Seeing Is Not Believing

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Background
Before sunrise on the second morning since Jesus' burial, some women discovered that Jesus' tomb was empty. An angel commanded the women to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee. Afterward, either while she was still at the tomb alone or while she was going back to the Disciples, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene.

Then, Jesus appeared in a different form to two disciples, who failed to recognize Him until He broke bread with them. As soon as they recognized Him, He disappeared. It seems that Jesus did not want a close, personal relationship with them.

Seeing Is Not Believing

Seeing is believing. If I had been there when Jesus walked on water... If I had witnessed it Jesus healing the sick... If I could have seen Jesus die, and then see Him resurrected... then I could believe. Yet statements like that are not as true as they should be. Even the Disciples had their doubts about Jesus, as we will see in this study.

Note that, in the following, capitalized "Disciple" refers to those students of Jesus who were included as part of the inner circle of Twelve, who were now Eleven in number since Judas had committed treachery and suicide, and that lower case "disciple" refers to any other student/follower of Jesus.

Matthew 28:16-20	Mark 16:14-18	Luke 24:36-49	John 20:19-29
(A prior resurrected-Jesus encounter only with Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.)	(Prior resurrected-Jesus encounter with Mary Magdalene, and a different meeting with two other disciples.)	(A prior resurrected-Jesus encounter with Simon/Peter and a different meeting with two other disciples.)	(A prior resurrected-Jesus encounter only with Mary Magdalene.)
Jesus appeared to the Eleven Disciples in Galilee, on a particular mountain, per His earlier instructions (Matthew 26:32, Matthew 28:7, Matthew 28:10).	Jesus appeared to the Eleven Disciples, implicitly in Galilee, in an unnamed location, per His earlier instruction (Mark 14:28, Mark 16:7).	Jesus appeared to the Eleven Disciples in Jerusalem, where they were assembled (Luke 24:33).	Jesus appeared to most of the Eleven Disciples, implicitly in Jerusalem, in a house (John 20:10*).
The Disciples had gathered specifically to meet with Jesus.	The Disciples had gathered for a meal.	The Disciples were gathered, speaking with two other disciples who had recently seen Jesus.	The Disciples were gathered in a locked house out of fear of the Jews.
(No specifics on what Jesus said initially.)	Jesus rebuked them for lacking faith and for not believing those who had reported seeing Jesus in a resurrected status.	Jesus wished them peace, eased their fright by inviting them to look at His hands and feet, and touch His body to prove it was Him in the flesh, not a ghost.	Jesus wished them peace, and showed them His hands and side.
(No specifics on what Jesus did.)	(No specifics on what Jesus did.)	Jesus ate some broiled fish.	Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit by breathing on them.
They worshiped Jesus.	(No mention of worshiping Jesus.)	(No mention of worshiping Jesus.)	(No mention of worshiping Jesus.)
Some doubted it was Jesus.	(No mention of doubting it was Jesus.)	Some were in disbelief "because of joy and amazement".	Thomas had missed the first group appearance, and claimed that he would not believe until he touched Jesus' wounds. A week later, Jesus appeared to the Disciples again with Thomas present, and Jesus blessed people who believed without seeing.
(No mention of Jesus opening their minds.)	(No mention of Jesus opening their minds.)	Jesus opened their minds so they could understand all of the Scriptural prophesies.	(No mention of Jesus opening their minds.)
Jesus commanded them to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."	Jesus commanded them to "preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."	Jesus said that they were witnesses such that "repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His Name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."	(There is no Great Commission commanded by Jesus.)
Jesus told them that He would be with them until the end.	Jesus said that believers "will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."	Jesus commanded them to stay in the city until they received the Holy Spirit ("until you have been clothed with power from on high", Acts 2:1-4).	(There were no extra recorded instructions or comments from Jesus at that time.)

OK, so there are lots of differences, but let us concentrate on the biggest issues, starting with one of the five fundamental reporting questions: Where?

