Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
The Gospel of John: The Exaltation, Part II

The Gospel of John: The Exaltation, Part II

Last updated on: July 30, 2026 at 12:07 am by Gabriel Blanchard

0 Comments

The Gospel of John: The Exaltation, Part II 2026-07-30T00:07:41-04:00 Gabriel Blanchard

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Gospel of John: The Exaltation, Part II (John 20:1-18)

We now come to the second and third elements of the Exaltation, otherwise known as the Resurrection and the Ascension. (The Gospel of John depicts only the former, but it alludes to the latter in our text as well.) Theologically, this text and its parallels in the Synoptics lie at the heart of the Christian faith; in purely literary terms, this passage is a marvel, one of the most affecting in all of Johannine literature.

Der Auferstanden [The Resurrection] (1558), by
Lucas Cranach the Younger.

Strangely, the latter half of this Gospel text—the sole direct account of St. Mary Magdalene’s encounter with Christ on Easter Sunday morning—is not used as the Gospel reading in the liturgy, not even on her feast day. This is a great pity, as it is an obviously momentous event and one of John*‘s finest stylistic achievements. For her role as the first recorded witness of the Resurrection and the person who first brought word of it to the Eleven, the Magdalene is traditionally known as the* Apostola Apostolōrum*, “Apostle-ess to the Apostles.”*

Because the Resurrection is (very naturally) one of the Christian claims that polemics and apologetics tend to cluster around, both in itself and as the Bible’s portrayals of it agree or disagree, I’ve included a postscript on that topic.

John 20:1-18, RSV-CE

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first;a and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.b Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;c for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes.d

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb,e and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angelsf in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” Supposing him to be the gardener,g she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!”h (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me,i for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”i Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

John 20:1-18, my translation

Fresco (c. 240) of St. Mary Magdalene
carrying a torch to the sealed tomb of Christ,
from a church in what is now eastern Syria1
—the oldest known depiction of her.

On the first [day] from the sabbath, Miriam of Migdal comes early, while it is still dark, to the monument, and sees that the stone has been taken away from the monument. So she runs and comes to Symeon Rocky and to the other student whom Yeshua loved, and tells them, “They took the Lord out of the monument, and we don’t know where they put him.”

Then Rocky and the other student went out, and they came to the monument. The two ran together; and the other student raced faster than Rocky and came first to the monument,a and stoops down and looks at the linens lying there, although he did not go in. Then Symeon Rocky also comes following him, and he went into the monument; and he beholds the linens lying there, and the kerchief which was on his head not lying with the linens, but separately wrapped up in one place;b then the other student who came first also came into the monument, and he saw and had faith;c for they did not yet perceive the Writ, that it was necessary for him to rise again from the dead. Then the students went out again to [the rest of] them.d

Yet Miriam stood at the monument, outside, crying.e Then, as she cried, she stooped down into the monument, and beholds two messengersf in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the foot, where the body of Yeshua laid. And these say to her: “Ma’am, why are you crying?”

She tells them that “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they put him.” After saying this, she turned behind her, and beheld Yeshua standing there, and did not perceive that it is Yeshua.

Yeshua says to her: “Ma’am, why are you crying? Whom are you searching for?”

She, deeming that it is the gardener,g tells him: “Sir, if you carried him off, tell me where you put him, and I will take him away.”

Yeshua says to her: “Miriam.”

She turned [and] says to him in Aramaic: “Rabbani“h (which means ‘Teacher’).

Yeshua tells her: “Do not touch me,i for I have not yet gone up to the Father; journey to my brothers and tell them: ‘I am going up to my Father and your Father and my God and your God.'”i

Miriam of Migdal came, bringing the message to his students that “I have seen the Lord,” and that he said these things to her.

Textual Notes

Noli Me Tangere [Touch Me Not] (c. 1440),
fresco by Fra Angelico.

a. the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first/the other student raced faster than Rocky and came first to the monument | ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς προέδραμεν τάχιον τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ ἦλθεν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον [ho allos mathētēs pro’edramen tachion tou Petrou kai ēlthen prōtos eis to mnēmeion]: This is often made fun of as the author bragging he was a faster runner than St. Peter. This bugs me. The reason it bugs me is that, as far as I can tell, the whole point of not entering the tomb without Peter is that it’s a gesture of respect for him. I’d be extremely annoyed if someone took something I meant as an act of courtesy and presented it as exactly the opposite: being specially fond of St. John, I’m accordingly annoyed on his behalf here. On the other hand, he’s enjoying the Beatific Vision at the moment. That probably helps. (Though it isn’t mentioned in the narrative, it seems reasonable to suppose that Miriam of Migdal was coming back to the tomb behind them, since she does reappear there in v. 11.)

