1 Corinthians 15

[Skammer]

Oh, I didn’t comment on the genealogies, but I agree – they were clearly added to support the claim that Jesus’ was the rightful heir to the Davidic throne, but they are clearly fictional/mythical.

[Meatros]

@Skammer

I had a long answer written and then I realized I had misinterpreted your question. You’re saying that if the women who were witnesses of the empty tomb went away scared and didn’t tell anyone (16:8), how did the story get out – right?

Right.

@Skammer

The fact that Mark tells the story of the empty tomb shows that it got out somehow, but he doesn’t explain how. Some have theorized that the original ending of the gospel has been lost - since it ends so abruptly and with no explanation as to how people found out about the empty tomb.

Maybe it does. It depends on how you view it. I think the Gospel is a fiction - there was no original empty tomb. It was presupposes by Mark when he was creating the account. Btw - I use Mark for convenience, I don’t think/know who actually wrote it.

I have heard speculation that the man in the tomb is supposed to be Mark, but it seemed too speculative.

@Skammer

I don’t know if this is a fair characterization of Wright’s view, but I haven’t read his book on the resurrection yet. I think the summary of Paul’s understanding (the physical body is destroyed and replaced with a “spiritual” body) is accurate, but the question is what do we mean by a spiritual body? We tend to think of spiritual bodies as incorporeal or ghost-like, but there is no reason to believe that Paul thought of it this way.

The spiritual body is not Wrights view - I believe he thinks the physical body is restored. He, as shown earlier, essentially admits the spiritual body is possible.

Carrier has a good explanation of a spiritual body - it’s not incorporeal. His idea is the spiritual body is an eternal body. “your” breath of life goes out of your decaying physical body into your perfect spiritual body.

[Meatros]

@Skammer

Oh, I didn’t comment on the genealogies, but I agree – they were clearly added to support the claim that Jesus’ was the rightful heir to the Davidic throne, but they are clearly fictional/mythical.

That’s my view. I am curious as to where the names cane from though. I don’t think they were pulled out of thin air, necessarily.

[Skammer]

@Meatros

Maybe it does. It depends on how you view it. I think the Gospel is a fiction - there was no original empty tomb. It was presupposes by Mark when he was creating the account. Btw - I use Mark for convenience, I don’t think/know who actually wrote it.

But it’s unlikely that Mark (the author of Mark, whoever it was) made up the empty tomb out of thin air. There had to be some kind of tradition even by the date he wrote the gospel that Jesus had risen from the dead and left an empty tomb behind. If Mark had made it up, he would have devoted more than two sentences to it.

@Meatros

I have heard speculation that the man in the tomb is supposed to be Mark, but it seemed too speculative.

I’ve also heard people identify the young man in 14:51-52 (who ran away from Jesus’ arrest, leaving his only garment behind) as Mark. But that’s nothing more than speculation.

[Meatros]

@Skammer

But it’s unlikely that Mark (the author of Mark, whoever it was) made up the empty tomb out of thin air. There had to be some kind of tradition even by the date he wrote the gospel that Jesus had risen from the dead and left an empty tomb behind. If Mark had made it up, he would have devoted more than two sentences to it.

I’ll have to stress that I’m still researching and looking into this, but I’m not suggesting that Mark made up the story out of thin air. I think it’s possible that there was a Q material floating around and the original belief in a spiritual resurrection. I think that initially people believed that Christ got his new body (his heavenly body) and that along the line (maybe after the destruction of the temple) the story started to change. It seems evident to me that the early Christians (the Corinthians, for example) were having trouble grasping what Paul was referring to with regards to our resurrection bodies. So with the spread of the story, the “empty tomb” motif was added. I’ve heard some rather convincing (to me at least) evidence that suggests a lot of literary inventions in the Gospels. One example Carrier uses in a debate with Craig is the narrative of Barabus (sp?) (which is extremely unlikely from a Roman POV). Price lists a few in his BibleGeek podcast as well. Another tip off (to me at least) is the miracle stories. In his debate with Evans, Erhman lists several miracles that were added later (Evans concedes these, in particular the Jesus sweating blood). I think in this thread (or a previous one?) I put forward what I suspect was a miracle lifted from Vespations (sp?) “life” (the spit curing a blind man). To clarify, I didn’t “find” this miracle (I’m no scholar - no where close), but other scholars have. The miracle itself goes back to Ancient Egypt.

I’m rambling a bit, so I’ll stop.

@Skammer

I’ve also heard people identify the young man in 14:51-52 (who ran away from Jesus’ arrest, leaving his only garment behind) as Mark. But that’s nothing more than speculation.

Carrier suspects this person is an allusion towards the heavenly body idea. I can’t remember much of what he says on this (I think it was in his debate with Turok). He mentions that the naked guy is elsewhere in the gospels. If you want, I can link you to the debate. If what Carrier suggests is interesting, then I suggest getting “the Empty Tomb”, which is only $10 on the kindle (Carriers essay alone is 100 pages and heavily sourced - I’m reading it slowly and cross checking as much as I can through early Christian writing.com and the early Jewish writing.com sites.