Apr
20

Bible Contradictions at the Empty Tomb (Part 1 of 2)

In the interest of doing something seasonal…

Every year around this time, some atheist or agnostic author/professor will make some claim about what the Bible “really” says or that the Bible is unreliable history or the “real” Christianity teaches something different or… some such thing. Bart Ehrman already kicked things off last month by promoting his book Forged, about the supposed “forgeries” in the New Testament. I’m sure some other bright-eyed skeptic will come up with something else in the next few days (if they haven’t already).

One of the common complaints about the Gospel accounts is that there are “contradictions” in those events covered by more than one book. I have already posted about this in regards to the Christmas story. Now, I’d like to do something similar with the Resurrection story — specifically, re the Empty Tomb. Since this is another excerpt from the “My Conversation with Michael the Heathen Gnostic” dialogue I had a few years back, I’ll start it off with Michael’s challenge, which was originally coupled with the one regarding the Nativity scene.

> Jesus’ ressurection at the cave. Different
> people. Different numbers. Important people
> left out some times and other have them
> there.

The unspoken challenge, of course, was, “Try to explain that one, hotshot!” As before, what I did was first read through all the relevant passages in order to gather the various facts, then tried to see how one might go about explaining any seeming contradictions.

“This one is a bit more complicated, since there are indeed 4 separate accounts: Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-11; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-18. Let me see if I can put it all together and then comment on the discrepancies.

Early Sunday morning, at least three women return to the tomb where Jesus had been laid, intending to rewrap His body with additional spices. Matthew (v.1) only names Mary Magdalene (M.M.) and “the other Mary”; Mark (v.1) names the two Marys, referring to the second as “the mother of James”, and Salome; Luke (v.1,10) names the two Marys & Joanna & mentions “other women”; John (v.1) mentions only Mary Magdalene.

Sometime before the women reached the tomb, an angel of the Lord descended and caused an (apparently very localized) earthquake to role the large stone away from the entrance. The guards were so scared that they had fainted. The women entered the tomb and saw that Jesus’ body was missing. Confused, they then noticed two young men (i.e., angels) in shining garments standing by them. The women were afraid, but the lead angel told them ‘Do not be afraid… He is risen… see the place where He lay… go quickly and tell His disciples… He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him…’.”

I wonder whether the guards at the tomb were more “shaken” by the quake or the appearance of the angels! Whatever it was, it must have been quite an experience to frighten Roman soldiers.

“The women left the tomb and ran back to town, not stopping to talk to anyone. When they reached the place where the mourning disciples were staying, they told what they had seen and the message given them. No one believed them. (Women weren’t usually considered reliable witnesses in that culture.) But Simon Peter and another disciple (“whom Jesus loved”) ran to the tomb to see for themselves. They saw that the body was missing and the burial linens lying folded; they believed and returned to the city. (Apparently, the angels weren’t required to appear to them.)

Meanwhile, Mary Magdalene (and possibly other women) had followed them back to the tomb at a slower pace — perhaps tired, perhaps still afraid. It isn’t clear if Simon Peter & the other ignored M.M., or if they took a different route back and didn’t see her. Now she stood weeping outside the tomb, still thinking the corpse had been moved somewhere by someone. (She must have been so distraught, or perhaps a little airheaded, that the angel’s words hadn’t sunk in, yet.) When she stooped to look inside, she saw the two angels again, this time sitting. After a brief exchange with them, she turned around and saw another man standing there.

It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize Him — perhaps due to her tears & state of mind, perhaps his appearance was somehow altered, maybe he was in shadow or wore a hood. Thinking He might be the gardener, she questioned Him about the missing body. When He addressed her by name, she cried “Master!” and began to “cling” to Him (perhaps grabbing His feet, as told in Matthew’s account). But, He gave her a message for the disciples and sent her back to them.

There are other minor differences between the accounts, but the main questions you raised were regarding the dramatis personae. These can be summed up as follows:

1) The Women: Each Gospel writer names a different “set” or individual, M.M. being the only constant.

