Are the Resurrection Accounts Credible?

[Imprecise Interrupt]

The Resurrection of Jesus is often put forward as the proof of the legitimacy of Christianity. It is typically stated that there are multiple attestations of the event, thereby rendering it believable. It is the credibility of these several attestations that I intend to call into question. Please note that I am not rejecting ipso facto the idea of a dead body coming back to life. This was supposed to be a miracle, after all. Neither am I concerned with trivialities such as how many women went to the tomb. It is the credibility of the several accounts, and therefore the alleged fact of the resurrection, that I find lacking, for reasons other than simply the issue of a resurrection from the dead taking place.

The question for debate is therefore: Are the scriptural accounts of the resurrection of Jesus credible evidence that the resurrection took place?

[YahWhat]

G3708 hora�

Properly, to stare at

I to see with the eyes
II to see with the mind, to perceive, know

The fact of the matter is that hora� was used for both physical seeing and spiritual seeing. You no longer get to dishonestly pretend it was exclusively used only for the "physical" type of seeing with the eyes. The definition and scholarly sources from Greek experts have been slam dunked right in front of your face! Time to just admit you were wrong and move on.

You put up the strawman that Galatians 1:16 says that Paul saw Jesus and then demonstrate that this is not what he said.

What strawman? Gal. 1:16 is the exact same experience Paul references in 1 Cor 15:8 when he says "Jesus appeared to me." Have you discovered some other source where the appearance to Paul was not a vision or a revelation?

Earlier, you wrote this.

Paul says that God revealed his son to Paul. Nothing is said about the means of that revelation. And he says nothing here about seeing Jesus.

Which is precisely the point! Paul does not say he "saw" Jesus with his eyes! His "resurrection appearance" was by means of a "revelation" which took place while Jesus was believed to be located in heaven. How exactly do you physically see a person who is located in heaven with your eyes? Since Paul's experience did not rely on "physically seeing" the resurrected Jesus standing in front of him, it follows that "revelations," otherwise known as completely subjective experiences that don't necessarily have anything to do with reality, qualified as "resurrection appearances." Otherwise, Paul wouldn't have included his completely subjective "revelation" of Jesus as a "resurrection appearance" in 1 Cor 15:8.

This obviously was not a "physical seeing" of Jesus, yet Paul could still claim Jesus "appeared" (ὤφθη) to him which demonstrates exactly what you said I have to prove. You said I needed to show an instance where ὤφθη/horao was used in a way that was not a "physical seeing" with the eyes. Well, Paul using his completely subjective "revelation" as a "resurrection appearance" does that. Game over.

To preach Jesus would require knowing things about him. A mere vision is not going to do that.

Then why does Acts 26:19 say precisely that?

“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven."

Now you can play the game of "but that comes from Acts" but the point is the author depicts Paul becoming convinced by a "vision." It necessarily follows, then, that it was believed by these ancient people and authors that "visions" could convince people.

And why can't a "vision" of Jesus include a "revelation" or teaching from him as well? There is no contradiction there and ancient Jewish people wouldn't have necessarily made a distinction between visions/revelations. That's exactly why we see Paul using the terms interchangeably in 2 Cor 12:1.

A revelation, the imparting of knowledge, would be needed. Since it is God doing the revealing, did Paul see God? Notice how Paul stresses that he did not get this knowledge about Jesus from anyone else. It is knowledge he is talking about, not a vision.

Your imagined and contrived distinction between a "revelation" and a "vision" is just a red herring. The point is that these were subjective experiences which did not necessarily rely on "physical seeing" with your eyes. It doesn't matter if Paul would have considered his "revelation" as a "vision" or not. They're both not dependent upon the physical sensory type of seeing.

Let's put this into a simple logical syllogism:

1. Paul says Jesus "appeared" (ὤφθη) to him - 1 Cor 15:8.
2. The "appearance" to Paul was a "revelation" which took place while Jesus was believed to be in heaven (Gal. 1:12-16). Acts 26:19 explicitly calls it a "vision from heaven." (The point is this experience was not a physical seeing with the eyes).
3. Paul uses his vision/revelation of Jesus as a "resurrection appearance" (since he includes it in the list of resurrection appearances in 1 Cor 15:5-8).
4. Therefore, it follows that visions/revelations (personal subjective experiences that don't depend on physical eyesight) counted as "resurrection appearances."

QED.

53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

I'm not interested in going down this rabbit hole but I will note that the Greek in verse 53 does not have the word for "body" (soma) so that is a misleading translation. There are different interpretations of 1 Cor 15 and I'm quite familiar with them. Paul definitely believed there were different "types" of bodies and exactly what he meant by a "spiritual body" is not made clear. The English rendering of "it" in 1 Cor 15:42-44 is not necessitated by the Greek text. A much more suitable subject is "[one of] the dead" since the previous subject in verse 42 is "the dead." Please see Adela Yarbro Collins here on page 125 for her take on the Greek. Moreover, Paul gives absolutely no evidence that this "spiritual body" was raised to and stayed on the earth to walk around and then only later float to heaven.

[JehovahsWitness]

Do you have a support for this statement? References would be appreciated.

The usual custom was to use 20 pounds.
https://www.preachit.org/newsletters/article/181

The statement seems to have been copied from some random website, presumably written by one James Smith.... who is James Smith and upon what basis does he make such a statement about first century burial rites? I don't see any references in the article.

[JehovahsWitness]

Historical records show that the more respected an individual was, the larger the quantity of costly materials used in the burial procedure . Interestingly Josephus in referencing Herod's funeral speaks of 500 domestics "carrying spices" . Arguably, if each servant carried a mere 1lb of spices that would be a total 500 pounds of spices.

Antiquities of the Jews, Book 17c.8, s.3)
3. After this was over, they prepared for his funeral: it being Archelaus's care that the procession to his father's sepulchre should be very sumptuous. [ ...] These were followed by five hundred of his domesticks, carrying spices. So they went eight furlongs (8) to Herodium. For there, by his own command, he was to be buried. And thus did Herod end his life.

The Talmud reports 80 pounds * of Balmsam used At The funeral of Gamiliel.


*Talmud : Sem. viii.; 'Ab. Zarah 11a

To learn more please fo to other posts related to...

BIBLICAL SEQUENCING, RESSURECTION CHRONOLOGY and ...BIBLICAL INERRANCY

[Imprecise Interrupt]

This is in reply to the fifth link provided by Yahwat in a previous post. PART 1
Many of these points have been addressed in previous posts but I will repeat as needed.

The Resurrection is a legend that grew over time.

The Resurrection started as a spiritual belief that gradually evolved to a more "physical" view. The Orthodox version of Christianity can no longer be rationally affirmed.[/quote]
My take in it is that Mark’s ‘empty’ tomb is the original story derived from early traditions. Moreover, a spiritual belief is not supported by the writings of Paul and would have failed in its purpose in those writings, to connect the resurrection of Jesus with the future resurrection of the faithful.

In the earliest witness to the Resurrection, 1 Cor 15:5-8, Paul basically says "Jesus appeared to them and he appeared to me, too." No distinction in nature is provided between the appearances. Paul's is just last in sequence. The verb Paul uses for each instance of "appeared" is ὤφθη (Greek - �phthē) which could be used to denote "spiritually seeing/experiencing" something as opposed to an actual physical sighting with the eyes.

The word ὤφθη has a primary meaning of ‘seeing with the eyes’ with a connotation of ‘staring’. The word is in aorist tense, passive mood. It does not mean ‘appeared’ it means ‘was seen’ and is generally accompanied by a preposition indicating who did the seeing.

• G3708 horaÅ�
  
  Properly, to stare at
  
  I to see with the eyes
  II to see with the mind, to perceive, know

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/le ... ongs=g3708

If Paul had meant ‘appeared’ with Jesus being the active agent, he would have used ὀπτάνομαι, which has a secondary meaning of ‘allow one’s self to be seen, appear’ Ref

On the other hand, if Paul meant ‘seeing with the mind’, all credibility goes out of his argument. More on that below.

Interestingly enough, Paul says his experience was an "inner revelation" in Gal. 1:12-16, implies that the Risen Jesus was experienced through "visions and revelations" in 2 Cor 12:1, was "known through revelation and the scriptures" in Rom. 16:25-26, and his "mystery was made known through revelation" in Eph. 3:3-5. Paul's notion of the Risen Jesus seems to be purely spiritual/mystical. "Visions" and "revelations" are the only ways Paul says the Risen Jesus was experienced. The later author of Acts calls Paul's experience a "vision from heaven" involving a bright light and a voice - Acts 26:19.

