The consistent events from Jesus' burial to His ascension

[RBD]

Here is the consistent timeline in order from the burial of Jesus, to His ascension 40 days later.

Many women from Galilee follow Joseph and Nicodemus to see Jesus laid in the tomb. Magdalen and the other Mary are specifically mentioned. (John 19) (Mark 15) Afterward that evening, some of the other women go home to prepare spices and ointments for Jesus' body. (Luke 23)

The next day on the high Sabbath, the chief priests go to Pilate for a guard on the tomb. (Matthew 27)

In the night, there's another earthquake, and an angel in appearance as lighting rolls away the stone, making the soldiers become as dead. (Matthew 28) Jesus either resurrects at this time, or any time during the night beforehand. At some time in the night, the guards awaken and depart the empty tomb, to report to the chief priests.

Magdalen comes later in the dark before dawn, and finds the tomb empty. She tells Peter and the other disciple, and they come running to see the tomb empty. They enter to see and depart. (John 20)

Magdalen remains behind and sees two angels in the tomb, and then Jesus Himself alive outside the tomb. She is the first person on earth to see Him after His resurrection. While still dark, she returns again to tell the disciples of His resurrection, and they don't believe it. (John 20) (Mark 16)

Magdalen, the other Mary, Salome, and the other women from Galilee, including Joanna, arrive at the tomb in the morning light. One group arrives with their prepared spices and ointments, while Magdalen's group arrives with bought sweet spices. They find the tomb empty. (Mark 16) (Luke 24)

Magdalen, the other Mary, and Salome are met by the angel that rolled away the stone, and are told to see in the tomb where the Lord had lain. Another angel sitting therein tell them to tell the disciples to go to Galilee to see Jesus. (Matthew 28) (Mark 16) The other women including Joanna enter the tomb and see no one, and while standing outside are met by two more angels, that send them also to the disciples to go to Galilee to meet Jesus. (Luke 24)

All the women depart and en route meet Jesus, and hold His feet in worship. He also sends them all to tell the disciples to meet Him in Galilee. They all then tell the disciples these things, and they don't believe it. (Matthew 28)

Peter runs to the tomb a second time and ponders these things. (Luke 24)

Jesus next appears to Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus, and later toward evening they recognize Him at table, and He vanishes from their sight. In that hour, they go to the eleven to tell them of Jesus' resurrection. They don't believe it. Luke 24) (Mark 16) Peter has now also seen the Lord Jesus. Paul reports that Jesus also appeared to James at some time.

At evening, Jesus now first appears to the disciples with the others in the their midst, and shows He is indeed resurrected bodily from the dead, and not only a spirit, by showing His hands and side, and eats some fish. Thomas is not with them. (Luke 24) (John 20)

8 days later, He appears to the eleven with Thomas as they sat at meat, and upbraids them for their unbelief, and also challenges Thomas to insert His fingers into his hands, and his hand into Jesus' side. (Mark 16) (John 20)

Afterward on another day, Peter goes a fishin' at the sea of Galilee with 6 other disciples, including Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of thunder, and 2 other disciples. For the third time after His resurrection, Jesus meets His disciples on the Galilee shore with food on a fire. They all know Him. (John 21)

Afterward on another day, all the disciples meet Jesus at the Galilee mount, that He had appointed them, and worshipped Him. Some doubted what to do. (Matthew 28)

On the 40th day after His resurrection, He leads all the disciples and many others to Bethany on Mt Olivet. (Luke 24) (Acts 1) There He gives His great commission with promise of the Holy Ghost, and ascends to heaven to be recieved up in a cloud. The disciples remain standing and looking upward for Jesus, until two angels come to remind them to go to Jerusalem, and wait for the promise of the Father.

These are a consistent order of events from the 4 gospels and Acts 1.

Paul confirms Peter saw the Lord first before the other apostles, on the evening of the first day of His resurrection, and that above 500 saw Him during the 40 days after. He was also seen by James after the evening of the first day, either before His second appearance to them on the 8th day, or afterward before the sea of Galilee for the third time.

[JehovahsWitness]

... in the dark before dawn. With enough time for Magdalen to arrive, fetch the disciples, who run to the grave and back, and Magdalen first seeing the Lord looking like a gardener in the dark, before she then leaves to return later at dawn with other women.

