(avg. read time: 9–18 mins.)
I am beginning another series today that I am not planning to be as long-running as some others I am starting this year. Of course, it may be one that I get to return to. That is, I want to evaluate some harmonies of the resurrection accounts in the NT that have been put out over the years.
Such exercises as harmonies are not exactly in vogue in NT scholarship. But the statements I see decrying such activity or declaring the hopelessness of reconciling the various accounts are most often made as a replacement for—and not as a result of—doing the actual work of demonstration. I noted a statement from Dale Allison in my review of his most recent book on resurrection as a case in point:
That some, such as Wenham, Easter Enigma; O’Connell, Jesus’ Resurrection, 166–77 (who confesses on p. 27 to belief in “the full inerrancy of the Bible”); and Schnabel, Jesus in Jerusalem, 350–70, are still endeavoring to iron out every discrepancy is dispiriting. They are trying to erase knowledge. It is as though Strauss never wrote, and as though the successes of redaction criticism in attributing differences between the synoptics to editorial agendas are a mirage. Explanation can lie only in adherence to outworn theories of biblical inspiration, theories the deists successfully pulverized long ago.1
I noted in my review how this was a most peculiar statement. Indeed, the central claim of “They are trying to erase knowledge,” is difficult to make sensible, even if one accepts his assumption that such harmonizing exercises are wrong.
While I have not composed my own attempt at harmonizing the accounts of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances across the Gospels (as well as Acts 1 and 1 Cor 15), I do not think such work is impossible in principle. Contrived harmonies are utterly worthless, but I think it is possible for sources to be mutually illuminative without being contorted.
As such, I would like to evaluate some proposed harmonies, including where I think they work and where I think they could be improved. I will start with the three that Allison mentions in this note. Then, I will examine three others. If there is demand or enough interest (particularly in specific harmonies), I might expand this series in the future, but this is what I would like to do for now.
Our first harmony comes from:
John Wenham, Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Accounts in Conflict? (Grand Rapids: Academie, 1984).
Wenham himself cites a long list of quotes from scholars of various persuasions regarding the accounts as irreconcilable (9–10). He had once thought that the stories were not necessarily correct in every detail, but he says, “It now seems to me that these resurrection stories exhibit in a remarkable way the well-known characteristics of accurate and independent reporting, for superficially they show great disharmony, but on close examination the details gradually fall into place” (11). Much of what follows in his book involves setting the scene with geographical orientation, describing the tomb, outlining the people involved and their backgrounds, and setting up the resurrection accounts with accounting for what happened before Pascha/Easter Sunday. It is in the last fifty-one pages of the main body of this short book that he actually goes about attempting to harmonize the various accounts.
The basic order of events he gives is as follows:
Mary Magdalene and the other women came from various locations to converge on Jesus’s tomb (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:1–3; Luke 24:1, 10a; John 20:1).
Prior to their arrival, the two angels (with one who was the prominent speaker) had removed the stone from the entrance to the tomb and gone inside, while the guards left to report to Caiaphas (Matt 28:2–4, 11–15).
When Mary Magdalene saw that the entrance of the tomb was opened, she left the scene to find Peter and John (John 20:1b–2).
The other women entered the tomb, encountered the angels, and received the message that motivated them to go and proclaim to the disciples (Matt 28:5–8; Mark 16:4–8; Luke 24:2–12).
Mary Magdalene returns to the tomb with Peter and John after the women have left, after which Peter and John leave her alone at the tomb (John 20:3–10).
Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9–11; John 20:11–18).
Shortly thereafter, Jesus appears to the other women as well (Matt 28:9–10).
Jesus appears to Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus (Mark 16:12–13; Luke 24:13–33).
Presumably while they were on their way back, Jesus appears to Peter, perhaps in Gethsemane (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor 15:5).
Jesus appears to the Ten apostles (i.e., minus Thomas) in Jerusalem (Luke 24:36–43; John 20:19–23). [He thinks Paul could be telescoping separate appearances in 1 Cor 15:5.]
