Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
About
Christology
Israel/Palestine
Publications
KermitZarley.com
Archives
Categories
- Angels
- Blog Description
- Book Reviews
- Christian Living
  - Unconditional Love?
- Christianity
- Christology
  - Deity of Christ?
  - Holy Spirit
  - Incarnation?
  - My Change
  - Trinity?
- Church History
- Current Events
- War on Terrorism
- Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
- Eschatology
- Ezekiel 38-39
- Last Empire
- Primitive Weapons
- Film Reviews
- God
- Golf
  - Billy Graham
  - Karsten Solheim
  - Lee Trevino
  - Major Championship Winners
  - Masters
  - Purpose
  - Ryder Cup
- Gospel Harmonization
- Interview
- Islam
- Jesus
- Literary Announcements
- Monotheism
- My Books
  - The Restitution of Jesus Christ
- Old Testament
- Politics
- Society of Biblical Literature
- The Bible
- Trinitarianism
- Uncategorized
FREE NEWSLETTER

Home
Progressive Christian
Religion News
Dr. Mark Goodacre Speaks about Jesus’ Tomb

Dr. Mark Goodacre Speaks about Jesus’ Tomb

Last updated on: September 23, 2023 at 9:07 pm by Kermit Zarley

0 Comments

Dr. Mark Goodacre Speaks about Jesus’ Tomb 2023-09-23T21:07:42-07:00 Kermit Zarley

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This weekend, I’m attending a virtual conference called New Insights into the New Testament. It is hosted by Dr. Bart Ehrman, bestselling author and professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The conference consists of ten professors presenting hour-long speeches about new insights into the Bible’s New Testament (NT). I watched two presenters today: Dr. Mark Goodacre and Dr. Dale Allison. Tomorrow, I intend to watch Dr. James Tabor and Dr. Amy-Jill Levine. I know personally Allison, Tabor, and Levine and have communicated with Goodacre. In this post, I recount some of what Goodacre said, tomorrow what Allison said, and perhaps posts about the other two professors after that. After each professor presents, host Ehrman appears and supervises a Q&A, receiving questions from the audience. We had been told that the audience was nearly 3,000 people.

[I’ve placed the image of the front cover of my book, The Third Day Bible Code, here because of the subject of Jesus’ resurrection. I made that image of a view from inside a tomb that Jesus’ tomb might have looked like. I was inspired to make this for that book because of Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion,” since that is the last scene in the film. I had never seen a picture from the back of a tomb-cave looking at the tomb entrance.]

Mark Goodacre has a British accent since he is from the UK. He is Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins in the Religious Studies Department at Duke University in North Carolina. He is an authority on the Synoptic Problem. He has written books entitled Thomas and the Gospels, The Case Against Q, The Synoptic Problem, and Goulder and the Gospels. He favors the Farrar Hypothesis concerning the origin of the New Testament gospels and therefore dismisses an existence of Q. That is the abbreviation of the word quell, a German word that means “source.” Scholars use it in referring to the written sources that the NT gospel writers used in crafting their gospels. Most NT gospel scholars believe there was a now extant (non-existent) literary document that existed very early after the time of Jesus and that all three Synoptists (authors of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke) used Q in compiling their gospels. These scholars believe Q consisted only of sayings of Jesus, thus nothing else about him. But some NT scholars do not think there ever was a Q. Most of them, including Dr. Goodacre, accept the Farrar Hypothesis. That means that the authors of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke knew of, and used, the Gospel of Mark in crafting their gospels, and there was no Q. Although I am by no means an expert on this, I have written books about the NT gospels, a screenplay on Jesus resurrection, and I’ve have leaned toward believing this Farrar Hypothesis.

But Goodacre was not speaking on this subject today. Instead, he spoke about Jesus’ tomb. He started by providing some research he has done, which is likely original, about how the term “empty tomb” became applied to Jesus’ tomb. That expression has to be with the authenticity about the Christian message, that Jesus literally arose from the dead. There is no such expression in the NT gospels. Mark said in patristic writings, it first appears in the fourth century in the writings of John Chrysostom, who was the most famous for his preaching ability of all church fathers.

