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]

[Replying to post 78 by liamconnor]

I think I have agreed there have been thousands of empty tombs.
Let's take a look at all of them and see how the one story compares.
Of those thousands, why should any be special?

And one of those empty tombs was Jesus'. He was buried; then later, the tomb was found empty.

So you agree. Thank you.

Why did it take you so long to admit this?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 81 by liamconnor]

Admit what?
You submit the Gospels as facts.
You submit the tombs as facts.
It is a premise of your OP. We can't discuss your topic by undermining it.
So yes, for the sake of having a reasonable discussion about your op, we must grant its assumptions.

But it isn't admitting anything.

Do you admit that thousands of empty tombs prove the same thing as your submission?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 81 by liamconnor]

Admit what?
You submit the Gospels as facts.
You submit the tombs as facts.
It is a premise of your OP. We can't discuss your topic by undermining it.
So yes, for the sake of having a reasonable discussion about your op, we must grant its assumptions.

But it isn't admitting anything.

Do you admit that thousands of empty tombs prove the same thing as your submission?

you are wrong. I analyze the gospels like any other ancient document.

I have come to the conclusion that there was a Yeshua of Nazarea; that he was crucified; that he was buried in a tomb; and that that tomb was discovered empty.

I have made no claim about the inspiration of anything.

Perhaps you should make a note of me as one who aspires to real history...?

I regard the entire Bible as independent documents; like the documents of Herodotus and Livy and Plutarch.

Are you able to understand this? Or should I ignore your posts in the future because you are incapable or refused to understand my position?

[FarWanderer]

[Replying to post 83 by liamconnor]

Your OP doesn't even have a debate question. Only question was rhetorical which you answered yourself.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 83 by liamconnor]

Well, the only honest answer to the mundane tale is: "so what?"
There are lots of tombs out there discovered empty.

I am not one who believes there was a Christian Jesus. I believe in the Talmud's account of a "Joshua the Magician," a few years before Jesus. But he was a reprobate.

You can not, as an honest historian, accept the Bible as legitimate documents, for many reasons.
1. They are not dated. Even the first historian to survive to our times had dates written and events noted to the limit of accuracy. Years and months. There is nothing in the Bible with dates.
2. No serious work claims miracles.
3. Other history works have definitive authors, written in historic style.

So, there is no way you could accept the Bible as a historical document.
And your historical supporters of the bible say very little.

Now the properties missing above ARE typical of myths and fairy tales. Many of which begin - "In the beginning... or start with non-definitive events. "A long time ago..." or "There were giants in those days..."

Surely, as a historian you recognize historic style and commemoration, vs narrative and fiction?

[YahWhat]

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.

Just now saw this.

1. Yehohanan - 'Yehohanan's leg bones were broken, but there is disagreement over how and when they were broken (i.e., while still on the cross, or after being taken down).' Footnote 17. Zias and Sekeles ('The Crucified Man', pp. 24-25) do not think the talus suffered such an injury. Indeed, the talus under question may actually belong to one of the other two individuals, whose skeletal remains had been placed in the ossuary. Zias and Sekeles also question the conclusion that Yeho- hanan's leg bones were broken before death and decamation. Because of the age and degraded condition of the skeletal materials, a measure of uncertainty remains. - Craig Evans, Jewish Burial Traditions and the Resurrection of Jesus, pg. 243

So there's two problems. The legs could have been broken after death while removing the body from the cross. Secondly, we don't even know if the broken leg bone was Yehohanan's because the bones weren't connected to the ankle with the nail in it. He was buried with two other individuals. Again, all you can infer from Yehohanan's burial is that his body eventually made its way to an ossuary. It doesn't follow that he was immediately buried after death. We have no idea how long he was on the cross for and why automatically assume his legs weren't broken before he was even crucified? Lastly, a burial in an ossuary usually implied it was a secondary burial after the body had already decomposed.

