The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (The Empty Tomb)

In Part 1 of this series we examined crucifixion from a medical perspective and considered the possibility of Jesus eluding death and faking his resurrection. In this part of the series, we will consider further evidence for the resurrection by investigating the burial of Jesus, and whether his tomb was found empty or not.

Was Jesus really buried in the Tomb?

When studying the history of crucifixion, we are told that criminals who had been crucified, were left on the cross to be devoured by birds or were thrown into a common grave. This has led some critical scholars to claim that Jesus’ body was probably dug up and consumed by wild dogs. If we just considered this customary practice, then that claim would make perfect sense. However, this would mean ignoring the specific evidence in this case.

The Creed

The burial of Jesus is mentioned by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15: 3-7, where he passes on a very early verbal creed. Most scholars and experts in this field, such as Dr William Lane Craig, agree that this creed was a statement that Christians would recite to summarise their beliefs, and undoubtedly goes back to within a few years of Jesus’ crucifixion, having been given to Paul, after his conversion and subsequent meetings with the apostles James and Peter. This creed also makes specific mention to the fact that most of the people who witnessed the risen Jesus were still alive. This was basically an invitation for people to find these witnesses and question what they saw.

Concerning this creed, New Testament Critic and non-believer, Gerd Ludemann, says:

“We can assume that all the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion… not later than three years after the death of Jesus.”

Critical Biblical scholar, James Dunn, adds:

“This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.”

Many other critical scholars have come to the same conclusion.

While the creed says Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected, it does not specifically mention the tomb being empty. Critics have suggested that this perhaps leaves room to interpret the resurrection as a spiritual one and not a bodily one. So, Jesus’ body could still be in the tomb. However, the creed certainly implies a physical resurrection. When we look at Jewish religion, the concept of the resurrection was definitely a physical one. So, for Paul to write that Jesus was resurrected but only spiritually would be a direct contradiction to his understanding of the resurrection. Consequently, when this early Christian creed says Jesus was buried and then raised on the third day, it is saying implicitly and quite clearly: an empty tomb was left behind.

Joseph of Arimathea

One of the first points that some sceptics make is that Joseph of Arimathea, who allegedly gave Jesus an honourable burial, was also a member of the Sanhedrin who unanimously voted to have Jesus crucified. This seems like a strange thing for Joseph to do. However, when we look at the gospel according to Luke, he makes a specific mention to the fact that Joseph of Arimathea was not present when the official vote was taken.

The next sceptical interjection is whether Joseph is a historical person at all, or just a fabrication by the early disciples. This seems highly unlikely though, given the early Christian anger and bitterness toward the Jewish Leaders who had instigated the crucifixion of Jesus. It seems improbable that they would have invented a Jewish Leader who did the right thing by giving Jesus an honourable burial, and one who was a specific member of a specific group. If he existed, people would have known who Joseph of Arimathea was due to him being in the Sanhedrin. Therefore, it would have been easy to question such a person on the events that had unfolded. This strongly suggests that Joseph is a historical figure. Also, if this burial by Joseph was a legend that developed later, you would expect to find other competing burial traditions about what happened to Jesus’ body; this is not the case. John A. T. Robinson, the late Cambridge University New Testament scholar, said the honourable burial of Jesus is one of the earliest and best-attested facts that we have about the historical Jesus.

Was the Tomb Secure? - How Protected was Jesus?

Archaeologists have been able to provide us with detail on how these types of tombs looked, from excavations of similar first-century sites. There was a slanted groove that led down to a low entrance, and a large disk-shaped stone was rolled down this groove and lodged into place across the door. A smaller stone was then used to secure the disk. It would take several men to roll the stone back up in order to reopen the tomb. In that sense, it was quite secure but would still leave scope for Jesus’ disciples stealing his body.

The gospel according to Matthew tells us that the tomb was also guarded. However, sceptics doubt this point, as it is not recorded in the other gospel records.

It is necessary, therefore, to take a quick consideration of the claims that went back and forth between the Jews and Jewish Christians in the first century:

- The initial proclamation by the Christians was that Jesus had risen.

- In response, the Jews said that the disciples stole his body.

- The Christians rebutted this by saying that the guards at the tomb would have prevented such a theft.

