The Case For Christ

absolutely remarkable that the chief witnesses to the empty tomb
are these women who were friends of Jesus. Any later legendary
account would have certainly portrayed male disciples a
discovering the tomb-Peter or John, for example. The fact that
women are the first witnesses to the empty tomb is most plausibly
explained by the reality that-like it or not-they were the
discoverers of the empty tomb! This shows that the gospel
writers faithfully recorded what happened, even if it was
embarrassing. This bespeaks the historicity of this tradition
rather than its legendary status."
WHY DID THE WOMEN VISIT THE TOMB?
Craig's explanation, however, left yet another question
lingering: why were the women going to anoint the body of Jesus
if they already knew that his tomb was securely sealed? "Do their
actions really make sense?" I asked.
Craig thought for a moment before he answered-this time not in
his debater's voice but in a more tender tone. "Lee, I strongly
feel that scholars who have not known the love and devotion that
these women felt for Jesus have no right to pronounce cool
judgments upon the feasibility of what they wanted to do.
For people who are grieving, who have lost someone they
desperately loved and followed, to want to go to the tomb in a
forlorn hope of anointing the body-I just don't think some later
critic can treat them like robots and say, 'They shouldn't have
gone."'
He shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe they thought there would be men
around who could move the stone. If there were guards, maybe they
thought they would. I don't know.
Certainly the notion of visiting a tomb to pour oils over a body
is a historical Jewish practice; the only question is the
feasibility of who would move the stone for them. And I don't
think we're in the right position to pronounce judgment on
whether or not they should have simply stayed at home."
WHY DIDN'T CHRISTIANS CITE THE EMPTY TOMB?
In preparing for my interview with Craig, I had gone to the
Internet sites of several atheist organizations to see the kind
of arguments they were raising against the Resurrection. For some
reason few atheists deal with this topic. However, one critic
raised an objection that I wanted to present to Craig.