(avg. read time: 6–12 mins.)
Last month, we began a series addressing something of a lacuna in scholarship on the resurrection of Jesus and the narratives concerning the same: actually evaluating proposed resurrection harmonies. Unlike last month, today we are not dealing with a whole book devoted to the subject. We are looking at part of a single chapter from:
Jake H. O’Connell, Jesus’ Resurrection and Apparitions: A Bayesian Analysis (Eugene, OR: Resource, 2016).
As part of O’Connell’s chapter on objections to the reliability of the resurrection narratives, he first deals with the claims of contradictions between them. He notes that this is quite an old point of contention with claims and responses going back to the days of the early Church. But as he rightly observes, even if we took for granted that the accounts blatantly contradict each other, that would not in itself undermine their reliability or historicity. Whether it is court testimony, matters of ancient history (such as the numbers of troops at Pharsalia or in Xerxes’s invasion of Greece), or even more recent history like Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, it is not unusual for there to be contradictory testimony to an event that actually happened, even from sources that are otherwise reliable (167–68).1 He also makes a methodological point that:
When addressing apparent errors in the narratives, we should only be expected to provide plausible explanations, not explanations which are probable in and of themselves. This is because a hypothesis which is only plausible if considered by itself becomes probable if the alternative hypothesis is to suppose that a generally reliable witness made a mistake (and any witness can be assumed to be generally reliable until there is evidence to the contrary, since the large majority if [sic.] witnesses are generally reliable, by which I mean they make few errors and any errors they make will be minor ones). (168)
Furthermore, to put the matter in his preferred approach of Bayesian probability,
the reason we proceed in this way is because though the probability that a witness will correctly tell us that an event which is improbable in and of itself occurred is low, the probability that a witness will incorrectly tell us that an event which is improbable in and of itself occurred is immensely lower. This is because our experience is that the number of times a witness correctly tells us such an event occurred is immensely greater than the number of times a witness incorrectly tells us such an event occurred. (169)
From here, he addresses major and minor contradictions as opposed to providing an overall timeline in the fashion Wenham does (or, as we will see, Eckhard Schnabel does).
The first claimed major contradiction that he addresses is that Mark refers to a young man at the tomb in Mark 16:5, whereas the other Gospels refer to angels. To be more precise, Mark refers to him as a young man and Luke refers to two men, only directly saying that they are angels outside of his parallel with Mark, specifically in 24:23, while Matthew and John use the terminology of angels in reference to the empty tomb. Of course, the fact that Luke refers to the angels in the fashion that he does well enough shows that angels could be described in such terms without contradicting the notion that they were angels. Angels were specifically described as “youths” in texts like Tob 5:5–10; 2 Macc 3:26, 33; Acts 1:10; Josephus, Ant. 5.277; Gos. Pet. 13.55; Herm. Vis. 3.1.6, 8; 3.2.5; and 3.4.1. They are otherwise described as looking like humans in other texts, contrary to the overdone online trope about “biblically accurate angels” (Gen 19; 32:24–30; Josh 5:13–15; Judg 6:11–24; 13; Dan 10; Zech 1:8–15; 2:1–3; Acts 12:15). They are also described as wearing bright or white robes in Dan 10:6; 2 Macc 11:8; LAE 9:1; 4Q547 frag 1, 5; Acts 1:10; 2 Cor 11:14; Rev 4:4; 19:14; and Gos. Pet. 9.36. O’Connell cites a few pieces of this evidence and makes this same point that the young man of Mark, like the men of Luke, is an angel.
The second concerns the note in Mark 16:8 that the women said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid, in contrast to the other Gospels. Of course, the apparent force of this point is undermined by the rest of the ending of Mark, but that is not what O’Connell appeals to here. Nevertheless, he opts for the rather obvious point that “when Mark says the women said nothing to anyone, he means they said nothing to anyone as they were on their way back from the tomb; but they did say something to the disciples once they reached them” (170). Contrary to what some who think 16:8 is the authentic ending might claim, O’Connell doubts that they would have disobeyed the command of an angel, and it is similar to the command in 1:44, which would imply that the ex-leper said something to the priest (170).
