If someone in the first century were going to fabricate a story about a resurrection, there is one thing they would almost certainly not do: make women the primary witnesses. In the ancient world, the legal and social status of female testimony was routinely dismissed. The Jewish historian Josephus stated flatly that the testimony of women was not to be counted credible “due to the levity and temerity of their sex.”1 Roman courts shared similar attitudes. Women and slaves were generally not admitted as valid witnesses in legal proceedings.
And yet, in all four Gospels, it is women — specifically Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James — who are the first to discover the empty tomb and the first to encounter the risen Christ. This is one of the most compelling internal evidences for the historical accuracy of the resurrection accounts. No first-century fiction writer inventing a story about a risen messiah would have chosen women as the lead witnesses. The fact that the Gospels all record this detail, despite its social awkwardness, is powerful testimony to its truth: this is what actually happened.
Consistent and Independent Testimony
All four Gospels independently record that women were among the first witnesses to the empty tomb (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 23:55–24:1; John 20:1, 11). Furthermore, all four Gospels record the same two women: Mary Magdalene appears in all four accounts, making her testimony arguably the best-attested eyewitness report connected with the resurrection narrative. The women are also repeatedly described as witnesses to Christ’s crucifixion and burial (Mark 15:40, 47; Luke 23:55; 24:3), which means their identification of the tomb was reliable and specific. They were not unfamiliar with the location.
It is also worth noting that the list of resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians 15:1–8 — which most scholars regard as an early pre-Pauline creed, possibly formulated within a few years of the crucifixion — conspicuously omits the appearances to women. This has sometimes been taken as an argument against the Gospel accounts, but it is more plausibly explained by the legal context: Paul’s list is an apologetic argument addressed to the Gentile world, and he listed the witnesses most likely to carry evidential weight in that world — Peter, the twelve, the five hundred. The women’s testimony, culturally marginalised, would have weakened rather than strengthened a legal case. That the Gospels include it anyway speaks to their commitment to honest, unvarnished reporting.
A Rebuke to the Culture
There is something profoundly counter-cultural about the resurrection narratives. The first-century world marginalised women as witnesses. The first Christians report that God chose women as the first witnesses. The Bible runs against the grain of its own surrounding culture here, and does so without apology. Matthew, being a Jew, and John, being a Jew, “would not have included women as valid witnesses unless they were convinced that that is what happened.”2 The criterion of embarrassment — the historical principle that a detail unlikely to be invented is more likely to be true — applies with full force here.
Some early Christian commentators drew an even deeper meaning from this detail. The inclusion of women among the resurrection witnesses was seen as symbolising and conveying the witness of the whole church to Christ’s resurrection — a testimony that transcends social categories.
The Reaction of the Disciples
The response of Jesus’ male disciples to the women’s report is itself historically significant. Luke records that when the women reported the empty tomb and the angelic announcement, the apostles “did not believe them, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (Luke 24:11). The Greek word Luke uses is leros, a medical term meaning “delirium” or “idle chatter.” The disciples — far from being credulous men ready to seize on any scrap of hope — were profoundly sceptical. This scepticism only dissolved through personal encounter with the risen Christ himself.
This dynamic — unwilling witnesses reluctantly convinced — is the very opposite of what a conspiracy or a legend would look like. Legends grow in the direction of what people want to believe. The resurrection accounts grow in the direction of what the evidence forced them to believe.
The testimony of the women at the tomb is more than a footnote in the resurrection story. It is a window into the historical reality that underlay it: a reality so undeniable that even culturally inconvenient witnesses could not be omitted from the record. God chose to make himself known first to the socially marginalised, and in doing so, he made his truth all the harder to dismiss.