b. the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself/the kerchief which was on his head not lying with the linens, but separately wrapped up in one place | τὸ σουδάριον, ὃ ἦν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ, οὐ μετὰ τῶν ὀθονίων κείμενον ἀλλὰ χωρὶς ἐντετυλιγμένον εἰς ἕνα τόπον [to soudarion, ho ēn epi tēs kefalēs autou, out meta tōn othoniōn keimenon alla chōris entetüligmenon eis hena topon]: The participle ἐντετυλιγμένον, describing the kerchief being “wrapped up,” comes from the verb ἐντυλίσσω [entülissō]. This is also used in Matthew 27:59 and Luke 23:53 (in the form ἐνετύλιξεν [enetülixen] in both cases) to describe the initial enwrapping of the Lord’s body for burial. “To twist” seems to be the word’s center of gravity—it’s the kind of term you’d use to describe making twine. At any rate, the word suggests wrapping something up with care. The kerchief at least, and possibly the grave linens in general, had not just been casually thrown aside (as if by somebody searching them for any valuables that might have been deposited with the corpse).

According to traditions in the East, this kerchief was preserved and became known as the Mandylion.2 This was one of the *acheiropoieta,*3 or “[images] made without hands,” a class of ikons held to have been created miraculously. (This story is related to but distinct from the Western tradition of the Veil of Veronica.) Most accounts relate that the Mandylion was lost during the sack of Constantinople by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, although the Shroud of Turin is occasionally argued to be the Mandylion.

In broader literary and theological terms, the first obvious point of comparison here is the raising of Eleazar in chapter 11. The central parallel is obvious! The contrasts are more intriguing; four stand out.

Eleazar is raised during the day, while Yeshua rises at night.
Eleazar is raised publicly; Yeshua rises in secret.
Eleazar is raised “from without,” so to speak, but Yeshua appears to rise under his own power.
Eleazar comes out of his tomb dressed in grave linens, but Yeshua leaves his behind.

The symbolic link between night and secrecy scarcely needs comment. Or does it? A generation on, in the first decade or two of the second century, St. Ignatius of Antioch (who had studied under SS. Peter and Paul) wrote in a letter to the congregation at Ephesus,

For this end did the Lord suffer the ointment to be poured upon His head, that He might breathe immortality into His Church. Be ye not anointed with the bad odor of the doctrine of the prince of this world … The virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world, as was also her offspring, and the death of the Lord; three mysteries of renown, which were wrought in silence by God. … Hence every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed … Henceforth all things were in a state of tumult, because He meditated the abolition of death.4

An ikon of St. Ignatius of Antioch (date not
given) from Soumela Monastery in Trabzon,
Turkey. Photo by Francesco Bini, used via
a CC BY-SA 4.0 license (source).

I used to have a copy of of the lovely Penguin Classics volume Early Christian Writings, which I now cannot find; but the translator (one Maxwell Staniforth) noted that the expression here rendered “mysteries of renown” literally means “mysteries of a loud shout,” and offered the vivid translation “trumpet-tongued secrets.”

The Lord’s resurrection taking place at night suggests a triumph over the forces of death and evil; the same ideas are hinted at in his leaving the grave-clothes behind. It’s rather funny to me that some New Testament scholars want to contrast the hypothetical Johannine community with the rest of the primitive Church—every time I reread any of the Johannine books, I’m more struck by how closely allied their ideas and even their symbolism are to the Paulines, despite clear differences in style.

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection … Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
—Romans 6:3-5, 9

[He] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself … whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
—Colossians 1:15-20

Am I the crazy person here?

c. he saw and believed/he saw and had faith | εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν [eiden kai episteusen]: This text is a little cryptic, but it seems to be stating that the Beloved Disciple was the first among the Twelve to begin to believe in the Resurrection.

