Board index ‹ Resurrection of Christ

[Pree]

My version of the SBH posits that Jesus’ body was stolen — not by any of his 12 apostles, but by a group of unknown followers of Jesus.

Common objections to this are as follows:

1) There were guards at the tomb: I think we have good reason to think this was a later invention. It doesn’t appear in any other gospel except Matthew. And it seems specifically constructed to respond to the SBH, with the author narrating events that no one was there to witness.

2) Why would they steal it?: Could be for many reasons, but one plausible scenario is that Jesus predicted that after 3 days he would rise from the dead. In an effort to fulfill this prediction, several of his followers stole the body — if for nothing more than to stick it to the Jewish authorities.

3) This doesn’t explain the appearances: The apostles heard Jesus predict his resurrection and have now been informed that his tomb is empty. Having already been primed, it’s plausible that several of them saw signs that they interpreted as the risen Christ appearing to them. There might’ve even been group encounters where they collectively felt the presence of Christ with them. These stories later became reinterpreted as a physical Jesus appearing to them.

[jimwalton]

I love having conversations like this. Thank you for bringing it up. Mary Magdalene's first thought when seeing the empty tomb is that the body was stolen, so it's clear that people's mind would go there. Resurrection wasn't part of their theology or culture. But I think the evidence leads us in a different direction.

The guards at the tomb. You quickly try to brush this off as a later invention, but not so fast.

1\. We know there was a reasonably-sized Roman military presence in Jerusalem. Guards were commonplace.

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. 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. It's at least possible, if not plausible, that Pilate could have assigned a guard to the tomb to avert more trouble from an already tense weekend.

There's nothing in the story that smacks of invention (fantasy, fiction, mythology, metaphor, or symbolism). While it could be made up, there's no particular reason to think so. The fact that it isn't in the other Gospels is an argument of no consequence.

Your quick disposition of this plausibility is unjustified. Matthew has already mentioned Roman soldiers in 27.36 & 54. There is no particularly "good reason" to think this was a later invention. Some think so, but the case is far from convincing.

Next, you postulate a possible motive because Jesus predicted it, and they want to fulfill this prediction. But in the Gospels, Jesus always only spoke privately of his resurrection to the 12, and none of them understood or accepted what he was saying. So how did this other bunch come upon the information, and then act with such resolve to bring it about?

Next, no one wanted to stick it to the Jewish authorities except Jesus. Everyone else respected them. They were the community leaders—the "pastors," so to speak. In contrast to our era where pastors are sometimes ridiculed, in those days the religious leaders were greatly respected.

You haven't accounted for the grave clothes being left behind. No robber would take the time to neatly fold a head cloth and leave it in a decorative position.

And if other unknown followers had stolen the body, they probably would have taken the precious, blood-stained wrappings with them.

To justify a theft, we have to justify the motive, the means, and the opportunity. As far as motive, the Bible says many of his followers turned against him and his closest followers ran away in fear. 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.

What did they hope to gain? To become religious leaders themselves? Not likely. To overthrown Rome? Jesus time and against refused to rise up against Rome. To become important and respected community leaders? 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.

Wealth? No. That didn't happen for hundreds of years, until great apostasy. Respect? 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. I think the motive you attribute to them is to weak to carry the case.

Did they have the means? Only if there was no guard. If a guard was there, there was no means.

Did they have the opportunity? Even if a guard was there, there was a small window of opportunity between burial and the guard being posted. But remember, they would have had to have devised a plan and executed it flawlessly. No one knew Jesus was to be killed so quickly after his arrest. (Well, they didn't know he would be killed at all.) 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.

[Pree]

I agree it’s definitely possible that guards were there. But in Matthew, they don’t appear as an afterthought or a mere fact. They are specifically there as an apologetic tool to rebut the stolen body hypothesis, which makes me suspicious.

> There's nothing in the story that smacks of invention (fantasy, fiction, mythology, metaphor, or symbolism).

What about the earthquake, the angel descending from the sky, paralyzing the guards, and sitting on the tombstone? What about the fact that the guards saw all this, relayed it to the chief priests, and willingly took a bribe to lie about it? What about the fact that neither Matthew nor any other Christian was there to witness any of this and yet we find it right there in Matthew’s gospel?

> Next, you postulate a possible motive because Jesus predicted it, and they want to fulfill this prediction. But in the Gospels, Jesus always only spoke privately of his resurrection to the 12, and none of them understood or accepted what he was saying.

So the apostles didn’t understand it, yet somehow the chief priests understood it well enough to even place guards at the tomb? We know from the gospels that Jesus publicly made claims like “destroy this temple and in 3 days I will build it again” and “I will be 3 days in the heart of the earth”. So it’s not a surprise if some people were able to decipher it. Or maybe the word got out from the apostles. It’s plausible that they might’ve told other people.

> Next, no one wanted to stick it to the Jewish authorities except Jesus.

I’d like to know how you could possibly know this.

> You haven't accounted for the grave clothes being left behind. No robber would take the time to neatly fold a head cloth and leave it in a decorative position.

Unless they wanted to give the illusion that Jesus had risen. That’s actually exactly what I can imagine someone doing.

> What did they have to gain from stealing the body and perpetrating a lie?

Sticking it to the Jewish authorities who crucified their Messiah.

[jimwalton]

> They are specifically there as an apologetic tool to rebut the stolen body hypothesis, which makes me suspicious.

Except that this hypothesis is your invention. It seems as if you are suspicious enough to create an apologetic tool, which is putting the cart before the horse. We examine the data first, come to conclusions later.

