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Glycon Speaks Again
Or, Why I Don't Buy Skeptical
Reasons for Disbelief, Part 3
James Patrick Holding
In this final section Broken
Vector seeks primarily to argue that the NT offers a picture of a "spiritual" resurrection
rather than a physical one. Much of what is offered is refuted sufficiently
in our item here, but much else beside remains.
1 Cor. 9:19-23 is grossly misinterpreted; see here --
Broken Vector hypothesizes a handy "just so" story in which evangelists
change allegiances from "spiritual" to "physical" at the drop of a hat,
but apparently this wresting of 1 Cor. 9 is all that constitutes the
evidence, beyond the typically absurd demand-expectation that epistle
writers should have anticipated his questions about the empty tomb, or
detailed how the opposition went to the tomb and found it empty. The
testimony of two witnesses was enough for a Jew; they had many more on
their side already, and lack of dispute in the epistles over whether
the tomb was empty is not to be expected as all of these were written
to Christians well beyond the missionary stage, when that question would
already have been discussed and settled. Finally, as shown here,
there is every reason to suppose that such claims would have been investigated.
The next appeal is to syncretism.
Broken Vector produces a litany of cites (but no quotes) supposedly showing
that "traditions of physical resurrection already existed," but as the
first example is that of Zalmoxis,
and as some date later than Christianity (Apollonius), and others from
the OT are not resurrections expect by a broad, McKinseyite, "anyone
returning from death is resurrected" definition, we are content to dismiss
the cites as irrelevant and not of true resurrections unless proven otherwise.
Moreover, the only
evidence Christians offer for this "anathema" theory is Acts 17:30-32,
but that passage actually proves that many Greeks were receptive to
the idea. The passage tells us that "some of [the Greeks] sneered,
but others said 'we want to hear you again on this subject'...[and]
a few became followers of Paul and believed." Does this look like the
idea was "anathema" to the Greek mind? Hardly.
It shows that it was indeed "anathema" --
and could only be overcome by sufficient evidence. The sneering is undoubtedly
equivalent. The "we want to hear more" may be interest, or it may (more
likely!) be polite dismissal. ("Don't call us, we'll call you." -- anathematization
did not require rudeness!) But this is, despite Broken Vector, far from "the
only evidence" and we again refer to the link above.
From here we are treated to
a series of "just so" re-interpratations of Jesus' post-resurrection
appearances. The accounts of Paul in Acts are dismissed for first being
contradictory; see here, and as well are
dismissed as due to medical disorder, the handy skeptical cure-all for
any reported vision or miracle. It is said:
But the fact that
no one, not even Paul, saw Jesus in the flesh makes the point well
enough. Most importantly, Paul never says in his letters that he ever
saw Jesus in the flesh (he even denies it in Galatians 1).
One wonders where this is to
be found in Galatians 1, but beyond that we have a curiosity. Typical
disbelieving scholarship has tended to regard Acts as fabricated, and
Paul's letters as reliable. As noted in the link above, Paul's 1 Cor.
15 report can only be reckoned in terms of him being witness to a physical,
resurrected body. So the argument is between a rock and a hard place.
For our part, we may note that the consensus that Acts certainly compresses
Paul's speeches and experiences is enough to answer this point. Just
in case, though, we are given the insurance policy: "...the story could
be embellished or fabricated at leisure, for whatever reason." It could
also have been trimmed or toned down, "for whatever reason." One faith-punt
is as good as another if we choose to beg the question.
Further assumption is based
on the premise of Markan priority (see our series here).
The next move is to ascribe motives to Paul for preaching the resurrection.
Aside from acting as Paul's personal psychologist and positing hidden
guilt, we have this:
Paul may have seen
the clouds gathering on the horizon--the coming Jewish War. The Judaism
of Jesus--Jesus was not a heretic, after all, but a proper Jew, and
taught a reform of Judaism--offered an ideal solution to what any intelligent
man would have seen to be the impending doom of his people and his
faith. Violence was certain to bring about the destruction of Jerusalem
by Rome...And the Jewish desire for a savior was becoming militarized.