Galilee or Jerusalem?
Matthew explicitly, and Mark implicitly, hold this meeting between Jesus and the Disciples in Galilee. The meeting is in Galilee because that is where Jesus had commanded them to meet Him after His resurrection multiple times (Matthew 26:32, Matthew 28:7, Matthew 28:10, Mark 14:28, Mark 16:7).

Luke explicitly, and John implicitly, hold this meeting between Jesus and the Disciples in Jerusalem. John is usually a bit unique, so that contradiction is no surprise. However, John's departure from using Galilee may be indicative of just how early John's version of the Gospel became isolated from the core original story, thus helping to explain why his Gospel is so different.

What about Luke? Luke was actively trying to fulfill a prophesy, probably Isaiah 2:3 in particular. His interpretation/use of that prophesy required the spread of Christianity to start in Jerusalem. In doing so, he created an irreconcilable contradiction with Matthew and Mark. Luke had Jesus command the Disciples not to leave Jerusalem until after they had received the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49), which happened after Jesus had ascended to Heaven (Acts 2:1-4), making it impossible for Jesus to have met with the Disciples in Galilee.

When Did They Get the Holy Spirit?
While we are on the subject of the Holy Spirit, as noted above, Luke/Acts records that the Disciples received the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended to Heaven. However, John 20:22-23 recorded the resurrected Jesus personally giving the Holy Spirit to the Disciples.

Critical Difference in the Accounts of Jesus' Examined Wounds
Next we come to touching Jesus. It appears as though Luke and John may both be telling different version of the same original story regarding the Disciples touching Jesus' wounds, but that appearance vaporizes with scrutiny.

Luke 24:37 explicitly tells us his reason for the touchy-feely session; the Disciples were afraid, thinking that they had seen a ghost. So this was to prove that Jesus was flesh, not a ghost. In Luke 24:39, Jesus invited them to touch Him and to look at His hands and feet, presumably because they had the indications from the crucifixion. Luke 24:42-43 goes the extra mile to "prove" that this is Jesus in the flesh by having Him eat something.

In John, there is no mentioned suspicion that this was a ghost, and the Disciples were not frightened by Jesus' appearance. Instead, He showed them His wounds, and they were overjoyed to see Him (John 20:20). When Thomas doubted, he wanted to put His fingers in the nail holes and in the gash in Jesus' side (John 20:25). The implication behind Thomas' words is not one of proving that Jesus was flesh, but rather positively identifying Jesus as Jesus. Since Jesus had no tattoos, His crucifixion wounds were the next best thing to do that. ;-)

John Struggling for Credibility
Note that the gash in Jesus' side is mentioned three times in this anecdote, but only by John. If you remember from a previous study, the account of the soldier stabbing Jesus' side (also recorded only by John) was highly dubious, in no small part due to the liar's tell used when relaying that story. John is obviously trying to build up more credibility for that stabbing here.

Resurrected with Flaws Intact
What is really remarkable in light of both Luke and John is the implication that you will be resurrected in that bodily status that you had upon your death! According to these accounts, Jesus was resurrected with gaping bodily wounds! This is not so good for those who died in extremely disfiguring accidents. ;-)

Matthew's Open-Ended Doubt
Back to doubting Thomas, let us take a look at how the Disciples doubted. Mark did not record any doubts at all here. As we saw above, Luke wrote to dismiss doubts of Jesus being a mere ghost, and ends with some Disciples doubting only because they were still in shock about Jesus' return. John wrote with the intent of dismissing doubts that Jesus was, in fact Jesus, and all doubt had vanished after the show-and-tell session. What about Matthew? Matthew 28:17 states:

When they saw [Jesus], they worshiped Him; but some doubted. NIV

They saw Jesus. Some worshiped Him. Some doubted it was Him. Matthew offered no reconciliation for these skeptics. Implicitly, the doubters persisted in their doubts. Something about this "Jesus" did not seem right to them. It is difficult to say for sure, given the track record of error, story manipulation, and blatant fiction found Gospels, but, due to the inherently damaging nature of this verse, it may just be one of the most accurate in the New Testament. But why would Matthew include this potentially detrimental fact?

