Edexcel special
Implications New Testament
This ‘Edexcel special’ looks at one way of tackling a passage from Frank Morison’s Who Moved the Stone? in the New Testament Implications paper
Edexcel: Unit 6RS04, A2 Unit 4 Implications — New Testament
The Implications paper involves examining and assessing a passage from an anthology. The examination allows you to offer a variety of responses — there is no one particular answer that is required. You can use a wide range of material and sources, including scholars and sacred text for example. Here is one way to tackle June 2015’s New Testament question, which featured a passage from Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison.
Exam advice is provided to help you apply the sample answer to your own work.
Question
We are left, therefore, with the problem of the vacant tomb still unsolved. Can we get any light by exploring the various other explanations which have been advanced?
There are six lines of critical approach to this matter. Four of them assume the vacancy of the tomb as an historical fact, whilst the others take the extremer view that the story is either entirely apocryphal or that the tomb was not investigated under the conditions described in the Gospels. Very briefly these hypotheses may be summarised as follows:
• That Joseph of Arimathea secretly removed the body to a more suitable resting-place.
• That the body was removed by order of the Roman power.
• That the body was removed by the Jewish authorities to prevent the possible veneration of the tomb.
• That life was not really extinct and that Jesus recovered in the cool of the grave.
• That the women mistook the grave in the uncertain light.
• That the grave was not visited at all and that the story was a later accretion.
(a) Examine the argument and/or interpretation in the passage. (30 marks)
(b) Do you agree with the ideas expressed? Justify your point of view and discuss its implications for understanding religion and human experience. (20 marks)
Student’s answer
(a)
‘Either Jesus was physically resurrected or he wasn’t. It’s as simple as that.’
Sherbrook
This passage concerns the mystery of the empty tomb and the resurrection of Christ. This lies at the very heart of Christianity for, if Christ did rise from death, then the message of Christianity is true. If he did not rise from the dead and the empty tomb was a hoax, then the teachings of Christianity are thrown into doubt. As Drane noted:
‘The resurrection, as well as the cross, was an indispensable part of the arrival of God’s kingdom.’
Certainly there is biblical evidence in the Gospels to support this, for Jesus predicted these events:
‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected…he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.’
Luke 9:22
It is the events of Easter Sunday that Morison is ultimately concerned with — in particular, why was the tomb of Jesus Christ empty? Unfortunately, the Gospel writers do not completely agree on what happened, which led Ian Wilson to declare that the Gospel accounts of the resurrection were a ‘jumble of confusion’.
Matthew tells us that the Jewish leadership were afraid of just such a possibility and had Roman guards placed around the tomb:
‘So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead.’
Matthew 27:64
It is clear from all the Gospels that the tomb Jesus was laid in was not purposefully made for him — it was, simply, an expedient place to put the body of Jesus over the Sabbath. A proper tomb would have to be found for the body soon after. The Law of Moses forbade a corpse from being laid out in the open air on the Sabbath.
This is a good way to start — the candidate gives a clear overview of the passage and begins to examine the background and context in detail. Note that the candidate has used material which they have covered in their A-level studies and uses good quotations to open up the important issues raised.
The first theory is that a prominent Jew named Joseph of Arimathea removed the body to a more suitable resting place. Matthew’s Gospel describes Joseph as a rich man who had become a disciple of Jesus and who asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, which he then wrapped and put ‘in his own new tomb’ (27:60). Mark’s Gospel refers to him as ‘a prominent member of the Council’ (15:43) and the Fourth Gospel calls him ‘a disciple of Jesus, but secretly…’ (19:38). We can safely presume that the new tomb either belonged to Joseph or, at least, he had control over it. As a family tomb, it was not a suitable or appropriate place for Jesus’ body to remain interned. It is, therefore, conceivable that Joseph wanted to move it.
Had Joseph indeed removed the body, then that would explain the empty tomb which the women found and hence Mary Magdalene’s cry that:‘…they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him.’ (John 20:2). However, why would Joseph have removed the body in the dead of night? If he intended to move the body to a more appropriate place, then why not wait until the morning light? Moreover, when the women arrived at the tomb, how is it they did not encounter Joseph and his men removing the body?
