THE STONE MOVER

(i) Jesus' grave was empty, when examined early on the Sunday morning following the Friday crucifixion. The stone at its entrance was moved aside and the grave clothes were neatly placed.

(ii) His close followers claimed to have seen him in risen but bodily form, several times during the following few weeks, before he "ascended into heaven."

(iii) They so firmly and passionately believed he was risen that they preached it vigorously for the rest of their lives, accepting torture and death rather than recanting.

Let's examine this evidence.

Item (ii) can be explained by hallucination. True, the details of the accounts given in the New Testament differ from the experiences of many plain people down the ages, who claim to have interviewed folk who "passed on"; but those details are hard to establish, given that they were written down long after the events. The first appearance occured right after the tomb had been found empty. The impact of that astonishing news on a group which had, just two days before, been emotionally devastated would have been overwhelming; fertile ground indeed for group hallucination. Other appearances are said to have been made to "thousands" at a time; a claim we can compare with such stories as the appearance of Mary at Fatima. Mass suggestibility, call it what we may, all these tales lack the essential element of objectivity.

As to item (iii), assuredly, the disciples believed they had seen the risen Jesus, but that does not prove they were right. Manifestations of dead persons are relatively common in history and are not restricted to the "spiritualist" religions; the stories and claims may be true or false but they certainly aren't unique.

Therefore, we are back to item (i), the empty grave - and that is good, for item (i) is concerned with facts and witnesses, and the cold light of day rather than the inner workings of intensely stressed, passionate minds and emotions.

So: who moved the stone and the body, and why?

If no rational answer can be found to that question, the supernatural one must prevail; however if a rational one can be found, then it must prevail. The onus is not on me to prove that a rational explanation of the known facts did actually occur, but on the supernaturalist to prove it could not have occurred; for it is he who claims "the only explanation is that Jesus rose from the dead."

We need not question the broad-brush account given in the Gospels, of the facts of the matter. The interpretation put on those facts is of course another question, but we can accept that what the Gospels say is an honest record of sincere writers. So there is no need to doubt that the grave was found empty, that the body was missing and never discovered, that the graveclothes were left as described.

There are four kinds of people who might conceivably have done the moving.

1. The disciples
2. The Jewish leaders
3. The Roman Governor
4. Someone else, unknown to history

It's rather clear that (1) must be false. There is no way those ardent preachers would continue preaching a known falsehood even in the face of torture and death. That explanation just has no legs.

Possibly, option (4) might be true; an unknown grave robber might have noticed that Jesus' body was being placed in a premium grave (Joseph's) and, during the Saturday night, entered the grave while the soldiers were asleep (as they later confessed) and, finding no jewelry they took the whole body for closer scrutiny elsewhere. Finding none, they disposed of it in some unknown place.

There are two problems with this explanation: firstly, they would have no reason to leave the graveclothes tidily or even remove them at all. And secondly, such robbers would not be able to manhandle the body past two guards without waking them; so, if unable to do their work quietly inside the tomb, they would give up and leave.

Might such grave-robbers have done their work during the Friday night, while the grave was unguarded? - yes, possibly; but I presume that the Roman soldiers, as professionals, would take the elementary precaution at the start of their shift of making certain that the body they were to guard was still in place on the Saturday evening. So that too is not credible.

So now to option (2); the Jews. They would not wish the grave to become an object of veneration, a nucleus around which the new religion could grow and displace them. So maybe they removed the body to forestall that possibility.

That too does not fly. As soon as the preaching began, the theme was strong: "This Jesus, whom you crucified, God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are all witnesses!" (Acts 3:15) - and the preacher pointed to the empty grave. To throttle the new religion, all the priests had to do was to produce the body. They did not. The only credible reason for them not doing so was: they couldn't.

That leaves option (3): the Romans, under Governor Pilate. Might he have ordered the body removed? What motive and opportunity did he have?

