WHO MOVED THE STONE?

By Ahmed Deedat
part 3:

Q5: DOES IT MAKE SENSE THAT MARY MAGDALENE WANTS TO MASSAGE A ROTTING DEAD BODY AFTER THREE DAYS?
Ans: It makes no sense, unless we confess that she was looking for a L-I·V·E Jesus, not a dead one. You will recognise this fact for yourself on analysing her reactions towards Jesus when she eventually saw through his disguise. You see, she had seen signs of life in that limp body when it was taken down from the cross. She was about the only woman beside Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus who had given the final (?) rites to the body of Jesus. This man NICODEMUS, somehow, has been deliberately blotted out by the synoptists. The Gospel writers of Matthew, Mark and Luke are totally ignorant of this devoted and self-sacrificing disciple of Jesus. His name is NOT even mentioned in the first three Gospels in ANY context. "it is difficult to avoid concluding that the omission in the synoptic tradition of the mysterious disciple was intentional", says Dr Hugh J Schonfield, one of the world's leading Biblical scholars.

When Mary of Magdala reached the tomb, she found that the stone had already been rolled away, and the winding sheets bundled on the ledge within the sepulcher. The question now arises:

Q6: WHY WAS THE STONE REMOVED, AND WHY WERE THE WINDING SHEETS FOUND UNWOUND?
Ans: Because it would be impossible for any tangible material body to come out with the stone blocking the opening, and the same physical body could not walk out with the winding sheets encasing the body. For a resurrected body, it would have been unnecessary to remove the stone or to unwind the winding sheets. Probably having the resurrected, immortalized body, or the spirit of man in mind, a poet said: "STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE, NOR IRON BARS A CAGE".

While the poor, dejected Mary was investigating the sepulcher, Jesus was watching her from the vicinity. Not from heaven, but from terra firma, from mother earth. We must remember that this tomb was a privately owned property belonging to his "secret disciple" Joseph of Arimathea - who was a very rich, influential Jew, and one who could afford to have carved a big roomy chamber, out of a rock which according to Jim Bishop (a Christian scholar of note) was 5 feet wide by 7 feet high by 15 feet deep with a ledge or ledges inside. Around this tomb was this "secret disciple's" own vegetable garden. It is hardly expected of any Jew or Gentile to grow vegetables 5 miles out of town for other peoples' sheep and goats to graze upon! Surely, this husbandman must have provided his labourers with the gardeners' quarters to protect his own interests, and perhaps he also had his 'country home' around the place where he could relax with his family during the weekends.