Gospels and the Resurrection

The New Testament has four gospels and because each of them tell parts of the story of the life of Jesus, it is easy to imagine that they were created in the same way and according to some same set of rules. It is then somewhat confusing to find that they often either disagree in details regarding the resurrection. This is not the case and the best thing we can do is look at the four men who wrote the gospels, their purpose in writing and who were their audiences.


Matthew is writing to the Jewish church. This can be determined by his interest in Old Testament passages that would have little meaning to a gentile audience, that the temple in Jerusalem is still standing when it was written and his use of "kingdom of heaven" where the other gospels use "kingdom of God," observant Jews to this day writing God "G-d" when writing in English, honoring the sacredness of the name.


Mark, it is said, collected his stories of Jesus when he was travelling with Peter. His ordering of the stories differs from Matthew in some places. It is believed by many scholars that his was the first gospel that circulated. in any case, it seems to me that it may have been put together quickly to meet a demand before the others were sent abroad. While Matthew was present with Jesus for most of His ministry, Mark was much younger and was dependent on the stories he had heard. You would expect that his gospel would be much shorter than Matthew's and it is.


Luke is the only gentile who writes one of the gospels and his style is that of contemporary standards of Greek historical reportage which is detail oriented. Not surprising since he was Greek. He writes to one Theophilus (literally, lover of God) whom some take to be a certain Greek believer and others believe is addressed to any lover of God ( there were no capital letters in the Greek of that time). I favor the latter, but, I am in the minority.


John writes his gospel considerably after the first three were in circulation. He seems to have two things in mind that give his gospel its different feel from the others. Firstly, he seems to want to fill in the blanks - add material that has been omitted from the other three, particularly with regard to Jesus' teaching. Secondly, he wants to give a testimony, the kind that is given in court. He will tell us only what he could legally give as testimony in a court of law. He puts it this way at the beginning of his letter, I John, which many believe may have been written around the same time: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - this we proclaim concerning the Word of Life."(NIV) He will not lie, he will not give us hearsay, he will not speculate.


One of the problems that many people have with the resurrection story is that each of the gospels lists a different number of women that came to the tomb: Matthew - 2, Mark - 3, Luke - at least 5, John - only one. The question is whether or not these discrepancies can be reasonably explained. Let's reconstruct the story:


We are told that when Jesus was taken prisoner, the disciples all scattered, save John, who was there to the very end. When the Roman soldier pierced Jesus' right lung and heart, as far as any could see it was all over. John took Jesus' mother away with him and the other women, apparently distraught, went away, leaving the Roman soldiers to take down the body, which would have been left there for the dogs and the scavenging birds - vultures, lammergeiers, perhaps crows if they have them in the Holy Land.


It is at this point that two men who were secret believers in Jesus show up and request the body from Pilate, who gave it to them. They then take it to a tomb that Joseph of Arimathea had carved out of the rock for himself, no doubt, at considerable expense. They then did something that was remarkable for its day - they wrapped the body in linen with seventy-five pounds of spices. This was normally women's work, because a man who touched a dead body was ceremonially unclean for the next day and could not enter temple or synagogue.


I suppose that having already handled the dead body, they imagined that they could do the rest, but it would have been unheard of. That is why the women, after they had climbed out of their deep grief, must have believed that the job had not been done and that they had neglected their obligation of love toward Jesus.


The women now needed to carry around seventy-five pounds of spices and the linens to wrap the body in. In addition, they realized that they would need to have someone move the stone away.


This was no small task. Depending on how large the entrance was, it may have weighed as much as 400-450 kilograms (900-1000 lbs). Further, before it was rolled into position, it was probably on an incline and held in place by a stone. Once the stone was removed, it rolled into place. Now, to move the stone, it would be necessary to roll it back up the incline and be wedged again with a stone. This is something the women could not have done.


Nor could they have reasonably expected that the apostles would come to their aid, in that they might well be sought for execution just as Jesus had been. It was a dilemma they hoped would be solved when they got there, that they might find the men required to help them there.


Considering the weight of the spices and the linen, it is not unreasonable to imagine that there must have been five or six women involved, unless the weight had to be carried only the shortest of distances. so, Luke's description seems to fit. Why then the differences in the accounts.


The first thing we notice is that all the accounts indicate that Mary Magdalene was there. I suspect that that was common knowledge. We also know that the women went out t0 inform the disciples what they had seen. We know that Mary Magdalene went to inform Peter and John. Matthew mentions her and "the other Mary." This was probably the mother of Mark whose name was Mary also. It is possible that she was the one who came to inform Matthew and Matthew, like John, refused to go beyond his personal encounter. The resurrection was such a critical part of the witness of the early church that the apostles were careful only to speak to what they had actually witnessed. John, of course, took that position and tells only of Mary Magdalene because she as the only one who had come to Him.


Mark is a little more difficult to explain. He mentions Mary Magdalene, Mary, his mother and Salome. Why mention Salome? there is no way to know with certainty, but my best guess is that Salome was either a relative or a close friend to his mother and, perhaps, he saw them leave together that morning.


If you have problem with the plausibility of this, it is probably because you are someone living in the 21st century and are wanting people who lived in another time to think in the same way that you do. This could hardly be possible. you have to see people as they were, not as you would have them. Their behavior may be consistent with their way of handling truth, a way that would be readily understandable to people in their own time. You are the intruder and must accommodate, not the other way around.