2. Digesta - I'm still waiting to see evidence that this 6th century Roman law document necessarily applied to non-Roman citizens in foreign countries in the 1st century. You seem to just assume that it was without evidence. Specifically, would it apply to Jewish peasants who were convicted of sedition/treason - Lk 23:2? How come all the sources which mention crucifixion are unanimous in that they describe forbidding burial, being left up to rot and being eaten by birds? It's not necessarily the case that all those sources reflect what happened just during war time.

3. Josephus in Jewish War 4.317

Moreover in the first chapter of Wars (1.96), when speaking of the atrocities of Alexander Jannaeus, Josephus seems to clearly portray άνασταυ�οΰν 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

And this is the problem. If Josephus thought that Jews practiced crucifixion (or post mortem suspension punishments), then in 4.317 he's not necessarily talking about Roman crucifixion pratice! Without the "Roman" qualifier you can't claim this is evidence for the Romans granting burial as he could just be talking about what the Jews did to their own people. There is even more evidence that Jews practiced crucifixion in the Temple Scroll - 11QTemple and 4QpNahum. Regardless of if they did or not or how widespread it was, Josephus could have simply been mistaken, while writing during a time of mass Roman crucifixion, and assumed Jews performed the same type of punishment. That's why he cites Deut. 21:22-23 as it would apply in the case of a Jewish crucifixion. He contrasts this more noble behavior of the Jews with the "impiety of the Idumeans."

Sorry, no dice!

[Goose]

1. Yehohanan - 'Yehohanan's leg bones were broken, but there is disagreement over how and when they were broken (i.e., while still on the cross, or after being taken down).' Footnote 17. Zias and Sekeles ('The Crucified Man', pp. 24-25) do not think the talus suffered such an injury. Indeed, the talus under question may actually belong to one of the other two individuals, whose skeletal remains had been placed in the ossuary. Zias and Sekeles also question the conclusion that Yeho- hanan's leg bones were broken before death and decamation. Because of the age and degraded condition of the skeletal materials, a measure of uncertainty remains. - Craig Evans, Jewish Burial Traditions and the Resurrection of Jesus, pg. 243

Yes there are two scholars who dispute the earlier conclusions of Haas. They think the conclusion that the legs of Yehohanan were broken is based on inconclusive evidence. So what does that prove other than archaeological finds are notoriously ambiguous and can be interpreted in various ways?

Just for the record, here’s the entire quote from footnote 17 of Craig’s paper:

�Møller-Christensen (“Skeletal Remains from Giv‘at ha-Mivtar,� 38) concludes that the breaks in the lower leg bones of Yehohanan, including the cut to the talus bone of the foot, “are due to crurifragium, intended to hasten the death of the victim.� Zias and Sekeles (“The Crucified Man,� 24–25) do not think the talus suffered such an injury. Indeed, the talus under question may actually belong to one of the other two individuals, whose skeletal remains had been placed in the ossuary. Zias and Sekeles also question the conclusion that Yehohanan’s leg bones were broken before death and decarnation. Because of the age and degraded condition of the skeletal materials, a measure of uncertain remains.�

And by the way, since you are appealing to the conclusions of Zias, let’s see what else he has also concluded:

• â€�The paucity of any direct physical evidence in the archaeological record for crucifixion can best be explained by the fact that aside from the Jews, most victims crucified by the Romans were not allotted a proper burial. Victims were simply tossed onto the public dumps, which archaeologically speaking is not high on the list of archaeological sites to be excavated. Jewish law however, which requires the deceased to be buried before sundown, was probably an exception in that according to the historian Josephus Flavius (Against Apion II.73), the Romans did not require Jews to violate their religious law. This in and of itself would explain the evidence for beheading (Zias 1983), crucifixion and other forms of extreme violence (Zias 1992) found in Jewish burials of the period.â€� – Joe Zias

So regardless of whatever Zias may have concluded about Yehohanan he has concluded that crucified Jews were granted burial by the Romans. That’s another scholar who disagrees with you.

Secondly, we don't even know if the broken leg bone was Yehohanan's because the bones weren't connected to the ankle with the nail in it.

