The Mystery Of The Empty Tomb

[adrift]

adrift;5591074:

Read the text. It says before sundown. Towards sundown. It was not sundown yet. It means you are not off the hook. From sunset to sundown, you cannot count as a night and a day together. You could if Matthew 12:40 was about three days and nights. But he said three and three nights. So the days and the nights must be there or the mouse will breathe his last still on the trap.

Towards sundown then means that it was still day, day one, Sat. Day two Sunday Day three. But look at what Fr. Echert says

1. Jesus may have been speaking loosely of the time span with regards to the nights, in accommodation of the OT reference to Jonah. This should not unsettle us with regards to inerrancy, for if it was intended loosely by the Lord, there is no error.

1. The afternoon darkness which settled upon the land as Jesus hung upon the cross as He was dying, perhaps caused by an eclipse in accord with divine providence, may account for the first of the nights, followed by the normal sunset of Friday and then followed by the normal sunset of Saturday. This would account for the three nights.

1. To understand this in the sense that our Lord meant part of the day of Preparation (Friday night), the whole of the Sabbath day (Saturday) and part of the day of the Resurrection (Sunday morning).

St. Augustine rejects the second option as unlikely; St. Jerome proposes the third option. I am in agreement with both and favor the third option. For our Lord did not say that He would spend three full nights in the earth but three nights, which is easily fulfilled by parts and the whole of the three days of Preparation, Sabbath, and Resurrecti

Did Jesus mean to be taken literally or was, as Father Echert says, Jesus speaking loosly not meaning to have the hours measured but only speaking of His death and Resurrection? I don’t believe He meant to be a literaly as you want it to be. The point was not the days but telling them that the sign they were looking for would be provided in His Resurrection.

 

[JohnT58]

The text says that Jesus had been raised and not risen. There is an enormous difference between being raised and risen. By the will of God, one is risen. By the will of man one is raised. Jesus was raised, and there is no use to try to rewrite the text, because it won’t help.

The first time I came across these kinds of arguements was in Holy Blood & Holy Grail, then in The Mesianic Legacy, and then repeated in every other addition to the anti-christian genre. A pseudo-history, the book was panned by historians, academics and biblical scholars alike upon its release, and, needless to say, rejected by the Church and other denominations.
When it was rewritten as ‘The Da Vinci Code’, Dan Brown used anagrams of the original fraudsters, I mean authors names, to come up with the names for central characters. A much better read, and at least one can accept it as a work of fiction from the outset, rather than masquerading as something worthy of academic or historical debate! :hey_bud:

 

[Ben_Masada]

Ben Masada;5595223:

Towards sundown then means that it was still day, day one, Sat. Day two Sunday Day three. But look at what Fr. Echert says

Did Jesus mean to be taken literally or was, as Father Echert says, Jesus speaking loosly not meaning to have the hours measured but only speaking of His death and Resurrection? I don’t believe He meant to be a literaly as you want it to be. The point was not the days but telling them that the sign they were looking for would be provided in His Resurrection.

**Adrift, I have made a very important mispelling mistake with the word SUNDAWN. Please, make it sundawn with an “A” and not “O.” That’s what I meant.

It doesn’t matter what Jesus meant or didn’t. The guy who wrote Matthew 12:40 said three days and three nights, and a whole day and night are missing. And regarding your Father Echert, he is too hypothetical. The Truth is hardly to be found in hypotheses. Therefore, I discard his opinion. Let us concentrate the power of our minds to decipher what we have in the NT.**

 

[Ben_Masada]

The first time I came across these kinds of arguements was in Holy Blood & Holy Grail, then in The Mesianic Legacy, and then repeated in every other addition to the anti-christian genre. A pseudo-history, the book was panned by historians, academics and biblical scholars alike upon its release, and, needless to say, rejected by the Church and other denominations.
When it was rewritten as ‘The Da Vinci Code’, Dan Brown used anagrams of the original fraudsters, I mean authors names, to come up with the names for central characters. A much better read, and at least one can accept it as a work of fiction from the outset, rather than masquerading as something worthy of academic or historical debate! :hey_bud:

And what is your contribution to help here with the issue?

 

[shoewindow3000]

To Ben Masada:

I understand you do not believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah.

Can you answer this question then?

Why hasn’t God sent a Prophet since Malachi to the Jewish people? I mean, it’s only been 2,500 years or so!

(I do not mean to sound rude. I am simply curious as to know what Jewish people have to say about this. My Jewish friends seem to not know in real life, so I though that I would ask one online. Thanks!)

One more thing:
What do Jewish people thing about Paul’s conversion and martyrdom?

 

[Ben_Masada]

To Ben Masada:

I understand you do not believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah.

Can you answer this question then?

Why hasn’t God sent a Prophet since Malachi to the Jewish people? I mean, it’s only been 2,500 years or so!

(I do not mean to sound rude. I am simply curious as to know what Jewish people have to say about this. My Jewish friends seem to not know in real life, so I though that I would ask one online. Thanks!)

One more thing:
What do Jewish people thing about Paul’s conversion and martyrdom?

**We don’t need any more prophets. We have the Scriptures. We have evolved enough to know God’s will through the Scriptures. Until Malachi, we didn’t have the Scriptures in its formal organization as Ezra made it possible for us. Part of my answer is illustrated by Deuteronomy 30:11-14. Take a look at it. Besides, according to the New Covenant, if you read Jeremiah 31:34, we no longer need anyone to teach us to know the Lord. We can do it ourselves through the Scriptures.

Then, I have a question related to this one for you. Why hasn’t God sent Jesus back according to the promise? It has been “only” 2000 years.

About Paul’s strategic conversion and martyrdom, we think the same as the martyrdom of hundreds of Baha’is in Iran at the time of the Aiatolla Chommeni. Many went to their death without retracting their faith. What do you think? I don’t think there is much of a difference.
How about Muslims exploding themselves for their faith in Islam? Nothing of this means they have a monopoly on the Truth. Paul simply died for his cause and this is really common anywhere.**

 

[shoewindow3000]

Imagine a very anti-Christian Jewish leader who is known by many people as persecuting Christians. Then, all of a sudden, he is a Christian.

That is what happen to Paul. So no, it isn’t the same.

At least there is one thing Christians and Jews have in common:

We both are waiting for the Messiah. (Even though we differ on it.)

 

[Ben_Masada]

Imagine a very anti-Christian Jewish leader who is known by many people as persecuting Christians. Then, all of a sudden, he is a Christian.

That is what happen to Paul. So no, it isn’t the same.

At least there is one thing Christians and Jews have in common:

We both are waiting for the Messiah. (Even though we differ on it.)

**Would you found a church to persecute the adepts of your church? Of course not! Paul never persecuted a single Christian. Christians started with Paul. Read Acts 11:26. He used to persecute Nazarenes followers of the New Way.
(Acts 9:1:1-3)

If I were you, I would go easy on that thing in common you think we have with Christians. Talking for myself, I wait for no Messiah. The Messiah is back. He has returned. This has been his third return. The first was from Egypt, when the Messianic leader Moses brought the Messiah back to Canaan. The second time was from Babylon, when the Messianic leader Cyrus proclaimed the return of the Messiah to the Land of Israel. The third time has been now when Theodor Herzl inspired the Messiah with love for Zion, and we have returned.

Your Messiah, whom you think was Jesus, even as a Messianic leader, he could not classify, because instead of bringing the Messiah home, the Messiah was expelled to the four corners of the earth.**

 

[shoewindow3000]

The Jewish people always rebelled against God, persecuting his Prophets, constantly turning to idolatry, etc. Is it really a surprise they reject their Messiah? (I don’t mean to sound rude, but isn’t it ironic?)

