The Case For Christ

the empty tomb. In other words, there was nobody who was claiming
that the tomb still contained Jesus' body. The question always
was, 'What happened to the body?'
The Jews proposed the ridiculous story that the guards had
fallen asleep. Obviously, they were grasping at straws. But the
point is this: they started with the assumption that the tomb was
vacant! Why? Because they knew it was!"
WHAT ABOUT ALTERNATIVE THEORIES?
I listened intently as Craig articulated each point, and to me
the six arguments added up to an impressive case. However, I
still wanted to see if there were any loopholes before concluding
it was airtight. "Kirsopp Lake suggested in 1907 that the women
merely went to the wrong tomb," I said. "He says they got lost
and a caretaker at an unoccupied tomb told them, 'You're looking
for Jesus of Nazareth. He is not here,' and they ran away,
afraid. Isn't that a plausible explanation?"' Craig sighed. "Lake
didn't generate any following with this," he said. "The reason is
that the site of Jesus' tomb was known to the Jewish
authorities. Even if the women had made this mistake, the
authorities would have been only too happy to point out the tomb
and correct the disciples' error when they began to proclaim that
Jesus had risen from the dead. I don't know anybody who holds to
Lake's theory today." Frankly, other options didn't sound very
likely, either. Obviously, the disciples had no motive to steal
the body and then die for a lie, and certainly the Jewish
authorities wouldn't have removed the body. I said, "We're left
with the theory that the empty tomb was a later legend and that
by the time it developed, people were unable to disprove it,
because the location of the tomb had been forgotten."
"That has been the issue ever since 1835, when David Strauss
claimed these stories are legendary," Craig replied. "And that's
why in our conversation today we've focused so much on this
legendary hypothesis by showing that the empty tomb story goes
back to within a few years of the events themselves. This renders
the legend theory worthless. Even if there are some legendary
elements in the secondary details of the story, the historical
core of the story remains securely established."
Yes, there were answers for these alternative explanations. Upon
analysis, every theory seemed to crumble under the weight of
evidence and logic. But the only remaining option was to believe