Galatians 1:16 has God doing the revealing to Paul that Jesus was the way to go, that he should stop persecuting followers of Jesus. If Paul just had a vison of Jesus and (as has been claimed earlier) people had visions all the time, why would Paul think it was Jesus who he had never seen? The revelation from God in Galatians 1:16 is the imparting of knowledge from God to Paul concerning who Jesus really is.

Galatians 1
15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone. 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

Note: the word ‘inner’ does not appear here.

The word Paul uses in Galatians 16 for reveal is ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΑΙ ‘to uncover, lay open what has been veiled or covered up’ Ref

To preach Jesus would require knowing things about him. A mere vision is not going to do that. A revelation, the imparting of knowledge, would be needed. Since it is God doing the revealing, did Paul see God? Notice how Paul stresses that he did not get this knowledge about Jesus from anyone else. It is knowledge he is talking about, not a vision.

Galatians 1:16 is not related to Paul having a vision and getting special knowledge (revelation) from Jesus in the third heaven as described in 2 Corinthians 12. Seeing Jesus and getting special knowledge from him are not the same thing. Paul need to get one-up on the very respected apostles in 2 Corinthians 11 who were contradicting him concerning the Law. Jesus told Paul the ‘right stuff’ in person. Going to the third heaven would certainly be an impressive supernatural event. Using the word for witnessing impressive supernatural things, like the dead Jesus talking and eating as in Luke 24, would be perfectly natural. But the important point is not what he sees (with eyes or mind, Paul is not sure) but that he is told things that even the ‘very chiefest’ apostles were not told. Having this be merely a ‘vision’ in the sense of imaginary would destroy Paul’s argument against what those apostles said. This has to be taken as real or it does not work.

Vision and revelation necessarily have different meanings in 2 Corinthians 12 or Paul’s argument carries no weight with the Corinthians.

Romans 16
25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages 26 but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith

Note that Paul refers to ‘my gospel’, a phrase he uses a number of times in his letters, distinguishing his gospel, the one whose details he got from Jesus in the third heaven, from the gospels other people were preaching, apparently even including the Apostles.

The word used for revelation is ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙ�, which means ‘laying bare, making naked’ or ‘a disclosure of truth, instruction’. Ref Not a vision but giving information. The mystery Paul refers to, as is clarified elsewhere, is that Gentiles are worthy of salvation in their own right without having to become Jews, the main theme of Romans.

Not a vision.

Ephesians 3
1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

The word translated as ‘revelation’ is the same word as used in Romans 16:26, meaning ‘laying bare, making naked’ or ‘a disclosure of truth, instruction’. Notice that here the natue of the mystery is made explicit.

Not a vision.

So since the appearance to Paul was some sort of a "spiritual vision" and he places it in the same list as the other "appearances" without a distinction in 1 Cor 15:5-8, it can be inferred that the others had spiritual visions as well. This is noteworthy because Paul is the earliest and only firsthand source so any attempt to read in the later physical appearances from the gospels into Paul's letters is necessarily anachronistic and thus a fallacious way to reconstruct history/

1 Corinthians 15 is not a firsthand source. Paul either got the story from someone else or he made it up to bolster his argument. In either case, he is presenting it as something that actually happened.

For Paul to have meant that they saw Jesus ‘in their minds’ and not with their eyes would require that they all have the same vision at the same time and report it to someone as seeing it in their minds but not with their eyes and that it was then reported to Paul (who was not there} as them seeing it in their minds but not with their eyes and then for Paul to tell the Corinthians that they were seeing it in their minds and not with their eyes. And this is when Paul has been contradicted on the matter. There is not a snowball’s chance that he would be believed. If he meant that the 500 people (and the various other important personages) really saw a resurrected Jesus in the flesh, now he might get somewhere.

Paul being even the recipient of the earliest source is also contentious. See the discussion of Mark later on.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

This is in reply to the fifth link provided by Yahwat in a previous post. PART 2
Many of these points have been addressed in previous posts but I will repeat as needed.

Now let's compare the ways the Resurrected Jesus is said to have been experienced according to the documents arranged in chronological order. The scholarly consensus dates the documents as follows:

• 1Paul c. 50 CE - is the only firsthand report. He says the Risen Jesus "appeared" ὤφθη (1 Cor 15:5-8) and was experienced through "visions" and "revelations" - 2 Cor 12:1. The appearance to Paul was a vision/revelation from heaven - Gal. 1:12-16, Acts 26:19 (not a physical encounter with a revived corpse) and he makes no distinction between what he "saw" and what the others "saw" in 1 Cor 15:5-8. This shows that early Christians accepted visions as Resurrection "appearances." Paul nowhere gives any evidence of the Risen Christ being experienced in a more "physical" way which means you have to necessarily read in the assumption that the appearances were physical, from a later source that Paul nowhere corroborates. He had a chance to mention the empty tomb in 1 Cor 15 when it would have greatly helped his argument but doesn't. Paul's order of appearances: Peter, the twelve, the 500, James, all the apostles, Paul. No location is mentioned.

Again, not firsthand.

ὤφθη is ‘was seen’ not ‘appeared’ as previously demonstrated.

No mention of visions at all in 1 Cor 15. In 2 Cor 12, vision and revelation (as per the meanings of the Greek words as previously demonstrated) are separate or the message that Jesus gave Paul special knowledge that makes him able to go against even the ‘chiefest apostles’ does not work and Paul has no credibility with the Corinthians concerning the Law.

Galatians 1:12-16 are about God telling Paul that Jesus is the way to go. Revelation = giving knowledge. No vision here.

The several accounts of Paul’s encounter with an invisible Jesus in Acts contradict what Paul says. Acts is all about covering up the problems in earlier scriptures. Paul says he has special knowledge from Jesus that nobody else has, even the Apostles, even Cephas. Did Jesus forget to tell them? Obvious problem. To cover that up Acts has Paul converted to an already fully formed Christianity with no hint of Paul having his own gospel that Jesus gave him. Acts has many instances of problems with earlier scriptures being turned into something else.

I have already addressed why it is that the witnesses seeing Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15 cannot be interpreted as anything other than physical, seen with their eyes (the primary meaning of the word). Any other understanding would mean that the witnesses said that they only saw Jesus in their minds and someone told Paul they only saw it in their minds and Paul is telling the Corinthians that they only saw it with their minds and expect that they are going to believe that Jesus really rose from the dead when someone has already contradicted Paul on this. He meant being seen physically with the eyes, the primary meaning of the word. Otherwise he would be laughed out. They just imagined it! Sure…

None of the Gospel writers chose to incorporate this ‘proof’ in their accounts. This is even though we know that Mark had read 1 Corinthians, incorporating key concepts and language from it for his Last Supper pericope and Luke had read it also, quoting from it even more exactly than Mark. The most reasonable conclusion about this is that Paul made it up to win an argument.

“Theologian Deborah Prince writes, "the truth of the tale of Philinnion, a young woman who secretly met with a young man at night after she had died and been buried, is asserted most strongly by means of the multiplication of witnesses in increasingly large numbers". This technique in ancient storytelling, Prince points out, is quite common in ancient writings concerning mirabilia (wondrous events or miracles) to encourage acceptance of the story by a reader.�
https://www.ancient.eu/article/763/an-a ... -machates/]/

• Mark c. 70 CE - introduces the empty tomb but has no appearance report. Predicts Jesus will be "seen" in Galilee. The original ends at 16:8 where the women leave and tell no one. Mark's order of appearances: Not applicable.

Not applicable? Neither Mark nor any of the Gospels refer to the witness list in 1 Cor 15. What happened to ‘a legend that grew over time’? All subsequent accounts derive, each from the previous one, starting from Mark. Mark is the starting point. It is Paul’s account that is not applicable.

As noted earlier, Mark had read 1 Corinthians, but used none of Paul’s witness list. Instead he provides a very suspicious sounding story that sounds very much like the body was stolen and a planted shill said it was a resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead? So where is he? He went to Galilee way up north where he came from. Uh huh. Why would Mark invent a story like that?

