The Empty Tomb: Historical Evidence and Explanations
The empty tomb of Jesus Christ stands as one of the most compelling pieces of historical evidence supporting His resurrection, defying naturalistic explanations and aligning with the transformative impact of early Christianity. Recorded in all four Gospels (Matthew 28:1-10, Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1-18), the tomb’s vacancy is more than a theological claim but a historical puzzle that demands a logical resolution.
First, the empty tomb is a widely attested fact, even by Jesus’ opponents. The Gospel of Matthew notes that the Jewish leaders bribed guards to claim the disciples stole the body (Matthew 28:11-15), implicitly conceding the tomb was empty. This early counter-narrative, preserved in a text dated to within decades of the event, suggests the vacancy was undeniable—otherwise, producing the body would have silenced the resurrection claim. Historian N.T. Wright, in The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003), argues that this admission from hostile sources strengthens the case, as it reflects a historical reality too stubborn to dismiss.
Second, alternative explanations falter under scrutiny. The “stolen body” theory lacks plausibility: the disciples, described as terrified post-crucifixion (John 20:19), were unlikely to overpower Roman guards, risking death for a corpse. The Roman seal and guard presence (Matthew 27:62-66) further complicate this scenario—failure to secure the tomb would have cost the soldiers their lives. The “wrong tomb” hypothesis also fails; the burial site, owned by Joseph of Arimathea, a known figure (Mark 15:43), was no obscure location. Women witnesses, the first to report the empty tomb (Luke 24:1-3), would have ensured accuracy, as their testimony—unexpected in a patriarchal culture—adds credibility, per historian Michael Licona in The Resurrection of Jesus (2010).
Third, the empty tomb’s implications align with historical outcomes. If Jesus’ body remained, the Jewish or Roman authorities, with every motive to crush Christianity, could have displayed it to end the movement. Instead, Christianity exploded, with Paul citing over 500 witnesses to the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15:3-8), a claim circulated early enough to be verified. The transformation of disciples into bold proclaimers (Acts 2:14-36) and the conversion of skeptics like Paul (Acts 9:1-19) hinge on an event—the resurrection—tied to that empty tomb. Archaeologically, no rival tomb has ever surfaced, despite Jerusalem’s significance.
Finally, the cultural context bolsters the argument. Jewish theology expected a general resurrection at history’s end, not an individual rising (Daniel 12:2). The claim of Jesus’ resurrection, centered on an empty tomb, was radical yet gained traction, suggesting an extraordinary event shifted expectations. As scholar Gary Habermas notes in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (2004), the tomb’s emptiness, paired with appearances, best explains this shift. The empty tomb stands as a historical anchor—unrefuted by foes, unexplainable by skeptics, and unshaken by time. No body was found because no body remained; the tomb’s silence screams resurrection.
Agape
Borger church of Christ @ Franklin & Juniper 
You are presupposing without proof or argument that the salvation-formula God wanted 1st century unbelievers to obey (believe in the resurrection of Jesus, Romans 10:9-10) God also wants some 21st century people to obey. Since you think the bible is the one source that provides the best evidence for what God intends, please provide a solely biblical argument that God wants any 21st century unbeliever to gain salvation. I recognize you cannot possibly do that with one bible verse, so feel free to make the argument upon the basis of as many bible verses as you see fit to use. I’m ready when you are. I don’t claim that god doesn’t want to save 21st century people. Maybe he does. Anything is always possible. I merely claim there is no biblically justifiable argument that god does want to save 21st century people. I find nothing ever stated by any biblical author or story character to reasonably imply application to 21st century people.
If you cannot make such argument, then when I deny the argument, I’m not denying anything that is the least bit “clear”, and the less clear an argument is, the less unreasonable we are to deny it. Denying that God wants to save anybody today is not at the level of fools who deny Jesus’ gender. We might be “wrong”, but “unreasonable” is too extreme.
