As Sunday dawned, Mary Magdalen and Mary of Bethany and Salome came to the tomb with perfumes and spices, so they could take the body to be embalmed. They were waiting for someone else to come, as they needed help to move the stone from over the tomb.
But an aftershock, from the earthquake of the day before, shook the earth and knocked over the stone.
They crept inside the tomb, slowly, afraid that the earth would shake again.
But they shrank back in horror, for standing in there was a young man dressed in a white robe, and he said to them, Why are you looking for the living amongst the dead? He is not here. See, this is where the body lay. Go, gather up the students and tell them to go to Galilee. There he will be.
The three women ran away from the tomb in the grip of terror. They were too afraid to tell anyone what they had seen.
© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com
A brief note about my literary exploration of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: I have undertaken this exercise having read, sung (in several languages), meditated and prayed on the contents of the Synoptic Gospels (as well as the Non-Synoptic Gospels) for at least 45 years. In that time, I’ve accumulated a bit of a library (which comes as no surprise to those who know me), and I try to follow modern scholarship. Here is a partial list of the authors and books that come to mind as I write these episodes:
Ballentine, Debra Scoggins, The Conflict Myth & the Biblical Tradition; Oxford University Press 2015
Erdman, Bart, various titles
Gaus, Andy, The Unvarnished New Testament; Phanes Press, 1991
Herzog, William R., Parables as Subversive Speech; Westminster John Knox Press, 1991
Louden, Bruce, Greek Myth and the Bible; Routledge, 2019
Tatian, Diatesseron; www.earlychristianwritings.com/diatessaron.html
Wajdenbaum, Philippe, Argonauts of the Desert, Routledge, 2011
Ward, Keith, The Philosopher and the Gospels, Lion Hudson, 2011
Yosef ben Maityahu (Titus Flavius Josephus), various writings
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