Illumination of Christ breaking the Sixth Seal
(Rev. 6:12-17) from the 10th-c. Morgan Beatus,
an Early Medieval manuscript of Beatus of
Liébana’s Commentary on the Apocalypse.

d. Then the disciples went back to their homes/Then the students went out again to [the rest of] them | ἀπῆλθον οὖν πάλιν πρὸς αὑτοὺς οἱ μαθηταί [apēlthon oun palin pros autous hoi mathētai]: This text is a little difficult, because it’s not entirely obvious what αὑτοὺς means here. In most places in John, this word serves as a sort of all-purpose pronoun—hence my rendering it “[the rest of] them,” which takes it to be applying to the other Apostles. However, αὐτός [autos] was originally an adjective that meant “the same, the selfsame, -self.” (E.g., the forms ἐμαυτοῦ [emautou] and σεαυτοῦ [se’autou],5 “myself” and “yourself,” were created by prefixing first- and second-personal pronominal forms to αὐτός.) A flat-footedly word-for-word translation in light of this meaning would yield something like “Then went again the students to themselves”; I assume it is this that underlies the RSV’s rendering.

e. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb/Yet Miriam stood at the monument, outside, crying | Μαρία δὲ εἱστήκει πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ ἔξω κλαίουσα [Maria de heistēkei pros tō mnēmeiō exō klaiousa]: This prompts a question: why didn’t Rocky and Yochanan bring her with them when they left, or stay with her until she was ready to leave? Apart from the question of whether it was safe to leave a woman alone in an isolated area, you would think everybody would want to stick together at a time like this.6 However, there are lots of possible answers. Maybe Rocky and Yochanan tried to bring her with them, but Miriam was having none of it. Maybe in the sheer bizarreness of the whole situation, they just weren’t thinking clearly. Maybe they thought she was coming with them, and didn’t notice her absence until they’d already left the environs of the tomb. Or (and I’m inclined to find this the likeliest explanation) maybe they had left before she even got back.

f. two angels/two messengers | δύο ἀγγέλους [düo angelous]: This might be the weirdest detail of the whole passage. Rocky and Yochanan apparently saw no angels when they were here a few minutes ago: what are they doing here now? And I’m not even going to try to say why this is perhaps the only place in all of Scripture where angels don’t need to tell the person they’re speaking with to “Fear not”!

To be clear, the “how” of this stuff is not difficult. The relationship of angels (whatever choir these belong to—archangels, maybe7) to matter is not entirely clear to us; however, there is a general consensus among theologians that the many kinds of angelic beings are not incarnates like ourselves. Presumably, then, their manifestations to human beings are at-will “figments” rather than material actualities. If so, appearing to one person and not another, even if both were physically present at the same time, wouldn’t be any more remarkable than our ability to send an email to only one person we know and not everyone in our address book.

Entwurf zu einem Engel [Sketch of an Angel]
(1874), by Br. Desiderius Lenz.

What’s confusing is why they were concealed from Peter and John. The Synoptic Gospels all give the impression that at least one angel was, for lack of a better way of putting it, “hanging around” the vacated tomb, and Luke agrees with the Fourth Gospel in making it two angels. The only reason I can come up with leans heavily on the fact that, in the other Gospels, the angels all tell the myrrh-bearers that Christ has risen from the dead and to go and tell the Eleven—perhaps they had specific instructions not to rob the women of this blessed task. But, they aren’t the ones to share this with Miriam of Migdal here. They don’t seem to serve any function here. Honestly, I’m stumped.

g. but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” Supposing him to be the gardener/and did not perceive that it is Yeshua. Yeshua says to her: “Ma’am, why are you crying? Whom are you searching for?” She, deeming that it is the gardener | καὶ οὐκ ᾔδει ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν. λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς· Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; τίνα ζητεῖς; ἐκείνη δοκοῦσα ὅτι ὁ κηπουρός ἐστιν [kai ouk ēdei hoti Iēsous estin. legei autē Iēsous: «günai, ti klaieis? tina zēteis?» ekeinē dokousa hoti ho kēpouros estin]: In the Sacra Pagina commentary on John, this mistake of Miriam of Migdal—like many, many other elements, including professions of faith by several people—is evaluated as … a symptom of imperfect faith. I find this quite a strange way of reading the text. It not only seems more than a little harsh; the evangelist, who’s not shy about highlighting character flaws in his narrative, doesn’t invite us to view this moment as such. More natural, I feel, is the unprovable but powerfully imagined interpretation from a sermon by Dr. Glenn Parkinson, a former pastor at my last Presbyterian church:

She couldn’t even bury him well. And her eyes got all blurry with tears.

“Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you’re looking for?”

“Sir, if you’ve taken him away, tell me where he is, and I’ll get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”8

Note, too, the gentleness with which Yeshua approaches her here. The realization that he is alive again is good news, but whichever way you slice it, it’s also going to be the shock of her life! So he brings her attention to himself with the lightest touch possible. He approaches so softly, she apparently doesn’t hear him; even after he has begun speaking with her, he doesn’t identify himself, but goes no further than prompting her to recognize him.

Noli Me Tangere (15th c.), engraving
by Martin Schongauer (source).

h. in Hebrew, “Rabboni!”/in Aramaic, “Rabbani” | Ἑβραϊστί· Ραββουνί [Hebra’isti: «Rabbouni»]: It’s odd the evangelist specifies she said this in Aramaic. That was the common language of most Jews in the Holy Land; we would generally assume it was being used in any given conversation in the Gospels, unless given reason to think otherwise. It’s also slightly odd to note the language someone is using mid-stream. Perhaps, until this point, she was speaking Greek? (A gardener might be a slave—a private slave if this were private property, or a public slave if it were public—and slaves might be likelier to speak Greek, that being the international language. But this is only conjecture.)

i. Do not hold me … I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God/Do not touch me … I am going up to my Father and your Father and my God and your God | Μή μου ἅπτου … Ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν καὶ θεόν μου καὶ θεὸν ὑμῶν [mē mou haptou … anabainō pros ton Patera mou kai Patera hümōn kai Theon mou kai Theon hümōn]: In the Vulgate, the Lord’s first phrase here is rendered nōlī mē tangere. Like last week’s ecce hōmō, both the Latin phrase and the scene it refers to have become artistic motifs in their own right.

So far as I know, the reason Miriam must not yet touch him—”I have not yet gone up to the Father”—is never explained elsewhere in Scripture. It is frequently contrasted with the invitation to touch extended a week later to St. Toma in v. 27, suggesting that by then an ascension of some kind has taken place. We can probably place this under-explained ascension earlier, though: “he shewed unto them his hands and his side” on the evening of this same day, and taking cues from Matthew and Luke, it sounds as though touching the resurrected Body was allowed as soon as “later that same day.” All of which is fairly baffling! Our only descriptions of what we generally call the Ascension come from St. Luke, and they certainly don’t place it early in the morning on Easter Sunday. Besides which, right here in John we now get another chapter and a half of the Lord Yeshua being present on earth. Here again, I’m stumped. Yet I’m also intrigued by the fact that, in I Corinthians, St. Paul describes his own decidedly post-Ascension encounter with Christ, not as a vision or an ecstasy, but as a resurrection appearance:

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins … and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present … After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
—I Corinthians 15:3-8

A Postscript Full of I’s: Inerrancy, Infallibility, and Inspiration

For a mixture of reasons, I’m not really an apologetics guy, either as a writer or a reader (though I very much was in the past). However, the Resurrection is one of the major loci of that discipline, and—also for a mixture of reasons—rather invites it. The canonical accounts, especially descriptions of which myrrh-bearers were or weren’t at the tomb and when, are often claimed as contradictions among the Gospels in arguments against their inerrancy, infallibility, and inspiration. Thus, this is also a point at which the discipline of apologetics intersects with some important aspects of the Catholic conceptions of revelation and authority, so it seems worthwhile to devote a little attention to the subject.

Lest I be misunderstood, it would be no skin off Catholicism’s nose to allow that there are inconsistencies among the accounts found in John 20, Matthew 28, Mark 16, and Luke 24. The claim “the Lord returned from the dead” is a matter of Catholic faith; a claim like, say, “St. Salome learned of this fact at 6:20 a.m., not 6:25 a.m.” is simply not. If two canonical evangelists contained contrary information on such an utterly inconsequential question, the Church could say, with perfect placidity, that at least one of them must have the (unimportant) facts wrong.

I am about to advance an argument that some at least of these claimed inconsistencies are really nothing of the kind. I’m doing this partly because it’s an opinion I hold, and much more because I think my reasons for holding that opinion usefully highlight certain ways people often misread the Bible, and lots of other books—unintentionally, even unconsciously, projecting assumptions and details into the text that are not there. Honestly, I’d even argue there are better arguments for doubting the Bible. But we don’t have time right now to sit down together and do a close viewing and analysis of Rashomon before we proceed (although I am in your house), so let’s move forward.

