Exhuming Easter (complete - 3rd edition)

Part 1: Reconciling the Resurrection
Harmonizing the six Biblical accounts*
of the last days of Jesus Christ
[*Matthew 26-28, Mark 14-16, Luke 22-24,
John 13+18-21, Acts 1:3-11, Acts 9 & 1 Cor. 15:4-8]
Introduction
Several months ago, I came across an article entitled “Leave No Stone Unturned”,
in which its author (Dan Barker) challenges Christians & non-Christians alike to
reconcile the six different Biblical accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. In essence, Mr.
Barker’s challenge read as follows:
“Tell what happened on Easter … In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning
and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also
read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul's tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165
verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these
separate accounts, write a chronological narrative of the events that occurred between the
resurrection and the ascension … The narrative does not have to present a perfect picture-
-it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts.”
Needless to say, upon reading this I was more than a bit inspired. A weighty
gauntlet had been thrown down before me … and I decided to pick it up.
Now it had already come to my attention during my thousands & thousands of
hours of Biblical study over the previous ten+ years that there are indeed quite a few
contradictions easily found within the Bible’s pages. Of course, this intensive study had
also revealed the fact that -- while a few of these contradictions are indeed quite dramatic
-- the vast majority of them are either easily reconciled or essentially inconsequential.
And yet despite this fact, over the past decade I have personally witnessed dozens of
otherwise extremely intelligent people (Christians & non-Christians alike) become
thoroughly distracted from the Bible’s deeper meanings by focusing instead on its banal
trivialities. And nowhere has this form of self-delusion been more poignantly displayed
than in discussions I have engaged about the story of Jesus’ death & resurrection.
Yes, I know -- most folks don’t take these literary discrepancies so seriously
(Indeed, I would wager that most folks probably do not even know they exist). After all,
I think it is even fair to say that most people understand that almost everything found in
the Bible is essentially hearsay; that its texts were written by a variety of different authors
(mostly anonymously) over a large swath of time, that almost none of said authors were
first-hand witnesses to the events they portray; that we have not a single original copy of
any of their writings; and that -- at a minimum -- the path that their words took (if they
were indeed divinely inspired) traveled from God, to actual eyewitnesses, to several
generations of storytellers, to the Biblical authors, to several generations of copyists, to
several decades of translators & interpreters … and finally to us.
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