Where are you getting this from because that’s not what the footnote in Craig’s article says. It says Zias and Skeles question whether the talus bone of Yehonanan suffered such an injury and object that the talus bone may belong to another skeleton. Which they inferred based upon morphology. It was originally thought the ossuary contained Yehonanan and a child. Zias and Skeles think there was three people placed in the ossuary.

He was buried with two other individuals.

That’s assuming the conclusions of Zias and Skeles are sound on this point.

“Strange though it may seem, when I excavated the bones of this crucified man, I did not know how he had died. Only when the contents of Ossuary No. 4 from Chamber B of Tomb No. 1 were sent for osteological analysis was it discovered that it contained one three- or four-year-old child and a crucified man—a nail held his heel bones together. The nail was about 7 inches (17–18 cm) long.� - Vassilios Tzaferis

Again, all you can infer from Yehohanan's burial is that his body eventually made its way to an ossuary.

Even if that were all I could infer from Yehohanan’s burial that’s all I need. It’s consistent with the Gospels as it confirms Jews buried crucified victims in family tombs.

It doesn't follow that he was immediately buried after death.

Well if he wasn’t buried immediately after his death then how did he end up in a tomb? Go ahead and walk me through that with evidence to support.

We have no idea how long he was on the cross for and why automatically assume his legs weren't broken before he was even crucified?

Because we have no evidence that crucified victims had their legs broken prior to crucifixion. So why assume they were?

Lastly, a burial in an ossuary usually implied it was a secondary burial after the body had already decomposed.

Agreed. And?

Look, you are welcome to dispute the conclusions of scholars and try to block the inferences made from the remains of Yehohanan. But the fact remains that Yehonanan is consistent with what we read in the Gospel accounts. And it is virtually indisputable evidence that crucified victims were buried in Jewish family tombs.

2. Digesta - I'm still waiting to see evidence that this 6th century Roman law document necessarily applied to non-Roman citizens in foreign countries in the 1st century. You seem to just assume that it was without evidence. Specifically, would it apply to Jewish peasants who were convicted of sedition/treason - Lk 23:2?

I provided numerous arguments and evidence in my last post. You ignored every single one.

Besides I can demand the same thing: where is your evidence that the Digesta law did NOT apply to non-Roman citizens in the first century? Come to think of it, I’m still waiting for the evidence that the Mishnah accurately reflects Jewish practices in the first century too.

How come all the sources which mention crucifixion are unanimous in that they describe forbidding burial, being left up to rot and being eaten by birds? It's not necessarily the case that all those sources reflect what happened just during war time.

Where are the sources that reflect Roman crucifixion practices in first century Palestine during peacetime?

3. Josephus in Jewish War 4.317

Moreover in the first chapter of Wars (1.96), when speaking of the atrocities of Alexander Jannaeus, Josephus seems to clearly portray άνασταυ�οΰν 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

And this is the problem. If Josephus thought that Jews practiced crucifixion (or post mortem suspension punishments), then in 4.317 he's not necessarily talking about Roman crucifixion pratice! Without the "Roman" qualifier you can't claim this is evidence for the Romans granting burial as he could just be talking about what the Jews did to their own people. There is even more evidence that Jews practiced crucifixion in the Temple Scroll - 11QTemple and 4QpNahum. Regardless of if they did or not or how widespread it was, Josephus could have simply been mistaken, while writing during a time of mass Roman crucifixion, and assumed Jews performed the same type of punishment. That's why he cites Deut. 21:22-23 as it would apply in the case of a Jewish crucifixion. He contrasts this more noble behavior of the Jews with the "impiety of the Idumeans."

You’ve ignored the arguments that Wars 4.317 was in reference to death by crucifixion as opposed to post mortem hangings. So I will consider that point conceded.

It seems now the goal post has moved to where we don’t know that Wars 4.317 was a reference to Roman crucifixion because there’s no “Roman� qualifier. It’s true of course that Josephus doesn’t use the explicit word “Roman� but there is an implied Roman qualifier in Josephus’ words in 4.317. And I argued for it in my last post.

Notice in Wars 4.317 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. Which implies the cases of crucifixion Josephus was referring to in Wars 4.317 were punishments handed down after an official judgement of being found guilty.

The Jews didn’t practise crucifixion as a form of punishment. You argued this yourself...

The Jewish methods of execution are exactly what you would expect to find in a codified Jewish document. Crucifixion was not a Jewish punishment.
...

Wasn't a Jewish punishment though so we wouldn't expect mention of [crucifixion] in the Mishnah.
...

Are you saying that the capital punishment section in the Jewish Mishnah should have mentioned the Roman punishment of crucifixion even though that's not how the Jews executed people?

Neither do we have evidence from Josephus that Jews practised crucifixion as a form of punishment. Yes Josephus reports a few isolated instances of Jews who probably used crucifixion as a cruel form of killing such as the case with Alexander Jannaeus. But the case of Jannaeus, in particular, was an isolated case and considered barbaric by Jews and Josephus. These weren’t official sentences handed down from the Jewish court after a judgement. Notice how in Wars 1.96 when Josephus speaks of Jannaeus he doesn’t say these Jews were condemned and crucified he simply says they were crucified by Jannaeus.

So who condemned criminals to crucifixion as an official form of punishment? That’s right. The Romans. So we do in fact have an implied Roman qualifier in Wars 4.317. At the very least this qualifier precludes it being a reference to Jews crucifying Jews.

[Willum]

The simplest theory is not, and can never be resurrection.
Resurrection, even for a creature with God's ascribed powers is probably impossible, and certainly impractical for an all-knowing deity with Bible-described goals.

[YahWhat]

Yes there are two scholars who dispute the earlier conclusions of Haas. They think the conclusion that the legs of Yehohanan were broken is based on inconclusive evidence. So what does that prove other than archaeological finds are notoriously ambiguous and can be interpreted in various ways?

Yet, the fact that the evidence is ambiguous doesn't keep you from making the unambiguous claim that the guy's legs were broken specifically in order to speed up death and receive an immediate burial. Weird...

�The paucity of any direct physical evidence in the archaeological record for crucifixion can best be explained by the fact that aside from the Jews, most victims crucified by the Romans were not allotted a proper burial. Victims were simply tossed onto the public dumps, which archaeologically speaking is not high on the list of archaeological sites to be excavated. Jewish law however, which requires the deceased to be buried before sundown, was probably an exception in that according to the historian Josephus Flavius (Against Apion II.73), the Romans did not require Jews to violate their religious law. This in and of itself would explain the evidence for beheading (Zias 1983), crucifixion and other forms of extreme violence (Zias 1992) found in Jewish burials of the period.� – Joe Zias

So regardless of whatever Zias may have concluded about Yehohanan he has concluded that crucified Jews were granted burial by the Romans. That’s another scholar who disagrees with you.

If his only evidence is Josephus Against Apion 2.73 then Ehrman's already dealt with that.

a. Josephus is not talking about burial laws or customs. You can read the passage on line for yourself. Josephus is referring to the national law of the Jews that did not allow them to make images, let alone images of foreign rulers. If Jews were required to make images, it would be a violation of their religious tradition – as in, e.g., the Ten Commandments. Josephus is saying something specific here: when the Romans conquered Judea, they did not force them to break their national laws against idolatry and so they exempted them from requiring images of the emperor, allowing them, instead, to pray for the emperor and sacrifice on his behalf in order to show all due honor to him. Josephus is not talking about *all* Jewish practices; only about their customs with respect to idolatry.

b. In that case the passage would indicate that Jews were not forced to break their laws by, say, executing someone and then leaving him unburied — since the law of Moses says that Jews are to bury their victims of capital punishment by sundown. But there’s an obvious problem here. In the case of Jesus we’re not talking about someone whom the Jews executed. It was the Romans who executed him. And they – not the Jews – were the ones who decided on when he would be buried. Even if Josephus is taken to mean that Jews buried their own executed criminals, it is not relevant to the question of whether ROMANS were compelled to bury their’s.

