Generally speaking, at Easter-time each year, a series of articles will appear that question the validity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The claims are made that we have very little historical evidence for the resurrection – after all, there have not been other “reported and documented” resurrection occurrences since Jesus; there is very little historical literature supporting what the evangelists claim to be true, and the four evangelists themselves disagree on their own testimony to the event itself.  What are we to say to these claims?

It is true that a careful reading of the four evangelists’ remembrances of the resurrection indeed reveal many different emphases and details.  Matthew, for example, tells us that a great earthquake had occurred as “an angel of the Lord descended and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it” (Matthew 28:2).  Mark, on the other hand, tells us that a “young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe” was inside the tomb to announce Jesus’s resurrection (Mark 14:5).  Luke tells us that two men “suddenly stood near them [the women] in dazzling apparel” (Luke 24:4) and John, the beloved disciple, reports his own discovery of the linen wrappings abandoned in the empty tomb (John 20:5).  Nevertheless, while there are differences in detail, as we would expect in eyewitness testimony, all four evangelists report a resurrection – of that there is no dispute.

There is another feature that is the same in all four accounts – the resurrection announcement is made first to the women who followed Jesus (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 23:55-24:5; John 20:1).  Many reasons have been offered as to why women serve as the immediate witnesses to the resurrection; the women stayed with him through the crucifixion, so he appeared first to those who stuck with him to the end; women traditionally carried out the burial rituals in first century Judaism, so they are witnesses by default; others suggest that the first women witnesses represent Jesus’s elevation of the status for women of the first century, and for women in general.

While all of these are plausible reasons, there is another strategic, indeed, apologetic reason why the women were the first witnesses.  In fact, one might argue that this is the primary apologetic for validity of the resurrection of Jesus.  Women in the first century were not considered credible witnesses.  Indeed, no man in his right mind would give credence to a woman’s testimony in the first century.  They simply were not credible witnesses in court, or anywhere else, for that matter.  Why then did the gospel writers report them as witnesses?  If women were not credible witnesses, why tell a story in which the women were the key witnesses, indeed the first witnesses to the resurrection?    Wouldn’t it have made more sense to offer some credible, male testimonial? 

Anglican priest and physicist John Polkinghorne answers this question with a resounding “no” when he writes,

“Perhaps the strongest reason of taking the stories of the empty tomb absolutely seriously lies in the fact that it is women who play the leading role.  It would have been very unlikely for anyone in the ancient world who was concocting a story to assign the principal part to women since, in those times, they were not considered capable of being reliable witnesses in a court of law.  It is surely much more probable that they appear in the gospel accounts precisely because they actually fulfilled the role that the stories assign to them, and in so doing, they make a startling discovery.”[1]

In this sense, the women offer the strongest apologetic for the witness of the gospel writers.  It is the very fact that they were not considered reliable witnesses that makes credible the accounting of the evangelists, for who would make up a story like this with women as the central characters in its dramatic conclusion?

This example gives witness to God’s unexpected apologetic.  God continually uses those whom we least expect in ways that are profoundly remarkable.  Of course, this is God’s apologetic throughout redemption history – Deborah, a woman, to be judge over Israel; Gideon, the least and the youngest in his tribe and family to defeat the Midianites; David, the youngest of his family and a simple shepherd to be king; Jael, a non-Israelite woman to defeat the Canaanite king Sisera; Josiah, king of Israel at only eight years old, to reform the nation; Amos, a simple sheepherder, to be a prophet among the people of God; tax-collectors, fishermen, and women, Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, Martha, and Salome – God chooses those we might be tempted to overlook or ignore, those who were the last and the least in their society to bear witness to the great work of God. 

All of these witnesses are unexpected in their day and time for a variety of reasons; but, they serve to remind us of an unexpected apologetic; God uses and chooses those we least expect, and would not anticipate, to give witness to God’s work in this world, and in our lives.  And what else would we expect of the God who raised Jesus from the dead?  Expect the unexpected...

For additional resources on the evidences for the resurrection, see...

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