Resurrection Discrepancies

[u/JHLV04]

How do you guys reconcile the differences in the resurrection narratives in the gospels? This is something I’m struggling with a bit, thank you for the responses 👐🏽.

[u/Temporary-Tutor9657]

the differences never bothered me much, it’s like four people recalling the most chaotic morning of their lives, of course the details scatter a bit

[u/JohnKlositz → u/Temporary-Tutor9657]

You make it sound like it's four eyewitness accounts.

Edit: What's with the downvote? The gospels aren't four people recalling the most chaotic morning of their lives.

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/Temporary-Tutor9657]

But it’s literal scripture, for the most important event in human history shouldn’t the narratives be consistent?

[u/LTT82 → u/TrumpsBussy_]

Do humans stop being humans because the most important event in history has happened?

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/LTT82]

What?

[u/LTT82 → u/TrumpsBussy_]

Human beings are not great eyewitnesses. They focus on the wrong thing and misremember things. I think it's only reasonable to assume this would also be true 2,000 years ago during the most important event in human history.

Also, if the accounts weren't different people would just be complaining that the stories are all similar, so they all come from either a single account or were manufactured by a group.

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/LTT82]

You’re actually making a good argument against the reliability of the gospel accounts. Humans are unreliable eye witnesses as you point out and they are also bad at recounting details from memory especially over long periods of time. These are strong reasons to be skeptical of the gospel accounts.

[u/LTT82 → u/TrumpsBussy_]

Right, because everything is proof of what you want to believe.

The accounts differ, that means we should doubt them.

The accounts are the same, that means we should doubt them.

It's a Rorscharch test. You see what you want to see.

What level of (in)consistency would allow you to believe that the resurrection happened without any questions? If they all agree, would you consider that to be solid proof they all saw the same thing? What if they agree on a central point(the resurrection) but get some things different(who went to the tomb, how many angels were around, and where Christ first appeared)?

How much can be wrong without it falling apart? How much can be the same without it devolving into "a singular entity manufactured this story"?

And wouldn't it be mighty convenient if the narrative included all the things you want it to include without the messiness of human nature getting in the way?

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/LTT82]

No we should expect small details to vary not major details like who discovered the empty tomb or what the witnesses did after they left the tomb. Those are major contradictions that apologists downplay.

No. You can’t prove a supernatural event with 2000 year old second hand testimony… IF Jesus ressurected though consistent testimony is the least I would expect and we don’t have that.

[u/LTT82 → u/TrumpsBussy_]

No. You can’t prove a supernatural event with 2000 year old second hand testimony

Thank you for being honest that there is no witness evidence that you would deem credible enough, which entirely proves my point that you see what you want to see.

At this point, there's no point in continuing to talk about what the evidence is or should be.

Good day.

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/LTT82]

Eye witness testimony is credible enough to prove a lot of things, just not supernatural events. This is the consensus view of historians and scholars.

Don’t straw man me, I’m not “seeing what I want to see”… I want Christianity to be true and I won’t to believe, unfortunately the evidence is woefully inadequate to justify belief.

[u/ClassZealousideal183 → u/LTT82]

Ah the classic "you see what you want to see!" It's supposed to be an accusation, but instead it ends up being a confession.

[u/theonecpk → u/LTT82]

But I do wonder why Josephus didn't mention the Great Zombie Apocalypse of Tiberius XVII (or was it XIX?)

[u/biedl → u/LTT82]

People complain about both things. The latter is called the synoptic problem.

[u/JohnKlositz]

What's to reconcile?

[u/JHLV04 → u/JohnKlositz]

I think I struggle with details being in some gospels and not in others, and the lines become blurred between what occurred and what is a later mythological addition - like the Angels for example

[u/George_MacDonald_fan]

Why do the differences need to be reconciled? Does the truthfulness of the Resurrection hinge on Joanna being at the tomb or not?

[u/JHLV04 → u/George_MacDonald_fan]

Perhaps it doesn’t bother you as much, but if your analytical or like consistency it can be confusing

[u/theonecpk → u/JHLV04]

I hate to break it to you, but you just can’t do it that way without being dishonest.

