Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
101
But t here is a far deeper and more radic al diffic ult y t han t his. Neit her Prof.
Lake nor the Rev. P. Gardner-Smith, who has adopted the same view with slight
reservat ions, seem to have realized the annihilating character of the evidential case
whic h their theory, if true, would have plac ed within reac h of the Priests. Caiaphas
and his friends must have been very different men from what we take them for if
they did not see instantly that the supreme answer to all this nonsense about an
empty grave was to produce the gardener.
Here was the one man who c ould have spoken with c omplete and final
authority; whose slightest word c ould have blown the whole flimsy story to the
winds. Where are the trac es of the c ontroversy whic h must surely have followed so
direc t and damaging an appeal to the fac ts? Where is the c onfident statement of
the Priests that the grave of Jesus was not vac ant, and that the mouldering
remains st ill lay within it? There is no trac e of any suc h c ontroversy or statement –
only the faint ec ho of the original c harge that the disc iples themselves had
abducted the body.
There are, indeed, two very good reasons why, as a matter of historic fact, this
young man was never called as a witness by the enemies of Christianity. In the first
place, as we shall see, he was probably not the gardener at all, and his presence at
the c ave in the dim light of Sunday morning was due to other c auses. But the
supreme and decisive fac tor lay in the fac t that, throughout the early dec ades of
Christianity, the physic al vac anc y of the authentic tomb of Christ was not in doubt.
Events seem to have c onspired to plac e that beyond the reac h of argument.
6 That the Grave was not visited by the Women
T his brings us t o a t heory whic h is, perhaps, t he only really logic al alt ernat ive
to the Gospel thesis.
If it c ould be proved that that grave was not visited on Sunday morning, and
that it lay undisturbed and perhaps unthought of for many months afterwards, then
the roc k upon whic h all the prec eding hypotheses ultimately founder would be
removed. For if the women did not announc e its vac anc y, the Priests would be
under no c ompulsion to formulate a theory, and the c ity would have gone about its
normal life, save for t he inevit able exc it ement and disc ussion oc c asioned by so
resounding an event as the Cruc ifixion.
Yet I submit that none of the six hypotheses whic h we have been c onsidering
falls in great er or c omplet er int ellec t ual ruin t han t his. As t he sequel will show, t he
history of what happened afterwards belies it at every turn and c orner of the road.