ABSTRACT
The creative source of Christianity was the faith in the risen and glorified Jesus. To leave no doubt that the resurrection was an assured fact, primitive Christianity said that the tomb of Jesus was found empty and that his disciples were shown that it was so. The purpose of studying the stories of the resurrection must be to extract the factual elements on which the faith depended, to outline the character of this faith, and to describe the psychological process which created it. Whatever theological value primitive Christianity attributed to the empty tomb, it is certain that the faith in the resurrection emerged from the appearances. At the very least the form in which the belief in the resurrection was expressed would have had to be adapted to the established facts. There is, however, in Matthew’s gospel a story with a thread which might have been expected to end with a description of the resurrection.
