Empty tomb

Portals: Christianity BibleThe four Gospels narrate how several women, including Mary Magdalene, found the tomb of Jesus to be empty when they visited his tomb to anoint his body with spices and oils. Instead, they met with an angel who told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead. When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, 'Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?' But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 'Don't be alarmed,' he said. 'You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'' Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, 'Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' ' Then they remembered his words.Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, 'They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!' So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)And in the night in which the Lord's day was drawing on, as the soldiers kept guard two by two in a watch, there was a great voice in the heaven; and they saw the heavens opened, and two men descend with a great light and approach the tomb. And the stone that was put at the door rolled of itself and made way in part; and the tomb was opened, and both the young men entered in. The four Gospels narrate how several women, including Mary Magdalene, found the tomb of Jesus to be empty when they visited his tomb to anoint his body with spices and oils. Instead, they met with an angel who told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead. The empty tomb account is one of several post-mortem appearances of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, which lead to the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead and exalted to divine status. Mark 16:1-8: Matthew 28:1-10: Luke 24:1-8: John 20:1-13: The apocryphal Gospel of Peter: For many people of antiquity, empty tombs were seen as signs not of resurrection but of assumption, that is, the person being taken bodily into the divine realm. In Chariton's ancient Greek novel Callirhoe, the hero Chaereas finds his wife's tomb empty and immediately assumes the gods took her rather than believe she was resurrected or that her body was stolen by grave-robbers. In Ancient Greek thinking, the connection between postmortem disappearance and apotheosis was strong and there are numerous examples of individuals conspiring, before their deaths, to have their remains hidden in order to promote their postmortem venerations. Arrian wrote of Alexander the Great planning his own bodily disappearance so that he would be revered as a god. Disappearances of individuals to be taken in the divine realm also occur in Jewish literature, although they do not involve an empty tomb. Daniel Smith suggests the empty tomb stories and resurrection appearances in the gospels come from separate traditions, with the former about Jesus' absence or assumption, while the latter were about Jesus' presence. He concludes that the gospel writers took the two traditions and weaved them together. When they return from the cemetery on Passover morning to tell the eleven remaining apostles and those with them, they brought with them word of an empty tomb and the report that, 'He is not here but has risen!' The apostles were dismissive. Some have suggested a lack of enthusiasm because the messengers were women in a world that did not grant credibility to a woman's witness.:p.153 Josephus (Ant. iv.:8:15) writes that Jewish tradition stated: 'From women let not evidence be accepted because of the levity and temerity of their sex.'