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At a glance
All four Gospels agree women found the tomb vacant on the first day of the week; the body was gone.
Matthew records the Jewish leaders’ story that guards were bribed to say disciples stole the body — admitting the tomb was empty.
Relevant Scripture
"He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."
Matthew 28:6 KJV
UECF.NET summary
Chapter 12 focuses on the empty tomb. William Lane Craig, a philosopher and historian of the resurrection, presents standard arguments refined over decades. UECF.NET’s companion highlights three pillars: the empty tomb narrative is multiply attested; it is early (Paul implies burial and raising in 1 Corinthians 15, and the women witnesses suggest primitive tradition); and opponents did not produce a body when Christianity exploded in Jerusalem — the very city where Jesus died.
Craig dismantles theft theories. Disciples had no motive to steal and die for a lie they knew was false; Roman guards and a sealed stone make snatching a corpse unlikely; women as first witnesses is an embarrassing detail inventors would avoid. The Jewish counter-story in Matthew 28 admits the tomb was empty and tries to explain why — a backhanded confirmation.
The empty tomb alone does not prove resurrection — someone could have moved the body — but combined with appearances and the rise of faith, it forms a wedge no naturalistic story fully removes.
Main theological themes
- The empty tomb as early, multiply attested, and admitted by opponents
- Women as first witnesses as evidence of historical honesty
- Failure of theft and wrong-tomb explanations
Key ideas
- Christianity began in Jerusalem proclaiming a risen Jesus where anyone could investigate.
- An empty tomb without appearances might mean grave robbery; appearances without an empty tomb might mean vision; early Christians claimed both.
- Craig’s work invites skeptics to offer a better single explanation for the empty tomb plus transformed disciples.
- Easter faith is tied to a specific grave site in history, not a vague spiritual metaphor.
Important concepts
- Empty tomb — The unanimous Gospel report that Jesus’ body was not in the tomb on Easter morning.
- Guard story — Matthew’s account of the chief priests bribing guards — presupposes an empty tomb.
- Wrong-tomb theory — Suggestion that women misidentified the burial site — weak given known burial customs.
Related Bible references
- 1 Corinthians 15:4
- Luke 24:1–3
- John 20:1–8
- Acts 2:29–32
- Mark 16:1–6
Practical Christian application
- Memorise the sequence in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 — died, buried, raised, appeared.
- Ask a skeptic which part of the empty tomb story they reject and what evidence they offer.
- Visit or view photos of garden tombs in Jerusalem to feel the concreteness of Easter.
Questions for study
Reflection questions
- Do you think of resurrection as spiritual only, or as involving an empty grave?
- Why would the early church keep women as first witnesses if they could rewrite the story?
- What would have happened to Christianity in Jerusalem if the body had been displayed?
Small-group discussion
- Compare Craig’s empty tomb arguments with a popular skeptic podcast — what differs?
- How do LDS or other groups’ views of resurrection differ from the empty tomb claim?
- Is the empty tomb necessary for Christian hope, or could faith survive without it?
These notes are an original UECF.NET study companion and are not a reproduction of Lee Strobel's text, which remains in copyright. Read chapter 12 — book pages 283–302 — in The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel (Zondervan, 1998 edition). Scripture quotations above are the King James Version. No quotations from Strobel are included on this page.