Agnostic75
Well-Known Member
Since my arguments have over 10,000 characters, I will have to make two posts. This is Part 1.
Consider the following Scriptures from the NIV:
Matthew 27
62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63"Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."
If the chief priests and the Pharisees actually said that, I believe that the following subsequent scenario is plausible:
Pilate:
"No, there is no need to have guards posted at the tomb. No one could get away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead. Your own spies have told you that none of Jesus' followers believe that he will rise from the dead. Not only that, but I have much more important things for my guards to do at this time."
Regarding "not only that, but I have much more important things for my guards to do at this time," even granting for the sake of argument that Pilate was moderately concerned about Jesus' followers, and normally would have been willing to post guards at the tomb, if he believed that the guards were more needed elsewhere, possibly for an emergency, that would have been sufficient reason for him to refuse to post guards at the tomb.
As it supposedly turned out, Pilate's hypothetical comment "no one could get away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead" was correct since the empty tomb did not convince Peter and Mary Magdalene that Jesus had risen from the dead, and since Jesus criticized his disciples for their unbelief.
Consider the following Scriptures:
Matthew 13
10 The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" 11 He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.”
Even though the disciples were given "the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven," they still had unbelief.
It is doubtful that Pilate would have paid much attention to the followers of Jesus even if he had been aware of them. The first century Christian church was very small and uninfluential. In "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that there were only 7,530 Christians in the entire world in 100 A.D. In Christian apologist James Holding's article "The Impossible Faith," Holding quotes well-known Christian Bible scholar N.T. Wright as saying "This subversive belief in Jesus' Lordship, over against that of Caesar, was held in the teeth of the fact that Caesar had demonstrated his superior power in the obvious way, by having Jesus crucified. But the truly extraordinary thing is that this belief was held by a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire."
It is not likely that Pilate would have been very concerned with "a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire." Based upon what Stark and Wright said, it would be reasonable to speculate that when Jesus died, he only had several hundred followers in Palestine, perhaps only a few dozen.
Well-known Christian Bible scholar William Lane Craig knows how important the issue of the guards is. He knows that in the Gospels, only Matthew mentions the guards, so he tries to use the gospel of Peter as an additional source. That is well beneath his reputation as a Bible scholar. Consider the following:
Consider the following:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...ocs/guard.html
William Lane Craig
Of the canonical gospels, only Matthew relates the intriguing story of the setting of a guard at the tomb of Jesus (Mt. 27. 62-66; 28. 4, 11-1 5). The story serves an apologetic purpose: the refutation of the allegation that the disciples had themselves stolen Jesus' body and thus faked his resurrection. Behind the story as Matthew tells it seems to lie a tradition history of Jewish and Christian polemic, a developing pattern of assertion and counter-assertion:
Christian: 'The Lord is risen!'
Jew: 'No, his disciples stole away his body.'
Christian: 'The guard at the tomb would have prevented any such theft.'
Jew: 'No, his disciples stole away his body while the guard slept.'
Christian: 'The chief priests bribed the guard to say this.'
“Though Matthew alone of the four evangelists mentions the guard at the tomb,.......the gospel of Peter also relates the story of the guard at the tomb, and its account may well be independent of Matthew, since the verbal similarities are practically nil.
Matthew's account has been nearly universally rejected as an apologetic legend by the critics. The reasons for this judgment, however, are of very unequal worth. For example, the fact that the story is an apologetic answering the allegation that the disciples stole the body does not therefore mean that it is unhistorical. The best way to answer such a charge would not be by inventing fictions, but by narrating the true story of what happened.[/quote]
Consider the following Scriptures from the NIV:
Matthew 27
62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63"Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."
If the chief priests and the Pharisees actually said that, I believe that the following subsequent scenario is plausible:
Pilate:
"No, there is no need to have guards posted at the tomb. No one could get away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead. Your own spies have told you that none of Jesus' followers believe that he will rise from the dead. Not only that, but I have much more important things for my guards to do at this time."
Regarding "not only that, but I have much more important things for my guards to do at this time," even granting for the sake of argument that Pilate was moderately concerned about Jesus' followers, and normally would have been willing to post guards at the tomb, if he believed that the guards were more needed elsewhere, possibly for an emergency, that would have been sufficient reason for him to refuse to post guards at the tomb.
As it supposedly turned out, Pilate's hypothetical comment "no one could get away with claiming that the empty tomb reasonably proves that Jesus rose from the dead" was correct since the empty tomb did not convince Peter and Mary Magdalene that Jesus had risen from the dead, and since Jesus criticized his disciples for their unbelief.
Consider the following Scriptures:
Matthew 13
10 The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" 11 He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.”
Even though the disciples were given "the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven," they still had unbelief.
It is doubtful that Pilate would have paid much attention to the followers of Jesus even if he had been aware of them. The first century Christian church was very small and uninfluential. In "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that there were only 7,530 Christians in the entire world in 100 A.D. In Christian apologist James Holding's article "The Impossible Faith," Holding quotes well-known Christian Bible scholar N.T. Wright as saying "This subversive belief in Jesus' Lordship, over against that of Caesar, was held in the teeth of the fact that Caesar had demonstrated his superior power in the obvious way, by having Jesus crucified. But the truly extraordinary thing is that this belief was held by a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire."
It is not likely that Pilate would have been very concerned with "a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire." Based upon what Stark and Wright said, it would be reasonable to speculate that when Jesus died, he only had several hundred followers in Palestine, perhaps only a few dozen.
Well-known Christian Bible scholar William Lane Craig knows how important the issue of the guards is. He knows that in the Gospels, only Matthew mentions the guards, so he tries to use the gospel of Peter as an additional source. That is well beneath his reputation as a Bible scholar. Consider the following:
Consider the following:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...ocs/guard.html
William Lane Craig
Of the canonical gospels, only Matthew relates the intriguing story of the setting of a guard at the tomb of Jesus (Mt. 27. 62-66; 28. 4, 11-1 5). The story serves an apologetic purpose: the refutation of the allegation that the disciples had themselves stolen Jesus' body and thus faked his resurrection. Behind the story as Matthew tells it seems to lie a tradition history of Jewish and Christian polemic, a developing pattern of assertion and counter-assertion:
Christian: 'The Lord is risen!'
Jew: 'No, his disciples stole away his body.'
Christian: 'The guard at the tomb would have prevented any such theft.'
Jew: 'No, his disciples stole away his body while the guard slept.'
Christian: 'The chief priests bribed the guard to say this.'
“Though Matthew alone of the four evangelists mentions the guard at the tomb,.......the gospel of Peter also relates the story of the guard at the tomb, and its account may well be independent of Matthew, since the verbal similarities are practically nil.
Matthew's account has been nearly universally rejected as an apologetic legend by the critics. The reasons for this judgment, however, are of very unequal worth. For example, the fact that the story is an apologetic answering the allegation that the disciples stole the body does not therefore mean that it is unhistorical. The best way to answer such a charge would not be by inventing fictions, but by narrating the true story of what happened.[/quote]
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