Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§18.2 Et Resurrexit
responsible for 'handing over' Jesus, the Temple authorities in Jerusalem (Acts
4-5), and there is no reason to doubt it. 51 The point is, obviously, that nothing
would have so punctured the claims made by Peter and the others than a countertestimony
as to what had happened to Jesus' body — whether undisturbed after
proper burial, decomposed beyond recognition, or otherwise disposed of. The
priestly Sadducees, of course, did not believe in resurrection. All the more reason
for them to provide an alternative explanation of what had happened to Jesus'
body to squash the doctrine itself the more effectively. An empty tomb gave their
opponents, Pharisees as well as Christians, too much scope for their belief in resurrection
(Acts 23.6-9).
d. The Absence of Any Tomb Veneration
One of the most striking factors to be considered is that we have no record in the
early decades of Christianity of any tomb being venerated as the place where Jesus
had been laid to rest. Despite theories to the contrary, 52 Luke, who shared the
very physical understanding of Jesus' resurrection body (Luke 24.39), never
gives the slightest hint of worship or prayer on the site of Jesus' burial in his account
of Christianity's beginnings in Jerusalem (Acts 2-5). Nor does Paul ever as
much as hint that one of the reasons he visited Jerusalem was to join in veneration
on the site of Jesus' final resting place. This is indeed striking, because
within contemporary Judaism, as in other religions, the desire to honour the
memory of the revered dead by constructing appropriate tombs and (by implication)
by veneration of the site is well attested. 53 To this day in Israel such sites of
famous prophets and rabbis of old can be pointed to; and even if particular traditions
are much later in origin, 54 the traditions themselves attest a characteristic
instinct and ethos whose roots no doubt penetrate into the dim past well before
the time of Jesus. Both Matthew and Luke recall Jesus as referring to this instinct
to honour the tombs of prophets (and the righteous, adds Matthew) (Matt. 23.29/
51. Paul's role as 'the persecutor' ('he who persecutes us') (Gal. 1.23; also 13) obviously
predated his conversion (possibly even within eighteen months of Jesus' crucifixion) by
some months at least, which confirms the fact of 'persecution' within months (one or two
years) of Jesus' death. See again vol. 2.
52. See again Schenke (n. 22 above).
53. IMacc. 13.27-30; Josephus, War 4.531-32; 5.506; Ant. 7.392; 13.249 (the tomb left
undisturbed for centuries); 16.179-83 (note the comments); 18.108; 20.95; Acts 2.29; 'those
who are God's faithful pray at the place [the tomb of Jeremiah] to this very day' (Liv. Pro. 2.4);
see further J. Jeremias, Heiligengräber in Jesu Umwelt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1958).
54. See, e.g., Murphy-O'Connor, The Holy Land 116-18, 124, 126-27, 137-39, 370, 397,
456.
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