Matthew_Green

I have never committed my "hypothesis" to writing so I cannot produce a "cut 'n' paste" although I can give a succinct summary of what I thought. I call this hypothesis the "Cold Feet" hypothesis. Beginning with Matthew and Luke, I thought of the woman leaving the tomb with the intention of telling the disciples. Mark records that the women spoke to no one because they were afraid indicating that they had cold feet, a temporary silence so to speak. They had cold feet because they weren't sure wether they really saw angels or they were mistaken and imagined the whole thing. They further wonder if anyone would really believe them. So they are conflicted; do they tell the disciples something they themselves are not really sure happened or would it be far more rational to tell them the body had been stolen? They were pretty sure that they were angels, but, then again, they could've been tomb-robbers. So in John, not sure of what to make of their encounter, they decide to tell the disciples that the body was stolen.

What I regard as the death-knell of this hypothesis is Luke 24:22-23. We read:

If the "Cold Feet" hypothesis is right, then the women would've said the same thing as John's gospel reports. The women would've said "They have taken the Lord's body and we don't know where they have put him!". Thus, Luke 24:22-23 directly contradicts John 20:2.

Matthew

Legion

It's a theory, so it's not so clear cut that I can go verse by verse and tell you "This is from version A, and this is from Version B" but in my opinion, it's pretty clear that there are two different versions woven together here. The clearest example of this is with regard to the number of creatures boarding the ark.

Genesis 6:

And then immediately following in Genesis 7:

hammodius

Matt_the_Freethinker--crazy (and cool), your theory resolves the apparent contradiction between John 20:2 and Mark 16:8 (if I'm understanding you correctly). Mary M. never left the group of women, they all go into the tomb, see the angel and hear the declaration, and then return. Mary M. says her John 20:2 bit, which isn't the whole truth and therefore is consistent with "not telling anyone."

...except, Mark 16:8 says "any thing to any man," which would rule out even as little as Mary M. did say. I guess it doesn't resolve the contradiction after all.

But I'll toy with the notion a bit. Luke 24:22-23 happened later that same day on the road to Emmaus, but by then Mary M. had seen Jesus in person at the tomb and perhaps that gave them their courage back and they did confess everything.

The Cold Feet Hypothesis, then:

1. Mary M. and other women visit tomb
2. it's empty
3. an angel appears and tells them Jesus is risen
4. they are scared and don't tell anyone
5. Mary M. says, "they've taken him," even though she knows more
6. Peter and the other disciple investigate, Jesus is indeed absent
7. Mary M. sees Jesus himself
8. Mary M. tells the others
9. the women, enheartened, break their silence and tell the whole story
10. later, on the road to Emmaus, the two disciples tell about what the women said

Difficulties:

--John 20:1-2 cannot be taken at anything like face value. Instead of an empty tomb and telling Peter so, there has to be an apparition, fear, and a decision to lie. It's so much simpler to read it at face value.

--John 20:2 STILL contradicts Mark 16:8.

--Luke 20:9 (the women tell their story) must happen later in the chronology than it appears; specifically it must happen later than Luke 24:12 (Peter goes to the tomb to investigate) because Mary doesn't see Jesus until AFTER Peter has gone to the tomb (according to John).

Maybe part of this can be useful, though. I will tuck away the fact that the women's silence was motivated by fear; maybe that is significant.

hammodius

Legion, I don't want to get myself too sidetracked from the main theme of this thread. I know, I asked, but it sounds like the Noah issue merits an investigation of its own, and more time than I want to give it now. On first glance, it's not clear to me that the passages are contradictory, so much as the second passage expanding on the first.

Matthew_Green

Actually, what I had in mind was that Mary Magdalene said what she did in John 20:2 because she had second thoughts about what she had seen and rationalized it away in her mind. She kept second-guessing what she had seen and couldn't tell if she had really seen angels or mistook necromancers for angels. But you're right- it doesn't solve the contradiction between John 20:2 and Mark 16:8. It also doesn't solve the fact that in John 20:2 Mary seems to speak for all the women who went with her. John 20:2 uses a plural pronoun: They have taken the Lord and we don't know where they have put him. In Luke 24:8-10;22-23, all the women who went to the tomb saw the exact same thing. The women remembered Jesus' words, reported all they had seen, and Luke's author mentions Mary Magdalene as among the women who remembered and reported "all these things". 22-23 confirms that the women in general, and Mary Magdalene in particular, saw a vision of angels and that there was no ambiguity or uncertainty in what they saw.

I don't see how there is any other way for inerrancists to get around it: Luke 24:8-10; 22-23 directly (and I tend to think hopelessly) contradicts John 20:1-2.

Matthew

gregor

The cobbling together of two separate stories of Noah into the single account of Genesis is discussed in Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible. It points out the number of authors writing separately that created the pentatuch.

The logic and analysis behind the book is quite strong (although details used to be frequently debated in the forum).

Legion

Fair enough. I thought the same thing actually (that it would be best in it's own thread), but I didn't want to ignore your question since you'd asked.

hammodius

Before I add Matthew to the mix, there's one issue worth pointing out concerning the silence of the women (and I've encountered this multiple places in books and online): if the women were permanently silent, as Mark claims, then how do we know their story today? How did Mark know about it to write it? Implication: they must have spoken at some point, or someone else must have witnessed what they witnessed and told it. This point will become relevant later.

Alternatively, God may have revealed the events directly to the gospel writers without need of human reporting. (the doctrine of divine revelation)

Harmonizing Matthew

So far John, Mark, and Luke can co-exist with only one fatal discrepancy (the silence of the women) and two difficulties that may or may not be fatal (Mary Magdalene's absence from Mark's and Luke's accounts that require pronoun/antecedent errors, and Peter's running to the tomb in response to Mary's news versus in response to the news of the group of women).

Here is a tomb visit described by Matthew:

Matthew A

Matthew 28:1-10. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come around dawn. There is a great earthquake, an angel descends from heaven, rolls back the stone, and sits on it (his face like lightning and clothes white as snow). The guards trembled and became like dead men (fainted?). The angel told the women, "Don't be afraid, I know you're looking for Jesus. He's not here; he is risen; come look at the spot where he lay. Now go quickly and tell his disciples he's risen and to meet him in Galilee." They leave the sepulchre quickly in fear and great joy, and run to bring his disciples the news. On their way, they encounter Jesus himself, who says, "All hail." They fall at his feet and worship. Jesus tells them, "Don't fear, go tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee."

There are immediately obvious differences of great significance that make me wonder whether Matthew A is intended to be the same visit as Mark A at all. The most notable of these is the encounter with the risen Jesus on the way back from the tomb. If this happened prior to John B, and therefore prior to Mary M's one-on-one interview with Jesus, then it is mystifying why Mary M. would have failed to recognize him, or why for that matter she would have been crying outside the tomb. So Matthew A must happen after Mark A...which means after John B since the timeline is so tight. And yet Matthew A begins at dawn, so it can hardly be after.... This has the look of a theory-breaker.

Here's the working hypothesis I've used so far. It blends Mark and John fairly satisfactorily and (nearly) accommodates Luke as well:

A group of five women including Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, Joanna, and Salome come together early in the morning with the intent of annointing Jesus' body. Mary M. gets ahead of the others, sees the rolled away stone, and runs off to tell Peter and the other disciple as John A relates. Meanwhile, the other Mary and Salome go inside the tomb, see the angels, hear the declaration, and keep silent about it as Mark says. Then Peter et al. come running as John B describes. They investigate the empty tomb, see the linens (per Mark) and leave. Mary M., lingering weeping outside the tomb glances in and sees two angels, who ask her why she's crying ("because they've moved my Lord"), then Jesus appears and speaks with Mary briefly, as John relates.

