The Resurrection II.1
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Thursday, November 15, 2001
Abstract
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
The peculiar character of the gospel narratives is that the farther a writer is removed from the events, the more he knows. Paul in about 50 AD knows very little, Mark in about 65 AD a little more than Paul, Matthew and Luke in about 95 AD still more, and John in about 125 AD knows most of all, except the birth narratives. This is a characteristic of the growth of myth, not history. With the passage of time historical details disappear, but in the first hundred years of Christianity they grew.
The accounts of the resurrection in the four gospels, as S H Hooke has pointed out in Middle Eastern Mythology, are decorated with mythical elements, but Mark has no account of any appearances of Jesus, and the mythical element is least in this gospel. It supports the idea that Mark is the earliest and least elaborated gospel. All that Mark relates concerning the resurrection of Jesus is that the women came early on the morning of the first day of the week to the grave, found the stone rolled away and the grave empty. They saw a young man in a white robe sitting by the grave who told them that Jesus was not there but was risen, and gave them a message to deliver to the disciples to the effect that Jesus would meet them in Galilee as he had told them at the Last Supper.
Mythology enters the passion narratives of Jesus from such scriptures as Psalms 22 and Isaiah 3, where the sufferings of the godly Israelite, and of the Servant of Yehouah, prefigure the sufferings of Jesus during his passion. The suffering Servant of Yehouah of Deutero-Isaiah provides the pattern of Jesus’s destiny. The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:27-35) shows the early Church understood this Isaiah passage as referring to Jesus.
Supernatural Events
All the synoptic gospels record that at the moment of Jesus’s death the veil of the Temple was rent from top to bottom by supernatural agency. Few people can persuade themselves this is historical. Even so eminent a New Testament scholar as Dr C H Dodd said, “The rending of the veil I take to be purely symbolical.” The three Synoptic gospels also relate that immediately before the death of Jesus there was darkness over the whole land for three hours. Luke adds, according to the best manuscripts, that the darkness was due to an eclipse of the sun (Lk 23:44), but, as Origen pointed out long ago, an eclipse of the sun is not possible at full moon. The darkness, like the rending of the veil, is symbolical.
Matthew is richest in mythical elements. Besides these two incidents, he says rocks were rent by an earthquake, the graves were opened, and many bodies of sleeping saints arose and came into “the holy city” (Jerusalem), and appeared to many “after his resurrection.” Matthew is trying to say that the general resurrection of Hosea had begun. Jesus was the first but already other righteous men were being resurrected. He implies that these resurrected saints were walking around Jerusalem for the weekend, and indeed ought to be still alive, unless they also ascended to join the hosts of heaven. Why did none of the disciples meet them? If they remained alive, why are they not the principle apostles, able to confirm in person the truth of the resurrection to this day? If they all ascended to heaven why did no one report on this mass ascension which must have been more remarkable than Jesus’s own?
The Guard at the Tomb
None of the gospel accounts of the resurrection were written by any eyewitnesses to the event, as Christians often claim, and most other references to it were by Paul, who admitted he did not see it either. The evangelists did not see Christ rise from the tomb, nor did they positively claim to have got it from anybody who did see it. The only witnesses who might have seen what happened were the guards at the tomb in Matthew, either Roman soldiers or Temple Guards, and they were so unimpressed that they took a bribe not to say anything about it. They ought to have been the chief apostles. This appears only in Matthew and refutes skepticism that Matthew admits was being expressed even at the time he wrote (Mt 28:15)! How could Mark or Luke have missed this out, if it was true? It was invented to answer the doubters.
The Pharisees, according to Matthew, suspected the Nazarenes of plotting to steal the corpse to make it seem as though he had arisen. The most senior Jews, the supposed enemies of Jesus, had heard and understood that Jesus claimed he would be resurrected though the disciples had misunderstood him to a man, and refused to believe it even when it happened. To forestall the presummed plot, they demanded from Pilate a guard. Pilate’s reply, “Ye have a guard,” is ambiguous, but seems to be a refusal, saying they should use their own guard, the Temple Guard. Later, though, the implication is the guards are Roman soldiers (Mt 28:14) subject to the governor. Yet when they returned, they reported first to the priests, implying they were Temple Guards.
Did the guards check the tomb before they put a seal on the closed tomb (Mt 27:66)? All of this happened on the sabbath day when the body had been in the tomb since Friday afternoon. For the whole of Friday night, the body was unguarded, even if it was ever in the tomb. Joseph of Arimathea had charge of the body and sealed the tomb himself (Mt 27:57-60). The two women are then mentioned in a floating sentence that could have been simply interpolated to answer the criticism that the women got the wrong tomb. The corpse need not have been in the tomb when the sentries were put on duty.
