Hi all, thought we could have a little Easter fun and exercise our brains and critical thinking.
Interesting article in the London Times today on the Resurrection written by Oxford professor of Jewish Studies Geza Vermes. The article can be accessed here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6045173.ece
In this Vermes outlines four alternatives to the bodily resurrection of Christ, and Jim Davila, a well-known rabbinics scholar and keeper of the famous PaleoJudaica Blog calls attention to a fifth popularized by John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar:
"One can add a fifth and more radical position, held, for example by the NT scholar John Dominic Crossan, that the accounts of the burial of Jesus and the subsequent empty tomb are legendary accretions with no historical basis at all."
Can we open up a discussion on these and formulate responses, particularly in the realm of Vermes' methodological and presuppositional approach?
To enter into the discussion, leave a comment.
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4 comments:
Interesting article, too bad the author doesn't consider all points and summarily dismisses the historical/traditional view outright. I'll address the 4 theories separately, but here's the response to #1:
“One: the body was not found by the women because the guardian of the cemetery used the first opportunity to move the body of Jesus out of the grave that had been prepared for someone else.”
The traditional response to this theory comes back to physical improbability and historical context. Matthew’s Gospel presents the most detailed description of the tomb and burial site of Jesus but all 4 Gospels indicate the presence of the sealing stone for the tomb entrance at the resurrection in which Mary and the accompanying women have to deal with now open tomb in which the stone was removed. Given that all 4 accounts indicate that when Mary arrived at the tomb the stone was rolled away, it is a veritable certainty that such a stone must have in fact existed and would have been placed at the entrance to the tomb.
Coming back to Matthew’s account, however, we see that Joseph of Arimathea “rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the grave.” (Mt. 27: 60 – 61, NASB) Historical and archeological evidence indicates that the common means of sealing tombs at the time of Jesus was to place a large stone at the top of a ramp or hillside that fronted the tomb entrance. After placing the body inside, the stone could then be rolled in front of the entrance to seal the tomb with little effort, possibly by a single man. However, such stones were often of significant weight and thus the indication by the women in the Gospels (“Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” Mk. 16:3, NASB) that it would take significant effort by multiple people of sufficient strength to remove such a stone.
Further, Matthew’s Gospel indicates that the Pharisees went to Pilate to request that he “give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, 'He has risen from the dead,' and the last deception will be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how." And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.” (Mt. 27: 63 – 66, NASB) Placing such a seal and a guard would further complicate the ability of a single person or group of persons from removing the sealing stone.
Thus, given the Biblical accounts and physical improbability, it would seem illogical to believe that one or a group of individuals that were “guardians of the cemetery” would or could in the middle of the night come and remove Jesus’ body from the tomb without anyone else noticing. Further, had this been the case, why did they not produce the body at a later date and time to contradict the Apostles’ story of the resurrection? And, why is there no historical account of said “guardians of the cemetery” contradicting the Resurrection even if they had no body to produce to indicate the validity of their claims?
Theory #1 is flawed and leaves much to be desired in terms of plausibility and cohesiveness or contradiction to the traditional view and claims posed by the Biblical accounts.
Wonderful Garrett. I'll address the textual/literary aspect.
I will start our discussion off by considering the fifth argument against the resurrection, viz. that of John Dominic Crossan as raised by Jim Davila that the Gospel accounts of the death, burial, and subsequent bodily resurrection are simply a by-product of ‘accretion’ wholly independent from historical mooring.
Firstly, whenever questions of ‘text’ arise it is critical to give first priority to ‘raw materials’ of textual inquiry, the manuscripts themselves and the story of their transmission process. When considered in this light, there are no significant variants within the textual evidence that would suggest a subsequent addition to the Gospels during the process of transmission. The textual history is unified in its witness to the resurrection accounts.
In the vacuum of textual evidence, one may then turn to other literary critiques and conjecture that the resurrection accounts were the result of fictitious material added to the Gospels at the time of the autographs. If one were to posit ‘accretion,’ a technical term referring to the steady addition and multiplication of material by means of the forging together of a series of smaller aggregates, pace Crossan, one would expect a colluding of texts into a smoothed, uniform narrative. However, when considering the synoptic (note small ‘s’) resurrection accounts in parallel throughout the four Gospels, one finds just the opposite. To the contrary, what is encountered are four largely independent accounts, each containing discreet material vis-à-vis the others. If ‘accretion’ did indeed take place, the expectation would be just the opposite, i.e., that the resurrection narratives fit neatly together, which of course, they do not.