I suspect that man playing the part of the resurrected Jesus was a fraud in some way, shape, or form. There was some ugly truth about this man that became clear when he presented himself as being resurrected, and that caused some of the prominent disciples to lose their faith in him, possibly even becoming vocal opponents of the faith.

Or, if instead the post-resurrection appearances were completely fictional and so without an imposter present, maybe there were some disciples who just would not believe the story of Jesus returning without seeing for themselves, and thus rejected the direction this new faith was headed based on a lack of evidence.

Yet, regardless of what the "real" story was behind the post-resurrection appearances, Matthew's derivation of doubting disciples may not have even been related to it.

If Matthew was pastoring a flock for any significant length of time, he would have had to deal with apostates; those who had accepted the new faith, but eventually walked away. By including doubting disciples who had actually witnessed the resurrected Jesus, it may be that Matthew hoped to thwart contagious skepticism, because he could point to the doubts of these "eyewitnesses" to prove that some people will not believe the "truth" despite the evidence.

Jesus' Opening of Minds Versus Free Will
The next nugget of news to touch upon comes from Luke 24:45:

Then [Jesus] opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. NIV

If you have been following through Luke's Gospel, you know that, according to him, God has been actively preventing the Disciples from understanding Jesus' fate. Now we find Jesus opening their minds so that they could fully understand Jesus' fate and the Scriptures.

We make decisions based on our understanding. Having God manipulate understanding, means that God manipulated free will. If that is the case, how can anyone truly claim that they have free will? There will always be a question of whether or not God is controlling your mind by controlling your understanding.

Interesting Differences in the Great Commission
Finally, we end with the Great Commission; Jesus' final command for the Disciples to spread the Gospel to the world. As you can see in the table above, none of the language matches from Gospel to Gospel, and John does not even include this commission. The language is similar in meaning enough to make calling it a contradiction a weak stance except from the strict verbatim aspect. However, there are some key differences.

Matthew included a phrase to enforce obedience to Jesus' commands, which also included fully obeying God's Law.

Luke dropped baptism... partially. It was, after all, a "baptism of repentance". Luke's Gospel focused more strongly on repentance than any of the others, so finding this change is not surprising. Luke did not do so at the cost of baptism, though. His book of Acts brings baptism to the forefront. Baptism was important to link with John the Baptist, who was critical due to the prophesy of a forerunner. And, as noted above, Luke required Christianity to begin in Jerusalem.

Summary
So now you see. You see people doubted after seeing this "Jesus". You see the discrepancies and irreconcilable contradictions in the accounts. You see God manipulating human understanding. You see the blatant bastardization of the story to achieve the authors' objectives, such as disproving a ghost and fulfilling prophesy. You see all of this. It seems that seeing is not believing.

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* Most renderings of John 20:10 state that the Disciples returned to their homes, which may get you thinking that they went back to Galilee. However, that is really a poor translation of the transliterated Greek word "hautou", which is primarily used to indicate "himself" or "themselves", making verse intend to say that the Disciples left the grave site and went back to whatever they were doing before. Where they were before was close enough that Mary could run to see them, so we are talking about Jerusalem here (John 20:2).

Jesus Reincarnated

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Background
Joseph of Arimathea gave Jesus' body a customary-Jewish burial on the evening of the Passover. Before daybreak on the second day after the burial, a woman, or women, discovered that Jesus' body was missing from the tomb. However, an angel or angels instructed the woman or women to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, or just reminded them of Jesus' words regarding His resurrection.