- The Jews responded with the story of the guards falling asleep while guarding the tomb.

- Finally, the Christians replied that the Jews bribed the guards to say they fell asleep.

If there were no guards, the Jews would simply have refuted these claims, but instead they made excuses; history tells us that there were guards.

What About the Contradictions?

Throughout the years, critics of Christianity have attacked the empty tomb story by pointing out apparent discrepancies among the gospel accounts. Here is a summary to consider, from Dr. Michael Martin of Boston University:

In Matthew, when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrive towards dawn at the tomb there is a rock in front of it, there is a violent earthquake, and an angel descends and rolls back the stone. In Mark, the women arrived at the tomb at sunrise and the stone had been rolled back. In Luke, when the women arrive at early dawn they find the stone has already been rolled back. In Matthew, the women present at the tomb are Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. In Mark, the women present at the tomb are the two Marys and Salome. In Luke, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna and the other women are present at the tomb. In Matthew, the two Marys rush from the tomb in great fear and joy, run to tell the disciples, and meet Jesus on the way. In Mark, they run out of the tomb in fear and say nothing to anyone. In Luke, the women report the story to the disciples who do not believe them and there is no suggestion that they meet Jesus.

At a glance, that would seem to make the accounts very unreliable. However, Dr William Lane Craig points out that these inconsistencies are all in the secondary details. The core of the story is the same throughout all of the gospel accounts: Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of Jesus, puts it in a tomb, the tomb is visited by a small group of women followers of Jesus early on the Sunday morning following his crucifixion, and they find that the tomb is empty. This suggests that there is a historical core to this story that is reliable and can be depended upon, however conflicting the secondary details might be.

Even the typically sceptical historian Michael Grant, concedes that though the accounts are described in various ways, if we apply the same sort of criteria that would apply to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was found empty.

If all four gospels were identical in all their details, that would have also raised the suspicion of plagiarism. The differences between the empty tomb narratives suggest that we have multiple, independent attestations of the empty tomb story.

Additionally, even when looking at contemporary cases that were actually caught on camera and happened in front of thousands of people, we have discrepancies in the secondary information. Two examples would be the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the attack on the World Trade Centres. Both caught on camera, both happened in front of a lot of people, yet there are so many differences and disagreements in the secondary information. This, however, does not deny us the fact that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the World Trade Centres were hit by planes.

.

Can the Witnesses be Trusted?

The gospels agree that the empty tomb was discovered by women who were friends and followers of Jesus. Michael Martin believes that makes their testimony very suspect, since they were not objective observers. However, this argument backfires on people that use it, as it shows a lack of understanding concerning the role of women in first-century Jewish society. The fact that the empty tomb story should feature women as the discoverers would be embarrassing. Women were on a very low rung of the social ladder in first-century Palestine. There are old rabbinical sayings that said, ‘Let the words of the Law be burned rather than delivered to women’ and ‘blessed is he whose children are male’. Women’s testimony was basically regarded as so worthless that they weren't even allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of law. Consequently, it is remarkable that the chief witnesses to the empty tomb are these women who were friends of Jesus. Any later legendary account would surely have portrayed male disciples as discovering the tomb such as Peter or John. This shows that the gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened, even if it was embarrassing.

Summary

The empty tomb is definitely implicit in the early tradition that is passed along by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, which is a very old and reliable source of historical information about Jesus.

The site of Jesus’ tomb was known to Christian and Jew alike. So, if it were not empty, it would be impossible for a movement founded on belief in the resurrection to have come into existence in the same city where this man had been publicly executed and buried.

We can tell from the language, grammar, and style that Mark got his empty tomb story from an earlier source. In fact, there is evidence it was written before 37 A.D., which is much too early for legend to have seriously corrupted it.

The unanimous testimony that the empty tomb was discovered by women argues for the authenticity of the story, because it would have been embarrassing for the disciples to admit and most certainly would have been covered up if this were a legend.

In the earliest Jewish polemic, there was nobody claiming that the tomb still contained Jesus’ body. The question was always: ‘What happened to the body?’ This big question will be covered in Part 3, when we will consider whether Jesus was actually seen alive after his crucifixion and burial, or whether there could be rational explanations such as hallucination or legendary development.