RE: How did the myth of Jesus' resurrection originate?
December 10, 2013 at 3:21 pm
(This post was last modified: December 10, 2013 at 3:26 pm by rightcoaster.)
RC: Some of the below was covered in the interim by Xpastor and Minimalist, far better than I did or could do, but I put this sentence at the beginning to notify that I didn’t take the time to edit the below in light of their contributions.
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AR: The point that most … would try to make is that "well there's no evidence for Luke's census” - … even if it turned out to be wrong it would not mean that any other detail is wrong. … 1. I don't know why you're talking about Is 7:14 in a thread about the resurrection … . 2. … 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. …
RC: If one detail is wrong in a set of books to which divine inspiration is attributed, all details may (must) be suspect, including the very notion of divine inspiration. The census is ‘way wrong. I think the external source for a Quirinius census has it at quite another time than the NT, and is far more persuasive than the NT timing that is both not supported by independent information and used to support a theological position (Davidic descent) that is also otherwise unsupported. Other external evidence against the Luke census story is that Romans didn’t care about birth cities for tax purposes, so the trip to Bethlehem, even if you accept for argument’s sake that there was such a trip, would have been entirely unnecessary for Roman taxation. There’s a Galilee/Judea problem also with this notion, but I forget the detail – maybe Quirinius’ census could not apply to Judea? Further, the notion of taking a terminally pregnant woman 100 km over the mountains on a donkey for a tax census is bizarre – how long does it take to be counted? Finally, the Magi in the other NT Bethlehem story came to a house, not a manger. Where did the house come from, and if it existed why did they stay in a manger?
As for Is 7:14, I refer to that because your own words, in “Search for the Septuagint”, show you know the NT text to be quite wrong, a misinterpretation from which a fable was created. And that particular fable leads to doctrine, to the cult of the virgin, to the sex-obsession of the RC Church, and to the further doctrinal kluge of “the immaculate conception [of Mary]”. From just one word you know to be wrong! Thus, we have two errors, this one far more important than the mis-used census under Quirinius, but related thereto, and to the “genealogies”, none of which has to do with resurrection …
As for the confusing bit about genealogies, I apologize, but since you object, here goes. The detail of the exercise is left to you and perhaps a statistician of your acquaintance; I neglected to record the specifics when I did the work some years ago, when I still knew enough statistics to work the figures. The time from David to Jesus is pretty nearly 1000 years (the only external "fact" needed). Both purported genealogies are of Joseph, neither is of Mary, despite what you hope; they are just written in reverse order. Count them out yourself for the exact numbers, but one genealogy has (say) 50 names, giving an average generational length of 20 yrs. The other genealogy has (say) 25 names, giving an average generational length of 40 years. I assumed a standard deviation for generational length of the human population of some value that I can’t recall, but which made sense to me – maybe 7 years, so that 95+% would be the true population mean +/- 21 years. I realize that the curve would not have been symmetrical or true normal, but close enough for my purpose. I calculated a t-statistic for the difference of the means of the two samples, and the t-value resulted in the odds of more than two billion to one against the average generational lengths of the two samples (the two genealogies) being from the same human population. That is more than the population of the Roman world, and probably of the entire world, at the time. Thus at least one must be phony, a 2 billion to one bet, and certainly not divinely inspired.
As for your assertion that records were a) kept and b) available to anyone under some sort of Freedom of Information Act, aside from the kingly stuff in Chronicles and Kings, what evidence do you have that these actually were kept for other than the kings, for all the Children of Israel, for that entire 1000 years? For all the descendants of kings? Were all of the kings Davidic (my own recall is that not all were)? Were there any concubines of said kings (hah!), did they bear any sons, and do we know that their lineages were equally preserved and available? A tall order. We also know that oral genealogies and genealogy-like strings (in Islam, the authority for hadith) are sometimes contrived.
AR: By a member of the Jewish community and an early disciple of Jesus (a Christian).
RC: …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.
AR: It's not speculation, it's recorded in every Gospel!
RC: C’mon. “Recorded in every gospel” is not proof, since the virginal conception is also misrecorded in every gospel, by your own admission.
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RC: Tomb-then-ossuary is an assumption, not a certainty. Direct interment was done. The poor were usually buried in the ground … 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 …but … to avoid the onset of the Sabbath. Removal ASAP would have been required, to a more suitable spot …
AR: Gosh, who's the one appealing to conjecture now? Jesus was placed in a … rich man's tomb…. The women prepared spices to embalm the body - this is also recorded in the gospels.
