Crucifixion Burials - St. Paul

Achilles achillesz@usa.net
Wed, 10 Feb 1999 02:20:58 -0500 (00918652858, 07190160114864@unifour.com) 

On 10 Feb 99, at 1:00, Jason Filley wrote:


> JASON

> Frankly, why even bother with what Luke said Paul said, when we can read

> what Paul himself wrote?  As another thread turns, Paul's idea of Jesus'

> resurrection was strictly spiritual, and Paul would have been offended

> by someone's insistence that Jesus physically rose from the dead.  So

> the impetus for my original question is this:  we know that crucifixion

> victims were sometimes buried by being tossed into shallow pits.  Does

> Paul ever state that Jesus was buried in a tomb?  Considering the ease

> with which this was related by the later gospelers, isn't it incredibly

> strange that Paul never once mentioned Jesus' being buried in a tomb?

> 

> If Luke were reporting what Paul actually said (not likely), why

> wouldn't Luke change it, since it explicitly contradicts what Luke

> himself wrote?  On the other hand, why would Luke make up this speech

> when it contradicts what Luke himself wrote?  Tres confusing.


Achilles
Perhaps it is ironic, but it is exactly this sort of thing that convinces me 
that the texts are reasonably reliable. If between Paul's time and ca Ad300 
(when the textual evidence began) there was rampant redaction and 
interpolation, why didn't they do a better job of it? If the text of the 
Epistles we have now had been seriously tampered with, why do they still 
provide so much support for "heresies?" 

This leads me to believe that, while there were undoubtedly some changes made 
that we may never be able to fully identify, there must have also been a very 
conservative principle at work, keeping such things to a minimum. If there were 
not a strong impediment at that time to rampant redaction, then the present 
form of the Epistles (and not just Pauls) is simply incomprehensible. 

/Achilles     achillesz@usa.net

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Random thought for the moment:

   It has always puzzled me that so many religious people have taken it
   for granted that God favors those who believe in him. Isn't it possible
   that the actual God is a scientific God who has little patience with
   beliefs founded on faith rather than evidence?
           -- R. Smullyan in '5000 b.c. and other Philosophical Fantasies'