"The empty tomb proves the resurrection"

The empty tomb is frequently cited by Christian apologists as one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. The argument is straightforward: Jesus was buried in a tomb, the tomb was later found empty, and the best explanation for this emptiness is that Jesus rose from the dead.¹ William Lane Craig, one of the most prominent defenders of this argument, presents the empty tomb as one of four "minimal facts" that he claims the majority of scholars accept and that together establish the resurrection as the best historical explanation.² Gary Habermas has similarly argued that approximately 75% of scholars who have written on the subject accept the historicity of the empty tomb.³

However, a careful examination of the evidence reveals significant problems with this argument. The empty tomb is absent from the earliest Christian sources, the Gospel accounts contain irreconcilable contradictions, and the argument itself rests on a logical fallacy: even if a tomb were found empty, this would not prove resurrection any more than an empty house proves its occupant ascended to heaven. As New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman has noted, the empty tomb, "even if historical, does not prove that Jesus was raised from the dead. It would simply show that his body was not there."⁴

Paul's silence on the empty tomb

The apostle Paul is the earliest Christian writer whose authentic letters survive. His first letter to the Corinthians, written around 53–55 CE, contains the oldest account of the resurrection tradition in the New Testament, predating the Gospels by fifteen to forty years.⁵ In 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, Paul recites what scholars widely recognize as a pre-Pauline creed—a formalized statement of belief that Paul himself had received from earlier Christians. Most scholars date this creed to within a few years of Jesus's death, making it our earliest evidence for resurrection belief.^{6, 7}

The creed states that Christ "died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve" (1 Cor. 15:3–5). Strikingly, this earliest resurrection testimony makes no mention of an empty tomb. Paul lists the evidence for the resurrection—burial, resurrection, and appearances—but the discovery of an empty tomb, which apologists today consider crucial evidence, is entirely absent.⁸

This silence is significant for several reasons. First, Paul is explicitly gathering together all the evidence for Jesus's resurrection that has been handed down to him. If the empty tomb tradition existed and was considered important evidence, one would expect Paul to include it.⁸ Second, Paul's letters never mention Joseph of Arimathea, the figure who according to the Gospels provided the tomb and buried Jesus. This suggests that Paul either did not know these traditions or did not consider them relevant to his argument.⁴ Third, Paul's understanding of resurrection may have been different from the later Gospel narratives. When Paul discusses resurrection bodies in 1 Corinthians 15:35–50, he emphasizes that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" and describes the resurrected body as a "spiritual body" (soma pneumatikon) that is "raised in glory" and "raised in power"—language that does not necessarily presuppose an empty physical tomb.^{5, 9}

Defenders of the empty tomb argue that Paul's mention of burial ("he was buried") implicitly assumes an empty tomb, since resurrection in a first-century Jewish context would mean the raising of the same body that was buried.¹⁰ N.T. Wright has argued that for any Jew of Paul's time, speaking of someone being "buried" and then "raised" would necessarily imply that the grave was now empty.¹¹ However, this interpretation reads later Gospel traditions back into Paul's text. The creed's concise wording does not specify the manner of burial, who performed it, or where it took place. Ehrman notes that the simple statement "he was buried" may indicate only that Jesus died and was disposed of in some manner—not necessarily that he was placed in an identifiable tomb that was later found empty.⁴

Mark's abrupt ending

The Gospel of Mark, which most scholars consider the earliest Gospel (written approximately 65–70 CE), contains the first narrative account of the empty tomb discovery.¹² Significantly, the earliest and best Greek manuscripts of Mark—including Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus from the fourth century—end at Mark 16:8, with the women fleeing the tomb in fear and "saying nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."^{13, 14} The longer ending of Mark (16:9–20), which includes resurrection appearances, is widely recognized by textual scholars as a later addition not present in the original Gospel.¹³

This original ending presents a remarkable narrative: the empty tomb is announced by a "young man" dressed in white, but there are no resurrection appearances in Mark's Gospel. The women are commanded to tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee, but they disobey this command entirely—"they said nothing to anyone." The Gospel ends with fear and silence, not with joyful proclamation or encounters with the risen Jesus.¹⁴

