Empty Tomb

Biblical Text

All four Gospels record this event. Their shared outline is as follows: early on the morning of the first day of the week (Sunday), women went to the tomb, found that the stone that had sealed the entrance had been moved, and could not find the body of Jesus. The details differ from one Gospel to another.

• Matthew 28:1-10: Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" go to the tomb. There is an earthquake, and an angel of the Lord rolls back the stone. In the account that follows (28:11-15), the chief priests pay the guards to say, "His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept."
• Mark 16:1-8: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bring spices (aromatics for anointing the body). A young man clothed in white announces the resurrection, but the women flee in fear and say nothing to anyone.
• Luke 24:1-12: Two men in shining garments ask, "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" The apostles do not believe the women's report, and Peter runs to the tomb, sees only the linen clothes (the fine linen used to wrap the body), and departs.
• John 20:1-10: Mary Magdalene tells Peter and "the other disciple, whom Jesus loved." The two run to the tomb and see the linen clothes and the napkin that had been about his head, wrapped together in a place by itself.

Background

Joseph of Arimathea laid Jesus in his own new tomb, hewn out of the rock, and rolled a great stone to the door to close it (Matthew 27:57-60). Because the burial was carried out in haste on Friday evening before the Sabbath began at sundown, the women returned after the Sabbath to anoint the body with spices. John 19:41-42 states only that the tomb was in a garden near the place of execution. Since the fourth century, tradition has identified the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem as the tomb. In the nineteenth century the so-called Garden Tomb was proposed as an alternative, though scholarly opinion on that site is divided.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

In the Gospels, the empty tomb does not by itself prove the resurrection. At first it produced astonishment and perplexity, and its meaning was made clear through the angelic proclamation and the resurrection appearances that followed. In Acts 2:29-32, Peter proclaims the resurrection of Jesus in contrast to the tomb of David, which was still there in his day. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 that Christ "was buried, and that he rose again the third day." The resurrection on the first day of the week is counted among the reasons the early church came to observe Sunday as the Lord's Day.

Interpretation and Issues

• Differences among the Gospels: The number of women and angels varies among the Gospels. Some interpreters harmonize the accounts as describing a single event, while others regard the differences as traces of independently transmitted testimonies.
• Historicity: Most denominations, including Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal churches, confess the empty tomb as a historical event. Some scholars associated with liberal theology regard the empty tomb narrative as a later tradition. Counterarguments such as the stolen body theory, the swoon theory, and the wrong tomb theory have also been advanced, and evangelical apologists have responded to them, pointing to such features as the fact that women are recorded as the first witnesses.
• The ending of Mark: Mark 16:9-20 is absent from the oldest manuscripts and is therefore placed in brackets in the New Korean Revised Version.
• Extrabiblical traditions: Stories of relics associated with the tomb, such as the Shroud of Turin, are not part of what the biblical text itself says.

In the Korean Church

Because the women are recorded as visiting the tomb at dawn, many churches hold Easter sunrise services. The joint Easter service held by multiple denominations also often takes place early in the morning. The hymn "Low in the Grave He Lay" celebrates this scene.