Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: billg@bony1.bony.com (Bill Gripp) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The missing body/Empty tomb Message-ID: Date: 25 Apr 91 02:26:07 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bank of New York Lines: 117 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article irani@brahms.udel.edu (Jennifer Irani) writes: > > Now that the celebrations of Easter and Lent are officially over, >could someone please answer a question that I hear quite frequently. In >the Gospels we are told that Jesus' body was missing from the tomb. He had >risen. However, many poeple seem to ask, how can Christians assume that >He rose and that someone just didn't steal the body? I have always heard >the most common answer that the stone was too heavy for the disciples to move, >however, in Matthew 27:60, it says that Joseph rolled the stone in front of >the tomb after placing Jesus' body in there. So it wouldn't be that hard >for others to move it away then. Well, that may not be exactly true. From what I have heard, the tombs were constructed so that the stones were rolled DOWN A RAMP to stop in front of the tomb. Moving the stone down and in front of the opening would be easy for one man. Moving it BACK UP the ramp would be very difficult for a few men. In fact, it might require the entire contingent of Roman Soldiers sent to guard the tomb. The key here is GRAVITY. It is important to try to understand the scriptures in light of the cultural implications. The fact that the stone would be rolled down to seal the tomb and have to be rolled up to open the tomb would be obvious to the people of that day and age. Over the centuries we've lost sight of that fact. When I was in Israel (too long ago) something else was explained. Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. Well in my mind at least, this is of course impossible (without God's intervention of course). Well in the old city of Jerusalem, there are many large internal doors separating different portions of the city. Within these large doors is a smaller door, maybe 2 feet wide by 4 feet tall. This door is called "The Eye of the Needle". For a camel, with packs, etc. to pass through this door is very difficult, but not impossible (it just requires a lot of effort and all day =8^) ). This is what Jesus was talking about. But since we don't live in that cultural setting we interpret it as something else. > And there is also the suggestion that the guards were standing near >the tomb. Obviously, these guards had there life on the line if the body was >to be found missing. So who is Mary referring to then when she says in >John 20:2--"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where >they have put him!" One explanation is that Mary beleived that the Roman Soldiers and/or the Temple Guards at the request of the Sanhedron had moved the body to prevent the disciples from stealing it later and claiming that Christ had risen. They would have moved it to a location known only to them. Then when the disciples would later claim that "He is risen", the body would be produced and the "fraud" exposed. > And yes, Jesus appeared to people after His death, but then, so is >Elvis. Could anyone please give some logical answers. It does matter, this >is what the Christian faith is founded on--that Christ didn't just die, but >rose! Who has been tortured unto death claiming that Elvis is alive??? 10 of the 11 apostles (remember Judas hung himself) died violent deaths because they preached the Gospel. If they had made it all up, don't you think they would have changed their story when their life was on the line? You may give your life for a cause you truely believe in, but will you lay down your life for something you know to be a lie??? And even if YOU would, what are the chances that 10 coconspiritors would??? Peace in Christ Bill Gripp [It is probably worth dealing with these details if people are concerned that there's some serious hole in the Biblical description that casts doubt on its believability. However I think the reason the original disciples believed in the resurrection was not things like how difficult it would have been to roll the stone away, how the graveclothes were laid out, etc, but the fact that they thought they had encounted the resurrected Jesus. Indeed in John's version of the story, Mary seems to have thought that the empty tomb indicated that someone had taken the body away. It wasn't until she met the risen Lord that she thought otherwise. Certainly Paul's account of the tradition that was handed on to him (I Cor 15) -- which I believe is our earliest evidence -- emphasizes the appearances of Jesus, not the empty tomb. (However I do agree that this account presupposes that the tomb was empty.) Similarly with people trying to evaluate the evidence now. I think the work of Christian apologists [apologetics is the branch of theology that concentrates on evaluating the evidence for Christianity] is useful, in defending the credibility of the NT accounts and pointing out the difficulties with various proposed alternative explanations. I'm not an expert in the appearances of Elvis, but I suspect one can find objective reasons for not regarding evidence for his survival to be of the same caliber as the NT. However there have been enough wierd events in human history reported by apparently competent witnesses that I think it's going to be very hard if not impossible to show rationally that just this one account of miraculous events and no other is believable. In the end I think people become Christians because the NT accounts in some way come alive in their own lives. That is, Jesus' teachings, life and death speak to them in a way that makes them seem like revelations from God. (Classically, Protestant theologians have expressed this by saying that a true understanding of Scripture happens only through the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit.) Thus when someone has doubts about the truth of Scripture, I think it's useful to try to deal with those doubts, but I don't think one should expect to be able to provide any completely conclusive proof. In addition to rational arguments, Christians had better be able to show people in our lives and in the Church a kind of love that they do not see elsewhere, which leads people to the inescapable conclusion that God is revealing himself here. If we can't do this, we are -- as Paul says -- noisy gongs or clanging cymbals. Frankly, that's what worries me about this forum. I'm worried about what people would think about the Church from reading this group. --clh]