to think it's highly unlikely that Jesus was dead when they put him into the tomb?

[cunexttuesonline]

Crucified for 1 day with nails put in hands and feet and a spear wound on his side. I think he must have just been unconscious when put in the cave. Then 'came to' the day later and pushed the stone away with the sort of supehuman strength that, for example, women get whentheir babies are trapped under soemthing heavy. Guards outside tomb could have been sleeping or buggered off or something.

YABU, he was dead, raised to life and is alive today [bugrin]

I'm not offended by your post, like clockface I rather like being challenged. But crucifixion is well documented as an incredibly painful and erm....final kind of death, and they checked thoroughly afterwards - they would often break their legs to be sure but didn't need to as they checked with the spear in his side and 'blood and water flowed' - he was dead.

The whole followers stole his body thing..nah don't buy that one. Why would they then go on to put their lives on the line and be utterly sold out for something they knew was actually a lie? doesn't compute

Happy Easter. [bugrin]

Peachy - arf at the image of SGB as a closet happy clapper

Bring it on [bugrin]

Sorry, why would his followers think the son of God thing was a lie?

Well in islam, what actually happened is that God took Jesus(pbuh) up before he could be tortured or hurt by the Romans, and now lives in Paradise.
The man crucified by the Romans was a criminal of evil character.

I just mean if they'd taken his body and knew the resurrection thing was made up, it would seem odd that they would put so much into telling that as something that really happened. It wouldn't make sense.

You don't respect what I believe - fine. You don't have to start a thread ridiculing it though. THAT is disrespectful no matter what you think OP.

Yes, I see what you mean. Maybe they just wanted to convince people to the glory of their God and it was a handy 'miracle' ?

Or maybe the resurrection thing was more of a rumour which didn't really gain in popularity until a long time after. Or which gained a sort of cult following because of denial. I am not sure who wrote the bible and when - wasn't it compiled a long while after Jesus' death and resurrection?

Or maybe they just wanted to piss off the Romans so they said it for their benefit.

Or maybe it was stolen by fairly unknown followers who then kept schtum so the major ones really actually believed it.

Many Gnostic Christians do not believe that Jesus died on the cross. They have been writing that since the time the Gospels were written. It is Easter for many of them too, so it is not offensive for the OP to post something rather similar to their beliefs, and incredibly offensive for mainstream Christians to say she has no right to her opinions - you don't have a monopoly of religious truth just because your church has crushed such opinions as heresy in the past.

Yes Dilly, it is disrespectful to what you believe, I do not respect what you believe, we have already established that. I have said I am sorry if anyone is offended. i can start a thread about it if I like though, I am genuinely interested. i also think it's good to question it all instead of blindly believing a foosty old book of chinese whispers.

[bugrin]

.

Bye then.

The History Channel ran programmes on whether or nots of Jesus and the execution since last Friday, lots of experts discussing the dissonance between what's written in the Christian texts and the actual practices at the time. Before that, it ran a number of programmes on whether or nots or Moses and the Exodus during the start of Passover, with lots of other experts. Maybe it's because I come from a faith that actively encourages debate, but the idea that this is offensive or that it only Christians get this treatment is silly.

Was the OP ridiculing the Christian faith? I didn't read it like that - I thought OP was just questioning.

In answer - as others have said, the Romans weren't likely to get the whole execution thing wrong (ever), and particularly in this case with a high profile prisoner, politically provocative, caused a lot of disquiet amongst the high profile Jews at the time. The 'blood and water' which came out of his side when they cut him with the sword is (apparently - I'm not a medical type) a sure sign that he was actually dead.

'Super human' strength in a healthy mum who rescues her baby from a tiger is one thing, but would be quite another thing in a man who had been flogged (the Roman wips had bits of metal embedded), made to carry a massive plank of wood up a hill, cricified (and so basically suffocated), and would have had massive blood loss, and then had a sword thrust in his side, and was then wrapped up (as was the custom) and put in a cave.

So he would have had to recover from all of that, unwrap himself, move the enormous stone which would have taken several healthy bodies to move, then overpowered the (armed, healthy) guards.

Or if his followers had stolen the body, they would have had to overpower the guards, and thats a story which would have turned up in the history books as an historical event. The Romans were a vicious lot. If the guards had have fallen asleep/gone away, they would have been executed themselves I believe (as was the punishment for slack soldiers).

As someone else above pointed out, it doesn't make sense for the followers to have take and disposed of the body. Jesus closest friends were mostly killed for their insistence that Jesus had risen, in the few years after Jesus' death - they would surely have changed their story, and produced the body to escape death. Or the romans would have been looking for the body (or indeed would the Jewish leaders, who had more reason to hate Jesus than the Romans did). But no body was searched for or produced.

