Revisiting the Harmonization of the Gospels' Empty Tomb accounts

Sooooo... basically I found more of a historical ground to place my theory that Matthew's account is different than others, along with some new observations, even as critical charges. Here I'm further defending "Bible Difficulties -- 4 Different Accounts of Empty Tomb Appearances." I suggest you read it before considering the content of this post, because I deal with many other potential errors in the Gospel narratives of the empty tomb.

Last month I finished reading Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible by apologists Andreas J. Kostenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh D. Chatraw. Ehrman was the source of criticism they were trying to answer throughout the book. They deal with a case of chronological differences: "Luke likely mentions the tearing of the veil prior to the crucifixion [Luke 23:44-45] in order to put it beside other cosmic signs he gives. In other words, Luke is providing a list of cosmic signs without claiming any particular order for these events. This type of chronology, as mentioned, is frequent not only in the Gospels but in ancient literature." (1)

I also recently have thoroughly skimmed-over part of The Evidence for Jesus by James D.G. Dunn, an authority on the New Testament from England.

He says that scholarship has rendered the verdict on whether or not the Gospels are historical reliable to be yes and no(2). That is, what they say happened actually happened, but not necessarily in the apparent order given or without other details. They can give different combinations of events, for example Matthew's Sermon on the Mount from chapters 5-7 probably not having happened all at once because of comparison to Luke. But more significantly, they can give different emphases on different themes, like Matthew focusing on the importance of faith in 8:5-13 and Luke focusing on humility before God in 7:1-10. 

Significantly, Dunn says in a later chapter on the resurrection, "Was the stone rolled back in the presence of the women (as Matthew may imply) or before they reached the tomb (Mark, Luke, John)?"(3)

So I find it not nearly unbelievable that Matthew, the Jew enthusiastic about his risen Messiah, would be open to departing from strict chronology when mentioning the moving of the stone. 

But now, question. Matthew had a perfect opportunity to be technically correct because of the descriptive protection of the stone from 27:66, didn't he? Why bother to not be if you can? 

Still though, if you are not bothering to be in the first place, maybe you just won't bother to care. Without the women showing up in 28:1, the moved stone wouldn't have been witnessed anyway. Maybe Matthew thought of that. Or maybe, like Luke did with his "cosmic signs," he was trying to focus on "angelic signs" -- the angel's original majestic arrival and message to the women. At any rate, I can't criticize an ancient writer over such a minor thing as this. 

I think I should pause to say that my theory isn't necessarily the way it happened. John 20:2 does have Mary Magdalene speak of "we" when talking to the Disciples the first time. Maybe the first part of Matthew's empty tomb account is not the same time that Mark and Luke have. Maybe they did witness the stone being removed from the entrance (possible from John 20:1), and spoke to the angel twice: the first time in Matthew, and the second when they returned in the other three Gospels. 

Furthermore, there is no 100% necessitated contradiction between the appearance in John 20:11-18 and Matthew 28:9-10. The only thing is Matthew seems to say that they saw Jesus on the way back after witnessing the angel scare the guards. 

Interestingly enough, lately I was flipping through pages in a book and discovered an example where Mark said, "At once," (Mark 1:12) but John reports that Jesus hung around for a while after His baptism. But this doesn't have to mean that Jesus walked straight to the wilderness as soon as He got out of the Jordan river. The two other synoptic Gospels, with a skeptically speaking greater understanding of Mark than John, include more details as well, and so faithfully speaking it was "a narrative device indicating the urgency of Jesus' message and ministry." (4)

So maybe like that, Matthew didn't bother with the details of the second visit by use of the word "suddenly" (Matthew 28:9); only the miracle at the first and appearance of Jesus after the second mattered to his purpose. A further argument I could think of for this is how John reports Mary Magdalene using the word "we" when returning the first time (John 20:2), and my original post said that Mary probably turned back upon seeing the other women coming toward the tome. 

Who could this "we" Mary reported from the probably first visit be? Perhaps she was stating that the Disciples didn't know as well because they also weren't believing (Luke 24:11), or just had one other unnamed friend with her and not all the others. 

I think though that my original theory is much more likely, because of the similarities between the other two synoptic accounts and how it fits nicely with John as well. Otherwise I seem to be arbitrarily trying to fit Jesus's appearance to multiple women with a different account that has practically no noticeable similarities -- albeit not necessarily contradictory, but very close. As I mentioned in the original post, Matthew's account is so similar to Mark and Luke that they are probably speaking of the same thing.

Who really knows? It is clear that someone somewhere chopped something up, but I suppose it doesn't have to be the story of the angel moving the stone. I doubt any Bible scholar can say with complete confidence that they know exactly the way things happened that Easter morning. But my point is that there is not necessarily any errors. 

Now, a reasonable question from an open mind I can think of is, "Are you just trying to chase down an answer to prove the Bible is inerrant, and therefore are in the hole of having gone ad hoc which you regularly point out as probably fallacious? After all, a simple and straightforward reading creates unresolvable tension, with both theories". The answer I can give myself is "not really." For one thing, if you search "ad hoc" in my blog, you will see that I have yet to just claim something must be wrong if there is no good evidence. I have used and explained reasonable tips for flattening out contradictions in my original post, and am just using more evidence now. Therefore, the easiest reading shouldn't be "after all."

Also I could never conclude that there most likely is an error in the first place because I have not seen any thorough expert case for or against Matthew. I just learn things by reading and do my best to hypothesize according to what I know.

But here, I must say that so far I don't believe I actually have shown that there surely are no contradictions within the Gospels' empty tomb stories. Maybe John and Matthew did have narratives in mind that consist of different details when they overlap. I believe all I have shown though is that this probably isn't the case. 

However. Most significantly, intellectually speaking, I have shown elsewhere that there must be no contradictions in the Bible. Recently I concluded a large argument (see here) which I poured my heart, soul, but most importantly, my mind, into. Historically speaking, I believe I proved Jesus as God from the book of Mark in the Bible, and this proves the entire Bible as the word of God. So I know that some answer is correct. 

Citations:

1. Andreas J. Kostenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh D. Chatraw, Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible B&H Publishing Group: Nashville, TN. 2014), 57.

2. James D.G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Westminster Press: Louisville, Kentucky 1985), 1, 8-10, 13-18.

3. Ibid., 63. Emphasis mine.

4. Norman Geisler and Joseph M. Holden, The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible: Discoveries that Confirm the Reliability of Scripture (Harvest House: Eugene, OR. 2013), 146.