The third is whether Jesus appeared to his disciples in Galilee, Jerusalem, or both. Again, more precision is needed here, as Matthew does not “only” mention the appearance in Galilee, as the appearance to the women obviously must have been in the vicinity of Jerusalem (28:9–10), and the ending of Mark includes appearances in Jerusalem and its vicinity, while it is not clear if there is a change in scenery to Galilee at any point in 16:9–20. It also seems he inadvertently mistyped to say that the sequence was “appearances in Galilee, then Jerusalem, and then again in Galilee are exactly what we should expect if the disciples did what pilgrims to Jerusalem often did: go up to Jerusalem for Passover, then return to their home towns (in the case of the disciples, Galilee) for about forty days, and then return to Jerusalem for Pentecost” (170). Still, he notes that the problem comes from Luke 24:49 and the instruction there on staying in the city until they are clothed with power. Quite rightly, he addresses this by saying that the words here are not clearly said on Easter day (171), particularly when Acts goes on to clarify the picture. While he thinks that 24:44–49 was said roughly forty days after Easter and just prior to the ascension, I think this only needs to apply to some portion of vv. 46–49 (I do not know that we can be too precise on what portion thereof besides v. 49 can be so strongly linked to that time). After all, most of vv. 44–49 is simply summarizing what Jesus taught his disciples prior to his ascension.
Of course, that still leaves open the question of why Luke does not mention Galilee appearances at all. I would dispute his framing of the question, also assumed in his response, that Luke “changed” the wording of the angel in Mark (171), given what I have observed in my analysis of the Synoptic accounts of the empty tomb in the many ways they are more different than they are alike. If there was any textual relationship between the books at this point, it was indirect at best (i.e., Luke using notes), so I do not think this represents an intentional change from a source as such. But as it is, I think O’Connell is right to note that Luke not only omits the appearances in Galilee—and for that reason he does not mention any promise of such appearances at all so as not to leave that loose thread—he also omits any reference to any appearances in the vicinity of Jerusalem that occurred after Easter day and before the ascension (172). Of course, Luke does not mention all the appearances on Easter day either. It is almost as if none of the Gospels even attempt to provide a singular comprehensive record on this matter. (O’Connell also notes on 172 the possibility that Luke was just running out of space on his scroll to mention other appearances. If that is the case, that could go some way to explaining why he did not narrate the appearance to Peter in any detail.)
Finally, he addresses how John “seems to blatantly contradict the Synoptics as to whether the women at the tomb knew Jesus was resurrected before they met the disciples” (172). This was something Wenham tried to address as well in a way that I do not think was completely satisfying. O’Connell mentions some of the same points about the disciples being in different places on Sunday morning and that the women did not see the angels immediately upon their arrival. He also ultimately posits the notion that Mary Magdalene left the tomb before angels arrived and that she went to tell Peter and the Beloved Disciple, who ran to the tomb after the other women had left. It is unfortunately another mark against the lack of precision I have noted at multiple points in this analysis that he has not addressed the particularities of Matthew’s account that were also problematic for Wenham’s harmony. While Matthew’s account does not definitively rule out other women besides Mary Magdalene and the other Mary being present, the grammar of 28:8–10 would seem to imply Mary Magdalene’s involvement in the absence of disambiguation. As I made clear in my previous evaluation, I am not saying that this issue cannot be addressed, but it should not be ignored in harmonization either.