The conclusion then, and this can be seen throughout the history of modern critical methods especially those espoused by the ‘historical Jesus’ questers such as Dibelius and Bultmann after him, is that such objects stand not on empirical (manuscripts) or literary critical tools such as ‘form,’ but are much more rooted in philosophical and theological grounds. One is certainly free to reject the resurrection, but one must be careful to work within the realm of ‘evidence’ and the standard tools of textual/literary inquiry.
Okay, Round 2…
“Two: in the darkness the women lost their way and went to a wrong tomb.”
Three of the four accounts of the Empty Tomb (Mt. 28:1, Mk. 16:2, Lk. 24:1, Jn. 20:1) indicated that Mary Magdalene and the additional women arrived at the tomb at early sunrise. John’s account is the only one that would indicate Mary alone arrived while it was still dark.
However, we will assume, based upon the theory, that only John’s account is true. For Mary Magdalene to have found the wrong tomb once, is fairly difficult to believe considering Matthew’s account that at the burial, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting opposite the tomb at the time Joseph of Arimathea sealed the tomb with the stone. (Mt. 27:61) But again, basing solely on John’s account, we will discount Matthew’s account. Thus, for the sake of the argument we will assume she did arrive in the dark at the wrong tomb. She then runs off to find Simon Peter and John (recorded in both Luke and John). The theory would then follow that she again returned to the wrong tomb, led by John who would have also run to the wrong tomb along with Peter who would have followed John to the wrong tomb. Upon entering the wrong empty tomb they find burial linens that did not belong to Jesus. Given that the men accompanying Mary were running, it is likely they either had clear enough daylight to see the rocky path or carried torches to see the way. Darkness then must be thrown out as the cause of the misdirection. For all three people to arrive at the same wrong tomb would seem equally implausible. Further, the finding of burial linens in the empty tomb would be of further implausibility as these linens (for some other person to be buried in this tomb) would not be stored in the tomb itself but in a home or other location to be brought to the body before laying it in the tomb. Lastly, had they truly found the wrong tomb, all it would take is a simple survey of the cemetery to locate the correct tomb and again produce the body of Jesus still dead inside the tomb.
Thus, theory #2 is again significantly flawed and does not adequately resolve the issue of the body of Jesus.
“Three: the Apostles stole the corpse as was alleged by the priestly leaders. (But since nobody expected Jesus to rise again, why should anybody fake his resurrection?)”
Okay, so at least in this theory, the body of Jesus is at least addressed. However, it does assume that the Apostles were significantly depraved individuals with a collective agreement to conceal the truth from the public at great penalty of death and torture. Physically, the eleven men (and associated women) could have moved the sealing stone from the tomb. They could possibly have even overpowered the Roman guards posted there by order of Pilate (Mt. 27:65-66). But should they have stolen away Jesus’ body, there remain significant lingering questions that must be answered.
First, to what end would it have served for the Apostles to have stolen His body? This would assume that they had a conceived plan to perpetuate a belief in a bodily resurrection that they themselves apparently did not believe in. (Attested to by the fact that each and every one of them deserted Jesus at his “trial” and by the argument’s statement itself that no one expected His resurrection.)
Second, why leave behind the burial linens? If one were to steal Jesus’ body from the tomb would it have not been easier and faster to have taken it with the linens rather than unwrapping His body then placing them neatly back in the tomb? (Lk. 24:12 & Jn. 20:6-7) The only apparent motive for such an act would have again been to further substantiate a resurrection that again, they themselves had not believed in.
Third, what about the guards? If the Apostles (and the women) had truly overpowered the guards stationed at the tomb, would they not have simply reported thus to Pilate and the authorities to have the Apostles arrested and similarly ordered to death (as would have been the appropriate punishment for the time, attested to by the arrest and sentence of Barabbas in Lk 23:18-19)? We must thus conclude that the guards lied to Pilate and the Temple leaders in order to avoid any punishment falling upon themselves for failing to uphold their assigned duty.
Finally, we come to the clandestine plan by the Apostles to lie and conceal the truth of Jesus’ death without the Resurrection in order to start the Christian religious movement. As Pastor Jeff has already pointed out, all of the accounts of the Resurrection differ slightly. Had this truly been a singular plan by a group of eleven men and associated women, would they not have created a single unified story by which to proclaim their gospel? When compared against other plans of such magnitude, men of stronger resolve than this group of fishermen and tax collectors all fell to scrutiny and interrogation within a few years of the plan’s inception. However, the Apostles proclaimed the truth of their “lie” of the Resurrection for years, under torture and threat of penalty of death (that was carried out for all but John).
The plausibility of theory #3 leaves much to be desired as well and again, does not adequately address the full accounts of the 4 Gospel stories. However, of all the proposed theories, this is the most likely contrary theory to the traditional acceptance of the bodily Resurrection of Christ.
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