Josephus records the rising violent messianism rising from the twenties
all the way to the war in the sixties.
This fanciful "just so" account
fails on a few points. For one thing, Jesus clearly predicted the coming
destruction of Jerusalem and gave it no quarter, which hardly comports
with recognizing his way as the right one to do "non-violent submission".
Second, there is no logical connection between preaching a physical resurrection
and the prevention of violence -- it would have been just as well, if
not much easier, to preach that Jesus' body was translated like Moses'
or Elijah's; or else even easier to recognize Jesus as a true prophet.
No previous Jewish prophet needed to be resurrected to be recognized.
The prophet test was not "Was he resurrected?" but, "Did what he said
come to pass?" (as prescribed in Deuteronomy). Third, again, the Jews
already believed in "a displacement of present complaints by promissing
an accounting after death," they did not need Jesus to tell them this!
Fourth, the suggestion of Paul seeing a benefit in "the expansion of
the faith beyond racial limits" ignores the prevelant association of
race and religion in the ancient Mediterranean, and the innovative exclusivism
of the Christian faith; this is not to be compared to the syncretistic
Asian cults, with which there was a Roman fascination -- the attempt
to turn Paul into Jesse Jackson is a ludicrous convenience that is completely
counter to all conceptions of ancient personality and thinking. One did
not appease the Romans with a religion that still violated all of their
perceptions (more of them!), still regarded their virtues as misguided,
still demanded exclusive worship of a God they disdained while rejecting
the other deities, overturned their preferred social order, and converted
their people to accomplish its ends. Finally, the idea that there was
some idea of removing focus from the Temple as a "hotbed of violence" stumbles
upon the response that ideology and attitude, not geography, was at the
core of the violence; lacking a Temple did not prevent the revolt under
Bar Kochba; violence occurred in other precints than the Temple; and
Jerusalem Christians, and Paul, still met at the Temple and considered
it a worthwhile place to worship.
On Acts vs. Galatians
on Paul's conversion, see here.
Next among what is unique,
we embark upon the matter of the Gospels' reportage. Mark, to begin:
Without the late
addition to Mark, all Mark says is that there was the expectation of
an appearance. He does not record an actual appearance. Why would that
be? The Christian must explain this. It is not enough to say some ending
was lost and then added or replaced, since the manuscripts of Mark
are among the earliest we have, and these lack any ending at all. Why
would an ending be lost so quickly? And if it was, what did it say?
It is quite enough to say the
ending was lost, and we need no more special "explanation" for this than
we do for the loss of pieces of Tacitus' Histories or of entire
books of history. Many ancient documents are damaged; almost all are
now lost! Quickly? By any account it took about 150 years to lose Mark's
ending; what does Broken Vector suppose is the minimum time needed for
such a thing to happen? What did it say? Why ask other than to imply
that it is a problem? It could just as easily more to help our case.
We are told: "I am inclined to think that Mark ended it there because
appearances were not actually important to the original faith (as Stephen's
speech suggests)." Stephen's speech suggests no such thing, as we have
already noted, and in any event if Broken Vector accepts the standard
dating, Paul's creedal statement in 1 Cor. 15 far predates Mark -- and
it probably predates it anyway. Of course at this point we expect the
standard hypothesis stacked on hypothesis: Mark represents one stream
of tradition, Paul another! The litany of begged questions has no ending.
Here is another example:
The meaning of
the resurrection could also have originally been part of a secret doctrine
of initiation. Peter's use of the terminology of a mystery religion
suggests this possibility, and John's description of the Thomas episode
behind closed doors also looks like such a ceremony (more on this below),
and the obvious confusion in all the gospels as to what actually happened
after his death could easily be the result of a once-secret doctrine
now being corrupted as bits of it enter public knowledge, or as speculation
generates its own answers.
We will indeed look at "more
below" but in the meantime, what of this nonsense of Peter using "mystery
religion" terminology? We will see a specific below -- it is found under
the same premise that others find a Gnostic
Paul: by taking general terminology as exclusive. And
here is another fabulous construction:
The Markan passages
are consistent with the possibility that a spiritual resurrection was
meant, and the wording even suggests that a physical appearance might
not have been meant. The most basic meaning of both passages in Greek
is "I will escort you {plural} into Galilee" (proaxô hymas eis tên
Galilaian, 14.28) and "he escorts you {plural} into Galilee" (proagei
hymas eis tên Galilaian, 16.7).
