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One positive aspect of the empty tomb tradition, over against Paul, is that anyone there might have been able to verify it; unlike Paul’s visions, the empty tomb is at least verifiable in principle. The empty tomb tradition objectifies the issue of confirmation by claiming that the events took place in normal, historical time. The Gospels’ proclamation is different from the Christ preached by Paul in that they tell the story of Jesus’ life, resolving a great many issues of Jesus’ personality and intentions to the satisfaction of the second generation of Christians. The problem is that the solution was tried in different ways by a number of different narrators, creating a perplexing lack of agreement in the different Gospels, exactly at the moment when they should all agree. On the other hand, the diversity speaks to the importance and historicity of the Early Church’s spiritual reactions.

The empty tomb also resolves another important problem: It denies the notion that Jesus’ resurrection existence is merely as a “spirit,” no different in theory than any other death.11 Beliefs in ghosts or “shades” seem to be almost universal in the popular culture, then as now. The ancient Hebrew notion of nefesh (nepeš), supported by its many ancient Near Eastern parallels, as well as the popular notion of ghosts and shades in Hellenistic culture, all suggest that the easiest explanation for what happens to the dead is that they become ghosts. Describing Jesus as a “spirit” unreasonably risked turning Jesus into a “ghost.” More exactly, if Jesus were described as a “spiritual body,” in ordinary historical time, instead of the Pauline “spiritual body” in a revelatory vision, the narrative would appear to be saying that Jesus was just another “disembodied soul,” the same postmortem, ghostly form as is available potentially to everyone at death. To support the experience of Jesus’ resurrection, his postmortem form needed to be more tangible than that.

It is probably too early in Christian tradition to sense a defense against a related problem for Christianity, the problem that the concept of the immortal soul of Platonism will cause. That is a thorny intellectual problem that vexed the Church Fathers. But we can anticipate the problem by noticing that it has something in common with figuring the postresurrection Christ as a “spirit” or a “ghost.” In Platonism the soul is immortal by nature, so assuming that Jesus’ immortal soul is what survived his death only says that his death was normal and without special import. As a result, it too totally undercuts any statement of Jesus’ saving death. If one analyzes the death and presumed postmortem sightings of Jesus using the theory of an immortal soul, there is no necessity (or even possibility) of positing his saving death on the cross. If Jesus survived death as merely a ghost or spirit, then the only immortality is already available to all as a matter of the soul’s nature. But the church maintains that Jesus’ death is not ordinary. He died as a martyr and was resurrected as one, ascending to heaven to be exalted together with the “Son of Man” in Daniel 7:13, showing that the end-time had begun. Thus, his resurrection not only should be bodily, it must be bodily or it is not significant for the salvation of the world.

The Gospel of Matthew

BY THE TIME of Matthew, several further apologetic features have been added to the story. These appear to grow naturally out of difficulties in the Markan version of the story. The Matthean community evidently attempted to resolve some of the ambiguities in the Christian message created by Mark’s story, issues that we have already enumerated. Part of the problem is the brevity of the narrative, even if some further short conclusion beyond “the shorter ending” can be assumed.

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven,