(6 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
Loading...We recently shared part one of a post written by Platinum blog member, Mark Reichert. You can find the first part here.
Here now is the second part of his two-part reflections in which he offers his own reconstruction of what might have happened after the crucifixion.
So what do I think really happened? There is no way to know for sure but I can put together a story that seems plausible and makes sense to me.
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A very plausible, well-argued account. My only (slight) disagreement is with the statement at the beginning that the Jewish Authorities would not have handed Jesus over to Pilate. The High Priest was a Roman appointee and many of the Sadducees in the Sanhedrin would have been quislings in our terms, ie. collaborators. While wanting to sort out one’s own problems is understandable, getting the Romans to do your dirty work for you is also likely. It is also argued that the Jews had no authority to execute people within Judaea, apart from those non-Jews who attempted to gain access to the off-limits parts of the Temple.
Maybe I am biased by current times and customs but the idea of religious leaders condemning one of their own to death over a theological disagreement seems highly unlikely. And not just to death, but to a tortuous crucifixion carried out by an occupying force. Certainly the Sanhedrin could be seen as collaborators with the Romans, but even then… It seems more likely that a group of Sadducees, not the entire council, saw Jesus as a threat and wanted him disposed of. This smaller group labeled Jesus a seditionist, said he called himself “King of the Jews”, and turned him over to the Romans. The statements in the Gospels about “the whole council” are probably an exaggeration. It is hard to ever get a “whole council” to agree on anything, especially condemning someone to death for the offense of a public theological disagreement. This would explain the “turn him over to the Romans” much better than “we don’t have the authority.”
re: Circumstances of his “second death” are unknown.
— if Jesus was able to recover from death on the cross, the recovery from the ‘wounds’ of the cross would still be difficult. Infection-related complications could persist and those may have contributed to a ‘second’ death in relatively short order.
It would be hard to explain missing oral history of a miraculous recovery of Jesus from his wounds and some additional post-crucifixion teachings from Jesus, unless maybe it was agreed that his second death should be seen as an ascension (and ‘hiding’ his tomb.) Jesus just mysteriously appears, with his wounds, to the disciples for a short time (all the way up in Galilee?), encourages them to spread the gospel as they were taught and then ‘disappears’ soon thereafter. I don’t get a sense that the disciples were all that creative.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I share my thoughts about the swoon theory from my perspective as a doctor on my blog: see post #44 at TheBibleUndressed.blog Also, James Tabor, who has written guests posts on Bart’s blog, has a number of interesting YouTube videos giving his thoughts on what really happened at the crucifixion and resurrection.
Could “received up into heaven” perhaps have been merely a pious euphemism for “he died”?
After all, religious folk today commonly say much the same thing, often referring to the passing of a friend or loved one as their having been “called home to be with the Lord,” or the like.
Perhaps in the case of Jesus, that pious euphemism (if that’s what it originally was) eventually hardened into concrete literalism.
That’s the way I see it.
I think from a historical perspective the most likely occurrence is that Jesus was arrested outright during some kind of disturbance at the Temple. Any such episode, major or minor, would have been interpreted by the Romans as an implicit attack on the Temple establishment, punishable by death. And how could Jesus “act out” and make it off the Temple mount unmolested? Unlikely. The stories of a trial before the Sanhedrin and a personal interview with Pilate are literary inventions, dramatic but implausible.
As far as the crucifixion and aftermath the simplest explanation is that Jesus’ body was left on the cross and at some point the remains tossed into a mass grave. His followers fled after Jesus’ arrest and most if not all would have gone back to Galilee. After some indeterminate interval they began to have visions and/or dreams about Jesus and they interpreted this to mean that Jesus had been exalted as God’s son at his death. It’s perfectly possible the Empty Tomb was a literary invention by Mark.
Speculation certainly but there’s nothing in this account that requires any ad hoc hypotheses.
It certainly is plausible that the “empty tomb” story is a literary invention, but I don’t think so. For a story to have legs, to be passed on, copied, etc., it would have to be plausible to the people at the time. If it was “known” that Jesus’ body was left on the cross, such a story would have circulated directly conflicting with the “empty tomb” story. I know of no literary reference from that time period containing the “left on the cross” story, and I highly doubt such a story could have been suppressed. Of course it is possible that no-one witnessed the body of Jesus still on the cross after a few days, but I think that unlikely considering the devotion of his followers. Somebody would have checked on him for mourning purposes or whatever.
Much of this story seems plausible enough, though of course there are other versions of the story that are equally plausible that rely less on details from the Gospels which may have been fabricated as narrative decades after the events they describe.
