In assessing whether Jesus was bodily raised from the dead it is of paramount importance to assess whether there was actually an empty tomb or not. If Jesus' body was still there then he was not resurrected!
The women at the tomb
All four Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus have an account of the resurrection. One of the most compelling arguments for the historicity of the bodily resurrection and that Jesus' tomb was empty is that the empty tomb was reported by the authors of the Gospels to have been found by women. The historian Vermes says that female testimony did 'not count in male Jewish society'. Women were not even allowed to testify legally as witnesses in trials in first century Judaism (O'Collins). The earliest Gospel that was written is the Gospel of Mark and he has no men arriving on the scene at all.
The question this leaves us with is why would the writers of the Gospels have women as being present at the empty tomb if they knew the evidence of these women would not be worth much? The logical answer would not be that the Gospels have women as the primary witnesses to the resurrection because they made the story up! A made up story would not have given the primary testimony and evidence to women but rather to men, so the story would have been more convincing in that culture and time. The logical answer is therefore that the Gospel writers told the story the way they did because it actually happened that way. Because women's testimony was not worth much we must assume this story is based on sound fact and that the women really did find the tomb of Jesus empty.
The Gospels seem to differ on points of detail surrounding the resurrection. Surely this is evidence AGAINST the resurrection?
Those who seek to disprove Jesus' bodily resurrection point to the differences on points of minor detail among the Gospel writers. For example, Luke has the empty tomb being found at dawn while both Matthew and John say it was before dawn. Mark says the tomb was found after dawn. Mark has three women present at the empty tomb, Matthew has two. In Mark, the women tell no one about what they have seen, while the other Gospel accounts state they told people about what had happened. I want to state that rather than weakening the argument for Jesus' tomb being empty, these differences actually strengthen that argument. Think about it. Lots of the material in the Gospels appears fairly similar. Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source and it is probable they shared other sources. The fact that the different Gospels contain different details surrounding the resurrection means that there were many different sources for the story of Jesus' resurrection! If the resurrection of Jesus was fabricated and constructed by the early church then there would likely be one single source for the resurrection narratives and the details of that narrative would therefore be more likely to be identical in each of the Gospels! The fact there appears to be a number of sources regarding Jesus' resurrection can only add weight to the argument that there was in fact an empty tomb!
It is hard to escape the evidence suggesting there was an empty tomb. However, there is further evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. There were many sightings of Jesus being alive and well after he died and at one time he appeared to over 500 people at once! In the next blog post we shall assess whether these sightings of Jesus can be trusted and what they can tell us about the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
Read part one, three or four of this blog.
The women at the tomb
All four Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus have an account of the resurrection. One of the most compelling arguments for the historicity of the bodily resurrection and that Jesus' tomb was empty is that the empty tomb was reported by the authors of the Gospels to have been found by women. The historian Vermes says that female testimony did 'not count in male Jewish society'. Women were not even allowed to testify legally as witnesses in trials in first century Judaism (O'Collins). The earliest Gospel that was written is the Gospel of Mark and he has no men arriving on the scene at all.
The question this leaves us with is why would the writers of the Gospels have women as being present at the empty tomb if they knew the evidence of these women would not be worth much? The logical answer would not be that the Gospels have women as the primary witnesses to the resurrection because they made the story up! A made up story would not have given the primary testimony and evidence to women but rather to men, so the story would have been more convincing in that culture and time. The logical answer is therefore that the Gospel writers told the story the way they did because it actually happened that way. Because women's testimony was not worth much we must assume this story is based on sound fact and that the women really did find the tomb of Jesus empty.
The Gospels seem to differ on points of detail surrounding the resurrection. Surely this is evidence AGAINST the resurrection?
Those who seek to disprove Jesus' bodily resurrection point to the differences on points of minor detail among the Gospel writers. For example, Luke has the empty tomb being found at dawn while both Matthew and John say it was before dawn. Mark says the tomb was found after dawn. Mark has three women present at the empty tomb, Matthew has two. In Mark, the women tell no one about what they have seen, while the other Gospel accounts state they told people about what had happened. I want to state that rather than weakening the argument for Jesus' tomb being empty, these differences actually strengthen that argument. Think about it. Lots of the material in the Gospels appears fairly similar. Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source and it is probable they shared other sources. The fact that the different Gospels contain different details surrounding the resurrection means that there were many different sources for the story of Jesus' resurrection! If the resurrection of Jesus was fabricated and constructed by the early church then there would likely be one single source for the resurrection narratives and the details of that narrative would therefore be more likely to be identical in each of the Gospels! The fact there appears to be a number of sources regarding Jesus' resurrection can only add weight to the argument that there was in fact an empty tomb!
It is hard to escape the evidence suggesting there was an empty tomb. However, there is further evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. There were many sightings of Jesus being alive and well after he died and at one time he appeared to over 500 people at once! In the next blog post we shall assess whether these sightings of Jesus can be trusted and what they can tell us about the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
Read part one, three or four of this blog.
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