I am - Scholarly Article

Matthew reports an earthquake at Jesus’ death.
Geological data shows an earthquake in the same period.
This makes the account plausible, though not provable.

The Gospel of Matthew uniquely reports that an earthquake occurred at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, presenting it as part of the dramatic events surrounding his death.

While this cannot be directly verified as the exact same event, geological research provides evidence that an earthquake did occur in the region within the relevant timeframe.

Studies of sediment layers from the Dead Sea area, particularly near Ein Gedi, have identified seismic disturbances that can be dated with reasonable precision.

These studies indicate a significant earthquake event sometime between 26 and 36 AD, which aligns closely with the estimated date of Jesus’ crucifixion.

The report of an earthquake at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion is consistent with the geological evidence for an earthquake occurring in Israel sometime between 26 and 36 AD.

In addition to the testimony of the Gospel according to Matthew, there is geological evidence for an earthquake in Judea around the time of Jesus’s crucifixion:

geologist Jefferson Williams . . . and colleagues Markus Schwab and Achim Brauer of the German Research Center for Geosciences studied three cores from the beach of the Ein Gedi Spa adjacent to the Dead Sea. Varves, which are annual layers of deposition in the sediments, reveal that at least two major earthquakes affected the core: a widespread earthquake in 31 B.C. and an early first century seismic event that happened sometime between 26 A.D. and 36 A.D.^[856]

Yes, rock-cut tombs sealed with stones were common in first-century Judea.
Most tombs used square stones, not round ones.
The Gospel descriptions fit well with archaeological evidence.

Archaeology strongly confirms that first-century Jews commonly used rock-cut tombs sealed with large stones, known as golel, which served to protect the tomb from impurity, animals, and theft.

Hundreds of such tombs have been discovered in and around Jerusalem, showing that this burial practice was widespread and well established in the time of Jesus.

While modern depictions often show round, disk-shaped stones, archaeological evidence indicates that these were relatively rare and typically associated with wealthy or royal individuals.

The majority of tombs instead used large, roughly square stones, which were simpler to produce and more common among ordinary people, even those of some means.

This fits well with the description of Joseph of Arimathea, who is portrayed as wealthy but not necessarily part of the highest elite, making a square sealing stone more historically likely.

The Gospel language describing the stone as being “rolled” does not require a perfectly round shape, since the Greek verb used can also mean “moved” or “dislodged,” and square stones could in fact be shifted or “rolled” with considerable effort.

First century Jews really did use rock-cut tombs that were sealed by large stones, either round or (more often) square.[857]

As archaeologist Jeremy Stein explains:

A common aspect of first-century tombs was the large stone which covered the mouth of tombs, known as “golel” in Hebrew. The primary purpose of the golel was to prevent ritual impurities and mask the scent of the decay in a tomb. It would have also kept out animals or robbers who sought to steal the funeral gifts often left in a tomb. With that being said, the golel would have been a very common aspect of the world of Jesus, leaving a significant amount behind for archaeologists to continue to discover today.

From what has been uncovered, it becomes apparent that the golel stones came in a few different shapes — round or disk-shaped, and square being the most notable. But when considering them in the light of archaeological evidence, the reality of the situation becomes significantly clearer.

To date, over 900 different intact first-century tombs have been found in Jerusalem, yet only four of them have circular stones covering the entrance, three of which have been identified with royalty.

Round stones were significantly easier to move and, much like today, created a cleaner “picturesque” tomb. However in crafting them, a mason would need to contribute a significantly higher amount of man hours (compared to a “square,” which is often seen as large, modified field stone), increasing the cost of an already costly tomb, and almost definitely the reason why we see this attached so closely to royal elites of Jesus’ day.

Although Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man, he was still a “relatively ordinary man.” His wealth clearly was not that of the level of royalty, and therefore it is more probable that his tomb was not one of the “top four” tombs in Jerusalem, making it much more likely that what covered the tomb was the more common square stone.

The archaeological evidence pointing to the square golel in front of the tomb of Jesus, however, leads to big questions for students of the Gospels: “How was the stone ‘rolled’ away? Don’t you need a round to stone in order for it to be rolled?”

The answer to this is found both in the wording as well as the reality of the technique used in the burial practices of the day. In the texts of the Synoptic Greek, the word verb “kulio,” which commonly means “rolled,” can also mean “dislodged” or “moved back” as well. Although a square is not simple to roll, it still can be rolled.

There appears to have been two ways used to roll traditional square stones (mostly without the cork-style protrusion) in the Second Temple period. The first appears to be with two ropes tied together, which would be wrapped around the square stone with one rope coming out of each of the four vertical sides. Individuals could then use their strength and their gravitation force from their weight to counter act the stone and “roll” it this way. This method would seemingly be used for the larger of stones (as the average “rolling stone” would be roughly 4 feet in diameter), which could serve as a possibility for the stone spoken of in the Gospels as both Matthew 27:60 and Mark 16:3-4 state that the stone for Jesus’ tomb was seemingly larger than the average stone as both includes the Greek descriptor “megan,” meaning “great” or “big.”

The second way someone could “roll” the stone would be by sheer force. About 15 years ago, a friend and colleague of mine, archaeologist Shimon Gibson, happened across one of the hundreds of Second Temple period square stones in front of a tomb during an excavation in Jerusalem and rolled it with members of his team. Although the stone was able to be “rolled,” he stated it was backbreaking work.

Regardless of the method of how the stone was rolled, the word kulio could easily be applied to either a square stone or the much-easier-to-move circular stone. The biblical text seems to allude to the difficulty connected to the square stone as the three women who come to the grave in Mark’s account ask the question, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb?” (16:3), showing the assumption that the three women working together did not expect to be able to move the stone.[858]

They took Jesus’ words about “rising” seriously, but misunderstood them.
They likely expected deception or symbolic “rising,” not resurrection.
This is why they feared the disciples might fake it.

When the authorities heard Jesus speak about “rising,” they would not have understood this in the later Christian sense of a bodily resurrection within history, since that concept did not fit neatly into common Jewish expectations of the time.

Instead, Jewish thought generally associated “rising” with either the final resurrection at the end of time, as seen in passages like John 11:24, or with rare stories of individuals being taken up or “assumed” into heaven, such as Elijah in 2 Kings.

Another possibility within their framework would have been a form of resuscitation, like the raising of Lazarus, though this would not explain how someone could raise himself after death.

Because of these categories, the authorities likely interpreted Jesus’ statements in a vague or suspicious way, rather than as a clear prediction of immediate resurrection.

This helps explain why their primary concern, as recorded in Matthew 27:64, was not that Jesus would literally rise, but that his disciples might steal the body and claim that he had risen.

The wording used suggests a general idea of being “raised” or “lifted,” which could easily be interpreted as a claim of vindication or heavenly exaltation rather than a physical return to life.

Later Jewish polemic traditions also reflect this kind of thinking, suggesting that early explanations focused on claims of removal or ascension rather than resurrection in the Christian sense.

In other words, the authorities’ actions show that they were responding to the potential for a claim about Jesus, not to an expectation that such an event would actually occur.

The authorities probably thought Jesus had predicted his assumption into heaven.

If Jesus’ contemporaries made anything of his predictions about “the Son of Man” (i.e., himself) “rising,” they wouldn’t have understood his comments in a Christian manner. Instead, they’d have thought in terms of a) the resurrection of the dead at the last judgement (see Mark 12:25 & John 11:24), b) resuscitation to earthly life (as with Jesus resuscitating Lazarus – though they probably assumed a dead man couldn’t resuscitate himself), or c) stories about prophets who “rose up” and were “assumed” into the heavenly presence of God (e.g. 2 Kings 2:1-12).

