CADRE Comments

PART 9: IS ANY STICK GOOD ENOUGH TO BEAT AN EMPTY TOMB? Part 1 introduces the question back here, "Did GosMark's author possibly invent the empty tomb?" While acknowledging that the idea isn't metaphysically impossible, I said I would be showing why I would answer no, the author did not possibly invent it, even if I was an atheist. Part 2 refers back to a previous series which (in a systematic argument, starting from extreme scepticism about the sources) decisively indicated that Jesus of Nazareth existed, had disciples, had made enemies of the Sanhedrin, was buried somewhere tomb-like after death and guarded by his enemies, shortly after which his body mysteriously disappeared, and the guards (for a brief period) publicly testified with Sanhedrin support that they all fell asleep allowing Jesus' disciples to steal the body. (Whether their claim about body theft was correct or not was outside the scope of the argument, so far.) Thus the idea equivalent to a...

It's pretty normal nowadays for revisionist historians and commentators, when promoting the "lost texts" of early Christianity, to lambaste Imperial Rome for imposing a canon-from-above, and for outright destroying competitive texts, in a bid to force compliance with Imperial ideas of orthodoxy. This is almost hilarious as a claim throughout most of the 4th century (300s CE), since the ruling elite during most of that time were one or another kind of Arian, not of the "Orthodox" party. (Arians believed either that Christ was a lesser created deity taking human form, or more popularly that Jesus was a totally human hero promoted up by God the Father to deity status. Not unlike typical claims for previously pagan Emperors, by the way.) Still, the fact of the matter is that there were indeed document purges in the Roman Empire during the Christian history (including the trinitarian Christian history) of the Western and Eastern Empire. So it isn't unreasonable, ...

My publication of the article on Doherty on this blog was a mistake. I meant to post it on my own blog. If you want to read it, come to my blog.