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[Survey Sam]

I contest that it's more likely that there were no roman guards at the tomb that actually spent the nights there than that there really were guards at the tomb.

(I actually contest that we have no idea whether there was even a tomb, since the only sources we have for that are the gospels, which copy from each other, but for now, let's imagine that there was definitely a tomb)

Only Matthew really mentions the guards, and he doesn't say whether they're roman, and he had a motive to have made it up so that people can't say "the body was stolen".

The other gospels seem not to mention the guards, even though they mention people discovering the tomb. Where did the guards go?

The guards would presumably have noticed Matthew's zombies (MT 27) who wandered jerusalem that night, and the earthquake and the darkened sky (if any of that nonsense is true), so even if there had been roman guards posted, there's no reason to think they would have stayed.

Also, Matthew was written long after, and seems to have made up a lot of things, so there's no real reason to think that he would have known a detail like this that the other gospel writers missed. And anyway, how would he have known what pontius pilate said?

So.

Do Christians think that there were definitely Roman guards there who stayed the night, or do you think that it's possible that

1) The story was made up by the author of Matthew to counter claims that perhaps that body had been stolen.

2) The guards were not probably not Roman.

3) The guards might not have been ordered to stay for very long

4) There's no real reason why Romans would have posted guards on a tomb like that.

5) There's no way Matthew could have known that there were guards.

6) Even if Matthew had been telling the truth, and correct, and even if we guess that perhaps they were Roman and ordered to stay a few days, they might have been scared off by the zombies, earthquake, rolling stones, angels and maybe other miraculous things that we don't know about?

7) The other gospels and Paul don't mention the guards because they weren't real.

[jimwalton]

OK, first let's deal with this: If you're presenting a case, the burden of proof lies on you to substantiate that case. On what warrant or evidence have you determined there were no guards at the tomb?

Now, to deal with some of your specific statements:

1. "Only Matthew mentions the guards." True, but that's a non-issue. It doesn't matter.

2. "He doesn't say whether they're roman." True, but that doesn't matter either. Whether they were Roman or Jewish temple police, his point is that the tomb was guarded. There are reasons to think they're Roman:
- The term used to describe them in Mt. 27.65 was Κουστωδίαν, a Greek transliteration of the Latin *koustodia*, a term that also occurs in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus of AD 22 describing a group of Roman soldiers.
- Since the guards fear Pilate in 28.14 indicates they're probably Roman, not Jewish (who would, in turn, fear the Sanhedrin).
- But they could have been Jewish, since they report to the chief priests in 28.11.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter which they were. The point is the posting of an armed guard.

3. Where did the guards go? Matthew indicates in 28.4 that they passed out when the resurrection happened. We can assume that when they came to and saw the tomb opened and the body gone, they reported immediately to the chief priests, as recorded in 28.11.

4. "The guards would presumably have noticed Matthew's zombies (MT 27) who wandered jerusalem that night". Maybe, but maybe not. Mt. 27.52 indicates the people came out of the tombs upon the death of Jesus (no guard posted yet), and the wandered around after Jesus' resurrection on Sunday (Mt. 26.53), after the guards were gone.

5. "How would he have known what Pilate said?" We know that some soldiers were believers (Mt. 8.13; 27.54; Acts 10). Word spreads.

1) "The story is made up." Present your case with the evidence for this thesis.

2) "The guards were probably not Roman." They probably were, not maybe not. I don't know how it affects the story, though.

3) "The guards might not have been ordered to stay for very long." We don't know exactly when they were posted, either Friday night or Saturday morning. The fear (and the reason for posting the guard) was that Jesus would rise from the dead (or so the "deceivers" would claim) within three days. It makes sense to think that they guard would be posted at least for the three days.

4) "There's no real reason why Romans would have posted guards on a tomb like that." Pilate could easily tell that Jesus had stirred up Jerusalem, and had agitated the Jewish leadership. He doesn't want trouble; he wants calm. It's no skin off his back to allow a guard to stand there for 3 days. There's no reason to think Pilate would resist, especially since just the day before the Jewish leaders had threatened to blackmail him with treason over the trial of Jesus (Lk. 23.14; Jn. 19.12).

5) "There's no way Matthew could have known there were guards." Unless some of those guards later became believers.

6) Wouldn't the soldiers have been scared off? Not if they're Roman soldiers. They desert their post on threat of death. They felt free to leave on Sunday morning because the tomb was already open and empty.

7) "The other gospels and Paul don't mention the guards because they weren't real." Pure speculation with no evidence to back it up.

[Survey Sam]

Thanks for making a real attempt here to defend the case for there being roman guards.

Firstly, you've missed my main point: That we don't know if there were roman guards there, we don't know if there were any guards at all, we don't know if they stayed. That's not me arguing that there were no guards, in which case I would have a burden of proof. Instead, I argue that there's rampant uncertainty. In defending against that, you have the burden of proof if you want to say that there were Roman Guards.

