Occam's Razor and the Tomb

[liamconnor]

Once again, Occam's Razor demands that the simplest theory is to be preferred over those theories which multiply hypotheses (i.e., spawn the most "well maybe x"). This principle reigns supreme behind all historical beliefs, those about events from five minutes ago to those of 500 years ago. To deny the validity of this principle when the topic is polemical is, of course, to be intellectually inconsistent

Here are the facts of the problem of the tomb. Please note what I mean by a "fact". No supernatural conclusions will be made in this OP, nor are they invited. No presuppositions about "the authority of scripture" are held.

First we have the facts of the gospels. The gospels all record that Jesus was buried in a tomb by a Jewish Aristocrat named Joseph, whose ascribed origins are Arimathea. All four gospels record that women were the first to the tomb early after Sabbath, and that they discovered the tomb was empty. All four gospels attribute doubt and confusion to the disciples, male and female, as their first reaction.

Moving outside the texts and into the historical/cultural background, we may also state that women were marginalized. They were not considered valid witnesses in court and even their popular "testimony" was scoffed at.

Names are also important for our reconstruction; the time and place in question had fewer names to differentiate people; Joseph was a very common name. To differentiate identical names, other descriptions were tacked on: parentage, origins, reputation/occupation.

The next most pertinent text is 1 Cor. 15. "and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (1Co 15:4 NAS)".

The Greek is καὶ ὅτι �τάφη καὶ ὅτι �γήγε�ται τῇ ἡμέ�ᾳ τῇ τ�ίτῃ κατὰ τὰς γ�αφὰς (1Co 15:4 BGT).

As it has been noted, the term �τάφη does not by itself carry the notion of a tomb. It simply means that part of the earliest kerygma about Jesus was that he was buried. I find the language here difficult to accommodate the notion that the earliest proclamation had Jesus thrown to the dogs; but a common burial, in the dirt, is not precluded by this term.

However, I should add that the the silence is not nearly as conspicuous as skeptics like to make out. 1 Cor. 15 is a creed reiterated for the converted; it is highly probable (beyond reasonable doubt) that this creed was expanded quite a bit at the original delivery. Creeds for the initiate are bound to be suppressed in details, and the location of the burial is precisely one detail we could expect would not make the cut. The creeds of the church father's do not mention the tomb, and they postdate the gospels. Every Easter Sunday I say, "he is risen" but I don't feel the need to specify "from a tomb".

I am not here arguing that because the silence is not conspicuous, therefore "tomb" is implied. I am simply saying that the silence is not conspicuous.

Those then are the facts as I see them; it is the historian's job to find a theory to account for them that multiplies the least "maybes".

If we start with a non-traditional theory (no tomb; thrown to dogs or buried in the earth) we need to account for the trajectory. How do we get from a kerygma that did not require a tomb to instill belief (the disciples, Paul, the Corinthians and presumably all the churches established before them, believed (on this theory) without the story of the tomb); to an invented story about a tomb, which also invented three very strange details: it ascribed a kindness to a member of the party responsible for the death of Jesus, giving him not only a name but specifying his identity by adding a geographical designation; it placed as first witnesses to the tomb women, and cast the disciples in disparaging colors.

Can an imaginative mind, working without the restrictions of rudimentary historical controls, and uninformed of 1st c. Palestinian culture, come up with a thousand maybes???

Of course, and that is just the problem. He will be multiplying hypotheses, spawning 'maybe's' left and right.

Occam states that the simpler explanation is to be preferred. In this case it is the traditional theory; it entails some bumps, but nothing like the torturous route required by an alternative explanation.

Of course, this says nothing about whether Jesus was raised or not. It simply means that part and parcel of the original Christian proclamation involved an empty tomb.

And Technically speaking, this does not even mean that there was an empty tomb; one who subscribes to a "conspiracy/lie" theory of Christian origins can try and make his case; but very few atheists here have defended that theory and it would be suspicious if they started to now.

[liamconnor]

I refuse to let this OP get derailed by Single-Issue-Debators.


I maintain that the best historical explanation for tradition of an empty tomb is the tomb in which Jesus was laid was in fact found empty less than 72 hours later.

All other alternative attempts to explain the data (the early christian church, whose beliefs we can reconstruct based on the literature they produced) multiply hypotheses to a bewildering point.

[alwayson]

[Replying to post 61 by liamconnor]

Every mainstream scholar knows the tomb stories are fiction.

John Dominic Crossan, The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2012); (2) Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988); (3) Dennis MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); (4) Thomas Thompson, The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David (New York: Basic Books, 2005); and (5) Thomas Brodie, The Birthing of the New Testament: The Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2004).

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 62 by alwayson]

Incorrect.


You are terribly misinformed, or under-read, or some other explanation applies. Whatever the case, you are empirically wrong.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 62 by alwayson]

this short list constitutes EVERY mainstream scholar?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 57 by liamconnor]

I think this has been explained before...
Why the raiments were found untarnished - because they were new and not associated with the body.
A mundane explanation is infinitely easier.

0. Jesus never existed in the first place. This explains everything very neatly. Why there are no artifacts, no Lazarus, no crosses Jesus made for other victims of crucification while a carpenter, no tables, chairs, etc. by Jesus.
1. He was a fraud with a following.
2. Jesus was a Roman plant, which is why the Romans washed their hands, placed false guards, failed to kill him with a spear, and why he preach obedience to Roman, and the paying of Tiberius' precious taxes.
3. He was a hoax, a la Alexx's premise
4. ... yawna, yawna, yawna!

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 65 by Willum]

I will again, Willum, explain why some (many) don't take you seriously.


You contradict yourself.

You don't have a concrete theory.

Your theory is "out there".


Most of your party (non-Christians) don't support you.



A question for you is: why don't you try to target non-Christians for your theory? Start a campaign for non-Christians. Get all the non-Christians on board, and then all the Christians will have to confront your theory. Do it! I encourage you and am excited to see what you can accomplish among non-Christians!

[Willum]

[Replying to post 66 by liamconnor]

I get enough likes and tokens that I am taken seriously enough. If I contradict myself, it is because I write from many perspectives. If I am in a forum where I am supposed to assume something, I try to maintain the OP assumption. In a different OP, without the assumption, I'll write different.

As to "off the wall theories," all my concepts have to do is beat someone (not) sacrificing his son, for something that doesn't exist, cursed on humanity by eating an apple, so that a fraction of people who all think their little pocket of belief will get them into heaven, and everyone else gets the punishment they deserve, and proved it by two meaninglessly difficult and undocumented resurrections.

I am afraid I could propose the universe was created in the armpit of a small squirrel and have fewer contradictions.

But I don't think you have read any of my "theories," they are based on history and the Bible:
The Dark Ages, where, for some reason, Christianity destroyed history: I can't imagine why it would destroy other religions, documentation of its origin, science and medicine, can you?

And the little tid-bit that Jesus supported Rome in everyway that Rome cared about. And supported Yahweh in everyway Rome didn't care about.

Give to Caesar what Caesar wants - obedience, taxes, give to Yahweh whatever Caesar doesn't want...

I have a lot of acknowledged crack-pot theories, for example, actually just concepts, like you'd find in comic books, just thought-provoking, not anywhere near the reality - not anything like an invisible man living in the sky who loves you and wants your money. My favorite CP theory? I am glad you asked! I think that Rome played a joke on Christians, God is the literal "word:"

The Roman Alphabet was a marvel of the time, as a joke, the Romans made it into a God:
God was the alpha and omega (a to z, the alphabet).
You can attain immortality through it - if people like your writing, or write about you.
All things are possible through the word; stories about dragons equally with floods.
It is re-enforced by the observation that Jove (IOVE, IOUE) is all in vowels, while YHVH is all in consonants. It is an interesting trick, it would be unlikely to be serendipitously arrived at...

etc.. Anyway I thought I'd share my favorite unprovable crack-pot theory, since you bring it up.

[otseng]

[Replying to post 65 by Willum]
I will again, Willum, explain why some (many) don't take you seriously.

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[YahWhat]

Okay let’s apply your historical reasoning here to Caesar’s assassination.

How does diverting to Caesar's assassination get you out of imagining when Paul says A. "Jesus was buried" that he necessarily means B. "buried in Joseph of Arimathea's own rock hewn tomb which was found empty by women three days later?" Paul shows no familiarity with any tomb, Joseph, or women so it's fallacious to extrapolate what little he tells us into corroborating the later empty tomb story. B does not necessarily follow from A. It's known as a non-sequitur.

Now go ahead and make a historical case that Caesar was assassinated from Cicero. Do it without appealing to later second hand sources reading into them “anachronistically� an assassination.

How about you stay on topic and go ahead and show where Paul mentions any details about Jesus' burial? Just as we can't conclude from Cicero that Caesar was necessarily assassinated, we can't conclude from Paul that he thought Jesus was buried in a tomb. You must admit that you're relying on the later gospel accounts for that, not Paul.

Let’s add that the later narratives from Nicolas of Damascus, Plutarch, etc. show embellishment. The number of senators grows to eighty – EIGHTY!- as an example. There are numerous contradictions between accounts that can’t all be true.

Same with the gospels!

This historical reasoning regarding “anachronistic fallacies� is just ridiculous. No historian works like this. Period.

An anachronism, in the context here, would be to interpret an earlier period of time through the lens of a much later period. A classic example would be inferring John the Baptist must have held all the same doctrinal positions as Southern Baptists because he baptised people and his name was John the Baptist.

Then what would you call beliefs that change over time and assuming the earliest followers shared those same beliefs? How do you classify later amazing stories that are nowhere even hinted at in the earliest sources? If the empty tomb story was just a later legend that developed then reading that into Paul would be blank? What word would you use to describe this type of thing?

The Gospels are from the same period as Paul’s letters.

The gospels were written after Paul and represent legendary growth. We're talking about sources written for different audiences with different beliefs in different countries 40-60 years after the supposed events with no way to verify that they actually occurred as depicted. There is no guarantee that Paul would endorse what's in the gospels.

More than that they are connected.

Yes, Matthew and Luke used Mark as their main source which means they can't be used to independently corroborate each other.

The author of Luke, who wrote Acts, puts himself in the presence of Paul.

That the author of Luke actually knew Paul is disputed in modern scholarship. Acts contradicts Paul's letters in numerous areas but that's a whole other topic.

Not quite. These trench graves were tombs according to Magness. They were just in the ground as opposed to cut out of rock.

�A shaft tomb. Poorer people in the �rst century C.E., whose families could not afford rock-cut tombs, buried their dead in trench graves. A 5-to-7-foot-deep trench was dug with a niche at the bottom for the body. Other trench graves have been located at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and at Khirbet Qazone, southeast of the Dead Sea. Jesus likely would have been buried in such a tomb had Joseph of Arimathea not offered a place in his family’s rock-cut tomb.� - Jodi Magness, The Burial of Jesus, pg. 7

Magness seems to be using the term "tomb" more broadly than how you're using it and her terminology is inconsistent compared to another article where she mentions "trench grave" (ground burial) nineteen times without referring to it as a "tomb" or "shaft tomb." https://ancient-world-project.nes.lsa.u ... -James.pdf Moreover, if these were burials in the GROUND then they were not the "tomb" type as depicted in the gospels but could still qualify for what Paul calls a "burial." In that article, Magness cites more Jewish trench grave (ground) burials in Jerusalem, Ein el-Chuweir, and Qumran on pages 146-147.

Not during peacetime in the first century when in Jerusalem on the eve of Passover.

What sources besides Mark say that? The 10+ sources describing crucifixion are pretty much unanimous in that the body was left to rot on the cross and forbidden burial. None of the "exceptions" are analogous to the case of Jesus, the "King of the Jews."

Still a tomb. Just one for criminals.

Which most likely would not have been "new," "empty," or "rock hewn." Magness says that they would have been trench graves or pits.

There was no common pit where Jews just tossed dead bodies. That would be antithesis to their concept of burial.

Magness - "Instead, these unfortunates would have been buried in individual trench graves or pits. This sort of tradition is preserved in the reference to “the Potter’s Field, to bury strangers in� (Matthew 27:7–8).

"And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day."