One point that jumped out at me as problematic is the assumption that the Temple priesthood wouldn’t have handed Jesus over to the Romans. The High Priest, Caiaphas, was put in place by the Roman procurator Valerius Gratus. The Temple priesthood was effectively in Rome’s pocket. If the story of Jesus disrupting the temple has any historical accuracy, then that priesthood had a motive for getting rid of Jesus, and handing him over to Pilate is an easy way to handle that problem. Let Pilate get his hands dirty—that guy loved executing messiahs—rather than taking it on themselves to kill a man who may have had a popular following.
It’s hard to know if it happened just like this, but it doesn’t seem particularly unlikely.
For both the story of taking Jesus down from the cross (which the gospel writer supports) and the “swoon theory” (which the gospel writer does not support), your bar of evidence is merely that these ideas are not implausible or impossible. That’s a pretty low bar.
Once it is demonstrated that much of the gospel narratives are embellishments and story fabrications (consider the birth tales), then why should the Joseph of Arimathaea/empty tomb stories be given the benefit of a doubt, especially given how much these stories are told in conflicting ways from gospel to gospel. Just because the idea is not “implausible” doesn’t make it likely.
In the original version of the tomb story (the original ending of Mark), there are no after death appearances of Jesus. If you don’t accept the after-death appearances of Jesus told in the later gospels (with conflicting details and supernatural embellishments), then you’re only left with the I Corinthians 15 “appearances”, which Paul does not differentiate from his own “appearance” experience – a vision. If I Corinthians 15 is the primary source, then the after-death “appearances” of Jesus, would simply be stories of visions – not the supernatural tales told in the later gospels.
Great post. I used to think the idea of Jesus surviving his crucifixion could account for the resurrection appearances. But that’s only possible if those appearances happened within hours, or a couple days at most, after the crucifixion of Jesus. Luke and John do have those appearances happening within that short time frame but not Mark and Matthew.
Mark and Matthew have the resurrection appearances happening at least one week later, since it would have taken at least a week for the followers of Jesus to get back to Galilee. And if Jesus survived his crucifixion, he would be in no condition for a one-week journey anywhere. So, the plausibility of any swoon-type theory assumes that a Luke/John type of appearance scenario is more probable than a Mark/Matthew type.
But I think a Mark/Matthew type scenario is more probable historically since those gospels are earliest at around 70-80 CE whereas Luke and John are later somewhere between 90 and 140 CE. In other words, I think the earliest resurrection stories had the appearances occurring in Galilee because that is consistent with how the appearances are temporally spaced as implied in 1Cor15. But I don’t think they saw Jesus physically.
My current thinking is that on the day Jesus was killed, his followers fled Jerusalem, went back to their normal lives in Galilee, and totally abandoned the movement Jesus started. And they abandoned the idea he was the Davidic messiah and then the movement totally died. They went back to their ordinary lives as Galilean handworkers for weeks, maybe even months, until Peter thought he had encountered Jesus. Then, over a period of a few weeks or months, Peter influenced the others into thinking Jesus was alive.
I also think that this scenario was commonly known among the earliest Christians, and they accounted for it by claiming it was prophesied. And that is what Mark means in 14:26-28: `I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’. The striking of the shepherd is the crucifixion of Jesus and the sheep being scattered is the disciples returning to Galilee and ending the Jesus movement. In other words, Mark is explaining to the reader why the Christian movement died.
Prophecy was being used to explain embarrassing facts. Judas betraying Jesus was also elevated to a prophetic happening by using Zechariah 11:12-13. So, I think the swoon theories improbable.
As to whether a Roman centurion would allow someone to take down a crucified body because he perhaps needed a snack or maybe had some errands to do or had scheduled a dental appointment or whatever, seems unlikely unless it was common practice. Would he not fear getting caught if it violated protocol, written or not? Were there no other centurions around to question his actions and perhaps accuse him of some punishable violation? Discipline could be harsh in Roman times for those not minding their pints and quarts. Suppose someone yelled out: “Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going with that body?” I can see the fortunes of that centurion going south rather quickly for his having lapsed into sympathy. I doubt he had the latitude. But as you say, who knows for sure?
Maybe it was all just a well constructed and paid with bribes “magical” act in attempt to demonstrate achieving the events previously predicted.
Additional support for this hypothesis comes from considering Joseph of Arimathea’s motives.
