Were graveclothes found in the empty tomb?
Introduction
Clarifying the question
Question: On Sunday, Mary discovered a tomb empty (we know it was Jesus's tomb). Jews were buried after being wrapped in graveclothes. In that tomb then, were there graveclothes laying on the bench where Jesus was laid?
“Yes, after all…
The locals said so
- We know this for three reasons:
• In general, the Gospel-history reports from Luke (c. AD 60-80), and from the Jerusalem church, both matched.[Forthcoming] This is relevant because Luke explicitly reported that grave-clothes were found in the empty tomb (v. 24:12).
• In general, the Gospel-history reports from John, and from the Jerusalem church, both matched.[Forthcoming] This is relevant because John explicitely reported that grave-clothes were found in the empty tomb (v. 20:7).
• In general, most Gospel-history reports from most AD 30-70 Christians matched the Jerusalem church's reports[Forthcoming]. This is relevant, because both Lk and Jn were simply and independently relaying pre-existing Christian reports that “Peter saw graveclothes in the empty tomb.”[Forthcoming] - No, there are two reasons it is unlikely that they were lying:
• In general, the Jerusalem church reported only honest Gospel-history.[Forthcoming]
• The Jerusalem church would not see sufficient reason to invent such a claim. One might argue that the Jerusalem church desired to bolster the argument that “the empty tomb proves he rose” by using this grave-clothes addendum to preempt theft or wrong tomb charges. However, we know early Christians in general would not even be tempted to do this, for two reasons.
◦ They did not much care for empty-grave apologetics
◦ No believer in Jesus's resurrection would have assumed that his resurrection involved vanishing out from under his grave-clothes. The Jewish notion of resurrection normally just meant the corpse in question re-animated on the spot, such that Jesus would still need to be freed from both the bonds of clothe and the sealed tomb. (Emphasizing this fact, Christians would have seen the blocking stone's supernatural removal as an essential part Jesus's physical grave-exiting process―something like that had to happen in order for Jesus to get out.)
The public stance of the Jerusalem church was that “Yes, graveclothes were found in the empty tomb.”1
But, so what? Couldn't it simply be that…
• …they were lying?2
• …the report was a lie that they had themselves fallen for?
[John said so (20:7)]
[Brackets] mean "Forthcoming"
[Luke said so (24:12)]
[Brackets] mean "Forthcoming"