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.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to RBD in post #310]

Neither passage is about the spiritual death of them that hate the Lord.

Right. They're about physical death, which David's child suffers because of his father's offense.

The command for men not to put to death by law the child of the evil doer, that has done no evil, also applies to the deeds of the children.

Right. And David's child has done no evil.

The LORD slew the child of David, not men. The LORD did not slay the child by law of Moses.

According to the text, he slew the child for what the child's father had done and not for any sin of the child.

The law forbids men putting to death by law, the innocent children of a transgressor.

"This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys."
(1Samuel 15:2-3)

The first is the LORD's righteous judgment upon all souls of men and women, and the latter is righteousness of the law for men on earth.

"Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, you Israelites: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust?"
(Ezekiel 18:25)

This is right after he finishes saying that the innocent won't die for the offenses of the guilty----as David's innocent child does.

The law would only have been broken by men, if the children of the evil king were put to death, the same as the heathen nations.

Then the law was broken by men in 1 Samuel 15 above----and at Yahweh's command, no less.

Tell the LORD He has no right authority to kill or make alive.

If the gods of the heathen nations don't put innocent children to death rightfully, how does he?

The LORD did not violate His own law, by slaying the child. He have the child killed by law of Moses.

The law of Moses is the very law which says that the child should not die.

[Vilferatus]

[Replying to RBD in post #4]

At the time of the morning, not even the chosen apostles of the Lord believed her testimony of His resurrection during the night. Why would Magdalene think any different of the women?

The assumption that Magdalene would not share the momentous news with the other women is illogical, especially since they're all headed to the very place where she witnessed everything. Logically, she would give them the news and add, "You'll see when we get there!"

And finally, some of the apostles later on, didn't even believe their own eyes while looking at the risen Lord for themselves.

We are not told the same about Magdalene. It is therefore obvious that it is not the reaction the authors are ascribing to her.

She may have begun to doubt her own eyes by morning light.

She tells Peter that the tomb has been opened and that the body is missing, so she obviously remembers making those discoveries. It besmirches her character to assume that she wouldn't tell the other women at least that much so they wouldn't bother packing useless spices all the way there.

The record says they asked each other. Where does it specifically say, that Magdalene asked another? It doesn't. Another may indeed have asked her, but she didn't have to answer, nor was an answer necessarily expected.

The record says they asked each other. Where does it specifically say that Magdalene didn't ask, but simply let the others puzzle away without the knowledge she held? It doesn't.

Again, it slights her to assume that she does not share what she knows.

In conclusion, it's not unreasonable, that Magdalene did not make known these things to the other women, whom she planned to be at the tomb with in the morning. And she may have begun to doubt her own eyes, the same as some apostles later on.

The authors who tell us of the apostles' disbelief and doubt do not ascribe the same internal monologues to Mary Magdalene. Attributed to the apostles, those reactions are part of the testimony; attributed to Magdalene, they are inventions. Having to resort to invention to make the narrative work shows that it doesn't work.

Yet even then their testimony did not agree.
(Mark 14:59)

You seem to be confusing 'logical impossibility' with 'unexpected human behavior.' There is absolutely nothing logically contradictory about a traumatized or confused individual failing to act with maximum logistical efficiency.

Your argument that it is 'illogical' for Mary Magdalene to remain silent because the other women were packing spices assumes that human beings under extreme emotional shock always operate like cold, predictable algorithms. That is a psychological assumption on your part, not a logical deduction.

Furthermore, when analyzing a narrative model, looking at the context is not 'invention.' If the texts explicitly establish a universal baseline where even the primary apostles doubted their own eyes and testimonies, inferring that Magdalene could experience a similar state of doubt or hesitation is a consistent reading of the model's psychological framework.

Claiming a narrative 'doesn't work' simply because the characters didn't behave the way you personally think they should have behaved is a subjective preference, not a logical refutation.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Vilferatus in post #312]

You seem to be confusing 'logical impossibility' with 'unexpected human behavior.' There is absolutely nothing logically contradictory about a traumatized or confused individual failing to act with maximum logistical efficiency.

