How did the myth of Jesus' resurrection originate?

[xpastor]

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

You don't have one story. You have four separate stories which you have stitched together to appear as one narrative.

You say that the meal Jesus ate with his disciples was not the passover meal, but in the synoptic gospels Jesus instructs the disciples to make preparations for the Passover. Your only reason for your claim is that John clearly says Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation of the Passover. He couldn't have eaten a passover meal if he died the day before passover.

This apparent conflict is a real problem, only if you start from the assumption that God wrote all four accounts and made no mistakes, no self-contradictions. It's no problem at all if we make the perfectly sensible assumption that we have different accounts here by human authors who can disagree about details and make mistakes. Matthew/Mark/Luke say that Jesus was crucified on the day of Passover. The Jewish day begins at sundown, so it is the day following the Passover meal. John says that Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation. So what?

Besides which, you cannot by any means reconcile the time of day in the different accounts. Mark says that Jesus was crucified at the third hour (about 9 am) and John says it was at the sixth hour (about 12 noon).

There is a pretty obvious theological reason why John differs from the other three. In his gospel John the Baptist identifies Jesus as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." So John sees the death of Jesus as happening just at the time the paschal lambs would be sacrificed on the Day of Preparation.

[Aractus]

You don't have one story. You have four separate stories which you have stitched together to appear as one narrative.

So? That's the same thing as is done to reconstruct any narrative.

You say that the meal Jesus ate with his disciples was not the passover meal, but in the synoptic gospels Jesus instructs the disciples to make preparations for the Passover. Your only reason for your claim is that John clearly says Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation of the Passover. He couldn't have eaten a passover meal if he died the day before passover.

The feast of unleavened bread begins on Nisan 14.

There is only one way in which the order of events fits - and this is because, xpastor, there is only one order of events. There do not need to be any other possibilities to be contrived, because there is only one possibility. 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.

Besides which, you cannot by any means reconcile the time of day in the different accounts. Mark says that Jesus was crucified at the third hour (about 9 am) and John says it was at the sixth hour (about 12 noon).

That's a pretty weak argument. The daylight portion of the Hebrew day was split into the early morning/3rd hour/6th hour/9th hour. They also used the expression the 11th hour to mean the last hour of daylight - an expression we've carried over today. And these are the phrases that you hear in the NT - and the only writer that breaks with this format is John. John uses "4th hour" once and "10th hour" once. Besides that, no only the 3rd/6th/9th/11th house are mentioned throughout the whole of the NT. I guess they didn't have words for morning evening, etc the way we do. Their use of the word evening referred to the first part of night as you know. You could also use these phrases to describe night, see Acts 23:23.

John knew what he was writing, but he wasn't trying to be as precise as others and "about the 6th hour" refers to about the period of time covering the ~ 3-hour timeframe following the 3rd hour timeframe.

[Minimalist]

You have four separate stories which you have stitched together to appear as one narrative.

I don't know about that, X-P. Generally speaking the one later known as "mark" was first. It was expanded by those known as luke and matthew but really it was just a retelling of the same old shit. And "john" sets itself up to contest some of the wimpier aspects of the earlier stories....for example, in "mark" jesus stands there like a dummy at his alleged trial saying next to nothing but in "john" he's a regular Chatty Kathy.

So I'd say there is one basic myth and a bunch of fan fics written as add-ons. Remember that we have to include all the other "gospels" which did not make it into the Big Book of Bullshit.

[rightcoaster]

[Minimalist]

RC: 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.

As long as we are dealing with facts..or the absence of them...how about the fact that when the Romans crucified someone they did not allow the body to be taken down for burial. It hung there until it rotted off and then was tossed in a trash heap. That was the whole point of crucifixion. The message was clear: DON'T FUCK WITH US OR THIS COULD BE YOU!

The idea that they would go through all the trouble of crucifying someone and then grant him the honor of a proper burial reeks of special pleading.

BTW, there is no "fact" at all to sustain the idea that anyone named jesus was crucified at all. It's just a story. Literature.

[rightcoaster]

RC: 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.

As long as we are dealing with facts..or the absence of them...how about the fact that when the Romans crucified someone they did not allow the body to be taken down for burial. It hung there until it rotted off and then was tossed in a trash heap. That was the whole point of crucifixion. The message was clear: DON'T FUCK WITH US OR THIS COULD BE YOU!

The idea that they would go through all the trouble of crucifying someone and then grant him the honor of a proper burial reeks of special pleading.

BTW, there is no "fact" at all to sustain the idea that anyone named jesus was crucified at all. It's just a story. Literature.

There are lots of examples of the Romans allowing the always-feisty Jews to bury the crucified, unless they were crucified for treason or insurrection, in which case you are 100% right. But not allowing the burial of Jews crucified for non-state crimes risked riots, which would look bad on the Prefect's performance reports back to Rome. There is an example (only one found so far) of a crucified Jew whose bones went into an ossuary with the nail still through his ankle bone, it having been bent over on insertion and un-removable. It was a sort of special pleading, but for all Jews, not just Jesus. Read up on the burial practices of Jews, and the centrality of that. Even today one of the most important "committees" among at least the reasonably observant Jews is the "Khevra Kadisha" society responsible for caring for and burying the dead.

[Minimalist]

Evidence for that?

We have one notation in history in which Josephus went to Titus and asked for 3 crucified friends of his to be released. One lived after being taken down.

Plus, in general, crucifixion was a punishment reserved for rebels and slaves. Common criminals could be dealt with in a much more efficient manner, either in the arena or with a simple sword thrust. Crucifixion was a message in and of itself.

I sort of regard the Joseph of Arimathea ( a place which seems to be as fictional as he is, btw) as a stage direction designed to get the supposedly dead body off stage for the next act. Even in Shakespearean times there was no curtain in a theater. Thus a group of soldiers or relatives or friends or whatever was needed to cart the body of the fallen hero off stage so the actor wouldn't have to get up and walk off in front of the audience.That would kind of kill the whole effect!

In short, the crucifixion story is a pile of shit. I still require believers to present a single "fact" that any of it ever happened.

[Neo-Scholastic]

To the OP. Maybe because it's not a myth.

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To the OP. Maybe because it's not a myth.

[rightcoaster]

Evidence for that?
...

Plus, in general, crucifixion was a punishment reserved for rebels and slaves. Common criminals could be dealt with in a much more efficient manner, ...

I sort of regard the Joseph of Arimathea ( a place which seems to be as fictional as he is, btw) as a stage direction designed to get the supposedly dead body off stage for the next act. ...

In short, the crucifixion story is a pile of shit. I still require believers to present a single "fact" that any of it ever happened.

Good comments, thanks; although I try to avoid the disdain since it only clutters. I'll respond with more later, but crucifixion could be for other crimes as well -- and for others than slaves and rebels.

Proper burial even for executed criminals is required in Jewish law. m Sanh 6.5, e.g. Will quote if you can't find it.

[Minimalist]

But in the story, the Jews turned him over to the Romans for killing. If they had killed him themselves they could have done whatever they wanted. "Our house - our rules," sayeth Pontius Pilatus.

Oddly, later on when they supposedly killed "James the Just" they didn't feel any need to bother the procurator....they just let the rocks fly. Allegedly.


As for myself I enjoy the disdain. Different strokes, you know.