What really is your point? I’ll simply counter with, what verse do you find that limits it to the 1st century? The New Testament speaks of salvation in a timeless and a universal way. Here’s one of many for you to begin with. 1Tim 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. he phrase “all people” (pantas anthrōpous) is unqualified, implying no limitation to a specific time or group. God’s desire for salvation is universal, extending to every generation.
My point is that when somebody rejects the gospel in the 21st century, they are not “unreasonable” to do so. This therefore refutes the thousands of conservative Christians who think today’s unbeliever in rejecting the gospel is equally as unreasonable as the fool who denies Jesus’ gender. Sorry, but the notion that something in the NT “applies to us today” simply cannot be supported by anything in the NT.
We all agree that whenever NT authors or story characters made statements, they were addressed to their 1st century contemporaries. If you come along and say the authors intended an audience broader than the 1st century generation, that is your burden to prove, not my burden to disprove. Thus if you fail your burden, you forfeit the right to balk if somebody disagrees with you on the point.
You only hold that perspective because you have never allowed the NT to speak for itself, you are instead ceaselessly imposing your “it-applies-to-us-today” presupposition on the bible, just like millions of people do every Sunday morning. You recognize the horrific disaster that awaits you if you dare admit that there is no good argument that Jesus and Paul intended 21st century people as part of the audience they intended to address. Mormons also think it a terrible disaster to admit the Book of Mormon is a fraud, but if their trustful faith cannot excuse them, trustful faith cannot excuse you. Misinterpretation of a book is misinterpretation of a book. How many errors the book has means nothing.
Your “unqualified” isn’t very impressive, for several reasons. First, you cannot deny that Paul was intending the phrase to speak of God’s desire toward 1st century people, just like if I said “the world is crazy”, I mean the world we currently live in, and it is not immediately obvious that I also mean the world as it might exist 2000 years from now.
Second, you ignored the context: Paul in 1Tim 2:1 expressed a desire for prayers and thanksgivings to be made on behalf of “all” men. Do you seriously think Paul was saying he wanted 1st century Christians to thank god for 21st century men? This cannot be correct, as verse 2 refers to “kings” and “all who are in authority” clearly presupposing that they are currently alive.
You will insist 2:4 also refers to kings and authorities who haven’t been born yet, but that is not my burden to refute, it’s your burden to prove. You don’t know of any Christians of the last 100 years who have ever prayed for any king or authoritative person who wouldn’t live until the year 4,000 …and that’s good reason to suppose Paul, speaking in 55 a.d., did not intend prayers for kings and authorities who wouldn’t live until the year 2,000 years later.
Third, you are fallaciously basing your argument on the “unqualified” nature of 2:4 . But in the Great Commission that you surely would employ, verse 20 (“teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you”) the “everything” is equally unqualified. If your logic is consistent, then you would have to argue from this “unqualified” statement that Jesus wanted angry 21st century Christians to leave their gifts at the physical temple and be reconciled to their brothers first (Matthew 5:22-23). Your logic requires that Jesus wanted 21st century Christians to think eternal life is conditioned upon obeying the 10 commandments (19:17) and that he commanded 21st century Christians to obey whatever the Pharisees command of them (23:3). You have never believed or obeyed any of this because you don’t believe the unqualified nature of the “everything” demands that the “everything” is absolute.
Please keep this in mind: I’m not arguing that you are a unreasonable to apply 1st century Christianity to anybody today. I’m only arguing that I am reasonable to deny that the NT authors and story characters ever intended to address people 2000 years distant into the future.
If you refrain from insulting my intelligence, we have no issue.
If you insist I’m a “fool” or “unreasonable” or “Clearly wrong” any synonym because you think it so “obvious” that the NT authors or story characters intended to address 21st century people, I’ll have no problem explaining why you cannot fulfill your rightful burden.
