How did the myth of Jesus' resurrection originate?

[xpastor]

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.

Nooo, it's not the way we deal with two conflicting narratives. If I tell the police that the bank robber was 5'6" and you tell them he was 6'1", the police do not conclude that the robber was a shape shifter or that he slipped on elevator shoes, so that both our stories will be true. They assume that one or both of us were mistaken

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.

The problem with this kind of reasoning is that if biblical harmonization required us to understand a time reference precisely, you would assuredly insist upon it, but when it suits you it's just a very sloppy approximation. About the sixth hour is not by any stretch of the apologist's imagination the same time as the third hour.

I have moved the following to the end because my response is fairly lengthy.

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.

There is in fact another way in which the order of events fits very well, but it once more involves a discrepancy between the two accounts. John (19:14) and the non-canonical Gospel of Peter (2:5) both place the crucifixion on the day before Passover, so clearly Jesus in that version could not have eaten the Passover Seder meal. John describes a last supper, but it is very different from the synoptics, not so far as we can tell, a Passover Seder, and there is no institution of the Lord's Supper (communion). Possibly Paul also understood Jesus' death to precede the Passover. In 1 Cor 5:7 he writes , "for our paschal lamb Christ has been sacrificed. The synoptics of course represent Jesus as sharing a Passover Seder with his disciples and using the occasion to institute the commemoration of the Lord's Supper (this is my body, etc). Now here is how the two timelines can be reconciled:

Instead of the day of the week (e.g. Monday through Friday) that the crucifixion occurred on being moved by one day in one of these traditions, the day of the week that the Passover meal occurred on may have been moved by one day in one of these traditions (the day of the week that the Passover meal falls on varies year to year based on when the new moon is spotted). This is argued powerfully by John A. T. Robinson and Raymond E. Brown, who conclude that John and the Gospel of Peter (and Paul) preserve the historically correct tradition of a Friday night Passover meal and the Synoptists or their tradition have simply moved the Passover meal to a Thursday night. If correct, every Christian narrative has a consistent Friday afternoon crucifixion with a Sunday morning discovered empty tomb, a timeline of resurrection that is on the third day. Doubting Jesus' Resurrection, p. 106

Needless to say, while this reconciles the two different narratives fairly well, it does not imply that either Komarnitsky or I accept the resurrection as historical fact. There is still the discrepancy of the day that Passover falls on. It comes down to this: John's theology chose to present Jesus in his crucifixion as the paschal lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; the synoptic tradition chose to emphasize the central rite of the church: eucharist, holy communion, the Lord's Supper, whatever you want to call it.

[Aractus]

[Minimalist]

has no surviving Roman literature written about him!

You discount the contemporary writings of Philo of Alexandria and the shortly later writings of Josephus but technically you are correct. Roman writers saw no need to mention a lowly praefect of a shithole outpost like Judaea.

Josephus gives us the whole list of Roman praefects of Judaea:

Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, Annius Rufus, Valerius Gratus and Pontius Pilate. He also tells us that Pilate's successor was an officer named Marcellus put in command by then-governor Lucius Vitellius Veteris. So what. All these men issued coins and were known to archaeologists. The rather battered Pilate inscription is seriously overrated by xtians who think...as they think with all such things...that it "proves" something. It doesn't. Pilate was already well-attested in the record.

[xpastor]

Be careful with what you [rightcoaster] present as being "fact".

You claim that "there are very few bits of the NT narrative that can be granted that lofty status (fact)" and "the weight of evidence – internal as well as external -- is that the story is contrived". Offering such broad generalizations without any detail of why you consider something unreliable is the typical response from Atheists who have already dismissed all of the evidence without considering if any of it is relevant, reliable or corroborated.

As you already know, much of the events in the NT are already internally corroborated. The fact that Luke makes such extensive use of Mark as well as writes Acts, and many of the events in Acts are externally corroborated, is itself corroboration for Mark - it means that Luke took the Gospel According to Mark and found it to be trustworthy and reliable. [my emphasis]

Duh, or it proves that Luke was as credulous as the people who uncritically forward emails to make a religious point. My personal favorite is the allegation that Canadian Members of Parliament are conspiring to remove the slogan "In God We Trust" from our currency—a truly remarkable feat since it was never on Canadian money.

