On the Missing Corpse of Jesus

[JoeyKnothead]

Some'll say Jesus hopped up and left that cave there, after he was dead.

Others'll say the missing corpse of Jesus can be better explained by the actions of the living.

For debate:
Which explanation is best? Why?

[d.thomas]

Starboard Tack wrote:

For that reason, when liberal scholars state that 100% of all of the writers of the NT and all of the commentary from early scholars looking into the truths of these claims were in cahoots to trick the gullible, well to me, that is just further evidence of a very jumbled thinking process, not to be taken seriously however seriously they take themselves.

I doubt anyone is saying that. The unknown original authors were writing stories on theological grounds, not historical grounds, and it is not their fault that gentiles, one hundred years later, began to accept these writings as accounts of actual historical events when they were joining a religion. That people sincerely believed does not validate the truth of these writings as historical accounts.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Perhaps the best evidence for the reality of the resurrection is the absurd lengths critics seem to have to go to come up with alternatives to what is described in the New Testament.

You believe that a corpse became reanimated and flew away, and that hoards of dead people returned to life, came up out of their graves and wandered the streets of Jerusalem. You seem to have a very uncertain definition of "absurd?"

If the story was so improbable, why insist it didn't happen on the basis that the Romans, master executioners that they were, failed to actually kill Christ, or that the disciples were subject to mass hallucination, even though hallucinations by definition are never shared but rather individual events, etc. That the resurrection actually happened best fits the facts is evident from any reasonable reading of the record.

Any "reasonable" consideration of a missing corpse is that someone took it, and not that it returned to life and wandered off on it's own.

What we can say in support of the actual resurrection includes:

1. The tomb was empty. Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin, so if the tomb wasn't empty, the ruling authorities would have been able to produce a corpse since they knew and had control over where the corpse was.

Joseph of Arimathea, who was a secret disciple of Jesus, along with Nicodemus, another disciple, took possession of the body of Jesus on Friday afternoon. They took the body to the new rock tomb of Joseph to prepare it as a matter of convenience, because the tomb happened to be close at hand to the place where Jesus was executed (John 20:42). Sometime the next day the priests went out and took possession of Joseph's tomb, which was covered by a large stone which the priests sealed with their official seals. Early Sunday morning the tomb was discovered to be empty. It requires no great leap of deduction to see that the tomb was already empty when the priests took possession of it. It is in fact the obvious answer. No supernatural explanation is required.

2. If the tomb wasn't empty, then why would the Jewish authorities spread the tale that the body had been stolen?

That would be because it WAS empty on Sunday. Stolen is of course a misnomer. The followers of Jesus were given possession of the body on Friday afternoon by the Roman governor. They didn't have to steal it. It was theirs to do with as they saw fit. The body of Jesus was never intended to remain in Joseph's brand new personal family crypt. It was simply a private place that was used to prepare the body because it was conveniently close to the place where Jesus was crucified.

3. Numerous eye witnesses attest to seeing the risen Christ.

No one left a personal record or testimony of such a witnessing.

The concept of an individual rising from the dead was novel in Jewish religious thinking. They were prepared for a general resurrection that occurred at the end of the physical world, but not a resurrection that occurred for one individual within the world. If they were making up a story, they would have made one up that fit the Jewish understanding - not a story that was completely novel to their way of thinking.

The concept of bodily resurrection from the dead is certainly not inherent in traditional Jewish belief as represented by the followers of the Sadduccees. No such thing is mentioned in the Torah. Bodily resurrection of the dead was inherent in the beliefs of the Pharisees, the Parsee (Far-see), or Persian believers in Jewish society however. Resurrection of the dead was central to Persian belief.

Acts.23
8. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.

All of the principals in the NT held Pharisaical beliefs. The story that the disciples told was one that affirmed Pharisaical beliefs right down to the hoards of resurrected dead people coming up out of their graves and wandering the streets of Jerusalem, and the story of the Magi, the Persian priests from the east, coming to worship the baby Jesus.

4. The earliest reference to the resurrection as an event occurs in 1 Corinthians,

1 Corinthians was written circa 55 AD, or just about a quarter of a century after the time frame established by the Gospels for Jesus' execution, circa 30 AD.

and can reasonably be dated to Paul's conversation about the resurrection with Peter within 3 to 5 years of the resurrection. The belief that it happened was therefore at the core of the movement from the very beginning, not something made up afterwards.