It has been noted a number of sources that much of the sentences in Mark are really lousy Greek but sounds much better if rendered in Aramaic. When he deals with Pauline concepts, e.g., the Last Supper, his Greek gets somewhat better and less Aramaic like. Mark also employs a fair amount of Aramaic expressions transliterated into Greek. Of special interest is that when ‘Eli, eli’ (Aramaic for My God) makes people think he is calling Elijah it is because it sounds like the Aramaic word for Elijah.) Matthew changes this to Hebrew Eloi, which sounds more like the Hebrew word for Elijah.)

Mark gives a detailed picture of the putative era of Jesus, naming Pontius Pilate, giving a realistic picture of the law obsessive Shammai Pharisees that argued with Jesus and the feeling of the rather less antagonistic atmosphere between the Jews and Romans that existed prior to the Caligula business. There are some rather undetailed miracle stories (numerous people getting cured by touching the garment of Jesus) and some rather primitive sounding ones (Jesus curing the blind man with spit, although it does not work the first try, as well as stories that seem to have been around long enough to spawn multiple versions (calming the seas, feeding the multitudes).

Some of the pericopes sound very much like arguments over the Oral Torah versus the Written Torah (Mark 7) or the more lenient attitude toward following the specifics of the Law of the Hillel Pharisees versus the Shammai Pharisees (Mark 2, Mark 3). None of these would make sense to later Christians and could even be problematic for them. Jesus says you are to obey the Written Torah. What?

The Gospel of Mark can be seen as an attempt to revivify faith in Christianity, potentially endangered by the unexpected delay in the return of Jesus that Paul promised and by the catastrophic messianic-inspired Jewish War. Mark turns the destruction of the Temple from a defeat into a victory, by making it the sign of the fast approaching end of days. (‘not taste death’ ‘this generation’) To make his story credible (and interesting), Mark updates Paul’s very sketchy Jesus into a living breathing man of action. Toward that end, Mark researched early traditions about Jesus and wrapped a story around them.

One of those early traditions is apparently what Mark recounts in chapter 16. Empty tomb. Somebody says Jesus rose from the dead and went to Galilee. No witnesses to the resurrection event or to the risen Jesus. From Mark’s point of view, it would not be a problem to use this early tradition as is without ‘jazzing it up’. Mark’s Gospel is all about faith in Jesus coming back soon. He went away but don’t worry, he will be back any time now, just like what he said about the destruction of the Temple as the sign.

• Matthew c. 80 CE - has the women tell the disciples, contradicting Mark's ending, has some women grab Jesus' feet, then has an appearance in Galilee which "some doubt" - Mt. 28:17. Matthew also adds a descending angel, great earthquake, and a zombie apocalypse to spice things up. If these things actually happened then it's hard to believe the other gospel authors left them out, let alone any other contemporary source from the time period. Matthew's order of appearances: Two women, eleven disciples. The appearance to the women takes place near the tomb in Jerusalem while the appearance to the disciples happens on a mountain in Galilee. .

To Matthew, Mark’s minimalist account was very suspicious of body snatching and a shill. Matthew adds lots of whistles and bells to make it more believable, at least to someone who wants to believe.

That ‘young man’ who tells the resurrection story becomes an angel of dramatic appearance who flies down from the sky and opens the tomb in front of the women and the guards. Can’t be a shill. Of course, what he shows is not Jesus coming out of the tomb like in the Easter cards. He shows an already empty tomb. Apparently that part of the story is so well known that it cannot be changed. Interesting…

The guards, which appear only in Matthew, are a device to rule out the body being stolen. They are bribed to not say what? That they saw an angel, like that was going to be believed. That they saw an empty tomb. Hmm… And according to Matthew this is the origin of the stolen body story that Matthew admits was going around. How does it prove the body was not stolen? But it was the best Matthew could do without contradicting the empty tomb motif.

The ‘zombie apocalypse’ is an interesting subject. It is – as so many things in Matthew are – a prophecy reference.

Matthew 27
51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Matthew wants to make the death of Jesus exotically dramatic. Remember he is going to introduce a dramatic angle to open the tomb later on. The tombs of the saints open when Jesus dies. But they do not come out of the grave until Jesus is resurrected. Remember, Jesus has to be the first fruits as per Paul, with the resurrection of Jesus as the guarantee of a future resurrection.

Here is the prophecy Matthew refers to.

Ezekiel 37
12 …Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves,

Notice the separation between opening the graves and the residents being raised. Matthew can say: See! Exactly like the scriptures said! This is similar to the two-animal entry into Jerusalem to fulfill the letter of a prophecy in strange way, ‘proving’ it was a prophecy fulfillment.

But notice that the reference is to a physical bodily resurrection, at least as Matthew is interpreting Ezekiel. No ‘Jesus in the mind’ here.

A problem with Mark is that nobody sees the risen Jesus. After the angel tells the women that Jesus got up and is going to Galilee and they should tell the disciples, Jesus himself comes along and tells the women the exact same thing. Why? And if he has not yet left for Galilee yet, why not tell the disciples himself? But now we have a witness that Jesus rose from the dead. What is the thing with Galilee anyway? Why not stay in Jerusalem and show himself to the Jews and the Romans and give them the Bronx Cheer? Jewish and Roman records of it would a nice addition to the story. But Mark said Galilee, so Galilee it is. Very convenient.

Matthew’s Galilee account is rather awkward. They go to Galilee and meet Jesus. But some doubted. (Huh?) He gives them their mission statement and then …. ?

Although it is generally translated as ‘some doubted’, the Greek actually says:

ΔΕ ΕΔΙΣΤΑΣΑ�
but they-doubted
Not ‘some’, ‘they’
{Double Huh??)

One might imagine a scenario in which Mark’s account really happened that way and the disciples went to Galilee as directed … and Jesus was not there! One might further imagine that Matthew’s puzzling ‘they doubted’ reflects this. But that is a lot of imagining.

• Luke 85-95 CE - has the women immediately tell the disciples, contradicting Mark. Jesus appears in Jerusalem, not Galilee, contradicting Matthew's depiction and Mark's prediction. He appears to two people on the Emmaus Road who don't recognize him at first. Jesus then vanishes and suddenly appears to the disciples. This time Jesus is "not a spirit" but a "flesh and bone" body that gets inspected, eats fish, then floats to heaven while all the disciples watch - conspicuously missing from all the earlier reports. Acts adds the otherwise unattested claim that Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days. Luke's order of appearances: Two on the Emmaus Road, Peter, rest of the eleven disciples. All appearances happen in Jerusalem.

Previously in this Topic I have described Luke’s intentional reversals of Matthew and the reasons for it, including focusing on Jerusalem instead of Galilee. This also includes Jesus turning around the disciples who were leaving Jerusalem.

Jesus is not a spirit in either Mark, where he is not even seen, or in Matthew where the women hold his feet. Jesus is described by Luke in more physical terms than in the previous Gospels but he is never ‘seen with the mind’ either. Luke having the disciples look at the hands and feet of Jesus and see him eat fish removes the doubt that Matthew mentioned.

Luke is the first writer to come up with an exit strategy for Jesus. Unless you count Matthew’s poor attempt to debunk the stolen body story going around, trying to cover up the lack of witnesses in Mark. In that case, the stolen body is the exit strategy. Luke’s elaboration is aimed at closing up that still open hole. If Jesus was resurrected, where is he now?

The 40-day narrative in Acts is, as typical of Acts, directed to covering up the fact that Paul and the three Synoptic Gospels (even Luke!) all reference Jesus returning soon, albeit with increasing disclaimers about how soon. In Acts the angels say: don’t get a kink in your neck looking for Jesus to come back, he will eventually, but in the meantime there is a church to get going. You want a kingdom to come in power? Cue the Holy Spirit to empower the church.

• John 90-110 CE - Jesus can now walk through walls and has the Doubting Thomas story where Jesus gets poked. Jesus is also basically God in this gospel which represents another astonishing development. John's order of appearances: Mary Magdalene, eleven disciples, the disciples again plus Thomas, then to seven disciples. In John 20 the appearances happen in Jerusalem and in John 21 they happen near the Sea of Galilee on a fishing trip.

The Gospel of John is about keeping the faith even when Jesus is not coming back anytime soon. Faith in Jesus is built up as high as possible by once again strongly identifying Jesus with Paul’s Philo-derived pre-existing Son of God, that Philo also calls the Logos. That point was never emphasized much in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus was called Son of God but the meaning was never strongly explicated.

