Apologetics: Q/A About the Crucifixion.

Happy Good Friday, y’all. Because today is the day that we celebrate Jesus’ death on the cross to take the punishment of God’s wrath from us, I figured that there’s no better time to do a question/answer post about what happened that leading up to the cross, during the crucifixion, and on the morning of the ressurection.

But who’s asking the questions? Is it commentors or am I just answering the most common questions on the internet about the crucifixion?

The answer is that, in a rare turn of events, I will be directly answering the questions posed to me by Vel, the creator of Club Schadenfreude, who you may remember from my “I Argued with an Atheist” post and the introduction of my debunking deconstruction series as well as a few other ones that I’ve found to be quite common and quite strange (mostly because they’re so out there that you wonder how anyone can take them seriously). Under my post about what convinced me to become a Christian, she wrote:

If you’ve read the new testament, then you should be able to give answers to questions like:

Who was the first into the tomb?

What happened with Mary in the garden outside the tomb?

What did the thieves do?

Was Jesus silent during his trials with the priests and with Pilate?

it should be easy, right?

She’s also asked (under the same post):

what jesus is aka is there a trinity

Of course, I didn’t answer most these questions directly in our chat in the comments section because I knew they would make an excellent post where I could go on for as long as I wanted so today, let’s focus on the first several questions, plus the one about whether or not the Trinity is real, and (bonus question) if Jesus somehow crawled out of the tomb or was stolen.

#1: “Was Jesus silent during his trials with the priests and with Pilate?“

This is an important question because if Jesus, was not silent, then He would not have fulfilled the prophecy of the suffering servant, that starts in Isaiah 53:7. This prophecy says:

He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.

If Jesus didn’t fulfill this prophecy, then He can’t be the Son of God. So, is Vel’s assertion made in other comments that He was “Chatty Cathy” during his trials, thus spitting in the face of this prophecy, correct? Or is there something that she and others aren’t seeing here?

The answer is the latter.

To understand the full context of what’s being said here, let’s also read verses 8-9. They say:

By oppression^[a] and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.^[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Okay, why am I throwing these in? Why are verses 8-9 also important? I’m adding these verses to the discussion because it helps us see how the broader context of this prophecy is about how the servant (Jesus) would die innocent. In the commentary of my ESV Study Bible, (it’s this one shown below so you know which one I’m using; look at page 1338 if you have your own copy), it says concerning Isaiah 53:7:

“53:7 like a lamb. I.e. innocent, submissive, not complaining (cf. John 1:29, 36, Acts 8: 32-33, 1 Pet. 2:22-23).”

For Isaiah 53: 8 and 9, it says:

“53:8 By oppression and judgment. I.e., oppressive judgement. The servant was wrongly condemned. who considered…? Those who condemned Jesus did not understand what they were doing (cf. Luke 23:34; Acts 3: 14-18; 1 Cor. 2:8).”

“53:9 they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man. The numerous parallels between the description of the servant in this verse and the death of Jesus have led Christians through the ages to see this as fulfilled by the events surrounding Jesus’ death. Although the servant was condemned as a criminal (“with the wicked”), he was buried in an expensive garden tomb belong to a rich man. Likewise, the servant is presented as someone who was completely innocent, both in deed (having done no violence) and in word (there was no deceit in his mouth). The servant is thus described as a person of total moral purity, the true substitute for sinners (cf v. 7). See Matt. 27:57-60 for fulfillment of this prophecy.”

As for why the commentary in Bibles are important, that’s another post altogether that I plan to do next week, but basically, these verses are all supposed to highlight the innocence of Christ as the suffering servant (He was crucified for no other reason than saying stuff that the religious leaders didn’t like). His silence is a poetic way of saying that He wasn’t complaining or trying to defend Himself but just went with it though He was innocent.

Moreover, for the literal application of verse 7, we see Christ’s silence in the face of oppression and mockery in Matthew 26: 62-63 when He remains silent in the face of the accusations made against Him by the Sanhedrin; again in Matthew 27: 12-14, and John 19:9 during His trial with Pilate; He remained silent during while standing before Herod in Luke 23:9; and did not respond to the mockery and insults he endured before and during the crucifixion.