The spreading of the rumor of the resurrected Christ can be traced back even earlier then that. The disciples returned to Jerusalem to spread the story of the risen Jesus about six weeks or so after the crucifixion (Acts 1:3). But only after Jesus flew away, according to them. I do not question that Paul knew Peter.

5. Jesus appeared to witnesses on multiple occasions. If the story were made up, why create multiple lies that only increases the possibility of the discovery of fraud? Why would Paul refer to over 500 witnesses when if there were no witnesses it would have been obvious? If you're going to lie, come up with one miraculous appearance to the participants in the lie, get your stories straight and run with it, not the complicated account told in the Gospels.

Obvious to whom? Twenty five years or so had passed when Paul wrote the story of the famous phantom 500. And he was writing to Gentiles who lived in Greece!

6. After 3 years of preaching, a lower class Jewish man who attracted a very small number of lower and middle class Jewish followers was executed as a criminal in a manner that in Jewish eyes placed him squarely under God's curse. There were around 30,000 Jewish men crucified during this period of unrest leading up to the destruction of the Temple, yet after such a brief period of time and with such minimal success while he was alive, this one man's execution resulted in the spread of an entirely new religion so rapidly that the Roman Empire itself was converted with a few hundred years. Something really unusual must have happened for this executed criminal to differentiate so strongly from the thousands of other executed men. The idea that this something were a bunch of lies told by a ragtag group of disciples stretches credulity.

In about 610 AD an illiterate Arab man named Muhammad began receiving messages from God through the angel Gabriel. This was the beginning of the religion of Islam. A mere 122 years later Islamic armies came within a hairbreadth of taking all of Europe, defeated instead at the Battle of Tours by the father of Charlemagne. Something really unusual must have happened for the religion of Islam to have achieved such astounding success in such a short time. But was it supernatural?

7. If the resurrection story were a myth, why would the purveyors of that myth make themselves look so bad? They are portrayed in the same Gospels that describe the resurrection as cowards who abandoned their master at the first sign of trouble, and in his hour of greatest need. They fell asleep on the night of his arrest - repeatedly. If you're going to make up a story, why not make yourself look courageous?

If you are going to spread a false rumor and expect it to be believed, you would certainly do well to down play your own role in the story, wouldn't you think? So as not to be to obvious.

8. The first witnesses to the resurrected Christ were women, who had no standing or credibility to testify to anything. If you wanted people to believe in a lie, you would not present as first evidence female prostitutes in that particular society.

The women were in fact the perfect instrument for the job. Who would ever accuse a bunch of simple women of perpetrating a hoax by hauling away a dead body?

The argument that the Gospels don't count because they were written "long after' the event is bogus. It was 400 years before Arrian wrote the first biography of Alexander the Great, and no one doubts the existence or exploits of Alexander. The first accounts of the resurrection were written within 25 years of the event, which is far too short a time for legendization to occur.

Are the ancient accounts of Alexander 100% accurate? Probably not. They are what we have to work with however. If the accounts of Alexander recorded that He returned to life and then flew away up to heaven, no one today would consider that factual history. But then no one today has been indoctrinated from birth to view Alexander as a God and the story of Alexander to be the Word of God, either.

Non-believers can make up whatever stories they want to try to discredit the resurrection, but until those stories are more believable than the testimony of eye witnesses in the NT, they will remain unconvincing.

Making up stories is as easy as daydreaming. Proving one's daydreams to be true and factual is when it becomes difficult, especially for the ridiculous parts.

[Starboard Tack]

Starboard Tack wrote:

For that reason, when liberal scholars state that 100% of all of the writers of the NT and all of the commentary from early scholars looking into the truths of these claims were in cahoots to trick the gullible, well to me, that is just further evidence of a very jumbled thinking process, not to be taken seriously however seriously they take themselves.

I doubt anyone is saying that. The unknown original authors were writing stories on theological grounds, not historical grounds, and it is not their fault that gentiles, one hundred years later, began to accept these writings as accounts of actual historical events when they were joining a religion. That people sincerely believed does not validate the truth of these writings as historical accounts.

