Story of Christianity
The Passion and the empty tomb.
Betrayal, execution, burial — and the stone rolled away. The narrative engine of the whole faith.
Where it is toldAll four gospels, at length — the longest scene in each
Who appearsJesus, Pilate, Peter, the women at the tomb
What it teachesThe center of the faith: death entered and exited; the empty tomb as the first word
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held
The Passion narratives are the most detailed part of the Gospels and the earliest material to circulate, and they include material a movement inventing its own history would not choose: the leaders flee, Peter denies, the burial is done by outsiders, and in Mark the first witnesses to the empty tomb are women whose testimony had no legal standing. The four accounts differ on details in ways that have occupied scholars for centuries and agree on the shape: executed under Pilate, buried, and then something happened that turned a scattered group around.
The same ground, other faiths
claims that share this one's ideas
The dead will rise.
Judaism · core tenet
Go deeper →
The grave is not empty waiting.
Islam · core tenet
Go deeper →
The end is renovation.
Zoroastrianism · core tenet
Go deeper →
The twenty-one on the beach.
The Coptic Orthodox Church
Read it in full →
Our Lady of Deliverance, 31 October 2010.
The Syriac Catholic Church
Read it in full →
The Second Coming already happened, and the church has been living in it since.
The Shakers (United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing) · core tenet
Go deeper →
Sign in to open the first thread. Everything here is attributed.