One reason to accept that Jesus tomb was found empty after His death by crucifixion: His Jewish opponents admitted the tomb was empty, which is why they had to come up with the following excuse in Matthew 28:13. “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ They said this to the guards who had been at the tomb. Now if you dont already believe the New Testament, you might say, Matthew made that up to make the case for the resurrection look good. First of all, the fact that guards were there at all would have been an embarrassment. Second, the author of Matthew follows with, And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. The author isnt just making stuff up out of thin air. Hes addressing an argument that Jews had already been using to explain the empty tomb. No one was disputing this. The debate over whether or not the disciples stole the body didnt stop here. Decades later, Justin Martyr gave the following address to the same challenge in his Dialogue (or debate) with Trypho 108. And though all the men of your nation knew the incidents in the life of Jonah, and though Christ said among you that He would give the sign of Jonah, exhorting you to repent of your wicked deeds at least after He rose again from the dead, and to mourn before God as did the Ninevites, in order that your nation and city might not be taken and destroyed, as they have been destroyed; yet you not only have not repented, after you learned that He rose from the dead, but, as I said before you have sent chosen and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilæan deceiver, whom we crucified, ***but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb,*** where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. Moreover, you accuse Him of having taught those godless, lawless, and unholy doctrines which you mention to the condemnation of those who confess Him to be Christ, and a Teacher from and Son of God. Besides this, even when your city is captured, and your land ravaged, you do not repent, but dare to utter imprecations on Him and all who believe in Him. Yet we do not hate you or those who, by your means, have conceived such prejudices against us; but we pray that even now all of you may repent and obtain mercy from God, the compassionate and long-suffering Father of all. Now as historian and apologist Dr. Mike Licona says, if a kid says to his teacher, The dog ate my homework (or if you were me in high school, I got distracted by AIM), hes presupposing and admitting that he doesnt have his homework. In the same sense, their saying that the disciples stole the body presupposes and admits that the tomb was in fact empty. Now its not difficult to refute the priests counter hypothesis. First of all, what they said reminds me of a joke I heard when I was ten. What is one question you can never honestly answer yes to?... Are you sleeping? In other words, if the guards were sleeping, how would they know that the disciples stole the body? Second, are we really supposed to believe that the guards would sleep on the job when their life would have been on the line? If they had let an alleged rebel leaders body get stolen, they would have been killed. This also poses problems for the general grave robbery hypothesis. This is also why the chief priests said to the soldiers, And if this comes to the governors ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” Finally, and this is the nail in the coffin, what motive would the disciples have had to steal the body when they knew it would have led them to live difficult and persecuted lives? In addition, what motive would anyone have had for stealing the body? The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead because they thought He was a blasphemer. The Romans wanted Jesus dead because they thought He was committing treason by claiming to be a king. The best bet would be some random Jew, but even this is unlikely. Not only is this difficult because of the Roman guards, who would have been guarding the tomb on pain of death, but also because the majority of Jews were strictly Torah observant. And they took Deuteronomy 21:22-23 seriously, which reads, And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. In other words, it was important to Jews to bury crucified victims because they didnt want the land to be ritually unclean. Bethsaida is the only known town not to strictly observe all aspects of the Torah, although im not sure if that only applied to the dietary laws or to other laws as well. They probably would have observed this particular law though because the priests would have made sure to enforce it, especially in Jerusalem, not to mention that it was during Passover Week. So even someone from Bethsaida would have a slim chance of even attempting to, much less succeeding in, stealing Jesus body. To see more on burial customs, see craigaevans/Burial_Traditions.pdf So if theres no likely candidate to steal Jesus body, heres the question that remains. How did the tomb become empty? I think the only good reason anyone would have for denying the resurrection with this in mind would be if they thought God had an even lower chance of existing than all of the other scenarios I listed. And given that the chances of all the facts happening without the resurrection are so low, the burden of proof will go on the skeptic to show that the probabilities for Gods existence and the resurrection are even lower.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 01:04:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015