Laurens
New Member
Perhaps the most common argument, or at least the most important one for Christians is the resurrection. This miracle is foundational to many people's beliefs, and is often defended with passion. Up until quite recently I didn't know how to defend against these arguments, not because they were particularly good, but because I didn't have enough knowledge to counter them. So I thought I'd start a topic for people in a similar position, who are looking for arguments against the resurrection/empty tomb - which hopefully others can come and add arguments to, and we will end up with a veritable resource against apologetic nonsense of this sort.
1. The Empty Tomb
This argument is frequently used by people such as William Lane Craig, who states that the majority of historians accept the "fact" that Jesus' tomb was found empty.
Joseph of Arimathea, a literary creation
We have no idea where the town of Arimathea is, whereas we know the location of other Biblical sites. Roy W. Hoover writes: "the location of Arimathea has not (yet) been identified with any assurance; the various 'possible' locations are nothing more than pious guesses or conjectures undocumented by textual or archaeological evidence." [1]
Matthew and John both claim that Joseph was one of Jesus' followers (Matt 27:57 and John 19:38), yet the book of Acts says that his enemies: "found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre." (Acts 13:28-29) - so was he an enemy or a follower of Jesus? Mark tells us that the Sanhedrin high court decided to condemn Jesus to death, again hardly consistent for a supposed follower of Jesus.
Also, if it was Joseph's duty to bury Jesus, or he did so for humanitarian reasons then we have a problem, because surely he would have buried the two thieves at the same time also? This means that we could not be sure whether it was Jesus who rose from the dead, if he was buried with two others. John Dominic Crossan writes: "First if Joseph was in the council, he was against Jesus; if he was for Jesus, he was not in the council. Second, if Joseph buried Jesus from piety or duty, he would have done the same for the other two crucified criminals; yet if he did that, there could be no empty-tomb sequence." [2] he continues to write that Mark "did his best with an impossible problem: those in power were against Jesus; those for him had no power. How could you invent a person with power (at least access to Pilate) but for Jesus? He created Jospeh as both a Sanhedrist and almost-a-disciple of Jesus" [3]. Joseph of Arimathea may well have simply been a literary creation in order to provide evidence that there was an empty tomb.
The apostles and the empty tomb
Uta Ranke-Heinemann states: "The empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning is a legend. This is shown by the simple fact that the apostle Paul, the most crucial preacher of Christ's resurrection, says nothing about it. Thus it also means nothing to him, that is, an empty tomb has no significance for the truth of the resurrection, which he so emphatically proclaims. Since he gathers together and cites all the evidence that has been handed down to him, he certainly would have found the empty tomb worth mentioning. That he doesn't proves that it never existed and hence the accounts of it must not have arisen until later"¦ The belief in the resurrection is older than the belief in the empty tomb; rather, the legend of the empty tomb grew out of the faith of Easter." [4] Some Christians will argue that Paul just assumed the empty tomb and didn't bother to mention it, however that seems unlikely given that he doesn't even mention it when talking to unbelievers such as in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, why would he ignore such a piece of evidence if it existed? The empty tomb is a central claim of apologists today, are we really supposed to think that Paul wouldn't have bothered to mention it if he knew about it?
During Peter's Pentecost sermon in Jerusalem why didn't he say "see for yourselves the tomb where Jesus lay is empty"? Surely Peter would have known about it? Surely he could convert a whole load of people if he could have taken them down to see the empty tomb? Instead he doesn't even mention it. Both of these facts point towards the empty tomb being a later invention of the Church, rather than a historical fact as Craig states.
2. The Reliability of the Accounts
Impossible to reconcile
There are many inconsistencies in the accounts of the resurrection. Did 1, 2 or 3 women come to the tomb? Was it "while it was still dark" or "just after sunrise"? Did they come to "look at the tomb" or "to anoint the body with spices"? Did they see one angel, two angels, a man dressed in white, or Jesus himself? Who saw the resurrected Jesus first, Peter or Mary Magdalene? What did they do as they left the tomb did they say "nothing to anyone" or did they run "to tell his disciples"? Was the stone rolled away in the presence of the women or before they arrived? Was Jesus on his way to Galilee by the time the women arrived, or was he in Jerusalem on the first Easter Sunday? Luke says that the disciples "stayed continually in the temple" because Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem until they had been "clothed with power from on high" but John has the disciples returning to their fishing trade in Galilee. John's order of appearances doesn't square up with Paul's. Does Jesus' ascension take place in Bethany on the same day of his resurrection as in Luke? Or does it take place on the Mount of Olives forty days after his resurrection as in Acts?
