Sunday, May 29, 2022

Agreement Among The Gospels About How Jesus Raised The Dead

One of the reasons why people often underestimate the amount of agreement among the gospels is that they overlook or underestimate the lesser details, because they're so focused on larger issues. An example is a common thread we see in accounts of the resurrections performed by Jesus. We can be so focused on the resurrections that we miss the significance of some of the other details involved in the accounts. When Jesus raised people from the dead, he would tell the person to move in some manner, probably at least in part to demonstrate that a resurrection had occurred. A description of the person's movement follows, which suggests that Jesus' references to "rising" and such were about moving the body after a resurrection rather than the resurrection itself (Mark 5:41-42, Luke 7:14-15, 8:54-55, John 11:43-44; Matthew 9:25 is in agreement as far as it goes, even mentioning that Jesus took the girl's hand, but doesn't say whether Jesus made any comments telling her to move). We see something similar with Peter's raising of the woman in Acts 9:40-41, perhaps in imitation of what Jesus did, but the other resurrections referred to in the Old and New Testaments don't involve any such scenario (1 Kings 17:21-23, 2 Kings 4:34-37, 2 Kings 13:21, Matthew 27:52-53, Acts 20:10, Revelation 11:11).

For other examples of agreements among the gospels, including many that are often overlooked or underestimated, see here.

No comments:

Post a Comment