New Testament Notes 354-355

Matthew 28:11-15

This is, as a matter of fact, one of the most ancient counter-explanations for the purported bodily resurrection of Jesus.

That’s significant:  It suggests that everybody agreed that the tomb was, in fact, empty.

No small thing, that.

Luke 24:13-35

Compare Mark 16:12-13

This wonderful story occurs only in the gospel of Luke, although Mark plainly alludes to it.

Three brief observations:

1.

Jesus is the same and yet, somehow, subtly different, so that his identity isn’t at first apparent to the two disciples walking with him toward Emmaus.  This may be the point of an expression in Mark 16:12, which says that “he appeared in another form [ἐν ἑτέρᾳ μορφῇ].”  That phrase serves no apparent purpose in the Markan account but makes perfect sense in view of the Lukan narrative.  My bet is that oral accounts of what Luke records were relatively widely known in the early Christian community.

An alternative understanding might be that he looked essentially the same, but that, through supernatural means, the two disciples were prevented from knowing him.  Luke 24:16 says that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (οἱ δὲ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτῶν ἐκρατοῦντο τοῦ μὴ ἐπιγνῶναι αὐτόν).  

I’m not sure that the two explanations are incompatible.  And, certainly, there were things about Christ’s resurrected body that were different from his mortal state (e.g., being able to “materialize” suddenly and in enclosed spaces, being able to pass through walls, etc.).  So why should it be presumed that the resurrected body looked the same?

2.

When the two disciples finally realized the identity of their guest, they faulted themselves for not having recognized him earlier.  “Did not our hearts burn within us,” they said (Luke 24:32), “while he talked with us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” (καὶ εἶπαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους Οὐχὶ ἡ καρδία ἡμῶν καιομένη ἦν ἐν ἡμῖν, ὡς ἐλάλει ἡμῖν ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ, ὡς διήνοιγεν ἡμῖν τὰς γραφάς;)

Latter-day Saints are often mocked — and not merely by secularists, but often by professing Christians — for believing and teaching that the Spirit can help us to recognize divine truth via a “burning in the bosom.”  (See, for example, Doctrine and Covenants 9.)  But isn’t that exactly what’s presumed in this New Testament story, as well?

3.

The location of Emmaus is unknown.

Latter-day Saints are often derided for their belief in the Book of Mormon.  Biblical sites are known, we’re told, and biblical archaeology is clear, unlike the situation with the Book of Mormon.  But this isn’t true:  Emmaus is just one of many instances where the site of a biblical place remains disputed, and there is no archaeological proof of its identity.

Posted from En Gev, Israel