The dominance of these cultural assumptions is seen in the Jewish Sanhedrin’s reason for having Jesus’ tomb guarded, namely: “lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead’” (Matthew 27:64, ESV). The Greek translated as “risen from the dead” here isn’t anastēsetai (resurrected) but the more general ēgerthē (lifted). Interestingly, the later Jewish polemic Toledot Yeshu inaccurately claims that:

On the first day of the week [Jesus’s] bold followers came to Queen Helene with the report that he who was slain was truly the Messiah and that he was not in his grave; he had ascended to heaven as he prophesied.^[859]

Hence, as J. P. Holding surmises, the Sanhedrin’s concern was most likely “that the disciples would steal the body and claim it had ascended to heaven.”^[860]

Consider the fact that it was against this Jewish background, in the very city just outside of which he’d recently been publicly executed and entombed, that Jesus’ dispirited Jewish disciples suddenly risked their lives to proclaim Jesus’s physical resurrection within history as the fulcrum at the heart of God’s relationship with humanity! Jesus may have predicted that he would die and be resurrected soon thereafter, but his disciples were too in-thrall to their cultural expectations to understand him. And yet, despite Jesus’ humiliating public execution, and despite the persecution that would obviously ensue, the disciples swiftly embraced belief in Jesus’ resurrection and re-orientated their religious identity accordingly.

Jesus predicts his resurrection, but the “third day” idea comes from older Jewish patterns.
It reflects scriptural themes about God acting quickly to restore.
The language points to expectation rooted in the Old Testament.

When Joseph repeats Jesus’ claim that he will rise on the third day, the statement reflects not only Jesus’ own prediction, but also a broader pattern of scriptural language and expectation already present within the Old Testament.

One key passage is Hosea 6:2, which speaks of God reviving His people “after two days” and raising them “on the third day,” where the time reference functions as a poetic way of describing a swift and decisive act of restoration rather than a strict timeline.

In the Old Testament, “death” and “resurrection” are often used metaphorically to describe national exile and return, especially in relation to Israel’s restoration, which would shape how such language was understood.

There is also a recurring pattern of significant divine action occurring on the “third day,” such as God’s revelation at Sinai in Exodus 19, reinforcing the symbolic weight of this timeframe.

The story of Jonah is particularly important, as his three days in the fish becomes a narrative pattern later explicitly connected by Jesus himself to his coming death and return.

Isaiah 53 adds another dimension, describing a suffering figure who is “cut off” yet continues to “see his offspring” and “prolong his days,” creating a tension that later readers interpret in light of resurrection.

Taken together, these elements form a network of themes rather than a single direct prophecy, combining suffering, restoration, and divine vindication.

Though not something Joseph says in any of the New Testament Gospels, what Joseph says here draws upon Old Testament prophecy and using traditional language from the Jewish scriptures that refers to significant and imminent acts of God.

Speaking to the Jewish nation in in exile, the Old Testament prophet Hosea encourages them to “return to the LORD” with the encouragement that if they do so “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” (Hosea 6:2, ESV.) The language of “after two days . . . on the third day” is not a literal chronology here, but a poetic parallelism (both “two” and “three” basically meaning “few”) indicating that God will act “soon.” As The Pulpit Commentary observes: “The expression of time here employed denotes a comparatively short period, and implies that Israel's revival would be speedily as well as certainly accomplished.”[861] Then again, as death is used in the Old Testament a metaphorical representation of the Jewish exile in Babylon, so resurrection from the dead is used by Hosea as a metaphorical representation of return from exile. As the influential Bible commentator Joseph Benson (1748-1821) explains:

A deliverance from miseries or calamities, from which men had despaired of a recovery, is often represented as restoring them to life after death: see Psalm 30:3; Psalm 71:20; Psalm 86:13; particularly the restoration of the Jewish nation is often described, as if it were a resurrection from the dead . . .[862]

Moreover, the Old Testament arguably contains a pattern of God doing major things on the literal “third day” (for example, revealing himself at Mount Saini, as described in Exodus 19:10–11). It is of particular significance that the reluctant Old Testament prophet Jonah “was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17) before being deposited on the shore (Jonah 2:10).[863] Jesus told the Jewish scribes and Pharisees that “just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:40, see also Luke 11:30).

Finally, it is worth noting that in a highly significant passage about God’s suffering servant, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah wrote:

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.

