aglassdarkly wrote:
You use a lot of words to get back to your premise (which is also your conclusion [which is a logical fallacy {as I've noted multiple times, but you've consistently ignored}]): "duh, guys, it's obvious!"
Obvious doesn't mean correct.
And, in fact, the circumstances surrounding the empty tomb make it hard to believe that Jesus' body wasn't in the tomb. You've provided an elaborate conspiracy theory to explain how that's possible, but it's harder to believe your story than to believe Jesus' body was left in the tomb.
First, let's consider the word "obvious." What does it mean, exactly?
ob-vi-ous [ob-vee-uhs] adjective
1.easily seen, recognized, or understood; open to view or knowledge; evident: an obvious advantage.
2.lacking in subtlety.
3.Obsolete . being or standing in the way.
So the meaning of the word "obvious" is, well, pretty obvious. It means to recognize something clearly. What the Gospels present clearly is a story of a group of supporters of a man who has been cruelly executed gaining control of the man's corpse, and then taking the corpse to a specific location, in this case a crypt or sepulchre, to be washed and prepared. Sometime later the sepulchre is secured by a group of armed guards, but ultimately the sepulchre later proves to be empty. The obvious conclusion therefore is that the sepulchre was already empty when it was secured by the guards because those in possession of the body had already moved it somewhere else. This conclusion is "easily seen, recognized, or understood; open to view or knowledge; evident: an obvious advantage." It's even "lacking in subtlety," simply because it is not only an obvious conclusion, it is THE obvious conclusion. It certainly violates no common experience, and is well within all standards of "logic, reason and critical thinking." In direct opposition to your conclusion whereby the corpse came back to life, left the tomb on it's own initiative, and eventually flew away, off up into the clouds. Now, THAT, I would suggest to you, is the very definition of an elaborate theory which totally contradicts all common experience, "logic, reason and critical thinking." It also virtually defines the word "preposterous."
pre-pos-ter-ous [pri-pos-ter-uhs, -truhs] adjective
completely contrary to nature, reason, or common sense; absurd; senseless; utterly foolish: a preposterous tale.
aglassdarkly wrote:
But regarding Mark, Luke, and John, here's what I'd have to believe to buy your theory:
Jesus' friends prepared his body at the tomb, then openly loaded it (and 100 pounds of expensive fragrances) into a cart and wheeled it out of town on a day people were forbidden from working (which would have been conspicuous), but for some reason everyone thought the body was left in the tomb, and after three days the tomb was found open with no body and everyone freaked out thinking Jesus had come back to life!
Do you conceive of all of those many thousands of people standing as still as statues because it was a holy day? Or would they naturally have been moving about according to their needs as living breathing people tend to do as a matter of course? In what way would the group with the body of Jesus in a cart or wagon moving about in the crowd be any more conspicuous then any other group of people moving about in the crowd with carts loaded with their own traveling possessions and provisions?
Tired of the Nonsense wrote: In post 182
But there ARE historical accounts to guide me. Of the Roman system of military justice, Greek historian Polybius (Ca 200-118 B.C.) wrote:
"A court-martial composed of the tribunes immediately
sits to try him, and if he is found guilty, he is punished by
beating (fustuarium). This is carried out as follows. The tribune
takes a cudgel and lightly touches the condemned man with it,
whereupon all of the soldiers fall upon him with clubs and stones
and usually kill him in the camp itself. But even those who contrive
to escape are no better off. How indeed could they be? They are not
allowed to return to their homes, and none of their family would
dare to receive such a man into the house. Those who have fallen
into this misfortune are completely and finally ruined. The
optio and the decurio of the squadron are liable to the same
punishment if they fail to pass on the proper orders at the
proper moment to the patrols and the decurio of the next
squadron. The consequences of the extreme severity of this
penalty and the absolute impossibility of avoiding it is that
the night watches of the Roman army are faultlessly kept." (The
Rise of the Roman Empire, Polybius, Book VI, The Roman Military
System, sec. 37).
A Roman guard would have had no hope of being protected by a group of Jewish priests for the crime of sleeping on guard duty, and that is simply an obvious fact.
aglassdarkly wrote:
You think that's a good argument?
Yep! (argument provided above). As arguments go that's a pretty good one.
aglassdarkly wrote:
You're using the writing of a historian who lived 200 years before the events of this debate. I wonder how much things change in 200 years... But that's not even important because this guy doesn't say anything in support of your position. The Roman officials DID NOT CARE ABOUT THE TOMB OR THE BODY OR ANY OF IT. You made that point. The soldiers were on loan to the priests. That's why they reported back to the priests in Matthew. The priests were reassuring the soldiers that if they lied about what happened at the tomb, they wouldn't be in trouble with their bosses. Plus, they might have been lying about being able to protect them. That would explain the bribe. And they probably would have been punished equally for coming up with a "giant-white-angel-did-it" story.
