Bible Difficulties -- 4 Different Accounts of Empty Tomb Appearances

The Difficulty

A piece of evidence for Jesus's tomb being empty on Easter Sunday often cited is how all the accounts differ from each other drastically, when one goes past the the primary details. Leading Christian apologist William Lane Craig explained to Lee Strobel that satisfies the historical-critical determination of an actual event. The thing is, though, Christians usually go past just believing in the Resurrection and believe that the Bible is the word of God, and therefore inerrant. God cannot contradict Himself, so therefore the Bible cannot contradict itself. I realize that, once one goes beyond considering the historical evidence of Christianity, they will probably have realized that the four Gospel accounts significantly differ. And, skeptics can use that as an argument.

Prominent Christian apologist J.P. Moreland said, "It is difficult to harmonize the empty tomb and appearance narratives in the Gospels, though such a harmonization can be done." (1) He cites two sources as evidence.

William Lane Craig briefly tackled this issue. He kept it short because his focus was to establish the Resurrection, not inerrancy. Lee Strobel brought the questions to him by citing Dr. Micheal Martin of Boston University(2):

"In Matthew, when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrived toward dawn at the tomb there is a rock in front of it, there is a violent earthquake, and an angel descends and rolls back the stone. In Mark, the women arrive at the tomb at sunrise and the stone had been rolled back. In Luke, when the women arrive at early dawn they find the stone had already been rolled back.

"In Matthew, an angel is sitting on the rock outside the tomb and in Mark a youth is inside the tomb. In Luke, two men are inside.

"In Matthew, the women present at the tomb are Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. In Mark, the women present at the tomb are two Mary’s and Salome. In Luke, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and the other women are present at the tomb.

"In Matthew, the two Marys rush from the tomb in great fear and joy, run to tell the disciples, and meet Jesus on the way. In Mark, they run out of the tomb in fear and say nothing to anyone. In Luke, the women report the story to the disciples who do not believe them and there is no suggestion that they meet Jesus.

"In sum, the accounts of what happened at the tomb are either inconsistent or can only be made consistent with the aid of implausible interpretations." (1)

The Answer

Here I have a pdf "Harmonization of the Synoptic Gospels Empty Tomb Accounts."

The Synoptic Gospels are the first three: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are separated from John because of reasons such as how Matthew and Luke both cite Mark but John has very little to do with him, and the lack of John's explicit high Christology (view of Jesus as Yahweh).

The first thing anyone who is open-minded to Biblical inerrancy should notice is where no real apparent contradictions exist. Specifically in this case, the records of women at the tomb just add more people, not denying the presence of anyone else. It is also this way with the number of beings waiting at the tomb.

Then, they must also consider details such as how a "youth" or "young man" is still a man, and how angels could disguise themselves as angels, as they clearly were (where would two other actual men come from to tell the women about Jesus? What men? What was their relationship with Jesus? Ever since I can remember when I heard that story starting as a child it was painstakingly clear to me that the men were angels).

Referring to the "dawn" or more specifically "early dawn" is subjective. They went to the tomb when the sun had just started to rise. So it had risen, just probably not all the way. William Lane Craig explained to Lee Strobel on page 235 that "One writer might describe it as being still dark, the other might be saying it was getting light, but that's sort of like the optimist and the pessimist arguing over whether the glass was half empty or half full. It was around dawn, and they were describing the same thing with different words."

Finally, there is no problem with saying "when the women left they didn't say anything to anyone" and "they told the disciples." What were the disciples doing? Hiding behind closed doors, being safe because they were scared as well. It's like when someone has a secret and then goes directly to the other person who needs to know about it. They "didn't tell anyone about it" on the way there. I mean, clearly, they are going to tell someone at some point, and as Mark puts it, they probably would tell the disciples. Why would Mark need to have been so technical?

(That is another technique to defending Bible passages. Everyone must keep in mind that the Bible is the word of God, as recorded by man. People often aren't going to be technical. Consider the example of "sunrise." The sun really doesn't rise -- it stays in the same place in space -- that is just a common way for describing when it makes another appearance to us at the start of a day. Moreso, if angels are appearing as men, they just might be titled as men.)

John's record is very different from the Synoptics, in that he leaves out the gaggle of women entirely. In his account (20:1-18), Mary Magdalene is the only woman, and she goes to the tomb twice. The first time she just sees that the stone has been moved. The second time, she speaks to the two angels in the tomb, sees Jesus, and tells the disciples about Him.

So, clearly, when the angel from Matthew appeared to role away the stone, it would have to have been done earlier then when all the women were showing up. Now, two contradictions seems to float to the surface, the other being that the same angel was sitting on the stone when he spoke to the Jesus's female followers. Either Matthew wasn't writing in full detail, or the stone got moved back twice. But this is severely implausible (it makes me think of the theory to refute the Resurrection that says His body was moved from the tomb for whatever reason). It would take a lot of strength to put it back in its place, and the guards surely would have been intimidated anyway by however it got moved the first place. That claim lacks any good reason to believe in.