Then Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, either when she was at the tomb or on her way back to tell the Disciples about the empty tomb. She either grabbed His feet and worshiped Him, or was told by Him not to touch Him.

If that is at all confusing, you have the disparate accounts in the Gospels to thank.

Jesus Reincarnated

Besides the vast number of contradictions from one Gospel to the next, one of the strangest aspects of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances is the great difficulty with which people had in recognizing Him. People under stress or grief can experience “jamais vu”, which is sort of the opposite of "deja vu". It is where a known face, word, or situation instead appears unfamiliar. That is a possible explanation, but what if Jesus did not look like Himself anymore? Let us take a closer look at one of these post-resurrection appearances to see if we can identify the real Jesus.

Luke 24:13-35 records the first and second appearances of Jesus since His resurrection, at least according to Luke, who skipped the Jesus-Mary encounter. The story goes like this:

The day that the empty tomb was discovered, "two of them" (Jesus' disciples, but not of the Eleven Disciples {12-1, Judas had killed himself}) were walking from Jerusalem to a town roughly seven miles (~11 kilometers) to the northwest, when Jesus came along and walked with them (Luke 24:13-15). As Luke 24:16 renders it:

but they were kept from recognizing [Jesus]. NIV

They "were kept" from recognizing Jesus? That speaks of some sort of active impediment or effort which prevented their recognition. That impediment may have been that Jesus neither looked nor sounded like He did before. Or, that effort may be God supernaturally inhibiting their recognition of Jesus, like how God prevented the Disciples from understanding Jesus' prophesy of His fate in Luke 9:43-45 and Luke 18:31-34. Either way, there is clear implication that the reason why they could not recognize had nothing to do with either their innate abilities or their mental status. We will revisit this point later, but now let us continue on with the story.

Jesus Misunderstood
Jesus inquired about the discussion they had been having, and, shocked that this unrecognized Jesus did not know about what had recently happened, they briefly explained that Jesus had been a prophet who was crucified by the Chief Priests, and how the women had found the empty tomb and had an angelic encounter (Luke 24:16-24). The most interesting line in that summary comes from Luke 24:21:

"but we had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place." NIV

Note the past tense here. They "had hoped", meaning that their hope had died with Jesus.

What hope was that? The redemption of Israel. If we take "redeem Israel" in its Old Testament Biblical context, it is more about re-establishing the Jewish nation, independent of foreign (Roman) rule, and enriched by God's blessing, similar to what we see in 2 Samuel 7:23, Nehemiah 1:8-11, and Micah 6:4 (among many other references). This appears to be the context of that statement, as opposed to a reference of a cleansing of sins and a shiny, happy afterlife.

Of course, that was a false expectation. So Jesus rebuked them for not believing the Scriptures, and then reviewed with and explained to them all of the Old Testament Messianic prophesies (Luke 24:25-27).

The Birth of Christianity?
Wait a moment though. Why would these disciples have such wrong expectations and understanding? They were disciples, literally students of Jesus' teaching, so how could they get it so wrong?

It could be that Jesus was a poor teacher, but how could that be? Teaching was Jesus' thing! Or, at least, it was one of His major focuses.

It could be that, like what we noted above, God had prevented them from understanding. However, if that was the case, then Jesus' rebuke of their misunderstanding, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe", would seem misplaced; chiding them for something completely out of their control.

It could be that, although they had become Jesus' disciples, they had resisted His teaching and clung to the traditional interpretations, but why would they follow Him if they did not believe what He was teaching?

Or maybe, just maybe, it could be that this poorly thought-out work of fiction written with an intent. That intent? Simple. Show that those who had been eyewitnesses to Jesus' teaching, even those who had become disciples, did not fully understand His teaching of redemption.

At the hands of the early "church" leadership, this type of recorded misunderstanding would have allowed Jesus' message to evolve beyond anything which the historical Jesus had actually said, inferred, or intended. In other words, this change in understanding was how Christianity was born; "You only thought you understood. What Jesus really meant was... And it is only now that this truth is revealed to us by the Grace of God."

