The legal expression takes its meaning from a statement that used to be addressed to jailers detaining a suspect arbitrarily, without stating the reason for the arrest or the nature of the accusation. “You have the body”; you are obliged to free the accused, at least on bail, and allow him to stand before a judge.
But one can imagine a quite different use of the phrase. It could be said of a tomb, any tomb, which indeed contains a body, or what remains of it, a skeleton. Any tomb except one : that in which the crucified Christ was buried. His tomb, wherever it may have been, was, according to the Gospels, found empty after three days. “He is risen, as He promised !” But what if the tomb of Jesus were not empty, what if His body were identified as having been buried, and stayed buried, these last two thousand years ?
This is the premise of the plot of “The Body”, a gripping movie made fifteen years ago, starring Antonio Banderas and Olivia Williams. The film is pure fiction, of course, but its scenario is quite credible : an Israeli archeologist discovers the tomb of a man manifestly crucified and crowned apparently with a crown of thorns (the fact supported by physical traces on the bones), in the year 32 A.D. (a pilatus, a Pontius Pilate coin is found nearby), and his corpse buried, strangely, in a rich man’s tomb, rather than burned as victims of crucifixion (a punishment reserved to the poor) always were. The Vatican, unsurprisingly, is determined to discredit this preposterous claim which would, if validated, destroy Christianity, and therefore sends a devout Jesuit priest to the site in Jerusalem to … bury the rumor. Naturally I will not reveal the story and especially its dénouement. But it deserves a moment’s reflection by believers whose faith and religion are founded on the reality of the Resurrection of Christ.
It is true that no one has ever discovered the body of the crucified Christ. Some historians would not be surprised by this because they doubt that the Man ever existed. But Christians who find no reason to question His historical existence accept the central tenet of Christian faith, attested by the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, that Jesus who had died on the cross rose physically from the dead.
It is, as Paul found preaching in Athens, difficult to get people to swallow. But it is also impossible to prove. Even ignoring the New Testament’s discord in the Resurrection narratives, the narratives remain just that : stories put in writing decades after the supposed event of which they were not witnesses, by believers intent on getting others to believe that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the Savior of mankind, and since His Ascension forty days after Easter, alive and well and reigning gloriously in Heaven at the right hand of His Father.
See the movie. It won’t convert you one way or the other, but it will challenge the credulity of many.
RIDENDA RELIGIO
P.S. Christians have, since the time of Christ’s death and burial, claimed that His tomb was discovered three days later to be empty. His alleged tomb is revered in Jerusalem. It may be of interest to note that the Greek words for the phrase “empty tomb” are”kenos” (empty) and”taphos” (tomb) – whence our word Cenotaph. The “Cenotaph” in Sydney’s Martin Place is a monument to Australian service men and women killed in war. The many tombs around the world dedicated to the”Unknown Soldier” are not cenotaphs, which contain no bodies. The premise of the movie “The Body” is that the tomb in question is a real tomb and not a cenotaph.
Blind Faith: Blind Folly 
Just imagine how the problems for the dispatched Jesuit would be compounded if alongside the body in the tomb there was also found a half-eaten wafer of unleavened bread. The Jesuit would have to employ all his casuistry to trash the rumour that the half-eaten wafer was not the dead man’s twin nor had he been cannibalising himself.
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The Latin lessons were great but the comedy comments are, like my plumage, fabulous.
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If Mr O’Meara has the right to prevent Jim from contributing to the blog, he should also ban Thom who can be very offensive.
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I think the truth is, Molly, that Thom has a wicked sense of humour and probably does not intend any serious offence. There are many people who view much of life as absurd. Thom is clearly one such. For him, the beliefs of all religions and much of the speculations of philosophers would appear to be the icing on his absurd cake. With Marie Antoinette I can almost hear him muttering “Let them eat cake”.
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There is one God, Allah, who is revealed to us through the Prophet, holy be his name.
All others are false prophets and infidels who must perish, God willing, before the might of Islam.
