The women and the tomb

Ed Edwards:
"The first visit to the tomb was about 3AM (dawn wasn't until about 6AM - several visits to the empty tomb were made before dawn)."

GE:
This is a brilliant observation. Can we analyse it further, please.

 

Why NOT? Because you might have nothing to say? Or perhaps because you fear the implications that might arise for you?
To me it feels you wish you had the authority to tell me to shut up. Thank God we no longer live under the tyranny of the antichrist. I shal speak, and you won't tell me not to. This forum just like this print is made available for use. I shall use it and be thankful to God and BB for the opportunity.

 

I asked Ed Edwards because I want to hear what his views are. Thanks.

 

Ed Edwards:
"I only have about 12 or 14 hours a day to type on bulletin boards. To me it is not even worthwhile to discuss if the Lord was resurrected at 6:12PM on Saturday or 5:40AM on Sunday. According to John chapter 20 there was a traffic Jam on Sunday morning at the tomb."

GE:
I have no time for it; I must steal every minute from myself and other duties for this. I hope it will last a little longer. I find it worth while. Every time something new comes to the fore. Like here ---

Where doe you read of this: "According to John chapter 20 there was a traffic Jam ...... at the tomb." What I read there, in verses 1-10 first, there was NOT A SOUL nearby! There came Mary, but she at the sight of the rolled away stone door turned around and ran back. She saw nobody or anything else, "According to John chapter 20" verses 1-10! Where's the traffic jam???

Next, "According to John chapter 20" verse 11 onwards, "There having stood after, stood Mary". She, in order to find anybody to ask, bent over to look inside the tomb, and saw: two 'men / angels' "inside the tomb" --- No one outside!!! "Then she turned up and around, and saw", the gardener who actually was Jesus. Then Jesus told her to go and tell the other disciples --- while they stood stuck in the 'traffic jam' at the tomb???? Dear Ed Edwards, help me out, please!

 

I have been troubled in heart since my post in answer to Annsni's question, "Why?". I answered not like a Christian. I ask your forgiveness. How could I know but that you asked in all sincerity?

So, allow me to say, why this search after particular fact and truth about the women's visits to the tomb?
One reason is that this subject is ever first, annexed by the ungodly atheists and co. to ridicule Christianity. And what has Christianity done for how long? It only gave the atheists more and stronger ammunition to pepper the Faith. I say it is high time their mouths be shut for ever.

There are other reasons for trying to answer the 'Why?' but this will do for now.

 

Ed Edwards:

"To me it is not even worthwhile to discuss if the Lord was resurrected at 6:12PM on Saturday or 5:40AM on Sunday. ...... For if thou shalt confesse with thy mouth the Lord Iesus, and shalt beleeue in thine heart, that God raised him vp from the dead, thou shalt be saued:
10 For with the heart man beleeueth vnto righteousnes, and with the mouth man confesseth to saluation.
...... So the 'confess with the mouth' part is a word picture of what needs to be done, not an exclusive detail of how to do it. Verse 10 then mentions what needs to be done: 'confession toward salvation'"

GE:
Dear Ed, I have no sword to cross with you on the truth of what you say, except to point out by asking, Why is it the defamators ALWAYS use the women's visits to the tomb as one of THEIR sharpest swords against the Gospel of Christ? Because, as they allege, it is here that confusion and contradiction is evident like nowhere else in the NT.
Therefore, if you say, "To me it is not even worthwhile to discuss if the Lord was resurrected at 6:12PM on Saturday or 5:40AM on Sunday", you are playing right into their hand!
I say, if the truth and trustwothiness of the Word of God cannot be found in these simple, earthly things, how can it be found in the deeper, spiritual things? If the Scriptures" - 'Letter-signs' of God cannot be trusted, how can God be trusted. And this is how the unbeliever thinks and argues from persuasion. I shall think and argue in these terms from my standpoint in and upon the Faith. I shall - I pray God - give account for the Faith that in me is by the grace of God - especially in things supposed to be believed literally and for real and actual. I shall not let confusion triumpmh either in my mind or heart. So help me God.

 

Dear Ed Edwards,
Kindly answer me on my post 3 above - which is the subject of the thread ( not statements about one's personal state in salvation):

"Where do you read of this: "According to John chapter 20 there was a traffic Jam ...... at the tomb." What I read there, in verses 1-10 first, there was NOT A SOUL nearby! There came Mary, but she at the sight of the rolled away stone door turned around and ran back. She saw nobody or anything else, "According to John chapter 20" verses 1-10! Where's the traffic jam???

Next, "According to John chapter 20" verse 11 onwards, "There having stood after, stood Mary". She, in order to find anybody to ask, bent over to look inside the tomb, and saw: two 'men / angels' "inside the tomb" --- No one outside!!! "Then she turned up and around, and saw", the gardener who actually was Jesus. Then Jesus told her to go and tell the other disciples --- while they stood stuck in the 'traffic jam' at the tomb???? Dear Ed Edwards, help me out, please!"

 

Mark 16:9 unambiguously declares, Jesus early on Sunday morning appeared "to May first (of all)".

That implies unambiguously Jesus appeared to Mary while they - Jesus and Mary - were ALONE in the garden at the nearby grave. Alone, means no human being else was near of knew.

