What if the person doing miracles at-will and declaring himself God incarnate was your own brother?Grave robbers!
One thing we can say with relative certainty (even though most people – including lots of scholars!) have never thought about this or realized it, is that no one came to think Jesus was raised from the dead because three days later they went to the tomb and found it was empty. It is striking that Paul, our first author who talks about Jesus’ resurrection, never mentions the discovery of the empty tomb and does not use an empty tomb as some kind of “proof” that the body of Jesus had been raised.Moreover, whenever the Gospels tell their later stories about the tomb, it never, ever leads anyone came to believe in the resurrection. The reason is pretty obvious. If you buried a friend who had recently died, and three days later you went back and found the body was no longer there, would your reaction be “Oh, he’s been exalted to heaven to sit at the right hand of God”? Of course not. Your reaction would be: “Grave robbers!” Or, “Hey, I’m at the wrong tomb!”Depends on who my friend is. If my friend is God Incarnate, if my friend performed astounding miracles at will–including the ability to raise the dead–if my friend predicted his death and resurrection, if Isaiah predicted messiah's death and resurrection (Isa 53:7-12), then the first reaction, the most logical reaction, to the empty tomb shouldn't be “Grave robbers!” Or, “Hey, I’m at the wrong tomb!”
Would you do what Jesus' mother, brother James and other members of his immediately family did throughout his entire three year ministry, and draw the conclusion that Jesus was mentally unstable?
From Mark 3
20 And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.In the parallel from Matthew 13, Jesus specifies that his enemies includes those living in his own house (i.e., family)
21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses."
22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, "He is possessed by Beelzebul," and "He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons."
23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan?
24 "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
25 "If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
26 "If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished!
27 "But no one can enter the strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.
28 "Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter;
29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin "--
30 because they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit."
31 Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him.
32 A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, "Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You."
33 Answering them, He said, "Who are My mother and My brothers?"
34 Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers!
35 "For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother."
(Mk. 3:20-35 NAU)
54 He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?
55 "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
56 "And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?"
57 And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household."
58 And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. (Matt. 13:54-58 NAU)
From John 7:
1 After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.Something tells me you'd rather not delve too far into the historically plausible reasons Jesus' immediate family might have had for not finding him the least bit credible throughout his three year ministry...you might discover that they are not likely to have become believers later as the liar who wrote the book of Acts says.
2 Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near.
3 Therefore His brothers said to Him, "Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing.
4 "For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world."
5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him.
6 So Jesus said to them, "My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune.
7 "The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.
(Jn. 7:1-7 NAU)
But you aren't answering the argument. How can today's Christians claim consistency with the apostolic method of preaching, when the apostolic method of preaching nowhere expresses or implies that anybody ever came to faith in Jesus because they were unable to naturalistically account for the empty tomb?
ANNOYED PINOY5/08/2018 10:35 AM☍...no one came to think Jesus was raised from the dead because three days later they went to the tomb and found it was empty.
Yeah, because the disciples didn't believe Jesus was resurrected because of an empty tomb, but because they SAW and INTERACTED with the risen Lord.
If you want to claim consistency with the apostolic method of truth-proving, show me Jesus, or fuck you.
It is striking that Paul, our first author who talks about Jesus’ resurrection, never mentions the discovery of the empty tomb and does not use an empty tomb as some kind of “proof” that the body of Jesus had been raised.Things modern Christianity doesn't have, apparently. No apostolicity for you.
Because he and the other disciples had better proof than a merely empty tomb. Namely, encounters with the risen Christ.
Also, given Paul's purposes of writing, there were no necessary reasons to bring up the tombs being empty. That's already assumed in his Jewish use of the concept of resurrection.Still doesn't answer the point about why the NT never indicates anybody ever came to faith because of an empty tomb. If you want to convert people the way the apostles did, stop talking about the empty tomb.
Moreover, whenever the Gospels tell their later stories about the tomb, it never, ever leads anyone came to believe in the resurrection.Again, encounters that you don't have to offer today, you lose.
Again, it's because they encountered the resurrected Jesus.
In the same way that a better proof that a baby has just been born is to actually see the baby, instead of focusing on the exhausted mother who had given it birth.Exactly. So stop talking about the exhausted mother and show us the baby. Otherwise, don't expect us to keep listening as you go off into stupid shit like "he's invisible now". God clearly isn't doing his best to convince unbelievers to convert.