Jesus appears to the Eleven the next week (John 20:26–28).
The apostles and others return to Galilee, after which Jesus appears to seven of them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (John 21).
Jesus appears on the mountain to commission the apostles (Matt 28:16–20), which Wenham identifies with the appearance to the 500+ (1 Cor 15:6).
Jesus appears to James (1 Cor 15:7).
Jesus appears to all the apostles prior to his ascension (Mark 16:15–20; Luke 24:44–53; Acts 1:1–14; 1 Cor 15:7).
Wenham’s argumentation is thought-provoking at many points. And I think the chronology is mostly sound, though it is difficult to determine if the appearance to Peter is supposed to be before or after the one to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. His arguments about geographical details make sense, but I remain unconvinced by various identifications he makes that are not essential to his arguments (like Luke himself being the companion of Cleopas on the road to Emmaus [100]). And I find it curious that his survey of the people involved never once attempted to account for the involvement of Joseph Barsabbas/Justus and/or Matthias, even though they were said to be present (Acts 1:21–23). There are also plenty of other interesting details in his book that we will not be engaging with here, as our focus is on this chronology of Pascha Sunday and the following days leading up to Jesus’s ascension.
I had independently come to the conclusion that Matt 28:2–4 was effectively a parenthetical note that functioned practically as a pluperfect (77–78; see here). This is similar to how Matthew and Mark narrate the arrest and execution of John that had happened before the narrative present (I address their introductions here and the story itself here). Thus, I think this and the part about the guards having already left fits with what we see across the Gospels. I also think he gives a good explanation for the historical plausibility of the presence of the guards and the development of the story of the disciples’ stealing the body.
What I think is more troublesome is his account of Mary Magdalene. This account does make sense of John and of how Mary implies the presence of other women (despite them not being narrated) with her use of the plural in John 20:2. All the other accounts show multiple women are present. And it is fair to say that the lists are not mutually exclusive; it would only be so if the texts said only certain women were here or that certain women came alone in a way that would exclude other women being present. Likewise, I think his reconciliation with Luke’s account is fair: “Luke’s account evidently telescopes the coming of Mary Magdalene to Peter and John (giving her pride of place in the list of women) and the coming of Joanna and other women to the eleven and to the rest” (89; emphasis original).
However, Wenham’s account is significantly more difficult to square with Matthew’s narration. And this appears to be a detail that Wenham overlooks, for he does not address it at all. Matthew references Mary Magdalene and the other Mary being present, he does not mention any others, and so when he uses the plural terms in 28:8 to describe the departure from the tomb, he has not provided any necessary information for us to conclude that he is referring to anyone besides Mary Magdalene in addition to the other Mary that would allow for the former to be absent while he refers to the latter plus others. I suppose one could say this is similar to John not mentioning any other women until their presence is implied in Mary’s own speech. But the issue is different. In the case of John, perhaps due to his awareness of the other Gospels, he has simply left out individuals who are not in focus in such a way as to indicate that they are still present by the dialogue of one of the individuals in his story. In the case of Matthew, we would need to infer both at least one other person being present and that a completely separate action has happened to remove one of the characters from the story and yet for the grammar to still make sense without this action being narrated. More assumptions need to be granted for this omission to make sense than need to be granted to make sense of other women not being mentioned in John. It would have been something else if Matthew had mentioned other women and then you could argue that the plural does not necessitate that all of the same actors were involved. I am not saying Wenham’s account is definitely not what happened, as it is not incoherent, but this is a difficulty that would need to be addressed if we are going to both piece the texts together in complementary fashion and respect the integrity of each source.