Jeremiah 26:23
"They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him struck down with a sword and his body thrown into the burial place of the common people.)"

2 Kings 23:6
"He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people."

It seems throughout Israel's history there was a common place where Jews just tossed dead bodies.

And keep in mind it was the Romans who executed Jesus and they would have buried what remained of him in a mass grave/pit after being placed on display for a while. That is still a "burial" regardless of if it meets your own criteria of what a burial was to a Jew. If Paul had this type of "burial" in mind then what other word would he have used for "buried"? There's also the second century Secret Gospel of James which says Jesus was "buried in the sand" and mentions no "tomb" at all. This shows that even into the second century, the empty tomb wasn't a tradition known to the author.

The argument remains.

• 1. When a Jew said another Jew was buried, he meant buried in a tomb.
  2. Paul and Jesus were Jews.
  3. Paul said Jesus was buried.
  4. Therefore Paul meant Jesus was buried in a tomb.

No, number 1 still suffers from the fallacy of equivocation and is a non-sequitur as there were different types of burials. Number 4 does not necessarily follow from 3 because Paul shows no knowledge of any of the burial's details. Your argument must be abandoned. At best, you can use the evidence in Paul to mean that Jesus eventually received a burial of some sort, however that doesn't necessarily avoid the possibility of Jesus being left on the cross for days and being picked apart by birds. The condition of Jesus' corpse prior to burial is still unknown. Moreover, the statement "he was buried" is in parallel to the preceding statement "Jesus died." Under this interpretation, the statement "he was buried" is just serving to emphasize that Jesus really was, in fact, dead. It's like saying someone is "dead and gone." So understood this way, it was just "assumed" or "believed" that he was buried. This does not provide any direct or conclusive evidence that Paul knew any of the circumstances regarding Jesus' burial nor does it show that Paul knew Jesus was buried at all.

That’s funny. Like I said, when I infer things from the Gospels that’s an “anachronistic fallacy.� When you do it, it’s okay because it’s the only written evidence we have to go on.

You’ve given arguments based in an obvious double standard of appealing to the Gospels when you need it. Anyone can see that.

All four gospels say that Jesus had a sign over him that said "King of the Jews." That was not a title attested by Christians so is less likely to be a fabrication and thus more likely to be historical.

We do? What evidence do we have that during peacetime Romans refused burial rites to Jews crucified on the eve of Passover around Jerusalem?

We have one source, Mark, which contradicts the 10+ sources about how crucifixion victims were normally treated. You don't have any relevant evidence that people convicted of sedition/treason would be allowed a decent burial on any Jewish holiday in Judea.

What evidence do you have that Jews wouldn’t bury Jesus as their laws required?

The evidence is that Jesus was executed by the Romans for sedition/treason and would most likely not have been given over to the Jews in the first place. Also, Jewish law seems to forbid burying criminals in family tombs which is another problem.

Nice try. It was Jewish custom to bury criminals in separate graveyards when those criminals had been executed by the Jewish court. The methods of execution being strangulation, decapitation, stoning, or burning. Jesus wasn’t executed by the Jewish court.

It does not say "by the way, in case the Jewish court condemns a criminal to death but has him executed by the Romans then he's allowed to be buried in a family tomb." No, the passage is specifically stating how Jewish criminals are to be buried and there is more evidence that criminals were to be separated from "the righteous." if the Markan an account is true, then by definition, Jesus was a "criminal" and thus would have most likely been buried in one of the criminal plots. This even more true considering the story has a member of the Sanhedrin bury Jesus, who would presumably have been familiar with their laws and customs. The mode of executions are only mentioned because that's how Jews (not the Romans) executed criminals at that time.

Now, I’m certainly willing to grant that Jesus was executed by the Romans at the request of the Jews. So Jews would have felt responsible for also ensuring the burial of Jesus in accordance with their laws.

But herein lies another problem with history. If Jesus was condemned by the Sanhedrin then why couldn't they just execute him like they do Stephen in Acts? There would have been no reason to turn him over to the Romans. There is evidence that the Jews reserved the right to execute people based on religious convictions.

"(i) Archaeologists have found two inscriptions in Greek warning non-Jews against entering the inner courts of the Temple on pain of death. Josephus (Ant. XV) also notes that intruders in this part of the Temple were executed.

(ii) Talmudic texts, including the Tractate Sanhedrin, give long and detailed instructions on how a capital trial was carried out in the Second Temple Period, including what forms of execution were to be applied for what crimes and exactly how an execution was to be mandated by the Sanhedrin.

(iii) Talmudic literature also mentions or details examples of executions being ordered by the Sanhedrin, with the names of the victims and of the court members involved.

(iv) Philo of Alexandria matter of factly notes that anyone entering the Holy of Holies in the Temple "is subjected to inevitable death for his impiety".

(v) Josephus mentions the execution of James the brother of Jesus and "some others" by the High Priest Hanan ben Hanan who "delivered them to be stoned" (Ant. XX. 9. 1)

(vi) Several NT passages involve or imply executions by the Jewish authorities. Stephen is depicted as executed by the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:54-8:2 and the letter of Claudius Lysias to Felix in Acts 23:25-30 talks about Paul potentially being executed by the Sanhedrin."
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Jesus-crucified

Jesus wasn’t buried in the grave of his father. Nor was he buried in the grave of anyone else’s father. He was placed in an unused tomb beside no one. An empty tomb has no significance in this regard. It’s just a hole in a rock until someone is in it. Jesus’ burial didn’t violate this criteria.

You're taking "fathers" too literally. It means "family" tombs. Magness says, by definition, rock hewn tombs were family tombs. So you have to believe Joseph (a non-relative) goes out of his way to bother with the corpse of a man which he had just condemned to death, (Mark 14:64 says they "all" condemned him to death and Mark 15:1 says the "whole" Sanhedrin) has no problem going to visit a gentile (Pilate) on Passover no less (even though John 18:28 says Jews thought this would make them "unclean"), ask for Jesus' corpse (thereby becoming "unclean" - Numbers 19:11-16 and unable to take part in the rest of Passover week), goes and "buys linen" which was illegal as it was forbidden to work or buy/sell things on Passover, then give the cursed criminal messianic pretender Jesus a decent burial in his own family tomb?

This is why the story makes no sense.

No family came to claim Jesus’ body.

His family wasn't there!

He was not buried in his family tomb.

Obviously, Jesus' family being from Galilee and poor, wouldn't have a rock hewn tomb in Jerusalem.

He was buried in secret with no public mourning. I guess the Gospel writers forgot to fix those parts.

Jesus' family wasn't there and Mark says all the disciples fled so it's not like anyone was prevented from mourning him. You're refusing to acknowledge the obvious apologetic additions that change Joseph's "title/role" and make the burial sound "better" over time. John even adds that they brought 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes. Really?

Even Origen realized this:

"For it became Him, who was unlike other dead men (but who even in death manifested signs of life in the water and the blood), and who was, so to speak, a new dead man, to be laid in a new and clean tomb, in order that, as His birth was purer than any other (in consequence of His being born, not in the way of ordinary generation, but of a virgin), His burial also might have the purity symbolically indicated in His body being deposited in a sepulchre which was new, not built of stones gathered from various quarters, and having no natural unity, but quarried and hewed out of one rock, united together in all its parts." - Origen, Contra Celsus, Book 2. Ch. 69

Are you prepared to say the Gospel accounts are accurate in the portrayal of Jesus being a blasphemer? You can’t wriggle your way out of this. Without the Gospels you have no argument for Jesus being accused of blasphemy. Everything else you write past this point is just disingenuous argumentation now. In fact, I’m pretty sure elsewhere you’ve argued the charge against Jesus would not have been considered blasphemy because Jesus didn’t utter the divine name according to the Mishnah (Mishnah San 7.5). Now, when you need it, you are arguing it was blasphemy. Your arguments are transparently disingenuous.

I am under no obligation to affirm anything in the gospels at all. But, as a Christian, do you affirm that the trial scene is historical and that Jesus was sentenced to death on the conviction of blasphemy? If so, why couldn't they just execute him? And why was he then given an increasingly noble burial in someone's family tomb whose role changes based on what gospel you're reading?

I think it’s safe to say Yehohanan wasn’t a pirate or runaway slave. Especially considering Ehrman blew those two options away by arguing Yehohanan may have been connected to a wealthy family. The only other option left is Yehohanan was convicted of sedition/treason. Oops

It's not clear what his crime was but in the same tomb there were three children who had died of starvation, a male and female who had died by burning, a female with a large hole in her skull from a weapon, and another child who had died from an arrow wound. So regardless of the family's wealth (which we're not even sure of) it looks like they had some problems. We have no details regarding why Yehohanan was executed. All we know is he was crucified and eventually his body made it's way to a Jewish ossuary. It does not follow from this that he was granted a proper burial by the Romans because his body could have been stolen or was found by his family after several days of lying in a pit for all we know.

Usually an argument from silence involves inferring something didn’t exist or happen because a writer we would expect to mention the event/person doesn’t. Kinda like most of your Pauline arguments. But your counter to Magness is that that crucifixion was a Roman punishment so there's no reason why it should have been mentioned in the Jewish Mishnah is debatable. Of course you try to argue that the Jews conflated crucifixion with strangulation thereby arguing that the Jews were aware of crucifixion and would have in interpreted laws as relating to crucifixion. So you have undermined your own counter argument by assuming the Jews did have particular views on Roman crucifixion victims and those views are reflected in the Mishnah. Oops.

No I meant that the cause of death from crucifixion is asphyxiation which is akin to strangulation. I have no idea if the Jews would have conflated them. Either way, though, per the Mishnah, Jesus would have been placed in a criminal's graveyard and not a new or empty rock hewn tomb.

You just keep saying that as though it solves the problem. Obviously the Jews did have to deal with crucifixion victims regardless of whether it’s in the Mishnah or not. And we have evidence that the way they dealt with the burial of crucified victims was to bury them in family tombs.

You have "one" confirmed burial of a Roman crucifixion victim in a family tomb but you don't necessarily have any evidence that Jewish criminals were allowed to be buried in family tombs. The evidence speaks against that.

Two different burials in terms of location and how elaborate they might be, i.e. one being rudimentary and in the ground and the other being in rock. But not different in terms of them both being considered a tomb by the Jews.

Wrong. You're using Magness' broad usage of the word "tomb" and applying it back onto how Jews in the first century would have thought about it. Now, that's an anachronism. Moreover, I've demonstrated your argument to be false above. Being buried in the ground under dirt is not a "tomb" burial or at least not in the way you're trying to dishonestly connect it to the empty tomb story.

If you could prove a more rudimentary trench tomb is what Paul meant it would show the later Gospel writers embellished, yes. That’s not a really big problem though. In fact we can expect some embellishment and apologetic touches. Even in that case, we still have a tomb at the historical core of the story. It doesn’t logically follow there was no tomb. It doesn’t logically follow Paul meant tossed in a pit for dogs when he said buried. Just like it doesn’t follow there was no assassination because later writers may have embellished.

No, you just have a burial of some sort. Paul doesn't use the word "tomb" anywhere. It could have been in a criminal's graveyard that was full of other bodies! And just because Paul says "he was buried" it does not follow that he was buried "immediately after death" or that he did not have part of his body picked apart by birds.

We have a pretty good idea where Paul got his information. He met disciples in Jerusalem (Galatians 1-2).

And none of the disciples were there. Mark says they all fled, remember? Paul says what he received was from a "revelation" of Jesus and not from any human being.

You’ve argued this yourself. You argued that the Jews viewed crucifixion as strangulation.

No I was specifically referring to the cause of death but even if they did then Jesus' body should have been placed in a criminal's graveyard and would not have been the "empty tomb" in the gospels.

You don’t know that’s the case around Jerusalem on the eve of Passover during peacetime in the first century.

I don't have to know it with absolute certainty. All I have to know is what's more probable.

We have evidence that crucifixion victims in Jerusalem during the 1st century we’re granted burial by the Romans and they were buried in family tombs by the Jews.

Not for people convicted of sedition/treason you don't.

Again, without assuming the reliability of Mark 14:64 you have no argument that the Jews might refuse burial in a family tomb.