2) The Guards at the Tomb: Only Matthew mentions their presence.

3) First Angelic Encounter: Matthew & Mark mention only one angel; Luke mentions two angels; John doesn’t describe the encounter at all.

4) Jesus’ appearance to the women: In Matthew, it sounds like Jesus greeted the women on their way back from the tomb the first time. But, John indicates that it was after visiting the tomb the second time (and it was only M.M.).

5) Peter’s trip to the tomb: Luke & John mention it, but only John mentions the unnamed “other disciple” that accompanied him.

6) Second Angelic Encounter: Only John mentions that Mary Magdalene followed the men back to the tomb and had a second angelic encounter.

7) Who first saw Jesus?: Mark mentions that “He appeared first to Mary Magdalene”, but only John gives details on the meeting; was anyone else with M.M. at the time?

So, now we have all parts of the story and all players, as pieced together from the four accounts. Tomorrow, I’ll continue with how I reasoned through the “contradictions” and why the different Gospel writers might have included some details and not others.

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Bible Contradictions at the Empty Tomb (Part 2 of 2) »

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Tags: angels at the empty tomb, Bible contradictions, Bible difficulties, contradictions in the New Testament, Easter, Gospel accounts of the empty tomb, Gospel contradictions, guards at the tomb, is the Bible reliable, resolving Biblical contradictions, resurrection accounts, Resurrection Day, resurrection of Jesus, the Empty Tomb, women at the empty tomb

Posted in Religion
10 Comments Posted by sirrahc

Greywolf says:

July 28, 2013 at 10:14 am

I’ve posted my “take” on the “Empty Tomb” visits by Mary Magdalene–though only the first two parts, thus far.

http://theatheistobserver.wordpress.com/

Seeing that you’ve addressed the same issue, I’d be curious to hear your “take” on my reporting. Mind you, I am sincere here in searching out a Christian apologist’s view. I’m not “trolling.”

In the end, we can respectfully agree to disagree. It is the “truth” that matters most, is it not?

sirrahc says:

July 28, 2013 at 7:50 pm
Indeed it is, Greywolf. Thanks for stopping by and (presumably) reading my posts. I’ll check out your blog, too, though I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to formulate a reply.
sirrahc says:

August 1, 2013 at 10:07 pm
Greywolf, thanks for the invitation. I’ve had some time to review your own posts on the empty tomb and put together a response. Unfortunately, from the mocking tone of those posts, I’m not sure how willing you are to objectively consider my information/suggestions.

It seems that you have fallen for exactly the sort of thing I talk about in my posts. You assume that, for example, because one author leaves out a particular detail and another author includes something else, the accounts are therefore contradictory and at least one of them is in error. Not so. It’s easy to nitpick at stuff like that, but it doesn’t make nearly the case that you think it does. In my posts on the matter here, I’ve touched on several of the things you bring up. (Others more scholarly than me have worked through these issues, so there may be a better harmonization elsewhere.) But, I’ll add a few comments.

A few miscellaneous points re your Part 1:

1) When you state that Mary returned to the tomb for a *third* time, based on John 20, it looks like only the second time to me. Am I forgetting or missing something?

2) “In unison, they ask…” Really? I’m not sure if you think that is really what we’re supposed to think, or if you’re merely being snarky. Now, it is possible that the two angels spoke in unison, but there’s no need to read it that way and I’ve never heard it “taught” that way. (This is *really* irrelevant.) I’m sure there’ve been times when you referred to 2 or more people and said something like “They asked…” or “They went…”, etc., when it was really only one individual from the group who actually committed the act. One represented the group.

3) You seem to imply that it’s silly for Mary not to have seen evidence of recent crucifixion on the “gardener”, if it was indeed Jesus. But, assuming He was clothed, there is no reason to insist that Jesus’ wounds were apparent, especially not at first glance and in Mary’s state of mind.
sirrahc says:

August 1, 2013 at 10:11 pm
In your Part 2, you may have a bit more meat, but still no showstoppers.