I find no real issues with his chronology thereafter, except perhaps with his reasoning for why the appearance to the 500+ is the same as the appearance in Matt 28:16–20, but I will get to that as we proceed further down the list. I have no issues with how he has explained the variations in wording from the angels or in how the Synoptic authors vary in how they describe their actions (85–86; again, see here). I would simply add that perhaps one reason why Luke’s summary of the angel’s words is different, besides his wanting to highlight how they remembered Jesus’s words, is that he wants to put off what is a gospel summary until later in the narration when it comes from Jesus himself. I also think he is right in how he addresses whether there were two angels or one:
If there were two, there was one…. If witnesses, who had been in the tomb at the same time, had been asked independently, “Precisely how many men did you see?” and had given different answers, that would have shown one or other to be unreliable. But these witnesses are not answering the question “How many?”, they are giving (as all descriptions must be) incomplete descriptions of a complex event. (87)
While much is sometimes made of the fact that Luke records no appearances in Galilee, which would put his account in conflict with the statement that the disciples will see him in Galilee, the fact is that Luke is clearly condensing a lot in his last chapter, as is shown in the reference to Jesus appearing over the course of forty days to his disciples in Acts 1:3. Nor does the statement about Galilee imply that there would only be appearances there or that they ought to leave immediately. As Wenham further says,
Indeed to leave immediately would have been quite contrary to what was expected of a devout Jew, who in the ordinary way would stay in Jerusalem to observe the six days of unleavened bread which followed the feast of the Passover, and the disciples evidently did not understand the angel’s message to mean that. The fact that they did not go to Galilee until the whole festival was over may account for Matthew’s reticence about when they went; their stay for a further week is spelled out in John’s explicit narrative. (98–99)
I think he also effectively addresses the different portrayals of Luke and Mark concerning the state of belief/unbelief among the disciples:
How are we to take Luke’s affirmation concerning the belief of the disciples and Mark’s assertion about their unbelief? The truth must surely be that the ten apostles present were in various states of part-belief and part-unbelief. When the women first told their story they were doubtless greeted with incredulity, both in Jerusalem and in Bethany. But John’s faith had begun to recover when he saw the grave-cloths, and the Emmaus disciples had clearly not totally dismissed the women’s reports. Peter had come to believe through his meeting with Jesus during the afternoon, but one may imagine that it was a very subdued and scarcely articulate Peter that reported to the others. When Cleopas and his friend told their tale, it added further fuel to Peter’s claim, but the apostles’ unbelief (momentarily intensified by the terror of the sudden apparition) was finally overcome only by seeing and sitting with and talking to Jesus himself. (104–5)
But again, we do need to address the link between Matt 28:16–20 and the appearance to the 500+. This is not an identification that is unique to him.2 But our interest here is in his specific argument for this identification:
There is no point in the forty days where a chance gathering of 500 brethren can be plausibly imagined. It could not have been near Jerusalem at Passover time, for John sets out the first three appearances to the apostles in detail: there were appearances in the same house on successive Sundays in or near Jerusalem and then (after the pilgrims had dispersed) an appearance to a group of just seven disciples by the lakeside in Galilee. John declares specifically that this last ‘was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples’ [21:14]. Therefore the meeting with the 500 must have been later than this and after the dispersal of the festival crowds. (It should be noted also that even if such a chance gathering could be conceived, it would not have been composed exclusively of “brethren”, as many of the Galilean pilgrims were not believers in Jesus.) It is even more difficult to imagine such a large concourse chancing to assemble in Galilee and virtually impossible that it should consist only of believers. It could not of course have been at the next great festival in Jerusalem, which was Pentecost, since this was ten days after Jesus’ last appearance. So the meeting with 500 brethren must have been a convened meeting. (112–13; emphases original)
I am not settled in my own mind about the appearance to the 500+. I think it is most likely unnarrated in the Gospels, but I am not dismissive of this identification either. I simply do not think that there is enough positive reason for it. Wenham’s own argumentation is based on a few unjustified assumptions.