Yes, that has been said, and is repeated periodically. Regarding history vs. theology, the Gospels were written as history by people with scant literary tradition as the witnesses began to die off. That is why Luke undertook to write what he did, explaining: "With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. " Luke's credentials as a careful historian have been pretty thoroughly vetted, being described as follows in Wikipedia:

"Most scholars understand Luke's works (Luke-Acts) in the tradition of Greek historiography. The preface of The Gospel of Luke drawing on historical investigation is believed to have identified the work to the readers as belonging to the genre of history." The same article goes on to say:

"Archaeologist Sir William Ramsay wrote that "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...[he] should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." Professor of classics at Auckland University, E.M. Blaiklock, wrote: "For accuracy of detail, and for evocation of atmosphere, Luke stands, in fact, with Thucydides. The Acts of the Apostles is not shoddy product of pious imagining, but a trustworthy record...it was the spadework of archaeology which first revealed the truth." New Testament scholar Colin Hemer has made a number of advancements in understanding the historical nature and accuracy of Luke's writings."

Since Luke is clearly history, and since the other synoptic Gospels match it closely, it is fair to say that the Gospels were written as historical records. The other indication that this is so is the fact that the Gospels leave so much theology unanswered. Why have Jesus speak in parables if you're establishing doctrine through some retrospective activity? What did Jesus mean when he said that Lazarus wasn't dead, just asleep? No, the synoptic Gospels certainly look like they were written by people who didn't know what it all meant, but wanted to be very accurate in describing what they saw that they thought was important.

The other reason these documents cannot be presumed to be theology is because the theology implied is so bizarre when viewed from the perspective of the audience. Who in their right mind would come up with the last supper, the drinking of symbolic blood and the eating of symbolic human flesh - especially given that the Jewish audience would view these acts as profoundly blasphemous and unclean. Rabbis couldn't even walk through a cemetery, and here is a Rabbi offering up his blood to drink.

John's Gospel, written last, is different. John wrote his interpretation of the meaning of the events rather than a description of the events because the Synoptics made no such interpretive attempt and the history was well established. They simply reported the facts as they understood them, while John tried to explain what they meant from a theological perspective.

[Student]

We should be grateful that Paul records who apparently saw the risen Jesus, and how that encounter was experienced. From the KJV:

1Cor 15:5
And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:

1Cor 15:6
After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

1Cor 15:7
After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.

1Cor 15:8
And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

So, first Peter, then the twelve, then 500, then James and then all the apostles.
Finally he is seen by Paul.

But how did Paul experience his encounter with Jesus? Evidently he didn’t see the human Jesus. Paul, in an ecstatic state, in the third heaven, saw the risen Christ. On the road to Damascus he is blinded by a great light and hears the words of Christ. In other words, Paul has an out of body experience, a dream i.e. a vision. “Paul means that the appearance to him came after Jesus had ascended to heaven.� A. T. Roberston. Word Pictures of the New Testament.

Paul does not discriminate between the nature of his vision, or that of Peter, or the disciples, the five hundred, or of James. In Paul’s opinion they all share a similar experience. That is a “vision� of the risen Christ. Not an encounter with a real human being, but an ecstatic, hallucinogenic vision of the risen Christ.

And what of the disciples? Wasn’t Peter supposed to be one of the twelve? Not according to Paul. And weren’t the twelve disciples the apostles? Again, not according to Paul.

And the 500+? Who were they? Where did they reside? When did they enjoy their encounter with Jesus? Apart from 1 Corinthians Paul fails to mention them. Perhaps they formed part of his hallucinogenic experience of the risen Christ on the road to Damascus?

[Starboard Tack]

Tired of the Nonsense:

You believe that a corpse became reanimated and flew away, and that hoards of dead people returned to life, came up out of their graves and wandered the streets of Jerusalem. You seem to have a very uncertain definition of "absurd?"

Your belief or disbelief has no bearing on whether the account is true or not.

If the story was so improbable, why insist it didn't happen on the basis that the Romans, master executioners that they were, failed to actually kill Christ, or that the disciples were subject to mass hallucination, even though hallucinations by definition are never shared but rather individual events, etc. That the resurrection actually happened best fits the facts is evident from any reasonable reading of the record.

Any "reasonable" consideration of a missing corpse is that someone took it, and not that it returned to life and wandered off on it's own.

