Would Christians disfavor this report: “Mary and the women are Jesus’s empty tomb discoverers”

• Clarifying the question

  

  Several sources say that after Jesus’s crucifixion and entombment, a group of Jesus’s women followers—including Mary Magdalene—discovered Jesus’s tomb empty. (E.g. see Mk 16, Mt 28, Lk 28, Jn 28).

  So here is our question:
  Would Christians—with their biases and goals—see more reason to wish it false that it was these women who discovered Jesus’s tomb empty? Would many judge partially irksome or unpalatable the circulation of the women's reported role in it?

• They’d hate them as first witness-heralds

  

  In general, Christians would disfavor Mary & women being first witness-heralds of the resurrection.[Full page]

  This full page analysis 3 arguments:

  • It’d clearly be self-stigmatizing for their Gospel.
  • It’d clearly be subpar as an evidence source (in their origin story).
  • Later Christians downplayed their role.

• They’d like "missing body" evidence

  

  Early Christians would have found favorable—to acquire and use—evidence for their belief that Jesus’ body went missing (to ultimately support Jesus’ resurrection) [Full page.] This is relevant because they may consequently find this argument evidentially valuable: “The testimony of Mary et. al. proves Jesus’s tomb was empty!”

  But against the truth of that first claim,…

  • ‘Missing body’ evidence…
       …seemed lame or easy to dismiss (e.g. “theft!”).
       …didn't function as evidence in the Gospels.
       …wasn't used as evidence in general.
       …seemed superfluous (at least later: Jews already believed the tomb was empty ).
  • E.g. Paul didn’t much desire to acquire/use “missing body” apologetics.

  And against the relevance of that first claim…

  • …they wouldn’t see “Mary et. al. testify to it” as evidentially valuable.

• They’d judge it valuable for story reasons

  Given early Christians believed in an empty tomb discovery, they would have valued a report of women as it discoverers in order to preserve the coherence and story virtue of narrating that discovery.

  This page analyzes 4 arguments:

  • The male disciples fled (only women remained).
  • Only women saw where the tomb was.
  • Only women were customary corpse-preparers.
  • Only women were mourners, death-checkers, etc..

  But against the truth of that first claim,…

  • …the women are negligible characters.
  • …Jews felt God wouldn’t use women.