“The Way” was what people referred to as Christianity.

To quote Paul, in his own words:

(Epistle to the Galatians)

I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they praised God because of me.

Here are some of the things he endured for spreading the Gospel:

“far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far worse beatings, and numerous brushes with death. Five times at the hands of the Jews I received
forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from the gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure. And apart from these things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches”
(2 Corinthians 11:23-28).

Eventually he was decapitated in Rome for being a Christian

 

[w_stewart]

**Regarding appearing for 40 days soon after such a crucifixion you have to accept by faith, because it was reported 50+ years after the fact. **

The empty tomb was immediately reported by the Roman guards to the Jewish priests but the priests bribed them to keep their mouths shut. Until now, the Jews are living in lies witt you as one of them.

 

[w_stewart]

**If they had not written down 50+ years after the alleged fact, you would not know today that it had been reported immediately. Can you see any difference from what I said? **

But not being written is different from not being reported.

Without the writings, the Church would still be able to preach to the world about Christ.

 

[shoewindow3000]

many books of the NT were much earlier than “50+ years later.”

Mark, for example, was from around 65 AD. Paul’s epistles are from around 60 A.D.

 

[w_stewart]

There is no truth in a dead man with power. Jesus was raised by the power of another man.

Who could be this “man” who raised Jesus from the dead?

And by the way, do Jews believe a mere man has a power to resurrect dead?

 

[Lapell]

Indeed, this talk of a Mother-Queen in Heaven, as the link mentions, sounds too scandalous to commonsense, since God is Incorporeal and occupies no space.

Why should it be a scandal more than a blessing, if that mother-queen has always sought the will of God and His good pleasure, so as to remain in Him? The kings of Judah had their mothers as mother-queen ever since King David started, and in the Scriptures King David was called a king according to God’s heart (“selon le coeur de Dieu”, as it is said in the French version) Why in such a case should it be a scandal that there be a queen-mother in Heaven?

 

[Lapell]

**Would you found a church to persecute the adepts of your church? Of course not! Paul never persecuted a single Christian. Christians started with Paul. Read Acts 11:26. He used to persecute Nazarenes followers of the New Way.
(Acts 9:1:1-3)

Nazarenes and Christians, they were all the same. And you dismissed a quotation of the NT that I had put here earlier which called Paul a… Nazarene!! You have been trying to separate Jesus the Nazarene from Jesus the Christ. They are the same one person.**

If I were you, I would go easy on that thing in common you think we have with Christians. Talking for myself, I wait for no Messiah. The Messiah is back. He has returned. This has been his third return. The first was from Egypt, when the Messianic leader Moses brought the Messiah back to Canaan. The second time was from Babylon, when the Messianic leader Cyrus proclaimed the return of the Messiah to the Land of Israel. The third time has been now when Theodor Herzl inspired the Messiah with love for Zion, and we have returned.

Your Messiah, whom you think was Jesus, even as a Messianic leader, he could not classify, because instead of bringing the Messiah home, the Messiah was expelled to the four corners of the earth.

You are saying that Theodor Herzl is the awaited Messiah Israel had been expecting? Has he really accomplished all the works of the Messiah to come according to the Scriptures?
Yes, many Jews are back in their homeland, but most of them are still in the diasporah and among them the majority is not convinced Sionism was according to God’s Will…

 

[Lapell]

You are saying that Theodor Herzl is the awaited Messiah Israel had been expecting? Has he really accomplished all the works of the Messiah to come according to the Scriptures?
Yes, many Jews are back in their homeland, but most of them are still in the diasporah and among them the majority is not convinced Sionism was according to God’s Will…

And what good is it for the Jewish people to be back in Eretz Yisroel if once there they do away with God’s Commandments, especially to love God with your whole heart, soul and strength and to love your neighbour just like you love yourself, or even better, like God loves you?
If you don’t mind at all wounding your opponent, who also descended from Adam and Eve, how can you say you act according to God’s Will?

 

[Lapell]

At least there is one thing Christians and Jews have in common:
We both are waiting for the Messiah. (Even though we differ on it.)

You disagree with this, Ben, but most Jews are still awaiting the Messiah. (Even if you don’t…)

 

[Ben_Masada]

The Jewish people always rebelled against God, persecuting his Prophets, constantly turning to idolatry, etc. Is it really a surprise they reject their Messiah? (I don’t mean to sound rude, but isn’t it ironic?)

To speak of Jesus as our Messiah, you must first show us evidence that Jesus was the Messiah at all.

“The Way” was what people referred to as Christianity.

**You exibit lack of understanding of your own NT. Read Acts 9:2. When Paul went to Jerusalem for letters from the High Priest to arrest those who followed the New Way, his address was the Synagogues of Damascus. Christians, if they existed before Paul, they didn’t gather in synagogues but in churches abroad and in private family houses in Israel. **

I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Thank you! As you can see, Paul’s gospel had nothing to do with the gospel of the Apostles of Jesus.

For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

Paul was lying. One does not found a church to persecute the adepts. Paul never persecuted a single church. He founded it in Antioch. Read Acts 11:26.

I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles,

And when did he decide to go to the Gentiles, can you show me in the NT? Since his first station in Damascus and until his last station in Rome,
he never left the Jews in peace. 98 percent of his missionary activities were among the Jews.

I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

And always in the synagogues of the Jews with a gospel that had nothing to do with the gospel of the Apostles.

Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

Now, I ask you to act like a Detective and tell me if that psychological need to assure oneself is not always given by a liar. Why would he need to assure his listeners that what he was saying was not a lie? The rule of thumb is that it is
as a general rule for a liar to demand assurance for what he says. And do you know why
he stayed only 15 days in Jerusalem? Because he caused such a havoc preaching that Jesus was the Messiah, son of God, and that he had resurrected that the local Jews were on an uproar to arrest him and bring him to trial. It was then that James and the Elders helped him escape by taking him down to Caesarea and from there to Tarsus where he belonged. (Acts 9:29-31)

Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.

That was a false reference to the Nazarenes who didn’t gather in churches, and much less in Christ, whose term was not known among them.

They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they praised God because of me.

That’s an evidence that Paul used to persecute the Nazarenes and not Christians.

Here are some of the things he endured for spreading the Gospel: “far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far worse beatings, and numerous brushes with death. Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from the gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure. And apart from these things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:23-28).

The Baha’is suffered worse till death at the time of Aiatolla Chommeni in Iran and never retracted. Muslims strap themselves with bombs and explode themselves for Islam. What does it say, that Paul, Mirza Husayn Ali and Muhammad had a monopoly on the truth? Definitely not! It’s a very common thing for one to die for an ideal.

Eventually he was decapitated in Rome for being a Christian.

Now, I agree with you 101 percent. Paul was a Christian. The first Christian. And he died for his Christian ideal.

 

[Ben_Masada]

The empty tomb was immediately reported by the Roman guards to the Jewish priests but the priests bribed them to keep their mouths shut. Until now, the Jews are living in lies witt you as one of them.

There you come again with your poor evaluation of the Jewish mind. Do I have to go through what I have told you before? It only causes your complex of inferiority to go deeper. I’ll spare you the inconvenience.

 

[Ben_Masada]

But not being written is different from not being reported.

Without the writings, the Church would still be able to preach to the world about Christ.

**Do you know something? I believe you. Surprised? When the late Pope John 23rd asked the Jewish People for forgiveness, he said, to forgive Christianity for the false accusation that the Jews had killed Jesus. He did not ask
to forgive the gospel writers but Christianity. It’s only obvious that the charge that the Jews killed Jesus was an interpolation by the Church in the 4th Century.

Now, back to what you said that the Church would still be able to preach to the world about Christ, makes sense that the idea could have been a later interpolation by the Church.**