As I understand it, for a Roman soldier to lose a prisoner meant death.
So the conversation probably went like this:
Priest: “We’ll give you 50 bucks if you say you lost what you were guarding”.
Guards: “We’ll probably be killed for failing at our duties”.
Priest: “OK. 70 bucks”.
Guards: “It’s a deal! We’ll tell everyone how poor the Romans are at securing a location”.
Sir,
I wish you good luck with your project, despite my own Deist leanings.
My beliefs about Jesus? I think he was a popular, radical rabbi who stood up to the religious establishment of his day. He probably despised the atonement/sacrificial system, and said so.
This was enough to get him killed. After his death, rather than follow his teachings of loving one another, his followers retroactively projected the atonement system onto his life, and made Jesus the atoning sacrifice, instead of doves or sheep.
After all, it’s easier to kill a bird than to get along with your neighbors.
Despite buying into the scenario above, I still attend a church. It’s more about the social services that they provide for the community, but it works for me.
All that having been said, may I suggest that you take a long look at the ending of Mark’s gospel? The oldest manuscripts of Mark have NO resurrection account, and Mark’s gospel was probably written before the others. Those writing under the names Matthew and Luke were next, and they have far more miracles and healings, plus the resurrection stories.
The author of John’s gospel (written last) has Jesus talking theology more than anything else. A new book called “This Tragic Gospel” explains the scenario fairly well….
May I make one other suggestion? Hitchens, Harris, Dennett and Company make valid points. Their logic is flawless. It’s difficult for non-believers to imagine anyone resisting their arguments, right?
So why aren’t they “de-converting” more people?
In my opinion, it’s because they’re asking too much of them. They’re trying to get 20th-generation Christians to renounce the beliefs of their parents, their friends, and their communities.
There’s a passage in “The Art Of War” about not trying to infuriate your opponent – he tells the story of a general who drove an enemy army across a river and then allowed his troops to desecrate the tombs and ancestral graves in the territory they had captured. When the retreating army saw what was happening, it gave them new motivation to turn around and succesfully defend their turf.
The Christian Church has done a lot of harm. Its also done some good. Christians know more about the good. Its been the only artistic, cultural, or ethical structure in the lives of a lot of people.
And in its current incarnation, it is deeply flawed. So if you’re going to try to change it, or eliminate it, I think you’ll have better luck being gentle, not vicious. Reasonable, not rabid.
I like the article. The closing conversation among the Romans was very insightful. If the entire Bible was written with such outside commentary, it would be pretty hard for the fundies to take seriously. Keep up the good work and best of luck on your book.
If all the saints had come out of their graves and walked around, you’d think the Roman soldiers would have been summoned to break it up. And how does a corpse walk around anyhow, with the flesh and joints being disintegrated and all – unless they were completely new again, and then they would look like anyone else, not a walking, stinking corpse. And then, when the saints returned to their graves, you’d think that would have attracted quite a crowd. But no, not a mention – no soldiers, no crowds, no commentary. I don’t see how this story would play anywhere outside an illiterate village.
From this story it also seems that the Roman soldiers were telling people that the disciples came and stole the body, and this story was made to counter this rumour. It’s a bit like UFO stories if you know what I mean:
“the cops show the remains of a flying saucer but were told by the government to say it was a weather balloon or lose their jobs, that’s why they say it was a weather balloon…”
** it’s a well-researched area . . . you need to do much more research **
Were I a book editor, with only this material before me as an extract, I’d have to be tougher on you than “Whited”.
As s/he above already noted: given the state of scholarship, your attack on Matthew doesn’t amount to much.
Matthew and Luke draw on Mark adding their own embellishments to reinforce narratives for early second century audiences. These works are not histories; they are propaganda. They’re “true” because they work. Conversion is a psychological process; the “good news” is designed to help lever “souls” into place.
Long admitted is that John is the odd man out. For that reason the first three related tales are called the synoptic (same view) gospels. John mixes in half-digested Stoic philosophy or Stoicism as filtered by Philo of Alexandria.
