Was the Tomb Empty?

A lawyer weighs the evidence for the resurrection

Graeme Smith

• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857215291
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

A highly qualified British judge examines the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Assessing secular evidence, historical sources, and the testimony of those involved Graeme Smith carefully and critically analyses the various resurrection accounts, their inconsistences and their value as evidence. This succinct but powerful document places less weight on the Gospel accounts and considers other evidence first; sources from outside the gospels, such as Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny; logical alternatives to the resurrection; and the opinions of experts in the fields of history, literary history, palaeography and law. Could this most improbable story be true? If so, what are the implications?

PART 1

OPENING
SUBMISSIONS

CHAPTER ONE

Jesus

Who?

In a London school a teenager with no church connections hears the Christmas story for the first time. His teacher tells it well and he is fascinated by this amazing story. Risking his friends’ mockery, after the lesson he thanks her for the story. One thing had disturbed him, so he asks: “Why did they give the baby a swear word for his name?”

Stuart Murray (2004)

For many people today, the only time they hear or use the names “Jesus” or “Christ” is as swear words. This is surprising, given the extent to which the story of Jesus has influenced society. Our two main public holidays originated as celebrations of Jesus’ birth (Christmas) and his death and resurrection (Easter), although they are probably now better known for Father Christmas and chocolate eggs. History itself is reckoned in our society by reference to the year when Jesus is supposed to have been born, so we have BC (before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini – in the year of the Lord).

More subtly than this, our language is full of expressions taken from the life and teaching of Jesus: a “good Samaritan” is someone who goes out of his way to help a stranger; FT5K is a sandwich shop named from an abbreviation of “feed the five thousand”; “Judas” is a term used for someone who betrays; “carrying my cross” is a description of having to bear some great trouble or burden; “walking on water” describes someone who has been remarkably successful; and so on. It is unlikely that most people know the origins of such phrases, but they show the extent to which the story of Jesus is ingrained in our society.

A spectrum

A large proportion of society may know little or nothing about Jesus, but even among those who do recognize the historical Jesus there is a huge spectrum of views. At one end is the orthodox Christian view, set out centuries ago in the Nicene creed. Here is the section on Jesus:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living
and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.3

Although an ancient formula, it is still repeated regularly by Christians throughout the world, and it contains statements of belief which are both theological and historical.

At the other end of the spectrum is the view that the story of Jesus is nothing more than a work of fiction – albeit perhaps a very profound and influential work of fiction. According to this view, Jesus was no more a historical figure than Hercules or Mary Poppins.

Between these two views of Jesus lies a vast array of others. Some people see him as a great teacher or holy man; some see him as a martyr; some see him as a prophet. The last of those views is that of Islam, which accepts Jesus as one of the great prophets, born of the Virgin Mary, and a performer of miracles. However, Islam emphatically denies that Jesus was in any way divine, or that he rose from the dead, or even that he was crucified and died.4

Everyone loves a conspiracy

Conspiracy theories abound in every area of life. Many people seem very receptive to claims that the “official” version of events is a conspiracy to conceal the truth, whether the subject is history (the sinking of the Titanic, the holocaust), death (Elvis, John F. Kennedy, Princess Diana), health (MMR), politics (9/11 and the ensuing “war against terror”), or the universe (UFOs and alien abduction).

The courts are not immune to this approach. Not infrequently a claim is brought by someone who is convinced they are the victim of a conspiracy. I remember well as a young articled clerk (the old term for a trainee solicitor) meeting a new client who claimed to have been knocked down by a Rolls Royce. Initially her claim sounded genuine, but as the interview proceeded she claimed that this was a weekly occurrence, engineered by Nazis! As I showed her out, she said in a loud voice across a crowded waiting room, “You’ll be hearing from the Pope about this!” I’m still waiting.

This is an extreme example; many are much more sophisticated and believable, at least superficially. While occasionally such claims have some basis in fact, more usually they are based on no evidence at all, or on supposed evidence taken totally out of context. Indeed, the lack of evidence is sometimes relied on as proof of the conspiracy – the evidence does not exist because it has been destroyed by the conspirators, and lawyers and judges who reach negative conclusions are often simply added to the list of those conspirators.

Many people have a similar view of the traditional Christian story. The statement “Everyone loves a conspiracy” is made by two different characters in Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code (pages 232, 500). It seems that these words were prophetic, as the book became an international bestseller, telling of a conspiracy by the church to suppress the fact that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a child. This book was a popular restatement of ideas that have appeared before, for example in the bestselling The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which was described in a judgment by Mr Justice Peter Smith as being “at the far end of conjecture”.5 (For a closer look into the Da Vinci Code phenomenon see Appendix 1, and for comments on The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail see Appendix 3.)

Invariably such books challenge the “orthodox” story of Jesus, positioning it as less than faithful to what really happened. This is unparalleled in any other religion. (Although there are a few such books, for example in relation to the Jewish ark of the covenant, these pale into insignificance beside the sheer volume of books challenging the orthodox Christian story.) It seems that there are huge numbers of people receptive to the idea that the church has manipulated and concealed the true story of Jesus.

Know the truth

Jesus is recorded as saying that “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The purpose of this book is to look at the evidence to see if the truth about Jesus can be established. I believe that it can, but this is a question which you will need to answer for yourself. As to whether this truth can then lead on to freedom, that can only be established by experience. The answer of millions of Christians throughout history and across the world is a resounding “yes”, but this will carry little if any weight with someone unconvinced that the basic story is true. However, it may provide a small but tantalizing incentive to embark upon the journey in the first place.

Rather than attempting to analyse evidence about the whole of Jesus’ life, we will focus principally on that relating to his resurrection. This is because, in the words of the eminent lawyer Professor Sir Norman Anderson (1969, page 84):

the belief that Christ rose from the dead is not an optional extra, superimposed on his life and death to give a happy ending to what might otherwise be regarded as a tragedy of infinite beauty overshadowed by doubts as to whether it was not, after all, a supreme example of magnificent defeat. On the contrary, it is the linchpin.

Put simply, the resurrection of Jesus is at the very heart of the Christian faith. As Paul said bluntly, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14). If the evidence for the resurrection is lacking, then there is little point looking any further, except for selecting parts of Jesus’ teaching which may help us in our daily living. However, if the evidence for the resurrection is compelling, this will throw a very different light on Jesus’ life and teaching, and will lead us to much more profound questions. As one Christian writer puts it, “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of history” (McDowell 1981, 1998, page 179). Let us weigh carefully the evidence to ascertain which it is.

Before we journey into the evidence, we need to establish some ground rules, and this is the purpose of the next few chapters. We shall start by considering the nature of history itself because if, as stated by the character Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code, “history is always written by the winners … always a one-sided account” (Brown 2003, page 343), then we must ask whether there is any basis on which we could ever accept that the story of Jesus is historical?

SUMMARY

• There is a wide spectrum of views about Jesus.
• Many believe that the church has conspired to hide the truth about Jesus.
• We will focus on the central Christian claim about Jesus – that he rose from the dead.

CHAPTER 2

History

History became legend; legend became myth; and for two and a half thousand years the ring passed out of all knowledge.

These are among the opening words of the first film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, explaining why no one had any memory of the ring of power. Today, many people seem to believe that Christians have operated in precisely the reverse direction, and that they have taken a myth or a legend and have elevated it to the status of history.

History, legend and myth

One dictionary defines a myth as “a traditional story which contains ideas or beliefs about ancient times or natural events, and which forms part of the beliefs of a group even though it is not founded on fact”. A legend is defined as “a story (which may or may not be true) handed down from the past”. We will look at the definition of history shortly, but will note at this stage that it is concerned with facts.

So, as we look at the story of Jesus, are we in the realm of history, or are we considering a myth or a legend?

C. S. Lewis is probably best known for his Chronicles of Narnia. However, as a former Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University, he was well placed to comment on the literary quality of the story of Jesus. In relation to the suggestion that the Gospel records are legends, he commented as follows (Lewis 2000, page 40):

Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and no people building up legend would allow that to be so. Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about 100 years ago when the realistic novel came into existence.

The style of the Gospel records, then, is not that of legend. In addition, consider the timescale involved in the story of Jesus. As we shall see, written references to the death and resurrection of Jesus came into existence by the early 50s AD at the latest. That was only some twenty years after the events in question. Unlike the case of the 2,500-year period in The Lord of the Rings, it is impossible to see how a myth or legend could be established in such a short period of time.

To demonstrate this, we can consider events in recent history. The death of President Kennedy in 1963 still attracts conspiracy theories, yet no one seriously doubts that he did die, or even that he was shot. And we don’t need the film footage that exists to make the case – many people still remember vividly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the news of his death.

This can be seen even more clearly with the death of someone important to us. I remember the day I was told of the death of a close friend, more than thirty years ago, as if it were yesterday.

It therefore seems not just unlikely but impossible that a myth or a legend concerning Jesus, which diverged substantially from actual historical truth, could develop within such a short period of time. That is not to say that everything written in the Gospels must be true, but it does mean that we can and should approach the whole question of the story of Jesus as history.

What is history?

...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Verdict!
• How to Handle the Evidence
• Part 1 – Opening Submissions
• Part 2 – The Evidence
• Part 3 – Reaching a Verdict
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Notes