Fact a Day: April 8th

Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection (Harvest House, 1996) p. 16-17

Why is the empty tomb compelling evidence for Jesus’ resurrection? (con’t)

But there is one more proof of the empty tomb. It is human nature to venerate the burial places of unparalleled religious leaders. Throughout the history of mankind, religious pilgrimages are often made to special shrines honoring a dead prophet—especially his burial place. Jews have the grave of Abraham in Hebron. Muslims have their yearly pilgrimage to Mecca to honor Mohammed. Every year Hindus and Buddhists visit the graves of their noted gurus. Look at the graves of John F. Kennedy or even Elvis Presley. But such has never occurred for Jesus, not in the entire history of Christianity. Why? What could explain this exception to the rule? As former skeptic Frank Morison notes, “Finally, and this to my mind carried conclusive weight, we cannot find in the contemporary records any trace of a tomb or shrine becoming the center of veneration or worship on the ground that it contained the relics of Jesus. This is inconceivable if it was ever seriously stated at the time that Jesus was really buried elsewhere than in the vacant tomb. Rumor would have asserted a hundred suppositious places where the remains really lay, and pilgrimages innumerable would have been made to them.”*

*For documentation, see Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection.