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By Root 2304 0

came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:1-20)

The Matthean evangelist demonstrates to us that by the time of this recension of the story, the wider community-probably both Jew and gentile-is aware of the empty tomb tradition. It can be assumed that some people, probably Jews because they would often be the first hearers, treat this story with some derision (Matt 27:62-66; 28:11-15). This suggests that after hearing the story of the resurrection, a skeptic’s natural response was: “Someone has conveniently stolen the body.” The Gospel’s narrative defense against that attack is ingenious. According to Matthew, it’s all due to the Jews. The Jews entered into a conspiracy by paying the Roman guard soldiers at the tomb to report that the disciples themselves stole the body. This enters the critical report of the detractors of Christianity-those encountered by the missionaries in the Matthean tradition in their daily work-into the historical record right where it can be defeated most easily. Since that important detail is absent in Mark, it must be a later gloss. It is a scurrilous detail, with anti-Semitic implications, which protects the bulwark of the empty tomb tradition.

To the Matthean narrator, it is easier to understand the criticism that the body could have been stolen as a calumny started by some unbelieving Jewish hearers of the Gospel who had bribed the pagan soldiers to lie, than to argue against the claim in some more theoretical way. The tradition probably reflects the existence of real, external, anti-resurrection polemic, whether Jewish or not would not matter, as we know from Paul that both gentiles and Jews had trouble believing in either the resurrection or the Messianic proclamations of Christianity.

The Gospel of Matthew also includes the additional famous calumny that the death of Jesus is the responsibility of the Jews forever: “And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt 27:25). It is the Romans who execute Jesus, possibly in collusion with some of the priests. It is not the Jewish nation as a body who assented to it. But theologically, if some Jews were complicit in the death of Jesus, this could be seen as furthering God’s plan for the world’s redemption.