(ESV, Isaiah 53:8-12)

Note how the suffering servant “was cut off out of the land of the living,” and yet “shall see his offspring” and “prolong his days . . .” As the Pulpit Commentary observes of Isaiah 53:10:

He shall prolong his days. A seeming contradiction to the statement (ver. 8) that he should be “cut off” out of the land of the living; and the more surprising because his death is made the condition of this long life: “{When thou shalt make his soul an offering [or, ‘sacrifice’] for sin,” then “he shall prolong his days.” But the resurrection of Christ, and his entrance upon an immortal life (Romans 6:9), after offering himself as a Sacrifice upon the cross, exactly meets the difficulty and solves the riddle (comp. Revelation 1:18).

As theologian Albert Barnes (1798–1870) comments:

The meaning here is, that the Messiah, though he should be put to death, would yet see great multitudes who should be his spiritual children. Though he should die, yet he would live again, and his days should be lengthened out. It is fulfilled in the reign of the Redeemer on earth and in his eternal existence and glory in heaven.[864]

Mary brings myrrh to complete Jesus’ burial preparation.
This followed normal Jewish burial customs.
The work had been interrupted by the Sabbath.

Mary brings myrrh and other spices to the tomb in order to complete the burial process, which had been interrupted due to the arrival of the Sabbath shortly after Jesus’ death.

In first-century Jewish practice, bodies were typically wrapped in linen along with spices, both as a sign of honor and to help reduce the odor of decomposition.

Because Jesus died late on Friday, there was limited time to carry out a full burial before the Sabbath began at sunset, when all work was required to cease.

Myrrh is a fragrant gum resin used to cloak odors. 

Mary brings myrrh to Jesus’s tomb to finish anointing his body for burial.

As an article at Bible Hub explains:

In first-century Judea, it was customary to wrap the deceased’s body with linen and spices (see John 19:39-40) to honor the dead and help mitigate the odor of decomposition. Women often took part in this care for loved ones. . . The Sabbath restricted work of any kind (cf. Exodus 20:8-10). When Jesus died on Friday afternoon, preparations had to be rushed. After observing the Sabbath rest (Friday evening to Saturday evening), the women completed their burial tasks at dawn on Sunday.[865]

There is strong historical evidence that Jesus’ tomb was empty.
Multiple independent sources report it.
Even opponents focused on explaining the empty tomb, not denying it.

There is good historical reason to think that Jesus’ tomb was found empty on the third day, based on multiple independent lines of evidence.

All four Gospels report the empty tomb in forms that show signs of independence, and John’s account is often linked to an eyewitness source, the “Beloved Disciple.”

The detail about the grave clothes (John 20:7) is widely seen as an unintentional sign of authenticity rather than a theological invention.

Importantly, the discovery is attributed to women, whose testimony was considered weak in first-century Jewish culture, making this detail unlikely to be fabricated.

The early Jewish response also supports this: the debate was over how the tomb became empty, not whether it was empty, implying enemy acknowledgment of the core claim.

The resurrection was proclaimed in Jerusalem shortly after the events, in the very place where the tomb was known, making it easily falsifiable if a body had remained.

Archaeology confirms that the type of tomb described in the Gospels fits known first-century burial practices in Jerusalem.

There is good evidence for the claim that Jesus’s tomb was empty on the third day.

German New Testament critic Klaus Berger states that “The reports about the empty tomb are related by all four Gospels (and other writings of early Christianity) in a form independent of one another”.[866] Moreover, as philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig points out:

Behind the fourth gospel stands the Beloved Disciple, whose reminiscences fill out the traditions employed. The visit of the disciples to the empty tomb [see John 20:1-10] is therefore attested not only in tradition but by this disciple.[867]

That is, the publicly falsifiable claim that Jesus’ tomb was empty enjoys eyewitness attestation. Moreover, John’s observation of the positioning of the grave clothes in the tomb (John 20:7) is an unintentional sign of historicity. Furthermore, testimony to the empty tomb comes from both the women (see Mark 16:6 and Luke 24:3) and from the disciples (see John 20:1-10).

Philosopher J. P. Moreland notes that within the pages of the NT the main debate between the disciples and the Jewish establishment “was over why [the tomb] was empty, not whether it was empty.”[868] The reality of the empty tomb (and hence the burial) is thereby implicitly conceded by the enemy source of the Jewish establishment, who focus upon trying to explain why the tomb was empty. Moreland also notes that:

the resurrection was preached in Jerusalem just a few weeks after the crucifixion. If the tomb had not been empty, such preaching could not have occurred. The body of Jesus could have been produced, and since it is likely that the location of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb was well known (he was a respected member of the Sanhedrin), it would not have been difficult to find where Jesus was buried.[869]

As J. P. Holding writes: “That such an important personage buried Jesus in his personal tomb is taken to be a failsafe for the historicity of the burial, for it is assumed to be impossible that the New Testament could make such an important person or his role up and get away with it.”[870]

Positing that Jesus’ corpse would have been unrecognizable by the time the disciple’s publicly proclaimed the resurrection doesn’t work. Philosopher Stephen T. Davis comments:

I do not agree that Jesus’ corpse would have been unrecognizable after seven weeks . . . I myself also checked with an eminent pathologist on this point, who told me that when a body is in fact buried, and the climate is dry and fairly cool, a corpse can be readily identified for much longer than that. Moreover, we must note that any body that was found in Jesus’ tomb and put on display, even an unrecognizable one, would have spelled disaster for the Christian movement.[871]

The gospel reports that it was Jesus’ female disciples who discovered the empty tomb all pass the criteria of embarrassment. In first-century Jewish culture women were considered so unreliable that their testimony was automatically suspect. The Mishnah states that women are “unsuitable to bear witness.”[872] The first century Jewish historian Josephus writes of not allowing women to be witnesses “on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.”[873] Rabbi Ben Herman explains that

The Talmud, in Shevuot 30a and Gittin 46a, states that a woman cannot be a witness because her place is at home and not in court. As a result, women were only used as witnesses in matters related to them (things involving their families or their bodies), for identification of people or for events regarding places frequented only by women.[874]

It is, then, highly significant that the gospels relate that women first discovered the empty tomb. As theologian Gerald O’Collins observes:

Surprisingly, women enjoy a witness function in both the passion and resurrection narratives . . . they could testify both to the fact of his burial and the location of his grave. Subsequently they discover that grave to be empty. If the discovery story were simply a legend created by the early Christians, it remains difficult to explain why women find a place in the story. In Jewish society they did not count as valid witnesses . . . The role of the women in the story provides a sound argument for its historical reliability.[875]

Furthermore, although it coheres with prevailing patriarchal attitudes, the male disciples’ failure to believe the women’s report of the empty tomb is, at least in terms of Christian tradition, likewise rather embarrassing: “they would not believe it”, ruminates Mark (16:8), while Luke narrates that the women’s report to the male disciples “seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (Luke 24:11.) Hence: “the fact that it is women, rather than men, who are the chief witnesses to the empty tomb is best explained by the historical facticity of the narrative in this regard.”[876] As theologian Craig A. Evans comments:

The story of the women who witness Jesus’ burial and then return early Sunday to anoint his body smacks of historicity. It is hard to see why relatively unknown women would feature so prominently in such an important story, if what we have here is fiction. But if the women’s intention is to mourn privately, as Jewish law and custom allowed, and, even more importantly, to note the precise location of Jesus’ tomb, so that the later gathering of his remains for burial in his family tomb is possible, then we have a story that fits Jewish customs, on the one hand, and stands in tension with resurrection expectations and supporting apologetics, on the other.[877]

An objection often raised against the women being witnesses to the empty tomb is that the different gospels report slightly different lists of women on the scene. However, all fours gospels agree on the primary (and culturally embarrassing) point that it was some women who discovered the empty tomb. Besides, the overlapping lists of names are in fact compatible with one another; it’s just that none of the lists is exhaustive. If this lack of unanimity has any significance, it actually lies in indicating the independence of these reports, which adds to their historical value!

Atheist Jerry A. Coyne complains that “despite ardent searching” archaeologists have not “found such a tomb.”[878] In point of fact, archaeologists have found over a thousand such rock-cut tombs in Jerusalem:

What is clear is that the kind of tomb suggested by the Gospel accounts is consistent with what is now known of contemporary practice in the Jerusalem area: i.e. a rock-cut tomb, a low entrance closed by a moveable stone, and a raised burial couch within.[879]

Moreover, according to archaeologist John McRay, “the archaeological and early literary evidence argues strongly for those who associate [Jesus’ tomb] with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.”[880] Theologian James D. G. Dunn allows that “the site has about as much plausibility as could be hoped for. Other sites for the original tomb of Jesus have been suggested, but hardly with the same credibility.”[881] Historian Simon Seabag Montefiore affirms: “It is likely that the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which encloses both the place of crucifixion and the tomb, is the genuine site since its tradition was kept alive by Christians for the next three centuries.”[882] Dan Bahat, former City Archaeologist of Jerusalem, concludes: “We may not be absolutely certain that the site of the Holy Sepulchre Church is the site of Jesus’ burial, but we certainly have no other site that can lay a claim nearly as weighty, and we really have no reason to reject the authenticity of the site.”[883]

In 2016 a conservation team from the National Technical University of Athens set to work on restoring the shrine within the Holy Sepulchre Church and “the marble covering protecting the original limestone slab upon which Jesus was believed to have been laid [was] temporarily removed for restoration and cleaning, thereby exposing to view the original slab, [not] seen since 1555.”[884] According to National Geographic's archaeologist-in-residence, Fredrik Hiebert, this “appears to be visible proof that the location of the tomb has not shifted through time, something that scientists and historians have wondered for decades.”[885] As archaeologist Jodi Magness observes:

All of this is perfectly consistent with what we know about how wealthy Jews disposed of their dead in the time of Jesus. This does not, of course, prove that the event was historical. But what it does suggest is that whatever the sources were for the gospel accounts, they were familiar with this tradition and these burial customs.[886]

At the very least, then, archaeology demonstrates that the NT reports of an empty tomb pass the criterion of historical verisimilitude. However, one might well argue that we have the tomb of Jesus, and it is empty!

We may also note that discovering the tomb of one’s recently interned rabbi to be unexpectedly empty is certainly the sort of thing that would prove memorable.

Theologian Craig A. Evans recounts that “the consensus of scholarship affirms the historicity of the empty tomb of Jesus.”[887] For example:

• Klaus Berger: “Without a doubt the grave of Jesus was found to be empty . . .”[888]
• H. Van Dallen: “It is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions.”[889]
• John Dickson: “Most experts accept that Jesus’ tomb was empty within days of his burial.”[890]
• H. Dodd: “I should be disposed to conclude that . . . tradition . . . preserved also a genuine memory that on that Sunday morning [Jesus’] tomb was found broken open and to all appearance empty.”[891]
• Michael Grant: “The historian cannot justifiably deny the empty tomb . . . the evidence necessitates the conclusion the tomb was found empty.”[892]
• Michael Green: “There can be no doubt that the tomb of Jesus was, in fact, empty on the first Easter day.”[893]
• Jacob Kremer: “By far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb.”[894]
• Alister McGrath: “the empty tomb . . . is such a major element in each of the four gospels . . . that it must be considered to have a basis in historical fact.”[895]
• Jeffrey L. Morrow: “The empty tomb is almost certainly pre-Markan and historical.”[896]
• Jake H. O’Connell concludes it is “certainly more probable than not [that] Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty.”[897]
• Mark D. Smith: “some women among the disciples visited the tomb of Jesus to provide for a fuller preparation of the body . . . When they arrived, they found the tomb empty.”[898]
• Geza Vermes: “the women belonging to the entourage of Jesus discovered an empty tomb and were definite that it was the tomb [in which Jesus had been placed].”[899]

As Eric Metaxas writes: “it’s clear that Jesus really lived and was crucified and lain in a tomb and that on the third day, that tomb was found to be empty. On those points there is almost zero doubt.”[900]