When the women went to Jesus’ tomb early on Sunday morning, who did they encounter? Matthew 28 says it was one angel. Mark 16 reports that they met one young man. Luke 24 records that they met two men. John 20 states that there were two angels. So which is it, and what difference does it make?
Critics of the Bible usually insist that these reports are contradictory, asserting that such contradictions render the Bible unreliable at best, and an outright fraud at worst. Is that so?
First, what constitutes a contradiction? Only when two statements cannot both be true is there a contradiction. It is not a contradiction for one to report two people being present and another to report one was present. If there were two, there was one. It would only be a contradiction if one said there were two and the other said there was only one. While the four Gospels do not all report the exact number, there is no contradiction, just a different vantage point and emphasis on the numerical detail.
Second, did the women meet men or angels? While angels and human beings are entirely different kinds of beings, anyone who has read the Bible knows that when angels appeared to human beings, the angels frequently appeared as human beings. The Gospel reports differ, but are not contradictory. Two reported that the women met angels, while the other two reported what the angels appeared to be. And whether a person is purported to be young or old is a matter of perspective, but not a contradiction. To my grandchildren I am an old man. To my chronological peers, I am just a man. To my 91 year old father, I am still the baby of the family.
Third, if several witnesses report the exact same facts, down to the most minute detail, that would suggest collusion, rather than agreement. Why? Because not only do eye witnesses all season their accounts based on their perspective, in the four gospel accounts, those who were not there are retelling a story. And their retellings are also colored with their personal perspectives. If two reporters have differing perspectives on the same presidential press conference, does that mean the press conference never happened? So, that the four Gospel writers mentioned different details makes their accounts more believable, not less.
Last, besides the fact that there are no contradictions in these four gospel accounts of the Resurrection, the numbers and whether the angels appeared as men aren’t the point. The point is that Jesus rose from the dead. The point is that God sent angels to inform the women of the Resurrection.
Errol