Loading...Who in the ancient world would ever try to *prove* the resurrection by making up a story that women, in particular, discovered Jesus’ empty tomb? Weren’t women seen as complete unreliable witnesses? Their testimony never even accepted in a court of law? If someone want to prove that Jesus had been raised — and that therefore the tomb was empty — they would have invented *men* at the tomb (reliable witnesses) rather than *women* (untrustworthy). Right?
I’ve been asked this question several times since my recent post on Jesus’ women followers not doubting the resurrection. The reason anyone ever has this question is because it is a favorite claim of Christian apologists wanting to prove that Jesus really was raised from the dead. Proof? The tomb really was empty. How do we know? We have witnesses. How do we know we can trust the reports of these witnesses? No one would have made them up: the witnesses in the stories are always * and no one would invent “unreliable” witnesses to back up “proof-claims.”
When I was an evangelical Christian, I too used that argument (with some vehemence, I might add). But even when I had become an agnostic I thought it was probably a historical tradition, that women must have found an empty tomb: it’s found in all four Gospels, for example, and the fact that the stories indicate precisely it was *women* who found the tomb did not seem like something Christians would want to make up. And so, as an agnostic, I had to come up with alternative explanations for why the tomb was empty.
But when I actually got down to *think* about it (very few people reflect much on arguments they have heard so often), I ended up changing my mind. Completely. And for reasons I continue to think are compelling. It is dead easy to realize why the story started to circulate in early Christian circles. I first realized this …
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I recall that “argument” in Stobel’s “The Case for Christ” but all of his reasoning were circular arguments.
Thank you Prof. Ehrman
the stories about Jesus ,especially the resuscitation story, subjected to the process of development and re-shaping with extended of time, may be for purpose of filling the gaps in story ,or may be , an additions needed to answer the questions that may been raised !
The empty tomb and the witnesses of Women is the best example for the timely development of these stories.
I can’t find this in my notes now, but somewhere I read that women’s testimony was accepted in court according to rabbinical tradition if there were no male witnesses – e.g. concerning an event alleged to have happened in the women’s part of the synagogue, or in a mikvah. This is in line with your suggestion, Dr. Ehrman, that all the male disciples did flee Jerusalem or at least are represented as having fled.
If I’m way off base here, Dr. Ehrman, please let me know…but one thing that’s always struck me about the oft repeated “women as witnesses” line: While it is true that the women are the said to be the *first* to get to the tomb, what’s the very first thing the women do in 3/4 of the Gospels? They go tell men!
Those men then see the resurrected Jesus. Don’t trust women? No problem, here are some men who saw the living Jesus! It doesn’t seem like the Gospel writers would have much if anything to lose by having women be the first witnesses to an empty tomb, since they can immediately point to men who literally saw the walking, talking, & eating post-crucifixion Jesus.
(The women don’t go tell the men in Mark, but then they don’t tell *anyone* in Mark…but surely they most have told SOMEONE, else how do we have a Gospel?)
Good point!
Absolutely prof!Even here in the village one woman are not considered a solid testimony till now !!(then what about 2 thousands year ago!!?!)
And moreover if Jesus was resurrected then it would have been a spirit!which never need a “body”! So if the body was vanished by moving from the tomb that means Jesus was alive.and Jesus explained that he was not a spirit,to assure his disciples he asked in Luke 24:41-43 “Have you here any meat”?(how can a spirit eat??!!)”And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and honeycomb,and he took it and did eat before them”.
Maybe just a legend or good story written by individuals who were not eye witnesses nor knew any eye witnesses based on oral traditions 40-60 years after the events w/o Any independent historical verification of these miracles.
Professor Ehrman, iive heard the explanation that the tomb was empty because was never put in a tomb in the first place. It was customary to leave the crucified men on their crosses so the birds and wild dogs would tear at their decomposing flesh, they would not be allowed a “proper burial”.
What is your view of this reasoning? What is your personal and professional opinion of events following the crucifixion of Jesus? Was there a tomb at all? If so, was it found to be empty? If so, what happened to the body?
I am interested in your opinion of the most likely historical scenario. We all know the theology, I’m not interested in a catechism lesson… I’d like to know the most likely historical explanation.
Thank you.
Yes in How Jeuss Became God I explain why I think Jesus never was given a decent burial. But I wouldn’t say that this is why the tomb was empty. In my view there never was a tomb.
I think the empty tomb story is important to believing in the resurrection. If the women came to anoint Jesus’ body, then there was a special tomb, a stone rolled away, dead Roman soldiers, etc.etc
If Jesus’ body was left in a common grave, then the entire resurrection story is legend.
The narrative about the about the honorable special burial in a tomb is critical to supporting the rest of the story.
Jesus says:
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”
Then Jesus says:
“I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”
He said he is going away to the Father, Why even go to the tomb?
Had to die for the sins of the world first!
That’s a convincing argument – that women could have made up the story that it was (earlier) women who found the tomb empty. The prominent role of women in the early Church (as outlined by Dr Ehrman above) has been ignored by the recent Roman Catholic commission that looked at the case for reintroducing female deacons (and also by those who don’t like the idea of women priests). I recently attended a talk by Dr Ally Kateusz who argued that the very earliest depictions of Christian ceremonies all show either women or (in some cases) women and men in leadership roles. None show just men presiding (which must irk the Vatican, I imagine!) . But I suppose that one can’t really use Dr Ehrman’s argument to support the case for female ministry as it also casts strong doubts on the veracity of the resurrection.
But doesn’t the fact that Luke and John add extra eye-witnesses to the empty tomb show that early christians were uncomfortable with christian belief beginning purely on the say so of women?
The longer ending of Mark has the disciples disbelieving Mary Magdalene and even the short ending has the women being too afraid to tell anyone.
Doesn’t the fact that Matthew is the only one which has the pure account of the women finding the empty tomb and telling everyone else about it suggest it is the earliest gospel?
Luke also hasa that, no? And no, I don’t see the logic of why that would be evidence; it seems more likely that matthew thought this was a deficiency in mark and so added the story, than that mark thought the story was deficient and so took it out.