The verb proagô means "to
lead foreward, or to lead before"...When an accusative object appears
(and in both passages it does: the pronoun "you" (plural), hymas),
it must be transitive, and that means it must mean in some sense lead.
Why would Jesus (or Mark) choose this verb, instead of a dozen others
that actually mean "go before"?...The phrase may have simply meant
that his spirit would be upon them and lead them, inspire them, to
go to Galilee--where, for instance, there would be a vision concerning
him, a concept present throughout Acts and the epistles. Indeed, I
must say that this is the most likely interpretation.
Of course Broken Vector "must" say
this, but it is far off the beam indeed. What if it does mean, "lead" in
this sense? Then the idea of "there would be a vision concerning him" is
merely tacked on with no justification. It is just as well said, "there
would be a physical appearance by him" or "there will be a juggling contest
starring him." Whether it is proverbial or unique is utterly beside the
point and proves nothing in this context, other than that Broken Vector
knows how to pad his essays with irrelevancies. In any event, one can
just as well see Broken Vector arguing, even if wrong (as indicated by
Witherington, Mark commentary, 377), that Jesus "went ahead" in the form
of a spirit and did not have a resurrection body to speak of.
The next step is to dismiss
Paul's 500 witnesses. Again we would note that within the contexts described here that
500 witnesses are a plausible and necessary corollary of the spread
of Christianity. Other than once again dismissing Paul's testimony of
himself as above, and trying to blunt the force of "appeared" by noting
that it is often used to say "appeared in a vision" (which makes no difference,
since the key function of the word is the appearing itself, not the mode;
to say "I have seen the accident" is not invalidated because someone
else says, "I have seen a purple rhinoceros"), and once again
abusing 1 Cor. 9 and Acts 9/22/26 vs Galatians (see links above), and
positing visionary experiences not justified by the language of 1 Cor.
15 (see link at top), we have this against the 1 Cor. 15 creed:
- "...a vague, unconfirmable,
hyperbolic assertion is just the sort of claim all men ought to suspect
as rhetorical." This merely begs the question and assumes that Paul
is presenting this claim for the first time upon the unsuspecting Corinthians.
But Broken Vector fails to note, first, that Paul is reminding the
Corinthians of this matter; second, that 1 Cor. 15:3 and following
is in the form of a creedal statement, from which the expectation of "detailed" and
of witness names is an absurdity. "Unconfirmable" is merely asserted
-- the witnesses were quite confirmable, and as shown in the link above,
would be required for the faith to spread. "Hyperbolic" is merely a
begged question -- what is unreasonable about 500 people witnessing
the resurrected Jesus? Nothing -- unless we assume that it is not reasonable
in the first place! Did the ancient world have less than 500 people
living in it or something? Is there some reason why Jesus could not
have had upwards of 500 followers in the whole Jewish population? One
may as well suspect this objection as "rhetorical" on the grounds of
being vague and too readily dismissive!
For empahasis let us stress these
points. Paul's letters, written between 49 and 65 A.D., exhibit the
same fully-evolved Christology; logically, he must have gotten it
from sometime earlier than 49 A.D. Paul cites creeds, hymns and sayings
of Jesus that must have been come from earlier (Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Cor.
11:23; 1 Cor. 15:3ff; Col. 1:15-16; Phil. 2:6-11; 1 Tim. 3:16; 2
Tim. 2:8); these items translate easily into Aramaic and show features
of Hebrew poetry and thought-forms, which allows us to trace their
origins to Jesus' first followers in Judea, between 33 and 48 A.D.
-- their contextual use does not, despite Broken Vector, submit the
speculation that Paul invented the creeds himself as an Aramaic speaker!
