In attempting to unravel the tangled skein of passions, prejudices, and political intrigues with which the last days of Jesus are interwoven, it has always seemed to me a sound principle to go straight to the heart of the mystery by studying closely the nature of the charge brought against Him. One example of the methodology at work here is the examination of all conceivable alternative explanations for the women's discovery that the tomb was open:

Less helpful is the cultural absorption of critical theories about the Bible's veracity. Markan priority means supernatural events in later gospels are discounted and the angel at the tomb becomes Mark himself. This is based on the incorrect assumption that meeting angels does not generate fear. Further Bible study would have cured this error. Letter to G. K. Chesterton, dated February 19, 1930, Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 5 1930–31, 107. Why is it that three of the Gospel accounts have all Apostles departing from the Last Supper to the Garden when Judas departs independently (and thence arrives with the arrest squad)?

Several readers have complained that this book does not answer the question of its title. And yet it does put forth an interesting hypothesis. Matthew 27:64-65 states that on Saturday the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to set a guard at the tomb to prevent anyone from taking the body, and that Pilate (being thoroughly disgusted with the whole affair) told them to post their own guards. Presumably they did. If so, while the Temple Guards were there, perhaps before dawn Sunday morning, something unexpected happened. Perhaps it was they who moved the stone, upon hearing a sound within. Their story is not recorded in Scripture, but they could have made an abrupt and perhaps noisy departure. In Mark's version of the story, when the women arrived shortly thereafter, they found a young man, who told them, "He goeth before you into Galilee." Morison reminds us that Jesus had used the same words Thursday night when leading the eleven disciples to Gethsemane, and says there was also an unnamed young man present (Mark 14:51-52). "If St. Mark withheld his name it must have been for very good and sufficient reason," but maybe this person had been attracted by the guards' departure.

These temple guards saw Christ and hence why the story was made up about the disciples robbing the body I remember this aspect of the question coming home to me one morning with new and unexpected force. I tried to picture to myself what would happen if some two thousand years hence a great controversy should arise about one who was the center of a criminal trial, say in 1922. By that time most of the essential documents would have passed into oblivion. An old faded cutting of The Times or Telegraph, or perhaps some tattered fragment of a legal book describing the case, might have survived to reach the collection of an antiquary. From these and other fragments the necessary conclusions would have to be drawn. Is it not certain that people living in that far-off day, and desiring to get at the real truth about the man concerned, would go first to the crucial question of the charge on which arraigned? They would say: "What was all the trouble about? What did his accusers say and bring against him?" If, as in the present instance, several charges appear to have been preferred, they would ask what was the real case against the prisoner.Strongly influenced by late 19th century skeptics, Frank Morison decided to discover Jesus' true nature by looking critically at the facts surrounding his death and resurrection. He wound up being convinced of Jesus' divinity but it is a fascinating read even if you had no doubt of that fact. I have never read anything quite like this book which still holds up even though it is over 70 years old. Morison evaluates things that I never thought to question such as why Judas chose that particular night to turn Jesus over to the Pharisees, whether the Pharisees and Pontius Pilate worked hand in hand in Jesus' case, and where the apostles hid out (and why) during the trial and subsequent events. In some ways this reads like a "true life" murder mystery as the author reconstructs events and traces people's actions. I did enjoy this book and some of the insights provided by it, especially with regard to the charges brought against Jesus in His trials. The evidence for the empty tomb IS overwhelming, and any explanations besides a literal resurrection are historically very difficult to sustain. He uses the trail as evidence itself as well. An interesting point on Jesus saying he would raise this temple in three days Usually, when one is trying to reconstruct a scene, after an interval of centuries, and, as in this case, with records which are admittedly brief, one has to rely upon the cumulative effect of small details to discover the key facts of the situation."Frank Morison, J. H. Jowett, M.A. of Birmingham: A Critical Appreciation (Birmingham: Allday, 1908). Re-released as J. H. Jowett M.A., D.D.: A Character Study (London: James Clarke, 1911). a b c d "Mr. A. H. Ross (Obituaries)". The Times. London, England. 23 September 1950. pg. 8; col. F; Issue 51804 . Retrieved 1 June 2011. On Sayer's career at S. H. Benson see Alzine Stone Dale, Maker and Craftsman: The Story of Dorothy L. Sayers (Lincoln, New England: iUniverse, 2003) ISBN 978-0595266036 and Barbara Reynolds, Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993). ISBN 0312153538 Had someone gotten there ahead of them and removed the body? Conceivably, that could have been done by the disciples, or by the Jewish or Roman authorities, or even by the tomb's owner, Joseph of Arimathea (who might have intended it only as a temporary holding place). Morison carefully assembles what is known and can be inferred about the disciples' whereabouts and state of mind, about Pilate's expressed attitude toward all this, and the window of time in which such a deed could have occurred, and then asks, even if it did, whether it could have remained a secret in view of what followed. After the arrest of Jesus, some of the disciples fled fearing they would be arrested while Peter and John apparently slipped into town behind the guards and their prisoner. Jesus was interrogated by the Sandrehen Council in the middle of the night and was treated unfairly by the questioners, the chief among them being Caiaphas. Morison concluded that Jesus was convicted by the Council by virtue of his own words.