Unusual Agreements In Terminology In Easter Passages

Peter Williams has noted that there are some Easter passages in the Synoptics and John that have some unusual language in common. Jesus addresses his disciples as "my brothers" in Matthew 28:10 and John 20:17. The gospel of John doesn't repeat what the Synoptics reported about Jesus' comments on letting the cup pass in the Garden of Gethsemane, but John does have Jesus referring to drinking the cup in 18:11 (Can We Trust The Gospels? [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2018], approximate Kindle location 1782).

Regarding the first example, Jesus doesn't often refer to his followers as brothers. He refers to them that way (and as mothers and sisters) in Mark 3:33-35 and its Synoptic parallels. But in that context, he's adapting to terminology initiated by the people who told him that his mother and brothers were seeking him. He uses the brother terminology on his own initiative in Matthew 25:40, but I think that's the only time he does it outside the resurrection narratives. To my knowledge, Jesus' use of the terminology in John 20:17 has no precedent in John's gospel. The use of that terminology happens twice in the events of the resurrection accounts, since the Matthew and John passages aren't about the same event, though they are about highly similar events. (The similarity may help explain why Jesus used the terminology on those occasions.) Since the resurrection appearances narrated in the gospels spanned a much shorter time than the pre-resurrection events narrated in those documents, it's striking that the gospels have Jesus using the terminology in question twice in such a short period of time while so seldom using it in a comparable way earlier.

We can't have much confidence about Jesus' reason for using the brother terminology that way, but it may be related to the theme of Psalm 22:22 and the significance of the resurrection in that context. Jesus had just been vindicated after going through the suffering addressed earlier in Psalm 22, and he'd cited that Psalm while on the cross (see, also, John 19:23-25, etc.). And the redemptive work he'd just completed was a significant part of what made the disciples his brothers. The relevance of the reference to brothers in Psalm 22:22 is noted in Hebrews 2:11-12. There's no need for Jesus to have used the term "brothers" for only one reason. One of the other potential reasons why he used it was to express affection. But that could have been done with some other term, including ones used more often in the pre-resurrection portions of the gospels (e.g., referring to them as children, as Jesus does in all four gospels). So, we should ask why he chose "brothers" in particular. But we don't have to know why he chose it in order to know that it's an unusual way for him to refer to his disciples and that Matthew and John agree that he used it in the context of the resurrection appearances and under highly similar circumstances within that context.

Notice, too, that since Matthew 28:10 and John 20:17 are about what Jesus spoke, they offer further evidence for what I discussed in my last post, regarding how multiple senses, not just sight, were involved in perceiving the resurrected Jesus.

These similarities among the Easter passages noted by Williams also illustrate how the gospels (and other sources) agree in ways that are often overlooked or underestimated. That raises the number and diversity of sources reporting the facts under consideration and makes it less likely, accordingly, that every relevant source is lying, misremembering, writing in a non-historical genre, etc.