The women at the tomb

Over the years, I've gone back and forth on whether I think the argument for the empty tomb from the fact that the gospels report that women were the first to discover the tomb empty is a good argument or not. The argument is that the authors of the gospels would not have included the story unless it really happened because the story would've been an embarrassment since women had no credibility among Jews, Greeks, or Romans in the first and second centuries. Today, I'm in favor of the argument, but I want to give you my thoughts on both sides of it.

The reason I sometimes don't think it's a good argument is because it's just a narrative. The gospels are not meant to serve as evidence of the empty tomb or the resurrection. The women are never offered as evidence for the empty tomb. So the fact that a first century audience wouldn't have put any confidence in the testimony of women doesn't strike me as being relevant. Why would it be embarrassing to say that women were the first to discover the empty tomb if it's just part of the story and is not being offered as evidence? The fact that women weren't to be trusted hardly seems like a good reason for the author to have left that part out since the author isn't asking the readers to believe in the empty tomb on the authority of those women.

The reason I sometimes think it is a good argument is because I can imagine an outsider in the first century reading the gospels and saying, "Now, wait a minute. You're saying this whole story of the empty tomb originated with women?" In their mind, if all the hysteria surrounding the empty tomb, which lead to belief in the resurrection, started because a bunch of silly women claimed to have found the tomb empty, then that discredits the whole story since women can't be trusted. The authors of the gospels would surely have anticipated this kind of reaction, in which case saying that women were the first to witness and report the empty tomb is kind of embarrassing. The fact that they reported it anyway serves as evidence that it actually happened. And since we in the modern world respect the testimony of women, that gives us good reason to think they actually did find the tomb empty.

Right now, I'm leaning in favor of that second argument, but just a few weeks ago, I was leaning toward the first argument. I guess it's still something I need to think through. Or maybe I should just throw up my hands and admit that I don't know whether it's a good argument or not. It surprises me sometimes how an argument can seem very persuasive to me at one time, then years later, it doesn't seem persuasive anymore. It really makes me doubt myself.

Let's suppose the story of the women finding an empty tomb is not historical. Where might it have originated? One possibility is that there were some women who dishonestly claimed to have found the tomb empty. If that were so, I would expect the first person they told to have wanted to check it out, so this is a no go for me.

Or maybe they mistakenly thought Jesus was buried in a tomb that they found empty. Would everybody else be likely to have mistakenly thought the same thing? If they were mistaken to think Jesus was buried in a tomb, it doesn't seem likely they would've honed in on a particular tomb, so I don't see how finding a random empty tomb would've made them think Jesus' tomb was empty. But even so, this seems like a mistake that would've easily been corrected for anybody who was actually curious about it.

Maybe Jesus was buried in a tomb, but they didn't know which one. Maybe they thought they did know, and they went to the wrong tomb. Again, this could've easily been corrected, especially if they knew who buried Jesus or whose tomb Jesus was buried in. They could just find out which tomb Jesus was buried in.

Another possibility is that Mark or some earlier person made it up. But why would they? What purpose does it serve? Maybe it's just to demonstrate the devotion they had to Jesus since they were going to the tomb to anoint his body. It doesn't seem like it would've been made up as a way of saying, "Look, we have all these witnesses to the empty tomb." If that were the purpose, it's more likely they would've had all the apostles find the tomb empty. Unless Mark has an ending that was lost, he didn't even say the apostles found the tomb empty, only the women. The same thing is true of Matthew. Only Luke and John have men visiting the empty tomb. In Luke, it was just Peter, and in John, it was just Peter and an unnamed disciple (presumably John).

Of course the fact that I can't come up with a good reason for the gospel authors to have included the story of the women finding the tomb empty doesn't mean there isn't one. But it does make me think it really happened. The historicity of it does a better job of explaining why it's in the gospels than anything else I can come up with.