The Resurrection

(Gospel of John 20:1 - 20:31)
Early on Sunday morning while it was yet dark, Mary of Magdala visited the tomb and noticed that the stone had been removed from the entrance.  She ran and fetched Simon-Peter and the other disciple (the one that Jesus loved).  She told them, "They've taken the Master out of his tomb, and we don't know where they've put him!"

And so Peter and the other disciple went out to the tomb.  Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  He bent over and peered inside the tomb.  He saw strips of linen lying on the ground, but did not enter.  When Peter arrived, he went right inside.  He saw the strips of linen.  He also saw the cloth that had covered Jesus' head; it had been folded and was lying by itself away from the other wrappings.  Then, the other disciple, the one who had reached the tomb first, went inside.  He saw and was convinced.  (But they still didn't comprehend that, in accordance to the Scriptures, Jesus must rise from the dead.)   The disciples then went back to where they were staying.

But Mary of Magdala remained outside the tomb, weeping.  As she did so, she happened to gaze into the tomb.  There, she saw two beings dressed in white, one sitting at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had lain. 

"Madame, why are you weeping?" they asked her.

"Because they've taken away my master, and I don't know where they've taken him," she told them.  She turned to leave, but someone else was standing there.  It was Jesus!  But she didn't recognize him. 

"Madam, why are you weeping?" he asked her.  "Who is it you're looking for?"

Assuming he was the gardener, she asked of him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, please tell me where you've put him so I can go there and get him."

Jesus called to her, "Mary!"

She turned and exclaimed, "Rabboni!" (which means "teacher" in Aramaic.)

“Please don’t touch me,” Jesus warned her, “because I have yet to ascend to the Father.  Go to my brethren and tell them, ‘I will be ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’.”

Mary of Magdala went to see the disciples and announced, "I have seen the Master!"  She told them what he had said.

On Sunday evening the doors of the house where the disciples were meeting were locked, for fear of the religious authorities.  But Jesus appeared there and stood amongst them, saying, "Peace be with you."  After that he showed them his wounded hands and side.  The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Master.  Jesus again said, "Peace be with you," and "As the Father has sent me, I send you."  He breathed upon them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit!  If you forgive someone's sins, they will be forgiven.  If you withhold forgiveness, then such forgiveness will be withheld.”

Thomas (called the Twin), one of the twelve apostles, was not with the others when Jesus appeared.  They told him, "We have seen the Master."  He answered, "Well, I won't believe it until I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound on his side."

A week later the disciples were again in the same house and Thomas was with them.  Although the doors were closed, Jesus appeared and stood among them.  "Peace be with you," he declared.  To Thomas he said, "Put your finger here and observe my hands.  Stretch out your arm and place your hand into the wound at my side.  Cast aside your doubts and --- believe!"

"My Master, my God!" Thomas responded.

Jesus said to him, "You have come to believe because you have seen me.  Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe."

Jesus performed before his disciples many other miracles that are not recorded in this book.  But these have been written down so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through that belief you may achieve in his name life everlasting.

Notes
1.  Mary of Magdala come to the tomb early in the morning on Sunday.  Jesus had already risen and left the tomb on Saturday at dusk.  Since Jesus more than once prophesied, unambiguously, that he would spend three days and three nights in the grave, we must therefore assume that he was entombed at the end of the day on Wednesday, expiring on the cross in the mid afternoon.  The following day, Thursday, the 15th day of Nisan was the first day of Passover, and the Passover seder was eaten the night before.  (One must always remember that the new day begins just after sundown.)  The day of crucifixion was not Friday, the day before the weekly Sabbath, but Wednesday, the day before the holiday of Passover.  This misunderstanding has resulted from confused translations and the failure to realize that during the week of Jesus’ crucifixion there were, in fact, two Sabbaths.  Although there are some ambiguities and inconsistencies in the gospels, the preponderance of evidence points clearly to a Wednesday crucifixion.  If the three-day-and-three-night prophecy is taken seriously (and if it didn't come to pass, it surely would have been deleted from the gospel narratives), then belief in a Friday crucifixion is indefensible.  The false Good Friday, an error almost two millennium in duration, continues to be observed not because it is biblical, but because it is traditional.   (The lengths to which biblical apologists will go to defend a Friday crucifixion is mind-blowing, especially the insistence that three days and three nights really can fit within a time period of less than 36 hours.)  Knowing that the Passover was on Thursday, it can be determined that the crucifixion occurred on Wednesday, March 24, 34 AD, not on the commonly accepted dates of 30 AD (which is too early anyway) or 33 AD, when the Passovers were on Friday evenings.  Since he was preceded by John the Baptist, Jesus’ ministry would have begun after 29 AD, the 15th year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when the evangelism of John the Baptist was reported to have begun (Gospel of Luke).  There is sufficient time for all the gospel events to have taken place, which is doubtful if the earlier dates are accepted.  And in 34 AD Caiaphas was still high priest and Pontius Pilate was still governor.  The conversion of Paul, therefore, would have occurred in 35 AD, which is not too late to conform to other events of known chronology.

