Hi @dga471,
Good points. Regarding the first, one could argue that the reason why there was no polemic about a fake body is simply that the Jewish high priests decided against exhibiting the body in public, concluding that it would merely add fuel to the fire and give the Jesus movement unnecessary publicity. And the reason why there was a polemic about the disciples stealing the body was that they were the obvious suspects, given that the original tomb of Jesus was empty. Nobody would have suspected the Jewish priests.
Regarding the second, I’d like to quote what Maurice Casey says in chapter 12 of his book about post-mortem apparitions, which as he notes are common in all cultures. Casey relies heavily on research reported by Dale Allison (who is himself a Christian), in his recent book, Resurrecting Jesus (T & T Clark International, 2005). Casey writes:
The current situation is that ‘all parts of the general public report a high incidence of … contact with the dead’, including ‘visions while wide awake’. These include shared experiences, when ‘more than one person saw a apparition’. [Footnote 60 - Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, pp. 273-275, summarizing a lot of collected evidence of people’s experiences] Summarizing reports as well as verified experiences, so a situation analogous to the Gospel narratives as well as the tradition in 1 Cor. 15:3-7, Allison [footnote 61 - Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, pp. 278-282, citing investigative reports and extensive footnotes] concludes, among other points, that there are numerous reports of apparitions in which departed people ‘are both seen and heard’, though ‘they tend to say little’; ‘are seen now by one person and later by another’; ‘are seen by more than one percipient at the same time’; ‘are sometimes seen by some but not all present’; ‘create doubt in some percipients’; ‘give guidance and make requests or issue imperatives’; ‘are overwhelmingly real and indeed seemingly solid’; ‘appear and disappear in unusual and abrupt ways’; ‘are not perceived as apparitional at the beginning of the experience’; and ‘are seen less and less as more and more time follows their death’.
I should add that with Marian apparitions, these also tend to fade away with the passage of time: they typically last for no more than a few months (Medjugorje being the sole exception that I am aware of).
Interestingly, William Lane Craig has written a highly respectful review of Allison’s book here. Craig’s two main beefs with Allison’s book are that (i) Allison objects to the notion of Jesus’ body being raised from the tomb on primarily philosophical grounds, rather than scientific or historical grounds; and (ii) Allison’s explanation of the empty tomb is ad hoc, whereas the Resurrection hypothesis is simpler and more straightforward. By contrast, the “devil’s advocate” hypothesis I put forward above suggests a non-arbitrary reason why the Jewish priests would have wanted to move the body, and why they would not have wanted to publicize the fact. What ties the ten assumptions together are: Jesus’ public mission of healing, his understanding that his mission eventually entailed dying in Jerusalem, his belief that he would be publicly vindicated by God after his death, and his prediction of his post-mortem vindication to his disciples, plus the Jewish priests’ fear of the rising Jesus movement.
I certainly wouldn’t claim that the “devil’s hypothesis” I’ve proposed is a terribly convincing one, or even a probable one. But it sounds quite plausible. And I think that a skeptic might maintain that when it comes to miracles, all you have to do is suggest a reasonably plausible alternative naturalistic hypothesis, given that the prior probabilities are incalculable anyway. Thoughts?