Merle

Dan Barker has a challenge for someone to arrange the gospels stories of the resurrection into chronological order. I don't know if this has been done before, but I set up a spreadsheet comparing the four accounts in four columns. I tried to juggle the texts so that they would fit together. I did not realize how difficult the task was until I tried it. The best I could do is shown at http://www.geocities.com/questioningpage/Jesus3.html It shows how completely incompatible the accounts are. Any comments?

malookiemaloo

Good subject to raise.

I believe that one of the best books which reconciles the differences is the Easter Enigma by John Wehnam-but it is out of print!!

I think it should be borne in mind that the gospel writers were not historians and also the priority is to get over the resurrection as opposed to a strict chronology of events viz the lead up to the crucifixion.


m

Roland

I don't care how the situation is "resolved."

Mary Magdalene could not have both talked to the angel in the tomb (as Matthew shows) and not talked to him (as John shows).

One of the accounts must be either a dishonest or an inaccurate portrayal of what happened. "Harmonizing" them (the diplomatic word for fudging the events to somehow make them fit together) does a complete disservice to both the individual works and their writers.

malookiemaloo

Unless I missed something, John 20: 13 records an angel speaking to Mary.


m

lpetrich

But the Bible is supposed to be the greatest history book ever written, right?

Metacrock

Meta => who says? the Bible never says that about itself.


I have harmonized them in the past. they are harmonizable. But I'm not sure how valuable it is to do that. Because we should be able to accept glosses on the text where the communities had trouble following the story.

why would they have trouble? My thoery, and it is only my little theory is that the various witnesses, MM, the other women who went with her, and so on, all wound up in different communities. Each community (that produed the Gospels) had it's own set of witnesses who each told that community her own version of what happened. So they didn't have the full story, no one community had all the accounts at the same time. That meant the redactors had to figure out the gaps.

but none of that means that they didn't find an empty tomb or see Jesus risen. that will depend upon your assuption about the supernatural. Since most atheists discount the story based upon methaphysical assumptions (ie don't accept suernatural) you should not try to pretend that the problem is with the Biblical text per se, but own up to the core assumption that miracles are impossible.


my harmonizing depends upn two assumptions:

1) that the earthquake in Matt is a "flashback" so to speak, telling what happened before the women got there, not what they were looking at in chronological order of the their visit.

2) that MM left the tomb before the others. That's why she alone goes in to John, Notice she says we don't know wher they laid him. Who is "we" if not the other women who were with her.

then I have a confussing little senerio of what left the tomb after MM and who got to it first after Peter and John left to go. But that's all unimportant. I think the more important point to realize is what they agree upon.


I don't believe the resurrection can be proven by the text or by historical methods, and I don't think I have to argue for that. But it is at least possible it's not discounted just because of the text. However, [color=red]that will depend upon one's metaphysical assumptions.[/color

Goliath

Metacrock,

And which subset of atheists would you be talking about? Can you name even one atheist for which your quote above holds? Personally, I have never claimed that miracles are impossible, and I doubt I ever will make such a claim (NOTE: I do not claim that miracles are possible, either).

Sincerely,

Goliath

mike_decock

Let's say the year is 2003 and a group of Hindus in India make a claim that one of their spiritual leaders was tortured and left for dead by a militant, oppressive government in 1960. In their claim, they say that they buried him and three days later, when they wen to venerate the tomb, it was empty. Later, many people came forward and said they saw the "resurrected" leader. In fact, the resurrection story spreads and the religious group gets a bigger following and many of the followers are persecuted for their beliefs because they are seen as a nuisance by the oppressive government.

Forty years later, four guys take the time to collect the stories from different groups of followers and write them down. There are a few discrepancies between the stories, but overall, they match well enough.

Would you assume that the resurrection really happened?

-Mike...

BadBadBad

Give me a break! It's a ridiculous story with suicidal demon possessed pigs, walking corpses, cursed fig trees, and the resurrected son of God. Not just the NT, but in context, you have to include all the non-sense of the OT as well. It has everything to do with the biblical text. I'm not just dis-inclined to believe it.

You are the one with the core assumptions. You are clearly dodging the obvious absurdities that we find in the Gospel stories along with the damage that they inflict on the authors and their credibility to present anything supernatural as fact.

Roland

Yes, but it certainly isn't the same angel as the one in Matthew's account since, in John's version, Mary finda an empty tomb, thinks the body has been stolen and runs to tell the disciples that fact. She meets the angel only upon her return, whereas Matthew portrays the angel as giving her all the requisite information to tell the disciples what has happened.