Matthew 28:13

‘Saying, “Say you, ‘His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.'

The story that the soldiers had to spread around was that ‘His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.' Compare Matthew 27:64 where this was actually what the High Priests had feared. This rumour was to be spread in order to convince the people that He had not risen. And no doubt they themselves believed that it must be so. What other explanation could there be? Paradoxically, for some who heard the rumour it might well have had the opposite effect. Knowing the Chief Priests they might have said to themselves, ‘It is clear that the tomb must be empty otherwise they would not talk like this. Perhaps then He did rise from the dead'. However, it would give a good excuse to those who were determined not to believe.

‘While we were asleep.' This would be in order to avoid questions. Too much might be revealed if they once admitted that they were awake and were then as a result questioned further. Of course the question that should then arise is, ‘If they were asleep how did they know what had happened to the body? And if they woke up and saw it, why did they do nothing about it?' Either way their story does not hold water. It is clearly grasping at straws.

But to be asleep on duty would make them look foolish (which was why they had to be heavily bribed). Why did they not then rather claim that they were overpowered by a large band of armed men? The answer is clearly because they knew that no one would believe it. They knew that the facts could be looked into, and probably would be if they told that story. And none of Jesus' opponents wanted the facts looking into. Their only hope lay in admitting that no one knew anything about what had happened, but that it had happened anyway (a truly solid basis for being a reliable witness! No wonder only the Jews who wanted to believe it did so).

Besides, the story of a tomb robbing by a bunch of amateurs, while the guards lay asleep without being disturbed, is hardly credible. Imagine the ribaldry the guards would have had to face. Consider the scene. A dark tomb, a large rock to be moved requiring two or three men to do it, and a number of guards lying round the tomb. Then a band of intrepid disciples arrive, admittedly by the light of a nearly full moon, and without making a sound, they avoid the guards without disturbing them, move the large stone without making any noise at all, locate the body in the dark tomb with no difficulty, carry it out, again avoiding the soldiers, and then disappear, and meanwhile no one wakes up or spots them in the process. It would hardly have sounded credible to any who heard it. It was not credible.

It should also be noted that in the Roman Empire the molesting of graves was a serious offence. Among other things the well known Nazarene inscription makes this fact abundantly clear. Had it genuinely been believed that the disciples had stolen a body which was government property and had hidden it away, they would undoubtedly have been sought out and probably executed.