Where are you getting this from because that’s not what the footnote in Craig’s article says. It says Zias and Skeles question whether the talus bone of Yehonanan suffered such an injury and object that the talus bone may belong to another skeleton. Which they inferred based upon morphology. It was originally thought the ossuary contained Yehonanan and a child. Zias and Skeles think there was three people placed in the ossuary.

The broken leg bones are not connected to the ankle with the nail in it.

Even if that were all I could infer from Yehohanan’s burial that’s all I need. It’s consistent with the Gospels as it confirms Jews buried crucified victims in family tombs.

But you don't know how long he was on the cross for! If he was left up to rot and picked apart by birds (per the sources) before he was allowed to be buried then, no, that wouldn't be consistent with the same day burial Jesus receives in the gospels now would it?

Well if he wasn’t buried immediately after his death then how did he end up in a tomb? Go ahead and walk me through that with evidence to support.

The point is we don't know. This is your argument. You need to show the evidence of how Yehohanan received an immediate burial. Now that I've shown that the broken leg evidence is disputed and cannot be used to support an immediate burial it looks like you're out of luck.

Because we have no evidence that crucified victims had their legs broken prior to crucifixion. So why assume they were?

I was talking about the legs being broken prior to and in a completely unrelated way to crucifixion. He could have been beaten or had a accident where he broke his legs. The assumption that the legs were broken "in order to speed up death on the cross" is not actually supported by any conclusive evidence and Zias actually concludes that the breaking happened post mortem.

Agreed. And?

And so that means his interment in the ossuary most likely wasn't his initial burial. Was he placed in a criminal's graveyard beforehand? Was he buried in the ground first? Was his corpse stolen when the Romans weren't looking? Had the Romans disposed of him in a pit and his relatives retrieved his body later? Had his body already decayed due prolonged exposure to the elements and being eaten by animals prior to the initial burial? So many questions left unanswered.

Look, you are welcome to dispute the conclusions of scholars and try to block the inferences made from the remains of Yehohanan. But the fact remains that Yehonanan is consistent with what we read in the Gospel accounts. And it is virtually indisputable evidence that crucified victims were buried in Jewish family tombs.

It's consistent insofar as it opens up the mere possibility that Jesus might have eventually received a burial. Congratulations. However, that doesn't necessarily make the same day burial of Jesus, the convicted blasphemer and crucified "King of the Jews," as recorded in the Gospels, probable.

I provided numerous arguments and evidence in my last post. You ignored every single one.

Your "arguments" all presupposed Roman citizenship which just supports what I've been saying! Losing "Roman citizenship" requires having it in the first place which is further confirmation that the Digesta dealt specifically with Roman citizens! You need to provide evidence that the capital punishment clauses in the 6th century Digesta necessarily applied to "non-Roman" criminals in foreign countries during the 1st century. Good luck with that when all the evidence we have actually contradicts that hypothesis.

Do we see the Digesta principle in practice in regards to crucifixion victims? Since the Digesta supposedly goes back to the days of Augustus let's see what he had to say!

Suetonius, Augustus 13:
For instance, to one man who begged humbly for burial, he is said to have replied: "The carrion birds will soon settle that question."

Yikes!

But since Augustus wasn't actually emperor when Jesus was crucified let's see what Tacitus says about what happened when Tiberius was in power. He says suicide was preferable to avoid being executed by the state, since anyone who was legally condemned and executed “forfeited his estate and was deprived of burial� (Annals 6.29h).

Doesn't look too good!

Were the martyrs at Lyons granted a requested burial? Nope.

Eusebius (EH 5.1.61-62): The bodies of the crucified Christians were displayed for six days and then burned so that the ashes might be scattered in the Rhone. Christian fellow-disciples complained, "We could not bury the bodies in the earth...neither did money or prayers move them, for in every possible way they kept guard as if the prevention of burial would give them great gain."

Let's look at some Rabbinic sources to see if the treatment of Jews faired any better, shall we?