1) I’m not sure if the “like dead” guards were conscious but effectively paralyzed or catatonic. Or, they may have been out cold. Regardless, they apparently presented no threat to the women and disciples who approached the tomb. Maybe that’s why only one account mentions the guard, which was necessary to establish the guards’ report back to the chief priests and the resulting “official story”. Yes, it seems odd to my modern sensibilities, too, that every account didn’t refer to the guard at the tomb. (*I* would have, but I’m not a 1st-century CE Jew in Ancient Palestine.) But, it says little re overall reliability of the story.

2) Why didn’t any of Jesus’ disciples anticipate the Resurrection, given the many predictions in the OT and by Jesus himself? Good question. To answer the first part, as I understand it, the Jews at the time (and now, for that matter) were expecting their Messiah to come as a warrior leader, delivering them from political (and other) oppression. Jesus pointed out on various occasions how He fulfilled the prophecies, but it was really hard to get people to break their paradigm and accept instead that He must come first as a “suffering servant”, then return sometime later as conquering king. (That whole bit about non-Jews being “grafted into” the Chosen People would be hard to swallow, too.) True, Jesus clearly told The Twelve that He would be betrayed and must be killed in order to further fulfill prophecy, becoming the sacrificial Lamb — a reference to Mosaic Law. That was hard enough to grasp. But, when you throw in a resurrection that also went against everything they understood about it…. (Note: Among the Jews who still believed in a resurrection of some sort, their understanding was that it would only be a corporate event, not individual, and not until the end of time. Btw, this works against any explanations for the post-resurrection appearances that might involve psychological phenomena.) Even after all the miracles — including at least one resurrection, but not quite the same as Jesus’ — and Jesus telling them what to expect, it was apparently too much to penetrate their thick skulls. (This wasn’t the first instance of The Twelve being a bit “slow”.)

3) Re the # days issue, the first thing to realize is that, other than Matt. 12:40, there is nothing that requires 3 full days (i.e., 72 hours) in the tomb. Then as now, it was common to refer to a period of time that did not necessarily require the *full* period to be complete. So, if one said, “It took him a year to do X”, it might really have only taken 10 months or so. “Three days in the grave” requires a little more precision, but really only requires *part* of the 3rd day to be included to make it accurate — i.e., between 48 and 72 hours. In fact, other passages (e.g., Matt. 16:21; 17:23; 20:19) say that Christ will rise/rose “on the third day”, implying that the final 24-hour period was not complete.

Now, Matt. 12:40 is an anomaly and could present a bit of a “problem”. Due to the more common “on the third day,” some interpreters have suggested that Matthew was trying to increase the parallelism with the Jonah passage by adding the “and three nights”. (Note that the parallel in Luke 11 does not mention the “three days and three nights”.) Others have considered other (canonical and non-canonical) parallel passages and proposed that “The matter of numbering nights with the days is idiomatic Jewish usage. Since the day begins with the night (or evening), it is the night that forms part of the first day, which seems to us to be overcounted.” Recognition of cultural norms and idiomatic language of the time is important for a fair reading and understanding of any text.

Well, those are my thoughts on it. Hope I didn’t ramble too much. You may disagree, but none of this is unreasonable speculation or special pleading or anything like that. I’m just trying to give a fair reading, while considering the time and place, culture and customs, the language, individual vantage-points, etc., and trying not to force my modern sensibilities and preferences onto the text.

Thanks again for the opportunity to throw in my two cents….

August 8, 2013 at 6:46 pm

I apologize for getting back to this so late. I’ve been busy with other matters.

I’ve yet to read your comments in their entirety, but will shortly. But I’d like to first hear if you are aware of the controversial nature of the so-called “Longer Ending of Mark” (i.e, Mark 16:9-20). There are quite a few top-tier scholars who maintain that they are a much later addition to Mark. They cite the fact that the controversial passages are missing entirely from key early manuscripts, as well as for other reasons.

