This is kind of a trick question. According to Matthew....
ANSWER: Matthew 28:1 On the night after the sabbath, at the hour when dawn broke on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary came near to contemplate the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great trembling of the earth, because an angel of the Lord came to the place, descending from heaven, and rolled away the stone and sat over it; 3 his face shone like lightning, and his garments were white as snow; 4 so that the guards trembled for fear of him, and were like dead men. 5 But the angel said openly to the women, You need not be afraid; I know well that you have come to look for Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, as he told you. Come and see the place where the Lord was buried.
So, you would be correct to say that Mary was the 2nd person to see the empty tomb – either Mary Magdalen or ‘the other Mary’. ************ Side note on the 2 Mary’s at the tomb: This is one of those indirect cases for the reliability of the New Testament. A common position held by skeptics of Christianity is that the accounts of the New (and Old for that matter) Testament is fabricated. They are just fictional stories depicting a fantastical religion that they wanted readers to believe without any true historical basis. Since they were written so long ago, who knows if they are true or not?
But ask yourself, if you were trying to write a believable account, would you name practically every woman “Mary”? If you were trying to convince anyone that this account at the cross was an actual event, would you name all 3 of the women Mary??:
John 19:24 so they said to one another, Better not to tear it; let us cast lots to decide whose it shall be. This was in fulfilment of the passage in scripture which says, They divide my spoils among them; cast lots for my clothing. So it was, then, that the soldiers occupied themselves; 25 and meanwhile his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen, had taken their stand beside the cross of Jesus.[5]
No one would do that…..unless they were all actually named Mary.
This is kind of a trick question. According to Matthew....
ReplyDeleteANSWER:
Matthew 28:1 On the night after the sabbath, at the hour when dawn broke on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary came near to contemplate the tomb.
2 And suddenly there was a great trembling of the earth, because an angel of the Lord came to the place, descending from heaven, and rolled away the stone and sat over it;
3 his face shone like lightning, and his garments were white as snow;
4 so that the guards trembled for fear of him, and were like dead men.
5 But the angel said openly to the women, You need not be afraid; I know well that you have come to look for Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was crucified.
6 He is not here; he has risen, as he told you. Come and see the place where the Lord was buried.
So, you would be correct to say that Mary was the 2nd person to see the empty tomb – either Mary Magdalen or ‘the other Mary’.
************
Side note on the 2 Mary’s at the tomb:
This is one of those indirect cases for the reliability of the New Testament. A common position held by skeptics of Christianity is that the accounts of the New (and Old for that matter) Testament is fabricated. They are just fictional stories depicting a fantastical religion that they wanted readers to believe without any true historical basis. Since they were written so long ago, who knows if they are true or not?
But ask yourself, if you were trying to write a believable account, would you name practically every woman “Mary”? If you were trying to convince anyone that this account at the cross was an actual event, would you name all 3 of the women Mary??:
John 19:24 so they said to one another, Better not to tear it; let us cast lots to decide whose it shall be. This was in fulfilment of the passage in scripture which says, They divide my spoils among them; cast lots for my clothing. So it was, then, that the soldiers occupied themselves;
25 and meanwhile his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen, had taken their stand beside the cross of Jesus.[5]
No one would do that…..unless they were all actually named Mary.