Raising the Tomb of Christ from the Dead

The holiest site in Christendom is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Under one roof, it memorializes the traditional sites of both the crucifixion and the resurrection. Lots of places in Israel claim that “Jesus was here,” so what are the chances that these have any more historical provenance than the supposed location of the Last Supper or the Garden of Gethsemane?

Constantine’s Church

The Emperor Constantine sought to unify the Roman Empire under Christianity, and around 325 CE he decided to build churches over the sites where Jesus was born, buried, and ascended. The locals told Constantine’s engineers that, two centuries before, the Emperor Hadrian had constructed a temple over the site of Jesus’ tomb. According to the Church historian Eusebius, as Constantine’s workers cleared away the rubble and fill dirt from Hadrian’s temple, they found a tomb which was obviously that of Christ’s.

Eusebius doesn’t say why it was obvious this particular tomb was that of Jesus. Perhaps there was some graffiti written or carved on it from the time when it was venerated before it was buried under Hadrian’s temple. Or maybe the placement of the tomb directly under a statue to Jupiter was the sign that they had found the right tomb.

In any event, the workmen isolated the tomb from the surrounding rock and adorned it with decorations and columns. It was called the Edicule (Latin for “little house”). Originally the Edicule was a free-standing structure in the open, separate from the church Constantine had built around the rock of Calvary, but fifty years after the church’s dedication, a rotunda was constructed around it.

In 1009, the Moslem caliph al-Hakim ordered Constantine’s church to be demolished and the Edicule was hacked to pieces. Eventually, the present Church of the Holy Sepulcher was rebuilt in its place and over the centuries suffered a series of natural and man-made disasters. A fire in the rotunda in 1808 caused the dome over the Edicule to collapse and seriously damage the Edicule itself. It was rebuilt in 1810, but after earthquakes in 1927 and 1934, the marble cladding surrounding the Edicule became so unstable that the British (who were responsible for the Holy Land back then) had iron girders erected in 1947 to keep it from falling apart.

The Edicule inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem showing the steel framework keeping it from falling apart. (Photo by author, 1993).

Status Quo

Repairs have been stalled for decades as the various groups responsible for the Church of the Holy Sepulcher squabble over what to do. The Church is primarily controlled by the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenians churches. Each have their own portions of the church that they control, but according to the status quo decree of 1853, nothing can be changed in the public areas unless all parties agree. No detail is too small to argue about. A ladder was on a window ledge over the church’s entrance when the status quo decree went into effect and it has been there ever since. It is now called the “Immovable Ladder.”

So it was to my great surprise when I read an announcement released Holy Week (3/22/16) that the Greeks, Latins and Armenians had agreed on a major restoration to the Edicule. Work could begin as soon as May 1 after Orthodox Easter celebrations are over and will take at least 8 months. During this time, the entire Edicule will be dismantled and rebuilt. Usable parts will be cleaned and weakened or broken parts will be replaced.

What can we expect to see? As the marble cladding is removed, it will expose the masonry of the 1555 structure. There should also be what remains of the native limestone of the original tomb. Archaeologists will get an opportunity to examine, measure and record the ruins and give us a better idea of what the original tomb might have looked like.

The Empty Tomb

Based on the best information we have today, the original tomb was a small cave with two chambers carved into the side of a hill or cliff. The outer chamber was a partly-covered forecourt with a low entrance leading into the fully-enclosed rock-cut interior burial chamber. The entrance would have been closed by a large stone. There would have been rock-cut burial benches on two or three sides of the inner chamber.

Reconstruction (A) of the form of the rock-cut tomb within the Edicule and (B) of its conversion by the construction of Constantine's Edicule. (Drawn by Steven Ashley, taken from The Tomb of Christ by Martin Biddle).

According to Eusebius, Constantine’s engineers cut away the rock of the surrounding cliff, including the outer forecourt, to isolate the burial chamber. The other burial benches may have been sealed up with masonry so as to leave only the bench on the inside right exposed, since Mark 16:5 reports the women entering the empty tomb found an angel sitting there instead of Jesus’ body.

Is this really the tomb of Christ? It is impossible to say but it is plausible. Whereas the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is inside the walls of Jerusalem today, around 30 CE the area was a disused quarry outside the walls. Today, a short distance from the Edicule, visitors to the church can see small burial chambers carved into the rock dating back to the 1st century CE, so the area was a definitely a gravesite until Jerusalem’s walls were extended around the area in the early 40’s and the site was brought inside the city.

Nothing is known of the site prior to 130 CE when Hadrian filled in the quarry and paved over it to construct his temple. It is very possible that the empty tomb would have been venerated as the site of the resurrection. Did Hadrian intentionally construct his temple over a site revered by Christians in order to suppress the new religion? Again, we don’t know, but later Christians certainly attributed bad intentions to Hadrian’s choice of construction site.

So I will be eagerly awaiting news of any discoveries made during the restoration work on the Edicule. I’m sure a PBS Nova or National Geographic program will be produced documenting the project. But even if surviving 1st or 2nd century graffiti saying “Jesus was here” is found, that would not prove scientifically this was the tomb of Jesus, only that early Christians venerated it as though it was.

If I learn anything more about the restoration, I’ll post it here, so watch this space.