The 500 witnesses are part of a creedal statement and barring absurd
and unjustified assumptions of interpolation (as refuted
here) cannot simply be dismissed as "vague, etc" because Paul
did not meet our absurd demand-expectations 2000 years later and
because we wish to assume that all persons who heard this were apathetic
and ignorant fanatics who swallowed the Christian Gospel whole. In
fact as shown in the link above, this would be far from the case.
Once again this plays well among the arrogant skeptical crowd, but
is a far cry from reality, which hits much harder.
- "Paul could also have been
reporting hearsay, which I think is most likely--after all, I seriously
doubt he interviewed over 500 people, and so should you." That this
would be "hearsay" in a modern legal sense
is of no relevance -- most everything reported in history and in the
world is hearsay by that definition, and Broken Vector
of all people knows this! Moreover, this is a church Paul persecuted
to all points, and he travelled extensively; he would have been able
to meet a substantial number of these witnesses in these travels, and
may have even targeted them as a persecutor! There is no grounds for
deeming "hearsay" as likely, or dismissing it for that matter -- other
than a begged question.
- Finally further down: It
is said, "Paul is clearly trying to explain what the resurrected body
is like, of which Christ's resurrection is the first fruit, to Christians
in Corinth who want to know. Yet he works entirely from first principles,
building a theological, scripturally-based argument. He never once
does the obvious: simply quote the witness of the Disciples who saw
Jesus' resurrected body. Yet wouldn't that make more sense?" It did,
and that is exactly what Paul did when he quoted the creed in response
to the Corinthians' denial of the resurrection! The creed was a compact
summary of the apostolic witness to the Resurrection.
Testimony of Peter's letters
(and Jude and James, etc) are dismissed on the same grounds as before
(i.e., absurd expectations for a modern readers' doubts; wanting mention
of an empty tomb, et al where the context offers no reason to do so),
but we do return to a point previously made: it is said that Peter "argues
that he was an eyewitness" using the word epoptê, "literally an
initiate in the highest rank of a mystery religion, but also meaning
spectator..." (2 Pet. 1:16) And thus we presume are we to believe that
Peter's vision of Jesus was that of the Scooby Doo School, but Broken
Vector has covered himself properly here. It also means "spectator" --
yes, and thus, there is no inherent meaning that demands a member of
the mystery school. Beyond that: This passage does mean the Transfiguration,
yes; but it is far from evident that it may be taken thereby that "it
shows that the Resurrection appearances were not considered the most
important evidence of divinity." As noted in the Synoptics, the Transfiguration
was intimately tied to the coming of Jesus in power; it was seen as a
prefigurement. Peter isn't fighting here an idea that Jesus was not resurrected;
he is countering claims concerning the supposed falsity of Jesus' parousia ("coming" in
v. 16, and 2 Peter 3:4). The matter is not "evidence of divinity" that
appeal to a resurrection appearance could solve; the matter is refuting
the contention that Jesus made a prophecy that was false. (And
on that matter, see here.
Broken Vector's next attempt
to blot out a physical resurrection turns upon a mangling of Philippians
3:
...this entire
chapter is couched within a spurn-the-flesh and glorify-the-spirit
theme. Paul has no confidence in the flesh anymore (3:3), and he equates
confidence in the flesh with living as a Pharisee (3:4-5) when he was
a persecutor (3:6) and not a Christian, and he rejected that law (and
thus Pharisaism by implication from 3:5) when he took to Christ (3:9).
Thus, Paul is emphasizing that he is not a Pharisee, but a Christian,
and has rejected Pharisaic obsessions with the law and with the flesh.
But here again, as in 1 Cor.
15, Broken Vector fails to recognize "flesh" as a metaphor for human
weakness. (See again link atop.) The premise that Paul could have abandoned
a Pharasaic view of resurrection as he did their view on the law is not
only contradicted by Acts 23:6, but is a false analogy: It was Christ's
very atoning work that led Paul to reject the Pharasaic take on the law,
and there is no corresponding supersedence to cite at all for abandoning
the view of resurrection, unless we assume first that Jesus was not resurrected
after a physical fashion. Moreover, did Paul abandon every Pharasaic
doctrine?
On the matter of Zoroaster,
see here. Broken Vector's polemical accusation
that William Lane Craig "sidesteps the fact that no one saw Jesus rise
from the dead" is a sound bite which fails to report that no one has
ever used witness to the actual resurrection as an argument. We are also
thrown insurance policies:
- ...of grave
robbers or occultists stealing the body, which is not far from
the ploy I suggested of time-travelling ritual Satanists. Were such
persons residents of Jerusalem and Judaea, where the black arts were
forbidden? Which group did they represent? Is there record of such
groups and such crimes in this time and place? Or did they travel
from afar just to steal Jesus' body? If so, what is the problem of
confirming things like the 500 witnesses? Without answers this suggestion
is as good as "aliens did it". Moreover, whatever the skull of a
holy man may have been worth to such people, they did not select
an easy target: a tomb in or next to the largest city (and never
mind possible guards) with a blocking stone weighing over a ton.
And let it be added that via his disgraceful and dishonorable death,
Jesus lost any status as a "holy man" he would have had in the eyes
of the ancients. A moral teacher, at best -- that skull was worthless!
- ...of "the old switcheroo." As
I have noted elsewhere, this one isn't even developed enough to deserve
the title of "argument": If Joseph was not on Jesus' side as the Gospels
suggest, he would have had no concern for Jesus' body to be defiled,
and would have put in the graveyard or allowed it to be put there,
and no motive to give a false location. If Joseph was a disciple as
the Gospels suggest, then where did the body start, what location did
he falsely give, where did the body actually go, how did he manage
the end-around, and what happened as a result? Such a tactic would
foolish and ineffectual -- by Mishnah rules cited, when the time came
for the body to be extracted from wherever Joseph reported (and one
must ask, who is he reporting to, and would he report the same to the
Sanhedrin and the disciples, and if not, what of applying pressure
to the disciples to 'fess up?), it would be all too obvious that he
had pulled a fast one (the Sanhredin would not buy the "resurrected
body" excuse any more than Broken Vector!). If there was no body at
all especially, but even then, whose tomb did Joseph get permission
to "do the burial" in and why would they be inclined to give him permission?
There would also be ripples of apologetic response defending the location
of the burial, which we do not see at all, and inevitable results to
Joseph's well-intentioned lie. This is again no more than a skeptical
double-punt to maintain faith -- and indeed is not even fully developed
enough to be called a reasonable or worthwhile thesis. Like Schoenfield's Passover
Plot it can only work by adding layers of speculation, otherwise
unknown and (in context) ungrounded persons and helpers, and a vast
presumption of ancient stupidity and apathy. If this is permitted,
then what barrier is there to having Joseph have Nicodemus there even
if he is not mentioned in the Synoptics?
Argument is then offered
that Joseph's tomb was intended as a temporary storage place (see
Glenn Miller's item linked at the end of part 2). Elsewhere it is
noted that the body would be moved by Sunday morning. This of course
assumes that Joseph was no friend of Jesus, and would have no problem
refuting resurrection claims by noting, "Hey, it's over there, guys." But
just as much must Broken Vector dispose of Joseph by hook or by crook:
We do not know
what happened to Joseph, or what his interest in the religion was,
so we do not know if he would have tried to refute the resurrection
stories that came out months later, or let them flourish for the
good of the creed, or if he was dead himself and thus no one who
had any influence knew that he had moved the body.
Indeed! Actually we do
know what Joseph's interest was; the Gospels tell us, but that won't
work with Broken Vector's thesis and so must of necessity be discarded.
Now why, though, if he disagreed, would he not tried to have refute
the stories? The "good of the creed" excuse works here no better
than for Paul. The "he was dead" excuse sounds promising, if not
a tad too convenient for skeptics, but had Joseph no family, no servants,
no friends, no obligation to report to his peers? (Broken Vector
thinks that Joseph as a sanhedrin member stepped up to do obliged
burial duty; does he think that in this scenario Joseph did it on
his own and without consultation? Was the Sanhedrin a body that sat
and waited around until someone got an itch?) And then what of Nicodemus?
