> If you look at in from a different angle, this is exactly what people who stole the body would want us to think.

While this is certainly possible from the vantage point of do-able, we have to infer the most reasonable conclusion. Given what we know about the atmosphere that weekend, the personality of the disciples, and the astounding change that came over them in just a short amount of time, the prospective of theft doesn't fit the picture. They believed and taught (and died for) the story of resurrection.

> The presence of the guards at the tomb still suggests to me the answer to this is yes.

I think you're looking at this situation both anachronistically and regressively. WE know Christianity became popular; WE know it met with success. But what did THEY know? What were THEIR realistic perceptions of the movement. Their leader was betrayed, tried, and executed by both Roman and Jewish authorities in cahoots with each other. Does this give them reason to think positively? With their leader dead (the teacher, the miracle worker), does this give them motivation to carry on? Did they think there would be money to gain? Good sex? Fame and power? With no crystal ball to the future, I think it's fair to assume they were not thinking, "Let's do this! We'll be so popular and respected!"

> I would want to know things like how far it is from the tomb to the road

We would all like to know that, but we don't really know in our modern era where the tomb was, or even where the road was. Generally Roman crucifixion victims were erected at roadside to intimidate prospective perpetrators, and the Gospel of John (the account with the most eyewitness morsels) tells us that the tomb was "at the place where Jesus was crucified" (Jn. 19.41). We get the idea it was like right there within view, but we don't have the specific information.

> how far the tomb is from the guardhouse

Two factors here. We don't know exactly where the tomb is, but traditional sites (from the 300s AD) give us a hint. Second, we don't know if it's a Jewish guard or a Roman guard (even though I think the evidence for a Roman guard is stronger). If it's a Roman guard, they usually barracked in the Antonia fortress near the Temple Mount, about a quarter mile from the traditional site of Jesus' death and burial. If it's a Jewish guard, still about a quarter mile, but from a different angle. Antonia was north of the Temple Mount; the Sanhedrin section south of it.

> what the terrain was like

Jerusalem is on a hilltop, so everything is "down" from center city (Old Jerusalem). It doesn't descend too quickly in that part, though. It's almost level, but not really; it's still a descent (you could probably coast a bike down it).

> how fast people were able to get to the tomb

We don't know where the disciples were holed up on Saturday night, so that's tough to say. The Gospels indicate it was fairly close because (1) Mary was able to get to them fairly quickly, and odds are she was no athlete, and (2) they ran to the tomb (Jn. 20.2).

> what the visibility was (for instance were there hills, walls, trees, etc)

There's no way to know what it looked like then. No cameras or paintings.

> was the tomb in a high traffic area

The traditional site of the tomb is on the west side of the city, which makes sense. There's a photograph from the late 1800s of a rock formation on the west side that looks like a skull ("The Place of the Skull"), and there's a road right beside it. We don't have much to go by.

> how often did other police (or 1st century equivalent) patrol the area?

Probably not much at all. That's why a special unit had to be assigned.

> If the crucifixion was spontaneous, ie they just grabbed jesus off the street and crucified him, maybe not.

This is pretty much what happened. He was arrested late one evening, tried through the night, and on a cross by 9 a.m.

> His arrest piqued the curiosity of some of the population of Jerusalem", there was an arrest and a trial and all that would probably have taken some time

Yes, and this would have been between 6-9 a.m.

> I think they put the body of Jesus in his family tomb, right?

Wrong. Joseph of Arimathea put Jesus' corpse in *his* family tomb. Joseph was a wealthy man, a member of the Council (either a governmental body or the Sanhedrin), so most likely worked in Jerusalem, lived in nearby Arimathea, and had a family tomb on the west side of the city.

> So the burial place was known and ways to steal the body from that location had time to be fleshed out.

The crucifixion happened very quickly. Arrested Thursday night, on trial through the night, convicted by early morning, and on the cross by 9 a.m. Dead by 3, and only then does Joseph step forward to ask for the body, to place it in his family tomb. Extremely little time to develop a flawless plan to be fleshed out.

> I don't know that the Bible can be considered evidence of a resurrection because it is a religious text and has many myths and metaphors in it.

Hmm. It doesn't have any myths in it. It does use metaphoric language on occasion, but there's no question that the disciples taught he was raised from the dead and appeared to individuals/groups, and Jesus' disciples intended for us to interpret the resurrection as an actual event, not a metaphor.

> If Jesus were resurrected I would personally (I don't know about other people) expect a LOT more to be written about where he went, who he talked to, etc.

He was only around intermittently, not continually, after the resurrection. We only have account of 11 appearances.

> I would myself be very interested to hear directly the teachings of Jesus and I can't really get this from the Bible for whatever reason, I don't know why. The wording and context isn't clear to me.

This is an interesting comment. The four Gospel accounts are the history of the ministry and teachings of Jesus. Can we talk about this more. What is it that isn't clear to you?

> As I was suggesting before I think the passion and drive that they had to steal the body, is the same passion that they had to preach the message of Jesus.

They preached Jesus as physically risen with a fervor that went against governmental leaders trying to shut them down, and eventual persecution, torture, and martyrdom. Have you seen Zero Dark Thirty? Everybody breaks eventually when tortured and threatened. Everybody. But not a single one of the disciples did. Do you know the history of Watergate? They kept the conspiracy together for a short while, but when real threat came, they sang like canaries.

> I have to ask you at this point though, what was it that they were preaching at this point exactly?

It would probably be best for you to read it yourself.

Acts 2.14-36
Acts 3.12-26
Acts 4.8-12
Acts 10.34-43

Those will get you started. I don't want to bury you with too much reading.

> The disciples had no motive to steal the body. The Bible says they were filled with fear, ran away, and went into hiding. The power of Rome was lethal, and the drive of the Jewish leaders was oppressively intimidating. In addition, the disciples were not expecting Jesus to rise from the dead, and were filled with terrifying grief at his execution. There is nothing in the biblical account that tells us they had any motivation to fabricate a resurrection by stealing the body.

If you look at in from a different angle, this is exactly what people who stole the body would want us to think. If anyone is stealing the body to make it look like a resurrection, then they are going to play up how impossible it would have been to steal the body and how they had no means to, etc. It may not have been easy, but I would say that the story that eventually reaches us is going to be that it was a near impossible task. Telling a story of how hard it would have been to steal the body and playing up how bad the punishment would have been if they got caught perfectly lines up with the interest of a person stealing the body to fake the resurrection. And obviously, anyone who stole the body for this purpose would say "I didn't do it and had no motive to." If it were the truth that they stole the body and this secret got out, the stealing of the body would then have become pointless. We have to consider this.

> But aside from not being impelled to steal the body, did they have anything to gain from doing such and then claiming he had risen?

The presence of the guards at the tomb still suggests to me the answer to this is yes. Look at how popular Christianity is today, and how crucial a role the story of the resurrection has played in Christianity's development. I'd say that if there were evidence that the body was stolen, there are still today, 2000 years later, people whose interests would be to destroy this evidence. There is certainly something to gain from claiming a resurrection occurred.

> While there were enough of them to lift the stone out of its place, is it reasonable to think they pulled this off so spectacularly that they were never caught, never charged, never suspected, and then held their conspiracy together for the rest of their lives? Not likely.

Without having any idea of the logistics of this plan, I'm not so quick to come to this conclusion. I would want to know things like how far it is from the tomb to the road, how far the tomb is from the guardhouse, what the terrain was like, how fast people were able to get to the tomb, what the visibility was (for instance were there hills, walls, trees, etc), was the tomb in a high traffic area, how often did other police (or 1st century equivalent) patrol the area, all these sorts of things. I don't even know if the tomb was in the middle of a city or if it were in the outskirts somewhere.

> Technically they had an opportunity in the middle of the night on Friday, but they would have had to have devised a plan quickly and executed it flawlessly.

If they knew ahead of time that there was going to be an opportunity they could plan for it. I'm sure they had some capability of planning ahead. If the crucifixion was spontaneous, ie they just grabbed jesus off the street and crucified him, maybe not. From earlier going off of what you provided "Jesus was crucified beside a road west of Jerusalem (Mk. 15.29). His trial had garnered some attention around town (Mk. 15.8-15), because he had entered the city a few days previous in the manner of a king (Mt. 21.1-11; Mk. 11.1-11; Lk. 19.28-44; Jn. 12.12-19). His arrest piqued the curiosity of some of the population of Jerusalem", there was an arrest and a trial and all that would probably have taken some time. And I think they put the body of Jesus in his family tomb, right? So the burial place was known and ways to steal the body from that location had time to be fleshed out.

> somehow also to stage other convincing appearances of Jesus,

Well, I guess this is a rather key point isn't it? It's pretty certain that Jesus was crucified to death. If he was walking around talking to people after the crucifixion, then that's all the evidence we need of a resurrection. I don't know that the Bible can be considered evidence of a resurrection because it is a religious text and has many myths and metaphors in it. In other words I don't care who wrote what in any book, because anyone can write anything they want. That's very much a blanket statement I'm aware. It's just curious to me that the appearance of the resurrected Jesus doesn't get much attention in the bible. It's only told about directly in maybe the last chapter or so of the four gospels of matthew mark luke and john. If Jesus were resurrected I would personally (I don't know about other people) expect a LOT more to be written about where he went, who he talked to, etc, when he would have been the only human in history who'd died and came back to life. I don't feel the gospels in the Bible are doing justice to what would be an extraordinary and amazing event such as this. If you saw the resurrected Jesus before you, wouldn't you have a hell of a lot to write about?

> But it's as you say: NOBODY comes back from the dead. They were not expecting it, had a hard time believing it, and ran into real trouble preaching it, because everyone knows it's impossible. And that's exactly the point. They know it's impossible, but they also know it happened, and that's why their lives were completely changed, why they preached with such passion, and why they were all willing to die for their story.