Polaroids of the Resurrection

Thirty years ago, when the Internet was young and before there was a worldwide web, there was something called Usenet. It was a collection of discussion groups on any topic imaginable, from art to zoology. One newsgroup that I frequented was called talk.religion.christian and I recall posting an article – although I have been unable to find it to verify the content – called “Polaroids of the Resurrection.”

My post was my contribution to an on-going discussion as to whether the events of Easter Sunday morning were objective facts accessible to all disinterested observers. From what I can recall, my point was that when the NT reported an appearance of the risen Christ, the appearance was only to believers. My contention was that if you had a Polaroid camera on Easter Sunday morning, you would not have been able to take a photograph of a resurrected body.

Risen

I was thinking about this while watching the recent movie Risen (2016) starring Joseph Fiennes as the Roman tribune Clavius, a kind of fix-it guy for Pontius Pilate. In the film, Pilate orders Clavius to find the missing body of the recently crucified Yeshua (Cliff Curtis) to curtail any rumors on the part of the disciples that he has risen from the dead. Clavius eventually locates the cadre of disciples just as Yeshua happens to be making one of his appearances to the doubting Thomas. Stunned by seeing a very live version of the man he witnessed dead on the cross, Clavius quits his post and follows the disciples to Galilee to make sense of it all.

On the one hand, I give props to the creators of the film for taking a different approach to the Easter story. By following the story of a Roman solider instead of the disciples, it allows the filmmakers artistic license to find new angles in the story. Unfortunately, the story they tell isn’t very engaging and the latter half of the movie falls in familiar Bible movie territory, only with Clavius as the replacement for Judas among the disciples.

But what bothers me is the central premise that Clavius, an unbeliever, could have experienced the risen Christ and come to believe. Was the appearance of the resurrected Jesus an objective event accessible to all disinterested observers?

In the movie Risen, Joseph Fiennes stars at the Roman tribune Clavius who is tasked by Pontius Pilate with finding the missing body of Jesus.

Empty Tomb

The core of the Easter proclamation is told in the story of the empty tomb (Mk 16:1-8; Mt 28:1-8; Lk 24:1-12; Jn 20:1-13). There are no narratives of appearances of the risen Christ in the Gospel of Mark as the oldest manuscripts end with this story. After the Sabbath is over, Mary Magdalene and other women visit the tomb with spices to complete Jesus’ burial, only to find the stone rolled back. One or two men – or angels – inform the women that although they seek Jesus of Nazareth, “he is not here for he has risen.”

After this, the gospels do not agree as to whether the women did not tell anyone (Mark) or told the disciples and were not believed (Luke). Matthew recounts an appearance of the risen Christ in Galilee but Luke reports all the appearances occurred in the Jerusalem area. The original ending (Jn 20) of John’s gospel only reports appearances in Jerusalem, but the later appendix (Jn 21) tells of the miraculous catch of fish in Galilee. There’s not much in the way of agreement other than the original empty tomb narrative and subsequent appearances of the risen Christ. Unlike the passion narrative where arrest precedes trial and crucifixion follows sentencing, there is no internal sequencing to the resurrection narratives; after the finding of the risen tomb, the individual episodes are free to appear in any order.

Pauline Confession

But we also have a resurrection account coming from Paul (1 Cor 15:3-8). Paul wrote to the Corinthians about 56 CE, but he says this statement of faith is something that he received, so presumably it came to him in his early days as a Christian (mid to late 30’s?). The core of the statement is four-fold: “that Christ died…that he was buried…that he was raised…and that he appeared”: [1] to Cephas (Peter), [2] the Twelve, [3] more than 500 at one time, [4] to James (the brother of Jesus), [5] all the apostles, and [6] finally to Paul.

Paul believes that his experience of the risen Christ was every bit as valid as those appearances to Peter and the others. He spends several verses (1 Cor 15:35-49) trying to distinguish between the physical body we have now and the spiritual body that will have after death. Just as the seed is different from the plant, so is our physical body different from our resurrected body. There do not appear to be many points of contact between the physical and the spiritual body according to Paul.

Resurrected Body or Resuscitated Corpse?

The evangelists, who did not experience the risen Christ themselves as Paul did, tried to straddle the fence. On the one hand, they wanted to show that the raised Jesus wasn’t a ghost so they described him eating food or allowing himself to be touched. But, on the other hand, he was transformed from his previous earthly existence, so the disciples were slow to recognize him or he suddenly appeared inside a locked room.

The key point the NT writers are trying to make is that the risen Christ is not the same as someone brought back from the dead like Lazarus. According to John, Lazarus was brought back from the dead and resumed his former life. At some later time, he would have died again. Jesus, on the other hand, was transformed into a different plane of existence. His spiritual body resembled his former physical body, but it was not bound to physical laws and he would not die again. Such is what Paul and the evangelists are trying to tell us.

Getting back to my question from thirty years ago, could you have taken photographs of the resurrected Christ? I still don’t think so. From the NT evidence, it seems the risen Jesus only appeared to believers, or to people like James and Paul who became believers as a result of the experience. If the Roman tribune Clavius had stumbled upon the disciples experiencing the risen Lord, I don’t think he would have seen anything.

So does this mean that a resurrection appearance was a vision? One is tempted to think of a vision that each person experienced internally, but if the risen Lord appeared to more than 500 of the brethren at once, that would have been one heck of a mass hallucination. Maybe a resurrected body is one of those things you can only see with the eyes of faith.