalypse is way to human for a lot of Christians. Are you aware of any scribal alterations in that particular passage that attempt to revise that particular tradition?
Yup, it got changed by scribes, who omitted the words.
I grew up a fundamentalist, but now as an agnostic I’m amazed at the beliefs my fundamentalist friends and family have. Do you think most fundamentalists would concede that Jesus could not fly to Mars or speak Mandarin or solve 3rd order differential equations? I don’t think they would, and it is difficult for me to understand in what way they consider him human. I suppose they consider him to be made of material but to have a completely different physiology somehow.
I suppose it depends on how radically fundamentalist they are.
Actually, you’ll recall that at Pentecost, in Acts 2, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began preaching in tongues none of them had known before.
So I have a hard time seeing how you’d convince anyone who believes in a literal interpretation of scripture to say Jesus couldn’t have spoken Mandarin, if he happened to be in China. The apostles were certainly human–nobody denies that–and they were reported to perform most if not all of the same wonders Jesus did (which ties in to what Jesus actually preached in his life, that his powers came from faith, not from being the Son of God, born of immaculate conception, without sin). And there are, to this day, claims (not all of them religious) that certain humans suddenly start speaking in a language they had not previously known. Not terribly credible, but durable. It’s also something we hear about with regards to demonic possession, of course. Satan is such a copycat. 😉
My problem with this is that Jesus clearly is portrayed as having divine powers in the gospels–he can raise the dead, control the weather, walk on water, know the future. He can command angels to assist him (but never does).
And he strongly suggests that any of his disciples–in fact, anyone, period–who has the same belief in God as himself can perform the same feats. Peter actually is able to walk on the water briefly, before he loses confidence, and sinks. Jesus tells people he’s supposedly healed that their own faith has healed them. If your faith amounts to a single tiny mustard seed, you could move a mountain. I don’t think that’s entirely meant as a metaphor. To believe fully in God and his coming kingdom is to be invested with awesome power.
Jesus may not have necessarily thought he himself embodied the greatest possible faith. We’re certainly told he had doubts–which makes no sense if he merely abandoned his godhood. He still knew who he was, where he came from, where he was going–he still knew God was real, that he would rise again–and yet he prayed for the cup to be taken from him, and cried out that God had forsaken him. There’s a theory explaining that as well, I know. But that theory–that Jesus and Christ were two separate entities in the same body, and Christ abandoned Jesus during the crucifixion–conflicts directly with the theory that he emptied himself.
I realize the point here is what people believed in Jesus after he died, how they tried to reconcile conflicting ideas about Jesus. But their beliefs seem to have conflicted with what Jesus believed about himself. As perhaps they had to, in order for Christianity to become a long-lasting and influential belief system.
But he wasn’t human (if he was God in any sense). As a human, I can die at any time for any number of reasons. If we take the gospels at their word (no one should), then Jesus had a specific purpose that had to be fulfilled. Therefore, he did not experience the vagaries of life like we do. He had to live until his appointed time to be sacrificed. He could not get run over by a horse cart and die or die of smallpox. He had an appointed time to die that was outside of his control. Unlike Jesus, my own stupidity can very easily shorten my life. Jesus had a great number of human experiences taken off the table at his birth because of his divine purpose. Therefore, he was not really human in a full sense.
How do theologians deal with the problem of the Virgin Birth? Specifically, if Jesus had no human father, he only had one set of chromosomes. If that is true, he is not FULLY human, as no human only has one set of chromosomes.
Ancient theologians wouldn’t have had a problem with this, since they didn’t know about chromosomes. I’m not sure how modern theologians who believe in teh Virgin Birth (a lot of them don’t) would deal with the problem.
I suppose the other chromosomes were supplied by the Holy Spirit that overcame her. Too bad we don’t have a sample of that DNA.
That is hardly the biggest problem with the Virgin Birth, since we don’t have any Jesus cells to run tests on.
Haploids–organisms with half the usual number of chromosomes–are not unknown in nature–it’s by no means impossible you could have a complex sentient being who was haploid. In fact, there’s a science fiction story about such a being–“Your Haploid Heart”, by James Tiptree Jr. (who was in reality Alice Sheldon).
“Although he was in the form of God
He did not regard equality with God
Something to be grasped after,”
I don’t know about the Greek, in which Paul wrote this, but….. in the English it seems pretty clearly to deal with two entities… Christ (the “he”) and God with whom “He” did not want to be equal…. All of which sounds a bit pagan rather than monotheist.
