discrepancies in the resurrection account

A damning Bible contradiction?: The women spread the word of the empty tomb (or did they?)

September 6, 2020May 9, 2019 by Erik Manning

Christians believe the resurrection is the most monumental historical claim that the Bible makes. But skeptics will often fire back with a question: Just how reliable can an account be if it is riddled with contradictions? To answer this claim, I’ve been writing a series of posts to answer these objections one at a time. Today let’s look at what the women said (or didn’t say) after discovering the empty tomb. Did the women tell the disciples about the empty tomb, or did they keep silent? In the other gospels, women discovered the empty tomb of Jesus and returned to tell the others: “The women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, … Read more

“How many women were at the tomb of Jesus?” An example of how skeptics read the resurrection accounts all wrong

April 6, 2022April 17, 2019 by Erik Manning

The apostle Paul said that if Christ hasn’t risen, Christianity is a sham. (1 Corinthians 15:17) Many atheists agree, and will happily point to the gospel accounts. Just how seriously should they take the claim of the resurrection? After all, aren’t the accounts riddled with contradictions? How can they possibly be trusted? Now, historians don’t normally conclude that just because individual accounts have apparent contradictions that the event in question didn’t occur. But let’s allow that to pass for now. I think the majority of the discrepancies that critics bring up can be easily resolved. One example of a so-called contradiction in the resurrection accounts pertains to the women at the tomb. How many were … Read more