The fourth episode of the fourth season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (April 15, 2020). You can listen to the episode right now and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:

Show Notes

This podcast is based on Matthew 27:57-28:10. Any direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

This episode comes out just a few days after Easter, 2020, which has been a most unusual Easter for Christians in many places. Because of the covid-19 pandemic, many Christians were not able to gather together and celebrate Easter according to traditional customs. Nevertheless, they found ways to celebrate even if they, like the disciples on that first Easter, were shut up in rooms with the doors locked for fear of the dangers that lurked outside.

So much of my thoughts, words and reflections have been focussed on helping people to navigate this crisis lately, but I made a decision that this episode would put pandemic and fear of pandemic aside so that I could take a fresh look, and a somewhat light-hearted look at the biblical story of Easter, especially as told in Matthew’s gospel.

The oddities in Matthew’s account

There are a number of unique elements to Matthew’s story of the resurrection

Christians have long had a tendency in reading the gospels to want to harmonize the various accounts — to take the four quite diverse biblical stories and force them into one cohesive narrative. I understand where this impulse comes from, of course, but I believe it to be ultimately foolhardy. For one thing, it is simply not possible. There are certain elements in the different Gospels that simply cannot be reconciled. But even more important, when we try to do this, when we try to push and prod the various gospels into being in perfect agreement with each other, we end up stripping each individual gospel writer of his own voice and narrative approach. We say that we revere these books as scripture, and yet we tend to disregard what each author is saying whenever what he is saying might not easily reconcile to what another gospel writer is saying.

So I wanted to use this episode to celebrate the somewhat bizarre uniqueness of the Gospel of Matthew account of the resurrection of Jesus, despite the fact that is straightforward reading of what Matthew writes that’s not quite fit with the stories told in the other gospels.

Guards posted at the tomb

The story of the guards set on the tomb is only found in Matthew’s gospel.

One unique feature of Matthew’s gospel is a strange account of a guard placed upon the tomb of Jesus. This account has always raised many questions. The first question has to do with the other gospel accounts. If there really were guards placed upon the tomb, how is it possible but none of the other gospel writers should have mentioned them? Much of the drama that takes place in the other gospels would simply be impossible if there were armed guards standing around.

It also seems somewhat unlikely that Pontius Pilate would have been willing to commit some of his own troops for such a duty. Of course, as some have noted, it’s not entirely clear that Pilate is sending his own Roman troops to carry out this guard duty. What he says is, “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.” Some have read this to mean that they should use soldiers that they already have, and not his soldiers. But how would it be possible that the Romans would tolerate somebody else keeping their own troops that were independent of Roman control? That seems a very bad policy for an occupying force.

Even more damning, as the story continues, we are told that these soldiers explained what happened by saying, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.” The discipline that would be visited upon any Roman soldier (or indeed any ancient soldier) who admitted to sleeping while on guard duty would be so severe under any circumstances, that this part of the story seems implausible.

Matthew shows us the action

One very unique thing about Matthew’s account is that he describes some events that the other gospels only allude to. In the gospels of Mark, Luke and John, the tomb of Jesus is already open and empty of Jesus’ body when the women arrive on Easter morning. There is no indication about how this strange set of circumstances came to be. In the gospel of Mark, the women even wonder to each other how they will get past the stone as they walk towards the tomb.

Matthew story is quite different. He tells us that the tomb is opened just as the women approach and they get to see the whole thing happen. Matthew also employs an earthquake that is not mentioned in the other Gospels, though it is not clear that that is what moves the stone. Where the other Gospels describe enigmatic men dressed in white who speak to the women, only Matthew identifies the speaker as an angel and a rather unmistakable one whose appearance is like lightning, and whose clothing is as white as snow.

But strangely, despite revealing so much that the other gospel writers kept hidden, Matthew fails to explain a key point — how Jesus manages to leave the tomb without being seen by the women who are clearly standing there watching. This is never explained when the women leave the tomb shortly after it has opened and run right into him. How did he get out? Matthew is not interested in explaining that to us.

The uniqueness of Matthew’s account

So, should we be disturbed by the details in Matthews account that are hard to reconcile with the stories in the other Gospels? As I said in the episode, that is not really something that disturbs me. I do think that, once we realize what sort of stories we are dealing with in the resurrection accounts, we should be able to understand that these kinds of inconsistencies are exactly what we should expect to see. The stories were not told in order to serve as journalistic accounts or courtroom testimony, but rather as a way for the early church to understand the extraordinary things they had experienced following the death of their Lord Jesus.

Credit where Credit is Due!

Music:

“AhDah” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Hitman by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3880-hitman

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/



And of course we must acknowledge this classic bit:

Classic Monty Python sketch: The Dead Parrot