Which raises another point about the question and theology… If the “God in three persons” is doing this, and is omniscient, then he already knows what it is like to have one of his persons experience humanity, since he already knows everything…. and I think I better stop here or I’ll again conclude God is responsible for everything including evil since he is omniscient, omnipotent etc stc…
what did the kenotic christians say about gods powers? were his powers operating without his person?
did they temporarily work independently of the person?
They differentiate between God the Son and God the Father.
this then would imply that the father is not in NEED of his son, he can work without him. his powers remain fully functional without the son.
I have read that poem many times but your description of its meaning is very clear.
My question would be: This is found in a letter of Paul. That leaves three choices of its origin. 1. Paul could have composed it. 2. It could have been a concept that came before Paul’s conversion and Paul included it in his letter, or 3. it could have come from early church liturgy or developing doctrine and inserted in Paul’s latter at a later time.
Do you have any thoughts on its origin?
My *hunch* is that he’s quoting something from an early liturgy.
” How can a Being be considered all-powerful if there are *things he can’t do*?”
imagine if an all powerful being became weak. is he still all powerful? if a god has detached himself from his powers then doesn’t that mean he is no longer god?
As you say, a very important and interesting question — and answer. From what I know of Christianity, I think this may be the predominant view of Christians today.
There’s no sense, among those theologians pursuing this line of thinking, that during this incarnation there was an absence or nullity of the omniscient/omnipresent God, is there?
In other words, this Kenotic Christology (as extrapolated perhaps, in your final paragraph) does not suggest that the entire God emptied himself to become man, leaving the cosmos devoid for a period of its creator in an omnipotent form, does it?
If not, that introduces other complexities to noodle around…did God “split” at this point? (I realize the Philippians Hymn suggests that there were at least always “two”).
This view differentiates between the Son of God who empties himself and God the Father who remains sovereign over the universe.
This goes along with Greek and Roman gods changing forms to encounter humans. A similar kind of mythology.
I *looove* your Kenotic Christology post, Bart. *Very* helpful! 🙂
I notice, though, that Pius XII didn’t seem to think much (lol) of the Kenotic approach:
“There is another enemy of the faith of Chalcedon, widely diffused outside the fold of the Catholic religion. This is an opinion for which a rashly and falsely understood sentence of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (ii, 7), supplies a basis and a shape. This is called the kenotic doctrine, and according to it, they imagine that the divinity was taken away from the Word in Christ. It is a wicked invention, equally to be condemned with the Docetism opposed to it. It reduces the whole mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption to empty the bloodless imaginations. ‘With the entire and perfect nature of man’–thus grandly St. Leo the Great–‘He Who was true God was born, complete in his own nature, complete in ours’ (Ep. xxviii, 3. PL. Liv, 763. Cf. Serm. xxiii, 2. PL. lvi, 201).”
http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_pi12sr.htm
Many, many thanks, Bart, for all of your good work! 🙂
Interesting. I recently came across this view in an article on the Apologetics Press website. In essence, the view is that Jesus temporarily voluntarily gave up his divine powers in order to save mankind so Jesus was not all-knowing and all-powerful for the period of time that He was human. .
Strange…many Christians still believe this.
I agree with the member who asked the question- this is really the only way I can see how a being can be both fully human AND fully God. Anything else can only be described as part human/part God, of which there plenty of examples in greek mythology. I would think the birth narratives in matthew and luke would have been interpreted by many at the time as Jesus being part human/part God, since he had a human mother and a god father. Whether or not that was the authors intentions is another thing.
After sleeping on this, it sounds, to me, like some Christian theology requires quite a bit of stretching ….
..” it was a poem that existed before Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which he is here quoting”…. i find it difficult to grasp that Philippians 2:6-11 is articulating the idea of incarnation by professing jewish monotheists as Hurtado proclaims!
Well, Judaism came in lots of forms in antiquity.
is it true that some christians thought melchizedek was more powerful than jesus?
Not that I know of.
https://bloggingtheology.net/2017/03/29/melchizedek-is-called-yahweh-in-the-dead-sea-scrolls/
Found this on one of my favorite blogs
A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels by Dr J.R. Daniel Kirk.
True… but Hurtado for example postulates that earliest jewish monotheists who conformed to 1st jewish monotheism adhered to the incarnation christology that Paul inherited (phil 2:11) from these earliest jewish followers of Jesus…how do you theologically reconcil the concept of incarnation conceptualised in phil 2:11 with 1st jewish monotheism?