If the corpse was truly resurrected in the presence of the guards, they must have seen what happened and have become the only real eyewitnesses to the resurrection. Evidently no guards came forward to the first Christians as witnesses to it. No guards came forward, though they had just seen the most astonishing act ever to happen in the world and had evidently still not believed! How then are we who are denied such evidence to believe? Matthew has to explain his blunder. He wanted guards in the story to prove that the corpse was not simply stolen but then has to explain why they did not come forward as the most compelling witnesses. So he tells us they were bribed not to tell the truth but to say that disciples had stolen the corpse.
Matthew is getting really tangled up here. There is no way Roman soldiers could have been bribed to say Christ’s body was stolen away by his disciples. If they had said it they would have been accused immediately of treachery to Rome in allowing it. Matthew hopes to avoid this by saying the priests would stand up for them, if the governor found out, but the priests would have had no say in such a flagrant dereliction of duty. They were supposed to be on guard to prevent the theft of the body. They failed! Matthew realizes this and gets more tangled up by having the guards make the excuse they were asleep! Can you imagine what any military power would do to soldiers who admitted being asleep while on duty? And if now they were saying they were asleep, how could they have served to prove that the disciples did not steal the body?
If they were Temple Guards, it is more plausible, the concern about the governor being merely that he would have had responsibility for the corpse of a rebel, but it still would not have served Matthew’s purpose. Matthew has worked himself into a total mess. If there was a guard and they later admitted they had seen disciples stealing the corpse, then they had not been assigned specifically to guard the tomb. Most likely there was no guard, since no other gospel mentions it. In some of the events he describes, Matthew assumes the omniscience of a fiction writer, narrating what he could not have known. He reports private discussions between priests and Pilate (Mt 27:62-65), and the guards (Mt 28.11-15), the latter involving bribery and so presumably secret! Matthew is answering critics with fictional answers.
The Empty Tomb
In Mark 16:1, the women are listed again after having been listed in the previous verse—an insertion. The two Marys and Salome (or Mary Magdalene alone, according to John) visit the tomb early on the Sunday morning the day after the sabbath ostensibly to wash and prepare the body. Yet, this same gospel implies (Mk 15:46), and John confirms, that Joseph of Arimathea had already prepared the body for burial. In Judaea, in April, it seems unlikely that the women would really be going to anoint a body that might have already started to decompose in the hot climate. Friends and family might wish to visit a tomb for a few days after burial to grieve but surely not to anoint the corpse.
If that was their purpose, they could have gone on the previous night after the stars came out when the sabbath was over, and indeed it is strange that someone so revered as Jesus should have unnecessarily been left another twelve hours if they really wanted to embalm the body. Unless, as is suspected, the Essenes measured time from dawn to dawn, unlike the Pharisees, in which case this is more proof that the Nazarenes were Essenes. For what it is worth, John tells us the corpse had already been embalmed by Joseph and Nicodemus (Jn 19:39-40), and they would have had enough time to do it on Friday night if they too were Essenes and measured days from dawn and not dusk.
The women knew the tomb was closed with a stone (Mk 15:47) which they could not move, but they took no man with them, and they were wondering (Mk 16:3) how they could move it, when they found the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty. A young man (or two men) in pure white garments tells them that Jesus is risen and has gone ahead to Galilee as he promised. The direct speech is all made up by Mark. It is not in the language of tradition but in Mark’s language. Mark wishes to assure the reader that the women had seen the very place where Jesus had been laid. The women fled trembling and amazed and, at this point, the earliest gospel ends (ignoring the final twelve verses which were added later).
The white robe and youth are conventional characteristics of an angel, but the significance of the pure white garments is not that these men are “angels” of God but that they are “messengers” of the Essenes. Jesus the Nasi had an important position in the Essene order. He alone had not misread the signs of the times but the whole order had. The readings and prophecies had been wrong but Jesus had carried out his duties as John the Baptist had before him, and had suffered for it. His body was removed so that he could be given a proper burial in a place approved by the community. The messengers from the sect give orders to the disciples that they were to escape to Galilee—out of Roman jurisdiction.
According to the other gospels, immediately after the crucifixion, the disciples had despaired and were incredulous to hear that the tomb was empty. This proves that Jesus cannot have taught his disciples to expect his bodily resurrection on the third day, as the gospels maintain since otherwise they would have been expecting Jesus to rise, would not have despaired at his death and would have rejoiced to hear of the empty tomb. The five occasions Jesus spoke of his death and resurrection in the gospel stories are interpolations based on hindsight.
The church’s attempt at accounting for the inconsistency of the apostles’ behaviour was to accuse them of stupidity. They were not stupid. If they were, Jesus must have been stupid to have chosen them. It is interesting to realize how the early church got away with labelling the Jewish followers of Jesus as stupid. Once it is appreciated that Jesus was an Essene sent to recruit the wayward children of Israel in the last days, it is obvious. Jesus went out to recruit those whom the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to as the “simple of Ephraim.” His converts were therefore “the simple!” Once the church had escaped into the gentile world, it was a short and easy progression from being called “the simple” to being simple. That suited the gentile leaders of the gentile church just fine—Jesus was a god, but his simple followers thought he was only a king.