Goodacre said of all the ancient tombs that have been discovered in the Holy Land, all have been “family tombs.” That means that they had multiple places for bodies to be entombed. The tombs usually were carved out of limestone rock. Each body was usually laid on a ledge. Jews often performed another act about year after the dead person’s corpse had been entomb. It was to take the bones, which by then no longer had flesh on them, and put them in an ossuary. That was a rectangularly-shaped box made of stone. Most of these family tombs had horizontal receptacles dug out in which they would slide the ossuary into one of the receptacles. Mark also said no ancient tomb has ever been discovered in the Holy Land (I think he said that rather than metro-Jerusalem or Judea) that was built only for a single deceased person, and that is why they are often called “family tombs.” He said only wealthy people could afford to own the land and construct such a tomb, which could take months to build.

Dr. Goodacre also said the stone that covered Jesus’ tomb entrance was not a round rock, but cylinder-shaped that could more easily be rolled into place. He said out of about a thousand ancient tombs that have been discovered in the Holy Land, only nine cynlinder-shaped stones to cover the tomb entrance have been discovered. In thinking of this, “an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it” (Matthew 28.2).

During the Q&A, Goodacre said the NT gospel data does not say the resurrected Jesus walked out of the tomb. And Mark added that the gospel data does not allow that he walked out of the tomb. Mark also mentioned that in Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion,” at the end of the film has Jesus walking out of the tomb. Ehrman then interjected that he doesn’t know of any NT scholars who liked that film. Goodacre seems to be somewhat of an expert on Hollywood Jesus films, of which there have been about 100. Goodacre said, “I hated the film.”

The last Q&A question was about what Mark thought of “the Shroud of Turin.” So many people ask about that. I’ve written a blog post on this entitled “The Shroud of Turin Is Not Jesus’ Burial Cloths.” Notice this post says “Cloths” whereas the Shroud of Turin is a single cloth. Burial cloths that were put on Jesus’ body had to be more than one piece of cloth because the scriptures are clear that a separate head covering, called a napkin, was place on his head. Mark said the Shroud of Turin is not only not the burial cloth of Jesus, it is a fraud! Mark didn’t go into much detail about that. I think NT scholars may get tired of being question about the Shroud of Turin. I fully subscribe to Mark saying it was not the burial cloth of Jesus. And I thought it interesting that an authority on the subject of Jesus’ tomb such as Goodacre is would say with conviction it is a fraud.

Education and Religion

Jesus

New Testament

"The Passion of the Christ" film

Dr. Mark Goodacre

Jesus' Tomb

New Insights into the New Testament

The Shroud of Turin

Previous Post

September 17, 2023

Sahith Theegala Wins Fortinet Championship

Next Post

September 30, 2023 Ryder Cup after Day Two

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Several sources have indicated that the Russian KGB uses prostitutes to compromise and spy on ..."

Glen B Smith

U.S. President Trump Keeps Looking Like ..."

"I have been reading about his trips to Russia and his family ties... It is ..."

Alan

U.S. President Trump Keeps Looking Like ..."

"Glen, you seem to be advocating a preterist viewpoint, with which I disagree." I'm a ..."

Kermit Zarley

Family Estrangement Versus Honoring Father and ..."

"THESIS is a SCRIPTURE QUOTE.“Remember the predictions foretold by the holy prophets and by the ..."

glen smith

Family Estrangement Versus Honoring Father and ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Angels Billy Graham Blog Description Book Reviews Christian Living Christianity Christology Church History Current Events Deity of Christ? Disarmament Eschatology Evangelicalism Ezekiel 38-39 Film Reviews God Golf Gospel Harmonization Health History Holy Spirit Incarnation? Interview Islam Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Jesus Last Empire Literary Announcements Major Championship Winners Masters Monotheism My Books New Testament Old Testament Politics Primitive Weapons Ryder Cup Science Society of Biblical Literature The Bible The Restitution of Jesus Christ Trinitarianism Trinity? Uncategorized Unconditional Love? War on Terrorism

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the Hebrew word 'El Shaddai' mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The Lord is my Shepherd Everlasting Father Holy One God

Books by This Author Books by Kermit Zarley Blog

See All Titles »