Someone stole the body!

[Minimalist]

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

Depends on the time frame you are using, Abs.

Prior to 4 BC the Romans relied on Herod the Great to run the region.

Between 4 BC and 6 AD the region was divided among Herod's children.  The Romans did have to suppress a revolt at the beginning of that period.

Between 6 and 41 AD the romans treated Judaea (only) as a praefecture while the other territories maintained the rule of the Tetrarchs as noted above *.  In 6, according to Josephus, Augustus granted a petition from the Sanhedrin to remove Archelaus and be a Roman praefecture.  The HQ was at Caesarea where the praefect resided.  The implication is that there was a fair degree of home rule in Jerusalem itself.  This is the period when xtians set their jesus tale.

* Deaths and political machinations beginning around 34 AD started to change this.  Philip died c 34 and Herod Antipas was removed in 39 and replaced by Caligula's boyhood friend, Herod Agrippa. 

In 41, when Herod Agrippa died and his son Herod Agrippa II was too young to rule so a series of Roman procurators were appointed and the dubious quality of the ethics/greed of these people did much to stir the pot.

Starting in 48 the Romans began to give Herod Agrippa more and more of the territories formerly ruled by his grandfather.  By the time of the Great Revolt in 66 he had amassed a kingdom fully as large as Herod the Great's.

[Mr.wizard]

Jesus being buried in a tomb definitely does not add up. The whole point of crucifying Jesus was because they thought he might lead a revolt against the Romans, why would the Romans kill him in such a painful and humiliating fashion, then turn around and give him a dignified burial?

[Angrboda]

Another possibility is that they did make some sort of deal to give Jesus a proper burial. However after negotiation with Jesus' friends, later on the deal fell through and they never allowed Jesus that burial. But nobody told the friends of Jesus that the deal was kaboshed and there would not be a body in the tomb. So when they went to the tomb in the morning, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The tomb owner, who lived a day away in another town, got the body so that he could put it in his tomb. Being a believer he believed Jesus when he said that if people ate his flesh and drank his blood that they would live forever. So later on he removed the corpse and chowed down. He died and as he was dying he realized that he was a dummy.

[Gemini]

This is not a thread for Jesus mythists, so let's suppose that Jesus of Nazareth existed.  Professor Bart Ehrman, in his 2008 debate with William Craig, gave a completely naturalistic explanation of Jesus' supposed "resurrection" from the dead, which I am going to embellish on my own:

I watched that debate, and one of the things I liked was the Ehrman said he could come up with any number of plausible scenarios to explain the empty tomb. Even if they aren't very probable, taken individually, the chances that one of them is true are pretty good. Many orders of magnitude better than "miracle."

As for me, I think the stories of the empty tomb were first invented by people who were far enough removed from the events not to know that Jesus was thrown in a mass grave and left to rot.

[Jehanne]

This is not a thread for Jesus mythists, so let's suppose that Jesus of Nazareth existed.  Professor Bart Ehrman, in his 2008 debate with William Craig, gave a completely naturalistic explanation of Jesus' supposed "resurrection" from the dead, which I am going to embellish on my own:

I watched that debate, and one of the things I liked was the Ehrman said he could come up with any number of plausible scenarios to explain the empty tomb. Even if they aren't very probable, taken individually, the chances that one of them is true are pretty good. Many orders of magnitude better than "miracle."

As for me, I think the stories of the empty tomb were first invented by people who were far enough removed from the events not to know that Jesus was thrown in a mass grave and left to rot.

I don't consider the story of the empty tomb to be an ironclad fact of history, in the same category as Caesar crossing the Rubicon.  Even without an "empty tomb", the body of Jesus may have been handed over to someone for a bribe.  Who knows?!  Roman soldiers were tried by jurors composed of their peers, and so, it's easy to see a group of them taking Jesus down from the cross, quickly stuffing his corpse into a bag, and then saying, "We'll take 'such and such'.".  Improbable, yes; impossible, no.