John borrows some material from Luke concerning post-resurrection activities. But his biggest contribution is the Doubting Thomas tale, based on Luke’s narrative of Jesus showing his wounds and eating fish to prove his reality. In John, the disciples are convinced of Jesus having been physically raised by seeing his wounds. But Thomas was not there and refused to believe without evidence. When he does see Jesus, he believes. And Jesus says “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.� (John 20:29) Keep the faith, brother!

BTW in John’s story it would have been only ten Apostles the first time not eleven, with Judas Iscariot and Thomas not present.

Also, Jesus can apparently teleport already in Matthew, because the tomb closed tomb was already empty. And Luke has Jesus disappear from the two disciples he met on the road and later appear with the Apostles.

John 21 was added later on by a different author. The oddball fishing story is simply a platform for knocking down the claim that some of the disciples will not taste death until Jesus returns. The beloved disciple is identified as the source of the Gospel and spoken of as such in the third person. The beloved disciples, the last living link to the time of Jesus, has died. And Jesus has not returned.

As you can see, these reports are inconsistent with one another and represent growth that's better explained as legendary accretion rather than actual history. If these were actual historical reports that were based on eyewitness testimony then we would expect more consistency than we actually get. None of the resurrection reports in the gospels even match Paul's appearance chronology in 1 Cor 15:5-8 and the later sources have amazing stories that are drastically different from and nowhere even mentioned in the earliest reports. The story evolves from Paul's spiritual/mystical Christ all the way up to literally touching a resurrected corpse that flies to heaven! So upon critically examining the evidence we can see the clear linear development that Christianity started with spiritual visionary experiences and evolved to the ever-changing physical encounters in the gospels.

In the Gospels, it is not growth but intentional purposeful changes in the preceding material, one after the other. And none them connect with 1 Corinthians 15 even though it was read by at least two of them. The Gospels stories all trace back in a straight line to Mark, who read 1 Corinthians and used parts of it but chose to use an early tradition about an empty tomb and some one saying Jesus rose from the dead, with no evidence presented except the empty tomb.

It still sounds like (a) Paul made up all his stuff to push back on contradiction from other apparently authoritative sources, and (b) Mark has the original story which is most reasonably understood as body snatching and a shill.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

This is in reply to the fifth link provided by Yahwat in a previous post. PART 3
Many of these points have been addressed in previous posts but I will repeat as needed.

I would argue that the tendency of depicting Jesus more "physical" can be explained by Greco-Roman influence. After Paul's mystical/spiritual Jewish Jesus made it's way to the gentiles, they took the story and ran with it, turning him into an immortal Greco-Roman god over time. Pages 141-181 give a good overview https://books.google.com/books?id=tQUDA ... &q&f=false

On page 149 the linked book tries to connect Mark’s empty tomb with Romulus and Numa. In Livy Romulus was supposedly snatched away in a thunderstorm but hints that he was actually murdered and the ‘god thing’ dreamed up as a cover-up. Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita Libri was completed in 9 BCE and therefore could have been available to Mark. But Livy contains no empty tomb and Mark contains no deification at resurrection. It is really hard to see a connection here. The story of Numa’s empty coffin does not appear until Plutarch in the early 2nd century, too late to influence the NT. Livy had earlier described finding Numa’s books after they were unearthed by a flood but not his coffin. Plutarch’s tale (again, 2nd century) is very much like Livy’s, sharing considerable detail, but adds the empty coffin.

From the link:

“In the Roman tradition, Emperors must die – as in the case of Jesus – before being deified� (p. 149)

Paul has Jesus already a pre-existing divine entity (as per Philo via Middle Platonism) and no empty tomb. Jesus is not deified at death; he was already divine. If Jesus was not already of such extremely high status, his death as a sacrifice so powerful as to undo the primordial sin of Adam and allow humans to be reconciled to God would fail. The Gospels carry forward the idea of Jesus as Son of God and able to perform miracles while he was still alive. John revisits the pre-existence theme big time. Jesus was already divine in the earliest descriptions. No need for deification.

A major problem with the linked book is that it makes much of the uniqueness of the resurrection of Jesus to connect it to Graeco-Roman notions of resurrection as deification reserved for the privileged few. But it fails to account for Paul in 1 Cor 15 having the resurrection of Jesus be the promise of a future resurrection of all the righteous.

The idea of a divine Jesus came from Paul, defining him as the pre-existing Son of God with very strong connections to Philo’s concept. A possible inspiration for this is the use of the term Son of God for the Messiah as per Psalm 2, the one where a militaristic Messiah kicks Gentile butt, a popular wish list item in the 1st century. Paul might have taken that term and run with it. Notice that Paul never needs to explain the terms Christ (Messiah) and Son of God to anyone. He just uses them as if they are already familiar to his readers and just about equivalent.

Again, it's important to stress that Paul is the earliest and only firsthand source so he is more likely to accurately preserve the earliest Christian beliefs. Paul nowhere corroborates an empty tomb or anything like what Luke and John depict in their resurrection reports. This silence is striking since Paul is trying to convince the Corinthians that there was "a resurrection of the dead" - 1 Cor 15:12-13 and explain "with what type of body do they come?" - v. 35. It's significant that he doesn't mention the empty tomb, people touching Jesus, discarded grave clothes, the disciples eating with Jesus post-Resurrection or them watching his physical body fly to heaven because those things would surely have helped to strengthen his argument!

The gospels, on the other hand, are not firsthand reports nor do they contain eyewitness testimony.

As previously brought out, Paul’s account was not firsthand and sounds very much like he invented it to win an argument. Also, as I have argued, Mark is plainly in possession of the earliest traditions and his bare bones, no Jesus account could easily be one of them, especially as it is so unsatisfactory in constituting proof of anything. But it could be the origin of the entire resurrection idea. As I have described multiple times and at great length now, the details found in subsequent Gospels can be seen as purposeful invention, each for readily discernible reasons. Paul would not mention them because they never happened. The problem here is lumping all the Gospels together as different aspects of a common story. They are not. Each is derived from the previous one, modified as suited the narrative needs of the individual author. Only Mark could qualify as a description of the original event. And that would do Paul no good. Rumors of a resurrection with a very suspicious and witness-free story attached would do him no good. And so he needed to invent his own elaborate witness story.

To provide a good overview of the majority opinion about the Gospels, the Oxford Annotated Bible (a compilation of multiple scholars summarizing dominant scholarly trends for the last 150 years) states (pg. 1744):

"Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith (Lk. 1.4; Jn. 20.31). Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings." https://celsus.blog/2013/12/17/why-scho ... e-gospels/

As I have stated many times now in this Topic, only Mark’s resurrection narrative stands a chance of being the original one. This is due to him clearly being in possession of numerous other early traditions and the suspicious nature of his account, pointing more in the direction of grave robbery than resurrection. Why would anyone make up that story? The resurrection accounts in the other Gospels are very clearly invention. (As are all the rest of those Gospels, excluding what was inherited from Mark and might be real.)

[Clownboat]

Therefore, it is still a possibility that such a large amount was used to then get the body to its natural burial place of Gallilee.

So what actual evidence do you have to support this supposition?


As it is, it seems that the amount of spices has nothing to do with prolonged preservation ,(and I've yet to see any evidence indicative of proposed transportation), rather it seems the quantity was a mark of the degree of respect for the deceased.

Historical records show that the more respected an individual was, the larger the quantity of these costly materials used in the burial perpetration. Josephus records that forty pounds of spices were used at the funeral of the highly respected elder R. Gamaliel (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 17c.8, s.3)

.

In short the available evidence is 20 times more spices means you respect the person 20 times more not that you are trying to preserve the body 20 times longer or you intend to transport it 20 times further.

It actually does suggest possible intent..

Well, now would maybe be an appropriate time for you to go about proving that, ... some archaeological discovery, historical record, cultural reference etc



JW

You nor I know why such a large amount was used (assuming the claim is even true to begin with of course).

Therefore, it's possible that such a large amount was used as a sign of respect or to attempt to get the body to its natural burial location of Galilee. We could muse about other possibilities as well I would assume.

I'm not claiming to know one way or the other, but I have noticed that Jesus's disciples had permission from the Roman governor to take possession of the body of Jesus and were therefore the last ones to be clearly in control of it (according to the story itself). They put 100 lbs of aromatic spices on it and then where did they go?

Matthew 28:16 16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. Which just so happened to be the place Jesus would have naturally been buried. It would also explain why the tomb was empty on Sunday. Coincidence? You nor I actually know if we are being honest with ourselves and others.

Jesus's body resurrecting is a possible explanation, just not the most reasonable because dead bodies (for days not minutes) have never been shown to reanimate.

To help make my point. Fairies have never been shown to exist, and yet you would reject as an explanation that fairies took the body.

[YahWhat]

Galatians 1
15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone. 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

Note: the word ‘inner’ does not appear here.

Most translations render it to "reveal His Son IN (�ν) me." Doesn't really matter though. It was a "revelation" of Jesus from heaven, thus, was not a physical seeing of Jesus with Paul's eyes.

For Paul to have meant that they saw Jesus ‘in their minds’ and not with their eyes would require that they all have the same vision at the same time and report it to someone as seeing it in their minds but not with their eyes and that it was then reported to Paul (who was not there} as them seeing it in their minds but not with their eyes and then for Paul to tell the Corinthians that they were seeing it in their minds and not with their eyes. And this is when Paul has been contradicted on the matter. There is not a snowball’s chance that he would be believed.

You keep making the same mistake by reading the ancient texts with modern presuppositions. They wouldn't have necessarily made the distinction between "seeing with the eyes" and "seeing with the mind." To them, they really thought they "saw/experienced" Jesus and that's all that mattered. I already demonstrated that we're dealing with an ancient superstitious visionary culture from over 2,000 years ago. They thought their visions and dreams were real! Plus, there is plenty of precedent and history of God communicating to the Jewish people through visions.

1 Corinthians 15 is not a firsthand source.

Jesus "appeared to me" (1 Cor 15:8) is a firsthand claim written by Paul himself. Have you found some previously undiscovered source where the appearance to Paul was not a vision or a revelation from heaven? Because that would completely rewrite the history of Christianity! Have you discovered any verse from Paul in his letters where he describes the Resurrected Jesus being experienced/known in a way more physical than a vision/revelation or the Scriptures? How about a passage that indicates the Risen Jesus' physical corpse walking around on earth after the Resurrection?

Nope?

Didn't think so.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

The unique feature of Mark that is not mentioned in Paul is the empty tomb.

When we'd expect a mention of it since Paul was trying to convince the doubting Corinthians that there actually was a "resurrection of the dead" - v.12-25 and explain "with what type of body do they come?" v. 35. The fact that Paul doesn't mention it is good evidence that there was no such thing in the earliest strain of tradition. Moreover, it's highly unlikely that Jesus would have received a proper burial in the first place considering he was crucified by the Romans for being the "King of the Jews." Most likely, Jesus was left up to rot to serve as a warning for other would be troublemakers as was custom for crucifixion victims. This inconvenient fact speaks against your hypothesis because there's a low prior probability that Jesus' body would have even made it to a tomb in the first place.

It is doubtful that Paul would have known anything about the empty tomb because he was not around when the resurrection story started. On the off chance that he did, he would likely not have wanted to repeat that story. A bunch of witnesses to a resurrected Jesus sounds a lot better. Recall that Paul did not talk to any of the people who might have had that piece of information for at least three years even after he became a Jesus fan. (Galatians 1) And even then, Paul says that he only talked to Cephas and James at that time.

In any case, the empty tomb story and a claim of resurrection with no witnesses is not credible evidence for a resurrection. It is suspicious of someone stealing the body and planting a shill. That is why Matthew needed to dress up Mark’s story so much. Why would Cephas and James admit to such an embarrassing story so long after the fact, especially to Paul who used to persecute them? And that is even if that was the original story still in their heads after all those years? Or even shortly after seeing the empty tomb and hearing about a resurrection claim. They would have described the event as a resurrection to anyone else even if they retained any doubts. More likely they might have talked about witnesses if anything, which Paul may have blown up to outrageous proportions in 1 Cor 15.

Paul not knowing about or mentioning the empty tomb is not any kind of issue.

Jesus being crucified for being King of the Jews is part of a larger story about Jesus being in Jerusalem during Passover season and having adoring crowds welcome him. There were apparently those that did not like him as well. Not surprising. The Shammai Pharisees were predominant at the time and were also engaged in widespread preaching but of a school of thought opposite to Jesus. Remember it was crowds that shouted to crucify Jesus. Mark mentions that there was an insurrection already but does not say what it was about. But two groups of people, one who loved Jesus and one that did not like Jesus both in town and already bad things were happening… If we can put any credence in the trial, King of the Jews (of Israel, Jews would say) was exactly the dividing issue, exactly as reported to Pilate. If someone asked for the body of Jesus to be taken down, Pilate may very have granted it to avoid inciting more insurrection.

Again, not much of an issue.

Paul already established the burial and resurrection as essential parts of the Jesus story but gave no details concerning the resurrection except that it was on the third day.

Remember, his belief was based "on the Scriptures" (1 Cor 15:3-4), not necessarily historical attestation.

Yet Mark’s story, which actually says ‘after three days’ to avoid the ‘spirit hangs around for three days’ belief, can only be described as ‘on the third day’ by a stretch. Friday afternoon (a fraction of a day until sunset which according to Mark was fast approaching), Saturday (a full day from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday) and some fraction of Saturday night / Sunday morning. If this was invented why not go with the ‘after three days’ theme Mark introduced or at least a more credible version of Paul’s ‘on the third day’? Mark’s account provides a credible reason for going to the tomb, a predictable reason for going to the tomb, on Sunday morning, with plenty of time for mischief in between.

Paul’s ‘on the third day’ appears to derive from Hosea 6, which in context is about Israel promising to return to the Lord, which the Lord sees as likely an empty promise. Not even messianic. Why would Paul want to insert the ‘third day’ thing unless it referred to something he was told about? If he was told about the Friday, Saturday, Sunday scenario, that would be a nice invitation to ‘messianic prophecy fulfillment’ via Hosea. Even though that was neither messianic or a prophecy. Typical modus operandi for Paul.

‘Missing bodies’ is far too vague a concept to be claimed as Mark’s inspiration.

Try miraculous "missing bodies from a resting place" then you'll actually be addressing the argument. It doesn't necessarily matter where the person went missing from.

Of course, it matters where the body went missing from. A body supposedly dead, although a witness denies that, disappearing from the floor of a fuller’s shop does not translate to a body missing from a tomb. ‘Resting place’? Really? And the author of this book claims this is conclusive.

What inspired Mark to end his Gospel this way?

It's quite obvious. If Jesus was anything special then his body would have to disappear or go missing per the established pattern for heroic men. Moreover, he would be motivated to invent a proper burial in light of the fact that Jesus was most likely left up to rot on the cross and picked to the bone by birds. Obviously, Mark couldn't depict his hero Jesus suffering such a gruesome fate. Lastly, the narrative provides a convenient literal fulfillment of Isaiah 53:8-9.

Jesus did not disappear. He went to Galilee where it was expected he would be seen.

I have addressed above the issue of the body taken down as entirely reasonable.

Isaiah 53
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Apologists might link verse 8 to the death of Jesus. But Jesus dying is not much of a contentious issue is it? (Except to Muslims or Gnostics, different conversation.) But how is the grave of Jesus ‘with the wicked’? And what rich man was he buried with? Isaiah associated wealth with evil, as can be seen in the parallelism. Wicked and rich are equivalent. Why would Mark want Jesus buried with the wicked? Add in that Joseph of Arimathea is not described as being rich until the Gospel of Matthew, and not in Mark, and the idea you are putting forward falls apart.

No empty tomb. Unless one is obsessed with finding empty tomb stories and the floor of a fuller’s shop can double as a tomb. It is not at all clear that Aristeas even died (in the wool?) there being a witness to the contrary. And he was obviously not buried....Not relevant.

His body goes missing from his resting place just like Jesus' does. Entirely relevant.

It was not the ‘resting place’ in any reasonable sense of the word. A resting place for the dead is a tomb or grave or the bottom of the sea and so forth. It is where the dead body is expected to stay. The body of Aristeas was definitely not expected to stay on the floor of the shop. It was not his resting place. There is no way Mark was inspired to invent an empty tomb story from this.

No death, no burial, no empty tomb. Unless of course one is desperate to find empty tomb stories and a living person (supposedly) hiding in a wooden chest can double for a dead person buried in a tomb. This is not even a missing body story. It is a missing person story.

It's still a miraculous disappearance nonetheless and a "missing person" necessarily entails a missing body but if you don't want to count this one then that is fine. I was just citing Cook's quote in full.

Numa
It is only in Plutarch, who wrote his Parallel Lives at the beginning of the 2nd century, that the empty coffin story appears. Ref Livy, who wrote about Numa much earlier knows nothing of it. [Ref

Clearly not an influence on Mark.

Livy actually describes the disappearance of Numa's body but gives a natural explanation. https://books.google.com/books?id=mRJtD ... &q&f=false

Dionysus of Halicarnassus says he "disappeared from among men." https://books.google.com/books?id=xvDTA ... &q&f=false

As for Plutarch, where did he get the story from? Did he just make it up himself? No, obviously it existed before he wrote. So it's debatable if the story was in existence before Mark composed.

You are correct concerning Livy. Here is the relevant passage.

�[40.29]… During this year while labourers were digging at some depth on land belonging to L. Petilius, a scrivener who lived at the foot of the Janiculum, two stone chests were discovered about eight feet long and four wide, the lids being fastened down with lead. Each bore an inscription in Latin and Greek; one stating that Numa Pompilius, son of Pompo and king of the Romans, was buried there, and the other saying that it contained his books. When the owner at the suggestion of his friends had opened them, the one which bore the inscription of the buried king was found to be empty, with no vestige of a human body or of anything else, so completely had everything disappeared after such a lapse of time. In the other there were two bundles tied round with cords steeped in wax, each containing seven books, not only intact but to all appearance new. There were seven in Latin on pontifical law, and seven in Greek dealing with the study of philosophy so far as was possible in that age. Valerius Antias says further that they were Pythagorean books, thus shaping his belief to the common opinion that Numa was a disciple of Pythagoras, and trying to give probability to a fiction.�

In actuality, inscriptions in the written Greek and Latin of the 8th century BCE, would have been unreadable by anyone but serious scholars. Especially the Latin which still used the Etruscan alphabet in that era. Likewise the books. But that is not relevant to the discussion. What is relevant is that Livy wrote in Latin. It seems that Mark’s native language was Aramaic and that he could read Greek although he wrote it rather poorly. Did Mark read Latin as well? Was he inspired by a story that does not say that the body miraculously disappeared but that just rotted away to nothing? (In reality it probably never had a body in it but that is not relevant. I suspect Livy is commenting on an ‘urban legend’.)

Your fragmentary quote from Dionysius Halicarnassus is misleading. What he said was “He [Numa] lies buried along the Janiculum, on the other side of the river Tiber: What the linked book says about it is that he “includes no tradition of his apotheosis�.

Alcmene
There are two versions of the story of Alcmene’s death. In one story, when Alcmene died, there was an argument over where she was to be buried, with the Oracle at Delhi specifying the place. In the other story, when she died her body turned to stone. Ref

No empty tomb. Not even a missing body.

Her body goes missing from her bier/resting place. Diodorus Siculus says she "vanished from sight." Plutarch says "the body of Alcmene disappeared as they were carrying her forth for burial, and a stone was seen lying on the bier instead." He doesn't say her body turned to stone. https://books.google.com/books?id=mRJtD ... &q&f=false

Zalmoxis
Zalmoxis built an underground dwelling where he disappeared for three years. Then he came out alive. Ref Living person seen. No empty tomb. This is the opposite of Mark.

The point is he "appears" again after people thought he had died just like in the Jesus story. I shouldn't have included that one in the "missing body" section but it's entirely relevant for the post-mortem sightings parallel.

Romulus
According to Livy, it was claimed that Romulus was snatched away by a whirlwind during a thunderstorm. Ref

Missing person. No empty tomb.

His body disappears and he ascends to heaven in a cloud which is reminiscent of Jesus' ascension - Ovid, Metamorphosis, 14.805-828 and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 2.56.2

Empty tomb, check. But this is sort of backwards from Mark. In Mark, the ‘proof’ of the resurrection is the empty tomb. Nobody sees the risen Jesus. By contrast, Philinnion is seen and the tomb is found empty later on.

Still a story about an empty tomb though, right? Are you seriously trying to find an exact match? If so, that's not the point and you're wasting your time.

It seems to me that you have wasted a great deal of time in trying to find any kind of match. Philinnion is seen (and consequently dies again) and that is what leads to opening the tomb to see if her body is there. Mark starts with an already opened tomb and no body and no witnesses to Jesus walking around despite it being an obvious reference to a physical resurrection. Or did Jesus get apotheosized to Galilee and the only place you can ‘see him with your mind’ is there? If he was inspired by Philinnion, he would have had the tomb opened by witnesses and also lots of witnesses who saw the resurrected Jesus walking around. Recall that Mark used explicit material from 1 Corinthians, which has hundreds and hundreds of witnesses to the risen Jesus, as does Philinnion. But Mark leaves out that important and much more supportive details. Philinnion was not his inspiration.

Antigonus
This character appears in Lucian’s Lover of Lies, ala The Liar. Ref In this satirically humorous work, Antigonus is portrayed as an accomplished but ridiculous liar, including his story about treating a patient both before and after his death. Lover of Lies is clearly a work of humorous fiction from beginning to end. What makes it irrelevant to Mark is that Lucian lived in the 2nd century, long after Mark wrote. ref

The point is that this story establishes the literary theme existed regardless if it came after the time of Mark. While there are plenty of these stories that predate Mark the fact that some post date it is evidence that this literary theme lasted for centuries.

The theme in Lucian is that the doctor is a braggart and a jerk, and his claim of having resurrected a patient is ridiculous nonsense. As far as a coherent theme being around for centuries that would have inspired Mark, I have yet to see one. Keep in mind that Mark is Jewish and his native language is plainly Aramaic. Everyone in the Eastern Empire spoke and understood spoken koine Greek. Mark apparently could read Greek at least reasonably well because he refers to the Septuagint. But even when not directly translating Aramaic sentences, his Greek is still pretty bad. For Jewish Aramaic speaking Mark to be aware of this ‘theme’ (and which theme is that again?) he would need to have had a classical education and would have learned to write Greek much better than he did. Graeco-Roman mythology was not ‘in the air’ for Aramaic speaking Jews like Mark. If he took inspiration from a specific story or stories, it would have to closely resemble what he wrote.

Proclus
In Plato’s story, Proclus did not die and was not buried. He was in a trance like state and when he talked about his soul leaving his body. Ref This allowed Plato to put his ideas about the soul in the mount of a ‘witness’.

No empty tomb. Not even a burial or a missing body.

Um, "Proclus included three stories of Naumachius of Epirus who described three individuals that returned to life after various periods in their tombs (none months, fifteen days, and three days)."
https://books.google.com/books?id=mRJtD ... &q&f=false

The linked book says:

�Proclus does not believe the individuals such as Er and Aristeus had actually died. The source of the stories “in our time� is Naumachius of Epirus who Proclus states lived in the time of his grandparents�

Proclus lived in the fifth century CE. That would put Naumachius in the 4th century. This makes it Naumachius the physician and not Naumachius the 2nd century poet. The stories therefore date to the 4rh century. No influence on Mark.

Branchus
Although I know Branchus as the lover of Apollo (eek!), who gave Branchus prophetic powers, I am unaware of any connection between Branchus and death, tombs. Resurrection, missing bodies etc. Can anyone turn up anything relevant?

Branchus disappears. This comes from Cook's section on "translation and apotheosis."
https://books.google.com/books?id=mRJtD ... &q&f=false

Disappears? That’s all? No details at all? Disappearing is not part of Mark’s story. If Jesus just disappeared it would work against the point he is trying to make. Jesus did not disappear, He went to Galilee, according to the young man at the tomb. Irrelevant.

Polyidus
Polyidus raised a dead child. The child had not even been buried yet. Ref

No empty tomb. No missing body.

Palaephatus says he was buried in the tomb and was raised. https://books.google.com/books?id=mRJtD ... &q&f=false

This is an example of a resurrection. It's not meant to be a missing body/empty tomb example.