If your a priori faith assumption says that God does not exist, then miracles cannot exist, then dead people can't be resurrected. However, and again, your belief or disbelief of God has no impact on the reality of his existence, although it will likely have a significant impact on your life.

What we can say in support of the actual resurrection includes:

1. The tomb was empty. Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin, so if the tomb wasn't empty, the ruling authorities would have been able to produce a corpse since they knew and had control over where the corpse was.

Joseph of Arimathea, who was a secret disciple of Jesus, along with Nicodemus, another disciple, took possession of the body of Jesus on Friday afternoon. They took the body to the new rock tomb of Joseph to prepare it as a matter of convenience, because the tomb happened to be close at hand to the place where Jesus was executed (John 20:42). Sometime the next day the priests went out and took possession of Joseph's tomb, which was covered by a large stone which the priests sealed with their official seals. Early Sunday morning the tomb was discovered to be empty. It requires no great leap of deduction to see that the tomb was already empty when the priests took possession of it. It is in fact the obvious answer. No supernatural explanation is required.

This falls under the "Biblical Grassy Knoll" school of interpretation of Scripture, based on an idiosyncratic view of the facts.

2. If the tomb wasn't empty, then why would the Jewish authorities spread the tale that the body had been stolen?

That would be because it WAS empty on Sunday. Stolen is of course a misnomer. The followers of Jesus were given possession of the body on Friday afternoon by the Roman governor. They didn't have to steal it. It was theirs to do with as they saw fit. The body of Jesus was never intended to remain in Joseph's brand new personal family crypt. It was simply a private place that was used to prepare the body because it was conveniently close to the place where Jesus was crucified.

And the witnesses to the resurrected Jesus were seeing what, exactly. Oh right, no witnesses and those that claim to be witnesses were lying, confused, delusional. Unlike you.

3. Numerous eye witnesses attest to seeing the risen Christ.

No one left a personal record or testimony of such a witnessing.

Except Peter, James and Paul.

The concept of an individual rising from the dead was novel in Jewish religious thinking. They were prepared for a general resurrection that occurred at the end of the physical world, but not a resurrection that occurred for one individual within the world. If they were making up a story, they would have made one up that fit the Jewish understanding - not a story that was completely novel to their way of thinking.

The concept of bodily resurrection from the dead is certainly not inherent in traditional Jewish belief as represented by the followers of the Sadduccees. No such thing is mentioned in the Torah. Bodily resurrection of the dead was inherent in the beliefs of the Pharisees, the Parsee (Far-see), or Persian believers in Jewish society however. Resurrection of the dead was central to Persian belief

. Confused response, coupled with a red herring.

4. The earliest reference to the resurrection as an event occurs in 1 Corinthians,

1 Corinthians was written circa 55 AD, or just about a quarter of a century after the time frame established by the Gospels for Jesus' execution, circa 30 AD.

As noted above, I am referring to the credal statement in 1 Cor 15, which would date to 3 to 5 years of Christ's death.

and can reasonably be dated to Paul's conversation about the resurrection with Peter within 3 to 5 years of the resurrection. The belief that it happened was therefore at the core of the movement from the very beginning, not something made up afterwards.

The spreading of the rumor of the resurrected Christ can be traced back even earlier then that. The disciples returned to Jerusalem to spread the story of the risen Jesus about six weeks or so after the crucifixion (Acts 1:3). But only after Jesus flew away, according to them. I do not question that Paul knew Peter.

And the reason for this deception was so they could be stoned to death, like James? Grassy Knoll thinking.

5. Jesus appeared to witnesses on multiple occasions. If the story were made up, why create multiple lies that only increases the possibility of the discovery of fraud? Why would Paul refer to over 500 witnesses when if there were no witnesses it would have been obvious? If you're going to lie, come up with one miraculous appearance to the participants in the lie, get your stories straight and run with it, not the complicated account told in the Gospels.

Obvious to whom? Twenty five years or so had passed when Paul wrote the story of the famous phantom 500. And he was writing to Gentiles who lived in Greece!

You question this testimony because you question it, not because you have the slightest rational basis to do so. Fine.

