Jesus' body - fringe claims

 If you want to claim that the body of Jesus were not raised, then it might be reasonable to ask that an alternative to resurrection be given. Various attempts have been given, even in the first century! Matthew seems to have added a detail about a posting of guards outside the tomb in order to increase the drama of the resurrection itself and anticipate the "classic" explanation of the time by 1st century doubters that the body had been stolen by disciples.

Bart Ehrman - whom I follow and respect, but we don't always agree - disagrees that this whole approach works on the grounds that custom practice of the Roman regime was to leave bodies on the crosses to rot as a message to everyone about the consequences of stepping out of line. 12 years after he adopted his position that this is probably what happened to Jesus too has not really generated any real scholarly movement to that view. There are several reasons why in my view.

Firstly, as already noted, the Matthew account itself alludes to an early existing rebuttal of the resurrection claim. Since I place Matthew as late (post-Marc, trinitarian formulation, theological reworking of events, and more, see the blog for more on my Mathean questioning), that need not be super early, but still definitely a first century rumour that disciples had stolen the body from the tomb. When opponents to a view trigger a defence like Matthew's, we should listen - both 1st century christians and skeptics believed in a tomb, in which Christ's body was laid.

Secondly, a common practice doesn't mean uniform treatment. The gospel accounts that Jesus died unusually quickly might make sense on the grounds of his horrendous pre-crucifixion whipping, and the requests. There are all sorts of unique events that happen in life today and historically that require unique and special treatment. 

Thirdly, and this is an extension to the second point, Bart himself has already pointed to another possibility, exactly on this grounds when debating the probability of a miracle verses just a very unusual event. That scenario he painted seemed more probable precisely because it involved Jesus' body having been removed and transported somewhere (I forget the story he whipped up). So there even seems to be some inconsistency in his approach - on the one hand arguing for normal practice and on the other arguing against miracles that something unique and unlikely happened, because unique and unlikely events actually happen all the time.

I am myself somewhat sceptical about a literal and physical resurrection, it is true. I would love it to be true, I know that belief in this symbolises hope and brings unity through the community of the Church, but I do certainly lack the conviction - so I don't feel I am biased in this critique of Ehrman's finge view. I just think that the circumstances really do not point to a rotting Jesus on the cross for several days. If you would like to know what I think could have happened please do let me know! It's also unique, maybe unlikely and I've not heard it elsewhere. But in my view, it is the most immaginable non-miraculous alternative that I have come across so far.

Thanks for reading.

Death "Vs" Life

So who wins? Is it life or death? 

Christianity would argue life - God triumphantly squashed death in his resurrection of Christ. It's a repeat of the life Vs death motif. 

Morbid atheists might say that death "wins" - it has the final say on our short lives in the chronological sense.

But is it one verses the other? First let's question the notion of death winning at all regardless of our faith position. You could score it very differently. If we accept that death is a natural course of events and that it might be a terrible sense of less that accompanies those that are still alive when a loved one passes, we can still look at that life and say that life won. If I die at 80, then every single day I didn't die, life "won". That's 365 x 80 to 1. Choose the time increment you wish. Life wins.

The morbid atheist might retort that why should you stop the clock there, the person remains dead for trillions of years beyond that, so death "wins". But death is not winning once a person has died, it signals the end of the "competition" for that individual from a phenomenological perspective.

Where death would truly win would be to step outside of a quantitative assessment and to look at how life is lived qualitatively. Christians talk of a future perfect Kingdom of life and love invading, infiltrating the present. Eschatology also has an extraordinary sort of suction power at its essence ushering in the future into the here and now. Conversely, living an empty dead life now also ushers in the death to come.

So it seems that life may win quantitatively and qualitatively - should we embrace it.