Vorjack’s post this morning reminded me that the zombie rising thing has always bothered me:
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. (Matt. 27:51-52 NRSV)
Both Christians and skeptics focus on the resurrection of Jesus as the “extraordinary” event. But the tombs opening and dead people walking around are just as incredible (literally), if not more so. If all these dead people were walking around, why is it only mentioned once in ancient history — and that one time is in a biased, anonymous story about the life of Jesus written generations after it happened?
Dead people rising and walking around would have had people talking. And yet no one seems to have thought to mention it except the Gospel of Matthew.
What’s odd is that many of the people who believe this story refuse to believe in evolution, claiming it has no evidence. What hypocrisy and inconsistency!
How is it you can get people to believe in things that are undocumented, unverifiable, and impossible, but not things that are documented, verifiable, and proven to be possible?
Of course their walking and rising it Zombie Jesus Day, which occurs after dead Jesus Days. Also all who eat and drink of Zombie Jesus become enslaved and live forever as his zombie minions, sadly the flesh eventually expires and the spirit zombies wander the earth as well
I would categorize it as far more incredible, really, than the resurrection. It is historically plausible (if biologically ridiculous) for a single human to come back to life in some out-of-the-way burial cave witnessed by nobody, as such an event could easily go unremarked even if it happened. But an event like that described in Matthew 27 is literally as public as an event can be, with wild and crazy tectonic events and religious omens and zombies walking around Jerusalem. There is no way nobody else writes that down, unless it simply didn’t happen.
Excellent point. And, by the way, whatever did happen to those “zombies”? Do they live forever? What, if anything, do they feed on? Are they alive to this day, awaiting their master’s return? Some capable screenwriter needs to jump on this right away. Great box office potential. The advanced controversy alone would generate millions.
They feed on brains as is traditional for zombies and their now brainless victims is what we come to know as fundies.
That is funny. Checkmate.
Who would be considered a “saint” in that context? Maybe John the Baptist rose and went looking for his head. I know the Bible has no answers…hmm, time to break out my old copy of Barry Sadler’s Casca series – Vol.1 : The Eternal Mercenary.
What’s odd is that many of the people who believe this story refuse to believe in evolution, claiming it has no evidence. What hypocrisy and inconsistency!
How is it you can get people to believe in things that are undocumented, unverifiable, and impossible, but not things that are documented, verifiable, and proven to be possible?
Willful suspension of disbelief. Brainwashing. Arrogance. Comfort food for the brain. Believing that Mommy, Daddy, the good Father Diddleme and Sister Scary Benedict know more about the cosmos than Einstein or Hawking. Fear. Ignorance. Habit. Safety in numbers. Sheep-mindedness. Delusion. Peer pressure. False promises of reward. Greed. Desperation. Choice. That’s how.
You had me at “brainwashing”. :)
lmao, “Father Diddleme” should totally be a band’s name xD
Best Statement:
WIN!
I’m sure it’s just a mistranslation into English.
Well, the truth according to the writings of antiquity is, Mary and her companion found the tomb empty. That was the original end of the story. Some nut job was standing there and told them to “tell no one” DOH. So, for all we know, some necrophiliac or sick individual stole the physical body of the Jesus character. The rest was fabricated and added to the canonization by scribes in later centuries to hold up their story. There is zero proof that any one of the dead got up and walked out of the tomb.
From “Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine.
It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the city, and what became of them afterwards, and who it was that saw them; for he is not hardy enough to say that he saw them himself;–whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he-saints and she-saints, or whether they came full dressed, and where they got their dresses; whether they went to their former habitations, and reclaimed their wives, their husbands, and their property, and how they were received; whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their possessions, or brought actions of crim. con. against the rival interlopers; whether they remained on earth, and followed their former occupation of preaching or working; or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive, and buried themselves.
Strange indeed, that an army of saints should retum to life, and nobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have any thing to tell us! Had it been the prophets who (as we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, they must have had a great deal to say. They could have told us everything, and we should have had posthumous prophecies, with notes and commentaries upon the first, a little better at least than we have now. Had it been Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua, and Samuel, and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained in all Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the times then present, everybody would have known them, and they would have out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. But, instead of this, these saints are made to pop up, like Jonah’s gourd in the night, for no purpose at all but to wither in the morning.–Thus much for this part of the story.
Because the truth isn’t good enough. They don’t WANT the truth. They want what makes them feel good.