RESPONSE: Mr. Parsons is simply factually mistaken:
Dov Zlotnick, The tractate "Mourning" (Semahot) (Regulations relating to death, burial, and mourning). Translated from the Hebrew, with introd. and notes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), p. 82 (XII, 10). "A man may shroud and gird the corpse of a man, but not that of a woman. A woman may shroud and gird the corpse of a man or of a woman. A man may attend another man suffering from intestinal illness, but not a woman. A woman may attend a man or a woman suffering from intestinal illness."
Licona and Habermas further respond that Parson’s claim doesn’t square with the Gospels’ testimony that Joseph of Arimathea and/or Nicodemus prepared the body for burial with a substantial amount of spices before the women’s visit (Matt. 27:57-61; Mk. 15:42-47; Lk. 23:50-56; Jn. 19:38-40). Moreover, an invented story of the resurrection could have recorded the appearance to the men while waiting at the tomb for the women to show up or after the women did their part in dressing the corpse. The women need only have played a secondary role.