Jesus of a Different Form
Anyway, as the story continued, the disciples invited Jesus to stay with them that night. At dinner, after Jesus shared bread with them, they finally recognized Him and then He suddenly disappeared (Luke 24:28-32).

These disciples went back to tell the Eleven Disciples what had happened. The Eleven believed them, and reported that Simon/Peter had also been visited by Jesus (Luke 24:33-35).

OK, let us take a final look at how the disciples "were kept" from recognizing Jesus until the breaking of the bread. To do so, we will jump over to Mark, the original source of the story. In Mark 16:12-13 we read:

Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either. NIV

Jesus appeared "in a different form". In other words, Jesus did not look like Jesus. It was as if Jesus had been reincarnated as someone else, in a manner of speaking. Or, maybe it was someone else! Also, note the different outcome; the Eleven did not believe these disciples.

Jesus may not have been the only thing reincarnated. It may be that Luke, who has consistently been a bit of an editor, was using Mark for a source here, and did not like what he read. A different form? If he did not look like Jesus, how can you be certain that he was Jesus? That is a huge problem when you are trying to build up credibility in the story, because someone could suggest that an imposter had claimed to be the resurrected Jesus. That uncertainty had to die.

Summary
Luke resurrected, polished, and expanded this snippet from Mark. Luke wanted to be sure to present Jesus as Jesus, without any possible doubt. So it was the same Jesus, but they were kept from identifying Him, presumably by God. Of course, as noted above, that makes Jesus' rebuke of the disciples' misunderstanding unwarranted. Luke was not that good of an editor. ;-)

A Touch of Mary

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Background
After Jesus died, and those watching regretted killing Him, Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus' body in a vacant tomb on the evening of the Passover. Before sunrise on the second calendar day since Jesus' death, one, two, three, or possibly several women went to Jesus' tomb, but found that Jesus' body was not there. However, there may have been one or two angels there, who either instructed the women to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, or simply reminded them of Jesus' words regarding His resurrection.

The lack of clarity in the above summary is due to the disparity in the stories.

A Touch of Mary

Throughout the Gospels, there are incidents recorded where the Disciples were not eyewitnesses. They had to rely on third party testimonies from time to time, witnesses from beyond the inner circle of the Twelve Disciples. Were the Gospel writers able to capture those testimonies with high fidelity? Were these anecdotes actual testimonies, or were they rather convenient constructs used to make a point?

Matthew 28:8-15	Mark 16:9-11	Luke	John 20:10-18
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were on their way to tell the Disciples of the empty tomb.	(Jesus appeared "first" to Mary Magdalene, but there are no details of where this happened.)	(There is no encounter between Mary Magdalene and the resurrected Jesus.)	Mary Magdalene was alone at Jesus' empty tomb after the Peter and the other Disciple had checked it out and left.
(No angels mentioned.)	(No angels mentioned.)		She saw two angels in the tomb who asked why she was crying.
Suddenly Jesus appeared to them.	(No details of the appearance.)		Jesus appeared behind Mary outside the tomb.
They reacted by grabbing His feet and worshiping Him.	(No details of Mary's reaction.)		Mary first mistook Jesus for a gardener, and asked if He had taken the body.
Jesus told them to tell His "brothers" (the Disciples) to meet Him in Galilee.	(No details of what Jesus said.)		Jesus told her not to touch Him because He had not yet gone to God, but would soon.
Meanwhile, the Chief Priests bribed the tomb-guarding soldiers to claim that the Disciples had stolen Jesus' body.	The Disciples did not believe Mary when she told them that Jesus was alive.		Mary told the Disciples that she had seen Jesus, and told them what He had said to her.