Claiming a narrative 'doesn't work' simply because the characters didn't behave the way you personally think they should have behaved is a subjective preference, not a logical refutation.

It isn't just "a narrative". It's four narratives, and the behavior of those depicted in them doesn't line up.

John's narrative has Mary Magdalene go to the tomb while it's still dark, discover the tomb open and the body missing, run to inform Simon, follow Simon and the other disciple back to the tomb, remain there weeping, have a brief exchange with an angel in the tomb, see Jesus and take him for the gardener, recognize him for who he is and run back to the disciples and relate what she has experienced. And somewhere amid all this she is supposed to squeeze in her trip to the tomb with the other women at sunrise as recorded in Mark, wondering with them who will open the already-open tomb and not sharing with the others what she has already shared with the disciples by that point.

If the texts explicitly establish a universal baseline where even the primary apostles doubted their own eyes and testimonies, inferring that Magdalene could experience a similar state of doubt or hesitation is a consistent reading of the model's psychological framework.

The apostles having doubts does not establish a "universal baseline", explicitly or otherwise. John has Mary relate her encounter at the tomb to the disciples with certainty (20:18) before she would have a chance to join the other women in Mark, so her doubt would have been alleviated by then. The context of each of those scenarios is the other scenario, so it's more realistic to conclude that they simply don't match, no matter what fancy words you want to use to dress up a denial of it.

The "subjective preference" is treating the text like it has to mean what it doesn't say in order to avoid acknowledging its inconsistency because of an insistence that the texts can't be inconsistent..

[Vilferatus]

[Replying to Vilferatus in post #312]

You seem to be confusing 'logical impossibility' with 'unexpected human behavior.' There is absolutely nothing logically contradictory about a traumatized or confused individual failing to act with maximum logistical efficiency.

Claiming a narrative 'doesn't work' simply because the characters didn't behave the way you personally think they should have behaved is a subjective preference, not a logical refutation.

It isn't just "a narrative". It's four narratives, and the behavior of those depicted in them doesn't line up.

John's narrative has Mary Magdalene go to the tomb while it's still dark, discover the tomb open and the body missing, run to inform Simon, follow Simon and the other disciple back to the tomb, remain there weeping, have a brief exchange with an angel in the tomb, see Jesus and take him for the gardener, recognize him for who he is and run back to the disciples and relate what she has experienced. And somewhere amid all this she is supposed to squeeze in her trip to the tomb with the other women at sunrise as recorded in Mark, wondering with them who will open the already-open tomb and not sharing with the others what she has already shared with the disciples by that point.

If the texts explicitly establish a universal baseline where even the primary apostles doubted their own eyes and testimonies, inferring that Magdalene could experience a similar state of doubt or hesitation is a consistent reading of the model's psychological framework.

The apostles having doubts does not establish a "universal baseline", explicitly or otherwise. John has Mary relate her encounter at the tomb to the disciples with certainty (20:18) before she would have a chance to join the other women in Mark, so her doubt would have been alleviated by then. The context of each of those scenarios is the other scenario, so it's more realistic to conclude that they simply don't match, no matter what fancy words you want to use to dress up a denial of it.

The "subjective preference" is treating the text like it has to mean what it doesn't say in order to avoid acknowledging its inconsistency because of an insistence that the texts can't be inconsistent..

You are still missing the entire point because you are treating ancient historical literature as if it were a synchronized CCTV security log or software code.

If there are variances or errors in the chronological micro-details between the accounts, that is not a structural problem for the model.

When real human beings witness an unprecedented, traumatic, and monumental event, they communicate from their own limited perspective, memory, and emotional shock. One author focuses on the collective journey at dawn; another focuses on a specific individual encounter in the dark. If the four accounts were perfectly identical down to the minute, any serious analytical mind would reject them as a coordinated fraud or a lazy copy-paste job.

