How did the myth of Jesus' resurrection originate?

[Aractus]

• The answers here seem too complicated. A much simpler answer, one that fits all the "facts" and leaves none left over or left out, is this:

You say your explanation will "fit all the evidence", so this is what I will test it on.

• 1. Jesus was arrested during the night of the Passover, a holy day. The complainants included the officials of the Temple and the aggrieved merchants damaged by Jesus' attacks.

This is a remarkably simple explanation. Jesus was crucified and died at the exact time that the Passover Lambs were being sacrificed - yet Jesus had in fact already eaten his Passover the night before with his disciples.

Now why would the Bible confuse us by recording that Jesus has already eaten the Passover? How can Jesus eat his Passover 24 hours before everyone else?

The is the first fact we must address with all the evidence. And what the evidence is is that Passover lambs would be slaughtered mid-afternoon on 14 Nisan, to be eaten in the evening (the first part of the day) on 15 Nisan.

So Jesus and the disciples did not eat a Lamb at the last supper - instead Jesus was to be the sacrificial lamb and would be sacrificed later that day (14 Nisan), this is why when Jesus gives the cup he says "this is my blood" and the bread he says "this is my body".

• 2. Tried speedily by the Romans and condemned, he was crucified the next morning, during the holy day.

Correct.

• 3. After he was dead Jewish law required removal from the cross, lest the "hanged" one be accursed by remaining overnight. And the Sabbath was approaching.

Partially correct. If he died during the Sabbath he could not be removed from the cross until after the Sabbath. You still had to petition the Roman officials for removal.

• 4. His body was requested by a member of the Jewish community, or perhaps removal and interment was common practice for low-level criminals.

By a member of the Jewish community and an early disciple of Jesus (a Christian).

• 5. If required, the request was granted. This means the crime was not sedition, for which removal would not have been permitted: examples needed to be set, the body was to be food for the crows.

Well we don't know that they routinely left bodies to rot on the crosses - crucifixion itself is gruesome enough. But it's likely that in some situations they would.

• 6. The day before having been a day of preparation for the Passover (getting rid of leavened stuff, etc.), no graves would have been dug. The holy day, no graves would have been dug. It's plausible that no vacant grave was available, since the execution would not have been on the calendar.

The body isn't to be placed in a grave yet. The body is first placed in a tomb, and then later in an ossuary and that ossuary is then placed either in a tomb or a grave. This minimized the space needed for the bodies - ossuary’s could be stacked to the ceiling in a family plot or in a communal setting. Jesus was placed in a new, and as yet unused rock-cut tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea. The entrance was sealed with a large rock or boulder, and the Roman Seal was placed on it. Breaking the Roman Seal is a capital crime. And on top of that the tomb was guarded.

• 7. The body was placed temporarily in an empty tomb to get past the Sabbath and comply with Jewish law on burial.

As mentioned above, his body was placed there in preparation for a later burial inside an ossuary - something which would not be made until sometime later, and is designed to contain only the bones of the deceased, and not the entire rotting corpse as a casket does. This is why the women come to anoint the body with spices, etc, all done in preparation.

• 8. Very early Sunday morning, after both the Sabbath and the holy day, the body was removed and buried in a fresh-dug grave. If anyone were to have come to the tomb, it would have been empty, and the whereabouts of the corpse (of an indigent executed as a low criminal) perhaps not easily learned.

This doesn't fit with the evidence, and is inconsistent with Jewish burial customs in the 1st century.

• 9. The mourning followers needed an explanation of how their beloved leader could have ended this way, and a cover story was begun.

There are too many coincidences in the story for it to be invented.