I dont think Mark was intended to end at 16:8 – but the point is if we take the original story as the women finding the empty tomb and telling the disciples we can see which writers are embarrassed by this account and try to change it.
Luke says yes the women saw the empty tomb first but no-one believed them, so Peter went and also saw it.
John says yes the women saw the empty tomb first and yes peter was next to enter the tomb but the disciple jesus loved outran peter and saw the empty tomb before he did.
Mark says yes the women saw the empty tomb first but were too afraid to tell anyone … suggesting belief in the resurrection didn’t begin with the women.
Only Matthew has the unaltered version.
Mark is suggesting that Jesus appeared to the male disciples in Galilee (where they had fled), and that later the women revealed what they saw, but he’s still saying that the women were first witnesses to the resurrection, and the only ones to see the empty tomb.
There is no basis for saying Matthew’s version is the earliest, let alone ‘unaltered’ (how can it be unaltered when Paul, writing decades earlier, says hundreds of people saw the risen Jesus?)
In Matthew, we’re told an angel came down in full view of the terrified men guarding the tomb, and rolled the stone aside to reveal an empty tomb. The excited (not terrified) women run to tell the men, and Jesus appears to them and says “Yes, go tell them I’m fine” like he couldn’t do it himself. He also says the disciples should go to Galilee t meet him, which doesn’t make any sense, since of course they’d get out of town before the same thing happened to them. Why can’t he just go see them wherever they’re hiding in Jerusalem?
It seems pretty altered to me, and clearly because Matthew, like you, is not contented with Mark’s ending, and has chosen to jazz it up. Luke and Matthew both read Matthew, and both had some ideas about how to fix the ending, and frankly, neither of their endings are anywhere near as good. But they’d have had a future in screenwriting if they’d just lived two more millennia.
The question is whether Matthew is altering Mark’s version. If we accept Luke has altered the original to not have the women as the only eye-witnesses to the empty tomb, then Mark’s version (the women told no-one of the empty tomb) appears to be along the same lines as Luke. Matthew is the only one who has the sequence, Jesus tells women, women tell everyone else.
First of all, in Mark, Jesus doesn’t tell the women. A white-robed man, presumably an angel, tells them. They don’t see the risen Jesus. He’s already up and gone. I’ve made worse mistakes, but I’m not the one trying to revise scholarly consensus.
More importantly, Matthew telling what you consider the most complete story doesn’t prove didley-squat. Matthew could just be filling in what he considers gaps in Mark’s story. Mark is intentionally telling an incomplete story, knowing his readers will fill in the gaps (and it’s likely that different readers would fill the gaps in different ways, since stories about the resurrection would have varied a great deal, as Paul’s earlier account proves).
We threshed this out in more detail in the discussion forum here. You do not believe Jesus was the divinely begotten Son of God. You believe the author of Matthew was the Apostle Matthew (even though the way the gospel is written makes that hard to credit). You also believe he is an unreliable eyewitness. That sometimes he deliberately misstates what happened, changes the story.
So you presumably agree with me that none of this happened. The angel didn’t appear and roll the stone aside. Jesus did not unnecessarily appear to the women after the angel told them what happened (and presumably cause the tomb guards to crap their pants). No evidence anyone believed this before Matthew wrote it.
Your argument is that the most complete story must be the first, but that’s wrong. Very often, stories get filled out as they go. Somebody thinks something needs to be better explained, this or that character didn’t do what he or she should have done. Motivation problems. Matthew doesn’t like that the women in Mark don’t do as they’re told. He doesn’t like that the tomb was just found empty (meaning that somebody could say “What if the man in white robes wasn’t an angel, but in fact somebody came and stole Jesus’ body?”)–so he makes it as clear that there were guards present, the angel came down in glory and rolled the mighty stone aside in full view of witnesses, and then Jesus appeared to them afterwards to give them an unnecessary message. Matthew likes to spell things out. Mark prefers allusion. Because Mark is a much better writer.
The argument is not about the completeness of the story but about what the original version of the story was.
If the original version was not that only the women found the empty tomb and they themselves letting everyone know then there is no argument.
But all 4 gospel writers have the women finding the empty tomb first and all 4 have differences in the subsequent events. The best explanation is that this was the original version and 3/4 of the gospel writers were embarrassed with this version.
Mark’s line that “the women told no one because they were afraid” is very suggestive of him editing the original version for the same reason as Luke and John.
Explain to me how a story that has an angel coming down to roll aside the stone in front of (very improbable) tomb guards, as well as the women, could be the earliest version? All the more since Paul says Jesus appeared to hundreds of different people, and mentions no specifics at all.
You did in fact say that Matthew’s version is the first because it’s the most complete. Wrong. It’s the most complete because it’s Matthew trying to fix the earlier story told by Mark, which I don’t think is the earliest version either.
All the later movies based on the original King Kong are more complete than the original, which never tells us why there’s just one giant gorilla on an island of dinosaurs (is there a Queen Kong?) Later movies (Peter Jackson’s overblown epic in particular) try to explain it, fill in the gaps, but the original just tells a very basic story, doesn’t try to explain anything (and the sequel still doesn’t tell us if there’s a Queen Kong, even though there’s a Kid Kong–maybe he was divinely conceived?) Because the earliest version of a story is almost always shorter, more basic, less inclined to explain, to justify, to answer questions that nobody is going to ask until after you’ve told the story. This is a universal pattern–once people have heard a story, they ask questions, they nitpick, they look for plot holes, and later storytellers tinker with it. Not always successfully.
Matthew is trying to answer all these questions, and fix what he sees as problems in Mark, which is why he can’t possibly be telling the earliest surviving version of the story. The very earliest we don’t have, and probably never will. But Mark’s story must be the earliest we have, because Mark leaves us all these unanswered questions–that Matthew and Luke and possibly John are trying to answer. Or just evade.
(If it were a few centuries from now, and this was a post-apocalyptic film discussion forum, you’d now be telling me that obviously the Peter Jackson film came first, because obviously….)
hi godspell – ive posted a reply here https://ehrmanblog.org/forum/the-new-testament-gospels/women-at-the-empty-tomb-and-the-secondary-nature-of-mark/#p11149
Do you believe that the empty tomb is historical?
