Example of historical reading of the Gospels

THE DAY OF THE RESURRECTION

OF JESUS

Observations or questions?

The narration of the following facts presupposes that the disciples have lodged by groups in different places, now that there was not Jesus to hold them joined. Translating from the Greek has been respected the present time of the verbs written by John.

It was the day after Saturday, April 5 year 33.

Matt 28

[1] Saturday late, at the hour that looks out on the first day of the week, Mary from Magdala and the other Mary went to see sepulchre.

John 20

[1a] The day after Saturday, Mary from Magdala goes to sepulchre rather soon, when it is still dark.

Matt 28

[2]And here that it there was a big earthquake: an angel of the Lord, come down from the heaven, approached, rolled the stone and he sat down on it. [3]His appearance was like the lightning and his suit white like the snow. [4]For the fear that they had of him the sentries trembled senseless.

John 20

[1b]...and (Mary from Magdala) sees the stone capsized from sepulchre. [2]She runs then and she goes home of Simon Peter and home of the other disciple, to which Jesus was friend, and she tells them: «They have taken the Lord from sepulchre and we don't know where they have set him!».
[3]They gone out then Simon Peter with the other disciple, and they approached to sepulchre. [4]They ran both together, but the other disciple run faster than Peter and he arrived for first to sepulchre. [5]Stooped, he sees the bandages flatten, but he don't entered.

The testimony on the condition in which it was the sepulchre is submitted to Peter, because John was too much youth to testify.

The bandages were not shed, they were still wound, but flatten because they didn't contain the body of Jesus anymore.

[6]He comes meanwhile also Simon Peter that followed him and he has entered the sepulchre and he sees the flattened bandages, [7]and the shroud, that was (tied up) on his head, not flattened among the bandages, but wound in relief, nearly in (the) primitive position. [8]Then also the other disciple has entered, that had come for first to the sepulchre, and he has seen and he has believed. [9]They didn't have in fact still watched out for the Writing, that is that he had to resuscitate from the corpses.

[10]The disciples meanwhile have returned again to house. [11]Mary was to the outside instead next to the sepulchre and cried. While she was crying, she is bent toward the sepulchre [12]and she sees two angels in white dresses, sat the one by the part of the head and the other of the feet, where the body of Jesus lay.

The women, before two days had observed the burial of Jesus, and they were remembered the position in which the body had been put, but there were also the bandages for earth, still wound in the same position.

[13]And they tell her: «Woman, why you cry?». She answers them: «They have brought away my Lord and I don't know where they have set him». [14]Sayed this, she turns back and she sees standing Jesus there; but she doesn't know what it is Jesus.

[15]Jesus tells her: «Woman, why you cry? Who look for?». She, thinking that is the custodian of the garden, tells him: «My Lord, if you have transported him, tell me where you have set him and I will take him». [16]Jesus tells her: «Mary!». She, turned her, tells him in Jewish: «Rabbunì!» (what means: Teacher!). [17]Jesus tells her: «Don't hold back me, in fact I have not been ascended near my Father yet; but go to my brothers and tell their: I ascend near my Father and your Father, my God and your God».

Luke 24

[1]Therefore the first day after Saturday, at the break of the day, (the other women: Johanna and those were with her) went to the grave, bringing with itself the aromas that had prepared. [2]They found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre, [3]but, entered, they didn't find the body of the Lord Jesus.

[4]And it happened while they was embarrassed for this situation: here are two men to appear next to them in flashing dresses. [5]Being they frighten themselves and having bent the face to earth, they told them: «Why do you look for among the corpses him who is alive? [6]He is not here, but he is resuscitated. Do you remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, [7]saying that it needed that the Child of the man was delivered in hands of men sinners, that he could be crucified and he resuscitated the third day».

Matt 28

[7]«Soon go to tell his disciples: He is resuscitated by the corpses, and here he precedes you in Galilee; there you will see him. Here is, I have told you him».

