The Case for Easter: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Resurrection

by Lee Strobel

Craig’s explanation, however, left yet another question lingering: Why were the women going to anoint the body of Jesus if they already knew that his tomb was securely sealed? “Do their actions really make sense?” I asked. Craig thought for a moment before he answered—this time not in his debater’s voice but in a more tender tone. “Lee, I strongly feel that scholars who have not known the love and devotion that these women felt for Jesus have no right to pronounce cool judgments upon the feasibility of what they wanted to do. “For people who are grieving, who have lost someone they desperately loved and followed, to want to go to the tomb in a forlorn hope of anointing the body—I just don’t think some later critic can treat them like robots and say, ‘They shouldn’t have gone.’” He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe they thought there would be men around who could move the stone. If there were guards, maybe they thought they would. I don’t know. “Certainly the notion of visiting a tomb to pour oils over a body is a historical Jewish practice; the only question is the feasibility of who would move the stone for them. And I don’t think we’re in the right position to pronounce judgment on whether or not they should have simply stayed at home.”

They were determined to honor someone they loved, rock or no rock. End of story.