If you take 33A.D. to be the time of the crucifixion, then that does not allow enough time for significant mythtification, since too many people were around to dispute the accounts.
Serious mythification, especially in a culture depending on oral accounts, can begin within minutes of an event. I live in a country where accounts of visions of the virgin Mary, complete with showers of rose petals and sweet-scented air, are regular events; thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people dash off to the site and prostrate themselves before the visionaries. Of course there are plenty of people around to dispute the accounts; nobody listens to them. The pilgrims believe because they want to believe.
The earliest arguments against the resurrection were that the disciples stole the body, by bribing the Guards at the tomb, thereby acknowledging that the tomb was empty. It seems to me that the best explanation of that fact is that Jesus did in fact, rise from the dead.
If a body is placed in a tomb that is later found to be empty, the logical conclusion would appear to be that someone removed the body from the tomb. I can't see any reason to believe otherwise, unless of course you really really want to. |
