A handbook of Freethought

by Unknown

These teaching are so plain and repeated so often that it is inconceivable that his disciples should not comprehend his meaning. If these passages had been as enigmatical as the following, there might have been some grounds for the claim of ignorance or dullness on the part of the disciples: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” ([Mat. 12 : 40].)

But the above predictions have nothing dark or obscure about them. The time of his resurrection is always specified as the third day.

None of the Disciples Looking for a Resurrection.

With these numerous predictions of his resurrection before us, let us see whether they can be made to harmonize with other statements on the subject. When immediately after the transfiguration Jesus warns his disciples not to reveal what they had seen until after he had risen from the dead, we are told that they questioned among themselves “what rising from the dead should mean.” ([Mark 9 : 2].)

How is it possible that such doubt and surprise could be expressed by men who had first witnessed the resurrection of Moses and Elias, and who had also seen the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain and Lazarus!

Now it is plain that if they had ever witnessed these miraculous resurrections, they could not possibly have wondered “what the rising from the dead should mean.” Both statements cannot be true, for if they thus wondered, it is proof enough that they had never seen the dead raised to life; and if they did not so express themselves, then the gospels are unhistorical. That they never queried in this manner among themselves is evident from the fact that the resurrection from the dead was at that time a doctrine generally accepted by the Jews. It is evident that those who undertook the embalmment of Jesus had no thought of his resurrection within forty-eight hours. But suppose it conceded that Jesus was deserted by his immediate friends, and his body handed over to Joseph and Nicodemus, who embalmed it in “a mixture of myrrh and olives about one hundred pound,” possibly being ignorant of the repeated predictions of his resurrection on the third day, which were made to the disciples; still this is unavailing, as the disciples are also ignorant of any rising from the dead to take place on the third day. The women undertook the task of embalming the body of Jesus, but they seem not to have got fully prepared for the task until the third day. When his body was taken down from the cross and wrapped in linen and put in the sepulcher, “the women also which came with him from Galilee followed after, and beheld the sepulcher and how his body was laid, and they returned and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared.” ([Luke 23 : 55, 56], and [24 : 1].)

“In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.” ([Mat. 27 : 61].)

These two writers, while not agreeing on the object of the women’s visiting the sepulcher, nevertheless do agree that they did not go expecting to see the sepulcher empty.

This early visit was made ostensibly to anoint or embalm the body of Jesus. Mary Magdalene and the other women did not even dream of a resurrection—she did not come expecting to find the tomb empty, but was concerned to know how they should remove the stone from the mouth of the tomb. It is evident that if she had heard Jesus say repeatedly that on the third day after his death he would rise again, she would not have forgotten it; and if she had, she must have recollected his predictions when she found the grave empty. In fact she never once thinks of a resurrection, but when she sees the empty grave, exclaims, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him.” ([John 20 : 2].)