Evaluating Resurrection Harmonies, Part 6
Lydia McGrew's Testimonies to the Truth
(avg. read time: 4–9 mins.)
Barring expressed interest in this series continuing, today marks the end of my series evaluating harmonies of the resurrection accounts (for other entries, see here, here, here, here, and here). Today, we are examining:
Lydia McGrew, Testimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the Gospels (Tampa, FL: DeWard, 2023).
While other authors have defended the exercise and cited examples from dealing with ancient history, I think McGrew might have the most helpful introduction to this exercise of all the authors we have reviewed (though there is something to be said for Wenham as well). She draws from T. R. Birks in referencing “reconcilable variation,” which refers to when accounts have “differences that someone might say are discrepancies, but these differences do not really amount to irreconcilable contradiction. In a reconcilable variation, the application of historical common sense works well to resolve the alleged discrepancy, while this would be harder to do if the stories were made up or erroneous” (135). After all, “When two accounts are truthful, they are in principle reconcilable, since reality is consistent. When an account is fabricated, it is far more likely to result in an irreconcilable contradiction with some other fact or account” (136). Harmonization is the activity of seeing how stories can be reconciled, including when they have reconcilable variation. Unfortunately, as we have seen elsewhere in this series, harmonization is treated like a four-letter word in some scholarly circles, “because scholars tend to assume that the only reason why someone in the modern world would do it is because that person has a theological commitment to the Bible. Since scholars want to be able to say that they are just following the objective evidence, too many scholars, including some evangelicals, tend to shy away from harmonization” (136). But this need not be the case, as in the hypothetical example she provides (134–35; also see 141, 156–57), and in other instances that have been noted throughout this series. There are cases where one can engage in harmonization where the Bible is not involved, and no pronouncedly theological issue is at stake.
She then proceeds through some examples where scholars have artificially claimed contradictions where there is not even an obvious discrepancy. Most of these do not concern the resurrection accounts, but she does note the often-mentioned fact that Matthew and Mark mention one angel while Luke (and John) features two (139). For as frequently as the point is brought up, this is not a difficult issue. If there were two angels, there was obviously one, and it seems that one is presented as the prominent speaker.
The rest of the chapter focuses specifically on the Easter stories (141–57). As I have done with others, I will first present her outline of events and then provide my evaluation. As she sees it, the best way to account for the evidence is in the sequence as follows (153–55):
1) On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene and the other women discover that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance of the tomb.
2) Mary Magdalene runs away to tell Peter and John, while the other women enter the tomb, receive the angelic message and commission, and then they leave.
3) The other women meet Jesus on the road.
4) Peter and John return with Mary Magdalene, find the tomb empty, look around, and leave.
5) Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene while she is alone.
6) The male disciples are confused by the reports they have heard, but they tend not to believe the women.
7) At some point during this day, Jesus appears to Peter.
8) That evening, Jesus appears to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
9) After they returned to the group, Jesus appears to the disciples gathered in Jerusalem, minus Thomas.
10) Jesus appears the next week to the disciples with Thomas now present.
11) Peter and the rest of the Eleven travel to Galilee in obedience to Jesus’s instructions.
12) Peter and six others go fishing on the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus appears to them.
13) The Eleven and a larger group of disciples meet with Jesus in Galilee, where some who have not seen Jesus since his resurrection are initially doubtful.
14) Jesus appears to his disciples an unspecified number of times over the course of the next few weeks, and they eventually return to Jerusalem together, as Jesus instructs them to stay there until they receive the Holy Spirit.
15) Jesus speaks with his disciples one last time before the Ascension.
16) The Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples at Pentecost.
I understand that her focus is on the Gospels, but it is unfortunate that the details of 1 Cor 15:3–8 have not been incorporated here. I was interested to see what her take on the issues raised by that text were, but I am guessing that the appearances not listed above are included in 14). This outline is thus less complete than some of the others we have seen. She also only briefly comments on the ending of Mark, as she claims, and I think incorrectly, that this ending was probably not part of the original manuscript and that Mark’s ending has been lost (150–51).