I don't consider the disciples bad people for (in my conclusion) having stolen the body and used the resurrection story to piggyback the ideology that Jesus had. I would myself be very interested to hear directly the teachings of Jesus and I can't really get this from the Bible for whatever reason, I don't know why. The wording and context isn't clear to me. As I was suggesting before I think the passion and drive that they had to steal the body, is the same passion that they had to preach the message of Jesus.

I mean I can see how seeing a resurrected man could change you and cause you to act in funny ways. I have to ask you at this point though, what was it that they were preaching at this point exactly?

Great conversation. Thanks.

> Why else would guards be stationed in front of a tomb with a corpse in it and a huge rock in front of the entrance? To me this reeks of "someone had a motive to steal the body".

Good question. Matthew is the only one who says anything about a guard, so we have to go there for our only information. You're right that they specifically say (Mt. 27.64), "Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell people that he has been raised from the dead." So you're right that the Jewish leaders suspected the disciples might have a motive.

But let's look at it from the disciples' viewpoint. Did they have the motive, the means, and the opportunity?

The disciples had no motive to steal the body. The Bible says they were filled with fear, ran away, and went into hiding. The power of Rome was lethal, and the drive of the Jewish leaders was oppressively intimidating. In addition, the disciples were not expecting Jesus to rise from the dead, and were filled with terrifying grief at his execution. There is nothing in the biblical account that tells us they had any motivation to fabricate a resurrection by stealing the body.

But aside from not being impelled to steal the body, did they have anything to gain from doing such and then claiming he had risen? Fame could not have been their motive. At the time the disciples knew nothing about the new community that would be formed, the Church, as an assembly of like-minded believers who would be a brotherhood of encouragement and support. The respect they would know from believers was unknown at the time and unknowable, so this could not have been a possible motive for them.

Nor did any of them ever become wealthy because of his claim, and none attained a position of governmental power. They were publicly ridiculed, arrested, imprisoned, and killed. Even today, atheists and skeptics regard the disciples as liars, deluded, subject to hallucinations, and deceivers. What did they have to gain from stealing the body and perpetrating a lie? Aside from some respect from believers that they had no way to foresee was coming, they had no motive to steal the body and nothing to gain from wild and fabricated tales of resurrection. They would have had to sow those tales themselves, even though they had no understanding that was what should and did happen. It doesn’t make sense.

But even if we remotely grant they may have had motive, did they have the means? Since the gravesite was guarded by soldiers, they would have to have had enough people armed with enough weapons to overpower the guard and dispose of their bodies without getting caught. Such a plan would be a capital crime. They would have needed a strategy that history tells us must have worked flawlessly, since they were never arrested. Nor was there any record of any guards being killed, which would have raised suspicions against the disciples, one of whom was a Zealot. While there were enough of them to lift the stone out of its place, is it reasonable to think they pulled this off so spectacularly that they were never caught, never charged, never suspected, and then held their conspiracy together for the rest of their lives? Not likely.

Lastly, did they have opportunity? They had about 18 hours between the burial and when a guard was posted. Technically they had an opportunity in the middle of the night on Friday, but they would have had to have devised a plan quickly and executed it flawlessly. They would have had to have been highly motivated and organized, devised a lie to which they would all hold until death, and somehow also to stage other convincing appearances of Jesus, including miracles. While it is questionably possible, it is not the most logical conclusion, nor is it a reasonable one.

Could they have stolen the body between the brief segment of time when the earthquake came, when the guards "fell as dead men," and dawn? First of all, we would have to assume they had a motive to steal the body and claim a resurrection, which I have already shown is not likely. Then they would have had to have been already there at the site with plan and weapons in place when the earthquake happened, which also doesn't fit the profile of their mindset. Third, they would have had to take the time to position the grave clothes and head cloth in a decorative manner, all the while not knowing when the guards would come back to consciousness.

But of course, if they did steal the body, this doesn't explain how other people saw him (Mary Magdalene, some of the other women, and the two on the road of Emmaus) completely separately from any testimony of the disciples. Nor does it explain their complete willingness later to die for a lie.

But it's as you say: NOBODY comes back from the dead. They were not expecting it, had a hard time believing it, and ran into real trouble preaching it, because everyone knows it's impossible. And that's exactly the point. They know it's impossible, but they also know it happened, and that's why their lives were completely changed, why they preached with such passion, and why they were all willing to die for their story. The resurrection doesn't make sense, and we all know it doesn't happen, except that it did.

It's not just a matter of "wondering if the rat poison got in the soup." They actually saw Jesus after the empty tomb, and it blew them away. They didn't know how to deal with it. It took a complete rewiring of their brains. Resurrection was also not a possibility in their culture, their religious beliefs, or their philosophy of life. That's why it's so striking that all of the disciples were hard-core believers, not a single one cracked under pressure, and thousands also turned to Christ in the same city (Jerusalem) within just a number of weeks. The evidence for them had to be extraordinary. When we see how the church started, and how Christianity expanded, a real resurrection is actually a more reasonable conclusion than the disciples stole the body, were great actors for the rest of their lives, staged convincing appearances of Jesus for others, and were willing to be tortured and die for a known lie.

