JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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Some argue that the enemies of Jesus had stolen His body. If they did, all they had to do
to dismiss the apostles' claim that Jesus had risen from the dead, was to have produced Jesus'
body or to have alluded to the fact that they had taken it. No evidence exists that the Jews ever
used this strategy against the early church. Their only counterargument implies that they did not
take Jesus' body (Mt 28:11-15). No motive could explain such silence if, in fact, they had taken
Jesus' body.
Thus naturalistic explanations are inadequate in explaining away the resurrection
narrative.
Most scholars are agreed that Joseph of Arimathea was a real, historical person and that
Jesus was actually buried in his tomb.37 The gospels point out that he was a member of the
Sanhedrin, a group of 71 leaders whose members were very well known among the populace.
Why would anyone have invented a person who did not exist and say he was on the Sanhedrin if
such were not the case since almost everyone knew who served on the Sanhedrin. If this were a
fictitious character, it would have been much more plausible to propose someone who was
obscure.
There was no good reason to make up the story that Jesus was buried in Joseph's tomb.
Probably the only logical reason would be to give prestige and authority to a major leader in the
church. But if the early church was led by men who were deceivers, there is no evidence that
Joseph was a significant leader in early Christianity.
Because Joseph was a public figure, people would have known him, or known of him,
and the location of the tomb. Therefore, if Jesus would not have been buried in his tomb, this
would have been easy to verify. Thus to mention such a public figure would have been
problematic if he had been fabricated.
Joseph is called rich in the biblical text, and archeological discoveries have confirmed
that only rich people in New Testament times owned the kind of tombs described in the burial
account. John also tells us that Jesus' tomb was located in a garden. Again archeology has
confirmed that this was characteristic of the tombs of prominent or wealthy people.
Paul Maier, historian at Western Michigan University, sums up his assessment:
"Accordingly, if all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed
justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the
tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried, was actually empty
on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been
discovered in literary sources, epigraphy, or archeology that would disprove
this statement."38