Matthew's Gospel is replete with mentions of Gentiles interacting with Christ on numerous levels, from some being in his genealogy (Rahab, Ruth), the Magi, the prophetic quote in 4.15-16, the centurion (8.5-13), etc., many of which are found only in Matthew's Gospel, just like the story of the guards. Though Matthew's Gospel decisively derives from the pen of a Jew, Matthew repeatedly highlights how the message is for the whole world, repeatedly emphasizing Jesus's interaction with the Gentile population.

Matthew's telling of the passion and crucifixion involves various interactions with Roman soldiers: The guard at his trial, at the cross, at the tomb, and reporting afterward (Mt. 28.11-15). There's less reason to think it's an apologetic tool than to consider it as historical.

> What about the earthquake, the angel descending from the sky, paralyzing the guards, and sitting on the tombstone?

Jesus's life story recorded in the Bible is full of such records. If we accept from other evidences that Jesus is God, it's no surprise at all that there are supernatural occurrences surrounding his death and resurrection, a supernatural occurrence all by himself. It's only if you a priori reject the possibility of Jesus's divinity and the miraculous do these smack of invention. If there is a God, and if Jesus is God, these things are expected.

It's only if you make up your mind before analyzing the data that these events become impossible.

> What about the fact that the guards saw all this, relayed it to the chief priests, and willingly took a bribe to lie about it?

I don't understand why this is so hard to fathom. Every soldier reports to his superior officer. It's possible that they report to the chief priests because if they reported to Pilate they would probably be executed (the punishment for quitting one's post was death, according to Roman law).

It also makes sense that the chief priests would want to keep the story of resurrection mum. First, they hadn't had a chance to investigate. Two, whether true or not, this report had to be hushed. Bribes were common in their world, as in ours. It's no surprise that the chief priests act to protect their own interests.

Ironically, the excuse they are paid to repeat ("You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep' ") is incongruent. If they were asleep, they would not know what happened. A pretty weak apologetic if Matthew is making this up.

> What about the fact that neither Matthew nor any other Christian was there to witness any of this and yet we find it right there in Matthew’s gospel?

> What about the fact that neither Matthew nor any other Christian was there to witness any of this and yet we find it right there in Matthew’s gospel?

We know that some members of the Sanhedrin were believers. We also know that some Roman soldiers became believers. Since Matthew's Gospel was written 30 years after this event, it's easy for Matthew to know the story of what happened. After all, Matthew lived in Jerusalem for decades after the resurrection.

> So the apostles didn’t understand it, yet somehow the chief priests understood it well enough to even place guards at the tomb?

It's true that Jesus had mentioned "destroy this temple" and the sign of Jonah (Mt. 12.40). They were all oblique references that it seems no one understood at the time. A possibility is that Judas, in his negotiations with them, had relayed this information. (This would have been very close in time to the crucifixion itself. To me this hypothesis carries the best proximity to the truth where we don't have much information to make a firm decision.)

> I’d like to know how you could possibly know this.

Because there's no record of such. You had to pull this out of the air—pure fabrication—to arrive at it. Historically, the Pharisees were the backbone of Judaism, had influence in the community and had the bulk of the nation as their ally.

The Sadducees were the ruling priestly party, of which the Chief Priest was one. Many, but not all, priests were Sadducees. They had no particular following among the populace, but no particular hostility either. That a group of people felt so strongly about sticking it to the religious leaders that they would instigate this theft and deception has no particular alignment with the facts of the culture available to us.

What I'm showing is that the stolen body hypothesis is not as plausible as you paint it to be.

[Pree]

You’ve said a lot and I want to address the relevant points one-by-one. So I’d ask if you could keep your responses as brief as possible so I can respond.

Let’s start with the guard story. You stated that “If we accept from other evidences that Jesus is God, it's no surprise at all that there are supernatural occurrences surrounding his death and resurrection”. I agree. So essentially we have to start as Christians in order to accept these claims. How is that not a priori?... the same thing you’re accusing me of.

[jimwalton]

"A priori" means that's you accept it before any evidence, experience, or study. It's a position you hold that is not based on examination. I specifically said, "If we accept from other evidences that Jesus is God...", and therefore I was not taking a a priori position.

[Pree]

So what if I have other evidences that Jesus isn’t who he claimed to be?..

[jimwalton]

Then we have to weigh the evidences against each other to determine which leads us to the more reasonable conclusion. But if you have evidences that Jesus isn't who he claimed to be, I'd love to discuss it with you.

[Chunk]

The posting of guards in Matthews account is strange to me for various reasons. In the gospel, it says the authorities posted guards at the tomb because they had acknowledged that Jesus prophesied he would resurrect after 3 days and anticipated the disciples would try to steal the body. But if the Pharisees had correctly understood Jesus, why didn't the disciples understand? Also, if the Pharisees are anticipating a tomb robbery, why did they release the body to be buried in the first place? It would have been better to bury the body in an unmarked location. Think about how Osama or Hitler was handled. The posting of guards seems like a later explanation to validate that the tomb was really empty.

[jimwalton]

> But if the Pharisees had correctly understood Jesus, why didn't the disciples understand?

I'm not sure the Pharisees had correctly understood Jesus, since Jesus never shared his prophecies (except obliquely) about his resurrection outside of the circle of the 12 disciples. What makes a little more sense is that Judas shared that information with them, and it was enough suspicion to prompt this extra security action.

> Also, if the Pharisees are anticipating a tomb robbery, why did they release the body to be buried in the first place?

Pilate is the one who gave permission to release the body to Joseph of Arimathea, not the Pharisees. They may have been steaming under their shawls about it but were powerless to stop it. Pilate had probably had just about enough of the Jewish leaders for the time being.