On Creationism

I have blogged about Jesus' burial a couple of times, and to some degree this is repeating what was said earlier. However, in this post I want to focus on how the early Christians freely embellished the gospels as it suits their purpose. I would guess Joseph of Arimathea was in the habit of getting corpses off crosses, something he did as a requirement of his position and religion. The corpses would be dumped in a nearby communal grave, which is all his religion required. If the gospel is right, the entire Sanhedrin had condemned Jesus as a blasphemer, so no way would Joseph take any care of the body, he just wanted it under the ground. Chances are the disciples were not around; they guessed that that was what happened. Burial in a communal grave for criminals is as dishonourable as it gets, so as the decades passed the early Christians set about fixing that. Here is the earliest version we have by Mark. It claims Jesus was wrapped in linen and buried in a tomb cut out o...

I have been reading Robert Eisenman's "James the Brother of Jesus" recently. He makes the case that James was the leader of the Christian church after Jesus died, until his own death in AD 62. Since that time, however, his role got downplayed, as Jesus became ever more divine. It was awkward for God incarnate to have a brother, so James was redacted from the narrative. Eisenman draws on the Dead Sea Scrolls to a large degree, and this is generally regards as suspect, as he has to ignore the dating of the documents to make it work. Nevertheless, the rest of his argument seems to be well regarded, and I found it pretty convincing. Five years later (Jul/24): I now think Eisenman has it wrong. A better explanation: We have James, the Brother of John, who was an original disciple, and became leader of the church. Then we have James, the Brother of Jesus, a pious man who rejected Jesus claims when Jesus was alive, but became convinced later, perhaps after having a vision, and...

The Spear of Destiny is the weapon that supposedly was used to pierce Jesus to see if he was dead. Whether that actually happened is an interesting question. The Swoon Theory There is a claim, the "Swoon Theory", that Jesus did not die on the cross, and that instead he was taken down mistakenly whilst still alive, and he later managed to escape from his tomb, and so was later seen alive by the disciples. I personally do not find it very likely, but Christians who argue against will always cite the piercing by the spear as "proof" Jesus really was dead. The Account So we should take a look at what it says in John. John 19:31 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with J...