The fact that the micro-details contain human variances while remaining absolutely unanimous on the core, indisputable facts of the model (the stone removed, the empty tomb, the shock of the followers, and the proclamation of the resurrection) is exactly how authentic historical testimony functions.

Forcing a rigid, artificial standard of mechanical perfection onto ancient texts just to manufacture an inconsistency is a textbook example of confirmation bias. You are obsessing over the dust on the branches because you are afraid to look at the forest.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Vilferatus in post #314]

You are still missing the entire point because you are treating ancient historical literature as if it were a synchronized CCTV security log or software code.

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness...."
(2 Timothy 3:16)

If that's the case, then anything you regard as scripture should be at least as reliable as a synchronized CCTV security log or software code.

If there are variances or errors in the chronological micro-details between the accounts, that is not a structural problem for the model.

Chronology cannot be dismissed as "micro-details". Chronological details are a crucial part of establishing whether an account of events is plausible or not.

When real human beings witness an unprecedented, traumatic, and monumental event, they communicate from their own limited perspective, memory, and emotional shock. One author focuses on the collective journey at dawn; another focuses on a specific individual encounter in the dark.

The problem is that the authors are describing events which they did not witness, so it isn't about the experiences of the authors; it's about the experiences of the people in the accounts. And another thing we know about memory is that it can be notoriously unreliable.

If the four accounts were perfectly identical down to the minute, any serious analytical mind would reject them as a coordinated fraud or a lazy copy-paste job.

Then let's look at Mark 14:56-59 and Matthew 26:59-61. Those passages say that those who testified against Jesus did not agree in their testimony, but how do we know that they didn't agree? If we apply your principle of different authors focusing on different aspects of an event, coupled with the fact that we're not told all of what the witnesses said, then your own reckoning forces us to conclude that the witnesses against Jesus could have been telling the truth.

The fact that the micro-details contain human variances while remaining absolutely unanimous on the core, indisputable facts of the model (the stone removed, the empty tomb, the shock of the followers, and the proclamation of the resurrection) is exactly how authentic historical testimony functions.

That may be how "historical testimony functions", but it's not how historical veracity is established. The stone removed, the empty tomb, the shock of the followers and the proclamation of the resurrection are not "indisputable facts"; they are the claims which all of the authors are making. Claims are not evidence of their own veracity.

Forcing a rigid, artificial standard of mechanical perfection onto ancient texts just to manufacture an inconsistency is a textbook example of confirmation bias. You are obsessing over the dust on the branches because you are afraid to look at the forest.

The inconsistency doesn't have to be manufactured; it's evident in the text. Your own manufacture of a wildly unreasonable cognitive swing in Mary Magdalene's behavior, especially when nothing of the sort is ascribed to her, is itself a textbook example of grasping at straws.

It isn't about a "rigid, artificial standard of mechanical perfection"; it's about a reasonable expectation of internal consistency. Any convenient speculation you insert to excuse discrepancy in the Bible can be employed just as easily to excuse any discrepancy in the texts of any other religion as well.

[Vilferatus]

[Replying to Vilferatus in post #314]

You are still missing the entire point because you are treating ancient historical literature as if it were a synchronized CCTV security log or software code.

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness...."
(2 Timothy 3:16)

If that's the case, then anything you regard as scripture should be at least as reliable as a synchronized CCTV security log or software code.

If there are variances or errors in the chronological micro-details between the accounts, that is not a structural problem for the model.

Chronology cannot be dismissed as "micro-details". Chronological details are a crucial part of establishing whether an account of events is plausible or not.

When real human beings witness an unprecedented, traumatic, and monumental event, they communicate from their own limited perspective, memory, and emotional shock. One author focuses on the collective journey at dawn; another focuses on a specific individual encounter in the dark.

The problem is that the authors are describing events which they did not witness, so it isn't about the experiences of the authors; it's about the experiences of the people in the accounts. And another thing we know about memory is that it can be notoriously unreliable.