This is extremely confusing to me. Are you suggesting that Mary visited the grave in the night. Ran and told Peter and John (in the night). They ran to see the empty tomb for themselves in the night and puzzled return home in the night. Mary then sees "the gardener" still in the night. She realizes its the risen Christ who tells her to go and inform the Apostles. She returns a second time to inform the Apostles again in the same night (they don't believe her) she then returns home (in the same night) gets a little sleep and then gets up and returns to the tomb with the other women not telling them that she has seen Christ alive?

The gospels contain no statement that the Apostles visited the tomb in the night (or in darkness) nor is there any statement that Mary did not recognise Jesus because it was dark.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to RBD in post #187]

The record does have women----including Mary----asking among themselves who would open the tomb for them

Not any specific name of who was asking.

Now here you are, demanding every specific detail.

And since it does not disprove her nighttime visit and seeing the Lord first, then it is only a matter of why she kept silent

If she actually had such a motive, the text should provide corroboration of that (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

[AchillesHeel]

The inconsistent events from Jesus' burial to His ascension.

If the resurrection accounts were based on genuine, firsthand eyewitness testimony of the same unprecedented event, we would expect a core of consistent, corroborating details. Instead, what we find in the New Testament is a clear pattern of legendary development that grows in scope and physicality over time, directly contradicting the hallmarks of reliable memory. We might expect minor differing details from genuine eyewitness testimony, but totally different accounts from people who all experienced the same events is certainly out of the question.

1. Paul (50s CE): Our earliest and only firsthand witness does not describe a physically resurrected body walking the earth. He uses the language of visions and revelations (1 Cor 15:5-8; 2 Cor 12; Gal. 1:16). Crucially, he mentions no empty tomb, no physical interactions, and no location, details that would have been powerful ammunition in his own debates about the nature of the resurrection body.

2. Mark (c. 70 CE): The first gospel introduces the empty tomb, but strikingly, narrates no appearances at all. The young man at the tomb merely promises a future "seeing" of Jesus in Galilee.

3. Matthew (c. 80 CE): The story develops. Jesus now suddenly appears to the women, who grab his feet - a detail found nowhere else. He then appears to the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, where "some doubted" (Matt 28:17), an odd detail if they had already seen him in Jerusalem on the same night, as later gospels claim.

4. Luke (c. 85+ CE): Luke relocates all appearances to Jerusalem, erasing the Galilean tradition. Here, the appearance becomes more physical and apologetically motivated. Jesus insists he is "not a spirit" but "flesh and bone," eats fish, and then ascends to heaven while they watch (Luke 24) - all details missing from every earlier account.

5. John (c. 90-110 CE): The evolution culminates with a Jesus who can teleport through locked doors and invites Thomas to physically probe his wounds to overcome doubt (John 20). The final editor even awkwardly stitches together the Jerusalem and Galilean traditions to harmonize the conflicting accounts.

This is not the fingerprint of independent eyewitnesses corroborating a single event. This is the clear trajectory of a legend developing over time - from spiritual vision, to a missing body, to a doubted appearance, to an insistent, flesh-and-bone, ascension-witnessed, wound-probing physical resurrection.

The challenge stands: Find any other set of documents, accepted as reliable eyewitness testimony to the same historical event, that displays this degree of foundational inconsistency and apologetic growth. You will not, because this pattern is the signature of developing legend, not reliable history.

[William]

[Replying to AchillesHeel in post #193]

Your analysis of the developmental trajectory is compelling and widely recognized in biblical scholarship. The differences between Paul's spiritual resurrection body and the increasingly physical narratives in the later gospels are real and significant.

However, this trajectory doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that "nothing happened" or that the resurrection is purely legendary. Rather, it points to a different understanding of what the earliest Christians meant by "resurrection."

Paul, our earliest and only firsthand witness, describes an experience consistent with what we might today call visionary or revelatory - which transformed him from persecutor to apostle. He explicitly states that his experience was of the same kind as Peter's, James's, and the others. The earliest believers apparently understood resurrection as exaltation to heaven and glorious appearance, not as resumed earthly life.

The later physical narratives (Luke's flesh and bones, John's wounds, Matthew's grabbed feet) serve a different function: they make the resurrection tangible for generations who had not themselves seen the risen Christ. As John himself writes: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

So the development you trace is real. But it may reflect not legendary invention, but rather the necessary translation of profound religious experience into narrative form for communities requiring different kinds of assurance. The kernel - that something happened to transform frightened disciples into bold witnesses - remains to be explained.

[AchillesHeel]

[Replying to AchillesHeel in post #193]

Your analysis of the developmental trajectory is compelling and widely recognized in biblical scholarship. The differences between Paul's spiritual resurrection body and the increasingly physical narratives in the later gospels are real and significant.

However, this trajectory doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that "nothing happened" or that the resurrection is purely legendary. Rather, it points to a different understanding of what the earliest Christians meant by "resurrection."

Paul, our earliest and only firsthand witness, describes an experience consistent with what we might today call visionary or revelatory - which transformed him from persecutor to apostle. He explicitly states that his experience was of the same kind as Peter's, James's, and the others. The earliest believers apparently understood resurrection as exaltation to heaven and glorious appearance, not as resumed earthly life.

The later physical narratives (Luke's flesh and bones, John's wounds, Matthew's grabbed feet) serve a different function: they make the resurrection tangible for generations who had not themselves seen the risen Christ. As John himself writes: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

So the development you trace is real. But it may reflect not legendary invention, but rather the necessary translation of profound religious experience into narrative form for communities requiring different kinds of assurance. The kernel - that something happened to transform frightened disciples into bold witnesses - remains to be explained.

To clarify, I'm not saying the Resurrection belief was legendary. They obviously believed Jesus was resurrected early on. It's just that the stories where Jesus is touched and witnessed ascending to heaven are later legends. If any other story grew like this in chronological order, we would have no trouble identifying it as a legend.

[JehovahsWitness]

...what we find in the New Testament is a clear pattern of legendary development that grows in scope and physicality over time ...

Interesteing comparative chart


Source ChatGPT

[Athetotheist]

...what we find in the New Testament is a clear pattern of legendary development that grows in scope and physicality over time ...

Interesteing comparative chart


Source ChatGPT

Isn't this kind of a funny argument to be made by someone who believes that trinitarian Christianity is essentially urban legend?

[AchillesHeel]

...what we find in the New Testament is a clear pattern of legendary development that grows in scope and physicality over time ...

Interesteing comparative chart


Source ChatGPT

I'm not really sure what the point of this is as it doesn't actually deal with the internal evidence of the story evolving throughout each gospel. So the challenge remains: Find any other set of documents, accepted as reliable eyewitness testimony to the same historical event, that displays this degree of foundational inconsistency and apologetic growth. You will not, because this pattern is the signature of developing legend, not reliable history.

Moreover, most scholars place the gospel compositions 40-60 (not 20-40) years after the death of Jesus and these stories circulated in foreign lands outside of where the events took place. So there were probably not any eyewitnesses around who could debunk or even care to debunk the claims.

We also know that legends that people believe can develop overnight - just see the recent Jan. 6th events or what people believe about their leader in North Korea. A contemporary of Alexander the Great, Onesicritus, even wrote that he visited mythical Amazonian women. Three independent historians tell us that Vespasian miraculously healed a blind man and at least one of those accounts is well within the time it took for the gospels to be written. So we have ancient accounts where this kind of thing happens as well.

[JehovahsWitness]

...what we find in the New Testament is a clear pattern of legendary development that grows in scope and physicality over time ...

Interesteing comparative chart


Source ChatGPT

I'm not really sure what the point of this is ...

Simply that the gospels do not display the same trajectory of legends which generally take much longer to develop. In short one would be hard pushed to find any other set of documents with legends that were codified in so short a period of time.

[JehovahsWitness]

...these stories circulated in foreign lands outside of where the events took place.

While the Christian stories circulated outside of where the events took place, there is little doubt they first they circulated where the events did take place, namely Palestine prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE. Nobody seriously suggests that the gospels or the writings if Paul or Luke started the Christian movement or that the resurrection of one Jesus of Nazareth (whether bodily or "spiritual" ) was not from its inception part of that movement's central dogma.

NOTE Jesus died a relatively young man so if some people were 30 when Jesus was 30 , at least some would still have been alive when Paul or Luke started writing around 65CE ...whether such ones would care to debunk the Christian claims is neither here nor there, the point is there would certainly have been residents of Judea or Galilee that lived during the reign of Tiberius that could have been eye witnesses the events surrounding Jesus of Nazareth

In short the Christian narrative was born and took its first steps right in the region where the events allegedly took place and within living memory of those that could falsify its claims should they have been so inclined