Perhaps John aimed to win over Greeks for whom a pre-existing divinity, the Logos, might be a better sales pitch than a divinized man. Caesar, for gods’ sake, had temples raised to the divinity of his “genius” outside of Italy.
Anyway, no fundie (bible worshiper, inherent truth fanatic) will care what you say. Any “fool for Christ” will cite Paul’s first letter to the underground xian cell in Corinth:
27 God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are. . .1Cor1:27-28 NIV
Paul and his fellow revenge seekers created a god sharing their nihilistic values. He and the primitive church had a perverse self-understanding, an inverted snobbery. Today’s fundies, witness Sarah Palin, get their anti-intellectual, reversed elitism from a document written in about 50 CE to rabble in a city already famed for centuries for its palatial homes belonging to well-maintained prostitutes. Paul often admonishes his new xians about giving way to fleshly temptations — those xian love feasts sometimes heated up.
I suggest that you take a look at Michel Onfray’s short, clear, overview of what a working substitute to xianity would have to look like, Atheist Manifesto (2006). His proposal perforce introduces a lot of historical scholarship which Onfray summarizes very clearly.
I commend your efforts, but bear in mind that Christianity is the world’s most successful meme, and it didn’t get that way by being easy to topple. When I read this essay, my first thought was, “Christians will reject your logic by saying ‘Satan hardened the hearts of those Pharisees so that, even though they saw the evidence, they did not believe.’”. It’s really a very neat ‘inoculation’ against evidence.
The other day I heard a Christian state that they didn’t know if there would be life found on other planets, but they were confident God knew about it…neatly immunizing themselves from what would otherwise be a religion-ending discovery.
Because Christianity is so robust (in the sense that it is full of little mental tricks that allow its followers to continue believing in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary) I’m not sure evidence or arguing is the answer, but I support you none-the-less.
This is an interesting point of view on the story of Jesus. I find it interesting how such a story could have changed all of history thereafter. One simple story about one single man has set into motion all of human history. I wonder why the guards didnt believe if they had front row seats. That is not a very believable story. This is what happens when simple men are writing the stories. They try to get creative but they arent. The writers of this story should have figured out another way for the guards to not believe, like in other books where God himself hardened the heart of people to make a point.
Great post, I have discussed these points with theists quite a bit to no avail. At the slightest glimmer of hope that they see the absurdity the door slams shut and I get the "you just do not understand" blanket-phrase. A similar point I made in a Youtube (username LithodidMan) video recently was about the story of Jesus' arrest in all four Gospels. My point was that they came heavily armed, and one of the disciples (Simon peter in John) attacks one of the priest's slaves and cuts off his ear. My question is, How did he survive this? If the police come to your house with an arrest warrant for someone in your home, and you attack, you are going to get hurt, maybe killed, and certainly arrested yourself. We are supposed to believe that they just took Jesus and left Simon alone? I guess he needed to be free for act II when he denied Jesus three times.
People often see incredulous things yet do not believe. They watch others die of cancer yet they still smoke or chew. They etc, etc. It is not hard to believe observers did not immediately follow Jesus. We don't know what eventually happened to to them. It is also reasonable that the accounts differ. You are approaching the story as if it isn't true. If you approach the story as if it is true, you will see things differently. Some do not want to be confused by facts. It happens all the time. Your own point of view is what matters to you. For instance, some will argue that mutation is responsible for evolution. When they get their facts straight, they see that it is not possible. Others think that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, when it is plant food. Others think that spending trillions of dollars will "fix" the economy. Their POV affects how they view the evidence. The point is that the fact of Christ's life and death and resurrection as recorded by eye witnesses 2000 years ago will not be believed by some people. You can't argue them into or out of their belief. A belief in "false" facts does not make them true. Neither does disbelief in recorded history makes it false. If the story is true, each of us is accountable – whether we believe it or not.