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Salaam, Ahmet. I don’t know how you expect me and other readers of this Blog to react to your “comment” on our discussion of Christian belief in Jesus’ Resurrection. You must realize that our readers are either Believers, Believers on the Brink, ex-Believers or non-Believers – the vast majority of whom were brought up in the Christian tradition. All of us, I am sure, would agree – for once – that we cannot accept your statement of faith or, more accurately, your declaration of war. Do you seriously think that God – if He existed – would want you to destroy everyone who does not share your faith in Him ? We disagree with you, but wish you no harm. Many of us are ashamed of our past crimes (like the Crusades) as well as present-day injustices against you and hope that you and we can all learn to respect the universal human right to believe – or to refuse to believe – in God, and in God as we conceive Him to be. If God exists, surely He would be great enough to allow this freedom to all His children. If He doesn’t, religious differences would not matter any more. In our literary tradition we would say that the recognition that God does not exist is “a consummation devoutly to be wished”. I myself would say that it has become an urgent necessity before we all destroy each other. Religion indeed poisons everything.
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I’m almost certain that Ahmet’s comment is a so called “troll comment” by someone who simply as you rightly said Frank wants to get us worked up.
In terms of the crusades, I’m sure you know there are well documented materials which expose the myths behind the crusades and accusations made against Catholics based on them. Even if I was not Catholic, knowing the true history of the crusades I would have wanted the crusades to have taken place otherwise we would all be under the rule of sharia law right now and not the type you see in modern Islam – this is the type of sharia you see being proposed by folks like ISIL.
Also I think it goes without saying that both you and I Frank do lament and are very ashamed of what some individual crusaders did acting on a frolic of their own, going against Church teaching and official Church regulations at the time to commit sin. But Frank as you know we cannot hold Peter responsible for what Judas did. These crusaders who did those mortally sinful acts were disobeying what the Church told them to do.
Perhaps there are some people who might be interested in the issue of the crusades since Frank has brought it up.
In fairness therefore to us Catholics, I’ll post some resources which address this claim that the Church committed various atrocities during the Crusades. I know a lot of people are not fans of reading so the first two links are multimedia (the first a documentary, the second an audio radio show from CA):
http://www.catholic.com/radio/shows/the-real-story-of-the-crusades-11994
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=1562
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2006/jakin_crusades_sept06.asp
http://www.catholic.com/blog/steve-weidenkopf/the-real-story-of-the-fourth-crusade
Pax et bonum. MF.
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Ahmet I have a sincere question which I would like to respectfully ask in charity and with a genuine heart.
I am Catholic, and take the view that Islam is very problematic. I’ve known some great Muslims Ahmet and they are fantastic folks, but I would have to honestly they they simply do not know their scriptures and what they actually teach as people like Deacon Robert Spencer have shown.
Perhaps it might be useful for you to be given one reason why I could never make the proclamation you just make on this blog. Again, I hope you understand I do not mean any offense and am simply hoping to dialogue or perhaps provide some useful food for though.
In the spirit of the topic of Frank’s post I will also keep this particular reason for not being Muslims related somewhat to the topic at hand – the historicity of Jesus.
So one of the the many reasons I am not a Muslims is this Ahmet – I believe the Quran can be proven to be historically false and thus Mohammed (with the greatest respect) therefore a false prophet.
The Qu’ran which as you know was composed 600 years after the death of Jesus actually claims that Jesus was not crucified. In Sura 4:156 to 159 it states:
“And because of their (the Jews) saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger- they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain. But Allah took him up unto Himself. Allah was ever Mighty, Wise”.
It’s a well known and highly documented fact that no non-Islamic scholar (including atheists and agnostics) deny that the historical Jesus was crucified. There are four people that we know who are historical scholars who say Jesus never existed but not only are they the only four in the world, but you would agree with us Christians (and I assume even Frank) that Jesus existed – we disagree on who Jesus was and elements of his life, hence we can disregard those 4 scholars.
The former Christian turned agnostic Dr. Bart Erhman who is a New Testament scholar states that:
“One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate.”
Dr. Paula Fredriksen, a non-Christian historian states that:
“The single most solid fact about Jesus’ life is his death: he was executed by the Roman prefect Pilate, on or around Passover, in the manner Rome reserved particularly for political insurrectionists, namely, crucifixion.”
Consequently, since all non-Muslim scholars whether atheist, agnostic, Christian, non-Christian are of one mind and know two facts (i) Jesus existed and (ii) Jesus was crucified we simply must reject the Quran as being false since it says that Jesus was not crucified. It’s highly problematic when even non-Christian scholars who completely reject the divinity of Jesus know as a raw fact that he was crucified. It was be ahistorical to say otherwise, just as it would be anti-historical to say for example Mohammed never existed. Scholars know that Mohammed did exist – they disagree on his claims and alleged revelations.