A 'gardener' would have started work with sunrise. So one must deduce it was just after sunrise that Jesus appeared to Mary --- while only she was at the grave, and while just a short while ago, Mary had seen the angels inside the tomb (who by this time could have left).
But further is also just so unambiguously implied by the word 'heistehkei' Plusquamperfectum, that Mary "had had have remained standing" outside the grave next to its door-opening, since a certain point in time before! Which, was that certain point in time?

I ask, Ed Edwards, while he seems not to have had the time to answer my previous question, to please answer this one --- if it would be worth his precious effort to him, of course.

 

Quote: "....Which, was that certain point in time?

I ask, Ed Edwards, .... to please answer this one...."

Now I ask anybody, urgently! Which, was that certain point in time since which "Mary had had remained behind standing at the sepulchre", Jn20:11f?

 

Agnus Dei,
You have this postscript, "....Christ did not leave a written book to guide his Church, he left living men empowered by the Holy Spirit."

Those men wrote the Bible - I assume we agree. They wrote it, "empowered by the Holy Spirit". We certainly agree.

So do they agree in their stories written on the one event that had given cause to Christianity - to that Church which you are talking of - and makes its existence and its faith authentic or farcical?

As you see, there's little interest in discussing the subject, so it seems people are afraid of being proven farcical, so they avoid coming to an understanding of the issue or the seriousness of the issue. As if that would help; as if that is the way to give account of one's faith!
I repeat, these are the things the atheists and blasphemers revel in; they see the demise of Christianity in these 'little things', and don't even bother about the 'greater' or 'deeper' issues.

 

Agnusdei,
You see a car wreck --- in the Gospel accounts of the Sunday morning's events --- must have been the 'traffic jam' we have had there!! But it's no "problem" to you --- you just drove past. Maybe there was someone inside that car wreck. Ja, for sure there are.

But to the point, the Gospel accounts do not resemble a car wreck. They are the Word of God, and FULLY trustworthy. When WE encounter a 'problem' in them, we will do NOTHING to ask if WE might perhaps be the one who is at fault; no, summarily, it's the Gospels!

Or we pretend very learned by oversimplifying, like you have done, Agnusdei! But like with the 'New Age Bibles' topic, we raise argument after argument but never bring up one particular to the point point!

I say again, and shall always say, The Gospels are flawless everywhere in the passion-narratives. There are no contradictions; they are all in perfect harmony --- and I can show it. I am grateful to God I am able to; and I am able to, not because I am better than any who might have 'problems', but because it is the Word of God that opens itself to anyone who is willing to learn and change -- and sacrifice -- his own opinions.

 

Visits to the tomb “on the First Day”

1) “Mary sees the stone removed”, “while being early darkness still”, dusk. Then Peter and John go to the tomb to see what Mary has told them. (Jn20:1-10)

2) “Earliest morning- darkness”, just after midnight, “the two women” (variant – the two Marys), “and certain others with them”, for the first time, “came to the sepulchre, bringing the spices they had prepared”. (Lk24:1)

3) These women to make sure, a second time came to the tomb “very early before sunrise”. (Mk16:2)

4) Mary from after the others had fled in fear (Mk16:8) “had had stood without at the grave” (Jn20:11). At the time a gardener should begin work, about sunrise, Jesus “early … first appeared to Mary”. (Mk16:9)

5) Soon after – after they a third time have visited the tomb and “the angel explained” to them what had happened during the Resurrection – Jesus appears to the other women “as they went to tell his disciples”. (Mt28:5, 9)

Mary went to the tomb, three times, Jn20:1, Lk24:1, and Mk16:2 when she “had remained standing behind” until Jesus appeared to her first and alone, at the grave, Jn20:16, Mk16:9.

The other women also went to the tomb, three times, Lk24:1, Mk16:2, and Mt28:5 when “the angel explained” to them what had happened during the Resurrection, and Jesus, as “they went to tell his disciples”, appeared to them. (Mt28:5, 9)

The answer to the ‘Easter enigma’ (John Wenham) is simple: Each Gospel contributed to the whole with one of several sources; each added a personal part that, put together, will bring the whole story of the Resurrection into proper perspective.

Tradition – that is, the Sunday-resurrection approach – make of these several stories of several visits, the one and simultaneous occasion of Jesus’ resurrection. Contradictions, discrepancies and total confusion are the inevitable result! It was bad enough that this ‘solution’ to a self-created ‘riddle’ was ever offered just to protect Sunday’s presumed status of being the day of the Resurrection. It became a comedy of tragic proportions when Sunday-protagonists began to defend their presumptuousness through unlawful improvements on the Scriptures.

 

The one side - the atheists and scoffers - object to the truth as such of the stories of Jesus' appearances. They cannot call them or my views of them, 'blasphemous' because they do not believe in God against whom only, one could 'blaspheme'.

A few minutes ago I received presonal notification from the other side of the spectrum, from the enthusiasts, Seventh Day Adventist, who called the 'chronological order' I attach to the appearances, as "blasphemous ideas".

I would wish to know, HOW they are 'blasphemous'?

 

GE:
I'll help you people out on this one myself --- the point in time since which Mary "had had stood after at the grave", was (-- determined by elimination of all other possibilities --) when the other women with whom she had come to the tomb "very early (before) sunrise" ('lian proh-i anateilantos tou hehliou') had "fled from the tomb in great fear ... and told no one anything": Mark 16:2f.