Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by Secret Alias »

Thank you. Always interesting Ben.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Blood
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by Blood »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Nov 08, 2018 7:09 am It is odd that someone who isn't a disciple is suddenly introduced into the gospel narrative - a 'respectable' Jew who has no discernible or implied connection to Christianity.
Standard Christian apologetic thinking would (and probably has) put this down as a "proof" in their column, for both the reasons you just mentioned here... added to their "proof" that Mark wouldn't invent women witnessing the empty tomb, since women supposedly couldn't testify in courts, and therefore it really happened.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
lsayre
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by lsayre »

DCHindley wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:45 pm There used to be those who believe, even today, that Josephus was a closet Christian. I think this goes back to William Whiston in the early decades of the 18th century.

Do you suspect this? I've actually once ran across a business manager at one company I visited who confidently asserted that Josephus testified about Christ. Everything I had learned about the testimonium flavianum in Antiquities 18.63-64

Personally, I think that POV is due to wishful thinking.

DCH
I don't believe that Josephus was a closet (or open) Christian.
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by Giuseppe »

Could Joseph from Arimathea's introduction prove that Jesus didn't disappear on the cross, against the docetists?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by Secret Alias »

and Celsus testifies disappearing on the cross should have but wasn't in the gospel.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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MrMacSon
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by MrMacSon »

When Paul styles Christ in the image of the invisible God in Colossians 1.15 he is likely speaking of the incarnate Christ. Interestingly, Origin quoted Colossians 1.15 as “invisible image of the Invisible God” (in First Principles, 1.2.6).

Some Gnostics of the second century are said to have contrasted a hermaphroditic man above and a moribund body below which lesser powers had fashioned as an image of Christ. Some scholars have wondered if Gnostic teaching on the Heavenly Man had intensified reluctance of portraying Christ as human, or even delayed His anthropomorphism.

In 1 Corinthians 11.3 Paul asserts that Christ is the head of the man while the man is the head of the woman and then, in 1 Cor 11.7, that it is the man, as distinct from the woman, who is the image and glory of God.

Irenaeus, in claiming Paul for the orthodox, asserted that the body is in the image of God because it was always the purpose of the Word, or second person of the Trinity, to display His true image and likeness in the flesh (Adv. Haer. 5.6.1).
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by Giuseppe »

Secret Alias wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 1:03 pm and Celsus testifies disappearing on the cross should have but wasn't in the gospel.
Celsus is evidence of a real embarrassment about the missing disappearance of Jesus from the cross.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4705&p=93867#p93867
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
robert j
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by robert j »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Nov 08, 2018 7:09 am It is odd that someone who isn't a disciple is suddenly introduced into the gospel narrative - a 'respectable' Jew who has no discernible or implied connection to Christianity. Why is this? I think it is merely to establish that the body was placed in the tomb so that the empty tomb can be significant when the stone is now 'strangely' rolled away ...

... To this end, given the strange uniformity in all the gospels - even John - regarding this figure of 'Joseph of Arimathea - you'd have to think that his involvement was a later addition, perhaps by an orthodox redactor, to silence Jewish criticism of the empty tomb.
In addition to the explicit placement of the body of Jesus in the tomb and the placement of the large stone to establish the later disappearance of the body after he arose (ἠγέρθη, Mark 16:6) ---

I think it’s quite possible that the author of GMark introduced the figure of Joseph of Arimathea in order to prevent the body of Jesus from further defiling the land given by God by being left to hang on the wood overnight in violation of Deuteronomy 21:22-23.

It would have been unrealistic for readers to believe that the relatives of Jesus --- peasants from Galilee and the family of an executed seditionist --- could even gain an audience with Pilate to make a request for the body.

But for Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple (αὐτὸς ἦν προσδεχόμενος τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ) but also a wealthy Jerusalemite and a “prominent Council member” (εὐσχήμων βουλευτής, Mark 15:43), gaining access to Pilate to make a request for the body of Jesus is believable.

And the author of GMark was very specific that Joseph made the request for the body of Jesus while it was still “evening” (ὀψίας, Mark 15:42) --- apparently in response to the requirement in Deuteronomy for entombment to take place on the same day.
Secret Alias
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by Secret Alias »

Celsus is evidence of a real embarrassment about the missing disappearance of Jesus from the cross.
No, no, no. When you read the statement in its context it is clearly a 'he shouldn't have done this, but he didn't' kind of comment. You've got to stop projecting what you want to be true, what you need to be true on to an ancient author who can't speak for him/herself. It's really, really annoying. We shouldn't be arguing about that. You lie about Celsus in order to make your point seem stronger than it is. But in no way can Celsus be argued to have read about the disappearance on the cross and claimed that it was edited out of the gospel. No way, liar. No way.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Re: Is it Fair to Say that Joseph of Arimathea Was Introduced to Prove the Empty Tomb Was Miraculous?

Post by Giuseppe »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 12:37 pm
Celsus is evidence of a real embarrassment about the missing disappearance of Jesus from the cross.
No, no, no. When you read the statement in its context it is clearly a 'he shouldn't have done this, but he didn't' kind of comment. You've got to stop projecting what you want to be true, what you need to be true on to an ancient author who can't speak for him/herself. It's really, really annoying. We shouldn't be arguing about that. You lie about Celsus in order to make your point seem stronger than it is. But in no way can Celsus be argued to have read about the disappearance on the cross and claimed that it was edited out of the gospel. No way, liar. No way.
I disagree strongly. It is in evidence that Celsus is accusing the our gospels for not having a Jesus disappeared from the cross. So what has to be explained by a true historian is: why is this embarrassment overcame by the our gospels?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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