Wait, so are you implicitly admitting that Mark 14:64 is evidence that the Jews might refuse burial in a family tomb? Glad to see you've finally caught up.

Stop dodging and just tell me how you know Jesus was convicted of blasphemy without assuming the historical reliability of the Gospels to record conversations for which the writers weren’t present.

You're making quite a good case for the unreliability of Mark's trial! Please keep going! Are you saying Mark is wrong there? In John there's no Sanhedrin trial at all so who is right, Mark or John? If Mark made up the trial then why couldn't he have made up the burial by Joseph too? Please keep in mind it's not me who's committed to the truth of these texts. It's you that is stuck between a rock and a hard place. All I'm showing is how historically implausible all this sounds together. On one hand, Jesus was found guilty of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin so it's unlikely he would be given a rock hewn family tomb burial by a member of the same council that just condemned him to death. On the other hand, it's improbable that the Romans would even allow the crucified "King of the Jews" a proper burial in the first place.

Yehonanan.

How do you know his body wasn't stolen? How do you know his body wasn't lying in a pit uncovered for several days before his family could grab it? How do you know the condition of his corpse before burial? You don't and since we have no details regarding his entombment you can't claim this is direct evidence that the Romans necessarily granted him a proper burial. Yehonanan isn't really analogous in Jesus' case because he actually made it to his own family's tomb which means his actual family retrieved the body. There was no family in Jesus' case. Moreover, Yehonanan was buried in an ossuary which normally meant it was a second burial, after all the flesh had left the body. Was he originally placed in a criminal's graveyard, trench grave, or was his burial in the ossuary his only one due to the condition of his corpse? Jesus' burial, according to the gospels, was with his flesh still on.

The Digesta doesn’t need to apply to Jews in 1st century Jerusalem. Jews weren’t the ones granting bodies for burial.

There is no evidence that the Digesta applied to those under Roman rule in territories outside Rome in the first century. According to Raymond Brown -"Discerning Roman legal practice for a province like Judea is difficult. The law cited above (DJ) was juxta ordinem, i.e., customary law in Rome for dealing with Roman citizens. Decisions in the provinces dealing with non-citizens were most often extra ordinem, so that such a matter as the deposition of crucified bodies would have been left to the local magistrate." - Death of the Messiah, pg. 1207-1208.

The sources describing crucifixion outside Rome are pretty much unanimous in that the bodies were left up to serve as food for birds and refused burial so obviously the law in the Digesta wasn't followed as much as proponents such as Evans would like us to think.

The Mishnah is a later collection of oral traditions. Prove it reflects 1st Century Jewish customs. I can play this game too.

I thought you guys always argue for the reliability of Jewish oral tradition. Oh well. Anyway, you've certainly given no reason to doubt that the Mishnah reflects earlier tradition. It's unlikely that they would have just made it up later. Those sneaky Jews, always changing their customs....

Bart on Yehonanan.

Again, we don’t need a pattern to establish plausibility. We just need one example and we have one.

You haven't even reached the level of "plausible" yet. You're still stuck trying to create space for the "mere possibility" of burial in a tomb by extrapolating poor evidence into meaning something more than it warrants which isn't even analogous in Jesus' case.

But since you want to argue by just cutting and pasting walls of text from scholars, I can do that too...

�First, almost all of the bones recovered from the time of Jesus are poorly preserved, especially the smaller bones of the feet and hands, which will normally provide evidence, if any, of crucifixion. It was the presence of the nail in the right heel of Yehohanan that made it clear that he had been crucified (and certainly not the undecipherable sobriquet inscribed on the side of the ossuary that contained his bones). The presence of the nail was a fluke. It was due to the sharp end being bent back (like a fishhook), perhaps because the nail struck a knot in the beam. When Yehohanan was taken down from the cross, the nail could not be extracted. Accordingly, no statistics should be inferred from this unusual find.

Second, many crucifixion victims were scourged, beaten, and then tied to the cross, not nailed. Thus, skeletal remains would leave no trace of the trauma of crucifixion.31 Accordingly, we do not know that Yehohanan is the only crucifixion victim discovered in a tomb.

Third, the best-preserved skeletons are found in the better-constructed tombs, within bone pits or in ossuaries. These tombs were mostly those of the rich, not the poor. The poor were usually buried in the ground, or in smaller natural caves. Not many of their skeletons have been found. The significance of this point is that it is the poor who are most likely to be crucified, not the wealthy and powerful. Accordingly, those skeletons most likely to provide evidence of crucifixion are the skeletons least likely to survive.

Wow! So Evans finds one heel bone with a nail in it and is claiming that the tombs of Jerusalem were full of the undiscovered remains of Jews who had been crucified for treason under Pilate? Is Evans familiar with the 10+ sources which seem to contradict his hypothesis? Does he realize that his take on the evidence is perfectly compatible with mass grave/pit/ditch burials or no burial at all as opposed to individual ground burials? At least he realizes the distinction between a ground burial and a tomb burial, something you're forced to concede at this point.

Fourth, the vast majority of the thousands of Jews crucified and left unburied in the first century, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, died during the rebellion of 66–70 C.E. They were not buried because Rome was at war with the Jewish people and had no wish to accommodate Jewish sensitivities, as Rome did during peacetime. It was during peacetime—indeed, during the administration of Pontius Pilate—that Yehohanan and Jesus of Nazareth were crucified. That both were buried, according to Jewish customs, should hardly occasion surprise. Jewish priestly authorities were expected to defend the purity of Jerusalem (or at least give the appearance of doing so), while Roman authorities acquiesced to Jewish customs and sensitivities.� – [url=file:///C:/Users/Eric%20Ojala/Desktop/Burial_Traditions-1.pdf]Craig Evans, Jewish Burial Traditions and the Resurrection of Jesus, pg 12-13[/url].

1. Evans doesn't know that Yehohanan was crucified under Pilate. The date range is from early first century to 70 CE.
2. Just because Yehohanan's body eventually ended up in an ossuary it doesn't necessarily follow that he was permitted by the Romans to be buried immediately after death or even permitted at all since the body could have been stolen or taken from a pit.
3. The gospel depictions of Pilate's reluctance and mercy actually contradict what we know about him from other sources.
4. Allowing the Jews to observe their customs in the Temple is a far cry away from letting them interfere with the Roman justice system.
5. Where's the evidence that the Romans "acquiesced" and granted crucified victims that were convicted of sedition/treason a proper burial?

Of course Bart fails to take into account that Josephus of Arimathea would fit very nicely what he’s describing here.

Maybe, but of course "Joseph of Arimathea" the "distinguished counselor" would be an obvious choice of invention for an author trying to find some way to get Jesus off the cross. It had to be someone in a position of authority although it seems unlikely that the Sanhedrin would have any say over the Romans since the High Priest was literally hand picked by them. The "role" of Joseph changes over time in the gospel progression so it seems there weren't any solid facts regarding him. In Mark he's a "distinguished counselor" which gets omitted by Matthew and replaced as a "disciple" of Jesus. Luke retains that Joseph was a member of the council but "did not consent to their plan and action." John says he was a "secret disciple for fear of the Jews." This shadowy figure just comes out of nowhere to conveniently fulfill Isaiah 53:9 then is never heard from again. Sounds sketchy to me.

Same question to Bart I asked you. How does Bart know Jesus was crucified for being an enemy of the state? He doesn’t unless he wants to affirm the reliability of the Gospels. But then he has no real basis to reject the placement of Jesus in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.

The sign that read "King of the Jews" seems to be a pretty good indicator. It's unlikely that was made up because it's nowhere attested as a title for Jesus applied by Christians. Sounds just like the kind of thing that you'd want to leave hanging for a while on display as a warning for those passing by. "Here's what happens when you claim to be king." And there are plenty of reasons to reject the burial by Joseph.

Ehrman isn’t proving anything meaningful in his four points. It’s his typical we just don’t know type of argument. As much as I like Ehrman, that’s usually the gist of his arguments, “we have no way to know.� He is simply attempting to dismiss Yehohanan by reducing him to the realm of the unknowable. And sure there’s much we don’t know about him. This is true. But we don’t need to know what Bart is asking for Yehonana to be proof that a crucified victim could be buried in a family tomb. For all Ehrman’s effort here he has hasn’t overturned that fact. Nor can he.

I think I've already dealt with this enough. Just because Yehohanan's body eventually made it's way into an ossuary it does not follow that he was necessarily granted a proper burial by the Romans. Nor does it follow that he received burial immediately after death.

Bart on Philo

Bart’s reading into the text something not there. Philo says nothing directly about these cases as having occurred in Alexandria. Philo only says, “I have known instances before now...� Philo may be referring to cases he knew about from his trip to Jerusalem for all Bart knows.

But you're reading that into the text. He doesn't say "I know this happens in other areas." There is no evidence that anything similar was allowed in Judea for local holidays.

The exceptions for proceeding with punishment were made for the reason of honoring the Emperor’s birthday.

�...it is the custom to punish no one, even of those who have been lawfully condemned, until the famous festival and assembly, in honour of the birth-day of the illustrious emperor, has passed...

In this sentence it says the punishment was postponed until after the celebration had "passed."

The granting of crucified bodies for burial, Philo says, was done, “in order to receive the honours of sepulture, and to enjoy such observances as are due to the dead...�

He says "I have known cases" in contrast with the postponement of punishment in the preceding sentence. How many "cases" and how many had to do with a person who claimed to be King in defiance of the Roman empire?

Thereby establishing a baseline of plausibility for Jesus.

Lol! No, you're fallaciously extrapolating the "Roman Emperors' birthday" to mean "Jewish holidays."

Philo just says that the victims were given to relations. There’s no direct indication that it was only the relations who could have received the bodies.

Well, there's no indication that they were given to strangers either so this is kind of a wash.

It just happened to be that way in these cases. We already know from the evidence of Josephus that a friend could ask for a crucified victim to be taken down which is consistent with the Digesta.

Um, those people weren't dead yet so they weren't being refused burial nor did they have time to get picked apart by scavenging animals.

�The bodies of persons who have been punished should be given to whoever requests them for the purpose of burial. – Digesta (48.24.3)

Completely contradicted by the mass of sources that are actually contemporary with Jesus' time regarding the treatment of crucifixion victims outside Rome and not from a 6th century document dealing with Roman citizens in Rome which nowhere even mentions crucifixion. Boom!

Bart makes some good points but most, if not all, Ehrman’s objections to Philo and Josephus are along the lines of not quite fitting the context of Jesus. But this type of argument cuts both ways. What evidence is there that first century Romans did not grant burial to crucified victims around Jerusalem on the eve of Passover during peacetime?

The evidence must be assessed from the contemporary sources we have that mention how crucifixion was normally carried out in the Roman empire. If a whole vast array of texts paint a consistent picture then you have just a few exceptions (which aren't really applicable in Jesus' case) and ONE account dating to 40 years or so after the event that shows obvious signs of embellishment and historical implausibilities written by persons motivated to make up an honorable burial for their hero, which is embedded in a demonstrably fictionalized passion narrative that comes from the Psalms, then it's pretty obvious what the more probable conclusion is.

One more thing. Why would you grant an immediate burial to someone who had a big sign over his head that read "King of the Jews"? That sounds more like something that you'd want to leave hanging on display for awhile for people to get the point.

Because that’s the context for Jesus. Given that context Bart has no evidence to support his argument. He has to appeal to cases of bodies being left on the cross which are all in some way or another well outside the context of Jesus.

The main context is that "Jesus was crucified for claiming to be the King of the Jews." Now what was the norm for crucifixion victims, let alone, someone who proclaimed themselves to be a king in opposition to the Roman empire?

Bart on Josephus.

This is a horribly weak counter argument. Pure speculation.

I thought you said crucifixion was a Roman punishment? Bart seems to think Jews crucified people too. Oops.

I admit Bart could have done a better job. It would be helpful to point out that throughout his Antiquities and Jewish War, Josephus sometimes refers to the Old Testament scriptures and interprets them in light of current events. In Jewish War 4.317, while speaking of the Idumeans during the Jewish revolt, he appeals to Deut. 21:22-23:

"If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance."

