Bible Study Need help understanding passages

[NRoof]

I need some help in understanding something.
While in Church the pastor was continuing his sermon on the resurrection of Christ from his Easter service. During the sermon he spoke on Luke 24. Being my usual self I also looked at Matthew, Mark and John to try and get a better picture of what was being taught. Unfortunately, instead of getting a better picture I ended up being confused.

Please understand I am not looking for a debate but I am trying to understand.

So here is my problem starting with the verses in question:

Matthew 28
1 Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. 3 His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. 4 And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
5 But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. 7 And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.â€Â

Mark 16
1 Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. 2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3 And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?†4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled awayâ€â€for it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.
6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. 7 But go, tell His disciplesâ€â€and Peterâ€â€that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.â€Â

Luke 24
1 Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. 3 Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. 5 Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, 7 saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’â€Â

John 20
1 Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.â€Â

1) In Matthew we have an earth quake that moves the rock and an angle sitting on the rock. The women are told Christ has risen and to go and tell the disciples.
2) In Mark we are only told the rock was already moved but this time there is someone in a white robe inside the tomb. The women are told Christ has risen and to go and tell the disciples.
3) In Luke the rock is already moved but this time we have 2 men in shiny garments. The women are told Christ has risen and to go and tell the disciples.
4) In John we are told the stone was moved and the body of Jesus has been taken away. The women ran and told the body had been stolen.

In all 4 accounts it is the same women who went to the tomb. In all 4 accounts it was Mary Magdalene who told the disciples.

So the question I have is how can the 4 above accounts be so different?

 

[cyberjosh]

I have looked into this and it is certainly a little difficult to understand. Actually the Synoptic Gospels' (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) accounts are simple enough to reconcile (with the Angels and all) but John's account throws us a curve ball in relation to Mary. John's Gospel as a whole takes a different approach to Jesus life than the Synoptics, but what we primarily see as the focus in his Gospel is Mary's disbelief & sorrow and her subsequent belief after seeing Jesus (remember John's whole Gospel is centered on "belief").

I can only propose two alternatives at present of how they may be synchronized: A) Mary indeed went with the other women but unlike them had doubts and told Peter and John as much, or B) As happens often in Luke, Matthew, and John (Mark is generally the most chronologically accurate - though Mark's ressurection account is short & truncated) the accounts in one of those three gospels is out of order or took place at a later (unspecified) time. I noticed many time passage ambiguities between the time the stone was rolled away (before the women got there), when the women arrived, when they saw the angels, and when they went back to tell the disciples. Also I think it is Matthew's account that says Jesus met the women on the road to tell the disciples, while John says that he appeared to Mary Magdelene in specific after she told the disciples. Possibly she ran to the disciples first apart from the other women, and therefore did not see Jesus when they did.

But I noticed something in John's account in which the emphasis seems to suddenly change in one respect: Mary told Peter and John that the body had been taken (and also possibly important is that it says 'therefore' they ran to the grave, not saying "immediately" or "next") and when the "other disciple" (John refering to himself) got there it says "He believed". Wait a minute.... Believed what? Obviously this refers to his ressurection but the context might have you think it meant "believed" that his body was stolen. Then another puzzling statement made immediately after that says that they did not yet understand the Scripture of his ressurection, which would seem to indicate that John couldn't have believed if he didn't understand it. But this might simply mean that convinced with the proof that Jesus was not there he believed it although he did not understand it. And indeed it does say that Peter was perplexed.

There are lots of chronological ambiguities which aren't the easiest to work out, but the important thing is to understand each of the stories in their own context to see if you can follow a coherent theme (John's does this the most) in which sequence does indeed play a role in the theme.

Stories in the Gospels aren't always easy to work out, neither for Jesus' birth nor for the night of the Lord's Supper (I tried doing a synchronization of that once - woof! That took up like 4 pages of notes on that one - still with chronological gaps in between) for example, but it doesn't mean that the events themselves didn't happen, so it is best just to have faith that the events happened as told even if the chronology suffers a little (it does in Matthew since Matthew as a whole arranged Jesus' ministry mostly topically rather than chronologically). So have faith and look into the real reason each of the accounts was written to see and understand the God-inspired reason for those accounts.

God Bless,

~Josh

 

[guibox]

This is the human element of inspiration. Remember that the Christ event was written down in this format 20-30 years after the ascension and was written from 4 different perspectives.

If there was a car accident in the street and the cops took statements from all 4 people who saw it, I bet the story would have many different and perhaps even conflicting details. However, the truth and infallibility of the act (that a car accident occurred) could not be denied.

The real truth that was trying to be conveyed was the resurrection of Christ and the tellings by beings (human or supernatural) attesting to this fact. This is the infallible truth. Whether the details are sketchy is the human aspect of inspiration which doesn't negate or neglect the theological reality.

 

[NRoof]

Josh,
Thank you for the reply. I need to read you post a few more times and compare it to what I'm seeing in the gospels. I'm a little thick and slow at times :D

So have faith and look into the real reason each of the accounts was written to see and understand the God-inspired reason for those accounts.

This is exactly what I'm trying to do but for whatever reason I have reached a stumbling point.

If there was a car accident in the street and the cops took statements from all 4 people who saw it, I bet the story would have many different and perhaps even conflicting details. However, the truth and infallibility of the act (that a car accident occurred) could not be denied.

I would agree except this situation would be more like 4 cops taking statements from 1 witness. The witness tells each officer the exact same details of events and they each come out of this with 4 totally different versions of the events.

