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I'm going to build this on a web-type deal. This is what I perceive us as agreeing with historically: - Jesus was crucified on about Passover somewhere around April of A.D. 30-33. - Joseph of Arimithaea buried him in his own tomb. Now, if Jesus was not resurrected, than either A) His body was not in His tomb, or B) His body was in his tomb, or C), He never died. First, let's look at proposition B. B states that Jesus' body never left the tomb of Joseph, and that since that is the case, it is probably here to this day. It should be noted that we have not yet found any such tomb in or around Jerusalem with a crucifixion victim in it bearing wounds matching the description of Jesus' death. In any case, if Jesus' body was still in the tomb, There would have been problems for the early church. All of the ancient documents acknowledge the missing body (in particular, see Matthew 28:11-14). In fact, had the body still been in place, the Sanhedrin need only have gone to the tomb and produced the half-rotted corpse, mashing all belief in a resurrected Jesus. No one would have fallen or it if the body had been in the tomb. But it wasn't. I'll examine proposition C next. Basically, according to this idea, Jesus merely fainted on the cross, was taken down, and left in the tomb. He revived three days later after being in the cool air of the tomb, got out of the tomb, and went and fooled His disciples. He then vanished from history. This theory is obviously not logical. After just the standard crucifixion procedure, when the soldiers THOUGHT Jesus might be dead, they rammed a spear straight into his heart. According to the Gospel of John, blood and water came out. John would not have understood the significance. Modern physicians do. The water was probably from His pericardium, which had begun to fill. The pericardium is a sac around the heart. This filling only occurs after death. So now, Jesus not only has massive blood loss from His shredded back, probably broken nose from His beatings before crucifixion, the normal crucifixion wounds of nail-holes, and would have been suffering from extreme exhaustion, but He also had taken a spear in His heart. Modern medicine probably couldn't resuscitate this guy. But let's say He somehow survived that. Then, he would have been left, in the cool, soothing air of the tomb. Without food and water. For three days. Let's suspend disbelief for another few moments and say He woke up. He would have had to push a two-ton rock up a slope to open His tomb. Assuming He did that, He would have been faced with guards, probably Roman auxiliaries. Assuming He succeeded in doing that, He would have REALLY been half-dead. Even if He had managed to get to His disciples in time, they would have pitied and cared for Him. There is no way they would have still viewed Him as the Son of God, the conqueror of the grave. I think it's safe to assume that for whatever reason, He died that Friday and was not in His tomb on Sunday. What could have happened to the body? 1. the disciples stole it and lied 2. someone else stole it, deceiving the disciples Let's look at 1 first. To begin, we have to lay out some kind of plan for the disciples: i. get past the guards ii. roll away the stone iii. steal the body iv. fool the world Refuting step (i): these were Roman soldiers. It is unlikely that the disciples would have had the courage to try and overpower them. They Eleven were a bunch of cowards who doubted and ran from Jesus at every turn. They were hiding out when their WOMEN came back and announced that Jesus' body was missing from its tomb. (This detail is especially notable when you consider the fact that it was women discovering the tomb empty. Had it been a forged account, the women, who held no legal status and could not serve as court witnesses, would not have been the first to find the tomb. The women would not have been the ones showing character and courage.) Therefore, these fishermen probably would not have been very Interested in attacking a bunch of Roman guards when their courage was at an absolute low and they had just seen their beloved hoped-for Messiah die in a most un-Messianic fashion. They were in no condition to perpetrate a massive hoax on the rest of the world. Additionally, how COULD they have attacked the guards? Few owned weapons. It was the death penalty for any Roman to sleep on duty. According to the book of Acts, Simon Peter was guarded IN HIS CELL by sixteen Romans. One can therefore assume that that was standard Roman procedure. These eleven fishermen would have had to face sixteen fully-trained and armed Roman soldiers. Even if we assume that they somehow did kill the guards or chase them away, they had step (ii). In a word, it would have been extremely challenging for all these men to move a two-ton boulder anywhere, much less up a slope. Presuming that they succeeded in surpassing both obstacles, they had steps (iii) and (iv) left. These go hand-in-hand. As we know, only one disciple survived martyrdom (not counting Judas, the traitor). This is the list: 1. Simon Peter -- Crucified (upside down, according to Church tradition) 2. Andrew -- Crucified 3. Matthew -- Beheaded 4. James son of Zebedee -- Beheaded 5. James son of Alphaeus -- Crucified 6. Philip -- Crucified 7. Simon -- Crucified 8. Thaddaeus -- Arrows 9. James Jesus' brother -- Stoned 10. Thomas -- Spear It seems unlikely that they would all lie, since they knew the price of that. Proposition 2: Someone else stole the body, and fooled the disciples. This is easily refuted on three grounds: 1. No one else had a motive to steal the body. 2. The disciples all died for saying not only that Jesus was not in His tomb, but that He had appeared to them each IN PERSON. 3. They all thought someone had stolen the body when they first discovered the empty tomb. (See John 20:10-16.) Therefore, since none of these are possible, Jesus must have been bodily raised from the dead. Any comments or questions? Do you agree? Can you argue against this on rational grounds? Please respond. | |||
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