I agree. The presence of women at the empty tomb is certainly not something to be considered in isolation, as the idea of some generic tradent of Christian myth. It's embedded in the Gospel of Mark. And Mark is doing something very particular with his "messianic secret" motif.Aleph One wrote:I can't find where I was just reading about this; it may have been in R. Price's Christ Myth Theory/Problems, but I could find it right now.
The general idea was that Mark's gospel is the expression and product of a switch from the expectation of an immanent any-time-now future coming of the Savior to an understanding that the messiah had already come, in the (relatively) recent historical past. People of the time would obviously ask, "If he has already come then why wouldn't I know about it?" The author said Mark's answer to this lies in Jesus's 'secretive' message, his disciples' general slow-wittedness and lack of comprehension, the women's failure to tell anyone about the empty tomb, etc.
Maybe this isn't exactly what the OP's question was about, but this line of thinking would have the scared women as generally part of Mark's intention to keep the initial revelation "low key" in his version.
Too quickly do interpreters take Mark 16:8's statement "they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid" and immediately deny the obvious sense and actually take it to mean the exact opposite! If Mark is saying that they didn't say anything, guess what: he might have meant it!
How exactly is someone used as a witness if they're not talking? The author of Mark is up to something here, and it's not piling up convincing evidences of the resurrection of Jesus. So the whole question falls afoul reality. "The women as first witnesses" is actually not in the source.
Many have suggested that Mark is offering an explanation for why the empty tomb story had not been told before, and I took the same line in my essay regarding the empty tomb. But perhaps it can be taken further. Perhaps it is an explanation for why the whole story of Jesus from Galilee had never been told before.
In other words, it is the attempt of the author of Mark to form the bridge between the actual origin of the Christian faith, in the appearances to the apostles of the Lord, and the new story regarding Jesus from Galilee, in whom God's Son dwelt. The author of Mark may then be taken as having an "adoptionist" christology, the same as the one attributed to Cerinthus, wherein the man Jesus became infused with God's Spirit, God's Son, with the descent of the dove that marks the beginning of the Gospel. Everything before that is irrelevant to the author of Mark because everything before that is just some random guy named Jesus being some random guy. That doesn't mean that the author of Mark has any traditions regarding this guy Jesus. It does mean that the author of Mark chose to tell the story of the Son of God dwellling on earth with his apostles in the form of a man.
His disciples are slow-witted and lack comprehension. Peter denied Jesus three times. Judas betrayed him. They all fled. This is all highly embarrassing--to these disciples.
But for the Gospel of Mark, it is a wonderful device. Perhaps the reason the apostles did not advertise their life with Jesus on earth is that they made such a mess of it. Better that they would want to start over, with a clean slate, and speak only of how they came to see and understand Jesus Christ when he revealed themselves to them, as the risen Lord, in Galilee. The earlier part of the story, before the author of Mark, was omitted because it was embarrassing to these men. And because the women were afraid.