RT Article
T1 A New Natural Interpretation of the Empty Tomb
JF International journal for philosophy of religion
VO 80
IS 2
SP 133
OP 143
A1 Eisenberg, Leonard
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2016
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1559353171
AB Clues in the Gospels, evidence from Jewish historian Josephus, belief in the transmigration of souls, and well-documented examples of erroneous declarations of death, combine to support a natural explanation for the Easter story: (1) Jesus survives his short stay on the cross, and (2) is discovered to be barely alive by the few followers who retrieve him. (3) Fearful because they have illegally retrieved a condemned man, they carry out a decoy burial in a tomb. (4) Jesus expires soon after, and is buried quietly in an anonymous grave, but (5) rumor of his survival reaches his followers, as well as the Romans, who (6) open the tomb and find it empty, except for burial linen used in the decoy. (7) To sooth their grief the disciples seize on the rumor of Jesus' survival and encourage each other to hear the voice and see the image of their master in others. Although the probability of the scenario proposed herein is low, it is surely far larger than the supernatural one. It also is arguably more likely than other non-supernatural hypotheses. It does not require Jesus to survive his crucifixion and meet his followers, or, if Jesus died, to have his body stolen, or be removed from the tomb after the Sabbath and reburied in a lower class graveyard. One only need propose that Jesus was still alive (barely) when taken down from the cross and envision how events most likely would unfold from there.
K1 Bible. Gospels
K1 CHRISTIAN apologetics
K1 Christianity
K1 Crucifixion
K1 Empty Tomb
K1 IMMORTALITY of the soul
K1 Jesus
K1 Jesus Christ
K1 Jesus Christ : Crucifixion
K1 Jewish historians
K1 Resurrection
DO 10.1007/s11153-015-9551-0