RC: “Conjecture” as a pejorative for “reasonable inference” is acceptable to me. However, Jews did not embalm. The spices were used to offset the odor of decomposition. And, “recorded in the gospels” is not proof of anything factual, vide Is 7:14, as you know.
AR: Even if … somebody removed the body to bury it in the ground - who? … break the Roman seal …? di[g] a grave so early … that they were able to di[g] the grave, roll away the stone, and remove the body before the women reached the tomb?
RC: 1. “Who” is most reasonably the workers in the cemetery. Somebody had to dig graves. 2. The “Roman seal” seems at least as nonsensical as the version I put forward: Once the body was handed over to the Jews for burial, of what interest would it have been to the Romans, so much so that a Roman seal would have been applied? How does one Roman-seal a large stone put over a cave-opening? Assume there was a seal, if one of the tomb-owner’s family were to die, what then? 3. As for digging, it can’t take long to chop a hole in soft Jerusalem limestone. Shabbat ended when the third star was visible after sundown, so there was plenty of time, even accepting that the women arrived in darkness (why did they?). Too early? Torchlight existed then, one could dig at night. My story is a lot less nonsensical than resurrection, especially since no law of nature is violated, the time and the technology were available, and the story is consistent with Jewish law and practices of the time. Yours requires miracles as well as reliance ahistorical “history”, mine doesn’t.
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AR: … 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.
RC: Why is that lamb/Jesus/sin-atonement made only in the John story, and in none of the earlier-written ones? Why don’t the disciples, who are said to have no clue what Jesus is about anyway, object to this heretical notion of Passover without lamb?
Even if Passover and Shabbat coincided, how does that vitiate the story as I construct it? No gravedigging on Friday as prep day, none on Saturday for two good reasons, still a need for a place to put the corpse. 14th, 15th, and from sundown it was the 16th – three days and out, short-term rental.
A further theological-contrivance note: I think that under Jewish law the lambs sacrificed at Passover had nothing to do with atonement for sin, but were in remembrance of the Exodus (doorpost-marking for passing-over by the messenger/angel of death; Jews still use a mezuzah). The sin-atonement with which this Jesus-theology would therefore be wrongly conflated was at the Day of Atonement, when one goat was loaded up with the sins of the people (the “scapegoat”) and sent into the wilderness.
.......
AR: The point that most … would try to make is that "well there's no evidence for Luke's census” - … even if it turned out to be wrong it would not mean that any other detail is wrong. … 1. I don't know why you're talking about Is 7:14 in a thread about the resurrection … . 2. … 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. …
RC: If one detail is wrong in a set of books to which divine inspiration is attributed, all details may (must) be suspect, including the very notion of divine inspiration. The census is ‘way wrong. I think the external source for a Quirinius census has it at quite another time than the NT, and is far more persuasive than the NT timing that is both not supported by independent information and used to support a theological position (Davidic descent) that is also otherwise unsupported. Other external evidence against the Luke census story is that Romans didn’t care about birth cities for tax purposes, so the trip to Bethlehem, even if you accept for argument’s sake that there was such a trip, would have been entirely unnecessary for Roman taxation. There’s a Galilee/Judea problem also with this notion, but I forget the detail – maybe Quirinius’ census could not apply to Judea? Further, the notion of taking a terminally pregnant woman 100 km over the mountains on a donkey for a tax census is bizarre – how long does it take to be counted? Finally, the Magi in the other NT Bethlehem story came to a house, not a manger. Where did the house come from, and if it existed why did they stay in a manger?
