empty tomb

The empty tomb is the Christian tradition that the tomb of Jesus was found empty after his crucifixion. The canonical gospels are consistent on the incident, with variations, of the visit of women to Jesus' tomb. Although Jesus' body had been laid out in the tomb after crucifixion and death, the tomb is found to be empty, the body gone, and the women are told by angels (or a "young man [...] dressed in a white robe") that he has risen. The gospel accounts are based on earlier oral traditions. Gospel accounts Overview Although the four canonical gospels detail the narrative, oral traditions existed well before the composition of the gospels on the matter. The four gospels were almost certainly not by eyewitnesses, at least in their final forms, but were instead the end-products of long oral and written transmission. Three of the four (Mark, Luke, and Matthew) are called the synoptics (meaning "seeing together"), because they present very similar stories, and it is generally agreed that this is because two of them, Matthew and Luke, have used Mark as their source. The earliest of them, Mark, dates probably from around AD 65–70, some forty years after the death of Jesus, while Matthew and Luke date from around AD 85–90. John, the last gospel to be completed, began circulating between 90 and 110, and its narrative of the empty tomb is not merely a different form of the story told in the synoptics, but after differs to such an extent that it cannot be harmonised with the earlier three. In the original ending of the Gospel of Mark, the oldest, three women visit the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, but find instead a "young man [...] dressed in a white robe" who tells them that Jesus will meet the disciples in Galilee. The women then flee, telling no one. Matthew introduces guards and a doublet where the women are told twice, by angels and then by Jesus, that he will meet the disciples in Galilee. Luke changes Mark's one "young man [...] dressed in a white robe" to two, adds Peter's inspection of the tomb, and deletes the promise that Jesus would meet his disciples in Galilee. John reduces the women to the solitary Mary Magdalene, and introduces the "beloved disciple" who visits the empty tomb with Peter and is the first to understand its significance.