Josephus uses the word α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν in 4.317. This word is commonly translated as "crucified" in his works however, there are places where he also uses it to indicate post-mortem suspensions such as in Antiquities 2.73 where he talks about the fate of the baker from Genesis 40. In the story, the pharaoh is said to decapitate the baker and hang his body on a pole. Josephus also uses the word in Antiquities 6.374 where he talks about hanging the dead body of Saul on display.

α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν, as used by Josephus, does not mean "to crucify" in a traditional sense. In some texts, Josephus uses the verb in connection with executions by sus­pension, in which nailing sometimes was a part. However, since he also uses the verb when he refers to an act of displaying mutilated corpses, it is obvious that the usage of the verb covers both suspension forms, i.e., both execution by suspension and suspension of corpses......However, none of these texts shows explicitly that the suspension at hand really is a crucifixion. In the end, there are no firm crucifixion accounts in the corpus Josepheum......Sixth, it is main­ly the Romans who use the suspension punishment against the Jewish people in Josephus' texts. It is, however, not possible to exclude the pos­sibility that Josephus understood the prescribed punishment in Deuter­onomy 21.22-23 as a reference to execution by crucifixion. If this as­sumption is correct, the Jewish people used crucifixion according to Jose­phus' accounts of the events under the Hasmonean ruler Alexander Jan­naeus (BJ 1.97/113 [par. AJ 13.380]). - Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity, pages 110-111. https://books.google.com/books?id=B7OEm ... &q&f=false

So instead of Josephus necessarily talking about Roman crucifixion he could be talking about Jewish post-mortem suspensions like in the case of the blasphemer in Antiquities 4.202 or (mistakenly/correctly?) assuming that ancient Jews practiced crucifixion. It could be a confused retrodiction on his part where he's letting his current knowledge of Roman crucifixion color his depiction about ancient Jewish suspension punishments.

In other words Josephus was biased. Yeah, we got that Bart. But what evidence does Bart actually have that Josephus just made this all up?

Josephus can't always be trusted because he can be shown to be making up stuff and exaggerating other things. He's citing the OT scripture in the case of 4.317 and contrasting those "evil Idumeans who cast away corpses without burial" with the "pious Jews" that "always bury their dead" because "scripture says so." As you state, Josephus was biased and from the context it looks as if he's just trying to make the Jews look good in comparison with the Idumeans.

But what evidence does Bart have that Jews didn’t bury crucified victims? Because there’s seems to be a fair amount of evidence that suggests they did.

Um, maybe you should read the contemporary sources which describe crucifixion again. Crucifixion was a punishment where the victims were eaten by birds and refusal of burial was part of the punishment. So the evidence that they didn't bury crucified victims is that they probably weren't allowed to due to the nature of the punishment.

But Bart, Jesus wasn’t crucified during wartime so your counter example fails to meet the context for Jesus.

Is there a contemporary Roman or Jewish source that says "during peace time, foreign victims of crucifixion shall be granted a proper burial" or do all the sources pretty much agree that crucifixion victims were eaten by beasts and forbidden burial? Also, do you have another case where crucified self proclaimed King was granted burial? Since Josephus was specifically writing about the Jewish War and for the reasons mentioned above, you don't get to use his vague passage to mean "Jesus definitely got a burial."

It seems to be true during peacetime, though, Bart.

What typically happened to crucifixion victims again Mr. Goose?

You know what other word isn’t used in the NT in reference to Jesus, Bart? Treason. Prove Jesus was charged for calling himself the “King of the Jews,� Bart. Do it without assuming the historical reliability of the Gospels, Bart. No other source, Christian or Roman, says anything about Jesus being convicted of treason or even being suspected of open rebellion against Rome. Not to mention if Jesus did claim to be King of the Jews, he only claimed it (strictly speaking Jesus never actually directly claimed to be King of the Jews, he merely affirmed the question). Jesus never made an open militant rebellion against Rome whatsoever. He lead no army. He carried no sword. In fact, Jesus preached peace and compliance with Roman taxation. If Jesus was accused of sedition against Rome, why weren’t the disciples rounded up as well? Heck, Pilate doesn’t even seem to know Jesus existed before he was brought to him by the Jews. Pilate is recorded as saying he found no fault with Jesus. Does that sound like someone who was a seditionist?

Where did the title "King of the Jews" come from then? Don't the gospels say thousands of Jews greet Jesus on his entry to Jerusalem expecting him to re-establish God's kingdom and kick the Romans out? Aren't some of his disciples carrying weapons? Doesn't at least one of them attack a Roman soldier? Sounds like a pretty big political threat to me. Also, don't most scholars agree that Jesus was crucified for being an enemy of the state, hence sedition/treason?

The NT never says anything about Jesus being an “enemy of the state.� Neither does any other source. I think Bart’s pulling this out of his rear. Bart’s whole argument hinges on this. Without the NT he can’t even begin to make this argument.

Claiming to be the King of the Jews in defiance of the Roman empire was an automatic seditious/treasonous claim. Let me know when you come up with another reason why Jesus was crucified. That ought to be good.

�What Josephus says here is especially relevant for the question of the burial of the crucified Jesus. Josephus is speaking of his own time, that is, from the time of Pontius Pilate, prefect of Samaria and Judea, to the time of the Jewish revolt. He clearly states that those executed by crucifixion were “taken down and buried before sunset.� Because only Roman authority in Samaria and Judea could execute anyone ( Josephus, J.W. 2.117; Ant. 20.200–203; John 18:31), we must assume in the statement by Josephus that those who do the crucifying are the Romans. Though executed by the Romans, those crucified were buried. If condemned by the Jewish council, it was incumbent on the council to arrange for the burial of the executed (m. Sanhedrin 6.5–6; more on this below). This was done out of concern for the purity of the land, not out of pity for the executed or his family (Deut 21:23).�[/i] – Craig Evans, The Resurrection of Jesus in the Light of Jewish Burial Practices

Sorry Mr. Evans but since Josephus was writing about the Jewish revolt (66-73 CE), explicitly quotes scripture in order to make his Jewish homeboys look good and sometime uses the word for "crucified" to mean post-mortem suspensions, you don't get to claim that Josephus was necessarily talking about Roman crucifixion under Pilate there.

“The burial narratives of the New Testament Gospels are not only “consistent with archaeological evidence and with Jewish law,� as archaeologist Jodi Magness has said1 they are consistent with Roman law and with Roman literary and archaeological evidence. The legal opinions provided in the sixth-century Digesta 48.24 are early and are corroborated by first century literary and archaeological evidence. Joseph’s request to bury the body of Jesus was fully in keeping with law and practice throughout the Roman Empire and, especially, in the Jewish homeland, where a corpse left unburied overnight was seen as a defilement of the land. (This equally applies in an eschatological setting ; see 4Q285 frag. 5= 11Q14 frag. 1, col. i, where after the Kittim [ = Romans] are defeated in battle, the priests give oversight to purification “from the guilty blood of the corpses� of the enemy.)

Every source we have indicates that the practice in Israel, especially in the vicinity of Jerusalem, in peacetime, was to bury the executed before nightfall. This was a practice that Roman authority permitted. War was another matter, of course. When Titus besieged Jerusalem from AD 69 to 70, thousands of Jews were crucified and very few of them were buried. The whole point of these thousands left unburied in plain view of the inhabitants of Jerusalem was to terrorize the resistance and bring the rebellion to an end (as recounted by Josephus, J.W. 5.289, 449). This was the true “exception that proves the rule�: Roman authority in Israel normally did permit burial of executed criminals, including those executed by crucifixion (as Josephus implies), but it did not during the rebellion of 66–70.� – Craig Evans.

Every single one of these points has been overturned.

Wrong. Even granting the literary dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark, John is considered an independent literary source. That’s at least two independent literary sources between Mark and John and that’s granting Markan priority. And that’s without making an argument for traditional authorship either.

You're confusing literary dependence and direct copying with having knowledge of previous traditions in circulation. Since John was written so late 90-110 CE it becomes extremely hard to argue that John wasn't familiar with the Markan narrative due to it circulating Christian communities for 20-40 years! In fact, most scholars now accept that John was familiar with the synoptic tradition with some even arguing for dependence such as Kostenberger, Ruprecht, Donahue. Moreover, there are plenty of indications that John did borrow from Mark:

"verbal agreements include the “ointment of pure nard� (marou nardou pistikēs in Mark 14:3; John 12:3), the cost of the ointment at 300 denarii (Mark 14:5; John 12:5), the fact that Peter was warming [thermainomenos] himself by the fire (Mark 14:54, 67; John 18:18, 25), the movement of Peter “into� the courtyard (Mark 14:54; John 19:15), the chant “crucify him� in the imperative (Mark 15:14; John 19:2; 5), the purple robe that Jesus was clothed with (Mark 15:17; John 19:2 5), the preparation day (Mark 15:42; John 19:31), and the interlacing of the Sanhedrin trial with Peter’s denials." https://jesusmemoirs.wordpress.com/2017 ... -creation/

So I'm afraid that still leaves you with ONE source that was copied or ultimately inherited by the other authors.

Prove Jesus was convicted for treason. We already know from Philo that Pilate gave in to the demands of the Jews at times.

Letting the Jews observe their temple customs isn't exactly the same thing as interfering with the Roman justice system. Have you discovered another source that says Jesus was crucified for something other than being the "King of the Jews"?

You don’t seem to be aware what an argument from ignorance is either. It’s when one argues something is true because it hasn’t been proven false or vice versa. Nowhere have I done that. You seem to be just throwing around accusations of logical fallacies incorrectly. That’s two incorrect ones for sure – “anachronistic fallacy� and this one. I’m still undecided about your accusation of an argument from silence by Magness.

Sorry, that was an argument from incredulity. Wrong fallacy, still fallacious though.

Tell me how you know someone had to be as rich as a King or Queen to have a round sealing door.

Well, according to the ARCHAEOLOGICAL FACTS only 4 out of 900 have been found to exist prior to the year 70 and we have direct evidence of those being more elaborate tombs belonging to royal families. Seems like a valid inference to me as the archaeologists who did the research seem to come to the same conclusion.

They weren’t that far from Jerusalem. They show that round sealing stones weren’t as rare as you want to argue. It shows that you didn’t have to be as rich as a King or Queen to have a round sealing stone.

It says there were only 4 out of over 900 found to be round. How is that not rare?

Just because they may have made a mistake over the shape of a sealing stone? That’s throwing the baby out with the bath water. Do you realize how many ancient documents made minor errors in the secondary details? Almost all of them at some point or another. We’d be throwing out most of our ancient sources we have with this hyper-sceptical reasoning.

There are plenty of things wrong with the burial account. This detail just adds more to the laundry list pointing in the direction of fiction. The author was trying to depict Jesus being given a nicer burial than what he probably would have received.

It’s not an assumption. I’ve already provided my reasons.

You don't have any evidence leading to the conclusion. You're just assuming they knew about the empty tomb when there is literally no textual evidence to suggest that. You don't get the first attestation of an empty tomb until around the year 70 when Mark introduces it. Mark implies that there was no earlier knowledge of the empty tomb tradition because he has the women "leave and tell no one." Mark told the story this way to explain why his audience had never heard it before.

That’s no problem for authorship. We have the same situation for other works like Caesar’s Gallic Wars as I explained above. In fact the evidence for Mark is just as good if not better than the Gallic Wars.

Appealing to Gallic Wars, doesn't magically mean you get to assert that Mark was writing Peter's preaching. Your "evidence" that Mark was comes from Peter is extremely weak. A guy whose description doesn't even match the canonical account from the second century who is described by as a "man of little intelligence" by Eusebius who also tells us that Judas got so fat he exploded? That sounds like a reliable person you'd accept testimony from?

Go ahead and prove this.

I just did. Papias' description doesn't match canonical Mark ergo you don't get to use this dubious reference and claim it's a settled debate.

So what? That’s how it goes with ancient bios. It’s a biography about Jesus, not Mark.

Where is the internal evidence that we have Peter's preaching again? Or are you relying on an already demonstrated dubious external inference from someone in the 2nd century whose description does match the canonical?

Evidence it has Peter behind it. If it were just some later Christian writing stuff down we’d expect them to never say anything negative about Peter at all. Only Peter would say that of himself.

If the author was making a critique of the disciples or going for an "anti-Peter" motif then it makes perfect sense to depict him in a negative light.

Well there’s no specific appearance to any particular disciples in Mark anyway so what’s your point? There is just a general declaration that there will be appearances as promised.

What's my point!? If we actually had Peter's preaching then we'd expect him to tell us the most important part! He's the first one listed in the list of witnesses in 1 Cor 15:5-8! Did Peter forget to tell Mark about how he went back to check the tomb later as Luke and John tell us? That's not in the original Mark either.

There weren’t any disciples present for those events. What’s your point?

How did the author get accurate information of the events with none of the disciples present?

Name one.

Map for reference: http://www.bible-history.com/maps/first ... israel.jpg
"Geographical mistakes include having pigs in Gerasa jumping into the Sea of Galilee when Gerasa was 30 miles away from the lake (around H8 on the map), in 7:31 Jesus walks from Tyre to the Decapolis by way of Sidon ( "Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis"), If you look at the map, you can see that this route is impossible (Tyre and Sidon are on the upper northwest of the map, the Decapolis is southwest of the Sea of Galilee). Mark 11:1 has Jesus going from Jericho to Jerusalem by going through Bethphage then Bethany, which is the reverse order of how those towns arrived at on the road from Jericho. In 6:45, Mark has Jesus and the disciples on the northwestern part of the lake (Tabgha on this map http://www.magdalenepublishing.org/wp-c ... 2000px.jpg, has Jesus tell the disciples to go across the lake to Bethsaida, then has them get out of the bot at Genessaret (Ginosaur on the second map), which is on the same side of the lake they started. Here's a photograph of the lake http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/images/5_02.gif with all the salient loactions marked except for Genessareth which is just south of Tabgha following the coastline. These are locations that would have been very well known to anyone from Galilee in particular. The route from Jericho would have been known to virtually everyone as well since it was a major road of travel to Jerusalem for festivals." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ ... _of_jesus/

Hardly. I’ll refer you to Daniel B. Wallace if you want a scholars arguments for the traditional authorship of the Gospel of Mark. While you are there you may as well look at John, Matthew, and Luke.

Traditional authorship is rejected in modern critical scholarship.

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/

Act’s 13:29 is Luke recording Paul where he mentions the tomb. And you can’t dispute it because you already accept the reliability of the Gospel’s to record speeches. Oh wait, not when it works against you. My bad.

Paul didn't write Acts.

[Goose]

Normally I wouldn’t respond so late but in my defence a couple things. Firstly, your final post here was 3.5 weeks after mine so it seems long delays between posts are not a problem. And by the time you had posted, I had lost interest. Perhaps that was the intention of the 3.5 week delay in the first place. Secondly, some things you said in the Justin Martyr thread got me thinking about this topic again. Thirdly, it was recently Easter so this topic is timely.

--

How does diverting to Caesar's assassination get you out of imagining when Paul says A. "Jesus was buried" that he necessarily means B. "buried in Joseph of Arimathea's own rock hewn tomb which was found empty by women three days later?" Paul shows no familiarity with any tomb, Joseph, or women so it's fallacious to extrapolate what little he tells us into corroborating the later empty tomb story. B does not necessarily follow from A. It's known as a non-sequitur.

Using Caesar’s assassination as a test case isn’t a diversion. It’s a reductio ad absurdum counter argument which shows us your historical reasoning is terribly flawed since it prevents us from inferring an assassination since the assassination suffers from similar evidential issues as Jesus’ burial.

How about you stay on topic and go ahead and show where Paul mentions any details about Jesus' burial? Just as we can't conclude from Cicero that Caesar was necessarily assassinated, we can't conclude from Paul that he thought Jesus was buried in a tomb. You must admit that you're relying on the later gospel accounts for that, not Paul.

You made my point. How, then, do you infer Caesar’s assassination if you can’t from Cicero? That’s right. You do it by appealing to later second hand narratives. And that’s where the wheels fall off the cart of your whole argument. Everything else you argue beyond this is basically meaningless at this point. No historian works the way you are here.

Same with the gospels!

And yet you happily infer an assassination from the contradictory second hand accounts which clearly show signs of embellishment. There is a blatant double standard being applied here.

Then what would you call beliefs that change over time and assuming the earliest followers shared those same beliefs? How do you classify later amazing stories that are nowhere even hinted at in the earliest sources? If the empty tomb story was just a later legend that developed then reading that into Paul would be blank? What word would you use to describe this type of thing?

How about embellishment in the secondary details? It happens and it is to be expected. But what I would call it is irrelevant. The point you aren’t addressing is that your application of an “anachronistic fallacy� is itself fallacious.

The gospels were written after Paul and represent legendary growth. We're talking about sources written for different audiences with different beliefs in different countries 40-60 years after the supposed events with no way to verify that they actually occurred as depicted. There is no guarantee that Paul would endorse what's in the gospels.

Missing the point. The point is the Gospels are from the same period as Paul’s letters. Which means it isn’t an anachronistic fallacy to appeal to them. Sure they might be a couple decades after Paul if we grant consensus dating. But that doesn’t ipso facto make them from a different time period.

That the author of Luke actually knew Paul is disputed in modern scholarship. Acts contradicts Paul's letters in numerous areas but that's a whole other topic.

I didn’t say here Luke knew Paul. I said the author of Luke, who wrote Acts, puts himself in the presence of Paul. And we have evidence Mark knew Peter.

Magness seems to be using the term "tomb" more broadly than how you're using it and her terminology is inconsistent compared to another article where she mentions "trench grave" (ground burial) nineteen times without referring to it as a "tomb" or "shaft tomb." https://ancient-world-project.nes.lsa.u ... -James.pdf Moreover, if these were burials in the GROUND then they were not the "tomb" type as depicted in the gospels but could still qualify for what Paul calls a "burial." In that article, Magness cites more Jewish trench grave (ground) burials in Jerusalem, Ein el-Chuweir, and Qumran on pages 146-147.

The article you linked to here was published in 2005. The article by Magness What Did Jesus’ Tomb Look Like in [/i]The Burial of Jesus[/i] was published in 2007. But more importantly, even in the SBL article you linked to here Magness says, in her opinion, the Gospel accounts are consistent with the archaeological evidence and Jewish Law (pg. 122).

What sources besides Mark say that? The 10+ sources describing crucifixion are pretty much unanimous in that the body was left to rot on the cross and forbidden burial. None of the "exceptions" are analogous to the case of Jesus, the "King of the Jews."

�They actually went so far in their impiety as to cast out the corpses without burial, though the Jews are so careful about funeral rites that even malefactors who have been sentenced to crucifixion are taken down and buried before sunset. “ – Josephus (Wars of the Jews 4.317)

Supported by the Roman Digesta.

Which most likely would not have been "new," "empty," or "rock hewn." Magness says that they would have been trench graves or pits.

Still tombs. Look, we can quibble over what a trench grave may have looked like. But a trench grave, tomb, or whatever you want to call it wasn’t a common pit where Jews just tossed in corpses and kicked a little dirt over them. It was a proper grave either in the ground or in the rock.

Magness - "Instead, these unfortunates would have been buried in individual trench graves or pits. This sort of tradition is preserved in the reference to “the Potter’s Field, to bury strangers in� (Matthew 27:7–8).

"And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day."

Jeremiah 26:23
"They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him struck down with a sword and his body thrown into the burial place of the common people.)"

2 Kings 23:6
"He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people."

It seems throughout Israel's history there was a common place where Jews just tossed dead bodies.

Nope. All references to places where the common people were properly buried. These weren’t common pits where the Jews just tossed dead bodies. The Jews were very particular about making sure dead bodies were properly buried so as not to defile the land. Plenty of evidence to support that.

And keep in mind it was the Romans who executed Jesus and they would have buried what remained of him in a mass grave/pit after being placed on display for a while. That is still a "burial" regardless of if it meets your own criteria of what a burial was to a Jew. If Paul had this type of "burial" in mind then what other word would he have used for "buried"? There's also the second century Secret Gospel of James which says Jesus was "buried in the sand" and mentions no "tomb" at all. This shows that even into the second century, the empty tomb wasn't a tradition known to the author.

�They actually went so far in their impiety as to cast out the corpses without burial, though the Jews are so careful about funeral rites that even malefactors who have been sentenced to crucifixion are taken down and buried before sunset. “ – Josephus (Wars of the Jews 4.317)

Now how were Jews able to bury crucified victims before sunset if the bodies were left on the crosses?

The argument remains.
1. When a Jew said another Jew was buried, he meant buried in a tomb.
2. Paul and Jesus were Jews.
3. Paul said Jesus was buried.
4. Therefore Paul meant Jesus was buried in a tomb.

No, number 1 still suffers from the fallacy of equivocation and is a non-sequitur as there were different types of burials. Number 4 does not necessarily follow from 3 because Paul shows no knowledge of any of the burial's details. Your argument must be abandoned. At best, you can use the evidence in Paul to mean that Jesus eventually received a burial of some sort, however that doesn't necessarily avoid the possibility of Jesus being left on the cross for days and being picked apart by birds. The condition of Jesus' corpse prior to burial is still unknown. Moreover, the statement "he was buried" is in parallel to the preceding statement "Jesus died." Under this interpretation, the statement "he was buried" is just serving to emphasize that Jesus really was, in fact, dead. It's like saying someone is "dead and gone." So understood this way, it was just "assumed" or "believed" that he was buried. This does not provide any direct or conclusive evidence that Paul knew any of the circumstances regarding Jesus' burial nor does it show that Paul knew Jesus was buried at all.

No, premise (1) is not equivocation. Nor is it a non-sequitur. There was no “different type of burial� in the Jewish understanding. It was a burial. The only difference could be the location of the tomb, either in the ground or hewn out of rock. In the Jewish understanding a burial was by definition placement in a tomb. Now, if it’s the word tomb which is causing problems, then think of it as a grave as both a tomb and a grave are the final resting place for the dead. Graves (or tombs) were either in the ground or hewn out of rock. It’s the same outcome and not equivocation. As for (4) not following from (3). (4) follows from (1)-(3), not merely (3). Your counter arguments fail.

All four gospels say that Jesus had a sign over him that said "King of the Jews." That was not a title attested by Christians so is less likely to be a fabrication and thus more likely to be historical.

So the Gospels provide accurate historical information then. Thank you, that’s good to know. Now go one step further and likewise affirm that Jesus’ burial was less likely to be a fabrication and more likely to be historical as well then. Here’s why. All four gospels say that Jesus was buried by Josephus of A.’s in his tomb. Additionally, since it’s embarrassing that a member of the council who just condemned Jesus would take responsibility for the body of Jesus (as opposed to say Jesus’ own family members or followers) we can say this probably wasn’t invented and can take it as reflecting a historical tradition. Go ahead and affirm that for me.

We have one source, Mark, which contradicts the 10+ sources about how crucifixion victims were normally treated. You don't have any relevant evidence that people convicted of sedition/treason would be allowed a decent burial on any Jewish holiday in Judea.

Firstly we do have evidence that crucifixion victims were granted burial. Josephus and the Roman Digesta. Secondly, you don’t have any direct evidence Jesus was convicted of sedition. Unless of course you wish to affirm once again that the Gospels provide reliable historical information. And even then, it’s a weak inference easily over turned.

The evidence is that Jesus was executed by the Romans for sedition/treason and would most likely not have been given over to the Jews in the first place. Also, Jewish law seems to forbid burying criminals in family tombs which is another problem.

1) You have no direct evidence Jesus was executed for sedition/treason. That’s inferred from and assumes the reliability of the Gospels. 2) We have evidence that crucified victims in the region and era were given over for burial (Josephus and Yehohanan both supported by the Digesta). 3) You have no direct evidence Jesus was condemned as a criminal by the Jews. That, again, is inferred from and assumes the reliability of the Gospels. 4) Jesus wasn’t buried in his family tomb. 5) Jewish law demanded dead people to buried.