That’s Hurtado’s entire point. They were monotheists who understood the one God to be both Father and Son. Hurtado has two books on this, one which is short and to the point; the best thing is to read it and see if it makes sense to you.
One God comprised of two persons?… i dont recall Hurtado conceptualising the oneness of God in this manner! …
He speaks of “binitary worship” — Jesus is worshiped along side with God as a divine being even though there is only one God.
In the movie “Armageddon”, the character played by Bruce Willis is forced to make the decision to stay behind on the fast approaching asteroid, to push the detonation button to split the asteroid and save the entire world.
I get this. I get the mechanics behind what was needed to occur to prevent the collision of the earth with the big rock. Call me simple, but I get this. Harry Stamper saves the world by offering his own life in the place of all of humanity. I can see the mechanics of sacrifice here.
Dr. Bart, could you please explain to me the salvation mechanics of a god (human, divine, cross-breed, or otherwise phantom apparition) dying on the cross? I understand the simple mechanics of substitution; ONE supreme, divine sacrifice replacing the never ending need to slit goat throats routinely, but I do not understand the mechanics of how slitting goat throats provides salvation in the first place. The blood sacrifices were not splitting a rock or otherwise saving an earth from collision or doing anything mechanical that I can understand.
Is it simply that sacrifices (goat and god) are the negotiated terms with said god so that he ultimately isn’t the destroyer himself in the end. Is the salvation mechanics simply appeasement of a god for wrongful living, and thus saving mankind from the same god in the first place? And then if so, did he send his own son god down into human form to substitute for the goat slitting activities that were his terms in the first place, to appease himself by suffering to facilitate the salvation? Please find me a mechanical function I can understand in here.
These early challenges of whether Jesus was fully human, emptied diety, felt pain, suffered or not do not seem to make sense if I cannot even understand the mechanics of why suffering were the terms negotiated in a covenant with the deity who is after all, coming to be sacrificed for salvation from a guilty verdict sentence put forth by he himself.
The introduction of there being perhaps two gods provides a little help with mechanics that will make the whole need for a divine sacrifice necessary (one to appease another), but since it is not the most typically accepted interpretation it only improves things a bit.
Thank you in advance.
Yes, it’s hard for us today to understand sacrificial rites. But they were dominant in the ancient world. Everyone participated in them. But how did they *work*? It’s a much debated question. The practice was so widespread and taken for granted that no one explained it to us….
one thing that really doesn’t make sense is how is an unseen god “connecting” to a bloody flesh sacrificial ritual? he is supposed to be unseen and without body. what is even more problematic is that if he OWNS everything ,then he is returning his flesh back to himself. what is worse is that james white thinks that the flesh isn’t even god. in what way is a god experiencing violent thrashing when he isn’t even flesh?
Hey Bart, say the apostles preached the resurrection of Jesus 8 months (or a year) after the death of Jesus. Even if they preached it that long afterwards would the Jews still check the tomb, or would that be unlikely? I know the body would be impossible to identify because for all anyone knew the body in the tomb could be another crucified victim who did not have their bones broken. At times people died relatively quickly so their bones would not have been broken, correct?
Even assuming that, J.P Holding said that the Jewish polemic would have resulted in the Jews claiming that the body in the tomb was that of Jesus while the Christians would claim that the body in the tomb was another crucified victim. He concludes that the polemic would not have resulted in the Jews asserting that the apostles stole the body of Jesus. What do you think?
Also, if the story of Joseph and his tomb was a Christian invention (i.e a legend) wouldn’t people who read the account in Mark say something like “Hold on. Jesus died and was left to rot on the cross. He wasn’t buried by a man named Joseph.” ? In other words, wouldn’t people know that the account in Mark was legend 25 years later after Jesus died? And if the empty tomb story originated earlier, say 5-7 years after the death of Jesus, wouldn’t people know by common knowledge that the apostles were lying or were spreading a legend if Jesus was left to die on a cross or was buried in a common burial?
Thanks
They probably would have no idea of which tomb to check
8 months later Joseph would still remember the location of his family tomb. He could have told the Jews to follow him to the tomb and check the body. What do you think?
Secondly, if Joseph had to put Jesus in his tomb as a temporary holding spot before the Sabbath, and later move him to a tomb in the criminals graveyard (as Robert Price believes) do you think he would still know the location of the tomb he buried Jesus in amongst the several tombs in that area? I don’t know how many tombs would have been in the criminals graveyard so I can’t assign a probability to him still being able to remember where he buried Jesus 8 months ago (give or take some months).
