Who Remembers Where we Put Jesus? (William Lane Craig response) 

If there's even ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION that the information WL Craig is using to support his point might be true...you can bet he'll present that information like it's a completely unquestioned fact.

It seems to me that for apologists, the best standard for truth is "anonymous ancient scroll claims it."

Pontius Pilot giving a crucified enemy of the state a private burial is like a gangsta pulling a driveby then driving the victim to the hospital.

i love the criterion of embarrassment. "it's so stupid, it MUST be true"

The proposition is that Jewish elites convinced Pilate the Jesus was as threat to the Roman Empire… and then, soon there after, came back to convince Pilate that Jesus should be allowed the respect of not being allowed to be further desecrated by leaving his body on the cross… but instead should be taken down and buried in an elaborate tomb where his adherents could memorialize him. Which goes against what typically happens to executed enemies of the state in Roman times

Absolutely excellent video Paul! ❤

To modern Christians, crucifixion is so horrific and cruel they can't imagine it happening to anyone but Jesus. So whatever the Bible says happened to Jesus must be the norm. Since the Bible says he was placed in a tomb, that tomb being empty is miraculous. When you point out how mind-bogglingly common crucifixion was by the Romans, they just zone out and pretend that's not important.

If WLC was ever a good apologist (I would say he wasn't) I think he's clearly reaching "OK grandpa, turn off the camera and sit down, you're.... not helping things" status. Reminds me a bit of Dawkins's decent from Four Horseman to.... where he is now. WLC seems to make less and less arguments and more and more just makes assertions and claims victory.

It would be embarrassing for William Lane Craig to be knowingly bearing false witness whereby he is turning "Even if it's incredibly unlikely, It's not outside of the realm of possibility for it to have happened this way" into "it MUST have happened that way". Therefor by the criteria of embarrassment, we have absolute proof that William Lane Craig is knowingly bearing false witness.

Cheers 🥃, to you, Paulogia, for your Brilliant rebuttal & scrutinising WLCs, in every way, 'THE ONE IN A MILLION, stated Christian Apologist.

"Credible is what you serve to an audience desperately clinging to a conclusion, not to convince a skeptic." - Very well said, sir.

I really love the idea of first century jews creating a flow chart to decide how they would explain the burial of Jesus.

The other factor in the Joseph of Arimathea story is that, when a figure was needed to provide the tomb, no existing character was available. If there's one thing all the gospels agree on, it's that his disciples were basically absent for his trial and execution. It would have been an integral part of the crucifixion story that, at best, only the women stood by him at the cross. So who took the body down and buried it? The women? Not credibly, no. Peter? It's already established that he's not around. And the Resurrection narrative requires a tomb. As your flowchart points out, this requires a wealthy patron. Joseph was therefore made to order, a rich, secret disciple who, as luck would have it, just happened to own an unused tomb "nigh at hand". John then tosses in Nicodemus as an added bonus. Which is an odd addition, since his role was to provide the "spices" to apply to the corpse. This seems to render the mission of the women 2 days later, to ensure the body was property anointed, superfluous.

Good ol' Low Bar Bill. Always a solid comedy. Then a cameo by the Wicked Witch's flying monkeys - gold.

Thank you so much for this one. Very illuminating, indeed.

One other point bears mentioning here (maybe include this one in your extended version if you make one): Death by crucifixion took a LONG time-that was kind of the point. As of sunset on the day of crucifixion, most victims of the torture would still be very much alive. Hence, for Dr. Craig's assertion that it was common for the Romans to allow Jews to bury crucifixion victims day-of before nightfall to be true, then either (1) Roman guards regularly allowed Jews to take living people down off the cross to "bury" them; or (2) Roman guards had to break the legs of most Jewish crucifixion victims an hour or two before sunset to ensure a swifter death, nullifying one of the purposes of the torture. The latter is extraordinarily unlikely; the former is borderline laughable.

The main argument against the tomb is: IF there was a tomb that Jesus was buried in, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that the location would be forgotten. Come on, the apostles were supposed to remember the exact wording of the speeches of Jesus, but they did forget where the tomb was located? But it is a fact that the location of the tomb was forgotten, and centuries later, it was "detected" again -- in two different locations. Notice, that most Christians will tell you that the tomb where Jesus was buried is one of the most significant sanctuaries of all Christianity. The empty tomb has even more significance than the cross. Why is it so important? Say, a hero of some kind was buried, and you like to meet followers of the hero. Where do you search first? At his grave, of course! That's the main meeting point to find other devout followers of that hero. That is the reason why the Russians buried the urn with Hitler's remains in a secret location. And they did A LOT to keep this location secret. And the one person to bury Hitler took that knowledge to his grave. The same with Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden etc. But if Jesus was buried in an identifiable grave, it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE that the location got forgotten. And the grave would be the main meeting point, especially when it was empty. To think that the apostle spread the words of Jesus but did not mention the location of the grave is seriously absurd. Someone raised from the grave, and apart from seeing that person, where would you head to to get information about the person? Mark tries to explain why no one remembers the location of the grave: The women went to the grave, Jesus was not there, and they fled from the grave AND TOLD NOBODY. Still, this is weak, followers of Jesus would still visit his grave. It makes no difference if they think Jesus is dead and buried or alive while risen.

Dr. Robyn Faith Walsh, in a recent interview, has speculated that "Joseph of Arimithea" was a patron of the gospel writer, written into the story in return for his patronage.

And the video is done in under 30 seconds, then again...

I watched this video. The first clip you played was my biggest gripe. When I finished screaming at my phone, I commented as such. Thanks, Paul.

One of the significant points about crucifixion is that it was intended to be death by slow torture. Most victims didn't die within a day (or really, less than a day if we're going to take this account seriously), but lingered, ultimately dying of exhaustion and suffocation (because they no longer had the strength to raise their chests enough to draw breath). That's why the victims, on occasion, had their legs broken -- as a rather cruel act of mercy, because it hastened death, since it brought on that death by suffocation more quickly. The only (putative) reason that Jesus was dead by sundown -- conveniently accommodating prophecy -- was that he stabbed in the side. But surely that was not standard operating procedure -- again, because the whole point of crucifixion was that it intended to be death by slow torture - a slow, painful, public death that was meant to go on for days, as it often did. So the notion that victims in Judea were expected to be dead by sundown on the day that they were crucified simply doesn't make sense. It contradicts the whole point of crucifixion.

knowing precisely what occurred in antiquity is impossible..it is hard enough in modern times.

Funny that the use of "coffin bells" was common in times far more recent than 1 CE. It is not unknown in human history that someone who seems to be dead, appears to be dead, or even shows no signs of life (with whatever means are available to detect it), are, while actually still living, thought to be dead and treated as such (buried). The truth of the gospel account notwithstanding, it is possible for someone to be pronounced dead and to be buried who is, in reality, just profoundly unconscious. I don't see anything in any of the accounts that say Jesus was examined by a physician before he was placed in the tomb. Even if he was (probably unheard of for crucifixion victims) the methods they would have had for determining absolute death, as opposed to coma, were not that efficacious.

Wow, there is a strong consensus among christian scholars about something fundamental to their faith. It was 100% unexpected.

10:33 Those coastlines are baffling.

I know the reason for this debate is to illustrate how every element of the resurrection narrative lacks historic evidence. But it's still wild that a missing body is presented as evidence of the supernatural. If my best friend was "misplaced" after their death and people could swear they saw him walking around, should we then start preaching the Resurrection of Chris.

Citations Needed whenever WLC speaks.

Paulogia, the parent, Mr. Craig, the child; why do many apologist's act like 3 year old children?? Thanks- Paulogia for your insights!!

If one came upon a dead body and verified the body was indeed dead , not breathing and cold and even without blood for argument purposes and then left the scene to get the police when upon returning with the police the body was gone . What would be the best explanation for this? Would the most likely explanation be that the body was resurrected from the dead?

BUT, we DO have an example of a crucified victim being buried in a tomb in the 100 BCE folk tale of The Widow Of Ephesus! And so many similarities with the stories of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus!

For the record, yes, I'd buy any book you wrote... especially if you personally voice the audiobook!

That's all well and good, but let's not get distracted from the main issue here: Did a man rise from the dead, defying everything we know to be true about reality? Arguing that a victim of crucifixion might have been buried honourably does absolutely nothing, zero, nada, nil to support that idiotic claim. It's like arguing that Pi is closer to 7 than to 3 because the 10th digit might be 9, not 3 - a) no, it isn't, and b) that's completely irrelevant.

Definitely think you should write a book! Whether this topic is the whole book or just a chapte, it'd be an excellent book describing a skeptic's viewpoint.