(We know: "Only one mentions it...") Would he have been disinterested
in refuting them? Men who followed one buried in his own tomb were
now preaching eternal salvation based on that man, an offense to
the piety of Judaism, and he would not be interested? As a member
of the Sanhedrin, whose power and prestige were threatened and mocked,
you can bet your shekels he would be interested. But as far as Broken
Vector is concerned, any speculation in a storm, no matter how contrary
to evidence and reality, will do. I am surprised it is not suggested
that Joseph was kidnapped by the Christians and killed -- or taken
by space aliens.
On the matter of lack of
veneration of the tomb, we have the "Disneyland Palestine" argument
used by Earl Doherty, refuted here.
And now back to the Synoptics
again. On the misuse of Matthew 28:17, see our previous essay.
Use of Mark 16:12 is illicit, despite Broken Vector's supposition
to the contrary, as it appears in the text at least 150 years after
the fact. There can be no grounds for using this passage to prove
anything, unless one is seeking a dishonest advantage.
The appearance recorded
in Luke 24.16 to Cleopas and another (despite Broken Vector's suggestion,
not Peter) is described, and it is said, "there is enough that
is odd about this account to place in doubt the belief that Jesus
actually appeared to them." No logical connection is made to "oddity" and
the implication that this means there should be doubt of an appearance,
and it is not explained what exactly is "odd" about the account.
The ancients would not have found it odd; we have accounts told
of gods disappearing in this fashion (and we next anticipate the "it
was stolen from those," versus Jesus meeting expectations of his
contemporaries on this point, routine-assumption). Luke 24.36-50
is multiply waved away with the suggestion that "it is possible
that this ending did not exist in earlier versions of Luke" (perhaps
one even more concrete did, eh, and the docetists changed it! --
but there is not a shred of textual evidence for such a position),
with the premise of Markan priority and Gospel interdependence
(see above link), and the suggestion of "a group vision arising
from religious hysteria" or "the invention of the story by the
eleven in order to give their continuation of Jesus' ministry more
authority." That is some hallucination indeed that can carry on
rational conversations, eat fish (we hope it also did the dishes
and didn't leave bones on the plate), can be handled, and can even
walk all the way out to Bethany with them. Maybe it was one of
those Star Trek hologram programs. "They made it up" is
much handier and easier to throw around, but unless evidence negating
this point is dealt with it's no more than confetti (see links
above, especially beginning paragraph).
And Mary Magdelene's
special look? Here's the scoop:
Mary assumes
at first that it is the gardener, then she falls into his arms
weeping (20.13-17) and takes him to be Jesus, reporting some
religious message of his to her later listeners. All of this
suggests a vision, or at least that what she saw was not Jesus
but some bystander, like the gardener, that she took to be Jesus,
and she then imagined the rest or made it up so as to encourage
the other mourners with the possibility that their leader was
spiritually triumphant.
All of this smacks of
convenience, plugging in "imagined" or "made it up" where any other
option fails; though were this the only appearance of Jesus, we
might stretch it to the realm of improbable possibility. It is
not "very odd that she did not know who it was until he spoke." Why
is this odd? How is Broken Vector's voice recognition capability
-- perfect score? Even in a state of distracted grief? Further
questions as to why Jesus did not go along are moot since he went
on to appear to others (see below) though one may ask whether there
is some semblance of balance in suggesting that the following ruckus
of public appearanes, and the reaction and chaos that would follow,
makes the methods at hand more reasonable. The "wrong tomb" suggestion
is also thrown in the air, though this is useless without data
on the number of tombs that could have been subject to mistake,
how full the directions and signs were to identify the tomb (the
collapsed statement, "apart from whatever directions Mary gave
them" is made to sound vague, but does not establish that her directions
or descriptions were vague); it ignores the finding of the graveclothes
(were those put in by someone for "the good of the creed" perhaps?),
and that such a mistake would be all to obvious to point out. Here
again Broken Vector merely seeks to shatter faith upon any convenient
rock.
Appearances recorded
by John are dismissed thusly:
John 20.19
records that when Jesus appeared to the others, it is after Mary's
impassioned story, while all are mourning and have locked themselves
indoors "in fear of the Jews" . This is a situation ripe for
hallucination (dark place, hopes stirred, fear raging, strong
desire for reassurance; see my discussion of hallucination and
the Gospel stories), or invention (what goes on behind locked
doors to a priveleged few, who need to cook up something to save
their *ss [by gaining supporters to protect them from their persecutors],
is easily suspect).
Broken Vector's methodology
is far more suspect here. A dark place? Where does it say that?
(It was evening outside, but has anyone ever heard of "torches" or
other lighting implements?) Hopes stirred? Hardly -- as noted here the
hope instilled would still not anticipate a resurrected body or
an appearance. Fear "raging"? Where is the proof of this? Is it
not possible to express a rational fear? Strong desire for reassurance?
Again, where is this, other than in Broken Vector's imagination
(and contrary to the conventional wisdom of the day which regarded
defeat as permanent)? Invention? That falls on the rocks of the
material linked above; none of this would "save their *ss" (or
any other part of the bodies) but would make things far worse,
if not impossible to live with. Proclaiming a resurrected Jesus
would gain no support and stop no persecutor at all. If this was
the route taken, then Christianity should have disappeared from
history by 120 AD at the latest. The motive and means to be true
witnesses are more apparent and far more compelling.
Finally John's last recorded
appearance hypothesizes that John and Peter alone, the deluded
souls, saw this person as Jesus on the shore, and says further:
But when
they all come to eat with this stranger, 21.12 says that "none
of them dared to ask him, 'Who are you?', knowing that he was
the lord". Why would they feel the need to ask him who he is,
unless it was not obvious to them? The verb tolmaô means "be
brave enough to, dare to" and this entails that they were afraid
to ask, in other words afraid to gainsay their leader Peter,
or Jesus' unnamed favorite.
It entails no such thing.
How would the five be "afraid" to gainsay only the word of two?
Did this stranger just accept the designation, and why? (For the "good
of the creed"?) Is fear indeed implied? (It is not always so elsewhere
with tolmao: Matt. 22:46 "And no man was able to answer
him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask
him any more questions."; Rom. 5:7, "For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to
die." It just as well means -- in light of the previous experiences
-- that they now knew better than to question when the evidence
was so clear; in this case, a clear repeat of the miracle of a
miraculous catch. Fear and the linked argument is found here only
in Broken Vector's imagination.
It is added:
Perhaps they
went along out of compassion for this distraught man, or perhaps
they were persuaded by his conviction, for they certainly did
not see Jesus, or at least the account does not say so. The verb
oida here, again, means to know (by having seen or understood),
and so they may have understood the stranger to be Jesus even
though it did not appear to be him.
"Compassion" for such
things is unlikely; in a collectivist society, this sort of behavior
would have been suppressed, not sympathized with, and no cause
for agreement. As for the verb, it is used numerous times of things
plainly seen and understood for what they are; and if it was not
Jesus, who was it, why were they making food, how did he manage
to imitate Peter's threefold denial, what business did he have
asking if Peter loved him, and so on? Perhaps Peter thought he
imagined all this as well and no one said a word.
On the matter of "anonymous" eyewitnesses
and Lukan authorship see here. On the matter of alleged Lukan mishandling of Paul see link above.
It is also worth noting the skeptical begged question that Luke's
belief in demons makes him an unreliable witness.
Broken Vector closes
out his project with some exculpatory excuse-making:
One final
word about "secular" history is necessary. It amazes me how Christians
think us historians are all gullible dupes who "never" dispute
anything an ancient historian writes. Indeed, I know of no ancient
author, of any genre or subject, whom any modern historian completely
trusts--and that even includes the most meticulous of them all,
Polybius and Thucydides. The first thing we are taught as historians
is not to trust any source. We are taught to find ulterior motives,
weaknesses of evidence, the tendency to embellish and regard
rumor and myth as fact, the attraction of amazing tales over
sober reality (an attraction more than once explicitly stated,
in even serious historians like Tacitus), as well as literary
features such as redaction, propaganda, and agenda.