No. I explain why in How Jesus Became God.
Off topic question: Many Christian apologists point to the Early Creed in First Corinthians 15 as evidence for the resurrection. Their argument is: How can the resurrection be a legend if this Creed was circulating within three to five years of Jesus’ death, “as most scholars believe”?
What is the evidence that this “creed” was circulating within a few short years of Jesus’ death, and, is it true that most scholars believe it was?
I don’t see teh logic of that, for two reasons. One is that rumors don’t take 3-5 years to start. they can start 30 minutes later. But also, on what grounds could anyone date the creed to the year 35 or so? Paul only says that he told it to the corinthians after hearing it himself. He would have started the church inthe late 40s, right? So why does that make the creed fifteen years earlier?
That’s a really good point. Every time I see an apologist like William Lane Craig state as absolute FACT that the Corinthian creed dates from 5 years after the death of Jesus I am astounded at the chutzpah involved with this claim. Unless there are independent sources for the date of the crucifixion (not even Paul dates it) and independent sources for the Corinthian creed (there aren’t), how can we know whether Paul invented this creed, adapted it, or when?
The creed only mentions “appearances” which can mean spiritual not necessarily physical bodily interaction as detailed in John’ gospel. Paul never writes about Knowing an earthly physical Jesus. It’s all about the high heavenly priest.
Dr Ehrman,
how they say rumors take ages when….
Quote:
False, Acts 21:20 says there were “tens of thousands” of Jews who converted to Christ…and v. 21-24 indicate that they believed as true a rumor that Paul abandoned the customs of Moses when teaching outside Jerusalem. Apparently, lies could indeed deceive thousands in the first century.
:::::
so unless paul was preaching against the law….
Dr. Ehrman,
It seems likely that when Jesus reappeared to the Apostles and the 500 that the Romans would have rearrested and crucified him again. News of a resurrection would have immediately spread like wildfire. It’s as though after the resurrection all the detractors of Jesus disappeared. Any thoughts?
I think the idea is that he had ascended to heaven and simply came down to convince the others, not htat he was still walking around Jerusalem.
This is a bit like those conversations people have on other message boards about superheroes and Star Wars. You’re trying to rationalize something that isn’t meant to be rational. (And why does everything have to be?)
Jesus is no longer a mortal human being after the resurrection. He isn’t a mere spirit, he’s got a physical form, but he is no longer subject to death, having in effect vanquished it. The Romans could not lay hands on him unless he allowed it (and increasingly, Christians believed Jesus was only crucified the first time because he allowed it–I would say he was crucified because he encouraged it, but that’s not a proven fact).
I don’t believe the physical resurrection happened, anymore than I believe in beneficient aliens from Krypton, but the stories told are consistent from the POV of the people telling them. And you could argue there is a truth to them, albeit self-fulfilling. The Romans executed the body of Jesus, but couldn’t kill the IDEA of him, and here we are, proving that, right now.
But as to the notion that if the resurrection had been widely known to have happened, everybody would have become believers–I don’t agree. People could have assumed he was a demonic being, or that he was never really crucified at all, or just gone back to their regular lives, as people tend to do.
Have you read Dostoevsky’s story of The Grand Inquisitor, from The Brothers Karamazov? I think it might have been very much like that. If it had happened.
(And the kiss still burns in my heart, but I hold to my ideas.)
😐
Dr. Ehrman
The women aren’t treated as witnesses. Mark says they said nothing. They weren’t in a position to have their testimony evaluated. IF John 21 is something like Mark’s ending, then the women’s discovery COULD be foreshadowing. Matt and Luke seem to fix this by adding apostles. The implication, they didn’t know the author of Mark and didn’t have any first hand information.
The implication is that the women did eventually speak up, or how would Mark be telling this story? Mark is being more literary than literal here. We can’t know exactly why he’s ending the story this way, but it isn’t because he wants everyone to think the women never told what they saw. As to evaluating the testimony–???? Like they’re going to send out investigators with dictation pads and polygraph machines? There’s at most a few hundred followers of Jesus, they’re scattered to the four winds after the crucifixion. Nobody’s talking to anybody for a while.
I don’t believe any of the gospel authors had first-hand information. Mark for all we know was rewriting an earlier account that is now lost. What we can be fairly sure of is that Matthew and Luke added details because the story as it stands in Mark is too spare, and new converts would be asking the same questions we ask. Mark’s original audience was probably very familiar with the story he was telling, and could fill in the gaps themselves. But there would always be people who said “How did anyone know what the women saw? How could they know the man in the white robes was an angel, and that the body wasn’t just removed? Why didn’t Jesus appear to them himself?”
In many ways, Mark’s account is the most believable, but it still raises more questions than it answers. And we’re still wondering if there was a tomb for Jesus to disappear from.
I do, however, believe that if the women closest to him believed they knew where his body had been taken, they’d go there–under great emotional strain, terribly afraid–and do what their beliefs told them to do with a dead loved one. I have no problem believing that at all. In Mark, more than any other gospel, I feel their plight, and can imagine them standing there, wishing more than anything in the world that this was all a nightmare they’d awaken from.
And there’s no telling what emotions like that might evoke in a human mind.
Don’t Paul & certain Gnostic groups honour women? It may not have been the norm, but we shouldn’t act like it was impossible to happen. Same goes for gay rights. Most societies it seems did not approve of homosexuality, but we do see it crop up here and there as an acceptable alternative lifestyle (I’m thinking specifically of certain Native North America tebes, but there may be others.
I wonder if the reliance on women as witnesses to the resurrection is related to the Gnostic tradition [in many cases] that women understood the real meaning of Jesus’ teaching better than men did. In some Gnostic traditions women were teachers. But in the proto-orthodox churches, men became the exclusive possessors of the apostolic teaching tradition. Was the always the case? The evidence from the Gospels does give pride of place to women in terms of being the first to see the resurrected Christ, while men tend to write of their reports.