As for Is 7:14, I refer to that because your own words, in “Search for the Septuagint”, show you know the NT text to be quite wrong, a misinterpretation from which a fable was created. And that particular fable leads to doctrine, to the cult of the virgin, to the sex-obsession of the RC Church, and to the further doctrinal kluge of “the immaculate conception [of Mary]”. From just one word you know to be wrong! Thus, we have two errors, this one far more important than the mis-used census under Quirinius, but related thereto, and to the “genealogies”, none of which has to do with resurrection …
As for the confusing bit about genealogies, I apologize, but since you object, here goes. The detail of the exercise is left to you and perhaps a statistician of your acquaintance; I neglected to record the specifics when I did the work some years ago, when I still knew enough statistics to work the figures. The time from David to Jesus is pretty nearly 1000 years (the only external "fact" needed). Both purported genealogies are of Joseph, neither is of Mary, despite what you hope; they are just written in reverse order. Count them out yourself for the exact numbers, but one genealogy has (say) 50 names, giving an average generational length of 20 yrs. The other genealogy has (say) 25 names, giving an average generational length of 40 years. I assumed a standard deviation for generational length of the human population of some value that I can’t recall, but which made sense to me – maybe 7 years, so that 95+% would be the true population mean +/- 21 years. I realize that the curve would not have been symmetrical or true normal, but close enough for my purpose. I calculated a t-statistic for the difference of the means of the two samples, and the t-value resulted in the odds of more than two billion to one against the average generational lengths of the two samples (the two genealogies) being from the same human population. That is more than the population of the Roman world, and probably of the entire world, at the time. Thus at least one must be phony, a 2 billion to one bet, and certainly not divinely inspired.
As for your assertion that records were a) kept and b) available to anyone under some sort of Freedom of Information Act, aside from the kingly stuff in Chronicles and Kings, what evidence do you have that these actually were kept for other than the kings, for all the Children of Israel, for that entire 1000 years? For all the descendants of kings? Were all of the kings Davidic (my own recall is that not all were)? Were there any concubines of said kings (hah!), did they bear any sons, and do we know that their lineages were equally preserved and available? A tall order. We also know that oral genealogies and genealogy-like strings (in Islam, the authority for hadith) are sometimes contrived.
AR: By a member of the Jewish community and an early disciple of Jesus (a Christian).
RC: …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.
AR: It's not speculation, it's recorded in every Gospel!
RC: C’mon. “Recorded in every gospel” is not proof, since the virginal conception is also misrecorded in every gospel, by your own admission.
…
RC: Tomb-then-ossuary is an assumption, not a certainty. Direct interment was done. The poor were usually buried in the ground … 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 …but … to avoid the onset of the Sabbath. Removal ASAP would have been required, to a more suitable spot …
AR: Gosh, who's the one appealing to conjecture now? Jesus was placed in a … rich man's tomb…. The women prepared spices to embalm the body - this is also recorded in the gospels.
RC: “Conjecture” as a pejorative for “reasonable inference” is acceptable to me. However, Jews did not embalm. The spices were used to offset the odor of decomposition. And, “recorded in the gospels” is not proof of anything factual, vide Is 7:14, as you know.
AR: Even if … somebody removed the body to bury it in the ground - who? … break the Roman seal …? di[g] a grave so early … that they were able to di[g] the grave, roll away the stone, and remove the body before the women reached the tomb?
RC: 1. “Who” is most reasonably the workers in the cemetery. Somebody had to dig graves. 2. The “Roman seal” seems at least as nonsensical as the version I put forward: Once the body was handed over to the Jews for burial, of what interest would it have been to the Romans, so much so that a Roman seal would have been applied? How does one Roman-seal a large stone put over a cave-opening? Assume there was a seal, if one of the tomb-owner’s family were to die, what then? 3. As for digging, it can’t take long to chop a hole in soft Jerusalem limestone. Shabbat ended when the third star was visible after sundown, so there was plenty of time, even accepting that the women arrived in darkness (why did they?). Too early? Torchlight existed then, one could dig at night. My story is a lot less nonsensical than resurrection, especially since no law of nature is violated, the time and the technology were available, and the story is consistent with Jewish law and practices of the time. Yours requires miracles as well as reliance ahistorical “history”, mine doesn’t.
...
AR: … 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.
RC: Why is that lamb/Jesus/sin-atonement made only in the John story, and in none of the earlier-written ones? Why don’t the disciples, who are said to have no clue what Jesus is about anyway, object to this heretical notion of Passover without lamb?
Even if Passover and Shabbat coincided, how does that vitiate the story as I construct it? No gravedigging on Friday as prep day, none on Saturday for two good reasons, still a need for a place to put the corpse. 14th, 15th, and from sundown it was the 16th – three days and out, short-term rental.
A further theological-contrivance note: I think that under Jewish law the lambs sacrificed at Passover had nothing to do with atonement for sin, but were in remembrance of the Exodus (doorpost-marking for passing-over by the messenger/angel of death; Jews still use a mezuzah). The sin-atonement with which this Jesus-theology would therefore be wrongly conflated was at the Day of Atonement, when one goat was loaded up with the sins of the people (the “scapegoat”) and sent into the wilderness.