So I would just like to point out something I thought of... why were there guards at the tomb if no one had a motive to steal the body? Why else would guards be stationed in front of a tomb with a corpse in it and a huge rock in front of the entrance? To me this reeks of "someone had a motive to steal the body".

> Oh, excellent question. For that to have happened, we'll need to say who was there and why in that space of, what—about an hour? First of all, no one was expecting the resurrection, so there would be no reason we would expect anyone to be there at the time. Secondly, an earthquake and the passing out of the guards would instill fear, not courage. Third, why would this person think, "Oh, I'll steal the slaughtered body in this tomb!" What would be his or her motive for dragging Jesus' cadaver out of the tomb and into hiding, and then carefully arranging the graveclothes and head cloth into a nice pattern? While it's remotely possibly that some passer-by just happened to be there at the time (though not likely at all), we have trouble creating a motive that makes this alternative plausible. And then, of course, we still have to explain all the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.

So basically we can't rule out that a person took the body when the tomb was open and unguarded.

The analogy I use for this is: Suppose you had a pot of soup on the stove. And you have a chair next to the stove because you were getting up to a high cupboard, or whatever, and you have a container of rat poisoning next to the stove. And you have a kid who really likes to help out in the kitchen, so he's liable to have poured some of the rat poison into the soup. So, you leave the stove, and you come back, and although you cannot prove that your kid put rat poison in the soup (thinking it was pepper or whatever), would you eat the soup? This is a very common problem of leaving something unattended and something bad could have happened that you didn't want to have happened. And you can't prove it happened but you can't rule out the possibility it happened. So, you treat it as a worst case scenario to be safe. As firemen or a bomb squad or 911 operators would do for example. What does a 911 operator do when he gets a call and no one there on the phone, just silence? Has to assume the worst, tracks the call if he can, and sends people out—just to be safe. Some high percentage of 911 calls are false alarms, but that doesn't stop the emergency responders from still treating every call seriously.

So it's the same thing with the empty tomb. We have to treat this span of time with the stone rolled off and no guards seriously. Do you eat the soup?; Do you conclude Jesus rose from the dead in other words? We wanted to say "praise the lord Jesus rose from the dead" which is a very extraordinary claim, so we must be careful. And we cannot rule out that someone stole the body. In other words we simply lack the information to confirm or deny if someone stole the body. Footage from a 24/7 security camera on the entrance would be ideal, but we don't have this. We might not be able to exactly pinpoint a motive but I can see people wanting to take the body to do a proper burial or whatever—this is not unheard of. You can google this and see that this is not unreasonable... people do it is all that I'm saying. And what were the guards doing there if no one had a motive to steal the body? So essentially the resurrection hypothesis has a gaping hole in it... a gaping wide open tomb entrance, to use an appropriate metaphor. It's not a watertight argument that the corpse walked off. I think given what I know, and given the information about the events there, that someone stole the body. We similarly can't argue that the body wasn't resurrected (so blindly I could use my logic against myself and say "I must consider the case where the body was resurrected, and thus accept that this happened"), but I just prefer to go with the more plausible explanation. I know of corpses being stolen, I know of not one corpse that's walked off. I'm worried that my unattended soup pot I described above was ruined... I'm not so worried that the inanimate pot will sprout legs and walk away... if I lived alone for example, I would happily leave the soup unattended for 20 minutes and not worry that rat poison in the cupboard made it into the soup.

> The moving of the stone.

John's account is that the stone was moved before the women got there, as you said (Jn. 20.1). Luke says the same thing (Lk. 24.2). So also Mark (Mk. 16.3-4). Matthew, if you read carefully, doesn't say when the earthquake of v. 2 was. All it specifies is that the guards were there and passed out. Verse 1 says the women were on their way to the tomb ("went" is aorist tense: no claim as to timing, progress, or duration, but simply presents the action as happening); vv. 2-4 say an earthquake happened ("was" in v. 2 also an aorist). Matthew is not making claims to chronology or duration, but listing facts/events. Matthew's account doesn't necessarily put the women there at the time of the earthquake. He is not making claims about chronology or duration, but only of events. Since Mark, Luke, and John all say that the earthquake happened before the women got there, that's the best way to understand Matthew, who is making no timing or chronological assertions.

> Matthew's telling of the events required Jesus to either have tunnelled through the wall or ghosted through the rock. You know, how does an object get out of a completely sealed space?

Not so. Matthew is making no commitments to time, chronology, or duration. The angel speaking in v. 5 is also aorist tense. Analysis tells us that our best understanding is a harmonization of the 4 accounts. We're just collecting facts, but carefully, like scientists, forensics experts, detectives, or lawyers. The earthquake and removal of the stone happened pre-dawn. The guards passed out; Jesus emerged; the angels were present for various appearances. Right at the cusp of dawn the women arrive.