6. After 3 years of preaching, a lower class Jewish man who attracted a very small number of lower and middle class Jewish followers was executed as a criminal in a manner that in Jewish eyes placed him squarely under God's curse. There were around 30,000 Jewish men crucified during this period of unrest leading up to the destruction of the Temple, yet after such a brief period of time and with such minimal success while he was alive, this one man's execution resulted in the spread of an entirely new religion so rapidly that the Roman Empire itself was converted with a few hundred years. Something really unusual must have happened for this executed criminal to differentiate so strongly from the thousands of other executed men. The idea that this something were a bunch of lies told by a ragtag group of disciples stretches credulity.

In about 610 AD an illiterate Arab man named Muhammad began receiving messages from God through the angel Gabriel. This was the beginning of the religion of Islam. A mere 122 years later Islamic armies came within a hairbreadth of taking all of Europe, defeated instead at the Battle of Tours by the father of Charlemagne. Something really unusual must have happened for the religion of Islam to have achieved such astounding success in such a short time. But was it supernatural?

No, because the Muslim religion was spread with a simple choice - convert or die. Christianity spread with another choice - renounce your faith or die. Like all perversions of truth, your interpretation has it exactly 180 degrees of our synch with reality.

7. If the resurrection story were a myth, why would the purveyors of that myth make themselves look so bad? They are portrayed in the same Gospels that describe the resurrection as cowards who abandoned their master at the first sign of trouble, and in his hour of greatest need. They fell asleep on the night of his arrest - repeatedly. If you're going to make up a story, why not make yourself look courageous?

If you are going to spread a false rumor and expect it to be believed, you would certainly do well to down play your own role in the story, wouldn't you think? So as not to be to obvious.

Grassy Knoll thinking again. And they were smart enough to do this, so that they could be persecuted and stoned?

8. The first witnesses to the resurrected Christ were women, who had no standing or credibility to testify to anything. If you wanted people to believe in a lie, you would not present as first evidence female prostitutes in that particular society.

The women were in fact the perfect instrument for the job. Who would ever accuse a bunch of simple women of perpetrating a hoax by hauling away a dead body?

Since you seem to know something about Jewish history, you are simply being deceptive here. Women could not provide testimony to anything in that culture. They were the last people to insert as witnesses in a fictional story, but their existence as witnesses in this story is just another element indicating truth.

The argument that the Gospels don't count because they were written "long after' the event is bogus. It was 400 years before Arrian wrote the first biography of Alexander the Great, and no one doubts the existence or exploits of Alexander. The first accounts of the resurrection were written within 25 years of the event, which is far too short a time for legendization to occur.

Are the ancient accounts of Alexander 100% accurate? Probably not. They are what we have to work with however. If the accounts of Alexander recorded that He returned to life and then flew away up to heaven, no one today would consider that factual history. But then no one today has been indoctrinated from birth to view Alexander as a God and the story of Alexander to be the Word of God, either.

We have no way of knowing whether Alexander's story contains elements of legend. However the time it takes for a legend to take hold is known and it is not possible to do so within the lives of the witnesses. Holocaust deniers will have their day pretty soon, since all the witnesses are dying off, and we will have people, kind of like you, arguing that all those pictures and all those shoes in the Holocaust museum are all made up. You can count on it.

Non-believers can make up whatever stories they want to try to discredit the resurrection, but until those stories are more believable than the testimony of eye witnesses in the NT, they will remain unconvincing.

Making up stories is as easy as daydreaming. Proving one's daydreams to be true and factual is when it becomes difficult, especially for the ridiculous parts.

Since virtually the entirety of this extraordinarily weak response is fictional, I guess you know whereof you speak.

[d.thomas]

"Archaeologist Sir William Ramsay wrote that "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...[he] should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." Professor of classics at Auckland University, E.M. Blaiklock, wrote: "For accuracy of detail, and for evocation of atmosphere, Luke stands, in fact, with Thucydides. The Acts of the Apostles is not shoddy product of pious imagining, but a trustworthy record...it was the spadework of archaeology which first revealed the truth." New Testament scholar Colin Hemer has made a number of advancements in understanding the historical nature and accuracy of Luke's writings."

If you believe Sir William Ramsay then you are every bit as naive and gullible as he is as it concerns the unknown author of gLuke as a first rank historian. I have read the works of historians from that time and the author of Luke is not an historian of any rank. You might want to read for yourself.

