Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

One apologist argument for the authenticity of the resurrection accounts is the testimony of the women. All 4 gospels have one or more women discovering the empty tomb, the synoptics have them being told by angles of the resurrection, and GMatthew, GMark(long), and GJohn have Jesus appearing to Mary M. And even the short version of Mark has the women as the witnesses to the empty tomb and angels announcing the resurrection to them. The argument is that the testimony of women was not regarded nearly as strongly as the testimony of men, so we would have expected the witnesses of these things -- especially that of the angels and resurrection appearance -- to have been men exclusively, if the story had simply been made up. Given the 3 time denial by him, an appearance to Peter first would have been particularly poignant. Note too that if there was an early creed/tradition such as we find in 1 Cor 15, that doesn't even mention the women, but DOES mention the first appearance to Peter, all the more reason the gospels would not need to make up and corroborate each other on the women/Mary M accounts. But they do in contrast to that possibly earlier tradition.

While a skeptic can always argue that it was intentional because it makes for a good apologist argument, that's a kind of reasoning that one could use against every seemingly 'good' piece of evidence. So putting that kind of argument aside, what are your views on this?

Well, from a literary-artistry POV, there are good reasons for Mark to have women find the empty tomb, with his theme of "the last shall be first" etc.

This argument seems weak to me for a few reasons:

1) Mk 16.8 says that the women told no one about the grave, meaning it is Mark's purpose to undermine the women. This counts as evidence of fiction, since Mark couldn't have known of the story if the participants never spoke a word about it. What Mark seems to be plausibly doing is accounting for the grave's previous lack of attestation by claiming women didn't tell anyone. This version is probably the earliest version, because it is easy to see why the other gospels would omit the last statement in 16.8, but difficult to account for why Mark, knowing the story actually proceeded the way the other gospels say, would alter it in this negative direction.

2) Luke and John say at least two male followers found the grave the same day as the women, one of them Peter. If that's the case, then the women could have been entirely bypassed if they caused such a problem for the author of Mark's agenda. He could have just mentioned that male followers were there who verified the grave's emptiness...but he didn't. Unless he was just abusing his agenda, there's really no way to account for this, particularly if Peter stands behind this gospel. Did Peter forget he was there? I realize you haven't made these assumptions in your post, but I thought I'd throw it in there.

3) Women showing up at the grave seems to conform to cultural expectations. There's nothing culturally shocking about women doing womanly things in a story, in this case performing customary funerary and lament rites while Mark is leading up to his dramatic revelation. So it seems natural for Mark to have placed them there, given his cultural background (see, e.g., Angela Standhartinger 2010, '"What Women Were Accustomed to Do for the Dead Beloved by Them" ("Gospel of Peter" 12.50): Traces of Laments and Mourning Rituals in Early Easter, Passion, and Lord's Supper Traditions', Journal of Biblical Literature 129/3, 559-74).

TedM wrote: testimony of the women.

Ted.

This is in context to show how important women were to the early movement.

These book were written in communities where women played a major role in the pater familias, and the text reflects that.

These are more a reflection of the movement at the time of compilation, more so then a literal account, rhetorical in nature of what happened.


Then you have your theology layered into this context.

TedM wrote:One apologist argument for the authenticity of the resurrection accounts is the testimony of the women. All 4 gospels have one or more women discovering the empty tomb, the synoptics have them being told by angles of the resurrection, and GMatthew, GMark(long), and GJohn have Jesus appearing to Mary M. And even the short version of Mark has the women as the witnesses to the empty tomb and angels announcing the resurrection to them. The argument is that the testimony of women was not regarded nearly as strongly as the testimony of men, so we would have expected the witnesses of these things -- especially that of the angels and resurrection appearance -- to have been men exclusively, if the story had simply been made up. Given the 3 time denial by him, an appearance to Peter first would have been particularly poignant. Note too that if there was an early creed/tradition such as we find in 1 Cor 15, that doesn't even mention the women, but DOES mention the first appearance to Peter, all the more reason the gospels would not need to make up and corroborate each other on the women/Mary M accounts. But they do in contrast to that possibly earlier tradition.

While a skeptic can always argue that it was intentional because it makes for a good apologist argument, that's a kind of reasoning that one could use against every seemingly 'good' piece of evidence. So putting that kind of argument aside, what are your views on this?

An alternative way to view the women at the tomb, re the resurrection story, is to consider a symbolic reference:

Gender of the Holy Spirit

• In Hebrew the word for Spirit (רוה) (ruach) is feminine, (as is the word "shekhinah", which is used in the Hebrew Bible to indicate the presence of God, سكينة Sakinah in Arabic language, a word mentioned six times in the Quran).
  
  In the Syriac language too, the grammatically feminine word ruah means "spirit", and writers in that language, both orthodox and Gnostic, used maternal images when speaking of the Holy Spirit. This imagery is found in the fourth-century theologians Aphrahat and Ephraim. It is found in earlier writings of Syriac Christianity such as the Odes of Solomon

[wiki]Sophia (wisdom)[/wiki]

• The Greek noun sophia is the translation of "wisdom" in the Greek Septuagint for Hebrew חכמות Ḥokmot.

Thus, women at the tomb, early 'witnesses' to the resurrection of JC, would be par for the course - i.e. physical bodily resurrection is not reality. It is the spirit, it is wisdom, that brought about the resurrection story. Not reality. The resurrection story is a symbol for spiritual rebirth not physical resurrection. ('spiritual rebirth' - think Damascus road....)

We should not forget that the first witness in GMark is the young man.

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.

Women discover the dead body of Hector in the Iliad. Mark is writing a mini-Iliad via the LXX and Josephus.

It also follows the general theme and theology of the gospel: everybody but "the Jews" recognized Jesus as the Christ, "the Jews" meaning the male religious leaders. Even "the least among them" (women), recognized Jesus. This concept is basic and essential to the theology of Christianity; it is not something that accreted later by anti-Semites and phantom "interpolators."

My opinion is that the discovery of the empty tomb is the only reason why women are in the story at all.

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.

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.

Very clever, Don. I hadn't thought of that.