Jesus Tomb Found

Hi Ana, Of course, but that wasn’t what you were saying when you said we can either follow the Bible account or not. We can follow the Bible account and reject the impossible and thus keep the plausible.Is it plausible that the Romans handed Jesus’ body over? Well, to look for a satisfactory answer for this we need to rely on external sources, and they say that the Romans threw the criminal bodies into a common grave. If there are no reports to the contrary, then it is less likely that Jesus’ body was handed over. If there are a few, or even many, reports of the Romans handing over criminal bodies, then the Bible claim that Jesus was placed in a tomb is more likely. The thing is, it is not impossible, or even improbable that someone was crucified in the period in question, the Romans crucified tens of thousands of people, sometimes thousands were crucified at the same time, and so there really is no good reason to doubt that Jesus was crucified. This is sort of correct. The Roman customs could indicate the falsity of a tomb, and if the new biography includes a tomb then wouldn’t the Roman custom undermine the reliability of the new biography? If the Roman custom falsifies the existence of a tomb then this would have a knock on effect, which would affect other issues in the biography. For example, if there was no tomb for Jesus to be put in just how much of the Gospels would be falsified? All the testimonies relating to finding the tomb empty would be affected for a start. How can I be a literalist when I am denying that there was a tomb whilst the Bible clearly indicates that there was a tomb? You have to start by collecting as many resources about the period in question as you can, then build up a background picture to try and fit the Gospel accounts into. But, the most important thing for any historical research is to try and be as objective as possible, if your research turns into a persuasive work then it won’t be taken seriously by your peers.So, I would say that one should start by gaining as good an understanding of the period and location as one can, then look at the plausibility of each event.Having done this, of course, the plausibility of any event depends on the individual’s approach to the subject.All histories are inventions of the human mind, we only have records of what any particular person wanted us to have.Brian.

Since there is nothing (that I know of) to support ANY criminal’s body being handed over to the family then I don’t think there is anything ”obvious’. If this was obvious, is it obvious because there is another example of someone’s body being handed over to their family? But, here we go again, uncritically accepting the Gospel account at face value!Examine the text in question and then think about how plausible this alleged narrative actually is.Did Pilate often have an interview with common criminals before their execution?Who recorded this event, and how did they happen to come by the information. As far as I am aware none of the disciples were present during this little chat between Jesus and Pilate so we do not have a primary source for this.As far as the episode with Barabbas is concerned, it is has been demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that this story is fiction.
There are far too many unlikely events for the story to be taken seriously. Let’s be accurate here. As far as historical research goes we can only claim that according to the author of the text the Romans didn’t consider Jesus a criminal! We do not have any writings from any Roman claiming that Jesus was innocent.Keep in mind as well that crucifixion is a Roman punishment, not a Jewish one, if the Jews executed Jesus He would have been stoned to death. Plus, if the Jews really did want Jesus dead why didn’t they just lynch Him as they did with Stephen?Personally, I think that the Romans did crucify Jesus, but in order for the Faith to spread the evangelists could hardly blame the Empire for killing the God that they wanted the Romans to follow. The blame had to be shifted from the Romans on to another party, and the Jewish nation was blamed and has suffered terribly because of this invention.
Think about it. If the Jews had hated Jesus and His teachings so much, if they found Him guilty of blasphemy, why on Earth would they have allowed His followers to preach His message in Jewish synagogues? Any Jewish opposition to a burial is immaterial. Throwing into a common grave and NOT allowing a family burial was a Roman custom, nothing at all to do with the Jews. I don’t think there is any good reason to think that Jesus didn’t exist. What we do is to use the Bible in the same way as any other source, if there is something in a source that has been falsified by external evidence, then that part of the source should be rejected as unhistorical. It doesn’t mean that particular information should be completely forgotten because the insertion of falsehoods and myths tells us a lot about the society that the texts were written in.It also depends on what is being researched. If you are researching an event from the Bible then fair enough, you have to use the Bible. But surely you need to use additional sources to check for the credibility of the biblical text in question?You cannot take ANY text as 100% accurate until proven otherwise, this is a ludicrous approach as we would have to consider that every historical text is accurate until proven otherwise. And what about elements of a text that cannot be verified with empirical evidence?How can we possibly decide if Jesus ascended physically into heaven or not, how do we test for that?Also, as you say, remember that historians are just telling a story, they are telling us their particular version of events. But do we have texts from people living in Jerusalem at the time?Even if we do, authors in ancient times didn’t think about writing critical accounts, they weren’t preoccupied with the plausibility of events or even preoccupied with avoiding contradictions in their writings.Critical recording of history really didn’t begin until after the Renaissance and ancient historians ALL have horrendous errors in their writings. The resurrection myth requires a tomb, it needs to be obvious that Jesus’ body disappeared. If He was thrown into a common grave then it really isnt quite as clear that He rose from the dead. The authors cover many bases in order to try and tie up any possible loopholes in the resurrection myth. They have Roman guards placed at the tomb, to cover the loophole of Jesus followers stealing the body. Funny how the Roman guards who witnessed the resurrection are so quiet about it.Finally, don’t you find it a little suspicious that we don’t know where Jesus tomb is?Brian.

And we know Pilate was liable to agree because..........?And we know Jospeh of Aramathea asked because........?Brian.

That’s what I have been saying for years at EVC, we cannot say anything written about an historical is 100% accurate, it may well be 100% accurate but we will never know this for certain. So what?This really doesn’t mean anything when we consider the context of the writing of the Gospels. We know that gMark was written first and the authors of gMatt and gLuke copied huge chunks of Mark. Now, Mark does not claim to be an eyewitness, and neither does Luke, and if the author of gMatt was an eyewitness why did he copy so much from a non-eyewitness?So, having a thousand reports of an event that are really just copies of an earlier report means nothing. Even if they were known I don’t see what the problem is. Say Jesus was thrown into a common grave, it is not impossible for someone to invent a story about Jesus rising from a family tomb. People just didn’t question things in those days in the same manner that we do today. Look at the donation of Constantine, how long was this hugely erroneous document taken as genuine?Also, the authors of the Gospels make huge errors regarding Roman traditions anyway. What about the claim that Romans released a prisoner at Passover every year? How ludicrous has that been shown to be? Well, I presume since you are a Christian that you would agree that Buddhists have been fooled for 2600 years, Jews for 3000 years, Hindus for 4000 years and Muslims for 1500 years?Perhaps you cannot believe that someone would make up a story about someone that they wanted to present as a god? Why is it impossible for the Evangelists to lie? But how many people would really be buying into what they knew was untrue?For all we know Jesus’ crucifixion could have been a low key event, the vast majority of people may never have heard of Jesus, we just don’t know.Again though, as far as historical research goes, to support the historicity of Jesus body being handed over to His family, we really would need some examples from external sources that show that there are other cases where this happened. If there are no other cases it doesn’t automatically falsify Jesus’ body being handed over, it just means it is less likely to have happened.Brian.

And they could not convene during Holy Week either.