> F2

We have good evidence even from extra-biblical sources about the death of Jesus. His crucifixion is mentioned by Tacitus, Josephus, Thallus, Ignatius, Suetonius, Lucian, the Babylonian Talmud, and possibly Mara bar Sarapion. John Crossan, a skeptic who denies the authenticity of just about everything in the Gospels, says, "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."

> F3

The biblical account is the only one we have of the burial, but all of the details given accord exactly with what we know of the Roman empire, Jews, and Palestine. There is no particular reason to doubt it. Plus we can't rightly have a resurrection without a burial.

> Which would you add to this list?

I have added "the stone was rolled away" (or they wouldn't know the tomb was empty), "they looked inside" (or they wouldn't know the tomb was empty), "they made observations" (or why did they bother to look), and "they wrote and spoke about what they saw" (the Gospel accounts and the history of Christianity).

> This begs the question, who exactly is witnessing all this happening?

Great question. No one witnessed the actual resurrection. You'll notice that there is no account in the Gospels about Jesus coming out of the tomb: did he walk or float? They don't write about it because no one witnessed it.

> So who exactly was reporting the situation? I can at least see how in this time, with unconscious guards and an open tomb, that the dead body could have been dragged out by the living. This is reasonable, isn't it?

Oh, excellent question. For that to have happened, we'll need to say who was there and why in that space of, what—about an hour? First of all, no one was expecting the resurrection, so there would be no reason we would expect anyone to be there at the time. Secondly, an earthquake and the passing out of the guards would instill fear, not courage. Third, why would this person think, "Oh, I'll steal the slaughtered body in this tomb!" What would be his or her motive for dragging Jesus' cadaver out of the tomb and into hiding, and then carefully arranging the graveclothes and head cloth into a nice pattern? While it's remotely possibly that some passer-by just happened to be there at the time (though not likely at all), we have trouble creating a motive that makes this alternative plausible. And then, of course, we still have to explain all the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.

One thing that is not harmonious about it is whether the stone was removed or not when they got there.

John 20:1-3 "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

Your summary was "Sometime just before dawn on Sunday morning, the earth shakes (Mt. 28.2) and Jesus rises from the dead. The stone is lifted right out of its track and removed from the entrance (Mt. 28.2). The soldiers all fall unconscious (Mt. 28.4). Jesus emerges from the tomb and walks away. Now the guards come back to consciousness, see the stone rolled away, notice there is no body inside, and they run away in fear and report the empty tomb to their bosses (Mt. 28.11-15)."

Matthew 28:1-7 " After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. 2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. 5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”"

So John is telling me the stone was already moved when the party got there (I shall call it the "party" as we are not sure which people went to the empty tomb Sunday morning). You seem to be agreeing with this. Matthew is not, Matthew is saying that right after the women got there, an angel descended from the sky and rolled the stone back. So the women watched the stone being rolled back by the angel according to Matthew, and the angel had a chat with them. But in your retelling of the story, the angel had already done the dirty work of rolling the stone back and had already deserted the scene long before the women got there.

And another thing: Matthew's telling of the events required Jesus to either have tunnelled through the wall or ghosted through the rock. You know, how does an object get out of a completely sealed space?

So again if you read anything from this comment, my suggestion is that we first just collect facts rather than judge them. We have some other facts we agree on... F2: Jesus was crucified to death on Friday, F3: The deceased body of Jesus was put in a sealed tomb. On top of F1: The tomb was found empty sometime around Sunday morning. I mean I wouldn't stake my life on any of these being true because I simply don't have the caliber of evidence that I prefer to have, but it seems reasonable that we have F1, F2, F3 as givens. Which would you add to this list?

So the thing that really doesn't add up for me... you said the events happened in this order: the guards fell unconscious, Jesus walked out of the tomb, the guards regained consciousness. This begs the question, who exactly is witnessing all this happening? The guards and the dead body of Jesus were the only bodies (living or dead) at the scene. When the guards went unconscious, we now have 0 witnesses at the scene. So who exactly was reporting the situation? I can at least see how in this time, with unconscious guards and an open tomb, that the dead body could have been dragged out by the living. This is reasonable, isn't it?

> The women

There was obviously a group of women there. None of the authors claims to be making an exhaustive list, though Luke gets the closest with "and other women." Each of the authors feels free to mention the ones in particular that pertain to their particular reason for telling the story. There's no contradiction here.

Suppose there was a party at my house. The next day a friend of mine asks me who was there. I mention James, Mary, and Peter, because I hung out with them the most. You were there also, but you mention Mary, John, and Rasputin. Have we contradicted each other? Of course not. There were many people there, and we each mentioned the ones that pertained to OUR story. No big deal.

