Apart from all this, however, the fact that women witnessed these events is made very probable when one considers the low credibility given to women in Jewish society. Their testimony was regarded so poorly that women were not even considered qualified to serve as legal witnesses.14 Their low rung on the Jewish social ladder is more than evident in such texts as these: “Sooner let the words of the law be burnt than delivered to women.”15 “Happy is he whose children are male, and alas for him whose children are female.”16 When one considers these facts, it becomes very remarkable that women should be named as the witnesses to the important events of Jesus’ death, burial, and empty tomb. If one were going to invent witnesses to these events, then why not use the male disciples? The testimony of women was not only worthless, but actually embarrassing.
Some scholars have suggested that the male disciples fled to Galilee when Jesus was arrested and so could not be named as witnesses. But von Campenhausen and others have rightly dismissed that theory as a fiction of the critics.17 It is ridiculous to think that the disciples, fleeing from the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus was arrested, would return to where they were staying, grab their things, and keep on going all the way back to Galilee. According to all the gospels, the disciples remained in Jerusalem over the weekend, but lay low for fear of the Jews. When the women found the empty tomb, they were told to go inform the disciples, who were hiding out in Jerusalem. Thus, if the gospel writers wanted to invent witnesses to the crucifixion, burial, and empty tomb, they could easily have used a few of the male disciples. Instead, we have legally unqualified women playing that role. Why? The most probable answer has to be because, like it or not, they were the witnesses to those events, and the gospel writers honestly record the fact.
h) No other burial story exists. Hans Grass has admitted that the historicity of the burial story cannot be denied unless an earlier burial story can be discovered and the present story can be shown to contain improbabilities.18 Grass therefore tries to point out three improbabilities: (1) There was insufficient time for the burial in the tomb, (2) the linen shroud could not have been purchased on a holiday, and (3) usually criminals are buried in a common grave. Those objections have already been answered: (1) three hours would be sufficient time for a simple burial, especially since the tomb was near, (2) Grass assumes the Passover was on Friday, but if it was on Saturday, as John clearly states, then there is no prohibition against buying goods on Friday, the day of preparation, and (3) Joseph’s being a secret sympathizer of Jesus would account for his special care of Jesus’ body. Grass himself seems a bit embarrassed by the weakness of his objections. He acknowledges that Mark’s account is not impossible and that if it is true then the site of Jesus’ tomb would have been known to both the Jews and the Christians.
But Grass claims to have discovered traces of other burial stories of Jesus. Acts 13:28-29 contains, he thinks, a remnant of a burial of Jesus by the Jews: “Though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. And when they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.” This, however, is reading too much into the text: it is a remark made in a sermon and is not intended to be treated like a police report. Remember that Luke was the author of Acts, and in his gospel he had fully described Joseph of Arimathea’s burial of Jesus in the tomb. Moreover, the New Testament scholar Ulrich Wilckens in his detailed study of the sermons in Acts points out that Luke has a tendency to blame the Jews for what happened to Jesus, and that comes out here.19 In any case, this verse provides no escape for Grass because it still speaks of Jesus’ burial in the tomb, so that the end result is the same: Jesus’ grave site is known.
Grass also tries to read another burial story, this time by the Romans, into John 19:31: “Because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), [the Jews] asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.” Grass is really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, for John makes it quite clear that after the soldiers broke the thieves’ legs, Joseph of Arimathea came and requested Jesus’ body. It is entirely possible that the Romans did bury the thieves’ bodies, but John knows of no other story of Jesus’ burial than the burial by Joseph.
Thus no other burial story exists. If the story of Joseph’s burial of Jesus in the tomb is legendary, then it is very strange indeed that we nowhere find other conflicting stories, not even in the Jewish attacks on Christianity. That no remnant of the true story or even a conflicting false one should remain is very strange unless the gospel account is in fact the true story. If one denies this, then one is reduced to denying the historicity of one of the most straightforward and unadorned narratives about Jesus and giving credence to imaginary alternative stories that do not exist.
i) The graves of Jewish holy men were always carefully remembered and honored. During Jesus’ day, the Jews had an extraordinary interest in preserving the tombs of Jewish martyrs, prophets, and other saints and honoring them as shrines. Therefore, it is unlikely that the burial place of Jesus would be allowed to go unnoticed and be lost. When Jesus was crucified and buried, the disciples had no idea that He would rise from the dead and leave the tomb empty. Therefore, they would probably have been concerned to learn exactly where Jesus had been entombed, so that his grave might become a holy place to them. Perhaps that is even why the women remained behind to watch the burial—so that Jesus’ resting place might be remembered. Indeed, Luke writes that the women “followed after, and saw the tomb and how His body was laid. And they returned and prepared spices and perfumes” that they might go and anoint him (Luke 23:55-56). One gets the impression that the women were intent on noting the location of the tomb so that they could visit it later. Thus, given the Jewish interest in preserving the tombs of holy men, it is likely that the site of Jesus’ grave would also have been remembered.
j) The Shroud of Turin confirms Jesus’ burial. The Shroud of Turin purports to be the burial shroud in which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Jesus’ corpse and laid it in his tomb. If the Shroud is genuine, then this would be dramatic evidence that the burial story is true. According to the gospels, the grave cloths of Jesus were found lying in the empty tomb on Sunday morning (Luke 24:12; John 20:4-9), and if the Shroud is genuine they were presumably kept by the disciples and handed down through the church.
One’s initial reaction to the Shroud is skepticism, since the medieval Catholic church swarmed with such relics of Jesus’ life, for example, nails or pieces of wood, from the cross, hairs from Mary’s head, bones of the saints, and so on. That makes it quite likely at face value that the Shroud is just another medieval forgery. A careful assessment of the evidence, especially concerning the tests recently concluded by a team of forty American scientists, however, render the forgery hypothesis extremely unlikely. Let us review just some of the evidence.20
(1) The Shroud has marks of being authentic. Pollen samples taken from the Shroud reveal pollen from seven types of plants that grow in Palestine, suggesting that the Shroud was once in that area. Textile analysis of the cloth also points to the Holy Land and to a very old age. The cloth is linen, normally used in Palestine for graveclothes, with traces of cotton of a Middle Eastern variety. The thread is handspun, rather than spun on a wheel, which indicates an old age. Also the thread may have been bleached before weaving, which was also an ancient practice. The weave itself is of a pattern not unknown in the ancient world, though not as common as a simpler pattern. The most recent tests, including X-ray and ultraviolet radiation experiments, have shown that the blood on the Shroud is real blood. The wounds on the body are extremely realistic. The flow of blood from the wound on the side goes around to the small of the back, appearing on the back image of the Shroud, something a forger would probably have overlooked. The angle of the blood flow from the wrist wound is also proper for crucifixion. Ultraviolet fluorescence photographs reveal auras around the side wound and the blood on the wrists and one foot, which may be a serum which is squeezed out of clotting blood. The same photographs reveal that the body has fine diagonal scratch marks along with the scourge wounds, especially on the legs. Some observers claim that computer-enhanced photographs even reveal coins that date from the first century on the eyelids of the figure. Thus, the Shroud has many traits of authenticity.