Palaephatus is a debunker of mythological tales. Here is what he says about this ‘altogether laughable myth’. If Mark read Palaephatus, it seems extremely doubtful that he would take this tale to heart.

Osiris in Dendera Temple complex
There are some remarkable reliefs in the Hathor Temple .in the Dendera complex. Ref Two of them depict Osiris. One shows Isis and Nephthys guarding the reassembled dead body of Osiris. There were attempts to destroy it. The other shows Isis impregnating herself with the magic phallus to replace the one that got eaten. Osiris was only alive enough and for long enough to do his part in this. Am unaware of any relief or other picture or even a myth that has Osiris come out of his tomb. Anybody?

https://live.staticflickr.com/4650/4015 ... 59a2_b.jpg
http://image.wikifoundry.com/image/3/bb ... /GW687H317

This is an example of a resurrection. It's not meant to be a missing body/empty tomb example.

In addition to the individual resurrection account that appear in the OT, there is this from Isaiah.

Isaiah 26
19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the earth will give birth to the dead.

There is Daniel 12, and apocryphal works that mention resurrection. Mark did not need help from Egyptian myth and it is doubtful he knew of it.

Achilles
There is no empty tomb or missing body in the story of Achilles. When Achilles is killed, his mother (a Nereid, not human) takes his body from the funeral pyre and brings it home to the Blessed Isles. Ref

So his body disappears, right?

No, his dead body is taken away. Not even a disappearance.

Aeneas
There are several accounts of the death of Aeneas. On is that he disappeared in the middle of a battle. Ref

No empty tomb. Just a missing person.

Yup, a missing person...just like Jesus.

Jesus was not missing in Mark. He went to Galilee by himself.

Amphiaraus
Amphiaraus ticked off Zeus who threw a thunderbolt that opened the earth and swallowed Amphiaraus. Ref

No empty tomb.

Apollonius of Tyana
Philostratus wrote a book that looks amazingly like an account of the life of Jesus as recounted in the several Gospels, except that the main character( Apollonius) is Greek, not Jewish. The catch is that Philostratus wrote well after a century after the Gospels. Ref

Obviously not an influence on Mark. It would seem the arrow points in the other direction.

Basilea
Basilea disappeared in a lightning storm. Ref

No empty tomb.

Belus
The name Belus refers to a number of entities, human and divine. I am unable to connect any of them to empty tombs, missing bodies etc. Anyone?

Bormus
Bormus was pulled into a well by Nymphs. Ref

No empty tomb.

Ganymede
Zeus abducted the young boy Ganymede to be his ‘wine server’. Sure… Ref
No empty tomb.

Hamilcar
Hamilcar Barca was lost in battle, probably drowning in a river. Ref
No empty tomb.

Semiramis
Ara, the lover of the woman military leader Semiramis, was killed in battle. She disguised someone else to look like Ara and had him ride into battle with her to foster the legend that she was a sorceress who could raise the dead, demoralizing the enemy. Ref
No empty tomb.

Read the quote again. All these follow the sentence "There are numerous translation accounts of heroes in which their bodies disappear when they were either alive or dead:"

These were not intended to be presented as empty tomb stories.

As I have noted, disappearance stories are irrelevant. In Mark, the young man says Jesus went to Galilee and that the disciples will see him there. Jesus did not disappear, he physically went someplace and it is expected he will be there.

The only empty tomb story in the list that pre-dates Mark is the one about Philinnion. But it is not a great fit. Philinnion is actually seen after she dies. If this were Mark’s inspiration for inventing a story about an empty tomb, why would he leave out inventing sightings? It would also require that Mark, seemingly an Aramaic speaker of Jewish background, would know this story from Greek mythology.

Nope, there's Callirhoe, Numa, Aristeas. Others are debatable and while some may not have an "empty tomb" per se, they still depict the person disappearing from their resting place or just disappearing period. That's the point and that's the parallel/mimetic signal. Jesus disappearing from his tomb simply fits the bill and established literary pattern.

In Mark, Jesus did not disappear. He went to Galilee. That point is crucial to Mark’s story.

Mark never has anyone see Jesus. If he invented the empty tomb story, why not invent witnesses?

I have no idea but that's not relevant to my argument. He clearly knows of a tradition of appearances in Galilee - Mk. 14:28, 16:7. He just doesn't narrate what they were like.

He did not invent witnesses because he did not invent the story. He did not have witnesses open the tomb. It is already open. That was the story he was given, one of a number of early traditions he received in Aramaic that are very credible minus the elements of superstition and are not only of no interest to later Christians but actually problematic to them on theological grounds.

Mark 14:28 is in the middle of the Last Supper narrative, which can readily be seen as an elaboration of passages in 1 Corinthians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11 but unfortunately lead to the impossible trial on the first night of Passover and other problems with the events taking place on the first day of Passover. Mark made this all up using Paul’s material as a starting point. Referring to Jesus going to Galilee is simply a setup for the end. Mark 16:7 is part of the suspicious story he was given but he is using it because it is an old tradition. That s why he foreshadows it in Mark 14:28. If he invented the resurrection story, why make it so suspicious? Why not incorporate Paul’s elaborate witness list from 1 Corinthians? Because he believes the old tradition more than Paul’s over the top tall tale. BTW the Last Supper narrative is a prime example of how clever Mark can be, wrapping up his John the Baptist is Elijah and Jesus is the Messiah theme in a neat bow.

Since Mark has no witnesses to the risen Jesus, all of the references to sightings after a supposed resurrection or disappearance are not relevant to why Mark has an empty tomb story.

Mark indicates knowledge of a post-mortem sighting of Jesus but, as you said, this is not relevant. The "appearance" tradition is separate from the "empty tomb" tradition. What's relevant is Jesus' body going missing from his resting place just like all the other figures.

No Mark indicates merely that some stranger said that they can go see Jesus in Galilee. That is not a disappearance. That is a change of address. The sightings that appear in the later Gospels because, while Mark claims Jesus went to Galilee (or at least the young man does), he never backs up the claim. If he invented the story, he would have had the stone rolled back and Jesus appear in front of witnesses. As it is, it sounds very much like a body snatching and a shill. Matthew tells us that disciples stealing the body was a story going around and comes up with a really odd story to explain how that story started.

In any case, the source provided falls rather short of inspiring a sense of honesty and credibility.

You fell short on your research of the sources which is evident in your replies. I gave you the link to the book for Christ's sake! All you had to do was a simple keyword search and you would have been able to correctly name the sources instead of erroneously saying "the story is only found here..."

And the book does not always say what you want it to. Plus it requires Mark to be tuned into ‘the theme’ to be relevant which as I explained above it is very doubtful he was ever aware of.

This chapter of the book puts up Aristeas as the poster child for empty tombs at the beginning, but has to make the floor of the shop where he ‘died’ into a tomb to make that work. I cannot take this source seriously.

The guy is dead and he miraculously goes missing from his resting place like all the other figures. If you can't see the parallel then you're just being dishonest. Requiring that he goes missing from a "tomb" is a red herring and what I call the "carbon copy" fallacy. Just because the stories aren't the same in every minute detail, it doesn't follow that there isn't a common overall literary theme being employed. Namely, the miraculous disappearance of a person from their resting place.

Jesus does not go missing, He goes to Galilee according to Mark’s young man. Mark would not have known of any ‘theme’. That was not his culture. He might have read some of the sources but none of them can be seen as inspiring Mark to write what he did. The simplest explanation is that he was given a story that sounds just like grave robbery and a shill and repeated it because it sounded more authentic than Paul’s elaborate hundreds of witnesses tale. As I explained elsewhere, this suspicious story would not be a problem to Mark. He is writing for believers, assuring them that Jesus is really coming back after all these years and has a ‘prophecy’ concerning the destruction of the Temple as proof of it. They believe in the fact of the resurrection already. To Mark, putting in an old tradition about the resurrection despite its multiple problems is no more of a problem than including material that has Jesus insist on written Torah observance, when he knows at least some of his audience are Gentiles.

The date of Chariton’s story has been put anywhere from the middle of the 1st century (as per the Persius reference to the name} to the late 1st century or early 2nd century (as per vocabulary usage) to after the first quarter of the 2nd century (if the possible reference to Plutarch is genuine). Ref

The Persius quote dates to 62CE and most modern scholars actually date it between middle of the 1st century BCE to mid 1st century CE (don't cherry pick Wikipedia). So, given the current state of the evidence, it most likely predates Mark's composition.