I appreciate very much that there seems to be some sense of intellectual honesty that I hear behind your writing. I am a convinced Christian, have read and considered the Bible for years, and find it as or more credible than any other description of the nature of our existence. No other worldview seems to explain the problems of humanity or to provide a reason for the hopes and dreams that we all seem to have ringing in the back of our minds like a distant call. I commend the Reason for God to you by Keller which I think provides a unique summary for much of the evidence that we see in Christianity and may make some sense to you. I hope that you will at some point have the opportunity to "consider the other side" openly and see where it takes you. For me – the compelling issue beyond the apparent logic in it all – is the experience of God that I have had. Don't be afraid and take care!
Pardon my comment. I did not read your article. Only gave it a cursory glance over. I know the audience here will not be open to what I have to say but I will voice one thing. You seemed to say the different authors left out important facts and that somehow leads you to believe the stories are mistaken, or made up or…
You should be honest with your thinking. Just as there is a missing link here and there we know that is not evidence one does not exist. So the fact that Matt has left out a part that is included in Luke's version is not evidence that it did not happen. (Your side claims to be scientific but when it comes to religion it surprises me how so many of you ignore your own rules) Luke was a physician. Matt was not. They had different things that they each were more aware of. I am a contractor. If I go to visit the great pyramids and tell about how interesting the building procedures must have been and how the stone was carved while another who was a writer described at length the glyphs but failed to mention other aspects would one gather from that that neither of us saw the pyramids? Reminds me of the elephant and the 3 blind men! No, I think the interesting thing is that there were contemporary witnesses, doubters among them, and there was no need to print 3 identical stories. As a matter of fact, if the bible were made up would it not be more likely the authors would have claimed to have (at least) 3 identical stories?
You should have read the article before responding. I'm well aware of your type of rebuttal, which is why I crafted my article to criticize an aspect of the resurrection accounts that makes your response entirely irrelevant.
maybe they were impressed, but maybe they were also fearful. Not everybody is willing to die for what they believe in. Not only were they not among the following of Jesus before He was crucified, they got their paychecks from the ones who despised Jesus. So they chose to stick with what they know and what feeds them. It is sad that humans can be like this, but we see it everyday of our lives today. We all do it in some form or other. But many of the people that followed Jesus saw much less than that, and did die for what they believed in.
There are a few inaccuracies in your article… You said the Pharisee's had the soldiers guard the tomb because they were afraid Jesus was the real messiah and might try to break out like He promised. (Making it seem like the Pharisees are unreal, because they think they can contain God almighty.) They actually sent guards because they thought Jesus' followers would try to steal His body and pretend it was a miracle. You also said the angel rolls back the stone on an empty tomb (making the story seam unreal, because an angel opening an empty tomb is pointless), but it is not mentioned whether the tomb is empty or not. Instead, you can interpret this paragraph as the angel came before the girls showed up at the temple, the guards were struck with fear and awe falling like dead men, possibly unconscious. Jesus then comes out. The guards having seen the angel come down but not the resurrection are able to explain it away without Jesus being the messiah. I mean, it's very possible, atheists explain God away even though we have space, time, and matter here that couldn't logically have come from another source. Also, the apostles weren't writing this to convince people that Jesus existed, this was written to existing churches so they could have a written account of some of things they spoke in person. Who knows how many letters like this were sent back in the day that got destroyed by the elements, wars, or churches that turned away. So there may be a few small inconsistencies, but the point of the letters were to tell of a wonderful miraculous story, they were to be a reference point to the churches that had been started by first hand accounts of the apostles. The power of Jesus' existence was enough for them, witnessing real life miracles in the apostles presence. These four letters we have preserved are a great account of what happend though. I personally have seen miracles, too. So has my dad. And so have many others. Try going to a local church, and see if you are able to find out more info!
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Matthew 27:11-15
As I understand it, for a Roman soldier to lose a prisoner meant death.
So the conversation probably went like this:
Priest: “We’ll give you 50 bucks if you say you lost what you were guarding”.