Then O’Connell addresses seven minor claimed contradictions:
1) The time of day when the women came to the tomb (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1)
2) The number of women who accompanied Mary Magdalene (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:9–10; John 20:2)
3) The number of angels present (Matt 28:5; Mark 16:5; Luke 24:4; John 20:12)
4) The precise words the angels said [I have already linked to my analysis of the Synoptic accounts]
5) The placement of the angels (given Matt 28:2)
6) What Jesus showed his disciples, namely his hands and feet (per Luke 24:39) or hands and side (per John 20:20)
7) The timing of when the Holy Spirit was given (Luke 24:49; John 20:22–23)[174–75]
He responds to 1) by noting that these are different ways of describing the sun coming up. I think that is generally agreeable, but I think it is better to say with more precision that these are describing some different actions in roughly the same time of day, which goes some way to explaining the different descriptions. Still, it is accurate to say that the descriptions are broad enough to be compatible. The responses to 2) and 3) are the same in that there is no direct contradiction because no source claims exclusivity in the sense that there were only these women and not others, or that there was only one angel. After all, “an omission is not a contradiction” (176). This is basically true and applicable here (though, to be more exact, one could imagine certain scenarios in which an omission could be a contradiction, but that would require the framing of the narrations to be markedly different so that the contradiction arises more from the framing than the sheer fact of omission). As he notes with 4), the Gospels do not give us the exact words of the characters involved, and as I have noted, the accounts are more different in their wording overall than they are similar, regardless of which two accounts you compare. As I see it, this is a case of independence between the accounts. Even if we determine in other cases that one of these texts used another (or multiple ones of the others), it does not follow perforce that every parallel, regardless of degree of similarity or difference, is an indication of dependence of one text on the other. As I said about the angel in Matthew, O’Connell also argued that the angel was initially sitting on the stone, but that he had gone inside the tomb by the time the women had arrived. As for 6), he is right that the accounts are not exclusive of each other, even if their emphases are different. His response to 7) is rather short, as he notes that the Spirit is given for different purposes in each account. Since I am only addressing O’Connell’s response and not the issue more generally, I will not get into the weeds of this discussion here, but there has been much written on the subject that I think does better in explaining the issues according to larger considerations of John and Luke-Acts. Plenty of commentaries address this, as do various biblical-theological works.2
While I obviously think that O’Connell could have gone into more detail at various points, the issues I have with his harmonization have less to do with the extent of detail than with the lack of precision, which leads to certain points being overlooked in his arguments. Unlike Wenham, he is too dismissive of Mark’s ending, although that is not necessarily surprising. And he only broadly attempts to put events in sequence, but not in any detailed fashion like Wenham. I can only guess that Allison put this work in his list alongside Wenham and Schnabel because of how O’Connell offended Allison’s sensibilities with his affirmation of biblical inerrancy earlier in the book. But it is not as if Allison actually provided detailed examinations of these harmonizations. As it is, O’Connell’s work is more of an introductory quality providing an overview and survey of the issues. The details of what he says are largely okay, although they could be improved on even in the absence of significantly greater extent of detail. He is also particularly helpful in his framing of this whole matter in both the beginning and the end in addressing, on the one hand, what would be the significance if there were actual contradictions, and why harmonization is inherently legitimate (with only the details rendering a particular example illegitimate), on the other hand.
As I have not read O’Connell’s entire book yet, since I have only read this section and a few others, I will withhold a recommendation on the book as a whole for now. But as for this particular section and the chapter it is a part of, I do still recommend it, with the aforementioned caveats and qualifications remaining. It is more useful for introduction and framing, while Wenham’s volume is better for a deeper engagement in the particular issues.
While O’Connell cites sources on Chamberlain’s game, I would also recommend a video and channel for this and other points of NBA history here, as some people do doubt that Chamberlain scored 100 points.
Beyond these, see Cornelis Bennema, “The Giving of the Spirit in John 19-20: Another Round,” in The Spirit and Christ in the New Testament & Christian Theology: Essays in Honor of Max Turner, ed. I. Howard Marshall, Volker Rabens, and Cornelis Bennema (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 86–104.