QC online session (17/4/20)
We looked today at the gospel writers' accounts of the empty tomb and noted that they differed slightly but were not in direct conflict with one another. So the first verses of Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20 all have details that differ, but which are not impossible to harmonize. So the number of women who went in the early morning is different and the number of angels was different. But 3 gospels (except Matthew) make it clear that the stone was rolled away by the time the women arrived. They rushed back to tell Peter, who ran with John to the tomb. When the 2 men left, Jesus then appeared to Mary Magdalene, who had stayed behind. The gospels often differ in details, for many possible reasons. These include the fact that eyewitnesses to the same event may pick up different details, the different target readers of the 4 writers, and the fact that Jesus was an itinerant preacher who would almost certainly have repeated slightly different variations of the same teaching...