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Background

I’m currently blogging about the second chapter of Part 2 of The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona.

This chapter is numbered as Chapter 4, is titled “A Quintet of Facts (4+1)”, and is subtitled The Last Three.

As a refresher, “minimal facts” are facts that:

• Are agreed on by nearly all scholars
• Are strongly supported by the evidence
• Collectively build a strong case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus

You are here

We covered the last minimal fact (“The skeptic James, brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed”) last time…see post #20 in hyperlinked series outline above.

Today’s fact is: The tomb was empty.

This is not a “minimal fact” because it is not agreed on by nearly every scholar who studies it. Habermas states that he “discovered that roughly 75% [>100/135 per his footnote] of scholars on the subject accept the empty tomb as a historical fact” (page 69 of 346).

A supermajority fact

Since it’s not a “minimal fact”, I wondered what label we could reasonably apply to this fact, in light of the generous scholarly support it enjoys.

Although this is a historical question rather than scientific, I did the best I could and looked up “scientific consensus” on wikipedia:

“Scientific consensus is the generally held judgment, position, and opinion of the majority or the supermajority of scientists in a particular field of study at any particular time.” (1)

So…all I had to do next was find out what a supermajority was:

“Common supermajorities include three-fifths (60%), two-thirds (66.66…%), and three-quarters (75%)”. (2)

So, I think I’m safe calling this a “supermajority fact”…not a “minimal fact”, but still one that should not be lightly dismissed.

Body bing bada boom

So, what is the evidence that the tomb was empty? The authors first note that the church started (per the respected ancient Roman historian Tacitus) in Judea, which is where Jesus was crucified. In that context,  the authors point out how devastating it would have been if local Jewish or Roman authorities, in response to the giddy resurrection claims spread by early believers, had simply produced Jesus’s body.

So, why didn’t they? Why isn’t there any mention by early critics of Christianity (Jews, Romans, the 2nd century resurrection-critic Celsus, etc.) of an extant corpse of Jesus? Similarly, why don’t early Christian apologists such as Justin, Tertullian and Origen say anything to refute allegations about said corpse?

The empty tomb neatly explains the available data.

A buried corpse obviates a stolen corpse

The empty tomb is also supported by the “stolen body” hypothesis…the claim that Jesus’s body was stolen from the tomb. Says Wikipedia about this hypothesis:

“The hypothesis has existed since the days of Early Christianity; it is discussed in the Gospel of Matthew, generally agreed to have been written between AD 70 and 100.” (3)

Aside: If it seems brazen of me (and Wikipedia) to point to the Gospel of Matthew as part of my overall argument for the resurrection, I commend the next post (#22 in linked series outline above) to your consideration.

So, if the tomb was occupied, why would people start spreading rumors that the body was stolen in the first place? It makes little if any sense. What makes much more sense is that the tomb was discovered empty, and then some people, for whatever motive, began to push the stolen body hypothesis.

So, it seems that early resurrection critics actually help establish a key premise of the historical argument for the resurrection.

Oops!

Idle tales

Finally, the authors point out how illogical it would be for the supposedly fantastical resurrection accounts to choose women as the first eyewitnesses (Matthew 28:9, John 20:14, etc. record these encounters). The reason it would be illogical to choose women as the first eyewitnesses is the rampant, open misogyny present in the culture of that day. Why would the gospel writers intentionally include elements in their story that would reduce its credibility?

The authors provide examples of said misogyny from both Jewish and Roman culture of the 1st century:

Jewish sources:

Sooner let the words of the law be burnt than delivered to women. (Talum, Sotah 19a)

The world cannot exist without males and without females-happy is he whose children are males, and woe to him whose children are females. (Talmud, Kiddushin 82b).

But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and the boldness of their sex, nor let servants be permitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak the truth, either out of fear of gain, or fear of punishment (Josephus, Antiquities 4.8.15).

Any evidence which a woman [gives] is not valid (to offer), also they are not valid to offer. This is equivalent to saying that one who is Rabinically accounted a robber is qualified to give the same evidence as a woman. (Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 1.8)

The Roman historian Suetonius discussing the Augustus Caesar, a contemporary of Jesus and the first Roman emperor (unless you count Julius Caesar, but we all know what happened to him):

Whereas hitherto men and women had always sat together, Augustus confined women to the back rows even at gladiatorial shows: the only ones exempt from this rule being the Vestal Virgins, for whom separate accommodation was provided, facing the praetor’s tribunal. No women at all were allowed to witness the athletic contests; indeed, when the audience clamoured at the Games for a special boxing match to celecrate his appointment as Chief Priest, Augustus postoponed this until early the next morning, and issued a proclamation to the effect that it was the Chief Priest’s desire that women should not attend the Theatre before ten o’clock.

(see pages of 72-73 of 346 of The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, by Habermas and Licona, Kindle edition).

Given that brief sketch of the culture of the time, how would you guess the guys reacted when the women first delivered the good news? Yes! You got it!

[Luk 24:11 KJV] 11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. 

It should be easy to see that, in the culture of that time, women would be the last ones you’d choose as the first eyewitnesses of a “miracle” you’re trying to sell people on.

So, why are women written into the story as the first eyewitness of the risen Jesus? Could it be because….women were the first eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus?

How does the saying go? Truth is stranger than fiction…

My knees are shaking

I recently read somewhere that Jesus’s body was probably thrown on a trash heap and rotted away and/or was consumed by animals.

Turning to National Geographic (4), I encountered a very different picture.

“I’m absolutely amazed. My knees are shaking a little bit because I wasn’t expecting this,” said Fredrik Hiebert, National Geographic’s archaeologist-in-residence. “We can’t say 100 percent, but it appears to be visible proof that the location of the tomb has not shifted through time, something that scientists and historians have wondered for decades.”

Respected archaeologist Martin Biddle had this to say:

“So why did Bishop Eusebius identify this tomb as the tomb of Christ? He doesn’t say, and we don’t know. I don’t myself think Eusebius got it wrong—he was a very good scholar—so there probably is evidence if only it is looked for.”

My money is on the empty tomb. How about you?

God bless, and thanks for reading!

TFOTF

P.S.: This concludes the section of the book containing positive arguments for the resurrection. Which means the next section will deal with objections. Oh what fun!

Links:

1. Scientific consensus on Wikipedia
2. Supermajority on Wikipedia
3. Stolen body hypothesis on Wikipedia
4. Unsealing of the tomb on National Geographic