One, he does not think there was anywhere else to fit this appearance because John sets out the first three appearances in detail. He earlier claimed of John 21 that “When John declares this to be the third revelation of Jesus to the disciples after he was raised from the dead, it is not to be taken as implying ignorance of his individual appearance to Peter or of his appearance to Cleopas and his friend, but it refers to collective appearances to the apostles” (112). But this is simply based on the assumption that when John refers to a third appearance to this broader group of apostles that this is not simply him enumerating the appearances to the group within the scope of his narrative. If he pushed this argument further, he would need to conclude that Jesus did not perform any miracles at all between what chronologically corresponds to the beginning of John 2 and the end of John 4, given the reference to the latter as a “second sign” (4:54).
Two, he assumes that Paul’s reference to the 500+ as “brethren” means that they were all believers prior to the appearance. Paul’s text does not say such a thing. The reference need mean no more than that they are people who could be identified now as Christian brethren, since Paul also follows this up with saying that most of them are still alive. This says nothing one way or the other about if they followed Jesus prior to this point, and nothing else about the event necessitates such.
Three, he assumes that this happened in Galilee. But this is based on nothing in Paul’s text. Unfortunately, we have no idea where it happened. It may have happened in Galilee, but there is no reason to assume this for the sake of historical work.
A final issue to address regarding Matt 28:16–20 is whether or not it is properly parallel with Mark 16:15–18. The verses that follow in Mark concern the ascension and the apostles going on their mission, but the text also immediately follows Jesus’s appearance to the Eleven in 16:14, which Wenham never clearly places. Mark is telescoping here, as Luke does, but on the grammatical level it is not obvious if 16:15–18 is better tied with the timing of v. 14, vv. 19–20, or some time in between. Wenham admits that it is possible for this text from Mark to be a report from another angle of this event in Galilee, but he ultimately cites three reasons for thinking otherwise:
Firstly, Mark’s account does not appear to move outside the Jerusalem area, which (we have suggested) is because Mark himself did not go up to Galilee. Secondly, the two accounts in spite of their common thrust have remarkably little in common verbally — little more than the word “Go” and the two closely related words translated “all”. Thirdly, the emphasis in Matthew is on the authority of the risen Christ, while the emphasis in Mark is on the miraculous powers which are to be granted to those who believe. The one who seems rather more suitable to those who are just beginning to learn the meaning of the resurrection, the other to those who at the end of the forty days are looking forward to the outpouring of Pentecost. (120–21)
As to the first reason, I have noted elsewhere on Mark 16 how there are no clear spatial transitions once we leave the tomb, meaning that we are not told where any scene takes place. That says nothing for or against ideas that the scene takes place in Jerusalem or Galilee.
The second reason is curious coming from Wenham. After all, there are more verbal links between 16:14–20 and Matt 28:16–20 (in both absolute and weighted terms, whether by simple count or proportion) than there are between Luke 24:5b–8 and either Mark 16:6–7 or Matt 28:5–7. Yet, Wenham sees no problem in identifying these texts as reporting the same scene. But it is supposed to be an inherent obstacle here. This is not to say that they definitely are the same scene (though he does overlook references to baptism or acting “in the name”), but it cannot be ruled out on this basis. I treat these texts as parallels in my Gospel synopsis if for no other reason than that they are more alike to each other than they are to any other scenes in the Gospels (which is admittedly not saying a lot).
The third reason is neither here nor there. The declarations could fit either setting in question without necessarily being a better fit for one or the other. This just seems more like a post hoc justification than a good reason for believing this in the first place.
Overall, I do recommend Wenham’s work. It is a good resource for provoking thought and showing how stories fit together. Some details are questionable, and I think there some unresolved issues with his particular harmony. But it is certainly not a bad place to start. The chronology is mostly solid, the geographical observations are illuminating, and his analysis of the characters and the action of the narrative is mostly helpful.
Dale C. Allison, Jr., The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2021), 181 n. 79.
E.-B. Allo, Saint Paul: Première Èpitre aux Corinthiens, 2nd ed. (Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1956), 396; Frederic Louis Godet, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. A. Cusin, vol 2 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), 334–35; R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul's First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1963), 635–37; Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 2nd ed., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1914), 337. Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), 1206 finds this identification plausible, but he remains non-committal.