Monday, February 26, 2007

What if... Addendum

Ben Witherington, a theologian I greatly respect, has commented on his blog about this whole story. It's an interesting read.
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5 comments:

Brent said...

Where?

2/26/2007 4:01 PM
Phil said...

Click the words, "on his blog."

2/26/2007 4:02 PM
Brent said...

Thanks. I am in the sunlight and couldn't see it at first.

Witherington's article is interesting. I'm sure he'll come up with a book soon about it ($$$). He's right in that Jesus' family very likely did not have a family tomb in Jerusalem since they were probably from the Galilee.

He states: "By all ancient accounts, the tomb of Jesus was empty-- even the Jewish and Roman authorities acknowledged this."

I'd like to know which ancient accounts and which Jewish and Roman authorities he is referring to. There are no extrabiblical documents that even mention Jesus until 60+ years after the supposed events. The biblical ones themselves were probably not written until 40+ years after the time of Jesus.

Referring back to my statement in "What if... #1," there wouldn't be a body in a tomb if it was never laid there to begin with.

2/26/2007 4:21 PM
Tony Arnold said...

I agree with Brent that they won't prove there is a body, because there wasn't one.

I have to believe that, with resurrection being paramount to the faith, that either Jesus was truly resurrected (my belief), or that his disciples removed his body and disposed of it elsewhere and claimed the resurrection.

I don't think they would have been doing all the stuff in Acts just after Jesus' death with disputing evidence laying in a tomb a short distance away.

But now I am getting into the whole conjecture mess myself, so I will just stop.

Tony

2/26/2007 5:36 PM
Brent said...

I am going to respond to my own quote here - wierd.

"He's right in that Jesus' family very likely did not have a family tomb in Jerusalem since they were probably from the Galilee."

Some scholars actually question whether Jesus was from Galilee. He is called "the Nazarean" in various places (though most translators say "of Nazareth").

Some info about Nazareth: It is not mentioned in ancient Jewish sources earlier than the third century AD. Some historians argue that the absence of textual references to Nazareth in the Old Testament and the Talmud (which lists 63 other cities in the Galilee), as well as the works of Josephus (not mentioned among the 45 cities of the Galilee which he lists), suggest that a town called 'Nazareth' did not exist in Jesus' day. The latter view is supported by the results of the excavations at Nazareth which do not furnish evidence from Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic or Early Roman times, despite many claims to the contrary made in the literature. B. Bagatti (the principle archaeologist at the venerated sites in Nazareth) has unearthed quantities of later Roman and Byzantine artefacts, attesting to unambiguous human presence there from the 2nd century AD onward. Thus, it is possible that the town of Nazareth came into existence only with the spread of Christianity.

Other info: Some historians have called the city's traditional association with the life of Jesus into question, suggesting instead that what was originally a title (Nazarene) was corrupted into the name of his hometown (alternately, Nazara or Nazaret or Nazareth). Alfred Loisy, for example, in The Birth of Christianity argues that Iesous Nazarene meant not "from Nazareth", but rather that his title was "Nazarene."

There is biblical indication that Nazarene was a mistranslation of Nazarite, a person who had taken a vow of holiness and was thus 'separated out' from the masses. Matt. 2:23 says of Yeshua` (Jesus), "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." Not only is there no word translated ‘Nazarene’, as well as no reference to a city of 'Nazareth' in the Hebrew Scriptures, but reference bibles state that the prophecy cited in Matt. 2:23 is in reference to Judges 13:5 concerning Samson's description as a Nazarite.

So Matthew (as he does numerous times) probably gets his "prophecy" wrong again. This opens up the possibility that Jesus was indeed from Jerusalem.

Brent

P.S. Sorry, I used Wikipedia to make things easier here. Please do your own research if you like.

2/27/2007 8:02 AM

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