Paul and Jesus

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. (John 20:1–10)

John, of course, gives other stories following his account of the empty tomb in which Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and to the disciples as a group, including Thomas, the famous doubter. But this account of the empty tomb stands out.

There is no young man or angelic interpreter in the tomb to proclaim the resurrection. Instead, Mary is quite sure the body has been taken elsewhere for burial: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2). One has to ask, who is the “they” Mary Magdalene has in mind? Based on the hasty burial of Jesus’ body in this temporary tomb, it seems obvious that she is referring to Joseph of Arimathea and his assistants. After all, just a few verses earlier it is John who tells us that the tomb was a temporary one (John 19:41). Peter and the other disciple race to the tomb to verify that it was empty. What they “believe” is not that Jesus has been raised from the dead, as John clarifies, but that the body of Jesus has been removed and reburied—presumably the night before. This fits precisely what we have reconstructed above, based on all our sources.

I argued a version of this “reburial” scenario in my book The Jesus Dynasty,¹³ and one response in particular, from an esteemed academic colleague, seemed to sum up some possible objections to my thesis quite well:

You say that the body of Jesus was removed from its temporary resting place to a permanent tomb. This is not at all impossible. Extreme improbability sets in only when you invite us to assume that this group, who knew perfectly well what had actually happened to the body of Jesus, permitted their co-religionists to proclaim, not that he was still alive (immortality of the soul, well attested in Judaism) but that he was risen from the dead. This, of course, is against the background of what “resurrection” meant for first-century Jews. In order for me to take your “evidence” seriously, you would have to explain why the family and/or disciples based their future lives on what they knew to be a falsehood, namely that the body had been raised, and finally to justify how the secret was preserved in one of the gabbiest societies in ancient history.¹⁴

In my judgment there are several incorrect assumptions embedded in this objection. I showed in the previous chapter that, according to Paul, the resurrection of Jesus, and resurrection more generally, was understood as the reembodiment of one who has died, not the resuscitation of a corpse.

The gospels, written decades after Jesus’ death, begin to connect the empty tomb and the disappearance of Jesus’ body to subsequent and immediate appearances of Jesus to his followers, even the same day, in Jerusalem, proving that he had been raised from the dead. But as we will see, these are late expansions of earlier tradition. What Mark only implies (“you will see him in Galilee”) is lavishly embellished by Luke, and John, but is now set in Jerusalem, on the Sunday after the crucifixion. Jesus walks around, wounds and all, eating meals and claiming he is still flesh and bones—directly contradicting Paul’s emphatic assertion that Jesus has become a “life-giving spirit”—embodied, yes, but not physical or material. It is a mistake to allow these later texts to frame our objections and take priority over earlier materials.