We should begin by defining those three i-terms, which are moderately common in American theological discourse. The second is given meanings by Protestant and Catholic Christians that are slightly, but very importantly, different.

The Last Chapter (1902), by James Doyle
Penrose, depicting St. Bede translating John
on his deathbed.

Inerrancy: an actual lack of or freedom from error, falsehood, or inaccuracy (sometimes with the qualifier “by the accepted standards of the era”). This is typically understood to be absolute, without reference to subject matter.
Infallibility: this is the word with two meanings.
- PROTESTANT: an incapacity to err, give false information, or be inaccurate. This is typically understood by evangelicals to be an absolute incapacity.
- CATHOLIC: a lack of or freedom from error, falsehood or inaccuracy with exclusive reference to moral and theological subjects. Immunity to error on other topics is specifically denied in the Catholic definition of this word.
Inspiration: divine guidance, prompting, or influence upon the authorship of a text.

My understanding of mainline9 Protestant churches—never having been part of one myself—is that their “center of gravity” is an affirmation that the Bible is inspired, but consider it neither infallible nor inerrant. In that way, the evangelical Protestant and Catholic doctrines of Scripture are closer to one another. However, evangelicals often perceive Catholics as being more like mainliners, because Catholics will affirm the Bible’s infallibility (according to the Catholic understanding of the term) but not its inerrancy. Since, on the evangelical’s definition, this would be mere nonsense, it’s often dismissed as one of the many hopeless incoherencies of the Catholic Church; which illustrates the value of explicitly defining terms.

Turning to the Resurrection accounts specifically. What are the ostensible inconsistencies among them? We can’t be exhaustive, so for time we’re going to zero in on one question: who first came to Christ’s tomb and found it empty? Here are the four canonical answers:

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher.
—John 20:1

And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses … In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.
—Matthew 27:55-56, 28:1

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun.
—Mark 16:1-2

And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how his body was laid. … Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher.
—Luke 23:55, 24:1-2

Fresco from the life of St. Mary Magdalene
(c. 1320-1330) by Giotto di Bondone, located
in the Lower Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi.

So in the Gospels, we get one, two, three, and just “in the plural” women cast as the myrrh-bearers (Luke does not elsewhere specify who counted as the women which came with him from Galilee, nor who the certain others were). Now. I will, under duress, make the following concessions to mathematicians:

that one does not equal two (1 ≠ 2);
that neither number is equal to three (**1 ≠**10 3 ≠ 2); and
that definite quantities are, in that respect, distinct from indefinite ones (uh … x ≠ ℵ0, I guess?).

These are, therefore, different—one could even go as far as to say discrepant—accounts. But are these discrepancies inconsistencies?

The Fourth Gospel tends to get singled out here as strongly contradicting the others. I’ve read respected scholars saying things like “In John’s account, Mary Magdalene comes alone.” Except that’s not true. To start with, there is a word for “alone” in Greek, μόνος [monos]: the evangelist does not use it. Only mentioning one person is very different from saying someone came alone. This might get dismissed as a mere technicality—though frankly, I don’t believe it should be; on the contrary, this strikes me as a great example of the tendency to read details into the text which are not there—but the fact is, even if we had no accounts but John’s, in the very next verse, the Magdalene herself implies she didn’t go to the sepulcher alone. Look at verse 2. What does she tell Peter and the rest? “We know not where they have laid him.”

Go through the others. You’ll find that none of the three Gospels which give specifiable numbers (Matthew, Mark, and John) ever assert that only the women they name came to the tomb. And having allowed the mathematicians so much, I will now insist on behalf of logicians that if three women came to the tomb, then two did; and if two did, one did; and if four or more did, so did any natural number smaller than four. So the claim that this aspect of the Resurrection accounts is paralyzed by internal contradictions collapses on analysis. The contradictions lay in interpretations of the texts based on assumptions about what they said, not on the actual content of the texts.

In fairness: is it reasonable to assume, if a narrator only mentions two people going somewhere, they were the only two who went? Well. It’s reasonable in the sense that it’s not just a random guess based on nothing; yet it’s not reasonable in the sense of being the obvious conclusion one is compelled to draw. It often behooves us to simply not draw conclusions. We need them less often than we tend to think.

St. Luke from the Пересопницьке Євангеліє
[Peresopnitske Yevanghelīye] or Peresopnytsia
Gospels (1561). Ukraine’s presidents have been
sworn in on this evangeliary since independence.