If the four accounts were perfectly identical down to the minute, any serious analytical mind would reject them as a coordinated fraud or a lazy copy-paste job.

Then let's look at Mark 14:56-59 and Matthew 26:59-61. Those passages say that those who testified against Jesus did not agree in their testimony, but how do we know that they didn't agree? If we apply your principle of different authors focusing on different aspects of an event, coupled with the fact that we're not told all of what the witnesses said, then your own reckoning forces us to conclude that the witnesses against Jesus could have been telling the truth.

The fact that the micro-details contain human variances while remaining absolutely unanimous on the core, indisputable facts of the model (the stone removed, the empty tomb, the shock of the followers, and the proclamation of the resurrection) is exactly how authentic historical testimony functions.

That may be how "historical testimony functions", but it's not how historical veracity is established. The stone removed, the empty tomb, the shock of the followers and the proclamation of the resurrection are not "indisputable facts"; they are the claims which all of the authors are making. Claims are not evidence of their own veracity.

Forcing a rigid, artificial standard of mechanical perfection onto ancient texts just to manufacture an inconsistency is a textbook example of confirmation bias. You are obsessing over the dust on the branches because you are afraid to look at the forest.

The inconsistency doesn't have to be manufactured; it's evident in the text. Your own manufacture of a wildly unreasonable cognitive swing in Mary Magdalene's behavior, especially when nothing of the sort is ascribed to her, is itself a textbook example of grasping at straws.

It isn't about a "rigid, artificial standard of mechanical perfection"; it's about a reasonable expectation of internal consistency. Any convenient speculation you insert to excuse discrepancy in the Bible can be employed just as easily to excuse any discrepancy in the texts of any other religion as well.

Ok, if you find that standard reasonable, that is good for you. You have just created an artificial system that completely erases the veracity of all ancient historical accounts, and then conveniently used it just to prove the Bible wrong.

By demanding that ancient literature function like a 21st-century CCTV log, you have made it impossible for any historical text to pass your test. If variances in human perspective equal a 'manufactured lie' to you, then Hannibal crossing the Alps, the assassination of Caesar, and every major event in antiquity are also non-existent fabrications.You aren't analyzing history; you are constructing a philosophical trap designed exclusively to reject the text regardless of how real human testimony actually functions.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Vilferatus in post #316]

Ok, if you find that standard reasonable, that is good for you. You have just created an artificial system that completely erases the veracity of all ancient historical accounts, and then conveniently used it just to prove the Bible wrong.

By demanding that ancient literature function like a 21st-century CCTV log, you have made it impossible for any historical text to pass your test. If variances in human perspective equal a 'manufactured lie' to you, then Hannibal crossing the Alps, the assassination of Caesar, and every major event in antiquity are also non-existent fabrications.You aren't analyzing history; you are constructing a philosophical trap designed exclusively to reject the text regardless of how real human testimony actually functions.

I am not demanding that ancient literature function like a 21st-century CCTV log. Here's the part that you're missing:

When scholarly historians compile records and other evidence to present as historical accounts, they acknowledge that they are going by the best evidence they have. They admit that they may not know every detail of every historical event they study, and......here's the most important part.....

They do not claim to be divinely inspired.

Scholarly historians accept that they work under the constraints of their ordinary human knowledge. They do not claim that their methods are infallible or that their findings are unquestionable. That distinguishes them from the scribes of "revealed" organized religions. So when Mark has Mary Magdalene with other women going to the tomb at sunrise and not telling them about having seen the risen Jesus on an earlier trip in John after which she does tell the disciples of having seen him, a scholarly historian would likely say, "It doesn't look like these authors are telling quite the same story."

Historians tell us that Hannibal crossed the Alps, but they don't tell us that he flew across. They tell us that Julius Ceasar was assassinated, but they don't tell us that he rose from the dead after three days. And when different accounts conflict, historians are willing to accept that they conflict without trying to harmonize them.