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Is God Dead?
Over the last several articles, we have looked at the popularity of hallucination theories as a possible explanation of what happened to Jesus after the crucifixion. We began the entire discussion by accepting Bart Ehrman’s straightforward statement, “either Jesus really appeared to his disciples . . . or they were seeing things,” as true.
To help possibly answer Ehrman’s question, we presented several reasons why hallucination theories, as a possible explanation of what happened to Jesus after the crucifixion, are implausible. Finally, we concluded that since it seems highly implausible that the disciples were “seeing things,” it is more reasonable to believe that Jesus actually appeared to His disciples; otherwise, He should have been found safely in His tomb.
Now, for the Christian, the evidence of how the empty tomb was discovered is by far the most embarrassing aspect of the entire resurrection narrative. This embarrassment factor, in part, leads historians to strongly consider the empty tomb narrated in the Gospels to be an actual historical event. In other words, embarrassment reflects plausibility.
In fact, a strong majority of scholars have granted the historicity of the empty tomb based, in large part, on the embarrassment factor. The embarrassment factor hinges upon two points: the disciples are scattered and hiding, and the first witness( es) at the empty tomb are female. These points provide profound and inexplicable embarrassment in first-century Palestinian and Roman culture.
Remember, Peter’s case is especially noteworthy because Jesus had told him in advance that he would deny Him (John 13:36ff), and then it played out in reality just as predicted (John 18:15ff). This is incredibly embarrassing, not only to Peter but to the entire Christian movement to that point. Peter, “The Rock,” denies Jesus three times, then abandons Him altogether in His time of need.
As for Peter’s associates, most of the disciples have also scattered and are in hiding exactly as Jesus had predicted as well (cf. Matt. 26:56, Mark 14:27). And all of this comes on the coattails of Judas Iscariot having betrayed Jesus to the Sanhedrin adding embarrassment to embarrassment for the upstart movement.
If the sum of all of this is not embarrassing enough, after the crucifixion, all four Gospel accounts record at least Mary as the one who finds the tomb empty, and she is the first to whom the risen Jesus appears (Matt 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20). But one must ask, “Why would this be?”
This is very strange indeed because it is well documented that the testimony of women in the first-century Roman world was considered highly suspect. The Jewish historian Josephus noted, “But let not the testimony of women be admitted on account of the levity and boldness of the sex.” Josephus records his own personal views and reports a generalized male consensus of the time. Even the disciples initially regarded the women’s report of Jesus’s resurrection as being suspect and nonsensical idle talk (Luke 24:10-11).
Perhaps it is precisely because a woman was the first to discover the empty tomb and the first to encounter the risen Jesus that the Jerusalem leadership, and later Paul, decided not to mention Mary’s name at all in the early Credo (cf 1 Cor 15:3-7). Recall that the Credo, written by Paul, begins by listing the appearances of Jesus post-resurrection to Peter, not Mary. In fact, there is no mention in the early Credo of Jesus appearing to any woman whatsoever. This gives further support to the idea that the witness of Mary is actually a true historical occurrence.
Why else would such embarrassing facts be multiply attested in the Gospel accounts? All of this is quite interesting in that if the Gospel authors were to write a mythical story, legend, or tall tale of Jesus rising from the dead, the storyline would not be that Jesus appears to a woman first, then gives her instructions to pass along to the men, because all the men are cowering in their homes!
To be clear, the empty tomb by itself is not absolute proof that Jesus was resurrected. Some scholars have proposed that someone stole the body of Jesus. That would be a possible explanation of why the tomb was found empty. However, scholars and skeptics who posit a stolen body theory (or wrong tomb theory, for that matter) must call upon some type of hallucination theory to then explain the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
And not only hallucinations but hallucinations in both individual and group settings to people who lacked the necessary mental content to hallucinate a risen Jesus. When the evidence of the empty tomb is coupled with the reported appearances of Jesus, we see a continuity that convinced the eyewitnesses of His resurrection from the dead.
In reality, how do the early Christians proclaim a risen Jesus if the tomb is sealed? The fact that the early Christians so doggedly and fearlessly proclaimed a risen Jesus presupposes an empty tomb. Otherwise, several dozen Romans and Jews alike would have instantly squelched the entire enterprise by producing Jesus’s dead body from an occupied tomb.
It seems to me that it ultimately comes down to this: if the disciples were not simply “seeing things,” then Jesus should have been found safely in His tomb. He wasn’t. The tomb was empty. That’s what all the apostles claimed, a claim they were willing to die for, and die, many of them did.
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Ty B. Kerley, DMin., is an ordained minister who teaches Christian apologetics and relief preaches in Southern Oklahoma. Dr. Kerley and his wife, Vicki, are members of the Waurika church of Christ and live in Ardmore, OK. You can contact him at dr.kerley@ isGoddead.com.
