"How do you explain the empty tomb?"

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

See that teaearlgreyhot ?

The other posters are doing a great job showing that if you dont actually want to contest the empty tomb evidence,
just ignore it as never having taken place. Simple.

Lazy....but simple.

The empty tomb isn't evidence. Show me said empty tomb. Prove that it housed the dead body of Jesus. Prove that Jesus was actually dead in it (it's not even clear that Jesus really died in the synoptic gospels).

We don't assert it's made up. It fits too nicely to other greco-roman narratives that involve that also involve empty tombs:

It is important that Joseph is rich and buries Jesus in his own, presumably opulent, tomb. This provides the narrative motivation for tomb robbers to move in and seek the rich funerary tokens they assume have been buried with Joseph, who they assume must be laid out inside. (Who's buried in Grant's tomb?) Instead, they discover someone coming out of a deathlike torpor-and flee! This is exactly what happens in various Hellenistic romance novels of the period, such as Chariton's Chaireas and Callirhoe, with the one exception that the robbers do not want witnesses and so kidnap the newly revived person. Mourners visiting the tomb are stunned to find it empty, in the novels as in the Gospels. Jesus has departed.

Robert M. Price. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? (p. 327). Kindle Edition.

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You can read the story for yourself here: http://books.google.com/books?id=pAxIW-H...mb&f=false