I hope you take my comments in the charitable spirit they are meant. I’m not trying to attack your faith and to the many passages in the Quran which speak about being virtuous I say Amen! I merely wanted to point out a simple reason why I in good conscience cannot accept Islam as being true.
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The following link is perhaps not useful for atheists, but certainly for Muslims. It’s from EWTN and concerns the relationship, similarities and differences between Islam and Catholicism:
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We now see the emerging result of the west abandoning its Catholic heritage: The steady decline of moral values, appreciation of goodness and beauty, an emptiness being filled by drugs, despair, occult, satanism and now, barbaric religions.
It’s been abundantly clear to anyone, not blinded by secular, anti religious prejudice.
False religions, entering the secular void is what poisons and will continue to drag the future of our children and grand children to misery, should they survive.
Finally Frank, don’t include me in your apology for Christian retaliation to extreme provocation, resulting in the first Crusade.
We see emerging the game of rock, scissors, paper.
The Church is the Rock of course, as is scissors clearly the blade of Islam, and paper, lacking rigidity or solid substance, bending any way is secular atheism.
We have assurance, by its Founder, that the Rock will endure, though suffering many scratch marks, the paper will be cut to shreds by scissors and the residue burn, and the scissors will be blunted by the enduring solidity of the rock, and eventually rust..
Good luck paper boy, Frank. Let’s see you handle the emerging jihad.
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The Catholic faith is simply amazing and beautiful. Sadly, there are those inside the Church, including many Cardinals, Bishops and Priests who do not live up to the teachings of the Church and commit grave sin. The divine element of the Church however is sublime.
Just look at the great mystical and ascetical works like the Confessions by St. Augustine, the Imitation of Christ, the Introduction to the Devout Life or Butler’s Lives of the Saints.
What’s phenomenal is that even from a secular point of view many of these works are considered to be classics!!!! For example, the Introduction to the Devout Life is considered to be one of the greatest pieces of French literature ever penned, the Dark Night of the Soul considered to be one of the greatest pieces of Spanish literature ever written and books like Utopia by St. Thomas Moore have the same status in English literature. Even from the secular point of view these works are considered classics and yet they are works of faith and works of spirituality.
I think I will have to join Jim by placing my alliance with the Rock which will endure to the end. As St. Ignatius says we have to choose whether we are in the army of the Rock or the Army of Satan.
My friends, let us place our hope in God and in salvation. It’s never too late.
+ “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” +
– God the Son speaking to St. Peter, the first Holy Roman Pontiff of the Apostolic Church.
+ J.M.J +
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Just after midnight, at the very beginning of this historic date which no one will ever forget, I have decided to publish Jim’s comment. In less than three hours from now President Obama will spell out his strategy against Islamic State. September 11 would be a good time to hear from others who realize what is at stake here. Ahmet’s “comment” and Jim’s response, whatever about my own, deserve to be taken seriously.
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I totally agree, naturally, with Frank’s observation :- ‘If God exists, surely He would be great enough to allow this freedom to all His children. If He doesn’t, religious differences would not matter any more.’
As a Catholic, this is totally consistent with our recognition that humans, unlike lower animals, possess free will. God has gifted us with this faculty along with human intellect.
Frank also observes ” the universal human right to believe – or to refuse to believe.” While I readily accept that we have the freedom to chose belief or disbelief, and we accept the ensuing consequences of our decision, I query the assumption of a universal human right.
My query is: what human can grant any human right to other humans? If all humans do have a right, must not that right be granted by some person or power, outside of and in authority over, any other human being? Free,civilised peoples believe in equality of all humans, after all.
Frank has logically indicated that, God must surely be great enough to award rights and freedoms to His creatures, so this is obviously an explanation of my query. This God would then have the necessary power and authority, and is outside of humanity, so satisfies the limitations of any mere human or group of humans. All boxes ticked!
I can’t think of any other candidate as Giver of universal rights, including right to life.
This God concept suggested by Frank accords with the Christian concept of God, but does not align with the dictatorial God concept of Islam.
Am I missing something?
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Hi Frank, if I could bounce of what Jim is saying, I would respectfully say that I do not understand how we can say that the Catholic faith is folly and based on blind faith (as opposed to reason based faith).