So how do you prove that Matthew was not trying to create an account explaining all the specific details?

While J.P. Moreland's resources might have something better to say, I have my own theory. One of the pieces of evidence that the New Testament writers didn't make up the empty tomb is their lack of embellishment and theological reflection. In Norman Geisler's and Frank Turek's argument on this point, they point out Matthew as the only one significantly dramatic(3). He has an earthquake, and describes the appearance of an angel in more splendorous detail. You see, Matthew was a Jew writing to the Jews about the coming of their Messiah. So perhaps his focus here was just on showing the splendor and importance of His Resurrection. If that is the case, it makes sense that Matthew would put how the tomb was opened after he mentioned people were coming to it. He had to separate the time gap from when the tomb was sealed, and it wouldn't be necessary for his purpose to put the women later.

But I am not suggesting that he was departing from historical fact. I have learned from former award winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and former cold-case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace that true, non-fabricated eyewitness accounts will supply different information from each other, sometimes filling in each other's details, but usually supporting the same core story, which creates the bigger picture. Thus, it makes sense that he would begin his empty tomb account the way the others do. Then, they fill in his details and show the exact way things happened.

(This ties in to another skill for defending biblical inerrancy: we have to remember that when speaking about the book of Matthew being the word of God, it can sometimes cease to stand alone. God has given us the full Bible so that we can know more stuff than just a small side of an important story that is misleading about exact details.)

Finally, there are so many other potential subjects where these evangelists could have contradicted each other, but they didn't. That makes it more likely that Matthew (not his Gospel at first, his knowledge, where the Gospel came from) agreed on the same things his counterparts did, so he plausibly isn't going to disagree with them on specifics about how the tomb became unsealed and where the angel was.

Which brings us to the next problem. The angel, obviously, would have to have been the same one who rolled the stone away and sat on it. He needn't have been alone, but could have when moving the seal. The angel could very well have moved the stone, allowed the guards to faint or run away or whatever (sitting on the stone to give them more time), then left because God told him not to reveal himself to the men, and returned with his buddy right after Peter and John went away, where they both sat down to wait for everyone (Mary Magdalene sees them both before in the tomb, where all they reportedly do is nothing important and just ask why she is crying). Matthew's account is lacking in detail, leaving such a possibility open for plausibility. For instance, he also doesn't say that they entered the tomb, but he says that they left it. This could mean that they just left the vicinity, but comparing this account to the others, it is evident that they would have left the inside of the tomb.

Lastly, Mary Magdalene probably saw the rest of the women on their way to Jesus's burial place, where she decided to get caught up with them before going to the Disciples, for some reason like wanting to see if she would see Jesus again or being afraid and wanting to be with others.

This leaves just one final issue of the empty tomb narratives. In John, the reason Mary was at the tomb twice was because the first time she ran back and told Peter and John, who then went back with her. But Luke says that Peter ran to the tomb after all the women came back:

Luke 24:11-12 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he ran away, wondering to himself what had happened.

Famous late Christian apologist Norman Geisler has explained that Peter ran to the tomb twice(4). There are noticeable differences. In John, where Peter first goes to the tomb, he is accompanied by John. There is no indication in Luke that John was there also, during Peter's second visit. When John was there, he "saw and believed," but Peter is only described as having been "marveling" in Luke. Finally, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 specifically says that Jesus appeared to "Cephas [Peter], and then to the twelve." So it is probable that Peter saw Jesus during that second visit.

Conclusion
By understanding and using the skills of realizing where there is no apparent contradictions, that different people can use different words for the same thing, that the authors aren't required to be technically correct, and taking into account the type of writing one is looking at, the variants of the empty tomb narratives can be reasonably reconciled together. There are no contradictions. The Bible didn't get anything wrong.

I now refuse to finish this post with that because of one final question I can think of. Why are people going to the tomb multiple times? I believe the answer is clear. Their Messiah was crucified -- a death proving that He was under God's curse -- and they are terribly sad. But now, He might be back from the dead? BACK FROM THE DEAD! No one ever rises from the dead! But... Jesus has? People are in shock, fear, and awe, of course. That is as it should be. They are witnessing the monumental single most important and personal event in history.

Citations:
1. J.P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI. 1987), 169. "See Harris, Raised Immortal, pp. 69-71. For a fuller treatment, see the detailed study by John W. Wienham, Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Accounts in Conflict? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, Academie Books, 1984)."
2. Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 2016), 232-236. He cites Micheal Martin, The Case against Christianity (Temple University Press: Philadelphia 1991), 78-79, 81.
3. Frank Turek and Norman L. Geisler, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Crossway: Wheaton, IL. 2004), 287-290.
4. Norman L. Geisler and Thomas Howe, The Big Book of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation (Baker Books: Grand Rapids, MI. 1992), 569-571.