What is your take on the passages in question? Authentic? Or a late addition?

Will get back to you soon.
Greywolf recently posted..“While It Was Still Dark . . . ” Part III

sirrahc says:

August 8, 2013 at 8:23 pm
Authentically late? 😉

Yes, I am certainly aware of the “long ending” to Mark and the controversy around it. Scholars differ on what to make of it. I tend to agree with the reasoning of the ones you mentioned and think that the passage was a later addition rather than originally at the end of Mark. Many (most?) Bibles point this out with side- or end-notes or, as in my NIV, a bar going across the column between verses 8 & 9 and a statement saying something like “[The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.]” This is actually evidence of honest scholarship and the value of textual criticism.

You didn’t ask for my thoughts on the significance of the passage and the implications if it is a later addition. (Notice I didn’t say “not original” or “inauthentic”, because it is possible that it was from a misplaced piece of an original manuscript and belongs at another spot. Not that I’m arguing that way….) But, I suspect you’ll ask that next, so I’ll say something now: It does have some pretty good stuff in it, and it’s too bad if it’s not original. (Of course, it could still be historically reliable even if not truly inspired.) On the other hand, we don’t really lose anything of importance — e.g., no critical doctrines or commands — because everything “taught” there is found in other places. I’m not sure if the specific post-mortem appearances are all mentioned elsewhere, but, for example, speaking in tongues and baptism are both in Acts 2, and 1st-century supernatural protection against unwitting snakebites is in Acts 28. (Note: This is different than those idiot snake-handlers in Appalachia.) On the other other hand, if it actually does belong there, that’s OK, too, because nothing in it is contrary to the rest of Scripture.

August 10, 2013 at 2:42 pm

Well, you certainly gave me a lot to chew on, but to keep my response short of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”; I’ll concentrate on just the following points:

I stand corrected in regards to “three” MM visits in John. I mistakenly had MM returning to Jerusalem with Peter and the Beloved Disciple. Thank you for catching my error.

I’ll also concede that it is possible that Jesus’ crucifixion marks could have been reasonably well hidden.

However, one critical point you are overlooking is that the Johannine chapter 20 account has Mary Magdalene alone at the tomb site initially. There is not even a hint of anyone else accompanying her to the tomb initially―even with the “we” comment in verse two (which I believe is an interpolation that has crept in by someone trying to at least provide some semblance of harmonization with the synoptic gospels; note, however, that it does not fit the context of what has preceded its insertion at all).

Note also that Matthew’s gospel has one angel sitting atop the entrance stone outside the tomb who greets the two Mary’s beforehand, informs the pair of Jesus’ resurrection, and only then are they led inside the empty tomb, whereas John’s gospel has Mary Magdalene bypassing the entrance stone (and that lone angel sitting atop it altogether), only to find two angels inside the tomb! Now c’mon, there’s no real harmonization to be found here.

Honestly, how could “John” overlook a whole gaggle of women accompanying MM? And do you really believe John would fail to report the Roman guard lying incapacitated on the ground on both MM’s initial visit AND when Peter and the Beloved Disciple arrive at the tomb?

This is not merely one gospel author omitting certain aspects of the “empty tomb” account. They clearly contain irreconcilable differences. You have to do backward, somersault flips to harmonize the gospel accounts. Now really!

Note the time of day in John. It is pre-dawn when she visits the tomb for the first time, and then dawn when she returns with “the other Mary” in Matthew’s gospel. So Jesus arose before Sunday proper, making the resurrection occurring on the second day, not the third or fourth. (Remember, Jesus said he would rise AFTER the third day in Matthew 12:40; 27: 63; and Mark 8:31 whereas ON the third day is indicated in Luke 24:36 and I Corinthians 15:4). Idiomatic nothing, we have the gospel authors and the apostle Paul simply standing in contradiction with each other―if we are going to be completely honest with the texts.

