Bible Synapse
Were the women told at the tomb that Jesus had risen, when Mary Magdalene reported only that the body had been taken?
Hard question · The death and resurrection of Jesus · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
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The angel told the women, “He is not here: for he is risen”, and sent them to tell the disciples.
And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
The young man in the tomb said “he is risen; he is not here”, and sent them to tell the disciples and Peter.
And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.
The two men said “He is not here, but is risen” and reminded the women of Jesus’ words.
And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
Mary Magdalene saw the stone taken away and ran to Peter: “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him”.
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
The objection
In Matthew, Mark and Luke an angel tells the women at the tomb that Jesus has risen. In John, Mary Magdalene, one of those women, runs to Peter and John saying only that someone has taken the body away and she does not know where it is. If she had been told he was risen, critics ask, why did she say this?
The answer
Mary Magdalene had not heard the angel. John says that she came, saw that the stone had been taken away, and “Then she runneth” to Simon Peter and the other disciple (John 20:1–2). On seeing the tomb open she hurried back at once, while the other women went on into the tomb, and the angel’s message was given to those who went in (Mark 16:5–7; Luke 24:3–7). Her words, “we know not where they have laid him”, are what someone would say who had found an open tomb and drawn the obvious conclusion. Even when she came back and stood weeping at the tomb, she still believed the body had been taken away (John 20:13–15), which fits someone who had not heard that he was risen. Barnes sets out the morning in this order.
Her ‘we’ also shows that she had not come alone (see ‘Which women went to the tomb on Easter morning, and how many were there?’). Luke later names Mary Magdalene among the women who told the apostles (Luke 24:10). That sums up what the women reported between them. Mary’s own part, as John tells it, was first the news of the empty tomb and then, later that morning, “that she had seen the Lord” (John 20:18).
Other answers Christians give
She had looked in
Gill thought that Mary looked into the empty tomb before she ran, and even that the angel had spoken to her. On his view her words show that she had not yet taken the message in, just as the apostles thought the women’s report “idle tales” (Luke 24:11).
From the classic commentators
When they came there, Mary Magdalene, greatly agitated with the appearance of things, and probably supposing that the body had been stolen, left the other women, and ran to the city, at the distance of half a mile, to inform the disciples, John 20:2.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible, harmony of the resurrection accounts, after Matthew 28 (1832)
Sources
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Matthew 28, with his harmony of the resurrection accounts (1832), at Bible Hub
- C. J. Ellicott (ed.), Commentary for English Readers: John 20, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: John 20 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub