How did the myth of Jesus' resurrection originate?

[Aractus]

• AR: You say your explanation will "fit all the evidence", so this is what I will test it on.
  RC: I put “facts” in quotation marks because there are very few bits of the NT narrative that can be granted that lofty status. A fact is objective, “something that truly exists or happens : something that has actual existence”. “Evidence” is “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid”. Thus the NT is not “facts”, but mostly apologetics. Not history (as you agree elsewhere), but narrative, often polemic. The weight of evidence – internal as well as external -- is that the story is contrived, at the most a “historical fiction”.

Be careful with what you present as being "fact".

You claim that "there are very few bits of the NT narrative that can be granted that lofty status (fact)" and "the weight of evidence – internal as well as external -- is that the story is contrived". Offering such broad generalizations without any detail of why you consider something unreliable is the typical response from Atheists who have already dismissed all of the evidence without considering if any of it is relevant, reliable or corroborated.

As you already know, much of the events in the NT are already internally corroborated. The fact that Luke makes such extensive use of Mark as well as writes Acts, and many of the events in Acts are externally corroborated, is itself corroboration for Mark - it means that Luke took the Gospel According to Mark and found it to be trustworthy and reliable.

And your claim that there's a lack of external evidence is wrong.



As you can clearly see, this Roman official that held office - mentioned only on this inscription and in the NT - has no surviving Roman literature written about him!

The point that most people in your position would try to make is that "well there's no evidence for Luke's census" - and yet there is internal evidence, but no external evidence - and my response to this has always been "so?" So what, so there's one detail that hasn't been externally corroborated, may never be corroborated, and even if it turned out to be wrong it would not mean that any other detail is wrong.

We have an abundance of evidence that corroborates the Biblical narrative, and we have little to no evidence that contradicts it. Absence of evidence is neither corroborative nor contradictory, and so your claim is plainly wrong, unless you are able to corroborate it with evidence that is contradictory to the narrative in the NT. After all it is you yourself who used the phrase "the weight of evidence", claiming it to be in your favour.

• RC: First, thanks to Xpastor for his helpful response. Further: I think your response is essentially Johannine Christology, thus crediting the NT where little or no credit is due. The NT/Bible confuses us on many points (in addition to Is 7:14 cf. the two “Davidic genealogies” of Jesus that are utterly phony, mathematically demonstrably not from the same population of human beings, but please don’t go there in this thread).

1. I don't know why you're talking about Is 7:14 in a thread about the resurrection, not the birth of Jesus. 2. I don't know where you get off brining up points you think support your cause only to then claim that we can't talk about them?

Especially when you confuse people by them.

Genealogies were common in the time of Jesus, and anyone could go down to retrieve the records, and use them to prove his or her lineage. They were recorded and kept because of the commands God gave in the OT relating to the different tribes of Israel.

I'm not too concerned as to exactly why the genealogies are slightly different. Some people think that one is Mary's genealogy - which is entirely possible. In any case, if the genealogies were wrong, it would have been proven - the records were there at the time to be read and studied by Jews, and if they were wrong then they would have been disproven in the first century.

• AR: By a member of the Jewish community and an early disciple of Jesus (a Christian).
  RC: It is plausible and consistent with Jewish law and practice that even the Temple authorities who were wronged would have sought proper burial for a Jew executed by the Romans for a minor crime, so as not to have him hang dead overnight. There surely was a real person responsible for arranging this obligatory burial of Roman-executed criminals, but the name and that he was a follower are at best speculations.

It's not speculation, it's recorded in every Gospel!

Matt 27:57-60: When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.

Mark 15:42-46: And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.

Luke 23:50-53: Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid.

John 19:38: After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body.

Now John's account is the shortest when it comes to Joseph of Arimathea - however he is also the one who states that he was a disciple of Jesus. Either the other writers were unaware of this fact, or they simply didn't include it, but regardless John includes it almost as an afterthought. John doesn't even give the details that this was a rich man or that he owned a new stone-cut tomb. Matthew makes it explicit that he is the owner. Even without this we infer that he is the owner of the tomb, especially since it's noted that the tomb is "new". Or by the other comment Matthew gives which is that "he had cut it" - not literally of course, it simply means that "he had had it cut" and infers ownership.