From the Gospels:-
Joseph was a disciple of Jesus (Matthew)
Joseph was a member of the Council who looked forward to the kingdom of God (Mark)
Joseph was a member of the Council who had dissented from their policy (Luke)
Joseph was a secret disciple of Jesus (John)
Joseph therefore expected an imminent apocalypse, after which Jesus would become king, so he had
an extremely strong incentive to attempt a rescue, with expectation of a substantial reward if successful.
If he moved an unconscious Jesus from the tomb to a safe and secret location the same evening after crucifixion, Jesus likely asked to see the disciples on regaining consciousness.
Joseph did not trust the disciples but enabled them to visit Jesus while ensuring that the location remained secret.
Jesus probably died within a few days but the disciples never knew what happened to him.
They were sure of two things: They had seen him alive after his crucifixion and he had promised to return to them.
This was the news which galvanized his supporters and gave rise to many false sightings.
The disciples did not consider that Jesus was divine. That idea came from Paul later.
I still think people may have had dreams about the resurrected Jesus and believed these dreams were “real.” Remember that Joseph, the father of Jesus, had four dreams, described in the Gospel of Matthew, that he thought were “real.”
Why in your opinion Revelation 20:11 is the throne “great” and “white”? It’s the only time the “throne” is described as something more than just a throne in Revelation?
I haven’t heard of the swoon theory before, but it seems plausible!
I’m a Christian, so I believe in the Eternity of Jesus.
I don’t rely on the stories from the bible at all about the restriction, the empty tomb, the sighting of him after his “death”, and so forth to establish that he is eternal and did not die.
What I rely on is my own experience of his presence, his grace, and his light. I realize this doesn’t “prove” anything to anyone but me. For myself it is enough and good enough.
I have looked for other people’s experiences of the same thing. They do exist, perhaps in greater numbers than I am aware of.
I don’t see why Christians go on and on about the empty tomb and the sightings of Jesus after his resurrection to “prove” that Jesus became eternal. For myself and others, it’s about the spiritual experience of his presence.
Whether things happened just the way they are described in the bible is rather beside the point.
*****
(I’m not trying to proselytize or anything by stating this. I’m just trying to state and share my point of view. Too often, people assume one is trying to proselytize when one is really just trying to share and express their perspective).
What makes the most sense (rational) sense to me is the “irrational” idea that the disciples had a powerful emotional experience of Jesus still present with them and guiding/supporting them. One could call this presence Christ or the Holy Spirit.
Mark,
Key to your hypothesis is that the discovered empty tomb is history. I don’t think it is and I’m curious if the following argument has any affect on you.
There are two peculiarities about the DET tradition. First, Paul doesn’t mention a DET in 1 Cor 15 where it seems it would have helped his argument for Jesus’ bodily resurrection up to heaven. Second, the first account of a DET years later in the Gospel of Mark weirdly ends Mark’s entire Gospel with the women fleeing from the tomb in fear saying “nothing” to anyone.
There are dozens of explanations for these two peculiarities in the literary record but a legend would make good sense of both. Paul never mentions a DET because he doesn’t know of any such event, and the word “buried” in the creed is referring to an obscure ground burial, widely thought to be the normal way Jesus would have been buried by the Jewish authorities if the Romans allowed Jesus’ body to be removed from the cross in deference to Jewish burial sensitivities and to avoid a riot on a nationalistic Jewish holiday. And Mark’s DET account ends with the women fleeing in fear-induced silence because the tradition needs to explain WHY the DET had never been heard of before, which also explains why women instead of men were used in the legend to find the tomb empty—women were more likely to flee in fear-induced silence—which renders moot the frequent apologetic argument that the use of women in the story supports its historicity. A DET is also exactly the kind of legend we would expect to arise in support of a belief that Jesus was resurrected up to heaven.
Are the above congruences really just an illusion in the historical record?
Just a late chime in to vote in favor of R_Gerl’s scenario.
My thoughts:
Possible source of empty tomb narrative:
Mary Magdalene: actual experience of empty tomb (mistaken location?) combined with a grief hallucination of living Jesus.
Possible source of Galilee narrative:
Peter: grief hallucination plus convincing one or more people that Jesus is alive. Does the John Galilee story provide any clues?
Ascension rumors serve Luke’s agenda, so included in his Gospel (first version) and Acts (improved version), but his agenda also requires Jerusalem only, therefore major manipulation of Mark’s text.
This all still allows for a tomb and a Joseph with no temporary revivification. An actual living Jesus would likely generate less “it’s really Jesus but we don’t recognize him” stories. Also more likely “living then dead again” Jesus wouldn’t generate the resurrection narratives we have.