Matthew 28:13

13. Disciples… stole him away It has been strangely doubted, even by Olshausen, whether this narrative of the setting the watch and their bribery by the Jews is truly authentic, because he could not conceive that the Jewish Sanhedrim could be so lost to honour as thus plainly to propose a shameful falsehood. But it is not so clear that they deemed it to be a falsehood. It was a rationalistic solution of the strange phenomenon. Whether the soldiers admitted it or not, the Sanhedrim might claim to believe this as truth, and only bribe the men to assent to this version of the story. While we slept The testimony of sleeping men to the fact of the disciples’ participation in the matter was of course not very valid evidence. They earned their money in fathering so poor and so self-criminating a falsehood.