"The confusion the different accounts in the Gospels does not appear to have been contrived. The conflict of testimony is more a mark of sincerity of those from whom the testimony was derived than a mark against their veracity. We may judge the witnesses to be confused on points of details (as witnesses often are when they try to recall particular details), but hardly deceptive. And to describe them as untrustworthy on the basis of such differences would be ungenerous. On the contrary, the more unanimous testimony at all points of detail, the more we would be forced to conclude that they had all derived their testimony from a single source. In which case we would no longer have four testimonies but one testimony. But in the Gospels we must speak of at least two or three different accounts, whose measure of agreement and disagreement is sufficient to give weight to their united testimony."
"Worth noting in particular is the surprising character of what is probably the earliest of the four Gospels - Mark. If indeed the original text did end at verse 8 of chapter 16, as it is quite probable, it would mean the evangelist with the witnesses of the empty tomb too afraid to say anything. Certainly there is a nice dramatic sense here - the evangelist deliberately leaving unresolved the disharmony caused by the final note of fear. But even so, it has what J. B. Phillips calls 'the ring of truth' - not least in the implication that the sign of the empty tomb is somewhat ambiguous: it was not immediately understood as evidence for resurrection."
"Moreover the fact that the earliest Gospel (Mark) ends without any record of a 'resurrection appearance', has to be matched with the fact that the earliest account of 'resurrection appearances' (I Cor. 15) has no reference to the tomb being empty. This degree of independence and lack of correlation between the two earliest records speaks favorably for the value of each. There is nothing to indicate that one was contrived to bolster the other."
"In short then, Christians should feel no embarrassment regarding the Gospels' report that Jesus' tomb was found empty. Some scholars question the report, but scholarship as a whole has done more to substantiate it than to disprove it. Whatever we make of it, here, we may say with confidence, is a piece of good historical information."
- Prof. James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus, p.65-69
James D. G. "Jimmy" Dunn is a British New Testament scholar who was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham, now Emeritus Lightfoot Professor. He is a minister in the Church of Scotland and a Methodist lay leader.
So, what does /christian/ think? The evidence for the resurrection is pretty astound that even skeptical scholars generally admit an empty tomb.