Passion week: Easter Sunday
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12 Apr 2009- Jesus raises from the dead and is seen by multiple people
Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
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1 Response to Passion week: Easter Sunday
Tim Blaisdell
April 13th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Since you bring up the topic of the resurrection of Jesus — and particularly the biblical account of it, I have a question for you.
Since your dad is Mr. Bible himself, maybe you or he can point me toward a resource which will help me.
Some years ago, I heard of a skeptic who had actually put up a monetary reward (something small I think it was — maybe $1000.00) to the first person who could craft a single narrative which included every detail of all four Gospel accounts of the events immediately following the resurrection.
At the time — and a few times since — I tried to do so, and was not able to reconcile several details.
It’s not the easy stuff I’m stuck on. For example, it’s no problem to me that one account says “young man” and another “angel”, and in one account there are two angels, and in another only one is mentioned. These are the natural sort of details that one would expect to find any time several people are recounting the same event. Especially if that event is somewhat complex, with many people involved.
A little more difficult is the “early morning” vs. “before dawn” dilemma. One has to conclude there were multiple trips by the same people to the tomb — particularly by Mary Magdalene, otherwise you’ve got people doing some pretty bizarre things, like coming back from a meeting with the risen Jesus himself, and telling people that the body was stolen.
But even considering multiple excursions to the tomb (but why were Mary Magdalene and the other two women bringing spices for the body on that second trip?), there are more problems with what happens after that.
Quite frankly, as a result of this effort on my part, I’ve had to personally dispense with the venerable old doctrine known as “inerrancy”. Not because I don’t want it to be true — but after further investigation I feel there’s just no good reason to hold on to it.
Have you given this matter any thought, or do you know of a good resource that deals with this (I’m looking for more than a overly-simplistic “harmony of the Gospels”. I’ve seen plenty of them, and they usually go no further that to explain the one-angel vs. two-angel sort of issue.)