Is this man invented? Of course not - if you're going to make up a story about who takes the body and lays it in a tomb, then why include somebody we don't know anything about? If the story was invented, it would seem that you would use a disciple more familiar to the early church, you wouldn't use somebody they don't know. We know that the Gospel readers didn't know who this was, because the synoptic gospel writers had to specify that he was "a member of the council", a fact they would not have bothered including if everybody knew this man.

• RC: Tomb-then-ossuary is an assumption, not a certainty. Direct interment was done. See, inter alia, the link above, and this (my emphasis): “…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”. From http://craigaevans.com/Burial_Traditions.pdf .
  
  So, ossuaries and the rock-hewn tombs with cover stones show how the rich were handled, not a poor Galilean, dead 100km from home. Even if the corpse was placed in a fancy tomb it was more likely an expedient, not one for poor criminals; such entombment was not intended to last long enough to allow rotting to a skeleton, but most plausibly to avoid the onset of the Sabbath. Removal ASAP would have been required, to a more suitable spot, dug or hewn.

Gosh, who's the one appealing to conjecture now?

Jesus was placed in a rock-cut tomb. A rich man's tomb. The purpose of this type of tomb is to prepare to body for later burial inside an ossuary. The women prepared spices to embalm the body - this is also recorded in the gospels.

Even if you're right - and somebody removed the body to bury it in the ground - who? And why would they break the Roman seal to do so? And how did they did a grave so early in the morning that they were able to did the grave, roll away the stone, and remove the body before the women reached the tomb?

I'm sorry but your account is nonsensical. No one would have had the opportunity to remove the body: 1. they had to dig a grave, 2. they had to break the Roman Seal (a capital offence) and 3. the tomb was guarded and they had to overpower the Roman Guards (also a capital offence). Seems like way too much trouble when the body is already lying in a tomb.

• AR in reply to Xpastor: The feast of unleavened bread begins on Nisan 14. … If Jesus was crucified on the Sabbath (Nisan 15), then it would mean that he could not have been crucified on a Friday - for if he was, it would mean that there would be three Sabbaths and the women could not return to embalm his body until the second day of the week - Monday.
  RC: Passover begins on 15 Nisan, not on 14 Nisan. “Good Friday” says Friday is the day recognized as the day of crucifixion and death, and necessarily the day of entombment. Thus Friday is the first day, Shabbat is the second, and from sundown on Shabbat began the third day. Thursday was a Passover-preparatory day, no work; Friday the Yom Tov, the holy day, literally the “Good Day” (Thursday evening would have been the start of 15 Nisan. Friday sundown ended the 15th and began Shabbat the 16th).

What are you talking about? 15 Nisan (evening) is when the Passover is eaten, but the feast of unleavened bread begins on 14 Nisan and it is on this day that that the Passover lambs are sacrificed. At the start of the day, 14 Nisan, in the evening is when Jesus shares the Passover meal with his disciples - he doesn't need to wait until 15 Nisan because they aren't eating a lamb - rather it is he himself that will be sacrificed on that day.

14 Nisan "Friday" Evening: The Last Supper is eaten at the start of the feast of unleavened bread.
14 Nisan "Friday" Day: Jesus is crucified, and then laid in a tomb. Passover lambs are sacrificed. Women prepare spices to embalm the body.
15 Nisan Sabbath: Passover meals are eaten in the Evening, it is a Day of rest no work is done.
16 Nisan "Sunday" Evening: Women finish preparing the spices and go to anoint the Bible early in the morning before the sun has a risen.
16 Nisan "Sunday" Day: The tomb is discovered empty, the body gone, the Roman Seal broken, the stone rolled away and the guards asleep.

Your account would claim that somebody dug a grave at night on Sunday, then stole the body without permission from the Romans and put it in the grave? That's the only window of opportunity, and yet it makes no sense!