By stating that the disciples would have likely fled Jerusalem actually makes a strong case for the likelihood of women being the ones who found the empty tomb
I fear asking this for risk of sounding like I’m being negative or childish, but based on the empty tomb and stories of resurrection appearances. . .
I’m struck by similarities of an extremely popular man in my lifetime who died under questionable circumstances, was buried under questionable circumstances, and was seen by many (women!) after his death–Elvis. (Again, please don’t read this as a joke or me being childish.) I had a neighbor who absolutely believed she saw him at a gas station, and the news was filled with people who *saw* him at KFC, or on TV, or in a bar. Even into the 90’s Bill Bixby hosted a TV show about Elvis sightings. My point is good people really (and a few nefarious ones as well to be sure) believed to have seen him. These did, however, begin to taper off, also just like Christ.
Is it disrespectful to make a comparison like this, and are there any theories that attempt to explain these commonalities?
No, it’s interesting. But one does have to wonder whether the cultural memories of Jesus are precisely what drove teh stories about Elvis….
Dr. Ehrman,
Every gospel author agrees; the women came to the tomb and were the first to discover it empty. Do you have a theory to why people such as Peter, Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathia did not find their way into the tradition of finding the empty tomb? Joseph of Arimathia certainly made his way into the tradition concerning Jesus’ burial.
Thanks
No, not really — althoguh Peter does find the tomb empty in John.
Another of Mark’s themes is, “The first shall be last and the least shall be first”. Women were pretty low on the totem pole of society..amongst the least. I think it’s a very likely reason for women to be the discoverers.
Interesting.
Brilliant, never thought about it like this ! As you’ve illustrated above, if the account of the tomb burial took place, the most plausible and historically sound conclusion is the women would of indeed been there first to discover the vacant tomb when one considers the political climate surrounding the crucifixion. After reading your initial post, I’d say there was “good reason” to say the women were the first to discover the empty tomb because it would make sense to those living in the first century considering the circumstances surrounding the crucifixion!
Bart there’s some parts of your argument I fundamentally disagree with. In particular I think Mark did not describe an empty tomb, and the “young man” figure as a dissident disciple (not meant to be taken literally) is the one announcing, or “witnessing”, the resurrection – not the women.
I have spent years trying to work out this story, it’s only recently that I’ve discovered answers I find compelling. I’ll run though some points quickly.
1. All NT gospel passion-burial traditions are based on Mark’s. Evidence:
(a) There’s several passion-resurrection traditions found in Acts as well as in 1 Cor, and Mark’s is unique. The non-Markan traditions: Acts 2:22-36, 3:13-15, 4:10, 27-28, 5:29-32, 10:39-43, 13:27-31, and 1 Cor 15:3-8. Both John and Luke appear to have merged additional traditions with Mark’s.
(b) All the gospels are too similar in their details to be independent. Unique to the Markan tradition: Jesus asked by Pilate “are you the king of the Jews”; Crown of thorns; abandonment by disciples; character of the “young man”; Pilate offering to release Jesus or Barabbas; Jesus dying same day and the timing of the crucifixion and death; blackening of the sun at noon; burial by Joseph of Arimathea; women going to tomb. Defending historicity of one detail requires defending all.
(c) John describes Jesus’ anointing to counter Mark’s supposed description of improper burial practise.
2. There’s no empty tomb. Mark never describes it this way. All the other evangelists do, but Mark intentionally leaves open the possibility that Jesus’ body is still in there despite what the “young man” claims as he is presented as an unreliable character (the Amos 2 themed abandonment representing a straightforward refusal of Mk 8:34-38). Mark doesn’t say tomb was “new”. Empty tomb and women’s testimony is therefore added to the tradition later, so can’t be historically based.
3. Story is not meant to be taken literally. Mark didn’t write this as apologetics, he intentionally leaves room for doubt. The imagery and purpose make sense only when not taken literally.
4. JoA character adapted from existing tradition that Jews buried Jesus (Acts 13:29). Evidence: Mark doesn’t contradict this, but other gospels do.
Best,
Daniel
References:
Busch. (2008). Resurrection in Mark—or Not. In SBL annual meeting, Boston (Vol. 22).
Scroggs & Groff. (1973). Baptism in Mark: Dying and Rising with Christ. JBL, 92(4), 531-548.
Spong. (2009). Challenging Biblical fundamentalism by seeking the influence of the synagogue in the formation of the synoptic gospels. Verbum et Ecclesia, 30(1), 243-259.
Interesting. But the man at the tomb in Mark *does* tell the women that jesus “is not here.” So the tomb’s not empty — he’s in it — but Jesus’ body’s not there any longer, and that’s wahat people mean by the Empty Tomb.
Not at all, I’m doing a full write up you can review shortly if you’re intersted from redaction criticism (based on those three papers I cited). As far as Mark’s readers are concerned Jesus is buried alongside the bodies of JoA’s relatives, as far as they’re concerned Mark has (intentionally) left open the possibility that the young man simply moved the body of Jesus and lost it amongst the other bodies buried in the tomb. The tomb is never empty, it still contains other bodies which is (one of) the “problems” which all the later gospel authors have an issue with.
He has the women as you well know go to the tomb to perform a second burial. Which is impossible. The reason is Mark is, for his own reasons, adhering to the tradition you see in Acts 13:29. They literally can’t participate in the burial because of this, Mark simply uses that to illustrate their failure and abandonment just as he did with the disciples back in Mk 14:50. All the other gospel burials contradict Acts 13:29, but Mark does not. The only possible explanation for that is that Mark started with that burial tradition and was determined not to contradict it. Well either that or a very unlikely co-incidence considering it has three unlikely elements: 1. a member of the Sanhedrin who unmistakeably participated in condemning Jesus burying him in *his* tomb. 2. the women could have helped with the burial but didn’t, and watched from a distance. And 3. the claim Pilate would take instruction from the Sanhedrin to crucify Jews.
Of course Acts 13:28 is contradicted in Mark and that can’t be denied, but there’s two probable explanations for that firstly he had a tradition substantially similar to Acts 13:27-31 but not identical (after all Acts is written perhaps 15 or so years later), or far more likely in my opinion given the plenitude of passion-related traditions in Acts, he was using more than one passion tradition when crafting his narrative. And a 3rd option of course is simply that he chose to contradict it because he wanted to.
Anyway in summary, no, the YM “telling” the women “Jesus isn’t here” whilst he’s depicted as sitting amongst buried corpses in a tomb and them leaving without investigation does not constitute an “empty tomb”. He could not possibly have removed the stone by himself, questions naturally remain.
I’m not sure why you think Mark has Jesus buried next to Joseph’s relatives? Wouldn’t they be buried in Joseph’s home down of Arimatheia? And “second burial” is actually a technical term for what happens a year or so after the first burial.
Because it’s a tomb and there are bodies buried in a tomb. Anyway, it’s not a story from history, Joseph of Arimatheia is not a person from history, he serves a theological purpose in a theological narrative.
Yes I accept fully my terminology was wrong, I meant for the women to anoint him after burial would have required un-burying and re-burying him which sounds as absurd as say exhuming an already buried coffin 3 days after the funeral to change the man’s burial suit!
My point about the women is that they were not in the original tradition (which is Mark 15:40-16:8 as the earliest form that we have it) serving the purpose of “witnesses”. They’ve been added, theologically and narratively to an existing burial tradition like Acts 13:29. That purpose is given to the “young man”. The women are symbolic of their failures to Jesus the same as the men failed back in Mark 14:15-52. All of the male followers, both the inner circle and the outer wider following, deserted him (predicted three times by Jesus despite being warned not to in the strongest possible terms in Mark 8:34-38). Later the women do the same, both the inner circle (represented by the two Marys and Salome) and the wider circle who were there witnessing the death of Jesus (Mark 14:40-41) but failed to bury him, or to even help with the burial. This is clearly reflective that the tradition Mark wanted to honour was that Jesus was buried by his enemies – the very same Jews responsible for having him crucified.
Mark started with, in my opinion, a burial tradition very similar (if not identical) to Acts 13:29. He knows that it’s absurd, but he embraces it and pushes the absurdity of it to the limit with the women going to anoint an already buried body.
The assumption by scholars that the original tradition was that Jesus was buried by his disciples is “nothing short of delusional” (Richard C Miller, 2010, Mark’s Empty Tomb and Other Translation Fables in Classical Antiquity. JBL 129[4], 759-776). I think there were multiple burial traditions when Mark was writing, there may have been traditions that he was buried by his followers, but I think it’s very clear that Mark followed the tradition that he was buried by the Jews responsible for handing him over for crucifixion. The other evangelists probably did have a competing tradition, that may have motivated them to redact the Markan tradition.
But it was a new tomb. Not explicitly stated in mark (though elsewhere), but the fact that it stresses that he rolled a stone in front of it maybe suggests that the stone hadn’t been there yet? Possibly. In any event, my point is that Joseph’s family wasn’t from Jerusalem, so they wouldn’t be buried there.
IN any event, I imagine anointing the body after the sabbath, for a burial that took place on a Friday, was exceedingly common in ancient Israel.
What do you think of the possibility that women, or a woman, were first to have visions of Jesus after his death? And the tomb story is built on a historical truth passed in the early oral tradition?
I think it’s entirely plausible.
You have lost your “vehemence” indeed and seem much more “understanding” than I am by far.
That you change your mind about things says something really good about you and adds credence to your work.
“you would not make up the fact that it was women who stumbled on the empty tomb first.”
Bart, wasn’t it an unknown male in the tomb who was first in the tomb? so mark is saying that it was a male who was telling the women…..
The unknown man appears to be one with supernatural knowledge, and so is usually understood to be some kind of angel? But yes, it’s an interesting point. Of course he’s not one of the followers of Jesus, because the women have no idea who he is….
But Mark uses the Greek word for “young man” and not “angel”, unlike Luke, Matthew and John.
That’s right. That’s why I”m saying there are other grounds for suspecting he’s not a mere mortal.
Bart, what proportion of Matthew’s Gospel was borrowed from Mark’s Gospel? Roughly. Thank you!
Ah, Mark Goodacre on teh blog could give an exact percentage, and I don’t remember. Around 60%??
In case helpful for fellow numbers geeks, from Dr Goodacre’s website on the quantification of synoptics overlap (plus Venn diagrams!):
https://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/how-similar-are-synoptics-and-how-do-we.html?m=1
Dr. Ehrman, I agree with your assessment. Any thoughts on the way Mary Magdalene is is mentioned by the author(s) of Mark without any other information about her? Since Mark was the first Gospel, what are readers of that time to make of this? Could she already have been known to early Christians, and Mark makes that assumption, mentioning her only by name?
Good question: yes I think she was simply known in the communities when Mark was writign, some 40 years after the events. His community would have heard most of these stories already, and many others, before he wrote.
Don’t you think that 16:1-8 is badly integrated into the preceding passages? The woman are said to be part of the group of disciples that fled from the garden, and suddenly they appear as if they were Jerusalem dwellers. Isn’t that a sure sign of a free-floating story, handed down to Mark?
I don’t see them being portrayesd as inhabitants of Jerusalem. What do you have in mind?
Sorry for responding this late.
a. Well, I think it is in between the lines.
The women are portrayed as followers from Galilee, that is , a part of the group of disciples(15:40). As such they would have been on the run with the remaining group or in hideout(s) around Jerusalem, at quite some distance. Nevertheless they are able to purchase spices Saturday evening (Outside Jerusalem?) and access the grave “early in the morning” which implies a short walk from the center of the city to the the grave. Unless one assumes that the women were following Joseph to the burial place over a long distance.This is what i find badly connected. The women behave as if they were Jerusalem dwellers, and we hear nothing about the relations with the remaining disciples
b. Do you close postings for comments? Or what is the maximum age of a post you would allow/prefer comments to?
a. I don’t think the women would have had any reason to be on the run. They were just staying int he city for the feast.
b. Nope!
