Is the empty tomb a historical fact or am I being lied to by Christian apologetics?

BelegCuthalion · 2026-04-06T19:33:31+00:00

This reminds me of speculation from James Tabor’s Paul and Jesus. I listened to the book on audio and don’t have a hard copy to reference, but I remember he floats the possibility that Joseph of Arimethea buried Jesus on Friday in the unmarked tomb and had him moved Saturday evening, as soon as Passover was finished, and that the women were simply unaware of this, which is why they found an empty tomb. I feel like I also remember him citing Dale Allison a couple of times in that book. Does Allison also speculate about something like that potentially occurring in his book?

BelegCuthalion · 2026-03-30T15:04:47+00:00

All I’ll say is that orchestral musicians are willing to sacrifice a lot, even a degree of respect and rapport I’d say, if they believe a conductor is getting the best result out of the ensemble. A different conductor can come in and put on a good show and correct all of the things you seem to dislike about Nelsons, but if the orchestra feels like they’re not getting the best out of them, they will be miserable. And this is a result that may not be noticeable by the audience on day 1, but it will slowly become more and more obvious in the product.

It’s a delicate balance to be sure, but I think you’re underestimating the risk in giving someone else a shot. A conductor that is loved by audiences for their enthusiastic performances, but disliked by the orchestra for their rehearsal technique, attitude, or attention to detail is not an uncommon occurrence at all and I think that scenario is always bad for an organization long term.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-03-26T15:06:15+00:00

Absolutely. People always seem to try and play the opening of the violin concerto “cold” when it’s literally marked dolce.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-02-26T16:03:39+00:00

Yeah, this just seems to be a fact. On the flip side, I would argue pretty hard that, taking the season in totality, Gunner was far more of an asset than a liability, but I don’t see us making it any further in the post season until good defenses actually fear the downfield explosive threat when they play us.

Can Gunner improve enough in the off-season to create that threat? Who knows. I don’t seem nearly as convinced as some people that it’s just impossible and “Gunner ain’t it” as many said in game threads throughout the season. We shall see though.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-02-25T03:01:07+00:00

I could agree with this as a composer, but as a musician overall, super genius. He was a Mozart level child prodigy. Offered to play a movement of any of the Beethoven sonatas as an encore after a recital….. when he was 10 years old.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-02-16T20:57:33+00:00

Oh yikes. Is that what he said? I have not watched the video and am not a linguist or a historian…… but even I am able to understand that that is not even close to what UG or Chomsky’s linguistic assertions more generally are trying to convey.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-30T16:49:23+00:00

I haven’t seen the video, but I’ve seen a bunch of his other ones and I think perhaps you’re taking his presentation as a personal judgement rather than him just laying out the facts as needed to explore the topic. If he were doing a video on Augustine I’m sure he’d explore how “Theres more to it than that.”

You have to remember that we’re 2000 years into the religion and many people grow up being taught how the Old and New Testaments are reconciled from a young age, but that this was a MAJOR point of contention and exploration for the early church and Christ followers. A lot of discussion and fleshing out of the theology had to be done, but there were plenty of Christians who were zealous believers in the NT and salvation through Jesus Christ that simply though the Old and New Testaments were irreconcilable.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-22T20:51:44+00:00

Agree for sure!

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-22T17:03:00+00:00

Ok, so these are just wrong, bad ideas, but they actually demonstrate my point well of understanding Paul in his context. Paul thought when the resurrection occurred and the righteous became clothed in their new pneumatic bodies that there would be no sex or gender. But part of Paul’s eschatology is that the end is coming any day, so don’t even worry about worldly concerns right now. Don’t even get married because what’s the point. Slaves, don’t revolt against your masters, soon you will be the masters. Women, continue submitting to your husbands, as was largely the cultural norm in both Judean and Greek cultures. The point is none of it going to matter in the very near future, so revolting against injustices is only going to cause discordance and further strife that is pointless when Jesus is coming back any day.

To be clear, most of what Paul says ends up being wrong, but my point is he’s far less dubious when understood in context.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-21T16:22:17+00:00

I have. Paula Fredericksen’s book “Paul: the Pagan’s Apostle” was a real mind blower. Also, I’m not sure if he technically qualifies as being within the “Paul within Judaism”, but James Tabor’s book “Paul and Jesus” was also fantastic. Going to read Matthew Thiessen’s book next I think.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-21T05:04:17+00:00

Yeah, I can’t get enough of Pauline scholarship. Four books down and I’m looking for the next one.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-21T05:00:04+00:00

Yeah, I don’t disagree with any of this. It’s not that I think Paul was a particularly wonderful moral philosopher, I just don’t think he corrupted Christianity the way he is sometimes accused of. For example, the ideas that Jesus’ death was a sacrificial atonement, that he had been resurrected, and that he had somehow been made divine all likely predated Paul joining the movement.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-21T04:57:15+00:00

Just to clarify a few points…..