"The Romans generally left the bodies of crucified people on the cross when they died, to be food for dogs and vultures. This is reflected in a Jewish context in tractate Great Mourning (Ēbhel Rabb�thī, known euphemistically as Sem�ḥ�th, Rejoicings). This says that the family of someone executed by the state (mlkūth), so the Romans, not Jewish authorities, should begin to count the days of mourning ‘from when they give up hope of asking’ successfully for the body of the executed person (b. Sem II, 9). More specifically, the wife, husband or child of a crucified person is instructed not to carry on living in the same city ‘until the flesh has gone and the figure is not recognizable in the bones’ (b. Sem. II, 11). This gives a graphic picture of families being unable to obtain the bodies of crucified people when they died, and the bodies being left on crosses until they were unrecognizable." - Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, pg. 446

Semahot II.11[44b]
[A wife] whose husband was crucified in her city, [a man] whose wife is crucified in his city, [a person] whose father and his mother are crucified [in] his [city] - [such a person] should not dwell in that city, unless a city as large as Antioch. He [whose family member was crucified] should not dwell within this border; rather, [such a] mourner should dwell within another border. Until when is this forbidden? Until the flesh was consumed, and there is not the form [of the person] remembered in the bones.

Semahot II.9[44b]
[Concerning] those executed by a government - there shall not be a withholding from them of any matter [i.e., of any funeral rite]. When do they begin to count their death? From the time they give up hope from asking [for the corpse], but not from stealing [the corpse]. Everyone who steals [the corpse], such a person is [like] one who sheds blood - and not only like one who sheds blood, but also as like one who serves foreign idols, and one who uncovers naked­ness, and one who profanes Sabbaths.

In these passages it's just taken for granted that the bodies will remain up to rot and it's hopeless to request they be taken down. How can this be the case if the Digesta law was in practice? Obviously, it wasn't.

Besides I can demand the same thing: where is your evidence that the Digesta law did NOT apply to non-Roman citizens in the first century?

I already gave the evidence from Raymond Brown saying the Digesta was juxta ordinem - i.e. dealt with Roman citizens in Rome. You just hand waved that away.

Where are the sources that reflect Roman crucifixion practices in first century Palestine during peacetime?

Exactly. Where are the sources that say what happened to crucifixion victims during peacetime? It's just automatically assumed they were given a burial but I don't actually see any evidence that was necessarily the case. Again, Jesus was crucified for sedition or treason so even if it was peacetime we can't assume he would be given a proper burial. The Digesta actually says granting the body for burial didn't apply for those convicted of treason.

You’ve ignored the arguments that Wars 4.317 was in reference to death by crucifixion as opposed to post mortem hangings. So I will consider that point conceded.

Notice in Wars 4.317 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. Which implies the cases of crucifixion Josephus was referring to in Wars 4.317 were punishments handed down after an official judgement of being found guilty.

The word καταδίκης contains the word δίκη dike which can also refer to punishment.

1) custom, usage
2) right, just
3) a suit at law
4) a judicial hearing, judicial decision, esp. sentence of condemnation
5) execution of a sentence, punishment
5a) to suffer punishment
6) the goddess Justice, avenging justice
http://lexiconcordance.com/greek/1349.html

So that word can imply both the judgement and punishment. If that's the case then he could still be referring to a Jewish judiciary death sentence and a post mortem suspension. Some of the translations render the word καταδίκης as "malefactors" which would imply they were already considered guilty and may have already been executed. In any case, there's no reason to restrict the word to meaning the "condemnation" only as the wording is completely consistent with a condemned criminal being executed by Jews then suspended post-mortem. It actually makes perfect sense in the context too since Josephus is citing Deut 21 and contrasting that with the behavior of the Idumeans who were not practicing what Deut 21 teaches.

The Jews didn’t practise crucifixion as a form of punishment. You argued this yourself...

The Jewish methods of execution are exactly what you would expect to find in a codified Jewish document. Crucifixion was not a Jewish punishment.
...

Wasn't a Jewish punishment though so we wouldn't expect mention of [crucifixion] in the Mishnah.
...

Are you saying that the capital punishment section in the Jewish Mishnah should have mentioned the Roman punishment of crucifixion even though that's not how the Jews executed people?

