The Harmony of the Resurrection Narratives

Skeptics have often argued that the resurrection narratives of the four Gospels are hopelessly contradictory, and that this sheds doubt on the reality of Jesus’s resurrection. Now, it is certainly true that we have four very different resurrection narratives in the Gospels (this provides good evidence that these are independent eyewitness accounts, rather than a recopied story). However, careful analysis of the resurrection narratives will show that they are essentially in harmony, providing complementary, rather than contradictory, details.

All four Gospels begin their resurrection narratives with women followers of Jesus coming to His tomb early on Sunday morning (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). John only mentions Mary Magdalene. Matthew mentions both Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus. Mark mentions the two Marys and Salome, while Luke mentions the two Marys, Joanna, and unnamed “others” (Luke 24:10). There is no contradiction here. Some Gospels are just more detailed than others in mentioning who was present.

Mark, Luke, and John record that when the women got to the tomb, the stone had already been rolled away (Mark 16:4; Luke 24:2; John 20:1). Matthew, in contrast, actually describes an angel descending from heaven, causing an earthquake, and rolling the stone away (Matt 28:2). However, this can easily be understood as Matthew describing what had previously occurred, before the women arrived. 

Matthew is also the only Gospel that mentions the guards at the tomb, who were frightened by the angel and then went to tell the chief priests what had happened (Matt 28:4, 11-15). However, this is merely a matter of Matthew providing an additional detail not recorded in the other Gospels. It is not in any way a contradiction. 

All four Gospels mention an angel appearing at the empty tomb and speaking with the women (Matt 28:5; Mark 16:5; Luke 24:4; John 20:11-12). Luke and John actually mention that there were two angels present. But this does not contradict Matthew and Mark; it just provides additional information. Matthew describes the angel sitting on the stone, while Mark, Luke, and John describe the angel(s) appearing inside the tomb. However, it is possible that Matthew’s description of the angel’s location only applies to the angel’s encounter with the guards; by the time the women got there, the angel instead appeared inside the tomb, as the other Gospels describe.

According to the Synoptics, the angels tell the women that Jesus has risen from the dead (Matt 28:5-6; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:5-7). Matthew and Mark add that the angel tells them to inform Jesus’s disciples that He is risen, and to go see Him in Galilee (Matt 28:7; Mark 16:7). According to Matthew, as they are on their way to inform Jesus’s disciples of this, they encounter the risen Jesus Himself (Matt 28:8-10). However, in John, the angels merely ask Mary, “Why are you crying?” (John 20:13), and Mary learns of Jesus’s resurrection when she encounters Jesus Himself near the tomb (John 20:14-17). It is a little difficult to perfectly reconcile the Synoptics and John on this particular point. The best explanation seems to be that Mary had a private encounter with Jesus near the tomb; meanwhile, the angels informed the other women in the tomb that Jesus was risen. As all the women then went to inform the disciples, Jesus again appeared, this time to all of them. 

Luke and John describe the women reporting Jesus’s resurrection to the disciples (Luke 24:9; John 20:18), while Matthew just implies that they did. The Gospel of Mark, however, rather abruptly ends with the statement, “They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (Mark 16:8).^[1]The earliest manuscripts of Mark do not contain Mark 16:9-20. The overwhelming consensus of New Testament scholars is that these verses were not originally part of Mark’s Gospel and were added … Continue reading There is disagreement among scholars about whether there was originally more to the ending of Mark’s Gospel which somehow was lost early on, or if Mark intended to end his Gospel on this ambiguous note for rhetorical purposes. But in either case, Mark’s meaning could not possibly be that the women never reported Jesus’s resurrection to the disciples. Most likely, what Mark means is that, as the women went to inform the disciples, they did not speak to anyone else or proclaim Jesus’s resurrection in the city.

According to Luke, after the women informed the disciples of Jesus’s resurrection, Peter ran and looked at the empty tomb (Luke 24:12). But according to John, Mary informed the disciples the tomb was empty earlier, before she learned of Jesus’s resurrection, and that is when Peter and John ran and looked at the empty tomb (John 20:2-10). One possible explanation for this is that Peter ran and looked at the empty tomb twice; he looked the first time when Mary informed him the tomb was empty, and looked a second time when she told him of Jesus’s resurrection, hoping to see the angel the women told him about. Another, simpler, explanation is that Luke simply records this event out of chronological order. 

Only the Gospel of Luke records Jesus appearing to two unnamed disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). But both Luke and John record Jesus subsequently appearing to His disciples later that day (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-23). Luke states that “the Eleven” were present at this appearance of Jesus (Luke 24:33). But, according to John, Thomas, one of the Eleven disciples, was not actually present at this appearance (John 20:24). At first glance, this appears to be a contradiction. However, Luke’s use of the term “the Eleven” can easily be understood as a name used to refer to the group of Jesus’s closest disciples, rather than as necessarily being a claim that every single member of this group was present. John provides a little more detail, and informs the reader that there was one member of the Eleven who was actually not present.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’s initial appearance to the disciples is immediately followed by Him telling them to remain in Jerusalem, and then ascending into heaven (Luke 24:49-53). But John tells of Jesus appearing to His disciples a week later (John 20:26-29), and then again an unspecified amount of time later, in Galilee (John 21). And Matthew also tells of Jesus appearing to His disciples in Galilee (Matt 28:16-20). At first glance, this seems like a contradiction. However, in Acts, the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, Luke clarifies that Jesus appeared to His disciples and taught them over a period of forty days in between His resurrection and His ascension (Acts 1:3). Luke 24:44-49, then, is a very brief, condensed summary of what Jesus taught His disciples when He appeared to them multiple times over this forty day period. It was only at the end of this forty day period that Jesus told His disciples to remain in Jerusalem. 

So, the other appearances of Jesus recorded in John and Matthew can easily be understood as occurring within this forty day period. A week after Jesus initially appeared to His disciples, He appeared to them again, this time with Thomas present (John 20:26-29). Then, the disciples finally followed the angels’ directive to go to Galilee to meet with Jesus (Matt 28:7; Mark 16:7). It might seem a little strange that the disciples would wait over a week to finally do this, but perhaps they did not want to go unless Thomas was convinced and willing to come as well. There, they met with Jesus at least twice (Matt 28:16-20; John 21). Eventually, perhaps at Jesus’s directive, they went back to Jerusalem, where Jesus met with them again and told them to remain in Jerusalem until the coming of the Holy Spirit. After this, Jesus ascended into heaven (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9-11). 

The truthfulness of Jesus’s resurrection does not stand or fall by whether every little detail of the resurrection narratives of the four Gospels line up perfectly. There would be good reason to believe that the resurrection of Jesus really happened, even if there were some significant contradictions in the details of the resurrection narratives. However, a careful analysis of the resurrection narratives shows that, with perhaps one or two exceptions, there are no difficulties at all in harmonizing the four Gospels’ resurrection narratives. They are essentially harmonious and consistent.