> Harmonization

Jesus was crucified beside a road west of Jerusalem (Mk. 15.29). His trial had garnered some attention around town (Mk. 15.8-15), because he had entered the city a few days previous in the manner of a king (Mt. 21.1-11; Mk. 11.1-11; Lk. 19.28-44; Jn. 12.12-19). His arrest piqued the curiosity of some of the population of Jerusalem, and because the city was bulging with guests at Passover time, the streets were swollen as Jesus carried his cross to the Place of the Skull (Mt. 27.33; Mk. 15.22; Lk. 23.27; Jn. 19.17). Because Jesus was too weak to carry it the entire way, Simon of Cyrene was recruited to carry it the rest of the way for him (Mt. 27.32; Mk. 15.21; Lk. 23.26).

Very few actually followed the procession to the place of crucifixion just outside the city walls. Not only was crucifixion a gory and morbid affair, but most people were too busy with the Passover preparation to bother. There is no reason that we would expect a large crowd to gather for the crucifixion. Jesus, despite his fame in Galilee, was not as well known in Judea. At the execution site were the soldiers (Mt. 27.36; Lk. 23.36), some of the Jewish leaders (Mt. 27.41; Mk. 15.31; Lk. 23.35), a few of Jesus’ followers (mostly women, Mk. 15.40-41), and the passers-by (Mt. 27.39; Mk. 15.29).

Jesus was hung on the cross at 9 a.m. on Friday. Crucifixion was generally a long, drawn-out business, most often a process of days from onset to death. People didn’t exactly pack lunches and stay to watch. In the case of Jesus, since it was Passover weekend, it would likely be cut short and ended before sundown. Unlike the general population, the soldiers were bound to stay (Mt. 27.36) since the guaranteed death of the miscreants was their responsibility. The Jewish religious leaders may have come and gone, but some of the women who followed Jesus, along with Jesus’ mother Mary and John the Apostle, probably stayed through the whole ordeal (Mt. 27.55; Lk. 23.49; Jn. 19.25-27).

Jesus died at 3 p.m. (Mt. 27.46; Mk. 15.33-37; Lk. 23.44-46), and the attending soldiers were surprised by his quick demise (Mk. 15.44-45). They broke the legs of the other malefactors (Jn. 19.31-32), but were confident that Jesus was already dead (Jn. 19.33). Just to make certain, they plunged a spear in his side, up under his rib cage, into his chest cavity (Jn. 19.34). Now there was no doubt he was dead.

Meanwhile, Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, had requested of the authorities permission to take Jesus’ body upon death and bury it in his own family tomb, within sight of Golgotha (Mt. 27.57-58; Mk. 15.42-43; Lk. 23.50-54; Jn. 19.41). That permission is granted. Joseph and another member of the ruling council, Nicodemus, received the body of Jesus from the cross, and wrapped it as best they could in the time they had before sundown (Mt. 27.59; Mk. 15.46; Jn. 19.38-41), as some of the women watched (Mt. 27.61; Lk. 23.55). Those same women also observed that the body was not finished being wrapped and filled with spices, so they took note of where the grave was (Mk. 15.47; Lk. 23.55-56). A stone was rolled over the tomb entrance (Mt. 27.60; Mk. 15.46).

Some of the Jewish leaders were wary of the rumors that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection (especially in the Temple courts just a few days prior to his death, as well as at other times). They requested that the tomb be sealed to prevent tampering and a guard posted to dissuade any activity around the tomb, presumably so the body wouldn’t be stolen. Both of these activities—the sealing and posting the guard—happened sometime during the day Saturday (Mt. 27.62-66). The Sabbath passed otherwise uneventfully (Lk. 23.56).

Sometime just before dawn on Sunday morning, the earth shakes (Mt. 28.2) and Jesus rises from the dead. The stone is lifted right out of its track and removed from the entrance (Mt. 28.2). The soldiers all fall unconscious (Mt. 28.4). Jesus emerges from the tomb and walks away.

Now the guards come back to consciousness, see the stone rolled away, notice there is no body inside, and they run away in fear and report the empty tomb to their bosses (Mt. 28.11-15).

On Sunday morning at about the same time, just before the break of dawn, some women had woken early to walk to the tomb to finish dressing the body for its burial (Mk. 16.1; Jn. 20.1). It was important to them to reach the body before the fourth day, for Jewish tradition held that decomposition set in after three days. The sun rises while these three women are walking, and it has just creased the horizon as they arrive (Mt. 28.1; Mk. 16.2; Lk. 24.1). On the way they remember that there is a large stone over the entrance and ponder how they are going to gain entrance to the burial chamber to finish the work that had been begun late Friday afternoon (Mk. 16.2). (They are probably unaware of the sealing, or of the posted guard.)

Not only to their surprise, but also to their utter shock, they arrive at Joseph’s family tomb to find that the stone is no longer over the entrance, but displaced and to the side of the opening (Mk. 16.4; Lk. 24.2; Jn. 20.1). Mary Magdalene stops in her tracks, changes directions and runs to tell the disciples (Jn. 20.2), leaving the other women behind. This small group of women continues to the gravesite, and they see angels who declare to them that Jesus has risen from the dead (Mt. 28.2-6; MK. 16.5; Lk. 24.4-8). An angel instructs these women to go and tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee (Mt. 28.7; Mk. 16.6-7), but the women are scared (Mk. 16.5). They leave the scene (Mk. 16.8). On the way Jesus appears to them, and they worshipped him. He tells them to tell the others (Mt. 28.8-10; Mk. 16.8). Despite what they have seen and what Jesus has said, they don’t tell a soul (Mk. 16.8). They hardly know what to think of it all (Mk. 16.8).

Mary Magdalene, meanwhile, has found John and Peter, both of whom run to the tomb in fear, confusion, and surprise. John reaches the tomb first and glances in the tomb. Peter arrives shortly behind him, crashes past him and bursts into the burial chamber (Lk. 24.12; Jn. 20.33-5). John then follows him in, notices the position of the graveclothes and the head cloth (Jn. 20.6-7, and then both he and Peter leave the scene to head back to find the other disciples (Jn. 20.10).

Mary Magdalene, who has walked back to the site, now arrives (Jn. 20.11). She is the only one there now, and is still noticeably upset (Jn. 20.11). She thinks someone has stolen the body, and is beside herself with grief and confusion (Jn. 20.13). She looks in the tomb and sees two angels (Jn. 20.12), but, still confused, retires a short distance away, where Jesus himself appears to her (Jn. 20.14-17). At first she thinks he is a gardener, but Jesus reveals himself to her, and she worships him. She goes to tell the other disciples (Jn. 20.18).

In the middle of the day, Jesus walked the road to Emmaus with two of his disciples, and revealed himself to them (Lk. 24.13-35).

Later that same day, still Sunday, the day of resurrection, Jesus appears to Peter, and then to ten of the disciples (the other nine plus Peter, minus Thomas; Lk. 24.36ff.; Jn. 20.19ff.). The story continues from there.

> Alternative theories

1. They all went to the wrong tomb. This is easy to prove wrong. Take the idiots to the right tomb, still closed, sealed and guarded, and show them to corpse of Jesus. But that didn't happen. this theory is trite and without basis.

2. Someone stole the body. To claim that, we have to justify the motive, the means, and the opportunity. If we examine the potential perpetrators, we find that there is a substantial doubt beyond a reasonable doubt in all of the cases. Nothing about it really makes sense.

The disciples had no motive. They were in hiding for their lives. They weren't expecting a resurrection. The power of Rome was lethal and the Jewish leaders were not shy about killing, either. Nor did they have anything to gain from such a ridiculous story: there was no fame or money in it for them, as far as they could see. Only ridicule and persecution.

The women? Not likely. Neither the motive nor the means.

The Jews? Hardly. They had a dedicated reason to keep Jesus in the grave.

The Romans? Even less motive than the Jews, if that's even possible.

3. Jesus never really died, just swooned. Nothing about this makes sense if you think it through.

4. The disciples were lying. A successful conspiracy requires factors that weren't present: (a) a low number of conspirators. The lower the better. The more people involved, the greater the chance of failure. (b) The shortest amount of time to hold on to the lie. The longer the lie has to be maintained, the greater the chance someone will break. (c) excellent communication between conspirators. As the lie expands and gets elaborated on, all conspirators need to keep their stories in conformity with each other. (d) Family members. A conspiracy has greater chance of success with blood ties. The disciples were anything but. (5) Little or no pressure to confess. The greater the pressure, the more chance of break down.

Remember also that Palestine in the Greco-Roman era was an honor/shame culture. One would do anything possible to avoid shaming the family and community.

That they were liars and conspirators doesn't make a shred of sense.

5. All appearances of Jesus were hallucinations. This is impossible. There is no such thing as a group hallucination.

6. They were fooled by an imposter. No sense to this theory. That might work on a glance, but to pull off a convincing fraud you have to know more about the topic than the person you are trying to con. If someone were “playing” the person of Jesus risen from the dead, he would have to be able to fool the people who knew him best, including some doubtful disciples who didn’t want to be known as gullible halfwits.

7. One (or several) had hallucinations and tricked the others. Mary? No, she didn't have that much influence with the disciples. Peter? Others were with him when he saw Jesus, so that doesn't make sense. Paul? They didn't trust him when the story of the resurrection was being spread. He was an enemy. This alternative doesn't make sense.

8. It was all made up—a legend. It doesn't make sense, given what we know. If the story of resurrection were suddenly made up in Jerusalem, the city where he was killed, people wouldn’t fall for it. All people would have to do is produce the body and put an end to the lies. It also doesn't make sense given the chain of custody (the writings of Paul, the Gospels, and the Church fathers) about his bodily resurrection and appearances. This alternative doesn't make sense.

About all you have to go on is (1) Miracles aren't possible because (2) I have made the assumption that miracles aren't possible, and therefore (3) it didn't happen. But that doesn't make sense either, because you can't prove miracles aren't possible.

> First of all, regarding the discrepancies. Telling a story from different vantage points doesn't make a contradiction.

So can we answer the question of specifically which women were at the tomb? Who were the women?

>Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)
>Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1)
>Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (24:10)
>John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)

Simply, for example, tell me which women were there. Just to illustrate what we are going to consider irrelevant details. Some might consider specifically which people were present as important, some might not.

You can argue which details are important and which are irrelevant. The one important thing trying to be determined is... Q1: "did the corpse of Jesus get up and walk out or was it carried out like any old dead body?"

Let's just agree on facts first. What facts do we have? We have (1) tomb was found empty some time after the body of Jesus was put in there. Do we have more than one fact? Let's get facts first.

> I could write for you a harmonization of the four Gospel accounts of the resurrection that included all the details from all of them in a reasonable narrative

Gonna call your bluff on this one. Please do write a harmonization, it would be very valuable in answering the question Q1 we are trying to answer.

> If we weigh the various alternative options (they all went to the wrong tomb [idiots!]; someone stole the body; Jesus never really died, but only swooned; the disciples were lying; they were hallucinating; Jesus had a twin brother; it was an imposter; it was a legend), not a single one of them makes sense when played out

That's quite the claim. As you've wrote it here and what you've provided, do you think I can accept what you are saying? "Not one of them makes sense" is what you've presented as an opinion. Maybe they do maybe they don't but there's not enough on the table currently to say.

Rather than come at it from top down, come at it from bottom up. We have 1 fact so far. The way I'm laying it out is, we have Q1 that we want to answer. We have F1, call it, the first fact I mentioned. F1 is not enough to arrive at an answer for Q1. So like I said let's compile facts. You say that Jesus rose from the dead. On what facts do you base this assertion?

First of all, regarding the discrepancies. Telling a story from different vantage points doesn't make a contradiction. Someone standing on the left side of the street will talk about a car accident very differently from someone on the right side of the street. It's a difference of perspective, but not necessarily a contradiction in what happened.

Secondly, each Gospel writer had a specific agenda/strategy in what they were trying to communicate with their account. They include what fits their thesis, shuffle events to combine them into themes, and exclude what doesn't fit their point. Of course we get different versions, but those aren't a problem, especially when we understand that culture allowed selectivity in relating events.

I could write for you a harmonization of the four Gospel accounts of the resurrection that included all the details from all of them in a reasonable narrative, but I'm not sure that would do anything for you.

I noticed that your linked account was not objective by any means, but only included sources from detractors and people downright hostile to Christianity.

You want to know, "How are you making the connection from 'empty tomb' to 'the cadaver in there walked away'?" It took some pretty severe evidence, because the disciples were not expecting such a thing and didn't believe it was possible (it is not part of Judaism). The Romans and Jews had every reason to keep Jesus dead. As you say, we're not idiots, but neither were they. We all know that no cadaver gets up and walks away. They were no different. But since the body wasn't there, we have to infer the most reasonable conclusion. What happened to him? If we weigh the various alternative options (they all went to the wrong tomb [idiots!]; someone stole the body; Jesus never really died, but only swooned; the disciples were lying; they were hallucinating; Jesus had a twin brother; it was an imposter; it was a legend), not a single one of them makes sense when played out. What the Bible says is that the disciples didn't believe it either until they saw him and the evidence was irrefutable. Then they wrote about it, preached it, and suffered and died for it. A large movement was started in the same city Jesus had died, by people who saw him die, within two months of his death. There must have been very convincing evidence for them, or the movement would have been ridiculed off the map almost instantly.

What makes it most astounding is it's very "impossibility"—nobody but nobody comes back from the dead. It wasn't part of their religion, their upbringing, their heritage, or even within the realm of possibility. But that's exactly what they all preach, to their graves. While there are other ways for a dead body to be removed from a gravesite, none of them make sense and none of them come close to creating what we see happens to these men, and to the city, and to the world. The resurrection is the most reasonable explanation, given the evidence.

So I have asked people before, exactly who was where at what time, where were the tomb guards, and this information seems to have been lost over the centuries since the event.

When you look at the gospels, there are many inconsistencies. On this page https://ffrf.org/legacy/about/bybarker/rise.php , under the header "Internal Discrepancies", there are a list of them. You can check a Bible for yourself, there are in fact discrepancies.

This is sort of a case of, since there's not enough information to recreate the event, rebuttals I come up with could be rebutted by you and I could rebut that and you could rebut me and so on and this could go back and forth for a very long time. It's like we have a novel containing the story of this whole tomb/crucifixion event, and a third of the pages are blank, and we are left with things such as "empty tomb" preceded/followed by a lot of white space and that's all we have to go off. You get the idea.

Let's just go through this properly though. How are you making the connection from "empty tomb" to "the cadaver in there walked away". We aren't idiots, we both realize that in general, "empty tomb" does not imply "the corpse got up and walked away". There are other ways for a dead body to be removed from a gravesite. So before I can even talk about Jesus being raised from the dead, can we at least establish that he was in fact, raised from the dead, in the first place?