Misunderstandings surrounding the events at the empty tomb.

 

Misunderstandings surrounding the events at the empty tomb. 

With Easter having recently passed, I would like, at someone's request, to write something about the apparent contradictions brought up by some regarding the resurrection events at the tomb. I'm sure others have also heard of these apparent contradictions, as I have, or perhaps some of you have wondered about these things yourself. I want to assure you that there is in fact no reason to doubt the truth of any of the resurrection versions and that there is a logical explanation for everything that seems to be contradictory. It is my attempt to clear up some of those apparent contradictions through this writing.  

The following are the three questions showing the apparent contradictions mentioned regarding the resurrection events:

 

1. How many women were at Jesus' tomb? 

With a simple reading of the different gospels' versions of the women at Jesus' tomb after his resurrection, some ask about exactly how many women arrived at the tomb that morning. Here is a summary of what the four gospels say: 

•  John 20:1 – Mary Magdalene

•  Matthew 28:1 – Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (referring to James' mother)

•  Mark 16:1 – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome

•  Luke 24:1 & 10 - Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women.

 

Was there one women, two women, three women or more than three? 

John mentions only Mary Magdalene and no other women's name. However, if you read the next verse carefully, you see that John knew that there were others with Mary Magdalene. John 20:2 says "So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’”  Notice that Mary Magdalene says to Peter "and we do not know where they laid Him." She says 'we' don't know... So clearly she wasn't alone, there were others with her. Although John does not mention their names, they were there. 

Luke mentions three names, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James. But Luke tells us that there were other women too. Among these women was also Salome of we Mark speaks. Why do we assume that the gospel writers would give a complete list of all the women's names? None of them specifically say that the women they list were the only ones there. Luke makes it clear that there were more than four there. So there was more than any of the gospels mention by name. 

If I say, 'My sister and I saw someone we know in the store last night' it does not mean that it was just me and my sister who went to the store. It is entirely possible that all five of my sister's children were there with us, or some of them were there. It is possible that they all saw the person, that they all knew the person, or that my sister and I knew the person, but none of the children. But the fact that I don't mention them specifically doesn't mean they weren't there. We know that according to Luke there must have been at least five women there, but there could have been even more, their names just weren't mentioned. 

There is no contradiction here. We know that certain women were there, namely, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome and Joanna. We also know that there was at least one other woman, there could have been even more than that. Their names are not mentioned, but that does not mean they were not there. 

A possible explanation is that the immediate readers of the respective gospel writers were familiar with some of these women but not with others. This could be a possible explanation why the different authors mentioned different names. If we examine these differences with honest intentions, we find that despite the apparent differences, there is no contradiction.

 

2. Did the women find the tomb open or closed when they arrived? 

The gospels of Mark, Luke and John say that the women found the tomb open when they arrived. In Matthew 28, however, it appears as if the tomb was still closed when the women got there. 

I want to start by saying that Matthew 28:1 does not tell us whether the tomb was open or closed when the women got there. The inference that the tomb was still closed is made based on what verse 2 says. Verse 2 says that there was an earthquake because an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled away the stone. How do we explain this difference between Matthew's gospel and the others? 

We usually assume that verses that follow each other in Biblical order also follow in chronological order, but that is not always the case, and is not the case here either. Verses 2-4 happen before verse 1. When Mary Magdalene and the others came to the tomb the events of verses 2-4 had already happened. 

In verse 2 it says 'FOR an angel of the Lord descended from heaven' (ESV).  The word 'for' is a primary past participle in the Greek. This means that verses 2-4 provide the preceding events that explain what the women found at the tomb. In other words, they came to an open tomb, because there had been an earthquake because an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled away the stone from the opening. In order to read Matthew's version chronologically, we must place verses 2-4 before verse 1 and then the contradiction is cleared up. Like all the other gospels, Matthew also tells us that the tomb was open when the women got there. Matthew just explains to us how the grave was opened. 

This perhaps leaves another question: How did Matthew know that the guards 'trembled and became like dead men' or that the angel of the Lord was there or of the earthquake? While we cannot know for sure who told Matthew, these guards would certainly not have kept quiet about this. The guards may have told Matthew about this themselves or they told others from whom Matthew heard it, we do not know. But the fact is, the women, as all the other gospels also say, came to an open grave and Matthew's version also says this. There is no contradiction here.

 

3. Did the women see one man, two men or two angels at the tomb? 

The number of persons the women saw at the tomb, and whether they were men or angels, is another area where there seem to be differences between the various gospels. Let's look again at each gospel's version: 

•  Mark 16:5-6 " And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.’”

•  Matthew 28:5 "But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.’”

•  Luke 24:4 “While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.”

•  John 20:11-13 “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’”

 

Angels appeared to people on numerous occasions in the Bible. Some of these appearances tell us something that is helpful to us to understand our apparent problem in what happened at the open tomb. 

Genesis 18:1-2 “And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth.” Here the text says it was three men, but in Genesis 19:1 it becomes clear that it was not men, but angels.

Genesis 32:22-32 is the story where Jacob wrestled with a man. However, from Hosea 12:4 it becomes clear that it was not a man, but an angel.

Joshua 5:13-15 Joshua calls the 'commander of the army of the Lord' a man, but it is of course an angel.

Judges 13:9-10 here the same person is first called 'angel of God' and then a 'man'.

Daniel 10:16-18 describes an angel who appeared to him as 'one having the appearance of a man'

Hebrews 13:2 teaches us to show hospitality to 'strangers' because some have thus 'entertained angels unawares'.

 

When one looks at these texts it is clear that many people have mistaken angels as people because it appears that angels, contrary to the popular view, appear from the Bible to look just like ordinary men when they appear. This then solves the problem of whether they were men or angels, they were angels but they appeared to look like men. 

This leaves us with the question of whether there were one or two angels. It is interesting that both Matthew and Mark focus on the words spoken by the angel and they refer to only one angel. Luke and John referring to two focus not on what the angel said, but their presence there. The fact that Matthew and Mark do not refer to the another angel does not mean that he was not there, he just did not say anything and that is what they wrote about, the angel's words. 

 

There are no hopeless contradictions in the narrative of the resurrection events in the Bible. There is an explainable answer to what seems to be contradictory. The simplest Bible student should be able to clarify most of these ambiguities and the Lord has not left us without the help of fellow believers with more understanding.  

Believers shouldn’t and do not need to look at Scripture with critical eyes because what is written in it is true. For what appears to be contradictory there is an explainable and realistic answer. The Bible has stood the test of time, it is more than two thousand years old and still stands true. However, if you are unsure or unclear about something, it is important to ask because for anything that appears to be contradictory in Scripture, there is a logical explanation.

 

ds. Leon Harmse

Pastor of Sunward Park Baptist Church