Scholars have debated why Mark ends this way. Some suggest that the original ending was lost, though no textual evidence supports this hypothesis.¹³ Others argue that Mark intentionally ended with the women's silence and fear, perhaps as a literary device that invites readers to become the proclaimers of the resurrection message that the women failed to deliver.¹⁴ Dale Allison, a prominent New Testament scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary, notes that "the reduction of the empty tomb to Markan creativity is not a compelling point of view" for many scholars, but the narrative's theological shaping remains evident regardless of whether a historical kernel underlies it.¹⁵

The implications for the empty tomb argument are significant. If Mark is the earliest Gospel and the original Mark contained no resurrection appearances—only an empty tomb and a young man's announcement—then the elaborate appearance narratives in the later Gospels represent a development of the tradition over time. The women's silence in Mark may even explain why the empty tomb tradition is absent from Paul: if the women "said nothing to anyone," how could the tradition have circulated?¹⁶

Contradictions in the Gospel accounts

The four canonical Gospels present substantially different accounts of the empty tomb discovery. These differences are not minor variations that can easily be harmonized; they involve contradictions in basic factual claims about who was present, what was found, and what happened afterward. The table below summarizes key discrepancies across the four accounts.^{4, 17}

Empty tomb narrative details compared across the Gospels^{4, 17}

Several of these discrepancies resist easy harmonization. In Mark, the women flee and "said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." In Matthew and Luke, they immediately report to the disciples. These are not different perspectives on the same event; they are contradictory claims about what the women did.⁴ In John, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb alone and, upon finding it empty, runs to tell Peter without encountering any angels at all—she meets the angels only on a second visit. If John's account were historical, why would she return with the other women in Mark's version, wondering "who will roll away the stone for us" (Mark 16:3), when she already knew the tomb was open and empty?¹⁷

Apologists typically respond to these contradictions through "additive harmonization"—combining details from all four accounts into a single, larger narrative. For instance, they argue that multiple women went to the tomb, but each Gospel simply mentions different ones without claiming to provide an exhaustive list.¹⁸ However, this approach effectively creates a fifth narrative that exists in none of the original texts. As Ehrman has observed, such harmonization "is not reading what the text says. It is making up a new story."⁴ Raymond Brown, the eminent Catholic New Testament scholar, similarly argued in his authoritative An Introduction to the New Testament that each Gospel should be read on its own terms, and that forced harmonization obscures the distinctive theological message of each evangelist.¹⁷

Legendary development over time

When the Gospel accounts are arranged in their probable chronological order of composition, a clear pattern of elaboration emerges. The earliest account (Mark) is the most restrained: one young man, a brief announcement, fearful silence. The later accounts progressively add supernatural elements, apologetic details, and dramatic encounters.^{4, 19}

Mark's Gospel (c. 65–70 CE) contains no resurrection appearances and ends with the women's silence. Matthew (c. 80–90 CE) adds an earthquake, a descending angel, Roman guards who become "like dead men," and an appearance of Jesus to the women. Luke (c. 80–90 CE) adds a second angelic figure and has the disciples verify the empty tomb. John (c. 90–100 CE) provides the most elaborate account, with Mary Magdalene having an extended conversation with the risen Jesus in the garden.^{12, 17}

Matthew's Gospel is particularly revealing because it introduces apologetic elements absent from Mark. The Roman guards, found only in Matthew, appear designed to counter a specific objection—that the disciples stole the body. Matthew even acknowledges this counter-explanation explicitly: the guards are bribed to spread the story "that his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep" (Matt. 28:13), and Matthew notes that "this story has been spread among the Jews to this day" (Matt. 28:15).²⁰ The presence of this apologetic motif suggests that by the time Matthew was written, Christians were already defending against naturalistic explanations of the empty tomb—which in turn suggests the empty tomb tradition was sufficiently established to require defense.¹⁹

This pattern of elaboration is precisely what historians expect to find in legendary development. Details are added over time to address objections, to enhance the dramatic and theological impact of narratives, and to fill gaps in earlier accounts. The approximately 40-year gap between Jesus's death and the first written empty tomb narrative (in Mark) provided ample time for such development to occur through oral tradition.^{4, 21}