It does not say "by the way, in case the Jewish court condemns a criminal to death but has him executed by the Romans then he's allowed to be buried in a family tomb." No, the passage is specifically stating how Jewish criminals are to be buried and there is more evidence that criminals were to be separated from "the righteous." if the Markan an account is true, then by definition, Jesus was a "criminal" and thus would have most likely been buried in one of the criminal plots. This even more true considering the story has a member of the Sanhedrin bury Jesus, who would presumably have been familiar with their laws and customs. The mode of executions are only mentioned because that's how Jews (not the Romans) executed criminals at that time.

A Jewish criminal executed by the court was not to be publicly mourned and not to be initially buried in the tomb of his ancestors. Jesus wasn’t publicly mourned and he wasn’t buried in the tomb of his ancestors. Nor was he buried with the righteous since he was buried in an unused tomb. No Jewish laws were violated even if Jesus had been condemned as a criminal by the Jewish court.

But herein lies another problem with history. If Jesus was condemned by the Sanhedrin then why couldn't they just execute him like they do Stephen in Acts? There would have been no reason to turn him over to the Romans. There is evidence that the Jews reserved the right to execute people based on religious convictions.

"(i) Archaeologists have found two inscriptions in Greek warning non-Jews against entering the inner courts of the Temple on pain of death. Josephus (Ant. XV) also notes that intruders in this part of the Temple were executed.

(ii) Talmudic texts, including the Tractate Sanhedrin, give long and detailed instructions on how a capital trial was carried out in the Second Temple Period, including what forms of execution were to be applied for what crimes and exactly how an execution was to be mandated by the Sanhedrin.

(iii) Talmudic literature also mentions or details examples of executions being ordered by the Sanhedrin, with the names of the victims and of the court members involved.

(iv) Philo of Alexandria matter of factly notes that anyone entering the Holy of Holies in the Temple "is subjected to inevitable death for his impiety".

(v) Josephus mentions the execution of James the brother of Jesus and "some others" by the High Priest Hanan ben Hanan who "delivered them to be stoned" (Ant. XX. 9. 1)

(vi) Several NT passages involve or imply executions by the Jewish authorities. Stephen is depicted as executed by the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:54-8:2 and the letter of Claudius Lysias to Felix in Acts 23:25-30 talks about Paul potentially being executed by the Sanhedrin."
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Jesus-crucified

There’s no doubt the Jews held illegal trials and did execute people from time to time. An obvious case is Stephen. But these cases are mob-like executions and run against the evidence which suggests that the official power to execute lay in the hands of the Romans (John 18:31, the Talmud Sanh 41a, Josephus Antiquities 20.9, Wars 2.8.1). But whether the Jews could execute Jesus or why they didn’t if they could is irrelevant. The point is, if the Jews had the Romans do their dirty work they would’ve still been obligated by their own laws to ensure Jesus was buried, criminal or not.

You're taking "fathers" too literally. It means "family" tombs. Magness says, by definition, rock hewn tombs were family tombs.

Doesn't change the argument.

So you have to believe Joseph (a non-relative) goes out of his way to bother with the corpse of a man which he had just condemned to death, (Mark 14:64 says they "all" condemned him to death and Mark 15:1 says the "whole" Sanhedrin) has no problem going to visit a gentile (Pilate) on Passover no less (even though John 18:28 says Jews thought this would make them "unclean"), ask for Jesus' corpse (thereby becoming "unclean" - Numbers 19:11-16 and unable to take part in the rest of Passover week), goes and "buys linen" which was illegal as it was forbidden to work or buy/sell things on Passover, then give the cursed criminal messianic pretender Jesus a decent burial in his own family tomb?

An argument from personal incredulity. And once again appealing to the reliability of Mark to record history. So many of your arguments assume this.

And you aren’t refuting my point which was that Jesus wasn’t buried in the grave of his father or anyone else’s father or anyone’s family tomb or buried with the righteous since Joseph’s tomb was an unused one. It was nothing more than an empty hole in the rock. With no inherent significance aside from someone (presumably Joseph of A.) having spent money to have it carved out. In short, it wasn’t a family tomb until there was someone from the family in it. Therefore placing Jesus in it, criminal or not, violated no Jewish law. The rest of your comments here are irrelevant to this point and amount to little more than an argument from incredulity.

His family wasn't there!

Jesus’ mother and aunt were standing there with John watching Jesus die on the cross (John 19:25). But alas the Gospel writers neglected to have Jesus’ family come ask for his body. A rather large omission on the part of the Gospel writers if they were trying to embellish the honoring of Jesus.

Obviously, Jesus' family being from Galilee and poor, wouldn't have a rock hewn tomb in Jerusalem.

Obviously. If they did, Jesus would have been buried there.

Jesus' family wasn't there and Mark says all the disciples fled so it's not like anyone was prevented from mourning him. You're refusing to acknowledge the obvious apologetic additions that change Joseph's "title/role" and make the burial sound "better" over time. John even adds that they brought 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes. Really?

You are missing the point once again. If the Gospel writers were trying make the burial sound “better� (or more honourable) over time we would expect them to include all the pertinent details that would have made it so. 1) Portraying the family as the people who came for the body of Jesus (as opposed to a stranger from the council that had just mocked and condemned him a few hours prior) 2) portraying public mourning for Jesus and 3) portraying Jesus as buried in the tomb of his ancestors. But all of these are missing. Therefore, they weren’t trying make the burial more honorable over time.

Your often quoted “expert� Matthew Ferguson, has (see here) tried to argue along these lines that, “[l]ater, the stories of Jesus’ burial became embellished over time, and so Joseph of Arimathea’s role was invented to give Jesus a more honorable burial in a rock-hewn tomb.�

Setting aside the problems with inventing a council member as the one asking for Jesus’ body instead of making it Jesus’ family (or immediate disciples for that matter). This whole argument demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what made a burial honorable to the Jews. There was nothing inherently more honorable about being buried in a rock hewn tomb as opposed to say being buried in an individual trench tomb in the ground; as though every lower class Jew who was ever buried in an individual trench grave in the ground was buried in dishonour. What made a burial honorable was 1) the deceased was publicly mourned and 2) the deceased was buried in the tomb (grave) of his ancestors. So this entire line of argumentation misses the mark as it simply fails to show an embellishment in the honouring of Jesus’ burial. It fails to show even a basic understanding of what it meant to have an honourable burial.

Even Origen realized this:

"For it became Him, who was unlike other dead men (but who even in death manifested signs of life in the water and the blood), and who was, so to speak, a new dead man, to be laid in a new and clean tomb, in order that, as His birth was purer than any other (in consequence of His being born, not in the way of ordinary generation, but of a virgin), His burial also might have the purity symbolically indicated in His body being deposited in a sepulchre which was new, not built of stones gathered from various quarters, and having no natural unity, but quarried and hewed out of one rock, united together in all its parts." - Origen, Contra Celsus, Book 2. Ch. 69

Origen seems to be associating symbolic purity with a new tomb. There seems to be nothing here associated with greater honour being bestowed on Jesus by being placed in a rock cut tomb.

I am under no obligation to affirm anything in the gospels at all.

That’s true. But you (and I) are under an obligation to be intellectually honest. I know you have elsewhere argued the charge against Jesus would not have been considered blasphemy because Jesus didn’t utter the divine name as per Mishnah Sanh 7.5. Now, you are arguing it was blasphemy to make this argument work.

But, as a Christian, do you affirm that the trial scene is historical and that Jesus was sentenced to death on the conviction of blasphemy?

Yes.

If so, why couldn't they just execute him? And why was he then given an increasingly noble burial in someone's family tomb whose role changes based on what gospel you're reading?

You are dodging and I want a straight answer to my question here. Are you prepared to say the Gospel accounts are accurate in the portrayal of Jesus being a blasphemer? If yes, then you can no longer deny the historicity of the tomb without a blatant double standard. If no, then you have no argument for why the Jews might not have buried Jesus in Joseph’s tomb.

It's not clear what his crime was but in the same tomb there were three children who had died of starvation, a male and female who had died by burning, a female with a large hole in her skull from a weapon, and another child who had died from an arrow wound. So regardless of the family's wealth (which we're not even sure of) it looks like they had some problems. We have no details regarding why Yehohanan was executed. All we know is he was crucified and eventually his body made it's way to a Jewish ossuary. It does not follow from this that he was granted a proper burial by the Romans because his body could have been stolen or was found by his family after several days of lying in a pit for all we know.

Yehohanan proves that Jews did in fact bury crucifixion victims in rock hewn family tombs. You just can’t escape this no matter how much you try to wiggle out of it.

You have "one" confirmed burial of a Roman crucifixion victim in a family tomb but you don't necessarily have any evidence that Jewish criminals were allowed to be buried in family tombs. The evidence speaks against that.

1) You don’t have evidence Jesus was a Jewish criminal without affirming the Gospels reliability. 2) Even if Jesus was a criminla in the eyes of the Jews his burial in Joseph’s tomb didn’t violate any Jewish law since he wasn’t publicly mourned nor was he placed in his family tomb.

Wrong. You're using Magness' broad usage of the word "tomb" and applying it back onto how Jews in the first century would have thought about it. Now, that's an anachronism. Moreover, I've demonstrated your argument to be false above. Being buried in the ground under dirt is not a "tomb" burial or at least not in the way you're trying to dishonestly connect it to the empty tomb story.

Magness herself calls the individual trench graves in the ground tombs. Go back and look at her portrayal of them in this post. There was a niche cut out of bottom where the body was laid, similar to the rock hewn tombs. That niche was covered over with mud brick slabs. These tombs weren’t simply a hole in the dirt.

No, you just have a burial of some sort. Paul doesn't use the word "tomb" anywhere. It could have been in a criminal's graveyard that was full of other bodies! And just because Paul says "he was buried" it does not follow that he was buried "immediately after death" or that he did not have part of his body picked apart by birds.

• “Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.â€� – Paul, Acts 13:28-31

According to Matthew Ferguson, a source you’ve appealed to as an “expert� on numerous occasions, “The passage above [Acts 13:28-31] is regarded as pre-Lucan among scholars for a number of stylistic and lexical considerations that suggest it was part of Luke-Acts’ source material, rather than penned by the author himself.�

Oops.

And none of the disciples were there. Mark says they all fled, remember? Paul says what he received was from a "revelation" of Jesus and not from any human being.

Once again you are appealing to the historical reliability of a Gospel (Mark). You just can’t seem to avoid doing this. Paul tells us in his own words he spent time with key disciples and had his Gospel validated (Galatians 1-2).

I don't have to know it with absolute certainty. All I have to know is what's more probable.

Right. And the probability is that around Jerusalem on the eve of a festival during peacetime the Romans would have released the body of a crucified victim to the Jews for a proper burial.

Not for people convicted of sedition/treason you don't.

You don’t have evidence Jesus was convicted of treason.

Wait, so are you implicitly admitting that Mark 14:64 is evidence that the Jews might refuse burial in a family tomb? Glad to see you've finally caught up.

Yes Mark 14:64 could be evidence that the Jews viewed Jesus as a criminal thereby not permitting him to be buried in his family’s tomb. Which he wasn’t anyway. Are you affirming the historicity of Mark 14:64? Yes or no.

You're making quite a good case for the unreliability of Mark's trial! Please keep going! Are you saying Mark is wrong there? In John there's no Sanhedrin trial at all so who is right, Mark or John? If Mark made up the trial then why couldn't he have made up the burial by Joseph too? Please keep in mind it's not me who's committed to the truth of these texts. It's you that is stuck between a rock and a hard place. All I'm showing is how historically implausible all this sounds together. On one hand, Jesus was found guilty of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin so it's unlikely he would be given a rock hewn family tomb burial by a member of the same council that just condemned him to death. On the other hand, it's improbable that the Romans would even allow the crucified "King of the Jews" a proper burial in the first place.

Both of your arguments assume the reliability of the Gospels to record events. If there was no trial, you have no blasphemy argument and thereby no argument that Jesus could not have been buried in a family tomb. If there was no “King of the Jews� charge you have no argument for the Romans refusing burial of someone convicted of sedition. Now if you are going to affirm these events (i.e. the blasphemy charge by the Jews and sedition charge by the Romans) then you have no good reason to not affirm the burial since it is attested to in all four Gospel accounts, it’s consistent with extra-Biblical evidence (Josephus), it’s consistent with archaeology (Yehohanan), and it’s consistent with Roman (Digesta) and Jewish law.

