We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
How can you believe Matthew’s report about the Jewish cover up of the resurrection?
Question: In Matthew it’s reported that Jewish authorities tried to cover up the resurrection of Jesus by saying the disciples stole the body while the guards were sleeping. I don’t buy it. How would Matthew know about this story, since it was a secret conversation the authorities had with the guards? And how could they ask the guards to claim they’d fallen asleep since such a crime would have been punishable by death? The story just doesn’t fly.
Answer: Here’s the account your referring to.
Matt. 28:12-15: When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
It seems to me the text answers your question. Matthew could have easily known about the story since it was “widely circulated.” (Or he could have known about it by divine inspiration, if that was required). The guards ordinarily would have gotten in deep trouble for sleeping on the job, except that in this case the Jewish authorities promised to use their influence to “keep [them] out of trouble.” What the Jewish authorities didn’t want was the guards going around telling people what they actually saw!
What’s most interesting, I think, is that this lie is premised on the assumption that the tomb was in fact empty. What this tells us is that when Matthew wrote his Gospel (usually dated 70 to 80 A.D., but I would argue for a pre-70 A.D. date), those who were hostile to Christianity (and there were many) didn’t deny there was any empty tomb. They just offered a counter explanation as to how it became empty. If you don’t believe their counter-explanation, you have to come up with your own. And the best one available, I submit, is the one the disciples themselves offer: Jesus actually rose from the dead.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Jesus, Q&A
Topics: Biblical Reliability
Related Reading
What is the significance of Jeremiah 3:19–20?
“I thought how I would set you among my children…And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. Instead, as a faithless wife…you have been faithless to me…” If the future is eternally and exhaustively settled, and if God therefore knows it as such, he could not have…
The Bible Is Insufficient
Patrick Feller via Compfight Kurt Johnson wrote a piece a few days ago on the proper place of Scripture in the life of a believer. He reflects on the fact that we have elevated the Bible to a place that God really never intended. We are a people centered on a person, not a book.…
What is your perspective on the classical view that God is above time?
In a major strand of hellenistic (Greek) philosophy, change was seen as being an imperfection. This idea was adopted by many early Church fathers and eventually became almost an assumed dogma of the Church. It was thus assumed that, since God is perfect, he must be above all change. Not only does his character and…
Rethinking the Resurrection
As much as every other aspect of Jesus life and ministry, I submit that the resurrection must be understood in light of the cross. This event was not anything like the resuscitation of a random corpse. It was the resurrection of the Incarnate Son of God who had fulfilled the human side of the God-human…
What is the significance of Isaiah 5:3–7?
The Lord describes Israel as his vineyard. Referring to himself, he says that the owner of the vineyard loved his vineyard and did all he could to care for it. “[H]e expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (vs. 2). Then the Lord asks, “What more was there to do for my…
God in Our Image
zen Sutherland via Compfight We came across this piece written by Jonathan Storment earlier this month and we had to share it here. The title of the piece is Everyday Idolatry: My God. He does a great job of outlining the ways that we twist God into whatever we need him to be to prop up…