Whole Reason

Next we will exam­ine the old­est expla­na­tion: the dis­ci­ples (or oth­ers) came and stole the body from the tomb.

The is the old­est excuse as it is recorded in the New Tes­ta­ment as the story the Jew­ish lead­ers and Roman guards agreed to tell everyone.

Moti­va­tion is the key for this pos­si­bil­ity. What moti­va­tion would the dis­ci­ples (or any­one) have for steal­ing the body? Sure, the dis­ci­ples wanted Jesus to be the Mes­siah. Jew­ish life dur­ing that period was filled with “mes­si­ahs.” Why would the dis­ci­ples, many of whom used to be fol­low­ers of other poten­tial mes­si­ahs like John the Bap­tist, do any­thing dif­fer­ent than what fol­low­ers alwayd did at this point — mourn the loss of their leader and begin the search for the next mes­siah, hop­ing he would be the real one.

What could pos­si­ble moti­vate them to stop cow­er­ing in a locked room, sneak past or over­power the guards, roll away the stone, grab the dead body and run away with it. Not to men­tion they would be vio­lat­ing Jew­ish law by doing that on Sat­ur­day and touch­ing the dead body.

Then if they did steal the body, why whould they die for that lie. They would have known He was not alive. Why would they give up their lives for some­thing that wouldn’t give them any­thing? It seems improb­a­ble that they would die to sim­ply to keep a lie alive.

If they stole the body why go on and be put to death because of their belief in him? Why would they dis­card the thou­sands of years of Jew­ish tra­di­tion to try to prop up a new reli­gion fol­low­ing a man they knew to be dead? It makes absolutely no sense.