Who Was at the Tomb?

Title Slide

This is week two of a series where we get to talk about how the Bible seems to be full of contradictions. Last week, Rick unpacked the conquest narrative of where God commands Israel to take over the promised land in Canaan and compared that to God’s commands not to kill in Exodus chapter 20.

Today we’re going to talk about arguably the most important books in the New Testament, the Gospels. But before we dive in there are a few

- SLIDE presumptions, provisos, and presuppositions that I should mention here, as we won’t have enough time today to cover everything today or we’d be here for hours and I’d probably get yelled at if I tried. So what follows is a list of things we’ll need to presume are facts so that we can discuss the issue at hand.

- SLIDE The authors of the books are the same as the title of their respective book. Four different authors, having four different perspectives, writing in different times, and telling 4 different parts of the same critical events. Which means highlighting some parts, while de-emphasizing others.

- SLIDE The authors of the books are the same as the title of their respective book. Four different authors, having four different perspectives, writing in different times, and telling 4 different parts of the same critical events. Which means highlighting some parts, while de-emphasizing others.

- SLIDE The dates of authorship are early, within 30 years of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Eye-witnesses were still alive, and original documents still in circulation.

- SLIDE The Gospels we have now represent what the original authors wrote within 99.5% accuracy.

While it’s necessary to agree on these things for the purposes of today’s discussion, by no means are you required to believe them without doing an investigation on your own later. A ton of scholarship has gone into these claims and I highly encourage you to dig in for yourself.

Mark 16:1