Matthew's attempt to counter the rumor that the disciples stole the body

[Cyberman]

Since you're asking my opinion, I don't think there were any disciples to steal anything at all, nor a body for anyone to steal. Nothing about the Jesus story is original and none of it makes any sense for the first century period in which it is set; besides which, as Min already mentioned, the story positively reeks of the second century. Thus, there was no rumour outside of the story - you know, in the real world where real people live and actual things happen.

[helmespc]

Interesting.... although I don't think there's any factual basis for any of this story. So essentially its pointing out that there's a hoax within a hoax.

Why do you not think that there is no factual basis to the story?

There's just no direct evidence whatsoever that any of the Jesus story is factual. We have only very dubious indirect evidence in the bible, which would be quickly dismissed in any historical conversation (if it weren't for the subject matter) as fiction. There is very faint evidence therein that the Jesus character might be based on a real-life Nazarene, but even that is pathetic speculation with overwhelming contradictory evidence against it.

[reverendjeremiah]

The eleven didnt steal the body...there were no eleven OR a body...its all fiction

[kılıç_mehmet]

According to Matt 28:11-15, a rumor was circulating regarding how the body of Jesus came to be missing. That the body was indeed missing is necessarily presupposed by the rumor which could be dismissed by merely visiting Jesus’ tomb. As a result, two competing reports emerged to account for its absence. While the Jewish authorities maintained that the Christians stole the body, the Christians urged that Jesus had come alive and then vacated the tomb. The dispute may be easily decided by examining the passage mentioned above:

While they [the woman who had seen Jesus] were on their way, some of the guard went off to the city to tell the chief priests all that had happened [that the angel of the Lord had appeared and terrified them, causing them to faint]. These held a meeting with the elders and, after some discussion, handed a considerable sum of money to the soldiers with these instructions, ‘This is what you must say, "His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep." And should the governor come to hear of this, we undertake to put things right with him ourselves and to see that you do not get into trouble. The soldiers took the money and carried out their instructions, and to this day that is the story among the Jews.

The question that exposes the truth of the matter is: Is there any probable explanation as to how the author knew about the bribe? There is none. It is pure fabrication, a lie intended to discredit the rumor that the disciples stole the body but tracing its origin to a secret meeting of his own concoction. His intention is, in fact, to cover up what he knew to be the truth, the eleven did indeed steal the body.

The attempt to discredit the report of the theft is again found in an earlier episode found in Matt 27:62-66:

Next day, that is, when Preparation Day was over, the chief priests and the Pharisees went in a body to Pilate and said to him, "Your Excellency, we recall that this impostor said, while he was still alive, "After three days I shall rise again." Therefore, give the order to have the sepulchre kept secure until the third day, for fear that his disciples come and steal him away and tell the people, "He has rise from the dead." This last piece of fraud would be worse than what went before." You may have your guard said Pilate to them. ‘Go and make all as secure as you know how.’ So they went and make the sepulchre secure, putting seals on the stone and mounting a guard.

Unlike the account of the bribe, it is remotely possible that a Christian or Christian sympathizer may have somehow "overheard" this exchange. But such a conclusion is most desperate and can in no way be regarded as the most probable thesis. In all likelihood, the author here also could not have been privy to the exchange between Pilate and the Jewish leadership. On the contrary, the bribe episode lends great weight to the conclusion that the author is here also lying in order to refute the report that the disciples stole and body in order to support their claim that Jesus had risen from the dead. Our author would have us believe that they could not have stolen the body because a guard had been posted to prevent this very thing. Therefore, the bribe and the guard episodes are one in their intent, to discredit the notion that the disciples stole the body. That there is no doubt that the author is fabricating his account is shown by his unbelievable claim that the guards who at one minute fainted in terror at the appearance of the Angel of the Lord are in the next quite ready to lie about it for money.

These considerations point to the conclusion that there was neither a bribe nor a guard posted and that the missing body of Jesus is accounted for by the thesis that its absence was indeed the result of theft. In addition, the competing thesis that Jesus arose rests solely upon the testimony of his followers and who further maintained that the supposedly living Jesus had fairly soon and for some hidden reason conveniently departed to heaven, the realm of the blessed dead! In sum, the thesis advanced by the Jews to explain the missing body is obviously the more probable one. The disciples stole the body and agreed to testify that they had seen their risen Lord. They lied just as our author in Matthew has lied.

The resurrection of Jesus was a hoax that began two days after Jesus death and was still being propagated by the author of Matthew perhaps over as much as generation later when his gospel was composed with its clever yet patently impossible explanation for the missing body that the disciples stole and then buried somewhere near Jerusalem. They then proceeded to proclaim some very pretty lies and called them the gospel.