How do you know his body wasn't stolen? How do you know his body wasn't lying in a pit uncovered for several days before his family could grab it? How do you know the condition of his corpse before burial? You don't and since we have no details regarding his entombment you can't claim this is direct evidence that the Romans necessarily granted him a proper burial. Yehonanan isn't really analogous in Jesus' case because he actually made it to his own family's tomb which means his actual family retrieved the body. There was no family in Jesus' case. Moreover, Yehonanan was buried in an ossuary which normally meant it was a second burial, after all the flesh had left the body. Was he originally placed in a criminal's graveyard, trench grave, or was his burial in the ossuary his only one due to the condition of his corpse? Jesus' burial, according to the gospels, was with his flesh still on.

Yehohanan was found in a tomb with loculi used for initial burial where the corpse would be left to decompose. Nine of the twelve loculi in the tomb had skeletons. So unless you can produce evidence he was initially buried elsewhere the most likely scenario seems to be he was placed in the tomb shortly after his death on the cross. Further, he came from a wealthy family so he was unlikely to have been a thief or slave. Another family member was a Temple builder so it seems this family may have been involved in the political/religious life of Jerusalem.

Moreover, Yehohanan’s legs were broken in keeping with a unique Palestinian type of Roman crucifixion. Roman soldiers broke the legs of the crucified victim to hasten death. Now, why would Romans want to hasten the death of a crucified Jew if the whole point of crucifixion was to make the victim suffer a long, horrible, humiliating death? This seems to be inexplicable unless Romans were aware of Jewish law which required executed criminals to be buried before sunset.

• “The victim’s broken legs not only provided crucial evidence for the position on the cross, but they also provide evidence for a Palestinian variation of Roman crucifixion—at least as applied to Jews. Normally, the Romans left the crucified person undisturbed to die slowly of sheer physical exhaustion leading to asphyxia. However, Jewish tradition required burial on the day of execution. Therefore, in Palestine the executioner would break the legs of the crucified person in order to hasten his death and thus permit burial before nightfall. This practice, described in the Gospels in reference to the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus (John 19:18), has now been archaeologically confirmed. Since the victim we excavated was a Jew, we may conclude that the executioners broke his legs on purpose in order to accelerate his death and allow his family to bury him before nightfall in accordance with Jewish custom.
  
  We cannot know the crime of which our victim was accused. Given the prominence and wealth of the family, it is unlikely that he was a common thief. More likely, he was crucified for political crimes or seditious activities directed against the Roman authorities. Apparently, this Jewish family had two or three sons active in the political, religious and social life of Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period. One (Simon) was active in the reconstruction of the Temple. Another (Yehonathan) was a potter. The third son may have been active in anti-Roman political activities, for which he was crucified.� - Vassilios Tzaferis

There is no evidence that the Digesta applied to those under Roman rule in territories outside Rome in the first century. According to Raymond Brown -"Discerning Roman legal practice for a province like Judea is difficult. The law cited above (DJ) was juxta ordinem, i.e., customary law in Rome for dealing with Roman citizens. Decisions in the provinces dealing with non-citizens were most often extra ordinem, so that such a matter as the deposition of crucified bodies would have been left to the local magistrate." - Death of the Messiah, pg. 1207-1208.

Nothing Raymond Brown has written here is inconsistent with the Gospel stories. In fact, what he has written supports the Gospel narrative since it would have been up to Pilate to decide what happened to Jesus’ body in Brown’s view. And we know Pilate had a precedent for bending to the demands of the Jews.

Having said that, the Digesta law in question also deals with those convicted and executed for high treason. You aren’t seriously suggesting that Roman citizens who were convicted of treason were still considered Roman citizens are you? There’s nothing in the law in question that stipulates this was only to be applied to Roman citizens living in Rome. And there were laws which stipulated citizenship was to be removed for capital crimes.

�Some criminal offences are capital, and some are not. Those which are capital entail the punishment of exile or banishment; that is to say, the interdiction of water and fire. For, by these penalties the civil rights of the delinquent are lost, for the other penalties are properly termed relegation and not exile, for then the rights of citizenship are retained. Punishments which are not capital are those where the penalty is either pecuniary or corporeal.� – Roman Digesta 48.1.2
�We should understand a person who has been convicted of a capital crime to be found guilty of an offence which entails death, the loss of civil rights, or servitude.�

(1) It is established that after deportation has been substituted for the interdiction of water and fire, the defendant does not lose his citizenship until the Emperor has decided that he shall be deported to an island. For there is no doubt that the Governor cannot deport him, but the Prefect of the City has a right to do so, and he is considered to have lost his citizenship immediately after the sentence of the Prefect has been pronounced." - Digesta 48.19.2

"Those who have been sentenced to death immediately lose both their citizenship and their freedom." - Digesta 48.19.29

"(1) A defendant, except when accused of high treason, can administer his own property, pay his debts, and receive what is due to him, if it is paid in good faith; but every alienation which he has made for the purpose of defrauding the Treasury after his conviction can be set aside." - Digesta 48.20.11

In other words, we have good reason to think anyone, even a Roman citizen living in Rome, who was convicted of high treason lost their rights as of citizenship. And yet, even in this case the body could be granted for burial upon request. It wasn’t guaranteed of course. But that’s no the argument. The argument is that the granting of Jesus’ body for burial, even of convicted of high treason, was consistent with Roman law.

The sources describing crucifixion outside Rome are pretty much unanimous in that the bodies were left up to serve as food for birds and refused burial so obviously the law in the Digesta wasn't followed as much as proponents such as Evans would like us to think.

None of the sources pertain to first century Palestine during peacetime though. There’s no doubt, given the right circumstances (e.g. war time, open militant rebellion, etc.), that Romans left crucified bodies on crosses and refused burial even around Jerusalem. The point is, the burial of Jesus is consistent with Roman law and Roman practices during peacetime in Palestine.

I thought you guys always argue for the reliability of Jewish oral tradition. Oh well. Anyway, you've certainly given no reason to doubt that the Mishnah reflects earlier tradition. It's unlikely that they would have just made it up later. Those sneaky Jews, always changing their customs....

Just like you’ve given no reason to doubt the Digesta reflects earlier Roman law from the first century. It’s unlikely that they would have just made it up later as well. Cuts both ways.

Wow! So Evans finds one heel bone with a nail in it and is claiming that the tombs of Jerusalem were full of the undiscovered remains of Jews who had been crucified for treason under Pilate? Is Evans familiar with the 10+ sources which seem to contradict his hypothesis? Does he realize that his take on the evidence is perfectly compatible with mass grave/pit/ditch burials or no burial at all as opposed to individual ground burials? At least he realizes the distinction between a ground burial and a tomb burial, something you're forced to concede at this point.

You’ve entirely missed and failed to address the point of Evans’ arguments here regarding why it would be rare to find even one crucified victim. He’s arguing against the counter arguments from the likes of Ehrman/Crossan et al that Yehohanan doesn’t establish a pattern because he’s only one find out of many thousands of possible crucified victims.

1. Evans doesn't know that Yehohanan was crucified under Pilate. The date range is from early first century to 70 CE.
2. Just because Yehohanan's body eventually ended up in an ossuary it doesn't necessarily follow that he was permitted by the Romans to be buried immediately after death or even permitted at all since the body could have been stolen or taken from a pit.
3. The gospel depictions of Pilate's reluctance and mercy actually contradict what we know about him from other sources.
4. Allowing the Jews to observe their customs in the Temple is a far cry away from letting them interfere with the Roman justice system.
5. Where's the evidence that the Romans "acquiesced" and granted crucified victims that were convicted of sedition/treason a proper burial?

1. He doesn’t know it, I’ll grant that. He’s inferring it from the fact that Pilate’s tenure was during relative peace. And it’s during peace that the Romans seemed to have respected Jewish burial customs.

2. Yehohanan’s legs were broken. That suggests Romans hastened his death. The best explanation seems to be Romans did this to allow for Jewish burial customs where the body was to be buried before nightfall in accordance with Jewish law.
What evidence do you have that suggests he was stolen or taken from a pit? Zilch I’ll bet. Further, if Romans wouldn’t allow Jews to take down a crucified victim for burial because non-burial was part of the punishment what makes you think the Romans would allow Jews to take a body from the pit where they tossed crucified victims? Surely these common burial pits were guarded for that very reason then.

3. We know from other sources (Philo) that it wasn’t unprecedented for Pilate to acquiesce to the demands of the Jews.

4. Huh?

5. The Roman Digesta. And that’s granting the unlikely case that Jesus was crucified for treason/sedition.

Maybe, but of course "Joseph of Arimathea" the "distinguished counselor" would be an obvious choice of invention for an author trying to find some way to get Jesus off the cross. It had to be someone in a position of authority although it seems unlikely that the Sanhedrin would have any say over the Romans since the High Priest was literally hand picked by them. The "role" of Joseph changes over time in the gospel progression so it seems there weren't any solid facts regarding him. In Mark he's a "distinguished counselor" which gets omitted by Matthew and replaced as a "disciple" of Jesus. Luke retains that Joseph was a member of the council but "did not consent to their plan and action." John says he was a "secret disciple for fear of the Jews." This shadowy figure just comes out of nowhere to conveniently fulfill Isaiah 53:9 then is never heard from again. Sounds sketchy to me.

Oh yeah just pull out of thin air a guy from the council which just condemned Jesus a few hours prior to be the only one who shows care for Jesus’ dead body and the only one who takes responsibility for doing the right thing. Don’t make it the family or any of Jesus’ immediate disciples. No, don’t do that. Oh yeah and of course by coincidence all four Gospels just happen to name or keep the name of the same guy even though as you’ve argued Luke and Matthew had a tendency to change Mark. And then there’s John who shows no discernible sign of literary dependence on the synoptic Gospels also naming Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph meets the criteria of embarrassment and is multiply attested by four narratives. But never mind all that, totally plausible that he was just wholesale invented out of thin air.

The sign that read "King of the Jews" seems to be a pretty good indicator. It's unlikely that was made up because it's nowhere attested as a title for Jesus applied by Christians. Sounds just like the kind of thing that you'd want to leave hanging for a while on display as a warning for those passing by. "Here's what happens when you claim to be king." And there are plenty of reasons to reject the burial by Joseph.

�King of the Jews� doesn’t mean Jesus was crucified for being an enemy of the state. This was just as likely a title meant to mock Jesus. And the title “King of the Jews� was applied to Jesus as early as his birth (Matthew 2:2). So your argument fails. By your own criteria you must conclude this title was likewise made up by Christian writers. There goes your treason/sedition argument.

But you're reading that into the text. He doesn't say "I know this happens in other areas." There is no evidence that anything similar was allowed in Judea for local holidays.

The point is Philo says nothing at all about these cases being restricted to having occurred only in Alexandria. That’s Bart adding something into the text which isn’t there. They could have just as likely occurred in Jerusalem as we know Philo had visited the city.

�...it is the custom to punish no one, even of those who have been lawfully condemned, until the famous festival and assembly, in honour of the birth-day of the illustrious emperor, has passed...

In this sentence it says the punishment was postponed until after the celebration had "passed."

Like I said. The reason being the honouring of the Emperor’s birthday.

He says "I have known cases" in contrast with the postponement of punishment in the preceding sentence. How many "cases" and how many had to do with a person who claimed to be King in defiance of the Roman empire?

Question Begging unless you can prove Jesus was crucified for treason. You asked, “If crucifixion victims were allowed a decent burial then why do we have so many sources painting the opposite picture?� The evidence was given.

Lol! No, you're fallaciously extrapolating the "Roman Emperors' birthday" to mean "Jewish holidays."

Nope. I’m just pointing out we have a baseline of plausibility for Jesus’ burial.

Well, there's no indication that they were given to strangers either so this is kind of a wash.

Fine. Point is there’s nothing in Philo’s words that indicates non-relatives couldn’t be granted the body.

Um, those people weren't dead yet so they weren't being refused burial nor did they have time to get picked apart by scavenging animals.

