3 Days 3 Nights Easter Eggs, Part 8

Whew, another night!  That makes 2 nights and 1 day.  Only 1 more night and 2 more days to go.......

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.  He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

....wait, what?  It's only Sunday morning!  He's not been dead 3 days and 3 nights yet.  Did someone enter a cheat code?

No, the short answer here is that the Bible is simply not some infallible historical record.  It's a book of myth, lore, and tradition, with some historical elements mixed in.  For example, there was really a Jerusalem at that time and the Romans really did occupy it.  There was even a Pontius Pilate.  There very likely was a Jesus, as it was a common name, and there might have even been one who was something of a rabbi or local cult leader, such as John the Baptist was.

The myths and legends about the man, however, are simply those created by his believers to make him into something he claimed for himself.  It's a bit like how Mormons venerate Joseph Smith and leave out the bits about his penchant for young girls or that he was lynched in jail by an angry mob.  Or how Scientologists leave out the parts where L. Ron Hubbard was a sci-fi writer looking to cash in on the notion of a religion.  Instead, he's portrayed as a wise and noble man, fully in touch with whatever secrets he claimed to be sharing.

Those are modern examples of how any venerated leader is from history.  Muhammed, Jesus, the Buddha....all have these epic stories attached to them which are more like Hollywood movie scripts than reality.  In the end, this small example of an error of the Bible is just another bit of evidence that the book itself is simply like all other ancient books:  penned by fallible humans who wrote or edited in their own agendas and biases or even made stuff up entirely.

Interesting sidenote, on the above account from Matthew.  Nothing further is mentioned about the soldiers.  Nothing.  Neither does Mark, who also changes when the stone was rolled away.  In Mark, Luke, and John, it's already opened by the time the women get there.  Matthew punched his version up by including an earthquake and dramatic entrance by an angel.  Mark has an angel too, but he's already inside when they get there.  Luke has two men who are kind of implied to be angels outside the tomb when the women come back out.  John didn't include any angels all.

But none of them mention the fate of the soldiers.  Were they dead?  Ran away?  Roman soldiers deserting a post would be cause for their deaths.  If they were stunned or killed, it would lead to an investigation and most likely the local Jews would be blamed.  Instead, all the gospel writers choose to just skip ahead with the story like this was nothing at all.

 

[caption id="attachment_1075" align="aligncenter" width="546" caption="Or maybe the cave had a Tardis inside and they are currently flitting around space-time?"][/caption]