Guards: “We’ll probably be killed for failing at our duties”.
Priest: “OK. 70 bucks”.
Guards: “It’s a deal! We’ll tell everyone how poor the Romans are at securing a location”.
Sir,
I wish you good luck with your project, despite my own Deist leanings.
My beliefs about Jesus? I think he was a popular, radical rabbi who stood up to the religious establishment of his day. He probably despised the atonement/sacrificial system, and said so.
This was enough to get him killed. After his death, rather than follow his teachings of loving one another, his followers retroactively projected the atonement system onto his life, and made Jesus the atoning sacrifice, instead of doves or sheep.
After all, it’s easier to kill a bird than to get along with your neighbors.
Despite buying into the scenario above, I still attend a church. It’s more about the social services that they provide for the community, but it works for me.
All that having been said, may I suggest that you take a long look at the ending of Mark’s gospel? The oldest manuscripts of Mark have NO resurrection account, and Mark’s gospel was probably written before the others. Those writing under the names Matthew and Luke were next, and they have far more miracles and healings, plus the resurrection stories.
The author of John’s gospel (written last) has Jesus talking theology more than anything else. A new book called “This Tragic Gospel” explains the scenario fairly well….
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787987786.html
May I make one other suggestion? Hitchens, Harris, Dennett and Company make valid points. Their logic is flawless. It’s difficult for non-believers to imagine anyone resisting their arguments, right?
So why aren’t they “de-converting” more people?
In my opinion, it’s because they’re asking too much of them. They’re trying to get 20th-generation Christians to renounce the beliefs of their parents, their friends, and their communities.
There’s a passage in “The Art Of War” about not trying to infuriate your opponent – he tells the story of a general who drove an enemy army across a river and then allowed his troops to desecrate the tombs and ancestral graves in the territory they had captured. When the retreating army saw what was happening, it gave them new motivation to turn around and succesfully defend their turf.
The Christian Church has done a lot of harm. Its also done some good. Christians know more about the good. Its been the only artistic, cultural, or ethical structure in the lives of a lot of people.
And in its current incarnation, it is deeply flawed. So if you’re going to try to change it, or eliminate it, I think you’ll have better luck being gentle, not vicious. Reasonable, not rabid.
Here’s an example:
http://thewhitedsepulchre.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-teach-creationism.html
It seems to be in line with what you’re trying to do. If you use any of it, please give me a footnote !
I like the article. The closing conversation among the Romans was very insightful. If the entire Bible was written with such outside commentary, it would be pretty hard for the fundies to take seriously. Keep up the good work and best of luck on your book.
If all the saints had come out of their graves and walked around, you’d think the Roman soldiers would have been summoned to break it up. And how does a corpse walk around anyhow, with the flesh and joints being disintegrated and all – unless they were completely new again, and then they would look like anyone else, not a walking, stinking corpse. And then, when the saints returned to their graves, you’d think that would have attracted quite a crowd. But no, not a mention – no soldiers, no crowds, no commentary. I don’t see how this story would play anywhere outside an illiterate village.
From this story it also seems that the Roman soldiers were telling people that the disciples came and stole the body, and this story was made to counter this rumour. It’s a bit like UFO stories if you know what I mean:
“the cops show the remains of a flying saucer but were told by the government to say it was a weather balloon or lose their jobs, that’s why they say it was a weather balloon…”
** it’s a well-researched area . . . you need to do much more research **
Were I a book editor, with only this material before me as an extract, I’d have to be tougher on you than “Whited”.
As s/he above already noted: given the state of scholarship, your attack on Matthew doesn’t amount to much.
Matthew and Luke draw on Mark adding their own embellishments to reinforce narratives for early second century audiences. These works are not histories; they are propaganda. They’re “true” because they work. Conversion is a psychological process; the “good news” is designed to help lever “souls” into place.
Long admitted is that John is the odd man out. For that reason the first three related tales are called the synoptic (same view) gospels. John mixes in half-digested Stoic philosophy or Stoicism as filtered by Philo of Alexandria.
Perhaps John aimed to win over Greeks for whom a pre-existing divinity, the Logos, might be a better sales pitch than a divinized man. Caesar, for gods’ sake, had temples raised to the divinity of his “genius” outside of Italy.
Anyway, no fundie (bible worshiper, inherent truth fanatic) will care what you say. Any “fool for Christ” will cite Paul’s first letter to the underground xian cell in Corinth:
27 God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are. . .1Cor1:27-28 NIV
Paul and his fellow revenge seekers created a god sharing their nihilistic values. He and the primitive church had a perverse self-understanding, an inverted snobbery. Today’s fundies, witness Sarah Palin, get their anti-intellectual, reversed elitism from a document written in about 50 CE to rabble in a city already famed for centuries for its palatial homes belonging to well-maintained prostitutes. Paul often admonishes his new xians about giving way to fleshly temptations — those xian love feasts sometimes heated up.
I suggest that you take a look at Michel Onfray’s short, clear, overview of what a working substitute to xianity would have to look like, Atheist Manifesto (2006). His proposal perforce introduces a lot of historical scholarship which Onfray summarizes very clearly.
I commend your efforts, but bear in mind that Christianity is the world’s most successful meme, and it didn’t get that way by being easy to topple. When I read this essay, my first thought was, “Christians will reject your logic by saying ‘Satan hardened the hearts of those Pharisees so that, even though they saw the evidence, they did not believe.’”. It’s really a very neat ‘inoculation’ against evidence.
The other day I heard a Christian state that they didn’t know if there would be life found on other planets, but they were confident God knew about it…neatly immunizing themselves from what would otherwise be a religion-ending discovery.
Because Christianity is so robust (in the sense that it is full of little mental tricks that allow its followers to continue believing in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary) I’m not sure evidence or arguing is the answer, but I support you none-the-less.
Bravo! You have given me new insight into ways to create dialogue with the believers. Only hope I can be as articulate when I regurgitate this…
This is an interesting point of view on the story of Jesus. I find it interesting how such a story could have changed all of history thereafter. One simple story about one single man has set into motion all of human history. I wonder why the guards didnt believe if they had front row seats. That is not a very believable story. This is what happens when simple men are writing the stories. They try to get creative but they arent. The writers of this story should have figured out another way for the guards to not believe, like in other books where God himself hardened the heart of people to make a point.
Great post, I have discussed these points with theists quite a bit to no avail. At the slightest glimmer of hope that they see the absurdity the door slams shut and I get the "you just do not understand" blanket-phrase. A similar point I made in a Youtube (username LithodidMan) video recently was about the story of Jesus' arrest in all four Gospels. My point was that they came heavily armed, and one of the disciples (Simon peter in John) attacks one of the priest's slaves and cuts off his ear. My question is, How did he survive this? If the police come to your house with an arrest warrant for someone in your home, and you attack, you are going to get hurt, maybe killed, and certainly arrested yourself. We are supposed to believe that they just took Jesus and left Simon alone? I guess he needed to be free for act II when he denied Jesus three times.
People often see incredulous things yet do not believe. They watch others die of cancer yet they still smoke or chew. They etc, etc. It is not hard to believe observers did not immediately follow Jesus. We don't know what eventually happened to to them. It is also reasonable that the accounts differ. You are approaching the story as if it isn't true. If you approach the story as if it is true, you will see things differently. Some do not want to be confused by facts. It happens all the time. Your own point of view is what matters to you. For instance, some will argue that mutation is responsible for evolution. When they get their facts straight, they see that it is not possible. Others think that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, when it is plant food. Others think that spending trillions of dollars will "fix" the economy. Their POV affects how they view the evidence. The point is that the fact of Christ's life and death and resurrection as recorded by eye witnesses 2000 years ago will not be believed by some people. You can't argue them into or out of their belief. A belief in "false" facts does not make them true. Neither does disbelief in recorded history makes it false. If the story is true, each of us is accountable – whether we believe it or not.