Oh yeah because Romans would allow a crucified victim who was still alive to be taken down but they wouldn’t allow someone who was dead to be taken down. Yeah that totally makes sense.

Point is, Josephus is evidence that crucified victims could be taken down from the cross which is consistent with the Digesta, Philo, the archaeological evidence, and the Gospels.

Completely contradicted by the mass of sources that are actually contemporary with Jesus' time regarding the treatment of crucifixion victims outside Rome and not from a 6th century document dealing with Roman citizens in Rome which nowhere even mentions crucifixion. Boom!

The mass of sources contemporary to Jesus’ time? Are you kidding? Not one single source you’ve produced was in context to a first century crucifixion in Palestine. KAPOW!

The evidence must be assessed from the contemporary sources we have that mention how crucifixion was normally carried out in the Roman empire. If a whole vast array of texts paint a consistent picture then you have just a few exceptions (which aren't really applicable in Jesus' case) and ONE account dating to 40 years or so after the event that shows obvious signs of embellishment and historical implausibilities written by persons motivated to make up an honorable burial for their hero, which is embedded in a demonstrably fictionalized passion narrative that comes from the Psalms, then it's pretty obvious what the more probable conclusion is.

But that’s just it. The sources which report on first century crucifixion and burial practices in Judea are all consistent with the burial account of Jesus. I’m arguing from sources which reflect the actual time and region. You are arguing from sources that are far outside the context of Jesus and applying them to Jesus. Non-Christian scholars who specialize in first century Jewish burial practices, like Magness, agree.

One more thing. Why would you grant an immediate burial to someone who had a big sign over his head that read "King of the Jews"? That sounds more like something that you'd want to leave hanging on display for awhile for people to get the point.

To avoid a Jewish rebellion. These people were very passionate about observing their religious laws. Burial of the dead in particular.

The main context is that "Jesus was crucified for claiming to be the King of the Jews." Now what was the norm for crucifixion victims, let alone, someone who proclaimed themselves to be a king in opposition to the Roman empire?

Again, still begging the question here that Jesus was crucified for being an enemy of Rome. The main context is that Jesus was a Jew crucified in Jerusalem during peacetime on the eve of a festival. All your sources fall far outside this context. And even with your stated context of being crucified for treason we still have the Roman Digesta allowing for the possibility that the body could be granted for burial.

I admit Bart could have done a better job. It would be helpful to point out that throughout his Antiquities and Jewish War, Josephus sometimes refers to the Old Testament scriptures and interprets them in light of current events. In Jewish War 4.317, while speaking of the Idumeans during the Jewish revolt, he appeals to Deut. 21:22-23:

"If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance."

Josephus uses the word α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν in 4.317. This word is commonly translated as "crucified" in his works however, there are places where he also uses it to indicate post-mortem suspensions such as in Antiquities 2.73 where he talks about the fate of the baker from Genesis 40. In the story, the pharaoh is said to decapitate the baker and hang his body on a pole. Josephus also uses the word in Antiquities 6.374 where he talks about hanging the dead body of Saul on display.

α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν, as used by Josephus, does not mean "to crucify" in a traditional sense. In some texts, Josephus uses the verb in connection with executions by sus¬pension, in which nailing sometimes was a part. However, since he also uses the verb when he refers to an act of displaying mutilated corpses, it is obvious that the usage of the verb covers both suspension forms, i.e., both execution by suspension and suspension of corpses......However, none of these texts shows explicitly that the suspension at hand really is a crucifixion. In the end, there are no firm crucifixion accounts in the corpus Josepheum......Sixth, it is main¬ly the Romans who use the suspension punishment against the Jewish people in Josephus' texts. It is, however, not possible to exclude the pos-sibility that Josephus understood the prescribed punishment in Deuter¬onomy 21.22-23 as a reference to execution by crucifixion. If this as¬sumption is correct, the Jewish people used crucifixion according to Jose¬phus' accounts of the events under the Hasmonean ruler Alexander Jan¬naeus (BJ 1.97/113 [par. AJ 13.380]). - Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity, pages 110-111. https://books.google.com/books?id=B7OEm ... &q&f=false

So instead of Josephus necessarily talking about Roman crucifixion he could be talking about Jewish post-mortem suspensions like in the case of the blasphemer in Antiquities 4.202 or (mistakenly/correctly?) assuming that ancient Jews practiced crucifixion. It could be a confused retrodiction on his part where he's letting his current knowledge of Roman crucifixion color his depiction about ancient Jewish suspension punishments.

The use of α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν in Antiquities 2 is quite clearly in the context to death by crucifixion. There’s no mention there of beheading followed by a hanging of the corpse. The baker was to be “crucified, and devoured by fowls,� says Josephus. Neither does Genesis 40 speak of beheading prior to the hanging. Quite clearly in both accounts the baker under Pharaoh was to die by crucifixion. As for Antiquities 6, Josephus is careful to distinguish that Saul was already dead, then the Philistines mutilated the bodies, and then hung them on display. Notice this kind of description of death prior to crucifixion is missing in War of the Jews 4. There Josephus just simply uses α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν.

Moreover the context of Antiquites was a history of the Jews spanning a much longer time frame. In referencing the Egyptians, Philistines, etc it’s not surprising that the use of α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν might cover suspension of corpses and death by suspension. Whereas the context of Wars is primarily an account of the war between the Jews and Romans. So we have a high level contextual reason to assume α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν always meant the Roman form of crucifixion in Wars, unless clearly indicated otherwise by immediate surrounding context. Further nowhere that I can find in Wars does Josephus use α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν in a context that was clearly anything other than death by suspension (crucifixion). Moreover in the first chapter of Wars (1.96), when speaking of the atrocities of Alexander Jannaeus, Josephus seems to clearly portray α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν as a death by suspension something like what the Romans would have done.

�Nay, [Alexander’s] rage was grown so extravagant, that his barbarity proceeded to the degree of impiety; for when he had ordered eight hundred to be hung upon crosses in the midst of the city, he had the throats of their wives and children cut before their eyes; and these executions he saw as he was drinking and lying down with his concubines.� – Wars 1.96

It’s the manner in which they were executed - death by crucifixion - that was so horrific to Jews. Not that they had been hanged for display after death which was an acceptable practise.

So the context of the word α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν is set early in Wars and it meant death by crucifixion. We would expect Josephus to indicate the word was being used in a different context later in the same work. Without that explicit indication of a different contextual use the natural reading of α�νασταυ�οϋ�ν is death by crucifixion.

Now notice in Wars 4 when Josephus says, “that [the Jews] took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun.� That word for condemned is καταδίκης and it means judgement given against. It doesn’t mean executed. The context then is the Jews were, condemned to die -> executed by crucifixion -> buried. It cannot mean, executed -> hung for display after death -> burial. That would be an unnatural and strained reading of the text.

In any case, the point is Jews were meticulous about burying crucified victims before sunset – consistent with the Gospel accounts. Whether the victims died by crucifixion or were dead prior to crucifixion and then the corpse hung on display is irrelevant to this point with regards to Josephus.

Josephus can't always be trusted because he can be shown to be making up stuff and exaggerating other things. He's citing the OT scripture in the case of 4.317 and contrasting those "evil Idumeans who cast away corpses without burial" with the "pious Jews" that "always bury their dead" because "scripture says so." As you state, Josephus was biased and from the context it looks as if he's just trying to make the Jews look good in comparison with the Idumeans.

But bias doesn’t imply outright fabrication. Again I will ask, what evidence is there that Josephus simply fabricated this?

Um, maybe you should read the contemporary sources which describe crucifixion again. Crucifixion was a punishment where the victims were eaten by birds and refusal of burial was part of the punishment. So the evidence that they didn't bury crucified victims is that they probably weren't allowed to due to the nature of the punishment.

But the evidence shows that Jews were allowed to bury crucified victims.

Is there a contemporary Roman or Jewish source that says "during peace time, foreign victims of crucifixion shall be granted a proper burial" or do all the sources pretty much agree that crucifixion victims were eaten by beasts and forbidden burial? Also, do you have another case where crucified self proclaimed King was granted burial? Since Josephus was specifically writing about the Jewish War and for the reasons mentioned above, you don't get to use his vague passage to mean "Jesus definitely got a burial."

The written sources which report on first century Palestine as well as archaeological evidence all agree that Jewish crucifixion victims were granted burial. The Roman Digesta supports this overall policy. Good grief, how many more sources and converging lines of evidence does one really need?

What typically happened to crucifixion victims again Mr. Goose?

In first century Palestine around Jerusalem during peacetime it seems they were granted burial.

Where did the title "King of the Jews" come from then? Don't the gospels say thousands of Jews greet Jesus on his entry to Jerusalem expecting him to re-establish God's kingdom and kick the Romans out? Aren't some of his disciples carrying weapons? Doesn't at least one of them attack a Roman soldier? Sounds like a pretty big political threat to me. Also, don't most scholars agree that Jesus was crucified for being an enemy of the state, hence sedition/treason?

A pacifist king who entered the city on a donkey – a donkey! - and preached love your enemy and pay taxes to Rome. Twelve cowardly followers who fled at his death. Only one of which had a sword and used it in self defence against a Jewish soldier. Jesus led no army. Pilate seems to have no prior knowledge of Jesus and makes no attempt to round up the disciples after Jesus’ death. But oh yeah, big militant threat against Rome there.

Claiming to be the King of the Jews in defiance of the Roman empire was an automatic seditious/treasonous claim.

Evidence please.

Let me know when you come up with another reason why Jesus was crucified. That ought to be good.

To keep the Jews from rioting or taking their grievance to the Emperor.

Sorry Mr. Evans but since Josephus was writing about the Jewish revolt (66-73 CE), explicitly quotes scripture in order to make his Jewish homeboys look good and sometime uses the word for "crucified" to mean post-mortem suspensions, you don't get to claim that Josephus was necessarily talking about Roman crucifixion under Pilate there.

What would it matter if Josephus was writing about the Jewish revolt? Are you suggesting that Roman policy would’ve changed from the time of Pilate to the time of the revolt?

You're confusing literary dependence and direct copying with having knowledge of previous traditions in circulation. Since John was written so late 90-110 CE it becomes extremely hard to argue that John wasn't familiar with the Markan narrative due to it circulating Christian communities for 20-40 years! In fact, most scholars now accept that John was familiar with the synoptic tradition with some even arguing for dependence such as Kostenberger, Ruprecht, Donahue. Moreover, there are plenty of indications that John did borrow from Mark:

"verbal agreements include the “ointment of pure nard� (marou nardou pistikēs in Mark 14:3; John 12:3), the cost of the ointment at 300 denarii (Mark 14:5; John 12:5), the fact that Peter was warming [thermainomenos] himself by the fire (Mark 14:54, 67; John 18:18, 25), the movement of Peter “into� the courtyard (Mark 14:54; John 19:15), the chant “crucify him� in the imperative (Mark 15:14; John 19:2; 5), the purple robe that Jesus was clothed with (Mark 15:17; John 19:2 5), the preparation day (Mark 15:42; John 19:31), and the interlacing of the Sanhedrin trial with Peter’s denials."

It’s very possible John was familiar with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. That doesn’t make John dependant on them though. If that alone is a sufficient criterion to prevent literary independence then virtually no work from antiquity which anti-dates another can be thought of as independent. In other words, there will only ever be one source for an any event/person from history and it will be the earliest. The handful of superficial agreements between John and the synoptics, which can just as easily be accounted for by tracking back to actual events, are simply not enough to outweigh the vast differences between the synoptics and John. Which is why very few scholars today argue for the dependence of John on the synoptics. It is widely held that John represents an independent tradition. So even granting Marcan priority we have two independent traditions between Mark and John.

Letting the Jews observe their temple customs isn't exactly the same thing as interfering with the Roman justice system.

The Jews weren’t interfering with the Roman justice system. Philo establishes the precedent that Pilate was willing to acquiesce to the demands of the Jews.

Have you discovered another source that says Jesus was crucified for something other than being the "King of the Jews"?

You mean aside from the fours Gospels? And there is no source that says Jesus was crucified for being the King of the Jews.