Lastly, if Jesus remained on the cross to die and was either eaten by animals or buried in the valley or a ditch, 25 years later, if the apostles invented a legend stating that a member of the Sanhedrin buried Jesus in his tomb (when in actuality Joseph and his tomb was a Christian invention) how could the apostles get away with such a myth? Wouldn’t people know that he wasn’t buried by Joseph? Could they have checked with the Sanhedrin? Or would that be hard to disprove? Btw, do you believe the empty tomb story, including the account of Joseph, belonged to the Pre Markian narrative (37-40 A.D) or no?
Thanks.
I don’t think there *was* a Joseph of Arimathea. As to how anyone can get up with inventing a rumor — it happens millions of times, every day. And many, many such rumors are ardently believed — even in our own day when it’s easier to check.
“8 months later Joseph would still remember the location of his family tomb. He could have told the Jews to follow him to the tomb and check the body. What do you think”
What if he had died 6 months later? Moved city? Maybe he created a website and admitted that he placed body in an unmarked tomb? How are we going to know about oral claims 40 years before mark wrote? How?
As far as the Jewish polemic concerning the empty tomb, do you believe that the Jews thought the pre-markian narrative of the empty tomb was fact and not legend and just thought “Well if women checked the tomb and found it empty, then the apostles stole the body before they got there.”? Craig thinks that the polemic entails that there had to be an empty tomb. I don’t think this. The Jews gave the Christians the benefit of the doubt and took their word concerning the guards stationed at the tomb. Just because the Jews never denied that there were guards there does not mean that there were in actuality guards stationed at the tomb approximately a day and a half after Jesus died. What is your opinion?
I don’t know who you mean by “the Jews.” There were probably over 4 million of them at the time. And hardly any of them had ever heard a *thing* about someone named Jesus.
How do you think the Jewish polemic started? Do you believe legends of the empty tomb started and some hostile jews thought that if the empty tomb story was true, the apostles stole the body?
Yup, probalby a couple of decades later I’d say.
Do you believe the pre-markian narrative came about in the late 30’s or early 40’s? Do you believe Joseph burring Jesus in a tomb was included in it?
No. yes.
Okay Bart, I have one more question for you. Btw, I just wanted to say thanks for all the help thus far.
Say, as I could assume, Jesus was left on the cross to die for a couple of days (2-4) then thrown away in a ditch (or wherever the romans threw criminals). Say, 37 days later, the apostles preached that Jesus had risen. Would the Sanhedrin still attempt to find the body in the ditch after that time? If so, what do you think the odds would be in finding Jesus in one of the ditch’s (and finding the approx. location of the ditch)? Would they be able to know via Pilate the Roman solider who threw away Jesus body then? Even so, due to the amount of bodies that he would be put next to (I’m assuming there would be quite a few, correct me if I’m wrong), other potential factors, and the decomposition of the body, it would still be hard to find the body correct?
I’m not sure any of the aristocratic Jews in Jerusalem would have heard about it for a very long time.
Okay, but do you think identifying the body in a ditch would have been possible if the apostles preached that Jesus rose from the dead 40 days after his death? Would he be next to other bodies, or would animals have eaten him?
It would be unrecognizable 40 days later.
” Say, 37 days later, the apostles preached that Jesus had risen.”
how do you know they would have preached “has risen” when the FIRST gospel says that the body will appear 70 miles away?
where is there proof that the first gospel wanted there to be appearances in the place of crucifixion?
the women say NOTHING to anyone. does it seem that mark really requires the women to inform the disciples? how can they have said nothing to ANYONE when anyone would have been a jesus waiting around the corner from the tomb?
The women are told that he was raised. But they don’t tell anyone, in Mark’s version. Presumably people found out in some other way.
Is your logic based on the premise that there were some Jews who died in such a short amount of time like Jesus that roman soldiers would not have needed to break their bones? I know there were some cases like that, as crucifixion is physically harsh on the organs.
The question is would there have been enough Jews crucified within 10-14 days after Jesus’s death and buried in a ditch. That would have made identification impossible. Also, if the body was exposed to the elements for 40 days the flesh wounds could have been covered away by his rotting corpse, so no one could know whether they were looking at a crucified victim or a victim who was stoned (or died by another means) correct?
Btw, did the Romans kill criminals in other ways besides crucifixion and burry them in a ditch or criminals graveyard?
Maybe we should get on to a different topic? If you want to see my views of all this, I’d suggest you read my book.