And your claim that there's a lack of external evidence is wrong.

As you can clearly see, this Roman official [Pontius Pilate] that held office - mentioned only on this inscription and in the NT - has no surviving Roman literature written about him!

The point that most people in your position would try to make is that "well there's no evidence for Luke's census" - and yet there is internal evidence, but no external evidence - and my response to this has always been "so?" So what, so there's one detail that hasn't been externally corroborated, may never be corroborated, and even if it turned out to be wrong it would not mean that any other detail is wrong.

I'm not aware that the historicity of Pontius Pilate was ever questioned. After all, as Minimalist points out, he was mentioned by three near-contemporaries. Even if he had not been mentioned outside the NT, it would not be straining credulity to assume that one Roman governor of a not-very-important outpost fell through the cracks of history.

The fictional census of Quirinius is a whole different ball game. Taxing all the empire would be a vast undertaking. It is utterly implausible that it would not leave a huge paper trail, which we would find traces of, more traces than exist of manuscripts of the small and obscure Christian sect, which assuredly have been found. It is equally implausible that it would not be mentioned in the many histories of the reign of Augustus which have survived. The whole story is implausible with its ridiculous claim that everyone had to go back to the home of their ancestors. It's just a mechanism to deal with the problem that Jesus was known to be a Nazarene but Christians had come to believe an OT verse prophesied his birth in Bethlehem. In the case of the census absence of evidence most certainly offers some corroborating evidence of absence.

RC: It is plausible and consistent with Jewish law and practice that even the Temple authorities who were wronged would have sought proper burial for a Jew executed by the Romans for a minor crime, so as not to have him hang dead overnight. 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.

It's not speculation, it's recorded in every Gospel!

The fact that the reference is found in all four gospels is neither here nor there. Majority scholarly opinion places the gospels between ca. 65 CD (Mark) and 95 CE (John). So it all goes back to the oral tradition which was bubbling up at least 35 years before any text that we have. Do the specific names like Little John and Will Scarlet prove that the Robin Hood legend is accurate history?

Jesus was placed in a rock-cut tomb. A rich man's tomb. The purpose of this type of tomb is to prepare to body for later burial inside an ossuary. The women prepared spices to embalm the body - this is also recorded in the gospels.

Even if you're right - and somebody removed the body to bury it in the ground - who? And why would they break the Roman seal to do so? And how did they did a grave so early in the morning that they were able to did the grave, roll away the stone, and remove the body before the women reached the tomb?

I'm sorry but your account is nonsensical. No one would have had the opportunity to remove the body: 1. they had to dig a grave, 2. they had to break the Roman Seal (a capital offence) and 3. the tomb was guarded and they had to overpower the Roman Guards (also a capital offence). Seems like way too much trouble when the body is already lying in a tomb.

All this assumes what is to be proved, that the details in the NT such as the Roman guard are history rather than legend.

Your account would claim that somebody dug a grave at night on Sunday, then stole the body without permission from the Romans and put it in the grave? That's the only window of opportunity, and yet it makes no sense!

I don't think anyone knows what happened to the body of Jesus, but I am pretty sure that it did not fly up into the stratosphere as per that sober historian Luke.

There is only one point in rightcoaster's analysis which I would seriously quibble with, and that is his description of the resurrection narrative as a "cover story." It's a bit too cynical for my taste, suggesting a deliberate lie. I think what we know of weird human behavior covers it well enough. People were reporting (sincerely I assume) sightings of Elvis soon after his death. Possible mechanisms are the denials typical of bereavement (I can't believe he's dead) being misinterpreted by others or the bereavement hallucinations mentioned in another thread.

[Minimalist]

[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.
.......

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.

[rightcoaster]

But in the story, the Jews turned him over to the Romans for killing. ...

This is the expanded reply to the idea that only slaves and rebels were crucified. The seduction of Paulina by Decius Mundis in the Temple of Isis resulted in the crucifixion of the temple priests, of a freed-woman named Ide (not as sweet as apple cidah), and the demolition of the Temple, by order of Tiberius. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.3. No slaves or rebels were involved.

[Minimalist]

[Ksa]

Because there weren't any disciples. They were a later addition to the story.

proof? or am I to simply have faith in your word?