Since the Nazarene leaders, at least, were not simple, if they really did not understand when Jesus told them what to expect, then his prophecies must have been far more obscure than they are in the New Testament—or they never occurred! The plausible explanation, since the disciples were completely surprised by the news of the empty tomb, was that Jesus had made no prophecies about his personal resurrection. Their behaviour was therefore perfectly understandable. Their leader was dead, their rebellion had failed, God had not intervened—they despaired. Then someone had the temerity to steal the corpse!
According to the fictitious final twelve verses added to Mark, it is Mary Magdalene who first sees the risen Jesus. As if to provide an explanation, the author immediately tells us that Jesus had cast seven devils from her. The writer of these late verses was not likely to have been using Nazarene convention and must have understood devils to signify madness, not opposition or apostasy. Both Matthew 12:43-45 and Luke 11:24-26 using Nazarene code speak of unclean spirits, having been driven out, returning to their host accompanied by seven other, even more wicked spirits. They were saying that some converts were utter doubters who had to be repeatedly reassured. But it seems Mary Magdalen was unreliable and unstable—she was badly neurotic. Still, if Jesus had made numerous prophecies of his resurrection, the disciples should have received her news cautiously perhaps, but ready to accept it with joy. He had done no such thing and, not surprisingly, the neurotic woman was ignored.
Eyewitness Testimony
Besides the physical impossibility of resurrection, the four gospels are at such odds, their testimony cannot be accepted as credible. They disagree about the time of its discovery, the persons who made the discovery, what took place at the sepulchre, what Peter saw and did there, and what occurred afterward relating to it.
The resurrection rests upon the flimsiest of evidence. Though Christians talk about eyewitness testimony, scholars know that none of the gospel accounts of the resurrection were written by an eyewitness to the event. The gospels only relate hearsay accounts of alleged appearances of the man who was dead but arose, and the other New Testament citations of it were by the apostle Paul, who had not seen it either.
The gospel writers say that these witnesses said they had seen the risen Jesus. Christians like to think of these witnesses as perfectly holy people even though the gospels almost go out of their way to show that they were far from perfect, and indeed that Jesus was trying to save sinners and publicans. Why then will they not let go of their illusion of saintliness and consider that, once Jesus had died, they all lied to promote their apparently lost cause in Jesus? Or why did they never considered the possibility that Jesus was not dead at all, and had been whisked away by Joseph of Arimathea to a safe place? Or why could they not have been so distressed by the unacceptable outcome that they rationalized the defeat, in fact, into a victory, in theory.
Any of these explanations would be preferable to the idea that God was doing a magical trick to impress gullible believers. Why should rational people accept the incredible Christian story of the resurrection and reject other incredible claims? Even Christians, who are not only ready to believe this fabulous myth but are ready to foist it on to others, always reject other people’s miracles. They are utterly incapable of realizing that their own fantastic claims have no more validity than the ones they discard.
The gospels tell us with tiresome regularity that Jesus forewarned his disciples about his forthcoming death and resurrection. If he did, they were expecting it. Not so, say Christians, they were shocked and in despair when they realised the body had gone. The contradiction between the repeated warnings given by the Saviour and the failure of his disciples to hear them, Christians explain by the total incomprehension of the disciples.
Those who First Visited the Sepulchre
As to the time of the first visits to the tomb, Matthew (Mt 28:1) tells us that it was late on the sabbath, as it began to dawn. Mark (Mk 16:1-2) says the sabbath was past, it was early on the first day of the week and the sun was rising. Luke says it was the first day of the week at early dawn (Lk 24:1). John 20:1 declares it was the first day of the week but yet dark. So it was simultaneously dark, just before dawn, and after dawn when the sun was rising.
More important is how the expressions of time are interpreted. Matthew phrases the time as if the sabbath ended at dawn, and Mark implies something similar, if not so clearly. Luke’s expression could apply to either a dusk-to-dusk day or a dawn-to-dawn one. Only John’s suits only the traditional Pharisaic day of evening to evening. If it is true that the Essenes used a solar calendar with days measured from dawn to dawn, these simple expressions of the synoptic gospels support the idea that the Nazarenes were Essenes.
Regarding who first visited the sepulchre, Matthew says it was Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James. They were there just to see the sepulchre. Mark says it was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, and they had spices for anointing. Luke says it was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and other women who had been with them in Galilee. They had spices even though Joseph seems again to have prepared the body. John is definite that Mary Magdalene went alone (Jn 20:1-2), and mentions no reason why she was there, because Nicodemus and Joseph had anointed the body with a hundredweight(!) of myrrh and aloes (Jn 19:39-40). So Mary Magdalene does not take spices. Were there two women, a gaggle of more than four women, or just one woman? No reasonable person could accept such contradictory evidence. Christians accept it for one reason only—they think it will give them eternal life after death!
Moses and Exodus