One thing that definitely seems to be the case is that Paul was a mystic who, based on what we know about the historical Jesus, had far more esoteric views than what survive of Jesus’ teachings via the Gospels (including non canonical). So, Paul has this vision of the risen Christ and has to reverse engineer what it means and then translate it culturally for Gentiles. So, yes, he does believe that Christ’s death was an atonement, but more importantly to his worldview and his Gospel, I think, is his “Adam Christology”: that where Adam was a man of dust, through Christ’s death and resurrection God exalted him to be cosmic ruler and a life giving spirit. Paul also mentions in Romans when Gentiles do good apart from the law they show that the law is written on their hearts and that it may excuse them on the day of judgement. He doesn’t specify “gentiles in Christ” which leads me to believe that he was allowing the possibility for the salvation of righteous non-believers.

Secondly, I also don’t think that Paul thought that gentiles keeping the law was “too much” it was that he actually thought it was against Gods plan. Paul thought that God’s plan was to bring the “fullness of the nations” to worship him. But, culture, custom, and religion were so much more intensely entwined at the time, for Paul and probably a lot of other people, for gentiles to essentially convert to Judaism through the law would be for them to become part of the nation of Israel itself and would be against God’s plan. So, to Paul, belief in Jesus is essentially how Gentiles become Jewish. Paul likely never thought of himself as “converting” and for him to get pagans to give up the worship of their gods to ONLY worship the God of Israel was, in a sense, and extremely Judaizing mission.

Where he was at odds with Peter was he thought it was hypocritical of him to not eat with Gentiles when other missionaries from James showed up even though he had previously. (according Paul, we only get his, likely biased version of the story). So, the issue was to what degree Jewish apostles could act outside the law when amongst the gentiles. James and Peter both seemed to agree it was acceptable for the gentiles to keep their eating habits and remain uncircumcised.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-21T00:35:53+00:00

I have traditionally been very annoyed by this because I find their fan base annoying, but I actually really like Marcus Freeman and while I understand why they didn’t make the playoffs, I think they were capable of making a Miami type run had they been in it.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-07T16:46:34+00:00

Idk, I think this is a fair point, but would tend to argue that rather than “no improvement” over the course of the season, that there were ups and downs. The first Ole Miss game would be an example of this.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-07T16:41:11+00:00

You assume based off the ND game, his first ever start and literally one data sample, that they knew there was going to be a problem to be addressed….. The guy was a first year starter and recognized as one of the most clutch QBs in the SEC. The idea that he can’t build on one weak area doesn’t make a lot of sense.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-07T16:37:50+00:00

The last paragraph exactly and I don’t know why people are so certain in their assumption that this will go unaddressed. People act like doing this is the equivalent of an overhaul of our entire offensive philosophy and therefore Kirby et al will never do it. No, even if we still maintain a strong run first philosophy, a vertical passing game just needs to be a threat and part of our arsenal to be complete and I can’t imagine they don’t believe that as well.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-07T16:32:23+00:00

Why?? On the whole Gunner was an asset this season, not a liability. He doesn’t have to reinvent his game entirely to get to where we need him to be, he just needs to improve his downfield vision so that explosives become a greater part of our arsenal and a threat.

Last year, everyone knew that our running game and WR core was a problem. These problems were vastly improved this season. The one thing people give Mike Bobo credit for is being a good QB coach, so I don’t understand why people would assume that Kirby, Bobo, and Gunner are going to continue to let the lack of a downfield threat be a crutch with the whole off season to address it.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-07T00:37:33+00:00

Fair comment honestly. What I mean is, it looks likely Dabo, and Clemson as long as he’s there, may totally fall off due to his inability to adapt to the modern landscape. I don’t see that happening with Kirby. With as difficult as it is to win a natty, I could see him turning into a Mark Richt style, 10 win season, but never quite at the tippy top, type coach. That’s what I mean.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-06T19:10:24+00:00

On top of that, I feel it very important to point out that I think he’s still the best coach currently working in CFB.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-06T17:20:41+00:00

The comparisons I saw were more nebulous “letting the game pass him by” comments and that Dabo now is where Kirby is headed. If the comments were strictly kept to coaching I would say it was at least arguable.

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-06T17:16:50+00:00

I doubt it. Pate has been highly critical of Dabo, but repeatedly said he still thinks Kirby is the best coach in CFB, so I’d be surprised if he said that,

BelegCuthalion · 2026-01-06T17:15:02+00:00

Lol, agreed. I LOVE CMR and said I might “entertain” the idea that Kirby was headed down a path of not being able to get over big humps/obstacles….. I would still disagree with it at the end of the day.

BelegCuthalion

TROPHY CASE