As I mentioned earlier there is evidence in the Qumran literature 4QPNahum and 11QTemple that some Jews in the BCE period may have practiced crucifixion. There is no contradiction if it was no longer practiced by Jews in the 1st century, and thus, not mentioned as a formal type of punishment in the Mishnah.

4QPNahum
"the Lion of Wrath [...] death in the Seekers-after-Smooth-Things, whom he hangs as live men [...] in Israel from of old, for of one hanged alive on the tree [it] reads, Behold I am against you..."

"The crucial crucifixion passage appears in lines six to eight. That the phrase in line seven ("who will hang up living men") refers to crucifixion, while initially debated, has now long been the scholarly consensus." - David W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion, pg. 60.

11QTemple is relevant because the author interprets Deut 21:22-23 differently and reverses the order of the punishment for certain crimes.

"If a man will be a slanderer against my people and surrenders my people to a foreign nation and does evil against my people then you [plural] shall hang him on the tree and he shall die on the mouth of two witnesses and on the mouth of three witnesses he shall be put to death, and they shall hang him [on] the tree. If there is in a man a sin bearing a judgment of death and he has fled to the midst of the nations and he has cursed my people [and] the sons of Israel then you [pl.] shall also hang him on the tree, and he shall die. And their corpse shall not spend the night on the tree, but you shall surely bury them in that day, for those who are hung on the tree have been cursed of God and men, and you shall not defile the land, which give to you as an inheritance."

"Therefore, this text provides a significant witness that at least some Jewish people saw suspension as a viable means of execution, and that they found biblical warrant for their view in Deuteronomy 21:22-23." - David W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion, pg. 132.

This latter text would seem to show that crucifixion was an official punishment by Jews and, thus, would also fill the criteria for what Josephus is talking about in JW 4.317.

Neither do we have evidence from Josephus that Jews practised crucifixion as a form of punishment. Yes Josephus reports a few isolated instances of Jews who probably used crucifixion as a cruel form of killing such as the case with Alexander Jannaeus. But the case of Jannaeus, in particular, was an isolated case and considered barbaric by Jews and Josephus. These weren’t official sentences handed down from the Jewish court after a judgement. Notice how in Wars 1.96 when Josephus speaks of Jannaeus he doesn’t say these Jews were condemned and crucified he simply says they were crucified by Jannaeus.

Josephus could have been familiar with crucifixion being used by some Jews in ancient Israel's history, he could have simply been mistaken, or he was referring to post mortem suspensions. You still don't have the "Roman" qualifier you need, implicit or otherwise.

So who condemned criminals to crucifixion as an official form of punishment? That’s right. The Romans. So we do in fact have an implied Roman qualifier in Wars 4.317. At the very least this qualifier precludes it being a reference to Jews crucifying Jews.

I just showed that to not necessarily be the case and Josephus was writing at a time period about the War which was when the Romans would not have been granting burial. So there's even more reason to believe he's not talking about Roman crucifixion in JW 4.317.

[Kapyong]

Gday all,
Just a reminder - Occam's Razor is a CUTTER, not a chooser.


What Occam's Razor actually says is this :
"entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"
which rendered into literal English is :
"entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"

(Although oddly enough, Occam's Razor does not actually appear in his writings, but in those of later commentators.)

But nowadays it has been mis-represented to mean something like :
"the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one".

Note that Wiki says - ' The principle is often inaccurately summarized as "the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one". '

It's innacurate because Occam's Razor is not a CHOOSER - it's a CUTTER, a razor. It does NOT say anything about alternatives, it does NOT say anything about CHOOSING at all - that is merely a later interpretation or implication.

In fact - the key verb is "do NOT multiply"; and what is not to be multipled is entities (meaning broadly - "things"); and to "not multiply" means to not add extra - i.e. to CUT OFF what is not needed. That's why it's called Occam's Razor and not Occam's Chooser or Occam's Decider.

So here is Kapyong's more accurate rendition of Occam's Razor :
"Cut off everything that is not necessary."
or
"Chop off what's not needed".

Kapyong