Oh my goodness, you go to great lengths to fabricate a hypothetical scenario for a story that was simply written as an allegory to provoke the reader to pursue a much deeper meaning. Women weren’t women as you know it and tombs weren’t tombs. One thing I said to myself while sitting in church after many years was, “ if there is a God, it has to be perfect,” so why is there suffering? I also decided that if there was a God, why would he make the Bible so hard to understand. After reading every Christian self help book that people gave me for answers, I finally said, God, I’m done. Either you stop suffering or give me answers. Otherwise I am done with you. Even I could create a better world, and I sure as heck would have a better way that blood and crosses. That’s stinking barbaric. Yes, common sense kicked in. That’s when it all started falling into place. You have to study other religions and other books if you ever want to understand the Bible. There’s no such thing as a scholar if you don’t. You will do this forever and never get there.
Sorry, a couple unrelated questions!
1. I’ve been seeing how Hebrew was once a dead language and it is now “coming back” & this is a sign of the end times prophecy. However, was it really ever a “dead language?”
2. I was just wondering if you had events or debates open to the public coming up anytime soon, in North Carolina or Virginia! I would love to come see a debate in person. And wasn’t sure where to find this info!
Yes, Hebrew was a dead language. It was revived with the Zionist movement. If it is a sign that the end is near, why didn’t the end come near to the time it was revived? 2. No debates scheduled just now!
Just a sidetrack, what in your opinion is the more appropriate rendering of Romans 16:7 “well-known in the apostles”/”outstanding among the apostles”/”esteemed by the apostles”?
It seems to be a flak issue between egalitarians and complementarians (and whether ESV is decidedly biased in the complementarian direction, although its pericope heading placement for Ephesians 5:21-22 is suspicious enough for me)
The Greek seems pretty clear to me: “foremost among the apostles”
When people make the argument that the empty tomb stories are not true/historical, i believe they have the responsibility to explain how they are able to use any of the gospel in question because it is simply intellectually dishonest to use any of the gospel if the central part of the text is false/lies.
The first Christians most certainly believed that the tomb was empty. If that was not true then they were committing a fraud…at least those who claimed to see the empty tomb and those that claimed to see the resurrected Jesus.
And if they were lying, why believe ANY of their testimony?
I don’t think fraud is necessarily involved. Rumors start all the time, every day, without anyone making a bald-faced lie. They just do, weird as it always seems….
Professor, surely someone heretofore has delved into supposition here using Mark as much as reasonable less the superstitious and historically unlikely bits. Something like:
The disciples fled to Galilee leaving the women including Mary of Magdala.
The women witnessed the execution – a traumatic experience.
The women waited, wanting to put the remains in a tomb for decomposition and cleaning of bones preparatory to an ossuary as was custom.
The Romans (eventually) took whatever remains there were down.- disposing of them as usual in a shallow “mass grave”. The women arrived to an empty cross and unmarked mass grave.
Mary had a vision of a living Jesus, likely a dream. The women returned to Galilee and reported this to the disciples.
Start with a “story” something like the above and – what would you expect it to sound like on the 20th, 40th or later telling? I’m surprised Mark doesn’t say Jesus invented the internet!
Dear Bart
This is one of the few passages, which make no sense.
I know that because of the crucifixion, it was not possible to do the Jewish ritual.
But wasn’t waiting three days to do so long enough?
The body was already being devoured by the larvae. And the unbearable smell.
Was this anointing three after death part of the tradition too?
What would be other examples?
Well, by our reckoning it would be something like 36 hours; they couldn’t do it earlier because it was the Sabbath.
Was Mark a woman?
Almost certainly not.
but we are not 100% sure, right?
We can assume that it could be a woman posing as a man on a very remote assumption.
I like to think about this possibility. Closer to the essence of Jesus in Mark
No, we don’t know who the author was. But knowing what we do about literacy in antiquity, about the socio-economic status of the vast majority of first century Christians, and the highly restricted access to education the vast majority of women in the empire had at the time, it is really, really improbable.
I might think that the women at the tomb story was made up if it didn’t appear in all four gospels with Mary Magdalene being present in every narrative. It also complements Paul stating that Jesus was buried. The conflict I see is the competition between Mary Magdalene and Peter—who did what first? As Libbie Schrader has pointed out in her work, Mary is diminished in the gospel of John when she’s split into two people: Mary/Martha. In one of the early texts, it is Mary, not Martha, who declares, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” That put her at equal standing with the disciples. Also,
The tradition is that the women found an empty tomb. The gospel writers give no indication that they thought anything different. I’m not sure why conservatives would come up with a speculative theory about reliable/unreliable testimony and a court of law when all they need to do is simply rely on the evidence itself.
Dr Ehrman –
Taking a spin back through the audiobooks of your Peter, Paul and Mary as well as Triumph, and then this post sparked a thought.
Each of the three key visionaries would seem to have quite differing levels of disinterest in terms of desire to see a risen Jesus. This is not to say each one didn’t genuinely experience what they perceived to be real resurrection appearances, but it seems there might be some additional, relevant human context to the historical persons’ motivations.
Would you generally agree with the following ranking: (a) Peter least disinterested, then (b) Mary, and then Paul (most, but not fully, disinterested)?
Thanks as always!
I would certainly put Paul last on the list, but I don’t know of any way to make a comparative ranking of the other two.
Thank you. Perhaps it’s cynicism that nudges me to draw a line between Peter and Mary… In the vein of memory and cognitive studies applied to the nature of visionary experiences, I do wonder if maybe behavioral economics could potentially have something tiny to add to the discussion.
Both Peter and Mary were heavily cognitively and emotionally invested – which would make them susceptible to what behavioral economists would label the sunk cost fallacy (affects everyone to varying degrees). For the person expending effort/time/resources on something, the *perceived* value of the object of the investment (in the eyes of that person) increases as the expenditure rises. Jesus and his ministry about the coming Kingdom fits the bill – both Peter and Mary pumped considerable investment into the cause. Peter arguably more.
When I think about other differences, one of the most crucial (at least to my jaundiced eye) is the directionality of the resources flow. Mary, if Luke is to be believed, pumped money into the ministry as a patron. Peter, on the other hand, having eschewed his former fisherman days to join (perhaps JB first and then) Jesus, was living directly off the ministry. Thus, Peter in particular would have his livelihood to lose should people like Mary fall away post Jesus’s execution. Thus, loss aversion would seem to be a differentially strong cognitive pressure on Peter relative to Mary. Extreme emotional investment (and trauma), intense time/resource expenditure, and then (for Peter) potential loss of livelihood – seems it would all combine to till some fertile soil for a visionary experience.
Would this seem to hang together, or too tenuous?
I think I pretty much agree; my main reservation is that I don’t think we have enough information about Mary to know much of *anything* about her or her investment.
Dr. Ehrman,
Interesting post. I remember asking Dale Allison the question about women’s testamony not counting for much in court, and I said, but this wasn’t court, he gave a pretty good answer I think, he said you’re right, these matters were even more important than a court case. Sometimes I wonder if there is also a possibility of over-thinking an argument i.e. I think the main point of the argument is a very general one that says: in a made up tale, you can basically do whatever you want, so again, the women are at least inconvenient.
I’ve always thought that what later became Christianity was yet another of the many mystery cults around the Mediterranean dealing with the afterlife. The Hebrews had been introduced to other ideas about the afterlife from the other societies which surrounded them. Even though the rabbinic reformation was probably more of interest to a possible historic Jesus than this, the new cultic focus which took effect well after his death was turned more onto the non-Hebrews who surrounded them. In my opinion, Christianity does not really come from ancient Judaism at all. To go back to the original topic of the “women’s witness,” I think it is very interesting and all that. As stated, it would have been questionable — and a very nice trope in the accounts, which points out oodles of contradictions, ie, why are the men still there? Of course, this is literature, NOT history (I am an historian).
I’d say it does indeed have lots of interesting similarities with other mystery cults — at least as far as we can detect (since we know very, very little about them). But I wold also say it definitely derives from Judaism. Jesus was absolutely a Jew, as were his earliest followers, to a person; the sect started in Jerusalem among Jews. Their source of authority was the Hebrew Bible. They followed Jewish customs and worshiped in both temple and synagogue. I would say that they were a Jewish sect that was possibly like other mystery cults at the time.
Dr Ehrman –
You cite a ” poverty of imagination” as one of the reasons (presumably, the main reason?) for thinking the story of the women at the tomb was a fabrication.
So, if the story was *real imaginative”, and said Peter and the Twelve went to the tomb to finish burial preparations, then, that would have seemed less fabricated to you?
Or, if it got real REAL imaginative, and said that aliens in a spaceship came down and discovered the empty tomb, then, would *that* be more likely to have convinced you it was true?
I guess I just don’t get this “poverty of imagination” thing.
No, not necessarily. I’m not quite sure I understand the question. Someone could have come up with either story, and I can’t think of a reason that someone could *not* have come up with either story. The “poverty of imagination” point is that if you say “no one would come up with that particular story” you really have to have reasons for saying that. There is a very good reason that saying no one in the first century would come up with a story of aliens in a spaceship finding the tomb. No one in the first century Palestine believed in or had ever heard of aliens in spaceships. That’s decidedly NOT the case with women going to give a body a decent burial. That happened every day.
I think that the apologist’s reasoning in this case might be exactly wrong.
If the audience for the story would expect for men to be the witnesses, would a savvy storyteller not surmise that substituting women would add a much more memorable, counter-intuitive ‘twist’ to the tale. Adding this unexpected detail turns it into more of a ‘man bites dog’ story.
Bart,
You wrote above that at Jesus’ arrest the disciples, in fear of their own lives, may have fled home to Galilee. Two questions:
1] Why then does Mark in his story fabricate the disciples staying in Jerusalem or its vicinity until Sunday morning (Mk 16:7), i.e., what purpose does this fabrication serve if in reality Jesus’ disciples fled home to Galilee at Jesus’ arrest?
2] If none of Jesus’ followers were arrested when Jesus was arrested, why would they think their lives were in danger? Seems the focus was all on Jesus.
1. There’s is a difference between a fabricatoin and a mistake; and if a mistake is found in a surviving writer, it does not mean that the writer himself is the one who came up with it.
2. When the gang leader gets arrested the gang starts getting nervous. It happens. In this particular case, the later Gospel of Peter explicitly says went into hiding and were being searched for. I don’t think this Gospel is historically accurate in most of what it says, but it does show that even ancient Christians realized that it would make sense that the disciples were afraid for their lives. On the historical level, they were going to be heading back to Galilee soon any way. I”m suggesting that they were scared and left sooner than planned, in haste. The reason for the tradition sprouting up that they they “stayed” in Jerusalem would be so they could experience the resurrection and testify to it first hand.
Just for clarification, is the following an accurate summary of what you are saying?:
In historical reality, Jesus’ disciples AND the women, and probably other close followers of Jesus, ALL fled Jerusalem for Galilee on Thursday night when Jesus was arrested by the Jewish authorities. Their fear overrode their immediate interest in Jesus’ fate, but they knew word of what happened to Jesus would get back to Galilee anyway about a week later as Galileans returned from the feast. Then, decades later, the Markan tradition (wherever it came from) falsely extended everyone’s stay in Jerusalem so just the women could see *where* Jesus was buried, so they could later *find* that burial location empty, so this discovery could act as evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.
Do I got that right? If so, do you think it is fair to say that the Markan tradition has all of the male disciples remain in Jerusalem until Sunday simply because it would have been implausible they would abandon the women, causing them to return home to Galilee all on their own?
No, I don’t think that’s what I’ve said. I don’t recall mentioning the women fleeing, or that it was necessarily Thursday night, or what they knew, or when the tradition was invented, e.g.
Ok, sorry, I was trying to fill in the gaps with what I thought were reasonable assumptions but apparently I’m way off the mark. Let me try these questions:
1] What possible day(s) of the week do you think Jesus was arrested and do you think Jesus’ male disciples fled town immediately or waited for some time?
