Problems in Matthew's resurrection account

[flob]

If all 11 disciples had seen Jesus physically, the accounts would tend to line up well in their major aspects, like whether there was a human youth at the tomb or two angels who accomplished the feat of scaring the guards. I think a clearer problem is whether Jesus said to "stay in Jerusalem" and "not to leave" it until Pentecost (Luke 24 and Acts 1) or gave instructions to see Jesus in Galilee (Mark 16 and Mat 28), which they did (Mat 28 and John 20-21)

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The Bible is very human. It's divine, but it's so normally human. It's the mingling of the human with the divine.

I missed the 'human youth' thing. That one is overreaching. In other words, forced. lol.

I especially mean 'human' and normal in regard to 'stay in Jerusalem' and 'meet me in Galilee.' The overarching plan is
to stay in Jerusalem until the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself appeared and disappeared and ministered to them for 40/50 days. He's the Commander! His own orders don't countermand His own orders. Go out to Galilee for a space has nothing to do with contradicting 'stay in Jerusalem.' It's like 'stay at Harvard until graduation,' and visiting NYC or DC in between.

in Mark it sounds like the youth in Gethsemane is a human who loses his robe like putting off the flesh and gains a white robe at the tomb like the resurrection.

Thanks.
I don't see the 'sounds like.' Merely because the peculiarity of the youth fleeing naked at Jesus' arrest? Than, to make the angel into the youth, it sounds like you're finding a spiritual or converted anonymous young person who serves as a testimony of Christ? The first testimony is Mary who desperately to find the Lord, his body, and is rewarded for her love. Than later Peter, for example, being lovingly reproved by the Lord for going fishing for his needs. To find an anonymous, hidden character more serene and 'mature' than the others, like a mystery-youth........is out of place.

 

[MarcR]

OP by Rakovski

Here I raise 5 issues in Matthew's gospel:

(1) Whether (A) Matthew embellished Mark's portrayal of the youth with Jesus at Gethsemane and later inside the tomb as a white robed human who delivered the message, turning the human into an angel in "shining" white who paralyzed the soldiers and sat on the tomb and gave that message, (Matthew 28:2-7) or
(B) Mark downplayed the angel's divine properties by depicting him as a youth.

That the youth at the tomb in Mark appears to be the human youth who followed Jesus on Thursday evening is proposed by some Christian scholars:
Fascinatingly, the word neaniskos ("youth"), which is rare in the Christian Testament, crops up a second time in Mark, to describe the young man in the long white robe who tells the women disciples that Jesus has been raised... If the previous dress [of the youth in the garden] was the linen cloth, this one [he wears] in the tomb, however, is white. Though he is dressed in both cases, the difference in dress expresses the development within the narrative. The portrayal is therefore characterized by closure: the shameful condition of the young man as he flees the scene of Jesus arrest in the nude is replaced by his restoration.

The effect of Mark's location of the young man's character is to create an inclusio. The last one who has been with and who then abandons Jesus is also the first one to announce his resurrection.


What is the significance of the young man who runs away naked in Mark's gospel? - Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange

It's understandable that Matthew might have concluded the youth in Mark was angel. How else would the youth have known that Jesus rose and went to Galilee like he told the women? Had he been staying at the tomb and saw what happened? Did he find the tomb empty before they did and assumed that, as He told the women, Jesus rose and "went to Galilee like He (Jesus) had said" previously (ie. Jesus' prediction in Mark 14:28)?

In Zec 2:3-4 we see someone described as an angel in verse 3 and a young man in verse 4. Therefore there is both linguistic and cultural precedent for speaking of an angel as a young man; and your case falls apart.

(2) How did Matthew know that the angel rolled the stone away, sat on the stone, and paralyzed the guards with fear like he wrote? In Matthew 28:1-5 it sounds like the women were present when that happened because of the sequence:

28:1 Magdalene comes to the sepulchre.
28:2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake.... for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and... rolled back the stone
28:5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye

However, in Mark 16:4 it sounds like the women showed up after the stone was rolled away and the youth was already inside the tomb: "And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away".
And Luke 24 says "And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre."

So which version is correct and how did Matthew know?

