From: I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (Benedikt Rosenau)
Subject: Re: Easter whodunnit
Organization: Technical University Braunschweig, Germany
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 12:56:14 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.202349.931@nmsu.edu>
epowers@mccoy (POWERS,  ERIK  LEE ) writes:
 
>
>In article <1ipt02INNcti@wupost.wustl.edu> oser@fermi.wustl.edu (Scott Oser)
>writes:
>>       Let's assume for the moment that Jesus did not rise from the dead.
>> One possible and often repeated explanation of the subsequent events is that
>> graverobbers took the body, resulting in an empty tomb.  (Calm down, theists.
>> If you don't want to assume these things, you don't have to play.)
>>       If this is what actually happened, then let's play Sherlock and try
>> to see whodunnit?  I've come up with four possibilities:
>>
>> 1) Ordinary graverobbers.  Perhaps ordinary graverobbers, unconnected to
>> Jesus or his disciples, took the body to sell to medical students or whatever
>> they did with robbed corpses.  This theory has the advantage that it allows
>> Jesus' disciples to honestly believe that he may have risen.  After all, the
>> body had mysteriously disappeared, and their upset emotional state as well
>> as certain things Jesus might have said could have led them to believe that
>> he rose from the dead.
>
>                  The two major problems I see here are that there does not seem to be any
>reason for them to take the body.  There is no indication that any valuables
>were on the body.  The only possible value would have been in any expensive
>perfumes or oils or whatever used to prepare the body (an ancient conspiracy of
>poor morticians?)...but then why leave the wrapping behind, which would have
>contained most of these materials?  The only value other than that would be in
>the hoax itself, which you address later.  The other major problem is the
>presence of the guards.  Failure to carry out guard duty had serious
>consequences, death for those in the Roman military, so it seems unlikely the
>guards would allow anyone to waltz off with the body, at least without a hefty
>bribe and an attempt to conceal the robbery, which they obviously did not do,
>since several people found the tomb open.
>
>
(Deletions)
 
Another motive for graverobbing might be: I don't know about Judaea at
that time, but corpses of executed play a big role in magic belief
systems.
Or some crazed followerd wanted to eat the corpse ...
 
 
If memory serves, guards are mentioned only by Mathew. His version of trial,
crucifixion, and opening of the grave is the biggest hype among the four.
 
He fails to tell where he got the information about the trial before Pilatus.
Then the earthquake and darkness during the crucifixion. Noone else mentions
this. And the story about opening the grave.
The evangelists must have got or believed that it was possible to trace the
story back to the women who went there. Nowhere do they mention themselves or
each other at that time.
Then are there the weird discrepancies of the number of angels at the grave.
I would expect more concorance from eye witnesses in that regard. It rather
looks as if  they went bragging: 'And the grave was empty]', 'And I have seen
an angel]','And I have seen to angels]', And I have seen an angel slaying the
guards and openinf it form me, er, us]'.
Apart from that I doubt that Romans would send guards to watch the grave of
a condemned criminal in their protectorate. And secondly, such a watch would
have took about 32 hours (one night, one day, one night at spring  equinox).
Tough job for two guards.
 
So we have: claims that do not tell where they come from, they differ a lot,
and only one - the least believable - tells about guards. And we do not
even know if the whole setting has ever happened.
 
Nice thing to base a religion on. I am particularly underwhelmed. And that
a condmned and executed criminal could run around and only his pupils seemed
to notice looks self-explanatory to me.
 
By the way, does someone know when they texts that are labeled Gnostic and give
a dissenting view of a 'resurrection' have been written?
   Benedikt