We also see that she has followed the most popular account of saying that Mary Magdalene was not present for the angelic message, having left to find Peter and John before any of the women entered the tomb. I am relieved to see that, contrary to others, she faces head-on the problem raised by Matthew’s account for this view. First, she notes the importance of recognizing the fact “that people who are part of a group at one time don’t have to continue to stay with that group” (143). Second, she notes that the other Synoptic Gospels mention other women and that, “This variation of the women’s names shows that the Gospel authors weren’t just getting their stories from each other. Probably their accounts represent the different details that different women remembered” (143). Naturally, I agree with this, as I have argued here. Conversely, she observes how John’s narration only indirectly implies the presence of other women in 20:2, but when she says this to Peter and John, “This doesn’t mean that the other women are still with her then, but it shows that she was with others when they found the tomb empty” (143). Third, she says,
It’s not clear whether or not Matthew heard about the fact that Mary Magdalene left the group and met Jesus later alone, nor is it clear that he knew that there were four or more women present. But he doesn’t deny such a meeting between Mary and Jesus. He says that “they” met Jesus on the road. Once we realize (by reading both Luke and Mark) that there were more than two women present to begin with, Matthew’s ‘they’ makes sense even after Mary Magdalene is no longer there. Several women received the message from the angel(s) and met Jesus on the road. (144)
I think this is reasonable, and it fits with her overall approach of fitting the puzzle pieces of the Gospels together. I imagine it could be further refined by reference to other parts of the Gospels (and Matthew specifically) where such aspects of the narrative can be reasonably inferred even in the absence of explicit declaration. One example could be a text she draws attention to later, as Matt 28:16–20 only mentions the Eleven, but it could well imply that the ones who doubted (Matt 28:17) were others who had come with the Eleven (152).
I do think a secondary possibility is that Matthew could be compressing and/or conflating multiple encounters here by narrating only one appearance to the women as a kind of catch-all for multiple appearances, as may be hinted by how the description of the women taking hold of Jesus in Matt 28:9 and Jesus’s instruction to cease grasping in John 20:17 fit together (though the correspondence is not precise on the linguistic level). One can see from Acts 1:1–11 that Luke similarly compresses his narrative in Luke 24:36–53 (as does Mark 16, particularly in 16:14–20). But the application of that possibility here is more speculative.
She also addresses the words of the angel in the empty tomb. As I noted in my synoptic analysis linked above, this is the part of the story of the empty tomb where Matthew and Mark are by far the closest together, whereas Luke has much less commonality of wording. Of the differentiation, she says, “The angel referred to Galilee in both ways—both as the place where Jesus’ followers were to meet him (confirmed by both Matthew and Mark) and as the place where he previously predicted his death and resurrection (recorded by Luke). Some of the women remembered one part of the message (about where Jesus would later meet them), and others told Luke about the other part (reminding them of Jesus’ prediction)” (148). She had previously noted the significance of the fact that the listed women had been with Jesus in Galilee (Luke 8:1–3) and followed him from there to here, and so they would have heard the predictions previously (145–46).
I am not as convinced by the placement of 3) so that the appearance to the other women happened before the one to Mary Magdalene, particularly given the statement of Mark 16:9. But apart from the lack of accounting for certain details and the all-too-cursory treatment of the ending of Mark, I think this is a solid sequence. I appreciate that McGrew corrected an oversight from other harmonizations in making an argument where it needed to be made. This in combination with her addressing other supposed conflicts and her treatment of the matter of harmonization as a whole make this a commendable and recommended volume, at least on this subject (I have not read the whole book as yet, so I withhold a full, hearty recommendation in the absence of engaging with the entire volume). But I should mention again that some areas require further detail, such as in the omissions I noted earlier, and further argumentation to refine the point being made.