Alice Roberts—scientist, professor, and hornet’s nest kicker— reminded the Twitterverse—on Good Friday—that “dead people – don’t come back to life.”
Some 6000 comments (and counting) later, we need to step back and look at the facts (just like professor Roberts, as the unbiased scientist she is would want us to do).
Fact: The Tomb was Empty
The place Jesus was laid by Joseph of Arimathea and known by the women (Luke 23: 50-55), was most certainly empty on the third day.
Here are four pieces of evidence.
Evidence #1: Women were witnesses.
Women were not allowed to be legal witnesses. So the fact that all the gospels say that women were first to see and report about the empty tomb DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE if people were making up a lie.
People aren’t stupid. And liars who are planning to lie aren’t stupid. Even kids know that you need to lie to sound plausible. And using women as your first line of witnesses would be incredibly stupid if you were lying.
Instead, the best explanation is that woman actually DID find the tomb empty, and that honest people are just telling what happened—as implausible as it might seem.
— This post is part of my new Grassroots Christianity project, which seeks to “grow the faith of everyday Christians.” Please get the FREE Grassroots Christian Manifesto here so you know miss future posts. —
Evidence #2: Disciples preached an empty tomb.
If the tomb was clearly NOT empty, then authorities could just keep marching potential converts to the tomb and show them, “No, Jesus is still there!”
But that didn’t happen.
Instead the authorities just threatened the disciples and told them to stop speaking of Jesus (Acts 4).
Evidence #3: Jesus’ “tomb” was never venerated.
The followers of Jesus evidently loved him, as a prophet, as a rabbi, as the Messiah.
If he had been tragically killed as a martyr then he would have been honored and venerated by his followers. And this would have happened at his tomb (just like all people have for all time around the world).
But there is NO PROOF that Jesus’ tomb was ever venerated. NONE.
As a contrast, look to Islam and Buddhism. They both have venerated burial sites of the Prophet Muhammad and the Buddha (Siddh?rtha Gautama) (though the later is contested, which also proves the point).
Evidence #4: Authorities made up a story to explain the empty tomb.
The chief priest admitted that the tomb was empty. The very people who who had every incentive to kill the Jesus movement after killing its leader, could only come up with a cover story for the empty tomb.
Why?
Because the tomb was indeed empty (back to evidence #2).
When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day. (Matt. 28:12-15)
Conclusion
Most criticism of this evidence for the empty tomb of Jesus assumes that ancient people are stupid, credulous, or poor liars (this is historic snobbery that assumes we know better than ancient people).
The truth is that ancient people weren’t stupid (not any more so that now), they weren’t gullible (not more than people now), and were probably good liars (just like now—note how the chief priests came up with a good lie right on the spot).
So, for professor Alice Roberts, and others, let’s just start with this one fact—the tomb of Jesus was most certainly empty.
The next post we’ll look at the different “explanations” for the empty tomb — that attempt to explain it away (DON’T MISS IT, JOIN THE MY NEWSLETTER UP ON THE SIDEBAR).
— This post is part of my new Grassroots Christianity project, which seeks to “grow the faith of everyday Christians.” Please get the FREE Grassroots Christian Manifesto here so you know miss future posts. —