The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence

Chapter 398: 385

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About This Book

A skeptical, systematic critique argues that the Christ of the New Testament is a constructed myth rather than a reliably attested historical person. It assesses the silence of contemporary writers, the anonymous and late character of the gospels, and the contradictions within infancy narratives, ministry accounts, crucifixion, and resurrection reports. The author evaluates the moral portrait and teachings attributed to the figure and traces parallels with older pagan religions and divinities as possible sources of the myth. The conclusion asserts that supernatural claims lack sufficient historical support and that veneration rests on literary and theological fabrication rather than firm documentary evidence.

385

In whose sepulcher was the body of Jesus placed?

Matthew: Joseph “laid it in his own new tomb which he had hewn out in the rock” (xxvii, 60).

John: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jew’s preparation day; for the sepulcher was nigh at hand” (xix, 41, 42).

It is evident from John that the sepulcher did not belong to Joseph, but that it was one which happened to be convenient to the place of crucifixion; for, as Strauss justly argues: “The vicinity of the grave, when alleged as a motive, excludes the fact of possession.”