I'm really at a loss how to reconcile Matthew's account with this. I'll go straight to examining the difficulties I see and maybe propose a harmonization later, if one occurs to me.

New Difficulties with the addition of Matthew

The women witness the angel's descent and rolling away the stone.--The first answer to this that occurs to me is, so what? I've accepted omissions earlier in this process. Three gospel writers might not have thought it was important to mention the angel's activity. However, Luke 24:2 says the women found the tomb already open and Mark 16:4 implies the same. No, to merge with other gospels, we really cannot place the rolling away of the stone after the women arrive.

There's a whole question of the aorist tense in Greek, which as far as I can make out is a past tense of sorts that is open to various interpretation. All that is over my head but those who care to may read about it here:
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/ordorise.html
Apparently a legitimate case may be made for a "had happened" translation. The NASB, at any rate, has no qualms putting the events in the past. Their version reads roughly: the women came, and there had been an earthquake and an angel had rolled away the stone and the guards had swooned.

That is perfectly consistent with the other three gospels. The only problem is: how did the writer know the event happened? This is the same problem we face with the silence of the women. Were the guards interviewed? Matthew 28:11 begins another story about the guards which it is unlikely the disciples could know. Inerrancy requires us to believe Matthew's sources include one of the guards (or special revelation).

They meet Jesus himself on their way to telling the disciples--I can't work around this. Arg. Okay. Some harmonizations I've read say this must have happened much later, and that there's a better translation to Matthew 28:8-9 than the usual "...they ran to tell the disciples. Suddenly, Jesus met them..." Instead of "suddenly" it might be "and behold" or "lo." I don't know any Greek and can't really argue points of translation on their intrinsic validity. However, I can point out that most translations make it appear to happen sequentially in time, so if there's another viable interpretation, it's a subtle point. I would argue that Matthew 28:11 with its "meanwhile" also supports reading the preceding verses in chronological time.

So, if we allow the women to have met Jesus on their way back from the tomb, how does that conflict with other gospels? Well for one, other gospels don't mention it. I can accept that a gospel writer would have left out one angel or even the angelic appearance entirely, but leave out the appearance of the risen Jesus? Highly unlikely. The risen Jesus is what this is all about, that would be like leaving out the punchline. And yet Mark doesn't mention it, nor Luke, nor John. Mark 16:8 says they fled the sepulchre quickly in fear and didn't say anything to anyone. Luke has them return and tell the disciples and then Jesus makes his first appearance after, to Mary M. John's account is similar. Furthermore, John has Jesus object to Mary's touching him on the basis that he hasn't gone to his Father in heaven yet, yet Matthew 28:10 has the women clasping Jesus' feet. It seems that Matthew 28:9-10 cannot happen when it appears to happen.

I'm finding it hard to keep an open mind that the accounts can be harmonized without contradiction. I went hunting for an abler arguer and found the following harmonization at:
http://members.aol.com/SHinrichs9/rssrdeb.htm

I trimmed the document to save space, indicating omissions with "..."

The main difficulty I'll argue from here is that this harmonization puts Matthew 28:9-10 much later than it appears to read, so much later that Matthew 28:11's attempt to establish a time of occurence no longer makes sense.

I'm going to pause here and regroup. Sorry for my absence from the thread for so long, those of you who've been reading and posting (thanks, by the way!), and sorry for the rambling nature of this one. Maybe you can help me organize my thoughts a bit.

The feedback I'd value most is a defense of inerrancy, which so far has been lacking in the discussion, supplied by me in an attempt to be fair-minded, but without conviction.

ThePhoenix

God's word is innerrant. The bible is God speaking through humans. Humans are fallible. The conclusion is not difficult to reach. Yeah, there are flaws. There are especially flaws in english translations, which lose meaning. There are flaws in the original hebrew, where scribes messed up. There are flaws in the writer's understanding, as they try and comprehend divine insight.

Vinnie

"""God's word is innerrant. """""

You might be correct. Unfortunately, the Bible is not "God's word" so it doesn't matter.

Vinnie