JESUS CHRIST

The four Gospels are consistent in their report that some of Jesus’ disciples found his tomb empty on the first day of the week (see Matthew 28:6; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:3; and John 20:1-2).

No one during the first or second centuries suggested that Jesus Christ had not been buried in a tomb following his death by crucifixion. Such a counter-argument has risen only in the past few years among a few select scholars who question the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts.

During the first and second centuries, the controversy regarding the empty tomb centered on how it had become empty, not whether or not Jesus Christ had been buried. As Matthew reports, “And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. . . . So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day” (Matthew 28:12-15).

Stealing bodies from graves was well known in antiquity and was the most plausible alternative explanation to the one offered by the disciples: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God. . . Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. . . . This Jesus hath God raised up, wherefore we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:22-24, 32).

Jesus Christ’s disciples, the Roman soldiers who had been hired to guard the tomb, and the Jewish leaders who were aware of Jesus’ prophecies about rising from the grave knew that the tomb was empty. They only disagreed on what happen early in the morning on the first day of the week at his tomb outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

Tags: crucifixion, empty, Jesus, risen, tomb

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