Let us quickly discuss Mark and Luke. As mentioned in the previous post, the original version of Mark's Gospel actually ended with Mark 16:8. The verses of Mark 16:9-20 were later appended to the Gospel, and they appear to be an abbreviated and concise summary of post-resurrection events covered in the other Gospels. Yet that "summary" is not without its own contradictions to the other Gospels.

Luke did use Mark as a primary source for creating his Gospel, and, given that the original Mark skipped this meeting between Jesus and Mary, Luke's omission of it suggests that he may have been using one of the earlier versions of Mark as a resource. However, we will see some evidence suggesting a late-Mark-version in the next study, so there may have been some other reason why Luke elected to drop Mary.

So now we come to Mary's account as recorded by Mathew and John, and they are as far apart as the east is from the west. Sure, there are some trivial differences; the number of women present, the location, the timing. However, there are two fundamental differences which contradict each other to the extent of rendering at least one version of the account fully fictitious.

The first deviant deviation is whether or not Mary touched Jesus when she saw Him. According to Matthew 28:9, she grabbed His feet. According to John 20:17, Jesus explicitly commanded her not to touch Him, as if He would become unclean by her touch.

That leads to the second deviation, because the reason Jesus explicitly gave Mary in John 20:17 for the forbidden touch was that He had not yet ascended to God. As you may remember from the previous study, according to John, the tomb was open by the time Mary had arrived to it, allowing Jesus plenty of time to walk out of it in non-glorified, bodily form. From that same study, Matthew's version tells us that Mary was there for the tomb opening, and the tomb was empty by the time it was opened, implying that Jesus, body and all, had gone up to God, as implied by the "He has risen!" statement made by the angel there. So by the time Mary grabbed Jesus' feet in Matthew 28:9, He had already stopped by and said hello to His Dad.

Can we reconcile these two accounts? Sure, at the cost of all logic: Matthew forgot about Peter checking out the empty tomb, and that Mary had hung around the tomb weeping, and eventually saw two more angels plus Jesus. John forgot that it the tomb was actually sealed when Mary arrived there, that there was an earthquake and an angel opened the door, that prior to the tomb opening Jesus had teleported out of the tomb, but to some terrestrial location as opposed to going to see His Father. So Jesus appeared to Mary at the tomb, told her not to touch Him, went up to see His Father, came back down and appeared to Mary again in His fully glorified status, allowing her to touch Him this time.

Did that make sense? Obviously not. That means that at least one of these story versions is utter rubbish, which is the last thing you want in a book of "Truth", especially when you need credibility the most to establish that Jesus had actually risen. The fidelity of the eyewitness account was not preserved, not even roughly. Furthermore, it opens the door to speculation that these were not eyewitness accounts, but were rather fictitious narratives serving a purpose.

That purpose? It is not clear, but perhaps the authors wanted a witness to the resurrected Jesus in proximity to the tomb, or in Jerusalem (Matthew's and Mark's other appearances happen outside of Jerusalem), or perhaps to add a little more credibility to a bodily-resurrected Jesus as opposed to just a ghost, or perhaps they just wanted to fill-in-the-gap between the tomb and Jesus' later appearances.

Finally, let us consider the very interesting way that Matthew wrapped up his exclusive guarded-tomb narrative. The guards were bribed to say that Jesus' disciples came and took His body while they were sleeping. In the words of Matthew 28:18, "this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day."

If the story that Jesus' disciples had taken the body was widely circulated, that indirectly supports an actual empty tomb. Why? Because, otherwise, if there was no empty tomb, there would not need to be any kind of explanation! So this appears to be a little gold nugget of truth which the faithful can bank on. Well, maybe...

Why maybe? Consider the source, or sources in this case. First, as mentioned before, the other three Gospels mention nothing about the guarded tomb or this conspiracy to hide the truth. Second, the other three have the tomb already open prior to Mary getting there, which, together with the lack of guards, obviously would allow for someone to have taken away Jesus' body.

It may be that Matthew, prior to writing his Gospel, started out orally with a similar story to the others, but in his particular region, there were one or two skeptics who put two and two together to counter with the idea that "Jesus' disciples must have stolen the body", and did so in front of an audience, which then helped to spread that idea throughout the region. This, in turn, made it appear to Matthew that there had been widespread circulation of this idea. So maybe Matthew reasoned that a slight tweak in the story could undermine this "widespread" objection, and thus he created the guarded tomb and the witnessed tomb opening.

Also, we should consider the nature of the claim of the empty tomb. There were only a finite number of eyewitnesses to where Jesus was buried; Joseph, Nicodemus, and "the women". So it would be very easy to claim to others that pretty much any empty tomb was the tomb where Jesus had been buried. Because of that fact, an empty tomb claim is pretty much meaningless. It is the post-resurrection appearances which much carry the bulk of the credibility. Unfortunately, as we have seen in this study and will see in the ones to come, that credibility crumbles with scrutiny.

Empty Recollection

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Background
Jesus, crucified between two thieves, after a few hours of darkness over the land, cried out to God asking why He had forsaken Him. When Jesus died, there was an earthquake, and the Temple's curtain tore. Dead holy men came out of their graves. Those watching Jesus die realized, at the very least, that it had been a mistake to kill Him.

Joseph of Arimathea petitioned Pilate for Jesus' body. Upon receiving it, Joseph wrapped it with linen, may or may not have adorned it with lots of spices, placed it a tomb, and rolled a rock door in front of the tomb.

Empty Recollection

Regardless of how stable we believe it to be, memory is prone to distortion. So, if we are willing to cast aside the foolish notion of Biblical inerrancy, when we come across contradictions across the four Gospels, honest skeptics and truth-seekers should consider whether or not they represent distorted memories, or instead speak of crafted manipulations of the story. Let us take a look at the differences in the Gospel accounts of finding Jesus' empty tomb, and then discuss the implications.

Matthew 28:1-8	Mark 16:1-8	Luke 24:1-12	John 20:1-9
Two women went to look at Jesus' tomb.	Three women went to anoint Jesus' body with spices.	"The women" went to anoint Jesus' body with spices.	Mary Magdalene alone went to Jesus' tomb (no reason given).
There was an earthquake, and an angel rolled open the door, scaring the guards.	The women found that the stone door had been removed.	The women found that the stone door had been removed.	Mary found that the stone door had been removed.
The angel spoke to the women from on top of the door.	The women entered the tomb, where they found an angel who spoke to them.	The women entered the tomb. Two angels appeared there and spoke to them.	No angels were seen or heard from yet. Mary saw the empty tomb and ran back to tell Peter.
The angel invited the women inside the tomb to see that it was empty, and told them to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.	The angel told them to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.	The angels reminded them of what Jesus had said in Galilee about rising on the third day.	(No angels there to speak, but two would appear there later with Jesus in John 20:10-18.)
Afraid yet joyous, the women went to tell the Disciples.	The women were afraid, fled, and told no one.*	The women told the Disciples.	Mary told Peter and "the one Jesus loved" that Jesus' body had been taken.
(No Disciples visit the tomb.)	(No Disciples visit the tomb, but later, in Mark 16:11, they would not believe the women's report.)	The Disciples do not believe the women, but Peter alone went to the tomb. Finding it empty, he was puzzled.	Peter and "the one Jesus loved" went to the tomb and found it empty, but they still did not understand that Jesus was to rise from the dead.

OK, so obviously there are several contradictions here, but are they just innocent and honest errors in memory?

On the side of corrupted memory, across all of the variations, there is a narrative skeleton of sorts running through these Gospel accounts; the door stone was removed for a female (at least one) eyewitness to observe the tomb in its empty state, who then informed Disciples of the finding. While an angel, or angels, did not appear in this section of John, they would appear later in the next section in John 20:10-18, so we could even include that element as part of the story skeleton.