As for the idea that Jesus didn;t exist at all (I know the OP didn;t say that - was another poster) - whoever believes that is pretty well alone in that belief. Again, to reiterate what others have said, there is more historical verification for Jesus existence (and many other facts about his life, where he lived, and what was believed about him at the time) than there is for Julius Caesar, for example. The fact that Jesus existed is not really debated by historians, though of course his Divinity is hotly contested and always will be.

I second the reccomendation of the book Who moved the Stone? to anyone who is really interested in getting to the bottom of this though. And it is worht getting to the bottom of.

If Jesus didn't rise then Christianity is a sham. And if he did rise then it has serious implications for all people. There is no room for middle ground "he was a nice teacher", because if he wasn't God and didn't rise from death, he was a dangerour nutter, not a nice teacher.

Happy Easter OP :)

I didn't see the op as ridiculing at all. And I think it is actually quite scary that some people believe so blindly that they really think people are being deliberately insulting just because they question/debate things.

I'm finding this discussion quite interesting. Am not a Christian (am an atheist) but do believe that there was a man called Jesus who claimed to be the son of God and was crucified for that. Don't believe he died and then came back to life but do believe how people might have wanted that so much that they believed it.

When you've got a powerful cult figure as Jesus was in his day then his followers and successors will have been very reluctant to accept his death. We don't have to look as far back as 2000 years to see how quickly and easily conspiracy theories flourish and perpetuate. Human beings have a glorious track record of believing what they want and need to believe and the people of that time needed a miracle. Add 2000 years of interpretation, manipulation and enforcement of received wisdom to the mix and the 'truth' could be absolutely anything. So whatever the biology or physiology of the situation, the mythology has long since taken over. The 'facts' are pretty much irrelevant.

chil - thats something you don't hear very often! Of course the facts are relevent! If the historical and archealogical facts support what Christians believe, then it needs to be taken seriously. If the facts don't support that Jesus lived at all, or if the facts sugest that a cricified person was likely to not be properly dead etc, then it can be dismissed at myth. Of course the facts matter.

In matters of faith the facts don't matter anything like as much as the belief. There is very little to support either the King Arthur or Robin Hood legends and yet they've passed into received wisdom as being real people and we all know the stories attached to them. The Jesus story is quite similar to others around at the same time and the supporting documentation and archaeological evidence is patchy to say the least. However, I still say that none of that matters to the true believer.

Chil - The funny thing is, he wasn't that powerful of a cult leader at the time. During that time period, there were dozens upon dozens of people claiming to be or had others claim they were the Messiah and many had much bigger followings and better claims to it (and much more written about them). Claiming to being the Messiah has never a crime due to beliefs among many, particularly at that time, that one or many in each generation has the potential to be the Messiah, but will not reach said potential for many reasons.

I think whether or not the facts matter depends on the individual believer, some will skim past anything that collides with faith while others will enjoy wrestling with it.

So if he wasn't a cult leader at the time then logic suggests that the cult took off post his demise. And that can only be due to the things that make any posthumous legend a hit.... ie. a good story (and you can't beat resurrection as an attention-grabber :) ), convincing tellers of the story and, above all, a willingness on all sides to want the story to be true. As with any marketing campaign, their timing was excellent. Once you've got critical mass, the dry facts matter very little.

The facts matter to me Chil. I am a believer but I like to think things through and have done so again and again, including studying theology. I remain convinced. However, facts are never enough in this kind of thing. Experience has to come in somewhere - they work together.

Good post Astrophe.

Pontius Pilate was not exactly keen to condemn Jesus. he did 'wash his hands' of the whole affair so is it possible he merely ordered the flogging and crucifiction for appearances sake but actually it never happened.

Anyone ever verify the body was buried?

Just a thought.

Some Christians in the nice safe West do get a bit over excited when anyone questions their faith. "Ohh I'm being persecuted for my faith! I've been waiting ^years6 for taht to happen!"

MoreBeta, I'd never thought of that!

"If Jesus didn't rise then Christianity is a sham. And if he did rise then it has serious implications for all people. There is no room for middle ground "he was a nice teacher", because if he wasn't God and didn't rise from death, he was a dangerour nutter, not a nice teacher."

I sometimes I wonder this. Even it this were so, I would still believe in God, and as no other religion will have me, I'll have to stick with Christianity.

:) Seeker.

MoreBeta, it's well documented and agreed amongst liberal and conservative scholars alike that Jesus' body was buried in a tomb belonging to a distinguished member of the Sanhedrin named Joseph of Arimethea. There would have been no sense in early Christians circulating such a story as it would have certainly been squashed as nonsense if untrue, also the Sanhedrin were looked upon in a pretty negative light by early believers so they would not have used a leading Sanhedrin member for such a story. It's also mentioned in writings of Josephus (early Roman scholar) and Eusebius (early church scholar) in addition to biblical accounts.

Seeker, no I haven't seen that reaction on this thread. I don't think in the main believers here think in such a way, when we are aware of what real persecution entails, ie torture and imprisonment and death. One could compare MN to such things I suppose