Luke 24

[8]And they remembered his words.

Matt 28

[8]Abandoned in hurry the sepulchre, with fear and great joy, the women raced to give the announcement to his disciples. [9]And here is Jesus came them meeting saying: «Health to you». And they, drawn near himself, the feet took him and they adored him. [10]Then Jesus told them: «You don't fear; go to announce to my brothers that go to Galilee and there they will see me».

[11]While they was on the road, someone of the watch cames in the city and they announced to the High Priests how much it was happened. [12]These ones gathered then them with the elderly ones and they deliberated to give a good sum of money to the soldiers saying: [13]«Declare: his disciples have come at night and they have stolen him, while we slept. [14]And if the thing will ever come to the ear of the governor we will persuade him and we will free you from every boredom». [15]Those ones, taken the money, did according to the received instructions. This way this gossip is divulged among the Jews up to today.

Matthew and the scribes his collaborators, while they are writing the Gospel and they report this gossip, they are still among the Jews, and such a facts have not still happened - as revolutions and destructions - that make to pass in second order the gossip. This means that they write different years before 67, when it begins the revolt against the Romans, concluded in 71 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

Lc 24 
[9a]And (the women), returned from the sepulchre, (came again together and they went to the other disciples, but...)

Mark 16

[8b]... (in a first moment) they didn't tell anything anybody, because they were afraid. (Shortly after, however, they spoke).

John 20

[18]Mary from Magdala arrives to announce to the disciples: «I have seen the Lord and really to me he has said these things».

Luke 24

[9b] they Announced all this to the Eleven and all the others. [10]They were Mary from Magdala, Johanna, Mary of James and the others that were with them. They told these things to the apostles, [11]and those words seemed to them as a delirium and they not believed to them.

12]In reality Peter, just lifted, was raced to the sepulchre - and bent him he see only the bandages - and he had returned his home confused for what happened (seeing so confused and almost stunned Peter, the women had been afraid and for a while they had not spoken).

Luke talks only about Peter, also knowing that to the sepulchre John had gone (also Lk 24,24 and Jn 20,3), because Peter, more adult, was confused at such pass that be frightened and he determined the attitude of the disciples toward the women, while John had already believed on his own account but he was too much youth to influence the others.

[13]And here two of them in that same day were walking toward a village distant sixty stadiums (Around eleven and half kilometers, going and returning: see Flavius Josephus, Jewish War, 7,217) from Jerusalem, named Emmaus, [14] and they discussed among them of all these things that were combined together.

Here the narration of Luke makes vivacious and detailed, even feelings are remembered, because it is really Luke the disciple that is not named.

[15]And it happened that, while they were discussing and together they tried to understand, Jesus in person approached and walked with them. [16]But their eyes were influenced, so that not to see that it was him. [17]He told them: «Which they are these reasons that cast you each other walking?». They stopped them, done excite. [18]And one, named Cleophas, responded him: «You only live next to Jerusalem and don't know what it has happened in in these days?». [19]He Asked: «What?». they told him: «What concerns Jesus Nazarene, that has been powerful prophet in works and words in front of God and to all the people; [20]as the High Priests and our leaders have delivered him to get a death sentence and they have him crucifix. [21]Instead we hoped: «he is he who it is about to redeem Israel»;

The Gospel of Luke cannot be separated from the tradition and from the Jewish Law, in which it is absorbed, it is a great deal otherwise difficult to explain a lot of things of this book. In the Jewish tradition, «to redeem» it doesn't at all implicate the use of the weapons or the rebellion, but it is the work of God for his people. To make free in religious and political sense, paying a ransom; don't free against Rome, but in alliance with Rome. Luke has Roman friends and he is going to Emmaus where Roman soldiers are lodged, that will receive then in remuneration from the emperor this place, as we read in Jewish War (VII,217) of Flavius Josephus. Luca now fears the Jewish leaders, being compromise himself with Jesus and his disciples, rather being also him disciple.

but, on one hand, nevertheless it is the third day from when these things are happened. [22]On the other hand, some women, of ours, have made us go out of sense: came of first morning to the sepulchre [23]and not having found his body, they have come to say us to also have seen an apparition of angels, which affirm that he lives. [24]Also someone of those that are with us have gone to the sepulchre and they have found as they have also said the women, but they have not seen him».