Presumably, to counter this, one might argue that Joseph removed the body earlier still, perhaps to avoid drawing crowds of curious onlookers. But, as Matthew’s Gospel reports, the tomb was guarded by priests and Roman soldiers, so how did Joseph avoid them? If, indeed, he encountered them, then wouldn’t these soldiers have told Mary Magdalene why the tomb was empty?
The candidate has worked methodically through the passage and identified the important issues, clarified their meaning and used biblical text to good effect.
There is the interesting alternate view that, in fact, Jesus did not die on the cross and that he was really unconscious or in a coma and that he recovered in the cool of the tomb. This view, put forward by the German scholar Venturini, suggests that Jesus recovered, freed himself from the tomb and returned to the disciples. But this is doubtful — Jesus had received dreadful wounds, lost lots of blood and would, surely, have been too weak to get up and remove the huge stone?
So, did Mary Magdalene and the other women go to the wrong tomb? It was dark, they were afraid. Moreover, when they meet the young man/gardener, he tells them: ‘He is not here…’ (Mark 16:6), but the women don’t wait to hear the rest — ‘see the place where they laid him.’ (Mark 16:6). Kirsopp Lake in ‘the Resurrection of Jesus Christ’ supports this view:
‘They expected to find a closed tomb, but they found an open one; and a young man who was in the entrance, guessing their errand, tried to tell them that they had made a mistake in the place. ‘He is not here,’ said he; ‘see the place where they laid him’ and probably pointed to the next tomb. But the women were frightened of their errand and fled…’
Kirsopp Lake further claims that the disciples had left Jerusalem and gone to Galilee (Matthew 28) so there was no one for the women to report to.But the Fourth Gospel states that Peter and John were still in Jerusalem and they saw the empty tomb (John 20). Moreover, if the disciples had fled Jerusalem for their own safety, then why had the women remained behind? They were surely in danger too. As Morison points out:
‘If it was safe for the women to remain in the city and go unostentatiously to the tomb of Jesus, it was safe for the disciples.’
So, did the women ever visit the tomb at all? If not, the tomb would have remained undisturbed, the excitement would have gone down, and things slowly returned to the way that they were…but this did not happen; instead a vibrant faith flourished and Christianity, the religion based upon belief in the risen Christ, spread across the Roman empire, indeed suggesting that the tomb had been opened.
(b)
I tend to agree with Morison that the disciples did not steal the body. Apart from being too dull and slow-witted, just as the scriptures suggest, I think that the disciples were changed men as a result of the resurrection and would not have given up their lives and founded the early Church on something they knew to be a lie.
I disagree too with the view that Joseph of Arimathea removed the body. If he had removed the body, for whatever reason, Joseph would have jeopardised his high social standing as a member of the Sanhedrin by showing himself as a secret disciple of Christ, which should, in theory, have led to him being ‘thrown out of the synagogue’ (John 9:22). Why would Joseph have acted in such a rash way?
There is another reason for thinking that Joseph did not remove the body. If he had, then he would have placed it in another tomb and would almost certainly have given its location to the disciples and, possibly, the Jewish leaders too. Yet there is no record of this happening and no mention of the burial place becoming a place of pilgrimage or worship. Instead, we hear that the disciples were in Jerusalem, proclaiming that Jesus has risen from the dead.
So, if Joseph did not take the body, is it conceivable that the Roman or Jewish authorities removed it? Pilate was probably very glad that Joseph had asked to have the body. It saved him an awkward problem. In contrast, the Jewish authorities had not asked for the body itself, but asked to have the tomb guarded by Roman soldiers to prevent it from being removed. Both the Romans and the Jews clearly wanted the body to remain in this tomb — there is no evidence to suggest they wanted the body to be removed.
This is the right way — the candidate offers their own view and explains the reasons clearly and supports them with scholarly evidence. The candidate does well to refer to debate on both sides.