Why would the guards report to the jewish leaders if they were romans? Would a US marine report to an imam if he'd been guarding a muslim tomb? Maybe, but probably not.

1) The story could be made up. I'm not saying it is, but Matthew is widely assumed to have made up things like the zombies, and he has a motive for making this up. So there's heavy uncertainty right from the start.

2) Me highlighting that we don't know whether the guards were roman will hopefully help people realise that the entire story from his crucifixion to the apostles being martyred is vulnerable to being questioned. More specifically, if there weren't guards, or they were unreliable guards, or they left early, or they could be bribed, or they were followers of Jesus already, then it opens up the possibility that the followers of Jesus stole the body.

3) We don't know why they were posted if they were, because they were only mentioned by Matthew, and if he made it up, presumably he'd make it up in a way that's hard to get around.

4) Pilate is facing zombies wandering Jerusalem according to Matthew nerds, as well as a major earthquake. Pilate is probably more concerned by the spirits and/or bodies of Jerusalem's violent, mythical, fanatical past rulers and prophets wandering round, than the possibility that someone's body would be stolen.

5) Sure, they might have become believers, but Matthew was written a long time after, and it seems unlikely that only Matthew would have heard of them, since the time difference between Jesus dying and Matthew being written means that the soldiers would be fairly old - not impossible, but unlikely.

I think our disagreements here are just a matter of degree -- it seems that you accept that we really don't know whether they were roman or not.

[jimwalton]

Matthew is the only account we have of this detail, either secular or biblical. So first of all, it depends whether our presupposition is that Matthew is wrong until proved right, or right until proved wrong, or the 3rd choice is that we try to approach it neutrally until other evidence leads us in one direction or the other. This is the approach I would prefer to take. You seem to go by the assumption that Matthew makes things up, which guides you to your conclusions. Here's my approach.

1. We know there was a reasonable Roman presence in Jerusalem. A contingent of Roman soldiers (about 600) stayed in the Antonia Fortress at the northern end of the Temple Mount. Pilate, a Roman prefect, was there, and would indubitably had his own personal guard for protection and assignments. We can at least establish the presence of Roman military there.

2. The Roman military was there mostly as a peace-keeping presence and to do the bidding of the Roman government. Interaction between them and the Jewish population was on a need-to-engage basis, which ended up being routinely. Some didn't want trouble (leaders and most people), but the Zealots clearly did. And sometimes Rome did things just to antagonize. But when there was threat of sedition or uprising, the Roman military and crucifixion machine cranked into gear to suppress it. So there was plenty of involvement, but it was tempered.

Both of these points show at least the possibility of truth that Pilate could have assigned a guard to the tomb to avert more trouble from an already tense weekend.

Reasons to think it was a Roman guard:
- The priests would not have had to approach Pilate if they were going to use their own guards
- The Greek word Κουστωδίαν is used elsewhere to describe a group of Roman soldiers. The same word is used in 27.27 of Roman soldiers.
- The guards are described in 28.14 as being afraid of being in trouble from the governor, indicating they may be Roman soldiers.
- If they were a temple guard, there would have been no reason to bribe them (28.15). They would have been under the command of the Jewish leaders, and there would have been no need to protect them from Pilate.
- Roman soldiers had presided over the crucifixion. They were already involved.

Reasons to think it was Jewish temple guard:
- they report to the chief priests in 28.11
- If Pilate were using his own guards, he would have said "take a guard" in 27.65 rather than "you have a guard."
- Pilate finding out about the event was only a possibility, not a given.
- The soldiers involved in Jesus' arrest were under Jewish authority. They were already involved.

Is the story made up? There's nothing in the story that smacks of fantasy, mythology, metaphor, symbolism, or fiction. It is written as if historical.

Does Matthew have a motive for making it up? Possibly, but not necessarily. He's presenting an apologetic for the resurrection, so he wants to present a case for its truth and significance. That doesn't lead us to necessarily fact or fiction in this case. It could be made up, but there's no particular reason to think so. It isn't in the other Gospel accounts, but we know that each writer selected from a vast amount of data to support their theme. Matthew chose this detail and the others didn't; it's of no consequence.

Is the story of the crucifixion fictional? Not likely. Scholars general concede that Tacitus's reference to Jesus' execution by Pilate to be historical: "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus." Josephus also mentions that Jesus was crucified by Pilate.

To me the bottom line is that there is little reason to doubt that guards were assigned to the tomb. It doesn't matter whether they were Roman or Jewish. Why were they posted there? Matthew 27.63-64 claims (believably) that the Jewish leaders were fearful of a rumor of resurrection stirring up all kinds of trouble, both religious and political.

The uncertainty surrounding the guards is of no particular consequence. Matthew's account of the resurrection doesn't rise or fall on the identity of the guard, or even whether a guard was there or not. He mentions it as an evidence that the grave wasn't tampered with.