2.  An important part of the Resurrection narrative is that the stone sealing the tomb is rolled away -- or maybe dragged away, or picked up and moved.  The impression is given that the tomb opening is not that large.  It is, of course, large enough to accommodate a body, but it seems that one must stoop to peer inside.  Even so, the size of a boulder or dressed stone needed to block and close the entrance would have been fairly massive, too weighty for a man of normal strength to heave by himself.    So, who moved the stone?  Jesus, endowed posthumously with superhuman strength,  or some other being or beings who had materialized inside the tomb could have moved it from the inside.  Or some persons or otherworldly beings could have moved it from the outside.  Or the stone could have been moved by some force acting upon it.

3.  It is assumed that the stone was moved so that Jesus could exit the tomb.  After he left the tomb, he didn't put the stone back, presumably to leave evidence of his departure from the grave and his resurrection.  However, since Jesus was now able to materialize and dematerialize, he would not have needed to move the stone to free himself from his tomb.  So the moving of the stone was strictly for show. 

4.  Jesus unwraps his grave clothes, the spiced linen strips in which his once dead body was wound, and leaves them lying on the ground.  He removed the head cloth.  For whatever reason, he doesn't discard it with the strips of linen, but folds (or rolls) it up, neatly one assumes, and places it elsewhere.  This gives the impression that the resurrection was a mere reawakening, a returning to life.  For instance, his grave clothes were not burned off his body in a numinous flash of light and lightning.  There is no mention of a shroud and if a shroud had been laid across his body, which it might have been, it would not, like the still-controversial Shroud of Turin, have received the impression of his wounds, since his body was swathed in linen.  (If the Shroud of Turin is genuine and was created in a burst of some divine energy produced during the resurrection process, as is often claimed, then the gospel accounts of a deceased Jesus undergoing normal burial procedure, being wrapped in linen, must be incorrect.)

5.  Peter and the disciple that Jesus loved, presumably John, rush to the tomb, summoned by Mary of Magdala when she finds the stone has been removed from the entrance.  John reaches the tomb first.  Why?  Well, the assumed author of the account must keep a little glory for himself.  And it must be considered that Peter was a big guy and probably not as fast a runner as John was and therefore, would have gotten there last.  But Peter was a rash, impetuous man, so he entered the tomb immediately without thinking.  He was the apostle leader and it was his place to do so.  However, it is Mary of Magdala who is able to see the risen Jesus first and not the apostles Peter and John.  One may speculate as to the reason for this, but perhaps Jesus simply wasn't ready to face his disciples at that point and wanted to visit them when they were all together.  Or he may have valued Mary of Magdala more than any of his disciples.
 
6.  Looking into the tomb, Mary first sees the two beings dressed in white sitting on the place where Jesus' body had been placed.  Why were they not seen before by Peter and John?  Were they incorporeal and decided to reveal themselves only to Mary of Magdala?  Why were they seated?  Were they tired?  Was the tomb too small for standing room?  One assumes that the beings were from Heaven and had come to assist Jesus after the resurrection, or to facilitate the resurrection -- perhaps to remove the stone from the tomb entrance.  But why would the Son of God need their assistance? Irrespective of their function, their appearance sets the stage for the revelation of the miraculous event.  It suggests that Jesus, now risen, is no longer in the company of men, but of heavenly beings.

