The Faults in the Framing: The Disciples Did Not Steal the Body of Jesus (Part 1)

We are in the season of Lent and so of course the resurrection of Jesus is going to come up as we head into Easter. There are many things scholars and skeptics alike can bring up in terms of the validity of the resurrection and the surrounding events. Paul tells us that if the resurrection didn’t happen, our faith is in vain (1 Cor. 15:13-17). Our entire religion hinges on the resurrection event. One huge question I want to spend time on this season is if the disciples stole the body of Jesus after the crucifixion, or were they framed?

Paul tells us that if the resurrection didn’t happen, our faith is in vain (1 Cor. 15:13-17). Our entire religion hinges on the resurrection event.

The Empty Tomb

According to Matthew 28:11-15, the Jewish leaders gathered and conspired to bribe the Roman soldiers to say that the disciples stole the body while they slept. This lie continued to be perpetuated and is one of the arguments we hear even today about the missing body of Jesus two millennia later. At the time of the gospel writing, the Jewish leaders made sure this was the story. However, there are a few inconsistencies in this argument that will be explored below. Regardless of what happened to the body of Jesus, the fact remains that the tomb in which Jesus lay was indeed empty, and there needs to be some explanation for it. And yet, the body of Jesus could not have been stolen by the disciples based on all the historic, circumstantial facts regarding the burial and resurrection events including the placing of a large stone at the mouth of the tomb, the presence of the Roman guards for the explicit purpose to prevent such a theft, and the disciples’ willingness to die for the risen Christ. In short, the disciples were framed.

There are a few immediate issues with what the Jews were bribing the guards to say. First, if the guards were sleeping, how would have they known the disciples were the ones who stole the body? Second, the Roman guards, the elite of the elite, would have to admit they fell asleep during a very high-profile assignment, a capital punishment. They would have been executed for letting Jesus escape, dead or alive.[1] No wonder the Jewish leaders had to bribe them and promise to keep them out of trouble with the governor.[2] We can see why the Jewish leaders would find a need to perpetuate this misinformation. The Jewish people were afraid it was true (or that people believed) that Christ was the Messiah, not because it would shatter their belief system as much as it would undermine their power and authority. Scripture points to the Jewish leaders’ offense of Jesus. They opposed Jesus due to blasphemy and claiming what they viewed as misplaced authority for Himself (Mark 2:7, 11:27-28). Luke 20:1-7 tells us that the leaders were also afraid of what Jesus meant to the people, and if they went against Jesus, the people would stone them.

The fact of the empty tomb cannot be refuted historically, as it would only take the body of Jesus to squash any movement against the Jewish authorities, much less be the catalyst of a new religion.

And how do we know the tomb was even empty? The four gospels corroborate that the tomb was, in fact, empty. The empty tomb is also mentioned in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (15:3-8), a sermon by Paul (Acts 13:36-37), and Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:29-32.[3] The fact of the empty tomb cannot be refuted historically, as it would only take the body of Jesus to squash any movement against the Jewish authorities, much less be the catalyst of a new religion. It was capital punishment to rob a tomb according to an archeological discovery in 1878 of a stone slab pronouncing this edict from an emperor from the time that Jesus lived, likely because of the events surrounding Jesus’s resurrection and to prevent any other claims of so-called resurrections.[4] This archeological discovery only strengthens that for certain, the tomb was empty. If the tomb was not empty, there is no gospel. We were dead in our sins, unable to save ourselves from the wrath of God to come, and because Christ was resurrected, we too can be resurrected in Christ and avoid eternity without God. Because of Jesus, we can participate in forever with our Creator, the God and Father of all.

So, if the tomb is empty, what happened to the body? Next week will examine the arguments against the theft of Jesus’ body more closely. 

References

[1] Lee Strobel, The Case for Miracles: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Supernatural (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 203. 

[2] Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 307.

[3] Paul M. Gould, Travis Dickinson, and R. Keith Loftin, Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2018), Chapter 7.

[4] Geisler and Turek, 307-308.