Last week I published the first article in a series on Resurrection apologetics, and that article focused on the historicity of the Resurrection narratives. We concluded, from a simplified case,1 that the Resurrection originated very early in Christianity, constituting a fundamental element of the religion straight from the 1st century AD on. Therefore, the Resurrection is not some sort of legendary embellishment. If the Resurrection has always been part of Christianity we must explain why this is the case, why people from the very beginning chose to believe in it. The reason that will be put forth in this series (and by Christians) is that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead.
In this article I am going to look at the evidence for the empty tomb and then respond to alternative explanations for it to demonstrate that the only historically and logically satisfactory explanation is that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, leaving His tomb empty. There is a good deal of evidence for the empty tomb, more than someone approaching this matter for the first time might expect. This evidence has brought 75% of the scholars (Christian and non-Chrisitan) who have written on the matter to affirm its legitimacy.2 Let us begin looking at it.
Our first line of evidence has been traditionally referred to by apologists as “the Jerusalem factor.” Since we now know that the Resurrection has historically been a part of Christianity from the beginning this means that Christians have been preaching it since the beginning, too, which is confirmed by the New Testament when the first Christian sermon makes mention of it (Acts 2). However, this means that Christians were claiming that a body that had been buried in an identifiable and infamous grave in Jerusalem was no longer there. All that would need to be done to disprove the disciples is procure the corpse of Jesus. Gary Habermas, the leading Resurrection apologist, explains the significance of the Jerusalem factor:
Perhaps the most powerful argument favoring the empty tomb concerns its location and the events surrounding it. The Gospel accounts are unanimous that Jesus was buried in a tomb that was located in Jerusalem. Few critics question this, holding that Jesus died and was buried in the city. Most also agree that early Christian preaching took place here, leading to the birth of the church.
But it is precisely since Jesus’ grave was located nearby that we have a serious problem if it was anything but empty. Unless Jesus’ tomb was unoccupied, the early Christian preaching would have been disproved on the spot. How could it be preached that Jesus had been raised from the dead if that message were starkly confronted by a rotting body? Exposing the body would kill the message and be an easy disproof of Christianity before it even gained momentum. Thus, Jerusalem is the last place for the early Christian teachings to gain a foothold unless Jesus’ grave was empty. A Sunday walk to the tomb could have settled the matter one way or another.
If Christianity had fled to Tarshish with Paul and had begun making its claims there no one would’ve had the ability to verify the disciples’ claims by conferring with the actual witnesses and settings of Christianity’s origins. On the contrary, Christianity began right smack dab in the middle of enemy territory and nonetheless it proclaimed that right in the very same neighborhood a wondrous sign had occurred.3
Another proof is that the enemies of the disciples (the Jewish religious leaders) implicitly acknowledged that the tomb was empty, as they stated, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came at night and stole His body while we were asleep’” (Matt. 28:13). There is a criterion of historical analysis known as the Principle of Enemy Attestation, which is based on the intuitive logic that people who don’t like you aren’t likely to prove your point, so whenever they do that really means something.4 The Jewish leaders, then, acknowledged that the tomb was empty and that they needed to find an explanation for it.5 William Lane Craig drives home the point:
The fact that the enemies of Christianity felt obliged to explain away the empty tomb by the theft hypothesis shows not only that the tomb was known (confirmation of the burial story), but that it was empty. … The proclamation ‘He is risen from the dead’ (Mt. 27.64) prompted the Jews to respond, ‘His disciples ... stole him away’ (Mt. 28. 13). Why? The most probable answer is that they could not deny that his tomb was empty and had to come up with an alternative explanation. So they said the disciples stole the body, and from there the polemic began. Even the gardener hypothesis is an attempt to explain away the empty tomb. The fact that the Jewish polemic never denied that Jesus' tomb was empty, but only tried to explain it away is compelling evidence that the tomb was in fact empty.
