The Dumplin' Dumbash Page

On "The Bones of Jesus"

Watch Dumplin' gyrate as he tries to argue for the "theft theory" of the body of Jesus. Okay, he admits it would not be likely they'd keep it a secret. He's right -- more so than he knows. There's a passel of arguments here on why, including one that debunks his bit about the disicples having a few hours to do the deed before the guards showed up. But in his expected perverse way, Dumplin' decides the way to go is to simply believe that Matthew 28:12-15 is 100% true, while the rest is bunk. Say, that's a nice cafeteria you have goin' there, Dumplin'.

Dumplin' has a few miscellaneous whines in the meantime though. "And notice, Matthew never reveals his source for this story." Your point being what, son? Matthew as an apostle; he doesn't need to "reveal" a source; he is a source. He was there when it all went down. "...it appeals to people’s mistrust of soldiers and Jews..." Huh? What people's mistrust of soldiers and Jews? Dumplin' is imposing modern categories on the text, and also seems to forget that the apostles and Jesus were Jews. Oops. "...it provides absolutely zero documentary evidence that what it claims is true." Uh, it IS documentary evidence, Dumbash. That's the point. If Matthew provided something else, like, "Joe saw this," then you'd whine that Joe provided "zero documentary evidence" of what he claimed, and on it would go with you. Epistemological excuses aren't an argument -- when you can use the same excuses to dismiss any historical event you don't like, you have what is called a "worthless argument."

Dumplin' keeps on keepin' on: It’s not even plausible: why would the governor listen to the Jewish priests telling him not to discipline guards who confessed to sleeping on the job? Gee, Dumbash, you don't know that? Roman authorities had to walk a tightrope; Rome only had a few thou of soliders in Judaea, and sure didn't want a war; that costs money and lives, you know. So some give and take in the provinces was part of the package. Not that we know that the governor listened anyway -- no matter how you slice it, this was a desparate ploy for people whose bacon needed saving. Yes, there are holes in the story the guards were given to tell -- that's often how it is when someone is in a tight spot with time not on their hands.

From here, Dumpy's variations become even more tragic. I think this speaks for itself:

But if there's one thing that Jesus taught his disciples, it’s how to have more than one variety of "truth"... You see this same attitude in Christians today, who will tell you without any sense of guilt or duplicity both that Jesus is in heaven and that Jesus is living in their hearts. Obviously, it’s not literally, physically true that any of them have a 2,000 year old Jewish man residing in their left ventricle. That would be fatal, if it were even possible. But the fact that it is not literally true does not make the Christian feel like it’s lying to call it spiritually true.

Wow. Dumpy actually thought "heart" meant the left ventricle. Now that is just plain stupid.

It doesn't get better, as he supposes the first prop was for a "spiritual" resurrection (no such thing, sorry) and goes as far as to suggest that the Apostles had originally stumped for some sort of Gnostic view (for after all, Entire Gnostic Gospels were written and circulated as Christian documents (though later rejected and anathematized by the Church, of course) and even thinks Paul "spends a considerable amount of time arguing for a spiritual resurrection, in explicit contrast to the physical body which was buried (I Cor. 15:35-50)."

What more can be said, except, "Stupid, stupid...stupid." This is Da Vinci Code scholarship at work.