Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

"Thew was no tomb for a historical Jesus ---> there was no empty tomb for a historical Jesus."

when i read the last verse in mark 16 i always told myself that the women and the tomb are not important to the author, the author says "...he is on his way to a location 70 miles away"
doesn't seem to me that the author requires the help of the women to convey the message.

The only function of the women is to witness an empty tomb. And the only function of an empty tomb is to exalt Jesus according to an expected conventional tropos of the time. Therefore the mention of a tomb was the mere literary effect, and not the cause, of the original mystical belief in resurrection of Jesus.

This means that a Christian does not have to believe in the existence of an empty tomb since even Justin did not believe in it.

from his facebook page a hilarious image:

https://www.facebook.com/Dr.RichardCMil ... =3&theater

Giuseppe wrote:

rakovsky wrote:

Giuseppe wrote:Maybe I should start a new thread (I apologize if I haven't read all the comments here), but in a recent book of Richard Miller on Resurrection I read that Justin, First Apology 21 is evidence of three simple facts, precisely that:
1) Justin did recognize that the Gospel empty tomb stories are entirely similar to these of the pagan myths of translation body etc.,
2) Justin did recognize that the Pagans didn't insist on the absolute truth of these stories...
3) and apparently in contradiction with the points 1 and 2, Justin did insist that his Gospel stories were absolute truth while these of the pagans were satanic products. Period.

I am not sure how these raise a major problem about Justin. Justin could recognize similarity to paganism with the empty tomb and that the pagans' empty tomb stories were invented, but still say that Jesus' own empty tomb was a real fact, because of some additional distinguishing criteria. Those criteria could be the ancient Biblical prophecies of the resurrection or the apostles persevering for their faith despite persecution.

Which are these ''some additional distinguishing criteria'' for Justin? He gives nothing in Apology 21. He gives only his genetic fallacy: demons invented the pagan stories 'therefore' the pagan stories are false. Justin assumes that these stories were similar to Gospel stories and this is sufficient for Miller to establish his case. In addition, Miller lists 77 examples of body translation cases in pagan leterature, about mythical and historical figures.

So Justin says that Jesus' tomb was empty, and that this is similar to pagan myth stories of empty tombs, but that in Jesus' case the tomb really was empty. And your question is why doesn't Justin recognize the analogy between Jesus' empty tomb and pagan empty tomb stories. The answer can be that Justin believed that there was a distinguishing criteria, but that Justin did not mention it in that part of his apology.

So your next question is what can the distinguishing criteria be?
All you need to do is find what reason Justin has for trusting the gospel accounts. Maybe the gospel accounts "felt right" to Justin, but the pagan ones didn't.
The early Christians were putting out these stories of an empty tomb in the gospels even before Justin wrote his essays. So why did Justin believe the gospels? Maybe at some point in his writing career he gave his reasons.

I really don't see how you are pointing to a major issue with regard to Justin and the empty tomb story. The fact that someone does not cite a distinguishing criteria when they write an essay's chapter does not mean that they see no distinction.

For example, I believe that FDA-approved drugs generally are scientific, while snake oil doesn't work and was sold by charlatans. I think that effective drugs are beneficial, and that charlatans shouldn't fool people. That's true for medicine and for business in general.

^In the paragraph above I did not give my distinguishing criteria between FDA drugs and snake oil. But the fact that I did not mention the criteria does not mean snake oil is an FDA drug. The fact that Justin didn't say what the distinction is between pagan and Christian empty tomb stories does not somehow prove that he thought they were the same thing.

Giuseppe wrote:The only function of the women is to witness an empty tomb. And the only function of an empty tomb is to exalt Jesus according to an expected conventional tropos of the time. Therefore the mention of a tomb was the mere literary effect, and not the cause, of the original mystical belief in resurrection of Jesus.

This means that a Christian does not have to believe in the existence of an empty tomb since even Justin did not believe in it.

Gosh, what is there to say that Justin did not believe in the empty tomb of Jesus?

You pointed to chapter 21, where Justin writes:

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.

Sorry, but I don't see that as saying that Christian beliefs have the same authenticity as pagan ones, only that he sees analogies. I don't see him saying that he disbelieves that Jesus actually died just because Jupiter's sons did.

Giuseppe wrote:The only function of the women is to witness an empty tomb. And the only function of an empty tomb is to exalt Jesus according to an expected conventional tropos of the time. Therefore the mention of a tomb was the mere literary effect, and not the cause, of the original mystical belief in resurrection of Jesus.

In Judaism, resurrection was bodily. Elijah bodily raised the youth, and Jesus bodily raised Lazarus. If the early Christians preached that Jesus rose, the automatic question is what happened to the body?

I suppose you can claim that it was buried in a common grave, but if he reappeared to them two days after burial, then the people seeing him would want to go check the body.

And is it certain that Jesus would get a common grave burial? Archeologists have found the body of a victim of crucifixion not buried in a common grave in first century Judea.

The written gospels were being preached probably in 60-100 AD, and many people who knew Jesus or heard the gospel story multiple times would still be alive to confirm that this was the same story originally told.

Attention, please. In Apology 21 Justin gives his reason to see a precise difference between apparently similar stories: demons inspired the pagan stories, God inspired the Christian stories. Period. I don't claim that Justin didn't believe to the literalist truth of his stories. I am saying that he didn't know to identify a qualitative difference between pagan and Christian stories from a literary point of view. He assumes that these stories were similar in virtue of their common use of the same literary tropoi AT LEAST in matter of body translation. Miller proves precisely this last claim about the empty tomb Gospel episodes.

According to Justin, the literary WAY of giving a message was common to both the stories (they share the same tropoi about body translation).
According to Justin, the true message was in the Gospel, the false message was in pagan stories.

The entire point of going to see the tomb and find it empty is precisely the example number 78 of a long list of 77 body translation examples found in pagan literature.
Therefore the first who introduced a tomb - even if he did believe that Jesus is risen (especially because he did believe it!) - had to introduce a tomb in the story because that was 100% entirely expected for the object of a cult.

The entire point of going to see the tomb and find it empty is precisely the example number 78 of a long list of 77 body translation examples found in pagan literature.

the women go to the wrong place, they will not see appearance in the wrong place. and when they leave their lack of faith causes them to remain in fear and silence.

Giuseppe wrote:Attention, please. In Apology 21 Justin gives his reason to see a precise difference between apparently similar stories: demons inspired the pagan stories, God inspired the Christian stories. Period. I don't claim that Justin didn't believe to the literalist truth of his stories. I am saying that he didn't know to identify a qualitative difference between pagan and Christian stories from a literary point of view.

OK, in that particular chapter he didn't, but that chapter was dedicated to similarities between Christianity and paganism so that pagans could better understand Christian philosophy. He was not focusing on differences in that chapter and did not mention any in the chapter. The fact that he didn't in that chapter doesn't mean that he was not able to identify a difference or that he didn't elsewhere.