It's surprising that nobody I'm aware of has ever suggested that he had the job done. He obviously had the opportunity: soldiers under his command were in charge of the grave during the whole of Saturday night. When they took charge the entrance stone was in place; when Sunday dawned, it was moved aside and the body was gone. They had no coherent explanation, except that they fell asleep and that Jesus' followers stole the body; but see the above demolition of explanation (1). So, clearly, Pilate could have done it, easily. But, did he have any reason to do it?

His motive, I propose, was that of revenge - spiteful, petty, childish revenge, from a man whose responsibilities exceeded his abilities. There are several incidents on record to show that Pilate had been promoted above the level of his natural skills and maturity; he was tactless and clumsy when dealing with those he was appointed to govern. See footnote

And here, on the Friday preceding, he had been bitterly humilated by the Jewish leadership, and in public. After trying Jesus he attempted to acquit him; they changed his mind by implying a threat to spread the word that he was less than loyal to his Caesar. Then after trying to release Jesus as a customary gesture of Passover goodwill, they worked the crowd so well that he had to release the robber Barabbas instead. He had already concluded Jesus was innocent, perhaps remarkable; but he had been publicly manipulated into ordering his execution anyway. By the Friday afternoon, he would be smarting under that humiliation and possibly suffering a bad conscience, and already he expressed his frustration and desire to "hit back" at his humiliators by posting the strange sign on the cross that the man he'd just executed was "King of the Jews"; that sign was, in the context of those events, to scorn not so much the victim as those who had caused his death.

I speculate that during the Saturday, he sulked and ruminated about how he could further restore the balance of the game of wits; how he could cheat the Jews and show them he was still superior, still in charge.

And the answer reached him that afternoon, when a delegation came from the very people who had embarrassed him the previous day: they asked for a guard to be placed on the tomb "lest his disciples steal him away" and make their situation worse than it was before (Matt 27:64.)

He learned then, if he hadn't earlier, that Jesus had predicted his resurrection on the third day, and the priests told him they wanted to forestall any funny business. So they needed a guard, overnight.

He answered briefly "You have a guard." That is, curiously, ambiguous - not only in English but in the original Greek. He could have meant "You have your own, temple guard, go and use that, don't bother me." Or he could have meant, "Okay, you've got a guard, I'll make arrangements."

All the commentators I could find thought that the second was the most likely. Certainly, the second type of guard was possible. Conclusion so far: Pilate was asked to place on the tomb a Roman guard on the Saturday night, and did so.

The delegation left, and then he resumed his rumination, and it hit him: he could use this newly-requested guard to gain his revenge! They had just told him they would be acutely embarrassed if the body disappeared. Fine; so he would make it disappear!

So he called in two of his most trusted soldiers and gave them orders and a promise:

"During the night, open the grave, unwrap the body of Jesus so that it looks as if it passed through the clothes, as a spirit. Remove it, dispose of it in the desert or somewhere else it will never be found. Then return to your post, leave the stone aside, and confess to having fallen asleep.

"Do this well, and I'll put you on the next ship home to Rome. And you are never, ever, to tell anyone of what actually happened."

And that is exactly what did happen, and why.

The soldiers did their job, kept their mouths shut, went back to Rome and were never heard from again. The disciples found the empty tomb, never guessed what had actually happened, and spread the new religion. The Jews gnashed their teeth, but kept them closed because they realized they had been outwitted by Pilate and were not about to admit that. Pilate took pleasure in his revenge, passed on in due course to other assignments, and eventually died.

All the main participants in the events of that weekend behaved exactly in accord with their known characters. Nothing supernatural took place. This explanation for the empty tomb is perfectly rational; Pilate had it done.

But the course of human history was changed for ever.

Footnote:

An intriguing possibility is that this immediate and petulant motive came to Pilate elegantly to reinforce and complement an ongoing, long-term desire to de-fuse the brewing possibility of a Jewish insurrection against Roman rule. One such Machiavellian device is to split the opposition - to divide and conquer. The previous few days had shown Pilate clearly that a division was pending between followers of the established Jewish religion and followers of a new preacher, and the leaders' Saturday visit handed Pilate the opportunity to open up that division by secretly encouraging the latter in a way that prevented those leaders complaining. In that light, their Saturday visit is seen as a colossal blunder.