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Why didn’t the disciples believe the women who found the empty tomb?
All four accounts put women at the tomb first, and Luke records that the men dismissed the report as nonsense. That is an awkward detail to invent — but the argument built on it is weaker than apologists usually admit, and the earliest surviving summary of the resurrection leaves the women out entirely.
Is any of it actually true · Reviewed
Also asked as Why did the disciples not believe the women at the tomb? · Who saw Jesus first after the resurrection? · Women at the empty tomb — why does it matter?
The question
In Luke’s account, the women come back from the tomb with the most important news in the history of the movement, and the eleven men who had spent three years with Jesus do not believe a word of it. Why is that in there? And what, if anything, does it tell us about whether any of this happened?
02 The objection — as its best advocate would put it
The argument you are about to meet is one of apologetics’ favourite moves, and it is weaker than it is usually made to sound. Here is why.
First, the historical premise is overstated. You will hear that women’s testimony was legally inadmissible in first-century Judaism, full stop. The evidence is patchier than that. There is a line in Josephus, and there is later rabbinic material written down long after the event, and there is a general picture of a society in which a woman’s word carried less weight in a dispute. That is not the same as a statute, and the confident version of the claim goes beyond what the sources support.
Second, even granting the social discount, “embarrassing therefore historical” proves far too much. Legends contain awkward details all the time. Awkwardness is not a truth-detector. And there is a perfectly ordinary explanation for women being at the tomb: preparing bodies for burial was women’s work. Putting women at a tomb at dawn is the natural way to tell that story whether or not it happened.
Third, and this is the one that should worry anyone who uses the argument: the earliest surviving written summary of the resurrection does not mention the women at all. 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 is a list of appearances that Paul says he received and passed on, and it runs Cephas, the twelve, five hundred at once, James, all the apostles, and finally Paul himself. No women. If the women’s testimony is the bedrock, why does the oldest text drop it?
That last point is the strongest objection on this page, and any answer that skips it is not worth reading.
The answer
Start with what the four accounts say, because they do not say the same thing and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
Matthew 28:1 has “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary”. Mark 16:1 has Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Luke 24:10 names Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and mentions other women with them besides. John 20:1 has Mary Magdalene alone — and then, one verse later, she says “we don’t know where they have laid him”, a plural that seems to have survived from a version of the story with more people in it. Four accounts, four different lists, one constant: the first people at the tomb are women.
That constant matters more than the variation. Names drift in retelling. The category does not.
Now Luke 24:11, which is the detail this page is named for: “These words seemed to them to be nonsense, and they didn’t believe them.” The Greek word Luke uses, lēros, occurs only here in the New Testament, and lexicons gloss it as idle talk or nonsense. The eleven men who will shortly be the movement’s founding leadership are recorded, by one of the movement’s own writers, as having dismissed the first report of the resurrection as rubbish.
Here is the honest version of why that is interesting. It is not because it proves anything. It is because of what an author is doing when they include it. Luke is writing to persuade. Every detail he keeps is a detail he judged he could not or should not lose. A story that had been smoothed for maximum persuasive effect would have the leaders believe immediately, or at least not record them scoffing.
Mark’s ending is stranger still. In the earliest manuscripts we have — including the two great fourth-century codices, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus — Mark’s Gospel ends at 16:8: “They went out, and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had come on them. They said nothing to anyone; for they were afraid.” That is where the oldest copies stop. A resurrection account ending in silence and fear is not a marketing document.
Now the objections, in order.
On the social discount: the fair statement is the modest one. Josephus, writing in the first century, says in Antiquities 4.8.15, in William Whiston’s standard English translation: “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.” That is a contemporary Jewish source and it is real. It is also one author, describing what he takes the law to be, and it should not be inflated into a universal courtroom rule. Women plainly did speak, testify and act in the world these texts describe. What the sources support is that a woman’s word was worth less in a dispute, which is enough for the argument and all the argument needs.
On “embarrassment proves too much”: granted, entirely. The criterion is probabilistic and it is often abused. At its best it says only this: a detail that costs the author something is unlikely to have been invented by that author. It does not tell you the detail is true. It tells you the author is more likely reporting than composing at that point. That is a modest conclusion, and it is the only one available.
On the burial-preparation explanation: also granted, and it is a good point. It explains why women are at the tomb. It does not explain Luke 24:11. Nothing about women preparing bodies requires an author to record that the male leadership called their report nonsense. That sentence is doing no narrative work. It costs and returns nothing.
