Some thoughts on the empty tomb and minimal facts

I've been thinking about the empty tomb for the last few days, both from an historical perspective, and a theological perspective. The empty tomb is one of the "facts" William Lane Craig and other apologists have used in their defense of the resurrection of Jesus. A lot of minimal-facts-apologists have shied away from appealing to the empty tomb in their defense, though.

One reason is because twenty years ago, Gary Habermas published a paper in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus in which he surveyed historical Jesus literature over the previous thirty years to determine what trends existed during that time, especially when it came to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He found that about 75% of scholars accepted one or more of the arguments for the empty tomb. The minimal facts approach to defending the resurrection is meant to simplify the case for the resurrection by only relying on facts that are well-established and that enjoy a strong concensus. While 75% is a decent majority, it falls short of what one might like to rely on when making a case from a set of minimal facts.

A second reason some apologists shy away from relying on the empty tomb in their case for the resurrection is because 75% is roughly the same percentage of scholars who are believing Christians. It looks, on the surface, that the only people who subscribe to the empty tomb are believing Christians, so there's a bias involved.

At least that's the word on the street. In reality, you have to be a lot more nuanced when you call a Jesus scholar a Christian. E.P. Sanders calls himself a "liberal protestant," but a liberal protestant is not what most of us think of when we think of believing Christians. John Crossan and Marcus Borg have both called themselves Christians, but neither believes Jesus literally died for sins or rose from the dead. So I don't think you can accuse scholars who accept the empty tomb of merely working from a Christian bias.

Since Habermas did his survey twenty years ago, I wonder if his findings are obsolete by now. I'm not a Jesus scholar or anything, but based on what I've read, I get the impression that historical Jesus scholarship moves in fits and starts. Every time there's a new Quest for the Historical Jesus, there'll be a little shift in views, then it'll stagnate for a few more decades. I haven't kept up with it in probably ten or fifteen years, so I don't know what's going on out there right now.

Some people have critized the minimal facts approach to defending the resurrection on the basis that if you want to make a good case for any historical event, you should use all the information that's available to you. While I agree that's how you should do history, I still think there's value in the minimal facts approach.

The more you learn, the more you're going to have to say, but you obviously can't just unload everything you know in every conversation you have about the resurrection. Most people you talk to are never going to read any of the scholarly literature. If you want to make an impression on somebody, you've got to get to the point as quickly as possible. If you're not a scholar yourself, it's unlikely people are going to embrace your historical judgment just on your authority as an armchair apologist. So there's benefit in being able to point out scholarly concensus on a few issues that neither you nor your buddy are experts on. Using a mimimal facts approach shortens and simplifies the conversation. Instead of having to argue each point, you can simply appeal to scholarly concensus on a few of them. The argument, then, can revolve around whether the inferences you make from those facts are justified. That allows the conversation to go forward without getting bogged down in too many of the details.

While there are practical advantages to the minimal facts approach, I do think if you care about the subject that you should inform yourself on why scholars have come to the conclusions they have. In the case of the empty tomb, you should also inform yourself on why 75% of scholars think it happened and 25% don't. That way you can have an informed opinion, and if it comes down to it, you can talk about it with your buddies.

There's a good summary of the arguments for the empty tomb in a short article William Lane Craig published in Jesus Under Fire. I don't have the book with me right now, but off the top of my head, here are a few of the arguments:

1. We have multiple independent sources that all say women were the first to discover the tomb empty, which is significant because the testimony of women was considered suspicious in that time and culture. So the empty tomb satisfies two of the criteria of authenticity--multiple attestation and embarrassment.

2. An empty tomb is implied by Paul's statement that Jesus was buried, followed by his statement that Jesus rose from the dead.

3. The empty tomb makes sense of the "third day" motif as well as the "first day of the week" motif. If Jesus' tomb were found empty on a particular day, that would explain why everybody claims the resurrection happened on a particular day. After all, the appearances happened over many days and weeks.

4. Matthew responds in his gospel to the rumor that the disciples stole Jesus' body. We wouldn't expect Matthew to feel the need to defend the resurrection against this rumor if the rumor didn't exist. More importantly, the purpose behind the rumor is to undermine the case for the resurrection in the early Christian movement, which means (1) that the empty tomb was part of the very early defense of Christianity, and (2) that even the opponents of the early Christian movement conceded that the tomb was empty.

5. Christianity began in Jerusalem shortly after Jesus' crucifixion. It couldn't very well have gotten off the ground if Jesus were still in his grave in the very city where the movement started. Had Jesus still been in his grave, the resurrection could've been disproved in a heartbeat.

6. An empty tomb helps explain why the disciples drew the conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead. After all a mere appearance might've left them to believe Jesus was a ghost or that they had hallucinated. A vision of Jesus, combined with the empty tomb, has more power in explaining belief in the resurrection than an appearance alone.

7. I remember Craig saying the empty tomb was part of a pre-Marcan passion narrative, meaning the story was early. But I don't remember the details about that argument. I know some scholars think there was a pre-Markan passion narrative, but I don't remember the reasons.

Of course there are counter-arguments to all these points. It's worth debating over, and it can be interesting. I think there was an empty tomb, but of course I'm just a Christian, so you can't take my word for it.

Anyway, happy Easter! Here is a link to last year's Easter post which has links to previous years.