If you are manufacturing a fable, especially one to make you look good, you likely will incorporate details that make you look good. If you are trying to prove that you are a better person than your opponent you are not likely going to include that time you kicked a puppy, but rather you’ll talk about how you once gave ten puppies to sick kids for free. If, on the other hand, you are not trying to manufacture a fable but simply report what is true you will include details that are mediocre, believable, and even negative. With regards to the Resurrection all four Gospels uniformly attest that Jesus’ empty tomb was discovered by women (Jn. 20:1-2; Mk. 16:1-3; Lk. 24:1-3; Matt. 28:1-3). This is significant because in ancient Judaism the testimony of women was considered less than reputable. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the 1st century, wrote in his Antiquities of the Jews “let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex,” similar to the Talmudic statement “let the words of the Law be burnt than delivered to women.”6 Women were simply seen as too simple and secondary to be regarded with as much trust as men.7 If Christians wanted to invent the details of the empty tomb/Resurrection choosing women to be the primary heralds of it is an especially self-defeating tactic.8 Habermas again:
Notwithstanding this common stance, the Gospel accounts insist in their proclamation that the women were the star witnesses to the empty tomb. But why should these writers highlight female testimony unless the women really were the first to discover this fact? To do so would be to weaken their case considerably in the eyes of most listeners. Given this situation in first century Palestine, we can only conclude that the Gospel authors were clearly convinced that the women had discovered the empty tomb. They were more interested in reporting the truth than they were in avoiding criticism. This argument is very widely recognized and few scholars have challenged it, which testifies to its strength.
The empty tomb is also believable on the basis that without it Christianity couldn’t have gotten off the ground (or would’ve had an extremely difficult time doing so).9 Yet, Christianity took Judea by storm and was the predominant religion of the known world by the 5th century AD. No record of any lasting or insurmountable objection to Christian truth exists, all having been soundly defeated by the industrious early apologists and the test of time. Thus Craig makes a cogent argument in saying:
The empty tomb is a sine qua non of the resurrection. The notion that Jesus rose from the dead with a new body while his old body lay in the grave is a purely modern conception. Jewish mentality would never have accepted a division of two bodies, one in the tomb and one in the risen life. When therefore the disciples began to preach the resurrection in Jerusalem, and people responded, and the religious authorities stood helplessly by, the tomb must have been empty. The fact that the Christian fellowship, founded on belief in Jesus’ resurrection, could come into existence and flourish in the very city where he was executed and buried seems to be compelling evidence for the historicity of the empty tomb.
There are also many minor proofs. From the presence of the empty tomb in early creedal/oral material (e.g., Acts 2:24-32; 13:29-31, 36-37; 1 Cor. 15:3-7), its unanimous and multiple attestation (in the four Gospels and epistles), its presence in the pre-Markan passion narrative (discussed in the previous article), to the lack of a known shrine for Jesus’ tomb,10 there is a good cumulative case to make for the fact that the tomb that Jesus of Nazareth was placed in didn’t remained occupied for long.11 Since everyone agrees that Jesus was buried in a tomb, but didn't remain in that tomb, to avoid the obvious Christian conclusion skeptics have come up with several theories to maintain their enslavement to sin (let's call it what it is) in light of the empty tomb. A few alternatives merit consideration.
First, the legendary embellishment, traditionally the most popular alternative explanation (especially to 19th century historical-critical liberal scholars) has already been defeated by the previous article as it has demonstrated that the Resurrection belief didn’t begin as a legend, but is a historical fact. This leaves us with only three other alternatives: theft, hallucination, and apparent death.'
The theft hypothesis for why the early Christians truly believed Jesus was raised from the dead asserts that someone stole Jesus’ body, rendering it empty, and thus providing a basis for the Resurrection story. Indeed, the Gospels themselves record this as the explanation given by the Jewish authorities: “You are to say, ‘His disciples came at night and stole His body while we were asleep’” (Matt. 28:13). On what grounds might we find this explanation insufficient? There are a few different tactics we can employ. First, the obvious issue is in the guards that were posted outside the tomb (on the historicity of such an attachment see here). How would grave-robbers be able to roll away a massive stone and steal the body within when there were Roman guards present? Second, there were three types of people in Jerusalem at the time: Christians, Jews, and Romans. What grounds would any three of these groups have for stealing the body? The Romans had no skin in the game, except keeping Judea placid, which the death of Jesus (they hoped) would accomplish. The Jews wanted Jesus dead and for His sect to stop spreading, and with Him buried and His followers scattered they had what they wanted. The Christians were scattered and melancholic, not at all in the right state to carry out such an elaborate heist. Furthermore, both the Christian and Jewish groups would’ve been revolted by the prospect of frolicking about where the dead were in the middle of the night due to the ritual laws of purity that forbade contact with the dead (Num. 19:11-22). While, yes, by their very profession grave-robbers don’t care about these things it must be noted that both in terms of culture and possible motive a grave-robber of Jesus of Nazareth’s tomb would’ve been enormously unlikely. Furthermore, a stolen body doesn’t make sense of early Christian history. Something needs to account for the radical conversion of Paul, but as it stands an unsubstantiated story about an empty tomb of some heretical prophet would not carry the necessary convicting power. Similarly we need to account for James’ conversion from skepticism and what reversed the morose attitude of the disciples:
Fraud on [the Christians’] part would have been the first thing Paul would have suspected, just as we would be suspicious today if someone claimed that a recent cult leader like David Koresh of the Branch Davidians had risen from the dead after dying in the 1993 fire when federal officers attacked their Texas compound. … Third, it is doubtful that fraud on part of the disciples would have convinced James who, even though he may have heard of Jesus’ miracles, had rejected him prior to His resurrection. … [T]he empty tomb did not appear to lead any of Jesus’ followers except John to believe that he had risen from the daed. Indeed, the gospel fo john reports that Mary Magdalene immediately jumped to the conclusion that someone had stolen the body upon discovering the empty tomb. Her first thought was not that Jesus had risen.12
Furthermore, if the disciples had somehow gotten through the Roman guard, the tonne of stone, and retrieved Jesus’ body one must take into consideration the Jerusalem factor. No, not the Jerusalem factor mentioned earlier, but more particularly the fact that the disciples would’ve been trying to steal and hide a rotting body in the middle of a tightly packed city at maximum capacity for Passover. Where would the disciples have taken it? They couldn’t have whisked it out of the city, as Jerusalem’s gates were closed at night and guarded. They had only limited places to go in Jerusalem, and I highly doubt that Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea would’ve been sympathetic to any graverobbing. The disciples couldn’t have brought the body to the Cenacle as it was on the opposite end of Jerusalem.13 and it definitely would’ve been the first place searched. History unequivocally attests that no one actually proved the disciples stole the body, they merely claimed they did.
The stolen body hypothesis, then, holds no water. Some skeptics, either in lieu of the stolen body or thinking this to be actually better than it, hold to the hallucination theory. In other words, they think that the visions of Jesus and the idea that He was resurrected and appeared to the disciples was all part of a complex, trauma-driven hallucination. As Sean McDowell summarizes:
Essentially, [hallucinationists] believe Peter was so grief-stricken, guilt-ridden, and dependent upon his relationship with Jesus that he “saw” Him and then spread that vision to the other disciples, which resulted in all of them believing that they “saw” Jesus, thus thinking he had risen from the dead. Later on, Paul, in persecuting the Christians, experienced deep psychological tension…that eventually led him to a crisis that precipitated a break with his former outlook, followed by an acceptance of Jesus as the risen Messiah, which further caused him to join up with Peter’s group and begin spreading the gospel message to the Gentiles.14
The issues with this theory are multiplicitous, contributing to its vanishingly small acceptance among skeptical scholars. The biggest issue with the theory is that it completely twists the basic features of human psychology. In fact, with regards to psychology there are several different errors that stem from assuming the Resurrection came from a group hallucination. The most significant is that hallucinations are fundamentally private experiences, there is no “sharing” a hallucination. Hallucinations stem from issues in one’s brain chemistry, but everyone’s brain chemistry is different, even if several people are in the same emotional state,15 as they exist only in a subjective, personal sense, barring any one else from witnessing them.16 While it is certainly possible (just as it is possible for the name of the British Prime Minister from 1979-1990 to have been Montgomery Milifred Maramduke) that a disciple or two experienced hallucinations to assert that they all experienced the same hallucination and were able to convince thousands of people that this hallucination was really Jesus is a logical, historical, and psychological impossibility.
The final and most popular alternative explanation of the Resurrection is known as the apparent death hypothesis, or swoon theory. In this explanation it is proposed that Jesus, as a result of being scourged and crucified, was incredibly injured and weakened, to the point that to the naked eye (or even to the crude methods of an ancient physician) Jesus would have appeared dead. However, after being placed in the tomb, and going through the ritual washing and anointing (which would’ve cleansed His wounds), Jesus healed and resuscitated. This theory is able to account for all the problems of the other theories, such as the historicity of the Resurrection narrative, the empty tomb, how enemies and skeptics of Christianity were converted, and why no historical attestation of Christianity’s fraudulence survived. The theory admits Jesus lived, but through purely naturalistic means which were only referred to as a Resurrection due to superstitious embellishment.