We know with virtual certainty that the apostles believed to have seen the resurrected body of Jesus. They wouldn’t have invented the notion of appearances as a legend, since this is why they were persecuted (and eventually executed for). Of course, they just had hallucinations.
” since this is why they were persecuted (and eventually executed for). Of course, they just had hallucinations.”
you have absolutely NO proof that they were KILLED for the claim, “we have seen a risen man god and we touched his wounds”
you have no proof at all
paul does not say he saw a flesh and bone post resurrected man god. paul wastes the readers time by telling them about seed and clothes , baptism of dead etc but FAILS to mention that his man god was poked by one of jesus’ disciples
if someone removed the body BEFORE the women got their , then for the first month nothing would’ve been known.
the discovery , according to mark is 70 miles away. no appearances in the place of crucifixion, according to the gospel of mark. appearances in a place 70 miles away.
we don’t know how long it took for the story to reach in jerusalem and in which places of jerusalem
matthew said that their were DOUBTERS
what did they doubt?
paul said their were APOSTATES
why did they apostate?
and i think this QUOTE will be enough to deal with “died for a lie”
In order for this argument to work, the proponent would need to demonstrate that the disciple (or James) had an opportunity to avoid death by claiming, “It is a hoax,” and did not take it. Simply dying because they are a Christian, (while making them a martyr) is not enough for this argument.
Let me use a few examples to emphasize this point. Imagine I decided to go on a killing rampage. I decide, for whatever inexplicable reason, that I will kill all Christians whose name starts with “X.” The extent of depth of the person’s belief, whether they actually saw Jesus or not, makes no difference on my violence. They will die, because they are Christians, and even be martyrs, but they had no choice in the matter. It was my picking out Christians, not what they believe.
Or another. Tacitus recounts Nero blaming Christians for the burning of Rome (64 C.E.) and then persecuting them. Whether the Christians recanted, or did not would not make a whit of difference. They were being the “fall-guy” for the blame of a crime. Traditionally Peter was killed during this persecution. How would that provide him an opportunity to absolve himself, and avoid dying for a lie?
Imagine Peter leading a church service at that time, and Roman Soldiers bust in:
Soldier: All right. Who is in charge here?
*Everyone points to Peter*
Soldier: You, and your entire group here are charged with the crime of arson. You will be tried, found guilty, and executed, and not necessarily in that order.
Peter: But it is all a hoax. Jesus wasn’t physically resurrected. I don’t want to die for a lie.
Now, is the Soldier going to apologize for bothering Peter, and then leave, chuckling how he single-handedly eliminated Christianity? Of course not. He will proceed with his orders, and, regardless what Peter says, Peter will die. Yes, he is a martyr. Yes, he died for being a Christian
Does anyone believe this confession would be accurate—they really were a witch? Nope. It would be felt the confession was extracted out of them by violence. According to Christianity’s own claimed history, the methods of torture and persecution would be as bad. If someone even overheard Peter say it was a lie, would they record it as a truth? Not at all, in the same way, they would assume he was coerced into the statement.
Some of the accused women insisted they were not, nor ever were witches—yet they were still executed! When a persecution cycle begins, what the accused say will neither save them, nor damn them. They will be killed, regardless.
Some of the accused women offered up others, in the hope of saving themselves. It only brought in more martyrs and saved none. If 10 or 15 people all accused a disciple, regardless of whether that disciple decried it was all a hoax, they would still die.
According to Acts, the Disciples were at the forefront of the Christian movement. They would be well known, and acknowledged as the leaders of the church. If the persecution was as widespread, and involved literally the death of Christians, the Disciples would be singled out. They would be marked for death, despite any trial, any statements, anything they might claim. The person that argues, “would not die for a lie” forgets that the impetus of persecution, for whatever reason, would not stop simply because the Disciple recanted. That is not what persecution was about! It was about stopping the movement through threat and application of violence.
Good point. If there was a Joseph of A who put the body of Jesus in a tomb, who do you think would have taken it out?
I don’t think there was a Joseph A who put it in a tomb. So your question is a hypothetical based on a hypothetical
Couldn’t they know from the broken bones? Or how meticulous would they be in doing a forensic analysis of the body?
Lots of people had broken bones. Lots of people didn’t.
I’m sure many bodies were pilled on top of each other in one ditch. Do you think it was the same in Jesus’s case? How easy would it have been to spot that ditch 40 days later (and to find the precise location where Jesus was thrown)?