[25] And he told them: «O incapable to think and lazy of heart in to believe, for all of this that they have said the prophets: [26]it didn't need that the Christ suffered these things and entered his glory?». [27] And, starting from Moses, through all the prophets he explained them in all the Writings what it concerned himself.

[28]They came near to the village where direct were and he pretended to be directed more distant. [29]But they forced him to them: «Guest stay because it makes evening and the day is already concluded» (Matt 20,6.12: the working day concluded him at six o'clock in the afternoon; the hours varied in duration according to the season). He entered for remaining guest with them. 
[30]And it happened while he was to table with them: taken the bread, he blessed it, he broke it and he gave them for it; [31]then they opened them the eyes and they recognized him; then he became for them invisible. [32]They said each other: «It didn't perhaps burn us the heart inside when he spoke to us on the road, when he explained us the Writings?». [33]Lifted him, in that same hour they returned in Jerusalem and did they find gathered the Eleven and the others that were with them, [34]which said: «Indeed the Lord is risen and he has appeared to Simon» (here is the motive for which the two found gathered the other disciples: Simon had seen Jesus, he had believed and he had called the others). [35]They started telling what was happened along the street and as he had been recognized by them in to break the bread.

[36]While they spoke about these things, he has appeared in the middle of them and it says: «Peace to you!».

John 20

[19]The evening come, that same day, the first one after Saturday, while they were being closed for fear of the Jews the doors of the place where the disciples were found, Jesus has come, he is stopped in the middle of them and he says: «Peace to you!». [20]Said this, he has shown them the hands and the costs one. And the disciples have been taken by the joy to see the Lord.

Luke 24

[37]Bewildered and frightened they thought to see a spirit. [38]But he said: «Why do you are disturbed, and why doubts do rise in your heart? [39]Look at my hands and my feet: I am really me! Touch me and look; a spirit doesn't have meat and bones as you see that I have me».

[40]And saying this, it showed them the hands and the feet. [41]But since they didn't believe it for the joy yet and they were confused, he said: «Do you have here something to eat?». [42]Then they offered him a portion of roasted fish: [43]He took it and he ate it in front of them.

[44]Then he told them: «These are my words, that I have told you when I was still with you: it needs that they are completed all the things written on me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms». [45]Then he opened them the mind so that they understood the Writings and he said: [46]«So it is written: the Christ had to suffer and to resuscitate from the corpses the third day [47]and a conversion for the forgiveness of the sins had to be preaches in its name to all the people. Starting from Jerusalem, [48]you will be witnesses of these things. 
[49]Ed here is I inaugurate the promise of my Father for you; but you stay in the city, until you are not cover of power from the top».

John 20

[21]Jesus has told again them: «Peace to you! As my Father has sent me, also I send you». [22]After having said this, he has breathed on them and he says: «Receive the Holy Spirit; [23]to whom you will forgive the sins they will be forgiven and to whom will hold them, they will be held».

Luke 24

[50]Then he conducted out them until toward Bethany and, lifted the hands, he blessed them. [51]And it happened that, while he was blessing them, he detached him from them and he was brought above toward the sky.

Luke remembers this moment, because it is a test that Jesus Christ is God. Jesus immediately ascends to his Father, but afterward he appears to the disciples for forty days. This explains their great joy (Luke 24,52): in fact for forty days they have next to them the Teacher, by now «elevated» (Mark 16,19; Acts 1,2.11; 1Timoth 3,16) fully to the divine dignity.

[52]And they, after having him beloved, returned in Jerusalem with great joy; [53]and they were in every moment in the Temple blessing God.

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