The muslims also deny the existence of a resurrection. They also state that Jesus was not crucified, but was taken up to heaven like İlyas Nebi(Elijah) without dying.
However, here, the only thing is that in truth, it all comes down whether you believe in a divine/prophetic jesus at all.
IF you don't, the whole story is already moot.
There is no evidence nor contradictions in the Bible to use against the Bible's own followers.

Just for argument's sake, your argument too, is not really reliable.
IF there were guards that were guarding the burial chamber, they certainly were spotted by the disciples, or people of whom knew the disciples, and they might have reached such a conclusion that the guards were there to deny their disciples the access to the tomb, so they could not steal the body.

[Minimalist]

Holy shit. I'm going to agree with Mehmet.


It's fairly easy to see how the whole 'there-were-guards-on-the-tomb' shit developed.

With all the xtian special pleading that goes on let's remember what we know of crucifixion as employed by the Romans. It was a punishment for rebels and/or slaves. Nothing in the so-called gospels indicates that jesus was either. People who were crucified were sometimes shown "mercy" by having their legs broken so death would be hastened but the whole point of the punishment was to serve as a grisly warning. It was a giant billboard which said "Don't-Fuck-With-Us-or-This-Could-Be-You." If you were hung up on a cross you stayed there until your body rotted off and then what was left was thrown in a garbage dump. Taking the body down for "burial" would have been seen as self-defeating by the Romans. It would have contradicted the whole fucking point of crucifying someone in the first place.

Which brings us to how the story develops. So we have ole jesus hanging up on a cross - supposedly dead and "Joseph of Aramathea" (A- a place which no one can locate and B- a naming convention which defies local usage at the time) going to Pilate and asking for the body for proper burial. Pilate is surprised that jc is dead so soon...must have thought that jesus was just a pussy! Anyway they check it out and let "Joseph" take the body. Frankly, this seems more like a plot device as used on stage. Even in Shakespearean times there were no "curtains" on the stage. When a Shakespearean character dies there is always a group of people to cart the body off the stage so that the spectators don't have to sit there and watch the supposedly "dead" victim get up and walk off before the next scene.

So jesus has been carted away ( exit stage right ) but in "Mark" there are no guards...nor in "Luke" that little wrinkle is not introduced into the story until "Matthew." Is it really so hard to imagine that criticisms of the first two gospels arose about how jesus' followers stole the body so that a later incarnation of the story suddenly has the Vth Legion guarding a fucking tomb?

[Happy UnBeliever]

---

According to Matt 28:11-15, a rumor was circulating regarding how the body of Jesus came to be missing. That the body was indeed missing is necessarily presupposed by the rumor which could be dismissed by merely visiting Jesus’ tomb. As a result, two competing reports emerged to account for its absence. While the Jewish authorities maintained that the Christians stole the body, the Christians urged that Jesus had come alive and then vacated the tomb. The dispute may be easily decided by examining the passage mentioned above:

While they [the woman who had seen Jesus] were on their way, some of the guard went off to the city to tell the chief priests all that had happened [that the angel of the Lord had appeared and terrified them, causing them to faint]. These held a meeting with the elders and, after some discussion, handed a considerable sum of money to the soldiers with these instructions, ‘This is what you must say, "His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep." And should the governor come to hear of this, we undertake to put things right with him ourselves and to see that you do not get into trouble. The soldiers took the money and carried out their instructions, and to this day that is the story among the Jews.

The question that exposes the truth of the matter is: Is there any probable explanation as to how the author knew about the bribe? There is none. It is pure fabrication, a lie intended to discredit the rumor that the disciples stole the body but tracing its origin to a secret meeting of his own concoction. His intention is, in fact, to cover up what he knew to be the truth, the eleven did indeed steal the body.

The attempt to discredit the report of the theft is again found in an earlier episode found in Matt 27:62-66:

Next day, that is, when Preparation Day was over, the chief priests and the Pharisees went in a body to Pilate and said to him, "Your Excellency, we recall that this impostor said, while he was still alive, "After three days I shall rise again." Therefore, give the order to have the sepulchre kept secure until the third day, for fear that his disciples come and steal him away and tell the people, "He has rise from the dead." This last piece of fraud would be worse than what went before." You may have your guard said Pilate to them. ‘Go and make all as secure as you know how.’ So they went and make the sepulchre secure, putting seals on the stone and mounting a guard.