The man wants proof, I shall give him proof, from his Bible, that Jesus never died and so, was never resurrected:

No such sign is mentioned in the Bible. Jesus said in Mathew, Chapter 16, verse number 4:

"An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.

Do you understand what "no other sign will be given to you" means? Have you read your Bible? It doesn't mean there's 2 signs left...NO OTHER SIGN WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU!!!!!! Then you come argue oh look! There's the sign of resurrection! WHAT? NO SIGN SHALL BE GIVEN TO YOU!!! READ!!

The question is: Is the sign of Jonah compatible or incompatible with resurrection?

How was Jonah when they threw him overboard? He volunteered! You know, if a person struggles, you might have to break his leg, twist his arm, but the man said I am guilty, throw me! So when they threw him he was? Alive! How was Jonah when he was praying in the belly of the whale he was? Alive! How was Jonah when the fish spit him on the sea shore? Alive! Alive alive alive! A miracle of a miracle of a miracle.

As Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the son of man be in the heart of the Earth! Then you ask my practicing christian brothers, how was Jesus in the heart of the Earth, they say he was DEAD. He was DEAD. Jonah was alive. So Jesus is a liar! He never fulfills the prophecy. AHH but then Christian brothers say, it's the time factor. It's not a matter of alive or dead, it's about how long he stayed? WELL:

They take Jesus off the cross on Friday evening before the Sabbath because for Jews it was forbidden to hang anyone on the Sabbath. So Friday night, Saturday day, Saturday night, and on Sunday morning, Mary Magdalen sees Jesus disguised as a Gardner! That's 2 nights and 2 days at best. So Jesus put all his eggs in one basket, the sign of Jonah, and never fulfilled it! So he lied! And we know that Jesus, is not a liar, we respect him

It is mentioned in Luke, Chapter number 10, verse number 36 which says:

"Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."

In this verse Jesus says that resurrected bodies are spiritualised, a spiritual body cannot die anymore and cannot be given in marriage. He's giving a definition of resurrection. So why was Jesus disguised as a Gardner? He was afraid of the Jews. If he was a spirit, why be afraid. It is further mentioned in John, Chapter 20, verse number 17 which says:

"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father"

Why touch me not? Because he was in physical pain, all the ordeal he suffered. Resurrected bodies can't feel pain. It is mentioned in Luke, Chapter number 24, verse number 39:

"Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."

Is he trying to say he's a resurrected body? "it is I, myself". The disciples were afraid because they had heard that Jesus died and Jesus goes to them and proves he didn't. "for a spirit hath not flesh and bones" He's trying to say he's not a resurrected body (spirit) but he is flesh and bones.

The best you can say based on the Bible is that he was: Resuscitated! When someone dies for a short while at the hospital and they bring him back, the person is resuscitated, not resurrected but again, we have no clues that he ever died based on the original manuscript. We know that he was taken off the cross in a hurry because of the Sabbath, and, it is hard for someone to die on the cross in a few hours.

In fact, when Jesus was crucified, like Minimalist pointed out,...NO ONE was there, as it is mentioned in the gospel of Mark Chapter number 14 Verse 50 which says:

"Then everyone deserted him and fled."

When Jesus was on the cross, ALL his disciples fled, at the time he needed them MOST. All gone. So who's the eye witness to the Crucifixion? Some emotionally impaired women who aren't the authors of the Bible?

So Jesus comes out of nowhere and goes like, what's wrong with you guys that you are so scared, it's me, I'm ok. He not yet ascended onto his father. Very clear statement. This emphasizes the difference between what really happened to Jesus and what the Disciples thought. The disciples thought like the Christians, that he was crucified and killed, but Jesus comes and tells them you're paranoid, wake up it's me!

Of course, Drich has trouble accepting it because by calling Jesus God, saying that God died, he's not following Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ never claimed divinity but said his father is eternal. I bet he has pork and alcohol too because whatever Jesus Christ said he doesn't follow. If Christian means, following the teachings of Jesus Christ, us atheists are more Christians then the Christian themselves!

[Minimalist]

Drippy thinks his bullshit story is true in every detail...and when the details don't match he invents them.

Ignore him.