The accounts of the Resurrection and of the subsequent appearances of our Lord, have been harmonised in various methods; of which the latest, and probably the best, is that of Professor Robinson, in an article published in the Bibliotheca Sacra for February 1845, vol. ii. pp. 162-189. As the best service the present writer could do to the English reader, he has therefore here abridged that article, by omitting the introduction, and such parts as relate to the Greek text, and a few other passages, which it seemed might be spared without injury to the narrative itself.
§ 1. The Time of the Resurrection.
Matt. 26: 1, 2. Mark 16: 1, 2, 9. Luke 24: 1. John 20: 1.
That the resurrection of our Lord took place before full daylight, on the first day of the week, follows from the unanimous testimony of the Evangelists respecting the visit of the women to the sepulchre. But the exact time at which he rose is nowhere specified. According to the Jewish mode of reckoning, the Sabbath ended and the next day began at sunset; so that had the resurrection occurred even before midnight, it would still have been upon the first day of the week, and the third day after our Lord's burial. The earthquake had taken place and the stone had been rolled away before the arrival of the women; and so far as the immediate narrative is concerned, there is nothing to show that all this might not have happened some hours earlier. Yet the words of Mark in another place render it certain, that there could have been no great interval between these events and the arrival of the women; since he affirms in v. 9, that Jesus “had risen early, the first day of the week;” while in v. 2, he states that the women went out “very early.” A like inference may be drawn from the fact, that the affrighted guards first went to inform the chief priests of these events, when the women returned to the city (Matt. 28: 11); for it is hardly to be supposed, that after having been thus terrified by the earthquake and the appearance of an angel, they would have waited any very long time before sending information to their employers.—The body of Jesus had therefore probably lain in the tomb not less than about thirty-six hours.
§ 2. The Visit of the Women to the Sepulchre.
Matt. 28: 1-8. Mark 16: 1-8. Luke 24: 1-11. John 20: 1, 2.
The first notices we have of our Lord's resurrection, are connected with the visit of the women to the sepulchre, on the morning of the first day of the week. According to Luke, the women who had stood by the cross, went home and rested during the sabbath (23:56); and Mark adds that after the sabbath was ended, that is, after sunset, and during the evening, they prepared spices in order to go and embalm our Lord's body. They were either not aware of the previous embalming by Joseph and Nicodemus; or else they also wished to testify their respect and affection to their Lord, by completing, more perfectly, what before had been done in haste; John 19: 40-42.
It is in just this portion of the history, which relates to the visit of the women to the tomb and the appearance of Jesus to them, that most of the alleged difficulties and discrepancies in this part of the Gospel narratives are found. We will therefore take up the chief of them in their order.
I. The Time. All the Evangelists agree in saying that the women went out very early [pg 499] to the sepulchre. Matthew's expression is, as the day was dawning. Mark's words are, very early: which indeed are less definite, but are appropriate to denote the same point of time. Luke has the more poetic term: deep morning, i. e. early dawn. John's language is likewise definite: early, while it was yet dark. All these expressions go to fix the time at what we call early dawn, or early twilight; after the break of day, but while the light is yet struggling with darkness.
Thus far there is no difficulty; and none would ever arise, had not Mark added the phrase, the sun being risen; or, as the English version has it, at the rising of the sun. These words seem, at first, to be at direct variance both with the very early of Mark himself, and with the language of the other Evangelists. To harmonise this apparent discrepancy, we may premise, that since Mark himself first specifies the point of time by a phrase sufficiently definite in itself, and supported by all the other Evangelists, we must conclude that when he adds, at the rising of the sun, he did not mean to contradict himself, but used this latter phrase in a broader and less definite sense. As the sun is the source of light and of the day, and as his earliest rays produce the contrast between darkness and light, between night and dawn, so the term sunrising might easily come in popular language, by a metonymy of cause for effect, to be put for all that earlier interval, when his rays, still struggling with darkness, do nevertheless usher in the day.