The Tomb Is Empty

The Buddha's body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments or stupas, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. The Temple of the Sacred Tooth or Dalada Maligawa in Sri Lanka is the place where the right tooth relic of Buddha is kept at present.

Muhammad is buried in the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi ("Mosque of the Prophet") in the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia. Non-Muslims generally consider Muhammad to be the founder of Islam, however, Muslims see him as the final prophet of the pre-existing primordial religion of humankind that he "restored." (Essential Islam by Diane Morgan, p. 101.)

The tomb of Jesus is empty. Many of the world's ancient religions believe in a bodily resurrection, but there is only one that has the proof to back up the belief. The early church also had relics and shrines of The Holy Rood (cross), The Holy Grail (cup), and the bones of the apostles. Some claim to have been "venerated" or verified, as those of Peter and Paul.  Whether they are true artifacts or gimmicks used by the Catholic church to swindle benefactors into providing for their upkeep, I surely cannot know, but what I do know is that none of those relics contained any part of the body of Jesus, cremated or buried.

The writings of the Roman Empire totally negate the premise that all claims of Jesus' existence were not "hear-say" and all of the writings from the first century are first-person, eye-witness accounts. That's like saying Homer didn't write the Iliad or the Odyssey. Yet we know that Homer did write it because OTHER people copied it, though there is NO manuscript in Homer's own hand that exists today.  Furthermore, there is MORE evidence in the first century accounts of Jesus than that of Homer writing the Iliad.  We know and accept that the Iliad was written in the Classical Period of Antiquity and that MOST scholars date it to about the 8th to 7th CENTURY B.C. yet the most fully extant manuscript of the Iliad is dated at the 10th CENTURY AD and was COPIED by Venetus A.

Even first century historians cite non-Biblical sources in their writings that still confirm the historicity of Jesus, the Apostles, and the persecution of first century Christians. Josephus and Tacitus were Roman historians of the first century. Tacitus refers to Christ, Pilate, and a mass execution of Christians by Nero after a 6 day fire that burned much of Rome.. He writes, "Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired." 

Later days,

Starr