Someone stole the body!

[Homeless Nutter]

I think someone stole Jesus's body in order to f*ck it. It's obvious. Think about all the extra orifices...

[Jehanne]

Let's try it another way:

THEY MADE THE WHOLE FUCKING THING UP!!!!  The tomb of Jesus was empty because there wasn't a Jesus to put into a tomb to begin with.  There wasn't even a tomb.  The hagiographic tales about 'Jesus of Nazareth' were written decades after the 'events' they purport to describe, so the most likely explanation is that they were written to give a semblance of form and substance to the myths people were already talking about.

Boru

As I said in my OP, I don't think that this is a good thread for mythists.

[abaris]

Let's try it another way:

THEY MADE THE WHOLE FUCKING THING UP!!!!  The tomb of Jesus was empty because there wasn't a Jesus to put into a tomb to begin with.  There wasn't even a tomb.  The hagiographic tales about 'Jesus of Nazareth' were written decades after the 'events' they purport to describe, so the most likely explanation is that they were written to give a semblance of form and substance to the myths people were already talking about.

Boru

The whole story is rigged right from the get go. There's no way a roman governor would have presented the people with the choice of releasing someone being suspected to conspire against roman rule. Unless he didn't value his job and possibly his head very much. One of the few things we know about Pilate is that he was a master in lining his own pockets. So, this doesn't fit the bill. Apart from the fact that he wouldn't have presided over the trial in the first place.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Personally, I don't really think Gandalf was fully dead after fighting and defeating the Balrog. I think he just went into some kind of Wizard coma while his natural magical energies recharged his body and spirit, surpassing his previous limits as he repaired the damage (kinda like Goku sleeping in that pod before he fought Freeza).

It's why Gandalf wanted to solo that Balrog... he needed the XP. If he had shared the XP with the party, he wouldn't have leveled up, and gotten those extra abilities.

[Minimalist]

Occam's Razor.

If you have to go through that much bullshit to concoct a story the truth is probably much simpler.  None of it ever happened.

(In much the same way that Osiris was not put back together by Isis.)

[Redbeard The Pink]

Personally, I don't really think Gandalf was fully dead after fighting and defeating the Balrog. I think he just went into some kind of Wizard coma while his natural magical energies recharged his body and spirit, surpassing his previous limits as he repaired the damage (kinda like Goku sleeping in that pod before he fought Freeza).

It's why Gandalf wanted to solo that Balrog... he needed the XP. If he had shared the XP with the party, he wouldn't have leveled up, and gotten those extra abilities.

Not to mention the sweet new robes and stick. What a hog.

[Jehanne]

Let's try it another way:

THEY MADE THE WHOLE FUCKING THING UP!!!!  The tomb of Jesus was empty because there wasn't a Jesus to put into a tomb to begin with.  There wasn't even a tomb.  The hagiographic tales about 'Jesus of Nazareth' were written decades after the 'events' they purport to describe, so the most likely explanation is that they were written to give a semblance of form and substance to the myths people were already talking about.

Boru

The whole story is rigged right from the get go. There's no way a roman governor would have presented the people with the choice of releasing someone being suspected to conspire against roman rule. Unless he didn't value his job and possibly his head very much. One of the few things we know about Pilate is that he was a master in lining his own pockets. So, this doesn't fit the bill. Apart from the fact that he wouldn't have presided over the trial in the first place.

I don't think that Jesus and Pilate ever met; things were probably handled by folks who were under Pilate's command.  It was probably a "last minute deal" on the part of certain Roman officers and the Jewish establishment.

[abaris]

Bullshit. And not in any way covered by historical facts. The jewish establishment didn't count shit, as far as the romans were concerned.

[Homeless Nutter]

I think I found an explanation, that should satisfy everyone. Jesus was a time-traveler - at least originally. At some point, probably when he was fairy old - he was transported back to the time and place of his conception. Whether it was his own doing (he was a carpenter, we don't know how time travel works - maybe all you need is just some planks and nails?), or that of aliens, fairies, Doc Emmett Brown, or the Ghost of Christmas Past - I couldn't say. Maybe he was pranked by Bill and Ted - who cares?

The point is - as a result of this he meets his own mother, has sex with her and ends up being his own father - just like the bible says. I don't know what happens to him afterwards, but that's not really important right now. The resulting child - from now on referred to as Paradoxically Inbred Jesus, for clarity's sake - lives on to become a preacher and a hippy, because the time-space continuum was changed, so his life is now completely different, from that of the Original Jesus.

When Paradoxically Inbred Jesus finally gets himself crucified and dies prematurely - he can no longer be transported to the past to conceive himself and therefore can't have existed. The resulting time paradox eventually resolves itself through disappearance of Paradoxically Inbred Jesus, or rather - his corpse at this point, although before that happens - many anomalies are allegedly observed, potentially compatible with breach of time-space continuum.

Matthew 27:50-52 50
When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He yielded up His spirit. 51At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split. 52The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

I think we were lucky - that kind of irresponsible time travel, combined with mother-f*cking could have destroyed the Universe right then and there. But what if the Original Time-traveling Jesus was transported to the future and his return/re-emergence undoes our reality?...

[downbeatplumb]

Sounds pretty good.

Isn't there a problem that they never would have buried Jesus in a tomb anyway? Wouldn't they have chucked him in a mass grave or such? It doesn't make sense that they'd give him such a high status burial after killing him for being a preacher.

The tomb is empty because he was never put in it in the first place.

The thing is you could come up with a hundred reasons for an empty tomb, some simple, some complex and some far fetched. From it never happened right to aliens wanted to learn about the human body and stole the cadaver. With a whole range of degrees of plausibility in between. What is needed to sort it out would be some sort of physical evidence for as we know from hagiographies, the last thing we can trust is an ancient eye witness.