The modern American Uniform Code of Military Justice became effective in 1951, but military rules for the conduct of military personal dates back 238 years to 1775 and the Second Continental Congress. The crime of dereliction of duty is and always has been considered a major offence.
Dereliction of duty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dereliction of duty is a specific offense under United States Code Title 10,892. Article 92 and applies to all branches of the US military. A service member who is derelict has willfully refused to perform his duties (or follow a given order) or has incapacitated himself in such a way that he cannot perform his duties. Such incapacitation includes the person falling asleep while on duty requiring wakefulness, his getting drunk or otherwise intoxicated and consequently being unable to perform his duties, or his vacating his post contrary to regulations. Article 92 also applies to service members whose acts or omissions rise to the level of criminally negligent behavior.
Punishment can include sanctions up to and including the death penalty (in times of war).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dereliction_of_duty
Sleeping on guard duty is considered to be a very serious crime in any army because it has the potential of putting the entire force in jeopardy of being taken by surprise while defences are down and being destroyed in detail. This was certainly true of the Roman army 2,000 years ago (or 2,200 years ago for that matter). As the evidence I provided clearly establishes. So, do I think I provided a good argument? I think I provided
EXACTLY the evidence you requested. I just don't think you happen to like the evidence.
aglassdarkly wrote:
Priest: Hey hey, don't go telling people about that angel stuff.
Guard: Up yours pal, that's what happened.
Priest: Is that what happened... now (throws bag of money)?
Guard: We could get in serious trouble for telling people we fell asleep on the job.
Priest: We won't complain, and you know your bosses don't care, but if it comes up we'll vouch for you.
Guard: I dunno.
Priest: Okay go tell everyone an angel did it and we'll call you liars and make a big fuss about it and your bosses WILL care.
Guard: What angel?
You are absolutely RIGHT! This makes no sense at all, does it? Especially if as you contend, that the guards were Roman soldiers, and all the priests had to do was insist that Pilate execute them for dereliction of duty and then explain to the Jewish nation that the Roman guards had been bribed by the disciples of Jesus and had been executed for their offence. That option would have been off the table entirely however if the guard were not Roman but Jewish. Tellingly, the priests did NOT use this very workable excuse. The excuse they came up with, according to Gospel Matthew, was that the guard slept through the followers of Jesus rolling away the stone and stealing the body out from under their noses. A story that would have sounded every bit as ridiculous 2,000 years ago as it does today.
aglassdarkly wrote:
It's hard for me to believe that after all the discussion we've had, you think I'm dodging your questions. Your questions don't advance the debate.
After all the discussion we have had you STILL have not answered the questions. The subject of this string concerns whether or not the resurrection of Jesus from the dead can be defended based on "logic, reason and critical thinking." As opposed to "preposterous" claims (completely contrary to nature, reason, or common sense; absurd; senseless; utterly foolish: a preposterous tale). I know this to be true for a fact, because I started this string. The questions I provided ARE THE DEBATE. And you have repeatedly failed to answer them. I have reduced the answer to a single word, TRUE OR FALSE, and yet you STILL refuse to answer them. Your problem is that you are caught in a no win situation. The very sort of situation that is the objective in any debate because reaching such a condition serves to effectively settle the question. To answer true would be to completely undermine your Christian faith. To answer false would be to completely undermine your personal verisimilitude, and effectly establish the basis of your beliefs to be completely contrived and without credibility. This string has received over 4,000 views as I write this. The fact that you refuse to answer the questions provides everyone watching with all the evidence that is really needed to established that your claims are baseless and without merit. There is no actual substance behind your claims. Each time you fail to answer you only serve to re-enforce that point. Here are the questions yet again:
The obvious answer to the question of a missing corpse is that it is overwhelmingly more likely to have been the result of actions taken by the living, then of actions taken by the corpse.
TRUE OR FALSE?
It is clear, even in the text of Gospel Matthew, that the disciples of Jesus had the means, motive and opportunity to have relocated the body of Jesus from the tomb to another location. In fact his disciples were the last one to be clearly in possession of the body. TRUE OR FALSE?
As a matter of logic, reason and critical thought, the story of a corpse, dead portions of three days, which comes back to life and then flies away would under any normal circumstance be considered totally preposterous and without merit since it has no realistic chance of being true.
TRUE OR FALSE?
