Scholarship On The Empty Tomb

"Habermas claims that at least two out of three scholars (and maybe more) writing on the empty tomb since 1975 grant its historicity with a view toward the resurrection of Jesus. In other words, they either hold or are open to the resurrection of Jesus as the best explanation for why the tomb was empty. Habermas's moderate-to-strong majority does not include those who grant the historicity of the empty tomb while explaining it naturally. From my research, for this category I am thinking of scholars such as Allison, Bostock, Carnley, Ehrman, Fisher, Grant and Vermes, all of whom grant the historicity of the empty tomb while doubting that its emptiness resulted from Jesus' bodily resurrection....Waterman's (2006) published dissertation on the empty tomb tradition in Mark comments: 'Not a few, but rather a majority, of contemporary scholars believe that there is some historical kernel in the empty tomb tradition' (192-193)." (Michael Licona, The Resurrection Of Jesus [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2010], pp. 461-462, n. 606 on p. 461)