[Jehanne]

The tomb owner, who lived a day away in another town, got the body so that he could put it in his tomb.  Being a believer he believed Jesus when he said that if people ate his flesh and drank his blood that they would live forever.  So later on he removed the corpse and chowed down.  He died and as he was dying he realized that he was a dummy.

Those sayings in John were almost certainly an embellishment, but yes, who knows?  Some congressman (just Google) went after a cup of water that Pope Francis had been drinking after his address to the US Congress.  So, who knows??

[Jehanne]

Another possibility is that they did make some sort of deal to give Jesus a proper burial.  However after negotiation with Jesus' friends, later on the deal fell through and they never allowed Jesus that burial.  But nobody told the friends of Jesus that the deal was kaboshed and there would not be a body in the tomb.  So when they went to the tomb in the morning, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.

Bravo!  And, the Romans could care less about some freak whom they had executed, and so, no one bothered to write it down.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

If Jesus was real he should still be wiggling on the cross.

[Drich]

This is not a thread for Jesus mythists, so let's suppose that Jesus of Nazareth existed.  Professor Bart Ehrman, in his 2008 debate with William Craig, gave a completely naturalistic explanation of Jesus' supposed "resurrection" from the dead, which I am going to embellish on my own:

1)  Around age 30 Jesus went down to Jerusalem for the first time from Galilee after being born in Nazareth, got busted by the Romans for causing trouble in the Temple, went before a Roman proctor (probably, never even met Pilate -- few, if any, criminals ever did), was labeled a loon and insurrector, and with some likely influence from the Jewish authorities, was executed by crucifixion.

2)  Jesus had some sympathizers, and with some influence, his body was handed over to them and buried in a tomb.  The Jewish authorities likely agreed to this as some sort of "peace offering" to Jesus' followers.

3)  However, some of Jesus' family members, followers and friends were unhappy with his burial arrangements, and so, in the middle of the night, they went and stole Jesus' body.  But while they were traveling with Jesus' corpse, they were discovered by a Roman watch, confronted, and after a brief scuffle, they were all killed by the Romans.  Their bodies, along with Jesus', were buried in an unmarked grave.

4)  Later on some women followers of Jesus went to the tomb of his supposed burial and discovered that his body was missing.

5)  In the months and years following Jesus' death, his followers began having visions of the "risen" savior.

6)  Later on the letters of Paul were written (the earliest by Paul), and then the Gospels, Mark being the first.  After Mark, came Matthew and Luke, and finally, John, with its highly embellished accounts of Jesus' life, and finally, the Gospel of Peter, with even more embellishments than John.  It is likely that Mark contains some authentic history of Jesus, the fact that some women went to Jesus' tomb, discovering that it was empty and fleeing because "they were afraid" with Mark clearly ending at 16:8.  Later on the ending of Mark was embellished further.

Here is a popular rebuttal concerning this very old charge first made by the Sanhedrin

 If this were the case, they would have known the resurrection was a hoax. They would not therefore have been so willing to suffer and die for it. (See the first line of evidence concerning demonstrably sincere eyewitness testimony.) All of the professed eyewitnesses would have known that they hadn’t really seen Christ and were therefore lying. With so many conspirators, surely someone would have confessed, if not to end his own suffering then at least to end the suffering of his friends and family. The first generation of Christians were absolutely brutalized, especially following the conflagration in Rome in A.D. 64 (a fire which Nero allegedly ordered to make room for the expansion of his palace, but which he blamed on the Christians in Rome in an effort to exculpate himself). As the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recounted in his Annals of Imperial Rome (published just a generation after the fire):

“Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.” (Annals, XV, 44)

Nero illuminated his garden parties with Christians whom he burnt alive. Surely someone would have confessed the truth under the threat of such terrible pain. The fact is, however, we have no record of any early Christian denouncing the faith to end his suffering. Instead, we have multiple accounts of post-resurrection appearances and hundreds of eyewitnesses willing to suffer and die for it.
http://www.gotquestions.org/why-believe-...ction.html