You are reading religious texts as if you are reading historical texts, and that is where your problem lies. Virgin birth stories, a dying and rising Son of God that was hidden from the beginning, that sacrificed his life in order to save all of mankind forever and ever from his so called sinful nature is the stuff of theology among other things, denying that is your prerogative but don't expect to convince the non indoctrinated that they are reading historical accounts of actual events. Adults subjected to this find it absolutely absurd, only a child can be so gullible and able to carry such reasoning into his or her adult life.

[Starboard Tack]

"Archaeologist Sir William Ramsay wrote that "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...[he] should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." Professor of classics at Auckland University, E.M. Blaiklock, wrote: "For accuracy of detail, and for evocation of atmosphere, Luke stands, in fact, with Thucydides. The Acts of the Apostles is not shoddy product of pious imagining, but a trustworthy record...it was the spadework of archaeology which first revealed the truth." New Testament scholar Colin Hemer has made a number of advancements in understanding the historical nature and accuracy of Luke's writings."

If you believe Sir William Ramsay then you are every bit as naive and gullible as he is as it concerns the unknown author of gLuke as a first rank historian. I have read the works of historians from that time and the author of Luke is not an historian of any rank. You might want to read for yourself.

You are reading religious texts as if you are reading historical texts, and that is where your problem lies. Virgin birth stories, a dying and rising Son of God that was hidden from the beginning, that sacrificed his life in order to save all of mankind forever and ever from his so called sinful nature is the stuff of theology among other things, denying that is your prerogative but don't expect to convince the non indoctrinated that they are reading historical accounts of actual events. Adults subjected to this find it absolutely absurd, only a child can be so gullible and able to carry such reasoning into his or her adult life.

Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (15 March 1851, Glasgow –20 April 1939) was a Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar. By his death in 1939 he had become the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor and a leading scholar in the study of the New Testament. From the post of Professor of Classical Art and Architecture at Oxford, he was appointed Regius Professor of Humanity (the Latin Professorship) at Aberdeen. Knighted in 1906 to mark his distinguished service to the world of scholarship, Ramsay also gained three honorary fellowships from Oxford colleges, nine honorary doctorates from British, Continental and North American universities and became an honorary member of almost every association devoted to archaeology and historical research. He was one of the original members of the British Academy, was awarded the Gold Medal of Pope Leo XIII in 1893 and the Victorian Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1906.

Well, call me a child then. Along with C.S. Lewis, Anthony Flew, Francis Collins, Isaac Newton - hey this sounds like pretty good company...Thanks!

By the way, Christ didn't die to "save all of mankind forever", just those who want to be saved. Remarkably, there will be some who opt out, and from my understanding of free will, all of them will be 'adults.'

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Yes, the liberal, and minority position is that the Gospels were written by someone other than the authors they have been attributed to for 2 millenia and who were given credit for having been the authors by virtually all ancient scholars writing close enough to the period to have known the difference.

This is a half truth. Papias, about 130 AD, refers to Mark as the interpreter for Peter, and as as the author of Gospel Mark. And virtually no one denies that Gospel Luke was written by the author of Acts of the Apostles, and the author of AA is clearly a follower of Paul.

That brings us to Gospel John, the authorship of which has been controversial right from the beginning. The Gospel was written quite late, and Papias refers to the author as John "the presbyter," or elder, and not the evangelist. Like all four Gospels, Gospel John was written anonymously, and in truth there is nothing at all to connect the Gospel to the apostle, outside of the name, a popular name then as today, and the weight of Christian popular opinion that clearly it must be so in accordance with God's will.

Last we come to Gospel Matthew. Gospel Matthew was believed by the early Catholic Church to have been the first Gospel written, hence it's position as the first book of the NT. This is based on information provided by Christian historians Polycarp and Papias in the first half of the second century which attest that the apostle Matthew undertook to write his Gospel during the time that Peter and Paul were in Rome, given to be sometime prior to the great fire in Rome which occurred in 64 AD. This would seem to make Gospel Matthew earlier than Gospel Mark, which was written sometime after 70 AD. The problem here is, Gospel Matthew contains virtually all of Gospel Mark. Which makes it difficult to maintain that Mark had yet to be written when the apostle Matthew wrote his Gospel. Also there is a further complication. Both Papias and Polycarp, as well as Eusebius and Origen somewhat later, attest to the apostle Matthew writing his Gospel in HEBREW "the language of the Jews," which is to say, Aramaic. But all four NT Gospels are written in pure Greek, and in fact as I pointed out, Gospel Matthew is largely Gospel Mark. Written in pure Greek, and NOT a translation from any other language. Clearly then, the NT Gospel Matthew is NOT the Gospel referred to by Papias, Polycarp. Eusebius and Origen. Who wrote it then? NO ONE KNOWS! What then of the Gospel attributed to the actual apostle Matthew? It is suspected that this is the work that was known in ancient times as the "Gospel of the Hebrews," written in Aramaic. Unfortunately, this work disappeared entirely about the fourth century. Which was, coincidentally, the time of the formation of the Catholic Church.