To be a little bold I might even in the spirit of friendly debate say that if anything to me atheism and non-theism seem to be folly. For example, to echo Jim’s comments, on the atheist worldview, the following questions cannot be answered soundly and I would argue expose atheism as being complete folly:
(a) In a universe without God or immortality, how is mankind in terms of an ontological value ultimately different from a barnyard of pigs? In the end we are all just animals and there is no objective basis to say one is more important than the other.
(b) What viable basis exists for justice or law if man is nothing but a sophisticated, programmed machine?
(c) Without a moral law giver whose nature gives us a basis for absolute morals, what ultimate difference is there between Adolf Hitler and St. Francis of Assisi?
(d) As Dostoyevsky said without an ultimate authority and power from which human rights come, from why shouldn’t all things be permitted since there is no universal basis for an objective foundation for what should and should not be permitted?
(e) Without an objective moral law giver (that is a foundational transcendent source from which moral laws come from), on what basis could or should anyone ever move to interfere with cultures that practice apartheid, female circumcision, cannibalism, or ethnic cleansing?
In the spirit of friendly dissenting blog comment and observation.
MF.
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If Ahmet, Frank and Thomas came to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, then we would all have to be Christian.
If not, we have the poor choice of Islam, Judaism, agnosticism or atheism, or some other weak religion.
I think we should return to this central topic which is so vital to resolve for all our lives.
There is nothing more important for our personal destinies or for civilisation.
It’s not a trivial topic for silly jibes.
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Jim has directed us rightly to the central point in life. As Jim so importantly points out, we have no assurance that we will take another breath or wake up tomorrow morning.
Whilst that is in one sense a worrying prospect it shouldn’t be. Rather it should be a force that urges us to calmly consider truth, reality and explore the question of where we are going.
As Jim points out the rest is to be quite honest trivialities. For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and loose his soul.
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Hi Frank.
I would like to respectfully disagree with your claims regarding the Resurrection narratives.
I’d like to provide some *broad* observations on some of your comments if that’s ok. I would respectfully disagree with your following claim:
“. . .it is also impossible to prove [the resurrection]. . . the New Testamen[t] . . .remain[s] just that : stories put in writing decades after the supposed event of which they were not witnesses”.
Frank based on this, would I be correct in assuming that you are consistent with your historical analysis and criticism and therefore disregard as historically unreliable and unsound anything that is “put into writing decades after the event of which they {Frank I assume by ‘they’ you mean the authors} were not witnesses”?
As you know, we can say the same for intention and say anyone writing after the fact of an event merely has the motive to persuade their audience of the points they are making – you for example say the intentions of the authors were to convert to Christ. This of course is true, but I’m sure you mean they did not care about whether Christ really rose from the dead. Rather their concern was in convincing their future audience of that claim.
Does this also mean that you take the same view for all of ancient history? I’m sure you know where I am going with this – namely that there is going to be very little that you will be able to then accept as true including doubting the historical existence of people like Aristotle or even Socrates whose lives and stories and more importantly metaphysics were “put into writing decades after the supposed event of which they were not witnesses”. I’m sure you realise this would put you at odd with almost every atheist philosopher since it’s a very heterodox view to doubt their existence. And yet to be consistent you would have to attribute their existence to the level of mere “stories” as well which were put into writing decades after the event.
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Apart from the historical arguments of Mysterium Fidei, why would virtually all the apostles and many disciples, like St. Stephen, willingly suffer martyrdom for their belief in the Risen Lord. What worldly benefit for them? Giving one’s life is not done for a trivial reason. They saw the Lord and were convinced.
Why would the number one persecutor of Christians, St. Paul, suddenly become convinced of the resurrected Lord and become His greatest advocate amongst the Gentiles, becoming instead the persecuted, and eventually giving his life for his complete change of conviction?.
Why believe the historical accounts of Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great or any historical figure of a similar era, none of whose histories were written within centuries of their lives, where as the Gospels and Paul’s letters were written within one or two decades, certainly within the life times of living witnesses who could challenge the accounts.
The tomb was guarded by a cohort of roman soldiers to ensure no taking of the body.
There are many items to explain in addition to the multiple appearances, to as many as 500, over the 40 days that Jesus dwelled after the Resurrection.
I’m afraid that it is not so easy to dodge the weight of evidence.