Chronological development of empty tomb traditions^{4, 12, 17}

Alternative explanations

Even if we grant that Jesus was buried in a tomb and that the tomb was later found empty, this does not lead inexorably to the conclusion of resurrection. An empty tomb is consistent with multiple explanations, and the resurrection hypothesis requires the additional assumption that a supernatural event occurred—an assumption that cannot be established by historical methodology alone.^{4, 22}

Scholars have proposed several alternative explanations for the empty tomb tradition. The wrong tomb hypothesis, first articulated by Kirsopp Lake in 1907, suggests that the women, visiting the tomb early in the morning while it was still dark (as John states), may have gone to the wrong tomb in the garden cemetery.²³ The moved body hypothesis proposes that the body was relocated—either by Joseph of Arimathea, who may have intended only a temporary burial before the Sabbath, or by Roman or Jewish authorities.²³ The stolen body hypothesis, acknowledged in Matthew's Gospel itself as a contemporary explanation (Matt. 28:13–15), suggests that the disciples removed the body to fabricate a resurrection claim.²⁰

More radically, some scholars question whether Jesus received any burial at all. John Dominic Crossan argued that Roman crucifixion victims were typically left on crosses to be consumed by scavenging animals, as part of the punishment's public humiliation.²⁴ Ehrman has similarly suggested that Jesus may have been buried in a common grave for criminals rather than an individual tomb, making the later empty tomb tradition a legendary development rather than a historical memory.⁴ However, archaeological evidence from first-century Jerusalem, including the discovery of a crucified man's remains (with nail still embedded in the heel bone) in a family tomb at Giv'at ha-Mivtar, demonstrates that some crucifixion victims were indeed buried.²⁵ Craig Evans and other scholars have also cited Josephus's testimony that Jews were permitted to bury crucified bodies before sunset, in accordance with Deuteronomic law.²⁶

The legendary development hypothesis proposes that the empty tomb tradition arose not from historical memory but from theological reflection. In this view, early Christians, believing in Jesus's resurrection on the basis of visionary experiences, may have developed the empty tomb narrative as a natural implication of their resurrection faith. If Jesus had been raised bodily, it followed that his tomb must be empty—and so the story was generated to express this theological conviction.^{21, 27}

The "women witnesses" argument

Apologists frequently argue that the women's role as the first witnesses to the empty tomb supports the historicity of the account. The reasoning is based on the criterion of embarrassment: in first-century Jewish and Roman society, women were regarded as less credible witnesses than men, and their testimony was not accepted in Jewish courts under many circumstances. If early Christians were inventing a resurrection story, they would surely have made the male disciples—Peter and John—discover the empty tomb rather than women.^{2, 28}

This argument has been influential but faces several objections. First, the criterion of embarrassment is not a guarantee of historicity; it only suggests that a detail is less likely to have been invented, not that it must be historical.²⁹ Second, the narrative context of Mark's Gospel provides an alternative explanation for the women's role. By the end of Mark's passion narrative, all of Jesus's male disciples have fled and abandoned him. Only the women remained faithful, following Jesus to the cross and observing his burial.¹⁴ Given this narrative setup, it would have been awkward for Mark to suddenly reintroduce the male disciples as the tomb's discoverers when the story had emphasized their absence and failure. The women's presence at the tomb is thus a natural narrative continuation, not necessarily an embarrassing historical memory.²⁹

Third, the claim that women's testimony was universally dismissed in antiquity has been overstated. While women's testimony was restricted in certain legal contexts, this does not mean their words were considered worthless in all social situations. Josephus, for instance, records stories in which women play key roles as witnesses and informants.³⁰ The Christian movement itself was notable for the prominence of women among its earliest adherents, and the Gospels consistently portray women positively. In this context, having women discover the empty tomb may not have been as embarrassing as apologists suggest.²⁹

The logical problem

The most fundamental problem with the empty tomb argument is logical rather than historical. Even if we accept that Jesus was buried in an identifiable tomb and that this tomb was later found empty, this does not establish that Jesus rose from the dead. An empty tomb is consistent with multiple possible explanations: the body was moved, stolen, placed in the wrong tomb, or the tomb tradition itself developed as legend. The argument from empty tomb to resurrection commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent: if resurrection occurred, the tomb would be empty; the tomb is empty; therefore resurrection occurred. But the same logical form would allow us to conclude that the body was stolen, since if the body was stolen, the tomb would also be empty.^{4, 22}

Apologists typically respond that resurrection is the "best explanation" of all the evidence taken together—not just the empty tomb, but also the resurrection appearances and the origin of Christian faith.^{1, 2} However, this move shifts the argument away from the empty tomb itself to broader considerations. And even on this broader ground, the argument faces formidable challenges. The resurrection hypothesis requires accepting that a supernatural event—a dead person returning to life—is more probable than any naturalistic alternative. David Hume's famous argument against miracles applies here: given that miracles by definition violate the regular course of nature, testimony to a miracle must be weighed against the overwhelming evidence of uniform human experience that dead people stay dead.³¹

Dale Allison, despite concluding that the arguments in favor of an empty tomb are "better than those against it," acknowledges the limits of historical reasoning on this question. He notes that whether one finds the resurrection hypothesis plausible depends heavily on the worldview one brings to the investigation: "I remain unsure whether historians, working with the tools of their trade, will ever be able to demonstrate that Jesus rose from the dead."¹⁵ The empty tomb, even if historical, cannot prove a resurrection. It can only be consistent with one—and it is equally consistent with other explanations that do not require supernatural intervention.

What scholars actually say

The scholarly landscape on the empty tomb is more divided than apologetic literature typically acknowledges. While some surveys claim that approximately 75% of scholars accept the empty tomb's historicity, these figures have been criticized for methodological problems, including oversampling of conservative Christian scholars and relying on a single self-conducted survey.^{3, 32}

Among mainstream critical scholars, positions vary widely. N.T. Wright, a believing Christian and former Bishop of Durham, argues in The Resurrection of the Son of God that "the only possible reason why early Christianity began and took the shape it did is that the tomb really was empty and that people really did meet Jesus, alive again."¹¹ Wright contends that no other explanation adequately accounts for the explosive growth of a movement that proclaimed a crucified messiah had been raised from the dead.

Bart Ehrman, by contrast, argues that the empty tomb tradition is likely legendary. He notes that Paul's silence is significant, that the Gospel narratives developed over time in ways characteristic of legend, and that crucified criminals in the Roman world were typically denied proper burial.⁴ Gerd Lüdemann, a German New Testament scholar, proposed that the resurrection appearances were visionary experiences—hallucinations induced by grief and guilt—and that the empty tomb tradition arose later to provide a physical grounding for these visions.³³

Rudolf Bultmann, one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the twentieth century, argued that the resurrection is not a historical event that can be verified by historical methods but a matter of faith. For Bultmann, Christian faith is faith in the kerygma (proclamation) of the church, not faith in historically demonstrable facts about what happened to Jesus's body.³⁴ This theological position sidesteps the historical question entirely: whether or not the tomb was empty, the resurrection is a matter of faith, not historical proof.

What the scholarly diversity reveals is that the empty tomb does not function as conclusive evidence for anyone. Believers who accept the resurrection typically do so on broader theological grounds, not because the empty tomb independently proves it. Skeptics who reject the resurrection point to the same evidence—Paul's silence, Gospel contradictions, legendary development—and reach opposite conclusions. The empty tomb is, at best, ambiguous evidence that can be interpreted in multiple ways depending on one's prior assumptions about the possibility of miracles.^{15, 22}

Scholarly positions on the empty tomb and resurrection^{3, 15, 32}

The claim that "the empty tomb proves the resurrection" thus overstates what the evidence can demonstrate. The empty tomb tradition is late, absent from Paul, inconsistently reported in the Gospels, and consistent with multiple explanations besides resurrection. It may support resurrection faith for those who already believe, but it cannot establish that faith on historical grounds alone. As a piece of evidence, it is neither as strong nor as widely accepted as apologetic presentations suggest.^{4, 15, 22}