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

[Barre]

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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.

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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?

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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.