We both know the Jews marked the start of a new “day” at sunset. So there is no problem enumerating the number of “days” (AND “nights”) Jesus was supposed to be “buried.” And insofar as Matthew 12:40 goes, you’ll also note that Mark says “NO” sign would be given that generation. No means “None,” in this instance, does it not? (Why would “Mark” not include the gist of what was reported in Matthew 12:40 if he was aware of it?)

And yes, there is a tad too much special pleading going on. Even you admit that the texts may have been deliberately skewed in order to bring them into line with a specific ideology. (Like John did in 19:40 when compared to Mark 15:25, for example.)

But, then, what happened to “God” dictating scripture? On that point, you infer that we moderns have to take into account the stylistic differences the ancient Jews might have had. But where is the “hand of God” in all this, then? Was not the NT written for modern man as well? (I’ll answer that: No, it wasn’t. Where is there any mention of computers, the use of tanks in war, Stealth bombers, man on the moon, or a whole host of “modern” things the so-called “Prophets,” failed to “forsee,” and “God” fail to report? But I digress.

There’s more that could be said, but I’ll just close by saying that you appear to be a good sport to go through this and overall good guy as well. You are also a much better informed Christian than most I’ve encountered. We’ve had a free exchange of ideas but have vastly different views on the matter. You tried to put the best face you could on this mess. And hey, you caught me make a terribly embarrassing mistake. Good for you!
Greywolf recently posted..“While It Was Still Dark . . . ” Part III

sirrahc says:

August 10, 2013 at 5:53 pm
Thanks for the compliments, Greywolf. I also appreciate your acknowledgement of the mistake re MM and concession re the crucifixion marks. Not everyone would do so.

I only have time to briefly address a couple things from the end of your commentary. To clarify, the orthodox view on inspiration of the Scriptures does not involve *dictation*, at least not in a mechanical sort of way. Most conservative scholars, at least, hold to either “dynamic theory” — i.e., the work of the Spirit of God was in directing the writer to the thoughts or concepts he should have, and allowing the writer’s own distinctive personality to come into play in the choice of words and expressions — or “verbal theory” — i.e., the influence of the Holy Spirit extended beyond the direction of thoughts to the selection of words used to convey the message, such that each word is the exact word which God Wants used at that point to express the message — or some combination thereof (as do I). Of course, the whole issue of inspiration and inerrancy (contrary to what some KJV-Onlyists might claim) is limited to the original manuscripts (aka the “autographs”).

Incidentally, issues of inspiration and inerrancy are really internal matters for “the Church” (by which I’m not referring to the RCC, for example, but all orthodox followers of Jesus Christ across time and space, as taught in the NT). Seems to me, all the skeptic needs to know or care about — to begin with, at least — is whether the Bible is historically reliable (despite the possible, occasional, minor scribal emendation) and if it philosophically rings true to reality and the nature of mankind.

In your digression, you list a bunch of modern things God “fail[ed] to report”, as if that omission is somehow evidence that the NT is not for modern man. But, that is guilty of being a non sequitur and probably a couple other logical fallacies. There is nothing about the pattern or purpose of Biblical prophecy that indicates God intended to make such predictions, let alone that he *should* have. (On *your* say-so?!) Not doing so doesn’t invalidate anything. Further, you complain about things like stylistic differences. When we read the U.S. founding documents, we need to take into account the times, the “colonial culture”, the way the language (while still English) differs from our modern version (inc. cultural idioms), etc. We also realize there were different authors with different styles. But, none of that means that there aren’t principles and truths communicated in those documents that still apply and can be beneficial for 21st-century people. (Not a perfect analogy, but nothing is, and I think you get the gist.)

As for the rest of it,… I have a very busy week coming up, and I’ll be out of town on vacation for the week after that. If I have the time & inclination afterward, I may address your other concerns. Meantime, I have also enjoyed our exchange,… so far. 🙂