Really glad you chose to respond to this. I have a few posts on the video itself with timestamps to the parts that I addressed. The amount of BS I went through in this whole business was staggering. 4:40 Yeah, Burden of proof was...basically thrown to the other side here like how Christian presuppositionalists do it. 16:20 Yup, this is the part of the Digesta WLC conveniently left out. 18:52 One thing to note was that this was the context of the Idumeans being casual with the dead. We don't even know if the crucifixion victims mentioned here were even crucified under Roman authority or if the Idumeans did it. In short this is NOT contextually similar to the notion of Jewish authorities usually giving Jews the permission to bury crucifixion victims. 19:45 Which is the one detail which renders all of WLC's efforts meaningless. To be fair he was contesting Ehrman's claim that the bodies of crucifixion victims were usually not taken down from where they hung, but his ultimate point was that Jesus was buried in a tomb. Even if we establish an answer as to whether or not the bodies were taken down, this in no way provided details about how they were buried afterwards. 34:18 What exactly is the pre-Markan passion narrative? The oral stories that were circulating before the Gospel of Mark was written? We don't have a documentation of those though. 39:29 I remember basically facepalming at Cameron's "testimony" line. He used this same reasoning in a debate 3 years ago with another skeptic and it was taken apart by another skeptic in a youtube video, the link of which is present in my post under the video itself, by simply showing how the Gospels cannot be determined as testimony and that Cameron's example was designed to be testimony but one dependent upon the identity of the person giving it. Which means that the identity of the sources behind the Gospels have to be examined in order to make the point analogous to Cameron's example, and the Gospel writers are anonymous. 42:38 Well you can take your time and address those things in separate videos. I for one would be very much looking forward to that if it happens.

Paul please write a whole dang book

Craig is cherry picking Josephus when it comes to Pilate. Antiquities 18.55 says: "But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Caesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, *in order to abolish the Jewish laws."* But Pilate respected Jewish law? Obviously not!

It never ceases to amaze me how many claims Craig and other apologists make that are desperate stretches at best. Great video Paul.

What I find odd about the whole business is that all the "sacrifice", "shed his blood for us", "blood of the lamb" etc language is a poor fit with death by crucifuxion, which I understand is worked by asphyxiation. According to the gospel accounts, Jesus would have shed blood from prior scourging and mistreatment, and posthumously from being lanced, but the essence of crucifixion, unlike the horrible (and let's not forget how horrible the whole idea of animal sacrifice is) process of animal sacrifice, is not really a good fit with the relentless emphasis on the shedding of blood ("washed in the blood of the lamb" and so forth) in subsequent christian theology. Has anyone else noticed this?

Excellent work sir. If words were lasers WLC is vapour. You definitely should write a chapter or a book. I'd buy it

Yes. You should get together with David Fitzgerald.

Yes, Paul, write that chapter.

Yes, Paul. Write a book that pulls all these threads together.

WLC says Jesus died Friday night. Wasn't Jesus specific that he'd be dead 3 days & 3 nights (Matthew 12:40)? How could Jesus rise on Sunday if the prophecy was true? I'd like to hear WLC's response on that.

And that's why the Catholics have him still on the cross millennium later, he's still rotting on the implement of his continuous torture....

@Paulogia, the problem with having a 90+% Reliability standard--even for non-Biblical historical figures and narratives is that documents rarely exist for even a few hundred years because of fires, floods, wars and such. Where are the records from the Library of Alexandria? Where are the writings of 200,000 year old Man? Where are the writings of the ancient peoples of Indonesia, the tribes of remote Africa, Australia and New Zealand?

Well just because you dont have evidence of something doesn't mean that there isn't evidence of it... but it also means we should be skeptical about it.

Yeah, this interview was weird. What was going on with Alex during the William Lane Craig episode? He sounded like he agreed.

Dr. Craig has been gnawing away at this long- since dry old bone for way too long. Thank you Paul for making sure we don't forget that.

What is the original Word and what happened to It when It manifested to human?

Even if there was an empty tomb, it may have been just that an empty “tomb”. Never used so was empty all along. But i am not convinced there even was an empty tomb that held jesus before

I wanted to thank you because after watching many of your videos I started doing my own research and now I have become a Theist. And I'm about to get baptised soon. Thhakk you, without your videos end Avery now and then when you say something that I know is historicly wrong. At one point it was too much and a I had todo more research.. I'm about to get baptized as a Chatolic ❤❤❤

How did the wild dogs get the crucifixion victims? Every picture i ever see of the crosses has the people held high into the air. Is it like months later when their corpses are so degraded that they literally fall to pieces? Or are the pictures' heights all exaggerated?