David Edwards writes: "It has proved impossible to construct a fully harmonized version of the resurrection stories, despite many attempts to do so"¦ the stories as given constitute not a jigsaw puzzle, but an insoluble mystery" [5] Michael Martin notes that "the great differences among postressurection appearance stories and the difficulty of reconciling them certainly suggests that oral transmission has generated inaccuracies." [6] In other words the accounts were subject to revision and exaggeration countless times before they were written down.
The guards at the tomb
We are expected to believe that the guards at the tomb saw an angel roll back the stone and sit on it, causing them to 'shake and become like dead men', they saw all this plus the empty tomb yet somehow they were paid off to spread a stupid denigrating lie about themselves? They reported that they had been asleep, why would they openly admit to have failed in their duties in order to protect people whom they didn't care for? Especially in light of their supposed experience and the fact that they may have faced punishment for neglecting their duties as soldiers. Who were they trying to protect? Didn't they think how stupid their lie was? Anyone listening could have said 'if you were asleep how did you know what happened?' or 'why didn't you wake up when the thieves moved the stone?' - This seems like it was simply a bad apologetic attempt to give some credibility to the empty tomb story.
In any case, Matthew tell us that a guard wasn't placed at the tomb until the day after Jesus was crucified: "The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' 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." "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." So it is entirely plausible that the body was stolen on the day prior to the guards being sent (if that ever even happened).
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So there are some arguments I came across which may or may not be useful when talking about the resurrection. Does anyone else have any good ones?
[1] Roy Hoover, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? p.130
[2] Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in The Years Immediately After The Execution of Jesus p.554
[3] Crossan Who Killed Jesus? p. 555
[4] Uta Ranke-Heinemann Putting Away Childish Things p. 131
[5] David Edwards and John R. W. Scott Evangelical Essentials p. 205
[6] Martin The Case Against Christianity p. 83
1. The Empty Tomb
This argument is frequently used by people such as William Lane Craig, who states that the majority of historians accept the "fact" that Jesus' tomb was found empty.
Joseph of Arimathea, a literary creation
We have no idea where the town of Arimathea is, whereas we know the location of other Biblical sites. Roy W. Hoover writes: "the location of Arimathea has not (yet) been identified with any assurance; the various 'possible' locations are nothing more than pious guesses or conjectures undocumented by textual or archaeological evidence." [1]
Matthew and John both claim that Joseph was one of Jesus' followers (Matt 27:57 and John 19:38), yet the book of Acts says that his enemies: "found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre." (Acts 13:28-29) - so was he an enemy or a follower of Jesus? Mark tells us that the Sanhedrin high court decided to condemn Jesus to death, again hardly consistent for a supposed follower of Jesus.
Also, if it was Joseph's duty to bury Jesus, or he did so for humanitarian reasons then we have a problem, because surely he would have buried the two thieves at the same time also? This means that we could not be sure whether it was Jesus who rose from the dead, if he was buried with two others. John Dominic Crossan writes: "First if Joseph was in the council, he was against Jesus; if he was for Jesus, he was not in the council. Second, if Joseph buried Jesus from piety or duty, he would have done the same for the other two crucified criminals; yet if he did that, there could be no empty-tomb sequence." [2] he continues to write that Mark "did his best with an impossible problem: those in power were against Jesus; those for him had no power. How could you invent a person with power (at least access to Pilate) but for Jesus? He created Jospeh as both a Sanhedrist and almost-a-disciple of Jesus" [3]. Joseph of Arimathea may well have simply been a literary creation in order to provide evidence that there was an empty tomb.