I appreciate very much that there seems to be some sense of intellectual honesty that I hear behind your writing. I am a convinced Christian, have read and considered the Bible for years, and find it as or more credible than any other description of the nature of our existence. No other worldview seems to explain the problems of humanity or to provide a reason for the hopes and dreams that we all seem to have ringing in the back of our minds like a distant call. I commend the Reason for God to you by Keller which I think provides a unique summary for much of the evidence that we see in Christianity and may make some sense to you. I hope that you will at some point have the opportunity to "consider the other side" openly and see where it takes you. For me – the compelling issue beyond the apparent logic in it all – is the experience of God that I have had. Don't be afraid and take care!
Pardon my comment. I did not read your article. Only gave it a cursory glance over. I know the audience here will not be open to what I have to say but I will voice one thing. You seemed to say the different authors left out important facts and that somehow leads you to believe the stories are mistaken, or made up or…
You should be honest with your thinking. Just as there is a missing link here and there we know that is not evidence one does not exist. So the fact that Matt has left out a part that is included in Luke's version is not evidence that it did not happen. (Your side claims to be scientific but when it comes to religion it surprises me how so many of you ignore your own rules) Luke was a physician. Matt was not. They had different things that they each were more aware of. I am a contractor. If I go to visit the great pyramids and tell about how interesting the building procedures must have been and how the stone was carved while another who was a writer described at length the glyphs but failed to mention other aspects would one gather from that that neither of us saw the pyramids? Reminds me of the elephant and the 3 blind men! No, I think the interesting thing is that there were contemporary witnesses, doubters among them, and there was no need to print 3 identical stories. As a matter of fact, if the bible were made up would it not be more likely the authors would have claimed to have (at least) 3 identical stories?
You should have read the article before responding. I'm well aware of your type of rebuttal, which is why I crafted my article to criticize an aspect of the resurrection accounts that makes your response entirely irrelevant.
maybe they were impressed, but maybe they were also fearful. Not everybody is willing to die for what they believe in. Not only were they not among the following of Jesus before He was crucified, they got their paychecks from the ones who despised Jesus. So they chose to stick with what they know and what feeds them. It is sad that humans can be like this, but we see it everyday of our lives today. We all do it in some form or other. But many of the people that followed Jesus saw much less than that, and did die for what they believed in.
There are a few inaccuracies in your article… You said the Pharisee's had the soldiers guard the tomb because they were afraid Jesus was the real messiah and might try to break out like He promised. (Making it seem like the Pharisees are unreal, because they think they can contain God almighty.) They actually sent guards because they thought Jesus' followers would try to steal His body and pretend it was a miracle. You also said the angel rolls back the stone on an empty tomb (making the story seam unreal, because an angel opening an empty tomb is pointless), but it is not mentioned whether the tomb is empty or not. Instead, you can interpret this paragraph as the angel came before the girls showed up at the temple, the guards were struck with fear and awe falling like dead men, possibly unconscious. Jesus then comes out. The guards having seen the angel come down but not the resurrection are able to explain it away without Jesus being the messiah. I mean, it's very possible, atheists explain God away even though we have space, time, and matter here that couldn't logically have come from another source. Also, the apostles weren't writing this to convince people that Jesus existed, this was written to existing churches so they could have a written account of some of things they spoke in person. Who knows how many letters like this were sent back in the day that got destroyed by the elements, wars, or churches that turned away. So there may be a few small inconsistencies, but the point of the letters were to tell of a wonderful miraculous story, they were to be a reference point to the churches that had been started by first hand accounts of the apostles. The power of Jesus' existence was enough for them, witnessing real life miracles in the apostles presence. These four letters we have preserved are a great account of what happend though. I personally have seen miracles, too. So has my dad. And so have many others. Try going to a local church, and see if you are able to find out more info!
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