2] Do you think any other male followers of Jesus fled to Galilee with the disciples?
3] Do you think the women fled to Galilee with the disciples and, if not, what day do you think they returned to Galilee?
4] Would the women travel alone to Galilee, or do you think there were some male followers of Jesus who also stayed behind in Jerusalem who could escort the women back to Galilee?
5] When did the disciples find out that Jesus was crucified if they fled town when he was arrested?
6] If the women in historical reality stayed in Jerusalem until Sunday or longer (I think this is your position), and Mark’s discovered empty tomb tradition is a legend (I think this is your position), then why does the Markan tradition have the disciples (who in reality fled at Jesus’ arrest) stay in Jerusalem until Sunday (Mk 16:7) serving no purpose (i.e., they don’t experience any resurrection appearances or even the discovered empty tomb). Why not in Mark’s story just have the disciples flee to to Galilee at Jesus’ arrest like what really happened?
1. The Gospels all say Friday, and I have no reason to suspect something else. I think they left quickly: whether it was that night or the next day, I don’t know.
2. We don’t have any record of that; I doubt it.
3. I don’t know, but I doubuyt it.
4. NOrmally women traveled with men
5. I don’t know.
6. It doesn’t say they stayed in Jerusalem. It says the women are to go tell them to go to Galilee. Mark may not have had a “reason” for what he wrote; he’s retelling a story that he’s heard.
A] You said you think Jesus was arrested on Friday and the disciples fled town either quickly that night (before sunrise on Friday) “or the next day.” By “next day,” do mean the disciples may have fled town on the Sabbath, thereby violating the Sabbath?
B] In Mark’s story (wherever he got it), the angel at the tomb tells the women: “go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you” (Mk 16:7). Doesn’t this sentence (in the story) presuppose the disciples are still in Jerusalem?
C] If in historical reality the disciples fled to Galilee on Friday or Saturday, while other male and female followers of Jesus stayed in Jerusalem until Sunday or later, why would a later story (i.e., Mark) put the disciples in Jerusalem on Sunday morning (Mk 16:7) when they serve no purpose in the story, i.e., why not have the disciples flee to Galilee on Friday or Saturday, just like they did in reality?
D] If Jesus’ disciples fled town for Galilee the night Jesus was arrested, doesn’t it logically follow that they could not have known Jesus was crucified until other followers of Jesus returned home to Galilee and told them?
I think it’s pretty clear what your views are and what mine are, so maybe we should move on to other topics instead of repeatedly sayig the same things about this one?
Sorry if my questions seem irrelevant but they are honest questions, and I got them from Dale Allison’s 2021 book on the resurrection pg. 159-160. I think Allison rightly questions if the disciples would travel on the Sabbath, but it seems plausible to me they would if they were in fear of their lives and I just wanted to confirm that was your view too (because if there is anything I’ve learned it is not to assume I understand your position unless you explicitly state it). I also think Allison rightly points out that if Jesus’ disciples fled to Galilee at Jesus’ arrest, then one has to posit when it is they found out Jesus was crucified, which the answer would seem to be a week or two later when other followers of Jesus returned home from the festival and told them (again, just looking for your agreement on this). Lastly, I think Allison correctly points out that Mk 16:7 presupposes the disciples were still in Jerusalem on Sunday morning (as do all subsequent gospels), so the question naturally arises why Mark’s tradition would say this if in historical reality the disciples fled town at Jesus’ arrest (I am most interested in how you would answer this question).
Yes, I’d agree that if the disciples left for Galilee without knowing what happened to Jesus they would not have learned about it for at least two weeks or so.
Ok, so now for the tough question. If Jesus’ disciples fled Jerusalem out of fear for their own lives early Friday morning at Jesus’ arrest (or when he was hung on the cross), why does the later story related in Mark 15&16 (a fictional story of Jesus’ burial in a rock-hewn tomb that was then discovered empty on Sunday morning) have the disciples still in Jerusalem on Sunday morning (Mk 16:7)? I do not see anything in the Markan story that requires the disciples to be in Jerusalem on Sunday morning (do you?), so why did the Markan story take the shape it did in this respect if the disciples fled town on Friday?
It doesn’t say where they are, only that the women are supposed to find them and tell them.
Ok, I’m totally baffled by your last answer. As you point out, the angel in Mk 16:7 says the women are supposed to find the disciples and tell them Jesus will appear to them in Galilee, so doesn’t that presuppose (in the story) that the disciples are in a location where the women can tell them this, which has to mean the disciples are in Jerusalem or its vicinity? The only other options seem to be that the Markan story intends the women will sprint and catch up with the disciples who fled Jerusalem two days earlier, or that the women will convey the message over a week later when they finally return to Galilee and see the disciples again. Are you thinking one of these latter two options are plausibly what the Markan story has in mind?
I think we need to move on to other topics. You clearly have your views about the matter and so I don’t think we can get much further in the back and forth. If you think I’m wrong on the matter, you won’t be the first, on many matters!
No problem with different views on what Mk 16:7 implies, I’m just trying to understand what your view actually is. Is it your position that the original Markan story did not intend to imply ANY location for the disciples (in 16:7)?
As I’ve said, I think we need to move on from this issue. This will be my last response. After this I will simply approve your questoins on this issue.
I am not saying that Mark thought they were no where. I am saying that the women were instructed to go tell them. Presumably that means they knew where they were. But Mark does not say where that was.
Bear with me here, but if you must bail on me I understand. You just agreed that Mk 16:7 (in the story) implies the women knew where the disciples were (so they could go tell them the message from the angel). The passage would be non-sensical if the disciples (in the story) were already two days ahead of the women on the road to Galilee, or the women were supposed to pass on the message only after they met up with the disciples in Galilee a week later. That’s what leads me to think Mk 16:7 *must* imply (in the story) that the disciples are still in Jerusalem or its vicinity. Dale Allison makes this point clearly on pg. 160 of his 2021 book. I don’t see how you get around this conclusion. The Markan tradition has the women instead of the men find the discovered empty tomb for some other reason than the disciples aren’t in the area. In any case, thanks for the exchange.