Contradictions in the resurrection narrative

[hergratefulchild]

Thank you for posting this topic and questions. I really want to have a go at explaining these truly amazing narratives from the Apostles. If you would like?, I can spend some time reading them and offer you a review.

 

[Gorgias]

I think last year when a similar topic came up I reference an old joke:

The ironic thing is that your “old joke” is really a retelling of a story in the Old Testament – the story of “Susanna and the Elders” in the Book of Daniel!

There’s an important distinction between your story of the professor and the story of the Resurrection: the students claimed to be there at the broken-down car, but the Resurrection narratives don’t make the claim that the evangelists were at the tomb on Easter Sunday.

So, whereas one speaks to the veracity of the recollection of a purported eyewitness to the event of a blown-out tire, the other speaks to the recollection of one who heard the stories of the women who were present to the event of the discovery of the empty tomb!

 

[Hereiam]

The difference is Christological rather than contradictory.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

happy cake day!

 

[Mintaka]

When I left my house today, it was “still dark” – ie, there were stars out, etc. But within a minute or two, it was already starting to be light. Dawn was clearly coming, although it did not arrive for about ten minutes. By the time I got where I was going, it was “just after dawn,” although the sun was hidden behind trees and hills, and it was not terribly bright.

Now, if I was telling the story of a big event this morning, how dark and light was it? Do I eat a lot of Vitamin A foods, or am I blind as a bat in dusk conditions? Do I remember more the pre-dawn quiet, or the racket of the dawn chorus (actually absent this morning, because a storm is coming and the birds were a bit reluctant to stir from cover), or the light coming between hills and dazzling my eyes, or what? And that is in a period of about 10-20 minutes.

And the city of old Jerusalem was actually smaller than my plat, so the women would probably have gotten to the tomb faster than I did.

Memory and the recounting of memory tells you a lot about the witness, as well as about the event.

In this case we are also dealing with a Jewish culture accustomed to believe that slightly varied impressions were normal in the vicinity of an appearance made by God, and that those variations should be valued as prophetic experiences with revelatory implications. So if Woman 1 remembers dawn, that is about “newness”, while Woman 2’s memory of darkness implies things like “endings” or “the people who walked in darkness.” That is complementary revelation, not contradiction. So of course the Evangelists wanted to record it all.

 

[Agathon]

1- What time was it? Before sunrise or after sunrise?
2-Were there two angels or only one?
3-Did they meet him/them before or after entering the tomb?
4-Did they find them in the tomb sitting or suddenly appeared standing?
5-Did Mary Magdalene Jesus or not?
6-If she met him, is it before or after she notified the disciples?
7-Did she touch Jesus or not?
8-Did Mary see the stone being moved as implied by Matthew or not as implied by the other gospels?
9-Who was there in the first place? Mary alone or with a group of others?

1-Already answered.
2-There were two angels that were seen. The one in Matthew and Mark did all the talking.
3-There might be some ambiguity but Matthew never says where the women meet Jesus; John focuses on Mary Magdalene. I’m inclined to believe John because it was he who Mary Magdalene went to along with Peter.
4-“Standing” is probably a Hebraism for sitting. They could’ve been sitting and when the women came, they could’ve stood.
7-She touched Him. A better translation in my opinion would be “Stop clinging to Me.”
6-I think there might’ve been two visits. One to tell the disciples that the body was missing from what the angels told her, and another to tell them that Jesus appeared to her.
5-Absence of evidence from one author isn’t evidence of absence.
8-She might’ve seen the stone rolled away, but that doesn’t mean she was sure of what she saw.
9-Mary wasn’t alone. “We don’t know where they’ve put Him.”

 

[StashLazarus]

These accounts don’t contradict each other. There were different witnesses, and when dealing with more than one witness, you will get some differences in the details. That’s normal. If you have multiple witnesses and they are all saying exactly the same thing with the same details then you should be suspicious. It means they probably coordinated their stories.

The accounts in the gospels are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Genesis315]

Here’s the chapter on this from St. Augustine’s work on the harmony of the Gospels:

Chapter 24. Of the Absence of All Discrepancies in the Narratives Constructed by the Four Evangelists on the Subject of the Events Which Took Place About the Time of the Lord’s Resurrection.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1602324.htm

 

[Thom18]

You’re asking a lot of questions, so I’ll only address two (for now).

Whenever there is an “apparent contradiction” in the Bible, instead consider whether it’s actually a complementation.

The most obvious problem I noticed (well, what you believe to be a problem) is that the synoptic gospels and John’s seem to be at odds, not about the time of day, as you suggest, but how bright it was outside. They all mention that it was early in the morning.

All four of the gospels are in agreement that this event took place early in the morning. It’s very possible that it was after sunrise but remained dark. Clouds could cover the sun 2000 years ago and make the land dark just as they can today. I feel like I’m going to wake up tomorrow to a dark day because it’s about to rain (and possibly will all night), but the appearance of the sky has little bearing on whether the sun has risen or not.

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As for the question about the angels it’s likely that there were in fact two, but Matthew and Mark only cared to mention one of them because only they spoke.