Perhaps the most telling fact is that there is no mention of Jesus found anywhere in world history from any historical record outside of the Christian bibles from that era. Josephus was born after Jebus died and wrote decades later. Theodosius was also well after Jesus died . Not one record from any historian such as Pliny the elder from that era?????

It should also be noted that there are reasons other than crucifixion that someone could send up dying with a nail inside them. For all the evidence we have, the person could have been a murder victim in good standing.

Very informative ❤ thank you

Doesn't Jodi Magnes concur with William Lane Craig that burying the victims within 24 hours was common practice amongs jews in Judea at the time of Jesus?

I mean the very fact that *within the text of the Bible* we see that Pilate wrote that "King of the Jews" inscription, the Jewish leaders asked him to take it down, and he refused (John 19:19-22), also indicates that no, he did NOT care about offending the sensibilities of Jewish leaders. So Craig's argument isn't even consistent within the text of the Bible.

Conversation in ca. 50AD: - So you're telling me Jesus was burried and rose from the dead? - That's right - But I thought crucified criminals weren't allowed burial? - BUT Jesus was buried because there was this guy called umm... Joseph from... I dunno Arimathea and he buried him. - Okay so maybe his disciples stole the body at night. - Nuh-uh because the Romans totally had the tomb guarded by soldiers -...

There's a jebus tomb in Japan. He seems to get around.

Thank for creating great content Paul. As an aside, I have a PhD in history and an extensive publication record. I had never heard of the so-called criterion of embarrassment until I started listening to your videos. I can say with confidence that this is a concept invented by Christian apologists

It's my sense that many of today's Christians have little idea just how much of their theology is non-biblical, but is instead based partially or wholly upon "church tradition". This is a particularly sticky issue for the many protestant sects, as the "church" in this case is the Mother Church, aka the selfsame Roman Catholicism from which they divorced themselves at tremendous cost.

"The Romans generally left the bodies of crucified people on the cross when they died, to be food for dogs and vultures. This is reflected in a Jewish context in tractate Great Mourning (Ēbhel Rabbāthī, known euphemistically as Semāḥōth, Rejoicings). This says that the family of someone executed by the state (mlkūth), so the Romans, not Jewish authorities, should begin to count the days of mourning ‘from when they give up hope of asking’ successfully for the body of the executed person (b. Sem II, 9). More specifically, the wife, husband or child of a crucified person is instructed not to carry on living in the same city ‘until the flesh has gone and the figure is not recognizable in the bones’ (b. Sem. II, 11). This gives a graphic picture of families being unable to obtain the bodies of crucified people when they died, and the bodies being left on crosses until they were unrecognizable." - Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, pg. 446 This source is important because it specifically says the bodies _were not able to be obtained_ despite requesting them.

Leave it to a believer to look at an empty room, claim something miraculous happened within that entry room, and say it’s up to the non-believer to “prove” them wrong. Personally, I’m of the mindset that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence. If a room has zero evidence of a crime having taken place, then I’m justified in thinking no crime has taken place in that room. Yes, a crime could have taken place with no evidence left behind. However, I’m not justified in taking that position because of the lack of evidence in support of it.

Apologists are almost never concerned with what is probable and instead tend to mainly focus on what is possible, giving them extraordinary cover and leeway when attempting to defend their beliefs.

No matter where they put his corpse at when he died he stayed dead just like everybody else will when they die.

Whenever someone brings up the burial of the crucifixion victim Jehohanan, ask the person how long he was left on the cross before being buried! You see, apologists are trying to use this single instance as evidence of a _same day_ burial (like in the case of Jesus) but we have no idea how long the person was actually on the cross!

Basically, Craig's sleight-of-hand here is in turning "it's possible" into "it's probable" based on absolutely nothing but the word of the Gospel writers. It would be like trusting someone who said they have a friend who bench presses 600lbs. and you should believe them merely because we know such a thing is possible.

It always bothered me that a criminal like Jesus got special treatment. He was crucified under guard, and that guard reported that he stuck him in the side with his spear and witnessed a miracle, and then just walked away and left him there for his followers to reclaim. The more I think about it, the more absurd it seems.

motivated reasoning from WLC, what a shock

Cameron admits right up front that searching for a reason to believe is the apologetic default. They usually don't say the quiet part out loud like that.

Didn't Bill learn in Sunday school that lies make baby jesus cry?

Just got out of a debate with Christians about the resurrection. All they would say in a 500 comment thread when asked to prove the resurrection was " The Disciples would not have died for something they knew was a lie."

Absolutely outstanding research and presentation as usual. I really enjoyed this. You always present a level of casual competence that I have always admired.

if empty tombs are so rare and such great evidence, which empty tomb was Jesus not in?