Actually only a single modern scholar places the date in the late 1st century BCE, Papanikolaou. This is based primarily on a claimed lack of Atticisms in the text and the close relationship to koine. We might note that the NT was written in Yet Hernandez-Lara counts 174 Atticisms. Ruiz-Montero notes the substantial lexical (vocabulary) similarities between Chariton and Plutarch, Josephus and Philo. Papanikolaou stated that there were colloquialisms in Chariton that an Atticist would avoid yet Ruiz-Montero notes the use of some of those colloquialisms in Lucian, and Schmid notes them in other Atticists. Based on an analysis of these and more technical factors that undermine the methodology of Papanikolaou, Ruiz-Montero places Chariton in the last years of the 1st century CE or the beginning of the 2nd century CE.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/638913?rea ... b_contents

But a big problem is that "the sequence of dawn, visit to the grave, finding the stone removed, fear, inspection of the empty grave, disbelief, and again visit to the grave" does not correctly describe Mark’s narrative, which has no disbelief only fear, only the briefest ‘inspection of the empty grave’ and no further visits to the tomb. Those ideas appear in later Gospels, which can be seen to have been developed in a straight line starting from Mark. One could easily make a case that Chariton copied from the Gospels.

Ha, so one or two elements are out of place therefore all the others don't count?! We still have "the sequence of dawn, visit to the grave, finding the stone removed, fear, inspection of the empty grave" The whole sequence was given because Bremmer was comparing it to the collective story in the gospels (plural!), not just Mark's narrative. But, as shown, there are still 5 key elements common among the Markan narrative and Callirhoe. So given this current state of the evidence it's just as likely that Mark was employing the theme as not. Therefore, the story itself can't be considered evidence of its own historicity.

The details in the Gospel stories evolved over time. Not all of the Chariton details are in Mark. The details appear gradually in successive Gospels. Bremmer was comparing Chariton’s story to the full set of Gospels. If there is a connection to the Gospels, it is the other way around. Chariton got them from the Gospels. It is how Mark got his story that we are discussing and he has no disbelief or second visit to the tomb. Likewise Matthew. But the Gospels of Luke and John do. Why would Chariton have all of those aspects when Mark (and Matthew) do not? There is no collective resurrection story in the Gospels. They are all rather different for readily seen reasons. Lumping them together like that is wrong.

Mark has a reason for dawn on Sunday. It is the first time that the burial rites can be performed. And that is because he presents a chronology of late Friday afternoon through Sunday morning somehow being ‘after three days’. Mark changing Paul’s ‘on the third day’, which might squeak by, to ‘after three days’, which does not, raises the question of, if Mark invented it all, why did he invent a story that contradicts himself. But if Mark’s timeline represents an actual event, it all works. No reason to think Mark copied from Chariton.

Finding the stone removed and someone saying Jesus got up and left town and no account of witnesses to anything fits with the grave robbery scenario, which Matthew tells us was being talked about even though he needs to invent an awkward tale to cover it up. Why would Matthew mention such an embarrassment unless it was real? Mark did not make up his story. Something actually happened that caused that story to be spread around.

Fear? The women saw the tomb opened and looked in to find somebody sitting there. Of course that is such a unique reaction it just had to have been copied from Chariton. Not.

Inspection of the empty tomb is not a very good description of Marks account. The women look in and see someone sitting there. They never go in and look around, being ‘affrighted’ as the KJV puts it. Nobody goes into the tomb in Matthew or even looks inside. The angel is outside sitting on the stone he just rolled back. Not until Luke does anyone go inside the tomb to look around. This is also the first time there is a second visit to the tomb. John has a similar narrative but has the beloved disciple unwilling to go into the tomb. Chariton has a huge number of people go to the tomb after hearing about the missing body but nobody will go in. (Recall my previous comments about increasing the number of witnesses to outrageous levels to make a story more believable.) All of the details mentioned plus the reluctance to go into the tomb are found in the Gospel of John but the complete set is not found in any of the previous Gospels. Sure sounds like Chariton was inspired by John.

When Persius referred to Callirhoe, why could he not have been referring to one of the nine Callirhoe’s that appear in Greek mythology? Ref

None of the biblical references involve an empty tomb, the essential feature of Mark’s narrative.

Red herring. All those famous Jewish figures disappear or go missing. Jesus, a famous Jewish figure, simply fits the paradigm.

Jesus does not disappear or go missing. According to Mark he went to Galilee in physical form and can be seen there.

John’s narrative incorporates numerous elements from Luke. Luke’s narrative is Matthew turned pointedly upside down in accordance with Luke’s overall agenda. Matthew’s narrative is all about covering up the suspicious nature of Mark’s narrative. Despite adding all sorts of whistles and bells to the story, often contradicting the previous one, none of them chose to throw out the empty tomb element by having somebody witness the resurrection itself. Matthew comes within a hair’s breadth of doing that but backs off from it at the last moment. The dramatic angel rolls aback the stone and reveals … an empty tomb! Why is the inherently suspicious empty tomb preserved but with all sorts of other elaborate material to distract from it?

Is this an admission that there is absolutely no independent corroborating evidence of the empty tomb story? All the other gospels got it from Mark and expanded upon it, right? You do see how this speaks against historicity don't you?

On the contrary, Mark’s other very credible pericopes have all the appearance of early traditions and even his incredible ones sound like they have been around for some time, spawning multiple similar versions along the way. A story that is as suspicious as Mark 16 is not going to be made up from whole cloth by anyone who has exhibited as much cleverness as Mark. It practically shouts grave robbery and that is exactly the story that was going around as Matthew reluctantly admits. The simplest hypothesis is that this was not only an early tradition but an accurate representation of an actual event. If that is the case, it would have enormous explanatory power – the origin of the resurrection story.

quote]Most of those ‘missing body’ stories are irrelevant.

There is a sufficient amount to establish a literary theme that existed before Mark wrote. That's all I have to show.[/quote]

A theme that an Aramaic speaking Jew who faired poorly in Greek would not be aware of. And fits very poorly with what Mark was saying anyway.

The simplest explanation that accounts for Mark using the empty tomb as the central theme in his narrative and also accounts for belief in an actual resurrection becoming widespread is that Mark inherited and used an early tradition about Jesus, just as he clearly did in other places, and he found that tradition more credible than Paul’s over the top witness list. And the simplest explanation for this being an early tradition is that it represents something that really happened – the body is stolen when it is known that people are going to go to the tomb to complete unfinished business and a shill is left behind to say that Jesus got up and left. The idea of Jesus rising from the dead would help turn a defeat into a moral victory and also fit neatly with the apocalyptic general resurrection ideas going around in that era.

As already mentioned, it's unlikely that Jesus, the crucified "King of the Jews," would have even been given a proper burial, much less one in a "rock hewn" tomb. Paul, our earliest Christian source, doesn't mention it when it would have greatly helped his argument in 1 Cor 15. There is no independent attestation of it. The story from Matthew about the Jews saying they stole the body could just be their reaction to the Markan claim of an empty tomb which was in circulation for 10 years or so before Matthew even composed his gospel.

I already addressed the burial issue above.

I do not imagine there were a whole lot of non-Christian Jews reading Mark. But if they did, they would dismiss it all as fiction and not need to contradict any details. Only if they took Mark 16 seriously as an actual event would they need to explain it. Neither would any negative comments on it have been so widespread that Matthew would need to make up a really oddball story to counter them. The body snatching story would have to have been an old one from around the time of the start of the resurrection story.

So you still haven't shown your hypothesis that there was an actual empty tomb more probable than Mark was just employing the literary device of a "miraculous missing body."

Not a missing body, a change of address. And an absence of witnesses, which do appear in the myths you relate. Plus, it is unreasonable to think Aramaic speaking Jewish Mark who was lousy in Greek knew anything about Graeco-Roman mythology. Yes, my explanation of grave robbery {a story Matthew knew about) and a shill is a better explanation that yours.

I will be occupied for a good deal of the weekend. Despite being 77 and physically disabled I get around a lot. I will get back to the Topic when I can, especially the part about you falsely calling me dishonest.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

Leaving town for a couple of days for unavoidable business. In the immortal words of Arnold MacArthur "I shall be back.