cheenc03a.pdf

RESURRECTION- AND ASCENSION-NARRATIVES
account can iny no claim to authenticlry we may be all j jectured by Volkmar (ReIigron/eiu, 7jf 257-159 [18j7].
the surer that it is a iranaformation of the account of g,, Diz Ez!aqcI>en [r8jo]=llhriui u.
blt. Of its beiae " so there are, moreovrr. several sepulchre dje Sy.o.#re [n876], 603) on the basis
indications. In Jn.. as in Mt.. one of Jesus' uyingr is
of 15. 5392216-xs Rev. 118f.-left
unhistorical,
only a repetition of a word of the angels: 'Woman,
whv ~, ,Teenest .
buried, or at most cast into a hole and
ihou?, A ren,inircence of the fact that covered with rome earth. is established bv I Cor. 15n lco , .
when the women tnrt Jerur they had in irlt. already Keim, Grich. /a" won Noram. 3525.52". El' 6 27,.z,r,.
retired from the sepuichre may perhaps be recopired in Rot the accounts of the empty sepulchre are none of
'she turned herself back' (ioipd+n rir 7.3 d~iou) in Jn. them admissible. As to thir the leadine -. ~ointr have
20 ,+, Only one woman appearing at the grave in Jn. already been sutumnrired in GOSPELS (s 138 r '1. Some
is perhaps to be explained by the observation that the further considerations may be added.
recognition-scene becomes more dramatic when Jerur in1 , , The three noints from which we have to start are
ha5 no need to utter more than a sine1e - word : ' hlar".' the s~lrnce of I'aul (as of the entire NT aunrt from
Cp. further, 9 25, c.
the Gorpelr; see, especially, A~tr2~~-)~)-a silence
(,l) In I Cor. 15 Paul mentions no place. The which would he \rholly inexplicable were the story tme
enumeration he eiues would not orechtde the reader from
supposing that the various appearances had occurred
id rii : next, the statement in hlk. 168 that the rumen
;;idV;>othing of their experiences at the sepulchre-n
in quitr dilierent places-for exampie, most "f them in statement which has to he understood in the sense that
Galilee, even if that to James were to be thought of us Mk. was the first to be in a position to publish the facts :
having been made in Jerusalem. It is, however, quite in other wards, that the whole story is a very late proimprobable
that James was in Jerusalem again so soon duction ; Iutly, if (as we have seen) the first appearances
(see Mlnzs~~u, 8 21 d), or that he should have ex- of Te~us were in Galilee. the tidines of them must have
perienced the appearance of the risen Jesus at so late
a time that it might nevertheless be suppored that
Tnmcs had alreadv removed to Terusulem Is= lriow.
36 [f I).
in decay to allow of identification ; if thne were no"?.
ihe sealing and watching ofthe sepulchre(Mt. 2762.66 t h could ~ be accounted for very easily without postular-
281 rr-xi is now verv eenerallv eiven uo even bv those ins a rmurrectivrl.
, . , , ,
wronca'' hlk. it is not only, as in ~k-and'in., ! is raid as to the empty sepulchre and yet ass;nle no
absent ; it is absolutely excluded by the women's ' miracle. In the firrvuuld have lcfr thc clothe in such order ar ir
the promire of thc Jcwirh authorities to obtain immunity described in Jn.207. 'Thai r theft ofthir kind would have had
for them fro", p,lnre, if (Mt, 28rr), would have 'IlceKect of convincinggainraycrs of the re\urrection uf Jcrur
i, not \.cry easy to bel8er.e. On the ocher hand, it could in
made no itnpression on them. (I! The best criticism cerrainsircvmrrancer hare made rome impr-ion on follower.
on this whole feature of the narrative is the rimde fact oflcrur.
that the Gospel of Peter, which unquestionably is later The question forces itself, however: Who was there
than Ml.. avoids it nltogether and concludes quite differ- to set the plan on foot? The discipies were utterly
ently inbuvc. 8 jn).
cart down; to ail probable seeming, in fact, they were
That Jerur war buried in a usual way, not-as is con- not even in Jerusalem at ail (GospeLs, 9 138a). The
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