The NT frequently communicates God’s intentions, commands, and promises using language that is universal (“all,” “everyone,” “world”), temporally unbounded (“forever,” “end of the age”), or contextually open-ended, implying applicability to all generations unless a specific limitation is stated. This reflects a biblical communication pattern where explicit statements about every future era (e.g., “21st century”) are unnecessary because the intended scope is conveyed through broad, inclusive terms. The absence of a temporal restriction in a command or promise signals its ongoing relevance, as God’s unchanging nature (Hebrews 13:8) and the eternal purpose of His word (1 Peter 1:25) underpin its enduring application.
This principle counters the objection’s demand for a verse explicitly stating “applies to us today.” Requiring such a verse misunderstands how the NT communicates intent, as it assumes a modern, hyper-specific standard of clarity foreign to the biblical authors. Instead, the NT uses general, universal language to convey timeless applicability, expecting readers to infer ongoing relevance unless otherwise specified.
Well first, you aren’t answering me directly. That’s usually a sign of scholarly weakness.
Like the “all” in Matthew 28:20…which you arbitrarily limit because if you didn’t, you’d have to teach the legalism of Matthew 19:17 when you fulfilled the Great Commission. Shame on Paul for his heresy of “grace”.
And when somebody today writes a letter and says “the world is evil”, you don’t really know whether they intend the statement to describe the world that won’t exist for another 2,000 years. I do nothing unreasonable when I limit NT authors’ statements to the world of the 1st century, unless they are clearly predicting something not intended to happen until after the 1st century.
And Jesus in the Great Commission requires the apostles to teach future followers to obey “all” he had previously commanded them (Matthew 28:20), and then promised he would be with then until the “end of the age”. If you are still waiting for Jesus to come back, then Jesus is still expecting you to see the “all” in verse 20 as unbounded. So since he taught Matthew 19:17 (eternal life acquired by obeying the commandments), Jesus is still expecting you to teach that too. Do you? Doing whatever the Pharisees tell you to do (Matthew 23:3) is also part of this “all” in 28:20…do you instruct followers of Christ to do all that the Pharisee’s command of them? Jesus’ words leave no logical possibility of applicability today because they are clearly bound to the time and culture in which he said them. Do you tell disciples of today who are angry with their brothers to leave their gift at the same physical temple “altar” that Jesus meant in Matthew 5:23-24?
You will say “those parts of the gospel clearly no longer apply today”.
Then under your logic, several statements about Mosaic Law indicate they were an “eternal” or “perpetual” ordinance. Yom Kippur (the animal blood sacrifice performed once per year by the High Priest) was intended in its original context to be a “permanent” statute. Leviticus 16:34. And its original context did not express or imply that some high priest of the future would ever “fulfill” that ordinance in a way designed to stop the yearly animal sacrifice. So that verse is an example where a “specific limitation” is not stated. Do you still observe Yom Kippur in the way Moses intended in his original comment? No.
You will say other biblical prophecy shows that God intended for Jesus to “fulfill the law”. But the fact that such fulfillment is never expressed or implied anywhere in the Mosaic Law justifies attributing to Moses the genuine belief that the sacerdotal system would never end.
And with Jesus justifying continuation of the temple ordinances in Matthew 5:22-23, and with the original apostles and their followers absolutely certain that the Law continued to function after the Cross no less than it did before the Cross (Acts 21:20) it’s perfectly reasonable to say that whatever Jesus thought about the “new covenant”, he did not think it meant “fulfilling” the Old Covenant in a way requiring the ceasing of the animal sacrificial system. I think Paul was a heretic, an imbecile and mentally ill, and I see obvious contradiction between Jesus and Paul.
And I don’t hold to a “canonical” hermeneutic. So I do not share your view that the theology of one biblical author should be used to help fill out the theology taught by another biblical author.
