Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

Then Jesus said to
them, 'Do not be
afraid; go and tell my
brothers to go to
Galilee; there they will
see me'.
THE CLIMAX OF JESUS' MISSION §18.3
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabbouni!' (which means Teacher).
17 Jesus said to her, 'Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended
to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, "I am ascending to my
Father and your Father, to my God and your God"'. 18 Mary Magdalene
went and announced to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord'; and she told
them that he had said these things to her.
Are these variant versions of the same tradition? On the face of it the obvious
answer is No. They are different as to participants, locale, and content; they
lack a common core. Not only so, but there is the glaring contrast between the
vague and rather unsatisfying account of Matthew, and the first of a sequence of
aesthetically (both artistically and emotionally) appealing encounters now
concluding John's Gospel (Mary, Thomas, Peter). 67 Moreover, John's account
has the characteristically Johannine motifs of Jesus speaking of his Father and of
his ascension, 68 the latter intriguingly located, it would appear, between his first
and subsequent appearances. 69 On the other hand, there are several points of connection:
the first appearance, Mary of Magdala's involvement, close relation to
the empty tomb, the motif of grasping (kratein — Matthew) or touching
(haptesthai — John) Jesus, and the command to tell the other disciples ('my
brothers')- 70 The variations in fact are no greater than in other cases where John
seems to have been able to draw on a version similar to what we find in the Synoptics.
71 Is this then simply a case of a tradition of the same event (or claim)
which has become quite diverse in the retellings?
Whatever the tradition history behind the two accounts, the key question for
67. It is easy to understand why the Johannine account has stimulated far more artists
than the Matthean.
68. Note particularly John 1.51 and 3.13 and cf. John's use of the motifs of Jesus being
'lifted up' (3.14; 8.28; 12.32, 34) and glorified (7.39; 12.16, 23; 13.31; 17.1, 5).
69. See particularly discussion in Brown, John 992-93, 1011-17.
70. Davies and Allison, Matthew 3.668-69. Pace those who maintain that Matt. 28.9-10
was constructed out of Mark 16.1-8; so, e.g., Grass, Ostergeschehen 111 ('a mere doublet of
the angelophany'); Fuller, Formation 78 (again 137), who concludes that the earlier tradition of
an angelophany has been converted into a christophany (but Matthew retained the
angelophany!); Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories 111-14.
71. Notably John 4.46-54 par.; Matt. 8.5-13/Luke 7.1-10 (above, §8.4b); John 6.1-14
par.; Mark 6.32-44 pars, (above, §15.7f). As in these cases, it is less likely that John derived his
account from the Synoptic parallel as such (pace Crossan, Birth 560-61); Crossan's test of
'redactional peculiarities of one writer discovered in another' (565), in this case that John
knows Matthew's redactional 'my brothers' (561), depends on the view that Matt. 28.9-10 has
been derived redactionally from Mark 16.1-8 (560), which is implausible because it assumes
that all diversities in gospel tradition are to be explained in terms of literary dependence. Contrast
Koester: 'Each of the authors of the extant gospels and of their secondary endings drew
these epiphany stories from their own particular tradition, not from a common source' (Ancient
Christian Gospels 220).
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