7.  Mary of Magdala does not recognize Jesus when she first sees him.  Is this because he has been physically altered after his resurrection, or because it is still dark and she wasn't able to get a good look at him?  Jesus himself first treats her as if he doesn't know who she is, as if she is a stranger, only later addressing her by name.  She is warned about touching or holding on to Jesus.  Why?  Is he radioactive?  Will she get an electric shock?  Obviously if Jesus is still inhabiting a reanimated physical body, it has been altered in some way.  Or, if his spirit is manifest in an astral body that appears in all respects material, he may be fearful she will find that his body is not wholly corporeal and be freaked out.  Later, though, when Jesus appears to Thomas, he has the doubting disciple touch the wounds he received on the cross.  This would lead one to believe that his body was entirely physical, although Jesus feels no pain from his earthly wounds.  Yet, he materializes in the presence of his disciples (he doesn't just walk in the door), something that he, despite being the self-declared Son of God, was not able or willing to do while he was alive.  Is this the manifestation of a physical body or the total materialization of an astral one?  If the astral body is being seen, then what has happened to the physical body?  He could have just as easily have appeared before his disciples in astral form with his physical body still in the tomb, yet the gospels support the belief that Jesus appears postmortem in the same physical body he inhabited during his life.

8.  A compelling question, seldom asked, is what happened to the 75 pounds of aloes and myrrh applied to Jesus' body and his grave clothes.  Wouldn't he have reeked of the stuff when Mary of Magdala saw him, or did he have time to bathe?  It is not mentioned how Jesus was clothed.  I'm sure Mary would have noticed if he was still nude and covered with lash wounds.  Did someone, the beings in white perhaps, present him with some resurrection-appropriate wardrobe?

9.  Thomas, a man from the Holy Land equivalent of Missouri, does not believe the other disciples when they say they have seen the once dead Jesus alive.  He is somewhat maligned in this regard.  He is not doubting Jesus, he is doubting Jesus' disciples.  He is merely questioning what seems preposterous and incredible.  When, on his second appearance before them, Jesus allows him to examine and touch his wounds, Thomas is convinced.  But Jesus does not compliment his common-sense caution, but praises those who do not need to see to believe.  He and the religion promulgated under his name values faith above all: to believe without proof is nobler than believing after evidence has been presented and examined, and reasoned conclusions formed.  Thomas, who evinces the skepticism of a man who thinks, who accepts nothing unquestioningly, is not the sort of sheep-like follower that Jesus is apparently seeking.  

10.  Jesus gives his apostles the authority to forgive or not to forgive sins, assuming what one would think would be the sole prerogative of God, or at least the Son of God.  They were to be divine judges.  Were the apostles faultless in their assessment of guilt?  Did they have omniscient knowledge of facts or some infallible insight into the hearts of men?

11.  Incidences of people, especially those suffering a sudden, traumatic death, appearing in apparently physical form after death are not uncommon.  Sometimes ghostly apparitions are witnessed, but there are well authenticated cases of manifestations that are indistinguishable from a living person.  These wraiths often communicate telepathically, but there are occasions as well when a total materialization allows for seemingly normal verbal communication.

12.  The mystery of the resurrection, of what really happened -- whether it is a complete myth or utter fact or something between -- cannot be solved.  With any mystery there are many things that are probably, but unprovably true, things which only might be true, but always a few things that can be accepted as incontrovertible fact.  Here, there is nothing that can be accepted without question, nothing upon which a theory can be solidly built.  For no historian contemporary with Jesus ever referred to him; there is no record of his life outside the gospels.  The gospels are purportedly first-hand accounts, but we know that their authors were not the apostles to whom they were ascribed.  They are, therefore, second-hand accounts at best.  They were written decades after the fact.  And they are religious propaganda intended to glorify its subject, indoctrinate the faithful, and convert the doubtful, not objective historical records.  The gospels themselves disagree and present conflicting and incompatible accounts.  In the end, the truth that Pilate inquired about cannot be known.