GakuseiDon wrote:My own original thought: Women were used in the story, because women would have been less likely to have been thought to have carried the body away.
James McGrath also makes that point in his 2008 'The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith'.
My own view is that Mark used women for the reasons I listed above, regardless of whether there was an empty grave of some sort or not. I'm intrigued by the possibility that Jesus was buried in a criminal's graveyard, possibly identifiable with the burial caves associated with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The bodies in the tombs there were removed outside of the third wall when the third wall was built in the period right before the revolt (a la Robert K. McIver 2010, 'The Archaeology of Palestine from the Maccabees to the Second Jewish Revolt (167BC-AD135)' in The Content and Setting of the Gospel Tradition, eds. M. Harding & A. Nobbs, 19).
Christians in the post-70ce period may have 'discovered' a grave there they assumed must have been Jesus's. Mark then may have backdated this later 'discovery' to the third day after the crucifixion, claiming the women just never said anything about it.
ficino wrote:I remember discussion a while ago of the claim that women's testimony was not regarded as legally valid in Judaism, so the evangelists would not have invented women witnesses. I forget where that discussion was posted. Rabbinical sources accept women's testimony when women were the only people present: e.g. about an event in the women's part of the synagogue, or in a mikvah. And our rabbinical sources are written later.
Stephan, perhaps you know the relevant texts on this.
This point was debated between William Lane Craig vs. Richard Carrier several years ago. That point being women were generally not allowed to testify in court unless there were no male witnesses to the event. You can find it about 1hour 13 minutes into the debate. Once again, Craig points out that Carrier is not what you would call a credible ancient historian and embarks in hermetical speculation gone off the rails. Translation: He reads into things not there.
ficino wrote:I remember discussion a while ago of the claim that women's testimony was not regarded as legally valid in Judaism, so the evangelists would not have invented women witnesses. I forget where that discussion was posted. Rabbinical sources accept women's testimony when women were the only people present: e.g. about an event in the women's part of the synagogue, or in a mikvah. And our rabbinical sources are written later.
Stephan, perhaps you know the relevant texts on this.
From the 3rd century CE we have Tosefta Sanhedrin 5:2 dealing with persons who because of their occupation are invalid witnesses
And Sages say, "When they have another profession, lo they are invalid."
Under what circumstances ?
In the case of testimony covering the sanctification of the month, the intercalation of the month, and cases involving property or capital punishment.
But for testimony which a woman is valid to give, they too are valid.
This implies that women cannot give valid testimony in many but not all cases.
Also Josephus Antiquities Book 4
But let not a single witness be credited, but three, or two at the least, and those such whose testimony is confirmed by their good lives. But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex Nor let servants be admitted to give testimony, on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak truth, either out of hope of gain, or fear of punishment. But if any one be believed to have borne false witness, let him, when he is convicted, suffer all the very same punishments which he against whom he bore witness was to have suffered
GakuseiDon wrote:My own original thought: Women were used in the story, because women would have been less likely to have been thought to have carried the body away.
James McGrath also makes that point in his 2008 'The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith'.
Darn! Thanks ericbwonder.
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
Possible reasons are always (by definition) limited only by our imaginations.
If the reason were to place witnesses at the tomb each of whom has only 2/3 the muscle power of men and therefore considered physically too weak to carry away the body, then we would not expect them to arrive in numbers. We would expect Mark to have anticipated John's account that only one woman went to the tomb at first.
If the reason had anything to do with credibility of witnesses (which is debatable given that many claims about this are in themselves myth) we would expect Mark to have written what Luke did: that they spoke about what they had seen but were not believed.
If I Corinthians 15:5ff is original to Paul then Mark is writing for an audience that already believed Peter and the Twelve were the first to see the resurrected Jesus and that only then did Jesus appear to the women as part of a larger crowd of 500.
If we take take a literary analytical view of the gospel then we find that Mark uses "silence" as a theological symbol of some sort. Even Jesus is silent -- up to a critical point -- in fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy when called upon to give witness. From the opening scenes of the gospel the pattern is set: those who are commanded to silence speak and those commanded to speak are silent (or at least disobedient, as in the case of the healed leper commanded in vain to testify to the priests).