The issue with this theory is similar to the issue with the hallucination theory. Just like how with the hallucination theory the main error was a twisting of the basics of psychology, the apparent death theory twists the basics of human physiology. All one needs to understand to disprove this explanation is just how cruel, violent, and lethal crucifixion is. Over time several medical professionals have published official work examining the effects of scourging and crucifixion and what would’ve happened to Jesus’ body from a medical perspective.17 All these publications are in agreement that Jesus couldn’t have survived whatsoever:
Jesus of Nazareth underwent Jewish and Roman trials, was flogged, and was sentenced to death by crucifixion. The scourging produced deep stripelike lacerations and appreciable blood loss, and it probably set the stage for hypovolemic shock, as evidenced by the fact that Jesus was too weakened to carry the crossbar (patibulum) to Golgotha. At the site of crucifixion, his wrists were nailed to the patibulum and, after the patibulum was lifted onto the upright post (stipes), his feet were nailed to the stipes. The major pathophysiologic effect of crucifixion was an interference with normal respirations. Accordingly, death resulted primarily from hypovolemic shock and exhaustion asphyxia. Jesus’ death was ensured by the thrust of a soldier’s spear into his side. Modern medical interpretation of the historical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead when taken down from the cross.18
Therefore, we see that not a single alternative explanation for why the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth was empty on the morning of April 5 carries enough explanatory power as the traditional explanation: Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead. He was not stolen, hallucinated, nor resuscitated, but by the power of the Father He was risen to new life and ensured the hope of everlasting life for all His saints. Still, some might wonder, “If Jesus actually came back from the dead and was publicly eyewitnessed as such, where is the corroborating evidence?” Such a wondrous sign would surely gain some attention, at least enough to survive the march of time, right? This is a very good question, and we shall answer it in the next article in this series.
There is a far more detailed case to be made for each of these articles; this series serves a prefatory purpose, a gateway into deeper contemplation.
Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 287, nn. 27-28.
One counterargument made by skeptics is that Jesus’ body would’ve been far too decomposed to identify, so if any corpse had been brought forth it wouldn’t have convinced anyone. The major issue with this is that it completely overlooks the mechanics of decomposition, which are dependent on environmental conditions. In the arid climate of ancient Judea decomposition would be greatly slowed so that enough identifying features would still survive after several weeks (such as wounds, stature, hair, and eyes).
Habermas gives the following illustration: “If your mother says that you are an honest person, we may have reason to believe her, yet with reservation, since she loves you and is somewhat biased. However, if someone who hates you admits that you are an honest person, we have a stronger reason to believe what is being asserted, since potential bias does not exist” (The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 71).
This explanation that the tomb was empty because of theft is also extrabiblically attested. See Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 108 and Tertullian, De Spectaculius, 30.
Quoted in Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 72.
A scholarly review of the women at the tomb and their cultural context is provided by Carolyn Osiek, “The Women At The Tomb: What Are They Doing There?”
Still, some skeptics have tried to argue that the women eyewitnesses are not historically well-founded, such as Bart Ehrman. For a response see here.
To the point that we can infer that, either, it would’ve died out in the 1st century, lasted a few centuries but then fizzled out, or survived but as a minor religion with a checkered early history
Dozens of saints and prophets at the time of Jesus’ death had shrines that were venerated, but Jesus, out of them all, never had one; the best reason why for this peculiar deviation is that Jesus’ body didn’t remain in His tomb, thus rendering the site as not appropriate for such veneration (see J.P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, 161-62).
For further reading on the empty tomb see Gary Habermas, “The Empty Tomb of Jesus”; William Lane Craig, “The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus”; Evan Minton, “The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection — Part 4: Fact (2) The Empty Tomb.”
Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 95, 97.
If you think carrying a decaying corpse by foot (use of animal or cart would’ve caused a lot of noise) for a mile is an easy feat…I wouldn’t know what to say.
Sean and Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 289.
To get very personal, in the wake of a traumatic family death I experienced several auditory hallucinations of that person. However, no relative of mine, despite being in the same emotional state, experienced hallucinations, of an auditory or any form.
Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Beyond Death, 119-20.
See William Edwards, Wesley Gabel, Floyd Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ”; Pierre Barbet, A Doctor at Calvary; Gary Habermas and Jonathan Kopel, “Medical views on the death by crucifixion of Jesus Christ”; Frederick Zugibe, The Crucifixion of Jesus (2nd ed.); Joseph Bergeron, “The crucifixion of Jesus”; “How Did Jesus Really Die? (A Medical Examination of the Cross),” uploaded by Standardized Apologetics; Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, ch. 11.
Abstract of “On the Physical Death of Jesus.”