I have some doubts that
this as described is what, or rather everything, historians are
taught (and if they are, it only makes them arrogant and presumptive
as Broken Vector has been), but even so, I doubt much more that
any modern historian has gone to the variable lengths that Broken
Vector has in order to rewrite the accounts of the Resurrection.
The closest parallel I know of comes from those who say Shakespeare
never wrote his own works -- and concoct fantasy variables to explain
away the positive evidence. An honest historian, E. P. Sanders,
has admitted that the resurrection appearance are insoluble in
his view and that he does not know what actually happened. This
is a fair assessment, one Broken Vector could stand to learn from.
The Gospels are not rendered suspicious via "guilt by association" with
other ancient documents merely because of their time and place.
And although
he is claimed to have had wealthy supporters (Joseph of Arimathea),
by whom he was supposedly believed to be the divine savior of
all mankind--the most important person ever to have lived, God
Incarnate--somehow no inscriptions of any kind were ever commissioned.
But we have the Gospel of Epicurus on stone, commissioned by
Diogenes of Oenoanda. He obviously cared more about his savior's
message than Joseph did about that of Jesus. What does that tell
you?
It tells us no more than
that inscriptions were not the way Joseph, or others, saw fit to
do it. A wealthy patron commissioned Luke to write his Gospel;
wealthy people funded Paul's missionary journeys and likely those
of others. An inscription just sits there in one place and says
nothing, wears away over time, and appeals mainly to the ego of
the subject and the payee, and at any rate wasn't typically a Jewish
method. This is little more than a modern expecting others to think
as he does and agree with him.
But crucified
deities were not absurd to the Sumerians, who worshipped the
crucified Innana (cf. Samuel Noah Kramer, History Begins at Sumer,
3rd. revised ed., 1981, pp. 154ff.).
You would think by now
skeptics would know that I check these things. Innana was not exactly
crucified, and was worshipped as the queen of heaven and goddess
of love already at the time the referred event happened -- unlike
Jesus, who didn't have much in the way of such an advantage. "Crucified"?
In no sense -- she was hung on a stake after being killed (via "the
death stare" by the judges of the underworld, whom she had tricked
the gatekeeper to get in to see), and also brought back to life
-- vindicated! -- which means in this context that Jesus could
only have been brought back to life and vindicated also. Finally,
even if we stretch that to "crucified" we still don't have hundreds
of years of history behind the practice and the consideration of
it as shameful and disgusting, the death of slaves and rebels.
The comparison to Innana is off three bases.
The Greeks
had Prometheus, who suffered a similar fate, and the very popular
religion of Cybele had Attis, a castrated deity whose male priests
castrated themselves in their god's honor.
We would note that Promy's
fate was hardly "similar" (see here),
to say nothing of his life; we would add that the
whole point is that Promy was punished unjustly by a capricious
jerk named Zeus -- if anything, a Promy parallel would make things
worse, for it would suggest that God was a capricious jerk who
allowed His only begotten Son to die; and Jesus' sentence was not
looked upon as unjust, indeed, he essentially pled guilty to sedition
and openly committed blasphemy!
As for Attis, good point
-- do you see a church of Attis today? The Attis cults fit the
Sabbatai model, although they also did have the advantage of being
in a time when the body was considered by many to be base and evil.
Under such considerations castration was arguably not absurd at
all. In any event there isn't any parallel here to Christianity,
which did not die off, and had much worse to defend itself on.
It is said in closing: "...[W]hat
is really absurd is to look at all of human history and still think
it is a reasonable argument that because something is absurd or
distasteful, no one will do it. It is even more absurd when the
thing in question is saddled inside a very attractive, pleasing,
and useful package. Who cares if your god was crucified, so long
as you will live forever by believing it?" Beyond the vague and
arrogant generalizing, and the general argument which we have refuted
above, Broken Vector makes a salient point. People do go to absurd
lengths to keep their beliefs going, and we have seen ample evidence
of that here as well. Every argument discarded in the past has
here been resurrected, for no obvious purpose other than to instill
doubt. Why don't I buy skeptical excuses for disbelief? Because
their primary sale item is snake oil.
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