WRONG TOMB?

Jesus is believed to have been buried in a new tomb owned by rich man Joseph of Arimathea that he cut out of a rock. Marks gospel says nothing about this. Matthew who used Mark as a source does. Matthew sometimes embellishes things so we cannot be sure. Matthew tries to make the story fit the prophecy of Isaiah 53 better. It says the holy servant is with the rich one and the wicked one in his death. So Matthew presents Jesus as being buried in a rich man's tomb. Matthew however ignored the bit about the wicked.

Could it have been that the people who reckoned Jesus had disappeared from the tomb had in fact gone to the wrong tomb?

There is no evidence that the tomb of Jesus was the only one in the vicinity. There would have been more than one for it was near the city and families bury close together. Tombs were made out of quarries so there would have been lots of them in the one place.

Matthew reports that several tombs were found opened after Jesus’ demise when he says that lots of saints rose from the dead before Jesus and came out of their tombs after he appeared. Perhaps this was an excuse to cover up what was really going on. Perhaps it was to explain all the empty tombs. If somebody had been searching for his body they might have gone wide of the mark several times and left a number of tombs empty. Perhaps there were several opened tombs. Since bones were flung into the same ossaries nobody would have been sure if bones were missing due to resurrection or not. Reports of resurrections would mean that there was a lot of talk about the missing bodies and empty places where bones had been. There is every reason to believe that these alleged resurrections were surmised to be complete bodily resurrections like the resurrections Jesus had performed before his death reserving the semi-physical one for himself (the records seem to say that Jesus was more like a spirit than a man after death). Perhaps there was too much of it about for anybody to worry about Jesus and his tomb.

Matthew weakens the case for a supernatural resurrection of Jesus and his account of the saints rising has no credence for he never said he had evidence for it. He just interprets what he had heard or perhaps he just assumes it happened. The stories of people rising from the dead might have prompted the apostles to do the same with their hero. Perhaps they enjoyed telling it so much that they eventually came to believe their own lies.

The location of Jesus’ resting place would have been totally hidden by the Romans and highest-level Jews from the likes of Joseph of Arimathea and the women and everybody in case a martyr-cult would be launched. If Matthew is right that the Jews expected a resurrection then that was the simple way to ensure the body never went missing. The Jews and Romans did not want Jesus to have fans after his death for they killed him to extinguish his influence.

The two Marys sitting facing the tomb at the interment might have been at a distance. The Gospels say they were inconsolable. They could have made a mistake by coming to the wrong tomb and their agitated mental state and the darkness of Friday though they had observed where Jesus had been laid on Friday. The apostles did not see where Jesus was laid so they could have been misdirected by the women.

The tomb might have been open awaiting a body and the men in white could have played a cruel trick on the women.

The Jews must have asked Joseph, who they knew well, where Jesus was if Joseph really took care of the funeral as the gospels report. They would have. We know Joseph was devious and dishonest. He knew that if they were told the truth they might remove the body to prevent some believer from stealing it. They needed to know for if they had watched the funeral the gospel would say so in case anybody would complain that the circle at the funeral was too close for comfort. So, they might have sent the soldiers to the wrong tomb – to a tomb that was already empty.

Jesus would probably have been removed or stolen from the tomb he was really in when everybody thought he had already gone from the other tomb.

If the women ever realised they had made a mistake they would have been afraid to say so and might have said nothing. Mark says the women were too scared to tell that they saw the risen Jesus.

Maybe it was eventually learned that they had gone to the wrong tomb and that was why the women were not arrested for body snatching and nobody was accused of tampering with the tomb.

The Christians would not have said where Jesus was in case the Jews and the Romans would have him thrown on the dump. Pilate handing Jesus over to Joseph would have been highly irregular if it happened. It would have been tantamount to admitting the Romans had had an innocent man killed so he could have been forced to reverse his decision. Pilate giving away the body would be almost impossible so the gospel lies but at least the gospel is hinting that nobody knew for sure where the body was taken.

The gospels cannot stand as evidence for a supernatural disappearance of the body when they cannot satisfy us that the right tomb was found.

History leads us to the same conclusion for there is no hint that Jesus’ tomb was revered as a martyr’s shrine until decades later (page 108, The Womb and the Tomb). It could not have been for the early Christians were Jews and Jews did not touch unclean things like tombs unless it was unavoidable.

Constantine claimed that he found Jesus’ tomb in a quarry on the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands today in Jerusalem. He aid he found evidence. That evidence must have been graffiti which would naturally appear on any tomb that some careless old fossil designates as a shrine. But the tomb is conveniently ruined. A pagan temple was once built on it. Some said it was not the tomb because the gospels said that Jesus was buried outside the city walls but this tomb was inside. The tomb was outside the city before the walls were extended in 41 AD.

The Womb and the Tomb states that if Jesus had been stolen and it could not be proved it would have been used as a Holy Place where something unworldly happened to a blessed saint (page 108). If then, there had been an empty tomb, it would have been made a shrine. So, the believers who had drifted away from the Jewishness would have been the ones who picked the tomb they thought was that of Jesus but it took a long time for Christians like that to appear there. They might have been wrong or shooting in the dark. The tomb would probably have been used after Jesus’ disappearance so visitors would have been banned by law. The tomb might have been filled in to prevent it being sacred to Christians.

It is assumed that since the Jews and Roman soldiers went to the tomb before the resurrection no mistake would have been made (page 98, The Resurrection Factor). But what if Joseph of Arimathea deliberately directed them to the wrong tomb? Joseph was the only person mentioned that they might have asked for he was one of their own. They would not have told him why they wanted to go to the tomb of Jesus and he would have been afraid that they were going to have Jesus removed and dumped so he would have lied. Christians reply that the Romans already knew where Jesus was buried but there is no evidence from the gospels that that was the case.

It is assumed that the Romans and the Sanhedrin (Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol 1, page 257) and Joseph of Arimathea would have inspected the tomb after Jesus was said to have vanished and would have gone to the right one. Joseph would not have said had there been a mistake for he would have been glad if it looked like Jesus rose and might even have directed them to the wrong tomb. The Sanhedrin would have made do with a report from the Romans – they were judges and religious leaders not detectives. The guards might have been posted at the wrong tomb thanks to him which was hit by lightning making the rock move.

Another tomb outside the city walls that is considered to have been the tomb of Jesus has a water channel dug by the crusaders that was thought to be the groove for the big round stone to be rolled in. It has a good high doorway. John 20 says you had to stoop to get into Jesus’ tomb. This tomb was used before the time of Jesus as well.

We conclude then that the tomb of Jesus is not known and nobody was ever sure. The wrong tomb was probably visited. No fuss or major investigation ensued as far as we can tell so the robbers could have emptied the tomb at their leisure.