Mary Magdalene told here account of events to the disciples.
Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus and therefore both would have gotten the details of the events at the same time. I would expect there accounts to agree with each other but they don't.
Luke accompanied Paul so it is reasonable to believe Luke heard the events from Paul. Paul would have most likely heard them from on of the apostles. In this instance I could understand some differences based on Luke having 3rd hand information.
Mark I am a little unsure of. It is possible he got his version of events from either Peter or Paul. Again I could understand some differences here due to the information being 2nd or 3rd hand.

2 Timothy 3:16
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness

So if we are to believe this (which I do) then God has given us 4 different accounts of the resurrection. This is where I am struggling to understand. I do understand what is truly important about these passages and they are all in agreement on the fact the Christ has risen.

 

[Rick W]

There were two angels.
One was recounted in Matthew. The other in Mark and both in Luke.

In Luke we see "they said to them". I don't think the two angels spoke the very same thing in unison. But they both did tell the women the same thing. Twice. Matthew, Mark and Luke recount what was told only once. Once is all that's needed to get the point across

Again, "They said to them".

The women approach the tomb. The angel sitting on the stone tells them what happened. The women go in, the angel follows, they "bowed their faces to the earth" and the other tells them again what happened. Both angels would obviously be present.

Nothing's changed.

 

[Rick W]

John

There had be some time before the story was told to the disciples, or disciple... the point is there was time before the story was related. Time enough for some doubt to enter in their minds much like the doubt that entered Peter's mind while walking on water toward Christ. In any case I seriously doubt the women remained silent on the way. The chatter must have been rapid fire trying to understand what was seen. Was He really risen? The two angels were there. That the women did see. But they didn't see Christ. Was He really risen? What did the two angels do with the body?
“They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.â€Â

Oh ye of little faith.

 

[Rick W]

Clarification

Oh ye of little faith.

I'm refering to the women, Peter on the water and quite a few others in the bible. Elijah hid in the cave, Moses said he wasn't cut out for the job and it goes on and on.

 

[NRoof]

Potluck,
Thanks for the reply.
Believe it or not it has actually helped some.
I am still going to continue looking into this but you have opened me up to a plausible scenario and thus freed my mind up (if even just a little bit).
Unfortunately (or not depending on your views) I have a very analytic mind and need to relate the things of God into my human understanding. This has often created problems for me. It is very difficult for me to just take things on faith. Even understanding Gods ways are not my ways I still want to understand Gods ways from my understanding.

I hope that makes sense.

I welcome others thoughts on this as I believe it is one of the ways God uses to help us understand him better.

 

[Rick W]

Scripture isn't aimed at the mind anywhere near as it's aimed at the heart. That's what God is after, your heart.
Faith makes no sense. Hope is not logical. If they were there would be no faith or hope anyway. But we have enough of God's witness the mind can grasp for the heart to believe. What the mind doesn't see the heart can.
To follow Christ one must first follow one's heart for therein will Christ reside.

 

[cyberjosh]

This is exactly what I'm trying to do but for whatever reason I have reached a stumbling point.

We can all get stuck on details sometimes. It happens. I've found over the years though that verses that at first I did not understand, but understand now, were illuminated by understanding the principle & reason for the verse (the foundational meaning) and then working backwards to the details. How else could one wrap their mind around how Jesus "broke the Sabbath" often in the healing of the sick and yet was blameless, and how the priests of Nob were justified in giving David and his men the shewbread of the temple which were only for the priests? Principles must be discerned first if anything is ever going to click, as I have learned over the years.

Unfortunately (or not depending on your views) I have a very analytic mind and need to relate the things of God into my human understanding. This has often created problems for me. It is very difficult for me to just take things on faith. Even understanding Gods ways are not my ways I still want to understand Gods ways from my understanding.

I'm like you, I have an extremely analytic mind. This has driven me into Apologetics big time, and I study on my own Biblical archaeology, Biblical Hebrew & Greek, and Theology. I consider myself an amateur scholar, and I analyze everything. But imagine me with this analytical mind having to (all along, under the conviction of the Word) acknowledge my limited human understanding. And trust me on this, but the yearning and pain of limited understanding are part of it and are necessary for growth in our understanding (because the longer we endure in pursuing God's Word, the more he will reveal to us). This is sort of a "birthpains" in the spirit: a birthing of understanding. Some women say men will never know what it's like to give birth & how painful it is ( ), but we can relate when we go through the same arduous pain to our intellect and strive for spiritual understanding as we struggle to refine the truth in the fire.

P.S. I have written a paper on the Bible's historical accuracy which I endeavored to do since I believe the Bible can also be justified in the facts. These things don't define my faith, but they bolster it. If you would like to read it (as no doubt it will help you - if you are anything like me) I can try to see if I can find it and send it to you. And over time if you study enough as I have you begin to see that the general reliability of the Bible (such as I explored in my report) vindicates the specific reliability of the Bible in the long run. Some times these things can't (and shouldn't) be divorced from their contexts, and seeing a broader picture helps when you want to narrow it down.

I hope this helps you, and I know what it's like because I'm the same way. But God has blessed me with understanding which I had to slowly build on over 5-6 years (and I'm yet ever-learning), and that's a long time for the analytical mind. But such analyzing is useless and vain if we don't love God or his truth, and if we don't pursue it with a heart that will conform to the truth when we find it. After many shocking revelations in the Bible's truths I've really had to crucify my flesh to get where I am. If I had turned back once I found it, it may have been unrecoverable.

God Bless,

~Josh

 

[cyberjosh]

NRoof,

If I find the time I'll try to come back and analyze the theological context of the 4 accounts with you if you like. I also have a good NT Theology book which is excellent for picking out themes in the books of the NT, which may aid in understanding theological themes in the Gospels.

God Bless,

~Josh