This common skeletal thread does, indeed, suggest a common original source. That opens the door for these accounts, no matter how disparate, to have been based on a true story, but that is just one possibility. Equally possible is that the story was constructed by and distributed from one person or group of persons. Either way, the great differences in the story versions suggest that this was passed as part of the early oral history, because some time, and some geographical isolation, was likely necessary to allow for these different versions to develop.

On the other hand, and on the side of intentional alterations, there are some indications that these differences are not the result of corrupted memory, but rather demonstrate deliberate editing.

The easiest case to perceive possible manipulation is in Matthew. As noted in the previous study, Matthew uniquely recorded that Jesus' grave was guarded. He appears to have been writing with a purpose, and that purpose was to communicate that there was no way that Jesus' body could have been removed from the grave by someone. Not only was Matthew's grave guarded, but it was not opened until its opening could be witnessed by the two Mary's, and that opening was accompanied by the supernatural events of an earthquake and an angel opening the grave. And when the grave was opened? The body was already gone.

The other Gospels lack all mention of the guards at the tomb, the angelic tomb-opener, and the earthquake, and instead have the tomb open by the time a Mary arrives. With the tomb already open, who knows what could have happened to the body? (On the side of faith, the resurrected Jesus could have walked out of the tomb, which actually implied later in John, as we will see in the next study.) Without any support from the other three Gospels, and with an obvious motive for Matthew to have the tomb guarded and its opening witnessed, this appears to be a deliberate change that Matthew made.

This change can be further demonstrated by comparing Matthew 28:5-7 to Mark 16:6-7. The wording there is very similar to one another. If these were truly independent accounts, it would be an incredible feat, if not a miracle, for the two authors to remember and record these words in a manner which almost matches each other after so much time had passed, and yet such a miracle would be blemished by Mark not remembering anything about the earthquake and the angelic tomb opener. Instead, it seems much more likely that Matthew was copying from Mark, but tweaking the copy to fit in the guarded-tomb narrative.

Contrasting Matthew and Mark, where no Disciple visited the empty tomb, Luke and John have both recorded that Peter visited the tomb and was puzzled by its vacancy, thus demonstrating (explicitly in John) that the Disciples really did not understand that Jesus was to be resurrected. (Though it is uncertain, it is possible that this lack-of-understanding-the-resurrection meme was employed because the message of the historical Jesus turned out to be quite different than what would come to be known in the resurrected version of Jesus. In this way, the Disciples thereafter could claim to skeptical Jesus-witnesses that no one had really understood Jesus when He was alive.) This creates a couple of problems:

First, as we observed in a previous post, Matthew redacted the Disciples' lack of understanding of  Jesus' prophesied death and resurrection, and, in a different post, we cited how even Matthew's Pharisees understood that Jesus claimed that He would be resurrected, which is why they requested the guard for the tomb! So there is a fundamental contradiction between two alleged Disciples; Matthew and John.

Second, Mark, who was allegedly Peter's traveling companion, translator, and the writer of the earliest Gospel, does not record that Peter had even heard about the empty tomb from the women witnesses, let alone that he personally investigated it and was mystified by the fact that it was empty.

Summing all of this information up, what we have here is many contradictions in this short account of finding Jesus' tomb empty. While it is possible to explain the differences to faulty memory, there are some significant changes which appear to go beyond the realm of rotted recall, and instead drift into deliberate dissertation with contrived intents. I will leave it to you to weigh the evidence in your mind.

* Mark's Asterisk
The oldest manuscripts of Mark end the Gospel with Mark 16:8, without recording the women telling anyone about the empty tomb, and without any sightings of the resurrected Jesus. A series of later manuscripts append this onto the ending:

And they (the women) reported all the instructions briefly to Peter's companions. Afterwards Jesus Himself, through them, sent forth from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.

Still no appearances of Jesus, but at least the women passed on the instructions to the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.