The Nazareth Inscription

An inscription found at Nazareth, probably dating from the time of the Emperor Claudius, is cited as evidence that the Emperor was aware of the dispute between those who said that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead and those who said that his disciples had stolen the body.

Ordinance of Caesar
It is my pleasure that graves and tombs remain undisturbed in perpetuity for those who have made them for the cult of their ancestors, or children, or members of their house. If, however, any man lay information that another has either demolished them, or has in any other way extracted the buried, or has maliciously transferred them to other places in order to wrong them, or has displaced the sealing or other stones, against such a one I order that a trial be instituted, as in respect of the gods, so in regard to the cult of mortals. For it shall be much more obligatory to honour the buried. Let it be absolutely forbidden for anyone to disturb them. In the case of contravention I desire that the offender be sentenced to capital punishment on charge of violation of sepulture.1

The Emperor Claudius, around the year 49-50, expelled the Jews from Rome (Acts 18:2) because (says Suetonius) they were formenting disorder at the instigation of one Chrestos. It seems plausible that there were disputes in Rome between Jews who believed that the body of Jesus was missing from the tomb because he had risen, and Jews who believed that it had been stolen.

When these disputes caused public disorder, Claudius (or his deputy) made inquiries, expelled both sides from the city (after the manner of a parent who, when two children are fighting over a toy, takes it away from both of them for the time being), and then ordered a stern decree against grave-robbing to be promulgated at the places where the disturbance had begun. Presumably these would include at least (1) Jerusalem, where the alleged corpse-snatching had taken place, and (2) Nazareth, the home town of the alleged corpse. This is, of course, partly conjecture, but plausible conjecture. It may be that the emperor issued an empire-wide decree for reasons totally unconnected with Christianity, and that the fact that the only surviving copy of the decree turned up in Nazareth is sheer co-incidence.

But, other things being equal, a hypothesis that does not involve co-incidence is to be preferred. No serious Bible scholar today doubts that the inscription is a genuine decree of an early emperor -- possibly Tiberius but probably Claudius.2

References:
1. David and Patricia Alexander, "Handbook to the Bible" (Eerdman's), 1973, Lion Publishing Company, Berkhamsted, Herts., England and Eerdman's Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA p 53;
2. James Kiefer, Rutgers University, http://geneva.rutgers.edu/src/faq/x-outof-nt.txt