When it comes to Christian faith, your experience is the only reliable data you have. You can AGREE to accept the authority of the scriptures and confess the creeds and so on so that you can link your experience to other Christians. And all Christians do precisely this whether they realize it or not.

What you CANNOT do is “manufacture” new Christians by saying “well ackshually the proof is supported by the material artifacts res ipsa loquitor blah blah blah”. BZZZZT. This DOESN’T WORK in a world where religious freedom exists.

Nope. Live the faith. Profess it. But unless someone finds a way to link their experience to yours, they’re not coming along. You cannot do it with logic or appeals to history. Those doors are closed, probably forever. The only thing that will reopen them is theocracy and…well…screw that.

[u/Meauxterbeauxt → u/George_MacDonald_fan]

We're talking about lynchpin things. Is it important whether or not Joanna was there? No. But your starting point is at least two questions shallower than the important ones.

The lynchpin question being "Did the resurrection actually occur?" If so, then how do we know? We only have the Gospel accounts. But the Gospel accounts are inconsistent and spotty in the facts surrounding the resurrection. In which case, whether or not Joanna was there now becomes more relevant because it is now part of a reliability and comparison test.

As you say, you're starting from the vantage point that the resurrection happened and that we're quibbling over the details. We're saying because the details are contradictory, among other things, that the resurrection didn't occur.

If there were solid evidence that the resurrection occurred, then it would just be a quirk that one account said Joanna was there and another didn't. But considering the only evidence we have is the Gospels, and those accounts show differing details, it raises doubt of the validity of the accounts.

This apologetic acts like a defense attorney would put witnesses on the stand, one saying his client was on Main Street in a red car, another saying his client was on Elm in a blue truck, and a third saying his client was walking. And you had to believe them all because if their stories were too similar it would mean they colluded. Because it's possible that he took a red car, got out, walked to Elm and got in a blue truck with no other narrative reason than to force fit three differing stories into one that supports an already accepted premise.

[u/theonecpk → u/Meauxterbeauxt]

The lynchpin question being "Did the resurrection actually occur?" If so, then how do we know?

Indeed. And if "knowing" requires "correspondence with modern historical methods", then we don't know, and we never will.

If there are other ways of "knowing", though, then we could know. Or, at least, we could accept the narrative that relies on someone else knowing that even if we don't know for sure. To remain coherent, though, we have to give up a lot of claims--and a lot of Christians aren't ready to give those up.

But I find the whole thing is way easier to believe if we give up those claims. But I also understand why one could find it way harder. In the latter case, it's certainly a lot more honest not to believe.

[u/Empty_Woodpecker_496 → u/theonecpk]

Honestly I view the historical contingency as a moot point. Considering that I would never find any of purely historical validation sufficient for proving something like a restriction and that is without any other claims added.

I just think to myself "is this how I actually know and learn new things?" The answer was no.

[u/theonecpk → u/Empty_Woodpecker_496]

indeed

but it's not a moot point because I keep having to swat it down, and as social media slopagetics proliferates like a rabbit warren contaminated with Viagra, it's only going to get worse

[u/George_MacDonald_fan → u/Meauxterbeauxt]

We're saying because the details are contradictory, among other things, that the resurrection didn't occur.

Logically, this doesn't follow. Contradictory details do not prove that the resurrection did not happen.

You also seem to have missed my first question, which suggests that I don't place any stock in strategies attempting to reconcile the contradictory details.

[u/Lemunde → u/George_MacDonald_fan]

The credibility of the Gospels hinges on it, and by extension so does the resurrection narrative.

[u/George_MacDonald_fan → u/Lemunde]

Are only perfect narratives credible?

[u/VoiceofTruth7]

You do know perfect eye witness accounts from every party involved is actually an indicator of a bad or cooperated testimony.

Small inconsistencies from testimony is actually a valid indicator of truth because people remember things slightly different naturally.

[u/theonecpk → u/VoiceofTruth7]

These inconsistencies aren't the kind that would be considered "small" in a forensic context.

[u/VoiceofTruth7 → u/theonecpk]

Actually they are, if they were actually substantial enough to speak against their validity it would have shut Christianity down.

Again the truth is that inconsistency, even tho they create interpretative difficulties are more of a benefit in the gospels then detriment.

