Female witnesses lend credibility to the Resurrection.

[robnixxo]

The fact that all four Gospels, written in an extremely patriarchal environment point to women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, can be viewed as quite radical. This makes the Resurrection story true. Any rebuttals?

[ThatGirlAgain]

The fact that all four Gospels, written in an extremely patriarchal environment point to women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, can be viewed as quite radical. This makes the Resurrection story true. Any rebuttals?

There were no named witnesses to the resurrection itself. The women were witnesses of an empty tomb and a stranger who told them that Jesus rose from the dead. The women went to the empty tomb to perform the mandatory burial rites that could not be done on Friday because the Sabbath was approaching. Except in John of course where the burial rites do get performed before the burial but the women visit the tomb anyway for unstated reasons. The various post resurrection stories then contradict each other on numerous details including the major one of whether they all went to Galilee or all stayed near Jerusalem. And all the post-resurrection witnesses were already believers.

In the Synoptic Gospels at least there is a good reason why women should be the first ones to see the empty tomb. But the only detail that appears to be common to all the Gospels is that the tomb was empty and some stranger said Jesus rose from the dead.

If having women be the witnesses was part of some divine plan (not sure if you are saying this), would not having witnesses to the resurrection itself and having non-believer witnesses of a risen Jesus make a better plan? After all this is the payoff. The Gospels have Jesus doing all kinds of public miracles to establish his authority. But the Big One that makes it all make sense goes unwitnessed in a way that invites disbelief?

[JoeyKnothead]

Female witnesses lend credibility to one's claim of endowment, but not a whole lot else. Their gender has nothing to do with the veracity of their claims.

I doubt very seriously that anybody who was around at the time and said they saw Jesus get toted off by the buzzards would have their testimony "recorded" for the Bible.

(clarificational edit, cause I think I was about to get the hens mad)

[connermt]

The fact that all four Gospels, written in an extremely patriarchal environment point to women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, can be viewed as quite radical. This makes the Resurrection story true. Any rebuttals?

It's an interesting concept, but considering who these women were, I don't think it too "enlightening".
Besides, as other said, they were only witness to part of the resurrection story.
If my mother saw a cat walking down the street, does that mean that her dead cat was resurrected? Not likely.

[Haven]

I don't think they lend credibility to the resurrection itself, although they may be evidence of some element of truth in the Jesus crucifixion-burial story. I'm agnostic as to what happened after Jesus was crucified, but I think an actual resurrection ranks far down the list of possibilities. There are simply too many variables, and concluding that the laws of physics were violated isn't justified by the evidence we have.

[Grumpy Old Man]

The fact that all four Gospels, written in an extremely patriarchal environment point to women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, can be viewed as quite radical. This makes the Resurrection story true. Any rebuttals?

I'd be more inclined to believe the Gospel accounts if they could actually agree on which women (and how many) were there at the empty tomb, what these women did after they left the tomb and who they spoke to, and how many angels were at the tomb. The Gospels all present different accounts of what actually happened, who was there, what was said, and who the women spoke to after the left they tomb. It really is a mess.

I'm aware of the fact that many Christians claim the Gospels are witness accounts and sometimes witnesses get the facts mixed up, but these Gospels are supposed to be divinely inspired, literally "God breathed", accounts of the events of Jesus' life. The Gospels look like purely human endeavours to me.

[I Wear White Socks]

The fact that all four Gospels, written in an extremely patriarchal environment point to women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, can be viewed as quite radical. This makes the Resurrection story true. Any rebuttals?

Men speaking for women in a patriarchal environment sounds pretty much like the expected status quo. What would have been really radical would be an extremely patriarchal culture allowing women to write their own stories. As it stands, the only truth that can be ascertained here is that some men wrote a story about some women who told them a story about a stranger who told them a story about an empty tomb. If this were a modern murder trial instead of an ancient resurrection trial, there would be no conviction. That begs the question; Is Christianity really a belief system or a suspension of disbelief system?

[Flail]

The fact that all four Gospels, written in an extremely patriarchal environment point to women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, can be viewed as quite radical. This makes the Resurrection story true. Any rebuttals?

I don't think that's the way the story goes at all. I agree that it was written many long decades after the fact as at the very least a second hand account by an anonymous author, but (correct me if I am wrong), there were no known witnesses to the resurrection at all. Some women were told by some anonymous guy that Jesus rose from the dead and, being believers already, and to no one's surprise, they believed it.

Jesus was apparently so ineffectual as an inspirational leader that not a single one of his most adamant followers stuck around to check out his prediction that he would arise from being dead. The focus of the story teller of this myth was obviously on the mythical nature of the tale rather than on it's logical consistency.

[orthodox skeptic]

I have no doubt that this one resurrection story that you will have a great deal of difficulty with. For this I will be very specific as to the source. Bishop John Shelby Spong, an internationally recognized theologian, scholar and lecturer; a retired Bishop of the Episcopal Church, author of over twenty scholarly reference texts, in his "Liberating the Gospels, (1996 page 298), offers this view on the Resurrection: "These burial stories are so fanciful as to be dismissable on those grounds." For reasons of space I paraphrase; Jesus was tried and convicted as a felon under Roman law; crucified between two other felons. In first century Judea felons would not have been afforded anything more than burial in a common, unmarked, unidentifiable burial pit. In view of the fact that all of his supporters had fled and were in hiding, there would have been no one to, as we are told, have claimed his corpse for purposes of a being laid in an elaborate tomb. I resume with Spong's quote; "The realization of this fate suffered by the body of Jesus, was so painfully hurtful to early Christians that their emotions drove them to create the comforting stories of proper burial in a proper tomb within a beautiful garden owned by a wealthy Jew named Joseph." To conclude, all subsequent resurrection stories, including those involving the women are, as is so much of the N/T, of extremely dubious validity!!

The fact that all four Gospels, written in an extremely patriarchal environment point to women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, can be viewed as quite radical. This makes the Resurrection story true. Any rebuttals?

[The Nice Centurion]

The fact that all four Gospels, written in an extremely patriarchal environment point to women as the primary witnesses of the resurrection, can be viewed as quite radical. This makes the Resurrection story true. Any rebuttals?

Men speaking for women in a patriarchal environment sounds pretty much like the expected status quo. What would have been really radical would be an extremely patriarchal culture allowing women to write their own stories. As it stands, the only truth that can be ascertained here is that some men wrote a story about some women who told them a story about a stranger who told them a story about an empty tomb. If this were a modern murder trial instead of an ancient resurrection trial, there would be no conviction. That begs the question; Is Christianity really a belief system or a suspension of disbelief system?

It is not impossible that some ancient scripture, even gospel scripture was authored by women. Why not?

But we wouldnt know heck about it!

Why not?

Because as of until a little way back from our time women needed to assume male pseudonyms to be allowed to publish and get a chance to sell.

Half a century back from now, then famous author Taylor Caldwell had first to hide that she was female.

Also around that time the same goes for german female author Gerhart Ellert.

If a girl had written the Gospel of Mark or Matthew or Pauls Letters or Revelation we would never know.