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But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” A week later, his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:1-31)

The beginning of this Johannine passage may, in fact, evidence an earlier form of the empty tomb tradition than Mark 16, possibly enriched by contact with Matthew and Luke. But no scholarly consenus has emerged. It is even possible that the Johannine version helped Matthew with some of the details of his retelling. Furthermore, it stands in polemical relationship with the Gospel of Thomas.

The Johannine form simply notes that Mary Magdalene visited the tomb alone, and, finding it wide open and empty, suspected that someone had stolen the body, and she hurried to report the matter to the other disciples. She repeated this story until Jesus himself explained the events to her directly. Here is a version of the “stolen body” tradition which is not polemically fitted to the problem of Jewish scepticism. It rather looks as if we have found, in John’s Gospel, the earliest nugget of the story of the “stolen body” motif. It is not necessarily a Jewish charge but just a logical conclusion from the empty tomb defined by a revelation.

The Gospel of John also has its own apologetic concerns to articulate, which it develops immediately afterwards. First, the importance of scriptural precedent for Jesus’ resurrection is stressed, although, as is usual throughout, the specific Scripture is not mentioned: “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” Second, various christological formulas are emphasized in showing that Jesus is now “Lord” and “God” (John 20:22-23). Jesus commissioned the disciples and actually breathed the Holy Spirit into them, demonstrating visually that his spirit is found within the church: “When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:28).

The church was given the power and legitimacy to forgive sins, as Jesus himself is said to have done during his ministry, a very powerful and important power that was more relevant to the post-Temple period of the Johannine church than it was to the initial disciples. The empty tomb tradition illustrates one reason that the church preserved different Gospels. To be sure, each Gospel’s portrait of Jesus adds to the characterization of the others and helps produced a fuller portait. But the same is true of the polemical value of the Gospels. Just as important for the scrappy Early Church is that each Gospel polemicizes against different criticisms of the claims of the church. Since no Gospel contains all the arguments, and indeed a number of arguments are contradictory to each other, especially in narrative form, no one synthetic Gospel could be created.

The Gospel of John portrays Jesus’ resurrection in very physical terms, though it is universally acknowledged to be the most “spiritual” Gospel. In spite of its spirituality (and its depiction of the