I also disagree with the theory that Jesus could have fallen and was in some sort of coma and revived and freed himself from the tomb a few hours later and then appeared to his followers. Would someone who had gone through a crucifixion then be able to appear so well only 48 hours later? Strauss, in my view quite rightly, argued:
‘It is impossible that a being who had crept out half-dead from a tomb, weak and ill and requiring medical treatment could have given the disciples the impression that he was a conqueror over death and the grave’
Not surprisingly, Bultmann challenged the truth of the resurrection accounts, claiming that the physical resurrection was not a historical fact, but a ‘mythical event, pure and simple.’ Lessing called the resurrection a ‘misunderstood non-event’.
I also disagree with the view which suggests that the women at the tomb had simply been mistaken. We know that they were scared, indeed in Mark’s Gospel they ran away because they were terrified. It was dark, only early dawn, and maybe they went to the wrong tomb. Unfortunately, we cannot empirically verify this one way or the other. Kirsopp Lake suggested:
‘The women came in the early morning to a tomb which they thought was the one in which they had seen the Lord buried. They expected to find a closed tomb and they found an open one.’
But there are problems with this. First, the Gospels tell us that the women watched as Jesus was buried (Luke 23:55) so surely they remembered where the tomb was. Second, being so early, what was the gardener doing there? Further, given that the only person who seemed to know the truth was the gardener, why was he never called to declare what he had seen?
There is one further, and in my view most likely, solution. Both Barth and Wilson argue that the importance of the resurrection does not depend on the physical raising of the body of Jesus, but on the message of support and inspiration that it brings. Barth commented that the Gospel writers were not looking for the ‘acceptance of a well-attested historical report’ but for a ‘decision of faith’.
In other words, the tomb was empty but Jesus was not resurrected with a physical body, but with a spiritual one, which endures forever. Wilson wrote:
‘The bones of the dead Jesus could be lying around in Palestine and the resurrection could still be true.’
This finds support in 1 Corinthians15:44 where St Paul talks about the nature of resurrection.
‘It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.’
The student is doing well here — they have stated their own view and made careful consideration of opposing viewpoints, supported by quotations and scripture. The essay has good pace about it and is clear and meaningful.
What of the implications? If Christ rose from the dead, then he is the Son of God, but if he did not, then he is just another good man who taught about love and freedom. If Jesus did not, in fact, rise from the grave, then the credibility of Christianity is at stake and with it, the moral basis of Western culture. Without the resurrection, Jesus’ teaching lacks authority and many millions around the world would have to rethink their faith. On the other hand, if he did rise from the dead, then Christianity is right and, perhaps, atheists and members of other faiths would have to reconsider. But, that said, it needs to be remembered that it was Christ’s death that was the important thing — his death that takes away the sins of the world. In that respect, the resurrection is simply a nice ending. It need not have happened — humanity would still have been saved by the death of Jesus.
Morison claims that the resurrection must have happened as this is the only explanation for subsequent events. In the Gospels, we read how the disciples are, after Jesus has risen, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and in the Acts of the Apostles the disciples are changed men:
‘And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.’
Acts 4:31
Acts goes on to tell us how the early Church was built on the charismatic preaching and example of the disciples. They led and the people followed them, inspired by the power of the message, and the Church was born. As N. T. Wright observed:
‘In two thousand years of scepticism against the Christian witness, no alternative explanation has been offered that satisfactorily accounts for the empty tomb.’
This is the part many students forget to include — the implications. Here, the student is required to consider what would happen if, on the one hand, the passage was true, and, on the other hand, if it was untrue. There is no right and wrong answer — it is the quality of the student’s understanding of the issues that matters.
Overall, this is a very good answer to the question. In (a) the candidate offers a clear and extensive understanding of the theological issues raised and, quite rightly, uses the words of the biblical text to support their view, alongside useful references to the views of scholars. In (b) the candidate’s own views are well supported with a clear evaluation of the argument in the passage, backed up by scripture and scholarship. Overall, the answer is clear and concise, and addresses all the important issues raised by the text.