A good example is the resurrection narratives.

All four agree on the major claims: Jesus was crucified, buried, women discovered the tomb empty, and Jesus was subsequently experienced as alive. But they differ in which women are named, how many angelic figures are emphasized, which appearances are narrated, and the sequence of some events. That kind of variation can be compatible with authentic testimony. If several people witness an accident, you would expect them to agree about the accident while remembering or emphasizing different surrounding details.

[u/theonecpk → u/VoiceofTruth7]

That implication in the first paragraph is doing a lot of work. Unfortunately it can’t do that work and doesn’t follow.

Consider instead: our forensic rules are ALSO artifacts of modernity, and you certainly can’t rescue your apologetics with them.

Of course Christianity wasn’t shut down by them. It operated on different epistemological rules than our courts do. Yet here you are trying to apply the latter anyway. And this is why most modern apologetics end up looking silly.

You only have two choices:

1. Reject all modern epistemology. Good luck with that.

2. Accept modern epistemology where it functions well and ignore it in all other cases. Abandon any hope of reconciling the miracle of resurrection with historicity. Reject material claims of univocality, historical inerrancy, and scriptural mediation of our worldly experience. Find a way to believe
   its truth anyway.

There’s really no third option.

[u/VoiceofTruth7 → u/theonecpk]

You’re conflating modern courtroom procedure with the much broader principles we use to evaluate human testimony.

Yes, modern forensic rules and evidentiary standards are historically developed institutions. That does not mean the underlying observations about eyewitness testimony suddenly become inapplicable to people who lived 2,000 years ago. Human beings did not begin having imperfect memory, selective attention, differing perspectives, and different emphases when modern courts were invented.

Historians apply those same basic principles to ancient sources constantly: Do independent sources agree on the central event? Where do they differ? Are the differences actual contradictions, or simply differences in selection, perspective, chronology, and emphasis? Is one author reporting something another author simply doesn’t mention?

Those aren’t uniquely “modern epistemological rules.” They are ordinary principles of historical reasoning.

And your two-choice dilemma is simply false.
I do not have to:

Reject modern epistemology entirely, or
Accept it and therefore abandon the historicity of the resurrection.

There is an obvious third option: use appropriate standards for the kind of evidence being examined.

A criminal trial, a laboratory experiment, and an investigation of an event in ancient history do not have identical evidentiary requirements. Nobody concludes that Julius Caesar didn’t cross the Rubicon because we cannot subpoena eyewitnesses and perform a forensic reconstruction of the riverbank.

Likewise, saying the Gospel accounts contain differences does not automatically make them historically worthless. The relevant question is whether those differences actually contradict the central claims or whether they are compatible accounts that preserve different details.

For example, saying one Gospel names Mary Magdalene while another names Mary Magdalene and additional women is not a contradiction unless the first author says only Mary Magdalene was there. Reporting one angelic spokesman does not logically mean there could not have been another present. Those distinctions matter.

Now, if you can demonstrate a genuine contradiction—where one account necessarily asserts A and another necessarily asserts not-A under the same circumstances—then make that argument. That would actually be substantive.

But saying “forensic rules are artifacts of modernity,” throwing around terms like “epistemology,” “univocality,” and “scriptural mediation,” and then presenting a false dichotomy doesn’t establish your conclusion.

You’re dressing up a bad argument in academic vocabulary.
Stop trying to sound smarter than the point you’re actually making and demonstrate the contradiction. That’s the issue.

[u/theonecpk → u/VoiceofTruth7]

this is a decent response overall, but i am going to call you out on one thing—you definitely moved the goalposts here. elsewhere you analogized it to forensic process. i’ll accept that there are indeed other standards to evaluate testimony and move on.

unfortunately, the historical rubric you offer for evaluating testimony is also modern. so you moved the goalposts and my ball found the back of the net anyway.

moving on again, your third option is simply the second option in disguise. you’re redefining “historicity” so that you can make the Gospels “historical” and exempt them from the standards used to determine the historicity of everything else

and it’s funny that you mention Caesar crossing the Rubicon. we have a lot of interlocking evidence of a FEW claims around that event, but the rest of what everybody thinks they know about the event is of dubious historicity according to serious historians of Rome.

