The empty tomb

How do you know that Jesus' tomb was empty?

The tomb in which Jesus was buried must have been empty, as the gospels attest. For anyone wishing to deny that the tomb was empty there are a great number of facts to be reckoned with.

1) The Gospel was first preached in Jerusalem. Is it really conceivable that so many people would have become Christians in such a short space of time if the body of Jesus lay rotting in a tomb nearby? Is it really possible that the faith went through such a massive explosion of growth when an easy piece of evidence to check out lay so close at hand? I struggle to believe that many people would have become, or remained, Christians if the tomb was not obviously empty.

Professor J N Anderson states; "The empty tomb stands, a veritable rock, as an essential element in the evidence for the resurrection. To suggest that it was not in fact empty at all, as some have done, seems to me ridiculous. It is a matter of history that the apostles from the very beginning made many converts in Jerusalem, hostile as it was, by proclaiming the glad news that Christ had risen from the grave - and they did it within a short walk from the sepulcher. Any one of their hearers could have visited the tomb and come back again between lunch and whatever was the equivalent of afternoon tea. Is it conceivable, then, that the apostles would have had this success if the body of the one they proclaimed as risen Lord was all the time decomposing in Joseph's tomb? Would a great company of the priests and many hard headed Pharisees have been impressed with the proclamation of a resurrection which was in fact no resurrection at all, but a mere message of spiritual survival couched in the misleading terms of a literal rising from the grave?"

2) The Jewish authorities did not produce the body of Jesus to refute Christianity. Why not? They had every reason to do so. When the Christian faith grew and became a problem why not just show to the masses the rotting body of Christ and put the whole matter to rest? Why did they not conduct an official examination of the sepulcher? There has never been any attempt to prove that, in fact, Jesus body did still lie in the tomb where He was buried. Instead the whole effort of denying the resurrection of Christ was focused on the suggestion that the disciples stole the body (Matthew 28v11-15). Why suggest this if His body still lay readily at hand?

3) Why did the tomb not become a place of early Christian reverence or pilgrimage? All over the world are Catholic shrines to the bones of saints. How much more then would the body of Jesus Himself have become a shrine to the faithful. Yet there is absolutely no suggestion that the tomb was treated in this way. Why? Because all and sundry knew that His body was not there.

J N Anderson states; "It is also significant that no suggestion has come down to us that the tomb became a place of reverence or pilgrimage in the early days of the church. Even if those who were convinced Christians might have been deflected from visiting the sepulcher their assurance that their Master had risen from the dead, what of all those who had heard His teaching , and even known the miracle of His healing touch, without joining the Christian community? They too, it would seem, knew that His body was not there, and must have concluded that a visit to the tomb would be pointless."

4) From the outset there was an extremely strong `empty tomb` tradition within the Christian community. This is embodied in all the gospels. How could this tradition have stood up to scrutiny within the Church at Jerusalem if the tomb was not, in fact, empty? Why was this tradition never the focus of attack or challenge by the Jewish authorities? If the tomb was not empty then it would have clearly been highly vulnerable to challenge and disproof - and the rest of the Christian message would have come tumbling down as well, like a house of cards.

5) A slab of stone 61cm tall was found in Nazareth (who else do we know that came from Nazareth, eh?) with the following inscription from Caesar Claudius c. 50 AD.

"It is my pleasure that graves and tombs remain perpetually undisturbed for those who have made them for the cult of their ancestors or children or members of their house. If, however, anyone charges that another has either demolished them, or has in any other way extracted the buried, or has maliciously transferred them to other places in order to wrong them, or has displaced the sealing on other stones, against such a one I order that a trial be instituted, as in respect of the gods, so in regard to the cult of mortals. For it shall be much more obligatory to honour the buried. Let it be absolutely forbidden for anyone to disturb them. In case of violation I desire that the offender be sentenced to capital punishment on charge of violation of sepulcher."

It is interesting that the ruler of the whole Roman empire, just a few short years after the crucifiction decides to legislate against the violation of tombs. It is especially interesting that this order was found in Nazareth. Is it likely that this unusual ordinance would have been made if Jesus' body still lay undisturbed in the Jerusalem tomb?

The simple fact is that the tomb was empty and both Christians and the enemies of Christ were unable to deny it.

How then can we explain the empty tomb?

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