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[Tomato Head]

What is your thought on the stolen body theory of Jesus?

[jimwalton]

It's not plausible. If we are claiming that someone stole the body, we have to justify the motive, the means, and the opportunity to have done that. If we examine the potential perpetrators, we find that there is a substantial doubt beyond a reasonable doubt in all of the cases.

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 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.

Did the women steal the body? This is not likely either. They had neither the motive nor the means.

Did the Jews steal the body? Not only did they have no motive for such a theft, but they had a dedicated reason to keep him in the grave to put a stop to all this messianic fervor—and to prove he was only a delusional and blasphemous human.

Did the Romans steal the body? They had even less motive than the Jews, if that’s even possible.

One additional possibility is to consider whether an individual or a small group of independent operatives stole the body. We would have to consider what their motive might be. Possibly they would be a group of detractors wanting to prove this pretender wasn’t God. Maybe they thought they could sell the precious body back to his foolish followers for ransom. Whatever their motive, before too long the corpse would have been produced for their sinister plot. But nothing of the sort ever happened. If it had been for gain, the body never showed up. If it had not been for gain, what would have been the point?

As it turns out, despite the slight possibility of limited means and opportunities on the part of various people to steal the body, the lack of motive was so powerful as to make the other factors moot. If we are looking for a reasonable conclusion, this isn’t it. It makes little sense that anyone stole the body of Jesus.

[Inferior]

> Since the gravesite was guarded by soldiers,

Here and elsewhere you're assuming you can take the written accounts at face value. But if we're being skeptical about the claim of a resurrection then shouldn't we be skeptical about the other details in the written accounts?

For example, if you're going to consider the possibility that the body was stolen, then under that hypothesis wouldn't it make sense that other details might be fabricated as part of the cover up? Maybe the body was stolen, and rumors were floating around about that, so the guards were added to the story in response to those rumors.

The point isn't to say that the stolen body hypothesis necessarily works, but rather to question the methodology of taking a skeptical look at a claimed miracle but then being entirely un-skeptical about the supporting details that were written by people who had a vested interest in promoting belief in the claimed miracle.

[jimwalton]

> Here and elsewhere you're assuming you can take the written accounts at face value.

Where the Gospels are verifiable, they have been verified. There is nothing in any of the Gospels that has been proven to be wrong or false. So, yes, I've learned to take them at face value because they have stood the test of accuracy.

> if you're going to consider the possibility that the body was stolen, then under that hypothesis wouldn't it make sense that other details might be fabricated as part of the cover up?

We have to examine everything to test it for truth. Nothing gets a free pass. But since we can't go back 2000 years, we have to examine the evidence we have, both biblical and extrabiblical, for authenticity and plausibility. The Gospels have proven themselves on both counts.

> by people who had a vested interest in promoting belief in the claimed miracle.

At the time of the resurrection, they had no vested interest in promoting such belief. As far as they knew at the time of Jesus's crucifixion, the "movement" was over. Another failed messiah. Resurrection was not in their theology, it was not in their culture, and it was not in their expectation. There is no plausibility in the idea that they had a vested interest in concocting a resurrection.

[Psilocybin]

Details like having a tomb to begin with. Or that Romans guarded it?

Romans left victims to rot on crosses. That was literally part of the punishment. That's why romans crucified dead people as well. So forgive me if I don't accept they let Jesus has a proper burial a few days later, which defeats the point of the crucifixion, and then guarded it?
It doesn't add up. Especially not with what we know about how Romans ruled.

[jimwalton]

Let me give evidence that you are wrong.

Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the 3rd century, says: “The bodies of those who are capitally punished cannot be denied to their relatives. At this day, however, the bodies of those who are executed are buried only in case permission is asked and granted; and sometimes permission is not given, especially in the cases of those who are punished for high treason. The bodies of the executed are to be given for burial to any one who asks for them.”

Cicero, in one of his orations against Verres, has a terribly graphic passage describing such extortions. After dwelling upon the tortures inflicted upon the condemned, he says: ‘Yet death is the end. It shall not be. Can cruelty go further? A way shall be found. For the bodies of the beheaded shall be thrown to the beasts. If this is grievous to parents, they may buy the liberty to burial.’ ” This proves that Roman officials allowed people to procure the corpses for burial.

The release of a corpse for burial depended solely upon the generosity of the magistrate. In actual practice, if the relatives of a condemned man sought permission for burial, the body was normally given to them. Cicero had permitted the burial of confederates of Catiline in response to the request of their wives, and Philo reports that before a great festival, like the emperor’s birthday (in Jesus’s case, the Passover), the bodies of those who had been crucified were given to the relatives for proper burial. It can be assumed that the practice was similar in Palestine under Tiberius during the era of Jesus. The fact that Pilate was willing to release the body of Jesus to Joseph is historically credible.

Burial in a tomb was consistent with Roman policies and practices regarding criminals who were crucified. It is well attested from both literary and archaeological evidence. One crucifixion victim—a man named Yehohanan—has been discovered and identified by archaeologists. Yehohanan’s remains were found in an ossuary in a rock-cut tomb in Jerusalem. This is extraordinary because victims of crucifixion would generally not have received an honorable burial. Jewish law, however, does not prohibit the burial of victims of crucifixion in family tombs.

Rabbinical and Qumran texts attest to the Sanhedrin taking responsibility for the burial of executed criminals. This gives credibility to the claim that Joseph asked for and was granted the body of Jesus even though he was not a relative, and was allowed to bury him in his family tomb.

In other words, this account of Jesus's burial after his crucifixion rings historically true. It is fundamentally and thoroughly believable that Jesus was buried in a family tomb close to the sight of the crucifixion.