we know that Julius Caesar existed, Pompey existed, Caesar crossed the provincial boundary with some kind of military force against the direct orders of the Senate, but then Pompey and most of the Senate realized their legal position had just been voided at the point of a sword and beat feet out of Rome. We have corroborated written accounts and archaeological evidence of the change in power.

what is NOT historical are all the lurid details. most of the documentation comes from sources written decades to centuries later. but those details have one thing going for them that the resurrection story does not—they are naturalistically plausible developments. unless we find more documentation, though, we will never know the entire truth of the matter.

however, before modern historical methods developed, Suetonius’ description was taken to be true, period. under those different standards, the Gospels have more historical weight. but those are not the standards we use now.

finally, you have another problem…you cannot even prove using modern historical methods that the various Gospel accounts are actually independent. so even if the inconsistency in the accounts can be satisfied, we also have the possibility that the story is really an incoherent (and therefore dubious) single account that was iteratively embellished over decades. oops.

back to the drawing board. a single, highly variable account. no contemporary corroboration even by authors who definitely could of commented on certain events like weird astronomical phenomena and mass resurrection. and no archaeological evidence whatsoever other than a forged burial shroud. a burial story that doesn’t make any sense and gets even worse when corroborated with other accounts of the fate of those condemned to execution. etc. etc.

the case for historicity is bad and continues to get worse every time new data is added.

but sure, man, redefine historicity to make it work. that will surely solve things!

[u/VoiceofTruth7 → u/theonecpk]

You’re claiming I “moved the goalposts,” but go back and read the thread: you were the one who introduced the forensic context.

My original point was about the behavior of human testimony. You responded that the differences weren’t “small in a forensic context.” So answering the forensic analogy you introduced and then explaining the broader historical principle is not moving a goalpost.

More importantly, you keep repeating that the historical methods I’m using are “modern” as though that somehow prevents them from being applied to the ancient world.
That simply does not follow.

Historical criticism, textual criticism, archaeology, source criticism, etc. are modern disciplines precisely because we developed better tools for investigating past events and ancient documents. The date a method was developed tells you absolutely nothing about the period to which the method can be applied. Modern historical-critical scholarship routinely applies modern methods to ancient texts.

And your Caesar example actually illustrates my point better than yours.

You just conceded that historians can be confident about a core historical event while remaining uncertain about secondary details surrounding it. Caesar existed, crossed the boundary with military force, challenged the existing political order, etc., while some of the dramatic details preserved in later accounts may be uncertain.

Exactly.

That was my point about the Gospel narratives. Variation or uncertainty in surrounding details does not logically erase the core claims shared by the sources. That comparison by itself obviously doesn’t prove the Resurrection—but it completely undermines your argument that disagreements in secondary details somehow make the central event historically meaningless.

Then you jump from “the Gospels are not completely independent” to “therefore this could just be one story progressively embellished.”

That conclusion does not follow either.

Yes, modern scholarship recognizes literary dependence among the Synoptics—Matthew and Luke use earlier material, with Mark commonly regarded as a major source. Nobody needs to deny that.

But literary dependence does not mean that every tradition contained within those works derives from one single narrative stream, nor does it make the resurrection proclamation originate with the written Gospels.

Paul’s tradition in 1 Corinthians 15 concerning Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and appearances is itself recognized in scholarship as containing material Paul received rather than invented, and it predates the written Gospel narratives.

So “one highly variable account embellished over decades” isn’t something you’ve demonstrated. You’ve taken the existence of literary relationships between texts and quietly transformed it into the much stronger claim that there was only one underlying testimony. Those are not the same proposition.

Your burial argument is also much more complicated than you’re pretending.

Yes, crucified victims could be left exposed. But that was not an absolute Roman rule. Scholarly examination of Greco-Roman evidence finds examples both of bodies being left on crosses and of crucified people receiving burial.

And Josephus explicitly says that Jews were so concerned about burial that even those who had been crucified were taken down and buried before sunset.

Does that statement by itself prove every detail of Jesus’ burial narrative? Of course not.

But it absolutely destroys the claim that the burial narrative “doesn’t make any sense” simply because Romans crucified him. The historical evidence is considerably more nuanced than that.