This then is in fulfillment of the prophecy of the suffering servant.

#2: “What did the thieves do?“

The thieves in question that Vel in referencing are the ones that were crucified next to Jesus. These guys are mentioned in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and we’re given different reasons for why they were crucified. In Matthew 27:38-44, they are referred to as “thieves” or “robbers”. In Mark 15:27-32, they’re referred to as “rebels” or “bandits” and in Luke 23:32-43, we’re just told that they’re criminals.

Aha! This is a contradiction! They’re recorded doing different things! This is undeniable proof that the Bible and the Gospel is false to support my atheism!

Well…no. It’s actually not. What we’re seeing here is someone trying to turn a speck of dust into the entire Himalayan Mountain range.

Though we’re given different descriptions of what they did to deserve crucifixion, we’re not actually told what they did, nor are these categories of “thief,” “robber,” “rebel,” “bandit,” or “criminal” mutually exclusive. “Thief”/”robber” are synonyms, and it’s very likely that rebels (especially known rebels) against the Roman Empire would’ve lived like bandits or bandits could’ve been considered rebels, linking these two words. Furthermore, a bandit can also be used interchangeably with “thief” or “robber” and either way, the words all fit the broader description of being a criminal.

#3: “What happened with Mary in the garden outside the tomb?“

The exact verses being referenced here are Matthew 28:1-10, Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-12, and John 20:1-18.

Matthew 28: 1-10

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

² There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

⁵ The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

⁸ So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Mark 16:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. ² Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb ³ and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

⁴ But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. ⁵ As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

⁶ “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. ⁷ But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

⁸ Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Luke 24:1-12

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ² They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵ In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ⁷ ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” ⁸ Then they remembered his words.

⁹ When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. ¹⁰ It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹ But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. ¹² Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ² So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

³ So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. ⁴ Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, ⁷ as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. ⁸ Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹ (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) ¹⁰ Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

¹⁷ Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

To address the first difference between these two texts, Matthew only names two women, Mark three, Luke implies that there were several women but never gives and exact number, and John only names Mary Magdalene. This however is not a contradiction but is rather a difference in the writing styles of the authors and what they chose to focus on. Matthew’s Gospel often condenses events to provide the most straightforward read possible and would sometimes represent Jewish oral tradition. In Deuteronomy, two witnesses were required for legal cases, so the two women being the two key witnesses here would’ve best fit that requirement. Matthew also might’ve chosen to focus solely on these two women because they were the closest to Jesus in the group, which had been established in their earlier inclusion during Matthew’s account of the crucifixion.

In Mark, three women are named, however, this – just like in Matthew’s case – is a literary choice. While Matthew’s account of this event aligns with Jewish legal tradition, Mark’s inclusion of a third woman would further strengthens the account by adding an extra witness. Additionally, the inclusion of this third woman helps represent facets of Jesus’ following. Mary Magdalene was a devoted disciple; Mary had familial ties to Jesus’ following, with her son being one of the disciples, and Salome may have been another disciple or a relative (some believe her to be Zebedee’s wife). Her inclusion might’ve also reflected Mark’s audience, which could’ve been made up of Gentiles or mixed communities.

I’m not going to comment much on Luke’s Gospel since he just says, “the women,” and both Matthew and Mark’s accounts of the event match with that, so I’m going to go straight to John’s Gospel. John’s Gospel only focuses on Mary Magdalene. Once again, this does not go against earlier descriptions but is (again) a literary choice. John’s Gospel focuses a lot on personal relationship with Christ. By highlighting Mary Magdalene’s experience recognizing and then trying to hug Jesus after he had risen later in the day, he’s writing in line with the main focus of his gospel. He’s highlighting her individual faith and close relationship with Christ (who, despite what the DaVinci Code tells you, was not her boyfriend/husband). It also reflects Mary Magdalene’s preeminent role in the community and aligns with the fact that across all four Gospels, she is a key resurrection witness.