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To further add to what others have said, Dr. William Lane Craig makes the following very important observation:
“So how do we know that Jesus is risen from the dead?…Fortunately, Christianity, as a religion rooted in history, makes claims that can in important measure be investigated historically. Suppose, then, that we approach the New Testament writings, not as inspired Scripture, but merely as a collection of Greek documents coming down to us out of the first century, without any assumption as to their reliability other than the way we normally regard other sources of ancient history. We may be surprised to learn that the majority of New Testament critics investigating the gospels in this way accept the central facts undergirding the resurrection of Jesus. I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT EVANGELICAL OR CONSERVATIVE SCHOLARS ONLY, BUT ABOUT THE BROAD SPECTRUM OF NEW TESTAMENT CRITICS WHO TEACH AT SECULAR UNIVERSITIES AND NON-EVANGELICAL SEMINARIES. AMAZING AS IT MAY SEEM, MOST OF THEM HAVE COME TO REGARD AS HISTORICAL THE BASIC FACTS WHICH SUPPORT THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS”. These facts are as follows:
FACT #1: After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.
FACT #2: On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.
FACT #3: On multiple occasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead.
FACT #4: The original disciples believed that Jesus was risen from the dead despite their having every predisposition to the contrary.
I will obviously not post the entire essay, but Craig provides evidence that all scholars accept these facts. Then he provides detailed commentary and analysis.
One useful portion in his conclusion is the following:
“Now the question is: what is the best explanation of these four facts? Most sholars probably remain agnostic about this question. But the Christian can maintain that the hypothesis that best explains these facts is “God raised Jesus from the dead.”
In his book Justifying Historical Descriptions, historian C. B. McCullagh lists six tests which historians use in determining what is the best explanation for given historical facts. The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” passes all these tests:
1. It has great explanatory scope: it explains why the tomb was found empty, why the disciples saw post-mortem appearances of Jesus, and why the Christian faith came into being.
2. It has great explanatory power: it explains why the body of Jesus was gone, why people repeatedly saw Jesus alive despite his earlier public execution, and so forth.
3. It is plausible: given the historical context of Jesus’ own unparalleled life and claims, the resurrection serves as divine confirmation of those radical claims.
4. It is not ad hoc or contrived: it requires only one additional hypothesis: that God exists. And even that needn’t be an additional hypothesis if one already believes that God exists.
5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs. The hypothesis: “God raised Jesus from the dead” doesn’t in any way conflict with the accepted belief that people don’t rise naturally from the dead. The Christian accepts that belief as wholeheartedly as he accepts the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead.
6. It far outstrips any of its rival hypotheses in meeting conditions (1)-(5). Down through history various alternative explanations of the facts have been offered, for example, the conspiracy hypothesis, the apparent death hypothesis, the hallucination hypothesis, and so forth. Such hypotheses have been almost universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. None of these naturalistic hypotheses succeeds in meeting the conditions as well as the resurrection hypothesis.”
Source of Craig’s article: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-resurrection-of-jesus#ixzz3D0kV4hLb
What we can see from the scholarship of Craig and comments of others here is that Christians are very happy to engage and grapple with intellectual questions and even engage with historical analysis.
This is a far cry from simply having blind faith in the bodily resurrection of Christ. Secondly we can see that Christians actually go further and offer very valid and sound reasons for why they do believe Jesus rose from the dead. This seems to be a very convincing case.
I’m not sure therefore if anyone can say its impossible to prove. Historical events are not impossible to prove at all. The proof that is used is just different to the proof you may use to establish say the existence of a law of physics. Since its in the past you need to work with what you have and try and see which explanation matches best and I think even if you disagree with Christians you have to admit they don’t just embrace fideism or blindly believe that Jesus simply rose again but they do offer explanations and positive reasons to believe that Jesus really did rise from the dead.
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Frank, since I’m new here, I may have missed it, but do you by any chance have a short blog explaining your de-conversion from the Catholic faith and reasons for leaving the Church. If such a post is available I’d be keen to check it out. If you want to post the link for that, that would be cool.
If not, could I as a friendly reader suggest that you consider posting a short blog on your story of de-conversion. Just a thought – hope you dont mind the petition.
Cheers.
Pax et bonum.
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Don’t mind the “petition” at all ! Anticipating it, I chose to begin my self-published book, “From Illusions to Illumination. The Itinerary of a Francsican Priest from Catholicism to Atheism” with three autobiographical chapters to trace my story from childhood up to my retirement thirteen years ago. The third chapter, “From Believing to Seeing”, I believe provides what you are looking for.
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