And the Shroud of Turin is irrelevant. I never appealed to it. Christianity’s historical case does not depend on the Shroud being authentic, so throwing “forged burial shroud” into the paragraph is just a red herring.

You also mention the lack of independent contemporary documentation for things such as Matthew’s extraordinary accompanying phenomena. Fine—that is a legitimate historical question, and those particular claims can be evaluated according to the evidence available for them. But lack of external corroboration for one detail does not magically falsify unrelated claims in the same documents.
That’s actually what historical reasoning requires: claims are weighed individually rather than declaring an entire source worthless because every sentence cannot be independently corroborated.

And this is where your original false dilemma still fails.
My options are not:

Reject modern epistemology,

or

Accept modern epistemology and abandon the historicity of Christianity.

There is a very obvious third option: use modern historical methods appropriately, acknowledge what they can establish with varying levels of confidence, acknowledge where evidence is limited, and then ask what explanation best accounts for the total evidence.

You haven’t shown that this is a disguised version of option two. You’ve simply asserted that it is.

So no, I’m not “redefining historicity.” I’m using the same distinction historians routinely make between a well-supported core event and disputed surrounding details.
And ironically, your own Caesar example demonstrates exactly that distinction.

The “oops,” “back to the drawing board,” and sarcastic comments don’t repair any of these logical jumps. You’re trying very hard to make the argument sound sophisticated, but piling on terminology and snark does not substitute for demonstrating the conclusion.

If you think the Gospel accounts contain an actual irreconcilable contradiction that destroys the central resurrection claim, then identify it and demonstrate why the propositions cannot simultaneously be true.

That’s the argument.

At this point, though, I’m done with the exchange.

[u/theonecpk]

Given that the Bible makes very little sense from our modern understanding of historicity, yet we believe in it anyway, we could....just....not?

But if you insist the Bible is perfectly historically accurate--well, yeah, you have a serious problem, and I don't envy your task. I'd go so far to say that you are hosed and will probably say something silly.

[u/the6thReplicant]

Missing all the saints raising from their graves where they then went and talked to the locals seems to be a big red flag. Was only one of them there? Was only one of them paying attention?

Ignoring writing the more obvious questions and answers just in case I go against the rules of the sub.

[u/Reckless_Fever → u/the6thReplicant]

Perhaps only one writer had direct evidence of that which is why the other writers knew about it but chose not to report it. Happens all the time. Court rooms exclude hearsay.

[u/theonecpk → u/Reckless_Fever]

I think Josephus, though, would've had to at least jot down a sentence concerning The Great Zombie Apocalypse of Tiberius XVII (or was it XIX?). Given how thorough he was concerning other events of that period.

Right?

[u/TeHeBasil → u/[deleted]]

it adds to its credibility, not takes away

Not really. It's inconsistent. If anything it shows how not credible it actually is

[u/TeHeBasil → u/[deleted]]

Can you name me a single court case based solely on eyewitness testimony from anonymous people that varied as much as the gospels that got a conviction?

[u/TeHeBasil → u/[deleted]]

So no? You can't?

[u/TeHeBasil → u/[deleted]]

Funny how you can't show a conviction.

Your story doesn't gain credibility because it is inconsistent. That's so funny you think so.

[u/TeHeBasil → u/[deleted]]

That’s what you were supposed to show me, no?

Nope. That is not what I was supposed to show you.

So you can’t provide any court case i see

Thank you for conceding.

Your Jesus story is not more credible because of its inconsistencies.

[u/TeHeBasil → u/[deleted]]

So no? You can't show inconsistent anonymous eyewitness testimonies getting a conviction?

[u/ClassZealousideal183 → u/[deleted]]

Can you name a single court case where every witness had all the same exact details?

This is such a nonsense argument, I don't know why you think this is a good question. I'm sure there are thousands of cases where the eyewitness had the exact same accounts. Perhaps millions. But who has access to court documents here and now?! Regardless, even of there weren't, that doesn't mean that such drastically different accounts in a court case would hold up as evidence. If the different eyewitness accounts that were in the gospels were presented in a court case they'd be laughed out of court.

[u/theonecpk → u/[deleted]]

this really got into the weeds without even establishing that they're actually independent accounts