Is Christianity true? (the Resurrection - Part 6)

This blog is part of my series titled “Is Christianity true?” The series addresses four common objections to the truthfulness of the Christian worldview, namely concerns about: (1) the trustworthiness of the Bible; (2) the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection; (3) the compatibility of faith in God with modern science; and (4) the incompatibility of Christian truth claims with those of other worldviews.

HISTORICAL FACTS CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION - FACT #2

William Lane Craig (reprinted with permission (see Appendix C, “More Than Your Business Card”))

THE EMPTY TOMB

“On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers. Among the reasons which have led most scholars to this conclusion are the following: 

1. The empty tomb story is also part of the old passion source used by Mark. The passion source used by Mark did not end in death and defeat, but with the empty tomb story, which is grammatically of one piece with the burial story. 

2. The old tradition cited by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:3–5 implies the fact of the empty tomb. For any first century Jew, to say that of a dead man “that He was buried and that He was raised” is to imply that a vacant grave was left behind. Moreover, the expression “on the third day” probably derives from the women’s visit to the tomb on the third day, in Jewish reckoning, after the crucifixion. The four-line tradition cited by Paul summarizes both the gospel accounts and the early apostolic preaching (Acts 13:28–31); significantly, the third line of the tradition corresponds to the empty tomb story. 

3. The story is simple and lacks signs of legendary embellishment. All one has to do to appreciate this point is to compare Mark’s account with the wild legendary stories found in the second-century apocryphal gospels, in which Jesus is seen coming out of the tomb with his head reaching up above the clouds and followed by a talking cross! 

Any later legendary story would certainly have made male disciples discover the empty tomb. 

4. The fact that women’s testimony was discounted in first century Palestine stands in favor of the women’s role in discovering the empty tomb. According to Josephus, the testimony of women was regarded as so worthless that it could not even be admitted into a Jewish court of law. Any later legendary story would certainly have made male disciples discover the empty tomb. 

5. The earliest Jewish allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body (Matt. 28:15) shows that the body was in fact missing from the tomb. The earliest Jewish response to the disciples’ proclamation, “He is risen from the dead!” was not to point to his occupied tomb and to laugh them off as fanatics, but to claim that they had taken away Jesus’ body. 

Thus, we have evidence of the empty tomb from the very opponents of the early Christians. One could go on, but I think enough has been said to indicate why, in the words of Jacob Kremer, an Austrian specialist in the resurrection, ‘By far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb.’” 

Next week, Fact #3, Jesus’ post-mortem appearances!

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash