There are four rational ways for explaining away the Resurrection conundrum. One: the body was not found by the women because the guardian of the cemetery used the first opportunity to move the body of Jesus out of the grave that had been prepared for someone else. Two: in the darkness the women lost their way and went to a wrong tomb. Three: the Apostles stole the corpse as was alleged by the priestly leaders. (But since nobody expected Jesus to rise again, why should anybody fake his resurrection?) Four: Jesus was buried alive and survived. This modern concoction, popularised by The Da Vinci Code, is unsupported by ancient evidence, though we know that recovery from crucifixion was possible. In this class of literature, Jesus usually marries Mary Magdalene and settles away from Judea, in the South of France or in Rome.One can add a fifth and more radical position, held, for example by the NT scholar John Dominic Crossan, that the accounts of the burial of Jesus and the subsequent empty tomb are legendary accretions with no historical basis at all.
Vermes concludes, however, on a more positive note.