Goulder's view
Another "possibility" -- though it is argued on the basis of some evidence so is more than just a "possibility" -- is Michael Goulder's earlier deduction that Mark 16:1-8 was composed as a liturgical reading that coincided with the synagogue reading of Isaiah 3-4 which is about the daughters of Zion. I acknowledge that this assertion is very suspect to most but it should at least be mentioned along with any list of "possible" reasons for Mark referencing the women here. And it does have some evidence-based and testable argument in its favour, unlike some other imagined possibilities.
(For what it's worth, continuing the literary structure analysis, we know that Mark bookends his gospel with paired motifs -- as writers of the day often did, and still do today -- so that John the Baptist in rough clothing and a message of the messiah and in the wilderness is paired with the young man in find clothing in the empty tomb etc etc; in the midst of all these matching bookend motifs we find no obvious match for the women -- unless we identify the introductory references to Jerusalem in the context of Isaiah's prophecies; Isaiah, recall, regularly depicted the people of Jerusalem as women, daughter and mothers.)
Hanhart's view
Karel Hanhart gives us another and much more detailed discussion of the reason for the women's appearance here in Mark in The Open Tomb. He also argues for the Isaiah symbolic connections and, as Carrier and others also do, argues for the symbolic functions of their names. Again, this latter argument for symbolic names needs to be evaluated in the context of the larger gospel that is replete with symbolic names.
But where Hanhart goes further is in his thesis that the empty tomb scene in its entirety is a "midrashic" retelling of Isaiah 22:15-16 LXX: Mark is writing about the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple (the tomb carved out of a rock in Isaiah 22) and the revival of a spiritual people of God out of its ruins. In Mark 13 he related the Passion Narrative to the fall of Jerusalem with symbolic prophecies: don't fall asleep in the last days, the disciples fall asleep; fig tree sign of the last days, fig tree sign of Jerusalem's demise; the command to watch, not knowing the hour, the sun being darkened, ditto; -- and the command to the disciples, on seeing all this desolation, to flee, as the women indeed do.
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I think the women as first witnesses came from the knowledge the disciples (all males) were then either in hiding or going home to Galilee. Who was left? Women followers are good candidates ... But wait.
Actually, I think the "empty tomb" passage (including the first mention of these women) was written not by "Mark", but by somebody else, soon after the gospel was written. http://historical-jesus.info/79.html
And with the "empty tomb" not "known" by "Mark", the passage seems to have been invented not only to provide some "proof" of Jesus' resurrection, but also to feature women's followers (and named!):
>> "Mark" was not prone to name women (and to mention them!), that is prior to the "empty tomb" passage. Before Mk 15:40-16:8, only two women are named: Mary (6:3), Jesus' mother and Herodias (6:17,19,22), wife of tetrarch Herod Antipas (four namings of two women within 649 verses).
And, as quoted earlier, the anointing women (14:3-9), despite her act being qualified as momentous, is glaringly anonymous (other women not named: Jesus' sisters --but the brothers are!-- (6:3), the bleeding one (5:25-34), Herodias' daughter (6:22-28) and the Syrophoenician (7:25-30)).
But, suddenly, at 15:40, three women are named (their names appear again in 15:47 (minus one) and 16:1) (eight namings within 16 verses).[not bad for women who said nothing to anyone!] I doubt that abrupt change of pattern could come from a same writer. <<
Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
ficino wrote:I remember discussion a while ago of the claim that women's testimony was not regarded as legally valid in Judaism, so the evangelists would not have invented women witnesses. I forget where that discussion was posted. Rabbinical sources accept women's testimony when women were the only people present: e.g. about an event in the women's part of the synagogue, or in a mikvah. And our rabbinical sources are written later.
Stephan, perhaps you know the relevant texts on this.
Also, women would testify on matters pertaining to women, which I believe would include caring for the body after death.
Bernard Muller wrote:I think the women as first witnesses came from the knowledge the disciples (all males) were then either in hiding or going home to Galilee. Who was left? Women followers are good candidates ...
I'm a little skeptical of this reasoning...to whom would Mark have to concede this? Who knew all specifically male disciples were in hiding? Who would be in a position to know their whereabouts?
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.
