Originally posted by FreakyKBH
The little you do know is irrevocably tainted by the beliefs you hold based on things you don't know. What a quagmire.
To date, I've not delved into any level of apologetics--- save on the most superficial basis.
If you seriously want to test the truth, test it in full and objectively study what has been covered repeatedly by real students of the to ...[text shortened]... there and get back with me in a year or so once you've given it the time the topic deserves.
I leave aside the fact that once more you do not offer an argument because this attitude of yours goes hand in hand with your religionism, so I will cover further in a fast pace the issue regarding the probability that there is good reason to accept the Markan burial story. I assume that Paul did believe that Jesus was indeed buried, however he says nothing about Joseph of Arimathea, he says nothing about the time, the nature and the location of the burial, he says nothing about guards, he says nothing about the reaction of the Jews and he uses the Greek verb “etaphe” that is used for both burial in a tomb and burial in a common grave.
So, was Jesus indeed buried as described in Mark 15:42-47? I could accept that Joseph buried Jesus but I would dismiss the claim of the scribe/s of Mark that Jesus was buried alone in an unused tomb and wrapped in linen because this was unusual for criminals. Therefore, if the Jews gave indeed a dime and they were motivated to bury Jesus because of their specific religious regulations concerning the crucified criminals and because of the upcoming Sabbath, I conclude that they would also want to bury the two bandits that they were crucified with Jesus. And I dismiss the possibility that Jesus would have been buried alone because in such a case I would have to assume that Joseph was definitely a sympathizer of Jesus.
Since Joseph could have formally buried temporarily in his tomb all of them three bodies, the question whether Jesus' burial place contained any other corpses is the core issue that is relevant to the historicity of the burial story and of the empty tomb story written by the scribe/s of Mark. If Jesus was indeed buried with others, it would have been very hard for everybody to try to prove his so called resurrection by pointing to Jesus' burial place.
If Joseph was forced to bury the three bodies quickly before the Sabbath and if his tomb was nearby, he could well have been forced to leave at least one body in his own tomb in order to gain time but I cannot assume that he intended to leave Jesus' body there permanently. And if Joseph reburied Jesus in the criminals' graveyard, the disciples would have not known where the body had been permanently buried -and not because a graveyard for the criminals was identical to a mass grave, due to the fact that at the common burial place provided by the court the bones of each specific criminal had to be recoverable. So Joseph could have identified the exact location of the body within the criminals' burial place, but in such a case there is no way for the disciples to know that a reburial had taken place at a specific location.
In addition Joseph had no reason at all to inform the disciples about the exact location of the rebury, and if he did rebury the body of Jesus he probably did it in Saturday night in order to be unobserved by the disciples. So the disciples would have had to suspect a reburial and ask Joseph about the exact location, and this means that we have to know how the disciples would have reacted upon discovering the empty tomb. If the disciples expected a reburial they could have asked Joseph what he did with Jesus’ body; or they simply went to the tomb, they saw it empty and they assumed that this was another insult against their teacher by the Jews. So I dismiss the probability that the disciples knew the location of the bodies.
Of course in such a case there is no problem with Mk. 15:27. 32 because, since Jesus' burial in Joseph's tomb would have been temporary, the bandits were probably buried alongside Jesus because if a Jew was motivated to bury Jesus, that same person would have been motivated to bury the two bandits too. So I assume that the claim of the scribe/s of Mark, ie that Joseph had permanently bury Jesus in his own tomb, is out of the blue because Joseph was a member of the very council that condemned Jesus. All in all, the scribe/s of Mark expect us to accept that an active member of the Sanhedrin would have permanently buried Jesus alone in his own expensive family tomb, and this is a bit hard to believe.
Therefore I assume that, contrary to the explanation offered in Mark 16:6, the tomb was empty because Jesus and the two bandits had been reburied by that pious Jew at another place -but since the scribe/s of Mark mention nothing about a reburial by Joseph, they do not provide facts and evidence that Jesus' permanent burial place was empty.
Due to the above methinks there is no good reason to accept the Markan burial story too, for there are indeed solid historical reasons for rejecting the resurrection story. If, just for a change, you would feel the need to bring up a solid argument to the above, it would be good to check amongst else Wedderburns’ “Beyond Resurrection” (Peabody, Massachussetts: Hendrickson, 1999), Amos Kloners’ "Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus' Tomb?" Biblical Archeaology Review 25:5, Sept./ Oct. 1999, Oscar Holtzmann’s “The Life of Jesus” (translation by Bealby and Canney, London, Adam and Charles Black 1904), Michael Martins’ “Atheism: A Philosophical Justification and The Case Against Christianity” and J.J. Lowders’ “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story”
😵
Intellectually Impoverished
26 Oct '09 22:43
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