From: Tim.ONeill@english.utas.edu.au (Tim O'Neill)
Subject: Re: JESUS DIED AND IS RISEN (Re: Jesus Has Died)
Organization: University of Tasmania (Australia)
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 01:46:45 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.182215.12891@news.ysu.edu>, af664@yfn.ysu.edu (Frank DeCenso, Jr.) writes:
> 
> 
> Tim O'Neil writes (#28741)
> "I've already read the gospels many times".
>  
> My reply...
> Based on your understanding of the Gospels (Synoptics and John) I have to
> question that. Let's look closer at your comments.

Question it if you like, Frank ol' buddy, but it happens to be true. Now, if 
you disagree with my opinions about the gospels, well, that's another matter.
  
> T.O....
> MATTHEW 28:1-10 "Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week
> began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
>  
> Hey! Where's Salome? Did she get lost on the way? But Mark says
> she was there. And what about Joanna? Luke says she was there
> too. Who *was* there? Your sources seem strangely confused.
>  
> My reply...
> One of the most basic principles in understanding the Gospels (Esp.
> Resurrection accounts) is that the reporters, under the inspiration of
> the Holy Spirit, commented on different aspects of the events.

No, that is a basic *assumption* for those who want to wave their
fundamentalist magic wands and make the troublesome contradictions 
disappear in a puff of faith.   

>These
> differences ultimately confirm the accounts themselves. If all the
> Gospels gave EXACTLY the same story, in EXACTLY the same order, with
> EXACTLY the same details, then we would have to become suspicious.

Oh, I get it: the stories differ so markedly that they must be true. I hope
you never do jury duty Frank.
  
> It's quite clear that all of the gospels relate their portraits of Jesus
> differently. This should be expected. No four witnesses (or news
> reporters), all of whom witness a series of events, will write them up in
> exactly the same way, detail for detail. If they did, there would be
> something fishy about it! The salient points are agreed upon by every
> witness. It should be noted further that none of the details necessarily
> contradict any others, but rather, together they supply a full story.

Yeah, yeah: I've read Josh McDowell as well Frank. Small details will
certainly differ, but we aren't talking about small details. Compare these
two statements:
'We went to his tomb and found the stone rolled back and inside we met
a young man.'

'We went to his tomb and, as we approached, an angel of the Lord came
down from heaven with a face like lightning and there was an earthquake
and the guards all fell down like dead men and the angel rolled back the
stone over the entrance and sat on it'

These are *not* minor differences Frank.
  
> Wilbur Smith (in _The Supernaturalness of Christ_, pg.205) said,
> "In...fundemental truths, there are absolutely no contradictions. The so-
> called variations in the narratives are only the details which were most
> vividly impressed on one mind or another of the witnesses of our Lord's
> resurrection...."

Mr Smith is entitled to his opinion. There are many thousands of biblical
scholars who'd say this was a simplistic load of shite.
  
> Let's look at your points closer.
>  
> T.O. quotes...
> "And behold, there was a great earthquake"
>  
> That's strange, Mark, Luke and John don't mention any earthquake.
> I've never been in one myself, but apparently they are a little hard
> to miss.
>  
> My reply...
> Who said they missed it? Did they ALL have to report that event? Mark,
> Luke, and John didn't say the earthquake didn't happen.

Perhaps, but it's a fairly remarkable event. You'd expect at least one
of the other accounts to mention it.
>  
> T.O....
> "for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled
> back the stone from the door, and sat on it."
>  
> Wait a minute, Luke and Mark don't mention angels descending and rolling
> back the stone. They say it was already rolled back and they mention
> young men in white robes (one in Mark, two in Luke) This is the most
> significant event in human history and not the sort of thing the
> witnesses would forget, isn't odd that the details differ so markedly.
>  
> My reply...
> Did Luke and Mark have to report that event? Do you know they forgot it,
> or is it possible that the Holy Spirit led them to record different
> events, knowing that one day all the accounts would be available? The
> details may be `different', but not contradictory.

Okay, so let's get this straight: who *did* roll back the stone and when?
Luke and Mark make it clear that it was already rolled back when they
got there, but Matthew has the angel doing the job after they arrive.
>  
> T.O.
> "His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.
> And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men."
>  
> Guards? The other guys don't mention any guards. What's going on here?
> This story sounds very suspicious.
>  
> My reply...
> Did they all have to mention the guards? Wouldn't it be more suspicious
> if all the details were exactly the same in every repect? Then we might
> be able to conclude some kind of collusion.

I don't know about you old fella, but I might be able to conclude some kind 
of consistency. Matthew seems to mention the guards to counter the common
assertion that Jesus' body may simply have been moved or stolen. All the
other evangelists would have had to contend with the same objection, so
it is very strange that they didn't make use of the fact that the tomb was
guarded also. But none of them do.
>  
> T.O.
> "But the angel answered and said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I
> know that you seek Jesus who  was crucified. "He is not here; for He is
> risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. "And go
> quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed
> He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I
> have told you."
>  
> Assuming that Luke's two young men and this spectacular angel of
> matthew's are somehow the same why does Luke neglect to mention anything
> about going to Galilee?
>  
> My reply...
> What mekes you think the men and the angel are the same? Did Luke have to
> report the Galilee excursion?

So who was there at the tomb, one angel? One man? Two men? 
>  
> T.O....
> "So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran
> to bring His disciples word."
>  
> Hang on, Mark tells us that they were too scared to tell anyone. More
> confusion. I'm beginning to wonder if any of this stuff happened at all.
>  
> My reply...
> Read those accounts again VERY closely!

Okay: Lk 24:9 'When the women returned from the tomb they told all this 
to the eleven and to all the others.'

										Mt 28:8 'Filled with awe and great joy the women came quickly away
from the tomb and ran to tell the disciples.'

										Mk 16:8 'And the women came out and ran away from the tomb
frightened out of their wits and they said nothing to a soul.'

Mk flatly contradicts the other two.
  
> If there was so much contradictory evidence, why would all these people
> believe? Why wouldn't the Jews produce evidence to contradict the
> resurrection?

You are assuming it all happened more or less as the gospels describe it.
Imagine if Jesus wasn't God incarnate, but was simply a jewish preacher
who ran afoul of the big boys and got nailed up and died. His followers
would be shattered. They had left their families and their homes to 
follow him and see him usher in the Kingdom of God, but now he was
dead and they were in hiding in Jerusalem. We would expect them to sneak
back home and forget the whole thing, but analysis of what happens
when messianic or eschatological cults fail in our own time shows that 
it is more likely that they would try to salvage some hope from the 
wreckage. If they managed to convince themselves that somehow this 
death was all part of the plan and that Jesus had gone on ahead and
would soon return in the sky (just like in the Book of Daniel) as
the glorioius Son of Man, then all would not have been lost. If some of 
them then claimed to have 'recognised' him in others (like the traveller
on the road to Emmaus) and to have seen visions of him then the idea
would gain greater power. The earliest references to the resurrection,
such as 1Cor 15, make no mention of tombs, angels or earthquakes.
Paul simply says Jesus 'appeared' to the disciples in Jerusalem and later
'appeared' to him on route to Damascus. By the time we get to Mark's
gospel the resurrection has become a prefigurement of the general
resurrection on the Last Day, and so has become far more physical.
Now there is an empty tomb, a young man in a white robe etc. By the
time Luke's account is written we have two young men in shining robes
and then Matthew gives us his circus show of angels, guards, earthquakes
and corpses wandering around Jerusalem. It is clearly a tale which grew
in the telling. Alongside this evolution you have disident christian groups
who have other ideas about the resurrection, like the Ebionites who 
saw it as a purely spiritual thing, and the Gnostics, who laughed at
the Catholics literal-minded interpretation of the resurrection as
physical reconstitution.

To answer your question: no-one produced a body or any other physical 
evidence because for the first hundred years or so of this evolution
the Jesus sect was just a tiny mob of nutters who every knew were 
crazy but harmless. By the time christianity was big enough to bother
anyone, all knowledge of where his body was etc was long gone. 

> Why didn't the Roman guards produce the body...after all,
> they were an elite fighting force assigned to protect the tomb He was in.

Right, this the guard who were bribed to say they fell asleep on duty and
so condemned themselves to be beaten to death under Roman military
law. I'm glad Matthew has fooled you with that fiction Frank, but he
hasn't fooled me. There was no bloody guard.

> T.O....
> MARK 16:1-20 "Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the
> mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and
> anoint Him. Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they
> came to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they said among themselves,
> "Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?"
>  
> If they couldn't roll away the stone why were they going at all?
> Again, this story sounds like bullshit already.
>  
> My reply...
> Come on. The answer to your question is in the text. They even couldn't
> give a reason why they went to the tomb, and you want me to? Could it be
> God led them to do it, so that they would see the empty tomb?

Could it be that the story of a group of women who went to annoint
a body which lay in a tomb which they couldn't possibly enter sounds
a touch suspect? You can introduce God and his magic if you want
Frank, but this tale still doesn't ring true.

> T.O....
> I don't know about you Frank, but people in the first century believed
> a lot of very strange things. When I read about such things, even in
> reliable historians like Tacitus and Seutonius, I tend not to believe
> them. So when you present me with some jumbled and confused stories
> about people rising from the dead which seem to have developed amongst
> some Galilean peasants who thought the world was about to end, I'm afraid
> I can't get too excited about it.
>  
> My reply...
> Maybe you should write a book so all the world will FINALLY know that the
> Gospels are fairy tales! Present ALL the evidence you have to PROVE the
> events did not occur, and I'm sure no one will argue with you, if you
> have enough evidence. If you don't, oh, well...at least you can try.

No need, there are plenty of books by people far more qualified than myself
which have already done quite a good job of showing why the fundamentalist
approach to the gospels is a crock of shit. I would recommend *Jesus the Jew*
by Geza Vermes and *From Jesus to Christ* by Paula Fredricksen to begin
with. Both very scholarly and well-researched.  
> T.O....
> Incidently, John the Baptist's followers believed he'd risen from the
> dead.
>  
> My reply...
> That's news to me. Show me evidence. I'd like to study it for myself.

Your wish is my command:
Have a look at Mk 6:14-16, Mt 14:1-2 and Lk 9:7-9 where various people
including Herod Antipas believe that Jesus is John risen from the dead.
A similar belief is alluded to at Lk 9: 18-21, Mk 8: 27-30 and Mt 16: 13-20.
It appears the idea that John had risen from the dead was quite widespread.

> T.O....
> If they were wrong, doesn't this seem to indicate that the social and
> religious climate of the time was right for people to delude themselves
> about this sort of thing?
>  
> My reply...
> Did they discover they were wrong, or is there still some religious
> movement somewhere in the world that worships John the Baptist as a risen
> man...without a head!

Whether they were right or wrong, the fact remains that both Jesus and 
John preached repentance in the face of the coming Kingdom, both
had disciples, both ran afoul of the authorities, both were executed,
both were said to have risen from the dead, the followers of both
continued their work after their deaths, and both groups of followers
preached as far afield as Greece (Acts 19: 1-7) The John sect was largely
absorbed by the very similar Jesus sect, though a small branch of it
seems to have survived independantly only to be absorbed by Islam
centuries later. Don't these similarities indicate something to you?
If John's followers could survive John's execution, come to believe
that he was in some sense still alive and go on to take their message
to the diaspora *despite the fact that John was well and truly dead*
couldn't Jesus' followers have done the same? And don't these similarities
show that the religious climate was ripe for movements of this kind to
arise?
>  
> Keep studying!
I will. Read more widely.

Tim O'Neill
Tasmanian Devil