The Book of Revelation has no problems speaking about specific future eras. In all three Synoptics Jesus didn’t have a problem describing what most of today’s Christians think was the destruction of the temple, which didn’t occur until 37 years after Jesus died. Paul gives specifies about eschatology in 1st Thess. 5:1 ff. I’m sorry but I’m not buying your subtle attempt to shift the burden back to me. I have no burden because I don’t claim the gospel doesn’t apply to today. Maybe it does. I merely claim that there is no biblical support for the claim that Jesus wants any 21st century person to believe the gospel, given what we know about the intentions of the NT authors. Matthew would never have written the way he did, had he known that so many generations would come and go before the end, that the latest of them would not be able to follow Jesus the way Matthew intended his original audience to. If it be reasonable to say Matthew expected the parousia to occur before the end of his physical earthly life, then reasonableness doesn’t require that I leave room for the possibility that maybe “god” wanted 21st century unbelievers to get the gospel from Matthew’s book.
There is no temporal restriction on the criteria for righteousness in Deuteronomy 6:25…does that mean everybody in the future will get righteous with god by obeying the commandments? Yes, apparently, according to that NT verse that says two people were righteous in the sight of God because they carefully obeyed all the commandments…Luke 1:6.
And I’ve shown the counter is not so convincing as to render unreasonable those who find it weak and unpersuasive.
I don’t ask how the NT communicates intent. That imports a “canonical hermeneutic” into the discussion, and is a principle of interpretation that arises from a belief in biblical inerrancy or something very close to it. I do not believe the NT authors were inspired by God, and I don’t find their being “Jews” to justify presuming they spoke in harmony, given the great diversity in Judaism between Moses and Malachi, and of course the great contradictions of theology in the original Christian churches of the 1st century, and the numerous other creative ways that today’s churches contradict each other. Getting authorial intent is best done by examining one author at a time. Throwing it all together and pretending we need the “whole counsel of god” and not merely one bit, is nothing but substanceless posturing. A Catholic could say the same to justify consulting the Apocrypha along with the bible, and you wouldn’t be any more impressed than the atheist is about the 66 books of the Protestant canon.
Then you must think Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation are hyper-specific.
I say the standard is foreign to them because they did not think they were writing for other cultures of the future who would need lots of things explained. They avoid being “hyper-specific” because they wrote in a high-context society, and thus expected their originally intended audiences to possess the background knowledge that was supposed to fill in the bits they left out. Well, that’s not people of the 21st century. It was each biblical author’s originally intended audience.
And I’ve proven that you arbitrarily impose limitations on contextually unlimited statements if you think it necessary to make your theology consistent. If Moses said Yom Kipper was a permanent statute, I’m going to accuse all post-Mosaic persons of error (including Jesus and the NT authors) if they try to pretend that Yom Kippur would somehow be “fulfilled” in a way that required the sacerdotal method of its observance to cease.
You will look to the prophets to justify pretending that God was providing progressive revelation so people would know that the Law was never intended to be permanent. But Moses’ statements do not leave logically possible room to justify pretending that there would come a day when they stopped being applied the hard physical way that Moses required them to apply. That happened because the Law was not given by God, and that’s why culture always wraps and twists a religion over time.
Again, your explanations might be true…but they are not so “obvious” as to render my skeptical view “unreasonable”.
And as long as my skeptical view is not unreasonable, I’m not being unreasonable when I reject the gospel today. The case for the gospel applying to us today is exceptionally weak and depends on theological assumptions that are very far from obvious. If I am “wrong” to reject the gospel, that doesn’t preclude the possibility that I am “reasonable” at the same time.
You have asked, and I have answered.
From the very beginning of creation God has pointed to a time where His Son will reign. The Law of Moses at it’s inception pointed to the Christ (Deut 18:15-18). Nowhere in the New Testament is there suggestion, implication, nor statement of another after it. That leaves us to logically conclude that it’s still in effect.
Heb 1:1 God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, 2 hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds;
It’s good to be skeptical (Acts 17:11).
What are your intentions?
What do you expect from me?
What evidence is acceptable to you since common communication is not?
If the New Testament covenant of Christ is not in effect today (or it may) what guides us today?
How do you want mankind to live? Is there a new covenant between God and man?
agape