The apostles and the empty tomb
Uta Ranke-Heinemann states: "The empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning is a legend. This is shown by the simple fact that the apostle Paul, the most crucial preacher of Christ's resurrection, says nothing about it. Thus it also means nothing to him, that is, an empty tomb has no significance for the truth of the resurrection, which he so emphatically proclaims. Since he gathers together and cites all the evidence that has been handed down to him, he certainly would have found the empty tomb worth mentioning. That he doesn't proves that it never existed and hence the accounts of it must not have arisen until later"¦ The belief in the resurrection is older than the belief in the empty tomb; rather, the legend of the empty tomb grew out of the faith of Easter." [4] Some Christians will argue that Paul just assumed the empty tomb and didn't bother to mention it, however that seems unlikely given that he doesn't even mention it when talking to unbelievers such as in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, why would he ignore such a piece of evidence if it existed? The empty tomb is a central claim of apologists today, are we really supposed to think that Paul wouldn't have bothered to mention it if he knew about it?
During Peter's Pentecost sermon in Jerusalem why didn't he say "see for yourselves the tomb where Jesus lay is empty"? Surely Peter would have known about it? Surely he could convert a whole load of people if he could have taken them down to see the empty tomb? Instead he doesn't even mention it. Both of these facts point towards the empty tomb being a later invention of the Church, rather than a historical fact as Craig states.
2. The Reliability of the Accounts
Impossible to reconcile
There are many inconsistencies in the accounts of the resurrection. Did 1, 2 or 3 women come to the tomb? Was it "while it was still dark" or "just after sunrise"? Did they come to "look at the tomb" or "to anoint the body with spices"? Did they see one angel, two angels, a man dressed in white, or Jesus himself? Who saw the resurrected Jesus first, Peter or Mary Magdalene? What did they do as they left the tomb did they say "nothing to anyone" or did they run "to tell his disciples"? Was the stone rolled away in the presence of the women or before they arrived? Was Jesus on his way to Galilee by the time the women arrived, or was he in Jerusalem on the first Easter Sunday? Luke says that the disciples "stayed continually in the temple" because Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem until they had been "clothed with power from on high" but John has the disciples returning to their fishing trade in Galilee. John's order of appearances doesn't square up with Paul's. Does Jesus' ascension take place in Bethany on the same day of his resurrection as in Luke? Or does it take place on the Mount of Olives forty days after his resurrection as in Acts?
David Edwards writes: "It has proved impossible to construct a fully harmonized version of the resurrection stories, despite many attempts to do so"¦ the stories as given constitute not a jigsaw puzzle, but an insoluble mystery" [5] Michael Martin notes that "the great differences among postressurection appearance stories and the difficulty of reconciling them certainly suggests that oral transmission has generated inaccuracies." [6] In other words the accounts were subject to revision and exaggeration countless times before they were written down.
The guards at the tomb
We are expected to believe that the guards at the tomb saw an angel roll back the stone and sit on it, causing them to 'shake and become like dead men', they saw all this plus the empty tomb yet somehow they were paid off to spread a stupid denigrating lie about themselves? They reported that they had been asleep, why would they openly admit to have failed in their duties in order to protect people whom they didn't care for? Especially in light of their supposed experience and the fact that they may have faced punishment for neglecting their duties as soldiers. Who were they trying to protect? Didn't they think how stupid their lie was? Anyone listening could have said 'if you were asleep how did you know what happened?' or 'why didn't you wake up when the thieves moved the stone?' - This seems like it was simply a bad apologetic attempt to give some credibility to the empty tomb story.
In any case, Matthew tell us that a guard wasn't placed at the tomb until the day after Jesus was crucified: "The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' 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." "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." So it is entirely plausible that the body was stolen on the day prior to the guards being sent (if that ever even happened).
---
So there are some arguments I came across which may or may not be useful when talking about the resurrection. Does anyone else have any good ones?
[1] Roy Hoover, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? p.130
[2] Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in The Years Immediately After The Execution of Jesus p.554
[3] Crossan Who Killed Jesus? p. 555
[4] Uta Ranke-Heinemann Putting Away Childish Things p. 131
[5] David Edwards and John R. W. Scott Evangelical Essentials p. 205
[6] Martin The Case Against Christianity p. 83
