That conclusion receives further support from the fact that the phrase “on the first day of the week” is awkward Greek for a normal Aramaic expression, suggesting that the phrase is a Greek rendering of the language spoken by Jesus and the early disciples themselves. This again points to the very early origin of the account of the empty tomb’s discovery.
So once again we are led to the conclusion that the empty tomb account is extremely old. Its proximity to the original events themselves make it impossible to regard the account as legendary. It is highly probable that Jesus’ tomb was indeed found empty “on the first day of the week.”
5. The story itself is simple and lacks signs of significant legendary development. Even the radical critic Bultmann admits, “Mark’s presentation is extremely reserved, insofar as the resurrection and the appearance of the risen Lord are not recounted.”27 It is both amusing and instructive to compare the accounts in the apocryphal gospels written in the second century, for example, the so-called Gospel of Peter:
Now in the night in which the Lord’s day dawned, when the soldiers, two by two in every watch, were keeping guard, there rang out a loud voice in heaven, and they saw the heavens opened and two men come down from there in a great brightness and draw nigh to the sepulchre. The stone which had been laid against the entrance to the sepulchre started of itself to roll and gave way to the side, and the sepulchre was opened, and both the young men entered in. When now those soldiers saw this, they awakened the centurion and the elders—for they also were there to assist at the watch. And whilst they were relating what they had seen, they saw again three men come out from the sepulchre, and two of them sustaining the other, and a cross following them, and the heads of the two reaching to heaven, but that of him who was led of them by the hand overpassing the heavens. And they heard a voice out of the heavens crying, “Thou hast preached to them that sleep,” and from the cross there was heard the answer, “Yea.” [Gospel of Peter 8:35-42]
In another forgery, The Ascension of Isaiah 3:16, Jesus comes out of the tomb sitting on the shoulders of the angels Michael and Gabriel. Those are true legends: they are colored by theological and other developments. The absence of such factors indicates once more that the account of the discovery of the empty tomb is a factual reporting of what occurred.
6. The discovery of the empty tomb by women is highly probable. Given the low status of women in Jewish society and their lack of qualification to serve as legal witnesses, it is very likely that their discovery of the empty tomb is not a later legendary development, but the truth. Otherwise men would have been used to discover the empty tomb. We have seen that all the gospels agree that the disciples remained in Jerusalem over the weekend and therefore could have been made to discover the empty tomb. The fact that women, whose witness counted for nothing, are said to have discovered the empty tomb makes it very credible historically that such was the case.
Two other considerations support that conclusion. First, the denial of Jesus by Peter shows the disciples were in Jerusalem. All the gospels record the well-known story of how Peter, after Jesus’ arrest, denied his Lord three times. The story shows that the disciples did not flee from the city after Jesus’ arrest. Moreover, we know from other information in the New Testament that Peter became a leader of the Christian fellowship in Jerusalem. It is unlikely that early Christians would have invented out of the blue a story of their leader’s apostasy and denial of Jesus, if that had not happened. The fact that so shameful a story would be preserved in all four gospels suggests that it is true.
Second, it is equally unlikely that the early believers would have made up the story of the disciples’ hiding in cowardice, while women boldly observed the crucifixion and burial and visited the tomb. The early believers would have no motive in humiliating its leaders by making them into cowards and women into heroes. Again it appears probable that the disciples’ lying low for fear of the Jews was really what took place. But if that is so, then once again it is shown that the disciples were in Jerusalem over the weekend.
Those two considerations make it likely that the disciples did not flee the city, but remained in Jerusalem. A later legend would have had no difficulty in making some of them discover the empty tomb. That they do not, but instead women do, makes it highly probable that women did indeed discover the empty tomb.
And once again, the names of those women preclude the story’s being a legend, since persons who would be known in the early Jerusalem fellowship could not be associated with a false account.
7. The investigation of the empty tomb by Peter and John is historically probable. According to both Luke and John, after the women’s discovery of the empty tomb, some of the disciples investigated:
And these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them. [But Peter arose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only; and he went away to his home, marveling at that which had happened] . . .
“Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said.” [Luke 24:11-12, 24]
And so she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb. And the two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter, and came to the tomb first; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who had first come to the tomb, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes. [John 20:2-10]
We have here two independent accounts of an investigation of the tomb by some disciples, which took place after the gospel of Mark ends. Luke names only Peter, but later mentions a plurality: “some of those.” John identifies Peter’s companion as the disciple whom Jesus loved. This unnamed disciple, usually called the beloved disciple, appears only in John’s gospel. He reclined on Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper, he was at the cross with Jesus’ mother, he may have been with Peter when he denied Jesus three times, he accompanied Peter and Mary back to the tomb, and he was among seven disciples to whom Jesus appeared by the Sea of Galilee. Most intriguing, at the very close of John’s gospel, this beloved disciple is disclosed to be an eyewitness to and the writer of the things recorded in the gospeclass="underline" “This is the disciple who bears witness of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his witness is true” (John 21:24). The “we” here, who vouch for the beloved disciple’s accuracy, may have been a group of his pupils or colleagues. At face value the statement says that the beloved disciple is the author of the gospel and saw personally what is recorded in it. At the very least, it must mean that he is the personal source and authority behind the gospel and that his memory helps to fill out the sources of historical information that the author had. If this is true, then we are in possession of eyewitness testimony to the empty tomb of Jesus.
But what is to be made of this claim? Although some critics have asserted that the beloved disciple is just a symbolic figure, their attempts to reduce him to a mere symbol are quite comical. For no agreement can be reached by theologians as to what in the world he is supposed to symbolize. If the gospel’s author wanted the beloved disciple to symbolize something, then he surely would have made the meaning of the symbol clearer; otherwise the whole thing is pointless. In any case, these critics assume that if a figure is symbolical, then he cannot also be historical, which is simply false. A historical person or event could serve as a symbol of a wider significance. Besides, the gospel’s author no doubt regarded the beloved disciple as a historical person. For Peter was certainly a historical individual, and it would be very strange to have him accompanied to the tomb by a purely symbolic figure. In all the situations in which he appears, the beloved disciple is presented as an ordinary, historical person.