Someone stole the body!

[Redbeard The Pink]

Sorry, Drickleberry, but that still doesn't count for several possibilities.


For one, the body might not have made it to the tomb because the Romans just decided to pitch it instead of handing it over to Joseph of Aramathea. It could have been stolen by someone who wasn't a follower. It could have been stolen by a minor follower who didn't tell anyone else.


Or maybe it's just a story. Or 4 stories that differ from each other wildly, especially when we get to the important part (the ending).

[robvalue]

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.

Especially since there aren't any.

[The Grand Nudger]

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. 

-snipped for brevity
Why oh why, would they die for a lie?  We'd have to ask them...and the many others before and since that have done -precisely- that. I doubt we'd find their answers very satisfying, if we could...no more so than we find those answers satisfying in the here and now.

[robvalue]

Ugh, die for a lie again. How many times can that corpse be dug up?

People can lie and yet state factually true things. They can also intend to tell the truth and state factually incorrect things. Lying is not relevant. Beliefs are not facts.

[Drich]

Sorry, Drickleberry, but that still doesn't count for several possibilities.


For one, the body might not have made it to the tomb because the Romans just decided to pitch it instead of handing it over to Joseph of Aramathea. It could have been stolen by someone who wasn't a follower. It could have been stolen by a minor follower who didn't tell anyone else.


Or maybe it's just a story. Or 4 stories that differ from each other wildly, especially when we get to the important part (the ending).

That's ok 'S-Phinxter' Get? Pinkster/sphincter=S-Phinkster

There's a problem with your objection. The Prophesy Christ himself uttered before is death concerning his resurrection.

A missing body would indicate a resurrected Christ. A contained body, say one placed in a cave/tomb with a big rock and a roman seal with guards would tend to undermine any claims of resurrection as the romans would be able to produce a body on demand.

[Drich]

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. 

-snipped for brevity
Why oh why, would they die for a lie?  We'd have to ask them...and the many others before and since that have done -precisely- that.  I doubt we'd find their answers very satisfying, if we could...no more so than we find those answers satisfying in the here and now.

... all of them? All the church fathers save one died horrible deaths based on what they witnessed and taught. Not just them but their proteges as well.

What one man dies for a known lie when life is on the table if they simply refute the lie? The people being burned and brutalized by the romans are the first hand witnesses they are the generation that saw what Christ did. That is why they died the way they did. They saw the truth and was not afraid of death because they knew Christ was the real deal and all the might the roman gods could muster was contained in the power of rome.

[Drich]

Ugh, die for a lie again. How many times can that corpse be dug up?

People can lie and yet state factually true things. They can also intend to tell the truth and state factually incorrect things. Lying is not relevant. Beliefs are not facts.

Here's the problem your statement is never going to be able to address..

"Facts" in this context are recorded beliefs. All Historical "facts" are recorded beliefs. Now couple that with what the actual argument I posted is saying:

Those 'recording the Facts' of Christ Death burial and subsequent resurrection were Tested/Vetted when the men who recorded them were martyred rather than recant what they had been preaching.

Now if that weren't enough, you also have the 1000's if not 10's of thousands of believers/witness of Christ who made up the church who were also martyred because they would not recant what they experienced or witnessed.

Let's say for a moment that you personally followed Christ for the 3 and 1/2 years He was performing miricals and personally interacted with Him, and every doubt fear and question you ever had was answered. Now place yourself at the end of a roman sword demanding that you recant what you witnessed.

Do you die a witness for Christ and what you experience or do you save yourself and recant?

Which is why, your argument fails. Because no matter what you do (honor the truth or lie and save yourself) Belief/your belief dictate facts when you give your historical account with your time with Jesus.

If you believe in Christ you would not be able to 'save yourself.' If you did not believe in the 3 years you spent walking and talking with God, your story would reflect it, dictating the 'facts' of your experience.

The things is... No one who did spend that time with Christ ever recanted their testimony.

[Minimalist]

As the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recounted in his Annals of Imperial Rome (published just a generation after the fire):

You're still an asshole, dripshit.  Worse, you don't know what you are fucking talking about.  Even assuming that the passage you jerk off to is not a forgery (dubious assumption at best) Tacitus' Annales (not the name he gave to it) was his last work and he died in 117 which is closer to 3 generations later than 1. 

I'm sure you don't find it the least bit curious that St. Jerome and and St Augustine in the early 5th century both indicate that they read Tacitus, Augustine going so far as to comment on the licentiousness and cruelty of Nero without the slightest mention of your favorite passage offing xtians for lighting purposes!  Curiosity kills xtians.  You'd best not indulge in it!

[Neo-Scholastic]

...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.

There are other reasons to speculate why the disciples would steal the body, like intentional deception, which seems far more likely although implausible within the larger context of the Gospel accounts from Passion to Pentecost. Could it happen? I suppose it is remotely possible. Seems pretty unlikely that grieving family and the disheartened disciples would risk confrontation with armed Roman soldiers just because they didn't like where or how Jesus was interred. Granted, an atheist would consider it even more unlikely that a miracle happened, so I don't think it's really worthwhile present the Cross as historical fact to such people.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Sorry, Drickleberry, but that still doesn't count for several possibilities.


For one, the body might not have made it to the tomb because the Romans just decided to pitch it instead of handing it over to Joseph of Aramathea. It could have been stolen by someone who wasn't a follower. It could have been stolen by a minor follower who didn't tell anyone else.


Or maybe it's just a story. Or 4 stories that differ from each other wildly, especially when we get to the important part (the ending).

That's ok 'S-Phinxter' Get? Pinkster/sphincter=S-Phinkster

Ummm...I think I broke Drich, you guys. My bad.

There's a problem with your objection. The Prophesy Christ himself uttered before is death concerning his resurrection.

A missing body would indicate a resurrected Christ. A contained body, say one placed in a cave/tomb with a big rock and a roman seal with guards would tend to undermine any claims of resurrection as the romans would be able to produce a body on demand.

Really, bro? You're telling me that because Jesus says (in this story of yours) that his tomb would be empty, then later on (in the same story) he dies and his tomb is found empty, that means the story is true and he really rose from the dead?


Gosh...how could Jesus possibly have predicted that? It's almost as if the author already knew the ending of the story...




That argument is entirely circular, by the way. A story that has consistent internal details can still be fiction. To establish it as nonfiction, you'd need evidence to corroborate the story itself.