As I said above, this is only one element among the difficulties of understanding just what happened when on Easter morning. That timeline is neither clear nor easily clarified from the Gospels! It’s all very confusing. (Which makes sense: a person coming back from the dead would be an extraordinarily confusing event.) Resolving this single question doesn’t resolve much, and the little it does resolve is about a question that—to repeat what I said near the start of this postscript—is not, in my opinion, all that important in the first place. But it’s an excellent piece of material upon which to hone our reading and reasoning skills, and those stand us in good stead for approaching any passage of Scripture.

Footnotes

1More specifically, this comes from the ruins of Dura-Europos, a fascinating site. Founded by the Seleucids, it remained for the most part a Persian-controlled city, though it was in Roman hands a few times, given that it was in northern Mesopotamia—the lowland part of just the region the Romans and Persians tended most to clash in (the highland part being the Kingdom of Armenia, which then occupied much of what’s now eastern Turkey). This, in peace-time, made Dura-Europos something of a melting pot. It included a Mithræum and a lavishly-decorated synagogue, and, since the Parthian and Sasanian Empires didn’t criminalize Christianity, a third-century house-church was discovered there. This was an invaluable glimpse of pre-Constantinian Christianity, particularly its art and architecture. Tragically, Dura-Europos was looted by ISIS in the early 2010s, and the majority of the site was destroyed.
2Pronounced män-dĭ-lē-øn or mân-dĭ-lē-øn (see the expanded guide at this link for details).
3Pronounced ä-ke͡y-rø-po͡i-ĕ-tà or ä-kī-rø-po͡i-ĕ-tà.
4This translation (emphasis mine) comes from chapters 17 and 19 of Ignatius’ letter to Ephesus. I obtained this text via Peter Kirby’s site Early Christian Writings, which is admittedly far more encyclopedic than the Penguin Classic of the same name! It was executed by the nineteenth-century scholars Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
5These terms were not used in the nominative or vocative cases, so their dictionary form is instead the genitive, hence the otherwise-strange ending in -ου.
6Interestingly, although it’s plainly common knowledge in the embryonic Church as early as the time depicted in Acts 1, we’re never told when or how everyone was informed of the betrayal of Judas. The scene in Gethsemane was evidently one of considerable confusion, and of course took place at night; there’s no guarantee that it was clear even to all of the Eleven at that time. I wonder whether it was his failure, in the aftermath, to appear for concealment at John Mark’s mother’s house (where the Upper Room or Cenacle was) that finally made it clear who the traitor had been.
7My reason for this guess is that, while Christian tradition tends to identify the lowest of the nine choirs, angels simpliciter, as our guardian angels, those angelic beings tasked with revealing things to men—St. Gabriel in Daniel and Luke, St. Raphael in Tobit—are identified as archangels: they seem to be, in the most literal sense, divine messengers. (St. Michael, although conventionally called “the Archangel,” is properly a Principality.)
8Emphasis mine; I dearly wish I could recall the name of the sermon this comes from, so I could (1) confirm the exact wording and (2) credit it properly! Dr. Parkinson was easily the most gifted preacher I’ve ever heard. I think I’ve heard one Catholic homilist who was his equal—certainly not more.
9For any who aren’t familiar, the mainline/evangelical split is an important element in understanding American Protestantism in general. It is trans-denominational, affecting most Protestant traditions. It is intellectually related to the Modernist controversy in the Catholic Church, as both have roots in the rise of what used to be called “higher criticism” (about which, as it pertains to the Pauline epistles, I have an ornery rant which those who wish may peruse here). Broadly speaking, mainline denominations trend more theologically “liberal”; this can mean a range of things, from I don’t think the Bible actually forbids ordaining women to I don’t think there actually is a God. Mainliners tend to be more involved in social justice causes and more interested in ecumenism than evangelicals. Principal mainline denominations in the US are the Episcopal Church, the American Baptist Churches in the USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church in the USA. (However, be aware that many evangelical denominations have quite similar names, like the Evangelical Lutheran Synod or the Presbyterian Church in America.)
10Usually.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

July 23, 2026

The Gospel of John: The Exaltation, Part I

Next Post

August 6, 2026 How Did the Risen Jesus Get Through Locked Doors?

Which Christian festival celebrates the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles (as symbolized by the Magi)?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Epiphany Pentecost Advent Lent