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REV J. O. F. MURRAY, D.D., ON 



tion. The narrative in the true text of St. Mark is, we must 

 remember, incomplete. It breai^s oft" in the middle of a sentence 

 after v. 8. The closing verses (9-20) in our common text are 

 an Appendix added later, apparently early in the second century. 

 It combines elements, which seem to depend ultimately on St. 

 Matthew, St. Luke and St. John, but in a less pure form. 



The independence of the authorities is shown by the difficulty 

 of harmonising them. The most serious difference relates to a 

 promised appearance in Galilee. This is foretold by our Lord 

 before His Passion in St. Matthew and St. Mark : and an angel at 

 the Tomb sends a message to the disciples through the women, 

 remindmg them of the promise. The fulfilment of the promise 

 is recorded in St. Matthew. It is probable that St. Mark origin- 

 ally contained a parallel account. 



The appointment of a rendezvous in Galilee is, of course, quite 

 consistent with earlier appearances in Jerusalem, such as are 

 recorded in St. Luke and St. John. St. Matthew himself records 

 one to the women. The difficulty is that St. Luke in his Gospel 

 carries on the account of the appearance on the first Easter Day 

 without a break to what looks like an account of the Ascension. 

 It is possible, though by no means certain, that when he wrote 

 his Gospel, he thought that the Ascension took place on the same 

 day as the Eesurrection, and was unaware of any appearances in 

 Galilee. He certainly records an express command from the 

 Lord bidding the Apostles tarry in Jerusalem. In any case, 

 before he wrote *' Acts " he had learnt that the two events were 

 separated by forty days, and the command to tarry in Jerusalem 

 in Acts " relates expressly to the period between the Ascension 

 and the Day of Penticost. 



The differences in regard to the experiences of the searching 

 party or parties of women at the Tomb are not so serious. They 

 represent a conflict of testimony only too natural in accounts 

 derived from different members of a group in a time of great 

 excitement. There is, indeed, considerable plausibility in the 

 suggestion that the differences may really be due to the fact that 

 there were two distinct parties of women who visited the Tomb, 

 one coming from Bethany, the other with Joanna from Herod's 

 Palace in Jerusalem. 



However this may be, all these independent sources of informa- 

 tion take for granted that the Tomb was empty. This includes, 

 we must remember, in the case of St. Matthew, the statement, 

 for which he pledges his personal authority, with regard to the 

 current Jewish explanation of the emptiness of the Tomb : and 

 in the case of St. Luke, not only the source from which he drew 

 the account of the visit of the women, but also that from which 

 he drew the account of the walk to Emmaus. It is implied also in 

 the speeches of St. Peter (ii. 31) and St. Paul (xii. 35) which he 

 records in '* Acts." 