Unlike the account of the bribe, it is remotely possible that a Christian or Christian sympathizer may have somehow "overheard" this exchange. But such a conclusion is most desperate and can in no way be regarded as the most probable thesis. In all likelihood, the author here also could not have been privy to the exchange between Pilate and the Jewish leadership. On the contrary, the bribe episode lends great weight to the conclusion that the author is here also lying in order to refute the report that the disciples stole and body in order to support their claim that Jesus had risen from the dead. Our author would have us believe that they could not have stolen the body because a guard had been posted to prevent this very thing. Therefore, the bribe and the guard episodes are one in their intent, to discredit the notion that the disciples stole the body. That there is no doubt that the author is fabricating his account is shown by his unbelievable claim that the guards who at one minute fainted in terror at the appearance of the Angel of the Lord are in the next quite ready to lie about it for money.

These considerations point to the conclusion that there was neither a bribe nor a guard posted and that the missing body of Jesus is accounted for by the thesis that its absence was indeed the result of theft. In addition, the competing thesis that Jesus arose rests solely upon the testimony of his followers and who further maintained that the supposedly living Jesus had fairly soon and for some hidden reason conveniently departed to heaven, the realm of the blessed dead! In sum, the thesis advanced by the Jews to explain the missing body is obviously the more probable one. The disciples stole the body and agreed to testify that they had seen their risen Lord. They lied just as our author in Matthew has lied.

The resurrection of Jesus was a hoax that began two days after Jesus death and was still being propagated by the author of Matthew perhaps over as much as generation later when his gospel was composed with its clever yet patently impossible explanation for the missing body that the disciples stole and then buried somewhere near Jerusalem. They then proceeded to proclaim some very pretty lies and called them the gospel.

---

Interesting.... although I don't think there's any factual basis for any of this story. So essentially its pointing out that there's a hoax within a hoax.

Or a lie to hide a lie, a popular strategy if The X-Files has taught me anything.

Do you think there was a rumor that the discples stole the body? If so, how did the rumor start?

---

Is there any probable explanation as to how the author knew about the bribe? There is none. It is pure fabrication,

Yes, and far from the only such example. "Jesus" soliloquizing in the Garden before his arrest is another. His merry men are sleeping but somehow the very words he spoke were recorded by someone.

The various examples of the so-called trials before the Sanheddrin, Pilate, and even Antipas are another. Who was the court reporter taking notes?

What is forgotten in the modern world is that "the speech" was a well-known and well-used method by ancient writers to put specific ideas into the mouths of specific characters for the purpose of advancing the tale. We can be reasonably certain that when Livy writes "Quintus Fabius Maximus took to the rostrum and addressed the citizens thusly:" that Quintus Fabius Maximus said no such thing. Stenographers were unknown in Ancient Rome but Livy writing 2 centuries later strives to capture the emotions of the moment by putting them into the mouth of a well known hero of the republic.

But a text can also correctly communicate what actually was said, or at least to approximate it.

Text can also be corrupted! The Gospels are no more than 2nd Century guesses made by the church. Ok several questions here:

(1). What reason would anyone have for stealing it?
(2). Who moved the stone? Mary sure did not. Who did? Jesus could not have. Not in a dead and weakened state. If he was dead and did appear why did he just not walk through the stone? Further in that condition none of the so called disciples would have recognized him!
(3). Why would it take 100 pounds of frankensense and mryh to do one body?
(4). If they stole the body where would they have gone with it? Surely none of the so called disciples would have risk getting caught with the body. Do you know what the Romans would have did to them? Were they that committed to this god man?
(5). Why steal it? Jews of the period practiced Secondary Burial. It was common place for the body to be left for a year or more until the flesh rotted off the bone.
(6). Was there ever a grave found in the Cemetery of the Condemned? Thats where they buried crooks and blasphemers.
(7). After 3 days in that tomb do you know what it would have smelled like?

Even the disciples abandon him....

[Minimalist]

But a text can also correctly communicate what actually was said, or at least to approximate it.

A text is far more likely to reflect what the author wants it to say - especially in an age when there was no evidence available to the contrary.

To belabor the obvious, we do not have a Congressional Record for the Roman Senate.

(BTW, Livy also recounts speeches made in the Carthaginian senate. Do you think those reflect "reality" too?)

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Taking the body down for "burial" would have been seen as self-defeating by the Romans. It would have contradicted the whole fucking point of crucifying someone in the first place.

Fascinating post Min.

I've always wondered about Jesus dying after only 3 hours. I thought 3 DAYS was more common. The Christian explanation is that is was Passover,fair enough-ish. BUT what Jesus had two companions,the thieves? What about them?

PLUS had Roman soldiers been guarding the tomb and the body had gone missing,they would have been in VERY deep shit.



The Gospel accounts of the resurrection and immediate post-resurrection are so different that one could be forgiven for thinking they are describing different events.

[Minimalist]

[Cyberman]

"Pilate error" - ouch!