As soon as Low Bar Bill shows where Arimathea is on a map, the tomb story will inch closer to being believable.

That flow chart explains the unlikely nature of a proper tomb beautifully.

Ultimately, he’s just arguing that, rather than Jesus being an exception, _all of Judea_ was an exception. And specifically under a governor known to intentionally antagonize the Jews.

This is where people need to understand the context that all of the gospels were written outside Judaea by Greek speakers after Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish people were dispersed in a war that was started because the Romans didn’t respect the Jewish culture. And even if some of the gospels were written by original disciples (which I don’t believe), they were from the hinterland, not from Jerusalem, so they might well not understand the cultural practices that happened in a city most of them had likely never visited.

Paul, this was tremendously scholarly, You go against these PhDs and have them scrambling to defend themselves, albeit poorly. We want your books on these subjects. McGill or the University of Toronto should grant you a honorary PhD at least.

I find it weird that the gospel offers the fact that it was not lawful for the Judeans to put their own criminals to death as the reason they delivered Jesus to the Romans, whereas William Lane Craig argues that Jesus would have been removed on the day of his crucifixion because that's what the Judeans wanted. It's like he forgot that they were subjects of Rome and legally speaking didn't get what they wanted, despite it being a foundational plot point in the gospel.

Love long Paul vids. Makes my work day go by better

What I find amazing is that they will fight _SO_ hard to argue for something that would speak to their religion's main doctrine being extremely unethical and immoral to begin with.

Super thanks for this very well researched video, and thanks for tackling this topic yet again. Good luck with the push back!

Hey, it wasn't my day to watch him so don't blame me if he's gone missing. I have Wednesdays according to the posted schedule.

As far as the burial of Jesus is concerned, if the Romans intention was to make the end result as degrading as possible, by leaving the body to rot and be scavenged, why would that not be the case for Jesus. By the Bible’s own stories, Jesus was singled out for extra torment: the crown of thorns, the mocking sign on the cross, and the beatings by the soldiers. The s it more plausible that they extended a courtesy by letting him be buried afterwards, they can’t have it both ways .

There's a handy rule of thumb that can be used here: "If WLC is saying something he's either lying or wrong".

Pilate killed so many people that if someone asked him about Jesus he would probably say “who?”

Question: The Jewish authorities did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and he was a known troublemaker (and convicted criminal). So why would Jewish authorities have been interested in following some kind of tradition where they removed the bodies of crucified criminals by nightfall? To me, that makes it seem even less likely that the Jewish leadership would have followed their tradition (if such tradition existed) and taken Jesus' body down. Or am I looking at things incorrectly? Keep up the good work, Paulogia!!

Even if Craig is correct, what does that even prove? Elvis Presley has a known tomb and there are still thousands of people today who believe he's still alive.

....aaaand immediate deception from Low Bar, ignoring the mass grave part of the burial which is the real issue, not the timing. My understanding is that they didn't take them down and bury them until after they were dead, which might not happen on the first day. Jesus being taken down so quickly (if any of it really happened) would make it more likely he was not properly dead, only mostly dead.

Craig has found an explanation that is possible and suits his preferences, and left it at that. He refuses to consider alternative possibilities because he is in love with his own hypothesis, as usual.

I could really taste your well-justified exasperation in this one, Paul. Thank you for the sober, well-researched, thorough, and perfectly digestible rebuttal to WLC's specious motivated reasoning. You really lay things out in a clear and concise way without relying on zingers, personal attacks, or appeals to authority.

It is wild how bafflement at many benign writing techniques is the basis of so many apologetics. Like, do they not understand how writing a compelling story works???

My vote is this topic deserves a chapter in a book. I'll buy a copy when you announce publication.

Alex is so muddled. Well as he gets older he might get less muddled.

Excellent. Strong ‘yes’ vote on your providing more on this, whether in form of book, episode, or revelatory vision.

Jesus? I knew he was buried around here somewhere?

Yes Paul, would definitely be interested to read more about this in a book ... was originally thinking you might produce the antidote to VegeTales but I’m sure the market is big enough for both 😀👍 Are you going to start a GoFundMe to help get it written?

Burial on the day of crucifiction most certainly was not the usual treatment simply because it often took longer than a day to die. The victims did not bleed to death. It was their own body weiight that SLOWLY crushed their lungs.

42:34 I'd totally read a book about this by Paul. If it were an audio book also read by Paul, I'd be first in line to buy it!