Giotto's Resurrection

If we exclude devotional and analytical literature (e.g. apologies, commentaries, instructionals, hymnals) and only focus on purported “primary source documents” relating to earliest Christianity, we find that most Christian faith literature in its first three centuries is fabricated—indeed, most by far (the quantity of agreed Christian fabrication, including hundreds of “Epistles” and dozens of “Gospels” and half a dozen “Acts” is staggering: see Element 44 in Chapter 5 of Historicity)[1]

The problem is he actually has no evidence to support this view. What he passes off as evidence is ideological assertion. He produces no documentary proof. He has no other version of a biblical document with major changes in the story.He has no version of Mark, no empty tomb. So he tries to turn presumption around and make the assumption of originality and truth content suspect. He does this by his assertion that the vast majority of Biblical work is made up, thus we can't assume on faith any is true. It has to be proven but it can't be proven.

So we need good reason to trust any particular example is not more of the same.[made up] And yet there simply is no evidence any part of Mark’s empty tomb story preceded his publication of it a lifetime after the religion began, in a foreign land and language, vetted by no one so far as we can honestly tell. It beggars belief any rational person would think otherwise.[2]

He tells us that there is no evidence that any prt of the empty story preceded Mark. Readers of this blog know that last week I proved that wrong.[3] Rather scholars such as Helmut Koester proved him wrong. As Koster tells us: "Studies of the passion narrative have shown that all gospels were dependent upon one and the same basic account of the suffering, crucifixion, death and burial of Jesus. But this account ended with the discovery of the empty tomb."[4]

But Carrier seems blissfully unaware. He continues to insist that he has, not just a dearth of counter evidence, but positive proof of his claim:

And yet it’s worse than that even. We actually have evidence that Mark fabricated the story; not just a complete lack of evidence that he didn’t. Finding a tomb empty is conspicuously absent from Paul’s account of how the resurrection came to be believed (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). And of course Mark himself gives us a clue that he is fabricating when he conveniently lets slip that no one witness to it ever reported it—evidently, “until now” (see Mark 16:1-8). Always grounds for suspicion.

His evidence of fabrication is Paul's lack of discussion of the empty tomb. This is twisted and dishonest. If Paul doesn;t mention the empty tomb they didn't have one and thus Mark made it up.Of course he's asserting that Paul did not believe in bodily resurrection. There are those who say he did: "To be sure, a number of scholars, such as Richard Hays, N. T. Wright, and Anthony Thiselton, argue that Paul’s conception of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, in continuity with the  Gospels and  Acts, involves the resurrection (and glorious transformation to imperishability) of the once-dead body of flesh and bones from the tomb"[5] Paul did not discuss the empty tomb but he clearly believed in Jesus' bodily resurrection, It could be that the empty tomb was not used by Paul as an apologetic tool because gentiles he lived among didn't know enough about the resurrection they didn't need that kind of  physical proof. That is just my surmise. At any rate no discussion of empty tomb is no evidence that Mark invented it.

He asserts that Mark says no one reported the empty tomb before him, "Mark himself gives us a clue that he is fabricating when he conveniently lets slip that no one witness to it ever reported it—evidently, 'until now.'" He makes it sound like Mark is saying no one every reported the empty tomb before him. He's only talking about the women (V8). We already know Mark was not the first to speak of the empty tomb as discussed above.

But Matthew’s stated excuse for introducing guards into the story of the empty tomb narrative reveals a rhetoric that apparently only appeared after the publication of Mark’s account of an empty tomb, and this exposes the whole tale as an invention. For Mark shows no awareness of the problem Matthew was trying to solve (and with yet further fabrication—in his case borrowing ideas for this from the book of Daniel, as I show in Empty Tomb and, more briefly, Proving History; likewise, Matthew adds earthquakes to align the tale with the prophecy of Zechariah 14:5, and so on; Luke and John embellish the narrative yet further, though dropping nearly everything Matthew added: Historicity, p. 500-04; Empty Tomb, pp. 165-67).

Again another argument that assumed Matt has no accidents and had to have copied Mark. We know Matthew had other sources so he;s drawing upon knowledge from pre Mark redaction. That destorys Carrier's entire argument.Jo enitreargu,emt co,et;ey ignore Pre Mark redaction that kills it.Carrier

Carrier argues that Mattew's mention of guards on the tomb is an indication of fabrication He reasons that the guards were never mentioned before thus they are a response to Marks Story. The Gospel of Peter (GPet) has guards on the tomb. Carrier might reason that GPet is from the second century and just copied Matt's guards. Bit GPet is thought by scholars to contain a tradition older than Mark and independent of the canonical. Peter's guards are a second coroborating source for Matt.[6]

Carrier develops a major argument around the idea that Mark would have gotten eidee for empty tomb from various sources the psalms and  Psul's writings:

But Mark’s most likely inspiration were the Psalms, Mark’s penchant for reversing the reader’s expectations, and the ‘body as tomb’ concept-cluster, which I demonstrate in The Empty Tomb had deep connections in Paul. And as we know, Mark is riffing on Paul, transforming his Epistles into a narrative story about Jesus (see my recent article, Mark’s Use of Paul’s Epistles). Any one or several of these ideas may have been at play in Mark’s mind, but we can divide all influences into two possible directions: If Mark was a true Pauline Christian, then the tomb represents the corpse of Jesus. If not, then the tomb represents the ascension of Jesus.

This sort of reasoning is mandated by doubt. it's so much more complex and sumsy thn a straightforward narrative based upon the assumption that Jesus really rose from the dead. The mage m psalms are obvious as religious symbols because they are used by all Jewsoftahtera to express everything.we cannot understand them asprhoetic since Godsrealand he's really pseamg to people. The Pauline collection is just reverse engineering. Whathe sees as influence of Paul on Makris just the fact that Paul echoes the truth of christ' resurrection then year latter Mark echoes the echo. There is nothing "wrong" about Mark being a fan of Paul's.

Carrier's elaborate and overly complex palemcest is not proof that Mark made up the empty tomb. It is rather depednt upon the assumption tht Mark made up the empty tomb. It's Proof it's a side effect of the assumption. It's all just as easily explained away by belief.

Notes

[1]Richard Carrier, "Why Did Mark Invent an Empty Tomb?"website, 23 February 2020, https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16366

[2]Ibid

[3]Ibid

[4] Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development, London. Oxford, New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark; 2nd prt. edition, 1992,218.

[5]James P. Ware, "Jesus’s Resurrection and Ours According to Paul the Apostle," News, Events, and Publocation,wevite, Houston Christian university.July 15, 2016, https://hc.edu/news-and-events/2016/07/15/jesuss-resurrection-according-paul-apostle/#:~:text=Wright%2C%20and%20Anthony%20Thiselton%2C%20argue,and%20bones%20from%20the%20tomb.

[6] Ron Cameron,editor, The Other Gospels: Non Canonical Gospel Texsts,:Louisille: West Minster John Knox Press; first ed 1982, 77-8