In the Greek text, there is no clear indication that verse 2 is subsequent to verse 1.

In verse 1 Mary Magdalene came is aotist indicative -- a simple statement that this happened.

in verse 2 all of the verbs are either aorist active indicative or aorist middle indicative; except descended, which is aorist active participle. This is also a simple statement that these things happened. The Greek language has several mechanisms to relate events in time; but none are used. Therefore we have no conclusive evidence regarding which happened. The way Greek works does not imply that what is mentioned first happened first.

(3) Why in Matthew 28 did the alleged guards, paralyzed by an angel, spread rumors that the disciples took the body instead of believing? If they were so scared of the angel that they were paralyzed and ran away, it would show them the role of the supernatural or divine in Christianity. Why would they risk spreading rumors about something they were so scared of and why not become believers?

Because, having failed their mission, they were facing a very painful death; and when the Sanhedrin offered them a chance to escape that death, they had nothing to loose and everything to gain by co-operating.

(4) The rumor among the people that Matthew mentions suggests an alternative explanation for the disappearance of Jesus' body at the tomb. Is this realistic?

Of all the groups who could have taken the body, Jesus' followers and grave robbers had the most to gain. But would grave robbers have left the linen behind to make it look like resurrection? Jesus had instructed his followers to arm themselves and Peter had already cut a soldier's ear when they had come for Jesus, so perhaps he or others would be able in enough numbers to overwhelm a guard. Perhaps the guard was not a Roman one but a Temple one, or perhaps the guards didn't exist since they aren't mentioned in the other gospels? And perhaps the body was taken on Friday before the guards were posted on Saturday?

Since Pilate provided a watch; we may presume they were Roman. The notion of a roman Guard all falling asleep is preposterous considering the penalty. The notion of Jesus' disciples overpowering a Roman watch is equally preposterous. therefore there is no reason not to believe the Biblical account.

(5) What could have been the specific basis for the apostles' doubt in Matthew's account?
Matthew's gospel ends with mentioning only one appearance of Jesus to the disciples, on a Galilean mountain:
28:17 And when they saw him,they worshipped him: but some doubted.

If they saw Jesus right in front of them and he spoke to them at length in the appearance like it says, what basis for doubt could there have been? The account does not say whether that appearance of Jesus was physical, but if it was it would be extremely hard to doubt. Perhaps instead the appearance was more like His appearance to Paul (ie. a vision) or like the sightings of Mary to hundreds or thousands of people at once. In some of those, some people see Mary, others see the sun "dance", and others don't notice anything. Perhaps the apostles were like the witnesses to the Marian apparition who saw nothing? If so, it puts in greater doubt whether the appearance was real.

People generally tend to be frightened by things outside their experience. they obviously did not understand and/or believe that Jesus would be raised from the dead.

 

[rakovsky]

One skeptic proposed to me that the myrrhbearing women knew that the tomb was going to be empty and that they were part of a conspiracy. In Matthew 27:63-66, the priests told Pilate that Jesus had predicted His resurrection "after three days" and then set a watch over the tomb and put a seal in place. So the guards and the seal should have been there until Monday. Mark 16 says:

[1] And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
[2] And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
[3] And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?
[4] And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.

To paraphrase what the skeptic said:

According to Gospel Mark, the three women went out to the tomb on Sunday morning at the crack of dawn to put more ointment on the body that already had 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes. They believed that they could not reach the body because a great stone blocked the entrance, unless perhaps there would be some nice men that happened to be at the tomb at night who would be so kind as to move the stone out of the way. Or perhaps they thought that the armed guards who had been placed there for the purpose of preventing anyone from entering the tomb, would violate their orders, break the seal, and allow the women to undertake the anointment.
This passage reflects a conspiracy, because what the women actually accomplished that morning was to establish that the body of Jesus was gone on the third day just as predicted!

In response, I asked:
Did the women know that the guards and the seal were blocking the tomb?
Did the women believe they couldn't try to move the stone?
Were the women sure the guards wouldn't let them in?

I would also consider whether they had gotten a different kind of spice that they wanted to use, even though they already had put on 100 pounds of them.