[d.thomas]

[quote="Starboard Tack"

By the way, Christ didn't die to "save all of mankind forever", just those who want to be saved. Remarkably, there will be some who opt out, and from my understanding of free will, all of them will be 'adults.'[/quote]

It's apparent that all you are doing here is evangelizing. You believe and that is fine, I am not attempting to convince you of anything, but matters of debate are not about beliefs and what happens to those that don't believe as you do, so maybe you should take your evangelizing elsewhere.

[Starboard Tack]

That brings us to Gospel John, the authorship of which has been controversial right from the beginning. The Gospel was written quite late, and Papias refers to the author as John "the presbyter," or elder, and not the evangelist. Like all four Gospels, Gospel John was written anonymously, and in truth there is nothing at all to connect the Gospel to the apostle, outside of the name, a popular name then as today, and the weight of Christian popular opinion that clearly it must be so in accordance with God's will.

Dubious reasoning, and false assertions. When you say "there is nothing at all to connect the Gospel to the apostle" you are at odds with a great many scholars. A decent summary of the evidence for is found at http://bible.org/seriespage/authorship-1-john, which has a long citation list that puts the lie to your assertion that this issue is somehow settled to support your desired outcome.

Last we come to Gospel Matthew. Gospel Matthew was believed by the early Catholic Church to have been the first Gospel written, hence it's position as the first book of the NT. This is based on information provided by Christian historians Polycarp and Papias in the first half of the second century which attest that the apostle Matthew undertook to write his Gospel during the time that Peter and Paul were in Rome, given to be sometime prior to the great fire in Rome which occurred in 64 AD. This would seem to make Gospel Matthew earlier than Gospel Mark, which was written sometime after 70 AD. The problem here is, Gospel Matthew contains virtually all of Gospel Mark.

It has always baffled me why critics point to similarities in the accounts of events seen by the same people. What do you expect? Would one expect witnesses to 9 11 to describe airplanes hitting the buildings for one, dirigibles for another and safes dropping from the sky by another? The similarities between the Gospels is because the authors saw the same things. The differences are minor and attributable to the variances one always sees in truthful eye witness testimony.

Which makes it difficult to maintain that Mark had yet to be written when the apostle Matthew wrote his Gospel.

I don't think anyone does dispute that Mark was written first. Mark was probably written in the 50's and used an earlier source, so a written account of the resurrection story was around in the 40's or earlier. We don't know precisely what that source was, but it is likely that other Gospel writers were aware of those original sources as well. Perhaps this earlier source was one of the ones Luke references in his introduction to his Gospel

Also there is a further complication. Both Papias and Polycarp, as well as Eusebius and Origen somewhat later, attest to the apostle Matthew writing his Gospel in HEBREW "the language of the Jews," which is to say, Aramaic. But all four NT Gospels are written in pure Greek, and in fact as I pointed out, Gospel Matthew is largely Gospel Mark. Written in pure Greek, and NOT a translation from any other language.

Since we do not have the original 'off the desk' copies of what any of the authors wrote, why should you be surprised that they exist in Greek? And what is "pure Greek" anyway? Greek with a certification that it has not been sourced in a Hebrew text?

Clearly then, the NT Gospel Matthew is NOT the Gospel referred to by Papias, Polycarp. Eusebius and Origen. Who wrote it then? NO ONE KNOWS! What then of the Gospel attributed to the actual apostle Matthew? It is suspected that this is the work that was known in ancient times as the "Gospel of the Hebrews," written in Aramaic. Unfortunately, this work disappeared entirely about the fourth century. Which was, coincidentally, the time of the formation of the Catholic Church.

Grassy Knoll thinking. Those rascally Catholics are at it again....