Who Moved the Stone? Paperback – August 27, 1987

This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.The author makes a penetrating analysis of the Gospel texts and delivers a compassionate and deeply considered backstory for what really happened just before and after the crucifixion. He goes into people’s minds and attempts to reconstruct what they were thinking and doing. He asks real questions and does a thorough job of finding answers.For example, why did it take so long between the time Judas left the last supper and when the soldiers arrived to arrest Jesus? The author comes up with the idea that the High Priest Caiaphas must have consulted Pilate in the middle of the night to make sure the trial and execution would go as planned the next day. It’s brilliant.So, who moved the stone (the golel covering the cave tomb)? The author meticulously considers every possible actor in that drama: Jesus would not have been able to move it, if he had survived, which the author finds very unlikely. The women who found the tomb didn’t move it because they were too frail and weak and instead, reported it moved. The Jewish authorities blamed the disciples, but the author believes the disciples were too honest and too upset to have come up with the idea. Maybe it was Joseph of Arimathea, who received permission to properly bury the body, and who might conceivably have put the body in his own tomb temporarily with every intention of moving it later to another tomb, but he would not have had time to perform that work before the women arrived. Others blamed the Jewish authorities, but later, when these same authorities wanted to suppress the Jesus movement, they could have produced the body to prove their point and didn’t. (However, if the priests did have the body moved during the sabbath, they could hardly have admitted doing so in public.) The author doesn’t tell us who moved the stone. I suppose the obvious conclusion is that God moved the stone, but the author doesn’t mention that idea.This book is often offered as “proof” of the truth of the Gospels. I’m surprised by that, because it seems like it could go either way. In any case, the book presents a thorough, meticulous, unusually compassionate, highly intelligent, imaginative narrative of what might have happened based on the stories available in the Gospels. It’s outstanding.I read the Kindle edition, which appears to have been imperfectly scanned from printed text and algorithmically rendered into electronic text. There were numerous typographical errors. For example, many times, the word “mailer” appeared where “matter” would have been more appropriate. Often, “just” has been rendered into “lust.” I tried to flag as many of these as I could and report them. Kindle says that a customer service representative would look at my suggestions and they may be forwarded to the publisher. However, I suspect the “customer service representative” is a chatbot and the publisher is either out of business or long dead.

In this age of skepticism, this book is more needed than ever. It has been a blessing to my own life, and has been an important part of the spiritual journey of others -- including Lee Strobel, who wrote a foreword to the edition that I just purchased. (I have a decades-old copy whose binding came unglued -- hence this purchase, and a resulting invitation from Amazon to write this review.)The author examines the events of the few days prior to and following Christ's crucifixion -- including what the Jewish authorities must have been thinking at the time, what Jesus friends and disciples were doing, and seven alternate explanations that skeptics have offered as to what happened to Jesus' body on that first Easter morning. Some sound plausible at first, but -- one by one -- we see that each theory has its own problems. Initially an unbeliever and intending to write an entirely different book, the author came to believe that Christ did indeed rise from the grave as he studied the New Testament accounts of this period. "Who Moved the Stone?" is a fitting title to the book he finally did write.In it we see clearly what was the "crime" for which Jesus was executed: it was for saying that He was the son of God. If He were not the son of God, it would indeed have been blasphemy -- a crime punishable by death under the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 24:15).We are given insight into what the Jewish authorities must have been thinking before Jesus' arrest. They may have wondered whether Jesus was "arrestable", since they had tried it before unsuccessfully. They intended to try again after the feast days, but acted suddenly instead when given inside information by Judas that Jesus was expecting to be arrested and crucified, and that He would not be offering resistance. Only then did the authorities act. What they heard from witnesses during Jesus' various "trials" was insufficient for a conviction, but they did hear one consistent theme -- something about "in three days". That got their attention, and we know that they set a guard at the tomb for fear that someone would steal the body and claim that there was a resurrection. Of course, they did afterward claim that Jesus' disciples stole the body. Morrison says "Whatever the explanation of these extraordinary events may be, we may be certain it was not that". Morrison then deals with each of six other theories.I was asked to substitute-teach in an adult Sunday School class recently, and chose to review the resurrection of Christ. I used this book as the outline for the lesson. I think it would make a good subject for high school kids to study before they go off to college and listen to professors attack their faith. In this age, we all need to review the strong foundation on which our faith is built, and none is more important that Christ's resurrection. This book provides a good outline for such a study, and I highly recommend it.(While we're at it, we could also study the 40+ prophecies about Christ's crucifixion and resurrection that are specifically pointed out to us by the gospel writers. Jesus said to the yet-to-believe disciples on the Emmaus road: "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" Other writers have examined the question of how likely is it that these prophecies could have been fulfilled by accident. The answer is that the odds against it are astronomical. God had to have been the One to give those prophecies hundreds of years in advance, and to bring about their fulfillment in Jesus' birth, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. When Jesus said "It is finished", I believe He was including --along with the sacrifice of Himself for our salvation -- a long list of fulfilled promises.)"Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!"

I enjoyed reading this book and learned some greater connections to scriptures. I did not come away with a clear understanding of who or what moved the stone. Maybe that’s the point. We do not and cannot truly know how the stone was moved. It doesn’t diminish my faith in God or my belief in the resurrection.

An older though very well written classic on the subject of the resurrection of Jesus Chris, presented from the perspective of a lawyer. A classic.This book followed Simon Greenleaf's work as one of the founders of Harvard, then later Lee Strobel, after reading this book, created a simplified version The Case for Christ, he a Yale graduate.A must read for those considerng the claims of Jesus and his resurrection set against a legal framework. Great read.

De una tumba vacia y un relato brevisimo de tres mujeres, el autor construye una argumentacion riquisima y bella que es inigualable.

The book itself is fine, and a challenging read. The OCR software used to scan it, however, proves to not be up to the task. It's pretty obvious what happened when you read "Cod" where there should be "God", but there are several places where you really have to think about what the author really wrote.

But he does convince as to how the Holy Spirit became the Disciples basis of belief that Jesus was the Son of God. He set out prove that Jesus was a man, maybe a prophet. Logic and investigation led him to believe in who Jesus really was. This is difficult read because it is written like a textbook. But it is well worth the effort.