This then leads to the next issue concerning the angels and who was seen at the tomb. Matthew and Mark record there being only one angel (or one young man, though Mark implies that this “young man” was an angel) while Luke and John record there being two angels. So, which is it?

Just like in the case of the women, this was a literary choice, and one doesn’t cancel out the other. It’s actually quite easy for them to coexist within this context. Matthew and Mark simply seem to have focused on the angel that was speaking since he was more important to the story. This is the same in the case of Jesus’ appearance to the women at the tomb. Just because Luke doesn’t mention it doesn’t mean that it never happened. Each author just chose to focus on different parts of the experience to better fit their narrative styles.

The last problem here is the question of what did the women do after they saw the empty tomb? In Matthew, the ladies run in fear and excitement, Mark’s women flee silently, and Luke and John’s accounts have them going and seemingly immediately telling the disciples. However, these variations are not exclusive. Matthew and Mark imply similar emotions and a similar reaction, and Luke and John record what happens next in a more direct way. Furthermore, in Mark, some manuscripts have the ending between verses 8 and 9, “Then they quickly reported all these instructions to those around Peter. After this, Jesus himself also sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.”

This means that they were not procrastinating in different Gospels.

#4: “Who was the first into the tomb?“

In Mark and Luke, the women (including Mary) are the first ones to enter the tomb, in John, Mary Magdalene is hesitant and lets Peter go in first, and Matthew implies there being no entry. Is this a contradiction?

The answer is still “no.” Given that Mark and Luke were the earliest written Gospels, and Luke corroborates the earlier Gospel of Mark, it’s generally agreed upon by scholars that it was the group of women who first entered the tomb. One possible reason why John’s Gospel lists Peter as being first is because of theological reasons. It’s likely that John wished to highlight Peter over the others due to him earlier having renounced Christ three times before the crucifixion. This then helps prove Christ’s physical resurrection (especially since men were considered more reliable as witnesses in those days). Another possible explanation (which I lean more towards, and think is more plausible) is that because of Mary Magdalene’s confused explanation of what she saw, it’s possible that the other disciples didn’t know that she had gone in before, which could be why it wasn’t recorded.

Matthew’s account’s silence on the matter also neither confirms nor denies the others’.

#5: “What Jesus is aka is there a trinity?“

Yes, there is a Trinity. Other than seeing it in Matthew 28:19 where Jesus tells His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit” and seeing the Trinity all in the same place during Jesus’ baptism (Mtthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, and John 1:32) when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove, and God the Father spoke from heaven, but we also see the Trinity in Genesis 1:26. In this verse, when God says “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” he’s not speaking to the angels (who cannot create things like God can as they are part of creation) but rather to the other members of the Trinity.

That said, because the Trinity is three distinct parts of one God, that means that Jesus was not just a man, but he was God incarnate, 100% man and 100% God. Churches who do not believe in this concept of the Trinity or the hypostatic union (or as I like to call “the 200%”) have missed the mark by several hundred miles and need to reread the Bible.

#6: How did Jesus get Out of the Tomb?

The disciples could not have stolen him because of the guards standing at the tomb whose express job it was to kill anyone trying to steal the body. They would’ve been slaughtered.

Jesus could not have crawled out of the tomb because, as established last week, He was very, very dead. Him somehow surviving, having the strength to break out of his wrappings, then crawl to the entrance of the cave and somehow push away a massive stone seal that could only be sealed from the outside (not even mentioning the guards being there as well) would take a bigger miracle and more faith to believe in than the actual resurrection itself.

You can’t say it was a mix up and the real Jesus was taken somewhere else because they would’ve still needed a body to bury, and they knew exactly which body was Jesus’.

You can’t say that Jesus simply didn’t exist and it was all just a big lie complete with mass hallucinations because every credible historian agrees that Jesus was a historical figure even if they don’t believe He’s the Son of God.

You can’t say that it was the wrong tomb since the disciples knew exactly where He was buried (and to this day, we know where Jesus was likely buried as recent excavations under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (which traditionally is said to be where he was buried) have shown evidence of a garden matching the description of where Jesus was buried).

Until next time,

M.J.