On 1 Corinthians 15: this is the real difficulty and it deserves better than a dodge. Paul’s list is not a narrative of the morning; it is a list of appearances of the risen Jesus, and it reads like a formal roll of recognised witnesses — the kind of list you would produce if someone asked who could vouch for this. The women in the Gospel accounts find an empty tomb; in Matthew and John they also meet Jesus, but the tradition Paul cites is structured around the recognised leadership. That is a plausible explanation of the omission. It is not a demonstration, and I am not going to pretend it is.
But notice which way the evidence runs. 1 Corinthians is generally dated to the mid-50s, and the Gospels later — that is close to a scholarly consensus across the whole spectrum of belief. So the earlier text leaves the women out, and the later texts put them in. If these stories were being polished over time to be more persuasive to a first-century audience, that is precisely backwards. Legendary development tidies awkward details away. It does not add them a generation later.
That is the strongest thing that can be said here, and it is worth being clear about how far it gets you. It is a reason to think the Gospel writers were working from something they were not free to rearrange. It is evidence. It is not proof, and it does not need to be, and anyone who tells you a detail about who arrived first at a tomb settles the resurrection question is selling something.
The scripture in full
World English Bible · Public domain
Luke 24:1–12
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they and some others came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They entered in, and didn’t find the Lord Jesus’ body. While they were greatly perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling clothing. Becoming terrified, they bowed their faces down to the earth. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He isn’t here, but is risen. Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again?” They remembered his words, returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them told these things to the apostles. These words seemed to them to be nonsense, and they didn’t believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he departed to his home, wondering what had happened.
Matthew 28:1–8
Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. Behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from the sky, and came and rolled away the stone from the door, and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him, the guards shook, and became like dead men. The angel answered the women, “Don’t be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who has been crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, just like he said. Come, see the place where the Lord was lying. Go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead, and behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there you will see him.’ Behold, I have told you.” They departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring his disciples word.
Mark 16:1–8
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” for it was very big. Looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back. Entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were amazed. He said to them, “Don’t be amazed. You seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, the place where they laid him! But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He goes before you into Galilee. There you will see him, as he said to you.’” They went out, and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had come on them. They said nothing to anyone; for they were afraid.
John 20:1–2
Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went early, while it was still dark, to the tomb, and saw the stone taken away from the tomb. Therefore she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have laid him!”
1 Corinthians 15:3–8
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.
Where Christians disagree
How to fit the four accounts together
The number of women differs, the number of figures at the tomb differs (Luke has two men, Mark one young man, Matthew one angel), and the sequence of the morning is hard to reconstruct. Some Christians hold that a single coherent sequence can be reconstructed and have proposed several. Others hold that the accounts are four independent testimonies to one event, differing in the way independent testimonies do, and that forcing them into one timeline damages them. Both positions are held by people who take the texts entirely seriously.
The ending of Mark
The verses printed in most Bibles as Mark 16:9–20 are absent from the oldest surviving manuscripts. Christians differ on whether the original ending is lost, whether Mark deliberately ended at verse 8, and what authority the longer ending carries. This is a genuine and unresolved question, and translations usually flag it in a footnote.
How much weight historical argument should carry at all
Some Christians think the historical case for the resurrection is strong and central. Others think faith does not rest on historical reconstruction and is not strengthened by it. That disagreement runs across denominations rather than between them.
What the text does not tell us
- i.No account describes the resurrection itself. Every one of them starts after it. What the texts report is a stone, an absence, and a series of encounters.
- ii.We are not told how many women there were. The lists overlap but do not match, and Luke’s reference to other women besides the three he names leaves it open.
- iii.We are not told what the disciples did between the report and Peter’s run to the tomb, or why Peter went if he did not believe it.
- iv.Luke does not say how long the disbelief lasted or what ended it.
- v.Nothing in these texts tells you what to conclude. They report; the inference is yours.
In one paragraph
All four Gospel accounts put women at the tomb first, and Luke records what happened when they reported it: “These words seemed to them to be nonsense, and they didn’t believe them.” In a society where a woman’s word carried less weight in a dispute — Josephus says so in the first century — that is an odd detail to invent, and Mark’s oldest manuscripts end with the women fleeing in silence and fear, which is odder still. The argument has real limits: awkward details are not a truth-detector, women prepared bodies for burial so their presence needs no special explanation, and Paul’s early list of resurrection witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15 leaves the women out entirely. But that last fact cuts both ways, because it means the earlier text omits the women and the later texts include them, which is the reverse of how legends usually develop. It is evidence that the Gospel writers were reporting something they did not feel free to tidy. It is not proof, and it was never going to be.
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thefairquestion.com/questions/why-did-the-disciples-not-believe-the-women/ · Reviewed 2026-07-30 · Scripture: World English Bible, public domain